MHA: Horizon(Ope-Ope No Mi)

Chapter 212: (Growing)

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CHAPTER START---

"Is this where you always go for lunch?" Juzo asks. "We never see you in the cafeteria anymore..."

He takes a seat opposite Horizon, in a high-rise restaurant in Musutafu. The city was below them with UA perched on its hill in the distance.

"No I usually just eat on the roof, helps me avoid people always asking for pictures. But I always have this private room reserved incase I feel like having real food instead of a meal bar," Horizon says as he takes his seat, gesturing to the door separating them from the main dining area.

"Sounds expensive."

"I'm Horizon, I can afford it," he relaxes into his seat. "Not to mention that sometimes I let them take a picture or two, knowing I eat here makes people rush to see what the hype is about. You know, celebrity worshipping morons."

"That's not a very nice thing to call your fans," Juzo says.

After the server leaves Juzo decides to get to the point, they only had just over an hour for lunch after all.

"You know I was surprised when I saw your message this morning, so why'd you want to have lunch with me?"

"I just wanted to talk to you about Team Horizon."

"Team Horizon?" Juzo raises a brow. "What, you want me to join?"

"Yeah," Horizon shrugs. "Why else would we be here right now."

Juzo looks genuinely confused, "I thought that was only for 1A students."

"I never said that."

"Well, you and I are cool but we aren't that close, are we?"

"Doesn't matter. I looked at the footage from how you led your classmates during the mid-term exams. You're practical and flexible on the battlefield, that's useful and gives you good chemistry with the others. Not to mention you and Sero are already close."

"Uh-huh, but there's something else you aren't telling me, right?"

"Obviously, can you figure it out?" Horizon asks.

They sit in silence for a few minutes as Juzo ponders the possibilities, and in this time there is another knock on the door before the server brings their food.

After the food is served the man leaves, and much to Juzo's surprise Horizon reaches behind his visor and activates it, and the entire thing folds down to the size of his palm focused behind his neck.

Juzo's eyes go wide as he sees the blue energy vapor pouring out of Horizon's eyes and mouth while the rest of his head is covered by the ski-mask like portion of the body glove.

"Wow, not what I expected," Juzo mutters, acknowledging the show of trust.

"I can only take it off for a few minutes at a time," Horizon lies. "But its nice to get fresh air sometimes..." he says as he begins eating.

After some more pondering, Juzo finally comes to his conclusion.

"You want me to join because I'm in 2A, right? It shows some inclusivity, ideally you would have picked a girl but that probably won't go well for you since most of the girls don't like you that much.

Plus they could distract Sero and Shinso. I'm also one of the four recommended students from our classes. Tokage is the other from my class, but her Quirk would be redundant with you, even if she is a fan of yours.

Shoto doesn't have his Provisional License so he can't join, plus I don't think you two get along. Momo is the other, but from what I hear she'd be too distracted by you to function properly.

I'm capable enough to keep up with Sero and Shinso, and my Quirk brings a certain level of versatility and flexibility they don't have at the moment.

But you did say I'm also good at leading my classmates, so I'm guessing you want me to fill the role of a leader...but that doesn't make sense with you there..."

"Mhm," Horizon nods along as he continues eating.

Juzo snaps his fingers, "you want to have us act as your Sidekick team instead of as your actual teammates, just like Endeavor has his Flaming Sidekicks that operate directly under him."

"Mhm, and?"

Juzo thinks for a moment, "expanding the team further would be more efficient, but you can only oversee a few people at once, plus you also have to think of team culture. I doubt many of our classmates will be as unbothered as myself when you and Sero discuss certain topics."

"They're pussies, yeah."

"Your words, not mine," Juzo says. "But I'm sure you can fit one or two others into the team, Tokage wouldn't mind and neither would Yanagi...so why not?"

"Because three is the limit," Horizon says as Juzo also begins eating. "The general Hero-Worshipping public is too stupid to adapt to new ideas so quickly. My existence is hard enough to wrap their minds around, but going from 'The Big Three' to 'The Big Four' will be a bit much, plus it doesn't sound as cool."

"The Big Three huh. So you plan for us to replace them while you're still held apart above us?"

"Ofcouse, because Horizon has no equals."

"Hmm, well obviously I'm in. Operating under you pretty much hands me a top spot guaranteed once I show the public how useful I can be, but you've probably got a lot of questions for me, right?"

"Not particularly, we may not be great friends but you and I have spent enough time around each other, I only need to know one thing."

"And what's that?"

"Why did you choose to become a Pro Hero?" Horizon reaches forward and holds Juzo's shoulder.

Juzo is surprised by the interaction, then it clicks, "ohh, you can't actually detect lies like you've said, but when you touch people you can read the changes in their body when they do lie..."

Horizon chuckles, "you're one of the few people to figure that out, although admittedly I wasn't being very subtle this time. Everyone on the team knows by now so its fine."

"Right, well, I want to be a Pro-Hero to push myself to the limits and see how far my Quirk and skills can go. Helping people is also really nice but ever since I was a kid I've wanted to prove that just because I can't punch the clouds away like All Might doesn't mean I'm useless.

It just takes a bit more work to be creative and effective with a Quirk like mine," Juzo admits.

"So you want to be stronger than anyone ever thought you could be," Horizon nods as he relaxes back into his seat. "Alright, I like it, now lets talk about the specifics. You're doing the Work Studies with Crust so---"

---1 Hour Later...

SHAMBLES!

Horizon arrives in training ground beta, already in his Hero Costume but standing at the back of his classmates.

"What did I miss?" he whispers to Sero who was also at the back with Shinso, both with the masks off and patiently waiting.

"Why are you late?"

"Juzo's in," Horizon whispers back.

"His Quirk will certainly be useful," Shinso says before nodding forward at the building Eraser Head was looking at.

Horizon could sense Asui and Ojiro inside looking around, but wasn't sure what the exercise was.

"Its a break in," Shinso says. "The scenario is the someone broke into this jewelry store and robbed it, including the vault at the back."

"And we need to figure out who it is," Sero says. "Mr. Aizawa said one of the teachers did it and we need to solve who it was, but he won't give us any clues or even a list to pick from so the list is super long, it could be anyone."

"Depends on how they opened the vault," Shinso says. "Only a few teachers have the muscle to do it so that will narrow it down a lot."

"Hmm, sounds easy, did anyone make any bets?" Horizon asks.

"Nah," Sero says before he puts on his visor. "We kind of all figured you or Momo would win," he shrugs. "Cellophane is more of a car chase style hero."

"And I'm still new to this part of Hero work," Shinso says.

A moment later someone pushes through the crowd until they arrive at the back, and Horizon finds himself looking down at Aux.

Kyoka Jiro, in her new Hero Costume and headset which covers her entire face and runs wires all across her suit, preventing her from having to extend and expose her Earphone Jacks while fighting.

The mask also doubles as a speaker, which has the neat effect of lighting up every time she speaks. Still running with the black and purple theme she's had and sporting some smaller speakers and amps across her body.

"I'll take your bet," Aux says.

"You, seriously?" Horizon asks. "You've never even done one of these before."

"But I've been studying non-stop to keep up with you guys while I'm stuck in UA, I can do this," Aux says.

"Hmm, alright, and what would you wager?" Horizon asks, and by now a few others are paying attention to them.

"I'll---" she cuts herself off. "I'll tell you later."

"Doesn't seem fair," Horizon says.

"Sounds like you're scared you'll lose, think your the only one that can solve this?"

"Tch, fine, if you win I owe you a favor, but if you can't solve it, you own me one..."

Aux steps back nervously, "y---you're on!"

"Horizon!" Eraser Head calls out, drawing all eyes back toward the exercise. "Since you're finally here and already distracting my class, you're up," he gestures to the building. "And you're next Jiro..."

Without a word he walks past his classmates and into the broken glass window of the store, seeing shattered and emptied display cases all around the room.

ROOM!

He creates a small Room so he can focus on the little details. Only large enough for the store itself, allowing him to properly comb it over.

He stands still, looking around as he shifts his Scan from one aspect to the next.

'The glass was shattered by someone hitting it, but there isn't any DNA on it...the suspects either used a weapon or was covered up.

No bullet holes or concrete deformation, wasn't Snipe or Cementoss.

Midnight doesn't have the raw power to break into the back vault.

No dog hair, that rules out Hound Dog...'

He runs down the list of UA staff until he exhausted most of them, then he arrives in the back room at the vault.

He sees a standard security door, reinforced steel but a regular doorway, nothing like a bank vault.

Touching the metal he still doesn't feel any biomatter on it, strangely clean. Then he looks at where the door itself it, torn out of the wall and tossed against the wall opposite the vault.

'Strong enough o do this, that rules out a few more...but how they did it is odd...' he uses Scan on the door.

Pressure was applied evenly all around the door to rip it out of the wall. None of the staff has telekinesis, and the only person who could do that is...'

"I've got my answer," Horizon says. And Eraser walks over to the crumpled door with his datapad.

"Tell me who and I'll add it to the list, then after class we see who was right."

"Vlad king, he used his Blood Control to rip the door out of the wall by wrapping it in his blood, and that explains why there isn't' any loose DNA lying around, he can perfectly control his blood."

Eraser doesn't react, but was thoroughly impressed with Horizon's investigative skills, but not at all surprised.

---1 Hour Later...

Everyone was back in the 1A homeroom now after changing into their regular uniforms.

"Only three of you actually solved today's exercise," Eraser Head announces as the list appears with everyone's tops suspect.

"It was Vlad King, but somehow only Horizon, Bakugo, and Jiro were able to figure that out..."

Horizon looks over at Jiro who turns around just to stick her tongue out at him, "told you I've been training hard..."

END CHAPTER---

Fun fact, this chapter puts us at 420K+ words :p