The next match of the tournament went exactly as everyone expected, with the second year student facing off against Shuko and doing what he could to show off his quirk before being swiftly defeated. Even Present Mic had a hard time getting the audience excited for the battle, but it couldn't be helped.

"So, Tyra against this Shuko guy, wonder who'll win" Onaka said.

"I'm not sure, normally I'd say Shuko, but who knows what other crazy plants Tyra is going to break out today" Serena said "still, even if she does go all out, I don't think it'll be an easy win."

"Well she made a big gamble tossing her name out there like she did, if she loses now that'll really mess up what she said her plan was. With the whole showing how strong she is thing" Mako said, she was back to reading her book now, having decided to not pay attention to the fight and simply wait for the final round. "I imagine she must have a plan, she's seen his quirk in action a few times and knows how strong it is, and roughly how it functions." She added

"True, but that doesn't mean it'll work" Ayane said "I should know."

Everyone winced slightly at that remark, but Ayane seemed to be in good spirits about it, and so nobody said anything.

Ayane looked around at the class, she could see there was still a visible divide between them over their prior argument, and she'd hoped her little joke at her own expense would help ease the tensions a bit, which it seemed to a bit, but not by much. She sighed "this is going to take some time to fix" she thought to herself as she refocused on the arena.

Ayane wasn't the only one aware of lingering tensions in the class, Seiya was shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She'd been one of the ones most unhappy about having had to take a side, even though she had been among the first to do so. Now the conflict had ended, but there was still a strange separation between her and those who'd been on the other side. She had no idea on how to close the gap however.

Other members of the class had varying levels of awareness of the issue, but none of them seemed willing to address it at the time. Instead they were all focused on the coming battle.

Tyra was the first one to be called out into the arena, there was very little cheering for her, but thankfully Shuko's prior admonishment had also stopped their jeering and abuse, leaving a decidedly neutral response to her arrival.

"Well it's a step up from physically assaulting her with projectiles" Serena muttered

"Not everyone else has the benefit of the Headmaster telling them the circumstances of Tyra's birth." Mako said "it makes sense that a lot of them don't trust her."

Serena shot Mako a glare but was met with an unflinching gaze in return. "Hey Shin said it himself" Mako said "it was a reasonable reaction. I was wrong, and I'm glad to be wrong, but I won't apologize for my conclusion."

"Alright you two let's not start again" Ayane said "Mako's right here, most people are going to have the thought process she did and be extremely wary of Tyra."

"Ugh, I know you're right, but I don't like it." Serena grumbled

"Just deal with it for now, they'll warm up to Tyra over time as she proves herself as a hero." Ayane said

Shuko's entrance to the field was met with universal applause from the audience as he took his place in the arena. He placed his hands together and bowed slightly to Tyra, a gesture of respect for the contestant who had made it to the finals to face him.

Tyra frowned and grabbed a handful of her seeds, preparing for battle "don't hold back, beating you won't mean anything if you throw the match" she said

"I'm aware" Shuko said "besides, I've been observing your performance so far, I'm actually looking forward to this battle. I think you may prove to be a challenging opponent. I'm not usually a fan of fighting… but I won't deny that getting to spread my wings a bit and use my full strength is a rare experience."

"Tch… cocky bastard" Tyra muttered "but I guess you have the right to be when you get as strong as you are."

With that, the battle began, and Tyra inserted an entire fistful of seeds into her chest without hesitation, while Shuko pressed his hands together forming a sphere of aura around himself. Shuko's stance changed as he slid a foot forward and he made his hands into knife hands, holding one out in front of him and raising the other as if about to perform a karate chop.

Shuko's aura sphere turned to orange and shrunk slightly, then over a dozen spear-like streams of energy shot out from it, arcing towards Tyra at blinding speed. Their speed was on a level beyond anything he'd displayed previously, closing the gap between them in an instant.

Tyra's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden assault and twisted her body to the side, avoiding the worst of the attack, but several of the streams still grazed her sides, piercing through effortlessly and drawing blood in several locations. The streams began to retract slightly, rearing up for another strike, but Tyra wasn't staying still and waiting for them to come, instead running towards Shuko.

Shuko was a bit taken aback by Tyra's sudden charge, having pegged her for a long range fighter like himself, but he recovered quickly, his streams retracting back towards his sphere to reset and fire again. Tyra smiled as her ploy to buy a few seconds worked, and bark armor began growing across her skin, vines erupted from her chest, but rather than lashing out at Shuko, they began wrapping around Tyra's body while she charged. These vines were thicker and bulkier than her usual vines she used for capturing targets. They wrapped themselves around her arms, legs, and torso, forming a suit of vines around herself and increasing her size to be comparable with giants like Tanzo.

Tyra dove to the side just in time to evade another assault from Shuko, rolling to her feet as wood began growing in around her vines, forming a skeletal structure and refining her bulk, then growing an additional layer of bark armor as a new skin. Her transformation completed, she finished closing in on Shuko and threw a punch with her enlarged wooden fist.

Much to everyone's surprise, Shuko, abandoned his combat stance, letting his aura sphere fade as he backflipped away from the strike as it smashed into the ground where he had just been, following that with several hops backwards to regain some distance. As soon as he'd regained some distance he set up again, crossing his arms in front of him and forming a sphere of blue aura.

"He's just let his aura block everything before, but he didn't even try to stop that attack with it" Tyra mused as she braced herself for the impact of the four blue arms Shuko sent at her moments later. They were much slower now, but so was she due to her increased bulk. The arms crashed into her and began driving her back in spite of her best efforts to plant her feet and push back. Inside her vine suit, Tyra planted another group of seeds, the first to sprout merged with the suit, modifying it to have wooden spikes on its feet, allowing her to dig into the ground and stop her backwards momentum. The rest were taking longer to grow.

With a grunt Tyra threw aside two of the arms pushing her back, and with their force gone managed to overpower the other two, charging in and slamming her fist into Shuko's sphere, but this time he allowed it to block her attack, and while the energy wavered, it did not break.

"There's only one explanation, those stances he takes, and the shifts in color of the energy, they correspond to different specialties" Tyra mused as she threw another punch. This one managed to drive Shuko's sphere back a few inches, but the arms were on her again, punching her from either side and from behind. With only two arms she was only able to block the strikes from the sides, and the strikes from behind made her suit's knees buckle and bend, driving her to her knees as the arms retracted, then shot out for a four-fisted slam into her chest, knocking her over. "That orange form must have very weak defense, but high speed and power" Tyra thought as she began to get back to her feet, she placed a hand on the ground as she got to one knee, and deployed a seed into the ground in secret, the seed quickly burrowed underground before she removed her hand to stand up

In the time it had taken to get back to her feet, Shuko had shifted back to the orange striking stance, this time shooting out over twenty streams of energy. Tyra was too large and slow to try and dodge now, so she simply held her arms across her chest to try and guard, but the suit's bark armor and bulk did nothing to stop the attacks as they shredded through it, shredding the suit to ribbons in an instant.

"Tsk, hoped that would last me longer" Tyra muttered as she jumped out of her crumbling suit of vines and wood and landed a short distance away, landing on one knee and secretly planting two more seeds, one of which grew immediately, creating a tall beanstalk and hurling Tyra into the air above Shuko.

Shuko wasted no time sending his streams of energy up at Tyra, aiming to strike her while she was stuck in mid air and unable to dodge. But Tyra had anticipated the attack and held out her palm. As the streams of energy shot up at her, a torrent of spear-like roots erupted from her hand to meet them. There were dozens of roots shooting down, and while each stream cut through one or two roots before being overwhelmed, the attack crashed down into the ground around Shuko, narrowly missing the boy's sphere.

Tyra broke off the origin point of the roots from her hand and slid down the makeshift cone of roots to return to the ground while Shuko used his aura to tear through the roots around him to free himself from the tangled mess. While he was preoccupied Tyra landed on the ground and knelt down, planting another seed, then ran to the side and planted another.

"that makes four… I probably need at least five to do this…" Tyra thought as the root cage collapsed around Shuko and his energy streams shot at her. She reacted quickly, planting a few seeds into her arm and shooting out thorny vines to meet the streams, she had noticed that the streams were mostly effective at piercing attacks when Shuko sent them out in waves, and while he could use them for slashing attacks, like he'd used to break her root cage just before, he couldn't send out as many. Using this knowledge, she had her vines strike the sides of each stream of energy to knock it aside. Some slipped through regardless, but her bark armor mitigated the damage from the grazing hits they delivered.

Tyra held off the attack for a moment longer, then shot out three more vines, one was aimed directly at Shuko, with a sharp thorn at the tip to try and pierce his defense, but it lacked the power to pierce far. The other two missed him and struck the ground near him, but they had missed intentionally, instead carrying two more seeds and burying them in the ground. Her distraction from her defense cost her, with two streams of energy piercing one of her arms and her shoulder, but she gritted her teeth and endured it as she backed away towards the edge of the arena and planted a final seed in the ground.

Shuko looked at the points the missed vines had struck suspiciously, something wasn't adding up with Tyra's fighting style, she was moving around far more than she had in previous fights and attacking much more aggressively, instead of focusing on a defensive style like she had. Was it just because his strike stance was too quick? But that couldn't be it, she had enacted this strategy from the moment they started, before he'd even revealed his strike stance. She had to be plotting something, but what?

Shuko shot out his streams once again, but they arrived a moment too late; as large petals rose from the ground around Tyra and formed a flower bud around her, just like they had in her battle with Serena. The streams of energy struck her defense and embedded themselves into the plant, but stopped short, unable to push all the way through.

"This won't buy me much time" Tyra said as she clasped her hands together and knelt, focusing on the seeds she'd planted in the ground "but it'll be enough… just need to hurry."

Shuko tried once more to pierce the bud with his strike stance by condensing his streams into two much larger streams, but found that the larger attack was less effective, as the bud had a structure designed to disperse force, the larger surface area of the attack made it easier to resist its force. "Very well then, I shall just open it up" he said as he shifted stances, his hands forming claws and hanging at his sides as his aura condensed around them and became yellow. Four claws of energy shot out, and three of them dug their claws into the top of the bud where the petals met. Shuko grunted as the fourth claw stood on standby and the first three began to pull on the petals, slowly forcing them to open.

Tyra was still linked to the bud and controlling it directly, so she resisted the attempt to open it as best she could, closing her eyes and focusing entirely on preparing her finishing move and resisting his efforts, making each inch Shuko tore it open a difficult fight. Any time Shuko's concentration wavered even slightly, she'd regain a few inches, but slowly she was still losing ground.

Just as Shuko finished opening the bud however, and the fourth claw began to move to grab Tyra herself, she opened her eyes and smiled. "Just in time, let's see your aura stop this!" she shouted as she slammed her hand into the ground.

Shuko instantly sensed 6 large clusters of life energy emerging around him and shifted stances instantly, returning to his guard stance and recalling all four claws to form the blue sphere around himself. He didn't know what was coming, but he wasn't about to take a chance.

The ground of the stadium rumbled as massive sprouts of wood began erupting around Shuko and growing in a spiral around his sphere of aura. The arena began to rip apart as the wood continued growing, each sprout twisting around each other as they rose into the sky, massive roots embedded themselves in the ground, some of them bigger than Tyra herself.

The sprouts grew and grew, rising higher and higher, until they blossomed outwards, shooting out thousands of branches in the shape of a giant mushroom top, they spread out for a time, then slowly stopped. Leaves began sprouting from the branches, filling the canopy with green and completing the growth of the plant. The rumbling of the ground slowly settled as the roots found their place and the move was completed.

Tyra fell forward, landing on hands and knees and gasping for breath, her wounds dripping with blood and her whole body sweating sap. Before her now was a giant tree as tall as the stadium itself, thick enough to completely encase Shuko and his aura sphere somewhere in its depths and not even need to bulge outwards.

Everyone stared in awe at the sheer size of the tree Tyra had created to trap Shuko, and as moments passed, he didn't break out, there was no sign of a struggle from within the tree, indicating he was either unable to break free, or whatever he was attempting to do wasn't getting anywhere.

"Ha… I did it… take that Mom…" Tyra said as Midnight began the count to declare a victory by immobilization. The seconds passed, but at the last second a brilliant golden light shone through the intertwined roots of the tree, eliciting a gasp from the audience. Tyra's face paled as twelve fully formed arms of radiant golden energy erupted from the tree, digging a hole in the trunk for a huge golden sphere to slowly float out and fall slowly towards the ground, eventually hovering slightly above the ground. Shuko sat in the sphere, his legs crossed, his hands pressed together, and his eyes closed in focus. He looked like a praying monk, and with the golden aura and arms around him, there was only one image it could inspire

"He's… the Buddha?" Tyra said in shock. Before she could fully process what she was witnessing, one of the arms shot down and grabbed her, its massive hand wrapping around her body like a child might pick up a small doll. It wasted no time picking her up and nearly hurling her out of the arena, only barely managing to avoid damaging her as it placed her on the ground out of bounds.

As soon as Tyra was out of bounds the golden energy abruptly burst apart and Shuko dropped to the ground, breathing heavily and clearly worn out. Midnight looked to confirm Tyra was out of bounds, then raised her hand and declared the winner. The crowds burst into cheering, some even forgetting their distrust of Tyra as well and cheering for her display of power as well.

"You're… incredible Tyra" Shuko panted "you're the first person I've faced at this school to force me to use my Buddha stance. It's my ultimate trump card, the only other time I've used it was fighting a villain during an internship"

"Not incredible enough, I lost, my plan failed" Tyra snapped, punching the ground in frustration "now the whole point of revealing my name was wasted."

Before Shuko could respond there was a deafening CRACK that reverberated through the stadium as the top half of the tree Shuko had bored his way out of began to snap and fall towards the stands and the helpless audience members sitting there. People began to scream as the tons of wood and leaves began to fall towards them, scrambling to escape in a blind panic.

"NO!" Tyra yelled as she ran towards the falling tree, planting two fistfuls of seeds into herself. She screamed in agony as countless wooden roots erupted from her body, surging in a wave to intercept the tree. The wood crashed into the falling tree and began shattering as the momentum slowed, intensifying Tyra's agony as she felt each and every root snap as if it were her very bones. She didn't let up however, sending root after root to try and intercept the tree, but while she was slowing it down, she couldn't get enough supports in place to stop it before they broke.

"I… I can't stop it!" Tyra thought in a panic, she grew new roots as fast as she could, her outfit ripping to shreds as roots exploded out from every inch of her to try and stop the tree. One final wave of wood crashed into the falling tree, and finally, it slowed to a stop. Tyra's adrenaline rush faded as soon as she saw the tree stop moving, and swiftly blacked out from the pain

People in the stands who hadn't been able to run away stared up at their narrowly escaped doom, and at the impressive wall of wood that has been created to stop it. People elsewhere in the audience stared at Tyra, engulfed in roots with only her head still visible, blood dripping from the wood around her as her head hung limply, having lost consciousness from the effort of saving everyone.

Slowly everyone's attention was shifted to a new arrival on the scene as Shin walked into the stadium and raised his hand. With a loud groan and creaking of wood, the fallen half of the tree levitated off the wooden wall holding it, then gently floated to the ground inside the stadium, being deposited safely before Shin released it and turned his attention to breaking the roots engulfing Tyra with his telekinesis.

"EVERYONE, look closely!" Shin's voice boomed, he used no microphone, but his words shook the stadium with their volume and clarity. "Look closely at this girl here, who drove herself to this state to protect you. Bleeding, screaming in the pain of pushing her quirk far beyond her limits, fighting with every fiber of her being to save complete strangers who not hours ago were hurling abuse and physical attacks on her."
The crowd was silent, staring at Tyra as Shin extracted a rough mess of broken roots from the wall, leaving enough of the roots in her body to cover her nudity until she could be treated in private.

"Answer me this! Will you look at this display of pure selfless heroism and still condemn her for a name she had no choice in being born with?" Shin shouted "will you look at her and spit in the face of a girl who was willing to sacrifice her dignity, go through unbearable pain, and push herself to the point of collapse to save you?"

"Tyra here is a true hero, and I am proud to have her at my school" Shin finished "you would all do well to remember that moving forward."

Shin then brought Tyra to a stretcher and laid her down gently, escorting her off to the infirmary and leaving the audience to their thoughts.

"That's weird…" Ayane said as she stared at the still standing half of the tree.

"What is?" Serena asked

"The stump, analyzing the breakage, it doesn't seem like the tree fell because it collapsed under its own weight after being damaged…" Ayane said "it's more like it was… pushed…"

"But who could've pushed it without anyone noticing? You'd need to be psy… no… he didn't" Serena said, face paling in horror

"I think he might've" Ayane said "talk about a reckless plan…"

"Huh? Who did what now?" Onaka asked

"The headmaster" Serena said "he psychically pushed the tree to fall knowing Tyra would try and stop it, then intervened at the last moment and gave a speech praising her heroism to boost her public image."

"What? No way" Onaka said "that plan is nuts!"

"There's also the fact it stopped, based on the size of Tyra's wave of roots, and the weight of the tree, it shouldn't have…" Ayane said "I think he stopped it himself and just made it look like Tyra did it"

"But to pull that off he'd have to be able to stop tons of falling tree all in an instant, and what if Tyra did nothing?" Mako said

"Shin is widely regarded as one of the smartest, if not THE smartest, men in the world. And his quirk is undeniably the strongest psychic type quirk ever recorded" Serena mused aloud "it's well within his power."

"So he played everyone for fools to salvage Tyra's image… I don't know whether to be grateful he helped our classmate or angry he endangered so many people to do it" Mako muttered "but I guess even if Tyra hadn't done what he planned he would've just stepped in anyway."

"It doesn't sit right with me" Tanzo said, crossing his arms "but I agree that even if Tyra had not played along with his plan, he could've handled it himself. So there was no risk of anyone actually being hurt."

"My my, you all are quite clever" Shin said, making everyone jump in surprise, once again nobody had seen or heard him arrive, yet there he was, standing behind them all.

"Gah! How are you DOING that?" Serena snapped, visibly displeased by being snuck up on multiple times. Her old street instincts nearly making her panic.

"That's a trade secret" Shin chuckled "but I couldn't help but overhear your speculations as I came to inform you all that Tyra was in the infirmary and is expected to make a full recovery after a good night's rest."

"That's a relief" Ayane said, "so… did you make the tree fall on purpose?"

"I did" Shin admitted. "See I knew from the outset that Shuko would win this tournament, that boy is on a level many pro-heroes never achieve and his education here is closer to a formality than any sort of necessity… but it was within Tyra's rights to announce her identity if she so desired. So I made contingency plans to try and ensure Tyra would have ready access to internships and a fair shot at a hero career when her plan inevitably backfired."

"Did you plan for her to grow that thing? How?" Ayane asked

"Oh no that tree was a magnificent surprise, not even I could've predicted something like that" Shin chuckled "no my other plans were all far less… shall we say… dramatic. But the moment I saw that tree I knew exactly how to save her career. It's not perfect, as I'm sure many news networks will spin this in a negative light, saying things like the tree was her creation to begin with and she endangered everyone."

"I was thinking that might happen" Kaya commented "it's easy to paint someone as a villain and get a lot of attention, I'm sure many companies would love to cash in on that."

"But this was also broadcast live to millions of people in Japan, and even more worldwide" Shin said, "many will see her act of heroism for what it was, and many news networks will report it as such. There will still be those out there who will hate and abuse her, but there will be many out there who will be swayed by this."

"Were you at all worried the tree might actually hurt people though? Or what if Tyra didn't act to stop it and froze up?" Mako asked

"I've been one of the people in charge of observing and raising Tyra for many years" Shin said "with my psychic abilities and intellect being integral in psychoanalyzing her for ulterior motives and the like. I know her almost better than she knows herself. I had no fear that she would fail to meet my expectations. As for the risk of people getting hurt…"

Shin chuckled a bit and adjusted his glasses as he smiled at the class "do you really think the former rank 3 hero and headmaster of the most prestigious hero academy in the nation could be bested by a little twig like that? Rest assured, nobody was ever in any real danger, didn't you notice the distinct lack of concern from the pro-heroes in the crowd?"

The last question hit the class all at once with a sudden realization that despite all the screaming and panic from the civilians in the stands, not a single pro-hero had used their quirks to intervene. There were probably hundreds of heroes out in the stands, odds are some of them had to have had quirks suited to the task, but none of them had bothered stepping in.

"It is well known in the hero world that this school's campus and facilities are my dominion, nothing happens here that I cannot handle." Shin said

Serena immediately thought back to the entrance exams, with the two orphans who'd gotten caught up in it, had those two been part of one of Shin's plans? She looked to Shin and met his gaze, but got the sense that he knew what she was thinking about as he subtly shook his head. A telepathic message came to her a moment later "that situation has been investigated, it came down to human error from the security team that night, and there were no active cameras in that area until the test started."

Serena nodded, she could accept that, but it still did indicate that Shin's boast of being in complete control of everything at all times was slightly exaggerated. He was still human, and had humans working under him, and humans made mistakes.

"Well anyhow, I have an award ceremony to officiate. Serena, after review between your performance and the other candidate for third place, it was determined the award would go to you" Shin said "you may choose to insist on a proper match for it, but your would-be opponent has agreed to stand down already."

"O-oh… really? I'm honored then" Serena said "I'll report to the waiting room shortly…"

Shin nodded, then gave a slight bow of respect to the rest of the class "as for the rest of you, please enjoy the remaining festivities, and best of luck to all of you moving forward. And remember, the doors to my office are always open if you need anything." He said, then left.

Serena followed suit, waving to her classmates before leaving their seating area to head to the waiting rooms for the award ceremony. She turned into the hallway, but to her surprise Shin was no longer there. She'd expected to follow him to the room, but he was nowhere to be seen in either direction. It was as if he'd vanished into thin air in an instant.

"That guy really creeps me the hell out" Serena shuddered "one of these days I gotta figure out how he keeps doing that."

With that in mind, Serena began her trek downstairs to find the appropriate waiting room.