Chapter 92: Is the Bald Pervert Actually Fighting for Real?! Telekinetic Supremacy and the Genius Who Shifted the Battlefield

Author's Note: I really struggled to make a fight like this entertaining, because it's not like I could just write "Ren blasted Kyoka away in the blink of an eye" haha.

The stadium roared with anticipation, the crowd still buzzing from the previous match that had left everyone speechless. The cleanup crews were finishing their job on the platform when Midnight walked up to the microphone with a playful smile spreading across her face.

"What an incredible afternoon we're having, ladies and gentlemen!" she purred, dragging her whip along the platform. "Today we've witnessed a dazzling display of skill from our young heroes, with a student who left her heart on the floor of the ring and proved that even support Quirks can shine in combat!"

She snapped the whip against the concrete with a sharp crack that drew gasps from the front rows.

"But that's not all, my dear audience! We still have many fights ahead, and who knows... maybe we'll enjoy another battle with the same intensity as the last one. Now, without further preamble, allow me to introduce our next two competitors!"

The screens above the ring lit up with the names.

"On one side, the bald boy from Class 1-A with a brain as bright as his shiny head: REEEEN HAYAAAASHI! Going up against the aspiring hero who makes your eardrums shake with rock and roll: KYOOOOKAAA JIROOOO!"

The crowd rose to their feet in a wave of cheers, banners waving across the stands and vendors pausing their sales to watch the upcoming matchup. In one of the upper sections, a group of students from the music club started chanting Jiro's name, while a smaller group of girls held up a hastily made sign with Ren's name scribbled in marker.

Jiro emerged from the opposite tunnel with her hands shoved into the pockets of her gym uniform, her earphone jacks dangling loose at her sides. She stepped onto her half of the platform and shot a flat look at the tunnel across from her as Ren walked out.

They met at the center of the platform.

"Hey," Jiro said without raising her voice. "I'm guessing we both wanna get this over with quick."

"Yeah, that's pretty much the plan," Ren replied with a shrug. "My stage fright wouldn't survive a long battle."

It wasn't really stage fright, but admitting that he just wanted to wrap this up sounded a lot worse.

Jiro raised an eyebrow at the answer, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly upward, and she walked back to her side of the platform without another word.

Midnight raised her arm high, letting the silence stretch for a moment before bringing the whip down against the concrete.

"BEGIN!"

Jiro didn't miss a beat. The instant the signal dropped, both earphone jacks hit the platform, and the concrete vibrated under their feet with a deep pulse that climbed from the floor up through their ankles and into their knees.

Ren recognized the technique right away.

She's channeling her own heartbeat as a shockwave through the floor.

Jiro frowned slightly when Ren didn't react, still standing in the same spot with his arms crossed while the floor trembled around him.

"You planning to do anything anytime soon, or are you just gonna stand there like a statue?"

"I was thinking about it," Ren said.

Then he took a breath and said what he'd been holding back since he walked out of the waiting area.

"Sorry about this, Jiro. Ochako gave it her all in this festival, left everything in the ring without holding back, and I can't disrespect that."

Jiro studied him for a moment before answering.

"Nice speech," she said flatly. "You planning to actually do something now, or what?"

"That doesn't mean I'm going to humiliate you in front of all these people, so let's fight clean."

Ren lifted his right foot and stomped it down against the platform.

Jiro's pupils contracted as she leaped sideways on pure instinct, and the huge block of concrete tore loose from where she'd been standing, launching in a straight line toward the edge of the arena and slamming into the other side with a thunderous impact that shook the stands and left the audience gaping.

Jiro landed on her side, absorbed the hit with a controlled roll, and was already back on her feet before the dust from the crater finished rising. Her eyes flicked between the hole in the platform and Ren, her breathing a little faster now.

"That was close," she admitted, her voice steady despite the tension. "A little more to the right and I wouldn't have made the jump."

"I know," Ren replied.

He raised his right hand slowly, and the scattered debris around the platform started lifting off the ground. Fragments of concrete of every size floated in a wide radius around him, rotating slowly with no obvious pattern that would tell her where the next strike was coming from.

In the waiting area, Todoroki watched from the edge of his seat without moving a muscle.

Until that moment, he had filed Ren away as someone difficult to predict, useful in group situations and entertaining in casual conversations, weak in one-on-one combat. He had dismissed him after watching Ren waste energy and put in what looked like an underwhelming performance during the cavalry battle.

He's been holding back the entire festival on purpose, Todoroki thought, his eyes tracking the floating debris around Ren. And he just decided to stop.

He didn't say a word and kept watching.

Jiro pulled her jacks out of the ground and let them dangle loose at her sides again. Her expression stayed neutral, but her posture changed, dropping into a low defensive stance with her weight low and her hands open at her sides.

"Alright," she said. "Then at least this is gonna be worth it."

Up in the stands, the broadcast cameras caught a blonde woman leaning forward against the railing with a beer in one hand and a wider grin spreading across her face.

"Cheeky little brat..." Mitsuki clicked her tongue, not taking her eyes off Ren. "So you were sitting on all this the whole time? Hah, and here I was thinking you were easier to read than that."

The man next to her, who had no idea who she was, glanced at her sideways.

"Uh, you talking about that bald kid?"

"Of course I am, who else would I be talking about?" Mitsuki turned to him with the same grin. "That brat's been pretending to be a nobody since the festival started. Cracking jokes, carrying girls around, making everyone laugh, but nobody who fights like that just decides to lift half the ring on a whim."

A few rows away, Makoto was practically vibrating in her seat. She grabbed Kazuho's shoulder and started shaking her hard enough that her drink nearly spilled into her lap.

"You see it?! You see it?!" Makoto whisper shouted, her finger jabbing frantically toward the arena. "I told you the bald kid was hiding something! I told you, Kazuho! I told you he wasn't normal!"

"Makoto, please, you're gonna dislocate my shoulder," Kazuho protested, trying to wriggle free of her friend's grip. "I get it, you were right, but can you let go before I lose feeling in my arm?"

"This isn't just talent, Kazuho! Look at the precision of that telekinesis, how many fragments he's holding at the same time, that kind of multitasking is way above a first year student!"

Kazuho took a long sip of her drink and sighed.

"Fine, fine, you were right," she admitted. "But Nemuri-san still isn't gonna let you talk to him, you know that, right?"

"Then I'll find another way."

Back on the platform, Jiro made her move. Both jacks shot out whipping through the air toward Ren from two different sides at once, aiming to wrap around his wrists before he could react.

Ren didn't even look at them. The nearest pieces of debris floating around him spun through the air and intercepted both jacks before they could reach him, the chunks of concrete pinning the cables down with their weight.

Jiro's eyes widened slightly. She tugged on her jacks to free them, and Ren released them without resistance, the floating fragments letting go of the cables and returning to their orbit around him.

"That's a problem," Jiro muttered to herself, retracting her jacks. "Direct attacks are out, I need a new strategy here."

She crouched lower and brought both hands to the speakers built into her wrist amplifiers.

"Heartbeat Fuzz!"

The sonic blast burst from her amplifiers in a concentrated cone, the air rippling visibly with the force of the soundwave as it tore across the platform toward Ren. The frequency was high enough to make the spectators in the front rows wince and cover their ears.

Ren raised both hands and the entire floating cloud of debris compressed into a single shield in front of him. The soundwave hit the wall of concrete fragments and dissipated against the makeshift barrier, the energy spreading outward in ripples that vibrated through the stadium walls. A few pieces splintered from the impact, but most of them held.

When the sound died down, Ren let the remaining fragments return to their rotation around him.

"Your Quirk has good range," he commented, his voice calm. "But it isn't designed to punch through dense matter at this distance. You'd have to be much closer for that to do real damage."

"Yeah, I figured that out about three seconds ago, thanks for stating the obvious, brainiac," Jiro shot back, retracting her jacks with a click of her tongue. "Look, can we skip the part where you give me a lecture on my own Quirk?"

Ren raised his hand again and three fragments launched at high speed, each one aimed at a different part of Jiro's body. She dodged the first by twisting her shoulder, intercepted the second by whipping it aside with one of her jacks, and rolled under the third with a quick movement that brought her closer to Ren in the process.

She came up swinging both jacks in a wide arc, aiming to wrap them around his legs and trip him.

Ren stepped back, the jacks slicing through empty air, and raised his hand again. The remaining debris around him shifted formation and dropped into a circular pattern at ground level, cutting off her routes of approach.

"Tch, alright, fine," Jiro hissed through her teeth. "You wanna play that game? THEN LET'S PLAY!"

She slammed her foot against the concrete and channeled her heartbeat into the platform itself. The floor around Ren started vibrating violently, the floating debris shaking as the resonance climbed up his legs and started interfering with the stability of his control.

If she can shake my body hard enough, my precision is gonna start dropping. Good move, Jiro, you found the weak spot in my technique... Lucky for me I picked up something from Nejire's classes.

Ren lifted off the ground using his telekinesis, his feet floating a few inches above the trembling platform. The vibrations passed harmlessly underneath him.

The crowd erupted.

"DID YOU SEE THAT?!" Present Mic screamed into his microphone, the stadium speakers crackling from the volume. "HAYASHI IS LITERALLY FLOATING ABOVE THE GROUND TO AVOID HER ATTACK! THAT'S NEXT LEVEL CREATIVITY, LISTENERS!"

In the stands, the murmurs spread like wildfire. Students from other classes leaned forward in their seats whispering to their neighbors, while the pro heroes scattered through the audience took mental notes, and the casual fans who had written Ren off as the comic relief of the tournament were suddenly paying very close attention.

Jiro retracted her jacks from the floor and stepped back, her chest rising and falling a little faster now, sweat starting to bead on her forehead.

She brought both jacks to her amplifiers again.

"Heartbeat Wall!"

A dome of vibrating sound formed around her, the air shimmering as the soundwave curved around her body in a protective shell. The next telekinetic projectiles from Ren hit the dome and bounced off, redirected harmlessly to the sides.

"You'd be surprised how long I can keep this up," Kyoka said with a smirk.

Ren raised both hands. The entire field of debris started rotating faster, the fragments accelerating until they formed a blurred ring around the dome of sound. Then, one by one, they came to a stop in the air and lined up in a single column directly above Jiro's protective barrier.

Her eyes flicked upward and her stomach sank.

"Oh, great, just what I needed."

Ren lowered his hands.

The column of debris dropped onto the dome with the full weight of every fragment in the arena, the impact concentrating on a single point at the top of her barrier. The sonic dome cracked under the pressure, the soundwave flickering as Jiro's concentration broke from the sudden weight pressing down on her shoulders.

She didn't get out of the dome in time. The shell collapsed inward, the debris cascading around her with enough force to knock her off her feet, and a single concentrated push of telekinesis sent her rolling toward the edge of the platform.

She landed hard on her side, sliding across the concrete, the white line of the boundary getting too close too fast.

"Damn it, no, no, no!"

She drove her jacks into the floor and used the sonic recoil to brake her slide, stopping just past the line, her foot crossing it by less than a hand's width.

Midnight raised her whip.

"OUT OF BOUNDS! The winner is REN HAYASHI!"

The stadium exploded in cheers.

Jiro stayed on the floor for a moment catching her breath, then pushed herself up and dusted off her uniform. She looked across the platform at Ren, who was already letting the remaining debris fall back to the ground around him.

"You really were holding back, huh," she said.

"A little," he admitted.

Jiro snorted, the corner of her mouth curving up despite everything, and walked off the platform with her hands back in her pockets as she headed for the medical tunnel for a quick checkup. Ren followed a few seconds later, heading back to the waiting area where the cheers were still echoing through the stadium.

In the broadcast booth, Aizawa let out a long sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"He's gonna start attracting attention from talent scouts now," he muttered.

"YOU SAID IT, ERASERHEAD!" Present Mic roared. "DID YOU SEE HOW HE CONTROLLED ALL THOSE FRAGMENTS AT ONCE?! WHAT A SHOW, FOLKS, WHAT A SHOW! AND NOW WE'VE GOT ANOTHER FIGHT COMING UP, SO HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATS, BECAUSE THE NEXT MATCH IS GONNA BE ANOTHER BANGER!"

The screens lit up with the next matchup.

MOMO YAOYOROZU vs TENYA IIDA.

Up in the waiting area, Toru bounced in her seat with her uniform fluttering in the air.

"Ren-kun, you were amazing! That last move was insane, how did you even come up with dropping everything on top of her like that?"

"Improvising," Ren said, dropping into his seat between her and Mina, who was staring at him with her arms crossed.

Mina huffed and looked the other way, her cheeks slightly pink, before glancing at him sideways through her hair.

"You're still buying me cakes."

"Yeah, lots of them, I didn't forget."

Toru leaned in with her elbow propped on Ren's shoulder.

"Hey, look, Momo-chan's about to start her match!"

Down on the platform, Momo and Iida took their positions at opposite ends of the arena. Iida adjusted his glasses, his hand in the air as he gave his opponent a respectful bow.

"Yaoyorozu-san! I trust that we shall have an honorable match!"

"Likewise, Iida-san. I hope we can both give our best in this fight."

Iida nodded sharply, then his engines fired up with a low rumble that climbed into a roar, and blue flames flickered from his exhausts as the energy of his Quirk built up in his legs.

Midnight raised the whip high.

"BEGIN!"

Iida exploded forward at full speed. The platform cracked under the pressure of his initial burst, the blue flames trailing behind him as he closed the distance in less than a second.

"RECIPRO...!"

But Momo had already moved.

Her forearms glowed with the activation of her Creation Quirk, and a wide cloud of shimmering metallic powder burst into the air in front of her, expanding outward in every direction at once. The cloud caught the stadium lights and reflected them in a blinding flash of magnesium sparks that filled the entire arena with white light.

Iida's engines broke their rhythm for a fraction of a second as his visual reference vanished; he had to slow down just enough to avoid launching himself out of the ring under his own momentum.

The opening Momo needed.

She dropped to one knee and pressed both palms flat against the concrete floor. Her Quirk activated again, and a web of fibers spread outward from her hands, extending across the platform in a wide radius around her, blending into the gray concrete like an almost invisible adhesive layer.

Iida cleared the powder cloud just in time to see her standing in the middle of what looked like a clear stretch of arena, and he charged forward without hesitation.

His foot landed on the fibers.

"What is this?!"

The adhesive caught him mid stride, dropping him from full sprint to a stumble in less than a step. The fibers stretched and snapped under the force of his engines, but the friction was enough to drop his speed dramatically, and his engines roared at full power while his actual velocity had been cut nearly in half.

"Yaoyorozu-san! You truly came prepared for this fight!"

"I hold great respect for you, Iida-san. Which is why I wish to face this match with all the seriousness it deserves."

Iida gritted his teeth and pushed harder, his engines roaring with more intensity as the blue flames doubled behind him. The fibers ripped under his shoes as he tore through them with brute force.

"RECIPRO BURST!"

His engines hit maximum power, the blue flames doubling in intensity, and the additional traction was enough to tear through the adhesive. He closed the remaining distance with one last burst of acceleration aimed directly at Momo's center of mass.

"YEEEAH! Way to go, Yaomomo!" Mina jumped to her feet, throwing both arms up. "Come on, show 'em what you're made of!"

"Eh?! Hold on a second!" Toru exclaimed, waving her hands nervously. "I want Yaoyorozu-chan to win too, but Iida-kun's also my friend! Can't I cheer for both of them?"

"No, because that takes all the excitement out of it!" Mina shot back, laughing. "Besides, Yaomomo's at a disadvantage against someone as serious and disciplined as Iida! We gotta back her up all the way!"

On the arena floor, Momo tracked Iida's incoming trajectory, her eyes following his approach. She had been reading his movement since the match began, waiting for the right window.

He's coming in a straight line, and he can't correct his course at that speed.

When Iida was just a meter from her, she activated her Quirk one final time. From the ground directly under his approaching foot, a sturdy tungsten wedge formed pointing upward and toward him.

She didn't move at all.

She moved the ground beneath his feet.

Iida, at full Recipro Burst, couldn't correct his trajectory in time. His front foot struck the angled wedge at full speed, and the combination of his own momentum with the perfectly placed ramp launched him upward and forward in an arc he couldn't control.

"WAAAAAA...!"

His body shot completely through the air, fully propelled by his own velocity. He crossed the entire platform in less than a second, his arms flailing as he tried to redirect his engines to slow his ascent, but the momentum was too much to fight.

He crashed into the safety barrier well past the white line of the boundary, the impact rocking the protective wall before he tumbled down onto the safety mats below.

The stadium went silent for a beat. Then it exploded.

Midnight raised her whip with a wide grin.

"OUT OF BOUNDS! The winner is MOMO YAOYOROZU!"

"WHAT?!" Present Mic screamed. "WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! YAOYOROZU DIDN'T EVEN MOVE, SHE USED IIDA'S OWN SPEED AGAINST HIM! THAT'S GENIUS LEVEL TACTICS, LISTENERS!"

In the waiting area, Mina jumped to her feet with her fists in the air.

"THAT'S OUR GIRL, YAOMOMO!"

"WOOOOOO!" Toru shouted, jumping up and down with her uniform fluttering wildly. "Momo-chan is the best, nobody can stop her!"

Down in the arena, Momo straightened up slowly, brushing the dust off her gym uniform. She walked over to where Iida was already being helped to his feet by Recovery Girl's medical robots, looking only slightly worse for wear and fully conscious.

"Iida-san, are you alright?"

"Yaoyorozu-san!" Iida gave a deep bow despite the bruises forming on his shoulders. "That was an absolutely magnificent display of strategy! You used my own limitations against me with a precision I could not anticipate, and you have my deepest respect!"

"Thank you, Iida-san," Momo said with a small bow. "You fought honorably, and I simply got lucky having the right tools prepared for your combat style."

"Modesty does not change the brilliance of your tactics!"

Momo laughed softly and glanced up at the waiting area, where Ren was still standing and cheering alongside Mina and Toru. Her cheeks turned slightly pink.

*******

Hey, my dear readers — have I ever told you how much I love you all? Yeah, I figured I should lead with that before I ask for your patience again lol.

I owe you guys an apology for updating once every thousand years, but I actually have a reason this time! August 1st is my university graduation exam — as in, my last exam ever. So yeah... turns out studying kind of takes up your entire life? Who knew. I'm sorry for the wait, but if I don't hit the books they're gonna fail me, and that would be very bad lmao.

Anyway! For anyone who wants to read ahead on this fic, don't hesitate to check out Patreon.com/itszeroo

And while you're there, you'll also get access to 21 extra chapters of another fanfic I'm writing before it goes public here, 20+ advanced chapters of Only Smut, plus a bunch of other stuff I've got going on. Seriously, don't sleep on it — come join us over at

Patreon.com/itszeroo