Title: railgun
Rating: T-M
Summary: In a world where everyone has superpowers, having a Quirk means both more than you can imagine and less than you might think. Luckily, Kiri is no stranger to hard work. A hero is defined by more than just their Quirk, anyways, right? [OC-Insert, AU]
Warnings: Implied child abuse, unreliable narrator. Future chapters of the story will also likely include descriptions of violence, gore, abuse, and depictions of sensitive and/or uncomfortable topics. In general, I will try to outline any particular warnings that may apply for certain chapters here at the beginning of the chapter.
Disclaimer: I do not own BNHA
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railgun
"01: Electrokinetic"
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Bright lights flicker against the darkened window glass, stretching and elongating wildly for a blinding moment before snapping back, shrinking rapidly until the small pinpricks disappear entirely into the inky night. Somewhere in the not-so-far distance, there is the irritated honk of a car horn, but the sharp sound, too, is swiftly swallowed up by the steady hum of vehicle motors passing by.
It's usually a little quieter around the shop at this time of night, but a villain attack earlier in the day had caused considerable damage to one of the main roads, so quite a lot of traffic was being redirected around here instead. She hadn't actually had time to look up the incident in the news yet, not with having to make a dead sprint for her part-time job here as soon as school ended, but she'll probably be able to do that on the bus ride home.
After she finishes helping Old Fukuda close down the shop first, of course.
Kiri bends down, briefly dipping her ragged towel into the water bucket at her feet.
"Oi, are you done with the windows over there yet?"
"Almost!" she calls back over her shoulder. Circular motions, don't press too hard against the glass. There's a particularly stubborn spot under her hand that's probably... dried juice, or something of the sort? Whatever it is, it takes a bit of extra scrubbing before the girl manages to get the sticky splotch off. She'll still take that over picking off tightly-wadded gum any day, ick.
Despite the sheer monotony of it all, Kiri is well aware that she's lucky Old Fukuda even took her on as a part-timer in his small convenience shop in the first place. It's hard, trying to fit a part-time job around school hours the way Old Fukuda demands, but she knows better than to protest or complain about any of it. Old Fukuda might be a bit of a slave driver at times, but he's still a decent sort, and... it's not as if she'd had many options, anyways. Kiri is lucky enough that the old man was even willing to hire her at all; even though it's common for shops to be hiring students for some part-time work around these parts, the same doesn't extend to baby-faced middle school students.
Which, she totally gets, y'know? Hiring middle schoolers lands squarely in the middle of that slightly-maybe illegal gray zone of things, definitely teetering towards 'illegal.' So it makes sense why people would try to avoid it, unless it was for something like... child actors in movies, or something along those lines.
Must be nice.
Kiri wipes down the windows one last time before taking a step back to see if she missed anything. Alright, looking clean!
"I'm done!" she cheers.
"Mm, that's good," Old Fukuda's response is gruff, distracted. "Bring me the bucket and rags over here, will you?"
"Of course," the young girl picks up her bucket of murky water and heads back into the cramped shop, wandering towards the general direction of the old man's grumbling. It sounded like he was somewhere around the small section for stationary items, so that's where she decides to look first, only to find... zip, zilch, nada.
Whoops. He's probably down the other aisle, then.
Kiri is about to spin around and head in the other direction, when there's a light tap from on her shoulder that comes from behind her.
"Bucket, please. I'll add it to the one I've got here before I dump it all out the back."
Kiri turns. There is a waiting hand stretched out in front of her, wrinkled palm open and gnarled fingers spread.
It's Old Fukuda's hand.
The young girl blinks and looks up, and up, and up. The arm that stretches out behind the bony wrist is long, long, impossibly long; arching straight over the tall shelves in a perfect parabola that descends approximately two aisles over from where she's currently standing.
"... Okay, thanks." Kiri gingerly places the bucket handle into Old Fukuda's hand, and watches his fingers curl over the metal bar with a strong grip. Then, the length of the old man's arm shrinks up and back in a vaguely pulley-esque manner, disappearing behind the shelves as quickly as it had reached over in the first place.
Old Fukuda's Quirk is Stretchy Arms, an ability which is pretty much exactly what its name sounds like. It's not uncommon to see the elderly man using it around the small convenience store for various stray tasks, whether it be to pick up a clipboard he forgot over in the aisle or simply to reorganize something on the higher shelves. It's undeniably a useful ability, if not the most flashy or aesthetically pleasing.
In this day and age, that's not exactly a bad thing to be.
Kiri knows for a fact that some Mutant-type Quirks in particular can make life rather difficult in the day-to-day. Kashiwagi-san from school, for example, has giant pincers for hands. It's certainly very impressive-looking, but it also means that Kashiwagi-san always has to use a fancy high-tech prosthetic for simple things like writing, checking her phone, or even just grabbing a glass of water without having the entire thing shatter into a million pieces in her vice-like grip.
On the other hand: Kashiwagi is the current reigning, unchallenged champion of arm-wrestling in East Naruhata Middle School. No one wanted to test their luck against those pincers after the previous champion, a boy whose quirk allowed him to momentarily harden his arms into some sort of pseudo-metallic material, had ended up in the nurse's office after Kashiwagi's challenge.
You win some, lose some, Kiri guesses. Personally, she's still not entirely convinced that the inconvenience of having permanent crab-like pincer hands is really worth it.
Then again, no one ever chooses their Quirk. It's just something you're born with. Some people are born with blue eyes, others are natural redheads, and still others can shoot laser beams from their mouths. Perfectly normal, yeah?
Maybe something like this wouldn't have been considered normal once upon a time, back when Quirks were considered new and strange things, novel and unprecedented. She finds it a little hard to imagine, even though occasionally she'll find herself hit with a vague sense of dissonance, as if a Quirkless world should actually be the natural state of things.
Silly, isn't it? It's all so very strange, and she can't quite put her finger on it. Almost as if she's forgetting something, right on the tip of her tongue.
Kiri lives in an age where everyone is born with a superpower, a Quirk. Thinking about it logically, it's only natural that it's difficult for her to reconcile the world she knows with the Quirkless one that's written of in the history texts from school, when this nebulous energy she carries within her is something she's lived with all her life.
She isn't sure what it feels like for other people –is it maybe something like a gentle coolness pooling at your fingertips for hydrokinetic Quirks? Perhaps a vague warmth for regenerative abilities? What would it feel like to fly, with feathery wings spreading from your back and hand outstretched towards the sun?
For Kiri, her ability is just a sharp tingle under her skin when she turns her attention to it, a whisper-crackle in her blood that oh-so-lightly hints at something faintly ozone.
And, when she concentrates–
"Hey, got a minute before you head out, Kiri?"
The girl gives a small start, abruptly broken out of her musings. "A-ah, sure! Did you need something, sir?"
Kiri pokes her head around the doorframe from the back of the shop, working apron slung over one forearm and school bag hanging from her hand. Wiping down the shop windows had been her last task before the end of her shift today, and she'd just been getting ready to head out. There's still a few minutes before she really really needs to get going before she misses the bus, though.
"My son just sent me a new lamp the other day and I'd like to set it up on the counter here, except it's not turning on no matter what I try," Old Fukuda explains from another corner of the shop, scratchy voice sounding somewhat muffled. "You're good with electronics and all, ain'tcha?"
"Mm, something like that, I guess?" Kiri shrugs, making a so-so gesture with her free hand. Not that the old man can see the movement from here, anyways, she realizes belatedly. Whoops. "I can take a quick look at it, if you'd like me to?"
"Please do."
She finds Old Fukuda hunched over the front counter, brows furrowed and lips pinched with a look of utmost concentration –and no small amount of confusion. The lamp in question is a small, delicate thing, creating an almost comical contrast with the hulking frame of the elderly man hovering over it. But despite the fierce scowl etched on his face, an expression that she's starting to suspect might actually be a permanent fixture at this point, the motions of Old Fukuda's hands as he turns the lamp over can only be described as gentle.
"So, what seems to be the issue?" Kiri asks, easily sliding in behind the counter.
The old man makes a frustrated sound in his throat. "Hell if I know, it certainly doesn't seem like anything's broken..."
Kiri gently nudges the elderly man aside, child-sized hands reaching out for the malfunctioning lamp in question. It's a pretty thing, she muses, all ornate decorations winding around the base frame, with a trail of crystalline beads set in along the sides. She can certainly see how the lamp is meant to shine and sparkle –if only it were working properly.
The young girl glances down at the instruction manual spread out over the countertop, eyes flicking over the written instructions for assembly and comparing it to the results of Old Fukuda's hard work. "... You're right, it definitely looks like it's been properly put together. Nothing seems to be broken, either. Did you put the batteries in it?"
"First thing I thought of, little Kiri," the old man huffs. "Of course there are batteries in that damned thing! And it still ain't working."
"Hm..." She turns the lamp in her hands, tilting it this way and that. The girl clicks her tongue at the malfunctioning device. No broken pieces, correctly put together, and filled with batteries? ... Yeah, in that case she doesn't really know what's wrong with the lamp, either.
And so, Kiri cheats.
"Let's see what's wrong with you, ne?" she whispers.
A sharp crackle snaps out from her fingertips; for a single instant, the entire lamp is covered in thin arcs of electricity, before disappearing just as quickly. And in her mind's eye, everything about the internal structure and wiring of the lamp immediately unravels, clear as day. She's careful not to damage the lamp itself as she examines the device –Old Fukuda would have her head for that- and it only takes the briefest of moments before the problem is revealed to her.
Kiri laughs, "Ah, it's just empty batteries."
"... Are you kidding me. Empty batteries, of all things?" Old Fukuda groans, slapping a gnarled hand over his face. "Should've known that would be the problem here. Thanks, Kiri."
"No problem," she sets the lamp down on the counter. Unlike when she'd first picked it up, the table lamp is glowing now, bright and sparkling. It's very pretty. "I charged it up for you just now, so we're all set. It's a very nice lamp, sir."
"Of course it is, it's a present from my son," the old man sniffs, clearly pleased despite his rough demeanor. "I know I've said this before, but that's a very handy Quirk you've got there, Kiri. Minor electrokinesis or something like that, wasn't it? Shame you don't see more of those around."
"... I guess, yeah," Kiri flashes a quick smile at him, before bending over to pick up her school bag again.
As far as Quirks go, even though hers isn't particularly strong at all, it's just as Old Fukuda says: Electric-types aren't exactly commonplace. To the best of her knowledge, Kiri is one of the only three students in her school with an electrokinesis Quirk. There's another girl in her year whose Quirk is also electrical in nature, but specifically technology-oriented instead. Something about working with artificial intelligence, which was definitely a unique and useful ability in its own right –but, nonetheless distinctly different from the particular category that Kiri's own Quirk fell under, that which pertained to the direct manipulation of electrical energies.
Phrased like that, her ability almost sounds like something almost impressive.
(If only that were the truth.)
"Come to think of it," Old Fukuda's voice breaks through her thoughts, and Kiri glances up to see the old man absent-mindedly turn and clear away scattered pieces of packaging from the countertop. His right arm stretches not unlike a rubber band as he reaches for the recycling bin to the far end of the wall. "Would you be interested in picking up another part-time shift around here? Abe is an old friend of mine, and I heard him mentioning something about looking for another pair of hands in his electronics shop the other day, preferably as soon as possible. Seems to me like something like that would be right up your alley."
Kiri instantly perks up at the news. "Oh, I'd love to! Um, my exams are happening pretty soon so I probably wouldn't be able to start immediately, if that's a concern. But give me a week or two, and I'll figure something out?"
"Of course, that's understandable," Old Fukuda nods. "It's the season for entrance exams now, isn't it? I'd almost forgotten about that entirely. Don't forget to focus on your studies first before anything else, kid, education is important. If you need a few days off, just let me know ahead of time."
"Thank you!" Kiri smiles, then quickly sketches a polite bow. "I really appreciate it, sir."
The old man rolls his eyes. "No need to thank me, I wouldn't have recommended you in the first place if I didn't think you'd do a good job. Now run along, it's getting late and I'm not going to let you stay here in the shop overnight. Don't you have a bus to be catching, or something?"
... The bus!
Kiri jolts upright at the reminder, swiftly bidding Old Fukuda a quick farewell before she spins on her heel and makes a mad dash for the door.
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She misses her bus.
"Ah... geez...!" Kiri groans as she slows from a full-out sprint to a slight jog, stumbling to a stop. Her hands drop over her knees as she doubles over in defeat, wheezing at the sight of the bus disappearing down the end of the street. So close!
The girl gets more than a few pitying, commiserating looks from the sympathetic passerby as she stands there for a moment, trying to catch her breath.
Unfortunately, the bus that left just now was also the last of her bus line for the day. Checking over Old Fukuda's lamp and stopping to chat for a moment had delayed her a little longer than she'd expected.
Kiri slowly straightens up again as her breathing gradually evens out, pulse returning to something normal instead of the rapid thump-thump-thump from her panicked sprint. It's not the first time that this has happened, inconvenient as it is. Her shifts at Old Fukuda's always end up stretching late into the night, so it's only inevitable that she misses her bus on occasion, whether it be from an extra bit of work to wrap up before she ends her shift, or taking care of an additional task or two for Old Fukuda before she leaves.
Which means, it's time for Plan B.
Kiri turns and starts trudging towards the other end of the street.
Old Fukuda's shop is a small thing, cozily tucked into one of the side roads branching down from the main street. On the main street itself, however, there are dozens of different shops lined together next to each other, and it's always a little weird to see such a normally bustling and lively area be so silent and dark. Then again, given the late hour, it's only natural that most of the stores have all long since closed. A quick glance down at her phone proclaims the time 11:34 PM in flashing letters across the digital screen. Yeah, the only shop that's going to still be open at this time of the night is the brightly-lit McDonald's sitting at the end of the block.
That's not where she's headed, though.
A few twists and turns, and Kiri is soon gingerly picking her way through the cramped space of the small alleyway behind the fish-ball shop, heading towards the very back.
It... stinks something foul, to be honest. Literally. Smells fishy, one might say, and there's a very good reason why no one ever hangs out around here. Kiri wrinkles her nose at the pungent scent, and grimaces when she ends up stepping into something with a squishy squelch despite her best efforts to pick out a relatively clean path through the... questionable things littering the ground. At least she isn't wearing her school shoes right now. She really, really hopes her school bag won't end up smelling like fish tomorrow after trekking through here, that would be pretty awkward to explain to her classmates.
(Not as awkward as attempting to explain the scent of day-old cigarettes or alcohol, though.)
"Right..." Kiri tilts her head back as she finally hits the gritty wall that is the dead-end of the alley. Bulky trash bags are stacked high in the corner, complete with a few flies buzzing around at the base of the wall. Charming. "Okay, let's do this."
Lightning arcs from her body again; small, thin strands of energy flashing brief and bright in the darkness as she takes a few steps back for a jogging start. It had been nigh impossible in the beginning when she'd first attempted this, but now it's almost second nature, to reach out and tug at the faint connection to her power thrumming in the air as she jumps, feet impacting solidly against the gritty alley wall–
And then, she's running.
It had taken Kiri ages to figure out this particular trick with her Quirk, to work out how to electromagnetically pull herself towards and stick to other surfaces to pull off physical feats like vertically scaling a building in seconds. Electrokinesis might be a rare and powerful ability, but Kiri's minor electrokinesis is only a weaker subset of that category. One that rarely found any practical use outside of charging phones or fixing small electrical appliances, at that. Figuring out this trick with electromagnetism had taken her forever, hours and hours of late-night research on her phone and discreet practice with her Quirk in abandoned parking lots and alleys, then no small number of bruises and scrapes in the learning process–
But the end result is so very worth it.
Kiri clears the top of the wall with ease and leaps, body boosted by her Quirk. It's a much greater height than she would normally be able to achieve jumping on her own, and another crackle of electricity racing towards the tall building beyond the wall pulls her the rest of the way.
(The first time Kiri had tried this specific maneuver, she'd ended up overshooting and smacking directly into the building like an idiot, starfish-pose and all, then proceeded to go about an entire week with some pretty spectacular bruises. Now, though, she's practiced enough to escape the fish-ball alley and reach the rooftop of the tall building behind it in no time, quick and precise.)
Oh, it's a little cold up here tonight.
Kiri slows as she reaches the edge of the rooftop, pausing to get a firm grip before hauling herself over the rusty railings. Idly, she wonders if it's worth it to put on her school jacket. She still has it folded up inside her bag, and every layer counts, right? The wind up here seemed to be stronger than usual tonight, wide gusts buffeting her from the sides.
... On the other hand, it would probably be bad if someone on the streets were to look up and spot a middle school student parkouring over the rooftops, then decide to call the middle school in question.
Mm, it's probably not worth it.
Kiri stretches, exhaling slowly. Standing on the chilly rooftop and peering down from the edge, everything looks so small. It's already dark out, but there are so many tiny pinpricks of light from street lamps and passing cars and office windows that they manage to illuminate the night all on their own. There's something almost mesmerizing about it all, looking down and across the cityscape from a high vantage point like this.
But, there's no time to waste admiring the sights right now. Kiri's still got a bus to overtake, after all. That was kind of the entire point of taking this rooftop shortcut in the first place.
Electricity sparks from her body again as she readies herself for another jump, and then she's free-falling through the air once more. With the wind whistling in her ears and whipping up through her hair, Kiri can't help the instinctive smile that stretches over her lips. Up in the rooftops, away from the world and leaping through the air –there's something in it that's freeing, exhilarating.
Kiri tugs, turning her fall into something more of a controlled swing, and lands neatly on the rooftop of the next building over.
Technically, this might be illegal. Kind of. Somewhere solidly in the sketchy borderline grey zone that's her part-time job with Old Fukuda, for sure. According to regulations, any public use of Quirks in a harmful, disruptive, or inappropriate manner is strictly prohibited. But in practice, it's always a lot harder to draw the line in defining just what constitutes as "harmful, disruptive, or inappropriate." The end result being: Generally, no one really cares about a bit of minor Quirk use in public here or there, so long as it's not actively disturbing others or some form of outright villainous activity.
... So, yeah. Rules are slippery things, and Kiri does her best to skirt along the edges. It's not her fault that cutting across the buildings like this is the only way she can make it to the next bus stop before the bus arrives!
Kiri also really, really doesn't want to be caught out wandering the streets by herself in the middle of the night any longer than absolutely necessary. Working a late shift at Old Fukuda's is one thing, but she'd rather not push her luck any more than absolutely necessary, thanks.
Statistically, most people have all encountered villain attacks of some sort these days. Sometimes as unknowing bystanders who just happened to be around the affected area, but more often as excited rubberneckers eager to witness heroic takedowns. It's actually quite common, a lot more so than one might initially think. Just the other day, Kiri had even ran into an incident on her way to school –Ingenium the Turbo Hero chasing down a speeding car of bank robbers along the highway. Given the speeds they had been running at, she was probably lucky to have caught an actual glimpse of the hero apprehending the criminal at all.
Then, there's the unlucky ones, those unlucky souls who get directly involved in villain-related incidents through no fault of their own but for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's depressing that the numbers for those villain incidents are as high as they are. There are near-daily reports of people getting mugged. Threatened at knifepoint. Forcibly taken hostage.
Kiri still remembers reading a news article a few months back, about a young boy who'd been captured and held hostage by some villain with a slime-Quirk over in Musutafu. The boy had nearly suffocated, even with multiple heroes on the scene, before All Might arrived just in time to resolve the situation. That had been more than a little unnerving to read about, considering that the victim had been a middle school student her own age, and it was something Kiri could see happening all too well herself, depressingly enough.
Even with heroes doing their best, dangerous incidents like that still occurred frequently nowadays. But apparently, things used to be a lot worse, not that Kiri would know anything about it. It's what what the older folks mention occasionally, though.
The young girl tugs her collar up a little higher in the height of her next jump, throwing out an arm to the side. Sparks fly from her fingertips, thin arcs of electricity flashing momentarily in the night as she subtly corrects her angle. Kiri tries not to overdo it; aside from liberal use of her Quirk in the beginning to clamber up onto the rooftops and build momentum, she's practiced enough with building-hopping at this point to execute most of the jumps by herself without any aid.
Electrokinesis is a rather visible Quirk, and the last thing she needs is to be mistaken for some runaway two-bit villain when she's just trying to take a shortcut to catch the bus.
On a completely unrelated note: High-stakes parkour is a lot easier to get the hang of when your Quirk ensures that you never have to worry about pancaking against the ground. Just other buildings.
... It's been awhile since anything like that has last happened, anyways, and the less said about that, the better.
Kiri vaults over one last ledge, landing in a crouch. There –that's the bus stop, straight up ahead. Or rather, down, considering that she's on top of a building and all.
Looks like the bus hasn't arrived yet either, perfect.
Kiri peeks over the edge of the roof of the building she's currently dawdling on, briefly checking to make sure that it's really an empty alley she's about to drop down into (accidently landing on top of an older couple canoodling with each other was gross and not an experience she ever wants to repeat again), before she swings her legs over the ledge and jumps. There's a dizzying sense of weightlessness as she falls, and Kiri activates her Quirk to slow her fall, landing safely on the ground.
"Whew," Kiri straightens, shaking out the slight burn in her legs. It's almost strange, standing on the solid ground like this again after leaping, running, flying through the air. She's panting, but it's the sort of measured panting from a paced run instead of a mad sprint. Ah, she's going to have to change her clothes, too, isn't she? Taking the rooftop route like this always means working up a sweat.
Worth it, though.
Kiri rounds the corner of the street just as the bus pulls into sight.
This time, she boards the bus with plenty of time to spare, pausing to swipe her bus pass at the front before she makes her further way in, sinking into a window seat with a relieved sigh. Window seats are usually harder to grab, but given that it's nearly midnight now and there are only a few other passengers sparsely scattered aboard, there are quite a lot of open seats. Figures, what with the late hour and all.
The young girl stretches, arms reaching high over her head, then settles in for the long 40-minute ride home. Hopefully there won't be any more delays; she's feeling rather tired and would like nothing better than to get some sleep soon. It's been a pretty long day in general, rooftop run just now notwithstanding, and she still has school tomorrow morning. There's some unfinished homework sitting in the bottom of her bag, too, she'll have to get up earlier in the morning to work on that. Ah, wasn't there going to be a timed sale for eggs at the local grocery store, too? She'll definitely have to run over after school ends to make it before the sale ends, maybe check if there are any discounts for fresh vegetables while she's at it, then remember to...
... How is it that just the simple act of thinking about the things she still needs to do tomorrow is somehow making her even more tired? Kiri scrubs at her face, an acutely pained motion. That's the last thing she needs right now! After all the effort she put into catching up with the bus here in the first place, falling asleep and missing her stop home would be an absolute nightmare.
Determinedly looking for a distraction, Kiri digs her cell phone out of her school bag again. Wasn't there a pretty big villain incident earlier today that she'd been planning to take a look at? The one that caused a lot of traffic congestion all day? This would be a good time to catch up on it.
A quick search brings up the incident in question easily enough. Rising Star Mount Lady to the Rescue! Kiri scrolls through the article quickly; something about a chase for villains that ended up causing a lot more structural damage than strictly necessary, unfortunately. It's easy enough to see how that happened before she even finishes reading the article; Mount Lady's Quirk allowed her to grow to a truly titanic size, giving the woman strength and speed in spades, but in a densely urbanized area that also meant the hero's movements would be restricted by nearby buildings and such. And if said hero wasn't careful when moving about, well.
The heavy traffic issues today was probably a good example of that.
Scrolling to the end, the article finishes off on a positive note, congratulating Mount Lady on successfully subduing the villain with minimal casualties aside from a few craters to the public roads. We look forward to the bright future of this lovely young hero!
Kiri slowly sets her phone down, tipping her head back to look up at the bus ceiling.
Heroes...
It's a complicated subject, certainly. There's no denying the necessity of having trained individuals capable of subduing criminals who wreak havoc with their Quirks, but the way that most media outlets glorify heroes has always seemed a little... weird, somehow. On one hand, heroes are constantly praised as selfless individuals who put themselves at risk fighting against evil villains to protect the public. But how selfless is a hero who fights villains for fame, or for money?
Then again, does it even matter if a hero is selfish or selfless, if their very actions save lives?
Like most kids these days, Kiri has done more than her fair share of internet trawling on the subject of heroes. When you grow up with heroes as a permanent fixture in your society, seeing heroes fight off villains nearly every other day in your local neighborhood, growing curious about 'heroes' is only inevitable. With billboard signs plastered in hero-sponsored products and hero-themed merchandise wherever you turn, it's a fact of life that heroes are ever-present, everywhere. Perhaps it's meant to instill a sense of safety in the masses, of entrenching a sense of security. If heroes are everywhere, then no one has to worry about villainous activity, because a hero will always arrive in time to save the day.
(Except for when they don't.)
Heroes walk a strange line between those untouchable paragons of society and the celebrities dragged over the coals by muckraking journalists. Then, there are the underground heroes –heroes who are officially licensed and registered with the Hero Public Safety Commission, but make a deliberate point of avoiding the media completely. Or at least, as much as they can.
Kiri remembers once reading a very interesting article arguing that underground heroes were the closest example to the "true essence of heroism" that could still be found nowadays. That underground heroes were the closest to the ideal: Heroes who acted out of a sense of justice and righteousness, instead of being motivated by fame and material desires.
On the flipside, there were also those who condemned the existence of underground heroes as a whole. Their claim was that the entire point of legalizing heroism in the first place was so that all heroes could be openly held accountable to responsibility for their actions, given the importance of their role in modern society. If all heroes were to hide and skulk around in the shadows, then essentially the country would have a group of people who could legally use their Quirks to act as they wanted, without anyone knowing anything of their actions or methods until well after the fact. For all that the 'limelight heroes' were constantly being criticized and compared to celebrities in the entertainment industry, it was also undeniable that having heroes publicly visible and easily accessible acted as a major deterrence to villainy in and of itself, to say nothing of the aura of safety and security brought about by their very presence.
Case in point: All Might, the first-ranked hero on the billboard charts, number one pro hero in Japan. Crime rates took a nosedive across the entire country after he entered the scene; the godlike man truly earned his title as the "Symbol of Peace" several times over and more.
... Although, to be fair, All Might is definitely an outlier, what with indisputably being the strongest hero in Japan and all. World-ranked, easily.
Kiri admires heroes. For all the many arguments over heroism as a whole, for all the myriad problems present in the hero industry, she still admires them. How could she not? The sacrifices they make, the valor inherent in their work. Of course there are a hundred different reasons to criticize heroes, just as there are a hundred different reasons to support them, but there is no denying that heroes are necessary in the here and now, that their work is integral to the foundation of modern society, the bedrock of peace and order.
Maybe someday, she'll be one, too.
... It's a silly thought. Kiri, a hero? While it's true that practically every childhood dream nowadays is to become a hero, there is a reason why not everyone becomes a hero, in the end. Some people have the potential, the drive, the ability. and others –don't.
All Kiri has is her Quirk. And while it's true that electrokinesis is almost universally agreed upon to be one of the stronger Quirks out there, a properly heroic one, even, that's not exactly her Quirk now, is it? Not quite, at least. Kiri's is nothing but a minor Quirk, a low-level variant of the envied electrokinesis ability that doesn't even qualify to be officially filed and registered under a proper name. It's a good Quirk, to be sure, even if it's not particularly strong. For all its shortcomings, Kiri would still vastly prefer her minor electrokinesis over something like crab-hands any day. But it also means that her version of an electric shock is nothing more than making sparks fly, which is a far cry from what a proper electrokinesis Quirk is capable of and not exactly ideal for hero-work.
Moreover, heroism is a dangerous, hazardous occupation. A job that requires fighting villains on a near-daily basis is bound to be dangerous. No matter a hero's motives, it's a fact that their job is to risk their lives to save people. Is that something she's really willing to face? It's definitely something she'll have to come to terms with if she really wants to go down the path of heroism someday, if she truly wants to turn these idle fantasies into reality.
Why do you want to be a hero?
There's no good reason for it. Logically, Kiri shouldn't even be considering this. Her Quirk is lacking. She is lacking. She's small and thin for her age, for starters. She's never had the luxury of being able to attend lessons for martial arts or self defense or anything of the sort. Moreover, Kiri isn't like the hot-blooded boys from class who declare that they can and will smash through any and all obstacles unflinchingly. She's not like the bright, cheerful girls, either, who look towards the poise and elegance of Ryukyu, or the gorgeous model-hero Uwabami. That's just not the kind of person she is. And no matter how much she admires heroes as a whole, Kiri doesn't know if she can become anything even remotely like them in the future.
But...
But a hero is someone who helps others, who inspires. Who saves. And there's something so very dazzling about it that has absolutely nothing to do with camera flashes from the media, and... and it's hard, trying to put this into words, trying to articulate how she feels, because it's not something that she herself understands entirely, either. But...
Change.
Yes, that sounds like it fits, more or less. Change. The unspoken word rolls around on the tip of her tongue, and Kiri bites down, swallowing roughly in silence. She wants to... to become something better, something good. Someone useful. Worthwhile.
... Or something like that, maybe.
Kiri turns and looks out the bus window with a soft sigh.
It's unlikely, she knows. Kiri is nothing if not realistic, and she knows her chances aren't good. It's ridiculous, for someone like her to be daydreaming, dreaming of impossible things like becoming a hero.
(But maybe, just maybe... maybe someday, she'll be one, too.)
.
.
By the time Kiri finally steps off the bus and makes her way back to her neighborhood, it's well past midnight. The wooden stairs leading up to her family's apartment are somehow even creakier than usual in the silence of the night, and the young girl winces as she tries to keep her steps light and refrain from putting too much weight on them. The walls are thin, and she for one certainly hates it when the neighbors go thundering up and down the stairs. It never hurts to be considerate.
There are no lights in the narrow walkway, so Kiri blindly gropes around in her school bag for a minute until her fingers finally brush against the house keys. After that, it's just a simple matter of unlocking the door and squeezing inside, trying not to let the hinges squeak too much as she does so.
Home sweet home.
Surprisingly enough, there's... still a light on in the kitchen? Kiri blinks owlishly at the unexpected sight before padding over, the rough flooring scratchy beneath her feet.
She hesitates. Then peeks in tentatively, single hand resting softly against the wooden frame of the doorway. "... Mom? What are you doing up so late?"
The tall woman standing in the kitchen glances up.
Beneath the dim glow of the aged kitchen light, there is an almost sickly-yellow tone to her long, silvery hair, and the dull lighting of the room does absolutely nothing to hide the slight hint of dark circles under her eyes. This is a weary woman whose face speaks of being tired, and yet there is still a distinct sharpness to her gaze as she surveys her daughter, lips thinning and pressing into a frown.
Kiri tries to ignore the sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"As if you're one to talk about being up late, coming back at this hour." Her mother's voice is short, clipped. "Had fun?"
"I... I was working the late shift at Old Fukuda's today," Kiri responds carefully, resisting the urge to shift her feet, fingers tightening around the straps of her school bag. Her mother certainly seems to be in a mood tonight, if that caustic tone is anything to go by. Kiri is already regretting her decision to take a quick peek into the kitchen instead of directly tiptoeing to her room and collapsing into bed.
"Tch," the willowy woman folds her arms across her chest, clicking her tongue. "Excuses, just like that father of yours. If you'd put at least half as much effort into your studies as you did your part-time jobs, then maybe your class ranking would be higher."
Maybe you'd finally amount to something.
Kiri very carefully does not flinch, biting down on her tongue as she desperately tries to refrain from saying anything that can be remotely interpreted as an argument in response. Even though there is something churning, clenching uncomfortably in her chest from her mother's words.
She doesn't mean it, Kiri determinedly tries to remind herself. Sometimes, her mother's temper just tends to flare up, especially when she's tired like this. Suddenly everything is a problem and if you suggest anything to the contrary then it's your fault, and now you've made yourself into a target, a convenient outlet for her irrational anger. There are a thousand mistakes you've made, present and past alike, and she will bear down on you for them with all the force of her biting words and bitter scorn. But she doesn't mean it, not really.
Maybe she had a bad day at work. It's probably the stress of working so many part-time jobs, with odd hours scattered everywhere throughout the week. Kiri at least spends the majority of her day at school and has a stable schedule to follow, but her mother often gets so busy that she'll just fall asleep at her workplace –and then go straight back to work after waking up the next day. Inaba Masami always works so very hard, and that is what makes her rough around the edges; the least Kiri could do is make things easier on her mother, when she's at home.
So, Kiri carefully does not mention anything about her only reason for working part-time jobs in the first place being part of her desperate attempts to alleviate her parents' burden. She does not mention anything about falling asleep on top of her literature texts, about the nights of studying long into the wee hours of the morning.
"I apologize," is all she ends up saying. "... I will work harder in my studies."
A beat of silence. For a tense moment, Kiri holds her breath, but then her mother turns aside, gaze sliding away. "Good. Now see to it that you remember your promises."
Her tone sounds somewhat mollified, thankfully.
"Yes, Mom," Kiri ducks her head at the clear dismissal and slips away from the kitchen doorway, relaxing as she turns the corner and no sharp voice calls her back.
Sometimes, it almost feels as if anything and everything she does is a mistake, to constantly be met with disapproval from her mother so regularly. She's been helpfully informed by a few of her classmates from school before that some mothers are just Like That, and while she knows that her mother just has a sharp tongue... it still feels a lot like walking on eggshells, whenever she finds her mother in a stormy mood like this. Sometimes, there's an insidious voice whispering in the back of her mind that her mother will always be disappointed with her, no matter what she does, no matter how hard she tries.
But she cares. Kiri knows this, knows that she cares. She's not blind to the way her mother will sometimes set aside an extra portion of her meal for her, even when the family's monthly expenses run tight. When Kiri had needed to cover up her awkward bruises for school, her mother hadn't asked her anything, simply sat down beside her in the cramped bathroom and proceeded to show her daughter how to apply the flaky, powdered makeup to mask her mottled skin. Her mother cares for her, and at least... at least that's something about her that Kiri can say with certainty. Unlike her father, who... doesn't seem to be home tonight, again. Come to think of it, Kiri hadn't seen his shoes by the doorway on her way in earlier, had she?
As she walks past her parents' room, Kiri chances a quick peek in. Sure enough, it's silent and empty.
... Had her mother been waiting in the kitchen for her father to come home?
Something twists uncomfortably in her chest at the thought, and the girl swallows roughly.
Kiri is under no delusions that her family situation is what's considered normal, not with a mother who works odds and ends organizing shop shelves and washing dishes and everything in between, to the point that she's barely at home half the time. Not with a father who works construction jobs all around the city, and sees absolutely no problem with leaving the house for weeks on end. She's also pretty sure that none of her classmates have to calculate every cent of their family's expenses when going out to buy groceries, fairly certain that none of them work maybe-technically-illegal part-time jobs outside of school.
It's... hard, sometimes, to keep smiling every day and not resent her classmates. But Kiri knows that the world isn't fair, that life isn't fair, and it would also be so very unfair of her to lash out at others for her own hardships.
Everyone has their own struggles.
The girl reaches the end of the narrow corridor and gently cracks open the door to her room. To be honest, calling it a room is a bit of a misnomer. It's more of a closet than an actual bedroom, all small, enclosed space with jackets and other articles of clothing draped upon plastic hangers taking up a good portion of the already-limited area. But there's enough room on the ground to sort-of roll out a small futon to sleep in, and as long as Kiri curls up on her side and doesn't shift around too much during the night, it's enough. It's all she needs.
Kiri crouches down and carefully sets her school bag next to the neatly-stacked pile of textbooks and assorted readings in the corner, then turns and heads for the bathroom.
Wash up, then go to sleep. Simple enough. Hopefully her mother wouldn't stay up too late; if Kiri remembers correctly, her mother has a morning shift at a local conbini lined up tomorrow, too. Part of her wants to go back towards the kitchen and convince her mother to sleep soon instead of continuing to stand vigil, but... considering the mood that the woman was in right now, that probably wouldn't be the best idea, not if Kiri wants to avoid drawing her mother's ire.
She bites her lip, then forcibly pushes the thought aside.
(The heavy, gnawing sensation in the bottom of her stomach grows, and Kiri steadfastly tries to ignore it. Her mother is a practical, sensible woman; surely there's no need for her to worry.)
The bathroom of the apartment is small, cramped, all cracked tiles and mold creeping in the corners. As she steps in and reaches to turn on the faucet, Kiri adds another note to her mental checklist: Clean the bathroom on the weekend. There's nothing she can do about the tiles, but there's definitely something she can do about the mold.
Halfway through rinsing her face, the small lamp on the counter flickers, then abruptly goes out, plunging the entire room into total darkness. Kiri blindly gropes for her towel with one hand while reaching out to feel for the lamp with the other. She almost ends up knocking over one of her mother's makeup bottles before she finally finds it –was that a new moisturizer brand?– and takes hold of the lamp with a firm grip.
Thin trails of electricity arc over the lamp, flashing brief and bright in the darkness. Then, the light flickers back on.
Behold, the single greatest convenience of having an electric-type Quirk: Free, infinite battery charger. It's why most of the appliances in the house all run on batteries, given that Kiri can just charge it back up with a single brush of her hand whenever the power is running low. Monthly electricity fees can get expensive, after all. It might not be much, but every little bit helps, or so Kiri would like to think.
As she leaves the bathroom and pads back to her room, Kiri chances a quick glance back in the kitchen's direction again. The light is still on.
... She really hopes her mother gets some rest soon. It's not healthy, staying up so late.
There's a slight twinge of guilt stinging at the edge of her conscience as she steadfastly ignores the urge to check on her mother again, instead directly heading back to her room to roll out the futon. The patchwork bedding is thin, fraying at the edges, and Kiri reaches up to pull down an extra coat from the clothes hangers as an extra layer before she settles down for the night.
It's dark. She'd left a slight crack open in the door so that it wouldn't get too stuffy as she slept, but the light that comes through is so faint that it might as well have not been there in the first place at all. Kiri rolls onto her back, careful not to knock over the books stacked near her feet, and silently stares up at the shadowed outlines of coats and shirts dangling above her.
School. Then, groceries. After that, there's housework that needs to be done. Her thoughts run over the tasks waiting for her tomorrow, mentally tallying everything that needs to be done. It's not exactly a short list, but it is what it is.
The young girl sighs, closing her eyes.
Sleep is slow in coming.
.
.
…
.
Author's Notes:
Hello! It's been awhile since I've written/posted anything (again), so hopefully this wasn't too awkward to read.
As might be evident from the fic title and the events of the first chapter, the basic premise here is just a BNHA OC, but with electric-type powers loosely based on Misaka Mikoto from the Toaru-verse. If you're not familiar with the Toaru franchise I would recommend checking it out! Absolutely no Toaru knowledge is necessary for understanding what goes on in the fic, though. We'll be playing around in the BNHA sandbox here, after all. :)
As a heads up, I'll try to research things when I can, but I'm probably going to get a lot of the pseudoscience-y aspects of superpowers and what not wrong anyways, so... consider yourselves warned.
Taking another shot at the NaNo thing this year! The goal here is to have around ~20-30k+ words written for this fic by the end of this month. Not quite the 50k+ goal that's standard for NaNo, but since I am still unsure of some things in my schedule, I'll be aiming for a (hopefully) more realistic goal. I already have a little bit of this fic plotted out in advance, thankfully, so let's see how this goes.
I will be cross-posting on AO3, although updates will generally be posted on FFN initially.
Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe and healthy!
-XxZuiliu