Oh boy, it's the Quirk Apprehension test! Remembered that I had to finish up this chapter and post today when I was about to start playing SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) and oh man does my computer hate me right now, the fan is going wild

This chapter covers the second half of the old chapter eight as well as chapter nine and the first line of chapter ten. More or less. Happy reading, and once again, this is unedited so feel free to yell at me if I fucked something up.

The first test was the fifty-meter dash, an event Kazue wasn't the fondest of. For starters, it meant everyone would be sprinting as fast as they could, and now they'd also have the chance to use their Quirks. Except for Kazue, that is. He was still operating under the assumption that he wasn't allowed to use his Quirk on his classmates.

"Yo, Kimura, looks like it's you and me for this one!" an enthusiastic voice said from above him.

Kazue glanced up from where he was crouched, one leg extended off to the side as he stretched. Kirishima, huh? His Quirk wouldn't give him an advantage during the dash, more of a disadvantage, so they'd technically be on even footing. Not that it particularly mattered since they were up against the rest of the class, not just one another.

"I guess," he returned blandly with a half-shrug, standing and heading to the line alongside his classmate. They got into their ready positions, waited for the robot in charge of timing, and took off at the sound of the recorded pistol.

Thankfully, they were one of the later groups to run, which gave Kazue a fairly good estimate of how fast he had to run. He was pretty damn miffed about it, too, given the speed at which his feet pounded against the dirt just to stay average.

"Six-point-five seconds!" the robot chirped as he crossed the line, about what he'd been aiming for. Most people who could use their Quirk in some way for their sprint scored under six seconds, while the others tended to break just over seven. If he'd calculated it right, he should already be vaguely in the middle of the class.

"Bro, that was fast for not using a Quirk!" Kirishima grinned widely, jogging over to him after crossing the line a moment after. He'd scored six-point-nine seconds, a fairly good score given his obvious muscular build. "I was sprinting as fast as I could, but you got me beat without even breaking a sweat!"

Ah. Shit.

If Kazue scored average in the class while not even using his Quirk, that also might make him stand out among a class full of students using theirs to their advantage.

That... that could become a problem, now that he thought of it.

The second test was easier to downplay, combining the average grip strength of an unaugmented person with a bit extra force. Nothing too crazy, since the majority of Quirks wouldn't help all that much save for ones like Dupli-Arms.

The third test was a different story, with several of his classmates clearing the entire sandbox for their standing long jump. Given the fact that it was essentially impossible to do so without using a Quirk, and over half the class could use theirs in one way or another to get near the end or across entirely, well, Kazue could only grit his teeth and jump as far as he could.

Test four was a fucking pain in the ass. Enough said on the matter of repeated side steps.

Test five coincided with the demonstration at the very beginning of the so-called "Quirk Apprehension Test," and it came with even more intense scrutiny from his classmates than Kazue would like. No one had been watching him all too closely during the other tests, but the softball throw was obviously considered to be the biggest opportunity to show off.

Everyone would be watching, including Eraserhead. Kazue could fool kids his own age easily enough, alongside the average adult, but heroes were a different matter, and this one specialized out of the limelight. Whether or not he could be fooled remained to be seen.

Naturally, with his luck, that meant that Kazue had been the first student called to the circle. Fantastic.

"Stop wasting time," the man in question stated flatly, hands in his pockets as he stared with tired eyes directly at Kazue.

He grimaced internally, sighting down the throwing range while experimentally tossing the ball and catching it to test its weight. First of all, he wasn't wasting time, he was calculating, and secondly, he'd stood there for hardly three seconds while doing so.

Annoyed and mentally revising his assessment of the hero's personality, Kazue shifted his stance and drew back his arm. Then, with a minor adjustment to the angle, he snapped it forward.

The softball fell uselessly from his grasp a moment later, thudding onto the dirt below. Kazue's eye twitched at the sight of his own arm wrapped in Eraserhead's scarf, clearly made of a rather versatile material, and he glanced over at the hero with a carefully blank face.

He looked pissed.

His Erasure was active, more as an intimidation factor than anything else, causing his irises to flare an angry red and his long hair to float above his head. A split second later, the hero's brow furrowed nearly imperceptibly, but Kazue had been analyzing facial micro expressions since he'd been forced to socialize. He could see the brief confusion, and couldn't help but wonder if Eraserhead also knew his Quirk was having zero effect.

"What?" Kazue asked, blinking once at his teacher in the perfect picture of cluelessness. The last thing he wanted while the entire class was watching him was for anyone to figure out that this was the first time the other half of his Quirk was finally fucking working. Ignoring the uncomfortable itching feeling of twenty pairs of eyes boring into his skull, he used his foot to roll the softball closer from where it'd fallen.

"Quit playing around," Eraserhead grumbled, closing his eyes in obvious annoyance as his hair floated back down to rest around his shoulders. "Grow up. This is the hero course, not junior high where you could do everything halfway without getting caught."

Kazue caught himself before he could snort and roll his eyes, settling for clenching his jaw instead. Nothing he did was halfway, actually, it was all calculated down to the finest possible detail. Just because he might score above and below half his peers did not mean that he did it halfway. Scoring average was actually far more difficult for Kazue than breezing through, but he wasn't about to say that out loud.

Instead of saying something snarky that he'd normally save for his father or Aerogale, he only wiggled the fingers of the arm caught in the scarf. "Can I throw the ball now, Sensei?"

Okay, so maybe he still said something less than politely. Sue him, he was annoyed.

The capture material loosened its hold on Kazue's arm, returning to its owner to encase his shoulders.

"Do as you want," Eraserhead replied flatly, rubbing his closed eyes. He'd no doubt be watching even closer now, which meant that Kazue either had to throw the softball as hard as he genuinely could, or... Something else. "You have three tries left. This one doesn't count."

Whatever. None of this really matters in the real world, anyway, so what's the point in actually trying?

Kazue flexed his now-free hand before crouching to pick up the ball, halfway turning to face his staring classmates. He ignored the way his skin crawled at all the eyes fixed directly on him, choosing to lift his chin at the short brunette girl with a face on the rounder side. "Zero Gravity, would you mind stepping over here for a moment and holding out your hand?"

Her eyes widened at the name of her Quirk being said out loud without having told him, but walked over after a beat or hesitation. She halfway extended her hand, glancing back and forth between Kazue and Eraserhead to check if she was allowed to touch the softball.

He nodded once, the movement sharp and short.

Kazue closed the gap instead, touching the softball to the pads on her fingertips while simultaneously tapping her shoulder with his other hand. A small pulse of smooth green into bubbled pink was all it took to activate Zero Gravity, the mass of the softball minuscule in comparison to even a glimpse of her full potential.

"Thank you," he said to her face of surprise, turning back around and immediately throwing the ball. Velocity was irrelevant, given the cancellation of gravity and drag, so the only calculations involved were the angles.

Is that better?

Kazue internally rolled his eyes as he directly met the gaze of his teacher, face still carefully blank as he gestured in the direction of the barely-visible sphere. "Do you have another ball or do you want me to go get that one?"

He'd thrown it with a fairly low velocity for a reason, and being passive-aggressive was that reason. Either way, he'd gain a score of infinity, and most of his classmates had either already earned at least one extraordinary score or absolutely were going to in the remaining events. Of course, Kazue already knew that Eraserhead would tell him no, as retrieving a single ball between every throw would take far too long, but it was the thought that counted.

Kazue could feel the man's eyes on his back as he turned and left the circle, skirting the chattering vague line of his classmates to once again stand at the side. He wasn't quite sure how good of an idea provoking his teacher had been, but at the same time, Kazue had been annoyed. It was fine, nothing would happen because he was passive-aggressive toward his homeroom teacher.

He watched passively as the other students entered the circle when called—meaning Kazue now knew their names—taking their three throws and more often than not looking disappointed at their results. Between Bakugō's score and Kazue's infinity, only a few garnered scores in the same neighborhood. Namely, Uraraka with her own infinity, Yaoyorozu via a cannon, and Tokoyami with Dark Shadow.

Kazue sighed internally when Todoroki deigned not to use his fire and only his ice, drastically decreasing his score without the explosive power he could have created.

Then it was Midoriya's turn.

He stood quietly in the center of the painted circle, staring down at the softball in his hand. Kazue ignored the chatter at the other end of the class in favor of intently watching the boy with One For All, curious and wary of what would happen. So far, Midoriya hadn't used the Quirk once, and from the way he was staring down at the ball, it was now or never.

Midoriya's face shifted into an expression of desperation as he gripped the ball and drew back his arm, One For All erupting to life in a maelstrom of green lightning. The sheer amount of power barely contained within a single limb threatened to quite literally shatter the bone upon release.

Kazue took a single step forward in alarm, hand stretching out toward Midoriya before it was abruptly over. The red tinges of Erasure hovered around the boy's body, forcing the Quirk to dissipate in the blink of an eye.

Midoriya threw the ball.

Forty-six meters.

Hoping no one had noticed his sudden movement, Kazue brought his foot back into line with the other with as much casualty as he could muster. Internally, he reminded himself that, no, this wasn't his job, and that Eraserhead was perfectly capable of stopping idiotic students from destroying their arm for a fitness test.

Kazue didn't even bother listening to the exchange between Midoriya and Eraserhead, choosing instead to delve into the former's iteration of One For All. Midoriya needed to learn control, and fast. He had a sinking feeling that there was more to the situation than him just having the Quirk, given the state of All Might last time Kazue had seen him.

Filling the number one hero's shoes once he retired was thought to be an impossible task, but... Kazue sensed no deterioration whatsoever in Midoriya. One For All was stronger than it had ever been, an insane concept that Kazue had trouble believing when he saw it.

Then he witnessed Midoriya beat out Bakugō's score by ten centimeters with only a finger, and the concept was accepted without any further thoughts.

Kazue snorted under his breath, letting his eyes drift away from Midoriya as he made a decision. With any luck, there wouldn't be any opposition to it.

~-~-~-~

The three remaining tests were even more of a pain in the ass than they would have been beforehand, Eraserhead's dead eyes boring into his skull the second he did anything. Not wanting to deal with being the center of attention again, Kazue was forced to produce actual results instead of just ones that would place him in the middle of the pack.

The way things were going, he wasn't going to end up in tenth or eleventh place. According to his mental scoreboard, Kazue would end up in either sixth or seventh, beating out several people who used their Quirks for most, if not all the tests. He'd say that it would be disappointing on their end, but it was sort of expected of someone who'd been physically training for most of their life. The most practice essentially everyone else did was in their own home, save for those who'd taken martial arts classes.

In the end, it was exactly as Kazue had predicted.

"All right, time to give you your results. I've ranked you all from best to worst," Eraserhead said blandly, the dead expression on his face unfortunately quite relatable. "You should probably have a good idea of your standing already. I'll just pull up the whole list, it's not worth going over each individual's score."

He pulled a device from his pocket and pressed a button. A scoreboard of all twenty students was projected into the air with a light-blue tint, arranged into ten rows and two columns. Kazue pursed his lips and held back an annoyed sigh upon spotting his name in seventh place, right behind someone named Shōji Mezō and beating out Ojiro Mashirao.

Kazue scanned the rest of the list out of curiosity and to ignore his own ranking, noting that Bakugō—who had actually tried to attack Midoriya after his throw—had placed third. Kirishima was in ninth, Sero was in fifteenth, Kaminari was right behind in sixteenth, and Midoriya Izuku had placed last.

Kazue deadpanned at the sight of the complete and utter look of shock and horror on Midoriya's face, knowing that Eraserhead hadn't been lying when he'd said last place would be expelled. He knew the teacher's reputation, and reading people was something he'd taught himself to do years ago after far too many instances of taking everyone's words at face-value.

Besides that, he completely disagreed with the idea of expelling a student on the first day based on a physical exam. They were all strong enough to make it through the practical exam, and besides that, everyone had potential. An argument could be made that it was what one did with their potential, but something like that couldn't be determined from a singular demonstration.

Furthermore, Kazue had been evaluating interns' Quirks and physical capabilities for the past several years at the agency. It was pretty damn obvious that Midoriya hadn't possessed All Might's Quirk for very long, but hell, once he learned how to control it... His potential was insurmountably high.

Eraserhead clicked on the hologram device, the results flickering away.

"And I was lying, no one's going home."

Yeah, okay, sure. Kazue snorted under his breath, not believing that for a second. More likely, the hero had seen the same potential in Midoriya and decided to rescind his initial declaration. With that much power in a single finger, anyone else could only imagine how far he could go in the future.

"It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your Quirks," Eraserhead as though it were some grand reveal, a particularly creepy smile stretching at his lips.

Kazue only sighed and clenched his jaw, the pressure increasing when Yaoyorozu spoke up with her hands on her hips.

"I'm surprised the rest of you didn't figure that out," she said, swimming confused as to how everyone had believed the truth. "I'm sorry, I guess I probably should have said something."

Kazue covered his snort with a cough, awkwardly looking off to the side in case someone saw. She was smart, extremely so, but appeared to be just the slightest bit too trusting when it came to authority figures.

"That's it, we're done for the day," Eraserhead announced, thankfully cutting off the chatter instantly. The sheer enthusiasm of his classmates was so... ugh. It made Kazue want to curl up in a ditch somewhere and die, quite frankly. "Pick up a syllabus in the classroom; read it over before tomorrow morning."

With that, the hero turned to leave, giving Midoriya a pass to the nurse's office as he went. He trudged off with his back hunched and hands in his pockets, truly the pinnacle of proper posture.

Kazue immediately headed off in the direction of the locker rooms, intent on changing as fast as possible and leaving. The last thing he wanted was to get caught in the crowd of students leaving orientation, especially since he got picked up rather than walking down the hill.

His steps faltered when a hand tapped his shoulder, his Quirk letting him know who it was before he even turned his head to see. Kazue didn't stop walking, but slowed down to let Uraraka catch up to him.

"Excuse me, but, um... how did you know the name of my Quirk?" she asked, eyes wide and fingertips tapping together in what appeared to be a common gesture of hers.

"It's a part of my own Quirk," Kazue explained vaguely, figuring he owed her that much. After all, his go-to method of addressing people he didn't know by name was to say their Quirk's name instead, and he'd done exactly that for her. "I can tell what someone else's is just by looking at them, as well as how it works. Among other things."

Uraraka's eyes lit up. "Oh! Is that so you can turn other people's Quirks on without them explaining it first?"

Kazue nodded in affirmation, catching Midoriya trying and failing to look like he wasn't eavesdropping in his peripheral vision.

"Yeah," he shrugged, the memories of how much of a pain it'd been to learn control when his Quirk had manifested. His ability to 'read' Quirks had been the first aspect to show itself and once it was on, it refused to turn off. All that information flooding into his brain every time he looked at someone... Overwhelming as all hell. There was a reason Kazue hadn't attended preschool after his Quirk had manifested, otherwise he wasn't necessarily exaggerating when he said his head might have exploded.

"That's really cool, uh..." Uraraka began cheerfully with a disturbingly genuine smile, trailing off sheepishly when she realized she either didn't know or didn't remember his name.

"Kimura Kazue," he returned, pulling the door open and gesturing for her to go ahead once they reached Yūei's main building.

"Right, I remember now!" she smiled as he once again fell into stride with her, having held the door for a second longer after entering so Midoriya could grab it and not have it close in his face. Normally, Kazue wouldn't care, but well, Midoriya was injured and still eavesdropping. "I'm Uraraka Ochaco, and I look forward to working with you!"

Oh god, it was even worse than Kazue had thought possible.

Why him, of all people? He went out of his way to not sugarcoat his rather bland personality in the slightest in an attempt to dissuade people from wanting to talk to him, yet why was it failing the second he entered the hero course? They couldn't all be like this, could they?

Kazue suffered through the next minute or so of small talk before they reached the locker rooms and had to enter their respective sides. Only having a few seconds before the rest of the boys filed in, he snatched his clothes out of his locker, retreated into a stall, and locked the door half a second before the first person entered. From there, it was only a matter of changing back into Yūei's school uniform—without bothering to make it look nice—and leaving, throwing his gym uniform back in the locker as he ducked out before anyone could say a word.

With any luck, he wouldn't run into anyone on the way back to 1-A, or on the way out once he grabbed the syllabus.

Thankfully, for once in his life, things actually worked in Kazue's favor. Save for the unexpected eye contact with Eraserhead in the hall, that is, but Kazue deigned to ignore his teacher and unceremoniously leave the building. He then proceeded to successfully make it all the way to the gates without being accosted and was promptly greeted by a blacked-out car screeching to a halt mere centimeters away from his body.

The tinted window rolled down, replaced by a defined forearm accentuated by the rolled-up sleeve of the woman's black button-up. Tattoos curled out from beneath the fabric, just a hint of the full art hidden from sight.

"Hey, brat," Fueki Shun greeted with a feral grin, sunglasses low on her nose. She jabbed a thumb to the backseat. "Get in."

Your honor I love her. If you couldn't tell based on her introduction, y'know, where I mentioned the sleeves being rolled up and muscular forearms...

I'm so fucking gay oh my god 

*Insert Nick Nelson saying "I'm bi, actually" here*

Anywho. If you vote and/or comment I will love you forever. Just so you know.