"So how bad did it look?" Kenji asked as he walked over to Uraraka who plastered on a smile, "There were a few moments where I thought you had him."
Kenji smirked, as he fell into retrospect, "Yeah it only looked like that, Aizawa Sensei is on a whole nother level. Though I think I surprised him for a brief moment."
"Oh is that why he paused at the end?" Uraraka asked with an inquisitive look on her face.
Nodding Kenji held up his hand and on a whim activated the invisible veil surrounding his body making his eyes glow a vivid purple light, "You can't see it but there's this strange barrier around my body. For some reason it was able to resist the effects of Aizawa's quirk."
"Wow, I wish I had a quirk like yours," Uraraka gushed before she looked down at her hands, "Mine's a bit lacking in comparison."
Kenji rolled his eyes, "Please, anti-gravity is one of the most busted abilities in existence. You just need to find the right application. I'm dealing with the same problem, I have no idea how to use my quirk effectively."
"But you were doing so well during the exam!" Uraraka rebutted her cheeks puffing up in frustration."
Kenji couldn't help but chuckle at her appearance, "Compared to the rest of our classmates I doubt it. I need to get stronger."
"Why?"
For a moment Kenji paused so caught off guard that his mind came to a screeching halt, "What do you mean why?"
Uraraka's cheeks flushed, "I-I mean why did you want to become a hero?"
Kenji fell silent for a long moment, as for the first time he asked the question himself, 'Why do I want to be a hero?'
Initially his motivation had been a combination of fear from Lucifer interfering if the devil found his performance lacking and his perverted mind wanting to sleep with all the girls from the anime. But as more time passed Kenji's mindset had changed.
"I-I'm sorry if I over stepped…y-you just seemed really dedicated to getting stronger and I just wanted to know…" Uraraka started to ramble, taking Kenji's silence as him being upset until he shook his head.
"It's not that…I just haven't really given it any thought, I was kinda put on this path and I just went with it for a long time," Kenji started before a smile spread across his face, "But now I realize why I'm always looking to improve."
Kenji and Uraraka shared an intense look, "It's because I'm afraid of missing out, of not living up to my full potential. I awakened my quirk late in life, I had basically given up until that point, so now I can't take anything for granted."
Uraraka stared into Kenji's glowing eyes that shone not only with a purple light, but an unstoppable drive, a burning intensity that made her heart hammer in her chest.
Looking away as her cheeks flushed, Uraraka stammered out a reply, "I-I s-see."
Kenji smiled and gave Uraraka some space, 'Thankfully I'm not some dense MC who can't pick up on social cues. Though I should keep Toga away from her, Uraraka seems like she'll be easily corrupted.'
Turning back to watch the fight Kenji watched as Aizawa evaded Ashido who was skating around the arena on a wave of acid while flinging waves of the corrosive fluid at their sensei, 'He's always two steps ahead of her.'
Kenji shook his head trying to imagine the combat experience Aizawa possessed to polish his reflexes to such a high degree, 'Even though I spent a bunch of time practicing, I should probably listen to his advice and find a new fighting technique. Not to mention the fact I need to figure out how to use my quirk, I doubt this barrier is the only hidden feature I need to discover.'
---
By the time lunch rolled around Aizawa had handedly beaten everyone in the class, and no one had managed to land so much as a finger on him. There had been a tense moment when Todoroki had stepped into the cage and flooded it with ice but even then Aizawa somehow evaded the mountain of freezing crystals jumping from icy spire to peak before using his quirk to freeze the nonchalant boy in place.
Defeated, everyone was silent in the locker as they got changed and limped their way to the lunchroom. Kenji was silent for a different reason as he stepped into the lunch line, 'I should probably create a copy of the Four Transcendent Beasts Manual for Toga. I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier, with her quirk they're bound to be a perfect match. Though that still leaves me with nothing…'
Kenji's frown disappeared as he caught sight of the spread of food available, everything from Chinese take out to prime rib was piled high in silver trays. Piling his plate high, Kenji left the buffet a happy man.
Finding a table for himself Kenji was about to dig in when someone sat down next to him so quickly that Kenji was only able to catch a flash of blonde.
"So how did your day go?"
Kenji smiled as Toga's familiar voice caressed his ears, "Well I have a jackass in my class who decided it was a good idea to speak back to the teacher. So as a punishment the entire class had to fight him in a one on one fight."
Toga frowned and she stabbed a tater tot on her plate with her fork, "Is that so?"
Nudging her with his shoulder Kenji shook his head, "Whatever you're thinking, don't, I enjoyed it. Aizawa Sensei gave me some really good advice. I even discovered a new application of my quirk."
"Alright then!" Toga cheerily said her mood doing a complete 180 degree turn as she began to munch away happily on her food.
"So what about you? Did anything interesting happen?"
Toga opened her mouth to respond when a shadow fell over them, "Hey guys, any room for two more?"