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CHAPTER START---
Sitting in UA's cafeteria Horizon is at a corner table. At the end of one row, five seats on each side, he's beside the large glass wall separating them from the pelting rain that's still pouring outside.
The cafeteria was bustling with excitement as everyone gets lunch, unable to go outside to eat, the building was even more full than usual.
Many people notice Horizon sitting alone at a table that seats ten people but wisely decide not to approach him, either understanding that he was waiting for his classmates, or simply not bold enough to interact with him.
At the moment he was staring outside at the rain, sitting in peaceful silence, ignoring the table two rows away filled with girls that were not-so-subtly staring and giggling at him.
What they could never realize was the little game he was playing to pass the time.
UA's entire main building was currently within a ROOM, 500 meters wide. And Horizon was straining his mind, focused and locked onto one single raindrop.
Even among the pelting rain and harsh winds, he focuses on the single raindrop, constantly maintaining SCAN on it, and every time it's about to hit the floor.SHAMBLES!
It swaps with another at the top of the room.
Exercises like these were by far the most difficult and exhausting, focusing on something so small for that long.
Like visually trying to track one needly in a wave of identical needles as they all fall from the sky.
After five minutes of this, he can feel himself getting slightly tired, his brain demanding more and more energy by the second. Beneath his visor his eyes were closed, forehead wrinkled as he ignored the sudden grumbling of his stomach, pushing his stamina limit again and again.
"Enjoying the rain?" Momo's gentle voice snaps him out of his trance.
He immediately deactivates his Quirk and turns his attention to the mob of his classmates.
With Horizon to the far right of the table as they all take their seats, food and trays in hand.
Sero sits to his left, with Tokoyami, Shoji, and Ojiro beside them.
Opposite him is Momo, Jirou beside her, followed by Aoyama and Koda.
'I guess if tail boy and frenchie are this close to me there must not be any seats left...whatever,' Horizon doesn't pay much mind to it.
"Thanks for saving us a table man, this place is packed," Sero says before he starts eating, only to notice that Horizon didn't have anything in front of him. "Uh...you gonna eat anything?"
"Yeah I've got it," Horizon pulls out one of his meal bars, a plain white candy bar item with his logo in blue on the front.
"You have your own candy bar?" Momo asks, raising a brow at the item.
"Not a candy bar, a meal bar," Horizon sighs. "I've had a weird journey with food over the past year...and now this is where I'm at."
The entire table cranes forward as he raises his hand and flicks his fingers upward, the bottom of his visor reveals the previously invisible seam and slides up, just barely enough to reveal his mouth as he eats what looks like a regular granola bar made of four blocks.
"That's not what I was expecting," Jiro mutters aloud. "Your mouth is all...normal..."
"What did you expect?"
"Like, maybe no face at all?"
"Same here," Sero says.
"Well sorry to disappoint but...I'm pretty good-looking, not that you'd even see it."
Momo swallows a bit of rice and gives Horizon's meal bar a curious look, "is that perhaps needed to fuel your Quirk? Much in the same way I need to eat a lot of fats for mine."
"Uh, not really, but kinda."
"How does it fit into this great 'food journey' from earlier?" Tokoyami asks.
Horizon takes another bite, eating the third block of his meal bar before speaking.
"Well, about a year ago when I lost my parents I met Nezu after that," the casual manner in which he mentions such events startles everyone just a bit. "He gave me an offer to join UA and helped me setup my business...suddenly I've got all the money in the world, buying everything I could want and eating my favourite foods for every meal, made by pro chefs...But after a month I was sick of it."
"But that sounds incredible," Aoyama says. "A truly luxurious life, truly Magnifique."
Horizon pauses, then looks at Aoyama, and speaks in perfect French, "so are you actually French or just playing it up for attention?"
The entire table freezes, and Aoyama has no idea what Horizon just said.
"Figured as much," he finishes his meal bar and returns to his story. "So anyway I realized that half the fun for me was actually cooking. Like since I was four my dad and I cooked almost every meal together, my mom would have to travel a lot for work so it was just us most of the time, it was kind of our thing...well that and operating on people.
I was missing that, so instead of hiring a chef I'd just buy property wherever I'm traveling to, have it stocked when I get there, and take it easy with cooking. This was all good until USJ."
"The villains ruined your diet?" Jiro asks skeptically.
"Pretty much. After dealing with the USJ Nomu I realized that my Quirk is really strong, but eventually I'll come face to face with a problem that I don't have an answer to, it's an eventuality in a world of superpowers, even for me."
"So eating helps you prepare?" Sero asks.
"I'm trying to bulk up," Horizon says. "I'm stacking lean muscle, trying to go from 190lbs to maybe 260lbs. But I already had to eat a lot before I was bulking, so preparing that much food got exhausting. Two days in and I was just throwing everything into a blender and drinking it, eight meals a day...I hated it."
"Yeah that sounds like hell," Jiro says. "So how do the meal bars help?"
"Well each block is 2000 calories, and each bar has four blocks."
"So you just ate 8000 calories?" Momo looks horrified at the idea, especially seeing as how Horizon did it so easily.
"Yup, I eat one or two of those a day, maybe more depending on how hard I trained that day. I only got them yesterday from Detnerat so it's new, but I like em."
"Won't you get fat?" Ojiro asks, "or does your Quirk burn it all away?"
"Well that part is a bit complicated but...remember when Monoma copied my Quirk?"
"You mean when you almost killed him?" Sero asks.
"That wasn't Horizon's fault," Momo says, "he didn't know that would happen, right?"
"Well, kinda," Horizon says.
"And you still let him do it?!" Jiro yells. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Relax, it's not that big a deal, it's just how my Quirk works. It's like this, to control the world around you, you have to understand the world, and before you can do any of that, you have to understand and control yourself."
"Uh... you lost me," Shoji says.
"Ok so imagine you could control everything that happens in your body. If you will it you could spike your testosterone to help build muscle mass and bone density, you could control other hormones and muscle enzyme production, you could will your heart to stop or arteries to squeeze shut... you can even tell your body how much of each nutrient to absorb from the food you eat."
"Perfect control of your own bodily functions," Momo mutters, half horrified and half amazed. "Your Quirk allows that?"
"Can't control the world if you can't control yourself. When Monoma got flooded with information it wasn't about the world around him, it was about his body. He got hit with a map of every cell in his body and all the chemical processes that were currently happening or that are possible, his brain was overloaded, and since he had perfect control of his body he instinctively gave his brain permission to rip energy away from everything else and inspire rapid growth to compensate."
"So he really was killing himself with your Quirk?" Jiro asks.
"Yup, it lets you bypass the built-in safety features that most Quirks have. Like how Sero can't die from making too much Tape, if his Quirk was more like mine he would be able to bypass that biological failsafe and just die if he wanted," Horizon shrugs.
Momo snaps her finger, realizing where he was going with this. "So your Quirk consumes more calories for brain function than other people, that's why you can eat this absurd amount."
"Bingo, smart girl," Horizon says, causing her to blush slightly. "Average person commits 20% of their calories to brain power, I'm more like 70% if I spend all day training. And even when I'm sitting in class I'm usually doing something to train my Quirk, because I'm training my Quirk and body I have to eat an absurd amount to support both. That's the downside of having a big brain, takes a lot of energy."
The table is silent as everyone processes what he just said, coming to the same realization. 'So when he's just sitting bored in class...he's actually training his Quirk, that's insane...'
"So what's in the meal bar?" Shoji asks.
"Well, it's a unique blend of everything I need, super compressed down and made to dissolve Quickly in my stomach. If a regular person ate one it wouldn't end well."
"How bad is it?" Sero asks.
"Well...if someone tiny like Jiro ate a block she'd sleep for a day, if she ate an entire bar her hormonal system would go crazy and she'd go catatonic and have serious liver and kidney failure within a few hours."
"So basically its poison for anyone that can't command their body to process specific components," Tokoyami says. "Is there at least a warning on the label? And I'm surprised you'd reveal a vulnerability such as this to us..."
"Well first of all, I don't think 'Horizon needs food to make energy and survive,' would be anything groundbreaking, it's not like going a day or two without food would kill me...but I'd be really cranky."
"I see, likewise," Tokoyami agrees.
"As for the warning label...why would I need that? My logo is on it, if you eat food that isn't yours then die that's not my fault," Horizon shrugs.
"Tch," Jiro shakes her head in disappointment, "do you sometimes forget that you're training to be a Pro Hero?"
Horizon chuckles, "it's adorable that you still think being a Pro Hero needs you to be a good person, " Jiro blushes at that but keeps glaring at him. "It's just a job Jiro, once I get the results people want they won't care about anything else. You people really think too highly of this hero-villain nonsense."
Feeling Jiro about to lean forward and start a heated argument with Horizon, Momo rests a hand on the girl's lap and interrupts her, "so how has your weight gaining been progressing?"
"Very quickly," Horizon says. "Normally it would take years to gain 70lbs, I've been gaining about 6 each week, already up 18lbs...that puts me at 208lbs."
"That's so unfair," Sero groans.
"Hahaha, well...I control hormone and enzyme production, among other things, stacking weight is easy. But I'll still have to eat a lot to maintain it sadly...but hey, the girls are gonna love it even more."
"You mean the fan club?" Jiro points to the table two rows away with her Earphone Jack, filled with 1st-year girls stealing glances at Horizon. He decides to play along and give them a friendly wave causing Jiro to just frown and roll her eyes.
"Man you're so lucky," Sero grumbles. "I posted that selfie we took and the only comments I get are girls asking about you..."
"Well you know what to do, hit the gym, train, study, and be direct in telling girls what you want. It's literally that easy. Just be a strong dependable guy that gets to the point, you'd be surprised how well they respond to that."
"You make it sound so easy."
"Because it is," Horizon shrugs. "Look at it this way, you're gonna be a famous Pro Hero, money, fame, women, all that stuff. If she says no then just move on to the next one, don't dwell on it, and don't chase her, there are millions of beautiful women in Japan...hell, I haven't seen one bad-looking girl at UA alone...at least not yet. But there is only one you..."
"But some girls play hard to get, right?" Momo asks Jiro. "I've never really had friends before so...that is something girls do right?"
"Uh yeah some did that in my middle school," Jiro says, playing with her Earphone Jacks nervously. "Aren't guys supposed to like that?"
"Idiots yeah," Horizon says. "If a girl is playing silly games like that then she doesn't respect your time and isn't worth it, no matter how hot she is, just find another one."
"That seems a bit harsh," Tokoyami says.
"I just don't like my time being wasted," Horizon shrugs.
"So you ever gonna ask any of them out?" Sero asks, glancing over at Horizon's fan club.
"Nope," Horizon says. "The last thing I need is a serious relationship right now, I've already got a lot to deal with. Casual stuff is fine but the problem with that as Horizon is..." he raises a hand to tap his visor, and everyone immediately understands.
"Oh yeah, how would that even work?" Shoji asks.
"Well probably just shut all the lights off and go by feel, or use a blindfold," Horizon shrugs.
"Won't taking it off kill you?" Momo asks. "It is a Lifestyle Support item is it not?"
"Taking it off long enough for us to have some fun won't kill me Momo," she immediately starts blushing and hiding her face which causes him to laugh. "Honestly you two girls are way too easy to fluster...or maybe you're normal teens and I'm just not bothered by this stuff, you know, cuz I'm a doctor. But hey at least it's cute on you two."
Jiro just stares down at her lap and grumbles something under her breath, luckily Horizon doesn't have super-hearing and was already chatting with Sero as the table devolves into the usual cafeteria noise.
But Momo hears the, 'why do I have to like such a jerk...' leave Jiro's lips...and she silently agrees, coming to the same conclusion.
All while Aoyama was quietly taking in the entire conversation, taking note of all the little things Horizon revealed that he'd report to All For One...
END CHAPTER---