Chapter Text
Thinking about thinking is hard.
This was the realization Denki was slowly coming to as he sat in the silence of the abandoned commons. No doubt by now the rest of his class had already long drifted off to sleep, resting their tired muscles after a long day of training. Even Mido who would usually be up until the sun, too busy with his analysis to realize the passage of time, was most likely sleeping sound after the work he put in today.
However, the luxury of peaceful sleep was out of reach of one Denki Kaminari. Even though the clock hanging on the wall hidden in shadow helpfully pointed out it was about four in the morning, he couldn’t even remember to be tired as he tried to bring the world back into focus.
The muffled sounds of the TV were a constant white noise that aided in reminding him that he was in fact still alive and real, even if he didn’t realize it.
His blinking was slow as his unfocused eyes stayed trained on the TV as he tried to remember his day.
It had started off completely normal
wake up,
eat with his friends,
go to class,
fail a test in math…
Or was it English?
No, math.
Then… uh
What happened then?
…
It was, something?
There was yelling… and laughing?
But who was yelling?
“ Dammit Dunce Face don’t you ever shut up!”
Oh right. Bakugo.
It was time to train with Aizawa and he had made a joke about Bakugo’s… subtle, crush on Kiri.
Clearly, it was a sensitive topic considering the following outburst. But then again that's just kinda how Bakugo is so he didn’t think much of it.
Then,
Uhm
Then, Aizawa-sensei got everyone's attention and said what they'd be doing.
Which was… uhm,
a uh,
Which was to uh test the uh
What did he say?
Oh
Right, to test “the limitations” of their quirks to see how much they had developed.
At the time it had seemed like a cool exercise considering they wouldn’t be doing much other than working independently, seeing how far they could go.
And it was going perfectly fine,
everyone had improved loads since their first year, especially after all they had been through, and this was evident in how much power everyone was putting out at one time.
Despite the distance between each station it was impossible not to feel the interchanging cool and hot air coming from Shoto as he switched between his two sides. Much like you could smell the sweet burning sent coming from Bakugo as he tested how big he could get his explosions with and without his gauntlets. And while he obviously wasn’t affected himself, Denki was well aware of the way he charged the air with static electricity whenever his quirk started upping in voltage.
When there were lulls in practice or someone pulled something really cool off you could hear the various shouts of encouragement or praise passed between everyone.
Overall it was a nice day and a nice class and a nice atmosphere in general, that was until he ruined it.
Denki’s training was something interesting because while UA helped him learn to use his quirk in a beneficial way, a heroic way, actually getting his quirk to listen to his mind came pretty naturally to him. He could call it a will and use the right amount for what he needed. Charging a phone, bringing the power on after an outage, turning his amp on to play the guitar without an outlet, these were all simple things that needed different amounts of power but were met simply.
So to test his limitations, raising the voltage of his bolts is easy, after all, it's not getting the electricity that’s the problem.
The problem is he doesn’t know when to stop.
Calling on specific voltages is easy, but when the task at hand isn’t a voltage but instead a limit, now that is a bit harder to gauge.
The entire process is a gamble.
When he wants the electricity comes it flows and then it goes and does what he wants. As quick as it comes is a quick as it goes and usually, it can do this without a hitch.
However, there are times when he calls too much and his body just… stops.
Instead of controlling the electricity, it starts to consume him.
He can feel it… everywhere.
His arms and legs feel like pins and needles, the slightest graze sends shock waves up his fried nerves in the same way someone with a sunburn feels when being slapped on the back.
His stomach churns with nausea and a dizzy haze settles with every movement.
But the worst has to be the headaches.
God, the headaches.
Because the brain uses electricity to send signals, the sudden exposure to unrestrained electricity sends so many signals that it's like blowing a fuse.
Everything gets really quiet at first, and it all goes dark because of the zap to his optic nerve, and all sensation is lost. Then like it never left, it all comes back full force. It's all too bright and too loud and too close and too far and everything hurts.
And yet the agony is silent because while his body is struggling to remember what feeling is supposed to be like, on the outside everything is slow.
He knows what he looks like to other people.
Has heard their comments once his senses come back and had even witnessed a video of his fried behavior taken by a classmate on one occasion.
It was embarrassing.
To see himself so… vulnerable and know what it feels like.
But it's also, upsetting.
His classmates get to laugh and joke with him but have no idea what its like to feel like your soul is floating out of your body, only to jolt back while you wish you could just pass out so you don’t have to feel all of your nerves sparking and bursting under your skin.
They don’t notice how when the electricity is cooking him from the inside out his blood vessels light up and literally pop inside his body leaving practically permanent scars behind from how often it happens.
At first, it made him angry, then it made him sad. Now he just ignores the feeling until it goes away and he can joke with them again like it never happened.
That said, despite knowing the repercussions of pushing it too far, Denki knew that it was all worth it in the end cause he was gonna be a badass hero.
So when he was told to find his limitations, he did just that.
While it wasn’t supposed to get too far, sometimes it just happens. He can’t tell exactly where the threshold is until it's too late.
Unfortunately, he found it…and crossed it just a bit too far.
Near the end of class, everyone was reaching their limit. Everyone was pushing out as much as they could and this didn’t exclude Denki. He had reached a higher voltage than ever before and he wanted to try and go farther.
Feeling the beginning effects of fatigue on his body he promised himself this would be his last try before taking a break and waiting for the end of class.
While he had already passed his max voltage of 1st year, 2,000 volts, without shorting out like he used to. He kept trying to go higher and higher and he had already made it up to around 2,450 with practice. That said, he still wanted more.
He knew the likelihood of him shorting out was really high but it was nothing he hadn’t experienced before.
And anyway if he wanted to be the best hero he could he needed to learn how to deal with pain.
In the next breath, he steeled himself as he started charging to over 3,000 volts.
The second it hit him he knew he made a mistake.