HINT #11- The time Nezu...
"You're kidding."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I swear, I'm not."
Kaminari groaned, letting his head fall forward (somewhat painfully) onto the corner of his desk. Kirishima grimaced sympathetically but didn't move from where he was sprawled on the bed, merely returning his gaze to stare at the ceiling absentmindedly. "Are you kidding? What, are they trying to kill us or something? How do they expect us to internalize all of this shit at once!"
"Language," Kirishima murmured, eyes flat and tone monotone. He was honestly just running through the motions at this point, too tired and freaking frustrated at Aizawa to actually try and put some decent enthusiasm and energy into his words. He was tired. They were all tired. Finals week had just gone by, and with it, countless sleepless nights spent studying and catching up on work for all of the students. They'd been looking forward to having a good sleep that night for the first time in seven days, but alas, Kirishima had overheard Aizawa taking about a pop-freaking-quiz while he'd been exiting the classroom.
Stupid UA and their ridiculously high academic standards.
Needless to say, Kirishima had come practically sprinting into the common room, nearly barrelled into Uraraka, and announced to everyone at the top of his lungs that they had yet another test they had to study for. It didn't matter that it was a pop quiz. Aizawa's impromptu quizzes were practically impossible in the first place, and as an unwritten rule that hadn't exactly been approved by the school board but Aizawa enforced anyway, anyone who got below a ninety-percent on them had to do a make-up project.
Everyone had pretty much freaked, either speeding up to their room to crack open their books or running to the kitchen to grab some food and then speeding up to their room to crack open their books. Either way, everyone had been studying for the past hour.
Kaminari had been the only one not in the common room or the connecting kitchen when Kirishima had announced his discovery, hence his visit up to his best friend's room in the first place to let him know.
In truth, Kaminari had been in the middle of sharpening one of his hunter knives when Kirishima had come running through the door, so the sudden arrival of his friend had been both a surprise and relatively unwelcome, but he was skilled enough in the art of sleight of hand to be able to slip the knife into his desk drawer without catching the attention of Kirishima, hence why he'd banged his head on the table in the first place. The redhead had made it relatively easy, actually, by flopping down on his bed and staring up at the ceiling the second he'd entered the premises, so that was also a plus.
God, Kaminaria was so freaking smooth. He should get an award or something. Y'know, not for the killing people part, but for being so fucking fantastic at everything else.
"Language?" Kaminari snorted. "Who are you, my grandma?"
He'd actually never met his grandma. He was pretty sure she'd been murdered by his parents before he'd even been born, but the sentiment still stood.
"Yes," Kirishima replied flatly. He kicked his feet up, swinging them over the edge of the bed so he could get a good look at Kaminari. "But seriously. This test is so freaking stupid. We had finals, like, a day ago! We're not super-geniuses or something!"
"What about Momo?"
"Well-"
"Or Iida?"
"Wait-"
"Or Bakugou?"
"Oh, no." Kirishima scoffed, leaning back and propping himself up on his elbows. "You should've seen Bakubro scramble to his room when I told him about it. Blasty isn't prepared at all."
"Hmph." Kaminari leaned back in his chair precariously, regarding Kirishima with bored yet amused eyes. "That makes two of us."
The redhead snorted. "Make that three."
The room dissolved into a comfortable silence, both boys simply soaking up each other's presence before inevitably facing the fact that they were going to either stay up all night studying for impossible questions they would never get right anyway or fail the pop quiz and have to be assigned even more extra homework, which would result in them having to pull even more all-nighters because even with their regular homework load they got no time to actually do it with their insane practice schedules.
Plus, tonight was Kaminari's training night. Yaoyorozu had made delicious sundaes for everyone the night before, and unable to help himself, Kaminari had splurged. He knew it wasn't much, only maybe a thousand calories, and he'd probably burned that off in training the day after, but he had to stay as fit and healthy as he possibly could. He had to train tonight, if not only for that, then for the fact that he hadn't been able to over the course of the past two weeks because his classmates were constantly pulling all-nighters and group study sessions. The chances of them hearing him sneak out had been too high for him to get any actual work done when it came to honing his skills, which sucked, but he couldn't cave into his addiction just because he was restless and risk exposing all of his classmates to his dangerous past.
If worst came to worst, he would just sneak out and do his own thing for a while to sharpen his already impeccable endurance and stamina and then try to cram in a couple of hours of studying in the wee hours of the morning just as the sun was coming up.
No biggie. It was nothing he hadn't done a million times before.
"Well." Kirishima rose from his spot on Kaminari's bed, joints popping in protest as he did so. "I need to get going."
Kaminari nodded, offering his friend a half-smile in return. "Yeah, bro. Thanks for telling me, by the way."
Kirishima snorted, offering his hand for a fist bump. Kaminari complied readily, though he very nearly toppled over in his desk chair in the process. "No problemo, dude. I might go over to Bakubro's room later tonight and see if he can help me understand whatever shit we need to be studying for this, so I'll text you if he doesn't kill me."
"Aww. Tell the angry pomeranian I love him for me, 'kay?"
Kirishima offered him a half salute, eyes crinkled and lips turned upward. "Will do, bro."
"Cool."
Kaminari watched silently as Kirishima crossed the small expanse of his room to the door, waving one last time before exited and shutting it behind him, leaving Kamianri alone in his crazily mismatched room full of knives, bombs, and weapons of mass destruction (aka him) sprawled all over the place.
Nice. What a way to live.
xxx
Nightime came much too slowly for Kaminari's liking.
From what he could infer, Kirishima had told the rest of his classmates about the pop quiz at six, which meant he'd come upstairs to let him know at about seven. It had been almost two hours since Kirishima had left him alone in his little room to go study on his own or annoy Bakugou into sharing his notes (which he'd then email over to Kamianri due to an unspoken rule), and by the way the redhead had worded things, most of his classmates would be up most of the night trying to cram as much information into their heads as possible.
Logically, Kaminari knew he should've used the free time he had before the sun went down to study on his own since his nighttime activities would consist of running twenty consecutive miles and avoiding the watchful eye of the UA security guards and camera instead of looking up information and reading textbooks, but he was just so damn antsy. The distinct lack of activity he'd had over the past two weeks was getting to him. After a life spent where surviving was his first priority, he didn't do well when he had time to genuinely lay down and relax. If anything, it made him feel more unsafe than if he was made to train 24/7 for days on end.
Kaminari's ADHD riddled brain was going into overdrive, not to mention he was literally freaking dyslexic so studying would be kind of useless anyway, Jesus Christ. The optimist in him was kind of hoping that Aizawa would spare him the torture of a pop quiz if only because of his mental disability, but that was wishful thinking. He'd never even told his teacher about his disability. Hoping that he'd notice it just in time to spare him a test (but in the process would probably make him want to check his medical records, which Kamianri could not have happen) was a delusion if nothing else.
Usually, he could study just fine. His dyslexia wasn't harmful to the point where he literally couldn't read, but he knew from past experience that that paired with his ADHD that was frantically urging him to do something made it very hard to focus on the Japanese characters floating around the page. It was ridiculous. He wasn't stressed about schoolwork or how he did on the finals or even the stupid pop quiz Kirishima had discovered. He was stressed because he hadn't been able to sneak out of his safe, secure dorm full of his friends in the middle of the night to work himself until he threw up blood and then some.
Yeah. If that wasn't a good example of how fucked up his life was, then he didn't know what was.
The thing was, he'd have to be extra careful about sneaking out that night. His classmates had forgoed eating dinner together (he knew because Momo had texted the group chat saying that there was no way she'd have time to make something) in favor of studying, but other than that, he was pretty sure Kirishima was exaggerating exactly how many of them would be staying up all night studying.
Sure, there were some resident night owls and tryhards that would probably stay up all night, such as Todoroki and Midoriya (both of whom were both night owls and tryhards, but Kaminari loved them to bits anyway), but other than that, they'd all had an exhausting week.
Most, if not all, of the class had been only getting about three hours of sleep a night for two weeks straight, which had actually been a rather fun endurance test for Kaminari but hell for everyone else, in order to prep for their academic finals. Now that they were over and everyone was out of the imminent danger of failing, Kami had no doubt that they'd crash the second the clock struck eleven, with the exception of maybe a few.
Still, he knew he had to be more cautious than usual. Though he wouldn't have to worry about his whole class being awake like Kirishima had stressed about, there would undoubtedly be more people up and at 'em than usual around the time when he would usually sneak out and go about his routine training.
Whatever. He was a trained assassin. He could outmaneuver his classmates in his sleep.
So, Kaminari waited. He waited until he heard the shuffling footsteps and muffled conversations of his friends coming up to their respective rooms. He waited until Mina, Uraraka, Sero, and (surprisingly) Bakugou had all separately peeked their heads through his doorway to say goodnight. It was a little weird that his classmates always did that, they had ever since his little incident with the knife a few months ago, but he appreciated the attention and love all the same. He waited until the hallways lights flickered off, and the conversation lulled into a steady silence.
There was only one more thing that had to happen before he could make his escape.
The arms clock positioned to the right side of Kaminari's desk struck eleven-thirty.
His lips quirked as he paused in the middle of his room, having been pacing for the better part of a half-hour, and grabbed a hair tie. In one smooth, practiced motion, he gathered all of his hair up into one hand and secured the elastic around it with a flick of his wrist, effectively getting all the stray strands out of his face.
He watched diligently, waiting, as the guards positioned outside the building took their shift. He had about twenty seconds between when the old guards filed in and the new ones returned, so he knew he had to be quick.
For any average person with at least an ounce of sanity, the mere prospect of climbing out of a multi-story window and then having to run at least a couple of meters to get out of plain sight would seem impossible, let alone actually doing it.
For Kaminari, he'd never even broken a sweat. Hell, he probably could've accomplished all that by the time he was six years old. Max. He could most likely do it in fifteen seconds with his eyes closed and simply let his killer instincts and senses guide him through the darkness and help evade the watch guards' vigilant eyes. Twenty seconds was nothing.
If he really thought about it...for being the number one hero school in Japan, UA's security system kind of sucked ass. Well, when it came to him, at least. He didn't want to be cocky, but there were very few people who could ever achieve his level of mastery in the art of sneaking around.
He was Golden, to be fair. He doubted the cells at SuperMax prison could hold him for long.
He smiled to himself, pure adrenaline and excitement pumping through his veins for the first time in two weeks, crawled out onto the balcony until he was perched precariously on the railing, and...jumped.
Showtime.
xxx
As always, his escape went off without a hitch.
His room was located on the third floor of the building, which made jumping off the balcony a lot easier than if he would've been on the fifth floor. He could do three stories no sweat. To be fair, he could probably do five just as easily, but there was a lot less room for error that far up. It was fine, though. Years and years of jumping from rafter to rafter and sniping people down from high up in trees or on scaffolding had quickly taught him how to escape breaking a neck or a leg while experiencing a sudden fall from a ridiculous height. No biggie.
Then, Kaminari had simply sprinted as far as he could before the guards came out and switched position, which, from years of endurance training and his own timed practices he'd conducted to plan the most efficient route out of the dorms' open back courtyard, he happened to be able to make it to the thick grove of trees to the far right of the establishment before the first guard came to replace the one who had just gotten off duty. Easy peasy.
From then on, it was just a matter of concealing himself in the shadows and weaving from tree to tree without any potential stray security guards seeing him. UA's defense system may have been shit-tastic, but they had spared no expense when it'd come to security personal. There were probably one hundred of them roaming the campus and outside the dorm buildings, all for the sake of catching any intruders or students that happened to be sneaking out.
Kaminari had a clean record, obviously. If anything, the teachers all thought that the jokester sunshine of the class was the least likely to sneak out. It was weird, considering that his classmates had also voted him the most likely to do drugs during a game of truth or dare. It depends on how well you know a person, he guessed.
Unfortunately, neither his teachers nor his classmates really knew him at all, but he preferred not to dwell on the fact.
He reached the training ground a mere five minutes after leaving his dorm room, which would be considered rather impressive for an average person with normal stamina since it was clear on the other side of the campus, but it was actually one of Kami's slower times. He could usually make it in four minutes, maybe a little less. Those two weeks of being forced to lounge around may have cost him more than just his sanity.
No biggie. He could just sprint like fifteen miles straight and be back to normal in no time.
"Okay, Kaminari." He muttered to himself. He grabbed hold of the top part of the band holding his hair back, letting the golden strands fall freely into place. He tucked them behind his ears. "Let's see whatcha got."
There was a track surrounding the training grounds, the very one Kaminari so happened to be standing in the middle of. Though most school's running tracks were equal to one-fourth of a mile a lap, UA's training grounds were so ridiculously and needlessly massive that one lap was equal to about two miles, give or take.
Yeah. It was fucking massive.
He stopped running halfway in between his eleventh lap to take a much-needed breather, semi-proud with his progress but also berating himself ruthlessly for being so damn out of breath after only twenty-one miles. Granted, he'd been sprinting the entire way, but he was still borderline exhausted. He felt like he was going to puke. What if something like that happened while he was casing a villain that had one of his friends? What would he do then? What would happen if his body had to physically stop itself before it collapsed from the unimaginable strain?
Kaminari couldn't have that. He wouldn't have that.
"Come on, Kaminari." He murmured, scowling at his feet in disgust and forcing himself to stand upright. He'd forgotten his water bottle back in his room. He'd realized it was still sitting on his bedside table the second he'd leaped from his third-story balcony, but by that time, it had already been too late. That was fine. It was fine. He wouldn't have water handy anyway if he was out on the battlefield fighting for his friends' lives. "Get it together."
He started forward again, jogging at a slow pace that quickly dissolved into a full-on sprint. His stomach screamed in protest, his thighs ached like all hell, every five seconds, he had to swallow down bile threatening to crawl up the back of his throat, but he didn't care. He ignored it. He couldn't afford to put his own well being first when his classmates' lives were on the line, when people so much better than he was had their lives on the line.
When people who deserved to live more than he did had their lives on the line, he couldn't afford to throw up. He couldn't afford to slow down. He couldn't afford to have his legs crumple out from under him. He just had to be better. It didn't matter how good he was. It didn't matter whether he was the best assassin in every variation of the term. None of that would matter if he wasn't good enough to save his friends from the threat he knew was coming, the threat that was coming for him but would include his friends as collateral damage.
Toga had warned him about that monthsago. She'd warned him that 'dangerous people' were coming after him, and it had been near three months since then. The League of Villains' capture attempts had become nearly nonexistent as well, and that was an even more concerning sign. Something big was coming, and he had to be ready before it did.
That was another reason why these two weeks without training had gotten to him so much. It wasn't just that he was restless; he was scared. The thought of something bad happening to his classmates and him not being good enough to help petrified him. It wasn't his death he was afraid of. As far as he was concerned, it was a long time coming. It was his friends' untimely demise that he had nightmares about, that he woke up in a cold sweat about nearly twice a month on the off chance that he actually went to bed at a decent hour.
Which was why he kept running. On and on and on, lap after lap after lap, until he physically couldn't anymore.
Until he doubled over, hands clutching his stomach, and vomited thick, dark, red chunks of blood mixed with what little he'd grabbed from the refrigerator for dinner all over the pavement.
Fuck.
"Fuck." He said aloud, finally allowing his legs to slow and his body to collapse in the way it had been so aching to do so for the past half hour. Bile rose in his throat again, and this time, he made no move to force it back down. A stream of dark red fluid spilled out of his mouth, the undeniable stench of blood infiltrating his nostrils as he emptied out his churning stomach. He stayed there for a moment, hunched over and breathing rapidly as he squeezed a few tears out of his watery eyes from gagging and let spit dribble from his lips and onto the floor. "Fuck. Okay. That's...okay."
He didn't move from his position because no matter how much he wanted to protect his classmates, he wouldn't be able to do that if he died by choking on his own spit. So he stood there, face hunched over as he let a combination of drool, blood, and what little water he had left in his system drip onto the pavement as he fought to control his breathing.
Kaminari rolled his eyes, blinking out the wetness leftover from the emptying of his stomach. "This is such fucking-"
He coughed. A clot of much-darker-than-it-should-be blood landed on the pavement below him with a splat. Kaminari stared at it, silent.
"Okay, that's it."
He didn't even have the energy to be surprised at the proximity of the voice, let alone the fact that someone had caught him in the first place. If he was going to be punished, so be it. He was just so. Damn. Tired. He couldn't give two shits about external injuries, but just because he couldn't feel pain like an average person didn't mean that he couldn't feel the way his muscles were spasming beneath him, and his throat was constricting from the amount of blood pooling in the back of it.
A little white paw landed on the small of his back. Kaminari forced a smile, though it looked more like a rather painful grimace. "Hi, Principal Nezu. You come here often?"
"Cut the shit." Nezu's voice was harsh, cold in a way Kaminari had never heard before. Despite his somewhat sadistic attitude towards the teachers and students, he generally painted himself as a kind, caring, rat-man. But...he was also incredibly dangerous, especially with Kaminari in such a compromising and vulnerable position already. If...if the rat wanted to slice his neck right then and be done with him...he'd be able to do just that, and Kami wouldn't have a say in the matter. "I've seen what you've been doing."
"What, is this not the men's' restroom?" Kaminari deadpanned, a relatively poor attempt at humor in a very unfunny situation. "I'll say, I guess it isn't. I must've gotten lost-"
He was cut off by the painful sensation of his own coughing, sending yet another stream of bodily fluids through his system and out of his mouth before he could get ahold of himself. Blood splattered across the pavement, a harsh reminder about how precarious this situation really was and how far Kaminari had pushed himself.
Nezu didn't say anything, but from the corner of his eyes, Kaminari could see his gaze harden. The paw on his back tensed, only the slightest bit, before returning to its casual hold. If Kaminari hadn't been trained to be as perceptive as he was, he wouldn't have caught it.
"Come with me."
The command was short. Stern. Left no place for disobedience or questioning, not that Kaminari could provide any anyway considering how fucking weak his entire body felt at that moment.
Fucking pathetic. He should be better than this. Not only was he standing to the side and throwing up like some weakling who couldn't even handle himself, but his freaking principal has seemed to have witnessed the entire spectacle for himself, which, by the way, Kaminari knew he should be a lot more freaked out by that fact than he currently was, but he physically didn't have the energy to worry about that now.
Blood was already pooling in his mouth again. Kaminari spat it to the side, twisting his face at the taste. He may have had his hands covered in enough blood over the years to last a lifetime, but that didn't mean he liked tasting it.
Nezu nudged him on. Kaminari didn't even have the energy to protest, merely keeping his head down and his hands around his stomach as he followed Nezu blindly into who knows where with a paw on his back to guide him.
They walked for about five minutes, and as far as Kaminari could tell, he was the only one around. Even from his hunched over position, from what he could see, there were no security guards or protection personal around the premises, meaning that either Nezu had stumbled upon him by accident and had no idea what was going on or he'd purposely tailed him to see him train.
Honestly...Kaminari didn't know which one of those possibilities was more terrifying.
xxx
"So..." Sitting across from Principal Nezu at nearly one in the morning after pretty much puking his guts out was not Kaminari's ideal place to spend his evening, but he'd just have to make due. His stomach had finally settled down (by that, he meant he zapped his brain to stop the contractions), and there was no more blood coating his lips, so that was good. Now all he had to deal with was a mastermind rat principal interrogating him about how in the hell he''d snuck out of the dorm. No biggie. "This is awkward."
"I'll say." Nezu leaned forward, propping his elbows up on the desk to stare at Kaminari. The blond stared back with just as much intensity, not breaking eye contact until Nezu leaned back with a sigh and a frown. "You need to stop pushing yourself so hard, Kaminari."
Okay. He'd been expecting a brutal questioning about how the fuck he'd made it all the way to the training grounds from the dorm, but he could work with this. "I know, I know." He ducked his head, peeking up at the rodent through thick eyelashes. "I'm sorry. Just...I'm not as good as my classmates are with skills and stuff, you know? I just wanted to get better."
The inferiority complex approach. A classic.
"Really." Unfortunately, it seemed Nezu wasn't buying it. His dull, uninterested eyes bore into Kaminari's head. Even with all his years of training, the blond fought the urge to squirm. "That little display was...training?"
"Yeah." Kaminari welcomed the pitifulness seeping into the voice, milking his act for all it was worth. "All training. I guess this just proves that I'm not as good as my classmates, huh."
"Hm." Nezu didn't say anything besides that for a long time, merely running calculated eyes up and down Kaminari's form with a pinched expression on his face.
"So..." Kaminari offered the principal a small, sorrowful smile. The silence encompassing the office was getting much too stifling for his liking. "Can I...go-"
"How long were you out there?" Nezu ignored his question completely. Kaminari frowned but settled back into his chair nonetheless. The principal didn't necessarily sound angry at him. His tone sounded...sad more than anything.
"Uhm, I don't know," Kaminari answered. Honestly, he didn't. He had no recollection of how long he'd been running or how long he'd spent doubled over and letting his blood drip from his mouth. Sure, he knew it had been over an hour, but he didn't know the exact time. He'd use that technicality to his advantage. "I really don't. I don't have a watch or anything, as you can see, so..."
He trailed off, letting the silence speak for itself. He kept his eyes trained on the principal, gauging his reaction the best he could for the latter's distinct lack of human facial features. Curiously...not only was Nezu looking at him like some wounded puppy with a thorn in his paw but...he hadn't brought up the issue of him sneaking out of a high-security dorm yet. That...that was a little worrisome, he wasn't going to lie.
"Kaminari..." Nezu's voice was the softest it'd been their entire conversation. He sounded almost...hurt? There was some kind of emotion swirling around in his small, beady rat eyes that Kami couldn't quite place, but he stayed quiet. Deny, deny, deny. That was the first rule of deception. "How long were you out there."
"I seriously don't know." The blond answered smoothly, he too lowering his tone of voice. This conversation was going south, way south, and all he could do was stick to his lies in an attempt to get it back on track.
"Yes, you do."
"I don't!" Kaminari insisted, eyes wide and volume raising only the tiniest bit. "Why the hell are you being so insistent that I do?!"
Nezu regarded him for a long, long moment. Kaminari kept eye contact, gaze trained on his teacher's and breathing slightly labored.
"You really don't?" He asked finally. It was spoken softly, barely audible to even Kaminari's hypersensitive ears.
"I really don't." The blond confirmed.
"One hour and thirty-seven minutes."
"What?"
"One hour and thirty-seven minutes. That's how long you were out there."
Kaminari pursed his lips, but he stayed composed. That meant nothing. Even if he'd somehow been watching the entire time without him detecting his presence, it meant nothing. His secret was safe. He was safe. His classmates were safe.
"So...you were watching me the whole time."
"Yes."
There was another bout thick silence, this time comprised of Kaminari trying to quell his rising heartbeat while Nezu observed his student with sad, sad eyes.
"I want to help you, Kaminari."
The blond's head shot up to meet the principal's gaze. "Wha-"
"You don't have to keep doing this."
"Wait-"
"I know you're Golden, Kaminari."
The iciness that ran through Kaminari's veins at that moment could rival those of the Antarctic because with one sentence, five measly words...his life was over.
xxx
"You're...I-" Kaminari knew he was hyperventilating. He knew he was panicking in a way that he hadn't had to ever since he was a child experiencing his parent's endless bouts of 'fun' in the form of whips and knives. He knew that if Nezu had had any doubts about his real identity, his distress would've cleared them all up, but that didn't matter. That accusation, the accusation of him being one of the most ruthless assassins with the highest recorded kill count in the world, was too severe and too coincidental just to be a guess. He knew. Nezu knew. His principal knew.
He was so, so fucked.
"Calm down." The faint voice of Nezu made it's way to Kaminari's ears. The blond straightened up immediately, forcing himself to contain his watery eyes and erratic breathing in favor of sitting up ramrod straight and facing the teacher in question. He wouldn't dare disobey him while he was in possession of information he could expose to the entire world with just a few taps on his phone. Not with the leverage he'd acquired all in the span of a few minutes. "Breathe."
"Sorry." Kaminari choked out, hating himself for how weak and wheezy his voice sounded. Nezu had told him to breathe, so he had to breathe, goddammit! "Sorry, so sorry."
"Seriously, kid. Relax. I'm not going to tell anyone."
Kaminari's eyes snapped up, eyes blowing wide and so, so hopeful it hurt. He knew he shouldn't hope for the best, he knew he shouldn't let his guard down because of some measly promise, but god, he hoped Nezu meant it. He had to mean it. His life...his everyday life...if his secret got out, the only place left for him where people wouldn't hate him would be back to his parents. He couldn't...he may be strong, he may talk big game, but he couldn't go through all that again.
"You're...not?" The words were quiet and spoken oh so small, but there was so much pleading laced through them, pleas to spare him his normal life and let him live without the threat of knives and death floating over his head. It had already destroyed him once. He wouldn't survive if it destroyed him again. "You're...you're not-"
"I'm not." Nezu interrupted, shooting Kaminari a small, careful smile. He was obviously wary of the boy's distressed state, even more so than the fact that he was the world's most dangerous assassin, which made no sense and Kaminari didn't understand-
"Hey, I'm serious." Nezu reached over his desk to place a small paw on Kaminari's shoulder, effectively snapping his head back to attention before he could start to spiral again. "I'm not mad. I'm not going to tell anyone. Let me explain."
"Okay," Kaminari whispered, but he didn't relax. He sat stiffly in his chair, hands clasped together in front of him and mouth pursed into a straight line. He hadn't been this afraid in...well, as long as he could remember, actually. He wasn't scared of death or injury or whatever amount of training he set out for himself, but he was afraid of...of this, of potentially losing a good thing. This was his good thing. UA was his good thing. His friends were his good thing. "Okay. Um. Yeah. Explain, please."
Nezu nodded, settling back in his own chair with his elbows on the desk and paws propping up his chin. "Did you think," He began, clearly choosing his words carefully. "That you were the only assassin to ever enroll in this school?"
Kaminari froze on the spot.
What.
"If you did, then you'd be wrong." Nezu went on, clearly taking Kaminari's stunned expression as an invitation to continue. "There was...one before you. He wasn't trained the way you were with amazing combat skills and power, but with his intelligence. People...experimented on him. Bad people. They tried to heighten it, make him the smartest being the world had ever seen so he could do their bidding for them. They had succeeded by accident, unintentionally creating the most intelligent being on the face of the planet while experimenting their procedures on...a rat."
Kaminari's breath caught in his throat. "You-"
Nezu smiled sadly, eyes sympathetic and looking somewhere far, far away. "Where did you think I got this scar, kid?"
Holy. Shit. Plot twist of the fucking century.
He was...like him. Holy...holy fuck
Kaminari could only stare, open-mouthed, as the principal continued with his monologue.
"They controlled me," Nezu spoke softly, clearly digging deep into memories he'd rather be suppressing but persevering nonetheless. Kaminari knew the feeling all too well. "I had been a stupid, mindless rat, and suddenly, I was filled with knowledge beyond the known world. How to knock someone out. How to track someone down with nothing more than their scent. How to...how to apply just the right amount of pressure to snap a neck." He paused, gathering his composure. Kaminari didn't press. "My captors kept me locked up in cages whenever I wasn't assassinating for them, and I let them. I didn't know it wasn't normal, that it was considered abuse for such an intelligent and self-aware mind to be trapped against his will."
"I'm so sorry," Kaminari murmured because, really, that was all he could say. He was sorry. He could sympathize with him. He knew how fucking terrible what he'd went through was, and he knew how much Nezu was hiding from him for the sake of his own mental state. "No one deserves to go through that."
Nezu nodded, nose twitching. "I know. I eventually figured that out for myself, but only after six long years of assassinating for them and being their slave. I hadn't even realized how messed up they'd made me until I'd escaped and...sliced their necks. This." He pointed to the long scar running over his eye, placing his paw over the wound tenderly. "I got this during my first and only failed assassination. My target-" He paused, contemplating. "My target had been a flowering assassin named Golden. I had been assigned to kill you when you were no more than six years old."
Kaminari's breath hitched.
"And yet..." Nezu ran a claw down his injury, his nail gingerly scraping it as he caressed the scar. "You had already surpassed me. My six years of endless assassinations were no match for your speed, stealth, and reflexes. I was severely outmatched, by a child no less, and I knew that. So, I bailed." Nezu sat back in his seat, carefully gauging Kaminari's petrified reaction. "I came back to base. My captors slashed me across the face when I didn't come back with your body. I killed them and escaped the next day."
"I'm so sorry," Kaminari whispered, eyes wide, wet, and horrified. Even as a child, he'd been causing the people who cared for him pain. What was even the point of his existence this far down the road? What good was it if he was just going to hurt everyone he'd ever met! "You don't...you have no idea-"
"Don't be sorry," Nezu interjected. His voice was kind. Soft, almost, and fond in a way Kaminari had never heard from the elder. "If anything, you were the reason I escaped that hell hole. Even as a child, you made me realize that there was no point in staying with those two awful men who treated me like some kind of primal animal that had to be locked in a cage. Do you know why?"
Kaminari shook his head. A stray tear fell from his eye as he did so. Both he and the principal pretended not to notice.
"Because I saw you with your friends. A girl with blonde pigtails-" Toga. "-and a boy with dyed black hair-" Dabi. "-were crowding around you when I found you, and you all were laughing. Your face was covered in cuts and bruises, and there was blood soaking through your pants, but you were laughing. The boy was looking at you with such fond eyes, and the girl was putting bandaids on whatever open wound she could, but you were happy in that moment. You had people that cared for you. Until I saw that...I hadn't even known anything like that existed. My entire world was just blood, murder, and death."
"So that made you escape?" Kaminari's voice was hushed, a shaky whisper. "...me?"
"Yes," Nezu responded simply. "It was you." He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. It was hard to be truly happy while reliving memories such as those. "The first time I saw you on school grounds, I recognized you. I was going to say something, but...you looked different than before. Not just your physique and your height, but your eyes. You looked...broken. Traumatized, I take it."
"Yeah, well..." Kaminari shrugged, glancing off to the side. "What even is trauma, y'know?"
Nezu regarded him for a moment before taking a big, deep breath. "Look." He folded his hands in front of him. "During my time as an assassin, I went through...awful things. But I know that...what I went through in all of my six years of captivity would barely even scratch the surface of what you had to endure your entire life. You went through...quite literally, you went through hell, Kaminari."
Kaminari just nodded. He didn't deny it. He'd be stupid to. "Well, I'm here now, so..." He shrugged, the action, unfortunately, making his sleeve ride up. Instantly, Nezu's eyes zeroed in on the ugly, blotchy scar just above his wrist from where he'd dug out the tracker when he'd escaped. He hastily pulled his sleeve down before he could expose anything more. "Yeah...um-"
"That's my point," Nezu whispered. His eyes traveled up from Kaminari's wrist to his face, nose twisting in sympathy. "You're here now. You're at UA. You're away from whoever had been torturing you for all those years-"
"My parents." Kaminari cut in. "Scarlet Killer and Livewire. My parents. They were the ones who tortured me."
"You're parents..." Nezu's voice faltered, clearly not expecting that his own family had tortured him to the brink of death, let alone the fact that his family consisted of two of the most dangerous criminals the world had to offer. "T-those are your parents?"
"Yeah." Kaminari shrunk into himself. He'd assumed Nezu had already known that. Fuck. "Let's...what were you saying?"
"Right. Um." Nezu blinked the surprise out of his eyes, filing away a mental note to look into the two named criminals later. "My point is, you're away from them now. So...why do you keep torturing yourself, even when you don't have to?"
"I don't torture myself-"
"You DO!" Nezu slammed his hands on the table, raising his voice for the first time that night. "You're classmates caught you cutting yourself, Kaminari! I only excused you from going to the counselor because I know your past, and I know that it was probably just for training, but now I follow you out onto the training grounds, only to see you sprint thirty-five consecutive miles and then proceed to double over and puke up blood!"
Kaminari bit his lip. "Principal Nezu...all due respect, but none of that stuff even comes close to my definition of torture."
Nezu opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then let out a sigh. He slumped back in his chair, regarding Kaminari was sad, sorrow-filled eyes. "I know, kid. I know. Just, considering all you've been through...don't you think you deserve a break? Just a little one?"
Kaminari shook his head, pretending not to see the way Nezu deflated at the answer. "I'm sorry. I know that you, knowing my identity and who I really and what I went through, think that I should cut myself some slack but...I can't. I'm not safe, and I'll never be safe until my parents are...dead. I always have to be on the top of my game and looking over my shoulder. I can't...I'm sorry, but I can't afford to be anything but on the top of my game."
Nezu rubbed his paw down his face in frustration, but he didn't protest. "Okay. If that's what you think is best, then that's fine." He took a deep breath, visibly unclenching his shoulders. "Even as a fellow assassin, I can't even begin to imagine how dangerous your situation is, let alone how dangerous your situation was back then before you managed to somehow escape." Kaminari opened his mouth to speak, but Nezu held up a hand before he could. "And I know what you're going to say. No, I don't want to know how you got out of your horrible situation. I don't need the gritty details. That's all in the past. I'm just glad you were able to escape and find us and this school."
Kaminari nodded and settled back into his seat. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Nezu replied. "And I know I can't possibly as you to do this, but just...try not to do anything that will endanger your life during your 'training.' Tonight was just a result of you overworking yourself, but throwing up blood in any situation is dangerous."
"I'll try, sir," Kaminari muttered, knowing full well he really wouldn't try at all. "If that's what you think is best."
Nezu shrugged, but Kami could see he was still more than a little tense. "It's not necessarily for my own peace of mind, Kaminari. I know who you are. I know what you're capable of, and I know that you can more than take care of yourself. It's your classmates that I think you should be careful for."
That wasn't the answer Kaminari had been expecting. "My classmates...?"
"Your classmates," Nezu confirmed. "Those friends of yours love you to bits, kid. Even during those three hours when you were passed out from blood loss, they were total wrecks."
"Oh," Kaminari responded dumbly, ignoring the way his cheeks were heating up at the confession. "Okay."
Nezu snorted but didn't comment on his student's flusteredness. "Your classmates care about you, kid, and I know that you care about them. That's probably another reason why you work so damn hard in your training even though no one is forcing you to, right?" Kaminari nodded silently. Nezu smiled. "See? There you go."
"Thanks, Principal Nezu," Kaminari said hesitantly after a few silent moments of the two staring at each other. "I'm...I'm glad you go out of your situation. No one deserves to go through any of that."
"No one certainly does." Nezu agreed. He reached across the desk with his paw. Kaminari took it after a few seconds of hesitation. "If you ever need anything, kid, and I mean anything, you talk to me."
Despite himself, Kaminari smiled, a real smile, this time, for the first time that night. "Thank you, Principal Nezu. I will."
"I'll count on it, kid." He sat back in his chair. "Now get out of here and back to your dorm before someone sees you. It's been a long night."
"I will." Kaminari stood up from his seat, walking towards the doorway but pausing midway. He turned back around. "And thank you for protecting me and my identity."
Nezu just smiled. "You're a good kid, Kaminari. A good kid that doesn't deserve even half the stuff that's happened to him. Remember that."