Chương 41: Wrong Priority

The tunnel before the ring was colder than it should have been. Ren Akiyama knew that was not physically true. The air temperature was regulated. The stadium was open but not winter-cold. The concrete beneath his shoes held the stored warmth of thousands of bodies, lights, machinery, and sun. The draft from the arena entrance moved across his face, carrying dust, grass, sweat, metal, and the electric pressure of a crowd waiting for the next story. Not cold. His body disagreed. Old burn scar warm beneath the sleeve.

Ribs four. Breath stable. No dizziness. Present orientation intact. Yellow-high. Not red. A staff member stood near the tunnel mouth with a tablet.

"Participant Akiyama Ren?"

"Yes""Final check complete?"

"Conditional clearance" The staff member glanced at the tablet, then at him.

"Medical staff have flagged you for active monitoring. If the referee or medical team calls stop, you stop""Yes" The staff member seemed surprised by the answer. Ren was tired of people being surprised when he obeyed a rule after being threatened by enough adults to make noncompliance statistically irrational. From the arena, Present Mic's voice surged.

"WE'RE BACK, FOLKS! The tournament has already given us upsets, near-upsets, and enough emotional damage to keep our teachers employed! Up next, power versus precision! Hero Course versus General Studies! Todoroki Shoto against Akiyama Ren!" The crowd roared. Ren did not step forward yet. He touched the yellow card in his pocket. Not red. Not proof. Method. Footsteps approached from behind. He did not turn. Shinso stopped beside him. He was not supposed to be there. Probably.

Or Kurose had decided that emotional supervision counted as tactical infrastructure and allowed it.

"Medical receipt?" Shinso asked"Yellow-high. Conditional clearance. Scar heat localized. Ribs four. Breath stable. No dizziness""Wanting?" Ren looked at the arena light ahead.

"High""Proof-seeking?"

"High""Control?"

"Present" Shinso leaned one shoulder against the tunnel wall.

"That sounded rehearsed""It was""Good" Ren almost looked at him for the word. Did not. Shinso continued.

"I lost""Yes""Don't make my loss useful by doing something stupid" Ren turned then. Shinso's expression was flat. His eyes were not.

"That was a strange sentence" Ren said"I'm in a strange mood""Understandable""If you beat him, I'll be irritated""Yes""If you lose safely, I'll also be irritated""Yes""If you awaken some horrifying scar nonsense and collapse in front of everyone, I'm telling your mother before Recovery Girl does" Ren's scar pulsed. The words should not have landed. They did.

"Scar nonsense is not a classification""It is until you survive long enough to force paperwork" Ren looked toward the ring again.

"Scar Tissue" Shinso was quiet. Then"Right. That" The staff member checked the tunnel entrance.

"You're up" Shinso pushed off the wall.

"Wrong priority" Ren looked at him.

"What?"

"If he gives you a chance to prove something and a chance to do the right thing, pick wrong priority" Ren stared. The words were awkward. Perfect.

"Your phrasing is inefficient""Your face understood it" Ren turned away.

"Good""Stop stealing that""No" Shinso stepped back. Ren walked into the light. The stadium hit him all at once. Noise. Heat. Scale. Screens. The ring bright at the center of everything, larger than it had looked from the participant section and smaller than it had any right to be now that he had to stand inside it. The boundary lines were too white. The concrete floor bore faint scars from previous matches despite rapid repairs. Dust clung to cracks.

A few darkened marks from Bakugo's explosions remained near one edge. A faint line where Uraraka's debris had scraped the surface had not been fully erased. The ring remembered. Good. The ring was not neutral either. Todoroki Shoto stood on the far side. Still. He looked calm the way a mountain looked calm before weather proved it had always been moving inside. Half white hair. Half red. One gray eye. One blue. Uniform undamaged. Posture relaxed but ready. Left side silent. Right side waiting.

Ren stepped onto his side of the ring. Scar heat remained localized. No spread. Midnight stood between them. Her eyes moved briefly to Ren's sleeve, then to the medical staff near the ring, then to Todoroki. She had been given instructions. Good. Todoroki looked at Ren.

"You are injured" Ren said "Yes""You should surrender" The crowd reacted immediately, a wave of noise at the bluntness. Ren heard Present Mic inhale for commentary and hoped he choked on restraint. Ren answered "No" Todoroki's expression did not change.

"I do not intend to use more force than necessary""That is appreciated""It will still be enough""Yes" Todoroki blinked once. Perhaps he had expected denial. Ren rolled his shoulders carefully, keeping the left arm close, right hand loose.

"Todoroki outclasses me in raw output" Ren said The microphones caught it. The stadium quieted slightly. Midnight's eyes sharpened. Todoroki watched him. Ren continued.

"Winning through force is unlikely. Taking damage will not change that into a good plan" Todoroki's gaze narrowed a fraction.

"Then why are you here?" Ren looked at him. Because I want to be seen. Because you are the fragment made flesh. Because if the world watches you bury me in ice and I stand anyway, maybe every closed door will have to explain itself. Because my body has been trying to answer you since before I knew your name. Because I am afraid losing safely will not be enough. Because it has to be.

"Evaluation" Ren said The word was small. The crowd did not know what to do with it. Todoroki seemed to understand enough. Midnight lifted her arm.

"Match five! Todoroki Shoto versus Akiyama Ren!" The stadium rose around them. Ren breathed. In three. Hold one. Out four. No ice yet. No proof. Only course. Only rules. Midnight's arm fell.

"Begin!" Todoroki moved first. Not a charge. A step. His right foot slid forward and the world became ice. The attack crossed the ring in a white sheet, fast enough to end the match for anyone who had mistaken the warning for courtesy. It was low at first, a freezing surge along the floor meant to catch ankles, lock knees, and end movement before the opponent could create a plan worth respecting. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Ren had expected immediate ice. Expectation did not make it slow. He moved before the white reached him. Not backward. Diagonal right, toward an area of old blast scoring from Bakugo's match where the ring surface was rougher and ice spread unevenly. His first step held. His second slid. He lowered his center, right hand brushing the ground once to correct balance, left arm tight to his body. Ice caught the edge of his left shoe. Cold bit through sole and fabric. Scar heat answered. Yellow.

He twisted out before the ice locked fully, losing speed but preserving motion. The crowd roared. Present Mic shouted "Todoroki opens with ice, and Akiyama avoids the first lock! He went for the damaged surface! Did he see that?" Aizawa said "Yes" Ren did not smile. Todoroki's eyes followed him. The next ice line came higher. A ridge angled from the floor like a blade without an edge, not sharp enough to cut, but strong enough to herd. Todoroki was not chasing him. He was reducing ring options. Correct.

Ren moved along the ridge rather than away from it, using its rise as partial cover from the next floor spread. His shoes slipped. He caught himself with his right hand against the ice. Pain flashed in his palm from the earlier abrasion. Cold entered the skin like a memory. Old winter tests. Fever logic. Do not reward pain. He pushed off. Ribs four to five. Breath stable. Yellow-high. No red. Todoroki sent a wider wave. Not full stadium-shaking scale. Enough.

It filled the center and curved around Ren's cover, forcing him toward the boundary. The crowd saw the shape and screamed, because even people without tactical training understood a corner forming when it looked like a wall of ice. Ren saw three options. Retreat along boundary. Bad. Todoroki could sweep. Climb ridge. Ribs risk. Ice slick. Slow. Step into the forming gap before it closed. High risk. Only viable. He stepped into the gap. Cold closed around both sides. His left sleeve brushed ice.

The old burn scar flared. For one half-second, the ring disappeared. Cold. Crowd. White. A body unable to move. A hand reaching not toward victory but toward something falling. He drove his right thumbnail into his palm. Present. Ring. Todoroki. Match. Ice. Not trapped yet. The gap narrowed. Ren slid through with his shoulder turned, ribs screaming at the compression. Five. Sharp? No. Almost. Out. He stumbled into open ring near the left quadrant, farther from the boundary than Todoroki probably wanted.

Todoroki's expression changed. Not frustration. Assessment. Good. Bad.

"Why not attack?" Todoroki asked Ren regained breath.

"Bad odds""Then what are you doing?"

"Making you spend attention" Todoroki's eyes narrowed. He raised his right hand. This time the ice did not spread like a sheet. It rose in staggered columns, forcing vertical obstacles around Ren, then connected at the base in an irregular lattice that limited footwork. Less raw area. More control. He had adjusted to Ren's route reading. Good opponent. Terrible opponent.

Ren moved through the first two columns before they finished forming, ducking under one, stepping onto a slanted base, using the brief roughness before frost glazed the surface. The third column cut him off. The fourth rose behind. A fifth formed near the boundary. Cage pattern. He stopped before panic made the stop look like defeat. No full encasement yet. No route? No. Always route until all tissue failed. He scanned. Left column still growing, base weak where it joined previous ice. If kicked, risk foot lock.

If pushed, arm strain. If he waited, enclosed. He struck the base with his right heel. Not power. Leverage. The ice cracked superficially. Not enough. Todoroki saw. A small wall surged toward Ren's legs. He jumped back. Bad. The ice caught his right ankle before full landing. Cold locked around the shoe. Ren dropped immediately to one knee before balance broke. Better controlled descent than fall. Ribs spasmed at impact despite the controlled angle. Five. Breath caught. No dizziness. The crowd gasped.

Todoroki lowered his hand slightly.

"Stay down" Ren's right ankle was fixed in ice to mid-shoe. Not skin contact yet. Left leg free. Both hands free. Boundary five meters behind. Todoroki fifteen meters ahead. Could break ankle free? Maybe. Cost. Could signal? Not red. Could continue? Yes. Should continue? Maybe. Wanting high. Proof-seeking high. He did not move for one second. That was the test. Not ice. The stillness. In it, he could feel the stadium waiting to see whether he would become inspiring. He hated that.

He placed his right hand on the ice around his ankle and tested pressure. A small crack.

"Not down" he said Todoroki's gaze sharpened. Ren twisted his foot within the shoe, not against the lock but with the weakest line. Right hand pushed at the outer shell. Left foot braced. Hip turned. Ribs objected. He ignored the first objection and listened for the second. No red. Crack. The shoe tore partially. His foot pulled free with the sock soaked cold and the shoe damaged. The crowd roared. Present Mic shouted "Akiyama breaks out again! He's still moving!" Aizawa said "Barely" Ren stood. Barely. Correct.

Todoroki looked at the torn shoe. Then at Ren.

"You cannot win like this" Ren answered "Probably" Todoroki's left side remained still. His right hand lowered toward the floor.

"Then this is over" The next wave was larger. Not full power. Closer. It rose from the floor in a broad white surge, not just forward but upward, angled to capture without crushing, enough to seal Ren from the waist down if he failed to escape and perhaps to the shoulders if he tried to climb. A clean finishing move. Efficient. Public. Safe by Todoroki's standards. Ren moved. Too slow. Fatigue plus damaged shoe plus rib pain plus cold. The wave caught his left leg first. Then right.

Ice climbed to his knees, thighs, waist. Cold became pressure. His hands struck the forming surface, trying to keep his torso free. Ice closed over his left forearm, stopping just below the elbow. The old burn scar, trapped beneath sleeve near the edge of the ice, ignited under his skin. Not flame. Memory. He gasped. Ribs seized. White filled the world. The crowd sounded far away. Yellow became red-adjacent. No dizziness. No loss of present. Scar heat spreading? He could not tell.

Medical would stop him if he stayed. Maybe they should. Maybe this was the boundary. Then something cracked above him. Not inside the ice around his body. Above. To his right. A sound too deep to belong to the match alone. Ren's head turned.

Todoroki's larger wave had climbed higher than intended along the ring's outer barrier, meeting an older reinforced camera rail support that had been struck during Bakugo's match and repaired cosmetically, not structurally enough for the angle of ice pressure now forcing beneath it. A vertical slab of ice, heavy and top-loaded, had formed against that rail. The base cracked as it expanded. The outer face tilted. Beyond the barrier, two camera operators and a support technician were moving back.

One technician's cable caught on the rail. They pulled. It did not release. The slab tilted farther outward. Cementoss was moving from the side. Too far. Todoroki saw it a half-second after Ren. His eyes widened. He lifted his right hand. But the angle was wrong. More ice might brace it or add weight. Fire remained unused, locked behind whatever war lived inside him. The slab shifted again. Crowd noise changed. Fear. Real this time. Ren's body understood before his mind finished. Wrong priority. Not Todoroki.

Not victory. The falling ice. His arms were half-free. Legs trapped. Torso compressed. Ribs five. Scar burning. Cold pressure. The match was already lost. Good. That made the choice cleaner. He tried to move. The ice did not let him. Then the scar answered. Not the way he had imagined in his worst private moments. No burst of strength. No healing light. No triumphant release. Pain organized. Every old scar on his body became a line of attention. The burn on his left arm. Small cuts from USJ. Childhood knees.

Training bruises. Cold tests. Falls. Microtears. Rib strain. Palm abrasion. Tissue that had been injured, repaired, stiffened, recorded, misunderstood. The body did not say stronger. It said known. The burn scar reddened beneath the sleeve, then turned pale at the edges, a thin white border threading outward like frost running backward under skin. Lines spread from it, not glowing exactly, but raised, tense, visible through torn fabric where the ice had scraped his sleeve open.

Fine cords surfaced along forearm, wrist, palm, shoulder, ribs beneath skin, old stress routes waking into a network. A lattice. The thought was not language first. It was structure. Scar Tissue did not heal him. It held him. His left hand, half-pinned, roughened at the palm, skin ridging as if old calluses had been dragged into existence at once. The fingers found purchase on ice that should have been slick.

His right foot, half out of the torn shoe, pressed against the inner ice wall, sole and skin biting with impossible traction. Ribs braced not by comfort but by tension, lines of old microtrauma stiffening around pain to keep breath from collapsing entirely. Not healing. Holding. Ren moved. The ice around him cracked. The crowd went silent in a way noise could never manage. Present Mic's voice broke through first.

"What is that? Akiyama is moving! He is moving inside the ice!" Aizawa's voice followed, lower.

"That is not stubbornness" Ren did not hear the rest. His world had narrowed to stress lines. Ice around his hips. Crack above the barrier. Technician pulling cable. Slab tilting. Todoroki turning. Cementoss too far. One path. Not through. Along. The lattice showed no map in light, no arrows, no miracle. It gave sensation. Pressure differences. Viable tissue. Fracture lines. Places where movement would destroy him and places where it would merely hurt enough to be possible. He pulled his left arm down, not out.

The ridged palm anchored. His right knee drove inward. The ice at his waist cracked along a diagonal fault created by Todoroki's own layered wave. Todoroki shouted something. Ren did not process the words. He tore one leg free enough to step onto the ice base, not the ground. His trapped shoe remained behind. The exposed foot gripped. Pain became too large for numbers. Still not gone. Never gone. Organized. He climbed out of the encasement like something the ice had failed to finish making.

The slab shifted outward. The technician fell backward, cable still looped around one arm. Ren did not run at Todoroki. He ran at the ice. Or tried to. It was not running. It was a violent, broken sequence of anchored pulls, scar-ridged steps, one hand catching, one foot biting, ribs held together by a lattice that was already costing more than he had. He crossed three meters along the side of Todoroki's ice formation and slammed his right shoulder against the lower stress point of the outward-tilting slab.

Not enough. Of course not enough. He was not strong enough to stop mass. He did not need to stop it. Wrong priority. Change the fracture. He drove his left palm into the diagonal crack and twisted his whole body around the anchor. Something in his shoulder screamed. Something in his ribs nearly became red. The lattice tightened. The base of the slab split inward instead of outward.

Todoroki finally acted at the same instant, throwing a thin brace of ice upward from the ring side, catching the inner face of the falling mass and guiding it toward the arena instead of the platform. Cementoss's cement wall rose from the outer side a heartbeat later, catching the remaining fragments. The cable snapped free. The heavy slab collapsed inward onto the empty edge of the ring with a thunderous crash, spraying frost and broken ice across the boundary line where no one stood. Ren went with it.

The force threw him sideways. His left foot lost traction first. Then his right hand. Then the lattice that had been holding everything together became too expensive. He hit the ground outside the ring. Out of bounds. Breath gone. White lines still raised under skin. Scar burning. Cold everywhere. Pain no longer organized. Just pain. The stadium was silent. Completely. Then Midnight's voice cut through, sharp and professional.

"Akiyama is out of bounds! Todoroki advances!" No one cheered. For one second, the clean line existed. Winner. Loser. Then the stadium saw the camera operator alive, the technician sitting up with both hands shaking, Cementoss holding the reinforced wall, Todoroki standing frozen in the ring with one hand still raised, and Ren Akiyama on the ground outside the boundary with pale scar-lines slowly fading from his skin. Present Mic's voice came back quieter than Ren had ever heard it.

"He didn't go for Todoroki" Aizawa finished it.

"He went for the falling ice" The silence broke. Not all at once. A section first. General Studies. Then more. Then the stadium rose into applause that did not sound like the cheers from before. It was not hungry. Not simple. Not even fully comfortable. Good. It should not be comfortable. Ren tried to breathe. Failed once. Succeeded the second time. A medical team reached him. Kurose arrived behind them. Recovery Girl's voice was already shouting from someone's tablet.

"Do not move him like luggage!" Shinso's face appeared above him, pale and furious.

"You absolute idiot" Ren tried to answer. No sound. Todoroki stepped into his field of vision. He had crossed the ring boundary after the match call, ignoring the fact that winners were supposed to remain available for official confirmation. His expression was no longer calm. The quiet had cracked.

"Why?" Todoroki asked Ren focused on him. The word came out rough.

"Wrong priority" Todoroki stared. Ren closed his eyes. Then forced them open again because unconsciousness without permission would upset too many people. Kurose knelt at his other side.

"Status" Ren laughed. It was a terrible idea. Pain punished him.

"Red" Kurose's face tightened.

"Good report" Shinso looked like he might murder the word. Medical staff immobilized him carefully. Someone cut part of the sleeve away from the left arm. Cold air hit the burn scar and the raised lines around it. The lattice was fading. Not gone. Leaving redness, swelling, tremor. Cost arriving. Recovery Girl's voice snapped orders.

"Fever check. Inflammation markers. Rib stabilization. Do not let him sit up. Check distal circulation. Photograph the scar pattern before it fades, but if anyone uses flash I will end careers" Ren wanted to ask if the technician was safe. Could not. Kurose seemed to know anyway.

"The technician is alive. Minor injury. Cementoss has the fragments. You changed the fall" Ren let the breath out. Good. No. Careful. Do not make good mean worth. Too late. Maybe not. Todoroki still stood there. Kurose looked up at him.

"Todoroki, return to the ring confirmation area" He did not move.

"I caused it" Kurose's voice was sharp.

"The ice caused a structural hazard. Faculty will review. Standing here will not help him" Todoroki's face closed. Not fully. Enough to survive public view. He looked at Ren once more. Then returned to the ring. Present Mic had recovered enough to fill space, though not with his usual manic rhythm.

"Todoroki Shoto advances to the next round. Akiyama Ren is eliminated after an incredible emergency response at the boundary. Medical staff are attending now. Folks, that was" He stopped. Aizawa spoke instead.

"That was a Quirk" The words reached Ren through pain, through cold, through the hands stabilizing his ribs. The stadium reacted. A murmur became a wave. That was a Quirk. Ren's eyes moved toward the commentary booth. He could not see Aizawa. He could see the giant screen, though, where his own left arm appeared in replay, scar-lines rising under skin, palm anchoring on ice, body moving where it should not have moved. No. Not replay. Not yet. He closed his eyes. Too much. Kurose noticed.

"No screens" she snapped Someone changed the feed. Good. Hana. Daichi. Where were they? He tried to turn his head. A hand stopped him. Kurose's.

"They are being brought to medical. They saw you report red. They saw you breathing. Stay still" He obeyed. Not because he wanted to. Because moving had finally become impossible enough to make obedience easy. Shinso walked beside the stretcher as they lifted him. Kurose did not stop him. Maybe because she was busy. Maybe because she understood. As they moved toward the tunnel, the applause followed. Ren hated it. Needed it. Feared it. Could not classify it. Shinso leaned close enough that only Ren could hear.

"You lost" Ren managed the smallest movement of his mouth.

"Yes""You advanced the paperwork" Ren would have laughed if his ribs allowed it. Shinso's voice broke around anger.

"You made them see it" Ren looked at him. Shinso's eyes were wet and furious and refusing both.

"And you picked wrong priority" Shinso said The tunnel swallowed them. The crowd became distance. Medical lights replaced stadium lights. Recovery Girl was waiting in person by the time they reached the treatment room. How she had arrived so fast was a mystery Ren lacked the blood pressure to solve. She looked at him once. Then at the scar pattern. Then at the tremors beginning in his hands. Her face did not soften. That was mercy.

"Beautiful. Stupid. Expensive" Ren closed his eyes.

"Report?" Kurose asked Recovery Girl said "Later. First we keep the beautiful stupid expensive boy from turning his own connective tissue into a funeral speech" Shinso made a strangled sound. Ren wanted to protest the description. Could not. The fever began in the next minute. Not high yet. Coming. The lattice had spent something. Now the body wanted payment. Recovery Girl's hands moved with terrifying precision.

"Temperature rising. Inflammatory response. Muscle rigidity. Rib strain worsened but no obvious fracture yet. Left shoulder stress. Scar pattern still visible. Get images. Then cooling protocol. No aggressive movement. He is not allowed to be heroic again for at least a decade" Kurose said "I will put it in writing""Make copies" Ren drifted on the edge of pain and fever. Voices moved around him. Todoroki advances. Akiyama eliminated. Technician safe. Scar Tissue? Quirk manifestation. Not healing. Holding.

Aizawa's voice from memory. That was a Quirk. The words should have felt like victory. They felt like a door opening onto a room full of knives. Then Hana's voice cut through everything.

"Ren" His eyes opened. She was there. Daichi behind her. Hana's face was pale in a way he had never wanted to see. Daichi looked like someone had rebuilt himself out of restraint and would collapse if touched wrong. Ren tried to speak. Hana reached him first and placed one hand near his hair, not touching the injured arm, not touching the ribs, not demanding anything his body could not give.

"You are alive" Ren swallowed.

"Yes" The word was barely sound. Daichi closed his eyes. Hana's mouth trembled. Then she leaned closer.

"You chose the people" Ren looked at her.

"You did not choose the applause. You did not choose the match. You chose the people" His throat closed. That was worse than praise. Better. Too much. Daichi's hand found his uninjured wrist.

"Wrong priority?" he asked quietly Ren looked toward Shinso. Shinso looked away. Ren managed "Yes" Daichi nodded.

"Good" Everyone needed to stop saying that. No one did. Recovery Girl ordered them to give space while not actually making them leave, because she was cruel in ways that understood love. Ren's vision blurred. Fever rising. Pain widening. But under it, something remained. Not victory. Not enough to erase losing. Not enough to make the body safe. Not enough to turn suffering into worth. A shape. Scar Tissue was not a theory anymore. Not a secret in a notebook. Not a possibility hidden under medical uncertainty.

The stadium had seen it. Aizawa had named it. Todoroki had watched it. U. A. would have to write something. Correctly, perhaps. Or badly first. Then corrected. Ren drifted. The last thing he heard before sleep or fever or both took him was Present Mic's voice from a distant monitor, quieter than usual as the bracket continued without him.

"Todoroki advances, but folks, remember Akiyama Ren's name. General Studies came here to be seen today, and I think everyone in this stadium just learned why" Aizawa's answer came after a pause.

"He lost the match" Then, lower.

"He passed the evaluation" Ren did not know if that was official. Probably not. Unofficial things moved faster. Sometimes they had teeth. Sometimes they opened doors.