The garage still smelled of ozone.
It was an odor Kenji had never truly known, only read about in books. Acrid, metallic, almost electric. It lingered around him like a foreign perfume, refusing to fade even as rain hammered against the tin roof.
No one had moved.
Daichi remained frozen, arms hanging limp, mouth half-open around a word that would not come. His hands, so quick to clap the air and extract shockwaves from it, now hung useless at his sides. He looked at Kenji as if he had just seen his little brother turn into a monster.
Or a hero.
Maybe both at once.
Then Akari crossed the distance between them.
She didn't speak. She dropped to her knees on the cold cement, ignoring the splashes of rainwater, and took Kenji's face between her hands. Her fingers trembled. Her Quirk, Tactile Reminiscence, caught everything at once: the lingering fear, the confusion, but also—above all—an immense wave of pure, almost childlike wonder. And something else, deeper, older. A silent gratitude directed at no one in particular.
"You're not hurt?" Her voice was barely a breath, rough.
Kenji shook his head. He wasn't hurt. He felt strangely… light. As if a part of him, unknown until this moment, had finally found its function.
"Not hurt, Mom. Just… different."
Hiroshi stepped forward in a measured stride. His architect's gaze—the one that mentally measured angles and calculated loads—swept over the scene. The torn wire. The smoking pad. The peaceful yet strangely bright face of his youngest son. He saw what his wife, too shaken, could not: the precision of the shot. A seven-year-old child, under the shock of electrocution, had projected a beam of energy with accuracy that even some adults would have envied.
"Daichi," he said without taking his eyes off Kenji. "Cut the power at the breaker."
The boy jolted, as if pulled from deep sleep. "Y-yes, Father."
He rushed toward the electrical panel in the hallway, visibly relieved to have something to do. The characteristic click of the main breaker echoed in the silence. The garage lights flickered, died, then the bulbs lit again one by one—powered by another source, the street grid.
Hiroshi crouched in front of Kenji, at eye level.
"Can you do it again?" His voice was calm, almost professional. Not that of a worried father. That of a man trying to understand.
Kenji looked at his hand. The skin of his palm was normal. No burn, no redness. Yet beneath the surface, he still felt that presence. A reserve of energy that was not entirely him, yet part of him. Like a second breath lodged in his chest.
He focused. Tried to recreate the sensation of the beam.
Nothing came.
"It's… less now," he said, frowning. "Before, I was full. Now it's almost empty. I have to absorb first."
"Absorb," Hiroshi repeated.
"Electricity. That's how it started. The wire hit me, and…" He searched for words. How do you explain something so intimate, so new? "It went into my chest. And it became something I can keep. And use."
Akari tightened her grip on his shoulders.
"You could have died," she murmured. It wasn't an accusation. It was fear, still too fresh, trying to anchor itself in reality.
"But I didn't, Mom."
"No. You… absorbed."
Kenji nodded. Yes. He had absorbed. The word resonated within him with perfect accuracy, as if his body had always been waiting for it.
Later, much later, when the storm had moved on and a fragile calm had settled over the Tanaka house, Kenji found himself sitting on his bed, back against the wall.
His mother had insisted he take a bath. To check for invisible burns, she had said. In truth, it was for her. To see with her own eyes, by touch, that her son was whole. Daichi had stayed in his room, silent in a way that did not suit him. Hiroshi had made three phone calls: to a specialist doctor in Quirks they knew, to his own father to postpone a planned weekend visit, and to Kenji's school to report him "slightly unwell" for the next day.
Now, silence reigned.
Kenji stared at the ceiling, but he did not see the phosphorescent stars Daichi had helped him stick there two years earlier. He saw the blue lightning. He still felt the emptiness in his chest, barely filled by a tiny residual reserve—sparks at best. His body felt strangely… hungry. Waiting.
Absorption. Storage. Conversion.
The words lined up in his mind like pieces of a puzzle whose final image he did not yet possess.
He closed his eyes. And the memories of the Other, usually so fragmented, suddenly organized themselves around this new center of gravity.
In his former life, he had studied physics. Not as an expert—just school curriculum, a few documentaries, educational YouTube videos watched at three in the morning out of insomniac curiosity. But the basics were there, buried somewhere beneath animated fight scenes and fan theories about upcoming chapters.
Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It transforms.
First law of thermodynamics. The most fundamental.
So I'm a machine, he thought. A transformation machine.
Electrical energy. Kinetic energy. Thermal energy. Radiant energy. His body—his Quirk—took them all, reduced them to a single form, and stored them. To release them later in a different form.
It was absurd. Impossible according to every law of physics he knew.
And yet it was true.
He opened his eyes and stood. His small wooden desk held an adjustable lamp, a few school textbooks, and—he reached out—a worn illustrated book about electricity. A gift from his father the previous year, when Kenji had asked, "How do outlets work?"
He opened it at random. A diagram of a simple circuit. Battery, wire, bulb.
I'm the battery, he thought. And the wire. And the bulb.
No. He was more than that. He was also the switch, and the ability to choose which bulb to light. With what intensity. In what form.
All-Energy.
The name came to him suddenly, clear and definitive. He whispered it into the silence of his room, tasting the syllables.
All-Energy.
All energy. Every form. Absorbed, converted, returned.
"That's a dumb name," said a voice from the half-open door.
Kenji jumped. Daichi stood in the doorway, arms crossed, looking less arrogant than usual. His gaze shifted between his little brother and the floor, as if unsure where to rest.
"You were talking to yourself. I heard." He made a face. "All-Energy. Sounds like an energy drink brand."
Kenji didn't react. He gently closed the book.
"Do you want to come in?"
Daichi hesitated. One second. Two. Then he stepped inside and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, making the frame creak.
"I almost killed you," he said.
His voice was flat. No bragging, no excitement. Just a raw fact.
"No," Kenji replied. "You were training. I was standing too close."
"My Quirk made the lamp fall."
"My leg was on the wet floor."
Daichi looked up, confused. "Why aren't you blaming me? I just said I almost killed you. You're supposed to be mad. Or at least give me the cold shoulder."
Kenji considered that. It was probably true. His brother would have reacted that way in his place—an explosion of anger, then heavy guilt. But he… felt neither anger nor resentment. Only immense curiosity about what had happened.
"You couldn't have known," he said simply. "And without that accident, my Quirk might never have awakened. So… thank you, Daichi."
The silence that followed was strange. Daichi stared at him with an expression Kenji had never seen before—a mix of relief, confusion, and a kind of new respect.
"You're really weird," his brother finally muttered. But the edge had left his voice.
He stood, took a step toward the door, then stopped.
"All-Energy still sucks," he said without turning. "But it's less dumb than Impact Sound. I mean, I just have noise. You shoot laser beams."
He disappeared down the hallway before Kenji could answer.
The next day, Hiroshi took Kenji to a specialized center.
It was an unassuming building, wedged between a pharmacy and a convenience store in a quiet residential district of Fukuoka. Only a small golden plaque indicated: Quirk Registration and Evaluation Center — North Branch.
"It's mandatory," Hiroshi explained as they waited in the cream-colored waiting room. "Every Quirk must be declared and evaluated within six months of awakening. For records, for school, and so you can receive appropriate training if necessary."
Kenji nodded. He had seen places like this in his memories—Quirk diagnostic scenes, laboratory exams. But being there himself, sitting on a plastic chair too tall for his legs, waiting for a stranger to tell him what he could do, was different.
The examiner was a middle-aged man with thin glasses and a white coat. His Quirk was visibly manifest—his irises were fluorescent orange, almost unsettling. He introduced himself as Doctor Shindo.
"Tanaka Kenji, seven years old. Awakened yesterday following electrical shock." He read from the form Hiroshi had filled out. "And you say your son was able to absorb the discharge and then release it as a beam."
"Yes," Hiroshi confirmed.
Doctor Shindo looked at Kenji with renewed interest.
"Can you show me?"
Kenji looked at his hands. Still empty. "I need to absorb first. I barely have any energy left."
The specialist nodded, as if that answer confirmed a hypothesis. He opened a drawer and took out a small metallic device, like a portable battery with two electrodes.
"Controlled discharge, very low intensity." He attached the electrodes to Kenji's fingertips. "Tell me when you feel something."
At first, Kenji felt the cold metal. Then—a faint tingling. Too little. Not enough. He shook his head.
"More."
Shindo increased the power. Nothing.
More. More. Until—there. The threshold. The familiar sensation of energy flowing into his hand, drawn toward his chest.
"There."
Shindo immediately cut the current. "How much did you absorb, approximately?"
Kenji thought. "Maybe… a tenth of what I had yesterday?"
"And you can release it?"
Kenji raised his hand, palm upward. He focused on the small reserve in his chest and gently pushed—a tiny spark leapt from his index finger, barely crackling before fading.
Shindo wrote rapidly.
"Electrical absorption confirmed. Internal storage capacity. Electrical restitution." He looked up. "Have you tried other forms of energy?"
Kenji hesitated. "Not yet. But I feel… I feel like I can. Like my body knows what it can absorb, even if I haven't done it yet."
"Interesting." Shindo set down his pen. "Tanaka-san, I'll be honest. The Quirk registry contains thousands of entries, and I've never seen exactly this configuration. Absorption of one specific type, conversion into another—yes, documented. But your son's claim that he might absorb all forms of energy… that's either childish imagination or something truly exceptional."
He turned to Kenji.
"I advise you to test. Carefully, always under adult supervision. Heat, light, sound, motion… Anything that is energy, you may potentially absorb. But remember: your body has a limit. Exceeding it could be very dangerous."
Kenji nodded solemnly. He had already understood that. Yesterday's sensation of fullness had clearly been a warning. A maximum capacity. A reservoir that must not overflow.
"And for school?" Hiroshi asked.
"I'll draft supervised training authorization. He'll need a personalized program. For now, I recommend weekly sessions here to establish the basics. We'll determine storage capacity, absorption rate, conversion efficiency…"
The doctor's voice faded into background noise. Kenji was looking out the window. Afternoon sunlight struck the sidewalk, and an idea took root in his mind.
Light. Radiant energy.
He placed his hand on the windowsill, in the beam of sunlight.
Nothing happened.
Not yet, he thought. But one day.
That night, Kenji did not fall asleep immediately.
Sitting at his desk, he opened a new notebook from the school supplies stack. On the cover, in careful letters, he wrote:
ALL-ENERGY — PERSONAL NOTES
He paused, pen hovering over paper. It was silly, maybe. He was seven. His classmates still played heroes in the schoolyard, shouting imaginary attack names while waving their arms. He was writing a technical journal about his own body.
But he couldn't help it. Understand, organize, classify—that was how his mind worked. The fragments of the Other had taught him that: the world obeyed rules. Even Quirks, these everyday miracles, had internal logic. You just had to find it.
He began to write.
Absorption
Electricity: confirmed (Day 1, Day 2 - clinic)
Kinetic (impacts): to test
Thermal (heat): to test
Radiant (light): to test (nothing so far)
Sonic: to test
Storage
Maximum capacity unknown (exceeded at awakening = "full" sensation)
Location: center of chest (solar plexus)
Stored energy seems to decrease with use
Conversion
Electric → Electric: confirmed (beam)
Electric → Other: to test
He reread his notes. Incomplete. Frustrating. He wanted to understand the how, not just the what. How did his body choose which energy to absorb? Was it voluntary, or did his Quirk react automatically to threats? Was conversion instantaneous, or was there a delay? Could he mix different absorbed energy types to create different effects?
Science, he thought. I need to learn science.
In his former life, he had never been particularly good at physics. Good enough to pass exams, not enough to pursue it as a career. But now, that knowledge felt vital. How could he master a power based on energy without understanding energy itself?
He remembered the old electricity book. There were others, in his parents' library. And the municipal library where his mother worked was filled with shelves of science books.
I'll read everything, he decided. Everything I can find. About electricity, thermodynamics, waves, light…
A dizziness overtook him, both exciting and terrifying. The scale of what he didn't know was immense. But for the first time since he had begun receiving the Other's memories, he felt a clear direction. A goal.
He would not be just a hero who shoots beams. He would be a hero who understands. Who knows exactly how his power works, and how to use it to its full potential.
He picked up his pen again and added one final line at the bottom of the page.
Objective: learn as much physics as possible.
The next morning, Akari found her son asleep at his desk, cheek pressed against the open notebook. She skimmed the notes—the clumsy handwriting of a seven-year-old, technical terms misspelled—and her heart tightened.
She woke Kenji with a gentle stroke of his hair.
"Come, my treasure. It's breakfast time."
Kenji blinked, still foggy with sleep. Then he felt something unusual—a lock of hair fallen before his eye, a color he didn't recognize.
He rushed to the mirror.
His hair, normally jet black, now bore a streak of electric blue along one side. Not his whole head—just a clean, precise band, as if painted with a brush.
"Mom?"
Akari approached and examined the strange streak. "Is it… the electricity? The one you absorbed?"
Kenji touched it, incredulous. It felt normal. Just colored. He thought of the garage discharge, the clinic test. The electrical energy he had absorbed had left a trace.
A side effect, he realized. My energy signature. Each type of energy I absorb leaves a temporary mark.
"Will it go away?" he asked, suddenly worried.
"I don't know, sweetheart." Akari was smiling, though. "But I think it suits you."
In the hallway, Daichi ran past, stopped abruptly, stepped back three paces, and stared at the blue streak.
"You dyed your hair? At seven?"
Kenji sighed.
"No. It's my Quirk."
"…That sucks less than All-Energy," Daichi said after a pause. "You should call yourself Blue Streak or something."
"I'm keeping All-Energy."
"Too bad."
Daichi disappeared toward the dining room. Kenji watched him go, then turned back to the mirror.
The blue streak pulsed softly under the morning light, a silent witness to what he had absorbed. An energy scar, almost artistic.
So energy marks me, he thought. Each type leaves its imprint.
He wondered what color sunlight would make. Fire. Sound.
I have so much to learn.
He placed a hand over his chest, where his inner reactor lay sleeping, almost empty, patient.
But I have time. I have all the time in the world.
In the dining room, the smell of freshly cooked rice and grilled fish filled the air. Hiroshi read his newspaper, Daichi talked with his mouth full despite Akari's scolding. Life went on, normal and warm.
Kenji took his seat at the table, his blue streak swaying gently with his movements.
No one commented.
That was how it was in the Tanaka family. Quirks arrived, left their marks, and you learned to live with them. Simply.
Kenji picked up his chopsticks.
Tomorrow, he thought. I start the physics books.
He smiled, almost to himself.
All-Energy. We're going to have to get to know each other.