Denki Kaminari

A black streak shaped like a bolt of lightning runs through Denki's blond hair, sitting in the fringe on his left and angled to hide part of that eye. The eyes themselves are gold and narrow enough to read as triangles, set under small brows, and he carries noticeably less muscle than the other boys in his class.

For school he wears U.A.'s standard male set: a light gray blazer trimmed in dark turquoise, a white dress shirt, a red tie, blue-green slacks and plain brown shoes.

His first hero outfit paired a white undershirt with an open black jacket whose lightning pattern crossed the collar, shoulders and back, trousers marked with two lines down each leg, brown shoes, and a squared earphone over the right ear with an antenna jutting from the top. The revision cut the patterns back to the hem and collar, ringed each shoulder with a white bolt outlined in yellow, reduced the leg markings to a zig-zag at the cuffs, and added a white belt for pointer ammunition, a black choker buckled at the left, a headset carrying a visor tinted blue, and the wrist mechanism that fires his discs.

Mr. Compress wounded him during the Paranormal Liberation War, leaving a scar high on his left forehead that his hair covers well. Eight years on from the Final War he stands taller and leaner, bangs swept right to cover the forehead, gold pierced earrings in place, and his rig has been overhauled again: the Sharpshooting Gear is slimmer and less bulky with ammunition capsules ringing the wrist, the headset carries a bolt extension on either side above a redesigned visor, several white lightning patterns run down each trouser leg, the yellow outlines are gone from the jacket, a yellow undershirt sits beneath a white chest strap, and his shoes are dark teal with white soles.

Sociable and loud in a good-natured way, Denki likes company and treats nearly everyone casually, Katsuki Bakugo included, though annoyance will draw petty complaints and outsized reactions out of him. Bluntness and recklessness do not make him unkind, and he tends to push people toward whatever they actually enjoy, as he did when praising Kyoka Jiro's command of several instruments while the class prepared for the school festival.

He flirts, often while tagging along on one of Minoru Mineta's schemes, and sells himself as a smooth talker with almost no return: the women he approaches ignore or reject him as a matter of routine. Teasing and jokes come easily. Underneath it sits a wish to look cool and current without much idea of how, which leaves him swept along by whatever is popular at the moment, even when villains are the ones setting the trend.

Schoolwork defeats him. He neglects his duties, drifts through lectures, bores fast, and turns agitated and snappish when a test is in front of him, which invites others, Kyoka above all, to write him off as a fool and to underrate him as a hero. The picture is incomplete: literature, art and music draw genuine knowledge out of him, and a wide vocabulary surfaces at odd moments.

Stress unsettles him badly enough that allies and enemies alike read him as spineless. He panics in combat, sometimes triggering his Quirk on reflex at the worst moment and leaving himself open, and he holds back whenever teammates stand close enough to catch the discharge. Assure him they are safe and his confidence returns. Anyone looking down on his classmates will find him unwilling to let it stand. Past his wattage ceiling the electricity cuts out and his mind goes with it, leaving a giggling idiot who throws up two thumbs to signal that he is fine until he comes back to himself.

Electrification lets him bank a charge and release it, sheathing his body in current. Contact with him while it runs leaves the toucher partly or fully paralyzed, which makes close-quarters fighters wary of engaging at all. He can also throw the charge outward across distance, but with almost no say in where it goes, so it strikes everything around him at once. That makes him devastating against numbers and a liability to any ally who cannot shield themselves. He can also absorb and cancel out electricity and other lightning Quirks, and turn himself into an improvised lightning rod to defuse an electrical attack. Push past his wattage ceiling and his brain shorts out, taking him off the board for an hour. Training that ran his current through a high-capacity battery raised the volume he can handle.

His record backs the power up. At the U.S.J. he dropped the villains who had closed a ring around himself, Kyoka and Momo Yaoyorozu, and at the Sports Festival he shorted out a giant Villain Bot single-handed. The Provisional Hero License Exam showed real growth: with Katsuki and Eijiro Kirishima beaten down by Seiji Shishikura of Shiketsu High School, Denki leaned on his improved handling alongside the fresh Sharpshooting Gear and blindsided the flesh-manipulator, freeing the other two from Meatball so they could finish him. He had the nerve to take on Jurota Shishida when the Joint Training Battle opened, without ever being able to match him. On Nabu Island he worked with Eijiro and Katsuki against Mummy's puppets and grounded Nine's Weather Manipulation, keeping Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki safe. The Lurkers, meaning Edgeshot, Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady, noticed him and took him on as an intern, sharpening his close-range teamwork.

He is not the brightest student in Class 1-A, but the tactical sense is real. Knowing from their Sports Festival bout that Ibara Shiozaki's vines shrug off electricity, he arranged during the Joint Training Battle to be the only one captured, then generated enough current to split the enemy team's attention. That opening let Hitoshi Shinso brainwash Ibara unnoticed while Tsuyu Asui seized her and then subdued Hiryu Rin, which finished Jurota and won the round. Away from fighting, he plays electric guitar well and draws detailed portraits.

His named techniques center on the discharge. Indiscriminate Shock 1.3 Million Volts dumps electricity into everything nearby, and Indiscriminate Shock 2 Million Volts raises the output at the cost of shorting his brain out sooner. Target Electo runs a straight line of current at whatever his Sharpshooting Gear has marked, keeping allies out of it. Human Stun Gun is the reflexive medium-strength burst he releases when danger closes in. Electromagnetic Rail Gun is a combination move: Momo builds the weapon with Creation and Denki supplies the power to launch the projectile.

His gear serves the same purpose. An earpiece on the right ear channels his electricity into communication signals so he can talk to other channels remotely, though outside interference can jam them. The Sharpshooting Gear on his right forearm fires disc-shaped Pointers that stick to a target, and a dial on the device selects which one his electricity should chase when several are planted; the working limit is ten meters. An optical visor feeds him information about the Pointers as he goes.