Trigger Warnings:

- slight blood

We return to the stadium just seconds before the next match.

Tokoyami beats Ashido.

Bakugou defeats Kirishima.

This means that for Round Three, I'll be facing Hanada-chan.

In fact, ours will be the first battle.

It's time to make good on our declaration of war.

I'm about to tell her as such, but she excuses herself. "Wait! Where are you going?" I call after her.

"To bargain for more milk. My thermos is empty," she responds.

I give her the Are-you-being-serious? look, and ask her, "Tell me something, Hanada-chan? Is drinking milk a requirement for your quirk?"

"Well, no. Not in that sense. It's just, I become quite hungry when I have to use my quirk for a prolonged amount of time. It's not related to my arthritis in any way."

"You're a glutton, you know that?" She grins sheepishly, and I sigh, "Even I love food, but not to that extent. But I'll come with. After all, you don't want to be robbed by that elderly lunch lady again, do you?"

She shakes her head vigorously as if the idea frightens her, much to my amusement.

We part ways when it's time to begin. I enter the arena from one gate and she from the other, unsurprisingly with her thermos. As Present Mic-sensei gives his very biased introduction, I contemplate.

Hanada-chan plays her game more subtly. Like a seemingly asleep snake, she lets her opponent drop their guard before striking. And when she strikes, all she needs is one shot. That one shot is conspicuous and flamboyant. Her opponent doesn't even realize what has happened until moments later.

In her last two matches, she wooed the crowd with her striking blow. First with roses, then with a rainbow. She's creative, so I wonder what she'll come up this time when she wins. If she wins.

How can I beat her at her own game?

Midnight-sensei announces for the battle to begin.

I blast my ice in her direction to trap her. It doesn't work. She levitates herself above the ice and settles on top of it, giving me the I-know-you-can-do-better-than-this smirk. And she's right. I'm not giving it my all, and I don't just mean my left side. This move has become too predictable. Against someone whose quirk is an arsenal of quirks, it's a terrible move. With a few finger traces on her hips, she counteracts my ice with blue flames. All the ice melts into water, which she promptly vanishes.

Right. That's the real threat. Most people use their quirks with visible hand movements. They become predictable when you study those movements and their results long enough. That is not the case with Hanada-chan. If you're not looking closely, you won't be able to tell when she's using her quirk. And even then, it's impossible to discern what hand motion does what. She's unpredictable, even after all this time.

I could win this match by taking advantage of her disability, but that's low, and I won't stoop that far. I promised to play fairly and treat her as an equal, and that is exactly how I will spar.

When she doesn't launch an offense, I do. I summon a ring of ice around her, confining her. Then the ice towers domes over her. But when it reaches its peak, another set of searing blue flames melt it. I know she doesn't mean to, but the sight of the fire stings like salt rubbed into a wound. After all, fire is the subject of most of my arguments with Endeavor. I ignore the pain.

As difficult as she is making this match for me, I'm making it hard for her, too. But by the small smirk on her lips and hunger for chaos in her eyes, she's enjoying this. She likes that she is having an actual competition.

I find myself returning the smirk. I'm enjoying this sparring, too.

This sword fight of abilities continues: a lunge, a deflection, a retreat, and an advance. I initiate the offense each time, and she defends each time.

However, she takes the offense this time by unleashing a barrage of tree roots at me, which I entrap into blocks of ice. I raise the pressure and drop the temperature so much that the roots crack and shatter into splinters. But she's cleverer than that. Because while I'm defending against one attack, another comes behind me. A wave of water rises behind me to crash over my head and send me stumbling forward.

Unlike her last match, this water flows in all directions, spreading beyond the concrete into the surrounding grass. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm sopping wet. A strange smell comes from the water, so I taste the water coating my lips. Saltwater. Freaking saltwater.

"Really?" I call out to her.

"The salt would hinder your ability to produce ice because salt melts ice," she responds.

"Genius, Hanada-chan. But I've trained better than to succumb to salt." With that, a storm of massive hail rains down, slowly approaching her. Just chunks of compact ice hurling a few meters from above.

I intend to push her out of bounds, and I do, but not in the way I expect. She raises her hands to block the onslaught and melt them, and she unknowingly walks backward toward the white line. I walk forward, careful to keep the hail from touching her, but I lose my balance when I trip over the wood splinters. The storm goes out of control and the chunks fall onto her.

"NO!" I shout. The storm dissipates as I get up and rush to her. She has fallen to her knees just beyond the line, but she's clutching her nose with a blue handkerchief. I drop to my knees in front of her. "Hanada-chan," I whisper, afraid. To my horror, a dark splotch blooms on the handkerchief. "Oh my God, your nose is bleeding! I'm so sorry!"

With both her hands busy with controlling the flow, I grasp her arms and pull her up. Distantly, Midnight-sensei declares that I qualified for the next match, but all of my attention is on her. Med-robots arrive with a gurney, but I shove past them, determined to take her to Recovery Girl myself. When we're away from the public's eye, I wrap one arm around her waist and the other under her knees and lift her. Her cane and thermos rest on top of her. Through her handkerchief, she muffles, "I can walk! Please put me down!"

To which I counter, "Nonsense! This is an emergency!"

"It's just a nosebleed. It'll stop soon. Please-"

"Hanada-chan, just be quiet!"

She winces and promptly shuts up. I feel guilty for shouting at her like that, so I remain quiet, too. When we reach the infirmary, I set her down on a bed and set her cane beside it. When Recovery Girl comes, she orders her to remove the handkerchief. I see the damage I've inflicted: split lips, bruised cheeks, scratched forehead, and a battered nose. Not too long ago, she was comforting me with her words and touch. And this is how I repay her. This is how I treat her. So much for a declaration of war. I just hurt my best friend, and I feel disgusted with myself.

I watch each wound disappear as Recovery Girl uses her quirk on Hanada-chan. Even her nose is healed and not bleeding anymore. She wipes the dried blood off her face. But that image is burned into the back of my eyes. Recovery Girl leaves after giving her some water and a painkiller. Ashamed, I turn around to do the same, but she reaches out and grabs my hand.

"Sit down, please," she requests. Quietly, I do as she says. "Now look at me." I don't, so she repeats herself. When I do, her silver eyes rapture me. That's the problem: her beautiful, mysterious eyes ensnare me, and I find myself wanting to keep looking into them. They're like mirrors, but right now I don't want to see myself in them, so against my desire I break away from them, as though I'm the victim when I'm clearly not. That repulses me even more. And it doesn't go unnoticed by her. "All right. Don't look, but please listen. This was not your fault. This was an accident. You've blamed yourself for so much already, don't carry this on your shoulders, too."

"I just don't want to hurt anyone anymore. Especially the people who mean a lot to me. But that's what I keep doing." She flinches as she tries to turn her whole body to face me completely. I push her back. "Don't. Don't exert yourself. I'm listening."

She turns just her head. "A noble thought, but futile. Todoroki-kun, we are bound to hurt people we care for, whether we want to or not. That's just a fact of life. Just take myself as an example. I'm doing everything I can to make up for my transgressions, but maybe that's not enough. I deserved that beating to the face."

"Don't say that! My carelessness got you injured. You don't deserve to be hit." She looks down, eyes glistening. I rub soft strokes on the back of her hand. "That was my fault, and you know it, too." I pull her hand closer to me. "Since I have hurt you, I must be the one to heal you. Hanada-chan, please let me help you."

"How?" she asks very quietly.

I adjust my grip on her hand, with my right cradling it from the bottom and my left stroking the top. Slowly, I heat my left hand and massage her hand.

She stares at our hands in simultaneous awe and worry. "I thought your fire was a tenacious subject."

"It is," I explain. "But mainly when it comes to using in battle. At least, I tried not to use it in battle. Outside, I'm a little more comfortable using it."

She smiles softly. "It feels nice. The heat is helping with the joint pain a lot."

"Good. That's exactly what I wanted." Hanada-chan gazes up at me, puzzled. "I researched your disease: juvenile arthritis. It's an autoimmune disease, and there's no cure for it. Achieving remission is unlikely. For a long time, I debated with myself if I should ask Recovery Girl to cure your disease, but then I figured that she would have if she could. Scientists speculate that the disease has genetic influences, but it's not hereditary. Temporary treatments exist such as sleep, analgesics, joint replacement surgery, physical therapy, and oddly, exercise. Signs and symptoms beside joint aches include swelling, fevers, eye inflammation, rashes, fatigue, loss of appetite, and stiffness. In extreme cases, the lungs, heart, liver, and the skin can be affected. Not all of them apply to you: for example, you're an absolute glutton for sweets, and I've never seen you with vivid red eyes. During cold weather, the pain and stiffness intensify, meaning that heat massages are effective. So I watched videos of masseurs and practiced my skills on my sister after she had a long day at work."

She blushes intensely. "You did your homework well."

"Well, I'm the only student in our class who knows of your condition, so of course I had to take responsibility. And given that we're best friends, even more so."

Her eyes start to droop, the heat massage doing its job splendidly. "Thank you ... Todoroki-kun. If by some miracle you decide you don't want to be a hero ... then the massage business doors would be wide open for you," she mumbles.

Finally, her eyes shut completely.

I place an arm by her side and rest my head on it, never letting go of the hand I massaged.

As I study her sleeping figure, questions formulate in my mind.

You've endured both physical and emotional pain for God knows how many years.

How did you do it?

Just what happened that pushed you to take such a drastic leap?

When was the last time you tried to end your life?

Was it before or after we met?

Did my presence influence your decision?

I want it to have given you a reason, however small, to keep living.

Just as yours has given me a reason to live.