Chapter 37: A Matter of the Heart
The initial, explosive exchange had left a ringing silence in its wake, a void quickly filled by the low, buzzing murmur of the crowd. They were on the edge of their seats, a stadium of tens of thousands trying to process what they had just witnessed. They had seen a tidal wave of sand, an unstoppable force, be met by a boy's sheer, self-destructive will. The board was set. The first pieces had been sacrificed. Now, the true game would begin.
Gaara stared, his mind, usually a place of calm, cold logic, struggling to reconcile the data. The boy across from him was in obvious, excruciating pain, yet his eyes burned with an unwavering fire. This was illogical. This was inefficient. This was… fascinating.
He raised a hand, and the sand on the ring floor answered his call.
"AND HE'S GOING FOR IT AGAIN!" Present Mic's voice screamed, breaking the tension. "GAARA LAUNCHES ANOTHER VICIOUS WAVE OF SAND!"
A second chattering, grinding tsunami of grit surged across the concrete stage. The crowd held its breath. They saw Midoriya, his face pale and slick with sweat, raise his left hand again, his posture a mirror of his first, impossible defense. The small, glowing power of One For All began to coalesce, this time around his ring finger.
"SMASH!"
Another flick. Another silent, concussive boom. Another hurricane of focused air pressure that ripped through the sand, atomizing it into a harmless, glittering cloud. The wind whipped past Gaara, harder this time, forcing him to take a half-step back. The sand rained down.
Midoriya let out a choked, agonized cry, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached. His ring finger was now just as mangled as his pinky.
"HE DID IT AGAIN!" Mic roared. "MIDORIYA DEFLECTS THE ATTACK ONCE MORE! BUT THE COST IS IMMENSE! THAT'S TWO FINGERS DOWN!"
In the announcer's booth, Aizawa watched, his visible eye narrowed. Of course, he'll continue, he thought, a grim respect dawning in his mind. This boy… he does not know the meaning of retreat, no matter the pain he endures.
In the stands, Mineta had his hands over his eyes. "Man, I can't watch this!" he squeaked.
Yaoyorozu clasped her hands to her chest, her expression fraught with worry. "Midoriya-san… this is… this is difficult to see."
Bakugo said nothing. He just watched, his fists clenched, a silent, complicated annoyance churning in his gut.
"This is beyond manly…" Kirishima whispered, his own hardened skin feeling fragile in the face of such raw, self-inflicted damage. "This is madness."
"Gaara can keep sending sand over and over without feeling much exhaustion," Hagakure's disembodied voice added, a note of fear in it. "But Midoriya is facing unimaginable pain every single time the sand moves…"
Gaara stared across the ring, his head tilted in genuine confusion. The pain on his opponent's face was obvious, visceral. Yet, he was preparing for more.
"Why?" Gaara asked, his voice a cold, quiet rasp that still carried across the ring. "Why do you go to such lengths using your power?"
"I told you," Midoriya panted, his entire left arm trembling uncontrollably. "This fight… won't be easy for you."
"I do not understand," Gaara stated, and for the first time, a flicker of something other than battle focus was in his eyes. It was pure, honest bewilderment. "A Quirk is a tool. It is a shield. Its primary purpose is my own protection. That is why I have this sand."
As he spoke, a gentle current of sand rose from the floor, swirling around his body like a protective cloak. "If my power hurt me as yours hurts you," he continued, his logic simple, brutal, and born of a lifetime of solitude, "then why would I have any use for it in my life? A Quirk's purpose is to protect the self."
Midoriya stared at him, at the sand that so naturally guarded him. "Protect… you?" he asked, his voice laced with disbelief. "You joined the hero course, and you say something so selfish? What about helping people?"
"I can do that, as a framework of employment," Gaara replied calmly. "As long as I am provided with a home and with food. It would be a job. But it would be a job taken under the condition that I protect myself before I protect others. This is my power. If one wants to be protected, then one should possess a power such as this."
The words, so logical and yet so profoundly wrong to Midoriya, made his green eyes tremble. "What… what are you talking about…?" he whispered.
"This discussion seems unbalanced," Gaara said, his patience for the illogical conversation clearly at an end. "I will end this now."
He raised both his hands. The sand on the floor exploded upwards, joined by a massive, continuous stream from his gourd. It formed a colossal, churning wave that reached for the sky, a far greater and more vicious attack than the previous two combined.
Midoriya's eyes widened. One finger wouldn't be enough. He raised his left hand, tucking his two broken fingers away, and focused One For All into his index and middle fingers. The pain was blinding, but his resolve was absolute.
"SMASH!!!" he screamed, the sound a raw, desperate roar.
The shockwave was immense. It shot upwards, a cannon blast of pure force, and collided with the crest of the sand tsunami. The impact was deafening. The sand was thrown in every direction, a massive, obscuring cloud of dust that engulfed the entire ring.
"HE STOPPED IT AGAIN!" Mic screamed. "THIS KID IS UNBELIEVABLE!"
But this time, Midoriya did not wait. The moment the dust cloud formed, he charged.
"MIDORIYA IS ON THE ATTACK!" Mic's voice cracked. The stadium shook with the roar of the crowd.
Gaara, his vision obscured by the dust, heard the frantic footsteps. The sand immediately began to coalesce around him, forming a sphere of absolute defense.
"A hero is someone who sacrifices their own limbs!" Midoriya's voice roared from within the dust cloud as he closed the distance, his right hand now raised, his index finger glowing. "Who sacrifices their life to protect the weak and save people, without expecting anything in return!"
He burst through the dust, his face a mask of righteous, tear-streaked fury.
"If your only concern is protecting yourself, then I'm sorry to say your place isn't at U.A., GAARA-KUN!"
He was right in front of the half-formed sand sphere.
"SMASH!"
The close-range blast was focused, a battering ram of air that shattered the sand shield before it could fully form, sending particles flying in every direction. Gaara was exposed, his eyes wide with shock at the sudden proximity of his opponent.
Midoriya was already following through, the pain from his now-broken right index finger a distant echo. He focused on his right middle finger.
"SMASH!"
The second blast was not a punch. It was an open-palmed slap of pure, concussive force that struck Gaara directly across the face.
The impact sent him flying backwards, a thin trickle of blood erupting from his nose. He tumbled through the air, heading straight for the out-of-bounds line. But his sand, his oldest, most loyal protector, reacted without his command. A thick cushion of it surged up from behind the boundary, catching him, stopping his momentum just inches before his feet touched the ground outside the ring.
Midoriya collapsed to one knee, his body finally succumbing to the agony of four broken fingers.
Gaara lay on the ground, dazed, his head ringing. He pushed himself up, his hand on the sand. He felt something wet drip from his face. A single, crimson droplet. Then another.
He watched as a drop of his own blood fell, landing on the pale, grit-covered stage.
The crowd was a deafening, ecstatic roar. But Gaara heard nothing. His entire universe had shrunk to that single, impossible, dark red stain on the sand.
He had been made to bleed again.