Every viewer was in shock, of course, they were! It was unfathomable how either of them could go on much less with the speed they were fighting at. Bakougo even seemed to have gotten faster than before and managed to land quite a few hits on Nanami, who on the other hand, had definitely slowed down and one of her hand was out of service but still, she managed to not only take Bakougo's hits but managed to counter with her own attacks! Even though, when boiled down to its essential factors, it was just a barehanded brawl, 'handed' being used loosely, the viewers were in awe of how both these students could keep going on. Sure some 'critics' believed that pushing themselves to the point where their body became so damaged was stupid, indeed it was! At the end of the day, it was just a sports festival of their first year at UA, they didn't need to push so hard. However, both Nanami and Bakougo thought otherwise!
"Oi Eraser Head, I thought it was just your class who had such kids, looks like it's this year's 1st years as a whole! What's with their insane pain tolerance?"
"Their pain tolerance is on par, if not higher than that of an average pro… Not just that, they seem to be going strong for all the damage they have sustained.", added Shota Aizawa, a teacher who was notorious for kicking out a complete class of 1st years, was now praising the upcoming heroes of the future! However, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that both the fighters were unaware of the world around them as they landed their sluggish punches and kick with all they had!
The students in the audience watched this match with great anticipation. Some of them were sure, Nanami had blacked out when she fired off an explosion, but they may never know that they were indeed correct. But knowing that would make the fact, that she woke up, even scarier!
"She is pushing herself too hard, she could permanently hurt herself!"
"Same could be said about him. Sure, his hands are fine but those were not ordinary punches that he had tanked, she cracked the other guy's hardening with her bare hands!"
"Quite self-destructive but it's not just a few interesting students in this batch, this year's draft will be insane!"
"Hey, I think you said that before!"
"I don't think so." He had said the exact thing after Todoroki's match against Midoriya.
Given the damage they had landed on each other, a normal person would believe that it could be anyone's match, but it was certainly in Bakougo's favour. Not only was Nanami unable to use her hands, thus her quirkless battle advantage was almost negated, but she could barely hold onto Bakougo's explosion. Once, Bakougo got back his quirk it'd be just a matter of a single hit. Nanami knew that her options were limited.
"I'm out of ideas any help would be appreciated!", she hoped to find inspiration from Tetsuya 2.0. She knew that Tetsuya was smart and a good long-term planner, but her battle IQ was easily better than his so hoping for any help from 2.0, was her way of admitting to herself that she was out of options.
"If you lose your ability to temporarily disable his quirk and he figures it out, he'll have the advantage…"
"I know, tell me what to do!", Nanami wasn't relying on an answer, especially a useless one like the one she got.
"I am not talking about the physical aspect, you have more than enough abilities to counter that…"
"… We are talking about the psychological aspect", said another voice in her head!
"Slow down, who is the other guy, Tetsuya 2.0?"
"You mean the other two…", Tetsuya 2.0 replied
"2? What? Wait are you guys from back in there."
"Yes", both of them replied. Since Nanami was distracted, Bakougo landed a good hit that he shouldn't have been able to land thus pushing her back.
"Um never mind the details, what were you talking about?"
"Yeah so, Bakougo can be really scary if he thinks he can win!"
"So, this has to be Monoma. I am pretty sure Kendo isn't scared of Bakougo! Haha, I can use it against him, this is brilliant!"
"Dodge", this wasn't Monoma 2.0 or Tetsuya 2.0. "Listen to him, the match is more important!"
"All right, my bad so Monoma 2.0, go ahead!", Nanami was now being pushed to her physical limits, she couldn't contain Bakougo's quirk for much longer.
"Be flashy, do your best to crush his confidence! If he gets back due to your inability to contain it, he has the mental upper hand, show everyone that you don't need it and show him that a 1-B student is better than him!", this was most certainly Monoma 2.0!
"What do I do after that, are you sure you aren't talking with your hate boner?", there was a reason everyone in the class didn't take Monoma's advice for everything, Nanami was fairly justified in taking precautions.
"After doing that, you have to…", this voice was a lot more reliable and friendly and sounded like that of a good leader, it had to be Kendo's or at least of a copy of her.
"Here goes nothing", Nanami thought as she evaded Bakougo's attack and countered with a strong kick to push him back!
"I DON'T NEED YOUR QUIRK TO BEAT YOU!", Nanami shouted at Bakougo as she lifted her right hand, still trembling from the pain and burning sensation and snapped it! Just as soon as Bakougo could use his quirk again he flew towards Nanami with the intent to knock her out and finish the match! But she started running towards him faster than he was approaching her. Just at that time, Iida noticed that his engines were not visible to him! With both her hands lagging behind her speeding bodies like dead weight, no one, other than Iida who got his engines back, noticed Nanami snapping her fingers once again as she was just about to clash with Bakougo. Just before impact Nanami slid below the flying Bakougo and pivoted on her feet to see him flying off outside the arena!
"I won't fall for your tricks!", Bakougo shouted as he turned back towards Nanami using an explosion from his right hand and he was en route to land an explosion using his left hand.
"I know", Nanami replied as her right side started to get covered in ice! Before Bakougo's brain could register what had happened a huge fist of ice materialised on the arena and sent Bakougo flying out of the stadium!
As Bakougo was falling out of the stadium, Nanami unfroze herself using her left side and watched the big display with everyone as Bakougo fell towards his loss. Nanami was mostly afraid that the fall could have been lethal for her opponent, as moderation was a part of being a hero! But moments before Bakougo touched the ground, a large amount of ground got ploughed out. Most people thought that it was due to the impact of Bakougo falling, but a lot of pros noticed the minor time difference. However, this didn't remain a secret for the eyes of the skilled as Bakougo came flying back with the help from his explosion from the same route he went out from!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA", Tetsuya 2.0 and Monoma 2.0 were scared throughout but they absolutely lost all hope as they saw Bakougo flying back up. His tenacity was scary but experiencing it first-hand was just insane! However, the smirk on Nanami showed that she didn't feel that way. This guy was giving it his all and if she won against him, that'd be a true victory, a victory worth celebrating!
"I know what you are feeling but we to hit him midair to minimize damage if we let him hit the ground, we might even die!", Kendo 2.0 was the voice of moderation between utter horror and unearned confidence! Yes, a fear of dying at that point was the middle ground! Nanami couldn't fly with the current state of her hands and she didn't have time to make a solid air staircase to go up to Bakougo.
"All right let's get a grip here…", Monoma 2.0 said as he started to think about coming out on top.
"That's rich coming from you!"
"Conserve your breath and turn into that Engine quirk.", Monoma 2.0 sounded confident and honestly, Nanami didn't have any better ideas! As she snapped her finger, she could feel his skin falling off from her hand ever so slowly, but the adrenaline neutralised most of the pain. Nanami ran up to the of the ice fist she created and started speeding up towards Bakougo. When she was mid-air, she tried using Reciproburst for this final kick.
But Bakougo kept evolving in this fight; at first, he fell victim to a gimmick and then he saw through one, only to be hit by a second wave. In these final moments of consciousness that he had left, he was the one who decided to spice it up, with scary precision even with his blurry vision, he used his explosion, once again, to turn when least expected. This time he ended up moving in the direction of Nanami's oncoming kick, once behind her he launched an explosion on her unguarded right side.
But even Nanami severely underestimated the speed of Reciproburst! Despite completely having no idea that Bakouogo would pull off something like this, with her immense speed she managed to land the kick albeit not at the desired angle and sent Bakougo headfirst into the ice fist as she flew off towards audience after being hit by Bakougo's explosion.
Thankfully for the audience, Endeavor was in their stand and he could easily catch Nanami before she landed on the head of an unlucky viewer. Nanami, however, lost control of her body as she was flying off and lifted her charred hand which had been burnt once again and snapped it. She took a deep breath and made a solid air wall angled such that, once she hit it, she went towards the ground instead of the audience. Bakougo, due to being slowed down by the ice fist, hit the floor at the same time as Nanami, who redirected herself to hit the ground.
But one of them was inside the arena and the other wasn't. This wasn't dramatically revealed after the dust settled, everyone could clearly see it happen and after such an intense fight, everyone expected both fighters to be out cold. However, Nanami had something else to say about that! She wasn't out, her vision was blurry, and the pain was unbearable but somehow, she got up, the same could not be said about Bakougo. As Nanami got up she started walking towards Midnight.
"I didn't… have full… control of that… last kick… I think I… broke his ribs… take him to Recovery Girl… before it gets into his… lung or some… thing. I am… fine for… now", Nanami told Midnight as she started dragging herself towards her shoes on the other side of the arena. Soon before she collapsed. "I am… fine, just… too tired to get… up…"