So, I know this is on hold, but that label's more of a warning than anything. 

Updates will be extremely sporadic at the moment, as I'm preoccupied with other fandoms and the advanced classes I decided to take in for some reason. But I do promise to not abandon this work because I've written 26 (technically 27) chapters of this shit and that is way too much to just let die in a hole somewhere.

I'm gonna shut up now. Enjoy some more of the rooftop gang.

"You're late," Hamasaki observed as Kazue shut the roof access door behind him, a volume of Death Note tucked under an arm and lunch tray balanced on his fingers. He figured she had a right to be slightly confused, considering he was never late for anything. As his father said, to be early was to be on time, and to be on time was to be late. Being actually late was out of the question.

"Nurse's office," the brunet elaborated vaguely, offering the trio he'd somehow ended up spending his lunches with a small lift of his left shoulder in apology. He'd had to convince Recovery Girl that he wouldn't use his Quirk on her, even if the side effects of her healing weren't as strong for one used to exhaustion. It was quite literally part of his biology due to the nature of his Quirk. It...had taken a while to get the elderly woman to relent.

"Are you dying?" Furuya questioned suddenly, eyes wide as Kazue sat down. Everyone blinked at him, causing the boy to lift his arms in defense. "What? It's a valid question, the dude looks as dead as a zombie most of the time!"

Kazue snorted. "Fair," he replied, setting aside the manga for the moment. After all, 'Dead Inside' was the contact name Fueki had given him, and no one had ever questioned it. "I have to be healed in time for the Sports Festival."

His roofmates stared, first at the bandage wrapped around his forehead, then at the cast covering the majority of his right arm.

"Wasn't your arm shattered?" Chisaka asked, looking a bit pale.

"Yeah, dude, that's insane," Furuya agreed, nodding his head.

Hamasaki, meanwhile, pulled out her phone and was scrolling through something for a long moment before looking back up. Her eyes met Kazue's, concern clear in her gaze. "I... I'm not sure if you'll be able to do the events, even if you're healed," she said hesitantly, deliberately tilting the screen away from where any of them could see it.

Kazue was undeterred, narrowing his eyes slightly at the girl. As a member of the Support Course, she was no stranger to electronics. However, she had mentioned at some point in the past that her strength lay in coding rather than the actual engineering. His exact opposite, actually. "You hacked into the school's database," the brunet stated, impressed.

Furuya's mouth hung open while Hamasaki flushed, an awkward laugh escaping her lips. "Uh... yeah," she replied quietly, as though some of the teachers could hear. "There's an obstacle course, a team thing called a cavalry battle, and a one-on-one arena. Your arm won't be a hundred percent so soon after being healed."

An obstacle course...

The first event was not unlike the entry exam for the recommendation students, then. Meaning biased towards those with Quirks that enhanced their movement.

Kazue sighed under his breath, mentally resigning himself to begin work on another binder after the event. Yūei really needed to get itself into gear with its methods of teaching the heroics classes, even if several top heroes had graduated from it in the past. Just because something worked didn't mean it couldn't be improved—a lesson every engineer knew well.

"I know," he eventually said, mind automatically filtering through every first year that he'd seen. Specifically, what their Quirks were, their approximate skill level, and the approximate level of their physical capabilities. Kazue couldn't call into account psychological factors for any other classes minus his own, 1-A, which was a mild annoyance. He preferred to have all the variables at all times, but would have to take a slight chance when it came to assembling the best possible team for the cavalry battle. "I won't be needing my arm for anything major."

Chisaka stopped Furuya before he could say something presumably idiotic, holding a hand over his mouth as muffled words attempted to escape. "I know people say they can do things with one hand tied behind their back, but..." she trailed off, exchanging a glance with Hamasaki that Kazue was clueless as to the meaning of it. Girl telepathy was beyond the range of his observation skills.

"I can," he stated simply, unable to stop the corners of his lips from twitching upwards. For whatever reason, Kazue actually enjoyed proving people wrong, even if he didn't particularly show it very often. "It was... part of my training."

No, it wasn't. Several years back, one of Aerogale's interns was in possession of a welding-type Quirk. Sparring had resulted in one of Kazue's arms stubbornly stuck to his side, and his father was out on a double-shift patrol at the moment. So, he just continued the spar one-handed and that was that.

It was no matter that he had to do everything for six hours one-handed. Incredibly annoying and a pain in the ass, yes, but it wasn't overly difficult to get the hang of.

"Alright, who's with me to team up and make sure Shamrock doesn't accidentally kill himself?"

Kazue blinked at Furuya, not exactly impressed at his newfound nickname. "My eyes are not shamrock green," he established first in a flat tone, since they weren't. They were emerald green. "And I don't need your help, since none of you will be able to provide adequate support."

Furuya placed a hand on his chest. "Ouch, man, that hurts. It's because I'm Quirkless, isn't it?" he asked in mock sadness, his bottom lip jutting out.

"Didn't even occur to me," the taller boy replied absently, mentally eliminating the majority of the other classes and choosing a select few from 1-A, 1-B, and a single individual from 1-C. He then proceeded to weed down the already small list to three people, a relatively difficult task.

Kazue attempted to stay tuned into the conversation around him, too, but failed miserably as he fell deeper into his thoughts. He stared off into space, eyes slightly squinted as numbers and perceived 'power levels' ran through his mind at the speed of light.

In 1-A alone, there were several students with powerful Quirks. Most notably, Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugō. However, Midoriya was still working on his power level and his handling of that level. Todoroki never used his fire, rendering his capabilities—while still powerful—weaker. Bakugō was volatile and would likely be unable to accept anyone as an equal, let alone anyone who didn't succumb to his emotion-riddled demands.

Then Kazue added in his own Quirk to the mix, and suddenly so many more people became potential candidates. Tokoyami would be able to control an enlarged Dark Shadow. Kirishima would become completely indestructible, if one were to compare any other students' powers. Uraraka being able to control the gravity of objects rather than just remove it.

The possibilities were endless.

"...alright bet, now we just gotta brief Microsoft over there; think he crashed."

"Huh?" Kazue zoned back in abruptly, called by the mention of tech. Chisaka muffled a snort behind her hand, and Hamasaki almost fell off the edge of the roof for the third time in the past fifteen minutes.

"Okay, so like... we sorta-not-really came up with a plan to win the Sports thingie," Furuya spoke, gesturing with his hands a bit more dramatically than necessary. If Kazue could raise his eyebrows, he would have. He couldn't have been 'unresponsive' for that long, could he? "First phase is an insane obstacle course, right? Thanks to Lavender, we know that first up is a fucking hallway everyone's gotta squeeze through. Then comes the robots gen heroics had to fight in the intro exams, plus a buncha giant ones."

Oh, wonderful. More Quirk-type discrimination. Just how far could Yūei fall before Kazue finally broke and went on a rant to the teaching staff? It was all that he could hope for that they stopped before he could get to that point. It would be a shame for his binders to go unused.

"After that lovely mess, there's gonna be a giant pit with pillars connected by ropes. People with noodle arms can just die, I guess," the amber-eyed teen continued, rolling his eyes at the last bit and jokingly flexing his biceps. Nothing showed beneath his uniform, further proving his point. "And that's followed by a minefield that's supposedly safe. Yeah, my ass. If those things can catapult a poor, unsuspecting dude a couple meters in the air, they can break an arm or something."

Kazue lifted a shoulder in agreement, finding the fact that a single person—Recovery Girl—was responsible for the well-being of the entire school a little... lacking. Healing Quirks were already rare enough, and Yūei kept putting its students in harm's way regardless.

The only ways out of participating in the Sports Festival were prior injuries or exemptions.

Speaking of exemptions, "You're in the business course," Kazue brought up the topic, wondering why his roofmate actually wanted to take part in the event. He wasn't exactly athletic-looking, and had made several self-deprecating comments about being scrawny and having no muscle. "Why aren't you going to try and sell people things they don't need?"

"I think it's called 'marketing'," Hamasaki mused, now playing Google Snake on her laptop and only half paying attention.

"Same difference," Furuya grinned, slinging an arm over Chisaka's shoulders. He shrugged. "Nah, I was gonna do that with my class, but like... you guys are doing it, and we're a team, right?"

Fuck.

That... was not the plan. Kazue knew it was a possibility, but didn't think they'd outright decide on it despite the other boy's initial suggestion to team up. Then again, he had zoned out for several minutes. Anything could've been discussed, and the brunet wasn't about to pull up the audio his hearing aids had recorded during that time stamp.

None of them had noteworthy skills with their Quirks, Furuya being the extreme outlier with his status as Quirkless. However, the difference between him and the girls was negligible regardless of that fact.

Hamasaki's experience, as far as he knew, consisted of bouncing around her apartment, jumping off a few buildings in moments of 'rebellion', and escaping the roof from Furuya when they first met. She was more experienced in falling from heights safely rather than jumping up high, to say the least.

As for Chisaka... her Quirk, if she actually used it, would be useful. If she actually used it. However, she, evidently, did not, and her abilities were roughly on par with that of a kindergartener who had just gained their Quirk.

She could turn herself, alongside anything she was touching, into smoke. Said smoke could then move anywhere she pleased and maintain its shape.

The only problem was that it took conscious effort to move and maintain shape, which had clearly not been practiced. The smallest of winds could blow Chisaka away should she choose to use her Quirk. From the readings Kazue was getting, mildly strong air conditioning or fans were no exception.

Essentially, if they all decided to team up with him, Kazue was completely and utterly fucked. He could get through the obstacle course easily enough by himself, and Hamasaki could likely do so as well, but the other two wouldn't make it into the top forty-two who moved on.

He was fine with that, or so he kept telling himself, but, for some reason... he didn't want to let Furuya and Chisaka down. Despite the fact that he hadn't known them all that long, it was... surprisingly nice to hang around with them.

Damn it.

"If you're available for an extra half-hour, meet me in Gym Gamma after school today," Kazue found himself saying, aware of what the results would bring. Midoriya, no doubt, would become completely flustered and try and fail not to be 'suspicious' while training One For All. Meanwhile, the rest of the rooftop squad would find out that the brunet was a ruthless trainer and likely bail the second they stepped inside. "We can practice for the events, and I have the space reserved six days a week."

"Sure," Hamasaki mumbled, expertly maneuvering her snake around a growing maze of blocks to eat yet another apple. Hopefully, she actually knew what she was agreeing to. If not, well... oh well?

"Are... are you going to train us, or something?" Chisaka asked, beating out Furuya who promptly snapped his mouth shut. "Because... I can't really control my Quirk," she admitted, averting her eyes as though something such as that wasn't exactly uncommon. In fact, it was becoming more common as the years went on.

"I know," Kazue replied bluntly, absently noting with curiosity that he should be falling asleep right about now. Only he wasn't, and Quirks like his own didn't exactly stabilize overnight. Could it be...? Maybe. The brunet would have to see if the same sort of episode occurred again in roughly six hours. "My goal will not be to teach you complete control. That would be impossible in the time frame we currently have. Rather improve your stamina for maintaining your Quirk and its effects on others."

He received two incredulous stares in response. Why-

Ah. Wait a moment, Kazue had never informed them of his Quirk. The topic hadn't ever come up in their conversations.

"My Quirk allows me to, among other things, see the intricacies of someone else's abilities," he elaborated without prompting, standing the moment his internal clock told him that lunch had just ended. "I hope to see you all after school."

Not Kazue trying to make a whole-ass plan to win and it getting bulldozed by his friends. Yes, they're his friends, contrary to the way that he just refers to them as "his roofmates".

He's in denial.

Coming up next:

- Benjiro (aka Furuya) straight up dying from strength training

- Hitomi (aka Chisaka) fights a losing battle against the A/C 

- Etsuko (aka Hamasaki) almost headbutts the ceiling several times

- Izuku "not being suspicious" while flabbergasted that Kazue has friends

- Kazue torturing said friends