Kazue deflated as he stood at the entrance to Yūei's cafeteria. The two previous days in the building, he'd found a random spot to sit that was away from anyone he knew, turned off his hearing aids, and re-read a few chapters of his Kuroko no Basket manga collection. He would choose to re-read a bit of Horimiya, the first volume of which was hidden in his sleeve, but, well... no.

However, both times had resulted in someone trying to talk to him, getting annoyed that he 'wasn't paying attention to them', and, in the case of the second time, trying to pick a fight. Seriously, why was that one guy from Class 1-B with the Copy Quirk so goddamn weird? Then this orange-haired girl karate chopped him on the back of the neck with a giant hand and dragged the other first year away with an exasperated apology.

So on the third day, Kazue simply paid for his lunch and slipped right back out the door to find somewhere private to eat. He doubted anyone would be in the classroom, but also doubted that students were allowed to stay when they'd been dismissed and no teacher was present.

Where to go, where to go...

"Aren't you supposed to be in the cafeteria?" Eraser Head asked from right behind him.

Kazue half-turned around, making sure his lunch tray didn't fall from his hands. "Yeah," he replied dully, eyeing the door he'd been walking away from.

"Then why aren't you there?" the man queried, slipping his hands in the pockets of his hero costume. "And sneaking off by yourself?"

The brunet mentally debated whether he should tell the truth or not before letting out a silent breath, figuring it couldn't hurt. "People keep trying to talk to me," he muttered, adjusting his arm so the manga held between it and his torso so it didn't fall. As much as his sleeve was better for keeping it hidden, he didn't want it to get all bent.

"Aww, he's a mini you~" a woman's voice cooed, shoes clicking against the floor as the heroine known as Midnight draped an arm over Eraser Head's shoulder. The dark-haired woman winked as the man made a face of annoyance. "If you're looking for a place to eat all by your lonesome, cutie, go up to the roof."

Kazue hesitated. "Thank you."

~-~-~-~

The green-eyed teen halted in his motion as soon as he pushed open the roof access door, recalling to his mind Midnight's exact words. 'All by your lonesome' his ass. There was a brunette girl sitting on the ledge with her own lunch tray next to her, purple eyes wide as they stared at each other in muted surprise.

"I'm sorry, I was told I would be alone up here," Kazue apologized semi-awkwardly, taking a small step back and glancing over his shoulder down the stairs. "I can go-"

"Is that... Horimiya?"

He froze, stealing a glance down at the manga he was sure he'd covered the title of. It still was covered, only... Miyamura's head was just barely poking out from confinement. "Um," Kazue said smartly, about to take another step back before he realized that he'd fall down the stairs if he did so. "Maybe?"

The girl offered an awkward smile, holding up the same series, just a different volume. "Same... I guess?"

Kazue sweatdropped, his mind going back and forth on whether he should hightail it out of there or stay. On one hand, he'd be saved the embarrassment of reading a romance manga in front of someone. On the other, she was reading the same series and seemed just as startled.

"You can stay!" she blurted suddenly, eyes fixed on the bricks beside his head. Oh. Great. Two people that avoided direct eye contact talking with each other. "Erm. I mean, only if you want to. This roof's... huge."

He hesitated, weighing the two options for the fifty-seventh time before coming to a conclusion. It was the option with the most positives and the least negatives. "Alright," Kazue agreed, now faced with another decision.

Where the hell was he supposed to sit? If he sat too close, it might be seen as weird, but if he did the opposite, then it would seem like he didn't want to be near her, a person he'd just met.

The brunet ended up around the corner so they formed a right triangle, setting down his tray and taking a seat. Both teens fumbled at their respective manga, flipping them open as they started to eat.

The awkwardness in the air could be cut by a knife, and Kazue had no idea what to do about it. The only sound in the air beside the wind was the turning of pages and occasionally clacking of chopsticks. But since neither were alone, that just made the silence deafening.

And the girl was the one to break it, thankfully enough. "So, uh, you're in the hero course?"

Kazue's brain took a second to process the simple question, looking up from his reading like a child who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Yeah," he replied, checking the buttons on her own uniform's shoulders. "Support course?"

She nodded, fiddling with the sleeves of her blazer. "Class 1-G."

"1-A"

And just like that, the silence was back, and even more awkward than before, and it stayed like that until almost the end of lunch.

The metallic ringing of an old-fashioned bell suddenly echoed across the building, causing the girl to bite her tongue and yelp in pain and the boy to miss his mouth with his chopsticks and stab himself in the face.

"There has been a Level Three security breach. All students please evacuate outdoors promptly," a woman's voice crackled over the intercom.

Kazue brushed the spilled rice off his pants, furrowing his eyebrows at the unfamiliar announcement. "Level Three security breach?"

"I think it means that someone's trespassing," the purple-eyed girl replied hesitantly, wearing a similar expression. They turned simultaneously to look down at the ground, deadpanning at what they saw.

"The press," Kazue stated flatly, rolling his eyes and moving to get up before pausing. "Technically we're outside, right?"

She snorted, then covered her mouth like she hadn't meant to let the noise of amusement escape. "Sure. It's not like they exactly brought ladders. But... how'd they get in, anyway, with the giant gate thing?"

The boy shrugged, squinting off in the distance in the direction of the main (and only) entrance. He blinked, checking to make sure he was seeing things right. "The gate's... gone. The edges are there, but there's a big hole in it." A frown curved at the edge of Kazue's lips as he strained his eyes even harder, Quirk readings by the dozens running through his mind almost faster than he could process.

Until he found it.

A figure with light blue hair turning and walking away from the gate, wearing all black.

The Quirk reading?

Decay.

Kazue pulled out his phone, tapping on his most recent call and putting the device to his ear. He tapped his leg impatiently as the dial tone rang, eyes fixed on the person as they left his sight.

Finally, after what seemed like years, the number one hero finally answered.

"Kimura-shōnen," All Might greeted grandly, albeit sounding a bit surprised. "What can I do for you?"

"I saw the person who destroyed the gates," he summarized quickly, ignoring the inquisitive look from the girl he still had yet to introduce himself to and vice-versa. "Light blue hair, black clothing. Too far away to determine gender or age range. Their Quirk is called Decay."

"Er- Was it one of the reporters?" the hero asked, concern lacing his tone. "We can't quite get outside until all of them are gone."

Kazue shook his head even if the man couldn't see it. "I don't think so. They wouldn't have already left if they were."

"All right. Thank you, Shōnen. Goodbye for now."

"Bye," the brunet replied, hanging up and shoving his phone back in his pocket. He spared the gate one last glance and scanned with his Quirk, letting out a sigh. Nothing. Decay was already gone, and there was nothing else he could do about it.

"Cool Quirk," the girl appraised, glancing up from her food that she'd resumed eating. "A little creepy, but cool."

Kazue snorted softly, picking up his chopsticks again and turning a page. "I get that a lot," he muttered, surface-scanning her own Quirk. "'Jump', huh? That would be useful to get around."

"If Quirks were legal to use outside without a license," she added offhandedly, resting her chin on the heel of her palm as her eyes scanned the pages. Other than her comment, she didn't seem bothered at all by how he'd said her Quirk's name without seeing the registration.

"True enough," he agreed, thinking back to all the times he'd done exactly that. Helping out Iwata send a concentrated blast at a villain. Aerogale's interns being dumbasses while out on patrol with the mentioned hero. The sludge villain incident with All Might. The list went on and on. Maybe Kazue really did need a hero license, even if he hated the very notion.

The brunet looked up, a sudden realization crossing his mind yet again. "I never did catch your name, did I?" he asked rhetorically, tilting his head slightly to the side in askance. "I'm Kimura Kazue."

She smiled. "Hamasaki Etsuko."

~-~-~-~

"I'm here," Kazue stated flatly as he pushed open the door to the staff room, not wasting any time in sitting down across from... Skinny Might? That seemed like a good name for the man when he wasn't buff. "This is about Midoriya-san and One For All, correct?"

"Er, yes," the man agreed while stirring his drink, seeming a bit startled by the abruptness of the conversation's beginning. "Would you like some tea before we start?"

Kazue considered the question for half a second before answering. "No, thank you. I don't have very much time."

True enough, although the hero didn't need to know the reason why was because his schedule for that day at the agency was already jam-packed as it was. Fifteen minutes might not have seemed like a lot to empty a slot for, but it was for Dreynen's agency. They prided themselves on efficiency, which they were known for, especially for a top hero with only two sidekicks.

Technically three because of Kazue doing around a third of the internal work because Aerogale was incompetent, but whatever.

"I see. Well, let's get started," said All Might, leaning forward from where he sat on the couch and lacing his fingers together. "From the beginning. The sludge villain attack."

Kazue shrugged. "Technically, I met you when I was seven at a press conference." Specifically, a press conference that his father had pulled him out of school to watch from behind the scenes, as it included several top heroes and was, therefore, a once-in-a-lifetime event. "That was where I learned that your Quirk was called One For All, but nothing more. Since I was used to keeping the secrets of heroes' Quirks secret, I never told anyone, in case that's what you're worried about."

The blond breathed out a sigh of relief. "That's good. And then you found out about this form at the attack just over ten months ago."

Ah. So they were establishing a timeline. "Correct," the brunet agreed. "By then, my Quirk had obviously developed further, and I was able to uncover the basics as to how One For All works. Well, at least enough to give you a boost, anyway."

"Then you saw that Midoriya-shōnen was Quirkless?"

Kazue nodded, then snorted. "That was a stupid move, by the way. Gutsy, but idiotic charging in at a villain he had no hope of defeating."

The timeline continued for the next seven or so minutes. Kazue seeing Midoriya for the first time in school, where he discovered that he now wielded One For All. The Quirk Apprehension Test. His conversation with Midoriya in the car and a summary of his offer. And finally, the single heroics course Class 1-A had taken part in so far.

Eventually, Kazue decided to break the news. Bluntly. "I can't Read it in you, but Midoriya-san has six other Quirks residing within One For All."

The hero halted in what he was about to say next, frozen in place. "What?"

"They're from the previous users, I'm guessing. You were Quirkless before, I can sense that much, and the main Quirk..." Kazue trailed off, narrowing his eyes slightly as he dug deeper. "It looks like 'Stockpile' and 'Transfer'," he mused, slightly confused. "Two Quirks, combined into one. There appears to be residual from another Quirk, although that's as far as I can see. Likely one that allows the transfer of Quirks to different people, which caused a mutation in the original."

All Might was speechless. It took the man a long few seconds to regain his bearings before he could continue. "You can really see that far into One For All?"

Kazue lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug, resting his chin in his hands while pretending his head wasn't hurting like someone had smashed it into the ground due to forcing the in-depth reading.  Doing anything requiring in-depth thought for the rest of the day was going to hurt. A lot. "Otou-san sometimes takes me along to help out the police. I'm used to finding out if someone's been tampered with by someone else's Quirk. Although, I usually can see the name, but it makes sense in this case, as the residual is rather old. Whoever did it is long dead by now, unless they got their hands on an immortality Quirk or something similar."

The hero's shoulders tensed at the last sentence, making the teen's eyebrows raise slightly. "They're alive," he stated in a matter-of-fact tone, taking All Might's reaction into account. "Aren't they?"

All Might remained silent, neither confirming nor denying his question. His jaw was clenched, fingers digging into the fabric of his suit pants.

Kazue took the hint, changing the subject slightly. "Now then. The six Quirks," he began, the man's grip visibly loosening. "They're there, but I sincerely doubt Midoriya-san will be able to use them. I don't how to describe exactly what I 'see', but imagine a cork in an opaque bottle. The other powers are in the bottle, but are unable to get out because of the cork, and I can't see inside to see what they are. However..."

"Enough pressure could cause the cork to shoot out," All Might finished, a look of alarm crossing his face.

The teen let out a noncommittal grunt, not used to having a conversation with someone he hardly knew as a person for this long. "I wouldn't be too worried about it. For a situation like that to occur, it would be when he's under extreme duress, or pressure has built up over time."

That wasn't likely to happen for hero students. The most excitement first years tended to get was the Sports Festival and petty villains that didn't even deserve that title during their internships. Second years had a little more excitement with the same things and their work studies, and third years only a bit more than that. No giant villain attacks including students had happened in years, and even then, they'd been there to assist the pros, not fight head-on.

And if Midoriya managed to go pro, then they might need to have a chat.

Besides, Kazue had a hoodie in his backpack that needed to be signed.

Did I succeed in making the rooftop meeting as awkward as possible? 

More OCs will be coming after the USJ arc, but before the Sports Festival, aka the two other names on the OC list I made at the end of the chapter a few back.

Haven't done one in a while, but qUiZ: The USJ is coming up soon. Who will Kazue end up with once Kurogiri portals everyone all over the place?

Questions/comments?