"Villain team, you have five minutes. Startinnnngggg... NOW!"

How did it end up like this? With these three, of all people? Kazue had no clue, but he was stuck with it.

He sighed under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck as he as Kaminari waited by the entrance of the battle building with the floor plans. Well, more of the blond was looking over the maps and looking extremely confused, whereas Kazue had scanned the pages and memorized the layout in under ten seconds.

"You take the lead."

Kazue blinked slowly, turning his head to look at the other boy. Kaminari grinned, flashing a thumbs up. "You're smart, right? You lead 'cause you already got the map down, and when Sero or Kirishima show or both I can-"

"You can't control it, can you?" Kazue asked rhetorically, looking up at the sky. "Your electricity, I mean, when you expel it from your body."

"EH?!" Kaminari practically yelled like he'd seen a ghost. "How'd you know what my Quirk's weakness is?!"

"It's part of my Quirk," the brunet stated bluntly with a soft snort, standing up as the last few seconds on the waiting clock started to tick down. He glanced back as he plodded towards the building. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

"Man, you're no fun," Kaminari grumbled, shoving his hands in the pockets of his bolt-adorned leather jacket. Nevertheless, he got up and followed Kazue to the battle center.

The timer hit zero.

Kazue didn't say a word, making his way over to the nearest window on the ground level and jamming his fingers underneath it. He shoved, then rolled his eyes and stepped back. "The window's locked," the teen muttered in annoyance, looking back at his partner. He'd have to use his jet boots to get to a higher level, then go all the way back down to unlock anything down at the bottom. Not the best option with the time limit that they had. Especially if he wanted to get an average grade.

"Why's the door locked, anyway?" Kaminari asked, sounding confused. "Wouldn't most buildings be unlocked during the day?"

"Yeah, but I'm guessing this is supposed to be an abandoned building," Kazue muttered, looking up at the second story. "Or one set for demolition. They don't want people getting in to prevent hazards. However..."

He used his thumbs to put a light pressure on the buttons built into his gloves, the jet boots on his feet and the stabilizer on his back humming to life. The corner of his lips curled upwards as his heels left the concrete, followed by the rest of his feet.

"Woah, dude, you can fly? That's awesome!" Kaminari grinned.

"Not really," Kazue replied, slowly increasing the pressure of his thumbs on the buttons. As far as 'flight' went, he was limited to enhanced jumps in various directions, going straight up, or leaning backwards and flying without being able to see. So yes, he could fly, but it would be difficult to maneuver properly and there was a high chance of crashing into things in an urban setting.

At that point, the brunet had reached the second floor and reached out to try one of the windows.

It was open.

Kazue looked down at Kaminari, who was standing there casually yet glancing around awkwardly. "I'll open the door and let you in. Be right back."

Without giving the blond a chance to reply (out of the sake of efficiency), he pulled himself through the now-opened window and recalled the building layout to mind. Second floor, third window from the right...

Man, it was such a pain in the ass.

~-~-~-~

~

Denki wasn't really sure what to make of his green-eyed classmate as he trailed behind down the halls. First off, the dude never said anything extra. Everyone did, even the quiet kids. But not Kimura. The guy's face never changed from an absolute slate.

On the other hand, he was probably a genius. He took the recommendation exam. He'd apparently finished his written test before that girl that looked like she thought homework was fun.

Check that, Kimura was a genius, and the whole class—if they were paying attention, that is—knew it. They all saw him reading a basketball manga behind his desk during every single period earlier that day when they were doing anything remotely academic. They all saw him pull out all the homework they'd gotten so far, around two hours' worth by Denki's standards, and finish in ten minutes.

And now here he was, not even hesitating at corners and leading the blond down the halls and up staircases. So he had memorized the layout of the entire building just by skimming through the handout.

The heck? Did he have a photographic memory or something?

"Yeah."

Denki jolted. "Dude, did you just read my mind? And wait, you do?"

Kimura snorted, taking the next left. "Far from it. You mumble to yourself when you're t-"

The wall he was walking past exploded in a heap of rubble, a red-haired figure bursting out and swinging a fist. Caught off guard, the brunet was smashed across the head with a hardened fist.

Denki could only watch as Kimura staggered back, clutching his left ear as blood trickled out between his fingers. But that wasn't the most shocking part.

Kirishima's Quirk... That thing was boosted to the max. So much that he couldn't even move, eyes wide and joints creaking as they tried and failed to bend. And then it was over in the span of three seconds. The Quirk suddenly deactivated as the sharp-toothed teen fainted, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

"Woah."

"Check his pulse. I might've hit him a little hard," Kimura instructed through gritted teeth, pulling a second comms device smashed to bits out of his bleeding right ear and shoving the insides into his pocket.

Wait, a second comms device? Who was it connected with-

"Kaminari-san."

"Got it," Denki replied, stepping over the smashed wall chunks and kneeling down next to Kirishima. He touched two fingers to the side of the other boy's neck, feeling the telltale pulse beneath the skin. "He's good. Just knocked out. Wait, hold on, you could've killed him?"

Kimura breathed out a sigh, pulling his hand away from the side of his head and wiping the blood off his gloves on the wall. "Ah. That's a relief," he said quietly, ignoring the second half of the question. As usual, the guy's face gave no indication of what he was thinking.

~

Kazue started off walking again, stepping carefully over the rubble on the floor and taking the next right. The direction the redhead had come from, which was likely the way Sero and the 'bomb' would be. They didn't seem like the type to strategize beyond surprise attacks, like deliberately coming from the opposite direction or setting traps.

Ugh.

No matter how much he thought about the location of the 'bomb' so they could get this over with, it couldn't shake his mind. How, if he'd pushed a little more energy into Kirishima, the other boy could've died. Died.

Kazue hadn't made a mistake like that in a long time. A mistake where he'd used his Quirk on reflex rather than actually thinking about it. And in a society where pushing someone past their limits could have serious backlash on their mind and body, he'd been an idiot.

He'd pushed Kirishima's Quirk to the max with just enough energy to sustain it for three seconds, but even that was a little too much. One would've sufficed to make the redhead too exhausted to move, and then they could've tied him up. Making someone's internal organs harden wasn't something to take lightly.

"Hey," Kazue greeted Sero, stopping in the doorway to the room he'd strained to hear noises from. It was a pain to have to tilt his head to the left due to not being able to hear anything short of deafening sounds from his right ear, and he was going to make sure whoever fucked up on his headphones never made a support item again. If he'd had the specialized devices, then they would've just been extremely dented, but otherwise alright. His hearing aid wouldn't have shattered in his ear from the force, and blood wouldn't be trickling down his jaw and dripping to the floor.

Sero whirled around from where he was standing in the center of what could only be described as a tape nest, elbow aimed directly at the brunet's head.

He ducked, the tape shooting straight over his head, wasting no time in grabbing the startled Kaminari by the arm and pulsing.

Electricity crackled, shooting out of the blond straight towards Sero.

It was over in an instant, the teen twitching and falling to the floor in a heap.

Well that was anticlimactic.

"Wait, what?"

Kazue blinked at Kaminari's sudden exclamation, glancing over with a stifled yawn at the confusion written all over the other boy's face. "What?"

"That was only like... fifty-thousand volts," the blond explained. "Normally I gotta use a lot more to knock someone out like that."

"That's because the amperes you normally use are really, really low," Kazue muttered, carefully making his way through the maze of tape Sero had made. "If you'd increase it to that of a taser, like I just did, you wouldn't have to use your current max of one-point-three million volts and fry your brain."

"Alright, dude, now you're just freaking me out with how much you know. I mean, it's cool and all, but really creepy."

Kazue ignored the deduction of his 'Read' ability and tapped the 'bomb' experimentally, officially ending the match while simultaneously finding out what it was made of. "Papier-mâché," he deadpanned, shoving his hands in the pockets of his pants. He wondered how long it'd taken to make a realistic-enough looking bomb with that method.

No doubt it'd been a pain in the ass. But at least the match was over. The brunet definitely had an appointment with Recovery Girl to look at his ear—which was covered with drying blood—and wanted to get home as fast as possible to fix his broken hearing aid.

Oh, yeah, and make a call to the support company that had made his costume, compliment them on their work, then drop the bomb about their imbecilic manufacturing of his headphones. That would be fun.

~-~-~-~

"Good job, Kimura-shōnen and Kaminari-shōnen!" All Might smiled brightly as soon as the two entered the observation room, promptly ripping a filled-out hall pass to the nurse's office off a pad and holding it out.

"Oh. Thanks," Kazue replied, pleasantly surprised that he hadn't had to ask as he turned to leave.

Kaminari gave a thumbs up, grinning as the realization that they'd won so easily finally sunk in. "I'll tell you the evaluation when you get back, okay?"

"Sure," the brunet answered, opening the door and slipping out. If he was being honest, he didn't care about the evaluation in the slightest. First off, the battle trials were a terrible representation of an actual encounter with villains. Well, maybe not that bad, but not exactly a great example, either. Yeah, the teams being randomly put together because of how haphazardly hero teams tended to be created when their agencies teamed up was accurate, but the rest... no.

If agencies had decided to team up to take down a villain they knew was in possession of a bomb, things would be taken a little more seriously. A hero with a Quirk more suited for finding people and objects would be called in. Like Tecton, who could send out weak seismic waves from his body to effectively locate anything like he was 'seeing' it.

And then there was the fact that they had to roleplay full-fledged heroes and villains. The villains wouldn't be all cheerful as they were fighting the heroes and casually chatting unless something was at least a little off in their head. The heroes wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows either, as there was a threat against the civilian population.

Then again, this was everyone's first heroics class, and All Might's first time teaching. Nothing was perfect the first time around, Kazue could admit that much. Besides, the exercise was likely just to get a visual on everyone's way of thinking in that sort of situation and how adept everyone was at using their Quirks in more realistic situations than Eraser Head's Quirk Apprehension Test.

Whatever. Kazue was thinking too much into it, like always.

Just over 2k. Finally. A decently long chapter for the people that actually read this.

Anywho, we gotta have my son interacting with the other members of his class, and Kami's like his complete opposite, so I decided 'why not?'

Be prepared a while later for more talks about volts, amperes, and watts (probably either before the Sports Festival or during the summer camp, I haven't decided yet)

Edit: Definitely during the summer camp cuz I've written basically up to the sports festival as of January Third, 2022.

Questions/comments/things I should change?

And now, for the lovely thing some people tend to put at the beginning of their book: 

Stats.

Power: 3/5 --> C

Speed: 4/5 --> B

Technique: 5/5 --> A

Intelligence: 7/5 (mans smart af) --> S+

Cooperativeness: 3/5 --> C

Kazue's stats, according to the Ultra Archive Book.

~

Power: 3/6 --> C

Speed: 4/6 --> B+

Technique: 5/6 --> A+

Wits: 6/6 --> S

Dumbass Tolerance: 0/6 --> F

Kazue's stats, according to the Ultra Analysis Book.