The infirmary was a sanctuary of silence, a stark contrast to the thunderous roar of the stadium that still vibrated through the floorboards like a distant, mocking heartbeat.
The air here was heavy, smelling of ozone, burnt fabric, and the sharp, clinical sting of Recovery Girl's specialized salves. It was a smell that Loki had come to associate with his own inadequacy.
Loki Hargreaves sat on the edge of the cot, his emerald trench coat draped over a chair like a discarded skin. Without the coat, he looked smaller, more fragile. His gym uniform was a wreck—the right sleeve was charred black, the fabric peppered with tiny, jagged tears where Bakugo's proximity blasts had shredded the fibers into confetti. Recovery Girl had already done her work; the physical wounds were now just fading aches, but the exhaustion was a physical weight pressing him into the mattress.
He stared at his hands. They were steady, but they felt hollow. For the first time since he had donned the monocle, the "Lie" felt paper-thin.
He wasn't thinking about the burns or the ringing in his ears. He was thinking about the way Bakugo had looked at him—not as a rival, but as an annoyance to be cleared away.
The door slid open with a soft, mechanical hiss. Arthur and Lyra stepped in, their faces tight with a mixture of relief and a lingering, painful worry.
"Loki," Arthur said softly, stepping toward the bed. He didn't look at the burnt uniform; he looked at his son's eyes. "The doctors said you're stable. Just exhaustion and some light flash-burns. You're lucky, son."
"Luck has nothing to do with the script, Dad," Loki said. His voice was flat, devoid of its usual theatrical resonance. It sounded brittle, as if the words themselves might shatter if he spoke them too loudly. "The Director was forcibly removed from the stage. The performance was a disaster."
Lyra climbed onto the cot, tucking herself under Loki's arm. She didn't care about the brackets, the rankings, or the technicalities of an "Out of Bounds" loss. "You looked like a superhero, Loki! and the mean blonde boy couldn't catch you! You were like a ghost!"
Loki's fingers curled into the bedsheets. A ghost, he thought bitterly. Exactly. Something that has no impact on the world. Something that people look through.
Arthur sat in the chair opposite him, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees. "You did more than just fly, Loki. You stood your ground against the most violent, explosive student in this school without throwing a single punch. You made forty thousand people hold their breath. You took the most aggressive fighter in the year and made him chase shadows for ten minutes. That's a victory in my book."
He reached out, squeezing Loki's knee. It was a father's touch—grounded and real.
"Don't let the loss settle in your bones. You did the Hargreaves name proud. Now, give your old man a smile? Let us know the 'Great Magician' hasn't retired yet."
Loki looked up. He felt the heavy, suffocating pressure of his own disappointment—a cold, oily realization that his "Grit" hadn't been enough to bridge the gap between a genius and a monster. He felt a profound sense of mourning for the version of himself that thought he could win.
But he looked at Lyra's hopeful, wide eyes and his father's tired, proud face. He realized they needed the Lie more than he needed the Truth right now.
He pulled the corners of his mouth upward. It was a perfect anatomical recreation of a smile. He engaged the zygomatic muscles with surgical precision, ensuring the expression was symmetrical. He timed the "spark" in his eyes just long enough to be convincing to a casual observer.
It was the most difficult illusion he had performed all day. It felt heavier than the card he had placed on Kirishima's neck. It was a smile that didn't reach his chest; it was just a painted layer over a void of sadness.
Arthur's expression flickered for a fraction of a second. He had spent his life in business; he knew when a deal was being closed with a hollow promise. He saw the cracks in the enamel. He knew the difference between a genuine spark and a masterpiece of social engineering. But he didn't call it out. He couldn't.
To acknowledge the fake smile would be to admit his son was broken. He simply nodded, his heart aching for the boy who felt he had to perform even while bleeding.
"That's my boy," Arthur lied, matching Loki's deception with a gentle, tragic one of his own. "Get dressed. You've got a class to join. Don't let them see the Director with a messy collar."
Loki made his way back to the Class 1-A stands, his walk stiff but upright. He had buttoned his trench coat to the chin, hiding the charred ruins of his uniform.
He had polished his monocle, though the fracture in the glass remained—a jagged, silver line that bisected his vision, a constant reminder of the moment Bakugo's "Truth" had shattered his "Lie."
As he entered the section, the chatter died down for a heartbeat. The air changed. It became thick with the one thing Loki hated more than defeat: Sympathy.
"Hargreaves-kun! You're back!" Uraraka said, her eyes round and shimmering with a pity that felt like a slap to his face. "Are you okay? That last blast... it looked so scary from the stands!"
"Indeed, your tactical application of conceptual weight was fascinating even in defeat," Midoriya added. He was sitting with his arm in a fresh, heavy cast, his notebook already open to a page titled Loki Hargreaves: Analysis of Failure. "If you had just a few more seconds of stamina, or if the ring was larger—"
"But it wasn't," Loki interrupted. His voice was a cool, sharp blade, cutting through the fluff of their kindness. He sat down in his designated seat, his posture so rigid it looked painful. "Practically speaking, it was a failure of set design. I overestimated the durability of my props and the patience of my co-star."
"You did really good, man," Kaminari said, leaning over the back of his chair with a sympathetic grin. "I mean, it's Bakugo.
Nobody expected you to actually beat him. You made it further than most of us thought! Top four is insane for someone with a... you know, a non-combat quirk."
Loki's jaw tightened. Non-combat quirk. Expected to lose. The words were meant to be comforting, but to Loki, they were an autopsy. They saw him as the underdog who did "well for his level." They saw a high-class ornament that had put up a surprisingly good fight before being inevitably broken by the "real" heroes.
He saw Sero looking at him with a knowing nod—the nod of someone who had also been crushed by a Titan. He saw Iida looking at him with a stiff, professional pity.
"I appreciate the sentiment," Loki said, his voice dropping to a low, melodic drone that signaled the end of the conversation. He stared straight ahead at the empty ring, his hazel eyes cold and distant.
Behind the glass of his monocle, he wasn't watching the stadium. He was replaying the moment Bakugo's hand had closed around his tie. He was replaying the heat, the noise, and the absolute, terrifying clarity of being powerless.
The class continued to whisper around him, their "Good jobs" and "Nice tries" echoing like the white noise of a funeral. They thought they were being friends. They thought they were supporting a fallen comrade.
They didn't realize that to Loki Hargreaves, their sympathy was the final "Out of Bounds" call. It was the confirmation that, in their eyes, he was exactly what he feared: a brilliant magician who had finally run out of tricks.
He sat there, draped in emerald wool and broken glass, the saddest boy in the stadium—smiling a perfect, hollow smile whenever someone looked his way.
The atmosphere in the stadium had reached a point of saturation. After the psychological gymnastics of Loki Hargreaves and the primal ferocity of Bakugo Katsuki, the audience was primed for a clash of pure, unadulterated speed and power.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Present Mic's voice echoed, vibrating the very seats of the stadium.
"WE HAVE REACHED THE SECOND SEMI-FINAL! ON ONE SIDE, THE BOY BORN OF ICE AND FIRE, THE TOP-TIER PRODIGY—SHOTO TODOROKI! AND CHALLENGING HIM, THE HUMAN ENGINE, THE EMBODIMENT OF CLASS 1-A'S DISCIPLINE—TENYA IIDA!"
Iida Tenya walked onto the concrete with a rigidity that bordered on the mechanical. His mufflers were already venting a faint, shimmering heat. He didn't look at the crowd; his eyes were locked on Todoroki, who stood at the opposite end with an expression of unsettling neutrality.
In the VIP boxes, the air was different. Endeavor, the Flame Hero, stood at the glass railing, his own fire beard flickering with a localized intensity. He wasn't watching a student; he was watching a masterpiece. He didn't care about Iida. He was waiting for the spark—the moment Shoto would embrace the heat he had finally unleashed against Midoriya.
"START!"
Iida didn't hesitate. He knew that against Todoroki, every millisecond spent standing still was a second spent being frozen.
"RECIPRO... BURST!"
With a roar of blue flame from his calves, Iida became a blur. He didn't run; he translated across the ring like a glitch in reality. The speed was so immense that the air pressure pushed outward, fluttering the uniforms of the students in the front rows.
Todoroki reacted with a flick of his right foot. A jagged wave of ice erupted, aiming to catch Iida mid-stride. But Iida was too fast. He performed a sharp, ninety-degree turn, his tires—his boots—screaming against the concrete.
"I won't let you trap me!" Iida bellowed.
He closed the distance in a heartbeat. He swung a high-speed kick, his armored leg whistling through the air. Todoroki raised his right arm, creating a localized wall of ice to parry the blow.
CRACK.
The ice shattered into a thousand glittering shards. The force of Iida's kick was enough to push Todoroki back five feet, his heels digging grooves into the arena floor.
"Look at that! Iida is actually pushing the prodigy back!" the crowd roared.
Todoroki recovered instantly. He sent a second, larger wave of frost, covering nearly half the arena. Iida jumped, using the walls of the stadium to pivot, banking off the vertical surfaces with his engines at full throttle.
"He's staying airborne!" Midoriya shouted from the stands, his notebook trembling in his hands. "He's trying to avoid the floor entirely!"
Iida dived from above, aiming a Recipro Extend directly at Todoroki's head. It was a finishing move, a gamble of pure velocity.
Todoroki looked up. His left side—the side of fire—remained dormant. Not a single spark flickered. His eyes were cold, reflecting the crystalline structures of the ice he was weaving around himself.
"Recipro... BURST!" Iida's engines gave one final, desperate roar.
Todoroki didn't move. He simply touched the ground.
A massive, vertical pillar of ice erupted directly in front of him. Iida's kick hit the pillar with the force of a car crash. The vibration traveled up Iida's leg, but the ice held. Worse, the frost began to crawl.
The cold air from the pillar was sucked into Iida's intake valves.
"The engines!" Loki muttered from the stands, his monocle catching the glint of the ice. "He's stalling the combustion."
The blue flames in Iida's mufflers sputtered and died. The "Human Engine" came to a grinding halt, his legs encased in a thick, translucent block of permafrost that reached up to his knees.
"I... I can't move!" Iida gasped, his breath visible in the freezing mist.
Todoroki walked forward. He didn't look triumphant. He looked exhausted, burdened by the cold that was now frosting his own right side. He placed a hand on Iida's chest and gave a gentle, clinical shove.
The frozen Lida slid backward, his trapped feet acting like skis on the icy floor, until he crossed the white line of the boundary.
"IIDA IS OUT OF BOUNDS! THE WINNER... SHOTO TODOROKI!"
The stadium erupted in cheers, but there was an undertone of confusion.
"He didn't use it," a pro-hero in the stands whispered. "After that display against Midoriya... why did he go back to only using his right side?"
Endeavor's face was a mask of simmering fury. The fire around his eyes flared, turning a brilliant, angry white. He turned and walked away from the railing, his footsteps leaving scorched marks on the VIP carpet. His masterpiece was refusing to paint with the colors he had provided.
In the stands, Class 1-A was quiet.
"He won, but... it felt different from the last match," Uraraka said softly.
"He's holding back again," Midoriya noted, his brow furrowed. "He's at war with himself."
Loki watched Todoroki walk away from the ring.
Todoroki walked through the dim, concrete tunnel leading to the prep rooms. The cold was still clinging to his skin, making his uniform stiff. He stopped when he saw a shadow leaning against the wall.
Bakugo Katsuki stood there, his hands in his pockets, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, homicidal light. The smell of nitroglycerin was so strong in the narrow space it felt like the air itself was combustible.
"Oi, Half-and-Half," Bakugo growled.
Todoroki didn't stop. "The final match is in ten minutes, Bakugo. Get out of my way."
"Don't give me that crap!" Bakugo roared, pushing off the wall. He grabbed Todoroki by the front of his singed uniform, slamming him against the concrete. "I watched that match! You went back to being a pathetic ice-cube!"
Todoroki's gaze was vacant. "It doesn't matter. I won."
"IT MATTERS TO ME!" Bakugo's palms sparked, the heat singeing the air between their faces. "I didn't get to the finals to beat a guy who's only playing with half his deck! You used that fire against the nerd! You used everything you had to win that fight!"
Bakugo's face was inches from Todoroki's, his teeth bared in a snarl of pure, unadulterated pride.
"If you don't go all out against me... if you don't use every bit of that fire... I'll kill you," Bakugo hissed. "I don't want a trophy for beating a coward. I want to prove I'm the strongest against your BEST. If you hold back, I'll never forgive you. You hear me?! USE YOUR FULL POWER!"
Bakugo shoved him back and walked away, his explosions popping with every step, leaving Todoroki alone in the cold shadows.
The Final Announcement
"ATTENTION ALL SPECTATORS!" Present Mic's voice boomed, cutting through the tension. "THE STAGE IS BEING REPAIRED! IN TEN MINUTES, THE MOMENT WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!"
The monitors overhead flickered to life, showing the two faces that would decide the fate of the festival.
THE FINAL MATCH: SHOTO TODOROKI vs. KATSUKI BAKUGO
"IT'S THE BATTLE FOR THE TOP! THE ICE PRINCE VERSUS THE EXPLOSION KING! DON'T BLINK, BECAUSE THIS IS UA AT ITS PEAK!"
The crowd went into a frenzy, but in the stands, Loki looked at the empty seat where Iida should have been. The final match was about to begin, but the script of the Sports Festival had just sprouted a very dangerous, unscripted shadow.
[End of Chapter 25]
Give Your Thoughts and Suggestion on the Chapter .
Who should be the female lead (I am thinking momo or ibara) you can suggest
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