Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kaminari Denki was smarter than he let on, not academically though, he was still pretty bad at math. But what his classmates didn’t know was that he is an assassin. Correction, was an assassin, he left that life far behind him.

After being abducted into an underground organization known as Project Beta, Kaminari spent the first 14 years of his life training in the art of assassination. Project Beta was a heavily kept secret, its very existence debated on. But Kaminari knew the truth, hell he lived through it. The organization morphed kids to become weapons for the underground world. Kaminari underwent their brutal regiment and came out as their top assassin, the best of the best. He was their elite weapon and was given the code name, Static.

...

Kaminari didn’t know the exact details on how he ended up at the organization, but he had his theories. He hypothesized his parents were most likely disposed of so the organization could get their hands on the blonde. Or maybe they were just scumbags who never cared about him. But since he’d never know the truth, he liked to believe the former. It’s not like he didn’t try figuring out what happened. He went through files upon files at the organization but all his research efforts came up null.

When he thought about his parents, there wasn’t really any grief. Well there was, but he never really knew them so there wasn’t much to reminisce on. He didn’t particularly blame them for his situation, the organization is a terrifying force. So if his parents were regular citizens, it would be no wonder they couldn’t protect Denki. He still missed them nonetheless, silly isn’t it, missing someone you never knew. Occasionally he’d lie awake at night imagining living a normal life with a normal family, relishing in the thought even if it was all just fantasy.

Kaminari didn’t know exactly why he was taken as a baby. Maybe his quirk manifested at a very young age or maybe that his parents had strong electrical quirks that made him a promising recruit. Perhaps it was a mix of both, he’d never know for sure.

Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, during his time at UA he continued his search and stumbled upon a newspaper article covering a homicide about a couple found dead in their apartment with clean bullet wounds in the back of the head. There were no names but the thing that tipped Kaminari off was an eerily similar lightning bolt in one of the victim’s hair. It made his stomach churn but at least he had some sort of closure about his parents, or what became of them. He left it at that, slowly folding up the crumpled newspaper and tucking it away under his mattress. He didn’t need to know any more.

...

The organization’s protocol was to train up the recruits until the age of 7, then they’d start doing jobs, not assassinating just yet, but dipping their toe in the underground world. They’d do drug runs, or accompany victims to their inevitable doom, among others tasks. It was also a way to assess how their trainees would handle being out in the field, and dispose of the ones that didn’t meet their standards.

At age 10, the remaining recruits are given their first mission. For their first couple assignments they would be supervised from afar. If they failed to complete their duty, someone else would, while they endured a horrible punishment. And if they had the audacity to attempt to escape, they’d be taken care of right then and there. Succumbing to the same fate they just bestowed onto their own victim.

They also had an education, well as much as an education one would need to become a successful assassin. The coursework consisted of linguistics, basic math, anatomy, chemistry, (hand picked) history, among other subjects.

Kaminari particularly loved linguistics, he appreciated the beauty of other languages. He also quite enjoyed the small talk he’d have with victims before their inevitable demise. He wasn’t really allowed to talk to others at the organization so this was his only source of conversation. By the time of his escape he had learned 7 other languages, excluding Japanese. He particularly enjoyed indulging in English literature. It provided him with solace despite his depressing situation.

Another part of the “training” was pain and poison tolerance. Poison tolerance was pretty straight forward, they’d just consume increasing amounts of poison over time until it was virtually impossible for them to be harmed in such a way. The torture tolerance training was a little different. Instead of hurting their recruits via traditional methods, they’d become victims to a pain quirk.

They would still get the sensation of being tortured but without the extra steps. It also benefited them in the long run. As the assassins matured they’d take on missions with more.. seductive requirements. And being covered in nasty scars isn’t exactly the biggest turn on. They would of course get wounds on the job but the injuries were dealt with in a proper manner to keep the permanent scarring to a minimum.

The only mark they were purposefully given was a tattoo of the organization’s logo located on the interior of their bottom lip. It was an ideal spot, seeing as it is easily hidden and hard to expose on accident. It was essentially their assassin mark and was one of the only pieces of evidence that proved Project Beta’s existence.

The one thing about all this training over the years was that while Kaminari knew there were other kids in the same position as him, they never truly interacted. He’d see one while walking down a hallway or catch a second of eye contact on the rare occasion they returned from a mission at the same time. The only instance he’d ever get the chance to talk to other recruits was during group missions. Which in and of itself was a scarce occurrence and the blonde never needed the extra help so he never was added onto one.

Kaminari believed that the organization most likely wanted to keep the kids separated in order to prevent a rebellion, and it worked. They were already scared into submission and if a person were to rebel, it was often done solo and they were taken care of swiftly.

...

When Kaminari made his great escape, he’d been the first to do so, ever. At least to his knowledge. After years of gaining their trust to be allowed to go on solo missions, he started making preparations. The blonde could kill efficiently, dealing with his target quickly, using the remainder of the “mission time” to prepare for his getaway.

He did odd jobs to slowly obtain money to sustain himself. Hell he even did side assassinations, though he was very selective on who his targets were. He only killed those who he deemed were the lowest of the low, like rapists, sex traffickers, etc. The organization took all the profits from the missions but provided their “employees” with all the commodities needed to live and then some. Contrary to “popular belief”, the organization treated the kids with care (except for the excruciating exercises, of course). It was a ploy to keep the assassins loyal, and it worked. If someone left, what would they do? Assassination was their entire life, they had nowhere to turn to. It was a comfortable existence for those who were willing to do the dirty work. But Kaminari knew that what he wanted was not a lavish life full of killing. So he took his time, procuring whatever he needed in order to leave. He eventually even rented out an apartment, it wasn’t anything special but it was the first thing that was his and his alone.

Kaminari also spent his time creating and maintaining connections in the underworld. The black market was notorious for passing around any and all information. If he was going to “retire”, he needed reliable sources he could reach out to if he needed intel on the organization.

The blonde had been itching to escape since day one. He wanted freedom before he even knew what freedom was. Following orders and reporting to others never resonated well with him. Of course the killing portion was a deal breaker, as well. In all honesty though, he thought assassins were kinda cool, at least he did until he fully realized he had to become one.

Finally, at age 14, after years of deliberation and literal blood, sweat, and tears, he disappeared without a trace. He completed his mission and then went off the grid. Hiding out in safe houses he had already prepared, switching periodically.

After about a couple months of hiding, the first time he made a true public appearance was at the UA Entrance Exam. Kaminari dreamed of becoming a hero, to be the one to save kids like him. He still had some bitterness towards them for never coming to his rescue, but that only fueled his fire even more to be the first one to do it himself. The practical exam was a breeze but the written portion almost killed him. He didn’t expect it to be so difficult. Though in hindsight it was an average highschool entrance exam, but with Kaminari’s lack of a normal education it proved quite troublesome. But nonetheless he was accepted and took a step forward away from his former life.

...

His time at UA genuinely shocked him. People were so... nice, and it was genuine too. He’d never experienced an environment like this before. And it enraged his heart that he was deprived from this his whole life, driving him to become a hero even more. He grew attached to his friends, they were his lifeline. They gave him something he’d never had before, love. It honestly felt so nice to have people he could completely trust.

Well not completely, he offered an open ear to anyone, but kept his skeletons in his closet locked up tight. He also displayed a limited version of his physical capabilities, it would seem awfully suspicious if he could fight equal to or better than some of the faculty. That meant he needed to fake his limit as well. The organization already pushed his limit to an astronomically high number. He would still short circuit if he went above it, but who the hell needs to go to 10 billion bolts of electricity? He tried to keep the attention off of him as best as he could. It was comical honestly, how easily his classmates believed his bluffs. It was for their own good he’d tell himself. If they found out about his former life they’d alienate him for sure and he’d be all alone once again.

The drawbacks though, was that at USJ he decided to hit his fake limit and go into whey-mode. Being captured by a villain and seeing your friends frantic, unsure of what to do next, was a sight he’d never want to see again. If there was any real danger though, he’d snap out of his “daze” in an instant. Thankfully the Pro Heroes arrived at the scene right before he had to do so. But after that experience he swore to himself he’d never let his lies bring danger to his friends again.

Which was why he was absolutely pissed at the Summer Camp when he couldn’t go out and help his friends in the forest. Though he didn’t mean to fail the final exam, Nezu was just a smartass son of bitch. But he didn’t try his hardest and if he had put just a little more effort during the test he could be out there, lending a hand.

When word came that Bakugou was kidnapped, he almost legitimately short circuited. Bakugou was abrasive, yes, but he was still one of Kaminari's first and closest friends. When the League of Villains took him, Kaminari was willing to go all out. He tailed Kirishima’s group as they went to Kamino and was ready to kill to get Bakugou back. If anything went south he’d single handedly fight All for One. Yeah he knew who he was, it was impossible not to know if you had deep ties in the underworld like Kaminari did. He knew he wasn’t a match for him, but that didn’t matter. If Bakugou could escape that’s all he cared about. But Kirishima’s group ended up succeeding and Kaminari didn’t have to risk everything.

At the Sports Festival Kaminari made his first big public debut. Though he made it a point to not show his full capability. This was also one of the first times he had fun, like genuine fun. But he stopped himself before he got too carried away, throwing his combat match with Shiozaki. He had gotten enough recognition in the public eye for his scheme to work. There was no doubt that the organization was watching him from the shadows, but what were they gonna do now?

It was a double edged sword, he revealed his whereabouts but now that he was semi-famous, eyes were on him. Meaning if he were to mysteriously disappear, a search would be issued immediately and UA would not stop until he was found. And if he was exposed to be an assassin, then he’d just expose Project Beta and all the information he had on them. Checkmate.

Of course he’d expose the organization eventually, but he needed to become a hero first and gain more connections before a successful take down could occur.

...

When the dorms were introduced Kaminari was ecstatic and relieved. He no longer had to keep looking over his shoulder every night, though he still did. But it felt a little safer when you’re guarded by Pro Heroes 24/7. But then again, he was surrounded by Pro Heroes 24/7.

Kaminari was formerly an assassin, yes. But he kept up his training for the most part. Even though he’d been free for quite some time now, the organization had lost their top asset and Kaminari figured that would not bode well with them. So he had to keep his wits about him. But no matter how hard he tried to keep his past from his classmates, the universe just didn’t seem to be on his side.

Chapter Text

Kaminari’s months hiding from the organization were honestly quite boring. Sure, he had to keep his guard up at all times in case they ever found him, but besides that there was not much else to do. He’d train and study for the most part, however he only kept up his education because he was aiming for UA. If it were up to him, he’d primarily divulge in English literature.

During those months he came to a realization, he’d actually have to enter normal people society. Of course he knew that, it was the whole damn point of leaving the organization. But it dawned on him that he’d genuinely have to partake in normal people activities and talk about normal people things. This would be no problem, the blonde loves to converse, except for the fact that he knew nothing to converse about. His normal people knowledge spanned from basic pop culture to current events, that was pretty much it, and he only used that information to partake in small talk with his targets, before he, y’know, took care of business.

The blonde figured that since he had nothing better to do with his time in isolation, he’d take a deep dive into anything and everything he could get his hands on. He proceeded to binge watch a plethora of movies/TV shows and play any and all video games, letting himself feel like an actual teenager for the first time in his life. It was supposed to be educational, but in reality he just ended up having a blast. Though, even with months of “research”, Kaminari happened to completely gloss over a piece of pop culture knowledge that everyone else seemed to know.

Which led him to his current predicament. He was having a nice lunch break with his friends until they claimed his brand literally embodies Pikachu.

“Who’s Pikachu?” The blonde furrowed his eyebrows, a little curious to who this person is and why he’s being compared to them. “Are they like a celebrity of something?”

His whole friend group appeared as if they just froze in time and stared at him in disbelief.

“What? Is there something on my face..?” He warily grabbed a napkin and slowly wiped his mouth, but his friends remained silent. He genuinely didn’t understand why they were all staring at him as if he’d just grown another head.

“No, your face is fine.” Sero answered, but his expression was still perplexed. “And we’re talking about Pikachu.. the pokémon..?”

“The poké.. what?” The blonde asked, even more confused now, but his response elicited incredulous reactions from his friends.

“Oh my gawd, you don’t know what pokémon are?!”

“Huhh? You’ve got to be joking, right?”

“Bro, how do you not know who Pikachu is?”

“Dunce-face there’s no fucking way you’ve never watched Pokémon.”

“Pokémon?” Kaminari questioned again, but this time he recited the full word. “I’m assuming this isn’t about the poke bowl I’m eating right now?” He attempted to crack a joke, it didn’t have the desired effect.

“It’s a cartoon dipshit.” Bakugou remarked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which it was by the way. But Kaminari only had mere months to catch up on all the books, TV shows, movies, videos games, magazines (porn), and all other forms of media, while his classmates had their whole lives, so cut a guy some slack.

“Mhmm!” Mina hummed in agreement, quickly typing away on her phone, seemingly searching something up. “They have these creatures, called Pokémon, that have different abilities. Some people catch them in these balls called Pokéballs and have them fight each other in Pokébattles!”

Kaminari just gave her a deadpan look, as if he’s supposed to miraculously comprehend whatever drivel she just blurted out. Okay but wait, Kaminari squinted his eyes and tilted his head slightly to the side, wasn’t that lowkey, correction, highkey, animal cruelty? But since nobody else seemed to catch that “small detail,“ he begrudgingly brushed it off.

“Okay not the best synopsis, I know, but here!” Mina shoved her phone in front of Kaminari’s face from her seat across the table. It displayed an image of a yellow creature with ears(?) that had black tips to them and also seemed to have permanent circle blush marks on their cheeks. “This is Pikachu, the Pokémon that you remind us of.”

“Huh?? In what way?” Kaminari mentally compared himself with the creature in front of him, not understanding how he resembled them and their abnormally stubby limbs.

“I mean Pikachu’s got like electric powers, y’know?” Mina shrugged, but no, Kaminari didn’t know.

“And he totally matches your color scheme.” Kirishima added, then pointed his chopsticks at the blonde. “Literally look at your hair and say it doesn’t match.”

Kaminari stared at the picture for a couple seconds longer, then sighed defeatedly. “Okay fine, yeah, I guess I kinda look like him, err- her, uh- it?”

“It’s basically an animal, if that helps.” Sero explained, not helping Kaminari in the slightest. “I’m actually kinda surprised you don’t know what Pokémon is?” He eyed his friend up and down for a second.

“Yeah me too..” Kaminari feigned confusion but mentally slapped himself. How could he have missed such a seemingly popular piece of pop culture? He didn’t need people being suspicious of him, but there was no way he could lie out of this one. “Does everyone know about Pokémon?”

“Yeah, like everyone. You’re the first person I’ve met whose never even heard about it, even my grandparents have watched the show.” Mina had put away her phone by now and was tapping her pointer finger on her chin.

“Do you live under a fucking rock?” Bakugou bluntly demanded, staring the other blonde down, as if inspecting him. If by a rock he meant a very controlling underground assassination organization, then yes Kaminari did live under a rock. But he would never say that, now would he?

“I don’t know why I’ve never heard of it.” Kaminari brushed Bakugou’s comment aside to avoid further questioning. “I’ll look it up later.”

“You know what?!” Mina gasped and shot the boys an excited smile. “We should totally have a Pokémon TV show marathon!”

“Ooo I’m down.” Mina’s excited smile had spread onto Kaminari’s face. The second he realized he was missing out on such a largely known show, he mentally decided to watch all of it, and he meant all of it. Was a little bit of his FOMO peeking out? 100%. But he still figured he’d need to know the basics of the cartoon, and it would be much more enjoyable if his friends decided to accompany him.

“Yeah that sounds like fun. But Kaminari, how have you never heard of it?” Kirishima inquired, why were people asking him so many damn questions? “I watched it all the time when I was a kid.”

“I mean I wasn’t really allowed to watch TV when I was younger.” Kaminari wasn’t lying, he had other things to attend to, like learning how to disarm and immobilize an opponent in under 10 seconds, but he digressed.

“Ohh, strict parents? That sucks man.” The red head nodded as if he’d come to the correct conclusion.

“Something like that..” Kaminari trailed off, zoning out while staring at his food while half-heartedly listening to his friends’ conversation. In actuality, he was “reminiscing” on all the times as a kid when he was scolded and beaten during his time at the organization. Recalling the food and water he was denied in order to train his body to need as little as possible and still be an efficient killing machine. Yeah, strict parents.. amiright?

“Dunce-face!” Bakugou snapped him back to reality.

“Yeah?” He looked up from his food.

“You looked fucking lost for a second there.” The ashe blonde glared at him with razor sharp eyes.

“Huh? I’m good, man. Just thinking about this por-” Kaminari was immediately cut off by a sharp “Tch” from his Pomeranian(esque) friend. He decided it would be weird if he kept dawdling on the subject, and found that the quickest way to get Bakugou to drop it was to play the "porn card". Dirty trick, he knows, pun intended.

He tuned in to the others’ conversation that, to his relief, somehow revolved around complaining about homework now, and chimed in. “Yo for that math worksheet we were given, can someone pleaseee help me with that, I swear to All Might, I keep thinking logarithms are actual logs.”

...

The proceeding weekend was spent with the Bakusquad, and anyone who wanted to join them, in the common room binging Pokémon. The show itself was for the most part entertaining, even though it was a cartoon meant for kids. But seeing that Kaminari never had a real childhood, his humor was still stunted to that of a child, so he rather enjoyed the show.

Afterwards they decided on having a sleepover in the common room, as well. It wasn’t a rare occurrence, the Bakusquad did it all the time, almost every other weekend. Aizawa attempted to stop them on multiple occasions, but ultimately gave up because apparently he was “too tired to deal with their crap”.

Kaminari awoke at an ungodly hour, he had already gotten a full night's sleep the previous evening and just gotten in a couple more hours during this sleepover. That was more than enough to hold him over for at least 3-4 days. The blonde’s body was trained to be able to function for long durations of time without sleep and he also had electricity running through his veins. So it was no surprise to him when he woke up, fully awake and alert, around 3 in the morning.

To kill some time he decided to head over to the kitchen and drink some water. He carefully pried himself from Mina and Sero’s embraces, they were having their usual three way cuddle sesh. When he got up he saw Bakugou and Kirishima, a little farther away from the rest of the group, lounging over one another. Kaminari did a double take and secretly snapped a photo of their bromance, he’d have fun teasing them with it later.

The blonde cautiously tiptoed to the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. The cold water woke him up even more, but it’s not like he was going back to bed anyways. He took a seat at one of the stools at the kitchen island and drifted his gaze upon where his friends were sleeping. He was truly grateful to have such a loving friend group that would go to the lengths of holding a movie marathon just because he never watched some show.

He loved them much more than they could ever imagine. Which only hardened his resolve to never reveal the truth about his past. He had run scenarios through his head hundreds upon hundreds of times. It always ended up the same, with them being disgusted and abandoning him. He couldn’t really blame them, if he found out one of his friends was a deadly assassin with a body count higher than he could possibly fathom, he’d probably react the same.

He’d been lucky that the only thing that his friends found fishy was his lack of knowledge about Pokémon. The hiccup was harmless on its own, but Kaminari knew that slight suspicions had the momentum to snowball into full on paranoia. He’d need to be more careful next time, though ideally he hoped there wouldn’t even be a next time

Kaminari no longer wanted to dwell on his past any more and decided to distract himself with his phone until his friends woke up. So, out of pure curiosity, he searched up how many more episodes of Pokemon he had left to binge. His jaw dropped when he learned that there were over 900 episodes (and counting) in the entire series. What the actual fuck? How long can you fucking stretch a story about a guy going on adventures and catching creatures with powers? When he recovered from that devastating blow, he discovered there were video games too?! Holy shit.. he had a loooong weekend ahead of him.

Chapter Text

Kaminari was stationed on the ground floor, hidden in the shadows of a stairwell, patiently waiting for the arrival of a group of unfortunate souls.

The atmosphere was deathly quiet, as if the world was at a standstill. A familiar ding snapped the blonde’s attention to the elevator only mere feet away and he gripped his gun in preparation.

He spotted his targets as they dawdled in the elevator doorway, but in an instant they were on the move. Kaminari eyes were glued onto them, like a predator stalking his prey. They walked down the hall, oblivious to what their fate would soon be.

Could he even do this? The blonde internally shook his head, he had to do this, he needed to do this. After all it was his duty.

Kaminari cautiously tip-toed behind them, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

Then his soon to be victims lingered for just a moment and Kaminari raised his gun.

“Hands up!” The blonde yelled and watched as his marks quickly turned around, their expressions ranging from confused, to scared, and one simultaneously angry and annoyed. He then shot all four of them dead-on in quick succession.

“Bro, Kaminari!”

“Come on, man!”

“I just bought this shirt!”

“Dunce-face!”

“Guys relax, it's just good ol’ H2O.” Kaminari laughed and shot the water gun into his own mouth, taking in a small gulp. He watched his friends head to the kitchen to grab paper towels to try absorb the water off their shirts. “It’ll dry in like a minute.”

Kaminari was an absolute fiend for pranks and consequently pulled them all the time. There were some instances where he joined forces with Sero or Mina, but more often than not he performed them by himself.

Besides, he could pull off bigger and better stunts if he worked solo. This water gun prank was by far nowhere near his true potential.

Like there was this one time when he rented out a snake, yes a snake. Don’t ask how, he has those underground connections, y’know? It was a look alike for some other venomous breed, and it scared his classmates shitless, well except Kouda, because.. obviously. There was this other instance where he acquired a spider, but the catch was that it was actually poisonous. And he had almost lost it too until- okay, he was getting off track. But to keep things concise, Kaminari adored pranks.

It was most likely a means to expel the childish energy he was forced to suppress for years. The organization loathed such youthful antics so he hid his fun loving nature in order to avoid disciplinary action. Locking up a kid in a pitch black room for hours on end, and dubbing it “time out”, really puts a damper on their tomfoolery. But now that he was free from those restraints, he let himself mess around from time to time.

“Bro, how do you do that?” Sero walked up to Kaminari and pried the water gun out of his hands.

“Do what?” The blonde asked in a “innocent” manner, but then yelped when his own shirt got soaked with water. “Hey! What was that for?”

“‘It’ll dry in like a minute.’” Sero smirked as he pointed the weapon up to the ceiling in front of his face and pretended to blow smoke off the gun. “And I mean, you pull pranks on us all the time, right? But somehow you still manage to give us fucking heart attacks. How? What’s your secret?”

Well, when you’ve spent over a decade training in the art of assassination, stealth just becomes a part of you.

“I dunno.” The blonde shrugged, grabbing his gun back from Sero’s grasp and spinning it around his pointer finger. “I guess I just get really into the prank.”

Sero’s inquiry was rhetorical at best so he just brushed off Kaminari’s half-assed response. But the question still subconsciously began to fester in the back of his mind.

“Oi! Dunce-face and Soy Sauce face who said you could have a fucking conversation?!” Bakugou interjected and adjusted his gym bag as a reminder to what their plans originally were before Kaminari derailed them. “Hurry the fuck up!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kaminari dismissed Bakugou’s scolding while tucking away his weapon in his duffel bag that he had hidden behind the kitchen island. He slung the pack on his shoulder, and was ready to go.

...

The Bakusquad was having one of their group training sessions. Well it was more like they’d work out for an hour or two until Kaminari, Ashido, and Sero, or the “Terrible Trio” as they dubbed themselves, got bored and started to fool around.

Their regiment consisted of running (or some form of cardio), weights, and fighting. Compared to what Kaminari did at the organization, this shit was a breeze.

Not to say that he hated their workout sessions, he was quite fond of them. He saw these meetups as just another way to hang out with his best buddies, not really a “high intensity workout to whip your asses into shape” as Bakugou called it. But since it would be suspicious to why he wasn’t tired, he often faked fatigue and splashed water on his face to resemble sweat.

Kaminari noted that the Bakusquad was quite physically capable, of course the whole hero course was, but it was impressive and inspiring to see how hard they all worked towards becoming Pro Heroes. He also found comfort in the fact that all their efforts went into helping people and not killing them as Kaminari was previously trained to do.

Kirishima and Bakugou were absolute tanks and used brute force, as well as some tactical skills, to fight. Kaminari found it interesting and fun to train with them because their straightforward and persevering attitudes truly embodied UA’s motto of “Plus Ultra!”. Though the duo would usually do some sparring on their own, seeing that the redhead was the best equipped to deal with the explosive blonde’s temperament.

Sero was similar to Kaminari in the sense that he wasn’t super buff, like the previous two, but was still a formidable adversary. Both would dance around their opponents and then immobilize them with either tape or electricity. The blonde had once thought of Sero as a version of himself where he wasn’t forced to become an assassin, and also if he had a tape quirk.

Unfortunately Kaminari had overhead some people, sexist people to be specific, pointing out that it was “unfair” that Ashido was the only girl that trained with them, claiming it would be too difficult for her. But boy were they absolutely wrong, in reality Ashido could and has kicked all their asses multiple times. Girl was ruthless and her stamina, which came from her dancing background, was off the charts.

Everyone in their group fared off pretty well so their training was quite enjoyable. Bakugou and Kirishima had their routine sparring match until the ash blonde sent the redhead flying into the wall, consequently ending the fight. Sero and Kaminari tried, key word tried, to tag team Ashido who cleverly encased herself in acid to dissolve Sero’s tape and keep the other from getting close enough to electrocute her. Kaminari had to admit, their training was always entertaining.

After they finished their workout the Bakusquad exited the school gym and were greeted with beautiful hues of red, pink, orange, and yellow painting the sky as the sun set. It caught their attention, Kaminari’s specifically.

The blonde loved to stare up at the sky, whether it was cloud watching or star gazing he enjoyed it all. His affixation with the stratosphere stemmed from the fact that he spent the majority of his childhood training indoors, only going outside for missions.

He especially loved watching storms, catching a millisecond of lighting go off then for it to be followed by bounding thunder sent shivers down his spine in the best way possible. Sure he literally had lightning at his fingertips, but it was different when he saw it in the sky, it was more wild, one could say it was truly free.

...

Somehow the Terrible Trio managed to convince Kirishima but had to drag Bakugou to join them on a quick walk on one of the trails to enjoy the sky scenery.

Well the “quick walk” turned into a “lengthy journey” as they kept at it long after the stars began to illuminate the sky. Kaminari mainly spouted about whatever crap came to mind and threw around friendly banter with the others. He always cherished these spontaneous moments for fear that he’d lose them all one day and would only be left with the memories.

Eventually Bakugou finally snapped, demanding he needed to go to bed and the group reluctantly gave in. It was honestly a miracle that the explosive blonde even agreed to come in the first place with the fact that he had already put up with “their asses” for hours beforehand.

Though Kaminari knew if the ash blonde really intended on going to sleep he could’ve gone back by himself, but Bakugou secretly had a soft spot for them. The explosive blonde would never admit it but he might, just a teensy bit, start to believe these extras were more of a supporting cast. So he wasn’t just going to leave them on a dark forest trail, even if it was on UA property.

Was there lingering paranoia from his kidnapping? Yeah, and his friends, especially Kaminari (he was emotionally proficient like that) understood, even if he never verbalized it. So they decided that they’d been out late enough and began to walk back.

“Aww Kacchan, is it past your bedtime?” Kaminari fake pouted at his friend, while the others giggled in the background. Some would see it as cruel to just keep acting like normal, because of the trauma, but if anyone actively pitied Bakugou, the teen would 100% blow you up.

“Shut the fuck up!” The ash blonde retaliated and held up his palm to let off a tiny spark, sending a false threat to his friend- err, extra.

“If you want, I’ll tuck you into bed.” Kaminari cooed and was about to receive another heaping serving of Bakugou’s vulgar warnings until they heard a twig snap a couple feet away from the trail, somewhere in the forest.

The group stopped in their tracks.

“What was that?” Kirishima asked immediately, examining his surroundings. It was pretty dark out, the only things lighting their way were very spaced out lamp posts and the moon.

“Probably an animal..?” Ashido responded but there was a hint of doubt in her voice. There were definitely animals in this forest, though they were nothing big. Just small gain you could find almost anywhere in the wilderness, though nobody would hunt here, for obvious reasons.

There was no real reason for the group to be all spooked out. Maybe it was because it was nightime or that they’d been up for hours on end and were exhausted, but a tense mood quickly filled the air.

“Hey, where’d Kaminari go?” Sero looked alarmed, checking for his friend to no avail, making the situation even more stressful. “He was here just a second ago.”

The group went silent, the only audible sound coming from the crickets chirping in the background.

“I fucking swear if this is another one of his pranks.” Bakugou seethed and decided to backtrack a couple feet to see if Kaminari was just farther behind.

The others followed in suit, being very quiet and cautious, as well as, a little on edge. The group peered into the forest but the foliage combined with the lack of proper lighting made it difficult to properly see.

“Uhh.. what are you guys doing?” Kaminari asked, a little concerned, albeit a tad amused, as he stared at his friends’ backs as they practically crouched and “stealthily” analyzed the trail.

His sudden question unintentionally scared the living daylights out of his companions, Ashido even fell to her butt. The speed at which their heads snapped back in his direction, which was in the front of the group now, could’ve given them whiplash. Kaminari would’ve bursted into laughter but held back because he didn’t want to disturb any sleeping animals in the forest.

“Holy shit! Kami where the fuck did you come from?” Sero gripped his chest, for fear that he had a heart attack with how loud his heart was pounding.

“Oh, I checked out what that sound was earlier.” Kaminari innocently pointed to his left, where the sound originated. “It was a bunny!” His eyes lit up when remembered what he had found when he went into the woods. A wave of relief washed over his friends as their focus turned to the adorable brown fluff ball he was now cradling in his arms.

“Ooo!” Ashido immediately bounced up to Kaminari and began petting the creature, seemingly forgetting the tense mood that surrounded them mere seconds ago. “So cute!!” But then she slapped his shoulder in an “angry” manner while continuing to pet the bunny. “But don’t you dare scare us like that again! Why’d you even check it out by yourself?”

Ashido's maternal instincts had kicked in and Kaminari was confused to why they were so concerned about him.

“Yeah what if you’d gotten hurt?” Leave it to Kirishima to be the worrywart of the group.

The blonde has spent months with his classmates but still wasn't used to people fretting over him, especially over something so minuscule. Though he couldn't help but smile, their worried remarks were nice reminders to show that they still cared.

“It’s fine.” It honestly was fine, Kaminari didn’t see the big deal. He would’ve sensed if there was any actual danger. The blonde would’ve felt the bloodlust or eyes tailing him, just like he was trained to do at the organization. But he didn’t discern any of that, so he figured that whatever made that twig snap was an animal. His intuition was right and he was rewarded with a cuddle session with a cute little bunny. “C’mon look how adorable this guy is!”

“Whatever! Let’s just head back now!” Bakugou was so fucking done and Kaminari found it slightly comical that they'd made such a big deal about him finding an animal. But out of some consideration for his friend the electric blonde reluctantly set the bunny on the ground and watched it disappear into the dark of the forest.

...

The group almost made it back to the dorms without anymore hiccups until Kirishima went to open the front doors and found them locked.

“Uh.. hey guys?” The redhead looked back at his friends with a worried look. “The door won’t open..”

“What?!” Bakugou whisper yelled, not wanting to wake up anyone who was asleep. He shoved Kirishima out of the way and tried to open the door himself. He turned the knobs to the left. To the right. Push. Pull. Nada. Nothing happened..

“Oh shit, guys remember like two weeks ago? UA said they moved curfew up to 9:00 pm for a couple weeks for safety reasons.” Ashido pulled out her phone and groaned when she realized what time it was. “And it’s now 9:54.”

Kaminari vaguely remembered the notice but wished he would've kept it in the back of his mind if he knew they were going to end up this predicament. The group peered inside the common room through the windows only to find that it was completely dark. Fuck, everybody probably went to their rooms by now.

UA didn’t go into the specifics to why they temporarily changed the curfew but Kaminari knew that those safety reasons were because the underworld was in a bit of an uproar ever since the Hassaikai was raided and forcefully taken down. It fucked up a bunch of people’s jobs and power dynamics were thrown to the wind. Since there were apparently some connections with the Hassaikai and the League of Villains, UA wanted to be cautious. It was good on the school’s part, but very inconvenient at the moment.

Kaminari had ignored the announcement, it was irrelevant to him. Curfew was just a suggestive, actually not even suggestive, it was just a number to him. He’d been sneaking out of the dorms for weeks now and never once got caught. So an amended curfew was shit to him. But he had forgotten the fact that others actually followed the school rules and were evidently in a pickle.

“Apparently Midoriya went on a night run last week and stayed out too long.” Ashido continued and moved them into a huddled circle formation so they could hear her better. “So he had to call Aizawa-sensei to open the door and he gave him detention! Midoriya never gets in trouble.” Bakugou snorted and she corrected herself. “Rarely gets in trouble. What do you think will happen when we call Aizawa-sensei? At least Midoriya had an excuse, we were just messing around!”

“Why don’t we try picking the locks?” Sero's suggestion was quickly shot down.

“It’s an electric lock dipshit. There’s nothing to pick.” Bakugou pointed at the handle with no keyhole.

“Hmm. What if Kaminari electrocutes it? It would go out for a second and we could probably open it then.” Sero tried and failed again.

“I mean maybe, but it could also send an alarm to the school because it was being tampered with and there are probably backup generators too.” Kirishima politely turned his idea down. “We’d get in way more trouble if it failed.”

It wasn’t that bad of an idea Kaminari mused. He’d have to try that in the future, but right now was not the time nor the place to be experimenting.

“How about we text someone to open the door?” Mina waved her phone in front of their faces. Kaminari let out a sigh of relief, that was actually a smart solution and now he wouldn’t have to implement his backup plan.

Bakugou grabbed the phone out of her hand to get it out of his personal space and threw it back to her. “No fucking way, I’m not asking any of those extras for their help.”

Oh, fucking come on.

“Some of them are definitely still up.” Kirishima was getting annoyed now and Kaminari felt the same sentiment. Bakugou was ornery as a default but now was not the time for him to be so headstrong.

“And?” Bakugou yawned, he was getting tired and growing grumpier by the minute. This conversation, correction, argument wasn’t going anywhere.

“So you’re saying you’d rather get detention?” The redhead rubbed the temples on his head.

“We’ll figure out a way inside. Fucking relax.” The ash blonde glared daggers at Kirishima.

“You’re the one who said they’re tired!”

“You guys are the ones that fucking dragged me out to go on a ‘quick walk’!”

“So you’re saying it’s my fault?!”

“What?! I never said it was your fault!”

“Guys! Shut up, if you keep arguing like this Aizawa-sensei is bound to hear us!” Sero whispered but borderline shouted.

“I’m just gonna text Jirou.” Ashido proclaimed, unlocking her phone.

“Shut up Soy Sauce face! You’re fucking yelling too! And Racoon Eyes don’t you fucking dare!” Bakugou seized the phone from her grip once more, dodging as the pink girl tried to snatch it back.

“There you again! Denying help when we need it, you’re so fucking stubborn sometimes! And Sero’s right, Aizawa could be here at any moment!”

The door clicked open and was left slightly ajar.

The group froze.

“Speak of the devil.” Kirishima whispered angrily, elbowing the ash blonde in the ribs out of spite.

“Shit.” Bakugou mumbled under his breath.

The silence was deafening.

“We are so sorry Aizawa-sensei, we didn’t realize how late it was.” Kirishima was the first to break and began to profusely apologize on behalf of the group. He bowed when he heard the door fully open he forced the others to bow down with him. If he was asking forgiveness they sure as hell all were asking with him. “We promise we won’t do it again. We accept any punishment you give us.”

No response.

“Sensei?” Kirishima was about to stand up straight but froze in place once again when he heard his teacher begin to speak.

“I am very disappointed in all of you. The new curfew was instituted to keep you all safe.” A voice responded that sounded somewhat like Aizawa, but it lacked the usual lethargy that plagued his tone. “Do you understand?”

The group responded with a unified, “Yes, Sensei.”

“And for your punishment…” There was shuffling then the sound of a plastic mechanism going off.

“What the hell?” Kirishima and the rest of the group shot up from their bow in deep confusion when they all felt water spray onto their foreheads. They looked up only to see Kaminari making an Aizawa grin at them, water gun in hand. The redhead dived onto the blonde, crashing into his friend so hard that he almost knocked them both to the floor. “Kami, bro how the fuck?!”

“Oh my god Kaminari!” Ashido completely ignored the water on her face and proceeded to pounce on them, joining in with a huge bear hug.

“Holy shit! You fucking scared me bro!” Sero wiped his face as he let out a sigh of relief and jumped in on their embrace.

“Tsk!” Bakugou walked inside while drying his face with his t-shirt and closed the door behind him. He leaned against one of the dining tables, staying away from the rest of the group.

“You too Bakubro!” Kaminari whisper shouted as the rest of the group pulled him into the hug.

After they separated from their embrace they decided to regroup in the common room quickly.

Kirishima was the first to speak up. “Bro how’d you get in?”

“I have my ways.” Kaminari shrugged, he had begrudgingly implemented his backup plan.

It honestly wasn’t anything special, he just climbed up the side of the building to get onto his balcony. From there he used his balcony key, he kept a spare in all his bags in case he needed to get into his room quickly if the organization ever got to him. But he supposed it worked for situations like this, as well. He then dropped off his belongings, though he didn’t forget to snatch up his water gun, he'd have fun messing with his friends, before heading downstairs to let them in. Baby stuff, really.

“Thank you Kami! We owe you one, but what Kiri said, how’d you even get in?” Ashido questioned, but the blonde really didn’t want to have to explain himself.

“Magic.” He brought his hands up and wiggled his fingers as a response.

“Uh-huh, yeah sure.” Sero brushed away his joke and pushed for answers, as well. “But seriously though, how?”

“Fine.” The blonde sighed, figuring they wouldn’t let up unless he gave them somewhat of an answer. And it wasn't like he did anything super insane, so he supposed he could give them the truth. “I climbed up to my balcony to get in.”

“I didn’t even see you leave.” Kirishima pointed out with a slightly astonished look on his face.

“Well, while you guys were busy with your screaming match, I decided to take matters into my own hands.” He watched with amusement as his friends turned red from embarrassment.

Kaminari could’ve just waited for Aizawa to find them, but he was quite opposed to the idea of getting a week’s worth of detention. Okay look, he’d just gotten a hold of this really nice knife set and he would rather not spend his after school hours stuck in detention when he could be playing with his new toys.

There was also the option of climbing away by himself and leaving his friends to rot, but he wasn’t a sadist, so he supposed he should probably lend them a hand.

“But we were arguing for only a minute, you’re telling me you scaled up the building that fast.” Kirishima inquired, not fully believing Kaminari could be so quick and nimble.

“I mean I’m only on the third floor.” Kaminari said as if it was the equivalent to walking up a flight of stairs. “And the balconies help you climb up.”

“Have you ever done that before?” Ashido asked, genuinely curious, she’d never taken Kaminari to be a good climber.

Yes, like every night.

“Mm, not really.” The blonde tried to act as nonchalant as possible, but that only issued more questions.

“But you could scale the building in like a minute?” Sero interjected, kind of perplexed as to how easily Kaminari got to his room.

“Yes..?” Okay he admits it, it was lowkey suspicious.

“Y’know Kaminari you’re way more stealthy than I’d imagine you to be.” Kirishima voiced the thought that everybody was thinking.

“I guess..” This was not good, Kaminari needed to change the subject. “I-“

“Kiri’s right, you always sneak up on us with pranks.” Thank you Sero for unnecessarily adding on.

“And on the trail you straight up disappeared and reappeared right in front of us.” Ashido pointed out, not helping his case either. “Like magic..” She said with a mystical yet joking look that sparkled in her eyes, while she brought her hands up to her face like Kaminari did before and wiggled her fingers.

“It’s not fucking magic Racoon Eyes.” Bakugou was not entertaining jokes at this hour. “Dunce-face just has quiet ass footsteps.”

Great, the cat’s out of the bag.

“Ohh now that you mention it you’re totally right.” Sero nodded his head, giving Kaminari whiplash as to how fast this conversation was progressing.

“Heh.. I guess I do.” He needed to get the focus off of him right now. “But shouldn’t we-“

“Yeah I never would’ve guessed it with your, no offense, loud personality.” Kirishima continued against Kaminari’s will.

“None taken.” The blonde deadpanned. Okay let’s try this again, third time’s the charm, right? “Aizawa could hear us-“

“Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Kaminari’s footsteps.” Kaminari was cut off for the third time and he mentally sent daggers at his interuptee, sorry Ashido.

Okay but that sentence kind of got to him. Was he actually that quiet and he never noticed? Was this another Pikachu situation? But he honestly doubted it, just because he had a habit of stepping lightly doesn’t mean he’s sketchy.

And this habit proved troublesome to break, especially since it was instilled into him at such a young age, as soon as he could walk to be specific. Hell, if he could remember his baby years, he was probably taught how to crawl in silence, too.

Kaminari had actually attempted to make his footsteps create some sort of sound during his time in hiding, but like previously mentioned, it genuinely proved to be quite difficult. To be honest, he didn’t really put a lot of effort into it because silent footsteps and stealth in general are pretty advantageous skills to have mastered. And nowadays it wasn’t something he was actively trying to fix anymore, it was such a small detail, it would just be glossed over, right?

Wrong. He wasn’t expecting his classmates to be so perceptive, but it was his fault for not being cautious enough. He mentally sighed, he fucked up, but at least it was nothing major, so it would be fine..

They were probably going to interrogate him over the subject for a couple more minutes or until they satiated their curiosity, so he’d just have to give as little and as vague information as possible.

“Kaminari have you always walked quietly?” Kirishima asked, okay this question was easy.

“Kinda. I guess I learned how to be quiet because I liked to pull pranks.” Good answer and it was believable, too.

“Ooo can you teach me?” Sero inquired. “Seems useful for hero missions.” And assassin missions too, Kaminari mentally added.

“And it’ll help me with dance!” Ashido chimed in. The blonde was happy that his friends thought this mundane trait was cool, but he really wished their attention could be focused on something more productive. Maybe like shutting the hell up and heading to bed.

“Sure..? I don’t know how I do it, I just do.” This was completely true, the mechanics of how he walked quietly became second nature to him, it was like breathing, he didn’t need to think about it for it to happen. He glanced at his friends and caught a second of eye contact with Bakugou who was just staring at him intently.

“But doesn’t that tire you out, though?” Sero was genuinely curious. “Like whenever I try doing it I get mentally exhausted I guess, just always being aware of how you walk.”

Kaminari didn’t really think of it as mentally taxing. Thinking back it had actually been a pretty easy and smooth transition to get into the habit of it-

Oh wait, nevermind.

Bits of Kaminari’s many repressed memories from the organization decided now would be the perfect time to resurface. They were just brief flashes to the past but he recalled them vividly.

Moments as a toddler when he’d be running around with loud footsteps and then someone would come and beat him as punishment for causing a raucous. Nothing to permanently scar him but just the thought of them stung.

Kaminari had almost completely forgotten about those memories. In retrospect it was minimal when compared to the trauma he would experience later on so it was buried underneath the nastier memories, but nonetheless it still hurt. He had adapted to survive, it was an intense way to word it, but it was the truth.

Though he’d escaped that place by now, so why do these memories still haunt him?

“Um.. I dunno, just do it a lot..?” Kaminari was lost in thought but remembered that he was still having a conversation and gave a weak suggestion. “I’m no teacher-“

Oh great, who interrupted him this time?

“Hey, who’s down here?” Aizawa called out from his first floor teacher dorm room.

Kaminari was eternally grateful that this interference finally gave him an excuse to flee. It was also past 10 which meant lights out for the dorms. You could say he was Saved by Aizawa, like "Saved by the Bell", get it? No? Okay, nevermind...

“Hey! It’s lights out, go to bed, or at least hide in your rooms and pretend to be sleeping.” Aizawa’s voice sounded closer.

If Aizawa found them hanging out in the common room, they’d receive the punishment they just evaded. Sure they’ve managed to host sleepovers here before but at the moment they were all still dressed in their workout clothes, so if their teacher spotted them he would realize they’d been out past curfew.

So they ran.

Their exhausted teacher shuffled into the common room only a minute later to find it abandoned, save for a water gun lying on one of the dining tables.

“I’m too tired to deal with this crap.” Aizawa retreated back to the comfort of his bed.

Chapter Text

Over the course of Kaminari’s stay at Project Beta he had tucked away a handful of languages under his belt. And he discovered that one of his favorite forms of communication was Japanese Sign Language. Though it was a required language to master, because of its benefits of conveying messages nonverbally, Kaminari inevitably fell in love with it.

His ADHD brain also really benefited from having him utilize his hands. With it’s visual and physical aspects it actually kept him calm at times.

It became a habit he did subconsciously, if he was antsy he’d sign what he was thinking or if he was immersed in a book he’d sign a word or two from the sentence he was reading.

Though he made sure to only do so when nobody was looking, or at least that’s what he thought.

Don’t tell anybody but one of Kaminari’s favorite secret pastimes is watching videos where people signed JSL to express a song. He truly admired how someone could add so much more beauty to a piece of music, even if they could not hear it via conventional methods.

But he made sure to keep this information a well kept secret for multiple reasons.

One being that if he showed these videos to his friends, he’d just receive variations of “Oh that’s cool.”. They’d of course be supportive of the deaf and hard of hearing community but since they didn’t comprehend the language they wouldn’t have the same experience that he did. It was like going to an art gallery, sure the pieces looked pretty interesting and they could understand the surface beauty, but they lacked the ability to delve deeper and look into the layers of its artistry. There would be no animosity, it was just not their cup of tea.

The second, and more significant reason he kept this on the downlow was because it’d reveal that he knew another language. It wasn’t rare that people were bilingual but Kaminari was a full blown polyglot and if he let out that he knew JSL it could snowball into everyone finding out about his linguistic mastery.

The blonde also wasn’t quite fond of lying to his friends, so he did his best to not even bring up topics he’d have to lie about. But leave it to the universe to fuck him over once again.

It was a tad past midnight and Kaminari couldn’t sleep, he kept tossing and turning in bed for hours on end. It’s not like he didn’t want to be unconscious and be blissfully unaware of all his baggage for just a little while, but his body straight up rejected all his attempts to rest.

Shoutout to Project Beta for leaving long lasting effects on his circadian rhythm.

So to kill the time until sleep hopefully befell onto him, he moved to his balcony to watch some of those JSL music videos. If he couldn’t go to bed he might as well relax while enjoying the evening breeze. He popped his earbuds in and took a seat in his outdoor lounging chair that he had set up outside.

He was a couple videos in until he decided he’d sign along with one of the songs. He found it fun yet calming and it’d be good to have extra practice for his JSL, though he didn’t necessarily need it.

It was also the middle of the night so he figured that he’d be away from prying eyes, but boy was he wrong.

The blonde took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing on truly feeling the music. And Kaminari went for it, putting passion into every single move while taking liberties with his facial expressions.

He became engulfed in the song but unfortunately his time signing was short lived, because he immediately halted his movements when he heard a distant click of lightswitch, a balcony door open, and a faint scurry of footsteps followed by louder almost lumbering ones.

Kaminari shot open his eyes, checking his surroundings, in the back of his mind he was worried that the organization found him but was frankly more annoyed that his jam sesh was interrupted.

His worries melted away when he spotted Kouda on the neighboring balcony sheepishly waving at him. Kaminari smiled in return but was a little taken aback by his friend’s response.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Kouda inquired in JSL, the blonde was pleasantly surprised but not super shocked that his classmate knew how to sign. He was the quiet type and didn’t like using his voice even though that was his whole damn quirk. (It was a work in progress.)

“Yeah.” Kaminari didn’t catch Kouda’s eyes widening when the blonde signed back. He was too busy running into his room to turn on his light when he realized his friend was having a hard time seeing his hands in the darkness of the night. “You?”

“Yuwai-chan needed to go to the bathroom.” Kouda pointed to the bunny litter box in the corner of his balcony, shifting in an awkward “beat of silence” before he continued on. “So.. you know JSL?”

“Huh? How’d you find out?” The blonde signed his query quickly, confused on how his neighbor figured it out but then looked down at his hands while they were in mid-sign. His mouth made a visible “O” and he quietly chuckled when he realized he’d been reflexively signing without putting any thought to it. He was already in JSL mode so it just so happened to carry over to their conversation. For a brilliant assassin who was meticulous in never screwing up, he was pretty dense for letting that fly over his head. “Nevermind..”

He caught his classmate letting out a small giggle but then quickly covered it up with a, “Sorry.”

Kaminari grinned, he was happy that he made his friend laugh. Sure they lived right next to each other and the blonde constantly pestered Kouda to let him pet his bunny, but they were never super close like he was with the Bakusquad. “Were you.. signing.. a song?”

Oh no. This was bad, out of all the details, this was the last Kaminari wanted Kouda to notice. Not because he didn’t want Kouda knowing that he could sign JSL, that cat was already very much out of the bag.

It was just because it was plain humiliating. It’s not that he was embarrassed about knowing JSL, it was that he just looked utterly stupid when he’d sign songs. The people in the videos would sign so elegantly and Kaminari truly believed he did too until he caught himself signing in the mirror.

It wasn’t bad, per se, it was like watching a kid's dance recital. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t something you’d necessarily want an encore of. Kaminari would often get too immersed in a song and end up overaggerating the motions, so it was a little mortifying that he was caught in the act.

Kaminari slowly nodded his head with an expression that matched the sarcastic smiling face emoji, but let out a massive sigh of relief to his friend’s response.

“Me too!” Kouda beamed but then fell back to his sheepish demeanor. “I didn’t think anybody around me would do it as well. It can be a little.. embarrassing, not that JSL is embarrassing, I mean-”

Kaminari waved his hands in the air to catch Kouda’s attention, the boy was starting to sign ramble.

“I know what you mean.” It was Kouda’s turn to let out a sigh of relief.

“So.. how’d you learn? For me, I kept accidentally attracting the attention of animals around me before I could learn to control my quirk. What about you?” His neighbor’s remark actually peaked the blonde’s interest a tad.

Kaminari had learned that Kouda was bullied a bit as a kid which made him go mute for a while, so he assumed he’d just picked up JSL then. But the idea that he inadvertently attracted animals in an “x” meter radius while growing up could have also been the reason he began to sign. Or perhaps it was a mix of both that led to Kouda’s quiet demeanor.

“Learned as a kid, knew a friend who was deaf.” Okay that was only partially a lie, he didn’t personally know anyone who was deaf but he had heard of this badass recruit who was. He had a quirk called Seismic Sense or something, he could apparently feel the vibrations of the Earth via skin to ground contact. He never actually met him though, but Kouda didn’t need to know that small detail. “Wanted to talk to him so I picked it up.”

“That’s quite impressive and rather kind of you…” A pang of guilt hit Kaminari when he was commended on a motivation he never had. “Actually could you.. maybe.. i-it’s okay if you don’t want to...” The quiet boy attempted to continue but trailed off, letting his hesitation linger in the air.

“Would you like me to communicate using JSL from now on?” Somehow Kaminari miraculously knew what Kouda was trying to convey. He may be academically inept but he was emotionally adept, it was one of the few things he was proud of.

To him it was a victory against the organization in a way. He had to essentially turn off his emotions when he went on missions so he could get the job done and still stay somewhat sane. But the fact that he could understand the feelings of his classmates meant that he didn’t turn into the cold-hearted assassin he was destined to be.

“Yeah.. that would be nice.” Kouda’s body relaxed when Kaminari voiced the query he was too nervous to ask. “You don’t have to do it public though, I am trying to talk more. But it would be nice to have 1 on 1 conversations in JSL. My mother would do it all the time when I would get too nervous to talk. Not that you’re my mother or anything! And like I said if you don’t want to that’s perfectly fine and-”

Kaminari cleared his throat to stop Kouda from going on a tangent again, before it got Midoriya-level bad. For a kid who didn’t like to talk he could sure as hell sign up a storm.

“I don’t mind. It would be lovely to have someone I could practice my JSL with.” Again, the blonde didn’t need the extra practice, but it was still nice.

It was also very convenient that Kouda brought up the idea of keeping it private. He didn’t really know how to approach him with the request to keep this a secret, so it made his life much easier when he didn’t have to do anything for it to work out. If he only had to sign to him when they were alone he needn’t worry about his classmates catching them.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Kouda’s attention was diverted to his bunny who was now scratching at his feet, done with their bathroom break. He bent down to pet Yuwai-chan and headed to his balcony door. “Well I better head back to bed. Good night, Kaminari.”

“Night.” The blonde watched as his classmate picked up his bunny and returned to his room, making sure they were safe and sound before he started moving himself. When his neighbor’s window turned dark Kaminari sighed and decided to give another go at sleeping himself.

He shut and locked the balcony door behind him when he re-entered his room and shuffled to his light switch to immerse himself in darkness once again. His eyes felt better without the harsh lighting, maybe this is how Tokoyami feels 24/7.

He plopped himself on his bed and while burying himself under his sheets as he positioned himself on his back. Staring at the ceiling littered with glow in the dark stars he let out a breath he didn’t even realize he had been holding in.

Under different circumstances Kaminari would’ve been concerned that someone could rat out that he could sign JSL. But since Kouda was Class 1A’s resident silent soft boy, he wasn’t particularly stressed.

And better yet, now he had a friend he could openly talk to about JSL music videos. He smiled to himself as his body began to relax in his bed and he could feel his eyelids gradually become heavier. Maybe the universe didn’t fuck him over too bad this time round.

…

English was one of Kaminari’s first languages, he had actually been taught it alongside Japanese when he was a toddler. At first, he never really thought much of the language, it wasn’t that big of a deal to him, just something he was ordered to learn.

What did change his mind, well his entire world view actually, was when he got his hands on his first English literature book. Sure, he had to read books that were written in English, but those were just run of the mill stories. Stuff to strengthen his comprehension of the language, nothing to really teach him life lessons.

The organization would never allow such liberal books to be accessible to their recruits. It could lead to free thinking or, dare he say, ideas of independence, and they could not have that.

It was a stroke of luck that he stumbled upon the art that was English literature. He was working a mission, it was plain and simple, just kill the guy and get out of there. But what was out of the ordinary was the setting. It was in the guys’ office, which was actually a pretty common location, but what he didn’t expect was the office to be a literal fucking library.

The best way he could describe it was like the classic high class mafia offices that you’d see in movies. It held a huge mahogany desk that was supposed to be the main focus of the room but Kaminari was fixated on what was behind it. Two enormous matching mahogany bookshelves were jam packed with books of all shapes and sizes.

Kaminari decided he’d take a look, he had poisoned his target and had some time to kill while waiting to make sure he was dead. He scanned the shelves, running his gloved fingers along the book spines, but stopped on a particular title.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

A little curious as to what the title meant he flipped open the book and began to read. He read the first chapter, and then the next, and then the next. He read the whole damn book in one sitting and didn’t even realize it until he was crying as he turned the last page.

He just didn’t understand it, he never, ever, cried anymore, the act of shedding tears was beaten out of his system years ago. So why did something so mundanely beautiful leave him quietly sobbing in a mafia boss’ office?

Realizing he’d spent way too long here and should’ve left hours ago he quickly fled the scene. He took the book with him though, it’s not like the guy needed it anymore, and thus started his obsession with English literature.

It opened his eyes to the different perspectives of the world, and showed him the beauty of even the grimmest situations. It was actually one of the reasons that he started to seriously think about leaving the organization. He owed his life to authors who have long since passed.

English became his forte and it was one of the only things Kaminari didn’t hold himself back on when he enrolled into UA, purely because he couldn’t do such a disservice to the language.

Well he did restrain himself a little, but somehow he still managed to be the top of his class. It was really the only academic thing he was proficient at, so give him a break if he wanted to actually have a good grade for once. And just because he had the highest marks didn’t mean he bragged about it.

Far from it actually, only a select few people were aware of his fluency. Those being Present Mic because he was their English teacher, obviously, and Aizawa because he was his homeroom teacher and compiled all their grades for their report cards. He also had to throw in the school librarian, where else was he going to get his English literature fix?

As far as classmates went, they were none the wiser, well until one of them overheard his conversation with Present Mic.

Kaminari was visiting the school library, and he had to hand it to whoever designed this place, because it was breathtaking. The exterior looked quite modern and plain but it was the interior that held the true architectural prowess.

It boasted beautiful dark oak columns that transitioned into arches that supported a sky high ceiling. There were chandeliers hanging every couple meters or so that showered a golden light across the aisles of books. Tall windows spanned across the walls that let in the natural sunlight. If you were to enter the library during sunset it would hold such a magnificent golden hue, and Kaminari would know, he spent hours upon hours here. It was a vastly different atmosphere than all the other UA buildings, but it definitely lived up to the school's motto of “Plus Ultra!”

The grand bookshelves, which were in the same shade of dark oak as the arches, were lined up row upon row with a wide variety of books. The library also included a center section of tables and chairs where the majority of students would work at, though barely anyone ever came.

Nobody really ventured into the library unless absolutely necessary, which was a shame in and of itself. Sure there were regulars just like Kaminari but most people opted to use the computer lab, not wanting to flip through pages among pages of books.

Maybe that’s why the library wasn’t newly renovated like the rest of the school seemed to be, because of lack of use. Not the Kaminari particularly minded, the current design created an almost magical environment that he grew to love so much.

Where Kaminari spent the majority of his time was in a small little nook that was decorated with comfy armchairs and tables. One of the best parts of it was that it was adjacent to the English section.

When he discovered this enchanting location he almost fainted because it was so utterly perfect, as if the universe made it just for him. It was secluded enough for him to get immersed in his novels without distraction and if he finished a book he didn’t have to go far to pick up another. The other best part of it all was that hardly anyone knew about it. Nobody used the library that much anymore in general, let alone the English section, so it became his own little secret oasis.

Kaminari’s reason for paying the library a visit this time around was because the librarian had informed him about a new shipment of books that came in today. Specifically, an incoming poetry book that he just had been dying to get his hands on.

When he reached the English literature section he spotted Present Mic plucking a book off the shelves.

“Hey Present Mic.” Kaminari greeted his teacher, they’ve had occasional run-ins here before. They both shared the same passion for foreign literature and it was nice to be able to talk about his love for it with somebody else.

“Oh hey there little listener!” His English teacher jumped a bit in pleasant surprise while his voice bounced off the tall library ceilings. “Didn’t hear you coming, you have very quiet footsteps y’know.” Yeah he knew, that was the whole damn point of the last chapter but he digressed. The older blonde winced when he received a harsh shushing from the librarian for his volume, turning red and quieting down while he held up the book in hand. “What're you picking up today? I’m rereading 1984.”

“New poetry book came in this week.” The younger blonde scanned where the librarian instructed him to look. He quickly spotted it, pulling it out and showing it to his teacher with a wide grin. He was actually quite excited to read this one. Most of the time he leaned towards novels or more narrative pieces but he had come across some of the poems online and it was love at first sight.

“Ahh, I see.” Present Mic lowered his glasses a tad to get a better look at the book. “I remember when I first read that, quite an exceptional piece of literature I may say. You plan on writing your next book report on it?”

“Wait, can I?” This sparked Kaminari’s interest. Present Mic required the class to write a book report every month, the book didn’t have to be English, but the essay did. “I thought we could only do books with plot?”

“Every book is connected in some sort of manner.” His teacher wisely explained. “I’m sure you can come up with something magnificent, you’re not top of your class for nothing.”

“Thank you, Sensei. But I’m subpar at best.” Kaminari turned red, he wasn’t used to getting such nice compliments. Sure he got praise from the organization for beating the yearly quota by miles, but those instances are nowhere near comparable.

“Don’t cut yourself short kid.” Present Mic gave his student a good head pat. “Well I‘ve got to go grade papers and such. I already marked yours though, spoiler alert you did great, not that I’m surprised though. But I gotta get through all the remaining ones, don’t tell the others, but once I finish grading your paper the rest are a tad boring.”

“Oh wow, uhh thank you so much.” He just blinked in astonishment, completely blown away by the kind remarks he was just bombarded with. Though he somehow managed to wave goodbye as his now favorite teacher, sorry Aizawa-sensei, left to do his own work.

His head was dazed from Present Mic commending him so much and his brain was already swarming with ideas on how to review the book that he hadn’t even fully read yet. Maybe that’s why he didn’t realize someone had been eavesdropping on his conversation because when he turned on his heels to go check out the book he instead bumped into a familiar face.

“Oh hey Aoyama!” Kaminari was surprised to see his classmate in the library. Apparently he had greeted his friend a little too loudly and gained a harsh shushing identical to what Present Mic received only a few minutes ago.

“Bonjour, mon chéri.” Aoyama grinned with his usual “breaking the 4th wall” smile, but sent a peculiar look to his friend.

Kaminari realized Aoyama was eying the book in his grasp and quickly hid it behind his back. Smooth, very smooth. “Hey man, what’re you doing here?”

“Oh, moi? I was seeking a French novel but I overheard Present Mic’s rather strident voice and waltzed over to see what the hullabaloo was about.” Well that was one way to word things. Aoyama took a second to look around his surroundings and mentally noted that they were in the English section. “But enough about moi. So what, pray tell, are you doing here, I was not aware you indulged in English literature?”

“Yeah, sometimes.” Kaminari had to be careful, he didn’t know how much of the conversation Aoyama overheard. He just hoped he hadn’t caught the part about his class ranking, that’s all that really mattered.

The sparkling blonde paused for a moment but continued on. “You seem rather fond of it.. is that why you’re top in our English class?”

Just his luck.

“Yeah, just read a lot as a kid.” There was no point in straight up lying now, he’d just have to keep as much information to himself as possible.

“Ah, I see..” Aoyama simply stared at Kaminari for a moment. What was that flamboyant blonde thinking? Kaminari didn’t really know Aoyama that well, he thought he was an overall nice guy but he was quite aloof. He had trouble reading him, he seemed unintentionally perspective. And the guy was always staring off in a random direction, looking at something but Kaminari could never for the life of him figure out what. “Well that is magnifique! I never knew you were so proficient at the language.”

“Oh, um thank you.” Kaminari smiled, relieved that the other blonde had such a positive reaction about the information.

“But monsieur, why hide it?” Aoyama cocked his head to the side. “The class has been itching to unveil the identity of the mystery person who even beat mademoiselle Yaoyorozu.”

“I just didn’t see the need.” He didn’t see the need to expose himself like that, to be specific. Just because it was a seemingly small tidbit about him, it was always better to be cautious and keep things locked up tight. Things build up and having a laid back attitude could be his downfall. “But could you keep this to yourself, it’s funny to see them guess.”

Okay that part was true. When grades and class rankings came out, 1A was shocked when Momo didn’t get 1st for English. She was taught at such a young age just like Kaminari was. The only difference being that while she went at her own pace the blonde had it drilled into him from the start.

The class asked around and were even more surprised that Todoroki and Iida ranked under her. The Rich Kids Trio, which excluded Aoyama who was equally opulent but claimed he “felt bad because his sparkle outshined all of them” and retracted from their little group, had private tutors their whole life. The class as a whole were confused as to who bested them, they were a competitive bunch after all, but eventually stopped after a week of apathetic speculation.

The only reason he kept this a secret was it would ruin the “dumb person” persona he created of himself. Okay well the dumb part was true for all the other subjects, he just really couldn’t be bothered to learn stuff that wouldn’t be useful as hero. Like when the hell is he going to utilize logarithms on patrol? So he decided to keep it consistent and hid his ranking from his classmates.

“Hmm..” Aoyama tapped his pointer finger to his chin, putting much thought to the strange request. “I suppose it could be entertaining… Okay! I shall keep this our little secret.”

“Thanks man.” Kaminari was glad the other blonde readily agreed without resistance. “Well, I better get going and check this out, I have somewhere to be.” Yeah, in bed, reading this book.

Kaminari wanted to get away from there as soon as possible, he knew he was good at lying, but he didn’t want to take his chances with Aoyama. Like he said, something about the guy was abnormally off and it made him wary.

“Farewell my friend.” The French blonde waved goodbye but stopped to ask a departing question. “Wait, what book is it that you are checking out?”

“Oh uh, The Golden Treasury of Poetry, by Louis Untermeyer.” Kaminari smiled and when he reached the front desk he let out a sigh of relief, that was close.

…

Korean was yet another language Kaminari fell in love with. Okay for fucks sake, he loved all the tongues he learned if he was being completely honest.

This language in particular was actually an optional course at the organization, but the blonde took it anyways. He needed a distraction from all the killing and violence that shrouded his life like a dark cloud that forever loomed over him. And with his obvious knack for linguistics, it was a win-win.

Well he thought it was until it unfortunately scored him even more jobs. He should’ve seen that coming though, but at least he got to travel to Korea and do some sightseeing. Yeah if sightseeing included offices and alleyways. Wait, he did see the Seoul Tower from afar if that counts. (He knew it didn’t.)

Nowadays he didn’t really associate much with the language. He had originally learned it for fun but like always, Project Beta used his newfound knowledge for all their killing intents and purposes. So it left a sour taste in his mouth whenever he spoke/read Korean because it reminded him of their power to make something he loved into something he loathed.

He loved the language and the culture as well, it’s just the association it had with the organization that made it rub the wrong way.

To this day, he still works through his mental scars, you can’t just erase a lifetime of trauma in a measly year or two. One of his methods to move on from his wounds was to overrun his bad experiences with the language with more uplifting/inspiring uses of the tongue. This was exactly how he became a kpop stan and fiend for kdramas, but we’ll brush those facts to the side for now.

Though if Kaminari needed to speak Korean he would, but he made sure it was for positive purposes only.

Which incidentally set him up perfectly for when he was at the mall with the class.

Every month or so they scheduled a mall trip for either buying necessities, hitting up the food court, window shopping, or just fucking around at the arcade. It was one of the only sources of free time they spent outside of campus grounds, so it was kind of a big deal to them.

It was Saturday around noon and the class was having lunch before everyone branched off to do their own things. They were wrapping up as Iida and Yaoyorozu stood up in front of them to give their usual speech.

“Remember our safety rules, always have at least one classmate in your line of sight at all times and be aware of your surroundings. Please be wary, we don’t want a repeat of what happened during our first shopping trip.” Iida instructed his classmates that were all still seated at their respective food court tables. Most of them tuned out the dialogue they’ve heard multiple times before, gazes shifting to watch his mesmerizing hand movements. But Kaminari didn’t fail to miss Midoriya turn slightly red and slink into his seat. “Let’s enjoy this privilege to the fullest, but with precautions.”

“If anyone runs into any trouble, alert a hero immediately.” Yaoyorozu continued where Iida left off. The only reason they were allowed to keep having these shopping trips was because more heroes were placed at the mall whenever a UA class visited as a precaution.

But Bakugou being Bakugou just tsked at her guidance. “I’ll kill any villain that dares fuck with me!”

“Yeah, with what provincial license?” Kaminari accidentally retorted but quickly covered his mouth with his hand. Nevertheless, the deed was done and his fellow classmates were trying, and failing, to choke back their laughter. He then started to flail his arms in front of him in an attempt to stop the oncoming onslaught of yells. “Wait, Bakubro I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Shut the hell up Dunce-face!” The ash blonde exploded, adding a couple more liberal phrases after, but eventually shut up when Yaoyaorozu started to talk over him.

“AND don’t forget to meet up back here before 6 o’clock, so we can board the school bus on time.” She was used to Bakugou’s explosive remarks and just grew to ignore them. “Any quest-”

The 2nd class representative was abruptly interrupted again, but this time it was by a crying child that ran into her. It was a little boy who seemed lost, confused, and scared.

This snapped the class’s attention off of Kaminari’s sick burn to worry about the small kid in front of them. He was wearing an All Might shirt from the hero’s golden age, plain cargo shorts, and white sneakers to match.

“Hey little guy, you okay?” Yaoyorozu’s motherly instincts kicked in instantly, as she extended a helping hand to the kid who had fallen onto his butt when he bumped into her.

The child not only took her hand but straight up gave her a bear hug, or as much as one he could give with his small stature, Kaminari guessed he was 5 or 6 at most. She hoisted him up as he straddled his little legs around her waist while he buried his crying eyes into her neck.

Kaminari has never seen Mineta look so jealous.

The black haired child sniffled and gave her a perplexed looked.

“I want my mommy!” He wailed in Korean and Yaoyorozu eyes widened at the foreign words. Kaminari secretly prayed that she was taught the language by her private tutors.

“Does anybody happen to speak Korean?” Perfect. She scanned around her classmates, checking to see if anybody could help.

The class returned her hopeful look with a chorus of “Sorry”s with one stray “I’m barely passing Japanese what makes you think I know another language”.

She seemed a little saddened, but not discouraged, and started to rub the kid’s back in circles to try to help him calm down.

Kaminari internally sighed and rolled his eyes, if he had to help he would, but he’d hold out for just a little longer in case anybody else could still do his job for him.

“I, in fact, do speak Korean.” Iida proclaimed while raising his hand. “Well I know enough to hold up a quick conversation, so I may be of some assistance.” Well that was better than nothing. Kaminari made a mental note to treat his class rep extra nicely the following week for unintentionally saving his ass.

Iida walked over the kid and attempted to comfort him. “You okay?” He asked in his broken Korean.

This only caused the boy to wail even harder and mumble incomprehensible phrases, speaking way too fast for Iida to translate.

“What’s he saying?” Midoriya looked to the class rep, wanting to help as much as he can but first had to get past the language barrier.

Iida cocked his head to the side, trying to understand what the kid was muttering. “I think he said something about wanting his mother and.. takoyaki?”

Good try, but no.

Kaminari caught the gist of it, essentially the boy had run over to a free food sample station but lost his parents in the process. The blonde couldn’t blame him though, the takoyaki at this mall was to die for. He also couldn’t help but silently chuckle because he had found himself in the same exact situation on their last mall excursion, excluding the sobbing into Yaoyorozu’s arms portion.

Kaminari sighed, at this rate the boy was never going to reunite with his parents. If he had to, he supposed he should go help the kid, it is what heroes do.

“I’ll go to the Child Services Center you guys go on ahead, I’ll be fine.” The second class rep offered, which Kaminari and everyone else quickly agreed to. Almost nobody wanted to deal with a crying kid this early into the day.

Well that works too he thought and guessing his services weren’t needed anymore he, along with his fellow classmates, rose from their seats. He and Ashido were supposed to have a Dance Dance Revolution battle at the arcade and he was just itching to get started.

When Yaoyorozu tried to walk away the kid burst into even more tears which caused her and everyone else to stop in their tracks. Oh, come on.

“You want hero?” Iida tried again to communicate with the boy, but his Korean just wasn’t cutting it. The grammar was bad, seriously how was Iida supposed to even hold a quick conversation with this level of fluency, but the message should’ve gotten across. Kaminari supposed that the manic state the kid was in was probably a little too much, causing him to have trouble comprehending what they were saying.

The boy shook his head and repeated the phrase from before. “I want my mommy!”

Tried to carry him to the Child Services Center? Cried.

Tried to bring him to a hero? Cried.

Tried to bring a hero to him? Cried.

Okay now this was getting ridiculous and everyone seemed to think so as well. They kept trying to calm the boy down for at least another 10 minutes to no avail.

The kid just kept muttering the same phrase over and over again. “I want my mommy.”

Jeez, well we want to find your parents too! Just let us help, goddamnit!

It was as if the kid didn’t even want to “find his mommy” at this point. Though the only silver lining that Kaminari could see was that at the very least the child’s sobs weren’t waterfalls like Midoriya’s.

The boy turned his head from Yaoyorozu’s neck with tears still streaming down his face to take a look at all the students of Class 1A and of course he just had to lock eyes with Kaminari.

You’ve got to be joking.

The little boy quickly detached himself from Yaoyorozu’s hold and scurried over to the blonde, wrapping himself around his leg. Kaminari tried to lightly shake him off to see if the kid would let go, he did not.

“Kami! You don’t just shake a kid off your leg!” Mina exclaimed and went in to try and hug the boy but he shuffled away and hid behind the blonde’s other leg. It was like he wanted Kaminari and only Kaminari.

He was at the end of his rope.

Okay fine, universe. If this is what you want, so be it.

Kaminari let out a deep exhale and crouched down to be eye level with the kid.

“Okay little guy, I’m gonna help you find your mommy, okay?” The blonde assured the child in Korean while ruffling his hair in attempts to calm him down, which to his surprise, actually worked. The boy stopped hiccuping as much and his breathing became less shallow. Kaminari pulled the kid into an embrace, rubbing his back while muttering calming phrases until the tears eventually stopped. “Here take my hand.”

He stood up straight and was met with 19 faces of astonishment.

“Since when can you speak Korean?!” Kirishima's jaw dropped and the blonde saw that his other classmates had similar stares of bewilderment.

“Since forever ago.” Kaminari quickly changed to Japanese with ease, while keeping his answers as vague as possible.

“Why didn’t you fucking say something sooner Dunce-face?!” Bakugou growled, annoyed he had to sit through a kid’s tantrum. Which was ironic because the Bakusquad, the whole class actually, had to deal with the ash blonde’s outbursts all the time.

“Well I thought Iida and Yaoyorozu had it handled.” The blonde explained and took a glance at the kid who was now staring up at him in awe. Okay he has to admit, it was kind of adorable.

And he wasn’t the only one to see the boy that way. “Awww, he’s so cute!” Ashido quickly snapped a picture of the scene but the boy hid his face in Kaminari’s black jeans. His reaction only caused some of the other students to melt even more.

“Wait, that's so cool though, are you fluent? And why didn’t you ever tell us that you could speak another language?” Sero inquired and was backed up by some questioning nods of his fellow classmates.

“Yeah I am and I dunno, nobody ever asked I guess.” Kaminari scratched the back of his head, hoping his intentional nervous body language and bland answer would send the message that he wanted the conversation to end. It did not.

“Can you teach me some phrases?” Uraraka asked and some others looked to Kaminari with hopeful expressions, as well.

“Sure.” Kaminari nodded but a tug of his muted yellow hoodie brought his and everyone else’s attention back onto the kid.

“I want my mommy..” The boy whispered softly in Korean, it seemed he was getting tired of the idle chit chat, too. “Please help me find my mommy…”

“Don’t worry I’ll help you find your mommy, okay? Do you want me to carry you or do you wanna walk while holding my hand.” Kaminari quickly switched languages once more. The kid raised his arms up in response, wanting to be lifted up. “Okay, I gotcha bud.”

Kaminari hoisted him on his right side and smiled sweetly at the boy who returned it with a small grin of his own before burying his face into his neck like he did with Yaoyorozu. This other adorable action caused even more “aw”s to spread across Kaminari’s class.

“I’m impressed, your Korean is very good Kaminari.” Iida commended him with a small head nod of acknowledgement. “I may have to ask for your help with my studies of it.”

“Yeah, no problem.” The blonde agreed swiftly, wanting to help the boy and just relax at the arcade. Though he did feel a little proud that one of the smartest kids in the class was asking for his help. The little kid nudged his head at the crook of Kaminari’s neck. “Well I better get going to the Child Services Center before he starts crying again.”

“Do you need any help, man?” Kirishima offered but Kaminari shook his head. He had a feeling the boy might burst into tears if anyone accompanied him.

“Nah I’m good, you guys go on ahead.” The blonde assured his friends and relaxed when his other classmates started to disperse. “But wait Ashido, don’t forget to reserve us a spot for DDR later, today’s the day that I finally beat you!”

“Yeah, right. You are not dethroning the DDR Queen.” The pink girl smirked while rolling her eyes. “But you’re welcome to try.”

After sending the Bakusquad off to the arcade and insisting that he had the situation handled to Yaoyorozu and Iida, Kaminari finally went off on his own. Though he did make sure he was in his friends’ fields of vision, it was more for them than for him. And when walking away he let out a sigh of relief that the class didn’t make a super big deal about him knowing another language.

Thank goodness for the kid, he wouldn’t have been able to escape without him. Though then again, if it weren’t for him he wouldn’t have had to reveal that he spoke Korean in the first place. But it was whatever, all in a day of a hero’s work.

He was nearing the Child Services Center when the boy started to wiggle out of Kaminari’s grasp. He crouched down, placing him gently on the floor while the kid wrapped his arm around the blonde’s neck as a hug.

Aww, he probably wants to say thank you.

No matter the annoying problems this child has caused, he was still just a scared little boy looking for his mom. But when Kaminari tried to pull back and give the kid a good head pat before they reached the desk, he was held in place by an iron grip.

“We’re coming for you.” The boy whispered in the blonde's ear in perfect Japanese, the blood lust so evident that it sent chills down Kaminari’s spine.

In an instant he was released from the child’s death hold and was met with a sickly sweet smile that had no traces of the killing intent that was there mere seconds ago. He remained frozen in place as he watched the kid skip off, disappearing in the crowd.

What the fuck?

Chapter Text

Shit.

Those sneaky motherfuckers.

Kaminari got too comfortable, he should’ve seen this coming.

Ever since the blonde fled he hadn’t been confronted by the organization even once. It caused great anxiety, living his life blind to if, though more like when, they were going to strike. Yet he couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing that unfortunately his “luck” seemed to finally run out.

But at least they had the decency to give him a warning, how kind.

Kaminari eventually stood up from his crouching position where that kid dubitfully duped him and headed off to the arcade. While he walked however, he examined his surroundings. He kept up a calm demeanor as he tried to snuff out any assassins that may be hiding in plain sight. Though it was to no avail, they weren’t an elite underground force for nothing. But on his way he spared a fleeting glance at the Child Services Center and scoffed, he wouldn’t be needing that anymore.

Kaminari had to admit, using a seemingly innocent and unsuspecting child to deliver an ominous warning was ingenious. Yet he somehow wasn’t surprised, Project Beta always had and always will have tricks up their sleeves.

Yet the blonde couldn’t resist the smirk creeping up his face because he had to give credit where credit was due, those were some good fucking acting chops on the kid’s part. Come on, he cried for like what, 10-20 minutes straight? And it wasn’t just a single tear trickling down his tiny face, it was full blown sobbing. (Kaminari hoped the kid would be properly hydrated after.) But like damn, the little guy had a whole class of hero students and an elite assassin wrapped around his teensy-weensy finger.

Also, the fact that the boy could turn his blood lust on and off like a light switch deserved a standing ovation in and of itself. Kaminari himself only mastered that skill when he was 9. If the kid ever got out of that shit hole he should pursue a career in acting.

No wait, not if, but when. Kaminari swore he would save children just like that little boy from the hell they were living in, and he meant it. This experience only served to further harden his resolve.

The kid would go places in the assassin ring, Kaminari, unfortunately, just knew it. Yet it also sucked, being talented in a trade that only brought violence upon the world. Being used for that sole affinity was a road Kaminari was pushed down on. He knew exactly what would become of the boy because he lived through it himself. And what was even worse was that he couldn’t do anything to help him, at least not at the moment.

Say he grabbed the kid and took him to the police. What would he do? Kaminari had absolutely no proof to back up any accusations. And he’d sound like an absolute mad lad if he claimed that the boy was an undercover secret assassin that was posing as a lost Korean kid who was actually fluent at Japanese but was sent to threaten his life. It would sound like complete lunacy, honestly.

The only physical evidence would be the organization's tattoos that marked their agents. But the kid was too young to have been branded yet, so that idea was thrown out of the window, as well.

It would also cause unnecessary trouble for the child, because as the world currently stands, one way or another the kid would fall back into the organization’s grasp and be punished thoroughly. Kaminari knew the consequences one would face if a mission didn’t go as planned and oh boy they were not pretty. He didn’t want to bring further suffering to a toddler who was merely doing as he was told.

It’s not like he didn’t want to save the boy, his heart ached at the fact that he couldn’t do so at the moment, but that sad truth was that it just wasn’t the right time nor place. A premature strike against the organization would only worsen both of their situations.

But all in due time he promised to himself.

Kaminari eventually reached the arcade taking in a deep breath, pausing, and doing a quick look around before entering and reuniting with his friends.

“Hey!” Kirishima waved from a basketball game he was playing with a very frustrated Bakugou as Kaminari walked over. “That was fast, did the kid find his parents?”

“Yeah, they were actually already at the Center looking for him so it was a pretty easy drop off.” The blonde lied right through his teeth, it’s not like he could exactly tell them the truth.

“Good thing you can speak Korean, and I’m still kinda surprised about that hidden talent of yours.” The redhead commented while shooting a basketball and getting nothing but net. “I don’t think the kid would’ve calmed down without your help.”

“Yeah..” It’s not like the kid was targeting him in any way, the lightning blonde flashed a smile.

“That’s good! The little guy was so adorable!” Yes, adorable, Kaminari noted while he turned towards Ashido who exclaimed from the Dance Dance Revolution machine. He spotted Sero gripping the back bar and panting like his life depended on it while the DDR Queen herself looked like she was yet to break a sweat.

After brutally beating her opponent Ashido nudged Sero off the machine and signalled Kaminari to come over to take his place.

“Jeez, how many rounds did you guys play?!” Kaminari stared wide eyed at his friend who was now evidently dry heaving.

“Oh, just 10...” The girl shrugged as if it were nothing.

“But I wasn’t even gone that long, how is that even possible?!” The blonde watched the pink haired girl brush his comment off and start up a new song.

“We put the speed on max, it was a nice warmup.” She smirked with a devilish look in her eye, watching as Kaminari’s jaw dropped. “You said you were gonna beat me today, right? Let’s see you try.”

…

Needless to say, Kaminari did not dethrone Ashido that day. He blames it solely on the fact that his attention was split. He was paranoid and had to keep a keen eye out for any suspicious characters instead of focusing on the hyperfast arrows. That was definitely the reason why he lost horribly, nothing else.

But paranoia saved lives, and he was about to live through that very lesson.

Kaminari almost made it to the end of the class’s mall trip without any hiccups. He spent his entire day looking out for any potential threats but failed to find any. He was a top assassin, but anybody would have trouble picking out undercover agent(s) in a busy shopping district.

It was rather annoying if he was being honest. The blonde couldn’t fathom why they were messing with him now and here, at a mall, of all places. He didn’t even do anything to attack the organization, well not yet anyways.

He simply wanted to spend a day out with his friends just having fun, was that too much to ask?

Apparently so, because when the class finally met up back at the food court and migrated outside to wait for their school bus, he spotted them.

Two snipers.

Two fucking snipers.

One located on top of the open air mall complex 300 meters away, hiding near the western corner of the building. The other was a tad farther, approximately 600 meters of distance between the class and the gun that awaited in the eastern parking garage.

Kaminari wanted to laugh, on the inside he was hysterical. Are you kidding? You’ve got to be fucking joking? Snipers, at a time like this? This was not something he wanted to deal with right now, like come on!

There was the off chance that the snipers actually weren’t for him but he highly doubted that. Was there another high-profile target that needed to be exterminated, and oh where they ex-assassins too? Yeah, hell no. He internally sighed, they were definitely sent for him.

Adding on the fact that the shooters were in extremely hard to find spots that only a pair of highly trained eyes could discern, also aided with cover from shadows that were elongated by the sunset, further solidified the idea. They were probably instructed to treat Kaminari as a high level threat, he couldn’t decide if that was a compliment or not.

Yet calculating enemy positions like this gave Kaminari a nostalgic feeling, like remembering the good ol’ days. But good ol’ days were often of cherished memories with friends, not of playing literal predator and prey. And better yet, this time he was the prey, how fun.

Kaminari did his best to remain nonchalant, not wishing to reveal that he acknowledged their presences, though they probably already knew he did. The blonde pulled out his phone from his back right jeans pocket to check the time, needing to know how many more minutes the snipers had left to make their move.

5:46 pm

Okay he had to wait it out for 14 more minutes, that was doable.

Should he ask everyone to move inside? No, that’d be too fishy and he couldn’t think of a valid excuse to do so.

Was there anything to hide behind? Nope, they were waiting by the entrance outside of the mall and there was nothing that could really cover them up. Sure, there were a couple trees but it didn’t provide adequate cover because with snipers on both sides, they had all their bases covered.

What if he told everyone about the shooters? He sighed, they probably wouldn’t believe him until it was too late. Even if they did take him seriously, he was sure a handful of them would go into hero mode and try to save the day. Also, the class would have a sudden change in demeanor when exposed to said knowledge, and the slightest difference could tip off the snipers and shots would be fired immediately.

Imagine if he just sent out text saying that there were snipers going to kill him to the 1A group chat, the chaos that would ensue would be monumental.

Kaminari internally groaned, was stuck in a waiting game.

But he figured he should probably tell someone just in case, but he only had one shot, maybe two, to relay this information, so he had to be very stealthy in how he did so. And Kaminari needed to bide his time for a little while, immediately talking to someone one on one would be suspicious.

The cool autumn breeze slightly blew through his hair as the golden sunset wonderfully accented his lightning blonde locks. Any other time Kaminari would normally be snapping selfies of himself and his friends, but right now he didn’t have that luxury.

The blonde kept moving around, trying to keep the snipers from locking onto him. But he made sure to stay a small distance away from everyone else, not wanting for them to get caught in the potential crossfire.

The minutes went by agonizingly slow and he honestly just hoped they’d just take their damn shot already. Fun fact, well honestly not that fun, Kaminari actually was a trained sniper himself so he knew how boring it was to wait hours on end in the same position just for a small window of opportunity. And he was a pretty damn good sniper too, if he said so himself. He even preferred it over regular assassination because he didn’t need to be so up close and personal with his marks. But he was unfortunately transferred from the position because the organization found other, “better” places to utilize his talents.

He pulled out his phone once again.

5:51 pm

Only five minutes have passed?! Kaminari mentally lamented, why was time moving at a literal snail’s pace?! But still, a good chunk of time went by so he decided to walk over to the person he saw best fit to let in on this information. It was time to put his plan into action.

For a while he had been going around from group to group, setting a precedent that he liked to move around so when he waltzed over to another cluster of his classmates it wouldn’t be seen as suspicious. He headed towards the Dekusquad looking for one person in particular.

Todoroki Shouto.

With the guy’s almost always stoic attitude and never changing facial expressions he seemed like the top candidate. He was clever and paired with his quirk, one of the best well equipped to deal with the situation the class was unknowingly in.

“Hey guys!” The blonde waved at Uraraka, Tsuyu, Iida, Midoriya and Todoroki who were standing in a sloppy circle formation. Thankfully, well for Kaminari at least, Todoroki was still partly socially inept and put a slightly further distance between him and the rest of the group.

“Hey, Kaminari!” Uraraka turned to greet him, pausing their group’s conversation about, what was it? Todoroki thinking Midoriya was All Might’s love child? He didn’t really care to listen to the details of the conversation when he was walking over but now he sure wished he did. “What’s up?”

“Oh nothing much.” Kaminari shrugged off the weird subject they were chatting about, he had more dire issues at hand. “Can I steal Todoroki for a minute?”

“Please do.” The peppermint boy responded almost immediately. If examined closely his cheeks were a little flushed, was Todoroki.. embarrassed? Kaminari mentally noted he needed to figure out what the contents of that conversation was after he dealt with this whole ordeal.

Well, if he came out of this situation anyways. No, he needed to be positive, he’d survive for sure and uncover the mystery behind this love child silly business.

The blonde walked a foot or two away from the group, not too far to raise suspicion but if he talked quietly they were out of earshot.

Todoroki followed the electric blonde and then turned to face him. “I apologize for whatever you overheard, it’s nothing important…” Kaminari’s fellow teen trailed off and scratched the back of his head but then quickly composed himself again. “What did you want to discuss with me?”

“I’m going to tell you something very important, but just don’t freak out.” Kaminari smiled brightly but his contrasting no-nonsense tone confused his classmate thoroughly.

“Kaminari this better not be a prank.” Todoroki was wary but didn’t seem to be taking the blonde too seriously.

“Pretend I just said a really funny joke, okay?” Kaminari ignored his classmate’s comment, he feared that Todoroki would assume this was another one of his practical jokes. It wouldn’t be out of character for the blonde, but right now he was actually crying wolf. On the outside he looked like the happy go lucky class idiot everyone knew and loved but his voice had no trace of that lighthearted attitude. The only indicator that Todoroki realized Kaminari wasn’t fooling around would be the slight widening of his heterochromia eyes, but besides that his stone faced demeanor stayed persistent. “Laugh, or well you don’t really laugh now do you, maybe smile, on the count of three, okay? One. Two. Three.”

Todoroki did not laugh or smile in the slightest. Well it would be kind of weird if he did, so Kaminari supposed it was fine, but he however, gave a good hearty chuckle that seemed genuine if spotted from afar.

“What’s going on?” Todoroki sternly asked, straight to the point as always.

“Two snipers, don’t look.” Kaminari quickly added in case Todoroki was going to take a glance at the locations he was about to reveal. “One to the west hiding on top of the mall and one to the east lurking in the parking garage.”

“How do you know?” The bi-haired boy inquired, furrowing his eyebrow just a tad.

“If I were you I’d relax my body, you’re a little tense and if they suspect that we know that we’re onto them they’d probably shoot right away.” The blonde didn’t answer the question but kept up his easy going demeanor, no hint of any fear or stress that Todoroki was most likely feeling. Kaminari was glad when he saw his friend “relax” back into his natural stoic state instead of his slightly tensed stoic state.

“Are they targeting us?” Todoroki did a quick look over at Class 1A but then turned back to Kaminari. “Is it the League?”

Huh, the League? Oh, it was only natural that Todoroki immediately assumed it was them, they were the only villain group to ever attack the class. But if Kaminari was being honest the possibility never really crossed his mind. He’d had his fair share of skirmishes with all types of villains, heroes, and everyday citizens, resulting in a plethora of groups hating him, or Static, as he was known in the underworld. So he was no stranger to an abundance of enemies, he couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

The idea that the League was launching another attack probably freaked out Todoroki even more, but Kaminari couldn’t tell him the true intentions of the snipers. They could very well be from the League, honestly the shooters being after Kaminari was just an inference from his gut, but like he said before, who the fuck else would they be after?

Though he was relieved that he decided against telling the rest of the class because they’d been through enough with the League and villains in general, they were just fucking kids. Kaminari was vaguely aware that he fit into that category as well. He sometimes forgot he was just 16, his exposure to trauma at such a young age having led his mental maturity to being light years ahead from all his friends.

But at the very least he already was used to high stress situations. He could hardly call a few altercations with some villains as adequate experience on his classmates’ behalf.

“No idea.” The blonde answered in an austere manner that contradicted his shoulders shaking as if he just let out another humorous joke. Just keep acting like normal, there’s no reason to be worried. “And as far as I know, only the two of us are aware of their presence.”

“We need to inform the others.” Kaminari quickly shut down that idea. Was he crazy? Sure they were heroes in training but that was exactly the point, they were heroes in training. The blonde sure as hell wasn’t going to make his friends pay for his past.

Kaminari didn’t know what was yet to hit him, or more accurately hit his friend.

“No, I only told you because I know you don’t have any major telling physical reactions. Even informing you was a risk cause you don’t even have your provincial license yet.” The electric blonde was whisper-yelling now.

That specific comment made Todoroki narrow his eyes and clear his throat while standing up a little taller. Kaminari felt bad for touching upon an evidently sore subject, but discussing a result from some test didn’t really take priority at the moment.

“Whether I have a provincial license or not is unimportant. I understand my mistakes from the exam and am working on improving.” The red and white haired teen stated, looking Kaminari square in the eye. “But if there is imminent danger then I, as a hero in training, must help.”

“Yeah, I get that.” The blonde sighed, he really didn’t need to get into an argument right now. “I just don’t want you to get into legal trouble, okay?”

The only response he got was a curt nod, but the slight softening of Todoroki’s eyes relieved some of the tension Kaminari had inadvertently brought upon them.

“It’s just that your quirk is one of the best for this situation, cause if any of the bullets do end up coming our way.” Which they probably will, which made the blonde internally loathe himself even more because this was all his fucking fault. Shit, he needed to calm down, his relaxed facade was threatening to crumble. “You'd be able to block them with your ice. We don’t need to worry the others and cause a mass panic, do you understand?”

“No.” No? What the fuck do you mean no? “We need to at least tell one other person, two people protecting twenty aren’t favorable odds. Sure I can give a good foundation of safety but it’s best to be cautious in scenarios like this.”

“Wha-.” Kaminari was going to protest but he couldn’t get out of control, he took a deep breath to calm himself down. While doing so he caught the ever so evident resolve burning in Todoroki’s eyes that signalled he wasn’t going to back down. “Fine, tell.. um.. Iida. He has fast reflexes, good quick thinking skills, and he’s our class rep. But that’s it, and you have to inform him because if I have another suspicious conversation it could alarm the snipers.”

“Okay, after this conversation is over just walk away and-” Todoroki instructed but it was as if Kaminari was reading his mind.

“Pretend that this little chat of ours never happened.” The blonde finished the sentence with finger guns, somehow still pretending like he and Todoroki just had a very casual conversation. He gave a good ol’ friendly shoulder pat to his friend before turning around to stroll back to the Bakusquad.

“Yo Kaminari, come over here!” Sero motioned for the blonde to hurry up to their spot which was under the shade of a somewhat small tree. “We’re all taking turns playing Tetris, we need to see who’ll get the top score.”

A phone, most likely Sero’s, was thrown in his direction before he could protest.

“What, right now?” Kaminari barely caught the mobile device before it hit the ground, he did not need his attention being split between a mobile game and some fucking snipers.

“Yeah, it’ll only take a minute.” Well a lot can happen in a minute y'know, but Sero insisted and then gestured towards Bakugou. “Somehow Blasty over here, has the best score so far, but I've seen you play this game religiously before, so you gotta knock him off his high ass horse.”

“Hey! As if Dunce-face can beat me!” Bakugou exclaimed but Kaminari was barely registering the commotion as he pressed start. He was half-heartedly playing, just randomly swiping here and there. Under different circumstance he could definitely knock the other’s score out of the park and straight into the stratosphere but right now he was a little busy concentrating on not fucking dying.

When the timer officially ended the game Sero, Ashido, and Kirishima, basically everyone except Bakugou looked utterly defeated. Kaminari couldn’t care less, he turned around to spare a glance at Todoroki who was now filling Iida in on the situation. The class rep. seemed to understand immediately as his eyes slightly darkened when he gave Todoroki a very short head nod.

“Hah! Told you he couldn’t beat me!” A smug smirk grew on the ash blonde’s face and Kaminari turned back around to his friend group.

Ashido walked over to Kaminari and snatched the phone from his grasp, but before she did he caught a glimpse of the time.

5:58 pm

No wait, it changed.

5:59 pm

Only a minute left.

“How is that possible!” She examined the score and then shoved the phone back into Kaminari’s hands. “Play again!”

“What?! I’ll play on the bus, okay?” The blonde couldn’t play another round, at least not now. He needed to focus on his surroundings, and it was a fortunate thing he did.

His eyes were drawn to a wallet that dropped out of a lady’s bag who was just exiting the mall, but he wasn’t the only one who noticed. Kirishima being Kirishima immediately strayed from the group and returned it to the rightful owner. The woman graciously accepted his help and then started to walk briskly away. The seemingly unpeculiar sequence of events only lasted five seconds but it was within those five seconds that deep down in Kaminari’s gut he had a grim epiphany.

These snipers, they weren’t for him. Well yeah, they were for him, but they weren’t meant to shoot him. They were meant to shoot his classmates.

It was as if the world came into a stand still, everything was so quiet, too quiet.

The look on Kaminari’s face must’ve been telling, as well. He noticed in the corner of his eyes a confused Bakusquad that was probably going to ask if he was okay. But there was no time for that because Kaminari’s body moved before his mind could even think.

Kaminari didn’t know if it was his assassin instincts or what, because one second he was standing a couple feet away from Kirishima and the next he was tackling the redhead to the ground.

“Kirishima!” He screamed as he sprinted into him, shoving them both flat on the concrete. The rest of the class was puzzled to say the least, save for Todoroki and Iida, until not even a millisecond later a bullet lodged itself into the tree that was providing the Bakusquad with shade.

Kaminari turned to see his classmates frozen in place. Some still perplexed by the blonde’s sudden baffling behavior and others understanding the dire situation they were in. Some pedestrians even stopped to take a look at what was going on. Bakugou seemed like he was going to yell at the blonde just a second ago but now he stood still, mouth agape but his razor sharp eyes examined his environment.

“Todoroki!” The blonde didn’t even have to call him because his classmate wasted no time, already constructing and ice wall to surround everyone with.

“On it!” The heterochromia eyed boy did quick work in protecting Class 1A while Iida’s engines revved right before darting around the corner, where a hero was stationed, to get their assistance.

Multiple events would unfold in the next few seconds:

Iida got the attention of the Pro Hero, who came rushing down the street.

Three more shots were fired. One missing, one grazing, and one connecting with its target.

The class was shielded by Todoroki’s walls of ice.

And the U.A. school bus turned the corner.

It was all a blur.

Kaminari spotted blood splattered on the sidewalk and he almost puked. Sure he saw blood all the damn time, but this was his classmate’s, no his friend’s, no his family’s blood staining the Earth.

He was scared, sad, and most prominently furious. It was fine if the organization was targeting Kaminari and Kaminari only, but by dragging his friends into this mess, that was going over the line. Not even, it was destroying the line.

The blood lust was practically oozing out of him as he began to breathe heavily, he wanted to kill anybody who dared to hurt his family. He was so angry, so frustrated, he needed them to pay for what they did.

“K-Kaminari?” Kirishima weakly asked, it was only then did he realize that a certain redhead was still underneath him.

The blonde’s attention snapped straight down to his friend. But when he made eye contact with Kirishima the redhead widened his eyes and looked.. scared?

“What the fuck do you want?!” Kaminari practically seethed, it only took a second for him to realize what he just said. He immediately slapped his hand to his mouth and backed away from Kirishima, falling onto his ass while putting as much distance as he could between them. He only stopped scooting when he felt the cold sensation of ice touch his back. “W-Wait I-I’m sorry, I didn- I didn’t mean to scare you like that!”

Fuck! Kirishima saw his blood lust, his anger, his pure animosity. Kaminari never showed that side of him ever, not even on assassination missions. But he just had to have revealed that to one of his closest friends and to make matters even wrose Kirishima’s reaction was undoubtedly, one hundred percent, utterly terrified.

And who wouldn’t be, after seeing an elite assassin with a high killing ability get absolutely outraged? That's a rare sight to see.

Would Kirishima still like him? Still consider him a friend? Kaminari only hoped as the anger that clouded his judgement mere moments ago was now being replaced by pure anxiety.

He started to hyperventilate and could feel tears pricking his eyes, was this it? Was he going to die here? Was his secret going to be finally revealed? He took in the scenery, noticing how beautiful the golden hues that filtered through the ice was. The leaves slowly drifting from the trees, completely oblivious to the disaster that was unfolding right beside them. The logical Denki would obviously say that it’d be fine, but at the moment he was anything but. The blonde was such a mix of emotions that he barely registered someone calling his name.

“Kaminari!” Todoroki screamed trying to get his classmate’s attention who was now evidently, spiraling. “Kaminari, hurry up!”

The red and white haired boy had melted a little opening for the students to escape and get on to the bus. Everyone quickly filed out of the ice castle, leaving only Todoroki, Kirishima, Bakugou who was helping Kirishima get up, and Kaminari out in the open. Iida was with the Pro Hero on the other side of the wall and more Pros were exiting the mall to see what the commotion was about.

Kaminari turned towards the direction of Todoroki’s voice but struggled to get up. He tried using the ice wall as support only resulting in him slipping further, his eyes were glued to the blood that pooled on the sidewalk. He needed to get out of here, he knew that, yet his mind was still so worried about his classmates finding out the truth. He was going through scenarios upon scenarios of what his inevitable downfall would be.

His body, and especially his brain, was not functioning properly.

Yet before he knew it his right hand was grabbed and he was being pulled along in the direction of the bus. Kaminari looked up to see who was aiding him only to be met with a familiar head of red. It was Kirishima who was dragging him along but this time he had a worried expression plastered across his face.

Kirishima? Why was Kirishima helping him? He just saw him blood lust and all, why was he helping him?

Kaminari couldn’t get an answer to those questions as he was forced into a seat on the bus. If he was any more lucid he would’ve noticed the blood he was slipping on when he boarded the vehicle.

Yet he somehow spotted Todoroki rushing on board, Iida following close behind. Once the those final two fled onto the bus, the bus driver immediately slammed closed the doors and smacked a button that seemed to put the entire vehicle onto lock down mode. The driver then floored the gas pedal which was accompanied by the tires screeching at the start. The blonde glanced outside the window to see and hear the Pro Heroes waving and yelling at them to leave, assuring the students they had it handled, before metal plates crept up and blocked his view.

Kaminari began to gradually calm down from his mini panic attack as the bus started to zoom away. He fumbled as he pulled out his phone to check the time.

6:00 pm

A lot can happen in a minute.

Chapter Text

The bus ride back was anything but fun. Class 1A was a mixture of stunned silence or incomprehensible yelling which proved to be a very unsuccessful method when trying to unpack whatever the fuck just happened.

Kaminari himself was deathly quiet, which was a noticeable difference to how boisterous he reacted at USJ and at the summer camp. His friends definitely saw the change in demeanor, but at the moment he was too far gone to care.

Was Kaminari okay? Physically? Yes. Mentally? Hell no.

A single thought played through his mind like a broken record on repeat. And it was how he, an elite assassin whose code name shook the cores of even the mightiest mob bosses, failed to protect his own family. He let his friends be the targets of fucking snipers and he just sat there like a crying little bitch.

Of course, the logical Kaminari knew he shouldn’t be so harsh on himself. That it wasn’t his fault that the organization decided to play dirty. Yet he couldn’t help it because he should’ve known that Project Beta never played by the rules.

But before the blonde could spiral any further the school bus pulled up to UA, time sure does fly in a panic induced f. Apparently news traveled fast because there were already several teachers, including an exhausted Aizawa, and a principal Nedzu awaiting their arrival. The small gathering caught other students’ attention as well and a handful of them began to congregate by the parking lot.

The bus came to a screeching halt and the faculty immediately began to help the kids out one by one. They quickly checked them for any injuries and Kaminari watched with solemn eyes as two of his classmates were escorted away by Recovery Girl.

Those that remained, actually everyone on campus, were guided back into the dorms to be put on lockdown. Upon entering the building everyone gathered in the common room. Some crashed onto the couches, others sat by the dining tables, and a few opted to stand while the faculty took stance by the dorm entrance. The atmosphere was quiet save for the occasional whisper. Kaminari purposefully tucked away in the kitchen corner, chugging a cold water bottle from the fridge in hopes of grounding himself.

“Can anybody provide a rundown on what just happened down at the mall?” Principal Nedzu wasted no time starting the investigation. It was kind of scary how routine it felt for the school to be dealing with yet another villain attack, but there was no time to linger on that thought as time was of the essence.

“There were two snipers.” Todoroki didn’t miss a beat and everyones’ heads snapped towards the heterochromia eyed teen. Surprisingly one or two students nodded their heads in confirmation, having come to the same conclusion, while others’ eyes widened in disbelief.

For once, Kaminari was grateful that he wasn’t the center of attention and that Todoroki was the one to speak up. At the moment the electric blonde just stood there, expression seemingly unfazed, only panting just a tad after drinking a lot of water at once. But on the inside his mind was going a mile a minute, a mix of worrying for his friends and theorizing about what the organization was plotting. In this state Kaminari definitely couldn’t be his normal happy self right now. Well, nobody could under these circumstances, but that wasn’t the point.

Nedzu reached into his suit vest pocket, pulling out a small notebook and pen, immediately jotting down what his student was debriefing. “Do you know where?”

“One in the western corner of the mall roof, the other in the eastern parking garage.” The peppermint haired boy paused for a moment to let his principal finish whatever he was scribbling. “But they’re most likely long gone by now.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Nedzu shook his head and turned towards Cementoss. “Still send heroes and police so they can investigate.”

“We also alerted the Pro Heroes nearby and they were taking care of the situation as we were fleeing.” Iida added on, his voice unsurprisingly steady, leave it to the class rep. to be putting up a strong front.

The cement hero nodded and exited the dorms to get help while the principal shifted back around. “Thank you, Todoroki and Iida. Does anybody have anything else to report?”

Kaminari gritted his teeth and crushed the now empty water bottle in his grasp. He immediately stopped though when a few heads turned to the direction of the unsavory sound of crinkling plastic and he quickly discarded the drink.

Oh how badly he wanted to tell them everything. Tell them that he was the reason why the class was getting targeted this time round. Tell them that he was so fucking sorry for getting them involved. Tell them it was all his fault because of his fucked up past.

But he bit his tongue, he couldn’t speak up just yet. It would raise too many questions he definitely did not have lies prepared for or actual answers for himself. He also kept his assassin past a secret for a reason, this was his fight, not theirs. He’s already burdened them with his baggage long enough, so there was no way he was going to let his friends suffer any further.

The grim silence that emanated throughout the room was enough of a response. Nedzu did a quick scan around the room before flipping his tiny notepad closed and directing a small nod towards Aizawa.

“Go to your dorm rooms.” Class 1A’s homeroom teacher instructed immediately, leaving no room for protests. “Do not leave this building under any circumstances. But if you need to talk about anything do not hesitate to reach out to any of the staff, we are here to listen.”

A couple students looked like they were going to say something but held back, deciding that the teachers already had enough on their hands and headed up to their rooms. While the majority of the kids took their time to slowly file back, Kaminari went with haste.

At the moment, he just wanted to be alone. He felt tense and stressed and upset and angry and all these icky emotions he didn’t want to feel right now. Honestly he wished he had a punching bag waiting in his room for him like Kirishima did.

Oh shit, Kirishima. Kaminari almost, key word almost, forgot that he literally screamed at one of his best friends for no valid reason. Fuck, now the blonde had to figure out some way to explain himself out of the mess he made.

But nevermind that, for now Kaminari had other important matters to tend to. He had a long night ahead of him.

…

Upon entering his room, Kaminari immediately locked his door and not even bothering to turn on his lights, flopped onto his bed. The blonde wasn’t trying to sleep, he knew any attempts would be in vain. But he did lie awake staring at the glow in the dark stars stuck to his ceiling.

The blonde turned to his side and grabbed his Jolteon plush, yes, there were other Pokémon he liked besides Pikachu, crushed it in his arms and groaned in frustration. Kaminari was a mix of emotions, he was mad, hurt, hysterical, basically any negative feeling out there. But there was one sentiment that agitated him the most, and that one was confusion.

Kaminari sighed as he let go of his plush and got up from his comfortable position on his mattress. He tried his best to be as quiet as possible as he began to move his bed a couple feet from the wall. When he gauged that there was enough space the blonde walked over to the now exposed floor and gently knocked. Once he heard the hollow response of one of the floorboards he silently pried it out of place, revealing a black void.

He reached his hand into the dark hole and rummaged for a bit until he grabbed a large sized something and pulled it out. It was a black shoe box, one of the many things he kept hidden in that very convenient underfloor alongside his assassin paraphernalia. Kaminari put the floorboard back but left his bed askew.

The shoebox was packed to the brim with documents, pictures, and notebooks, essentially almost all the dirt he had on the organization. His collection could honestly rival Midoriya’s hero analyses, at least in terms of the information per square inch ratio. Though this wasn’t all the intel he had on Project Beta, Kaminari had more stored away back in his apartment but he kept the big stuff near him and on several, several, backup drives.

The blonde laid out his files on the floor, bed, desk, and whatever open space he had available. And after replaying the earlier incident Kaminari became befuddled, some things weren’t clicking.

Okay starting off, yeah it made sense that the organization would attack his friends. If they can’t hurt him they’ll just hurt those around him. It was a common tactic, many of his targets were actually family members of close friends of someone instead of an actual ringleader, so it shouldn’t have shocked him so much that they’d do the same to him.

Also after further thought, the lady dropping her wallet was definitely not a coincidence either. Kaminari stopped believing in those at a very young age, coincidences were often just highly planned situations that worked out in favor of the architect. That woman was probably there to lure Kirishima away from the group so the snipers could have a clearer shot.

The blonde sighed and ran his hand through his hair but couldn’t quite resist the smirk creeping up his face, those fucking smartasses. Preying on his friends' willingness to help others, even strangers, was genius.

What didn’t really click, though, was why the organization attacked his friends the way they did. Why in public? Why in the presence of Pro Heroes? Why would they do it in a place where they could get caught?

Obviously they weren’t going to get caught, they were too sly for that.

But that aching question of why still lingered in Kaminari’s mind. Sure he had some explanation for their purpose behind the attack but it didn’t explain their execution of it. It just didn’t feel like a normal Project Beta strike, though Kaminari was never really on the receiving end of missions to tell how it really felt to be at the brunt of their forces. And unfortunately for him, nobody else had miraculously escaped from the organization’s clutches, so there were no previous experiences the blonde could compare his to.

What Kaminari could compare was his knowledge that assassins went in for the head; there was no beating around the bush. Which made his situation all the more puzzling because that was exactly what the organization was doing. Maybe they were trying a new gambit or some other sneaky shit but Kaminari couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something very important here.

Furthermore, it was obvious they didn’t really do their research on Kaminari and his classmates turned targets. Sure Kirishima was his friend, but the other two were more like his buddies, one of them borderline acquaintances. If the organization really wanted to do critical damage they’d go for the Bakusquad members.

Maybe the snipers were just told to shoot whoever? It could make sense and from what Kaminari was informed those who were shot were hit in non-lethal positions. So maybe the organization was just trying to send him a message?

But again, that didn’t make sense. They had the godforsaken kid whisper into his ear like the fucking twins from the Shining, wasn’t that enough of a warning? Why shoot his friends out in the open? There were just too many risks for Kaminari to properly justify that.

Maybe he was wrong and it wasn’t the organization but actually some fucking bounty hunters? The blonde knew he had a pretty hefty price on his head, he stopped actively searching for his cost when it surpassed 9 digits, not including decimals. But again, bounty hunters wouldn’t waste time on his classmates and especially wouldn’t bother in a busy shopping mall when Kaminari was far from alone, as well as, in the presence of many heroes.

So it had to be Project Beta. But they were an underground organization and deciding to mess with the one and only UA could lead to the feds going after them. It could mean getting the government involved and that seemed like extra steps they wouldn’t want to concern themselves with.

Kaminari internally groaned, why couldn’t they shoot him and get this over with? Obviously attempt to shoot him, not actually like shoot him shoot him. He’d like to see them try, well actually he kind of did already. But still, what the fuck was with this game of wits?

The blonde was smart but it took him a while sometimes. He was more of a “in the moment” time of person, not a “sit down and strategize” kind of guy. The ploys he did utilize were honestly just from his big ass mental storage bank created and stored to the brim with ideas drilled into him courtesy of the organization. He wasn’t naturally gifted in game plans like Midoriya or Bakugou so he wasn’t really looking for a battle of deceit. Even the theories he was conceiving now were giving him a massive headache. He wanted a one and done, but apparently that was just wishful thinking.

Kaminari spent the remainder of the night going over all the data he had on Project Beta. He racked his brain for any information he could be glossing over to no avail and before he knew it the sun began to rise.

When the sunlight started to filter in through the crack in his curtains he didn’t move from his spot on the floor. He was still trying to comprehend what the organization was planning. They absolutely loathed loose strings so why was he still alive?

As the morning turned to noon he received a gentle knock on the door.

“Hey, man.” Kaminari held his breath, he could recognize that voice anywhere, it was Kirishima. The blonde shuffled to his feet and walked over to open the door before he stopped, realizing he still had all his documents sprawled out across his room. He also hadn’t thought about what to say yet, so he remained silent. “We’re having a meeting in the common room soon. They’re gonna brief us on how the interviews are going to go.”

Kaminari didn’t answer, a simple “okay” would suffice but it just wouldn’t come out.

“I’ll wait out here for you.” Kaminari nodded, forgetting that his friend couldn’t see him. Nevertheless, he hastily collected and shoved back his documents into the shoebox. He discreetly wiggled out the floorboard to return the black box to it’s hidden location and put his bed back in place.

The blonde was about to exit his room before he realized he never changed his outfit. He figured he probably should, he didn’t want to further worry his friends if they saw him disheveled. It was all his fault that all this happened anyways.

He hurriedly threw some black sweats, a simple white t-shirt, and his token Pikachu slippers. He took a deep breath before he opened the door, he couldn’t freak out like he did before. Kaminari needed to be level headed if he was going to talk to Kirishima.

To say he was nervous was a massive understatement. He’d never gotten angry at any one of his friends before and had no clue how’d they react, but he guessed he’d find out now.

Slowly he cracked open the door and saw the familiar tuft of red hair waiting just like he said he would.

“Hey..” Kirishima started, but his usual cheerful manliness that often shaped his voice was gone. Kaminari involuntarily sucked in air, waiting to be yelled at, belittled, punched even. He literally yelled at this guy less than 24 hours ago and from his previous experience at the organization he wasn’t anticipating anything less than punishment. What he didn’t expect though, was a question full of warmth and concern. “A-Are you.. okay?”

“W-What?” Kaminari let out the breath he’d been holding in to look at his friend with a very perplexed expression. “Am I okay? What about you, are you okay? Bro wha- you almost got shot yesterday an-and then I snapped at you and you somehow have the capacity to ask me if I’m okay?” The blonde was confused, very fucking confused.

“Well, yeah. You literally saved my life man, if you didn’t push me out of the way I would’ve had to go to Recovery Girl with…” The redhead cleared his throat. “And you snapping at me? Well I figured you were just under a lot of pressure, happens to the best of us y’know?”

The blonde was at a loss for words but the wave of relief that washed over him was euphoric and his mouth quirked into a small smile. Kirishima was Kirishima, a never changing rock that always fretted about his friends. Kaminari was worried for nothing, though he was sure that memory of him would be subconsciously stored in the back of Kirishima’s head whether the blonde liked it or not. But the fact that the redhead was so fast to forgive and forget made Kaminari grin, cause damn he had some of the best fucking friends out there.

“So.. a-are you okay?” The redhead still pushed the query as the duo began to walk towards the elevator.

“Um.. not really.” Kaminari answered honestly, even if he did say he was okay Kirishima would definitely see through those lies. “It’s just crappy. Like c’mon another villain attack, are you serious?”

“Heh, I know what you mean.” Kirishima sighed, running his hand through hair that wasn’t styled up this time. “But y’know, better us than any civilians.” The electric blonde stared at his friend in awe from his spot in the elevator and with no warning he took him into a huge bear hug. “Hey, you sure you’re okay Kami? Kami?”

Kaminari felt the redhead harden for a second out of surprise, but quickly reverted to normal to return the hug. It wasn’t unusual for the blonde to pounce on his fiends and be all up in their personal space, but this time was different. This time he hugged with love and he hoped Kirishima felt it too.

“Yeah.. I’m good, but what about you though? Are you okay?” Kaminari finally pulled away from the embrace after a couple of seconds.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Kirishima shrugged but after Kaminari gave him a look he changed his answer. The redhead always put up a front of strong manliness, but the blonde knew that behind that was a scared teenager. What Kaminari failed to see was how the same sentence was applicable to him, as well. “I mean I’m just a little shaken, y’know. And it’s not because I was almost shot, I literally block bullets at my work study all the time, but this felt a little off I guess? Something about this incident didn’t feel like a normal villain attack, like I felt targeted, like they were after me specifically… but I dunno I might just be overanalyzing.”

Kaminari nodded along and but internally grimaced at the fact that others started to speculate that this might not be the League’s doing. “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay bro, I don’t know what I would’ve done if you got shot.”

“Me neither…” The redhead whispered quietly, just enough so Kaminari wouldn’t be able to discern it but with assassin trained ears the blonde heard it clear as day.

He opened his mouth to say something but the elevator dinged, effectively cutting him off. The rest of the couple meter walk to the common area was done in silence until they were greeted by seventeen pairs of eyes.

“Good afternoon Kaminari and Kirishima.” Iida gave a quick wave to the two boys from where he was standing in front of the TV screen with Yaoyorozu.

“Where’s Aizawa-sensei?” Kaminari looked around and noticed the absence of their homeroom teacher and one of his classmates. “And Kouda?”

“They already started the interviews in Aizawa’s dorm room office.” The second class rep. explained while motioning for Kaminari and Kirishima to take seats on the couches where everyone else was already congregated.

“Oh, okay.” The blonde plopped himself on the floor, resting his back on the couch that was behind him, opposite from Iida and Yaoyorozu. Kirishima took the empty seat next to Bakugou on the couch Kaminari was leaning on.

“Aizawa said that they are going to be talking to us one by one, similar to what we did after USJ and the summer camp...” Yaoyorozu cleared her throat. “Oh and it doesn’t matter what order. Kouda just wanted to go first so he would not have to speak for the rest of the day.” Yeah that’s a very Kouda thing to do, Kaminari internally chuckled. “In the meantime we were instructed to wait here and are free to talk amongst ourselves and/or discuss what happened. But I think it’d be beneficial if we compared notes so everyone can get on the same page.”

“I would like to start.” Iida raised his hand astronomically high and stood up straighter than he was already standing, directing everyone’s attention towards himself. “I was conversing with some of my classmates when Todoroki pulled me aside and informed me that there was an imminent threat. He didn’t specify that they were snipers, only emphasizing that the class was in danger. He told me to warm up my engines just in case, and it was a fortunate thing I did. If I had not I would not have made it in time to get the attention of some Pro Heros. I thank you Todoroki for giving me a heads up.” The class representative ended his short and sweet story with a small bow.

There were some gratuitous nods from the other classmates directed at Todoroki’s quick thinking. Though it was more like Kaminari’s quick thinking, but the blonde shrugged it off. He’d let the other guy get the credit and it’d be better to keep a low profile anyways.

“When did you spot the snipers? How long did it take for you to realize we were being watched? Where were they stationed?” Oh Midoriya, always the one with the endless list of questions and look he even has a notebook in hand.

“Oh, I did not find them.” Todoroki answered bluntly which caused the rest of the class to give him looks of confusion, save for a certain blonde of course. “Kaminari did.”

All eighteen of his classmates turned their heads towards Kaminari who one hundred percent looked like a deer in headlights. So much for keeping a low profile.

“Dunce-face did?!” Bakugou voiced the question that popped up in everyone’s mind, it hurt a little that Kaminari’s friends were so shocked. But given the choice he’d rather be underestimated than overestimated. “How the fu-”

“I dunno, I just felt like someone was watching me.” Kaminari shrugged in a nonchalant manner, he needed to downplay this as much as possible. “And I guess when we walked out of the mall my eyes just so happened to fall on the same spot one of the snipers were located. It didn’t take long for me to find the second.”

“And you didn’t bother to tell us?” Ashido really meant 'you didn't bother to tell me?'

“Well, I thought that if everyone knew it would cause a mass panic. And it would be hella sus if I sent out a mass text or something because no offense, I know for a fact that some of you guys would lose your cool. The shooters would probably think that we were up to something and y’know,” Kaminari emphasized with his hands. “shoot sooner. I only told my man Todoroki because he doesn’t have much of a reaction, like ever, it’s kinda weird actually.. oh and I thought his ice would create a good shield.”

“Oh.. that makes sense I guess.” The pink girl sighed back into her spot next to the electric blonde, taking Kaminari’s word to heart.

"I think that was actually best move." Midoriya interjected and posed his signature thinking position, hand on chin. "It probably would have been worse if he had told everyone. Good job, Kaminari." The blonde would be lying if he said he didn't feel a little smug after one of the best strategists of the class complimented him.

“I really wanted to tell you guys, I did, but it’d probably would’ve made things worse.” There was a beat of silence as the rest of the class kept their attention on Kaminari who took it as a cue to recount his perspective of the incident and continued on. “Um yeah, so as I said I just so happened to spot the snipers and I waited a bit until I told Todoroki who then told Iida. I dunno how I knew Kirishima was about to get shot but before I realized I was tackling him to the ground.” Kaminari kept his story concise, also choosing to leave out the parts of him snapping at his friend and having a mini panic attack, that didn’t necessarily need to be public knowledge.

“To be honest when Kaminari told me about the snipers I thought he was joking at first.” Kaminari held a strained smile, wow thanks Todoroki for the words of encouragement. “But I soon realized it was actually not a prank. So when Kaminari walked away I told Iida to prepare to get help. And immediately created an ice wall in hopes of protecting everyone when I saw Kirishima being tackled to the ground. But it seems that I was a second too late and two of you got hurt…” The two toned boy paused for a moment to clear his throat and got up to bow. “I apologize profusely.”

“I’m really sorry, too.” Kaminari turned towards the two victims who were sitting on the same couch with Tokoyami wedged between them. “I-If I’d just told Todoroki sooner o-or if I’d been like even like a fucking second faster you guys wouldn’t have gotten hurt. It’s all my fault and I just- I’m really, really fucking sorry.” He could feel the guilt pouring out of his apology and the cracks and stutters as he fumbled to think of the right words. It pained Kaminari even further that his classmates would never grasp the true sentiment behind the apology, though maybe it was a good thing they never would.

“Oh calm down, Dunce-face. You think this is your fucking fault?” Bakugou scoffed and the electric blonde turned around with wide eyes to face his friend on the couch behind him. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

What the fuck?

“Huh?? What do you mean what’s wrong with me?” Why couldn’t Kaminari just give a damn apology? It was his fault anyways, even if they didn’t know. “I told you, it’s my fault they got hurt-”

“Aw, boo hoo. It’s not your fucking fault, relax. Look they’re fine, they got discharged from Recovery Girl last night.” The explosive blonde sneered only to be met with more of Kaminari’s protests.

“What?! You can’t just speak up for them Bakugou, they have mouths of their own!” Was Kaminari getting a little heated? Yeah, but Bakugou was just being overly irrational and this electric blonde was not in the mood to deal with his shit.

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” The ashe blonde was getting a little annoyed now.

“Oh, you shut the fuck up! If I wasn’t here then this wouldn’t have happened!” Kaminari eyes widened and Bakugou’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The blonde quickly backtracked and rephrased his words. “I mean someone else would’ve done a better job!”

“So you’re saying that you were too slow or some shit? Or that if it were me I would’ve saved the goddamn day.” The electric blonde nodded to both questions. “Well then you’re dumber than I fucking thought, because from what I heard you did the best you could so shut the fuck up! The outcome wouldn’t have changed even if I was the one who noticed the snipers or fucking Deku over here. So calm your ass down!”

The class stared at the two blonde boys speechless, nobody knowing what to even say.

“I-I.. what?” Kaminari was now utterly baffled. Wasn’t he just arguing with Bakugou, who just now gave him a.. compliment? Or something close to it. Kaminari deflated, after years of learning how to read people he would still never be able to keep up with Bakugou’s mind.

“I think what Kacchan is trying to say is that you should stop beating yourself up.” Midoriya meekly translated only to be unsurprisingly met with an explosion.

“Oi, shut up!” The angry blonde snapped at the green haired boy with an outward facing palm.

Kaminari ran his hand through his hair and decided that he’d just cut his losses and stop bickering. Though he did turn towards the two victims for a final apology. “I’m still extremely sorry.”

“Kaminari, it’s okay. Honestly Bakugou’s right, and even though he said it in a very scary manner, we’re fine.” Mineta was the first victim to speak. “Sure I was definitely rattled but the bullet only grazed one of my sticky balls. That’s like the equivalent of a hair strand getting shot. I honestly didn’t even notice until I got off the bus yesterday. And now I have a kickass hero story to tell the ladies: The Time I Got Shot and Survived! How cool is that?! They’ll be falling for me in no time!”

Kaminari buried his face in his hands, leave it to Mineta to find a pervy upside to any situation.

“And I am okay, as well.” Shouji spoke up next and also fortunately didn’t bare any bandages. “They only shot one of my extra arms that I created so I just had to detach it from my body.” For good measure the guy turned all his Dupli-Arms into thumbs-ups. “I’ve also dealt with worse.” The silver haired teen sent a glance to Tokoyami who raised his hands in surrender and whispered a small “sorry” in defense.

“I’m glad you guys are going to be fine, I just-” Kaminari was going to go in for another apology when he felt Bakugou kick his back. “Nevermind.” Besides the blonde knew that no matter how many times he would say that he’s sorry it wouldn’t help abate the feeling of guilt that gnawed at him from the inside out. He slunk into the floor a little more.

For the remaining time, the class continued to go around with everyone having a go at retelling the attack from their point of view. Every now and then one of Kaminari’s peers would switch out to go to their interview. The blonde purposefully bid his time so he was last one up because he didn’t want to miss anything his classmates had to say. Some of their iterations of the incident were redundant, short, and overall unimportant but he still listened intently. If there was even a sliver of information he could obtain, he would get it.

The students decided to reside together in the common area even as the interviews were coming to a close and the conversation shifted from the attack to some regular Class 1A banter. Though unspoken, there was a mutual understanding that nobody wanted to be alone right now. Sure they were all physically okay, but the mental battlefield proved tougher to conquer. So if just talking to one another or cuddling in friend groups, to check that their classmates were very much still alive and their presences were tangible, provided them with their much needed solace, they took it.

Eventually, the second to last interviewee exited Aizawa’s room.

“Yoo hoo~, Kaminari it’s your turn!” Aoyama called out towards the electric blonde and waltzed over to his seat next to Yaoyorozu with whom he was sharing tea and cheese with.

“Got it, and by the way” Kaminari hopped up from his spot on the floor and tossed Sero his phone with a toothy grin. “I won.”

“Fuck yeah!” Sero whooped when he picked up his phone from his lap, double checking the score. “New high score baby, let’s go!”

“Ha! I knew you could do it!” Ashido cheered and Kirishima, bless his soul, accidently gave Kaminari an extra hard pat on the back which caused the blonde to involuntarily lunge forward but he laughed it off.

To literally nobody’s surprise, the Bakusquad was having a rematch of yesterday’s Tetris tournament. And the electric blonde reclaimed his rightful spot as Tetris king, much to Bakugou’s dismay. “This is some bullshit! I clearly fucking beat you!”

Kaminari raised his arms over his head to stretch and defended with a “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” before winking and walking off towards Aizawa’s office.

On his way over the blonde was given some thumbs-up coupled with reassurances that the interview would be quick and easy. He returned their support with nothing short of sweet smiles and kind waves but once he rounded the corner, finally out of sight, his happy-go-lucky expression dropped in an instant.

This was not going to be a normal interview for Kaminari. Sure his friends’ interrogations were “quick and easy” but that was only because they were just innocent little beans who didn’t have any sensitive information locked up in their noggin. Unfortunately for this blonde, he was in the complete opposite position.

This wouldn’t be a problem, he could just lie his way out of the interview, however a single person thwarted his plans. From the tidbits he overheard Kaminari became aware that a certain detective was present, Detective Tsukauchi.

Though it wasn’t necessarily public knowledge, the blonde knew all about the guy’s lie detection quirk from his time at the organization. The Detective was actually a dangerous foe to the underworld as he was one of the only people to even come close to uncovering Project Beta’s existence.

Why he hasn’t been assassinated yet was beyond Kaminari. Maybe the officer being killed would end up being more of a hindrance to the organization, the blonde would never know. But what he did know was that this interrogation was going to be a major pain in his ass.

And yes, Kaminari previously did have interviews with said Detective. But those interrogations dealt with the League of Villains attacks, not this current predicament that centered around Project Beta.

This meant that it would be a tad harder to cover up the fuck ton of secrets he had. But if anything, the blonde was always up for a challenge. Kaminari just needed to be very careful with his words.

Done with the dilly dallying the blonde stepped up to Aizawa’s door and mentally prepared himself. He took in a deep breath, a habit he noticed he’d been doing a lot of recently, and knocked.

…

Detective Tsukauchi was worried, UA seemed to be a continuous target for villains attacks, especially the infamous Class 1A. And after yesterday’s incident said class just racked up another tally in their unfortunate run-ins with villains.

It was like that class was a criminal magnet or something and he felt bad, horrible actually because they were just kids, heroes in training, they didn’t deserve for any of this to be happening to them.

Also, he glanced over to his right to spot a red eyed Aizawa, their homeroom teacher definitely looked worse for wear. The underground hero was half asleep, the only thing keeping the man in the realm of consciousness being the multiple cups of coffee he’d downed over the hours.

It was very clear that the teacher just wanted the interviews to be over and done with so he could finally acquire some much needed rest. The Detective had insisted that the man go get some sleep but the teacher refused, only compromising by fetching his sleeping bag, saying something about how he “needed to be there for all his students.” His words weren’t exactly clear but the officer understood the sentiment and let Aizawa stay in the room while he conducted the interrogations himself.

Tsukauchi himself was also quite fatigued, though not as exhausted as his counterpart, but he still had a plethora of files to look over afterwards so even thinking about sleep would have to wait. He did let out a sigh of relief though when he saw that he only had one student left to interview.

Kaminari Denki.

The Detective best described this kid as electric, regarding his quirk and personality. The boy was obviously an extrovert, loved to talk, bounced off the walls, quite likeable, maybe not the most academically adept, but an overall stand up kid.

During the last interviews the blonde had managed to slip in a few jokes that lightened the mood which Tsukauchi greatly appreciated. It was also a good skill to have as a hero, being able to brighten the mood of a gloomy atmosphere, because the physical world was only half the battle. Sure he liked all the Class 1A kids but for example, Tokoyami’s statements of “revelry in the dark” or Midoriya’s never ending mutterings aren’t always what the Detective wanted to deal with.

Hopefully the teen would bring the same lively attitude with him, it would be nice to finish on a high note. The officer flipped open to a new page in his black moleskin notebook and awaited the arrival of Class 1A’s Resident Sunshine.

Not even a millisecond later, like it was scripted or something, there was a knock from the door which caused Aizawa to mumble out a “Come in.”

“Good afternoon.” Kaminari walked inside with a small smile and closed the door behind him.

“Good afternoon to you, as well.” Tsukauchi greeted the student as he watched him take a seat in the vacant chair across from him. The two adults had chairs next to Aizawa’s desk while the interviewee, whoever it may be, this time Kaminari, sat opposite of them. “The interview will be quick and easy. Starting off I’m going to need you to recount the villain attack from your perspective and if necessary I might interrupt to confirm details, okay?”

“Okay.” The blonde responded shortly and the detective all but furrowed his eyebrows at the lack of small talk or any talk in general. This was the same kid who kept going on and on about how he was going to “beat the League’s asses” or about how angry he was that he was trapped in remedial lessons. The silence was a little off putting but the Detective snapped out of his stupor when the teen coughed to get his attention. “So do I just start, or..?”

This time it was Tsukauchi who cleared his throat and further gave a quick head nod in affirmation while picking up his pen from the crook of his journal.

“Um, okay yeah I’ll start from the beginning I guess. So it all started when I walked out of the mall and spotted the two snipers.” The Detective nodded along, noting that it was the blonde that found the shooters. He never really pegged the teen as the observant type, but he wasn’t around the students enough to know them that well and brushed it off. “After waiting a couple minutes I walked over to Todoroki and told him about the shooters.”

“What was your reasoning behind telling Todoroki specifically, why not anybody else?” Tsukauchi heard a little bit from the two toned boy earlier but would like to know more about the specifics.

“Oh, um he just never has a reaction, like ever.” Kaminari shrugged at the end of his brief answer.

“Care to elaborate?” Tsukauchi was going to need a little more than that.

“Well actually…” The Detective noticed a small smile growing on Kaminari’s face. “Like I’ve tried pranking this guy so many times and the biggest reaction I’ve ever gotten was well, yesterday’s. All I really get is like “oh”’s or he just freezes in place for a second before continuing on his day like nothing happened. So I figured he’d be the best candidate for keeping his cool, literally and figuratively, in the situation. I didn’t want to tip off the snipers, y’know? And it’s crazy actually how he never reacts to like anything like ohmygosh this other ti-”

“Thank you, I think I got the gist.” Tsukauchi chuckled to himself, this was the Kaminari he remembered and interviewed last time. Maybe the kid was just a little nervous and needed a minute to warm up to him.

“My bad.” Kaminari turned red from embarrassment for going on a tangent but cleared his throat to continue his story. “Yeah so I told Todoroki and he told Iida, because he would be the fastest to get to the Pro Heroes if we ended up needing their assistance, which we did by the way, but you already know that. And then afterwards I walked back to my other friends and I don’t really don’t know how I knew but I tackled my friend Kirishima to the floor because a bullet was coming his way. And then-”

Kaminari froze for a second causing the Detective to look up from his journal. “And then?”

“Um, and then Todoroki build this huge ass ice wall to protect us as we filed onto the bus. I remember the.. blood on the sidewalk and I.. almost threw up right then and there.” The blonde had tears pricking at his eyes and it hurt Tsukauchi’s heart to see such young teenagers have to deal with this kind of trauma. But the boy quickly blinked back the tears and moved on, the officer didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. “My friends pulled me onto the school bus and I looked outside the window to see heroes yelling at us to flee until metal covered the glass. Before I knew it I was back at UA.” Kaminari’s story seemed to end abruptly but the Detective didn’t want to push and accidentally trigger something. He had acquired an adequate amount of information so far. Also, the timeline of the incident was over the course of a single minute so if the report seemed rushed he chalked it up to the events being a blur for the victims.

But still, there was this minuscule nagging feeling of suspicion growing in the Detective’s gut. He’d choose to ignore it for now.

“All right, thank you very much for feeling comfortable to share that with us. Now I’m just going to ask you some questions, okay?” Tsukauchi was met with a nod from the blonde and continued. “Did you sustain any injuries during the villain attack?”

“Nope.” The Detective used his quirk for a second to check if he was lying. These hero students often kept injuries to themselves, not wanting to worry others, but they needed to learn that asking for help is not weak but actually strong. He felt relieved when he confirmed that Kaminari was telling the truth.

“Do you remember the exact location of the snipers? And are you sure there were only two?” Tsukauchi asked next, he just needed to make sure that everyone’s stories were the same so he didn’t miss anything. And he needed to check if a student was hiding something. With the semi-recent rumors of there being a traitor among UA staff or the student body he could never be too safe. It was unlikely that a student could actually be a spy, but nevertheless it was still a possibility to be wary of.

“Todoroki probably told you this already but they were in the western corner of the mall roof and the eastern parking garage. And yeah I’m sure, there were definitely only two.” Kaminari explained while the Detective jotted down some notes, he smiled as he confirmed that the details matched up with the other stories.

“Do you have an idea who could be behind the villain attack?” Tsukauchi flipped to a new page of his notebook. He was in the homestretch, only one more question left after this then he could finally take a break and have lunch. Some soba sounded good right now or maybe he’d go for some onigiri-

“Not really.” Wait what? The Detective stiffened, the thoughts of lunch completely aborting his mind.

Kaminari was lying.

Tsukauchi stared at the blonde and watched his golden eyes widen by the tiniest fraction. Did the student actually have an idea who was behind the villain attack? Why was he lying? Was he a traitor to UA? The Detective drove those paranoid thoughts out, he needed to think clearly and stop jumping to conclusions. This was probably just a misunderstanding.

Before he could question him though, the teen started talking again. “I mean like I just don’t think it’s the League.”

“Really?” Tsukauchi looked to his right to spot a fully asleep Aizawa and nudged him awake. He felt bad for interrupting his nap but he’d really prefer if the homeroom teacher was awake right now. The underground hero quietly groaned and gradually started coming to.

“Yeah, I mean like it doesn't feel like a League of Villains attack.” The Detective quirked up his right eyebrow and grabbed his pen, ready to take note down whatever Kaminari had to explain. “Like most of the time the League makes it a point to cause chaos and hurt as many people as possible. But yesterday only two snipers were sent after Class 1A. There were no Nomus, no explosions, no nothing. If it were the League they’d go all out.” Oh, so it was just a misunderstanding, the officer relaxed his body just a tad.

“Hmm, I see. Interesting, a couple of your classmates thought so too.” Tsukauchi was not completely satisfied with the revised answer but left it alone, seeing that it didn’t trigger his quirk this time round. “So you’re saying it was someone else?”

“I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s the League.” Kaminari restated his response again, looking the Detective dead in the eyes. There was a tense moment of silence between the pair until Aizawa’s sleepy groan broke it. The officer reluctantly let the subject drop, figuring the blonde was most likely still stressed from the incident.

“Okay then, final question: Do you have any idea why three of your classmates, Kirishima, Mineta, and Shouji, were targeted during this attack?” Out of subconscious suspicion Tsukauchi turned up his quirk’s sensitivity to the max, readying for any slip of the tongue.

The seconds of quiet that filled the room while Kaminari sat wordlessly, seemingly racking his brain for the correct phrasing, and the Detective kept his unshifting gaze on the blonde felt like hours. The "tick tock" of the officer's watch was amplified in the silence. After long last the teen finally opened his mouth and began to speak slowly, almost cautiously.

“I found it um, peculiar I guess for those three to be shot.” The student started and the Detective narrowed his eyes, Kaminari wasn’t answering the question.

“Why?” The two heads in the room snapped towards the now fully awake Aizawa.

“I guess, take Kirishima for example. His quirk is hardening, so couldn’t he just block the incoming bullet with his skin like he does all the time at his work study? Though I’m not sure if he’d have the reaction time seeing as we were dealing with snipers.” The two adults in the room shifted in their seats, focusing on the student in the room. The teen looked like he wanted to stop talking right then and there but the Detective and teacher's unrelenting stares pushed him to continue on.

“And um Mineta.” Kaminari pushed a hand through his hair and sat straighter in his seat. “He was shot in the hair or whatever he calls those balls of his. He got very lucky that they missed his actual head but haven’t you heard the saying that a sniper’s aim is always true. Well, I’m not sure if that’s an actual saying but bear with me. Okay let’s hypothetically say that the shooters were actually aiming for Mineta’s sticky balls, isn’t that kinda odd? And Shouji too, they shot him in one of his extra arms. Meaning all he had to do was detach it from his body and he could be on his merry way. Isn’t that just a bit fucking weird?” Kaminari was no longer looking at the adults anymore but was staring off into space at the floor between them, seemingly lost in his own little word as he unknowingly voiced his thoughts out loud. Tsukauchi and Aizawa exchanged a look as they watched the class clown begin to mutter like Midoriya, looking like he was coming a realization that both adults had no clue to what it'd be.

“It’s just suspicious that they’d go after the people and spots that could easily be healed, y’know? Like what's their game? Why attack students out in the open and then barely harm them? Doesn’t seem justifiable to me.” The Detective was taking extremely hurried notes, trying to get as much information written down as Kaminari’s speech began to speed up, but he was in no particular rush to stop him. Though he was getting a little worried because this student was bringing up very valid points that he hadn’t even fully conceived yet. This was definitely not the Kaminari he remembered from the last two interviews. “Actually maybe they weren’t even going to assassinate anybody, which is good, obviously. Maybe they were testing out a new gambit or tactic in attempt to get send me a message-”

“Send you a message?” Tsukauchi stopped mid stoke and set his pen down. The verbal interruption seemed to snap the blonde back into the real world because his eyes widened by a much larger margin than before as he slapped a hand over his mouth when he realized he had just said everything out loud.

“I mean not me me, like us. Class 1A in general.” The Detective's eyes narrowed because his quirk flared up meaning Kaminari was lying once again. He had no clue as to why he was lying and wasn’t given a chance to question it because in the blink of an eye the teen was already out of his chair. “But I think you guys already have everything you need, right? I should get going so you can work on your case and my friends are waiting on me. See ya next time, wait, hopefully there is no next time. Have a nice day!”

“Kaminari Den-” Aizawa’s voice was a tad raised as he bored holes at his student.

“Wai-” Tsukauchi was simultaneously outstretching his arm and calling out after the boy before the door opened and slammed in a matter of milliseconds. The silence in the room was deafening. “Thank you for your cooperation...”

The Detective immediately turned to Aizawa who appeared just as perplexed as to what just happened.

Yes, that long winded tangent was definitely concerning, but what was more off putting was that it was all the truth. Or at least what Kaminari believed to be true. Not once did Tsukauchi’s quirk alert him that Kaminari was lying. Only afterwards, when the Detective he asked the teen a question did the kid fib again.

This was supposed to be the last interview, it was supposed to be quick and easy because it was Kaminari Denki. This interrogation was supposed to end on a high note, not a weird discombobulated chord. This was supposed to clear up what details of the villain attack, not raise more.

The Detective locked eyes with Aizawa and both adults grimly nodded, having come to the same conclusion. Tsukauchi was certain of one thing for sure and he raised his pen one final time to make note of it.

Kaminari Denki is hiding something.

Chapter Text

Wow.

Kaminari really was a Dunce-face, wasn’t he?

The blonde wasn’t usually one to self-deprecate but he felt like these insults were well deserved. Because ah yes, it would be so fucking smart of him to go off into a long ass tangent in front of his homeroom teacher and a high ranking detective. And it was bad, like bad bad, he legitimately became Midoriya-level oblivious. Plus he definitely did not deal with the aftermath well because bolting straight out of the room undeniably raised more red flags.

He was a genius, honestly.

Now Kaminari was left with an unrelenting urge to just bang his head on his desk over and over again with to intention to ever stop. Unfortunately he couldn’t give into the temptation because he was currently seated at his school desk, patiently waiting for Aizawa, yes the very homeroom teacher he fucking fucked up in front, to brief the class on the hero training they would be doing today.

It has been a little more than two weeks since his untimely tangent and to his relief, or dismay, he couldn’t tell, he hadn’t been contacted since. He was half-expecting to be called down to the police station, or into meeting with his teacher, but nada. Zilch. Zero. Nothing happened.

Kaminari wanted to question why he got radio silence but he figured he’d let sleeping dogs lie.

After the semi-recent events this blonde felt the stress slowly building up and knew he definitely needed to blow off some steam. He was frustrated for not only slipping up in front of Aizawa and Tsukauchi but for making his friends unknowingly bear his burden.

Was he still beating himself up over the mall incident? Absolutely, and he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon despite the threats from Bakugou to “stop fucking moping around”. He couldn’t rest, at least not now, he couldn’t risk his friends getting caught in the crossfire that was his messed up past anymore.

For now though, he figured the best stress reliever was to get some action in. Sure he had his assassin training but he was always by himself and he yearned for that euphoric release that only came with punching another human. Was that a little morbid? Yeah probably, but sparring was so vanilla to the blonde that he no longer batted an eye to such combat.

Kaminari refocused his gaze to the front of the classroom when his teacher cleared his throat which non verbally communicated that the class “better be quiet and listen up because I’m only going to say this once.” The blonde looked up with hopeful eyes, anticipating another combat session, he was already buzzing with excitement just thinking about training. But as the universe always seemed to have it, he would almost never get his way.

“Today we will be taking a step back from sparring.” Kaminari’s eyes deadpanned and this time he couldn’t resist the urge to slam his head on his desk. He completely ignored the slightly concerned looks and side eyes from his classmates as he held his now bruised forehead in with his left hand.

Maybe he should try some reverse psychology shit on the universe and say the opposite of what he wanted in order to get what he actually preferred. With his current track record that could probably work.

“Even though there will be no sparring I will make sure to work you all to the bone.” Aizawa didn’t fail to notice not only Kaminari’s but the whole class’s consolidated reaction of disinterest because he bore his creepy ass grin that sent shivers down everyone’s spines.

“Then what will we be doing?” Midoriya had raised his hand but his mouth moved before Aizawa even had a chance to call on him.

There was one thing Kaminari could think of that would top getting some punches in. But the likelihood that the world was going to throw him a bone was slim to none.

Well maybe if he.. no way would that actually work.

Like it’s completely implausible.

Totally impossible.

But like, there’s really no harm in trying, though...

Kaminari sucked in a breath, smirked, and turned around to face his good ‘ol pal Kirishima.

Here goes absolutely nothing.

“Imagine if we used knives today, that would just suck.” Kaminari knew he was exaggerating his words a tad too much, but he really had to sell it to the universe, okay? Kirishima rested his gaze on the blonde for only a brief moment and gave a curt nod. Kaminari furrowed his brows at the lackluster reaction and noticed that the redhead had turned pale, like paler than his already pale skin and that those red eyes of his had widened by a considerable margin. Kirishima then opened his mouth to speak but shut it just as quickly, instead opting to point at something, correction, someone that Kaminari belatedly realized was lurking behind him.

The blonde felt a dangerously slow tap on his shoulder to which he responded by reluctantly twisting his torso to face his homeroom teacher literal inches from his face, glowing red eyes that seemed to stare directly into his soul and all. Actually scratch that, Kaminari’s soul probably fled his body and is long gone by now.

The tell tale signs of Aizawa’s erasure quirk, the floating hair and scarf, were also absolutely noticeable. What was even scarier was that Aizawa had no problem sneaking past Kaminari’s assassin detection skills, like did he teleport or some shit? But the blonde couldn’t really linger on that thought because of the very imminent danger right in front of him, so he chalked it up to the teacher's underground work.

After an extremely tense beat, Kaminari plastered on a nervous smile and greeted Aizawa with, “Oh.. h-hey sensei~...”

“Well unfortunately for you, Kaminari, we will be working with knives.” The electric blonde just sat there, mouth agape, in stunned silence. He could only watch as his teacher walked towards the door, but before he reached the exit the man apathetically flicked his wrist in the air for a final message. “No hero costumes, just wear gym uniforms. Be there in ten minutes.”

Kaminari heard his classmates hastily get out of their seats and exit the room but this blonde did not move a muscle.

“You okay man?” Kirishima leaned forward and nudged Kaminari in the arm, the look of concern evident on his face.

“I think he’s paralyzed in fear.” Jirou poked the blonde in the cheek with her earphone jacks.

“Yeah, Aizawa can be crazy scary.” Sero nodded in agreement while waving a hand in front of Kaminari’s eyes which creepily unfortunately garnered no reaction.

“And to be that up close and personal.” Ashido stuck her nose inches away from Kaminari’s face, adding the final conclusion to the group’s analysis. “No wonder he’s frozen.”

“Oh he’ll be fucking fine, let’s go! You fuckers aren’t going to make me late!” Bakugou explosively got up from his seat and broke up the gathering of peers that were treating Kaminari’s desk like a zoo exhibit. The ash blonde set off a tiny explosion in front of the electric boy which fortunately caused the latter to jolt in his seat. “See, it’s not like he short circuited or some shit! He’s still somewhat fucking cognizant!”

“Wait we should help him get to the changing rooms!” Kirishima began to protest as Bakugou began to physically drag the group out of the room.

“It’s his own fucking fault for talking in class, he’ll haul his own ass over there!” Bakugou barked back. “Or else I’ll blow him all the way to Timbuk-fucking-tu! Got that Sparky?! Let’s fucking do this shit!”

Kaminari only slowly nodded in response, but it was good enough for the explosive blonde to continue hauling everyone else away.

It was only after everyone had left the room did he finally rise from his seat. If anyone else was present they would tell you that the stunned expression that previously haunted the blonde’s face was now completely replaced with a fucking blinding grin.

“Holy shit! This fucking reverse psychology shit fucking works!” Kaminari was cursing like a fucking sailor that even Bakugou would be proud of with his hands reaching for the skies. But he couldn’t care less because fuck wanting to spar, Aizawa said they’d be working with knives.

Like actual fucking knives.

His favorite choice of weapon if he does say so himself.

So hell, yeah.

Let’s fucking do this shit.

…

Kaminari was very good with weapons, like scarily good. It didn’t even need to have to be a weapon, give the blonde a nonlethal object and he could make it lethal. He once improvised and killed a person with a paperclip, yes a paperclip, don’t ask. All he would tell you was that he’s never looked at that common office supply the same since.

So let’s just say he was good with weapons.

His favorite choice of weapons were hands down, knives. They were easy to hide, quick to access, simple to master (for him at least), and most importantly fun to play with when he was bored waiting around for his mark.

Though a close second were long range tools, such as guns or something where he didn’t have to be super up close and personal with his victims. But since most of his missions required him to be all touchy touchy, knives became his go to.

A good compromise between the two was knife throwing, which he was obviously a pro at too. Like come on, disregarding the assassination part, throwing knives is cool as fuck. And there was this really awesome trick he could do where he’d.. well let’s just say there was a reason he was code named Static.

Kaminari’s relationship with the weapon all started back when he was a mere infant. He swore he vaguely remembered being tucked in bed with a knife in hand in order to “become accustomed with the correct grip.” He was always unsure of those memories until he caught glimpses of the nursery rooms where babies were fast asleep, but instead of hugging stuffed animals, they were gripping fucking knives.

In retrospect, it was kind of crazy that the organization did that, that he did that, but he couldn’t say he was really surprised. And besides he was just a baby back then, it’s not like he had much of a say to what he did or didn’t do.

There also were more prominent memories he could recall as he matured, well if you call being a toddler mature, like how he had training sessions on how to properly work a knife. He thought it was fun at first, swinging a blade at a dummy training model. He lost the excitement when the dummy became a real body.

But the innocence was physically beat out of him and now he could mindlessly slash a person with the efficiency of a well oiled machine. What a skill to have.

So suffice to say, Kaminari was good with knives.

Meaning he was ecstatic as hell for hero training today.

The blonde came running into Gym Gamma where everyone else was waiting and where Aizawa was definitely giving his signature death glare, a frightening mix of exhaustion and murderous intent. Not as terrifying as before but it was scary nonetheless, so Kaminari quickly hid near his friends who were waving him over. He had thankfully made it just in time to hear his teacher’s instructions.

“Today we will be practicing with non-quirked based weapons, specifically knives, because there will come a time where your quirk will not suffice.” Aizawa made sure to eye every single student. “Or the use of your quirk will do more harm than good.” Kaminari swore he saw his teacher give an extra harsh glare to Bakugou and Midoriya.

“The focus of today’s lesson will be to understand how to hold a knife, basic techniques, disarming measures, and some sparring.” Aizawa finished the last part of the sentence with an almost malevolent smirk.

Okay, that was actually elementary for Kaminari. Well, he shouldn’t have expected much to begin with because they obviously weren’t going to do some advanced shit right off the bat. Besides he was planning to hold himself back anyways because it’d be way too suspicious if he could miraculously hand everyones’ asses to them if he was just a self-proclaimed beginner.

The blonde sighed, it was whatever, he could do his difficult and avant-garde techniques when he trained solo. He was just grateful that he could dabble a little in class and was more looking forward to seeing how his classmates would do.

“Wait, we're sparring today? Like the same day we’re learning the basics?” Jirou asked a little concerned about her and more prominently the whole class’s wellbeing. Kaminari couldn’t blame her, there have been multiple accidents in training in the past, though in his opinion they were all pretty hilarious to look back on.

Like one time Sero accidently caught him and Kirishima with his tape by their ankles and sent them flying. The only thing that stopped their motion was when they collided together and bonked their heads like there was no tomorrow. It wouldn’t have been that bad but Kirishima was in Red Riot: Unbreakable mode which left Kaminari with a nasty broken nose. Stung like hell but in the end it became another funny training incident to laugh at in the future, endearing in it’s own weird way. So Kaminari smirked, if that’s how they acted without weapons, he couldn’t wait to see what would go down with knives in the mix.

Was that a little sadistic? Probably, but it’s not like anyone was going to get seriously hurt. And it’s not like Kaminari is going to feral on any of them, so it’d be fine.

Oh how those words would come back to bite him in the butt.

“Yes, ‘like the same day we’re learning the basics.’” Y’know for someone who is always sleep deprived, Aizawa can be a sarcastic little bitch. “It will predominantly be to analyze each other’s form and how to fix it. Now if we’re done asking questions, everyone take a knife and pair off into partners.”

The homeroom teacher stepped aside, giving the class a better look at the table set up behind him. It was lined with rows upon rows of knives with definitely over twenty prepared. Kaminari figured there were extra in case anyone ended up breaking, exploding, any of them.

Each student picked up a knife and Kaminari plucked one off the table and flipped it in his hand a couple times, unable to suppress the slight smile creeping up on his face before pairing off with Sero. The ten sets of partners had spread out a couple feet from others to provide adequate and safe spacing.

“I’ve never fought with a knife before.” Sero noted and he tightened, loosened, and tightened his grip again around the handle of the knife.

“Same, but I’m kinda excited though, not gonna lie.” Kaminari lied. He was excited, definitely, but he wasn’t about to brag about his years of experience.

“Wait, didn’t you say working with knives would ‘just suck.’” His black haired friend made finger quotation marks with his free hand.

“Oh well, I mean yeah, but I only said that because reverse psychology, y’know?” Kaminari simultaneously explained and confused his friend on purpose, it would be too much to untangle. Also, thinking back, is that how reverse psychology even works? Probably not, but whatever, he’d happily take the win.

“Uh sure, whatever you say man.” Sero cocked his head to the side but brushed off the confusing answer. “But you’re right, this is kinda cool. Okay this is gonna sound weird but I feel like an assassin or some shit like that.”

Wait, what? “Ass-assassin?” Kaminari cleared his throat but remained somewhat nonchalant.

“Yeah like those cool ones in those RPG games. Fucking badass, amiright?” Sero continued completely oblivious to his friend’s brief internal panic.

“Oh, ohh yeah totally. Fucking badass.” The blonde quickly agreed, hoping to move on from this topic. Why the blonde got worked up over just the name of his previous profession was unknown to him. He’d have to work on that.

“You sure you’re okay man?” The black haired boy examined Kaminari up and down, serious for a moment before cracking a joke. “You’re still not paralyzed in fear from Aizawa, right?”

“What? No way, I’m good now.” Kaminari laughed it off. Let’s just stop talking about this, okay? Please change the subject now. “I’m fine, anyways we should just focus on learning how to yield these knives first before even thinking about assassination, y’know?”

Sero was about to open his mouth to speak again but was interrupted by Aizawa’s calling their attention as he began to demonstrate the correct grip on how to hold a knife.

Kaminari felt a wave of relief wash over him and as he and Sero fixed their gazes upon their teacher at the front. Thank goodness for Aizawa, he thought.

He wouldn’t be thinking that for long.

…

The training was easy, like it mind numbingly easy. Kaminari obviously already knew the basic techniques and then some. Correction, he knew the advanced techniques and then some.

So he went on a sort of auto-pilot mode, simply going through the motions, purposefully sloppy mind you, until the class was going to spar. With his attention split the blonde mainly spent time focusing on the knives in his classmates’ hands rather than the one in his. He just wanted to see how they were holding up, okay? And it was going as much as he expected.

Bakugou was quiet, his usual brooding concentration quiet, and let out his usual grunts. But he still had an outburst every now and then when he got frustrated, successfully blowing up two knives. Like Kaminari said, it was going as much as he expected. Though as far as he could see the explosive blonde understood the combat technique fairly well. He wasn’t really surprised, Bakugou was a scarily quick learner.

Kirishima happened to break a knife, as well. Though his method of destruction was death by “an overly manly grip”, he squeezed the handle too hard and caused it to crack. His movements were also a little stiff, possibly from the nature of his quirk carrying over to his fighting technique, but that was something he could work on.

Ashido accidentally secreted some acid out of frustration, corroding therefore destroying her knife too. What the hell guys, what did these knives ever do to you? Kaminari found that it kinda hurt to see such perfectly good knives go down the drain, hopefully they’d be repurposed or something. Back to the resident Alien Queen, Ashido was very fluid and her movements somewhat resembled a dance, Kaminari figured her technique probably stemmed from her love for the art.

Sero was actually pretty damn good at handling a knife. Thankfully, he didn’t break it like everyone else in the Bakusquad, save for Kaminari himself, did. His movements were also solid yet flexible, a balanced mix of the two. Unlike Bakugou and Kirishima, and similar to Ashido, he had this nice fluidity to his movement. The blonde figured he got that from his parkour techniques when he used his tape to act like an office supply version of Spiderman, if that made sense. With a sufficient amount of training Sero could become very proficient with a knife, obviously not as good as Kaminari, but he could get up there.

The others in the class were doing quite good and everyone was very focused at the task at hand, or more correctly, in hand. Get it? Because the knives are in everyones’ hands. Okay, whatever, shut up, he knows it was a bad joke.

Those whose quirks weren’t super combat related seemed to be especially concentrated. Hagakure, for example, looked like she was putting extra effort probably because she knew her quirk, Invisibility, wasn’t fool proof in a fight. Mineta was diligently practicing his movements, too. It was nice, kind of weird, but nevertheless nice to see him so serious about something other than porn.

Kaminari noted that Yaoyorozu was the only one out of the nineteen students that seemed to have a familiarity with a knife. Actually, her skill level already seemed quite high so she’d probably been trained prior. Kaminari figured it was because besides the metal pole and cannons she would conjure up, a knife is a pretty universally useful weapon as well.

The blonde took a panoramic view of his class, he admired how hard they were working and he was proud of them. He really was, but let him reiterate: he was also bored as hell.

Examining his classmates was fun, truly, but he wanted to do something just a tad more intensive. Fortunately, Aizawa thought the same thing because after two hours of basics in technique and disarmament he finally announced they’d be sparring.

“Okay, turn and face your partner. For the rest of class time your goal is to disarm your opponent while keeping your knife in hand. No actual slashing and no fatal blows, stop right before making contact.” Aizawa explained and waved his students off to start right away. “You may begin.”

Finally, Kaminari has been itching for this moment.

He turned to face Sero who was grinning to himself too. The blonde admired his friend’s look of determination but it was all for naught. There was no way he was going to let this knock off Spiderman beat him, a legendary fucking assassin. Of course, he’d throw a portion of the matches, but that was to cover his ass, if not he’d fucking school this homeboy.

“I’m not gonna go easy on you.” Sero warned with a little smirk creeping up his face. His threat had absolutely no impact on Kaminari, nice try bitch but this assassin has faced situations far scarier than this. The blonde belatedly realized he shouldn’t be proud of that fact.

“Neither will I.” Kaminari lied, if he used his full power on Sero would be dead, like legitimately dead. But his friend didn’t need to know that.

There was a beat of silence as both boys went into their battle stances distancing themselves a couple feet apart.

Kaminari looked up to make eye contact with Sero and just like that, the game was on.

Without a moment’s hesitation both teens lunged at each other. Sero quickly slashed in front of Kaminari, nothing to harm him, just to push the other back and hopefully off balance. But it didn’t push the blonde off his feet, only forcing him to bend his back parallel with the floor beneath him to avoid the blade.

“Nice try, bitch.” The blonde noted before standing up straight and quickly disarming Sero of his knife on his way up. He gripped his black haired friend’s now knife-less right hand and forcefully swirled him around to add the left hand to his grasp. Kaminari now stood with Sero’s hands pinned behind the latter’s back and, for the cherry on top, put a knife to his throat.

“That was smooth as fuck.” Sero noted with a smile, despite the blade millimeters away from his Adam's apple.

“I know.” Kaminari chuckled, letting go of his black haired friend so he could retrieve his knife from the floor and try again. The blonde looked around at the other partners in the gym and noted that many of them were still going at it. He realized he was probably going a little too hard on his friend if he beat him under a minute. He’d have to lay off a bit.

“This time I’ll beat you.” Sero readied himself about 6 feet away from Kaminari but this time didn’t charge in. He waited for Kaminari to come to him.

The blonde saw what he was doing and took it to his advantage. He still ran forward but faked a right as he ran left. In the split second that Sero’s attention was distracted he took that as his chance to attempt to disarm his opponent’s knife. This wasn’t like last time though and Sero seemed to learn his lesson since Kaminari felt a sweeping kick to his calves that knocked him off his feet.

Flat on his back now he noticed Sero lunge forward but rolled away just in the nick of time. Kaminari stood up and belatedly saw his opponent ram into his torso forcing him onto the floor once more. This time the blonde could get up because the force of Sero’s entire fucking weight was keeping him grounded. Kaminari couldn’t give an exact reason why, his best guess was the elbows, but his tape dispenser of a classmate weighed way more than he fucking looked.

Sero quickly flipped Kaminari onto his stomach, disarmed, and pinned his hands behind his back. He straddled the blonde from behind and victoriously proclaimed. “Checkmate motherucker.”

“Okay cocky much?” Kaminari laughed as Sero got up and lent the blonde a hand.

“I told you I was gonna win this round anyways.” Sero nonchalantly shrugged but there definitely hints of playful smugness hinted in.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Kaminari was a little impressed at his friend’s skill. He wasn’t going to say anything but he definitely did not see that kick coming, but it was totally a fluke, most definitely, one hundred percent. He totally lost that on purpose… Well whatever, at least his earlier suspicions were confirmed, Sero would unequivocally become a formidable adversary with a knife.

But that would take lots of tireless training, Kaminari would know. So for now he would happily beat his friend’s ass.

And that’s just what he did. For the rest of the class period Kaminari and Sero sparred and went ham. Well, Sero did, Kaminari saw this more as a fun way to pass the time. But he wouldn’t deny it was nice to actually practice his skills against a person for once. He hadn’t done that in ages and he felt bad for the trees he kept slicing up, sometimes even chopping down, during his secret training.

Though Kaminari did catch Aizawa staring at him occasionally but he chose to shrug it off. He was their teacher so he was probably just examining their techniques.

He would later realize that Aizawa might have been examining his technique a tad too closely.

As the fighting kept going on Kaminari gradually found it more and more entertaining to prolong the matches. He danced around Sero, faking him out at times, purposefully narrowly dodging his attacks, and eventually either winning or throwing the match. Sometimes it was intentional and sometimes not, Sero was a pretty damn good opponent, picking up the defensive and offensive techniques that Kaminari was utilizing fairly quickly.

But a couple hours of training was not going to beat over a decade of experience, so Sero was still a novice. Kaminari could admit that it was still fun nonetheless, he forgot about his worries even if it was for a brief period of time.

That was until Aizawa called him over.

“Okay, we’re done for the day. Wrap up, return the knives, and do your cooldown stretches.” The homeroom teacher instructed before turning his attention to a certain electric blonde. “Kaminari, can I speak with you for a moment.”

Kaminari could practically feel the side-eyes everyone was giving each other. They might as well let out a consolidated “ooo” at this point. He spared a glance at Sero who looked like was already giving his condolences. The blonde sighed and quickly plopped his knife back on the table and headed after Aizawa.

What did he even want to talk about? Hopefully not about him talking in class, it wasn’t even that rare of an occurrence, Aizawa probably just woke up on the wrong side of the sleeping bag today. But the blonde was most definitely scared of his teacher’s death stare, despite the years of assassination work, and that’s saying something. Maybe not bone chilling fear, but when Aizawa was mad or annoyed even, it was absolutely frightening.

“Kaminari, Detective Tsukauchi wanted to have another meeting with you.” Aizawa started right away, no room for Kaminari’s usual drivel when he finally reached the right wall of Gym Gamma.

The blonde tensed, though only by the slightest of margins, but Aizawa still seemed to notice. Oh, so this is what he wanted to talk about. “Okay, whe-”

“But he was forced to drop the case and hand it over to some government officials in the Department of Public Safety.” The teacher’s interruption let a wave of relief wash over Kaminari. “So you’ve been let off the hook.”

“So I don’t have to go in again?” He fully relaxed when Aizawa nodded his head. “Okay, cool, but what happened. I thought Detective Tsukauchi was like one of the best in the country, why'd he have to drop it?”

“That is beyond me.” Aizawa seemed a little frustrated at the matter and Kaminari chose not to push. “All that Tsukauchi was at liberty to disclose was that they claimed it would be more efficient this way.”

“Oh, that’s nice of them I guess..?” Okay, dope so can Kaminari leave now, there are some cool down stretches calling his name. He also absolutely loathed this uncomfortable tension that was building up between them. “Well, if that’s all you really wanted to talk to me about then I’ll just go stretch-”

“One more thing.” Aizawa stared at the blonde, looking like he was internally debating something in his head. That only lasted a moment though, because in the next millisecond Kaminari’s homeroom teacher lunged at his own student.

Out of all the things Kaminari expected, his teacher attacking him out of the blue was not one of them. And wait, did Aizawa have a knife? Where the hell did he get a fucking knife?! He probably hit it in that damn scarf of his. What the fuck was going on?

Kaminari didn’t even think before he moved, dodging Aizawa’s attack with practiced ease.

“Yo- wait!” Golden eyes were blown wide as Aizawa’s unrelenting attacks surged forward. “Why- what are you doing?!”

The only response Kaminari got was another attempted slash at his torso. The two danced around each other until the blonde realized that his teacher wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

Aizawa lunged forward again and made it abundantly clear that he was faster, more precise, and more experienced than Kaminari’s previous opponent. The blonde didn’t realize it until his gym jacket received a nice cut at the right sleeve, but Aizawa was out for blood.

Fuck, at this rate he would be fucking naked or part of a weird porno plot. He couldn’t go on like this, he needed a weapon, he needed a knife.

Kaminari made a break for it and sprinted to the table stocked with knives. He grabbed one in the center of the table and simultaneously used that point of impact as a way to parkour over the table, narrowly dodging another strike.

This caught his classmates’ attention as they all gawked at the scene in front of them.

“Wait, what’s going on?!” Ashido exclaimed, looking back and forth then back again at Kaminari and Aizawa fucking going at it.

“I think they’re… sparring??” Ojirou interjected with a look of bewilderment, as well.

“Come on, Kaminari you got this!” Kirishima got up from his stretching to immediately cheer his friend on. “Show us how manly you are!”

The electric blonde didn’t really take note of his classmates encouragement because he was a little fucking busy trying not to get sliced up.

When Aizawa attacked again with a diagonal slash aimed for his torso, Kaminari parried it with a vertical strike towards his teacher’s right forearm. The older male expectedly dodged that but definitely narrowed those red eyes of his.

Next time the blonde struck first, aiming towards Aizawa’s scarf, hoping to cut it off and expose his neck. But before he could make contact his knife was blocked by the other’s with a spark and resonating ring.

Fine, if the front wasn’t going to work, he would try the back. Kaminari sprinted towards Aizawa and at the last second slid underneath his teacher’s legs feet first. Once he was on the other side he performed a sweeping kick, knocking the other off his feet. Shout out to Sero for inspiring that move.

With Aizawa on the floor, Kaminari pounced and attempted to pin him into place. But apparently now they were allowed to use their quirks because Aizawa’s scarf levitated and captured him. Wait, was his scarf part of quirk or was it some weird side-effect? Whatever, Kaminari mentally shook his head, this is not the time nor the place to be theorizing about the nuances of his teacher’s quirk.

As the blonde was being restricted he realized something peculiar about the capture weapon. But before he could do anything, Aizawa maneuvered the scarf to tighten further around the blonde’s body only to release him in a furious spin.

Kaminari looked like a damn tornado as he continued to rotate even after being expelled from the cloth. The blonde extended his right foot backwards in an attempt to create friction and to stop his momentum faster. His foot dragged across the concrete in an arc that created a semicircular path of dust.

When he finally stopped moving, Kaminari’s body was positioned over his bent left leg, with his right foot extended backwards in a straight line, resembling an extremely exaggerated lunge.

“I thought you said working with knives would ‘just suck.’” Okay, what the hell? The one time Aizawa decided to speak he chose to be sarcastic. What the fuck was up with his teacher and quoting today?!

“You’re the one who attacked me first!” Kaminari exclaimed, hella confused right now, and this time greeted with an actual slash to his left arm. It was nothing deep but it definitely started to bleed. But to be frank, the blonde was more irked that his gym uniform kept getting ruined.

Though secretly there was part buried deep inside him that was actually enjoying this. In the couple minutes Kaminari spent sparring with his teacher he assessed that Aizawa was more skilled than the majority of his targets. Which makes sense because he often killed mob bosses, middlemen, ordinary folk, but never really a hero. This was the action he craved for, this was the blood he wanted to see, even if it was his.

“Then why are you smiling? You’re bleeding aren’t you?” Aizawa questioned in a hushed tone that was inaudible to the rest of the class.

The blonde wiped the grin off his face, paused for a second, and ultimately pretended to ignore his teacher’s question. Could Aizawa, just like fuck off.

Kaminari took a deep breath in and attempted to slice at Aizawa’s scarf again. He had formulated an idea to why his blade wasn’t cutting through, and wanted to test it. And when the knife didn’t go through, his suspicion was confirmed.

Hmm, okay Kaminari could work with this.

“Why are you only aiming for my clothes?” The teacher queried with an unreadable expression. “Holding back?”

It was Kaminari’s turn to narrow his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The blonde leaped forward and succeeded in making many slashes that didn’t harm but pushed his teacher farther and farther back, slowly moving over the pair towards the left wall of the gym.

The class was moving with them, but a good distance back to give the two some space. Kaminari chose not to notice the looks of awe as he whipped out more advanced moves that he definitely could not chalk up to their training at UA.

The blonde had seamlessly switched to the Kali knife fighting technique, moving at insane speeds as he used quick motions to twist and push away Aizawa’s arms. It looked like the teacher was familiar with the technique too, but not to the extent that his student was. Kaminari was on fire as his eyes were full of electric concentration.

Maybe he was getting a little ahead of himself because it even seemed that Aizawa was getting overwhelmed with those red eyes of his widening. But Kaminari did not waver, trapping his teacher against the gymnasium’s left wall.

More, more. Kaminari wanted more.

Aizawa, understanding this disadvantageous position and realizing Kaminari might actually hurt him, decided he needed to break out of it fast and kicked his student in the gut, hard.

This direct kick to his abdomen stemming from the heel of Aizawa’s foot sent Kaminari back at least fifteen feet. The man packed quite the kick because the blonde flew so far back that his classmates had to run out of the way.

Kaminari fell to his side and skidded on the ground a couple additional feet or so.

Okay, fuck this! This was the worst this ex-assassin had ever suffered in a fight. And he’d been barely injured too, so that’s saying something.

And that kick sent made him vividly aware of the condition his body was in. Kaminari was fatigued from training and hungry as hell, but no longer for food. This sparring match awakened something that was trained deep inside of him, his bloodlust.

Kaminari slowly stood up and huffed out a breath with his head hung low. His legs stood shoulder width apart, his arms were hanging straight down, while his right hand tightly gripped his knife. At that time, he tasted the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, he sucked it out along with a little saliva and forcefully spat it onto the floor.

He shifted his gaze to look at Aizawa with a murderous death glare, golden eyes that were once electric with life were seemingly dull and void of it.

Y’know he’s not sure if he’s ever killed a hero before, definitely never an underground one.

He hated killing, he really did, but it was something that was a part of him, yes forced onto him, but still a part of him. Kaminari gritted his teeth, there was a ringing in his ears that began to intensify by the second.

Progress was never linear, right?

The past would always come back to haunt him, right?

Nobody’s perfect, right?

So, if he just slipped up once it would be okay… right?

RIGHT?

“Kaminari you got this!”

“You’re stronger than this Dunce-face!”

“You got it Jammingway!”

“Let’s go, you’ve got him against a wall!”

“C’mon bro you’re so close, you can win this!”

Wait, what? Kaminari’s spiral was cut off by his friend’s words of encouragement. What were they talking about? Win? Win what?

Kaminari took a glance at his surroundings and realized he was presently in Gym Gamma, as a student, surrounded by his classmates, sparring his teacher. Not in some back alley, secluded office, or who knows where as an assassin about to kill his mark.

The blonde blinked, sighed, and gave a sloppy grin as he turned towards his classmates. The ringing began to subside. Right, this was all just training, not an actual life and death situation.

What the fuck was he thinking?

The blonde refocused his attention back to Aizawa who donned his fighting stance once more. But Kaminari was done with fighting, he needed this match to be over before he loses himself once again.

He took a deep breath in, he needed to end things before he went too far.

Hey, remember when he was going on about how throwing knives was cool as fuck. And how there was a reason he was dubbed the code name Static. Well, here’s why.

Kaminari exhaled and relaxed a bit as he let electricity flow into his knife until it was crackling with life. He slid his right foot behind him as he readied his weapon and this time he looked up at Aizawa with a smirk.

Y’know he realized something about when he was sparring with his sensei. There was actually a reason why he couldn’t manage to cut through that capture weapon of his, and no it wasn’t because of bad aim. He felt it when he was trapped inside the restricting cloth and he had figured it out when he slashed it straight on and his attack garnered no damage.

The scarf included a reinforced metal alloy, and metal is great and all, it has a plethora of uses. But the one that interested Kaminari the most right now was how it was just absolutely wonderful for conducting electricity.

Aizawa belatedly realized what was about to go and tried, but failed, to erase Kaminari’s quirk. Too bad so sad old man, the knife was already flying through the air.

In a split second, the blade made contact with the grey scarf and as expected the electricity instantly spread out to the rest of Aizawa’s body. The teacher spazzed out and dropped his knife, it looked like he wanted to hunch forward but he was pinned in place. The knife was thrown with such force and fervor that it pierced through the scarf and stuck itself into the concrete wall behind the teacher.

And with that the fight was over.

Kaminari let out a sigh of relief as he dropped to his knees. Not necessarily out of physical exhaustion but mental. The respite only lasted a few moments before the realization of what he’d done had hit him again.

Fuck, how the hell does he keep doing this?!

The blonde ran over to his teacher and swiftly yanked the knife out of the wall. Aizawa stumbled forward a bit, but Kaminari helped him steady himself.

“Ohmygosh, I’m so sorry sensei!” Kaminari quickly apologized profusely. “I went way too far.”

“No, it’s okay kid.” Aizawa groaned a bit as regained focus but twitched a bit. The blonde couldn’t tell if it was from residual electricity of from annoyance at being fucking electrocuted. The voltage Kaminari sent wasn’t high, but it wasn’t particularly low either. “It’s my fault for provoking the match.”

“What no! Well, I mean yeah, but like I shouldn’t have electrocuted yo-” The blonde tried to justify.

“It’s fine, you should go to Recovery Girl.” The teacher noted as he straightened his posture though he looked evidently sore.

“RG, why- oh.” Kaminari totally forgot about the cut on his left arm. “Uh yeah, I will later, it’s not that deep.”

“You’re bleeding.” Aizawa noted the blood that was literally dripping onto the floor. “I’m fine, go to Recovery Girl.”

“O-okay.” Kaminari realized through his teacher’s stern tone that this wasn’t a request but a demand. The blonde finally turned around but only succeeded in walking a couple of feet before he faced the sea of his nineteen classmates staring at him with shock, bewilderment, and awe.

Oh shit.

They were going to hate him, like actually hate him. He fucking electrocuted their teacher for fuck’s sake.

There goes everything he was protecting because he couldn’t keep his bloodlust in check. Holy shit, this is it isn’t it? Fuckfuckfuckfuck. Fuck.

Kaminari made eye contact with his classmates and waited in silence. Any second now they would condemn him as a monster. Any fucking second.

But to Kaminari’s confused relief, that second never came. Instead he was bombarded by not insults but compliments..?

“Dude that was so manly!”

“Where the fuck did that come from Dunce-face?! Have you been fucking holding back on me?!!”

“Kaminari- what the hell?”

“Merde sacrée!”

“That was very impressive, Kaminari.”

“Yo wha- what the fuck was that?!”

“You’ve gotta teach me your ways!”

“Good job.”

“Revelry in the.. light?”

“Th-that’s so fucking badass, whaaat??”

“Kaminari that move you did with the electricity, how’d you come up with that? I mean it makes sense cause knives are made of metal and metal conducts electricity, but to use it as a throwing knife? That’s genius, wher-when’d you come up with that? Have you tested it before? How long does the electricity last? How useful is it? Can you short-circuit from it-”

“H-huh?” That was all Kaminari could get out. Why were they being so nice to him? What the actual fuck? He almost murdered their teacher and they’re here fucking praising him. “Wha-”

“Oi! Where’d you learn that?!” Bakugou exclaimed, his right palm up letting out small explosions. “You’ve been holding back, huh?!”

Kaminari let out a small snort, which turned into a chuckle, which turned into a whole ass laughing fit. Jeez, only 1A would mistake his fucking bloodlust for combat expertise. Well the former definitely influenced that latter, but still. The blonde wiped the tears from his eyes, completely ignoring the raised eyebrows he was receiving, and composed himself.

He should’ve realized this sooner, he was in the fucking hero course at UA. Probably one of the only places a student could beat up a teacher and (morally and legally) get away with it.

Fuck, he was worried for nothing once again.

“Where was that earlier today?!” Sero pulled Kaminari out of his thoughts.

“Oh uh I dunno.” The blonde really couldn’t pull out any excuse out of his ass right now.

“‘I dunno’?” Sero stared at Kaminari, mouth agape. “Okay sureee~, I thought you were pretty good to begin with but this is on another level. You’re teaching me that shit later.”

Kaminari opened, closed, and opened his mouth. “Sure..” He gave in there was no explaining this one.

“Oi! Sparky you gonna keep ignoring me?!” Bakugou stomped over and let out a slightly bigger explosion to capture the electric blonde’s attention. “Where the fuck did you learn that?!”

“I saw some Youtube videos about it.” Kaminari usually liked keeping his lies close to the truth but this time the truth had a direct connection to Project Beta, so he’d pass.

“Youtube?!” Bakugou squinted his eyes at his classmate. “You learned all that shit on Youtube, by yourself?”

“Well, I had a friend help me out.” Friend as in a fellow Project Beta recruit, well it was the closest thing he could get to a friend back then.

Bakugou mumbled something under his breath.

“What did you say?” Kaminari couldn’t quite catch what he said, but he smirked because he had an idea of it.

Bakugou mumbled a little louder.

“Knock, knock. Bakugou residency, is anyone home?” Okay, now he was just being extra.

“I said you’re going to fucking teach it to me sometime, okay?!” Bakugou finally exploded to Kaminari’s amusement.

“Of course, Kacchan.” Kaminari winked with a smug ass look on his face. He was asking for an early death wish he knows. “Happy to help.”

Kirishima hardened and with practiced efficiency held the ash blonde back. “Bro that was so manly! You have to show me some of those moves too!”

“And Kaminari could I also ask you some questions about that move you did with your quick, please?” Midoriya was trying to stay calm but Kaminari could see he was brimming with excitement, already scribbling notes into the air.

“Yeah for sure-” Kaminari was glad to help but was interrupted by a loud cough behind him.

Oh, right.

“Kaminari needs to go to recovery Girl, you can talk more once you get back to the dorms.” Aizawa seemed to return back to normal and gave everyone a stern glare.

The class became acutely aware of Kaminari’s wound, which was somewhat hidden under his gym jacket sleeve save for the big cut in the middle.

“Ohmygawd, Kami lemme help you get to RG.” Ashido instantaneously offered, more like demanded, to help.

“Yeah, sure.” Kaminari was a little reluctant because he’d be fine on his own, but he’d enjoy her company. He’d her upbeat personality to distract him from whatever mess that just happened.

The blonde was forced to quickly say his temporary goodbyes to his other classmates as he was dragged off by Ashido who inadvertently pulled Sero, Kirishima, and somehow Bakugou along.

And just like that Kaminari was off, quickly being escorted to Recovery Girl through the help of his friends. The other four were engrossed in some small talk, with Kaminari chiming in every now and then. Kaminari figured they were letting him mentally rest a bit after that whole ordeal, which he was eternally grateful for.

He zoned out their conversation as he became lost in his thoughts, he still couldn’t wrap his head around the course of events that just happened and how his classmates were so impressed by his skills. Yeah they were cool, but they were tainted with murderous intent.

He only stopped because he was saved by their kind words. If he was alone, fighting one on one, he wouldn’t know what would happen, and that part truly terrified him. He had no idea what he was capable of.

Jeez, fuck, he fucked up. This was a pretty big slip up, maybe not as life threatening as the sniper incident, but this was still quite bad.

But it was okay though, because for some inane reason his classmates still somehow saw him as a person and not a monster.

Damn, Kaminari fucking loved his friends, they always brought the best part of him out. They always made him feel like a normal fucking teenager, it felt so nice to be around them. Sure, he got a little worked up, but as long as he had his friends by his side he’d be okay.

And technically it wasn’t even his fault that he got a little mad. Like come on, what kind of teacher spontaneously throws a sparring match onto a student?

Wait, why did Aizawa even do that?

Kaminari stopped dead in his tracks.

His teacher doesn’t do anything without meaning.

So what was his meaning?

What the hell? Does he know something? That’s the only way his sensei would justify actions like this.

There’s no way though, Kaminari has been so good at hiding his secret. Well, except for today when he let loose at Aizawa.

Though that was only because his teacher basically baited him.

But you only bait what you know will be there.

And he slipped up in his interview too.

Holy shit, what exactly did Aizawa know?

Kaminari tried to quell his panic but fuck, he was starting to freak out-

“Hey, Kaminari you okay?” Ashido stopped and turned around with a concerned look on her face. “Let’s hurry up, you’re probably suffering from blood loss, c’mon RG will help you.”

Kaminari nodded as he went back and joined his friends. Once again this blonde was reminded of how fortunate he was to be surrounded by such great people who unconsciously pulled him from yet another spiral. Shit, he wouldn't know what he'd do if he lost them.

Back to the topic at hand though, yeah, he dodged a big ass bullet when his classmates didn’t find anything fishy about his combat skills. And thankfully, they wouldn’t be able to connect that with assassination past even if they tried.

But now he realized that there may be a bigger concern out there.

What the fuck does Aizawa know?

Chapter Text

Goddamn, it was early. 7:40am to be exact, and okay, yeah, it wasn’t that early, some could even say late, in comparison to the ungodly hours some of his classmates chose to rise but Kaminari was anything but a morning person. Y’know the saying about how the early bird gets the worm, well why couldn’t he just kill the opposing bird and get both. Maybe his drowsy state of mind altered his logic a bit but it still seemed like a genius answer to him.

Besides, his most efficient office hours were between midnight and sunrise, not vice versa. The night sky provided a nice cover so the blonde could conduct his assassin training in peace. Even so, that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the little shut eye he got in before school started. But alas, today Aizawa wanted the class to wake up just a little earlier than usual because he had some sort of announcement to make, meaning Kaminari couldn’t waste time on such a frivolous thing that was sleep for now.

The blonde laid under his covers, hands behind his head, staring at his ceiling watching as the glow in the dark stars decorated above began to lose their luminance as the sun filtered in through the balcony window. Sighing, Kaminari begrudgingly released his Jolteon plush that he was cuddling and rose from his very comfortable and very warm bed.

Ugh, what did Aizawa even want. The blonde had been trying to decipher his teacher’s intentions post their spontaneous sparring match but the thoughts made his head ache. The only possible conclusion was that Aizawa was catching onto him, which was impossible. Okay due to recent events, maybe only slightly impossible, but still.

Just the thought of his teacher finding out about his secret made him panic and it was far too early for that, so he’d just deal with it later. Not the best coping method, he knows, but after inhaling some breakfast he’d get right onto scheming. Well he would call it scheming because that has a far too sinister ring to it, he prefers calling it “preparing for the worst.”

Kaminari grabbed his toiletry caddy from his shelf and opened his dorm door. Aizawa was making an announcement to the whole class so it couldn’t possibly be solely about Kaminari, right? Definitely, no way, unless it was to single him out in front of an audience? The blonde shook his head trying to expel the anxiety ridden thoughts from his brain, roughly deciding again on food first then schemin- no preparing later.

The teen trudged towards the bathroom ready to go through the motions of his usual morning routine. He was tired to say the least and turned on the faucet to listen to the stream of water rushing down the drain. And while staring at his crusty reflection in the mirror he came to the understanding that time waits for nobody also that he should hurry his ass up before Aizawa got mad at his tardiness once more. He let out a deep breath before he scrunched his face up as he braced himself momentarily. Kaminari pooled the ice cold water in his hands and splashed it on his face which was a definite shock to his system but proved to be an effective method to forcefully wake himself up.

Thankfully the entire bathroom was empty, save for the blonde himself, so nobody had to bear witness his morning slump. Everyone else was probably out and ready in the common room waiting for whatever Aizawa had to say. He did vaguely recall that his teacher had mentioned something before about a visitor coming in to observe the class for the day. But to be honest, Kaminari didn’t really care about whatever his teacher had to say at that time. He knew it was rude to ignore his teacher but he was busy thinking.

Sue him, he had a lot on his mind. And mind you it was completely unrelated to anything assassin-y, okay? He was actually thinking about.. porn.

Sorry not sorry.

C’mon, a guy can think about boobs and butts every now and then; Kaminari decided that the gender those appendages were attached to were to be determined.

Okay, whatever, sh-shut up the fuck up, moving on. It was no matter, he was still going to be filled in, in a couple minutes anyways. Exhaling, Kaminari picked up his toothbrush and hastily squeezed out some toothpaste, the minty fresh flavor waking him up just a little more.

After finishing up in the bathroom and returning to his dorm, the blonde went to check the time to see it was already 7:53am and Aizawa wanted them downstairs by 7:55am. Briefly deliberating the decision, he decided he’d change into his uniform after he’d heard what his teacher had to say, so Kaminari dragged himself downstairs.

There he met up with all his other classmates: Yaoyorozu and Aoyama sipping their morning tea, Sero and Mina rushing to finish their homework, Iida and Bakugou coming back from their morning run, or others like Kaminari who were falling back asleep.

Looks like he was just in time though seeing that Aizawa entered the dorms as soon as Kaminari walked into the common area. He, along with the rest of the class, immediately got into line, waiting for what their teacher had to announce. Hopefully this would be over with quickly so the blonde could scarf some food down.

“Thank you all for waking up on time for this early morning meeting.” As usual Aizawa threw shade, but at least this jab was directed at the class as a whole instead singling Kaminari out on his own. “To get straight to the point a newspaper has taken particular interest to you all.”

The class responded with a unified reaction of, “A newspaper?”

“Yeah. A newspaper wants to do a feature on you all.” The homeroom teacher explained with much enthusiasm…

“It’s kind of embarrassing.” The blonde commented because it kind of was. What was so interesting about watching a bunch of students in their daily lives, even if it was at UA? But hearing all his classmates get excited kind of hyped him up, as well. Okay maybe it would be a little fun to indulge in the media because despite all the horrible things that have happened to his class it would be nice to set things straight for the public.

“Don’t get too excited. The article is supposed to be about how you students are doing in the dorms you just moved into. The principal thought it would be good for your parents and guardians to see you all living happily in the dorms, so he gave special permission...” Aizawa trailed off when he heard Mineta start spouting about wanting a female reporter with boobs and immediately trapped the boy in his capture weapon. “So you better not do anything like that.”

Kaminari turned to stare at his purple haired friend, wait was Mineta’s balls even considered hair, in empathy due to also having been victim to Aizawa’s capture weapon once before and partially in amusement because the dude had it coming.

Though, his entertained state was cut short when he caught an oddly familiar voice behind him.

“You don’t have to be like that, Aizawa-san. I want to report on the UA students in their natural state in the dorms.” No fucking way. Kaminari his head whipped back around to be greeted with a face he’d never thought, let alone wanted, to see again.

“Tokuda-san, I didn’t say you could come in yet-” The blonde ignored his teacher’s annoyed remark to stare in disbelief at the reporter in front of him.

“I was told I could be here from 8am to 6pm. It’s already time.” The black haired stranger tapped on his watch in front of him. “Hello, everyone. I’m Tokuda, a reporter. Thanks for having me today.”

Tokuda’s introduction got all of Class 1A ecstatic, well all except Kaminari. The excitement the blonde previously felt had long since dissipated into thin air once he heard that damn reporter’s voice.

Kaminari tuned out his classmates’ background chatter, his teacher’s snide asides, and whatever instructions Tokuda had to say, because a single question resonated in his mind.

Did the Tokuda remember him?

Because Kaminari sure as hell did.

Thankfully this reporter seemed a bit too preoccupied with Iida’s, somewhat overbearing, presence at the moment to take a good look at the electric blonde. But that did little to abate the teen’s tension because Kaminari knew there was no fucking way a journalist, let alone Tokuda Tanea, came to the infamous Class 1A, the class that was victim to multiple villain attacks, just to document if they were moving into the dorms okay.

There was a catch and Kaminari hoped and prayed he wasn’t a part of it.

One wrong move and this ex-assassin would be exposed in an instant.

One wrong move and everyone would find out the dark truth.

One wrong move and life as Kaminari knew it would be over.

Why?

Because that was Tokuda Taneo.

The one and only reporter who held concrete evidence that the happy-go-lucky Kaminari Denki and the cold-hearted assassin Static were one and the same.

Shit.

…

Nobody is perfect, that is a statement Kaminari knows very well because his years in the field taught him that the hard way.

It all started on a summer solstice five years ago, the longest day of that year. And oh boy did it feel like it because that day Kaminari was staking out his mark for hours on end. Not to say that was out of the ordinary, but he can remember that this was one of his longest missions to date.

Sifting through the hazy memories, the blonde could recall that his target for this assassination lived in high society. Shopped in luxury stores where dropping a couple grand for an item was not only the norm but expected. Ate at expensive restaurants, where reservations were made years in advance. And threw extravagant parties where waiters were ready to satisfy every guests’ whim. The cherry on top was the fact that the guy had security guards tailing him at all times, leaving Kaminari with a very scarce and a very limited window of opportunity.

The blonde had dealt with well off clients before, but this man, this man was on a completely different level.

Kaminari had actually been assigned to him three weeks prior to the solstice and he spent hours tracking him and waiting for the perfect time to strike. Patience is a virtue, he’d tell himself, but apparently it was one that he was running low on.

The opulent black haired man went from shopping, to dining out, and celebrating like a damn broken record on repeat. Always surrounded by people or surveyed by security cameras, there was never a chance to slip in and out undetected. Sure he could fry the cameras but apparently these rich people had all their bases covered because the main cameras had backup cameras with a completely different power supply. Kaminari could fry both but that would create much more visible electricity than he wanted and could result in his arrest.

Though getting arrested didn’t seem like the worst fate. He would be free from the clutches of Project Beta, but the blonde knew that would only be a temporary fix. If he was recaptured by the organization that would only land him in one place and one place only, six feet under. Well that was only if they were so kind as to dig him a grave, there are many ways to dispose of a corpse y’know, so he settled on waiting it out.

And Kaminari did and the more he observed the man’s day to day life the more he felt bad for and angry at him because this guy... was an absolute simp!

From what the blonde gathered his target loved an old flame who didn’t love him back. For God’s sake she was married and birthed a child already, and even if the marriage didn’t seem the most promising she didn’t look like she was going to cut it off anytime soon. The woman was a shallow goddamn gold digger!

It physically hurt to watch his target’s story unfold and the real zinger was that his mark had a perfectly good guy friend who stayed by his side. Why could he not see the potential relationship there?!

Kaminari was practically pulling out his hair at the situation in front of him that he almost forgot that this was a mission in the first place. He needed to kill the guy not only for Project Beta’s sake, but for his and the future victim’s as well. To put the guy out of his misery, as Kaminari justified it, but in reality he was getting a little too emotionally attached and couldn’t bear to watch any longer.

Though he did get to see the inner workings of the guy’s underground business. To sum it up Kaminari’s mark was smuggling illegal drugs into Japan, not the most horrific crime out there but a crime nonetheless. A crime that led to someone wanting him out of the picture and Kaminari left to do the dirty work.

The high class lifestyle routine continued for days and honestly, the blonde thought that he’d be stuck on this mission forever until the summer solstice arrived. For some reason, unbeknownst to Kaminari, the man was taking a step back from his rich lifestyle and resided in a regular shopping district.

He was still eating out, but the restaurant was relatively small and quaint as a bonus, also the guy wasn’t donning his usual outlandish outfits, like this pastel pink suit that he had worn before. The mood was also different that day as the man sat in the ramen shop all alone. The rays of the sunset leaked into the small restaurant, the outside world bustled quietly in the background, and a soft breeze blew across the summer sky.

It was a bittersweet melancholy.

After finishing his meal the black haired man decided to go on a smoke break in a secluded alleyway. This was when Kaminari realized it was his one and only time to strike. There were no security guards or cameras that day, just the blonde and his target with the smell of cigar smoke wafting through the air.

As Kaminari descended from his stakeout post on top of a building adjacent to the ramen shop he felt a pan of sadness that he was going to cut this guy’s narrative short.

The setting of the assassination was not the most ideal, the sun was setting and it illuminated the alleyway in such a way that it created a soft orange haze. And since it was in a small offshoot of the shopping district the area was not exactly busy but it wasn’t exactly quiet either. But despite the circumstances Kaminari knew this was the best he was going to get and that an opportunity like this was not going to come by again any time soon.

Maneuvering his way down from the roof he was perched on, Kaminari landed ten feet behind his target. The blonde pulled out the gun with its attached silencer from its concealed location on his hip and stepped forward until the weapon was mere inches behind the smoking man’s head.

Kaminari’s target was unaware of the gun cocked and ready behind him, seemingly distracted at a green light flickering in the distance. Was it a traffic light or store sign? Kaminari didn’t know and didn’t particularly care either because he had a job to get done and he needed to do it now.

Again though, he kind of felt bad in a way because this was one of his longest missions, due in part to the fact that this guy was damn tedious to kill and also because he was a little intrigued at the story playing out. But just like the man seemingly lived to love, Kaminari killed to live.

It was like the world was at a stand still and the orange light from the sun shined in Kaminari’s golden eyes. He hesitated, maybe he wouldn’t pull the trigger and let this man roam free.

Maybe he would just back off now and hide the shadows until the man finished smoking.

He could see to it that his target arrived safely at home and not in the after life.

Let the man continue his drug dealing business and potentially get the girl.

But deep down Kaminari knew that wasn’t how the world worked, hell that it wasn’t how his own life worked. This drug dealing and heartbroken man was going to die anyways, if Kaminari failed someone else would be hired instead. And there was no guarantee that the next assassin would be so kind as to give him such a quick and painless death that the blonde could do himself right now. Yet he couldn’t lie and say that this kill was not partially out of self-interest because the world this assassin lived in was be or be killed, and he was too selfish to die.

In a weird way the blonde was kind of jealous of his mark because unlike himself, his target had a chance to live, had a chance to love. He wondered if he could ever love, or even be loved. But those thoughts were immediately shut down hard because he was Static, an elite assassin renowned for his killing abilities, there was no room in his cold heart for compassion.

That’s how he was raised and that’s how he would live, bereft of all things related to love.

With those thoughts in mind Static refocused and readjusted his stance, his gun now whiskers away from touching the man’s hair.

He took in a small breath.

Then in the golden hued light the boy pulled the trigger.

The bullet entered the back of the man’s head. The cigar in hand fell to the floor first, followed by the thud of the body. Solemnly Kaminari moved his target to be sitting upright against the alley wall, careful not to get any blood on his leather gloves. He took one last glance at his handiwork before he began to walk out of the alleyway.

The blonde thought it was a shame at how things played out but was definitely relieved that his mission was finally over. He almost made it out of the alleyway when he accidentally stepped on a piece of paper littered on the floor.

Jeez, just because it was an alley doesn’t mean people should be littering. Kaminari bent down to pick it up, ready to dispose of the paper properly, when he got a good look at what he was actually holding in front of him.

And what it was sent shivers down his spine.

This piece of paper he half-heartedly plucked off the floor was actually a picture, with beautiful composition he may add, that depicted himself clear as day pointing a gun at his mark’s head.

Fuck.

Kaminari hastily ascended up a fire escape of a nearby building to get a bird’s eye view of the shopping district because this was bad, extremely bad. This picture of him could get his ass disposed of because, like he briefly touched on before, any and all leads that pointed towards the existence and true nature of Project Beta are immediately eliminated.

And just because he may be one of Project Beta’s top assassins doesn’t mean he'll get some sort of exception if fucks up. And Kaminari definitely counts getting photographed red handed as fucking up.

He waited patiently, “patiently”, for three weeks for a goddamn opening and the second he finally gets the job done he fucking digs his own grave.

The teen looked back down at the image he was gripping in front of him to detail the damage. The only silver lining he could think of was that at least he was wearing a black face mask that covered roughly half of his face. But unfortunately since it was not only the longest but somehow the hottest day of the year he decided to forgo his usual black beanie and let his blonde locks loose. Which felt nice in the moment but the distinct black lightning bolt in his yellowy blonde hair was a dead give away to his identity if this picture was ever compared to him directly.

Basically half of his face, the most distinguishable half, was exposed and documented in the picture. His goddamn golden eyes looked even more luminescent in the sunset, it was borderline beautiful. Wait no, not beautiful, bad, this was very bad. But also kind of beautiful.

Inspecting the image, Kaminari wondered how the photo was even taken and printed in such a short amount of time. Sure, he had a whole ass inner monologue going on in his head but in reality the whole ordeal lasted around ten maybe fifteen seconds tops, way too short of a time to normally take a picture and print it.

Maybe if the perpetrator had a polaroid camera but it was evident in the print format of the image that the camera was of a different brand. And even if it was a polaroid he would’ve heard the distinct clicking of the camera back then. So maybe it was someone’s quirk?

Kaminari flipped the photo around to look for more details only to see a phone number scribbled onto the back. Immediately he did a quick scan of the people below him but they all seemed inconspicuous. Seeing that he didn’t have much of an option the blonde pulled out his burner phone and dialed the number.

It rang once before the line was picked up.

It was probably a stupid idea to call this number immediately, but Kaminari needed answers fast. There was also a good chance that the person who took that photo was still in the neighborhood. If he or she was outdoors then maybe Kaminari could figure out whoever was fucking with him.

It was a long shot but it was either do this or return to Project Beta while under the fear that he could be executed at any second if the photo was ever leaked. Well, he already lived under constant fear and guilt anyways but this latter option raised the tensions tenfold

“That was fast.” The voice that responded was somewhat deep and sounded like a man. He wasn’t going to dismiss the possibility that it could simply be a woman with a deep voice. But since time was of the essence the blonde decided he was going to first scan for men on the phone and then women.

“What do you want from me?” Kaminari tried to make his voice sound more gruff but it had the opposite effect because his pubescent body decided this would be a great time for a voice crack. He coughed and returned to his normal tone. “My business has nothing to do with you.”

“And what would your business be, specifically?” The blonde quieted down for a moment, he wasn’t going to fall for this guy’s trap.

Besides he was still scanning the people down below him and trying to find a man on a phone in a shopping district that was gradually becoming busier and busier was a challenge.

First things first, Kaminari immediately ruled out anyone who was not talking on the phone, for obvious reasons. Second, he dismissed those who were on the phone but currently talking, because he would hear their voice on his side of line, but right now he was only met with tense silence.

“Like I said, nothing for you to be concerned about.” Kaminari’s eyes were drawn to a man sitting in the outdoor section of a cafe. There was a camera sitting on the table and a laptop he was typing on. Could this be the guy he was looking for?

“Even if it’s a matter of life or death?” The slight emphasis on the last three words made Kaminari curious on how much this person knew but then he noticed something peculiar. The voice of the one on the other side of the line roughly matched up at the same time as the man at the cafe table’s mouth moved.

Kaminari squinted, his gut was screaming that the cameraman and cafe man were the same person but he needed to be sure. He racked his brain on how to figure out how to test the man’s identity until an idea hit him.

It was simple, all he needed to do was say something, scratch that, do something that would elicit a distinct reaction that he could pinpoint.

“My business is…” Kaminari whispered at first, hoping the person on the other end of the line was turning up their volume to properly hear him.

The proceeding method to figure out if this unidentified photographer and this random man were the same person can be seen as childish. But like the saying goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

In the next few moments the blonde sucked in as much air as he could and then blew as loud as fucking possible into his phone’s microhpone.

Yes, he knows this was not the most elegant method of madness to try and get a reaction but it was the best for his situation. He could’ve screamed into the mic but this was just as effective and actually better. If he screamed he would’ve brought unwanted attention onto himself and besides, everyone knows that wind blowing into a microphone may sound quiet on one end but absolutely horrendous on the other.

Kaminari kept a keen eye on his person of interest, who he gauged was around 150 meters away from him, waiting for even the subtlest reactions.

The man at the cafe retracted his phone from his ear for just a second and seemingly winced.

Bingo.

Though the plan was half-haphazardly strewn together this man was his best bet, the audio and reactions were far too in sync for it just to be a coincidence. This was the fucker who took his picture.

“Black hair, thin glasses, grey button up shirt, and beige overcoat even though it’s the middle of summer. Sitting in the outdoor section of a cafe, 3 tables left from its entrance.” Kaminari's sudden identification abruptly caused the man to freeze and stop typing. “And by your sudden change in demeanor it seems that I hit the nail on the head, right? What the fuck do you want?”

“Impressive.” The black haired man’s frozen state only lasted a moment before he leaned back in his chair, relaxing far too much for someone toying with an assassin. “I simply seek to know the reasoning behind the scene in the photograph. Reluctant as you may be to answer me, one wrong move and this picture will be sent to all the biggest news outlets. And even if you decide to cut my life short, pressing ‘Enter’ is far faster than any gun or weapon you may have on you.”

Wow this guy wasted no time getting straight to the point and his last statement made Kaminari tighten his jaw then slowly respond with. “All I do is follow orders to survive, simple as that.”

“Orders? Orders from who?” The man at the cafe looked like he was back to typing something on his laptop, probably taking notes. “Perhaps… from Project Beta?”

Okay, what the fuck?

The last few words came by in almost a whisper but Kaminari heard them loud and clear. This time it was the blonde’s turn to freeze in place, because how the hell did this guy know about Project Beta?

Was he a powerful person in the underworld? No way, Kaminari would’ve heard about him or maybe this black haired mystery concealed his identity well enough that even this blonde didn’t know who he was. That possibility scared Kaminari even more because he knew the underworld like the back of his hand, due to the organization’s “education” obviously. And the fact that this man remained an unknown made him even more suspicious.

Kaminari would do some extensive research later to uncover his true identity once he got back to headquarters. Well, if he got back to headquarters and wasn’t killed on the spot he may add. And though the photographer’s name remains to be determined, one thing is for certain, this guy knew more that was letting on.

“You’re playing a very dangerous game.” Kaminari responded after a couple beats of silence.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” A faint sound of sipping could be heard in the background of the phone call. “Thank you for your time, that is all that I need to know.. for now. But I trust that if I ever need more information I can come to you. Make sure you memorize this number because this will be how I’ll contact you.”

“Wait, I never agreed to tha-” Kaminari stood up from the squatting position he was in before alarmed. He didn’t agree to helping the first time, so who’s to say he was going to help this rando again.

“Or else I leak this image.” Oh right, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter in the first place. “Don’t worry I won’t unless I have to. Your secret is safe with me.”

And just like that Kaminari was hung up on. He let the distinct beeping of an ended call resonate in his ear as he stared at the man at the cafe. The blonde thought he’d never live to see the day that an elite assassin, such as he, was hung up on but low and behold there was a first for everything. Kaminari watched as the man packed up his work with a small smirk on his face.

That bastard, there was no fucking way Kaminari was just going to let this slide. He needed to deal with him right now and hopefully stop his picture from ever being leaked.

But just as the blonde was about to descend back to the ground he saw a black car pull up in front of the cafe. He gritted his teeth as he eyed the photographer step confidently into the vehicle that swiftly carried him away.

The blonde was about to call that insolent fucker back or even tail him, only to hear footsteps in the alleyway below him.

Shit, people were going to discover the actual corpse he left to rot. Kaminari had completely forgotten about that whole ordeal due to this stupid blackmailing incident. He needed to get out of here fast.

While staring at the alleyway Kaminari heard a vehicle revving in the distance and when he turned back towards the street he realized the car with the reporter was long gone. Wow, what a fucking day. This blonde finally finished his damn mission only to be threatened by a stranger who could throw his entire wretched life for a loop. This sequence of events almost gave him whiplash at how fast things progressed.

Right now the only thing he had going for him was that the sun had officially set. He looked back at the alleyway, watching as a blissfully unaware couple inched closer and closer to the corpse he had left. Then glimpsed back at the outdoor cafe table that was currently being wiped down but seconds prior housed a man who now held the power to literally end his life.

Letting out a deep exhale, the blonde quickly fished for his beanie regrettably stored in his back pocket and tugged it on, he wasn’t making that mistake again, took one last glance at both locations and escaped under the cover of night.

Kaminari then spent the subsequent months anxiously waiting for another call from that godforsaken number. But weirdly he was never contacted again, he didn’t know why but it didn’t really matter, he took it as a win. As long as the image was not leaked then the blonde wanted nothing to do with that nosy fucker.

In the meantime Kaminari did some research of his own and discovered who this mystery man really was. Not a secret underground figure, thankfully, but a journalist named Tokuda Taneo known for having the biggest scoops on the underworld. From exposing drug busts, several yakuza groups, and many child trafficking rings it was no wonder that he knew about Project Beta.

And to get rid of any of Kaminari’s remaining doubts, he discovered that Tokuda’s quirk had to do with photography, specifically that he could take and print a picture on demand. Which would explain how his assassination, that lasted a couple seconds, ended up as a photograph abandoned in an alleyway moments after.

The one thing that was beyond Kaminari was how Tokuda wasn’t dead and abandoned in some ditch yet. With all this information this reporter acquired and exposed there was no doubt he was on the hit lists of many powerful underground forces.

But this also meant that this reporter’s threats of releasing the image were most likely true. If he had the balls to release exposés on the underworld’s big hitters he probably didn’t have any reservations about revealing an image of an assassin from a secret powerhouse organization. And if that future ever came into fruition Kaminari was absolutely screwed. So for now he would play by Tokuda’s rules and eventually figure out to take him down on his own.

Though oddly, as time progressed Kaminari was still never called again. The blonde definitely questioned the silence but he was absolutely not going to call the guy back, that would only raise even more issues. And after years of radio silence he wrongly concluded he was in the clear, emphasis on the wrongly part.

Because five years later he ran into Tokuda Taneo in a place he’d least expect it. At fucking UA. Kaminari didn’t know what he wanted but he knew it wasn’t about the damn dorms.

He’d just have to wait and see.

…

Throughout the day Kaminari observed Tokuda from afar, trying to discern if the other remembered him. Fortunately, it seemed that the man showed no signs of recognition. But even so, the blonde refused to let his guard down because though there were no signs, the reporter could just be a scarily good actor.

So Kaminari resided to watching from a distance as a cautionary measure. And there was no way in hell the blonde was going to approach Tokuda out of his own volition because he feared he would accidently jog the other’s memory, assuming he was forgotten in the first place, which was completely counterintuitive to his goal of being invisible.

Kaminari wished he had Hagakure’s quirk right about now.

But since he was, regrettably, visible he tried his best to avoid the camera as much as possible. When he could not evade his picture being taken he simply smiled and waved, smiled and fucking waved.

And besides the over looming fear of being confronted, the school day went by relatively smoothly. There were the occasional hiccups here and there, some being attributed to Bakugou’s many many outbursts, but overall the day went okay.

Nothing warranted red flags… yet.

Upon returning to the dorms, Kaminari immediately secluded himself to his room, limiting the amount of chances he could cross paths with Tokuda. The blonde told his friends not to bother him and gave them a half-hearted excuse about how he needed to go study for an upcoming test or whatever. To be honest he didn’t even know if there was any such assessment coming up, but since it was UA there probably was.

Unfortunately, in Kaminari’s haste to isolate himself he realized he probably should’ve properly prepared beforehand because he found himself extremely bored. He quickly changed out of his uniform into more comfortable clothes and sat down at his floor table pondering what he could do with all this newfound time.

Should he do a little training? Nah, he wasn’t feeling up to it, especially with that nosy reporter only a couple floors below.

Maybe do some homework? Kaminari snorted at the prospect and fell backwards to be lying on the floor with his arms resting behind his head. Even though he excused himself to study, there was no way he was that desperate that he’d succumb to school work, he’d pass for now.

Oh, he knows what to do, he’ll just turn to his lord and savior: video games. Kaminari sprung up from his lying position on the floor and scooted over to his desk drawers. This was the perfect time to play some Pokémon, he still had a long way to go in order to catch up.

Kaminari opened his drawer and to his dismay his 3DS, a rudimentary gaming system for its time but still one his favorites, was nowhere to be seen. The blonde rummaged through his desk, discarding stray post-its, pens, paper, and other such stationery onto the floor in vain.

Where did he put it? Kaminari was about to upturn his entire bedroom until an image of his beloved 3DS wedged between some couch cushions in the common area popped into his mind.

Oh, that’s where it was.

The blonde let his head fall back in frustration, he had completely forgotten that he left it downstairs.

To make a long story short, last night the blonde was going through his normal routine, playing video games during the witching hour while snacking in the common room. He liked to eat outside of his room because 1) he didn’t want to attract bugs, he had a problem with them at one of his old apartments and let’s just say he was not a fan, and 2) it was nice to have a change in scenery every now and then.

And when he was cleaning up his food and storing containers back in the pantry he heard Aizawa shuffling out of his room. To save himself from being caught and suffering from the resulting consequences, Kaminari reluctantly sacrificed his gaming system to the couch, promising to retrieve it the following day.

But due to obvious reasons, he had completely forgotten to get it back this morning. And knowing that going downstairs would mean possibly running into Tokuda, Kaminari decided on finding another way to kill time.

He side eyed his school bag that he had previously dropped next to his bed and let out an exasperated sigh.

Fine, he’d do his school work.

All, he did all his homework. No joke, no lie, no exaggeration. Kaminari was completely caught up academically, an absolute first. He spent two hours cooped up in his room, diligently studying.

Okay, well he wouldn’t say diligently. There was definitely a fair share of staring off into space, doodling in the margins, and attempting pen tricks dispersed throughout his study session. But after his hours of work Kaminari ended up with a stack of completed assignments and the ability to spin a pen around his finger.

So he guessed it wasn’t a lie when he told his friends he was going to study. But the fact that he finished meant he was bored once again. Maybe he could ask his friends to bring up his 3DS for him, but Kaminari quickly scratched that idea.

They might not believe that he had actually been studying and could drag him down to their study group, in the common room, for further revision. The thought of more academic stimulation, and being in the presence of Tokuda, made him shudder

Kaminari decided in order to quell his unsatiated boredom he would brave his way into the common room, swiftly retrieve his 3DS, and then scurry out. He’s an ex-assassin, this should be easy, right?

The blonde made his way down the stairs, not by elevator so he could peek into the common area to survey the layout of where everyone was sitting without anyone noticing his presence, and quietly entered.

He noted that Tokuda was seated at one of the dining tables typing away on his laptop. The blonde made a point to distance himself as much as possible without looking suspicious. Once Kaminari made it to the living room section he was greeted by his classmates who were studying there.

“Hey, man what’s up!” Kirishima looked up from his paper and was the first to greet the blonde.

“Oh nothing much, just came down here to get something.” Kaminari rummaged through a couple of the couch cushions before successfully finding his 3DS. At last, reunited and it feels so good.

“I thought you were studying Dunce-face?” Bakugou cocked his head to the side while he narrowed his eyes.

“I did, I promise! Like I actually did it.” Kaminari waved his hands in the air as he blurted out a defense. “I’m just taking a break.”

“Well since it seems that you have free time, how about you go get some water bottles for us?” Bakugou’s question was more like a request, and who was Kaminari to decline. The electric blonde quickly headed to the kitchen, not wanting to face the wrath of Mr. Explosion Murder Lord or whatever that long ass name was, and grabbed some water for his friends.

Turning to look back, there were four people studying in total so he grabbed two bottles in each hand, walked back and set them on the table.

“Thank you Kami, you didn’t have to, Bakugou is probably just annoyed because we keep getting this problem wrong.” Ashido explained while twisting off the cap of her bottle.

“Nah, I don’t mind.” The blonde looked at the math work his pink friend was doing and recognized it since he had finished it earlier. “Hey Mina, I think you should be using secant instead of cosecant, secant is the inverse of cosine, not sine. There’s actually a reference sheet on the back of the packet, it helped me a ton.”

The group froze.

Bakugou immediately snatched Ashido’s paper, then shot his eyes at Kaminari, ending with a small “tch” before handing back the packet and crossing his arms.

The behavior was quick but very telling.

“Wait, was I right?!” Kaminari looked at Bakugou, then at the paper, then back at the brooding ash blonde. “I was right, wasn’t I?!”

Sero looked over Ashido’s work and compared it with the answer key. “Holy shit, Kaminari’s right.”

“Hey!” The electric blonde shot back, feigning hurt. “I can be smart too, y’know.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, but I’m just shocked.” Sero explained while reaching for his own water bottle. “No offense, but you're at the literal bottom of our class.”

“Woah, woah, woah slow down there buddy. Last time I checked, you were ranked 17th, that’s not much higher.” The electric blonde retorted and grabbed a water bottle from the table, disregarding the fact that he didn’t bring enough for five.

Kirishima choked on his own water at his friends’ banter. “How about you guys rise the ranks instead of sitting at the bottom, that means you too Ashido.”

The pink girl looked at the red head, mouth agape. “Hey! I was not a part of that conversation, I am simply trying to diligently do my school work.” Ashido stared at Kirishima with a poker face for a few seconds before cracking up and spilling water all over herself.

Ashido’s mess made Kirishima laugh again, which made Sero laugh, and Kaminari was already laughing so almost the entire Bakusquad was hysterical, for no sane reason, now. And by almost, that means Bakugou was the only one not dying from laughter and was actually staring in confused disbelief at the mania in front of him.

Kaminari was snickering so hard that he didn’t even notice a certain reporter staring his way.

“We are supposed to be studying! Next time I’ll only tutor Kirishima and leave your asses to fail.” Bakugou’s sudden remark shut them all up but there were still smiles on their faces.

“Yeah, yeah, as if you could say no to us.” Ashido smirked and waved her hand apathetically in the air then high fived Sero.

Kaminari chuckled only to be interrupted by the ash blonde once again. “Nice to see you drinking my water.”

Only then did the electric blonde realize he accidently snatched Bakgou’s bottle and went to retrieve one more.

“My bad, hold on let me get you another… Mr. Explosion King Lord the Mighty.” His comment, paired with his little bow, made Bakugou sneer but caused the rest of the friend group to snort.

Kaminari went back to the fridge to get another water bottle and was walking back without a care, not even noticing how close he was to a certain reporter. Tokuda’s presence was nearly forgotten from the blonde’s mind until he heard a low whisper.

“Nice to see you’re doing well…” Tokuda started, turned, and glanced up from his laptop. “Static.”

Kaminari stopped dead in his tracks.

Oh, fuck.

The blonde promptly turned on his heels and seated himself on the dining table chair across from the reporter, dropping his smile when his back was completely turned away from his friends.

“First things first, never call me that name ever again. And second, you do fucking remember me.” Kaminari’s exterior seemed calm but on the inside there was a shit storm in session. “Let me get straight to the point, why are you here? We both know it’s not about the damn dorms.”

“Contrary to what idea you may have concocted in your head, I’m not here for you.” Tokuda smiled back and sat straighter in his chair. “Shocking, I know. But now that I do have you here, would you like to stay and chat?”

“Is that really a choice?” Kaminari ran a hand through his hair and looked the reporter dead in the eyes.

“Yes, you can choose to leave as long as you’re okay with me leaking a certain image.” Kaminari’s face deadpanned, he could’ve just said no.

“Figures.” The blonde sighed and set his 3DS that he’d been carrying, his water bottle, and the water bottle he was getting for Bakugou onto the table. “What did you want to chat about?”

“Nothing in particular, but what one thing I am wondering is how you, of all people, ended up at UA. Cause last time I checked you were an underground ass-” Kaminari quickly cut the reporter off.

“As you probably don’t know I came here to amend and try to atone for my past. Okay? Simple as that.” The blonde kept it clear and concise, no need for small talk.

“Care to elaborate?” Kaminari’s hands were in tense fists, but he kept them hidden in his lap. He had to exercise restraint, his classmates were here and he didn’t want to cause a scene, despite how punchable the reporter’s face was.

Since he wasn’t trying to give out his whole life story, the blonde simply responded with. “Let’s say I had a change of heart. I’m no longer with… them.”

“Well I know that much.” Tokuda said matter of factly. “Imagine my surprise when I got word that you had escaped and of the subsequent breakouts that you inspired.”

“Breakouts? What breakouts?” Kaminari furrowed his brows, as far as he knew, he was the only one that had gotten out.

“You didn’t hear?” The reporter asked with the raise of a brow. “There were a handful of members that followed in your footsteps, I don’t think all of them succeeded but I know a couple did. I’m just not sure of their true identities. I only know their code names, if they were ever granted one.”

“How did I not know?” The blonde muttered to himself, maybe he needed to find new sources. “Who are the ones you know got out?”

“Information comes at a price. How about you scratch my back and then I’ll scratch yours?” Tokuda’s proposition wasn’t really a proposition if Kaminari couldn’t deny it. “How about I ask a question and you answer honestly then vice versa? This will be a great way to build trust in our blooming partnership.”

“P-Partnership, who the hell said we were going to be partners?” Kaminari stuttered. What the hell was this guy spouting about?

“I did. I don’t like having to resort to black mail to get my information, but if need be I will.” The reporter pulled his laptop closer to himself, seemingly getting ready to take notes.

“Fine, what would you like to know?” Kaminari smiled but the strain was evident.

“I asked you this before and your answer was unsatisfactory.” Kaminari ground his teeth in annoyance at the statement. “Why are you really at UA? I can hardly believe that after years lurking in the shadows as a, y’know, you want to step into the spotlight as a hero. It’s awfully suspicious that the class that is being repeatedly attacked by a villain group also houses someone like you.”

Someone like him.  Kaminari did not appreciate what the guy was insinuating.

“Just because I may have certain connections doesn’t mean I’d ever betray my friends.” The blonde dropped his murderous tone and decided to lift the mood a bit, but the passive aggressiveness was still evident. “Yet in a way you’re right, I didn’t think I’d end up at UA either. But if I become a hero I can take Proj- them, I can take them down for good. Okay my turn, what are the names of the possible escapees?”

“You really waste no time, don’t you.” Tokuda huffed but continued when he met Kaminari’s stone cold glare. “Well I only know two with actual names: Aphrodite and Earthquake. The others were numbers: 001, 014, 007, 019, 020.”

The blonde quickly memorized the details before nodding in understanding.

“My turn. How do you plan on defeating Project Beta, exactly? That’s a hefty obstacle to overcome.” Tokuda cocked his head to the side in genuine curiosity.

“Once I build connections in the Pro Hero industry I can get a trustworthy team to raid their headquarters.” The blonde explained how this was the safest bet. He could build his strength and technique over time until he was ready and would only strike then.

“You know where that is? I have been trying to track that down for years to no avail.” The reporter leaned forward and asked in a rushed whisper.

“Hold up, my question first.” Kaminari smirked when Tokuda let out an exasperated sigh. “How did you end up taking that picture of me? And I don’t mean by your quirk, I know that much, how did you catch me at that exact moment?”

“Well, I was trying to ask your target, Mr. G, a question about his business.” Tokuda seemed unhappy when talking about Kaminari’s past target’s profession. “But he was always surrounded by rich folks or body guards that I couldn’t get close. When I heard he was at a ramen shop all alone I just had to make my way over there. I was about to take a shortcut through an alleyway when I saw you pointing it.. at his head.”

“Oh.” So it was just by circumstance, the reporter was not actively searching for Kaminari as he had feared. “You could’ve reported me to the authorities. You’re a witness, or an accomplice, it depends on how you see it. ”

“And you’re a victim.” Kaminari blinked at that last word. “I will admit I was shocked to see a tween doing such a deed, but I wasn’t going to rat out a kid whose story I knew nothing about. It did help me confirm my suspicions about the existence of a certain organization, though. I guess you could say it was morally wrong to take the picture and to instead warn your target. But technically I’m legally innocent and your mark would’ve had a fate worse than death if I had my way with him. Okay, now back to my question: do you know the location of their HQ?”

Uhh, Kaminari decided to overlook that second to last sentence.

“Well, not exactly, I plan to figure that out along the way.” Unfortunately, he actually didn’t know where the exact location was. The blonde would always be dropped off and picked up in motels, gas stations, alleyways, and other such places via automobile. The windows were either painted black or tinted to allow zero visibility because Kaminari never once figured out the true location of Project Beta’s headquarters. “You said you were going to contact me again but that never happened, what’s up with that?”

“Oh, that’s simple, the number was compromised. I mean I could’ve just contacted you with a new number but I had other affairs to deal with at the time. I was going to touch base with you eventually, especially after your national television debut at the UA Sports Festival, but lucky me, I ran into you here.” Tokuda shrugged at the happy coincidence, Kaminari did not.

“Lucky you.” The blonde said monotonously. “Wait, you knew I was attending school here? You said that you didn’t visit 1A for me, who are you here for then?”

“Don’t worry it’s nothing illegal.” Kaminari wasn’t worried about that before, but now he was. “You know All for One?”

“Yeah, of course.” The blonde nodded, a little confused on where this was going. “He’s that huge underground villain who forced All Might into retirement.”

“I believe one of your classmates may have a special connection to him.” Tokuda said plainly but that piqued Kaminari’s interest even more.

“Wait, who?” The blonde swiftly inquired.

“Nobody you need to worry your little head about.” The reporter smirked. Kaminari realized he wasn’t going to get a definite answer and reluctantly let the subject drop. “Now you asked more than one question, so I get to ask multiple questions too.”

“Yeah, okay.” Kaminari grumbled.

“Why not attack sooner? You attend UA, the most prestigious hero school in the nation, why not assemble a team now?” Good question, technically Kaminari could strike now but he had his reasons to wait.

“Well for one, I’m not qualified, there’s still a long way for me to improve my skills in order to defeat them.” He wasn’t tirelessly training on his own for nothing. “And for two, there’s no guarantee that the heroes will believe me right now, and if they do I could just end up arrested, wasting even more time. I should build up my credibility and gather more information first before I launch a full scale attack.”

“Hmm, interesting, but it sounds like you’re the one stopping yourself. To my knowledge you were the best of the best, you escaped and still haven’t been attacked since.” Tokuda put his hand on his chin while gazing up at the ceiling.

“Well..” Kaminari looked down at his lap.

“Well what?” The reporter shot his gaze back down at the blonde.

“I wouldn’t say I haven’t been attacked…” Kaminari knew he probably shouldn’t be disclosing this information but he’d admit, it was nice to discuss these issues with someone for once. And so far it didn’t seem like Tokuda was going to reveal secrets and information for no reason.

“When?” Tokuda demanded an answer while adjusting his glasses.

“Do you remember that sniper attack a while ago?” Kaminari grimaced, he did not like remembering the fact that he put his friends in danger and had actually harmed them.

“That was Project- that was them?” Tokuda was wide eyed and returned to typing furiously on his laptop. “I should’ve known. That incident felt different from all those other League of Villain attacks.”

“I mean there’s no concrete evidence, but I know it was them.” Just talking about this was making Kaminar’s blood boil. “They attacked my friends and that is not okay.”

“I think this is all the more reason you should attack now. You have the skills and you could gather the right people to support you, the only holding you back is you.” The reporter stopped typing and made eye contact with Kaminari to drive his point in.

“What?!” Kaminari was so flabbergasted that he stood up from his seat. The blonde quickly looked around and spotted the Bakusquad on the couches looking curiously his way before quickly sitting back down. What the hell was Tokuda talking about? He couldn’t go up against Project Beta yet. Not now at least, he needed time to prepare. Prepare for what? Well that was still a mystery. “I think I just need time to figure things out.”

“I think you are a scared child suffering from trauma.” Tokuda’s execution of that very heavy statement was way too blunt. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s not your fault, but since you have accumulated the power to stop them I believe you should. The longer you wait, the more kids fall victim to their abuse.”

Kaminari sat shocked, wide eyed, and mouth agape. He didn’t notice his breathing gradually begin to pick up because he lost himself to his thoughts.

What? Was he afraid? No way.

He just, he just needed some more time to prepare.

More time to be strong enough to face them.

To face him.

Kaminari gripped his hands into such tight fists that if he applied any more pressure he would've drawn blood.

He wasn’t scared, he was just-

The blonde held his breath until the realization hit him.

Oh.

He let out a small huff.

Tokuda hit the nail right on the goddamn head.

He wasn’t scared, he was terrified.

His jaw tightened and his eyes gave an unrelenting gaze at his fists sitting on wooden table in front of him.

Kaminari didn’t, never, wanted to admit that he wasn’t ready. He wanted to pretend he was strong for just a little longer. Live in the little bubble he made, safe with all his friends.

That was not reality though, because his bubble had been popped years ago, ever since he was abducted.

And like Tokuda mentioned, there were literal babies going down the same path and they all deserved be saved, to see the outside world, to be a kid. The image of that Korean speaking toddler popped into Kaminari’s mind. There were children losing their innocence as Kaminari wallowed in fear.

He couldn’t just sit here being petrified, he’d just have to suck up his trauma until after the fight was over. That was how heroes roll, right?

And he wanted to be a hero, to save those who needed saving.

Heroes put other peoples' needs over their own, no matter the cost.

So who cared if he was scared, there were kids who needed saving even though they didn’t know they even needed it in the first place.

“How do you recommend I take them down?” Kaminari’s breathing evened out a bit as he brought his eyes back up at Tokuda. His hands slowly released their death grip on themselves and relaxed onto the table.

“Well, I think you should start by cutting off their dealers. Take down the child trafficking organizations first, then take out HQ, because while you figure out where the base is located no more children will be taken by them.” Tokuda explained while eying Kaminari up and down, the reporter looked a little worried.

“And how would I do that, if I have no idea what exact organizations deal with such a trade?” He knew of different underground groups but the specific business that each dealt with was difficult to completely memorize. And there was definitely no way Project Beta would leak the organizations they worked with to their lowly employees, correction, assassins.

“Lucky for you I have a compiled spreadsheet of all underground organizations, I’ll just write down the one you will need to face.” Tokuda clicked and typed a bit on his computer before he reached for a small brown moleskin notebook beside his laptop. He ripped out a sheet and scribbled some words down. “Fortunately, with the fall of the Hassaikai, one of the three child trafficking organizations that they use crumbled while the remaining two merged together. This means you will only have to attend one child auction to cut off Proj- their supplies.”

The piece of paper was folded and pushed across the table.

On it read the name: Luxuria Importat

Kaminari wasn’t fluent in Latin but knew enough to translate the name as “Luxury Imports.” It stung to know that literal children were being traded as goods.

But also, the name was not unique at all. Similar to how the League of Villains were called the League of Villains, these underground organizations knew no creativity.

“T-Thank you.” Kaminari was a little confused at Tokuda’s benevolence, he was still being blackmailed here. “Why are you helping me?”

“Because through this conversation I realized our goals are aligned and that we both could use an ally in this fight. More you than me though.” Tokuda shrugged nonchalantly but Kaminari wouldn’t deny that he felt a little better knowing there was someone he could talk to about this.

But he still had his qualms talking to basically a stranger about this. “Why should I trust you?”

“Honestly, you shouldn’t. I am still technically blackmailing you.” Kaminari deadpanned, at least Tokuda admitted it. “But as my reputation precedes me, I plan on exposing as many corrupt groups or people as I can in my lifetime and after it.”

“After?” What the hell could he do after he died?

“Well, in the case of my highly probable untimely demise I have a list of several articles, images, documents, you name it, to be released in the wake of my death.” Tokuda smirked as Kaminari felt a chill go down his spine. “And if you still decide to betray me after I have been so nice as to give you information to reach your goal, I will gladly add you to that list.”

“Noted.” The blonde gulped.

“But if you stay on my good side then I can promise your name safe passage through the jungle that is the media. Because if you really take them down, news of it will be widespread. And I can paint a picture that leaves you with as little consequences as possible.” That.. actually didn't sound so bad.

“Hmmm.” Kaminari never expected his operation to leave him scratch free, but if he could get an influential reporter on his side he could mitigate the damages.

“I suggest you start making moves somewhat soon though because my leads are highly tentative.” The reporter advised. “And when you do start making progress all I ask is that you give me some updates, leaks if you will, on what is happening on the inside. Ever since I’ve confirmed Pr- their existence I’ve always wanted to take them down. Does it sound like a deal?”

“Deal.” Kaminari gave a slight nod then contemplated something for a moment before leaning forward and whispering even quieter than before. “Can I show you something? If you truly keep up your end of the bargain I can give you a never before revealed method to confirm if someone is a member or not.”

“What, that’s possible?” Tokuda moved forward a bit.

“Yes, but it only works for the older members, the younger ones don’t get them until later. Here, look.” Kaminari did a quick scan of his surroundings before he used his right hand to lift down his lower lip to expose a hidden tattoo then quickly concealed it again.

“Is that a tattoo? Can I take a picture?” The reporter was typing something onto his laptop at a high speed. “All of you have that?”

“No, you cannot take a picture, at least not yet. You can once everything is all said and done.” The blonde explained. “And not all have them, just the older ones that survive.”

“Why are you showing me this?” Tokuda whispered, sounding grateful yet perplexed.

“As a show of good faith.” Kaminari was definitely taking a risk revealing this information but if he was “partner up” with his guy he should extend his kindness at least. It seemed to work because Tokuda let out a small huff then a smile. “Now back to the business at hand, how am I supposed to contact you? Your old number was compromised, remember?”

Tokuda took back the piece of paper he had written on earlier from Kaminari’s hands and scribbled something new on it before passing it back. “Here, memorize this number, put it into some burner phone, or do whatever you choose. Just keep me posted and in turn I’ll give you all the information I acquire that is applicable to your goal.”

Kaminari realized he was probably being used for information but in a way he was doing the same.

“One last question though.” Tokuda nodded at the blonde’s request. “Why do you do it? Why do you go out of your way to uncover and expose all these people? I mean you even go as far to use your real name, why? Is it for fame or something?”

“Oh far from it. There are plenty of villains who deserve that title and many who do not.” Tokuda nodded towards Kaminari. “Someone’s gotta differentiate between the good, the bad, and the grey in between. If not me, then who?”

Kaminari blinked, maybe this guy wasn’t so bad after all.

“And I use my real name cause it’s more fun that way. The thrill of being chased by and toying with mob bosses, gangsters, or ex-convicts is exhilarating, don’t you think?” Okay, maybe he was a little insane. The blonde couldn’t say he particularly enjoyed being hunted down, he was often the one who did the hunting, but he guessed he could see the fun in a good chase.

“Huh, okay then. I’ll only go along with this as long as you keep your word to never release that image.” Kaminari outstretched his hand.

“As a show of good faith, I’ll agree to that.” Tokuda let out a small smile and shook the other’s hand. After the two released the reporter looked past the blonde to greet someone behind Kaminari. “You should stop staring. Take a picture, it'll last longer.”

“Ha, you would know.” Kaminari snorted at his own joke as he turned to see who Tokuda was speaking to. “Oh, hey Bakugou.”

“How long does it take to get a goddamn water bottle.” The explosive blonde snatched the unopened bottle off the table but narrowed his eyes at the piece of paper in Kaminari’s hand. “What were you guys yapping about anyways?”

Wait.

Kaminari’s heart rate began to speed up a little.

Bakugou was behind him. A feet or so away but that was sitll in earshot.

They were whispering the entire time, though.

So he probably didn't catch what they were saying right?

And even so, it can’t have been much. The ash blonde was already probably maybe possibly losing his hearing due to his quirk, so he couldn’t have heard a lot.

Besides, Kaminari would've noticed Bakugou's overbearing presence if the guy was actually watching them for a prolonged period of time.

So he couldn't have overheard them.

Right?

“Ah, he just wanted to interview the funniest student in 1A, that’s all.” Kaminari gave himself a pat on the back for that smooth lie. He also examined the ash blonde to see if he was looking at Kaminari or the reporter in suspicion. Thankfully nothing seemed out of the ordinary... right?

“You? Funny?" Bakugou deadpanned. Okay, rude but if Kaminari was getting roasted maybe the ash blonde didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

“Well, it seems I have everything I need to know, thank you.” Tokuda smiled at Bakugou’s remark and began to pack up his belongings into his bag. “I just have one more person to talk to before I head out, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Okay, thank you for your time.” Kaminari waved goodbye, feigning sadness at the fact that the reporter was leaving but on the inside he felt a great sense of relief wash over him. Just because they cleared the air a bit doesn't mean he was buddy buddy with him yet, so toodles motherfucker.

Bakugou grunted and gave a small downward nod to say goodbye.

The two blondes watched the reporter sling his messenger bag on his arm and exit the dorms. He noticed that Tokuda began to talk to someone outside. Kaminari couldn’t make out who, but he left it as is, he had to deal with Bakugou for now.

“Did you happen to overhear anything Tokuda-san or I said?” The electric blonde needed to be sure that Bakugou didn’t catch anything.

“No, I don’t eavesdrop dumbass.” Bakugou’s blunt answer quelled Kaminari’s nerves for a moment. See, he didn’t hear anything, it was all in his head.

“What’s that?” The ash blonde jutted out his chin to point towards the paper the other was holding.

“Oh nothing.” Kaminari crumpled the piece of paper to hide it further in his hand. “Just a doodle.”

Bakugou furrowed his brows at the empty response and was about to speak up again until he was interrupted.

“Well, I better get back to studying.” Kaminari got up from his seat, effectively ending the conversation while grabbing his water bottle and 3DS in the process. “You should go help the others out, see ya.”

Kaminari realized that that was a pathetic excuse to leave but he didn’t want to have to lie to his friends any more than he already was. And he also had a lot of research ahead of him.

On the bright side he already did his homework, so he didn’t have to worry about that, well he never worried about it anyways but that’s besides the point. Now he could spend all night figuring out how to take the first true step in taking Project Beta down.

Kaminari took the elevator up this time while staring at the crumpled piece of paper in his hands. He read the same words and numbers over and over to ingrain them into his head. He could do this, he had to do this.  And now he had information and a push to take the first steps towards concocting a plan outside simply raiding Project Beta’s base.

He also had names of possible escapees. Unfortunately, this information was rendered useless because Kaminari did not have access to the organization’s database to figure out the true identities of those who fled and there was no guarantee that they’d even help him in his fight. The blonde closed his dorm door behind him as he entered his room. He had heard of some of them before and was somewhat familiar with what their quirks might be, but unless he ran into them in person, contacting them would be a waste of energy.

Also, Kaminari still had to figure out a way to convince the heroes to believe his story and not subsequently arrest him. And if he could get the power of the press on his side, maybe, just maybe he could actually take Project Beta down.

Yes, he had come up with plans, hundreds of ideas of how to wipe out the organization, but even though it pained the blonde to admit it, Tokuda was right. He always gave some sort of excuse to push off his assault into the future. It was comical honestly because after tireless bouts of training, when it really mattered, when his life and the lives of those around him were really in danger, Kaminari was too much of a coward to strike.

Though, now with the help of this nosy reporter he was finally taking steps, albeit they were those of a baby, towards progress. No longer were the days of wishful dreaming, now was the time for action.

Yet the question still lingers, is Tokuda Taneo a friend or foe?

Only time will tell.

Chapter Text

Big Booty Bitches.

Perfection. 

The variety of poses, outfits (or lack thereof), lighting, and models utilized in that magazine were absolutely immaculate. 

A 10/10 if Mineta says so himself.

Actually said purple headed boy was currently descending down the elevator to retrieve that very porno. Two weeks ago he had so graciously lent it to Kaminari and the blonde has yet to return it.

So this man, err- teen, err- boy was on a mission: to get back that magazine. 

He wasn’t mad per se, he understood the power and appeal that said porno encompassed. But right now he was itching for the sweet sweet release that could only be acquired by flipping through the beautiful pages of Big Booty Bitches . And technically it was rightfully his, so he saw no problem in taking it back. As the elevator door opened and was accompanied by a light ding , Mineta scurried towards Kaminari’s door and knocked.

He waited for a few seconds and… nothing.

The purple boy was only met with silence. Mineta tried again, hoping for any kind of response, but soon realized that Kaminari just wasn’t in his dorm. 

The boy rolled his eyes, “Ugh, how annoying.”

The blonde was probably working out with Bakugou, Kirishima, Sero, and the body goddess Ashido. Mineta reached up to twist the doorknob but it only jiggled in place.

Damn, the door was locked too. 

Now Mineta may have been troubled that only a door blocked him from reuniting with his beloved. He could’ve ran off and cried in some girl’s boobs but he was stronger than that, he was better than that (kind of). This boy had already prepared for this unlucky turn of events and reached into his pocket to whip out his spare key to Kaminari’s bedroom.

Now as to why Mineta had a spare key, well the purple balled boy didn’t really know why himself. Weirdly, when the class first moved into the dorms Kaminari had given him, and some other choice classmates, a spare key to his room and specified that it was only to be used for emergencies. So far nobody ever had to use the spares and the blonde never specified what specifically constituted an emergency, but regardless Mineta figured his dire situation was eligible. 

Truth be told, Mineta himself had an open-door policy for all guys, gals, or nonbinary pals, though oddly none of the females ever showed up, who wanted to borrow his pornos. He even went as far as to give out his free porno expertise. 

In the end though, just a few classmates took him up on the offer and Kaminari was his only returning customer. The blonde even went so far as to welcome himself into Mineta’s room to pick up a magazine or two when the latter was out. Thus this teen felt he was granted the same courtesy.

So the purple headed boy used his handy dandy key to unlock the door. He flicked on the lights and silently tip-toed inside trying not to disturb the “organized” mess that was Kaminari’s room. How the blonde functioned in such a disorderly atmosphere was beyond Mineta, he himself had all his pornos alphabetically organized and in pristine condition. Cause damn, it was getting harder and harder to get physical magazines in this growing digital age. 

Kaminari’s room was littered with clothes, books, games, tissues ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), and junk food. For lack of better words the room was repulsing. Looking at the chaos in front of him Mineta was disgusted by the disrespect Kaminari was giving his belongings. He was further terrified at the idea that his Big Booty Bitches magazine could be stained, crinkled, or god forbid, torn . This porno was only ever released to the dedicated patrons of Br ass ers Co., which Mineta obviously was, and was thus extremely hard to come by.

Mineta hastily began his search, partly motivated by the fear of losing his golden magazine and partly because he was horny. First, he checked all the pornos that were currently strewn across the floor. There were some efforts on Kaminari’s end to conceal them but honestly they weren’t that well hidden. When the purple headed boy couldn’t find his beloved porno he moved on to the desk drawers, doing a quick flip through all the paperwork crammed into them. Then he combed through the clothing drawers, checking in between all the pieces of jeans, hoodies, and shirts thrice just to be sure. 

Despite the rampant search, Mineta made sure to put Kaminari’s stuff back where they belonged, or… roughly close enough. The blonde’s room was a mess anyways, so hopefully he wouldn’t notice.

But he was getting nowhere! Mineta knew the mind of a teenage boy like the back of his hand because god dammit he was one! And he was well aware of all the sneaky little tricks they did to hide their porn or other such paraphernalia. Yet after searching for what seemed to be hours in vain, though in reality it was a good twenty minutes, Mineta was ready to accept defeat. 

“Where is it?!” The boy said in an exasperated whisper.

A single tear was ready to fall down his face as he plopped onto the bed. But before Mineta had to quell his would-be boner, he had an epiphany!

The bed! An imaginary light bulb lit up above his head like a Sims Plumbomb. 

Oh, he was a fool! 

He should’ve checked the mattress first, it’s literally one of the most obvious places for a teenager to hide something! Reinvigorated with investigative spirit, Mineta quickly searched underneath the mattress. He couldn’t lift it that high so he just stuck his right hand under and hoped for the best.

The teen steeled his nerves against the risks of terrible papercuts as his hand grazed some loose pieces of paper. But he soon realized his stubby arms were too short to reach under the mattress entirely. Desperate, the purple balled boy sucked in a large gulp of air and dove under head first leaving only his feet dangling outside of the bed. 

(If he was a little more sane and a little more horny than he already was he would’ve realized he was definitely in a “Help me, Stepbro!” position.)

Fortunately for him he was too determined for such a heinous thought to cross his mind and continued to rummage under the bed for another minute. But as time went on he slowly lost hope… and oxygen. 

Blind and bitter Mineta gradually lost his newfound momentum. Was this it? Was there really no finding his beautiful Big Booty Bitches?! All he gained under the mattress were papercuts and broken dreams. But just before he was about to call it quits his hand brushed against a familiar sturdy and laminated cover of a magazine.

Perhaps… could this be Big Booty Bitches?!   

Mineta firmly gripped around the binding and wedged his way out from underneath the bed, taking in a huge gasp of air when finally freed from the weight of the mattress. But it didn’t matter that he almost suffocated because there in his hands was his beloved Big Booty Bitches .

The teen hugged the magazine to his chest and examined the state of its condition, quite relieved to see that for the most part it was in tip top shape. It still showed signs of wear and tear but at least it was intact. Only when he was reunited with his one true love, did the purple boy finally notice the mess of papers he made as he pried himself from the confines of the mattress.

He set his magazine down on Kaminari’s bed and picked up those stray pieces of paper and returned them to their rightful place… by quickly shoving them under the mattress. For the most part the papers looked like they were worksheets from class, loose leaf papers, or singular pieces of porno. 

And after a minute or so of “successfully” cramming the papers under the bed Mineta patted himself on the back for a cover up well done. He was almost ready to leave when he spotted one last piece of paper poking out from underneath the mattress and he, being the nice guy that he is, decided to go back and fully bury it under the bed.

The final piece of paper, he noticed, was a little different from the others he encountered. On further inspection it looked like a folded up piece of newspaper, the only thing visible being a blank crossword puzzle.

Ooo, was there a hottie in the newspaper? Mineta plucked the paper back from under the bed to satiate his own curiosity. He set his magazine on the mattress, unfolded the newspaper, and flipped it around only to find a headline that stated “Couple Found Mutilated in Apartment, Murderer Still on the Loose”.

Mineta blinked. He flipped the paper back around.

The teen squinted his eyes in suspicion. Hmm, weird… there was no babe in sight. 

The purple boy furrowed his brow and examined the ominous headline on the other side once more. Mineta huffed, why the hell did Kaminari even have this newspaper if there was no hot chick to ogle? It was disturbing to say the least and was definitely souring his mood. Blood and gore wasn’t really something that helped his hard on if he was being honest. Though he wouldn’t judge if it helped someone else’s, if you know what he means… wink, wink. Haha… 

Okay, back to the newspaper in hand the only visual provided was truly a let down. It was just a blurred out image of the couple referred to in the headline. And even though the faces were censored the disturbing carnage was still evident. There were no names provided, probably to respect the victims’ privacy, but what caught Mineta’s attention was their hair.

One had dark black hair, cool cool cool.

The other had a head of vibrant yellow, the vibrancy kind of reminded him of Kaminari’s blonde locks.

Oh, and the one with yellow hair even had a black streak going down their head, somewhat resembling Kaminari’s hair once again.

“What a funny coincidence.” Mineta blinked. 

“Whatever.” The teen shrugged, he didn’t really know why Kaminari even had this newspaper in the first place and frankly he didn’t care . It was his friend’s business not his and he was starting to feel a bit of guilt in his stomach for finding this article. To be honest, the purple headed boy just wanted to go back to his room and get bus ayy with Big Booty Bitches . And he was about to shove, or rather gently place, the article under the bed when he paused. 

Something about this newspaper caught his attention for a reason. Mineta shrugged, it couldn’t hurt to just skim the article, right? 

After half a second of thoughtful deliberation Mineta figured it would probably be fine since Kaminari wouldn’t be back for a while anyways. Mineta laid on Kaminari’s bed, the head of the bed on his right and Big Booty Bitches on his left and he began to read. 

And he read the paper not once, not twice, but thrice. The only emotion that he felt afterwards was confusion and a growing sense of dread. “Why does Kaminari even have this?” Mineta plopped his back on Kaminari’s mattress and pondered. “This is weird and kinda creepy to be honest…”

Cause who the fuck keeps a newspaper article about some dead couple from over a decade ago? The boy gathered that maybe his blonde buddy had some hyper specific kink. Though using a real magazine about a dead couple was a little extreme (and high key immoral) even for Mineta’s standards. Or maybe Kaminari was just into murder and crime with no kinky shit included. Well they are training to be a hero he mused. 

“Does he like trying to solve old cases?” Mineta did a quick scan of the room for anything indicating an interest in criminology but saw nothing. “Or maybe not…? I mean he’s not the brightest person I’ve ever met.”

Looking back at the newspaper Mineta picked out some keywords that called out to him such as, “Dead couple.” or “Kidnapped baby.” and even a “Missing Persons Report.” The teen turned to his left side and continued to stare at the newspaper in front of him. Deep in his gut he felt like this article was significant somehow but he just couldn’t connect the dots, like it was on the tip of his tongue. He stuck his arms straight out, rotated the newspaper 45° to the right, tilted it back just a bit, then squinted his eyes, hoping that looking at the article from a literal new perspective would unlock its deep dark mysteries. 

“Argh.” Mineta huffed and turned on his back, he didn’t really care about whatever this, he shook the newspaper in hand, was. The teen then side eyed his Big Booty Bitches magazine, he already had plans for today anyways.

The purple headed boy rolled, literally rolled, out of Kaminari’s bed and was about to put the newspaper back under the mattress when he picked out one final keyword, “Electric quirk users.”

“Ha, like Kaminari?” Mineta blurted out his speculation before properly thinking. “Electric quirk users…?” 

Kaminari…?

Mineta’s head started to throb in frustration. Why would- if this even had something to do with Kaminari then that would just open up a whole new, weird and confusing he might add, can of worms. Yet something in the back of his mind made him think twice, made him question his friend…

“Hahaha!” The purple boy laughed, abruptly cutting off his thoughts. “Now that would be actually crazy. There’s just no way.”

This was probably just some big joke or a random newspaper article that Kaminari just so happened to store right underneath his bed… As Mineta laughed the teen felt his sense of dread grow in his stomach again and as he was getting ready to leave he paused.

“Lemme just…” The purple boy took out his phone from his back pocket and snapped a couple pictures of the article… just in case. Just in case for what? He wasn’t so sure. 

But simply the idea of this article actually having any sort of connection to Kaminari was comical. There was no way. It almost made Mineta burst out laughing again thinking about it. And after another minute of just staring at the newspaper article, when he finally somewhat satiated his curiosity, the purple headed teen softly re-folded and placed the paper back underneath the mattress. 

Mineta picked up and stared at his porno, he was happy to be reunited but he just felt… odd right now, not as horny too which was even weirder. The teen sighed as he began to quietly shuffle out of the blonde’s room and locked the door with a soft click behind him. Even with Big Booty Bitches in hand he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. 

As he made it down the hallway a question lingered in his head: Did Kaminari know those people in the article?

Mineta shook his head, trying to stop questioning his friend. The blonde would have told him if something was up, right? Or maybe he told someone else already and is worrying for nothing. Worrying for what? He wasn’t quite sure. He took one last glance at Kaminari’s door before stepping into the elevator. He hugged his beloved porno to help quell the uneasiness in his stomach but it was to no avail. In the back of his mind, Mineta was sure he discovered something he shouldn’t have, he just couldn’t admit it to himself yet.

The teen clicked the 2nd floor button and watched the elevator door close with a ding . For now he decided to save this information for later. Whenever that would be.

… 

Worked out? Check.

Worked out again? Check.

Ate at least three meals? Check.

Finished homework and studied? Check.

Dusted and polished every single All Might figurine displayed in his dorm? Check.

Splendid!

Midoriya nodded through his mental to-do list, his chin resting in the crook between his thumb and pointer finger as his hand made a finger gun pose. This was a productive Saturday if he said so himself. As he sat down at his desk he checked the time on his phone and saw that it was around 9pm, meaning that it was finally time to spend the night in his favorite way: 

By adding to his hero research journals!

This was his time to binge newspaper articles, watch Youtube videos, stalk Instagram or Twitter accounts, and so much more! Midoriya cracked his knuckles and stretched out his hands toward the ceiling. He turned on his laptop, cracked open a can of Red Bull, laid out all his stationary, and flipped his blue Kokuyo Campus notebook to a fresh page. It was time to commence his tried and true Six Step Saturday Night Bonanza!

Step one was, of course, to scour every single newspaper site for all the new articles posted or the ones he had missed or accidentally overlooked. He would gain insight on up and coming sidekicks, heroes, agencies, and villains. And he could fill in any new information regarding heroes already included in his research journals.

Step two shifted his focus from reading to watching as he caught up on all the new YouTube videos covering current events, heroes, villains, etc. It also provided him with a visual of new hero moves and tactics that he would happily illustrate in his notebook alongside the new information he’d gotten from step one. 

Step three was… to repeat steps one and two to his heart's content. This could range from thirty minutes to a couple hours. Tonight he planned for it to last a couple hours. 

Step four was to truly study the new notes he took. He analyzed the new heroes and hero moves that recently debuted. He took into account how their quirks helped them form new tactics and then hypothesized how he could incorporate that information into his own strategies while sometimes getting up every now and then to mimic those moves. Despite only having his quirk for just a small amount of time it made Midoriya feel like a kid when he realized he too, was on his way to be a hero. He became giddy at the fact that could finally apply these tactics he’s been dreaming of to himself. 

Step five was probably one of his favorites. Probably- oh but then again finding out new information during steps one and two was always exciting. And it was always fun to get up and shadow different hero moves in step four. Oh and back to step one– Midoriya cut himself off. He needed to stay focused because this next step required his undivided attention. Step five, also one of the most important steps Midoriya might add, was to fanboy. Plain and simple. Fanboy over what? Well fanboy over hero pictures, hero videos, and even… hero fan art. This is not to say Midoriya wasn't a fanboy in all the other steps but this, this was the dedicated time he put aside to properly fanboy, okay? Let a boy live! This was his scheduled time block to freak out over costume modifications, legendary team ups, insane ultimate moves, and more! In public he contained himself, kind of, but when he was in the privacy of his own room he let himself be free of judgmental glances, snide remarks, or his friends’ very concerned expressions. And after an hour or so of Red Bull energized happiness Midoriya would finally somehow calm down and move onto… 

Step six. Now this step was only for very late nights filled with much delirium. Midoriya stretched back in his chair and checked the clock for the first time since he embarked on his Six Step Bonanza. It was 2:38 am. Perfect , he was sufficiently sleep deprived and high on life (and Red Bull) to continue on. To be honest this was rare, Midoriya didn’t really get to step six all the time, often passing out from exhaustion at his desk. The teen turned in his chair to crack his back, rolled his neck a couple times, blinked at his dry eyes shut, and breathed in deeply, mentally preparing for what’s to come. Midoriya slowly opened his eyes, took a good ol’ swig of Red Bull, and popped in some eye drops for good measure. It was time to deep dive into Reddit. 

Now Reddit was amazing, it provided so many *ahem* opinions. The amount of information and personal anecdotes posted on the website were insane. It was a treasure trove of knowledge for hero fanatics like him. Now Midoriya didn’t go on here all that much because he would often acquire enough new knowledge regarding current events from steps one and two. But he couldn’t deny the fact that he loved the sense of community some of these subreddits had. It was so nice to fanboy over heroes and have someone match his energy. It was also one of the only sources where he could read the perspectives of victims who were saved, or not, by heroes and learn their side of the story. And he also got his hands on a lot of international news from Redditors who took it upon themselves to translate and summarize their country’s current events into the Japanese language, among many others. Of course he’d take everything with a grain of salt, it was Reddit anyhow, but it was nice to have an international community like that. Sure he could go to Twitter, but he preferred to keep unsavory tweets to a minimum when he wanted vanilla fun. Not to say that Reddit was perfect, but it was better for his needs and had moderators present. 

Of course, Midoriya started by checking all the new posts on r/AllMight. He then popped onto other subreddits of Pro heroes and countries but eventually decided to see what was happening on r/conspiracytheories. There was no real reason why he chose to hit up this particular subreddit but it was nearing 3:30am and his third, or was it fourth, Red Bull so he figured, why not?

Midoriya scrolled past the top upvoted posts, he’s already read them obviously, and scrolled down to find anything new and juicy. For a while it was nothing but fake posts with clickbait titles, hoaxes he’d already read about, an occasional racist meme, and nsfw gifs. But after a while the teen stumbled upon a new post that he hadn’t seen before, and he’s seen a lot. He was definitely suspicious since it had recently been uploaded and had no upvotes. And from the looks of it the post seemed wildly unrealistic, but this was r/conspiracytheories so Midoriya figured the post was relatively normal in context of the subreddit. 

The title was simple: “Project Beta.” He read a bit of the description he could see and basically the post went on to say “Project Beta is a secret organization from Japan that abducts, brainwashes, and controls children to do their bidding” and blah blah. Midoriya furrowed his brows, he was a little intrigued by the premise of the post but he was definitely a little skeptical. Just for the hell of it he clicked on the article and when it finally loaded he was bombarded with a word wall. It was a huge paragraph of information that was so lengthy it took him ten seconds to scroll to the bottom of the page.

As he skimmed the first couple sentences of the Reddit post he frowned because the post was essentially claiming that there was this organization, apparently called “Project Beta” training literal children to be what? Assassins? Midoriya scoffed, the prospect of such an organization was preposterous and wholly unfeasible. This was probably just a prank post.

“There’s no way such a thing exists.” He muttered to himself. The post even claimed that this organization lasted for decades. “The government or even the hero commission would have terminated that out by now. No way…”

Yet despite his doubts, Midoriya picked up a pen and turned to a new page in his notebook letting his curiosity get the better of him. He felt like he should be taking notes on this because either the OP had a wild imagination and insane storytelling abilities, like many on this subreddit do, or this post had some truth to it. Midoriya hoped it was the former. 

He scrolled down the page and was reminded of how long this post really was. After skimming for a couple seconds something caught his eye. Some speculations regarding an elite assassin among the organization, someone called “Static.”

“Static, like electricity?” Midoriya read the next couple sentences and found himself in awe of whoever this “Static” person was. The OP had to be exaggerating, there was no way a supposed teen could have such a high kill count. Midoriya has never even heard of him before, and he knows everyone, or tries to at least. How could this world renowned assassin fly under the radar for so long? Maybe that’s why he’s supposedly so great, he mused.

And were some of his theorized tactics even possible, like electric echolocation. What even is that? The only person he knows who also has electricity powers is Kaminari, maybe he should ask him if these moves were even feasible one day. 

As Midoriya continued to skim parts of the post he felt an overlying sense of doom close in on him. These details were oddly… specific. It tied major assassinations with this Project Beta and gave evidence, though circumstantial, to back its claims. 

Circling back to the fact that children were literally being abducted and brainwashed, Midoriya began to mutter. “Where are these kids even coming from? How were they chosen? Were they kidnapped? What happens if they don’t obey? Do they… die?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and assumed his thinking position where his chin rested in the groove of his closed right fist as his left hand supported the other’s elbow. “This has to be a hoax… but if it isn’t… no it’s just not possible. Nobody could be this, this evil.”

Yet he saved Eri from monsters of men before. The Shie Hassaikai kept a little girl trapped for their own gain, who says a well organized institution was simply a figment of imagination. Midoriya knew what humans were capable of, but deep down a part of him just didn’t want to bear witness to another instance of suffering. But to be a hero, to save, is to acknowledge the victims and the sheer volume of vice that plague the world and despite it, triumph.

Midoriya's gut wrenched as felt himself begin to spiral and murmur to himself. “I would have known about this. The heroes would have to have known about this. If and only if this organization is real, how has it lasted this long?” The teen’s ears started to ring as he delved deeper into thought. “And why is it being posted on Reddit? Maybe it’s fake and I don’t have anything to worry about. Or maybe it’s real. But this is Reddit though so maybe it’s all a hoax for someone else’s agenda or twisted enjoyment. Who is even posting this? And who is this Static person and how—” 

Midoriya’s head throbbed as he kept thinking and he would’ve gone on like this for another hour if not for his stomach which let out a disturbing growl that snapped him out of his stupor. Physically shaken by his stomach’s groan he glanced at the clock and realized it was already 3:44 am. From his headache to his stomach’s weird monster noises the teen realized he hadn’t consumed anything besides RedBull since dinner. 

Midoriya figured it was finally time that he took a break and rolled his chair away from the desk. He slowly stood up, taking in a deep breath and leaned backwards to stretch his back, then forwards to touch his toes, and ended with a quad stretch. He’d been in the seated position for much too long and when his stomach growled again Midoriya believed that snacks were calling his name.

Besides, he needed time away from his computer because he had a growing headache. This post gave him a lot of new, albeit theoretical, information to take in. The green haired teen softly padded towards the door, slipped on his slippers, and slowly crept out of his dorm room. He shot one last look at the Reddit post that illuminated his laptop screen before he closed the door behind him.

Midoriya quickly and quietly headed down the staircase, forgoing the elevator so he wouldn’t  make any excess noises. And anyways it was all hypothetical, Midoriya assured himself, this organization probably wasn’t even real, probably. Okay, yes this was supposed to be a break but he couldn’t stop thinking about that Reddit post. 

The teen headed over to the kitchen and opened the fridge. If this Project Beta organization was real then this Static person was more likely than not real too. Or maybe Static was this imaginary character created to fuel fear so people would buy into this hoax. He spotted some mochi and was about to grab some until he realized that Uraraka was saving those delicious ice cream bits for their after training snack next week. He closed the fridge after he snatched an apple juice box instead, he’s had too much RedBull for today. 

But hypothetically, if Static was a real person Midoriya wondered what he would be like. According to the post, Static would be around his age maybe, but Midoriya guessed that he was probably older because it seemed implausible for an elite assassin to be so young. He moved towards the pantry to raid the class’s communal snacks and after much deliberation Midoriya picked out a selection of shrimp chips, pretzels, and some sour gummies. Midoriya pulled out a cup of ramen and poured some water in an electric kettle and tried his best to remain quiet to prevent waking Aizawa-sensei up. Once the kettle was done boiling he poured the hot water into the ramen and grabbed a pair of disposable chopsticks. 

And would Static really be this cold hearted assassin the post makes him out to be? Because it just seems so sad that this hypothetical assassin who apparently never had a proper childhood, would never have had any fun. In the corner of his eye Midoriya spotted a yellow water gun lying on one of the dining room tables. Weird.

Brushing that off the green haired teen grabbed everything in his arms and proceeded to quietly return to his room. His trip downstairs cleared his mind, kind of not really, but with snacks and ramen he was ready to continue reading. When Midoriya returned to his dorm he realized that his laptop fell asleep because the only source of light in his dorm was the moon shining through the balcony doors. The teen set down his ramen, plopped his snacks onto the desk, and sat down while puncturing a straw into his apple juice box. 

Midoriya settled into his chair while clicking around on his trackpad to turn the computer back on. But in his fatigued state when the computer lit up again, he accidentally clicked the refresh button. And when Reddit reloaded an error message popped up claiming that the post no longer existed. The teen was so surprised he squeezed a bit of apple juice onto himself.

“Where did it go?!” Midoriya sat up straight in his seat and tried reloading the page again to no avail. He felt his heart rate go up as he searched the recently uploaded section of the subreddit that came up with nothing. The post was gone. It vanished. 

Midoriya hastily opened the shrimp chip bag then proceeded to grab a handful and stuff them into his mouth. He glanced at his journal, grateful that he at least took some notes. But why did the post get deleted in the first place? That was oddly suspicious. And while Midoriya hated losing information he especially couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up. 

But maybe the OP was actually lying and took down the post in the end due to a guilty conscience? Ha, that was a funny joke. It definitely could be a possibility, but Midoriya thought that felt off. In his gut he knew there had to be a different reason than a person feeling guilty about posting false information on Reddit. That was probably even more unbelievable than the original post itself. 

Or maybe… something worse happened. Someone, or something , was deleting information to cover up their tracks. Midoriya turned towards his notebook and pulled out a red sticky note to flag the page. The teen began to eat his cup ramen as he flipped through his notes. He couldn’t stand the idea of innocent children being abused, manipulated, and brainwashed to do other people’s bidding. The thought disgusted him, and if he even came across more people like that, he felt anger and sadness brew within him, he wouldn’t hold back until justice was served.

And Static. Well he seemed like an interesting character. Damn, Midoriya wished he’d read more information on him before he left to get snacks. The teen didn’t know how to feel about an assassin, especially one said to be his age. He didn’t feel angry, no he felt pitiful really.

But Midoriya was definitely getting ahead of himself. This was all just a conspiracy theory which could just turn out to be a hoax. It was still interesting to think about though but deep down Midoriya felt like this information might be important. Though as sleep started to overtake him, it was nearing 4am, the teen finished up his ramen and took some final bites of his snacks. He closed his laptop but refreshed the subreddit one last time in case the post popped up again. When it didn't, he finally turned off his computer and closed his notebook. 

He took one last look at the red sticky note that marked a page in his notebook that he didn’t realize would be so special. 

As a drowsy Midoriya migrated to his bed he murmured to himself. “Project Beta, huh?” He tucked himself under his sheets. “I’ll keep my eye on you…”

…

“Thank you for helping me…” Hagakure seemed to emote in a way that Jirou could only assume was abashed, but with the lack of a fully visible body it made things a little difficult. “I literally don’t know where my phone went! I just had it on me like… an hour ago..”

“It’s fine. This is exactly why I’m at hero school. To use my quirk to find your phone.” Jirou deadpanned but when she saw her friend’s body sag she quickly added. “Wait, I'm just kidding! I really don’t mind.”

“Haha, okay~” Hagakure knelt near her bed and started rummaging under her mattress. “But could you call it again, I think it probably stopped ringing.” 

“Is there a specific ringtone you set your calls to? It’ll help me search.” Jirou called her friend’s phone for the fourth time while plugging in her jacks in the floor next to the pink rug, where a pink table laid on top of it, which was next to a pink bed, near the window that was also pink— Wow, Jirou looked around the room and blinked a couple times, still not used to her classmates taste in decor.

“Oh yeah- ow!” Jirou turned to look back at the bed and saw Hagakure rubbing her head, supposedly after she hit it on her bed frame. Or maybe she was fixing her hair? Sometimes it was hard to tell with her. “The ringer might be off but do you know the chorus of Oops!...I did it again by Britney Spears?”

“Pfft! Obviously!” The purple haired teen could not help but laugh. Britney Spears was all the rage a some hundred years ago and while she may not be super popular now, Jirou knew her vintage musicians well. “But let’s just make this quick, you know I don’t like using my quirk in the dorms.”

Jirou already had good hearing as a default but with her earphone jacks she didn’t want to eavesdrop more than she could prevent. From picking up tid bits of private conversations to unfortunately overhearing a certain purple balled boy tending to himself in his room... Let’s just say she and Shouji bore witness to too many accidental TMIs. 

“Yeah sorry again, I know.” Hagakure scratched the back of her head in frustration. “I don’t think it’s in my room though, let’s go out to the hallway maybe.”

“Yeah yeah.” Jirou nodded as she followed her floormate outside where just minutes prior Hagakure came knocking on her door asking for assistance. 

“I promise it won’t take long.” The invisible teen assured. “Oh! Maybe it’ll be faster if we get some help? We could call Shouji—”

“Hello.” As if on cue the tall teen walked out of the elevator nonchalantly.

“Oh wow, freaky timing.. anyways! Hi Shouji, I may have misplaced my phone…” Hagakure explained and Jirou could imagine her lips pouting to the side in shame. “Jirou is helping me find it but if you’re free could you help me too? Pretty please?” 

“Yes, yes Jirou texted me for backup.” Shouji lifted his phone with his top right hand.

“Really?!” Hagakure jumped for joy. “Thank you so much! I set my ringer to-”

“Ms. Spears.” Shouji nodded and turned his phone-holding hand around to show an added ear. “I heard you on the way down.”

See this is what Jirou meant, she and Shouji both understood the blessing and curse their enhanced sense provided. Nevertheless both students continued the search for their fellow friend’s phone, heading to the common room in an attempt to retrace her steps.

When they descended into the shared lounge and kitchen Jirou spotted Ashido, Sero, and Kirishima being tutored by Bakugou on the couches. Despite his prickly exterior Jirou had a feeling that deep down Lord Explosion Murder whatever was a bit of a softie. The fact that her fellow classmates seemed to laugh while Bakugou maintained a scowl only added to that belief. 

“I don’t think the ringer is on, I would’ve pinpointed your phone by now if it was so I’ll try to hone in on the buzzing.” The purple haired teen noted to her classmates and Shouji gave her a look  of understanding, forgoing the use of words. 

“Okay, I’ll check near the couches, I think I might have left it there after class.” Hagakure nodded, Jirou assumed, and walked off towards the living area as Shouji followed behind.

Jirou pulled out her phone to call Hagakure for the upteenth time and plugged her earphone jacks into the wall as she leaned, arms crossed, next to the elevator. She listened to the different hums that came from the building: the electricity being used for their everyday appliances, water splashing in one of the shower rooms upstairs, Koda’s bunny Yuwai scurrying across his dorm. If she listened hard enough she could swear she heard someone murmuring incessantly upstairs. Midoriya, she presumed. Beneath the various sounds of life she could faintly hear a buzzing that resembled what a ringing phone would sound like. It was very quiet but she could tell it was somewhere on the ground floor. 

Taking a deep breath in and closing her eyes, Jirou tried to wash away the other noises around her and focus on where Hagakure’s phone would be. But while she tried to stop listening to the voices of those around her she couldn’t help but accidentally pick up on some hushed whispers.

“Fortunately, with the fall of the Hassaikai, one of the three child trafficking organizations that they use crumbled while the remaining two merged together. This means you will only have to attend one child auction to cut off Proj- their supplies.” An unfamiliar voice whispered.

Jirou snapped open her eyes and scanned the room as discreetly as she could. Who was that? The voice sounded older than any of her classmates and he spoke with a hint of urgency. Confusion clouded her mind when she realized the person she overheard was the reporter dude who had come earlier this morning to write an article on the new UA dorms. She had seen him stalking around taking pictures of everyone but had been too busy with her own school work to pay much attention to the man. 

What was even weirder was the fact that he was talking to Kaminari. She now noticed his absence in her friends’ study group from before. Usually he would be laughing alongside them as he trudged through his own homework but now he seemed a little jumpy as he conversed with the reporter in front of him. She noted the small piece of paper the older man passed to her blonde friend. 

“What the…?” She muttered under her breath and apparently she wasn’t the only one who noticed the oddity because she locked eyes with Shouji’s similarly perplexed expression from across the room. Fortunately, Kaminari and the reporter seemed too focused on the conversation at hand to notice the pair eyeing them. 

Kaminari opened the paper note in front of him and read it with what Jirou could only guess was a sense of solemn duty. Weird, so weird. 

Despite herself, Jirou focused her gaze to the floor and continued her eavesdropping, picking up on her friend’s words, “...helping me?”

Helping him with what? She furrowed her brows while she felt a sinking feeling pool in her stomach. She knew should not be listening in on Kaminari’s conversation but curiosity and the growing concern for the safety of her friend was getting the better of her. 

“Because through this conversation I realized our goals are aligned and that we both could use an ally in this fight. More you than me though.” The reporter alluded to a fight that Jirou could make no connection to. Was this about the League of Villains? What was this talk about allies?

And goals? What goals could he be referring to? Jirou's mind raced, she needed to hear more and waited for Kaminari’s hushed response. “Why—”

“Oops, I did it again~” The teen winced in pain as the sounds of Britney Spears filled her ears. Jirou snapped her head up towards the living room area and spotted a floating phone, with a now turned on ringer, being waved in the air near the television and the invisible body and visible clothes attached to it. 

“I found it!” She winced in pain at Hagakure’s words as she finally removed her jacks from the wall. The con of using her enhanced hearing was her painful sensitivity to loud, but for this circumstance regular, noises. 

Jirou quickly walked past the kitchen and dining area, taking half a second to glance at Kaminari and the reporter and the other half to send a look to Shouji. The masked teen dipped his head ever so slightly to acknowledge what she alluded to. They would talk later.

“Where was it?” Shouji inquired as he too moved towards the invisible girl. The three made a small circle which left Jirou and Shouji with their backs towards the dining area. Away from Kaminari’s conversation.

“It was stuck between some couch cushions.” Hagakure motioned with her phone. “I must have forgotten it when I left to do my homework earlier. Can’t believe I found it before you guys though, haha. You’re the ones with the hearing quirks!”

Jirou let out a small huff of a laugh. Yet despite Hagakure's lighthearted demeanor she couldn't stop thinking about what she just heard. Kaminari was always either in one of three modes: joking, nervous, or fried out of his mind. She'd never seen him so secretive.

“Yeah, yeah. Next time you lose your phone you can find it yourself.” Jirou rolled her eyes with a smile but while she joked she desperately wanted to look back towards the suspicious reporter. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, I think I’m good.” Hagakure said in an upbeat mood and started towards the elevator with Jirou and Shouji both in tow. “I’m probably gonna head back to my room now, thank you guys for helping! Are you heading up?” 

The elevator door dinged open and Jirou watched as floating clothes entered. “No, I might stay here for a bit so you can go on ahead.” As much as she trusted Hagakure she needed to talk about this with Shouji in private. There was no need to bring extra ears into this conversation.

Jirou waved her friend off and saw the close door button light up. She smiled but as soon as the elevator doors shut she turned right, towards her taller counterpart, and whispered, “Am I going crazy or did you hear something weird too?” 

Shouji turned towards the common area and Jirou looked where Kaminari and the reporter sat. She was tempted to plug her jacks in again but saw that Bakugou had interrupted the pair. She frowned, the conversation was over. 

“Indeed.” Shouji eyed Jirou with worry. “But I fear we may have overstepped some boundaries.”

Jirou nodded and turned to click the up elevator button. “Not on purpose though, but yeah I know. It's just, how do I say this, that reporter guy was definitely suspicious but wasn’t Kaminari acting kinda weird too? Like I guess he seemed... serious for once?”

The elevator returned to the ground floor and the pair walked inside, clicked their respective floor numbers, and waited for the doors to close before resuming their conversation. Kaminari was powerful but sometimes got nervous on the field. Funny in class but slightly academically challenged. He was a flirt but genuine deep down. He wore his heart on his sleeve so seeing him act cryptic was off putting to say the least. She disliked the uneasy feeling that it gave her.

“Perhaps.” Shouji nodded. “Do you want to ask him about it?”

Jirou paused for a bit and she felt the guilt set in over the fact that she really did just eavesdrop on his private conversation. She deemed Kaminari one of her closest friends here at UA and she felt bad that she might have learned one of his secrets without him telling her intentionally. But she also felt like she just came across some seemingly important information.

“I’m not sure.” She played nervously with her earphone jacks while staring at the elevator floor. “But you heard the reporter too right? He said something about the underground, about the Hissaikai. Those are the guys our classmates defeated, what does Kaminari have to do with all of that? Shouldn’t we talk to him about it, what if he tries to do something stupid?”

“I suppose.” The taller teen responded. “But this might something he wants to deal with by himself or isn't ready to talk about, everyone has their own demons.”

The purple headed teen opened her mouth to speak but had the mind to realize that Shouji was alluding to something in his own life. She shut her mouth. And the last thing she wanted to do was break Kaminari’s trust by admitting that she spied on him.

What would she say anyways? Sorry I totally eavesdropped on your conversation with that sketchy reporter but what the fuck were you guys talking about? Oh yeah that would totally win him over!

As a friend though, wasn't it her duty to look out for him?

“If it seems like Kaminari is doing something reckless then let’s bring it up. He does have a tendency to push himself to incapacitation.” Shouji seemed to read her mind. “Not all acts of saving need to be proactive though. If he wants our help, let him come on his own accord. Otherwise, let's provide support from the sidelines.”

Jirou stared at Shouji and let a few beats of silence pass. The taller teen glanced down to his right, acknowledging her gaze with a raised brow. 

“You are surprisingly astute.” The smaller teen finally responded with a huff and noted a small smile under the other’s mask. 

Jirou found herself agreeing with Shouji’s opinion though. No matter how much that conversation worried her this was ultimately not her business. Kaminari was, despite his usual goofy self, capable and she didn’t want to hurt him further by providing unsolicited help. Yet, in the back of her mind, she feared she was making the wrong decision. What if he really did need someone to talk to? Someone who would reach out?

“Okay, then.” Jirou shook her doubts away and watched the elevator doors open onto the 3rd floor. After getting to know Kaminari she realized he really depended on and cared for his friends. So if he needed help she believed he would ask. Hopefully. Jirou stepped out and turned towards her classmate. “Let’s just keep an eye on him for now, but we keep this to ourselves, yeah?”

Shouji dipped his head as the elevator doors came to a close, “Of course.” 

Jirou watched as the elevator floor indicator changed from 3 to 4 and turned towards her bedroom. But the things that the reporter said, it lingered and left her questioning how well she truly knew the blonde herself. Underground organizations? Child trafficking? Why the hell was Kaminari poking his nose in that kind of business? Or was this an elaborate prank Kaminari was planning? Did he notice her listening in and made up something crazy to throw her off? But he looked so serious and almost... scared? And it's not like he knew the reporter before today, to her knowledge. She rubbed her temples as she felt a small headache forming from processing all this new information. 

Despite only meeting this school year Jirou felt a sense of closeness with her classmates. They’ve experienced multiple near death experiences together so this newfound knowledge reminded her of the fact that she still didn’t know much about her classmates’ personal lives. She wondered what Kaminari deemed too private to share with them, or more specifically, with her? 

Jirou entered her room and closed the door softly, leaning on it while letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in. If Kaminari wasn’t ready to talk about his past now, she’d keep a special eye on him just in case. Waiting for the moment where he might need her help.

Until then, she’d keep this information to herself. She still didn’t like the reporter dude but she’d cross that bridge if she ever came across it. For now though, she’d just hope and pray Kaminari didn’t do anything dumb.