Chapter 99

The dust hung over the wrecked arena and refused to settle; for several long seconds the loudest thing in the entire stadium was the sound of nobody daring to breathe.

Inko stood at one end of the cracked platform with faint green sparks of lightning still crackling around her shoulders, and Ren stood at the other with his shirt torn and a thin trickle of blood running from his nose, both on their feet and neither willing to be the first to admit they were done.

Present Mic leaned so far over the commentary booth railing that he nearly toppled straight onto the field.

"THEY'RE STILL STANDING! After all of that, ladies and gentlemen, after a U.A. Sports Festival final that REARRANGED THE FURNITURE of this stadium, BOTH FINALISTS ARE STILL ON THEIR FEET! Eraserhead, I'm out of words. You're gonna have to give them to me."

"I don't get paid to give you words," Aizawa muttered from the seat beside him, eyes fixed on the platform. "Look at their legs..."

Inko's knee went first, something tiny that nobody would've noticed in a normal fight, and then her whole body folded forward as the strength left her all at once. Half a second later Ren's eyes rolled back and his legs gave under him, sending him onto the platform without so much as an arm raised to break the fall.

The entire stadium gasped as both finalists hit the ground a single breath apart.

Midnight walked out onto the field with her whip already curling at her side, and for the first time in the whole festival the woman who'd called every match with easy confidence looked thrown, glancing from one fallen student to the other.

"...Well," she said into the microphone, "this is a problem."

"WHAT'S THE VERDICT, MIDNIGHT?!" Present Mic howled. "WHO WON?!"

"Give me a second, you walking megaphone." Midnight crouched between the two fighters, examining them for a moment before lifting her gaze toward the giant screen. "I want the replay. Both falls, frame by frame."

She crossed her arms and added firmly, "I'm not crowning anyone on a hunch. If there's a champion, we'll decide it with evidence."

The giant screen blinked, rewound, and slowed the final moment until both falls crawled across the display side by side, while the whole stadium held its breath.

For an agonizing stretch it looked like a clean tie, Inko buckling and Ren dropping in what seemed to be the exact same instant. Then the footage ticked one frame further, and the answer was right there for anyone with eyes.

Inko's knee touched the concrete a hair before Ren's shoulder did.

Midnight looked up at the screen and a slow smile spread across her face as she raised the microphone back to her lips.

"Well, well... That was close."

She let the suspense stretch across the entire stadium.

"But the results are clear."

She raised an arm toward the stands.

"By the smallest margin I've ever seen in this stadium... the winner of the U.A. Sports Festival is...!"

She pointed at the giant screen.

"REN HAYASHI!"

The whole place exploded, the stands dissolving into a wave of noise, and somewhere above the student section a homemade banner with a bald head sloppily drawn on it shot up into the air.

And the new champion was flat on his back, dead to the world, blood drying under his nose, with absolutely no idea he'd just won the whole thing.

Aizawa watched the robots load Ren onto a stretcher and exhaled slowly through his nose.

"That's gonna be a problem when he wakes up."

"A PROBLEM?!" Present Mic practically vaulted the railing. "ERASER, THE KID JUST WON THE SPORTS FESTIVAL WHILE UNCONSCIOUS! THAT'S HISTORY! LEGEND! ICON! STUDENTS ARE GONNA BE TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR YEARS!"

"Yeah, that's exactly why it's gonna be a problem."

"Come on, admit it! Even you think it was awesome!"

"No."

The first thing Ren registered when his eyes cracked open was that the ceiling was white and unfamiliar, and someone very close by was crying.

Okay, he thought, doing a slow inventory of the situation before committing to anything as reckless as moving. White ceiling, smells like antiseptic, and the worst headache I've felt in two whole lifetimes; in short, the infirmary... I must've lost the final. Nobody feels like this and wins.

Then a weight slammed into his chest and knocked what little air he had clean out of him.

"YOU'RE ALIVE!"

A pair of hands had latched onto the front of his hospital gown and were shaking him with alarming strength, and even half conscious Ren had no trouble identifying the only person in U.A. capable of assaulting a patient with that much enthusiasm.

"Toru," he wheezed, "I'll be a lot more alive if you stop trying to relocate my ribs."

"You wouldn't wake up! You just kept lying there all pale and gross, and Ochako-chan started crying, and then I cried a little too, but really quietly, so it doesn't count!" Her hands finally let go and grabbed both of his cheeks instead, turning his head side to side, inspecting him like a melon at the market. "Say something smart and annoying so I know it's really you!"

"...Pervy, hyperactive invisible girl. You need to learn how to treat the sick."

"It's him!" Toru squealed, delighted.

A hand settled gently on his shoulder and eased Toru back before she could do any more damage. Ren turned his head to find Momo in the chair beside the bed, sitting very upright with her hands folded in her lap, the composed heiress, except her eyes were rimmed red and she was gripping her own knees too tightly.

"Welcome back, Ren-kun," she said, and her voice came out steadier than her face managed. "You were unconscious for quite a while, and the doctor assured us repeatedly that you were stable, though you do have a remarkable talent for making people worry."

"Apparently I do my best work asleep."

Momo opened her mouth to argue, thought better of it, pressed her lips together and looked down at her lap. The relief written all over her face was so plain that Ren felt a small, unexpected twinge of guilt for joking about it.

I'm fine, Momo, he thought, but I'm not gonna embarrass you by saying it out loud.

"You idiot," came a shaky voice from the cot on the other side, and Ren turned to find Ochako sitting up under her blankets, cheeks wet and nose red, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Do you have any idea how badly you scared me?! You just collapsed out of nowhere, and you weren't moving, you weren't waking up, and I was just lying here unable to do a single thing about it!"

"Ochako, you made it to the semifinals completely wiped out and then passed out. You deserve to rest a little."

"That's not it!" She sniffled. "That's not the point!"

Ren raised his hands in surrender.

"Then what's the point?"

"That I thought something horrible had happened to you!" she exclaimed, pointing at him with a trembling finger. "And I was terrified! So yeah, I'm very, very mad at you right now!"

"...Got it, pleading guilty on all counts."

"Good!" she huffed.

She let herself fall back onto the pillow. Her eyes were still wet, though a small smile ended up slipping out anyway.

"Good... Just don't let it happen again, okay?"

From the foot of the bed, Tsuyu had been watching the whole reunion with one finger pressed to her chin.

"You really just passed out like that, kero," Tsuyu remarked calmly, lowering her finger from her chin. "The robots had to carry you out of the stadium, and you were drooling a little too, though I'm not telling you to make fun. I just figured Toru hadn't gotten to that part yet, kero."

"Hey, that was my next anecdote!" Toru protested. "You just ruined the single most embarrassing moment in all of history for me!"

Mina pushed off the wall she'd been leaning against, arms crossed.

"So, then... Is nobody gonna tell him?" she asked the room.

Ren went very still.

That tone, he thought. That's the tone of a girl about to enjoy a piece of news enormously... and even more when it has to do with someone who hates me. What the hell did I do now? Is this how my life ends?

"Tell me what?"

"Mina, maybe we should..." Momo began.

"Momo, don't steal my moment! I saw him first, so it's my turn!" Mina declared, planting herself in front of the bed with a huge grin. "Alright, baldy, ready for the news?"

Ren blinked.

"...W-What news?"

"That you won! The whole festival! The final, the tournament, EVERYTHING!" Mina threw her arms in the air. "You beat Midoriya!"

Ren stared at her.

"What?"

"And it was ridiculously close, seriously! They had to check the cameras in super slow motion to decide it."

Mina pointed at him accusingly.

"And while all that was happening, the champion of the U.A. Sports Festival was completely unconscious, and you didn't even hear them announce your name! You missed your own moment of glory!"

Ren lay there and let the news settle.

"So... just so we're clear," he said slowly, "I won the most important event of the school year, watched by the entire country, and I slept through my own victory."

"Yep," Mina said cheerfully.

Ren raised a hand and slowly dragged it down his face.

Of course, he thought with deep resignation. I cut my way through forty people, pull off the most ridiculous final in U.A. history, and the universe makes sure I'm fast asleep during the one part everyone's going to remember forever. I really should've seen it coming; this is exactly the kind of luck I have.

"I want a recording," he said at last.

"Way ahead of you!" Toru shouted. "I filmed all of it! You look super dramatic just lying there! Want me to set it as your ringtone?"

"No."

"Doing it anyway."

A calmer voice came from the cot beside Ochako's, and the room settled a bit when Inko propped herself up against her pillows, looking tired and rumpled but completely at peace with how things had turned out.

"You really did win, Hayashi-kun," she said with a soft smile.

"Inko." Ren turned toward her. "That was the hardest fight of my life... If you'd had one more hit in you, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"But I didn't," Inko said simply, flexing her splinted fingers with a wince. "I'm not mad at you, though a little disappointed in myself, maybe; mostly I'm just relieved both of us walked off that field with our heads still attached."

"Speak for yourself, mine feels like somebody took it off and put it back on crooked."

Inko laughed, then immediately regretted it.

"Ugh... Don't make me laugh, everything still hurts."

Whatever Toru was about to add died in her throat when the curtain at the end of the room slid back with a sharp metallic rattle, and Recovery Girl shuffled in, cane tapping against the floor.

"Out of here, girls! The boy needs quiet; you can pile on top of him later." She gave them little prods with her cane to hurry them toward the exit. "And you too, Yaoyorozu! Go eat something before you faint on me. I've got enough work patching up this disaster without starting in on students who forget to have lunch."

There was a chorus of complaints, a final squeeze of Ren's hand from Momo that she very obviously pretended was a pulse check, and then the curtain slid shut and it was just the two of them.

Recovery Girl pulled a stool up beside the bed, sat on it with a tired sigh, and looked at Ren over the top of her glasses.

"How's your head feeling?"

"...Honestly? It hurts a lot." Ren held her gaze. "That's not the usual post-fight headache, is it?"

"No, it isn't." She laced both hands over the cane. "Hayashi-kun, do you remember the moment near the end of the match when you lifted everything loose in the entire stadium at once?"

"I remember deciding to do it... Everything after is a blur."

"That's because not long after you did, you started bleeding inside your own skull."

Ren's stomach dropped to the floor.

She let the words sit for a moment before going on.

"You had small hemorrhages; thankfully we caught them in time, I healed what I could, and you're going to be perfectly fine this time around. I want to be very clear with you about what almost happened, though, because I don't think you've understood it yet."

"...I'm listening."

"Your Quirk is growing." She tapped the cane against the tiles once. "Faster than I've ever seen a telekinetic ability grow in a first-year student, and your body hasn't grown to match. When you reached out for that much at once, your power did exactly what you asked it to, and the part of you that has to direct all of it, your brain, was the one that paid the bill. Are you following me?"

Ren stared at the ceiling while the headache pulsed in time with his heart.

So there it is, he thought. There's always a catch: somebody hands me a power that can lift a whole stadium, and the fine print is that using it like that turns my own head into the victim.

"If I push my Quirk like that again..." he said quietly, "what happens to me?"

"If you force yourself like that again without training first?" Recovery Girl peered at him over her glasses. "Then a day might come when I can't help you anymore. My Quirk speeds up recovery, though it doesn't work miracles. If you keep tearing your brain apart every time you use your power, you'll end up with injuries that can't be healed."

She leaned forward a little and tapped him on the forehead.

"You've got an extraordinary Quirk, young man, but right now it's bigger than your body can handle. And when that happens, the first one to get hurt is always the owner. So stop throwing yourself in headfirst and learn to control it before it ends up costing you."

The room had gone quiet.

"What... what am I supposed to do about it?" Ren asked.

"Go find someone who can teach you." She got back to her feet with a grunt. "A real mentor. Someone who understands power on this scale and can show you how to carry it without breaking yourself in half. The internships are coming up very soon; if I were you, I'd take them very seriously." She paused at the curtain and looked back. "You've got a long road ahead of you, boy; try to stay alive long enough to walk it."