Only Smut: The Bald Telepath of UA.

Chapter 95: Chapter 95: Crushing! The Brightest and Most Powerful Mind of Class 1-A, Momo Yaoyorozu!

The platform still bore the scars of the previous match when both fighters emerged from the opposite tunnels. The repair crews had done what they could in the time available, but the cracks from Bakugo’s explosions still marked the concrete across the entire surface.

Midnight planted herself in the center with her whip resting on her shoulder and a sultry smile.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Her voice flooded the stadium. "Our first semifinal brings us a DELICIOUS matchup! The brightest mind in Class 1-A versus the telekinetic powerhouse who just left everyone with their jaws on the floor! The supreme strategist, MOMO YAOYOROZU, against the boy who levitated half the ring in his last fight, REN HAYASHI!"

"THIS IS GONNA BE A BATTLE OF BRAINS, FOLKS!" Present Mic roared from the booth. "TWO STRATEGIC MINDS COLLIDING HEAD ON! WHO’S GONNA OUTPLAY WHO?! I CAN’T EVEN HANDLE MY OWN EXCITEMENT!"

"This isn’t going to be easy for either of them," Aizawa murmured from his seat next to Present Mic, his eyes narrowed as he evaluated both competitors.

Ren and Momo met at the center of the platform for the formal greeting. Momo offered him a polite bow and Ren returned it with a respectful nod.

"Good luck, Momo."

"Likewise, Ren-kun, though I don’t plan on needing it."

Ren let out a short laugh and they both walked to their starting positions at opposite ends of the arena.

Midnight raised her arm with the whip held high.

"READY?"

Momo widened her stance into a combat posture and her forearms started to glow with the activation of her Quirk, the light of Creation flickering beneath her skin.

Ren extended the fingers of both hands and felt his telekinesis expand around him as it spread across the entire platform.

"BEGIN!"

Momo didn’t wait half a second. Her body glowed and three smoke grenades materialized in her hands before Ren could blink, and she hurled them to the ground between them with a precision that cut off every line of sight in the arena in a single motion.

The smoke expanded with impressive speed and covered half the platform in a gray cloud that blurred shapes and swallowed sound.

She opens with smoke to cut off my vision. Same logic she used with the magnesium powder against Iida, but the goal here isn’t blinding me. It’s buying time to set up whatever’s coming next.

Ren raised both hands and the debris from the damaged platform lifted off the ground around him, forming a spinning barrier of concrete fragments that began rotating in orbit around his position.

A metallic whistle came through the smoke straight at his torso. Ren turned two fragments to intercept it and the impact of the steel disc against the concrete tore loose a shower of sparks that lit up the gray curtain for an instant.

A second disc came in from a different angle, followed by a third that flew in lower, aimed at his legs.

She’s throwing from different positions inside the smoke. Moving while she attacks so I can’t pin her location by the sound of the hits.

Ren blocked all three projectiles with the debris barrier, but the moment he deflected the last disc, a steel cable shot out from the smoke and hooked onto one of the floating fragments with a metallic snap.

Momo appeared an instant later, gliding through the smoke at full speed with a tungsten shield tucked under her left arm that she was using as a footboard while the cable pulled her along with the debris, taking advantage of the rotating motion of Ren’s barrier to build up momentum and close in at a speed she never could have reached on foot.

She hooked onto my own debris?! She’s using my defense as transport!

"Not bad, Momo!" Ren extended his right hand and launched a concentrated pulse of telekinesis at her.

The invisible force hit her square on and threw her backward, separating her from the cable and sending her in an arc through the air, but Momo had already created a small reinforced fabric parachute that opened behind her back and slowed the fall just enough for her to land on her feet on the other side of the platform, sliding only a couple of meters across the concrete before coming to a stop.

"UNBELIEVABLE!" Present Mic’s voice rocked the stadium. "YAOYOROZU HOOKED ONTO HAYASHI’S OWN DEFENSE TO CLOSE THE DISTANCE! THIS GIRL STUDIED EVERY ONE OF HER OPPONENT’S MOVES AND SHE’S PLAYING HIS OWN STRATEGY RIGHT BACK AT HIM! THIS IS PROFESSIONAL LEVEL CHESS!"

Ren clenched his teeth as he reorganized his debris barrier around his body.

Okay, staying on the ground against Momo is a mistake because she’s gonna find a way to turn anything I do against me. I need to change the axis of this fight.

He lifted off the ground with a telekinetic push, his feet leaving the concrete as he rose three meters above the platform with the debris orbiting around him.

Momo watched his ascent with narrowed eyes, evaluating the new situation in fractions of a second.

"Aerial advantage," she murmured to herself as her hands glowed. "Alright, I’ve got something for that."

A composite bow materialized in her left hand along with a quiver of blunt-tipped arrows that appeared on her back. She nocked the first arrow, drew the string, and fired upward.

Ren deflected the arrow with a flick of his hand and the blunt tip bounced off a concrete fragment without causing damage, but the second arrow was already on its way from a different angle, and the third came barely a second later aimed at his left flank.

"Momo, that’s clever!" Ren shouted as he deflected the fourth and fifth arrows with rapid hand movements. "But if you wanna beat me by attrition, you’re gonna need a lot more arrows than that!"

"I’ve got plenty!" Momo answered as she materialized a second quiver without stopping her shots.

Okay, change of plan. If I stay in defensive mode, she’s gonna keep creating objects until my brain can’t process this many stimuli at once. I need to force her to defend.

Ren raised both arms above his head and every fragment of debris floating around him paused in the air for an instant before shooting downward like a rain of meteors, aimed directly at Momo’s position.

Momo dropped the bow and activated her Creation at maximum speed. A thick metal plate materialized above her head, and she held it with both hands while the concrete fragments crashed against the surface with impacts that resonated throughout the stadium.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The plate dented with every blow, but it held long enough for Momo to drag herself to one side and dodge the last volley by rolling across the ground.

And then she did something Ren hadn’t seen coming at all.

She got to her feet and created a rectangular device connected to a wide amplifier cone that she pressed against the platform floor with both hands. The object started emitting a hum that wasn’t audible to the audience, but Ren felt it immediately in the bones of his hands.

What is that... wait, the debris I’m controlling is shaking on its own.

The concrete fragments floating around him began to vibrate at a frequency that rose rapidly, and Ren could see the cracks spreading across the surface of each piece as the resonance tore them apart from the inside.

"I learned this from watching Jiro-san!" Momo shouted from below with a satisfied smile. "Ultrasonic frequencies cause structural resonance in solid materials, and if the objects you’re controlling fragment faster than you can hold them together, your telekinesis loses effectiveness!"

The debris disintegrated into dust between his invisible fingers and Ren lost control for a second. Gravity reclaimed him in an instant and he fell three meters until he hit the platform with an impact that knocked the air out of his lungs.

Momo was already in motion before Ren even finished falling. Her Quirk glowed one more time and a reinforced carbon fiber bo staff materialized in her hands as she closed the distance.

WHACK!

The first strike landed straight on Ren’s flank, and he barely managed to alter the trajectory with a telekinetic push that shifted the angle just enough for the staff to graze his ribs instead of connecting cleanly. The impact tore a grimace of pain from him and made him stumble back two steps.

"I didn’t know you fought hand to hand!" Ren panted as he raised both hands to generate a telekinetic defense field in front of him.

"A classical education includes martial training, Ren-kun!" Momo replied as she spun the staff above her head and brought down a second strike toward his left shoulder.

Ren deflected the blow with telekinesis, but Momo was already pivoting on her heel to launch a low sweep that nearly caught his legs and forced him to jump back to dodge it.

She’s fast. I can’t keep playing reactive because she’s gonna keep creating new tools every time I neutralize the last one.

"OH MY GOODNESS! YAOYOROZU IS ON FIRE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! HAYASHI BARELY HAS TIME TO BREATHE! ONE SECOND HE’S FIGHTING HIGH TECH GEAR AND THE NEXT HE’S GOT A STAFF SPINNING IN FRONT OF HIS FACE! WHAT A WAY TO CHAIN STRATEGY AND CLOSE COMBAT! THIS IS PURE SHOWTIME!"

A few rows over, Makoto was on her feet with her notebook pressed against her chest and her eyes locked on the arena, and Kazuho could’ve sworn the hand she was holding her pen with was trembling.

Ren dodged another strike from the staff by centimeters and made his decision right then.

If I keep reacting to whatever Momo creates, I lose. She’s got infinite resources as long as she’s got lipids left, and I have to burn mental focus on every single thing I block. I need to end this with something she can’t counter with a single creation.

He extended both hands out to the sides and his telekinesis expanded in every direction at once, reaching every fragment of material left in the arena: the remnants of concrete that had survived the resonance, the metal discs Momo had thrown at the start, the dented metal plate she’d discarded, absolutely everything with mass within the perimeter of the platform.

The noise was immediate. Hundreds of objects rose off the ground at the same time, creating a spinning cloud of debris and metal that blocked the view of the sky above the arena.

Momo looked up and understood what was coming.

"It’s not gonna work, Ren-kun!" she shouted as she activated her Creation and a reinforced steel dome began forming over her, growing from her hands like a protective shell.

But Ren didn’t drop the debris like the last time.

He concentrated it.

Every fragment converged toward a single point directly above Momo’s position, and when the mass reached its maximum density, Ren pushed everything downward with the full force of his telekinesis, generating a column of crushing pressure that fell on the steel dome with the accumulated weight of tons of compressed material.

The dome bulged under the pressure and Momo gritted her teeth as her legs buckled under the load, desperately trying to reinforce the structure by creating internal supports that appeared one after another inside the protective shell.

"I’m not giving up!" she panted as sweat soaked her forehead and her hands kept creating reinforcements at a frantic pace.

But the pressure didn’t let up.

Every new support creaked and bent under the accumulated weight, and Momo could feel her lipid reserves dropping with every creation while the concentration of material above her kept increasing instead of decreasing.

The first support gave way with a metallic snap that reverberated inside the dome, and the ceiling sank five centimeters all at once. The second support followed three seconds later, and then the dome began collapsing in on itself.

"YAOYOROZU IS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE, LISTENERS! HAYASHI JUST GATHERED ALL THAT DEBRIS INTO ONE SINGLE POINT AND HE’S PRESSING DOWN WITHOUT GIVING HER A SECOND TO BREATHE! WHAT A BRUTAL MOVE! POWER, PRECISION, AND ABSOLUTE CONTROL OF THE BATTLEFIELD! THIS IS THE SPORTS FESTIVAL AT ITS PEAK!"

Momo created one last reinforcement, a solid tungsten cylinder that held the pressure for four full seconds before the base buckled and Momo’s knees finally gave out, dropping her to the ground with the deformed dome collapsing around her.

Midnight raised her whip and cracked it against the floor.

"THE COMPETITOR CAN NO LONGER CONTINUE! THE WINNER IS REN HAYASHI!"

The explosion of noise from the crowd was so loud Ren felt it vibrate in his chest, but he wasn’t really listening because his eyes were locked on Momo, who lay on the ground among the wreckage of her own dome with her breathing ragged and her arms trembling from the effort.

Ren released the telekinesis and let all the material fall around the arena with a crash that kicked up a cloud of dust. He crossed the platform at a quick pace, walking past Recovery Girl’s medical bots that were approaching from the sides, and stopped in front of Momo to extend his hand.

"Up you go, Momo," he said softly.

Momo looked up at him from the ground with shining eyes and her breathing still uneven. Her gym uniform had a tear on the left side and another on the right shoulder where the impacts of the debris had ripped the fabric during the collapse of the dome.

She took his hand and let him pull her up, but when she tried to support herself on her own legs, her right one gave out and she had to lean against Ren’s shoulder to keep from falling again.

"I’ve got you," Ren said as he steadied her at his side, slipping his arm around her waist so she could use it as support. "Let’s get to the infirmary. Can you walk if you lean on me?"

"I think so," Momo murmured.

They started walking together toward the exit tunnel, Ren adjusting his pace to Momo’s slow steps while she limped slightly on her right side. The applause from the stadium kept raining down on them, and the replay of the best moments of the fight was already playing on a loop on the giant screens.

That was when Ren noticed Momo was crying.

Tears? Is something hurting her that I’m not seeing? Damn it, if the pressure caused some kind of internal injury I’m gonna...

"Momo? Are you okay?"

Momo shook her head as the tears kept falling down her cheeks, and when she lifted her face to look at him, the smile she was wearing left him completely disarmed.

"I’m happy, Ren-kun."

"H-Happy?" Ren blinked without understanding. "You just lost a semifinal, Momo. How can you be...?"

"Because I gave everything I had," she interrupted him. "Because my strategy worked, and because for a moment I truly believed I could beat you."

Ren looked at her for a couple of seconds before answering.

"If we’d fought again, you probably would’ve won," he said with a honesty that left no room for politeness. "The sonic generator was brilliant, Momo. You knocked me out of the air and dropped me into close combat where you had the advantage. If you’d had five more minutes to prepare the hand to hand matchup, I don’t know if I would’ve found a way to close out the fight."

"Don’t say that just to make me feel better," Momo answered, trying to brush it off, but then the voices started reaching her from every direction.

"That girl’s a genius, she made like ten different things during the fight and every single one had a purpose."

"The pro heroes were talking about her the whole match."

"Yaoyorozu, right? The one from Class 1-A who got in by recommendation... after that fight it’s clear she earned it."

Momo stopped in the hallway, still leaning against Ren’s shoulder, and listened to the voices filtering down from the stands, the corridors, the commentators who kept repeating her name alongside words like "brilliant," "extraordinary tactics," "candidate to watch in the coming years."

For the first time in her life, people weren’t praising her for her perfect grades or for belonging to the Yaoyorozu family or for entering UA by recommendation or for her theoretical intelligence measured in written exams.

They were recognizing her for what she herself had done in the arena, with her own hands and her own refusal to give up until her legs failed her.

The tears fell harder, but the smile widened until her entire face was radiant despite the crying and the bruises, and Ren simply kept walking beside her, holding her steady with a firm arm around her waist without adding a single word, because there were moments that needed to breathe on their own without anyone filling them with unnecessary speeches.

They reached the door of the infirmary and Recovery Girl was already waiting at the threshold with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed.

"You two again!" the old woman snapped as she tapped her cane against the floor. "You haven’t even walked through the door yet and I can already see you’re both a mess! Does nobody in this school know how to fight without wrecking their entire body? Inside, both of you, before I cure you with a cane to the head!"

"Yes, ma’am," they answered in unison as they crossed the threshold, and for one brief instant their eyes met and they both shared a smile.

*********

Author’s Note:

Surprise! There’s a bonus Chapter today, totally off the regular schedule! And you wanna know why? Because today I’m celebrating the fresh new look I gave my Patreon! I’m so happy with how it turned out. I’d always gone with something simple, but after this makeover I’m completely in love with it, so if you have a sec, my dear reader, would you go take a peek and let me know what you think?

Anyway, thank you all so much, and I hope you have an amazing day! I love you guys, and I hope you enjoyed this Chapter.

You can find me at patreon.com/shurazero

See you around!