Yaoyorozu versus Asui began with thirty seconds of relative silence that the stadium processed as tension, but from the waiting area, with the right attention, it was something else.
It was two people reading the field before acting.
Mineta recognized it because it was what he did. And seeing it in Yaoyorozu and Asui simultaneously had that quality of something that confirms a hypothesis you had but hadn't been able to verify until that moment.
Both of them think before they move. That makes the fight slower in the opening moments and more decisive when the first move comes.
It was Asui who acted first.
Not with an attack. With information: her tongue lashed toward the edge of the ring in a trajectory that wasn't aimed at Yaoyorozu but measured the distance and the consistency of the ground with the precision of someone establishing parameters before operating within them.
Yaoyorozu observed that movement and created.
Something small. A thin metal rod, about forty centimeters long, which she held vertically in her right hand.
Tool, Mineta processed. Not defense, not restraint. Tool. Yaoyorozu is in the most open response category, which means she hasn't yet decided exactly what she's going to need.
That's correct. With Asui, deciding too early is committing before having enough information.
Asui advanced.
Not in a straight line. Diagonally, with that frog-like speed of hers that wasn't fast in absolute terms but had a trajectory unpredictability that made anticipating the point of arrival harder than with faster but more direct opponents.
Yaoyorozu responded with the rod.
Not as a weapon. She planted it in the ground between herself and Asui and created two more objects in the following seconds: a metal plate to her left and a rope to her right, establishing a perimeter of available options rather than committing to a single response.
Three objects in immediate access position. Defense, restraint, tool. Only distraction is missing.
She's building the field just like I do.
From the waiting area, Kirishima murmured something to Kaminari that Mineta didn't fully catch, but the tone was that of someone seeing something he didn't expect and not quite having the words to describe it.
Kaminari responded with a sound somewhere between a question and a confirmation.
The fight on the ring continued.
Asui reached tongue range, which was considerably longer than the range of most direct physical attacks, and lashed it toward Yaoyorozu's wrist, the hand holding the rod.
Yaoyorozu had already let go of the rod and raised the metal plate.
The tongue connected with the plate instead of the wrist.
Asui withdrew her tongue and adjusted the trajectory of the next attempt toward Yaoyorozu's left side, the angle least covered by the plate.
Yaoyorozu rotated the plate.
Asui switched to a low trajectory.
The exchange lasted forty seconds and produced a clear dynamic: Asui sought the angle where Yaoyorozu's defense had the least coverage, Yaoyorozu adjusted the defense on each attempt.
The tongue has very high repositioning speed, Mineta processed. Yaoyorozu can create quickly but not infinitely quickly. At some point the difference in repositioning speed will create an opening.
Unless Yaoyorozu changes the type of response.
Yaoyorozu changed the type of response.
On the tenth exchange, instead of repositioning the plate toward the tongue's angle, she created a new object: a synthetic fiber net thrown in an arc toward Asui, wide, designed to cover an area rather than a point.
Area restriction instead of point defense.
Asui saw it coming and jumped sideways, with that frog-like speed that made sudden direction changes more natural than for most.
But the lateral jump took her toward the rod that Yaoyorozu had planted in the ground at the beginning of the fight.
The rod wasn't an obstacle. It was a reference.
Yaoyorozu threw the rope she had prepared on the right toward the angle where Asui would land after the lateral jump.
The rope arrived before Asui.
Asui's ankle landed on the rope.
She wasn't completely trapped because the speed of the landing and the angle of the rope weren't perfect for full restraint. But the contact was enough for the next step to be slightly unbalanced.
Yaoyorozu used the prepared objects as a system, Mineta processed. Not independently. The rod as a positional reference, the net to force the jump, the rope to capture the landing of the jump. The three objects prepared at the beginning as part of the same plan.
That's not reactive creation. That's sequence planning.
That's different from what we discussed in class.
Asui recovered her balance quickly and repositioned, but the moment of positional advantage that Yaoyorozu had created was real.
Yaoyorozu used it to create the fourth object: another shield, larger than the original plate, which she placed between herself and Asui while also repositioning.
Defense to recover position. Then the next cycle.
The fight continued for three more minutes with that dynamic of two people who knew each other well enough that each answer partially anticipated the next question, and who therefore had to create responses that were one step ahead of what the opponent anticipated.
Mineta observed with divided attention: one part on the fight, another on the Yaoyorozu he was seeing and the difference from the Yaoyorozu of the sixteen times in the classroom.
The difference was real and specific.
In the classroom, Yaoyorozu created objects in response to an identified need. In the ring, she created objects in anticipation of needs that had not yet arrived. The difference between reactive and anticipatory was exactly the difference between someone who solves the present problem and someone who builds the field so that future problems already have a solution available.
She learned something I didn't teach her, Mineta thought. The categories were the starting point. This is what she built from that starting point.
There was a weight to that observation that Mineta recognized but did not fully elaborate at that moment because the fight was reaching its resolution and attention was necessary.
The resolution came cleanly: Asui, after several exchanges where her tongue had repeatedly found Yaoyorozu's shield, attempted a high trajectory, above the shield, aiming for the neck or shoulder.
Yaoyorozu lowered the shield instead of raising it.
The lowered shield left the torso exposed.
The tongue reached the torso.
Yaoyorozu knew it would.
Because the torso, with the fabric of the uniform, absorbed the impact of the tongue without significant consequences, and the movement of lowering the shield had created the space to create a final object with the free hand.
A large plate. Thrown flat toward Asui at the moment the tongue connected with the torso and Asui was at maximum tongue extension, which was the point of least lateral mobility.
The plate struck Asui's shoulder.
It wasn't a devastating impact. It was enough to unbalance someone at the point of maximum extension.
Asui crossed the line with the imbalance from the impact plus the momentum of her own tongue extension pulling in that direction.
Midnight raised her arm.
— Yaoyorozu Momo advances to the semifinals!
The stands responded.
Present Mic:
— YAOYOROZU MOMO FROM 1-A ELIMINATES ASUI TSUYU FROM 1-A WITH A STRATEGY THAT USED FOUR PREPARED OBJECTS AS A COORDINATED SYSTEM! THAT'S COMBAT PLANNING AT A LEVEL WE DIDN'T EXPECT TO SEE IN FIRST YEARS!
Aizawa, from the booth:
— She created them at the beginning of the fight without revealing how they would be used together. Each object had an individual function but also a system function. — A pause. — That requires thinking several moves ahead simultaneously.
— Is that something that can be taught?
Aizawa took a moment.
— The conceptual framework, yes. Execution under pressure… that's learned in the field.
Yaoyorozu stepped down from the ring.
Asui stepped down from the other side with her usual calm, the expression of someone who has processed the result and has no complaints because the result was clean.
In the waiting area, Yaoyorozu entered and looked for Mineta almost involuntarily, like someone who has a thought and looks toward the person that thought is connected to.
Mineta held her gaze.
Yaoyorozu didn't say anything immediately. She sat down. Let her breathing return to normal.
Then, in a voice low enough for it to be a conversation between the two of them:
— The four objects at the beginning. — A pause. — It wasn't fully planned. I started with the rod because it was the most neutral option available, and the other three came while I was observing how Asui moved.
Mineta processed that.
— The four as a system—was that premeditated or did it emerge during the fight?
Yaoyorozu thought about it honestly.
— It emerged. The rod first, without a clear plan. Then I saw Asui's movement and the other three organized themselves around what I needed them to do in sequence.
— That's different from what we talked about in class.
— Yes. — A brief pause. — The categories gave me the framework. But the framework wasn't the destination, it was the starting point.
Mineta looked at her for a second.
That's exactly correct. And she reached that conclusion without anyone telling her.
— Did it work as you expected?
— Better. — She didn't say it with pride. She said it with the honesty of someone recording a result that exceeded expectation and wanting to understand why. — The four-object system gave me options that reactive creation wouldn't have had available at the right moment.
— Because the options were already created.
— Because the options were already created — Yaoyorozu confirmed.
Silence for a moment.
From the ring, Midnight was announcing the fourth match of the second round.
— Todoroki Shoto versus Bakugo Katsuki!
The waiting area turned toward the ring almost collectively, with that attention of people who know what's about to happen is important for reasons beyond the tournament.
Mineta looked as well.
This determines who I face in the semifinals. And it also determines whether what happened between Todoroki and Midoriya in the Cavalry Battle has reached where it needs to reach.
Bakugo and Todoroki stepped onto the ring at the same time from opposite sides.
The stadium had that quality of thousands of people who had been waiting all day for exactly this without knowing it until it happened.
Present Mic, with that energy of his that peaked in the biggest moments:
— THE FIGHT NOBODY KNEW THEY WANTED UNTIL IT'S HERE! BAKUGO KATSUKI VERSUS TODOROKI SHOTO! TWO OF THE MOST POWERFUL FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN THE SAME RING!
Aizawa, with his usual calm that contrasted perfectly with Present Mic and that now had something additional, something more attentive than usual:
— Two completely different styles. Bakugo is pure offensive power with exceptional mobility. Todoroki is field-control versatility with two natures he now operates simultaneously. — A pause longer than the previous ones. — What we don't know yet is what level of integration Todoroki has today compared to any other day.
— Does that matter?
— It could be the difference.
The two students looked at each other from their positions.
Bakugo had his usual expression: not hostility exactly, but the concentration of someone for whom combat was the most natural state of existence and who had arrived exactly where he wanted to be.
Todoroki had his usual calm.
But Mineta, watching from the waiting area, noticed something in that calm that was different from the calm at the beginning of the day. It was more complete. Less contained. As if the calm surface and the interior were both calm instead of just the surface.
The fire, Mineta thought. Using it for hours has changed something. Not the quirk. Him.
Midnight raised her arm.
— Fourth match, second round! Bakugo Katsuki versus Todoroki Shoto! Begin!
Bakugo exploded forward.
Literally: the explosions in his palms launched him to the center of the ring before most spectators processed that the fight had started.
Todoroki responded with ice on the ground between them, building the ramp that would have stopped the advance of any opponent who depended on the ground for mobility.
Bakugo did not depend on the ground.
He veered in the air with a lateral explosion and reached Todoroki's flank from an angle the ice on the ground didn't cover.
Todoroki turned.
Fire appeared in his left hand.
Not as a shield. As propulsion: a column of fire that shot out horizontally, not toward Bakugo but perpendicular to his trajectory, creating a wall of heat that forced Bakugo to either deviate his trajectory or collide directly with it.
Bakugo chose to deviate.
The explosion in his left palm changed his angle of flight, and Bakugo crossed above the wall of fire with that speed of his that minimized exposure time to the heat.
Present Mic:
— BAKUGO CROSSES OVER TODOROKI'S FIRE! THIS FIGHT IS ALREADY THE BEST WE'VE SEEN TODAY!
Mineta watched in silence.
Bakugo can't ignore Todoroki's fire the way he can ignore the ice, he processed. The ice is on the ground and Bakugo doesn't need the ground. The fire projects horizontally and vertically and covers angles the ice doesn't.
That changes the problem for Bakugo. It's no longer simple evasion. It's navigation of a field being built in three dimensions.
The exchange continued at a scale that made Present Mic describe each movement with the speed of someone who knew what he was seeing wouldn't be repeated exactly like this ever again.
Bakugo attacked in explosive trajectories that changed direction multiple times before reaching contact range.
Todoroki responded with combinations of ice and fire that were no longer sequential but simultaneous: ice on the ground to lock down low angles, fire horizontally to cover mid angles, leaving only the upper vertical as a relatively free route.
Bakugo found the upper vertical.
And from above, with the momentum of a descending explosion, he reached contact range with Todoroki at an angle that neither aspect of Todoroki's quirk covered optimally.
Todoroki saw it coming.
What he did next was what Mineta had been waiting for without fully knowing it.
Instead of creating more ice or more fire, Todoroki absorbed the momentum with his own body, moving backward and laterally at the same time—not evading the impact but redistributing Bakugo's incoming force so that the impact occurred at an angle where he had greater stability.
It wasn't perfect. Bakugo had enough power for the impact to be real regardless of angle.
But Todoroki didn't cross the line.
And at the moment both were at the closest contact range of the fight, with Bakugo recovering position after the impact and Todoroki stabilizing, Todoroki extended both hands simultaneously.
Ice to the right.
Fire to the left.
Both natures at the same time, in opposite directions, with a coordination that hadn't existed at the beginning of the day and now existed with a clarity the stadium processed in silence for exactly one second before erupting.
Bakugo had to use two simultaneous explosions in opposite directions to avoid both elements.
Two simultaneous explosions in opposite directions at the speed required to make them in time.
It was possible. It was Bakugo.
But the energy cost was real and both of them knew it.
Todoroki is wearing him down, Mineta processed. Not through power. Through consumption. Every exchange that requires two simultaneous responses from Bakugo costs double. If Todoroki can maintain that pressure…
The fight reached minute four and the dynamic was clear to anyone watching closely: Bakugo was still more explosive in each individual exchange, but the accumulation of exchanges requiring multiple simultaneous responses was gradually reducing his margin of response speed.
Gradual wasn't immediate.
And Bakugo in a fight wasn't someone who waited for accumulation to catch up.
On the fifth exchange, Bakugo changed the pattern completely.
Instead of multiple changing trajectories, a single one. Direct. At maximum speed his propulsion could produce. No changes in direction.
It was predictable.
Todoroki knew it.
He prepared the response: massive ice on the ground in front of Bakugo, fire horizontally at mid height, both elements in the direct trajectory.
And Bakugo didn't evade either.
He crossed the ice fast enough that it didn't have time to trap his feet, and he went through the wall of fire with his resistance to heat, the result of years of using explosions that generated considerable heat of their own.
The impact came.
Todoroki absorbed it backward.
Toward the edge.
Which was one meter away.
Todoroki knew it. He had calculated the available space in the previous exchange and knew the edge was one meter behind him.
He created ice beneath his own feet.
Not to move. To anchor.
The ice under Todoroki's feet fixed him to the ground at the moment of Bakugo's impact, and that fixation converted the backward momentum into compression instead of movement.
Bakugo and Todoroki were in direct contact with Todoroki anchored to the ground.
Bakugo processed that.
And in that moment of direct contact, with both one meter from Todoroki's edge and Bakugo's attack momentum still active but without direction because Todoroki hadn't moved, Todoroki used the fire in his left hand straight upward.
Not toward Bakugo. Upward.
The immediate massive heat created an upward air current.
Bakugo, who was in physical contact with Todoroki and whose feet were not anchored, was affected by that current in a way Todoroki, with his feet in the ice, was not.
The upward force didn't launch Bakugo upward. But it created enough instability in the contact that Bakugo had to use an explosion to compensate.
The compensating explosion at that angle moved him laterally.
Laterally toward Bakugo's edge.
Which was two meters away.
Bakugo calculated it in the air and created the opposite explosion to compensate for the compensation.
The second edge was one and a half meters away.
There were too many force vectors active simultaneously and the margin of maneuver had shrunk enough that the next exchange occurred in the tightest space of the fight so far.
Todoroki broke the ice anchor and moved.
Bakugo landed.
The two looked at each other with less than a meter to the edge on both sides.
The stadium was completely silent.
Present Mic, in a noticeably quieter voice than usual, like someone who had concluded that volume would subtract rather than add:
— Both less than a meter from the edge. This fight will be decided on the next move.
Aizawa said nothing.
Bakugo acted first.
A small, controlled explosion toward the ground—not to attack Todoroki but to create a propulsion point that launched him forward over a short distance.
Todoroki responded with ice on the ground between them, building a quick barrier not to stop the momentum but to change the angle of approach.
The angle of approach changed.
Bakugo reached Todoroki's left flank instead of the front.
And on the left flank, Todoroki's left hand didn't have the correct angle for fire.
Bakugo's strike landed on Todoroki's left shoulder.
Todoroki lost balance to the right.
Toward the edge.
The ice Todoroki created at the last moment reached the ground too late to fully anchor him.
His right foot crossed the line.
Midnight raised her arm.
— Out of bounds! Bakugo Katsuki advances to the semifinals!
The stadium remained silent for two full seconds.
Then Present Mic, with a voice that now carried the weight of something that had happened and deserved to be named properly:
— Bakugo Katsuki wins. Todoroki Shoto loses. And both have just shown us that first-year UA has a level no one in this stadium had fully anticipated.
Aizawa, very quietly:
— Todoroki used both natures in an integrated way until the end. That didn't exist this morning when the Festival began. — A pause. — Bakugo won the match. Todoroki won something different.
From the waiting area, Mineta watched Todoroki step down from the ring.
Todoroki's expression wasn't one of defeat. It was that of someone who had reached a specific place after a specific journey and who knew exactly where he stood even if he didn't yet fully know where he was going from here.
His left hand was completely relaxed.
That, Mineta thought. That's what changed today.
Bakugo stepped down from the other side of the ring with his usual posture, without looking toward the waiting area, already thinking about what came next.
The stadium screens displayed the updated semifinal bracket:
SEMIFINALS
Match 1: Kirishima Eijiro vs Yaoyorozu Momo
Match 2: Mineta Minoru vs Bakugo Katsuki
Mineta read it.
Bakugo.
He had calculated it as a possibility, but seeing it confirmed on the screens carried a different weight than the abstract possibility.
Bakugo Katsuki. Omnidirectional explosions. Full aerial mobility. No dependence on the ground for movement. The type of fight where field control with spheres on the ground has the least possible effectiveness of all the opponents I could face.
If Todoroki had won, the ice-covered field would have created a new variable. Ice adheres spheres differently than smooth ground. There would have been angles.
Bakugo doesn't need the ground. What happens on the ground is irrelevant to someone who can move entirely in the air.
What works against someone who doesn't need the ground?
Mineta looked at the empty ring.
To his left, Yaoyorozu was also looking at the screens. Her eyes shifted toward Mineta when she read the semifinal bracket.
She didn't say anything.
Neither did Mineta.
But the nod they exchanged carried the weight of two people who had been in the same space for weeks and who knew, without needing to say it, that what was coming was different from everything that had come before.
From somewhere in the waiting area, Kaminari's voice:
— Hey. Mineta versus Bakugo.
Silence.
— Does anyone else need a moment?
No one answered that.
But no one contradicted it either.
End of Episode 37.