Motivation - Old version

Chapter Twenty-Six

So, I know this is on hold, but that label's more of a warning than anything. 

Updates will be extremely sporadic at the moment, as I'm preoccupied with other fandoms and the advanced classes I decided to take in for some reason. But I do promise to not abandon this work because I've written 26 (technically 27) chapters of this shit and that is way too much to just let die in a hole somewhere.

I'm gonna shut up now. Enjoy some more of the rooftop gang.

"You're late," Hamasaki observed as Kazue shut the roof access door behind him, a volume of Death Note tucked under an arm and lunch tray balanced on his fingers. He figured she had a right to be slightly confused, considering he was never late for anything. As his father said, to be early was to be on time, and to be on time was to be late. Being actually late was out of the question.

"Nurse's office," the brunet elaborated vaguely, offering the trio he'd somehow ended up spending his lunches with a small lift of his left shoulder in apology. He'd had to convince Recovery Girl that he wouldn't use his Quirk on her, even if the side effects of her healing weren't as strong for one used to exhaustion. It was quite literally part of his biology due to the nature of his Quirk. It...had taken a while to get the elderly woman to relent.

"Are you dying?" Furuya questioned suddenly, eyes wide as Kazue sat down. Everyone blinked at him, causing the boy to lift his arms in defense. "What? It's a valid question, the dude looks as dead as a zombie most of the time!"

Kazue snorted. "Fair," he replied, setting aside the manga for the moment. After all, 'Dead Inside' was the contact name Fueki had given him, and no one had ever questioned it. "I have to be healed in time for the Sports Festival."

His roofmates stared, first at the bandage wrapped around his forehead, then at the cast covering the majority of his right arm.

"Wasn't your arm shattered?" Chisaka asked, looking a bit pale.

"Yeah, dude, that's insane," Furuya agreed, nodding his head.

Hamasaki, meanwhile, pulled out her phone and was scrolling through something for a long moment before looking back up. Her eyes met Kazue's, concern clear in her gaze. "I... I'm not sure if you'll be able to do the events, even if you're healed," she said hesitantly, deliberately tilting the screen away from where any of them could see it.

Kazue was undeterred, narrowing his eyes slightly at the girl. As a member of the Support Course, she was no stranger to electronics. However, she had mentioned at some point in the past that her strength lay in coding rather than the actual engineering. His exact opposite, actually. "You hacked into the school's database," the brunet stated, impressed.

Furuya's mouth hung open while Hamasaki flushed, an awkward laugh escaping her lips. "Uh... yeah," she replied quietly, as though some of the teachers could hear. "There's an obstacle course, a team thing called a cavalry battle, and a one-on-one arena. Your arm won't be a hundred percent so soon after being healed."

An obstacle course...

The first event was not unlike the entry exam for the recommendation students, then. Meaning biased towards those with Quirks that enhanced their movement.

Kazue sighed under his breath, mentally resigning himself to begin work on another binder after the event. Yūei really needed to get itself into gear with its methods of teaching the heroics classes, even if several top heroes had graduated from it in the past. Just because something worked didn't mean it couldn't be improved—a lesson every engineer knew well.