I'll be unable to write for the next few days, so I figured I'd get the chapter out as soon as I could. I hope you enjoy!

"So now it's Todoroki and Iida fighting," Momo mused, as their friends approached each other in the arena for the semi-finals. Maybe it was wrong, but she was kind of hoping for Iida to win over Todoroki. As much as she wanted that to be the case, however…

"Shou's gonna win this," Ashido said firmly, leaning back in her seat. She turned to Uraraka with a grin. "The real question is, who's he going to fight in the finals?"

Uraraka grinned back, undaunted. "I guess we'll find out, won't we? But let's focus on Shouto and Iida's match for now."

"It's the first match of the semifinals! With both of them from hero families, it's a battle of the elites! From the hero course, it's Iida Tenya! Versus! Also from the hero course, it's Todoroki Shouto!"

If Tenya was going to win this, then he needed to be fast. He'd seen Todoroki obliterate Sero, and while Midoriya had given him a challenge, he'd still prevailed over Midoriya's enhanced speed and strength. For Tenya to have a chance of beating him, he needed to get the match over with as fast as possible, especially after he used his recipro burst.

"Match start!"

Todoroki immediately shot out a wave of ice, and Tenya quickly dodged, running to avoid it. Before he could switch gears and get closer, Todoroki leaned down and shot out a second wave of ice with his fingertips, blocking Tenya in on the other side.

There was nothing else for it. Todoroki sent out a third wave right towards him, and Tenya bent down, before jumping over it at the last second. He soared over the wave, finding himself right above Todoroki.

Now! "Recipro Burst!" He swung his leg down towards Todoroki's head, but the other boy dodged at the last second.

Now he had ten seconds before his engines stalled. He landed and jumped again, aiming for another recipro burst.

For a moment, he thought he connected. Then ice shot up his leg, and Tenya landed awkwardly, shivering as the ice encased his whole body.

"Iida is immobilized! Todoroki advances to the finals!"

Tenya grimaced as the crowd cheered and Todoroki unfroze him. Considering how quickly he'd lost, it was probably a good thing Tensei was busy with work, and therefore wasn't watching him.

"You were good," Todoroki said softly. "You almost got me with that second kick."

"Almost didn't win me the match," Tenya sighed. "You were still too quick for me. But thank you."

It seemed the best he could hope for now was third place.

"It's really cool to see how far those two have gone in the tournament," Tsuyu mused, as Uraraka and Ashido approached the arena. "And no matter who wins, there's going to be a girl in the finals. I'm really rooting for them both, kero."

Jirou nodded. "No kidding. They've both crushed it so far."

"Hey, who do you guys think will win?" Hagakure asked the assembled group of friends, who had practically dominated the entire festival. "Ashido or Uraraka?"

"Well, Uraraka's got her telekinesis thing that she has now," Kaminari pointed out, even though he wasn't addressed. "Ashido's doing great, but I don't think she can counter that."

On anyone else, Todoroki's expression would've been stoic, but on him, it was practically a smirk. "She's taken steps to account for that in this fight. Ochako's not going to take her out so easily." He paused, considering. "I think Mina will win this one."

Midoriya, who'd been muttering to himself, shook his head. "I'm not so sure. I think Ochako will win. But Mina definitely isn't going down without a fight."

"I guess we'll see, then." Personally, Tsuyu would be happy if either of them won. She didn't know them very well, but they were both really nice, and their contribution towards the class' overall happiness and well-being with the Time-Out-Jar couldn't be understated.

Either way, it was probably going to be a good show.

"Match two of the semi-finals!" Present Mic announced. "They worked together in the obstacle course and cavalry battle, and they both took the tournament by storm! But only one can make it to the finals! From the hero course, it's Uraraka Ochako! Versus! Also from the hero course, it's Ashido Mina!"

Mina beamed at her friend. Across the arena, Ochako beamed back.

"Match start!"

Mina felt the tell-tale sign of Ochako's telekinesis, and grabbed her trusty weapon, firing it and watching it attach to Ochako as the audience gasped. Then, with the augmented grappling hook Hatsume made for her, she pulled Ochako in, swinging with a punch that her friend barely dodged.

"Ashido has a grappling hook now! Did she petition for this?"

"She did!" Midnight assured the crowd. "And Uraraka agreed to it!"

Ochako laughed, despite being in a trickier position than she'd been in before. "It wouldn't be fair otherwise!" Still, she ducked under another of Mina's blows, and Mina detached the hook for now. She'd use it again if Ochako tried to lift her out of bounds like that - to make sure she couldn't pull off that trick without being dragged out of bounds as well.

In close quarters combat, Mina had the advantage of strength and acid, while Ochako had the advantage of a bit more training. Mina also knew she had to be careful not to let Ochako touch any part of her with all five fingers - that was how she'd gotten Kirishima, after all.

The two of them continued to trade blows, Mina dancing around Ochako on her acid, and Ochako keeping up with her, using her power to lift herself up slightly so she didn't slip on the acid Mina left behind.

Ochako went in for an attempted touch with her zero gravity, and Mina barely dodged, before grabbing her arm and throwing her like she had her other opponents. Ochako, of course, managed to stop herself, hovering in the air.

Which is what Mina had been waiting for. She shot her grappling hook again, which attached itself to Ochako, before swinging it in a wide arc. Ochako went flying, barely managing to stop herself before she went out of bounds.

Then Ochako held out a hand, and Mina found herself in a sort of tug-of-war, her superstrength holding onto Ochako, versus Ochako's telekinesis attempting to force her to let go. Mina grit her teeth and dug her feet into the ground, determined to hang on.

There was a sound of metal crushing. Mina looked down to see that, without meaning to, she'd crushed part of her hook.

The line snapped, and Mina went flying backwards and out of bounds.

"Ashido is out of bounds! Uraraka advances to the finals!"

Mina pouted for a moment, before getting to her feet and jogging over to Ochako, smiling. "Congrats!"

"Thanks! Sorry about your grappling hook."

Mina waved her off. "Nah, I was the one who broke it. Besides, it's not my usual one, it's the one Hatsume made for me. Maybe if I give it back to her, she can figure out how to improve it so that I don't accidentally crush it again."

Ochako nodded. "That's probably a good idea. Maybe she can figure out how to modify your actual grappling hook like that too, then."

"With this, the final match will be between Todoroki and Uraraka!"

Mina laughed. "Mystery Crew represent! Now I've just got to beat Iida, and we'll claim all three medals."

"You can do it!" Ochako encouraged. "And then we can go home and get that charm, and probably have Katsudon again, because it's Izuku's favorite and he deserves something nice too."

"Agreed."

"Are you ready for this?"

Shouto considered Ochako's question. "Yeah, I am." As ready as he'd ever be, at least. Ochako, he suspected, was going to be the hardest fight in the tournament.

And he was still off his game. He'd thought the feeling of wrongness had been brought down to a more manageable level after Sero, but it was still there, buzzing in the back of his mind, constantly reminding him that this place was wrong and weird and breaking.

His hands itched, on a strange metaphorical level, and a part of him desperately wanted to flick them and summon his flames. He determinedly ignored it, clenching his hands into fists and trying to focus on anything but the wrong feelings.

Just one more fight. One more fight, and the festival would be over, and he could go home and get that charm, and everything would be fine.

Just one more fight.

"How about you?" He asked.

"I'm ready too," Ochako decided after a moment. She gave him a grin. "It's pretty cool though, isn't it? I mean, before Gravity Falls, when I thought about the sports festival, I never actually imagined that I'd be fighting in the finals. That win or lose, I'd be a medal finisher. I guess a part of me is still having trouble believing it."

"You earned every win," Shouto reminded her. He couldn't entirely relate - he actually had expected to place in at least the top three before going to Gravity Falls. But he certainly couldn't have expected the festival to turn out the way it had.

Ochako squeezed his hand. "So did you. Let's do our best, okay?"

"Right." The two of them separated, before heading down their own walkways, and out into the arena.

"It's finally the last battle of the UA High School sports festival! The top of the first years will be decided with this one match! The final, so to speak! From the hero course, Todoroki Shouto! Versus! Also from the hero course, Uraraka Ochako!"

Just one might fight, and it would finally be over. He could do this.

"Match… start!"

The final match between Todoroki and Uraraka would be starting soon, and here Shouta was, trudging towards Endeavor's skybox.

Truth be told, he was very interested to see how the match would go. Both Todoroki and Uraraka had demonstrated incredible control over their powers (even if Uraraka still wouldn't go into detail about her new abilities beyond "found a magic amulet in the other world that gave her telekinesis"), and while all four students had clearly learned quirkless combat over in Gravity Falls, those two had proven to be the best at it.

While Midoriya was certainly doing better, now that he wasn't breaking his bones, and Bakugou's explosions were powerful, it seemed fair to say that Todoroki and Uraraka were currently the students with the most of both control and raw power. Shouta would so much rather be in the commentator's box, analyzing their fight, and how the two of them would handle going up against someone with a power that could match theirs.

And yet, Shouta was instead going to check out the damn skybox. Endeavor better hope someone was actually using it, because if it was empty, Shouta was going more pissed than he already was.

As he approached the skybox, he heard voices, which at least confirmed that Endeavor wasn't just making things up. Shouta was tired from a long day of sitting in that box and commentating, especially after all the healing sessions with Recovery Girl that he'd gone through, and he was more than ready to just tell whatever idiots snuck into a private skybox to get out and move on.

And then he heard the familiar voices inside.

"...Telling you, she's got this in the bag! Not even Mina could beat her. Ochako's gonna win, for sure."

"I dunno, Mr. Pines. We really shouldn't count Shouto out that easily. You've seen how amazing his quirk is here. And if he actually went all out and stuff, dude could probably win."

"Sure, but he isn't going all out, is he?"

"Maybe not, but he hasn't needed to before. Fighting Ochako might change that-"

Shouta had heard enough. Mind reeling, he opened the door to the skybox, and was met with four very familiar faces.

There was Todoroki Fuyumi, who Shouta had briefly seen when the four world-hopping students had reunited with their families. That explained the skybox - she must've let the other three in.

Except that the other three were Stan Pines and his two employees, who'd been introduced as Soos and Wendy. Who, presumably, were supposed to be in an entirely different dimension where quirks didn't work. So how the hell were they in this skybox?

Stan's brother, Ford, had mentioned working on a stable portal. But it hadn't even been a month since then, and none of the students had mentioned any sort of portal. Which, of course, didn't mean they didn't know about it, but that also brought plenty of questions to mind. Whatever the case, Shouta was going to have words with his problem children later.

For now, he sighed. "You know, Endeavor was very demanding when he insisted that someone was using his skybox without his permission. You'd better have a good reason to be here - I'm missing the match."

To his delight, all four of them jumped and spun around. Todoroki Fuyumi looked guilty, while Stan and Wendy both narrowed their eyes.

"Well, he isn't using it, is he?" Stan said casually, quickly recovering. "I don't see why it's a problem, then."

"And even if it is, that's on me," the elder Todoroki said, voice apologetic. "I was the one who invited them here."

"There's nothing for you to apologize for," Wendy insisted, and, now that he actually had time to consider her, Shouta took in just how young she was. She couldn't be much older than one of their third years.

He raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, I couldn't care less about following through on Endeavor's errand, especially considering the more pressing questions now in front of me. Last I checked, three of you were in another universe. How exactly are you here?"

Stan mimicked him, raising a mocking eyebrow back. "My brother did say he was working on something more stable so that we could see the kids again."

In the background, Shouta could hear Hizashi calling for the start of the match. Behind the four skybox intruders, Todoroki threw up a massive ice wall around the entirety of the arena, presumably to stop Uraraka from telekinetically throwing him out of bounds like she had with her other opponents. "And you didn't think to tell anyone about this?"

"Why should we?" Stan scoffed. "Not like it's any of your business."

"We're very grateful that you helped the Mystery Crew get home," Soos offered, and Shouta guessed that "Mystery Crew" was a nickname for his problem children, most likely based off of the Mystery Shack. "But you don't really have anything to do with us besides that. Sorry dude."

Shouta stopped himself from gritting his teeth. Trying to explain to these people that, as heroes, they needed to be aware of potential threats like portals to other worlds was pointless. As much as it bothered him, he understood that from their point of view, there was no reason to respect heroes. This wasn't a meeting of heroes or government representatives from different worlds - this was a couple of people from some small town in Oregon deciding to visit some friends.

It bothered him that Todoroki's sister hadn't come forward to explain any of this either. But then, Shouta considered his suspicions about Endeavor, and gathered that a distrust in authority might run in the family, and with good reason.

He sighed, running a hand over his face. Vaguely, he could see Todoroki and Uraraka engaged in some strange version of quirked hand-to-hand in the background. "I'm still going to have to let Nedzu know about this, you know. Once the festival is over, I'll take you to him. We'll… try to work this out from there."

"Yeah, sure, great. Can you leave and let us focus on the match now? Those two are really going at each other, and I don't want to miss more of it."

Shouta sighed and opened his mouth to respond-

"Hey, we're here! Ford made the charm, except Shouto's fighting right now and something's really wrong with this place and it's really bad so we came up here… first…" The ghost in the doorway blinked for a long moment, before an awkward smile crossed its face. "...Hey, Shouta."

Shouta activated Erasure. The ghost didn't disappear, or reveal itself to be an illusion or an imposter. Its dark stormy hair didn't lighten, and its eyes didn't become blue. It just held up its hands in surrender.

"I know it's weird, but it's really me. I… damn, I really didn't want us to meet this way. Um. Hi?"

"You're dead," Shouta said flatly, brain still not comprehending what was in front of him.

"I was. Sort of," the ghost - Oboro(!?) - said with a wince. "But… not really. It was… kind of worse than that. But I'm back! And actually me again. If it helps, the last thing I remember is being experimented on right after my death was faked, so seeing you as an adult is really weird for me too."

"I don't think that's going to help him much," Shouta heard Wendy say. She sounded amused. In the background, Todoroki and Uraraka were having some sort of beam-o-war, orange flames starting to overpower whatever telekinetic grip Uraraka had on them.

It barely seemed to matter.

Shouta gripped his scarf tightly, muscles tense and ready to spring into action. "If this is some sort of trick-"

"Remember that morning I rescued Sushi?" Oboro(?) interrupted. "And I was sopping wet, so I just changed in the classroom because my clouds covered me enough. And when we finished the finale of the Rune Wakers sequel you were telling Hizashi to get a grip because he was sobbing, but you were crying too. I… I know all of this is crazy, but I promise, it's really me."

If that were true, then that meant-

Oboro was alive.

Ford, Stan's brother who Shouta had noted as suspiciously absent from the group, sidestepped Oboro and entered the room, looking both apologetic and determined. "I'm sorry Oboro, Aizawa, but reunions can come later. We have more important matters to deal with."

More important matters? Oboro was alive. In the moment, everything else seemed secondary.

But Oboro didn't seem to think so, standing up straighter. "Right. Shouta, whatever is being used as anti-warp technology here in the stadium, it's bad. Really bad. Why did the principal agree to it, and also, how can we shut it down?"

Shouta blinked, finally managing to shake himself out of his stupor, before frowning. "Nedzu didn't have much of a choice. The Hero Commission insisted on it, even though it's experimental and untested, and since the sports festival is such a public event, they were able to get away with insisting on its use. What's wrong with it?"

From within the depths of his trench coat, Ford produced a bunch of strange machines, all showing readings Shouta couldn't understand. "It's quite literally weakening the fabric of your reality within this localized area. I recognized the feeling from my own multiversal travels - it's not just dissolving the bounds between any old reality and yours, the reality on the other side is the Nightmare Realm."

Well if that wasn't a foreboding name, Shouta didn't know what was. A pit settled in his stomach.

"You're kidding," Stan said flatly.

Ford shook his head. "Unfortunately not. And based on these readings, the boundary between realities isn't just weakened now, it's actively cracking. We need to shut this thing down."

There was a small intake from Todoroki Fuyumi. "Would this affect Shouto, in any way? Considering…" She trailed off, glancing at Shouta, before steeling herself and continuing. "Considering what's happening with Cipher? In one of the fights earlier, he wasn't… acting like himself."

"What do you mean by that?" Shouta nearly snapped, his frustration at being out of the loop building. "Who is Cipher? What's going on!?"

Oboro shot him a sympathetic glance, but Ford ignored him, eyes wide. "It certainly could. And he might be affecting it in turn. I can't imagine using his flames within such an unstable area would produce any results save for weakening the boundary more. Which in turn would affect him even more." The man held up a strange, shimmering necklace. "We need to get him the charm as quickly as possible."

"He's been using his fire the entire tournament, although to different degrees," Shouta said slowly. "But he was born with it. Would Endeavor's fire weaken our reality as well?"

Soos was shaking his head. "No dude, not that kind of fire. We're talking about the magic chaos flames he got back in Gravity Falls. He hasn't used that at all, during the festival."

"Except now he's fighting against someone who can give him enough of a challenge that he might actually use them," Wendy pointed out grimly. "And since you guys just got here to explain things to us, he doesn't know that he shouldn't be using them."

Shouta was still very much confused, but he also got the gist of the situation, and he was not liking it. "Right. I'm going to find Present Mic. We need to end this match now-"

Shouto was tired.

It felt like the fight was dragging on longer than any of his other fights. And that made sense, because Ochako was strong and tough. And their fight had certainly been flashy enough to impress any pros. If this had been any other day, he would've been excited at how things were going.

But it wasn't any other day. It was the late afternoon, the culmination of an entire day spent in a place of wrongness where Cipher's thoughts and memories and knowledge kept encroaching on his brain and he just wanted this to be over.

It could be over.

If he used his flames, it could be over now. They were at least as strong as Ochako's power in terms of telekinetic strength - they'd both lifted half of the citizens of Gravity Falls to safety when the stone chair fell apart during Weirdmageddon.

But he shouldn't because things got worse after he used them last time.

But he could end this faster with them, and not have to deal with feeling this way for as long as he might otherwise.

But-

There was a moment, where Ochako grabbed him with her power, and was about to lift him through a hole that had been blasted into one of his ice walls, and Shouto-

It was instinctive. He didn't even think about it. At the moment, there was no hesitation. He summoned his flames, and he and Ochako swapped places, right before she flew into the hole in the ice, and, technically, out of bounds. Midnight probably couldn't see it, but Ochako wasn't the kind to cheat and pretend she was still in, especially when up against one of her friends. And Present Mic probably saw it too, which meant the match should be called and over-

Time got… weird.

His flames were still active. Ochako hovered there where she was sent, blinking in confusion, clearly aware like he was but equally unnerved by the weird feeling of something being wrong.

Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Shouto's flames flickered, and everything hovered there, on the precipice of a clearly breaking moment. Shouto could almost hear how it cracked-

And then it Shattered.

It was like the world around them crumbled in on itself, blending together with another place, time and space wavering in folds and loop-de-loops. The stadium, both surrounded and smudged together with a space of stars and strange colored bubbles, wavering in between the two realms, not quite in one or the other, but also somehow in both. Pieces of stadium dripped upwards and fractured into starlight, while other parts sagged under their sudden increase of weight.

Cracks, spreading outwards. With a shattering point like this, it wouldn't take too long before the break spread throughout their universe, everything collapsing together as the Things from Outside found their way in, and vice versa.

And Shouto…

Shouto felt at home.

Not his actual home, of course, because he'd destroyed that, hadn't he? And maybe he regretted it, just a bit, but mostly he'd been bored and everything there had been so lifeless. And while the Nightmare Realm had kept him trapped for so long, it was also so much more to his tastes, wasn't it?

Why had he been so afraid before? Nothing was wrong. In fact, everything was right.

There were startled screams that never happened, most of the stadium's audience collapsing into states of quantum uncertainty, bodies not built to exist in multiple dimensions at once like this. Shooting Star, Sparks, and Sunshine were fine of course, as part of the altered zodiac (and the original, for Shooting Star), but most weren't so fortunate, were they?

A part of Shouto's fracturing mind clung to the few he truly cared for, keeping them safe with a spare thought. Most of him couldn't give a damn at the moment.

And why should he? That amphibian had followed through! Sixer might've tricked him, and Stanley Pines might have punched him out of existence, but he was alive again. He'd lived on.

Shouto threw back his head and laughed.

...Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and please don't forget to review, let me know what you think!