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Kaminari, despite popular belief, is not an idiot. He isn't book smart, not compared to his peers. But he is definitely not dumb. In fact, the only reason people think he's dumb is because he wants them to. People let down their guard around dumb people. That was a fact Kaminari had learned a long time ago. Needless to say, he knew a lot about his classmates and he meant a lot. And despite his apprehension, he knew what he had to do. Kaminari was a villain, had been for several years. He had changed his name and had documents forged for him, twice. The first time because he screwed up. The second because he saw an opportunity. Come next week they will no longer be first years at UA. And by next week he would be the biggest threat the class had ever seen. Not even Endeavour or Hawks could stop him. He checked his knives one last time. Sharp, and completely metal. He had gotten good at using throwing knives the moment Midoriya had come up with a solution to his long-range problem.
And no he did not fry his brain, what he did was lower his reaction time. Since nerves operate on firing electrons off to the brain he basically releases all the electrons that should be sent to his brain telling him to react, out into the air. It took milliseconds for them to come back enough to move. And a couple minutes for him to register any pain or touch. He had just acted dumb the first time because he had a blank on what to say to the person who had addressed him. After that, he just kept doing it.
It had been extremely effective, do poorly on tests, do a few dumb things here and there and no one really thought much about him. No one really paid much attention when he walked into the wrong room, or when he seemed to stare absentmindedly at nothing in particular. He had learned one very valuable piece of information.
Midoriya was a hero fanboy. Not much new information there but it was how he expressed that fanboy that was so very useful. He wrote about them in journals. Quirks, personality, ranking, strengths, improvements, and most importantly, weaknesses.
Short Circuit and Blackout were notorious villains who had fallen into the background. They were also villains for hire. He had already let Seigyo know what he planned to do to bring their family back into relevancy. They would sell the wonderful information Midoriya had to villains. The first part of the plan was to get the notebooks Midoriya had at his house and then the ones he had in his dorm. The second was to get away. It was their day off and Kami was going to take advantage of it. He got permission to go off campus today, which was good because he knew Midoriya had already had the break-in reported. Which meant they were already on their tails. They had maybe a week before they figured out what was stolen. Probably less.
He was walking into the cafe where he and his sister were going to meet up.
“Arashi, you’re late.” his sister said.
“Quiet down will you Seigyo. Might I remind you I'm kinda in the public eye and they all call me Kaminari Denki.” his sister blanches at the name. He just rolls his eyes.
“Makes you sound dense? It’s so blocky sounding.” she makes a square out of her hands to show just how blocky the name sounded.
“I didn’t choose the name, it was just what was most convenient," he said sitting down.
Seigyo pushed her silver hair out of her eyes. The electric blue lightning streak shifting as she tucked the strands behind her ear. “Whatever, but I refuse to call you it.” she takes a drink from her smoothie.
“So you got all the notebooks?” Kaminari asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah I got all 14 that I could find at his house, and you know where Midoriya keeps the rest?”
“Yeah, it was easy enough. Midoriya is pretty trusting. Honestly, if I believed in that kind of thing I’d think he was an angel.”
“Oh.” Seigyo does a little pouty face, “I almost feel bad breaking his little trusting heart.” but she paused before shrugging. “But I don’t feel bad enough.”
Seigyo pulled out her phone. And she pulled out a small streak of electricity. She swirled the electric current around her fingers. “The only question we need to answer is how to get you on campus.”
“I still don’t get why you need me on campus.”
“With how high security is, I doubt I can get far.” she looks at him with a disbelieving look before she grins a feral grin.
“Need your big sister to bail you out?” she rests her chin on her hand.
“You're only older than me by five minutes.”
“Aw, baby bro is bitter.”
He grins “Sure just as bitter as you are insecure.”
“Did you just.” she puts her palms on the table and looks indignant.
“Just what?” Kaminari feigned ignorance. A wicked grin spreading across his face. He sits there as she finally regains her composure.
“Shut up Arashi.”
“Denki.”
“Whatever.” she looked out the window.
“Anyway, I probably don’t need you as backup. But I figured it would be wonderful to go out with a bang,” he said grabbing his sister’s drink and taking a long drink.
She looked at him with a shine to her eyes. “We’d be back in the limelight.”
“I think it’s time to make our parents proud,” he said. Seigyo reaches up to grab her necklace. Their mom’s ring snuggly in her palm.
“Alright. Let’s do this,” she says a grin wide on her face. “Now give me back my drink.”
Arashi pulls it further away from her taking another long drink.
“Arashi” she whines quietly. He puts the drink down in front of her. She takes a drink. “Okay so what’s the plan?” she asks and so they start brainstorming. It takes a while before Kaminari walks out of the cafe, act back in place. But he is determined, he can make it three more days.
---
Kaminari had “lost” his ID, the ID you needed to get into school. What had actually happened is that Arashi had left it in a little hole for his sister to grab. He looked at his phone just a couple more hours. He needed to get into Midoriya’s room to grab the notebooks. Unfortunately, the boy was currently locked up in said room doing homework or something along those lines.
“Hey Kaminari.” how on earth was he going to steal the notebooks if he couldn’t grab them without getting a face full of bone-breaking power. Granted Midoriya had been the one breaking his own bones until recently, but still.
“Oi dunce face. Raccoon eyes is talking to you.” oh crap. He was thinking too much about being Arashi again he was slipping.
“Oh Ashido, sorry, you need something?”
“You’ve been spacing a lot more lately.”
“Really?” she nods. “Oh guess I've been thinking about next year.” he stares at the wall again. Those damn notebooks. “Anyway, what did you want to talk about.”
“I was just wondering if you wanted to play Mario Kart again. But I'd hate to interrupt your thinking.”
Arashi smiles, “You’re on.”
She jumps over the couch and they both grab a controller. Then he realizes something. “Imma ask Midoriya to join us. He seemed a bit uptight.”
“Good idea, in the meantime I'm going to pick the courses.”
“I swear if you pick rainbow road again, I’m ending our friendship.” she smiled and Arashi resigned to the nightmare track as he runs up the stairs.
“Midoriya, Ashido and I are going to play Mario Kart, why don’t you join us?” he says after knocking on the door.
Midoriya opens the door. “I’m sorry Kaminari but I’m in the middle of our final English essay.”
“Midoriya. You need to take a break, the year is almost done we are going to be second years in a couple of days.”
“Kaminari have you even started the essay?”
He tilts his head, why would he start an essay when he wasn’t going to be a student by the end of the day. “No.”
“Kaminari. It’s due in two days.”
“And? I’m sure you’ve got a perfect essay, now come on. You have bags on under your eyes and everyone can see you are stressed. You need to relax a little.”
“Kaminari,” he looks at Arashi, “it’s a twenty-page essay on what you’ve learned this year.”
“And how far are you?”
“I’ve got the first 18 but there is a fair amount more I want to write.”
“You’ll be fine Midoriya. Come on let’s go play some Mario Kart.”
“O-okay. But shouldn’t you start your essay? I mean otherwise, you’ll be held back to repeat the year.”
“Oh crap, really?” Midoriya nods, “aghhh, yeah I’ll go do that. Tell Ashido that I can’t play with her.” midoriya nods. And he runs off while Kaminari sits in his own self-pity at not playing a game. Granted, Arashi was internally thanking Midoriya for giving him the perfect opportunity to sneak into his room and grab his notebooks and bring them to his room so he can pack up the things he needs.
He walks into Midoriya’s room and grabs the next 6 notebooks. Sweet Jesus, where did he find the time to write all of these. He moves the other notebooks around so that the missing six are slightly less noticeable. And then he made his way to his room. He slipped the notebooks into his bag. Grabs his last-minute things and sits in his room smiling. They’ll go out with a bang that’s for sure.
He grabbed his bag. Let his face fall into an expression Denki would never wear. He didn’t care, time was up. He was free and he had the notebooks to boot. He grabbed his knives and walked down the stairs. The steps he took felt light the sound of laughter and whines flew up to his ears. Several explosive comments came from one very angry dustball.
He walked right past them not saying hi or bye. He glanced at them from the corner of their eyes and they watched and he knew they had caught on to the change. He kept walking as several people set down their controllers to follow after him. Stalking behind at a distance. Kaminari probably wouldn’t have even noticed. Arashi always had though.
He reached the front gate to find his sister standing there walking through the gate and rushing over to him. She punched his shoulder. “Ow,” he said so fake that they both ended up smiling. He looks over his shoulder at the few people who had followed him. Before looking back at his sister. “Did you miss me?”
“It’s been three days.”
“And surely those three days were torture.”
She rolls her eyes. “Shut up Arashi.” she stands there and just looks at him. “So what now?”
“Now?” He pulls out one of the metal blades. “We take aim.” She stands next to him as he turns to face his former classmates who are suddenly very nervous and are looking at Arashi with concern. He discharges a little electricity which Seigyo grabs with ease and circles around several of his classmates like a snake circling its prey. Midoriya flinched as the electric coil got a little too close to his arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his sister smile her hands conducting a gentle melody. He had missed this. He was sick of playing by the rules and playing things safe. He was always the reckless child. It’s why he could never be a hero.
---
Ashido couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Kaminari was standing right in front of her. A strange girl next to him and he was smirking. He never smirks. At least. Never this cruelly. She felt heavy tears fill her eyes. She could barely listen as Midoriya tried talking with Denki.
“So how long Midoriya?”
“What are you talking about Kaminari?”
“It’s Raitoningu actually, and don’t think I don’t know you’ve called for backup.”
All she could do was watch as the girl spun her finger in the air, the electricity dancing to her rhythm. They worked so well together. Yin and Yang.
“Hey Arashi, how long are we going to wait.” the silver-haired girl asked.
“However long it takes me to say goodbye to dear old Eraserhead. I have to thank him for never expelling me.” Denki said and the tone was enough to strike her out of her stupor.
“Denki why?” she asked.
“Why what?” he asked and the fact he didn’t even understand the question hurt.
“Why would you do this?” she shouts and it burns the back of her throat. “You were our friend.”
“Sorry, Ashido. But I never was your friend. It was an act right from the start.” he says with such a casual shrug and smug face. She wants to punch him for hurting her. For hurting her friends.
The lighting was still circling them sparking. Damnit Ashido wished she knew what to do. She looked at Midoriya. He always had a plan but he was staring straight ahead.
“Arashi. I need more ammo. We have company.” and without another word Denki… no not Denki. The… th- the traitor. Just released more electricity which his partner moved effortlessly.
“Oi. dunceface. Been holding out on me?” Bakugou asks as lightning flies toward him. He uses his explosions to dodge. Midoriya pulls her toward him. And dammit she has never felt so useless as he uses his quirk to wrap themselves in a cocoon of blackness.” she hears her teacher say something muffled through the protective shell. But it drops the next moment and Aizawa is in front of all of them. Midoriya, Bakugou, and her. She hears one or two more people coming. She takes a fighting stance though like those on either side of her. “Finally an audience.” the girl says. Ashido sees Aizawa's hair up. Knows the villain in front of them can’t use their quirk but she is so calm about it.
“Who are you?” Aizawa asks.
“Raitoningu,” she says and Aizawa stiffens a little.
“So you do know us? It’s been a while since we first started but we’ve learned a lot and a big part of that is thanks to you.” the traitor says.
“Blackout and Short Circuit. People started to think you were dead,” he said.
“We were lying kinda low. Right, Short Circuit?” He says to her.
“Well, now you have nowhere to run,” Aizawa says to them. And Den- Blackout threw the blade straight down as he throws his hands up.
“You’re right. As long as that quirk of yours is up we don’t stand a chance.” Blackout says as he starts to circle around them.
“Seriously blackout enough with the melodramatics. We can hold our own just fine.” Short Circuit says. These are real villains Ashido thinks. Her classmate and friend is a villain. Ashido turns to face De- Blackout. The moment Aizawa's quirk drops they needed to make sure someone can stop him. She knows from several training mishaps that her quirk and his have interesting reactions. She changes the acidity and viscosity of her quirk while she waits. Midoriya shifts his stance. Ready to launch. Which means he’s been counting. Aizawa will blink soon.
She sees the moment things go horribly she is almost certain Aizawa reactivates his quirk on Short Circuit. But De-Blackout raises a single finger pointed right at Aizawa. Except he can’t aim and she can’t control it like before so what does he plan to do, but Midoriya launches from beside her as lighting arcs from blackout’s finger straight to where he had just been… where his knife lay embedded in the ground.
Right through Aizawa. She watched as her teacher fell to the ground. No no this can’t be happening. Why can’t she move as she watches everything in her life fall to pieces? Why can’t she? She needs to move. But all she can do is watch as lighting starts spinning around them. It hits Bakugou and Midoriya as they try to fight the electric duo. She should be fighting right alongside them. But she can't, she can’t move. Her legs are too shaky. Her vision isn’t even blurry anymore so all she can do is watch.
“Mina, help Sensei.” she looks over at Midoriya as he fights D-Blackout. She looks back at Bakugou as he dodges yet another swish of Short Circuit’s electric whip. “Mina” and she stumbles towards Aizawa. Who is Spasming. Fuck. fuck she doesn’t know how to handle this. She reaches to grab his arm but the static shocks her. She hears the fight move around her. Hears shouting from both sides. Hears her class coming. She helps Aizawa to a sitting position even though the static shocks are painful to her skin. She doesn’t understand, Denki had never done this much damage to any of them before. Was he hiding his power or was there something else she didn’t know about him?
She looks up to see her classmates surrounding her. As Blackout and Short Circuit fight off the twin powerhouses of the class in tandem with each other. It was beautiful and horrible and she hated him. As Bakugou and Midoriya finally backed off for a moment to breathe and Blackout looked a bit out of breath but Short Circuit didn’t even seem to have sweated a drop.
“Well, this really is going out with a bang Arashi.”
“Yeah, and I think it’s about time we hit the road.”
“Whatever you say you know them better than I do.”
They start backing away and Mina hates them, she hates them, she hates them so much that they would hurt them all like this. “One last thing before we go, though.” the class holds their breath. “Thanks for the notebooks Midoriya. It truly is an amazing asset. What a shame no one told you so before.” and Mina can feel the atmosphere drop. Everyone knows Midoriya writes about quirks. And villains just stole that information. Information not only on them but on many, many pro heroes.
In the stunned silence the teens run out through the UA gates. That was it. That was their closure. They all get stabbed in the back and all they can do is watch as the villains run away with enough info to hurt a lot of people.
She has never felt more helpless in her life. Not as she holds her hurt teacher in her arms. Not as she watches Midoriya fall to the ground panicking, not as Kirishima and Sero walk over to a stunned Bakugou. Not as she feels the tears start to well again. Not as the air pressure seems to increase until she doesn’t think she can move anymore.
Not when the rest of the UA staff comes out to them. Not as everyone starts moving again. Because what was there to say? What was there to do?
Their classmate was a villain the entire time and none of them had realized. Not even her.
And the worst part is she knew they couldn’t play this off as if it never happened because the consequences of this would be real and far-reaching. This wasn’t going to be the last time they heard of it.
No, it was never that easy.