Pillars of Hope

by Anon is a Terrible Name

We all love stories about heroes. Stories about time-travel are especially great because we get to read how our beloved Main Character go back in time and fix their mistakes. Naturally they cause waves and bump into obstacles that they haven't met before, but this isn't that kind of story. This isn't that kind of time travel story. Kaminari centric, no slash. Future pairings.

3. Mission 3: How would you like to die?

Pillars of Hope 3

Mission 3: How would you like to die?

Disclaimer: Do not own anything.

Time travel stories have always been a mainstay of fanfiction. We all love stories about heroes. Stories about time-travel are especially great because we get to read how our beloved heroes go back in time and fixed their mistakes. Naturally they cause waves and bump into obstacles that they haven't met before, but this isn't that kind of story. This is a story about a side character, who inadvertently goes back in time, and how he chooses to deal with the new set of cards he has been dealt.

Notes:

1. Apologies for the delay in updating. Real life interferes. Was laid off, during Covid19 no less, and had to scramble to find a new job, and therefore new lodgings if I didn't want to starve. Life has only recently settled down enough for me to afford some time to write again.

2. For Kaminari's Hero costume, think Strife from Darksiders, minus the oversized guns, and you'll be fairly close.

****PoH***

Song list

Light 'Em Up – Fallout Boys

You're Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring

****PoH***

Play Light 'Em Up – Fallout Boys

"Who the fuck is that and what the hell is he doing?" Higari Maijima, otherwise known as the Excavation Hero, Power Loader as well as the current Head of the Support Course of UA and a fairly well-known inventor in his own right muttered in utter mystification as a blond kid with a pair of headphones hanging around his neck, looking entirely far too young to be a student or have a disturbing fetish for black leather for that matter, and a fairly stylish hairstyle featuring a black streak shaped like a lightning bolt down the left side, had pranced into the Support Course Engineering labs together with Eraser Head early in the morning before classes had even started.

Said blond boy had proceeded to casually wave at him with a cocky grin and a "Sup, Power Loader." As if they were old friends, before literally jumping straight into the pile of reject spare parts and materials set at the very back of the Lab for Support Course students destined for the recycling plant.

Power Loader's first instinct had been to yell at the kid to stay away from the pointy, explody stuff, but the kid had quickly started picking out random parts that he began to pile on the nearest work table, looking for all the world like he did this all the time.

"Good morning to you too, Power Loader." Eraser replied with all the emotion of a dead fish, "His name is Kaminari Denki. As for what he's doing… I have no idea either."

Power Loader stared at Eraser Head uncomprehendingly, "Who the fuck cares what his name is? Am I supposed to just let him run in here and start playing with my stuff?"

"Your junk." Eraser Head corrected him idly, as he watched the blond had picked up a cracked metallic rod and had begun to expertly weave some wire around the rod, wishing he had thought of grabbing an extra-large mug of coffee. Unfortunately, the boy had showed back up at UA early in morning, way too early for it to be healthy. Apparently, he had taken Nedzu at his word last night and decided that he now had been given carte blanche to skip classes entirely.

Speaking of which… "If you have a complaint, feel free to go straight to the boss. The rat's the one that told him that he could use anything he could find here."

Power Loader pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation, "What the hell? Who is this kid even?"

Eraser Head rolled his bloodshot eyes around as he mulled over the question for a moment, it wasn't like he could tell the truth, because chances were, Power Loader would just think he was even crazier than he really was, or huffing some seriously potent stuff.

So Eraser Head just shrugged, "He caught Nedzu's interest. I got nothing more than that for you."

There was a loud metallic from the corner where the pile of junk was and both of them turned back to the blond in time to see him slam two similar looking rods together again, apparently testing their durability. Letting out a happy huff, the blond proceeded to place the two rods on a nearby table before going back to squinting at the pile of junk again.

His curiosity aroused; Power Loader stomped over to the table where the two rods now laid. He took them in with an experienced eye, the two obviously crudely constructed pieces of equipment were about an arm's length, from elbow to fingertip, with electroconductive spring coils running down the entire length of it and then jury-rigged with a pair of steel gray handles that Power Loader vaguely remembered coming from a couple of faulty flamethrowers he had lying around in that pile.

Although they looked pretty crude and roughly made, with pieces of circuitry and wires roughly soldered and jammed into the main body of the rod here and there for no discernible reason, the obviously sturdy construction reminded him of a stun baton minus a power source. Then again, he supposed that didn't matter with some Quirks, like the one this kid probably had if his name and hairstyle was any indication, "This doesn't look too bad kid." Power Loader couldn't help but comment, "It looks like shit, but considering you slapped these two together in barely 15 minutes, you got some talent for this."

"Nah." Kaminari replied casually, "I couldn't design my way out of a wet paper bag even if my life depended on it. My colleagues made me memorize a few blueprints, so if I ever found myself without any equipment on hand, I would at least have the option of making some in case I had the materials nearby."

It had been part of the same time travel preparation courses he and Deku had undergone. Obviously…. he hadn't exactly bothered to do it seriously, so it was not like he had memorized everything like he knew his mentor had. Allegedly. Just some of the more interesting or relevant stuff.

A bewildered Power Loader gave Eraser Head a side glance and mouthed, "Colleagues?"

The tired looking man stared back from behind his curtain of straggly hair and simply shrugged again.

Picking up a sharpened piece of metal, he grunted as he snapped the pointy top off with his bare hands and began to fashion it into a hook. A quick zap of electricity from his finger melted the handle down just enough for him to solder a wire on to it before he grabbed some super strength glue from the work table that he liberally spread around the part joining the wire to the hook to strengthen the connection enough that it could support his weight, "By the way, Power Loader-sensei, do you mind helping me put together some armor?"

"Armor?" Power Loader echoed blankly.

"Yeah, nothing special." Kaminari replied blandly, as he began to spool the wire into a tight bundle around a piece of metal, "Just a chest plate, a belt, a mask, a pair of gloves and a pair of boots will be more than enough. I've got the designs ready already."

Blinking dumbly, Power Loader just glanced at Eraser Head again who simply returned the questioning glance with another lazy shrug. Mentally cursing the lazy bastard, Power Loader turned back to the boy, "Let me look at the design first."

Grinning, Kaminari reached into his back pocket and handed several pieces of A4 paper over to the topless Hero. Frowning mightily, Power Loader glanced through the designs before blinking at the designs he was holding.

He had honestly been expecting something a lot edgier.

You know, the kind of stuff everyone usually expected from puberty-stricken teenagers who went around dressed in black leather shoes, black leather tight jeans and black leather jackets, the stuff with pointy shoulders and spikes etc. The designs he had been given were basic and rudimentary stuff any first-year student with a 3D printer in the garage could make with sufficient materials, some cloth to line the insides to prevent chafing and some leather straps. The boy had even provided all the measurements for every dimension so he didn't even need to measure the kid or anything.

All this boy wanted were knee-high greaves, elbow length gauntlets, a simple chest plate with segmented links covering the entire front of the body and a simple, if intimidating, faceplate with a smoothed back top to contrast the pointed chin. In fact, the only concessions given to looks were the deep grooves running through the metal parts, and even those seemed to be for movement more than for looks.

The boy had no requirements for color or plating like most Heroes did nowadays.

Seriously. He knew people who got rich just from decorating costumes for Heroes because there were plenty of idiots out there who liked walking around in gold plated armor or had themed wardrobes.

"They look… simple." Power Loader allowed after a moment of hesitation, "It shouldn't take me long to throw this together.'

Kaminari smiled awkwardly at the Excavation Hero's reaction as he set down another piece of equipment he had just finished putting together, very much well aware that his fashion sense as a kid had been rather…. unique, and it wasn't like he had had the time or money to go out shopping for something more comfortable right now, "Thanks Power Loader-sensei. You think you can finish them by tomorrow?"

Power Loader snorted indignantly as he ambled over to the PC terminal set in another corner of the lab, "I can finish them in one hour. Two hours tops."

Kaminari chuckled as he looked down at the stuff he had made with some satisfaction, "These should be more than enough for now." The blond murmured. Anything better was going to take more specialized equipment and time to make than he could afford right now. Looking around, he saw an empty equipment case and grabbed it, "You mind if I take this, Power Loader-sensei?"

"Hmm?" Power Loader glanced at the box uncertainly from behind the PC where he was inputting the designs, wondering what the hell was really going on here, "Uh yeah, sure go ahead, kid."

The electric Quirk user tied the two rods together with a spare belt because they were too long to fit in the case before he carefully packed the rest of his equipment into the case and turned to Eraser Head, "I'm done Eraser Head-sensei, let's go find somewhere I can start training."

"What…yawwnn… do you need next?" Eraser Head who had been dozing off struggled to keep his eyes open as he followed Kaminari out of the labs with a yawn, leaving a still confused Power Loader who watched them go.

The currently 15-year-old former pro Hero frowned thoughtfully, "An obstacle course would be best. Something like Training Ground Gamma would do, and weights. A lot of weights."

"How do you… ah. Never mind. Yeah sure." A little of interest sparked to life behind Eraser Head's bloodshot eyes at the thought of finally seeing what the brat could really do, "Let's go. No one's going to be using that place anytime soon anyway."

****PoH****

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think he's a fucking machine." Vlad muttered, "That's not the kind of determination you usually see in kids."

"Technically, he's not a kid." The underground Hero who was slumped in a chair in the stands while he watched a blond sprint across the training ground pointed out, "Is it lunch break already?"

"Yeah." Vlad replied as he dumped a pile of sandwiches into the seat next to Eraser Head, "Figured I'd come and see if the kid is just bluffing or if he was serious about the whole yakuza thing. He's seriously been doing this until now?"

Eraser Head shrugged, "We came here after he slapped together some weird stuff at Power Loader's place. Haven't left the training grounds since. All he does is sprint around the place, using all the buildings and junk like an obstacle course. Every so often he stops comes back here just to add some more weight to what he's already carrying, then he starts over again."

"Fuck, that's some serious stamina at the very least. That's at least second year level isn't it?" Vlad squinted at the lanky boy who had thrown off his jacket and shirt and was now running around barefooted, "He really doesn't look the type. Way too skinny."

"That's not all." Eraser Head admitted, "I time him every now and then. He's getting faster. A lot faster. It took him 1 hour and 30 minutes to do one lap around the Training Ground at first with about 20KG. He's got it down to 1 hour with 40KG now. He's intentionally taking different routes each time too, so I can't even say that it's because he's gotten more familiar with the obstacles."

"Seriously? And he doesn't miss a single step carrying all that weight?"

"He slipped once or twice." Eraser Head shrugged as the two of them watched Kaminari jog back to them. Sweat was practically flowing off his body like a river as he waved at Vlad with a casual grin, "Sup, Vlad."

"Just dropping in." Vlad returned the greeting with a nod as he critically eyed the blond picking up a bottle of water next to a pile of already empty ones and popped it open before chugging the entire thing, he could practically see the boy's muscles visibly spasming. That couldn't be normal. "Aren't you overdoing it a little? Even if this is nothing for you mentally, your actual body hasn't really done anything as hard as this before right?"

"It's fine." Kaminari shrugged, "I'm built a bit different than others. It's always tough when you start doing something, but I reckon it shouldn't take too long before it settles down a bit."

"Because of your Quirk?" Eraser Head interjected shrewdly.

"Something like that." Kaminari smirked.

"Weren't you an Emitter?" Vlad pointed out, "How does that help you strengthen your body?"

"It's a side effect of my Quirk… sort of." Kaminari admitted freely, "it's a bit of a long story too."

"We've got time." Eraser Head replied blandly, "I'm basically going to be your glorified baby sitter for the next week anyway."

Kaminari shrugged, he figured it was more or less time for a break anyway. So, he collapsed into one of the seats on the bleachers where Eraser Head and Vlad were already sitting and watching him attentively with a happy grunt, "You remember how I said something about just coasting along in school and never really developing my Quirk?"

"Storage and release of Electricity yeah?" Eraser Head asserted, having read the files that UA had on the boy. Apparently, the boy was on UA's watchlist for kids with potent quirks, which was how Nedzu had known his name after doing a facial recognition scan and cross referencing it with their database.

"Yep." Kaminari replied casually, "It's not like I was completely slacking, y'see. I do remember trying to get stronger and finding more ways of using my Quirk. I just wasn't very serious about it." He mused to himself, "The first way was to increase my own stockpile of electricity, the other was to use technology." Seeing Eraser Head and Vlad's inquiring gazes, he elaborated, "My Quirk passively gives me immunity to electricity, not control. Activating my Quirk allows me to release the electricity I've stockpiled, but since I have zero control over it, it disperses randomly over a limited radius. Problem is, there's actually quite a bit of resistance in the air, so I could use up like a million volts and maybe only a couple of thousand would connect. Assuming it hit at all. So I had these discs made that I could throw behind my target that would draw my electric to them, and thus, my target."

"Like lightning rods?" Eraser Head clarified thoughtfully.

Kaminari snapped his fingers, "That's the one. I can't even remember what I called them anymore." He confessed with some embarrassment.

"There's still quite a bit of downsides to that idea though. You would need to set them up and get them into position before they can be useful and I can't see that being very convenient to do, especially in a fight or an emergency." Vlad replied with a pointed glance at Eraser Head, "In fact, it sounds like something your homeroom teacher should have helped you with."

Kaminari laughed out loud, "See, that's why you're my favorite teacher, Vlad. You're always looking out for your students, first and foremost."

"I thought I was your homeroom teacher!" Eraser Head spluttered out indignantly.

"You were." Kaminari replied dryly, "But I think we can all be honest here and admit that you're not exactly great teacher material. You're a good person at heart, but as a teacher…." Kaminari trailed off with a pointed look.

Eraser Head did not pout, but he came very close to it to Kaminari's great amusement.

"Either way, that was my Quirk in a nutshell for my first 4 years or so of Hero-hood." The blond continued, sobering down a bit at the thought of what came next, "It was an Emitter quirk though and through, and despite it's incredible potency, it required time consuming set up to be used effectively. Blindly blasting it out was insanely inefficient and even that came with a huge downside. My Quirk doesn't differentiate from the electricity I stockpile and my own bio-electric, so if I'm not careful, I might overdraw from my own bio-electric and end up a vegetable until I have enough bio-electric to clearly think again. Unfortunately, this also means that if I push the envelope too far, I can even stop my own heart from beating and just straight up just keel over dead after blasting everything to smithereens."

"That's what happened isn't it?" Eraser Head said shrewdly as he finally deciphered the look on the boy's face, "You overdid it and ended up out of commission during a fight and your friend passed away trying to save you."

"She was trying to keep my heart beating with her Quirk when she was stabbed from the back." Kaminari nodded in response, not bothering to deny Eraser Head's rather rude interruption, "It hit her heart. She went down instantly. Not even Recovery Girl could do anything. We'd only been out of UA a year at that point." He continued with a humorless smile while Eraser Head and Vlad paled at the thought of one of their students dying so soon.

He looked down at his hands and clenched them tightly, "After that, the media went nuts crucifying me and the Agency I was with. I ended up retiring and stopped being a Hero. I spent my days holed up in my room and growing mold in the closet. A lot of people didn't agree with that. I remember quite a few of people coming over and demanding that I stop moping around being so sorry for myself." Kaminari continued to reminisce with a small smile, "My Agency's head honcho, Edgeshot, he told me that he refused to accept my resignation and that he expected to see me back on the ground as soon as possible. Even Present Mic came…. said he didn't blame me. And that he hoped I wouldn't waste Kyouka's sacrifice."

"Present Mic? As in Hizashi Yamada? This Kyouka was his protégé" Vlad blinked with surprise as he shared a look with Eraser Head. Their friend and colleague, Hizashi Yamada, was not known for having sidekicks.

"Sound based Emitter Quirk." Kaminari provided an indirect answer.

"Ah."

"Try to keep it a spoiler for him yeah? I don't really want him to pick her up as a sidekick just because I said something. I'd prefer her to get the position on her own merits."

The two teachers shared another look before nodding in agreement.

Kaminari his hands together in an attempt to dispel the somber mood over the three of them and straightforwardly continued, "So anyway. Depression and suicidal thoughts aside, I hid out in my room until my mentor came around. 'Course he wasn't my mentor yet at the time. Just our typical all round, pure as snow, aspiring Hero of Heroes. Long story short, he managed to pull my head out of my ass, and together, we worked to see if I could improve or find another way to use my Quirk, so I could become a better Hero."

He smiled fondly, this was one of his favorite memories, "We were hitting dead end after dead ends. So there we were, just sitting there trying to think of something. He was staring at the wall blankly muttering to himself like a nutcase, I was sitting in another corner, playing with my phone when it ran out of battery. So, I put the cable in my mouth to charge it up. My mentor just stared at me at first when he suddenly jumped up and pointed at me with a crazy look in his eyes." Kaminari laughed, "I still remember what he said, 'You can charge phones!'" Kaminari mimicked him with a high-pitched squeak, "So I said, 'Yeahhhh? I've been doing this ever since I was a kid. Heck, I've done it in front of you plenty of times.'"

Kaminari shrugged and smiled at his two teachers, "Turns out you need a current to charge a phone and I had never realized. The electricity I had stockpiled wasn't just sitting inside of me like I had thought and creating a current with it, implied that I could in fact, control electricity, as long as it was still inside me OR connected TO me in some way. So… we decided to test it out, and voila…."

A ball of crackling electricity sparked to life between his hands. Eraser Head and Vlad gawped at the bright ball of crackling power as the boy threw it from one hand to another like it was a toy, two thin strands of bright blue electricity connecting the ball to the boy's hands.

Kaminari let the power fade with a wave of his hands, "Fancy lightshow aside, when I realized that I could move the electricity within me, it suddenly felt like I had obtained an entirely new sense, or rather, it was always there, but I never noticed until then." The blond boy mused to himself, "Point being, it let me do stuff like this." He reached forward and tapped Eraser Head's arm.

The dark-haired underground Hero spasmed with a light gasp as his body stiffened from the current running through his body. Beside him, Vlad tensed up but didn't move to stop Kaminari since Eraser Head didn't look like he was in pain.

"Huh. Didn't know you used to smoke." Kaminari smiled lightly as he withdrew his hand.

"Wha-What was that?" Eraser Head let out another gasp of relief as the unpleasant feeling faded, "Felt like I put my finger in a live socket or something…"

"I pulsed my Quirk through you." The blond boy informed them casually before grinning at the look Eraser Head was sending him, "Yeah, it's not very pleasant. If I do that on my own body, I don't really feel anything because I'm immune to that kinda stuff, but others aren't." Kaminari observed blandly, "Basically, my electric spread throughout your whole body before it returned to me. The feedback from that electricity lets me sort of scan your body."

Kaminari pursed his lips before continuing, "Well…. Not quite scan per se, but the feedback gives me a strange sort…. Vibration? Picture? I'm not quite sure how to explain it. I just know that from the feeling I get, that your lungs aren't quite healthy and that they have something clogged up in there. From past experience, the toughness and density of the feedback I'm getting usually means its nicotine. The feeling I get also tells me that its quite old, so I can guess that you haven't smoked in a while, but you used to, and quite heavily too." He glanced at the older Hero, "I can also tell that your body is exhausted and strained."

"I could tell him that even without a Quirk." Vlad noted dryly.

"I think even a blind man can do that." Kaminari agreed with a grin, "Either way, point being is that when I continuously pulse my Quirk like that through my body, it does a lot more than just scan. It also slowly strengthens my muscles and body, kinda like a continuous massage, just without the unpleasant parts like stiffening and so on. My mentor and Recovery Girl explained it to me before, but I honestly can't remember the specifics." He admitted with half-hearted shrug, "I only know that continuously doing that while I'm training lets me not only keep an eye on muscles or organs that may not be performing optimally, and make them stronger, even faster than normal."

"Hence the spasming." Vlad nodded thoughtfully.

"Hence the spasming." Kaminari agreed cheerfully before he continued sheepishly, "Honestly, I only started using that part of my Quirk five years from now when I was already fully matured, so I'm honestly not sure if doing it now, while I'm in the middle of puberty, is a good thing. I reckon if something goes wrong, I can stop doing it for a while, but it's bit urgent right now, so I don't really have a choice."

"And you believe if you continue doing this, you will be strong enough in five days?" Vlad tried to clarify.

"Now that I've actually put some work in, I believe I'll be more than ready in three days actually." Kaminari noticed Vlad's furrowed brows at his declaration so he continued to explain his line-of-thought, "Like I said, I hadn't realized how puberty would've affected my training method, but it's been unusually effective. To the point that I'm actually worried that there might be some side-effects later on, so I don't plan on doing this any more than necessary."

"Alright… We'll let Nedzu know." Vlad replied slowly.

"Naturally." Kaminari replied with a smirk as he got up again and headed back to the training ground.

Trying not to treat Kaminari like just another child was difficult, but every time he heard a such a rational, open and honest response from him, as if he was speaking to another experienced adult Hero, he still found himself utterly mystified at the mere idea of time travel, and the fact that it had actually worked.

As the blond ambled off to begin his training again, Eraser Head looked up from behind a curtain of black hair, "You realize he didn't tell us everything right?"

"To be fair, I don't tell you everything I can do either." Vlad replied straightforwardly, "Plus, I trust him to let us know if its necessary. Or at least, I trust the boss to keep him in line."

Eraser Head simply grunted to himself and curled up into a tighter ball in his seat to wait for the blond to finish whatever he was doing.

****PoH****

Three days later arrived far faster than Vlad had thought it would and he found himself back in Nedzu's office together with Kaminari and Eraser Head again. It was evening and the sun was already setting when Kaminari had informed them that he was ready, hence the meeting.

The mouse simply looked the boy up and down once with clear disbelief showing on his furry face.

The reason for his surprise was obvious, Kaminari had evidently understated just how effective his training would be, because the boy had bulked up significantly. It wasn't like he had turned into a mountain of muscle ala Vlad or even AllMight over night, but there was a visible difference in both height and bulk. The blond had put on at least 5 cm in height and filled out so he didn't look so scrawny anymore. He even had to get Power Loader to make an entirely new set of armor for him because he could no longer fit into the previous one.

There had been much groveling involved.

Vlad could not deny the end effect though. Once he had put on the armor, slicking back his hair so that it spiked backwards under the full-face mask, clad in a dark skin-tight suit with the chest piece, bracers and greaves attached and a simple maroon scarf wrapped around his neck, he didn't look like the 15-year-old boy he was anymore. If anything, he looked like the quintessential underground Hero, though the design actually reminded him more of Edgeshot or Ingenium for some reason. Either way, unless you knew him personally, it was easy to just brush it off as him just being a little shorter and a bit leaner than the average adult.

"Denki?"

The armor-clad blond saluted him professionally with a subtly electronic rasp/growl that clearly contained some amusement, "Chargebolt reporting for duty, Sir."

Vlad wasn't clear how that worked. It didn't look like he had added a voice synthesizer or voice changer to the mask, though he didn't discount the possibility that there might be one under the scarf.

Nedzu waved at them to sit down and they did so, "Every time I see one of my students go on to be a Hero, I always feel inordinately proud of what we're doing here. Looking at you now, even though neither my colleagues or I have ever taught you, yet I cannot help but be proud of what I'm looking at here for some reason."

The steel mask tilted in acknowledgement but he remained silent.

"How long do you expect this operation to take?"

"Two hours at most."

Nedzu's brows went up, "You don't need to watch the compound first or prepare anything?"

The yellow tinted glass that covered the eye holes the mask hid where the blond was looking, but the way his head tilted indicated that the blond was thinking, "I am prepared. I've also spent a couple of hours the past two days watching the compound to get a feel of the people there at the moment. I do not foresee any difficulty." Kaminari stated simply.

"Very well. Vlad, Eraser Head, please accompany him, but do not make your presence known unless necessary." Nedzu nodded with satisfaction, he rather liked the future Hero's extremely practical and no-nonsense approach to business. It was to the point where he was starting to think that taking over the Hero Association was a good thing if that was the culture amongst Heroes in the future, "Chargebolt, move out." Nedzu declared with all the gleeful authority he could muster.

The blond nodded sharply and padded out of the room silently, followed by a frowning Eraser Head and Vlad who was simply interested in seeing how things would work out.

The journey to the yakuza estate right in the middle of Chiba was made in silence, until the three of them found themselves silently crouched on the roof of one of the office buildings overlooking the traditional, if luxurious, Japanese residence that functioned as the Shie Hassaikai's Headquarters. To their right and left, they could see two more tall buildings that surrounded the compound's sides, the very back of the main building was currently facing them and the Main Gate was on the opposite side. All three taller buildings forming a semi-circle around the shorter main building belonged to the Shie Hassaikai, but information on the other buildings around these four had not been as easy to find.

"You already know where this girl you're meant to rescue is?" Vlad quietly asked the armored Hero next to him.

"I did so the other times I was here. Just need to verify if that has changed." Kaminari replied briefly. Vlad and Eraser Head furrowed their brows as they watched the blond moved over to a switchboard contained in a metal box next to them. Evidently, the blond already knew that this was here, which was why he had selected it as a vantage point. Quietly opening the box, Kaminari ripped off the rubber wrapping one of the wires and then grabbed the live wire with his bare fingers.

There was a brief gasp from the two older Heroes, but the armored blonde ignored them as he closed his eyes.

A few moments later, the blond let go of the wire, "Found her."

Eraser Head quirked one brow, remembering the time travelling Hero's explanation of how he used his quirk, "You scanned the whole building through the wires?"

"Sort of." Kaminari replied briefly as he continued to mentally organize the information he had just gotten, "I can't detect organics this way, but the feedback shows me that there's a lot of heavy-duty machinery and equipment using up a lot of juice way underground, far more than a residential building has any right to be using, and if they're currently in use, then that's where she will be located. The wiring also gives me a sort of 3D map of the entire building, so I know how to get there as well."

Eraser Head considered the blond's reply before nodding, "Useful."

Behind his steel mask, Kaminari grinned, "That's what you said in the future too."

Eraser Head simply snorted; a slight smile painted on his lips, "How do you plan to enter?"

"Like this." Unseen to them, the blond grinned and grabbed the live wire again and focused.

After a brief moment, the entire compound suddenly went dark as every light and all electric equipment connected to the grid shut down. Below them, there was already shouts of surprise and panic as people started running around in a hurry to find out what happened to the electric.

"I drained all the power out of the closest substation. Fixing it won't take longer than a day. They'll just need to get the system up and running again before it can continue transmitting power from the national energy grid." Kaminari explained without prompting.

Despite himself, Eraser Head found himself rather impressed, being able to take out all the lights in an entire district was a rather useful ability for underground Heroes.

Kaminari padded over to the edge of the building and waved at them, "Backup generators come up in about 10 minutes. Can't do anything about those without direct access to their circuits while they're online, but I should be able to get in before then. See you in a bit."

The two of them watched the armor-clad blond take a step off the ledge before sharing a look. Vlad shrugged and Eraser Head sighed before both of them hunkered down and prepared to play observer.

Below them, Kaminari let himself for a moment before one hand shot out and a thin wire with a hook on the end swung out, a quick twist of the wrist and a yank found the blond Hero silently changing trajectories, until he skidded to a crouching stop right behind the main building of the Shie Hassaikai compound.

Another quick twist of the wrist had the wire unhooked from the tree branch and spooled back up into the sleeve of his bracer with the help of a small engine powered fishing reel thingies.

Quietly crouching and crawling up to the paper sliding doors at the very back of the building in such a way that his silhouette would not show up on the sliding paper door even this darkness, Kaminari quietly slid it open a tiny crack and peered into the room. There were two people inside talking angrily about the blackout. He didn't bother to listen to them, instead he simply eased out two crude metal needles, or senbon fashioned from some metal chopsticks, from his belt. For a moment, he held the two senbon wedged between his pointer, middle and ring finger before he flicked them out.

The metal needles sunk into the two men's flesh through their clothes, but before they could even make a noise, a brief burst of electricity from his fingers zapped both of them, akin to a fuse blowing out, the specially treated needles acted like mini lightning rods. Kaminari heard two fleshy thuds hit the ground and smelt the slight smell of roasted meat before he eased into the room. These guys weren't going to be waking up anytime soon. Even if they did, he seriously doubted they'd be in any condition to do anything more than soil their own pants. The blond dragged the two roasted but alive men back out of the room as quietly as he could before stuffing them into a dark corner under the veranda, and then going back into the room, he peered through the sliding paper doors leading into the house itself.

From his earlier scan and the types of equipment plugged into the grid, he had hazarded a rough guess that this building was the main living compound where most of the yakuza stayed. The entrance to the underground was also located in this building, somewhere in the middle.

Making sure that there wouldn't be anyone bumping into him, the armored blond carefully eased himself and crept along the right corridor that would connect this back room to the main hall and the rooms around it. As he crawled around, Kaminari made sure to keep to the shadows, keeping his ears pricked and stopping to pay some attention to the sounds he could hear from each of the rooms lining the corridor and make sure that there wasn't anyone about to walk into him until he hit the main hall.

Peering into the main hall, he could see that there were four entrances. He was looking through the right one, there was one from the left corridor opposite of him. To his left was the entrance to the main office, and the right, would lead to the entrance hall. Unfortunately, there were a number of men sitting in the hall in the candle light as they drank and played cards rowdily, presumably out of boredom. Behind his steel mask, Kaminari frowned, he didn't really have anything to put down that many people in one go. At least not without minimal fuss. So he backtracked instead and entered the closest room hoping to find a window so that he could go back out and enter the entrance hall another way.

The moment he cracked open the sliding paper door to the room outside of the main hall, Kaminari stiffened as he saw someone inside. So far, all the thugs he had seen so far were dressed normally, for yakuza that is, but the man inside this room had one of those black plague doctor masks and draped entirely in a black cloak. A black bowler hat was on the table next to him. Kaminari glanced behind him, this close to the main hall, he couldn't risk one of his Stun Needles. No matter how drunk the idiots behind him were, they would definitely notice the light.

For a moment, he considered his options before he slid another needle out into his hand and opened the door and stepped in. the man behind the table facing him instantly looked up warily.

There was a brief intake of air, but he didn't get the chance to even let out a peep before a metal needle slammed straight into his shoulder with enough force to throw him back into his chair. The man in the black plague mask shuddered and grit his teeth to hold in the pain from the needle now buried deeply in his shoulder, all the way to the bone.

"A-And who might you be?" the man in the black plague masked tried to ask as nonchalantly as possible despite the pain.

To his surprise, Kaminari found his own mouth opening, "Ka-" He bit down viciously but it didn't work, he still felt the his mouth trying to reply despite what his mind, so he tried another tack, "Your great grandfather."

Kaminari blinked.

The other man seemed just as surprised as him, "Who are you?!" He tried again, more insistent this time.

Grinning behind his metal mask, Kaminari replied as he started creeping forwards, "I told you, I'm your great grandfather."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to molest you with a couple of pointy things." Kaminari grinned wider behind the mask, the Black Plague Mask's quirk seemed to be trying to force him to tell the truth, but it didn't seem capable of differentiating between the truth the man wanted, and what he considered the truth. Another needle slid into his hand and Kaminari held it up like a dagger for the guy to see as he advanced on the other man.

"I don't know who you are, but if you leave right now, I won't tell anyone. You don't know what you're dealing with here. Just leave." The man said steadily, still grasping his shoulder. However, despite his unwavering tone, the blond could tell that the guy's physical abilities were average at best from the way he was trying to back away from him. However, he also seemed fairly intelligent. At the very least, he was aware that the room was small enough that if he was too loud, Kaminari was close enough to shut him down painfully, so he was trying to cajole the blond as he frantically looked for a way out of this mess in one piece.

It didn't take more than five steps before Kaminari was now directly in front of him. Very calmly, Kaminari held up the needle and dug it into the man's throat, "Before we begin, let's clear up some misconceptions you seem to having." He informed the shaking man with as pleasantly as he could. Unfortunately, the voice synthesizer turned it into some sort of electronic beast-like growl that had the man shaking even harder.

The needle dug even deeper into the man's unprotected throat until he could see the man's Adam's apple bouncing against the pointy tip, "I'm not the kind of Hero you seem to think I am, so trust me when I say that I have very little issues with stabbing you. Whether or not you survive what I'm about to do to you is completely irrelevant and just means that I have to do things the long way instead. Now, where's the girl?" he growled the last word pointedly.

The man seemed to shake for a moment when Kaminari clapped one hand on the man's mouth and stabbed the needle into his gut instead before he could even reply, "Wrong answer."

The man whimpered quietly.

They both knew he had been about to lie.

Another needle slid out, this time he placed it against the man's temple pressing it down, the man in the plague mask gulped as he felt the steel needle piercing the mask and was now uncomfortably lodged in his forehead, "Last chance. I know she's here, and I know she's underground. The only thing I don't know yet, is how do I get to her?" Kaminari growled again as he eased up on his other hand, lifting it a bit so the man could whisper.

"Downstairs. Bedroom. There's a switch beneath the vase in the entrance hall." The man choked out.

"Good boy." This close to the man, there wasn't even a flicker of light as he stiffened and shook violently while electricity rampaged through his entire nervous system before collapsing into his seat again, his entire frame smoking slightly. Kaminari quietly rearranged the man's position so that it looked like he had simply fallen asleep at his table before taking his leave through the window behind the man.

Making his way around to the entrance hall, he found the vase easier than expected and he found himself with two problems.

The first problem came when the secret entrance suddenly swung open before he could turn the switch.

Apparently, the backup generators were already back on

The second problem was the fact that he was now face to face, or mask to mask as it were, with a towering bald man with a medical mask covering his mouth. The two stunned men stared at each other for a brief moment before Kaminari flipped over backwards, hammering the man in the chin with both feet and enough force to break a neck, sending him flying backwards into two other people that had been hidden behind the man's bulk, he sent several needles down at the pile of flesh but one of them wriggled out from under his larger friend and suddenly his mouth sort of swelled open, showing off a gargantuan cavern of a throat before it chomped down on the needles mid-air.

Kaminari just sighed. There was no way those idiots back in the hall hadn't heard all that commotion.

Welp…. There went his perfect stealth record. Not that he had one. He kind of sucked at stealth to be honest, being a walking lightbulb kinda did that to you. But he wouldn't deny he had imagined completing the mission perfectly and well… showing off a little to Nedzu, Eraser Head and Vlad.

On the bright side, he always did prefer punching things rather than sneaking around.

Play You're Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring

Stepping through the door way, the blond pulled the trigger again to close the doors before frying the mechanisms with a loud and flashy burst of electricity. He figured that would be enough to keep them busy for a bit as the lanky man in the scarecrow mask scrambled up the stairs towards him, leaving his two friends behind to gather themselves.

Kaminari frowned down at the moment rushing up to him, his enlarged mouth was chomping repeatedly with those tombstone straight teeth. It was so large that it practically covered the entirety of the narrow passageway. His physical abilities seemed less than average considering how slow he was actually moving despite rushing up the stairs, but his reflexes were better than normal as evident from the way he had chomped the needles out of the air as if they were nothing more than candy canes.

The scarecrow guy's mouth-based Quirk seemed to provide him with some pretty nifty offensive abilities by allowing him to eat even metal. However, following that logic to the extreme meant that he could also only eat what his mouth could reach. Enlarging his mouth like that also meant that he could now only see what was above him rather than what was in front of him, nor did his Quirk provide him with any additional enhancements or defenses.

Threat assessment: F-rank.

The armored blond simply waited until the man was close enough that he could smell the guy's halitosis, at which point he simply stepped aside, letting the man rush past him, and then jabbing scarecrow mask in the neck with his thumb.

Scarecrow mask collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

He looked back at the two other man and assessed them.

The one he had kicked in the face was now up again and rumbling towards him. Baldy's chin and lower part of his face was covered in some sort of crystalline growth, which was probably the only reason why he was still moving rather than lying on the ground with a broken neck.

The same crystalline growth covered his arms as he took a large swing at the blond in the steel mask. Kaminari thought he had dodged the attack, when a bunch of crystals shot out of the arm and crashed straight into his bracers, knocking him into the wall with a woosh. The hero from the future felt his breath leave him and he grunted before ducking another overly large swing and side stepping another sneak attack from the crystal growths shooting out of said arm.

Stepping back out of range again, Kaminari assessed the bald man roaring at him. His physical abilities were above average. His martial skills were minimal judging by those brainless swings. That crystal Quirk provided him with increased defenses and added some extra oomph and penetration to his attacks, not to mention it could grow from awkward angles that required additional effort to evade, but it didn't seem to increase the guy's strength considering he was actually even slower with the crystals than without them.

Fortunately, Baldy's Quirk didn't look like it could create enough crystals to cover his entire body, so that left his joints wide open. You never really knew with these kinds of guys though. They always liked to keep something like that in reserve, sort of like a last-ditch defensive move or something. Though, if you went with conventional logic, it would have killed his mobility in the process, In other words, despite the increase in defense, he'd just be a sitting duck for whatever came next. Not that they ever seemed to realize it until it was too late.

Threat assessment: F-rank.

Kaminari side stepped another large swing and crystal sneak attack before sending a palm strike at the elbow that just blew past him. It snapped with an audible crack and a roar of pain. Another side step to the side and Kaminari was now behind the distracted Baldy, so he kicked the guy's knees out before he rammed a spinning needle into the back of the guy's unprotected neck and fried his nervous system with a liberal application of his Quirk.

Very calmly sliding the needle back into his belt, the armored blond turned around and stared back down at the last of the trio, a dwarf in a black suit and a white plague mask.

The man shivered at the cold gaze he could feel coming from the steel mask as he palmed a small syringe. Whoever this psycho was, he hadn't uttered a word so far, so he sure as hell was here for a chat and he had already taken down two of the Eight Bullets in an instant, like they were nothing more than chaff in the wind.

"You're regret this!" Mimic roared as he lifted the syringe and got ready to plunge it into his neck when there was a loud "BANG!" and something whistled through the air, punching straight through the syringe, leaving a burn mark on his hand and digging deep into the wall behind him.

Mimic stiffened incredulously before he slowly looked at the broken, leaking syringe and the burnt trail on his hand before turning around to stare at the small but deep hole in the wall behind him, pierced through by whatever it was that the man in the steel mask had shot at him. Above him, on the stairs, the man in the steel mask simply tilted his head and waved one hand mockingly, "Please, continue whatever it was you were about to do." Mimic whirled around again when he heard the man growl mockingly with an unmistakably electronical tinge to his tone.

Surprisingly, Mimic calmed down even more. At this distance, he was perfectly aware that there was nothing he could do to the intruder, not without his syringe of Trigger. He still had a backup vial in another pocket, but he needed the intruder to believe that he was helpless before he made his move or alerted everyone else that there was an intruder.

"Are you from another Yakuza clan? A Villain?" Mimic demanded angrily, "Why are you here?"

Kaminari eyed the dwarf shrewdly. He hadn't seen the dwarf's Quirk yet, nor did he feel compelled to do something. So, if this guy's Quirk wasn't mental like the truth Quirk guy, then it probably had a rather limited range or he needed some sort of medium to activate like that syringe he had been about to use, which was why he hadn't used it yet. Either way, he wasn't going to get close to the dwarf unless absolutely necessary.

"For Eri." That strange electronic tone replied bluntly as the he nonchalantly descended the stairs, expertly twirling another metal needle in his right hand as a silent warning to the dwarf not to do anything stupid.

"I-I don't know who is that." Mimic replied nervously, his head flicking back and forth between the man and the passageway splitting off the right, as he continued to back away from the man in the steel mask.

The arm with the needle rose threateningly.

"Wai-Wait! I lied! I know where she is! I can help you get there!" Mimic interrupted the blond frantically as he gestured at the left passageway, "She's down he-here. Ju-Just follow me!"

Kaminari smiled behind the mask and sent the needle whistling forth with incredible speed with a flick of his wrist without any warning.

Mimic's eyes went wide and he desperately hurled himself to the side to little effect when he felt a burning trail of liquid fire brand his thigh. He swallowed his yell of pain and rolled away as fast as he humanly could as he fumbled for the backup syringe in his pocket, "You'll regret-!" the eyes behind the plague mask went wide as he realized that the armored blond had closed the distance between them while he had been rolling and he now had one armored foot cocked back.

"Wai-HUUURGGH!" Kaminari swiftly punted the dwarf like man in the gut straight down the hallway until he hit a wall at the end hard enough to leave a crater in brick and mortar, completely uncaring about his protests. Then he withdrew and threw another needle at the ragged black ball stuck in the wall in one smooth motion and sent a lightning bolt at the needle, just in case.

Very calmly, he began walking down the hallway to the right.

The downside of having a mask, was the fact that he couldn't pinch the bridge of his nose. He was starting to get a headache. He had encountered about four of those masked idiots already, but it felt like not even a minute had passed before he had stumbled on two more of those plague mask fetish retards.

One of them was built like a shit brickhouse with metal studded gloves, the other looked like he had been taking a nap when he had been woken up roughly if the untidy yukata, held together with a white cloth belt, was any indication.

"You're finally here!" The shit brickhouse thundered, dare he say it, almost happily, "Been waiting for you to get here, man! Heard you already took out a few of us and we didn't even know until you got down here. Now show me whatchu got, man!"

Kaminari just sighed, his shoulders slumping.

Right… this was the reason he wanted to this the stealthy way. Going up against every single one of the Eight Bullets, Overhaul's elite goons and Overhaul himself in one day, alone, would've been tiring even for him.

The large mountain of muscle roared as he charged at Kaminari, his fists literally leaving shadow images behind as he flooded the passage with his punches. The armored blond let himself get pushed back before settling into a wide stance before countering. Unlike the giant ape's flurry of punches, his were focused and maintained in a tight formation, each punch the big guy made was met with one of his own, the bracer rotated mid punch, gently pushing the other guy's punches away so that it hit nothing but air with a flick of the wrist before it hit the big guy's barrel chest. It was offense and defense at the same time... Not that it seemed to be doing anything...

"Hahahah! Not bad runt!" The large man in the plague mask roared happily, "It's been a while since someone could stand up to me like this, Hekiji, you better stay out of this you rat!"

As the man's roars reverberated around the passageway, Kaminari frowned and then ducked under another flurry of punches before clapping his hands together. A violent wave of purple electric surged out of the clap and slammed straight into the large man's face, stunning him before Kaminari surged forwards with a double palm strike square on the man's chest, blasting him back into the wall with a torrent of electricity.

The entire passageway rumbled with the sheer force of that strike, but the time traveler continued frowning behind his mask, His opponent had some pretty insane physical abilities. His speed, strength and durability were all at the level of a mid-rank Hero and extremely compatible with his Quirk. Some sort of cyclical Mutation or Transformation based ability that allowed him to put on a burst of speed that made his attacks hit even faster and harder. That said, thanks to the way his quirk seemed to work, his attacks basically had zero variance. It was all straightforward, brute force, punches.

It worked though, because the man's durability allowed him to tank some pretty heavy stuff and close in with his abnormal speed that belied his huge frame in order to overwhelm his opponents with pure melee combat, then mix it up with some sneakier and craftier hits when his Quirk was on cooldown. '

Unfortunately for this guy, he was fighting someone who was basically custom built to shit on anything that came within melee range, provided they weren't made of rubber or something. AllMight included.

Threat Assessment: F-rank

Amber eyes flicked to the other guy in the rumpled yukata. The man was just watching the two of them go at it calmly, his hands were folded in his yukata, but he was clearly prepared to interfere if necessary, so the big guy most likely didn't really have any sort of actual authority over him.

"Not bad, not bad!" The large man burst straight back out of the wall and amber eyes flicked back to him, "What's your name kid?"

"Chargebolt." Kaminari replied lightly, "And I'm not a kid."

"You can cut the crap, kid." The large man snorted in amusement, "I've fought enough people that I can tell that you're not even 17 yet. Your build looks solid, but it ain't enough to fool me. C'mon, let's go another round. My name's Kendo Rappa, the guy whose about to pound you into dust!"

He took one large step before stopping as Kaminari held up one palm, "Hold on."

"What? You still wanna talk?" The large guy snorted aggressively.

"Look, I'm not here to fight." The blond began bluntly, "You look like a straightforward person, so I'm not going to lie to you. I just want to save Eri. I don't mind fighting you, but not now. Hell, you can even come find me at UA and I'll happily fight you any time."

Kendo actually hesitated as he considered the offer. The time traveler couldn't see Kendo's expressions thanks to the black plague mask, but he figured that something had resonated the big guy because Hekiji, the monk in the rumpled yukata, actually started looking a bit worried.

"Sorry man," Kendo finally waved one big fist apologetically, "I don't like what they do to the kid either, but Overhaul's the boss yeah? He beat me and I can't beat him yet. Tell you what though, if you beat me, I take you to her, plain and simple, then you and the boss can deal with each other. I'll just beat up whoever's still standing after that."

Kaminari resisted the urge to sob in a corner and just clenched his fists in resignation and got back in to his defensive stance.

"Now we're talking!" Kendo roared gleefully and charged with a powerful punch.

The blond pushed forward, ignoring the glancing blow that landed on his mask and the resulting ringing from the metal plates strapped to Kendo's fists colliding with his mask and hooked onto the big guy's elbow before immediately pulling back instead. He swept the large guy's feet out from under him, throwing Kendo off balance and slamming the larger male into the ground on his back with a picture perfect Seoi nage, or shoulder throw. Swinging around, Kaminari swiftly wrapped his legs around the man's thick neck and pulled the arm he was holding into an armbar.

"Sorry bout this bro, nothing against you but our Quirks are just a bad match up." Behind the glass eye holes of the plague mask, he could see Kendo's eyes widen as he realized what the blond was about to do, "I was serious about fighting you another time though."

"Fuc-"

The time traveler lit up in a bright burst of light as he used the most basic ability of his Quirk and held it active, flooding Kendo with enough juice to kill an elephant until he felt the arm he was holding go limp, shakes and spasms aside.

Letting it go, Kaminari sighed as he pulled himself back up, "And you? You gonna stop me too?"

Hekiji pursed his lips as he calmly walked into the middle of the passage way before a bright dome of light suddenly wooshed out of the man, quickly growing in size until it prompted the armored blond to rapidly shuffle a few steps back or get smacked in the face by the large yellow dome, "Despite whatever Rappa said, I'm afraid I cannot let you advance, no matter what."

Kaminari squinted at the dome, "A barrier Quirk huh. Haven't seen one of these in a while."

He continued to analyze the dome, "Size seems controllable but it's centered around you, yeah?" He placed one hand on the dome and began to push before frowning at the fact that it hadn't budged at all. Judging by the way it was created, you can't even use it offensively unless you're hugging them or if your opponents were dumb enough to let you force them in to a corner so you could flatten them. This is a pretty defensive Quirk isn't it?"

"It is." Hekiji replied plainly, "I am the Unbreakable Shield and Rappa was meant to be the Unstoppable Spear."

Threat Assessment: Not applicable.

Normally, he'd deal with this by simply walking away, but considering this was a narrow underground passageway, and his target was behind where this guy was parking his ass and his huge ass barrier, it wasn't like he had that option.

Kaminari grunted as he pulled out a chopstick, this one hadn't been sanded down into a needle yet and held it up in one palm. The blond exerted his Quirk, precisely pulsing it through his bracer at faster and faster intervals and the chopstick slowly began to float in mid air above the open palm.

Hekiji stared incredulously at the floating…. Was that a chopstick? What the fuck?

"Wasn't your Quirk generating Electricity?"

"You could say that." Kaminari replied blandly.

"BOOM- CRRACKK!"

Hekiji jumped in shock at the loud Boom before he suddenly felt a huge amount of energy leave his body and he slumped down to his wobbly knees. Looking up, he saw that the chopstick was no longer floating in the intruder's palm. In fact, it had disappeared completely. Instead, the entire front of his barrier had fractured like a giant had taken a bloody hammer to it and it was now smoking slightly from the impact.

Hekiji's eyes went wide.

Kaminari just snorted, "Unbreakable my ass."

Then they went even wider and he paled as the insane fucker outside his dome pulled out even more of those fucking chopsticks. This time, he kept both arms up parallel to each other, his feet wide and stable, and all the fucking chopsticks began to float in between the open palms, pointing straight at him.

"How do you wanna do this? One by one? All of them in one go?" The insane fucker asked the yukata wearing man cheerfully, "Either way you die of course, but hey, at least you get to choose whether you meet your God with a large hole in your head or in tiny splattered pieces, hmm?"

Amber eyes met shaky brown eyes.

He was serious. The insane fucker didn't give a single blasted fuck about whether he died or not.

Hekiji gulped and he let his barrier drop before he timidly shuffled aside, still on his knees.

Kaminari squatted down next to him and lightly patted Hekiji's shoulder in a friendly manner, "See, I knew I could reason with you. All we needed was a bit of dialogue to understand each other like a pair of perfectly rational, functioning adults. By the way, you mind taking me to Eri?"

Dialogue? What fucking dialogue?

Weren't you just threatening me?

Hekiji bit back his retort, shuddered at the arm still on his shoulder and nodded frantically.

****End****