The announcement echoed through the ruined hallway and died.
Bakugo hadn't moved.
His thumb still rested on the pin. His face had gone completely blank. Like someone had reached inside and ripped out whatever made him Bakugo.
Then his jaw clenched.
His teeth ground together loud enough for Izuku to hear from six feet away.
A sound came out of his throat. Not words. Something more primal. A noise that lived in the space between a growl and a sob, raw and wounded and absolutely pathetic.
Izuku watched.
Said nothing.
What was there to say? "Good fight"? "Better luck next time"? Any words would just pour gasoline on a fire that was already nuclear.
Bakugo yanked his left gauntlet off with enough force to leave red marks on his wrist. The metal clattered against the floor.
Then he walked away.
Heavy footsteps that crunched over broken drywall and shattered desk fragments. His back remained rigid. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. Smoke curled from his palms in thin wisps that dissipated into nothing.
He disappeared around a corner.
Gone.
Izuku stood alone in the wreckage.
For about three seconds, he maintained the confident posture. The slight smile. The relaxed shoulders that said "I planned this entire thing from the beginning and everything went exactly according to my calculations."
Then his legs decided they were done pretending.
He stumbled backward. His shoulder hit what remained of a cubicle wall. The impact sent fresh lightning bolts of pain shooting down his burned arm, and he sucked air through his teeth hard enough to taste blood.
Ow.
OW.
Everything hurt. His ribs screamed every time he breathed. His lip had swollen to roughly twice its normal size. The burn on his shoulder had stopped being "uncomfortable" about four explosions ago and graduated to "please amputate this limb at your earliest convenience."
He slid down the wall until his butt hit the floor.
Dust puffed up around him.
His head fell back against the damaged plaster.
Stared at the ceiling.
Victory.
This was victory.
It tasted like copper and regret.
His hands rested on his knees. They were shaking.
Izuku looked at them.
The knuckles were split. Blood oozed from a dozen tiny cuts where Bakugo's face had disagreed with his fists.
He won.
But did he?
Bakugo was strong.
Not just "pretty good for a teenager" strong.
Genuinely strong.
And that was NOW. When he was still relying entirely on instinct and rage and the raw power of his Quirk.
What happens in a year?
Two years?
Five?
When Bakugo learns to control that temper. When he develops actual technique. When those explosions get stronger. Faster. More versatile.
When he figures out that he can fly.
When he realizes that concentrated blasts at point-blank range could level city blocks.
When his ceiling, which was already somewhere in the stratosphere, keeps climbing higher and higher and higher until it disappeared into the clouds.
And Izuku?
What was HIS ceiling?
He looked at his hands again.
Ten years of training. Ten months of carrying garbage across a beach like some kind of eco-friendly Sisyphus. Enough pain to fill an ocean. Enough suffering to make a masochist uncomfortable.
And this was the result.
A body that could keep up with a Quirk user.
For now.
He closed his eyes.
Hano's voice echoed in his memory. "A human can beat any Quirk user, boy. Power is nothing without the brain to use it."
Yeah.
Sure.
Easy to say when you're an old monster who spent sixty years perfecting techniques that bordered on magic.
But Izuku wasn't Hano. He was fifteen. He had maybe twenty good years of physical development left before his body started its slow, inevitable decline.
And the prodigies with Quirks?
They'd still be getting stronger when Izuku was old and broken and reminiscing about the glory days.
This is fine.
Everything is fine.
I'm not spiraling.
I'm definitely not having an existential crisis in the middle of a fake office building after beating the crap out of my childhood bully.
Nope.
He laughed.
The sound bounced off the walls and died somewhere in the darkness.
He needed to move. Needed to get up. Needed to do something other than sit here and think about all the ways his dream might be impossible.
But his legs had apparently unionized and were refusing to work until management addressed their concerns about workplace safety.
Traitors.
All of them.
"YOUNG MIDORIYA!"
The voice hit him like a physical force.
Izuku's eyes snapped open.
All Might stood at the end of the hallway, still in his hero form, still massive and golden and impossibly bright against the red emergency lighting. His cape billowed behind him despite the complete lack of wind, because of course it did.
The Number One Hero crossed the distance in three strides that should have been physically impossible for someone his size.
"That was... a RECKLESS but HEROIC performance!" His voice boomed off the walls. The smile was there, but it looked wrong. Strained around the edges. "You should go to the nurse's office IMMEDIATELY!"
Izuku pushed himself up.
"I'm fine, All Might-sensei. Just a few scratches. I want to see the other fights."
All Might's smile flickered. His blue eyes, sharper than most people gave him credit for, studied Izuku's face with an intensity that felt like a physical examination.
"Young Midoriya, your injuries are—"
"Midoriya-san!"
The new voice came from the stairwell.
Momo burst through the doorway with Iida hot on her heels. Her costume was pristine. Because she'd been doing her job while Izuku had been busy playing punching bag with an angry pomeranian.
Her composure lasted exactly one point three seconds.
Then she saw him.
Her hand flew to her mouth. Those dark eyes went wide. The professional, analytical expression shattered into something raw.
"You're hurt!" She was moving before the words finished leaving her lips. "This is my fault. I should have reached the objective faster. My plan was too slow. I put you at unnecessary risk. If I had moved more quickly through the fourth floor instead of checking every room for potential ambushes, you wouldn't have needed to—"
"Yaoyorozu."
She didn't stop.
"—engage with Bakugo-san for so long, and the tactical approach I suggested clearly didn't account for the intensity of his response to your presence, which I should have anticipated given the obvious history between—"
"Yaoyorozu."
"—the two of you that I noticed during the lottery when he looked at you like you had personally insulted his entire family line, and I KNEW there was something there but I didn't factor it into the plan properly which is a fundamental failure of strategic analysis on my part and—"
"MOMO."
She stopped.
Her mouth stayed open. Mid-word. Like someone had hit the pause button on a very concerned, very guilty recording.
Izuku reached out with his good arm. Caught her shoulder. Gently.
"It's not your fault." He kept his voice calm. "This was always going to happen. Bakugo and I have... history. He was going to fight me no matter what. The plan worked perfectly. We won."
Momo's eyes dropped to his burned arm.
To the blood dripping from his split lip.
To the bruises already blooming across every visible inch of skin.
"This," she said quietly, "does not look like victory."
Ouch.
True, but ouch.
"You should see the other guy."
"I saw him leave." Her voice hardened. "He looked bad. You look worse."
"Well now you're just being mean."
Her hand moved toward his burned shoulder. He flinched before she made contact, an involuntary response that he immediately regretted because now she looked even more guilty.
"Sorry." Her voice softened. "I wasn't going to touch it. I just... needed to see how bad it was."
"It's fine. Really."
"It is NOT fine."
The steel in her voice caught him off guard.
Momo Yaoyorozu, heiress to a corporate empire, strategic genius, creator of literally anything she could imagine, was glaring at him with an intensity that would have made Bakugo proud.
"You are bleeding. You are burned. You look like you're about to collapse." Each word landed like a hammer strike. "You are going to the nurse's office. Now."
Izuku opened his mouth to argue.
"YAOYOROZU-SAN IS CORRECT!"
Iida appeared at his other side, arms already moving in those distinctive chopping motions that seemed to be his default state of communication.
"As your classmate and fellow participant in this exercise, it is our DUTY to ensure your well-being! Proper post-combat medical assessment is a CRITICAL component of hero protocol!" His voice rose with each word, powered by the pure rocket fuel of righteous concern. "Chapter Seven, Section Three of the U.A. Student Handbook CLEARLY states that any student exhibiting signs of significant physical trauma must report to Recovery Girl's office IMMEDIATELY for evaluation!"
Izuku looked at All Might.
The Number One Hero raised his hands in a gesture of "don't look at me, kid."
"They make excellent points, Young Midoriya." His voice carried an undertone of amusement that didn't quite hide the genuine concern. "A hero must take care of themselves before they can take care of others!"
Betrayal.
From every direction.
Izuku let out a long, defeated sigh.
"Fine. You win. But I'm not happy about it."
Momo's grip closed around his good arm.
"I can live with that," she said.
Her voice had softened. Just a little. Relief mixed with something else. Something warmer.
She started walking, and Izuku had no choice but to follow.
Iida fell into step on his other side, arms still making small chopping motions as he launched into a detailed explanation of proper post-combat recovery protocols that Izuku immediately tuned out.
He glanced back.
Once.
The ruined hallway stretched behind him. Broken walls. Shattered desks. Scorch marks where explosions had painted the concrete black.
The spot where he and Bakugo had nearly killed each other.
The doubt was still there.
Gnawing at the edges of his thoughts like a hungry animal.
He'd won the day. The exercise. The fight.
But the war for the top had only just begun.
And for the first time since he was four years old, Izuku Midoriya wasn't entirely sure he had what it took to win it.
Momo's grip on his arm tightened.
"Stop thinking so hard," she said quietly. "You'll hurt yourself."
He laughed.
"Too late."