Lightning Strikes the Heart

Chapter 3: Shaking off the Nightmare

Why did he want him to go to the mall? He could probably get permission-the school wasn't as strict about where students went on the weekends-but he'd have to take someone with him. Safety in numbers and all that. And ditching his buddy to go to meet that idiot would be a massive pain in the ass. He guessed he could get multiple people to go with him, that might take more attention off of him if the others had more people to deal with. Or it might just make things worse, with more people to keep an eye on him. Still, one of the things Kaminari had thought he'd done a good job at was being the kind of person that people would notice and like when he was around, but slip from their mind as soon as he was out of sight. So, if he took the rest of the Bakusquad with him....maybe. He had until Saturday to figure this out, so he wasn't too worried. At least he got notified in advance where he was to be this time–don't even get him started on the absolute mess that was the USJ incident. He had had no warning when they'd arrive, just that they would—and then being warped with Jirou and Yaoyaorozu—

"Kaminari." Kaminari started at the sound of his name and looked beside him. Kirishima grinned. "It's time to go, man. Bell just rang." He jumped up and slung his bag over his shoulder. "Shit. Thanks, man." Kirishima waved dismissively. "No problem. What were you thinking about?" Kaminari was quiet for a moment, but shook his head. "It was nothing."

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For most of the day, things were pretty normal. English was horrible, math deplorable, lunch involved entirely too many screamed insults courtesy of Bakugo, the histories were fine (read: spent listening to Mineta's comments on Midnight's figure and feeling very uncomfortable), science was okay (read: long and boring). Then came the Hero Studies. God help him with this fucking class.

Today was field training and Kaminari just had to be put against Jirou of all people. He smirked at her and shot her the finger guns when All Might announced they were testing how well they knew each other's quirk–by fighting each other. "Knowing what your partner can do is just as important as knowing what your opponent can do," as he said.

"What's up, sweetheart?" He asked as he walked up to her. She rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, Jammingway." He followed her to the sidelines, where they were to wait as their classmates went through their fights. First was Yaoyorozu and Sato. The combination of Yaoyorozu's versatile quirk and her own intelligence vs Sato's strengthening quirk but lowering IQ made for an interesting fight. Of course, Yaoyorozu had Sato's quirk memorized and quickly put together a plan to defeat him.

"Yaoyorozu's amazing," he commented. Jirou side-eyed him. "Yeah, she is. But you better not be referring to her bra size." Kaminari sat up and started waving his hands around. "No, no! I really meant she's a great strategist! I could never pull off something like that!" Jirou stared at him. Kaminari was all for attention, but it was starting to get uncomfortable. It was like she was staring right into his heart and he was kind of afraid what she'd find there. Finally, she sighed and looked away. "You're an idiot," she said bluntly.

He laughed. "Yeah, I know..." An idiot for agreeing to spy on UA for the League. Oh wait, he interrupted himself, his tone turning sarcastic, I DIDN'T agree. That fucking moron TOLD them I'd do it. Then, Jirou interrupted his thoughts. "But not as big of one as most people think." Kaminari froze. Uhhhh...what does that mean exactly? He got his answer a moment later–and it honestly surprised him. "If you just applied yourself more, instead of staying up to 3 o'clock in the morning playing video games, you'd do so much better in all our classes. Wouldn't you?"