In views alone, the livestreamed Sports Festival event for UA's second-year students surpassed all videos on Utube.
When the Battle Royale had begun, it had attracted an audience largely from Japan.
However, the two-hour-long duration of the event worked in its favor, word spreading over the internet at the speed of light about something amazing happening at UA.
Within the first thirty minutes alone, the livestream's view count had surpassed the half-billion mark.
And, by the time the last thirty minutes remained, it had reached well over two billion!
With UA monetizing the livestream, this movie-length video alone ended up generating a great chunk of its yearly spending.
The most surprising thing was that the Battle Royale had just ended.
The two billion views that the livestream had attracted were not the ceiling, but the baseline!
…
Inside the hospital ward, Luke groaned as Recovery Girl worked her charm over him.
However, even more than him, it was the old lady who looked beaten up, sweat drenching her brows, making her take long breaths.
Getting angry at her breathlessness at her age, she lifted her stick and smashed it right on Luke's head.
"Ouch!" Luke grabbed his head. "Make up your mind, will you?! Do you want to heal me or not?!"
Recovery Girl grumbled. "Couldn't you have taken it easy?!" she snapped. "First, you brutally beat all the students… No. Victims! Your victims alone exhausted me as much as all the other students combined! Then… you had the gall to injure yourself, instead of… let me take a breath… instead of saving your stamina and helping me out with all this healing?!"
Getting red, she slammed the stick on Luke's head again.
Luke patiently let the old woman chide him.
Recovery Girl had truly been counting on his Spot Heal to lighten her burden. However, Nyx was out cold, and Luke was beaten up badly as well, with both his arms and legs bandaged. As he healed, he used his own stamina, which had literally brought down his Stamina Points to single digits. Forget about using Spot Heal, it was already a miracle that he wasn't passed out like Nyx at this moment.
"How's Deku?" Luke asked.
Recovery Girl's grumbling came to a sudden pause.
She knew that Luke knew about One For All. "… Alive," she said. "It's hard to hide the matter of One For All for long now. All Might can make only so many valid excuses. For now, we have told everyone that Midoriya's Quirk is evolving or something. So… expect changes. But Pros aren't idiots. Villains, even more so."
Luke nodded in understanding.
Midoriya had already fully unlocked Float and Blackwhip. With time, as he had already reached 20% of Full Cowling, he was bound to unlock even more, getting stronger not by months, but by weeks!
It felt all well and good at a glance, but…
If Luke had realized something with his games with Fate, then it was the fact that Midoriya's growth spurt wasn't a good sign, but an ominous one.
Now, All For One, Stain, Shigaraki, and all the Villains know that Deku, All Might's Successor, is getting crazy powerful, Luke decrypted. So, they will be coming after him with everything they've got, pushing past their limits as well. Hmm… However, first, Deku will have to face a deadly tribulation. The timing couldn't be any worse for the events revolving around Eri to play out… Because Dr. Blessed needs Eri, too…
Knock-Knock!
The door parted, and Aizawa, Nezu, and Midnight walked in.
"All yours…" Recovery Girl said, carrying tiredness on her face. "If anyone wakes me up, he will be very sorry. Very sorry, indeed."
When she was gone, Luke looked at the three UA staff members.
Midnight wasn't even hiding the sadistic smile she carried on her face as she looked at him.
Nezu was all smiles, too, only one moment away from hopping on his feet, it seemed.
Aizawa… he looked as if All For One had broken out of Cerberus.
"Don't tell me I missed the Awards Ceremony again," Luke said, smiling wryly. "It would sting a lot this time, you know, what with yours truly in second place!"
Midnight grinned wider. "See, what did I say?" she said, looking at Aizawa. "It was Luke under that mask all this time."
"Were you trying to be the Villain for your schoolmates, Luke?" Nezu guessed.
Luke's smiling face didn't break. He had known that the Principal would at least guess one of the reasons for him to adopt Choking Hero: Choker's face at the Battle Royale.
"Or…" Midnight licked her lips. "… He's just some S&…"
"Enough…" Erasure Head stepped closer to Luke's bed. "Explain."
Luke licked his lips. He knew what was troubling Aizawa. Even with the strange, merciless fighting style he had used, there were many inexplicable things about his actions. And if those actions remained inexplicable, then it would be equivalent to admitting that he had cheated.
"Giving a real-life Villainous experience to everyone was indeed one of my reasons," Luke began. "However, more than that, I did it for the Villains."
That raised all brows.
"Villains?" Aizawa asked.
Luke nodded. "When I was at the hospital before school had started," he explained, "Senior Mirio had visited me. He had said that with Raven making headlines, it wouldn't be surprising if Villains all over the world came for me… hurting me, my friends, and family. Today, all I wanted to say was that… if you are coming for me, then be prepared for the worst."
A pleasant thrill ran down Midnight's spine, making her body squirm.
Nezu nodded proudly, finally relaxing his shoulders.
Aizawa… still maintained half the intensity his eyes had carried. "Continue."
"Oh… How I took down Shihai, who had yet to leave the shadow, right?" Luke said, taking out a few things from under his pillow. "I thought Principal Nezu would have already guessed."
All three staff members looked at the three things.
"Earpieces for Nyx and me," Luke said. "And lenses that can see many spectrum, including infrared. Nyx caught Shihai taking his head out of the shadows and let me know. Haha!"
Midnight's smiling face went blank.
Nezu lifted his paw and slammed it on his face.
Aizawa looked at Luke as if he had never met a dumber idiot in his life.
"You… moron!" He shouted, smacking Luke's head. "You needed to get permission before using them!"