Chapter 23

"This is the most adorable thing in the world!" Hagakure exclaimed, seemingly pulling his newly developed beowolf puppy into a hug. "You have to have one of these around at all times, I demand it."

"And so it shall be done," Kazuki commented blandly, even as he wore a smile on his face. It was nice to see one of his creations being met with positive emotions. Sure, his grimm could be helpful at times and such, but they were always that little bit intimidating for people. Not the puppy, however, and he was very happy with that.

"Won't it get in the way of your training?" Yaoyorozu asked, although it looked and felt like it hurt her to even suggest such a thing. Her eyes were glued to his little creation, to the point that he just had to roll his eyes and create another for her to pet. She didn't quite go all the way to a hug, but he thought it was a good guess to call it an eventuality.

"It probably will," he answered, sharing a look and an amused grin with Mineta. "But I wanted to try and train with more grimm outside. Having a puppy out doing nothing should be a good way to get started in that regard. Less things to worry about."

After all, he'd done some testing after he found out about that new approach to using his Quirk. The creatures he could make that way were, for the moment, mainly the beowolf and the nevermore and both monsters were… More tame when done that way. Even when he let them do as they would, it took basically giving them complete freedom for them to go off the rails.

Unfortunately, it wasn't all good. The "nice" grimm seemed to be much weaker than their counterparts. They needed an excessive amount of negativity to get roughly the same results as their "meaner" counterparts. To the point where it just wasn't efficient at all. Furthermore, they were made a lot slower too. With all that in mind, he decided that the nice grimm would stay just an adorable addition to his repertoire in case he needed something friendlier for some reason. Unless he made another breakthrough, at least.

It was a shame that they weren't quite usable. He'd have much preferred them to the normal grimm, but it was what it was. At least now he had an alternative that he could use if he needed something that – maybe – wouldn't cause mass panic if summoned in public. It was something, at least.

He also thought that it might come in handy in situations with a high amount of negativity where he needed more grimm numbers too, like the USJ. He hadn't tried yet, but he thought he might be able to keep a greater number of the nicer grimm under control. Even if his control did slip, those ones were less likely to cause as much harm as their counterparts, at least.

"You are the best, Creepy!" Hagakure announced, to which he grinned.

"You do know that I still need to train, right? I want to try with more grimm, but that still means there'll only be one puppy while we are at it. I want to start slowly," he commented, making both girls pause and turn to look at each other with narrowed eyes. Or at least Yaoyorozu did, but judging by the emotions rolling off of both of them, he was pretty sure Hagakure was in the same boat. Honestly, what was up with those girls? "So…"

"We'll share one," the aforementioned invisible girl declared resolutely, making him blink.

"Er, I was going to have the one with me-" he started, before suddenly realizing that, maybe, just maybe, that was a bad idea. A second later, under the focused, very threatening emotions of both girls, he shrunk a little. "I mean, em-" he stammered, before finally coming up with something to say. "I wanted to train with grimm being in different places so, I guess I can have one with you girls," he said in the end, sighing when both girls relaxed and turned back to their respective beowolf puppies.

"Well, if that was half as scary as it looked," Mineta commented idly, bemused by what had just happened. "This new grimm of yours might just be scarier than the others, ironically."

"Tell me about it," Kazuki mumbled, still a little baffled. He'd imagined people would like his new creature addition, if it could be called that, but still… Wasn't that a bit much? "So, what are you gonna be training for? I think I'll wait for Kamakiri and maybe Kirishima for some battle training. Not like I can do much while I wait to be in top condition."

"I want to improve my strength and… Well, my body in general," Mineta admitted, feelings of shame and annoyance bleeding towards Kazuki. "If I learned anything at the USJ, it's that I'm really out of shape," he added then, sighing.

"You are fine, man," he reassured with a smile. "That was kind of an extreme scenario. You are more of a capture hero and that was a much more… battle oriented situation."

"I know, but that doesn't mean I will always be able to avoid those things. And if something happens, I can't just run away from that kind of stuff and leave it for other heroes," Mineta argued, growing more frustrated by the second. "If only my Quirk didn't suck."

"Your Quirk is fine. You just have to work with it and use it as best you can. If nothing else, you should be able to buy time and such, right?" Kazuki asked, considering his friend's situation. Empty words were useless, after all. He wanted to give some actual advice… even if it might not be the best. "You can always become a sidekick or join a hero team, right?"

"I guess," Mineta replied, feeling a little better. Kazuki took that as a victory.

"What do you say, you want a puppy while we wait? It'll cheer you up."

"Shut up, Creepy."

"Is that a no?"

"... Yeah, I'd like one."

[}-o-{]

His beowolves were currently fighting Kirishima and Kazuki was actually really grateful that they were sparring. After all, if they were busy doing that, then they weren't going to be doing a lot of talking. It simplified things and he didn't feel like dealing with complex things.

He had enough on his plate as it was.

"Relax, will you?" Kazuki muttered under his breath, turning to give Kamakiri a side-glare. "You fight my grimm basically everyday, why are you so impatient?"

"Because I always have to be careful with spars against people," the other boy grumbled, flexing his hand and making a blade come out of his arm before retracting it. "I don't have to be careful with your grimm. I can let loose and it's… nice. I always had to be careful using my Quirk."

Kazuki didn't really need to ask more than that, really. The way the guy kept repeating the bit about being careful spoke quite a bit too. The frustration he felt, the shame… Those were familiar to Kazuki. So was the eager emotion in the guy's eyes when he turned to get a better look at him.

"I'm trying to get better with my Quirk, make more grimm."

"So, why not try now?" Kamakiri asked, looking more than a little hopeful.

"Not for the moment. I… My control slips when I have too many," Kazuki admitted, twitching a little. Kamakiri wasn't what he'd call a friend, really. He had a nickname, but those were more of a joke than anything. More like… being friendly, than being friends.

And yet… He wanted to help.

That, and he was tired of hiding, of fearing, of lying.

What difference would it make, at the end of the day, if people would find out eventually? It wasn't like he could keep who he was a secret forever and he'd known that from the beginning. He had friends, he had teachers, he had people that believed in him. So what if people started hating him later. So long as he had someone on his corner… Kazuki thought he could deal with it.

"I get it," Kamakiri told him then, and Kazuki paused for a second, refocusing on the spar going on when Kirishima hardened his arm and punched a hole in one of his beowolves. "I used to really want to cut stuff when I used my Quirk. It was so tempting whenever I made a blade, to just… test it on something, a tree, a sheet of metal, a wall."

"My grimm are as mean as they look, so I have to keep a hold of their leash," Kazuki started then. "But having to control more than one body is…"

"Like trying to play a game with two controllers?"

"I guess that works," he agreed with a nod, even though he'd never played with a console. That didn't mean he hadn't seen some and more or less knew how they worked. "So, yeah, it's a little complicated to add more."

"I get it," Kamakiri grumbled. Then the boy sighed. "I'll hit the machines for a bit while I wait, I guess," he added then, to which Kazuki nodded.

"Have fun."

"Just give me a call when you are done with Kirishima, yeah?"

"Sure."

[}-o-{]

'You said you went through stuff too,' was the message Distressed sent him out of nowhere. 'What was it?'

'My mother left when I was little, my parents hated each other and me, because I reminded them of the other too,' Kazuki replied honestly, careful not to reveal too much. 'My mother left, sure, but that didn't really make things better. If anything, it made things worse. Things… kind of went to hell after that.'

'I have a mutation Quirk,' Distressed told him. After that, there were no more messages for a while, which felt strange. Kazuki was pretty sure there should have been more after that. Maybe they'd decide against adding the rest though, that was understandable.

"Creepy?" Mineta asked him, looking at him curiously while the girls weren't far behind. They'd stopped for some drinks after they were done with the training for the day and he was halfway through his when he got the first message. It was kind of a shame, Kazuki thought, that he wasn't close enough to try and get a read on Distressed's emotions.

"Just… a message from an acquaintance," he said, not quite wanting to call them a friend. "Someone I'm trying to help."

"If you say so," Mineta commented, looking like he wanted to ask more, but holding back. Kazuki appreciated that. "So, you still need help with that assignment, Bubbly?"

"Ugh, can we talk about something other than school?" the invisible girl grumbled then, drawing a grin from all the people at the table. After all, Mineta, Yaoyorozu and Kazuki were doing pretty well for themselves on the school department. Hagakure… not so much.

'People suck,' Distressed sent then, getting Kazuki's attention once more. This time though, he tried to keep an ear on his friend's conversation too. Multitasking was becoming his thing, he supposed.

'I agree with that,' he sent back, holding back a grin.

'How many people are you messaging like this?' they sent then, which kind of caught him off guard. That was a bit of a shift in tone.

'Only you right now, but I'm keeping an eye out in case someone else needs help,' he replied, which was certainly true. He'd kept up updating his notebook with information regarding spikes of emotion around his apartment in case there was a pattern or something concerning.

'You some kind of underground hero?'

'Not a hero at all,' Kazuki replied, taking a gulp of his drink. 'But I'd like to be.'

'I think you'd do a much better job than half the idiots that parade around, if it means anything.'

'It does, thank you,' Kazuki replied.

'Yeah, well. I don't want to seem like a crybaby,' the person on the other side sent him and he could almost hear the grumbling voice. 'Do you play video games?'

To that, Kazuki looked up at his friends.

"I'm just saying that putting some money in the game wouldn't be that bad. Just for the monthly package. It's not like I want to become a whale," Hagakure protested.

"The fact that you know what a whale is already concerns me, honestly," Mineta pointed out, half in disbelief and half in amusement.

"Do we need to stage an intervention?"

"Creepy, come on!"

'Yeah,' Kazuki replied to Distressed then, chuckling as Hagakure continued trying to defend her idea. 'Do you like gacha?'

[}-o-{]

At night, Kazuki found himself in the company of his plants. At that small place, colorful and full of life, he felt the most at peace. More importantly, it was a place that was his… Or, as his as anything was those days.

As such, he thought it was the best place to do his Quirk experimentation in regards to his negativity pool. There, Kazuki could reach out to the nodes of specific negative emotions he'd found and try to do something with them. They all felt terribly awful, but at least he could calm down every now and then by just taking a minute to appreciate the view around him.

Kazuki had trouble doing more than simply "touching" the nodes, however. No matter how much he tried, all he managed was getting a closer sense of them and an indescribably raw wave of the particular emotion the node contained. The only silver lining he got from the whole thing was that he was starting to learn which node represented which emotion, which was already progress, he supposed.

The nodes moved, however, something that made the whole process more difficult than it already was. Kazuki persevered though, because he wanted to be the best he could. His Quirk sucked, but that only motivated him further. If he was stuck with a Godawful power, then he wanted to at least be able to use it to the best of his abilities.

'Come on,' he urged himself, reaching for a node that wouldn't leave him trembling on the ground, like the pain one. Nor would it leave punching a wall, like the anger one. He reached for the exhaustion node. It was just as bad as the rest of them, but at least that one was less… destructive, in a way. It was milder, in a way, or so he supposed.

Like always, as soon as he reached with his metaphorical hand into the emotion, he felt the crippling weariness wash over him. He fought it though, or, more accurately, fought against letting his focus go. The whole process required concentration to be carried out, after all, so the upsetting of his mental state from the intrusive feelings didn't help at all, obviously. He managed to hold on that time though. He held onto the emotion, pulling from it like he usually would from the general pool of negativity when he went to summon a grimm.

He didn't get far, however, but he was sure he'd gotten something before it slipped through his fingers. It was like pulling a loose string from somewhere, dragging something small, that turned out to be more than expected. 'Calm down, gather your thoughts,' he thought, taking a deep breath in and opening his eyes to regard the plants around him under the light of his balcony.

'Ok… I have to continue practicing this. Maybe then I can try making a grimm solely with that negativity instead of the mishmash that's the general pool,' Kazuki mused, leaning back against the sliding door that led back to his apartment. 'I wonder if a grimm made like that will be different in some way.'

As usual, he had a lot to work on.

His Quirk was far from reaching its peak, he knew. He himself needed to improve a lot, physically, intellectually, emotionally. He had to train, he had to study and he had to… He didn't even know how to improve the third, but surely there was a way. Maybe Hound Dog could help him. The man was a counselor though. Kazuki wasn't sure he was a proper psychologist or something of the sort.

He wasn't sure if that was what he needed either but…

'Point is that there's a lot to work on indeed,' he decided, sighing. Rubbing his face tiredly, he decided to take a break, clear his head, as it were. Standing up, he went to prepare himself a cup of tea before going back to sitting by his plants. 'Maybe I can read through the school books and do other stuff for a bit? Or should I continue tackling the nodes while I have a better idea of how to go about it?' he wondered idly as he waited for the water to be ready.

Ultimately, he would do neither, since someone knocked on the door.

A little confused, he reached out for the tired feeling that seeped through the door towards him from outside. 'Weariness, annoyance, nothing else?' he noted to himself as he approached the entrance as quietly as possible. Peeking through the peephole, Kazuki blinked before stepping back and opening the door.

"Aizawa," he greeted more confused than anything. The mummy of a man simply gave him a nod before speaking, his voice muffled by the bandages still covering most of his body. It was honestly a little humorous… At least it would have been if not for Kazuki's vivid memories of the man's injuries and the pain he could still feel from the man.

"Endo," was the short response he got before his teacher continued. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Kazuki agreed easily, stepping aside and holding the door open. "Can I get you something to drink? I was getting a cup of tea for myself just now."

"Tea would be alright," the teacher answered, to which he nodded and moved towards the kitchen. "You seem to be having some problems after what happened."

"Isn't everyone?" Kazuki replied flatly, keeping himself firmly facing towards the drinks he was preparing instead of his teacher. "I'm pretty sure there were issues thrown at everyone."

"That's true enough," Aizawa conceded without a fight. "Your situation was a bit worse than everyone else's, however. There's nothing wrong with wanting help."

"I'm getting help. I went to talk with Inui already and I've spent time with my friends, just… unwinding. I'm not fine, but then again, I don't think I've ever been fine," Kazuki said, with a shrug and a bitter smile on his face as he picked the two cups and walked to the table. "I'll get there eventually. No need for special treatment."

"Is that what you think it is?"

"Might be, might not be. Regardless, I'm fine," Kazuki answered, bringing his cup to his lips.

"Doesn't mean you can't get help anyway. Just because you can do it on your own, doesn't mean you have to," Aizawa told him then, following suit and taking a sip from his drink. How he managed with all the bandages was anyone's guess, but Kazuki wasn't too focused on that. "You are not on your own anymore, Endo."

"... I appreciate that," he said, because he truly did. Sometimes, it was difficult to remember that he wasn't alone in his cell or with his parents anymore. He was at school, with friends and teachers that cared. He was still coming to terms with all that, really, that and the fact that he had a life to live, a future to look forward to.

Looking at Aizawa, Kazuki wondered if he should ask for something. One very particular thing came to mind, it clung to his thoughts for a long moment as he considered it. Ultimately, he dismissed it for the moment. Maybe later, when he didn't feel like he was imposing. The man was barely holding himself together with all the injuries he'd incurred.

"I'll keep that in mind," he decided to say in the end when it looked like his previous answer wasn't enough for his teacher.

"... See that you do," Aizawa told him, very obviously aware that Kazuki had thought of something. "Inui brought up the fact that you noticed something in Aoyama. That he was feeling guilty?"

"A whole lot," he confirmed with a nod, happy to move to a different topic. It was on purpose, he imagined, but he didn't much care for that, since it worked in his favor. He was a little confused by the disappointment and anger that creeped up in his sense of the teacher's emotions though. "I didn't know what happened to him, so I wanted to make sure you were aware of that."

"It was the right call," Aizawa told him firmly, to which Kazuki felt himself relax a little. He'd been a little worried he might have overstepped. His Quirk could be a really good tool for invading someone's privacy, after all, so… Yeah, sometimes he didn't know if stepping in was the right call or not. Maybe he could discuss that with Inui during one of the sessions. "Anyone else that stood out to you?" the teacher asked then, to which he blinked.

"Todoroki was feeling pretty shitty too, but Hagakure told me what happened there so… I thought that was more understandable. Everyone's at least a little shaken. You know, little fear spikes and such," he explained, frowning a little as he tried to remember if there was anything worth mentioning. "Is this just about our class?" he asked then, apparently catching Aizawa off guard because the man stayed silent for a moment, tilting his head.

"You picked something from another class?" the hero asked then, audibly confused.

"If what Kamakiri told us regarding where their classroom is true, then it came from 1-B, there was quite the spike of anger, frustration, envy and… Well, it certainly stood out to me. Well, more like several spikes but it went up and never quite went down the whole way again, if that makes sense," Kazuki said, shrugging and taking another sip from his drink. "Nothing else that I know of."

"Hm, if you remember or notice something else at the school, do tell a member of the staff, alright?" Aizawa told him, making him nod.

"Sure," he agreed easily. It's not like it was a difficult task to accomplish, really. He was already bombarded with the other students' emotions all the time. If something stood out, he wouldn't even have to be looking for it. "Did something happen with Aoyama? Anything I can do to help?" he asked his teacher.

From what he'd heard, the other boy should have been fine, after all. Nobody he'd talked to had mentioned anything special happening with the beam-shooter. Nor had any of his friends heard from anyone else about anything of the sort. So, either someone else was keeping a secret too, or something had happened when Aoyama was, presumably, alone at some point.

"Nothing for you to worry about," Aizawa waved off. That was a lie if Kazuki had ever heard one. The emotions the topic brought in the hero weren't nothing, after all. Then again, he'd said nothing for Kazuki to worry about, so it was probably something for someone else to worry about.

"Ok, I guess I can leave that to you," he conceded, leaning back on his seat and taking a sip from his drink.

"Thank you, for not pushing it," Aizawa told him, and if he hadn't known better, Kazuki would have thought the man's voice turned soft. Must have been a trick of the bandages though. "I see you used your allowance for something other than outings and study material," the man said then, a little randomly as he looked out the balcony glass door at the plants.

"Yeah, I got tired of the bare feeling of the place, so I brought a little color and life," Kazuki explained, smiling a little now that they were moving to a topic he liked much more. He was still curious about Aoyama and all that, but… Well, it had already been brought up to the staff and he decided to trust them. At least for the moment. "I'm thinking of a few other purchases, but those are for later, I ran out of money."

"What other things?"

"Well, I was thinking of setting up an aquarium or maybe a terrarium in here. Not quite sure yet, but I've been watching videos and..."

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

Well, I don't have much to say regarding this chapter and I'm kind of feeling a lil' lazy today, so Imma keep the notes short.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter though.

Announcement: I've started posting some stories that I've written in collaboration with a Discord mod over there in the server. For now, it's sort of a server exclusive thing, but if we see that people like it, maybe we'll start sharing them in FFN for everyone to see. So, if you are curious, go take a look and tell us what you think.

As always, if you can't wait until next week for next chapter, or if you just feel like supporting my writing, there's up to three new chapters in my Pa tre on:

P a treon . com (slash) AdrianKing

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Random Question: I imagine you must have a window you can see from wherever you are right now. What do you see outside? I see the balcony of my apartment, the few potted plants I have there and further away a bunch of other buildings and their balconies.

See you.