#mwme

Except this morning, he’d been called in early and his neighbours were asleep - what with him getting ready at three am. In short: no bath, no coffee, not even a splash of water on his face to wake him up.

After rushing out the house in yesterday’s clothes and yesterday’s stink, a bird shat on his head. Good luck, whatever, he took it in stride and did his best to wash the mess in the train station bathroom.

Then a villain hijacked the front cart of his train, rendering his early start pointless. He ended up tucked into the last cart wrinkling his nose at the smoker who’d decided to sit as close as humanely possible in an otherwise empty compartment. Fortunately, the day-old stink became a boon and urged the man to move away once it finally overpowered the cigarette stench. Of course, he gave Kakashi a dirty look, as though he wasn’t the rude one for trapping him in the corner.

Finally, Kakashi had arrived at work to find out his boss hadn’t expected him early. The rescheduling was an automated system error. He’d also made a snide comment about Kakashi’s presentation, but that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary even if it did grate a little more when in combination with the absolute clusterfuck of his morning commute.

Villains and heroes. Kakashi didn’t care for allegiances and lawful abidance at this point - he’d favour whichever party decided to stop dealing him collateral first.

Slowly, he lowered his head and stared dejectedly at the wires. Might as well do his job.

Crackling only he could hear sounded as he extended a lazy finger towards a current only he could sense. Static electricity fizzed as his nail grazed the rubber coating. Output ticked up on the gauge.

His job was a simple one. Unlike the big hitters on the basement level, he couldn’t generate electricity for the power grid. What he could do was influence existing electrical currents. Acutely deadly when focused just so, unbeknownst to his superiors.

They thought him a lazy untalented slacker who’d don the title ‘NEET’ if it weren’t for the government schemes in place for quirks like his. It wasn't an entirely incorrect statement.

Having lived one childhood playing shuriken roulette in the trenches singing quiet nursery rhymes beneath jets of flames and the rumbling of earth, he stumbled into peacetime and modernity like a stubby-legged fish out of water. Five years went by, and he learned how to let himself breathe audibly, walk normally, and take up the space a safe childhood allowed.

No village held his loyalty. He floated along the tides of the Japanese foster care system and experienced life as it happened without bloodied obligations cosigned by warmongers. Age five brought a threat to his carefree lifestyle, but one life taught him how to neutralise threats once identified, and he decided to keep the deadly facets of his quirk to himself.

According to public records, Kakashi government-assigned-surname Sato was in possession of the quirk “Current Control” which allowed him to manipulate the strength of electric currents to a minor degree.

Oh, how wrong they were, and how happy Kakashi was to reinforce the misconception.

Nihilism, he found, suited him well. Duty would not rob him of his life a second time over.

It was with this conviction, or lack thereof, he meandered to his department manager’s office and arrived twenty minutes late to see the irate face of the CEO.

Okay. Admittedly, not his typical summons. Alarm bells did not ring in his head, however, as his contract made him exceedingly difficult to fire unless he continually missed his shifts or did something particularly egregious. Plus, a simple firing wouldn’t require the presence of the CEO.

“Look at the clock,” the CEO clipped and jabbed a ringed finger at the digital clock on his manager’s desk.

Kakashi looked at the clock.

“What time is it?” The CEO asked.

“Seven Twenty-One,” Kakashi replied.

“What time was your presence requested in this office?”

“Seven oh-One.”

“Ah, good, you have it down to the exact minute. That should make this easy for you, then. How many minutes ago, therefore, were you supposed to be here?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty minutes. Exactly twenty! So why weren’t you here twenty minutes ago?”

“I saw a mouse running around near the mains and I thought ‘oh no, what if he gets electrocuted and dies a horribly painful death’ so I saved it and fed it some of my sandwich in the break room before setting it free in accounting.”

Dumbfounded silence descended upon the office. Kakashi could read every mortified thought crossing his manager’s face and had to bite his cheek to maintain his stoic facade.

“… I. I do not care,” the CEO said and swiftly turned towards the door. “Follow me.”

Kakashi got the impression the CEO wasn’t going to be forthcoming if he asked after an explanation, so he gave his slowly perishing red-faced manager a shrug and did as he was told.

Sustaining his lackadaisical posture while keeping up with the impressive speeds he was led by was not an easy task but one he excelled at nonetheless because he immensely enjoyed irritating others by simply existing.

Otome games, dating sims, and trolling. The Kakashi Sato trifecta; principles to live by.

He gave a few limp waves to the real workers in the basement as they made their way through the heat. Sweat dripped from their brows as they poured their essence into generating electricity for the entirety of Tokyo. None returned his greeting except one woman on break propped up against a generator with an energy drink, whose exhaustion barred her from reacting to the sight of the CEO storming past and the company’s token disadvantaged orphan tagging along.

When they began to descend down a narrow ladder into a part of the building left undescribed on the floor plan (some old habits die hard, and knowing the quickest exit routes of any building he spent substantial time in was a useful skill for anyone to have in a world besieged by super-powered villains), old instincts pricked the back of his neck and his hair stood on end.

This was really weird. Weirder than calling the CEO himself down to talk him into resigning, his original hypothesis. This was more reminiscent of walking haplessly ignorant into an obvious trap. Which was weird because in what world would that happen?

Probably one in which rich CEOs worked with the villains sitting in their secret basements for monetary gain.

Because the three individuals sat on a couch in a low light sub-level room with a TV displaying an obscured face had to be villains. For Kami’s sake, one notable individual was a cloud of mist billowing out of a tuxedo.

The CEO’s demeanour switched up completely and he shot a grin at Kakashi. “Here he is, one of our prized electricians! He came to our company on a government-supported employment programme for specialised quirks. He’s one of our best.”

Oh.

“Most importantly, he won’t be missed - I know you didn’t directly ask after loose ends, but I used my initiative.”

He wasn’t being fired for incompetence. He was being sold off for false competence, because of his incompetence. Kakashi hadn’t anticipated this outcome when he first discovered he could do the bare minimum and keep his job.

The obscured man on the screen hummed amusedly. “Are you still processing, Mr Sato? You’re mighty quiet for what must be a confusing situation for you.”

He was fucked. There were no two ways about it. Escape and at the very least he’d be out of a job, if not hunted. Go with the flow as he had done in life so far, and who knows what terrible schemes he may fall into with these villain. If he even lived to find out.

Kakashi sighed, beleaguered. “You’re forcing my hand here. All I wanted was to get lost on the road of life, and here you are throwing in a crossroads.”

Place a man who controls electricity into an empty barren field, and he’s beholden to the whims of the weather. Place him in the heart of the entire city’s electrical supply, and his limits are boundless.