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Sometimes the weather is great for heroically beating your classmates to a pulp, and other times it’s not.
Today started as a good day, but then ominous grey clouds decided to flood the sky and completely ruin it. The air is humid, but the ground is (so far) completely dry. There’s been no rain, even if everyone has been making bets on when that will change all day. Denki isn’t a huge fan of weather like this.
For one, who likes sparring in stupidly high pre-storm humidity? Not him! For second, Denki can feel it in his teeth that when the storm breaks, it’s going to be really bad. Like, flooding and power cuts, bad.
Denki loves storms when he isn’t outside in them, since being made into a human lightning rod isn’t his idea of a good time.
As it is, the stupid weather has completely thrown Denki off his groove. He’s been making stupid mistakes all lesson, whiffing kicks that were aimed perfectly, taking punches that have even his opponents wincing, all while wrestling down the slowly creeping buzz under his skin and taste of ozone in his throat. Not fantastic, all in all.
Just as the match he’s in comes to a conclusion, just as Denki plans on turning the tables with an indiscriminate shock that’ll get him just one win, a soundless, but blindingly bright lance of lightning strikes to the side of the arena. A burst of instinctive fear lances through him, and his breath catches as time seems to slow down.
Denki’s eyes dart to the patch of scorched dirt like he’s drawn by a magnet, holding his breath as the charge keeps building in his palms, ready to be released. If Denki were less terrified, he’d think that was pretty cool. But where there’s lightning...
Menacing growls of thunder fill Denki’s ears like a predatory animal, blocking out the yells of the others as they react to the close call.
Held captive by the same fear, Denki reacts the same as the rest of his classmates by scampering away, one horde of bodies escaping to the relative safety the side of the gym can offer them. In the rush, Denki has to forcibly jam the super-charged indiscriminate shock back down into himself, in a way he hasn’t had to do in years. It ricochets through what feels like all of his organs, dissipating into more anxiety to add to the pile within seconds.
No one is the wiser, though, when they’re all too busy staring at the charred grass & sudden deluge of rain to notice Denki rubbing at his sore wrists. A quick glance shows him what he could already guess: Lichtenberg figures starkly prominent against his skin, creeping like ferns down his forearms and to his knuckles. Well, that sucks.
Luckily, Denki’s jacket is close enough that he can jam his arms into it without too much attention, since everyone else is also trying to grab whatever they can to shield themselves from the downpour.
No one sees it happen, and Denki relaxes into the dramatic ravings of his friends as they all yell about how the weather came out of nowhere.
Shouta is idly watching over his class when the lightning strikes.
It makes him perk up from his slouch, squinting his eyes at the brightness before alternating his gaze between the teenagers as he watches for responses. This type of scenario is a good practical lesson, in theory, to test reaction times and how well the students keep calm under sudden, unfavourable environmental changes.
Shouta would like to say he’s pleased with what he sees. He’d like to say that the teenagers he’s painstakingly preparing for the brutal life of Heroics check for danger and then keep going when they see it’s all fine. Unfortunately, all Shouta can hear are cries of awe and exclamations of terror at how close they came to being struck.
Of course, in their gym uniforms, the only student who actually stands a chance of getting hit is Kaminari with his Electricity Quirk.
Sweeping his eyes over to said pupil, Shouta clenches his jaw. Kaminari is tense. Shouta knew the kid had the potential for adverse effects from storms; he knew that the charge in the air could mess with Kaminari’s own. But he didn’t expect the fearful body language, nor the sudden look of anticipation to the side.
Thunder interrupts Shouta trying to call out for a break, and then there’s no point yelling louder as rain begins to hammer the ground unrelentingly.
The gaggle of kids all climbing over one another to shield themselves means no one is paying attention as Kaminari looks down at his arms and winces. Shouta notices. He also notices how Kaminari covers himself up — hands tucked into his sleeves and zipper fully zipped — fast enough that he’s the only one to see it happen.
Whistling to gather attention, Shouta bundles them all into the gym, gesturing pointedly at Kaminari to lag behind. Kaminari goes visibly paler, even at the jabs and jokes of his friends.
One by one, the rest of the class scramble to the locker rooms to change, and then Kaminari is left alone with Shouta. With arms crossed over his chest, Shouta stands in silence until he can be sure no one is listening in, even as Kaminari fidgets in place and tugs his sleeves further down. Shouta takes pity on the kid once most of the teens have left the building fully.
“Roll up the sleeves, Kaminari-kun.” Shouta sighs at the outrage immediately on the kid’s face. Why do none of these hellions make his life any easier? “I saw the marks that were there. I just want to see how bad they are, nothing more.”
It’s actually worse than Shouta was bracing for. What looked like squiggles from afar are actually branching paths of burnt tissue, with tiny beads of blood smearing along his skin as the fabric cuff catches on them and drags. Kaminari just scrunches his nose and rotates the limbs around like it’s the first time he’s seeing them. Thankfully, the marks on his hands are already beginning to fade to a dull pink, but they remain dark and angry as they get closer to his elbows.
“I didn’t think they were bleeding, oops,” Kaminari comments idly, like this level of injury is comparable to a coffee that’s slightly too cold rather than something requiring immediate medical attention. “They haven’t done that before...”
“Before?” That catches Shouta’s attention, which draws Kaminari’s wide eyes up to his face. “Is this a recurring injury, Kaminari-kun?”
“It’ll fade away by tomorrow,” he shrugs, and Shouta comes to the realisation that he needs to keep more of an eye on the non-Midoriya members of his class than he has been. “I have some burn cream to put on the worst one-”
“No,” Shouta interrupts, because the implications of Kaminari going back to deal with this himself at the dorms isn’t a fun image to have in his head. “Recovery Girl. Then straight to the dorms. You get an extension on the Maths worksheet. Medical attention, then rest.”
“Okay.” Kaminari is not a very convincing liar.
But Shouta just takes a breath and nods. If they truly do fade by tomorrow, then he’ll let it go. But if they don’t... “If I see those figures tomorrow then I will be personally escorting you to the nurse’s office.”
Blanching, Kaminari scrambles to escape.
Denki makes damn sure that Aizawa-sensei doesn’t see the Lichtenberg figures the next day.
They’re still there, but he doesn’t see them. Denki begged some concealer off of Yaomomo and carefully applied a thick enough layer to the least aggravated section of his wrist that he could find. And then, when Aizawa-sensei gestured to see? Denki just showed him that part, sneaky style.
Come lunch, Denki will sneak away to the bathroom to wash the concealer off, but until then, he just needs to be careful which arm he leans on the desk with. He has no idea how to get concealer out of blazer sleeves.
With the plan going swimmingly, Denki lets his guard down.
Maybe it was because he stretched his arms above his head, or maybe it was just that he’s really bad at convincing make-up, but Aizawa-sensei holds him back after class. Someone calls out about ‘two days in a row!’ and Denki lets out a sad little laugh at his bad luck.
“Take the jacket off, please,” Aizawa-sensei demands once the door is closed. He’s doing the same ‘arms crossed menacingly’ pose he did yesterday, almost uncannily identical, even.
“But I’m cold?” Denki asks, rather than the confident statement he wanted to use. Aizawa-sensei raises an eyebrow that Denki can’t argue with.
Denki takes the blazer off. To stop the fabric from rubbing too badly, he went with a short-sleeve uniform shirt today, which reveals the shoddily applied patch of concealer on one side. Somehow, it looks less convincing than it did at the beginning of the lesson.
Aizawa-sensei pinches the bridge of his nose, then opens his mouth like he’s going to call Denki an idiot. Instead, his teacher audibly counts to ten, then stares Denki down like he’s about to make a run for it. He certainly isn’t now.
“A promise is a promise.” A promise is a threat, more like.
And then Denki has the jacket slung over an arm as Aizawa-sensei hands him his bag and starts walking away. The silence lasts until they come to a stop outside of Recovery Girl’s office.
“Kaminari-kun?” Aizawa-sensei has one hand on the door handle; Denki has one foot angled back down the hall. He’ll lose, but it’s gotta be worth a try. “Detention, so we can talk about what’s caused those Lichtenberg figures you’re trying to pretend aren’t there. I don’t care how common they are, or how fast they heal. Don’t hide injuries from me.”
“Sir yes sir,” Denki can’t follow up more before the door is flung open and an irate Recovery Girl is staring them both down. He’s shoved into the room unceremoniously, before Aizawa-sensei backs away down the hall with what might be a gruffly garbled explanation.
Denki only has time to think about how rude that is before he’s bullied into the nearest hospital bed and subjected to Recovery Girl grilling him about being stupid, or, more accurately described, medical torture.
The conversation Denki has with Aizawa-sensei later will be so awkward, but at least he has this as preparation.