Chapter 12

All Might wasn't getting better and Kazuki knew it. He could feel the man walking around in just as much pain as he'd been before. 'Why hasn't Recovery Girl healed him or something?' he wondered as he walked through the corridors of U.A. If the Number One hero was intent on staying like that for whatever reason, then Kazuki had half a mind to go and ask him what the fuck was going on. That shit was difficult to ignore by itself, nevermind having a whole lot of other things coming his way too. Going through his days with All Might's presence like that was going to be hard, he could already tell…

But then again, this was the Number One hero so… Kazuki didn't know if it'd be a good idea to actually go and ask. There was probably a reason for that and if he was hiding it then… Yeah, maybe it was better to stay put.

'God, it's fucking awful though,' he mused with a grimace before they finally made it to the school gym and training grounds. As they did so though, he grimaced. There was Kirishima already working on some machines and there was a guy that looked remarkably like him working out too.

"I'll go straight to work with my Quirk," he commented, starting to move before his companions answered.

"I'll go too," Mineta called from behind him, starting a little jog to catch up and walk beside Kazuki. "Don't feel like working out just yet either," the short guy commented casually. Behind them, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu called that they would be on the treadmills for a bit, to which both boys waved and gave their own affirmations.

"You know you can be friends with them, right?" Kazuki commented, drawing a wry grin from Mineta.

"I know, but… I don't get why they are doing what they do, so I prefer to stay away from them too," the shorter boy answered with a shrug. "Honestly, it's dumb. You were a kid, everyone messes up with their Quirks as kids. It's just that I've got a bunch of embarrassing stories and you… Well, that…" he muttered, waving vaguely and awkwardly towards Kazuki.

"I guess…" the white-haired teenager replied, looking forward. "Most people don't see it that way," he added, looking around.

There were other people training all over the place now, it seemed. Certainly more people around than the previous day, which he guessed made sense. Not only were they a little further into the school year, but the previous day had been a bit of a mess with the press thing and such. Kazuki and his friends couldn't be the only ones to decide that training was a good idea when they were going to have to fight for their lives and others' in the future, after all.

Fortunately, there was enough space on the Quirk training grounds though.

"Yeah, well, most people are idiots anyway," Mineta commented, making Kazuki snort. "What? It's true… So," he started then, as they reached one of the emptier spots in the area. The closest student to where they were was a girl that seemed to be manipulating small objects around her and moving them around with hand gestures. "What are you gonna work with first?"

"Well, I have a new Grimm I wanna try making. Somehow, I doubt it'll be as easy as the Boarbatusk, but I have time," Kazuki mused. Closing his eyes for a moment, he noticed that there were plenty of people around to fuel his attempts this time. For one, All Might was still in the building, and that was plenty enough pain to work with. On top of that, the people training were feeling the exhaustion and pain of the exercises, on top of some frustration sometimes. And further away there were also some people that he could feel. "At least I have more negativity to work with… shitty as that is to say."

"Hm, well, I think I'll work on that thing I told you, about bouncing on Pop Off to move around. Just… don't laugh when I fall on my face and stuff, yeah?" Mineta asked, and judging by the emotions rolling off of him, he didn't actually mean it as a joke as much as he made it sound. He was seriously apprehensive and nervous. It took Kazuki off guard a little, that was about as high as his friend's negative emotions had ever gotten.

"I won't," he replied seriously. It didn't seem like a good time to make a joke then and there, really. His response seemed to catch Mineta off guard, if his widened eyes were any indication. Then they narrowed at him and his face colored a little as he felt a wave of embarrassment.

Evidently, Mineta had realized that Kazuki picked up on what he'd tried to keep hidden before. He didn't say anything though, no complaints about minding his own business nor accusations. He just gave a slight nod and moved a little away before starting setting up some of his Pop Off spheres.

Kazuki looked at him for a moment before turning and seeing Hagakure and Yaoyorozu already jogging on top of the machines on the other side of the training facility. 'Time to get to work myself, I guess,' he mused, rolling his shoulders. Focusing on the empty space in front of him, he delved into his own self, diving for the reserve of negativity once more.

Thus started the process of trying to shape his new Grimm.

Just like with the Boarbatusk, and really any of his current creature selection, it was a matter of failing and trying once more. The thing would, at the start, come up entirely too similar to the Imp. Which wouldn't be bad in itself, but the Imps were too thin, their lungs too weak, to really follow through with the purpose of the new Grimm he wanted.

So, he started shaping once more, taking away the energy from the limbs of the creature and sending it to its chest. It was… complicated, especially because his mind seemed to go on reflex to do the same thing it always did by forming an Imp. Slowly though, try after try, he managed to make progress in the right direction. First came the thinner, weaker limbs, then the bigger torso housing the larger lungs. The horns of the Imp were taken away too at some point he didn't even notice, but it was likely when he'd been pulling energy from the limbs.

Eventually, the nightmare come to life was ready, more or less as Kazuki had envisioned. As he looked at the thing, he wondered not for the first time why they all needed to look so… So fucking frightening. What he wouldn't give to make something cute or friendly, but his power just didn't like that. He'd already tried when he'd made the Beowolves. After all, those had come from his attempts to make a nice dog and… Well, he hadn't quite succeeded, obviously.

'I guess making them with negative emotions influences how they turn out,' he mused to himself, walking around the new creature, inspecting it to see if he'd missed any mistake. Seeing as it didn't seem to be the case, he looked around at other students. Apparently, he'd spent more time than he'd thought, because he could see Mineta, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu on the sparring rings.

Kazuki blinked.

'Huh, interesting,' he mused. There were few people in the training facility now, it seemed. The girl that was moving stuff around before was now on the machines. Kirishima and the guy that looked similar to him were still working out. There was a guy that reminded Kazuki of a praying mantis practicing hits against a punching bag too. Other than them, there were a handful of other students but they didn't really catch his attention.

With the place mostly empty, he decided to give the new creation a test run. After all, it could look fine, but it needed to do the one task it was made for right, otherwise it'd be back to working on it. Kazuki really hoped it would work, because if not it'd be difficult to know when he was doing things right or not if there was no visual cue for it.

With a deep breath in, he mentally commanded the thing.

Instantly, the vaguely humanoid thing opened its mouth and let out a wailing sound that shook him a little. It was loud, for sure, but it wasn't quite what he was going for. It was louder than the Beowolves, for sure, but… It wasn't enough, he thought. It was for crowd control and as it was, it wouldn't do much of that in a panicking crowd bigger than the one from the previous day.

Clicking his tongue, he considered what to do. The creation had worked, he knew. Maybe he could make changes for it to have even bigger lungs and so on, but… That didn't feel right and besides, it would require more energy and-

"Did you throw Bakugo's anger into that? That was one loud shout," he heard, making him blink and turn towards Mineta and the girls.

"Maybe Midoriya's nerves or fear? It didn't feel angry enough to be Bakugo," Hagakure pointed out. Next to them, Yaoyorozu stood awkwardly, likely not wanting to insult their classmates. She was nice like that, Kazuki supposed.

"It's not like that," he replied to his friends with a wry smile before regarding the Grimm for a long moment. "It doesn't work like that, really. I just take every… thing…" he started saying before trailing off. "I usually pull from everything," he said then, frowning and staring intently at the Grimm. "But I've never tried to use specific emotions before…"

Instantly, he dismissed the creature and closed his eyes. There was plenty of energy in him still, considering he had plenty to recharge with around before. Not so much then but oh well, maybe he could pull it off with what he had. Checking the pool, he tried to see if there was any way to differentiate between emotions. At first sight, and as far as he knew, it was all mixed into one thing but… looking carefully, looking deeper, he saw something different.

It was very small, but it was noticeable, like the stars in the night sky. He tried to see what that was about, but he couldn't quite make out the details in the sea of negativity. He looked, and looked some more, as if that would force the strange feeling of it all to make sense. What was that?

"Creepy?" someone called, making him open his eyes and blink "You okay, man?" Mineta asked, looking at him curiously. "You just closed your eyes and stood there doing nothing for like, ten minutes."

"Six minutes," Yaoyorozu corrected, making both boys and Hagakure turn towards her. "I just… uh, checked," she mumbled, looking away as her cheeks turned red and Kazuki felt embarrassment coming from her.

"I just… Had never tried to use specific feelings for my Grimm," he told them, running his fingers through his hair. "I thought maybe that could maybe do something I didn't know about happen but… Well, I'll have to look into it. I tried to look into the negativity I have but it was… weird."

"Hm," Hagakure hummed, taking some skipping steps towards him and around. "Using your Quirk in a different way, huh? As if you needed to become more unfair, Creepy."

"I know, right?" Mineta asked, with a despairing expression. Although, Kazuki did feel the envy that came from him. Maybe he'd have to talk with the guy. He wasn't liking the picture that was forming in his head much.

"I just… never really tried to learn how to use my Quirk much," he admitted, bringing a hand up to massage the back of his neck. "Didn't have many chances either but also… Well, I didn't like using my Quirk either. I just trained myself to ignore it, mostly. Now… I guess I'm sort of starting from scratch, really," he said, looking at his Grimm, which was still around.

He was reluctant to name it just yet. It wasn't finished. It didn't feel finished. His Grimm always sort of… clicked at some point, where he'd know he got what he was looking for. Even if his Beowolf and Imp had ended up being completely different from what he was trying to make, they'd still felt finished when he got them, like puzzle pieces finally falling into place.

"Hey," someone called, making Kazuki and his group of friends turn to the side. There was the guy from before, the praying mantis boy that had been practicing combat. "Can that thing fight?"

"Yeah? Not very well, but it can. Why?" Kazuki replied, blinking.

"I want to fight someone but my Quirk is sort of… dangerous. But I saw you making that thing from nothing, so I thought it might be okay to fight it," the guy said bluntly, somewhat annoyed too. Kazuki could feel his temper raising for some reason.

"Huh, I mean-"

"Shouldn't you introduce yourself?" Yaoyorozu asked, feeling both slightly nervous and irritated, from what Kazuki could pick up.

"Right, Togaru Kamakiri," the boy said, nodding towards them. There was a round of introductions then that only served to make his already bad mood worse, apparently. "So, about that fight?" he asked, now much more curt.

"I mean, you can, but," Kazuki started, before pausing for a second and then grinning. "I can do you one better, give me a second," he said, before making the project Grimm disappear and then starting to make a new one. A Beowolf, to be exact, was the one to next appear from his shadow. "Better, right?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Kamakiri replied, his temper cooling down as he grinned just as widely as Kazuki. This would be great practice for fighting with his Grimm, he knew and besides… His shadow extended once more and a Boarbatusk took form. "It gets better and better, huh?" the boy commented, sounding positively ecstatic, even laughing as a new Beowolf appeared next. "How many can you make?" he asked.

"Just the three, so that's about it. Besides, I just want to try that one a bit," Kazuki replied, pointing at the Boarbatusk. "And if it's too much for you, that's fine. If it's not enough… Well, I'll just need to train more."

"I think we are gonna be great friends, Endo," Kamakiri said, laughing once more as blades extended from his arms and he took a stance. A second later, the first Beowolf rushed towards him. And so, the spar had begun.

"So… he's Edgy, right?" Hagakure asked, sounding like she was holding back her own laughter.

"Definitely," Kazuki agreed with a chuckle.

[}-o-{]

Later that day, back in his apartment, Kazuki sat on the floor with his legs crossed. He was once more focusing his mind on delving inside his reserves of negativity. It was an unpleasant feeling, to have that wash over, around and inside his mind, but he wanted to know what the fuck those small things he could feel in there were. They had to be something, right?

So, he kept looking for a way to get answers. He was blindly moving his arms around a room, trying to find his way. He felt like he was trying to listen for something and he didn't know if it was just his imagination or if there was actually something there. It was frustrating, but he kept going.

Kazuki didn't know how long he'd spent doing that by the time he made any kind of progress. For the faintest, shortest moment, he seemed to manage to touch on one of those many spots in his reserves. Instantly, he felt pain, sharp and through his whole body.

Twitching, he took a deep breath in, as soon as he'd moved, as soon as he'd pulled away… the pain had disappeared. Only a single moment, less than a second, of pain, that's all it had been. 'Now, that was unpleasant,' he thought, breathing slowly to calm himself down.

Unpleasant but progress in the end. Kazuki was sure that those little things were exactly what he'd been looking for before. Specific emotions floating around in the sea of negativity that formed inside him. 'So, if I want to try to use a specific feeling, I need to learn how to do this without torturing myself,' he mused, sighing.

'Nothing about my power can be nice, can it?' he thought wryly as he stood up and stretched a little. God, he needed something to calm himself down and relax. 'Time for a cup of tea and maybe play a bit of that gacha game…' he decided walking towards the kitchen.

As he did that though, he did his best to take in emotions coming his way to improve his sensing. He was doing his best to stop just ignoring them as best he could, at least outside of school. He kinda needed to in order to really be able to pay attention to classes and such. Same back home when he had to do homework. He'd have liked to dedicate more time to that but…

'Little by little, Kazuki,' he reminded himself. Things were just getting started, he didn't need to rush things. Hell, he was still in his first week of school. There was no need to already push himself too hard. And still… he felt like he had to. Otherwise, it was like he was throwing away opportunities, wasting his one chance to do something with his life. His one chance of doing anything at all ever since he was-

He sighed.

'Calm down,' he told himself. He had years to improve and train and generally get better at all things hero. He just needed to take it easy and take one step at a time. He only had so much time in his day and… Well, maybe he could have some more if he didn't hang out with his friends after school, of course.

Maybe it was selfish of him, but he didn't want to do that. It was nice, to feel like a normal teenager for once in his life. It was great to know that he had friends, for the first time, and they even knew who he was. So, he would enjoy it as much as he could without hurting his chances to succeed in his path.

With what felt like the hundredth sigh that day, he looked around his apartment. 'Wow, this is fucking depressing,' Kazuki thought. He hadn't cared much about how empty and plain his place was before. He'd been too preoccupied with the Entrance Exam and then his first few days at U.A. Now that things seemed to be settling though…

Well, it was a little – a lot – sad to see his place so… So hollow.

'I need to add stuff here, make this place look less like… this,' he thought. He didn't have many ideas though. Maybe he could set up some training equipment but that didn't sound like it'd be a great improvement on what he already had and he was likely to just use the gear at school. Some shelves for books would be nice but… Not really all that good either to make the place feel better.

The game he was playing on his phone courtesy of Mineta might have some merchandise, he supposed, but that didn't feel right either. Something else, maybe? But what? There wasn't anything that he liked all that much but maybe he could put some things together. He'd have to talk with his friends, maybe they'd have ideas…

He was thinking about asking for advice to decorate his place.

'God, I'm pathetic,' he groaned, letting his head fall forehead first on the table. And yet, what else could he do? He didn't even know what normal people put around their place, what would be weird and what wouldn't? 'I just want this place to have a little more life… Huh, that could be good. Maybe some plants?' he wondered, looking around. He could set up some near the window, right? Something colorful, with flowers, but not too much though, normal plants could do too…

'Yeah, I like the sound of that,' he mused, a slight smile on his face.

He jumped a little when his phone vibrated in his hands as a message arrived. He didn't think he'd gotten many of those without it being a reply from one of his minders, really. Checking what that was about, he blinked.

Apparently, he'd been added to a group with Mineta, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu by the invisible girl herself.

"I can't get this song out of my head, help!" the girl announced immediately afterwards, making him blink again. The message was followed by a link to a video that he imagined was the song in question. Clicking it, he listened to the music, nodding along with the tune. 'Yeah, that's catchy,' he mused, now understanding the problem.

Looking at the video though, he wondered when had been the last time he'd listened to music for himself instead of just it being there for some other reason. Had he ever actively listened to music? Idly he started looking for stuff, going from song to song. With that in mind, he decided on a reply.

Before that though, he chuckled, seeing a message from Mineta cursing Hagakure for reminding him of the song. Yaoyorozu, for her part, seemed to… not know what to say, really.

"Speaking of, any song recommendations? Maybe that'll make you think of something else, Bubbly," Kazuki sent. His smile widened as a list started forming, with all three of his new friends jumping to that topic. "Thanks, guys," he sent them then, looking for a notebook to write down all the recommendations. He'd be going through them in his own time.

Which was good, because he didn't know how, but things had spiraled a little and the three had already gotten into a discussion regarding music genres, it seemed. Kazuki settled to hear some songs and just read as they argued. It wasn't like he had an opinion on that topic anyway.

So, he listened to music, he read his friends' conversation and he let his mind wander a little, following the strands of negativity that reached him. Somehow, it wasn't as bad as other times, he felt. He wasn't sure why that was the case, but he wasn't complaining, that was for sure. He'd take the win for once and let things be. It was a peaceful moment and he wanted to enjoy it.

A peaceful moment that didn't last.

He was maybe two songs in when he felt someone enter his range. 'All Might,' he recognized instantly. That man might just be the only one Kazuki could recognize instantly through his senses. That pain was very characteristic, after all. He groaned, rubbing his chest with one hand as the man moved.

It didn't take him long to figure out that the Number One hero was coming in his general direction. He'd admit to being nervous about that. The man hadn't said anything to him, really. He hadn't even shown anything through emotions that he could pick up, really. Had something slipped past him before? Was that it? But what, how-

The man was nervous, and that only confused Kazuki more than before. What could the Number One Hero be nervous about? Especially… Maybe he was going somewhere else? He had to be, right? Only, it didn't seem to be the case. The more time passed, the more it seemed like the man was coming straight to his place.

Kazuki looked to the side, as All Might got close enough that he had to be somewhere outside his apartment. Maybe he was going to visit one of his minders though? That had to be i-

Someone knocked on his door.

Gulping, he took a deep breath in and then moved to open the door.

"Yes?" he greeted hesitantly. "All… Might?" he added, blinking at the man outside. That was definitely the feeling of All Might's pain, he couldn't have been wrong. So… Who the fuck was this man? The guy looked like a skeleton with skin for God's sake!

"We have some things to talk about, Young Endo," All Might said.

"What the fuck?"

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

So, a bit of power progression, a bit of Kazuki learning to be a person again and a bit of… Wait, what?

A-Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

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

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: … Why do my characters keep doing this to me? Why?

See you.