Clouds ruffle in ripples like a careening curtain that's been pulled back to let the sunlight shine through. Beyond the congregation of pure white nebulous are acres of bright blue. Izuku can't help but admire the sky that seems to shimmer as wind blows his hair into artistic swirls shaped similarly to the clouds above. Shade sweeps over the rooftop of U.A from where he's seated on its ledge, legs dangling in the breeze. A calm serenity fills the air with the tune of chirping birds.

Wholegrain bread that's been toasted golden brown crunches with the thick tomato and fresh lettuce that resides between slices as Izuku takes a bite of his sandwich. An aroma wafts from the food and becomes a fragrance that the air itself seems to savor as much as the boy does. Juicy flavors, warm and cold, tingle his taste buds as he chews on the combination of wheat and vegetable. Crumbs chip away and fall into Izuku's open bento box to bounce off ziplock bagged orange slices and grapes.

He'd gone up to the roof to have his packed lunches when he attended Aldera during Junior High. Eating on the top of his school feels oddly nostalgic as he munches on a mouthful of toasted bread he bit off from the corner of his sandwich. He watches the cherry blossoms planted below billow with another breeze that blows through, mind in a daze and his eyes entranced as pink petals flutter about in a huge flurry. Birds cease their singing and fly away, frantically flapping their wings that loose feathers float in their wake.

"I was wondering where you went", a feminine voice draws Izuku from his thoughts and has him turning his attention with his body to the stairwell behind him. He recognizes the girl coming from the roof accessway as his friend and classmate, but still feels his facial muscles pulling into a perturbed expression.

"Jirou?", he wonders why she'd also be occupying the rooftop during their lunch period. Completely oblivious, he has a hard time deducing any valid reasoning. Even after she walks over to his spot to sit beside him with her own food, he can't figure it out. Dumbly, he asks, "What are you doing up here?"

Kyoka flicks him on the forehead as though that'll jog his brain function to start working again, "I've been looking for you, stupid!" Izuku rubs his slightly sore temple as the girl huffs with disbelief. "I should be the one asking you that question", a small shake of her head has Izuku lowering his.

"O- Oh..", his neck bends as he sinks his head even lower. He only raises both after so that he can nervously scratch his scalp, "I guess that's fair.." His fingernails run through his curly green locks, sometimes splitting hairs and sometimes getting caught in the tangled mess.

"I got worried when I didn't see you in the cafeteria for lunch. We normally eat together, so I thought maybe something was wrong", Kyoka picks at the rice on her tray with a plastic spork but doesn't bother scooping any of it just yet as she side-eyes Izuku.

Izuku looks away, avoiding her line of sight. "I just..", his voice catches in his throat like it's his sandwich before he swallows. Slowly, he turns his head to look at Kyoka again. She waits with gentle eyes. "I don't like the stares I've been getting recently", Izuku holds the girl's gaze before adding, "Nobody wants me there.. so I figured I'd go somewhere else."

Kyoka winces with her eyes, "I'm sure that's not the case", but she can see where the boy is coming from as he sulks with his sandwich. "Even if it is, and everybody IS still freaked out about what happened with Bakugo.. Who cares?", she tries blowing it off with a wave of her hand to loosen him up a bit.

"I don't", his shrug is a small one but he does seem to pick up on the carefree vibe. A wry smile is directed towards nobody in particular as Izuku looks up at the sky, "I'm used to eating alone."

"Hey", Kyoka nudges him with her shoulder to remind him that she's still sitting next to him. He looks back at her as she says softly, "You're not alone."

Izuku's face turns a shade of red and he finds himself redirecting his gaze once again. "Thanks", he mumbles his appreciation as his smile turns a bit more genuine.

Kyoka blushes too, hers a tone of pink that matches the petals that have blown their way to the rooftop where she and Izuku reside. "Yeah", she mumbles even quieter while looking in any direction but at the boy.

A few seconds of silence pass between them before Izuku sighs and says, "At least Bakugo's been avoiding me ever since instead of trying to start more trouble" The weight of the sandwich in the boy's hand reminds him to take a bite.

Kyoka nods, spooning a mouthful of her own food. "He hasn't said anything about the fight either, no matter how much Kirishima or the others ask", the flimsy spork in her hand bends as she pokes at her rice again. She recalls the class trying to get answers out of him before the bombastic blonde blew up on them. Literally. A teacher had to come and separate him from the others after setting off the sprinkler system.

"I'm surprised", Izuku blinks back his shock before pressing his thumb into the toasted bread of his sandwich. Kyoka tilts her head when she hears the crunch of the bun. "I didn't think he'd keep my quirk to himself afterwards", the girl listens closely to the boy's whispered words that are unclear whether they're meant for her or himself.

She sets her utensil down on her tray, then fixes Izuku with a sad stare. "You know you can't keep it hidden from everyone forever, right? Secrets come out eventually", she tries to be as gentle as possible as she warns him of the consequences of hiding his quirk.

Izuku nods before putting the remainder of his sandwich back in his bento box. "I know that.. I'm just not ready", he loses his appetite and closes it, "You saw how they reacted by just seeing what it can do.."

Kyoka reaches out to touch his shoulder consolingly, but pauses mid movement, her hand hovering in place as she thinks better of it. Her hand lowers as she tries cheering him up with words of assurement alone, "Some of our classmates are nice enough that I don't think it'll bother them once they know, at least, the ones I've spoken to."

"Maybe..", Izuku shrugs noncommittally. Quickly, he hides his somber mood with a smile meant to cheer Kyoka up instead, "Don't let me stop you from making friends either way though."

Kyoka blinks, taken by surprise. She shrugs in return once she recovers. "Eh, I really only know Yaoyorozu and Ashido so far", the boy's smile is contagious though.

"Who?", he curiously cocks his head to the side as he inquires to know which of his classmates Kyoka is referring to.

Kyoka pauses as she tries to think of a way to describe them. A faint blush dusts her face before she mimes holding something invisible, "You know.. Yaoyorozu is the one with the..", her blush deepens when Izuku realizes the positioning of her hands is in front of her chest.

Izuku instantaneously turns red and shouts the first other distinguishable quality of the girl that he can think of, "The ponytail!"

Kyoka looks away to hide her embarrassment as she nods, "Y- Yeah", she mentally kicks herself for not choosing Yaoyorozu's hairstyle to describe her as Izuku had. Eager to get past the awkward mood, she switches to describing the other girl that she befriended. "Uh, and Ashido is the pink one", Kyoka's mind can't help but wander to thinking about the size of Ashido's bust too though.

"She seems nice", Izuku's reply sets her nerves on fire when she looks down at her boobs and mentally compares the size of them with her female classmates.

"What's that supposed to mean?!", Kyoka's ear jacks raise into attack mode to threaten the boy as the girl succumbs to a sudden surge of anger.

"Ah, what the– I'm just saying she's a nice person!", Izuku throws his hands up defensively while reeling back from the menacing display of the girl's quirk. He nearly falls off the roof's ledge as he tries scooting away to avoid getting assaulted by the pulses of her heartbeat vibrations.

Fortunately for him, Kyoka's attack never comes. She simmers down with a huff. The girl crosses her arms and looks down at the tray in her lap. Her lunch stares lifelessly back at her as she thinks about Ashido, "She has a crush on you.. I think."

"Oh", Izuku's blush returns just as it was about to leave. He looks down at his own lap where he fiddles with his hands, his own thumbs wrestling themselves.

Kyoka shyly raises her eyes to look at him, blushing as deeply as he is. The girl's ear jacks begin to squirm with her body as she sheepishly tries to tell Izuku something else, "I also.. Um.. You know–"

Sirens suddenly screech through the school's speaker system, the blaring noise making the girl stop mid sentence to instinctively cover her ears with a grimace. Izuku pulls his legs up from the roof's ledge so that he can stand and look around. Kyoka slowly gets to her feet to glance towards the stairwell from which the noise is the loudest. The prolonged sound is an alarm that reverberates throughout the entire building as much as it rings outside.

Izuku steps towards the ridge of the roof, peering over its ledge. From there, he can see the U.A barrier has been breached by a crowd of paparazzi somehow. Instead of the security system's gate keeping people out, everyone is pouring in through the entrance. "It's just a bunch of reporters", Izuku looks to his side to see Kyoka has joined him at the ledge to look over with him, "We should be fine so long as we stay up here."

He can't help but look past the reporters and still feel a cause for concern though. The barrier doesn't appear to be malfunctioning. It looks.. Damaged. He doesn't voice his thoughts to worry Kyoka but he can't imagine a reporter destroying U.A's gate just to get a scoop should they receive reprimanding for property damage. Izuku's gaze sweeps the grounds from the wall to the line of cherry blossoms. There, breaking off from the pathway and using the paparazzi as a distraction, Izuku spots someone in a black hoodie.

"I bet everyone in the cafeteria is panicking", Kyoka's own musings break his hyper focus on the intruder but he doesn't quite lose sight of the trespasser either. He keeps his eye on the direction that the prowler is heading while listening to Kyoka say, "We should probably let them know it's a false alarm."

Izuku nods as he backs up towards the stairwell to head inside, "Yeah.. Good idea.." He turns and begins to pick up his pace when he resolves himself to pursue the intruder that he saw entering the school. "You stay here and let me deal with it, there's no need for both of us to get caught up in the chaos", but not without glancing over his shoulder to ensure Kyoka's safety isn't put at risk.

"Oh.. Sure..", the boy is gone by the time Kyoka blinks back her confusion. She idly glances back down from her rooftop view, seeing her teachers have arrived to hold back the media frenzy and get the situation under control. Present Mic shouts at them to leave, his yelling almost as loud as the emergency siren's shrill shriek.

The sound of Izuku's red sneakers slapping the school's tiled floor is barely audible under the mixture of raucous noises. Coupled with the shouts of distant students in the hallway over stampeding on top of one another, the boy is able to move through the corridors undetected. Izuku knows that his unnoticed movements don't bode well for the heroes catching U.A's intruder should they be moving more stealthily than he. It's up to him to find and stop the trespasser somehow in such a case.

So when Izuku finds the teacher's lounge left alone with its door ajar, he knows that he has to hurry. The boy frantically enters the room, nearly tripping on the carpet and stumbles into a plush couch. Across the way, between him and a small coffee table, is the hooded intruder. They're not just trespassing and damaging property, but they're stealing. A folder is flipped open, paper contents held oddly with one finger poised from each hand.

"Hey!", Izuku shouts to get the thief's attention. The hooded intruder glances upwards, startled by the callout. A pair of beady red eyes peer out from shadowed and dried patches of skin. Chapped lips paired with a scar sneer at the hero student. The man emits a dangerous aura that makes Izuku hesitate and think twice about going any closer or saying anything else.

The raised fingers of the hands holding the school's stolen documents slowly lower and touch down with the other digits. As though the paper had been thrown into a fire, they shrivel and rapidly turn to dust. Izuku's eyes broaden with his mind's horrific deduction of what the man's quirk is capable of. All it takes is five fingers to make contact with something for the touched object to decay almost instantaneously. With the paper evidence completely decimated, there will be no evidence as to what documents were viewed.

A dark purple wisp of smoke starts to spiral until it creates a whirling vortex. The spinning motion creates a portal behind what Izuku deduces must be a villain. When a hot feeling bubbles up in his throat to make him cough, he almost believes the smog is a form of knockout gas. It's only when the copper taste of blood reaches his mouth that he realizes the bubbles were his own bodily fluids surfacing. He coughs into the crook of his arm, staining his sleeve. Izuku tries to step forward, but his body lurches with the motion and he's held back by his illness attacking him during the worst of times.

The hooded villain slowly backs away into the warpgate behind him, red eyes watching Izuku all the while. Unable to chase the intruder due to his disease holding him down, Izuku glares back. The dark fumes close around the villain and gradually shroud him in the vortex until the dissipation of the smoke takes him with it. All of the deep purple shrinks towards the left pupil of his eye, and then, it blinks away. The villain vanishes.

Izuku clutches his chest, groaning as he crouches to one knee. For some reason, his heart aches for the mysterious criminal.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For anybody wondering about Aizawa's punishment for Izuku and Katsuki, that'll be addressed after the next flashback chapter. I kinda wanted to cover the break-in with Tomura first. That being said, it's review reading time.

To Cellularranger:

Who's to say those aren't all more exploitable weaknesses? ;)