Chapter 33: Hero Names
The Monday morning following the sports festival arrived with little fanfare. Izuku and Kyoka had taken their morning run like normal, and it had been a welcome return to a normal morning on campus after the past several days of dealing with the early arriving press and enhanced security measures. Izuku always enjoyed his early morning runs with Kyoka. They reminded him of how they met, and their months of training together to get into U.A.
After showering and dressing, Izuku had been, as usual, the first of the two to get downstairs for breakfast. Of his classmates, only Shiozaki had come down to eat so far, and Izuku was sure that the excitement and hangover from the festival was taking its toll on the entire class. He would relish the quiet while it lasted.
Making enough breakfast for both him and Kyoka, Izuku found his way to one of the larger tables and began to page through the most recent hero news on his phone as he waited for his girlfriend and other friends to join him. It was a common routine that they had fallen into over the first few weeks of the school year.
His attention was quickly drawn away from his food by the top story on essentially every hero news site: Stain had struck yet again in Hosu. Izuku's stomach dropped as he read the article and discovered that it was Ingenium, Tensei Iida, who had been attacked this time. While Ingenium had been rushed to a hospital as quickly as possible, he had been pronounced dead on arrival. None of the sites that Izuku frequented had much more information than that, but Izuku wasn't positive that he wanted more.
This was arguably Stain's highest profile target to date; most of the previous heroes that had been attacked had been either side-kicks or relatively low-ranking independent heroes. Ingenium, on the other hand, had been a consistent presence in the top fifty for several years at this point, and ran one of the oldest continually operating hero agencies in the country, Team Idaten.
Ingenium was also one of the most beloved heroes in the country, well-known for his efforts at community outreach and his eagerness to hire side-kicks with unusual, weak, or 'villainous' quirks. Contrarian stories that justified Stain's attacks to one degree or another often popped up across the internet following each incident. Izuku would be surprised, however, if even one such article was published about Ingenium.
Izuku jolted slightly as Kyoka sat down next to him, shocking him out of his reverie. She smiled at him gratefully as he passed her breakfast. Part of Izuku wanted to go back and read more about the incident, but he ultimately decided to catch up on it later. After all, more of his classmates and friends were slowly appearing from upstairs. A few minutes later Shoji, Honnenuki, Yaoyorozu, and Uraraka had joined the two of them as well, conversation flowing easily between them.
"I think we're lucky to be in the dorms, on the whole." Shoji stated, responding to Uraraka wishing she could visit home more. "I heard some third years saying how relieved they were that they didn't have to commute to school today. Apparently it's really common for the public to be all over you for the week or so after the sports festival."
"Ugh." Kyoka shivered at the thought. "That would suck. I mean, I know it's going to happen once we're heroes, but I'd like to put it off as long as possible, I guess."
"Is that really something we'd have to worry about though?" Izuku asked. "I mean, I know that I won the festival and all, but I don't think there's much about me that people would be interested in." Nearly immediately he felt the sting of Kyoka's earjack in his arm.
"Nuh uh uh, Green. No more of that. We talked about this." Kyoka was right, they had talked about this. And while Izuku was coming to understand that Kyoka found him attractive, he still felt that that was an outlier, an exception to the rule. Deep inside, he still thought that the vast majority of people would find him relatively boring and uninteresting, physically or quirk-wise.
After all, most people didn't know that he literally had All Might's quirk.
"Jiro's right, Midoriya." Uraraka piped up, scrolling through her phone. "From what I've seen, you're developing an early fan club." That couldn't be right. "I think I've seen more posts about you than most of the second and third years even."
Izuku leveled Uraraka with as firm a glare as he could manage. "I don't appreciate being made fun of, Uraraka." She looked up from her phone with a look of surprise, but Izuku continued on. "I've been on plenty of hero forums and I haven't seen much at all about me. I've seen more about Todoroki than I have about me."
"Oh, there's plenty about him too, but where are you looking?"
"Hero-News, Cape, Parago, websites like that." Izuku replied. "You know, typical hero news sites." He tried to only visit reputable sites with vetted and experienced reporters. There were too many tabloids out there that would publish essentially anything, regardless of whether or not it was true.
The fact that there were at least a dozen that he could think of, while there were only four or five reputable news services indicated that there was an issue of what people wanted to read as well. Social media was always flooded with tabloid articles, and rarely, if ever, the actual important news.
"Well there's your problem." Uraraka chuckled, putting her phone face up on the table. Dozens of images of Izuku from a variety of angles covered the screen. It didn't escape his notice that the majority of the images were from his fight with Ashido once he had lost his shirt. "You're only checking the boring sites. You should check where most people actually talk about these things. Pictures of you are all over social media."
Izuku felt his face contort into a confused scowl. Not only were there pictures of him shirtless, presumably for people to thirst over, but people were making memes of him! A good quarter of the images had text of some sort written over them, usually in the bold impact font that (still, somehow) characterized memes. In a handful of images, Izuku even looked to have been photoshopped (poorly, of course) into existing meme templates. He felt his soul die little by little the more he took in.
"I admit I don't understand some of this text." Yaoyorozu spoke. "What exactly does this one mean?" Izuku followed her finger as she tapped one of the images in the collection, making it full screen.
Blood rushed to Izuku's face as he took in exactly what the meme was showing. The image was from near the end of his match with Kaminari, from when Izuku was prying up the flooring to block Kaminari's final attack. It was a close-up of Izuku's face, eyes wide, teeth bared in exertion, nothing visible beneath his shoulders. Veins stood out on his neck due to the stress he was putting his body through and there were arcs of green lightning decorating the edges of the image.
Bold, impact font text ran across the top and bottom of the image: "WHEN YOU NUTTED." "BUT THEY STILL SUCKING."
Honenunki immediately broke out in peals of laughter, while Kyoka went as red as Izuku felt and hid her face in her hands. Even Shoji was quietly chuckling, although he was polite enough to avert his eyes, at least. On instinct, Izuku shot his hand out to turn the phone's screen off, but found Uraraka even faster, her face at least as red as Kyoka's
That had been more than enough unfiltered internet for one day.
Yaoyorozu looked between Izuku, Kyoka, and Uraraka blushing and Honenuki cackling with laughter. "Is anyone willing to give me an explanation? It seems like everyone here knows what's going on here except for me." For the barest instant Izuku was nearly moved by Yaoyorozu's plight and considered explaining the meme to her. Then the rest of his brain caught up and he decided that he would rather die than explain anything about that abomination to anyone.
"We'll tell you when you're older, Yaoyorozu." Honenuki managed to get out between guffaws.
"You should preserve your innocence as long as possible." Shoji added.
"Oh." Yaoyorozu said quietly, and Izuku could see the wheels turning in her head. A moment later, it was obvious that she had figured out exactly what the meme was saying as her face exploded into a massive blush. "Oh! That seems highly inappropriate for someone to make about a first year student. You're only fifteen!"
"I didn't ask them to make it!" Izuku blurted out. Even though Yaoyorozu was obviously not blaming him for these images existing, he still felt the need to defend himself. His immediate objection just made Honenuki laugh even harder, to the point where it seemed like he was having trouble breathing.
Part of Izuku was expecting Kyoka to jump into the conversation, either to make fun of him or to yell at Honenuki for bringing this up. Or she might start harrying them with her earjacks, poking them into their foreheads and/or ears. Instead, though, she was talking quietly with Uraraka, both as red faced as ever. Izuku decided that the better part of valor was not asking what they were talking about.
Thankfully, they had to leave for class in just a few minutes. Making sure that Honenuki was still breathing and calming him down took most of that time so there wasn't much time left to embarrass the majority of the group much more. By the time they left for class, the news of Stain murdering Ingenium had taken a backseat in Izuku's mind to any number of other topics.
---
Mezo always tried to keep an ear out for Aizawa coming down the hall before class started in order to warn everyone else that he was getting near. The rest of 1-A had quickly realized that they needed to be in their seats well before class started to keep Aizawa from enacting collective punishment. Unfortunately, some class members (Ashido and Tokage being the biggest, but certainly not only offenders) simply did not know how to remain quiet.
Therefore, Mezo had taken it upon himself to warn the class that Aizawa was on his way towards the classroom to ensure that everyone was quiet when the man entered the room. It had taken Mezo quite some time to be able to consistently detect the man's footsteps. Years spent as an underground hero had led to a naturally stealthy gait.
By now, however, Mezo was able to give the class a good five second warning to quiet up. Today was actually even longer, as Aizawa seemed to be dragging his feet somewhat this morning. That gave them just enough time for the entire class to be silently seated, facing forward, when their teacher stalked into the room, bandages finally removed.
To Mezo, it was immediately obvious that something was off with their teacher this morning, even beyond any lingering issues from his injuries. In addition to his slower pace, his eyes were rimmed with red and the bags under them were far deeper than normal. While Aizawa's general demeanor could never be described as "healthy," his skin was ashen and his hair was even more tangled and knotted than normal. It felt like he was just waiting to snap at the first thing that caught his ire.
Eyes flared red as Aizawa strode to the podium at the front of the room, apparently anticipating issues from his class. When he found them to already be seated and silent, Aizawa almost looked frustrated.
"Apparently you hellions can be taught." That was perhaps the closest thing to a compliment that Aizawa had ever given the class as a whole. "Good, we have two important topics for homeroom today." Everyone sat up a little straighter at that. Most days homeroom involved a small announcement or two followed by free work. Aizawa generally tried to push as much of his job as possible off onto the three class representatives and to nap as much as possible during homeroom. His tone today made it clear that he was sharing this information because he had to, not because he wanted to, and was aiming to be done as soon as possible.
"First we need to talk about internships. In two weeks each of you will take part in a week-long internship with a professional hero agency. One of the purposes of the sports festival is to give you exposure to impress hero agencies and earn invitations for internships. Many of you succeeded in that endeavor. Those of you who did not will still be able to serve an internship with one of forty agencies directly contracted with U.A. Here are the raw numbers of offers from the sports festival." Aizawa pressed a button and a short list was projected onto the blackboard.
Shoto Todoroki - 2485
Izuku Midoriya - 2422
Kyoka Jiro - 542
Sen Kaibara - 467
Ochako Uraraka - 233
Yosetsu Awase - 199
Momo Yaoyorozu - 182
Juzo Honenuki - 101
Mina Ashido - 23
Eijiro Kirishima - 23
Fumikage Tokoyami - 1
"Normally there's a bit more of a spread, but this year is an outlier." Mezo was disappointed, but not surprised, that he didn't have any offers. The only student in their class that both didn't make the final round and had any offers was Tokoyami, with a far flashier and more obviously powerful quirk.
There was a brief break as Aizawa allowed the class to react to the numbers in front of them, Mezo took a moment to gauge the reaction of his friends, all of whom had at least one hundred offers. Honenuki and Yaoyorozu looked both mildly surprised and relieved to have received so many offers. They had both been eliminated in the first stage of the final round, but had put up impressive showings against powerful opponents. Uraraka was celebrating from her seat, punching at the air in her excitement.
Midoriya and Jiro, on the other hand, were nearly catatonic in their shock. They had both finished in the top four, and Midoriya had won the entire thing. Further, Midoriya had managed to defeat Todoroki on the way to winning, which likely boosted his stock even higher. Despite all of that, Mezo wasn't shocked to see their reactions. Neither of them had the greatest self-esteem, and were always far more interested in building others up than themselves.
Aizawa pulled several sheafs of paper out from his desk and began handing them out, speaking in his bored tone of voice. "These folders have all of your internship information inside of them. Everyone's folder includes a list of our forty contracted agencies as well as general information about the internship process. For those of you with additional offers, it also includes a list of which agencies have made those offers."
Aizawa handed five folders to the student sitting in the front of each row, allowing them to pass the rest back. Sitting at the front of the third row, Mezo suddenly didn't feel quite so bad about not getting any extra offers after seeing the size of Jiro's folder. And Midoriya and Todoroki had nearly five times as many offers as her. Looking to his left to Todoroki, the head of the fourth row, Mezo saw that the folder that Tododroki ended up with was stuffed nearly to bursting.
"You all have until the end of tomorrow to choose which agency you would like to intern with. As soon as you have decided, fill out the paperwork and return it to me." That didn't seem like a lot of time to make such a large decision, especially for those with hundreds or thousands of offers to comb through.
"A few comments on your choices. First, this is an important decision. Do not simply choose the highest ranked hero that made you an offer. Consider what you can learn from each agency, what sort of hero you want to be, and what sort of skills you need to develop. If you choose well, the contacts that you develop in this internship will help you throughout your career." This was one of the few times that Aizawa had actually given direct advice to the class rather than letting them learn from a logical ruse. As far as Mezo could tell, it was even good advice at that.
"Second, even though this is an important decision, it does not dictate your future. If you are not happy with your internship, there is no obligation to intern with them again in the future, nor to work with them in other work-study arrangements." The class nodded along at that, and Mezo could feel the relief pouring from some of the students, especially those with an overabundance of offers. It would be difficult to make an informed decision of which agency out of hundreds or thousands might be best.
There was a pause as Aizawa allowed the class to digest this information before he moved on. "Second, we have a very important lesson in hero informatics today." Mezo was sure he could feel the stress levels in the classroom suddenly spike. After a pause that was just a hair too long, Aizawa continued. "As you will be working in the field in your internships, today you will be deciding on a hero code name."
Just like that the stress was gone and replaced with excitement and some soft chattering broke out before being silenced by Aizawa flaring his quirk. "Quiet! Anyone else who interrupts will receive detention!" With his quirk still active, Aizawa swept his glare across the class.
When he was satisfied that they were cowed, he continued. "Like your internship choice, this is an important decision. While you can change your code name before graduating, anyone you work with during this internship will likely know you by this name for the rest of your career. If you choose poorly, you could be stuck with a bad code name for the rest of your career." Some of the excitement was dampened by Aizawa's threat and warning, but there was still an undercurrent running through the class.
"Now, I have been informed that I am not qualified to give advice on hero names, so we will have a guest lecturer for this session." Aizawa stopped speaking and looked towards the door, and the class followed his gaze. At first, it seemed like nothing was going to happen, but after enough time to make it awkward, the door flew open and Midnight burst into the classroom.
"...Or else there'll be hell to pay!" Midnight took in the confused looks on the class's faces before turning to Aizawa. "Shota, we had discussed this!"
The man somehow managed a shrug as he crawled into his sleeping bag. As he rolled towards the wall to take a nap, Mezo heard him whisper to himself, "Why are you like this, Nemuri? He was your friend, too." Mezo didn't have long to ponder what exactly he meant by this before he was handed a white board to workshop names on and quickly found his attention redirected.
---
One would think that a kid who grew up idolizing heroes would have a few ideas for a hero name for themselves. Someone who played pretend as heroes long past the point of it being socially acceptable would surely have come up with at least one hero name for themselves that could pass muster, right? Izuku surely would have assumed so, at least. He also would have been wrong. For the past fifteen minutes Izuku had been wracking his brain for any sort of hero name that would be acceptable.
At first he had focused on the sorts of names he had used while playing pretend hero with Kaachan, and later his mother. No matter how he tried, though, he just couldn't picture anyone taking "All Might Jr.", "Mighty Boy", or "Small Might" seriously, let alone "Son of All Might". That last one would go with him to his grave, especially now that Todoroki had seriously asked him if he was All Might's biological child.
After he had spent nearly half of the time allotted to them considering and discarding his childhood embarrassments, Izuku tried to come up with something new. He could think of several heroes that had publicly stated that childhood nicknames formed the basis of their hero names. He very, very briefly considered trying to reclaim "Deku" in some capacity, but he had gotten used to not hearing that name any more and didn't really want to bring it back. Beyond that, Kyoka had given him a much better nickname, one that should, in principle, be far more flexible in making a hero name.
At first Izuku tried to think of just synonyms for the color green. Despite his idolization of All Might, he had always found single word hero names a bit punchier than multi word hero names. Unfortunately, no matter how Izuku wracked his mind, there wasn't a synonym that would really work for him.
"Viridian" was a strong name, but had already been used by no fewer than two older heroes that Izuku could immediately think of. Both heroes had been more on the underground side of heroics, but he didn't want to invite any comparisons to them nor steal any attention from either of them. "Emerald", "Malachite", and "Jade" caught his eye as they were also precious stones, but none of them felt quite right to him.
"All right class, your time is up!" Midnight somehow managed to make even that simple statement sound salacious. "Is there anyone who would like to share their thoughts?" There was no initial response. "If we don't have a volunteer, I'm more than happy to choose our first … offering." Izuku shuddered at the sheer amount of suggestiveness that adorned that word. He assumed that Midnight was just putting on a character, but wondered why she had to be quite so provocative to literal high schoolers.
He hid his eyes and tried to not draw Midnight's attention, as he still didn't have a great idea for a name. Thankfully, Ashido was apparently willing enough to be the first up, and presented her choice for a name: Alien Queen. Midnight attempted to nix the name due to its connection to pre-quirk media, but Tokage and Kirishima pushed back hard and got most of the class to agree with them. In the end, Midnight relented and Ashido skipped back to her desk, happy with her name.
From there, the floodgates opened and students were far more willing to go up and have their names judged. Most names were approved immediately.
"I'll be The Fusion Hero, Synthesis." Awase declared, and his name got an instant ok from Midnight.
"My name is The Spiral Hero, Helix Punch." Midnight for once didn't instantly sign off on a name, helping Kaibara workshop it some. In the end, they settled on The Spiral Hero, Strike Helix.
"After some thought, I want to go with The Liquescent Hero, Meltain." Upon questioning, it turned out that "Meltain" didn't actually mean anything, but was just a word that Honenuki thought sounded cool that brought up connotations of melting and liquids. Midnight agreed with the boy, and gave her approval without any comments.
Izuku, however, took the extra time to consider other options for his hero name, briefly toying with using the word 'green' as an adjective. He tried to find a noun that helped encapsulate what he wanted to be as a hero, both protecting those that needed protection and serving as an inspiration to others to be the best they could be.
At first Izuku focused on the inspiration half, thinking of himself as some sort of beacon or signal fire, but none of the nouns really worked right for him. "Green Lantern" was the best he came up with and Izuku was sure that no one would take that seriously.
So he went in the other direction, focusing on the protection angle. There were a number of nouns that he could choose from here. Various weapons were one angle he could choose, although he wanted to imply something that required both skill and precision to use well. "Green Arrow" was a decent choice, but felt too aggressive to Izuku, and he focused instead on more defensive oriented nouns. Several of those nouns even had some undertones of inspiration. The downside was that none of them sounded particularly good with a color in front of them.
In the end, Izuku finalized his choice near the end of the period, when there were just a few students left to present their names. Todoroki had just finished offering his choice, his own given name, and only Kyoka and himself were left. Kyoka gave him a quick, indecipherable look before heading to the front of the room to present her name.
"I was originally going to just go with the name of my quirk, Earphone Jack. It was something that I had decided on before even getting into U.A, in fact. But then someone here helped me discover a whole new side to my quirk. They changed a lot for me, and although they don't know it, they gave me a whole new hero name, too." Izuku had a small blush at this point. It was pretty obvious that Kyoka was talking about him, even if most of the class wouldn't understand. He was, as far as he knew, the only person who had given her significant advice on her quirk over the last year or so.
"Therefore, I want to be The Hearing Hero, Heartsong!"
"Such a stirring motivation," Midnight squirmed her hips while speaking. Her schtick was getting old, to Izuku at least. "How could I say no to a story like that? Approved!" Kyoka gave the teacher a weak smile before heading back to her seat, flashing Izuku a much more genuine smile along the way.
Even if Kyoka hadn't been his girlfriend, he would have felt a warm sense of pride at her hero name and justification. Since they were dating, he felt like Uraraka had just used her quirk on him and he was about to float away.
All of that dissipated as soon as he realized that he was the only student left to present their hero name. He looked at the single word scrawled on his whiteboard and hoped that Midnight would approve. Izuku felt a slight pang of guilt that he didn't have a heart-warming story to go with his name like Kyoka had, but it didn't seem like a name that he would have come up with on his own. It was only through going down the rabbit hole of 'green' based names that he had arrived here, so she had contributed more than was immediately obvious.
Izuku took the spot behind the podium at the front of the class and drew a deep breath. "The hero name that I came up with is," He turned the whiteboard so that it was facing the class. "The Protecting Hero: Bastion."
Despite presenting it to the entire class, Izuku only watched Kyoka for a reaction. The small smile on her face and nod that she gave him told Izuku that he had hit the mark with this name. Turning to face Midnight, the serious look on her face gave him pause, however. It seemed like she was inspecting him, judging whether or not the name fit him in a way she hadn't with any other student. Izuku was sure she had done this to the others, he just hadn't noticed when it wasn't focused on him.
Thankfully, it was only a moment before Midnight gave him an exaggerated thumbs up. "Such intensity, such determination. I love it!"
Izuku smiled as he walked back to his seat. He had a hero name! Despite how little it actually changed, it felt like a huge step forward.
---
Five hundred and forty two heroes had officially lost their minds. Kyoka still couldn't quite believe the number of offers that she had received following the sports festival. Yes, she had made it to the semi finals and finished on the final podium, but she hadn't defeated any of the real powerhouses at any point.
Izuku had faced down Todoroki and Kaminari in particular, while also fending off Ashido and Kaibara relatively easily. The best Kyoka could boast was taking down Kirishima because her quirk just happened to be well suited to defeat him, and getting a lucky shot in on Hagakure.
Yet here she was, leafing through the list of hero agencies that offered her a spot during lunch, freaking out more by the minute. Just the list of names alone was 8 pages long. It was followed by a "brief" summary of each of the heroes: Agency location, specialties and focuses, existing sidekicks and work study students, etc. Even if each individual hero only took up a few lines in the summary, it still added up to dozens of pages. And somehow Kyoka had to have picked out a hero to intern with by tomorrow.
Even when he wasn't (obviously) trying to be, Aizawa still was cruel.
She hadn't even tasted the lunch that she had eaten, focusing instead on trying to wrap her mind around the task in front of her. Surprisingly enough, Kyoka even recognized several of the names of the hero agencies that had offered her positions. Some of them she recognized because they were music or sound based heroes, such as Amplifier, Dead Air, or Static Echo.
Others she recognized because they were ranked in the top ten and she'd have to be living under a rock to not recognize their names. Seriously, Kyoka couldn't put together why heroes like Best Jeanist, Crust, or Gang Orca would be interested in her.
The lunch table was quiet, as most of her friends were also poring over their internship offers. Izuku and Shoji were talking quietly, Shoji because he didn't have any offers past the forty standard offers, and Izuku because he had, of course, already decided on his internship.
Kyoka was about to break the silence to ask Izuku for his opinion on who she should intern with when a chair across the table scraped across the floor, drawing her attention. Todoroki set his tray down and sat down as if this were an everyday occurrence.
"Good afternoon Midoriya, Yaoyorozu." He greeted them with a slight nod each, before turning to the rest of the table. There was a pause. "Honenuki." Todoroki paused slightly longer, before blinking and continuing, "Uraraka." Finally he turned to look at Kyoka and Shoji, eyes shifting back and forth between the two of them.
"Ugh, my name is Kyoka Jiro, and this is Mezo Shoji." Kyoka didn't do very well at keeping her annoyance out of her voice.
"Ah, thank you, Jiro. Good afternoon to you two as well." Todoroki's expression didn't even flicker as he spoke, nor did his heart rate. Either he didn't notice Kyoka's irritation, or simply didn't care. Frustratingly, it could have gone either way for him.
"What do you want, Todoroki?" Kyoka groaned at him.
"Midoriya." Todoroki shifted his entire attention to Izuku.
"Oh, sure, just ignore me then." Kyoka didn't even get the satisfaction of embarrassment out of Todoroki. The pat she got on her arm from Yaomomo let her know that this wasn't unusual for Todoroki, though.
"You had useful things to say to me about my quirk during the sports festival. I was hoping that I could ask for your advice on where I should intern." Oh, that was surprisingly reasonable from Todoroki, even if his social graces were as lacking as ever.
Before Izuku could respond, Uraraka piped up. "I was actually kinda wondering if I could get some advice on that, too. I may not have thousands of offers like you two, but it's still kinda intimidating." As Honenuki and Yaomomo also echoed the sentiment, Izuku grew more and more surprised.
He looked to Kyoka as if he expected her to tell him this was all a joke. Instead she gave him a smile and a small shrug. "Sorry, Green. This is what you get for being so damn smart all the time. But while you're at it, I could use some advice, too."
Izuku just sighed in resignation. "If you guys are sure, I guess I can try to help." He looked back up with the furrowed brow he often wore when concentrating. "Ok Todoroki, you asked first so we'll start with you. What are you looking to get out of your internship?"
"I would like to refine my control of my fire. As you all saw in the festival, I have quite a ways to go in making sure I can use it in heroics. I initially assumed that Endeavor would be the best choice for me to intern with," Kyoka winced at that, as did Izuku and Yaomomo. Todoroki, of course, didn't seem to notice. "But I am curious as to your opinion on that matter."
"Well," Izuku looked as if he had bitten into a lemon. "There's a lot of specific factors for you. If all you are concerned about is learning to control your quirk better, any hero with a strong emitter quirk would be able to teach you much the same."
"Hm, interesting. I did also get offers from Wash and Nebula, amongst others." Another top ten and a top twenty hero. Kyoka wasn't particularly surprised that Todoroki was also getting offers from a number of top heroes.
"The only downside to going with them is that they probably aren't as equipped for the temperatures you can produce as Endeavor is. You might prefer to be at an agency that is experienced in dealing with several different fire users." Todoroki never broke eye contact with Izuku as he explained the different factors to consider. It was honestly a little unnerving, but Izuku pressed on, growing more comfortable in giving advice the more he spoke.
"You should also consider what sort of hero you want to be. For example, Wash takes a much greater role in rescue operations than either Endeavor or Nebula. If you wanted to focus on being a rescue hero, that might be the way to go. All heroes, especially those this highly ranked, are involved in all sides of heroism and will be able to teach you about them, but those slight differences can be important. I'm sure some of the lower ranked offers that you received would be even more specialized."
"You're right, but I would assume most of the lower ranked offers are from people attempting to use my family name to draw some extra attention to themselves."
"That's a fair point." Izuku conceded. It was depressing that Todoroki had to deal with that, although Izuku himself also likely had to deal with it as well just for winning the sports festival. "Lastly, there's the issue of potential personality clashes. Normally this is something that you just have to leave to chance, but you have a special situation with Endeavor." If anything, Todoroki's gaze became more intense. "The qualities that make someone a good parent are very different from those that make them a good mentor. Of everyone here, you know Endeavor and your relationship to him best, so that is something you'll have to figure out for yourself."
Todoroki remained silent for a moment, digesting everything that Izuku had said. Kyoka thought it had been all relatively good advice, but she would have pushed Todoroki even harder not to intern with his father. "Thank you for your advice. You have given me much to think on" Todoroki eventually said. "I believe that Endeavor will still be my choice, but I will need to look into Wash more carefully."
There was a nearly imperceptible tightening of Izuku's lips that Kyoka probably would have missed if she didn't know the boy so well. He obviously didn't want to tell Todoroki what to do with regards to his father, but obviously also didn't want him returning to that abusive relationship.
Thankfully, these internships only lasted a week. Perhaps Todoroki would be able to get out of his father's shadow as he grew older and more experienced.
Todoroki remained seated where he was, silently observing the rest of the lunch period. It was odd at first, to have him simply watching everything, but eventually conversation returned to roughly what it normally was. Kyoka was sure that she even saw the ghost of a smile cross Todoroki's lips once or twice. That was more smiles than she had seen out of him than in the entire rest of her interactions with him.
By the time the lunch period ended, Izuku had ended up helping all of their friends with their internship decisions. Yaomomo finalized her decision to intern with Hawks. She had been surprised to get an offer from the third ranked hero, admitting that she wasn't sure she deserved it based on her performance in the final round. That nonsense, at least, was something that Kyoka and Uraraka were quick to call out.
Yaomomo was also somewhat worried about going with the highest ranked hero on her list, given what Aizawa had said about thinking carefully about their choice. Izuku helped convince her, though, that careful consideration had led her to Hawks, not just looking at his ranking.
Despite her ultimate goal being rescue heroism, Uraraka had expressed interest in learning more how to fight hand-to-hand. There were a number of heroes that could help her on her list, but Izuku helped her settle on Yoroi Musha over heroes like Crust, Gunhead, and Shishido. Honenuki ended up choosing Wash over Gang Orca and Majestic, as he was looking for a hero to help him come up with ideas on how to use a non-offensive quirk creatively.
Izuku gave Kyoka perhaps the most advice out of anyone at the table, giving her pros and cons for over a dozen of the heroes she was most interested in. She ended up deciding on Gang Orca, as he could give her pointers on sonar and other sound based techniques as well as give her some insight into the life of a top 10 hero. It seemed a decent mix of working with a sound or music based hero and even higher ranked heroes like Best Jeanist or Crust.
The final part of her reasoning, not shared with anyone else at the table, was her relationship with Izuku. After all, it was obvious that he was going to be one of, if not the, top hero shortly after graduating. Kyoka knew it was somewhat foolish to already be planning life that far ahead, but she had no plans of breaking up with Izuku any time soon, and figured that the more she knew about the life of a top ten hero, the better prepared she would be.
It never even once crossed her mind that she might also be a top ten hero one day.
The only downside would be spending a week in Osaka while Izuku's internship with Gran Torino and Sir Nighteye would take him to Might Tower in Tokyo. Kyoka supposed she could deal with that. Especially with some of the links that Uraraka had shared with her after breakfast.
---
Shota had never been quite so glad for the school day to be over before. He was used to working long days and nights and never getting enough sleep. That hadn't changed even after scaling back his patrol hours upon becoming vice-principal.
However, Tensei's death had knocked the wind out of his sails in a way that nothing since Oboro's death had. They had even talked just the night before. The conversation had been about work, sure, but given the circumstances of Tensei's death, that just made Shota feel even worse.
Tensei had talked about his investigations into Stain, and how there was some evidence that at least a few of the heroes that had been killed weren't as angelic as the HPSC was making them out to be. That hadn't surprised Shota at all, but Tensei had extrapolated from there that he might be able to talk Stain down. He had a theory that this serial killer would cooperate and hand over information on other rogue heroes in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Obviously it hadn't worked, and now Shota was left blaming himself for not pushing back more strongly on Tensei's plan.
No. That wasn't fair to Tensei. He was a professional hero with just as much experience as Shota himself. No one knew exactly what had happened after Tensei's sidekicks had evacuated. It was entirely possible that Tensei had never had the option to bargain with Stain, or that he had changed his mind after seeing one of his sidekicks injured.
It simply wasn't logical for Shota to think that if he had just argued differently and convinced Tensei not to try to bargain with Stain that his friend might be alive.
Frustratingly, though, Shota still found himself believing it.
Pushing through the day, teaching as if nothing was wrong, had been one of the more emotionally exhausting tasks of his life. Second only, perhaps, to the immediate aftermath of Oboro's death.
Shota was more thankful than he ever could (or would want to) express that one of his students had managed to win the sports festival. That meant that he had won his bet with Kan and he wouldn't have to worry about the man's overinflated sense of competition for at least a year. Normally their bet only lasted a single semester, so the joint training exercises in the second semester of the year could get out of hand, but he had agreed to double or nothing this time around. A whole year of blessed peace.
Unfortunately, while the school day was over, Shota was still the vice principal of U.A. This meant that he would likely be on campus for another four or five hours working on various administrivia. Most of it was ultimately necessary for the proper running of the school, but not particularly interesting to work through.
Unlike normal, Shota decided to focus on the actually interesting material first. Today, that happened to be the final approval of the hero student internship choices. He had dutifully relayed Principal Nezu's words to his students, and assumed that Kan had done the same to his. Now to see if they had actually listened or if, as he expected, they were blinded by the gaudy rankings of the offered internships and abandoned all rationality.
The first student he went to check, Midoriya, naturally, already surprised him. Midoriya had had eight offers from heroes in the top fifteen. With over two thousand offers in total, it would have been understandable, if somewhat disappointing, for him to have simply chosen one of the top ranked heroes and been done with it.
Instead, he had chosen an altogether unranked hero, Gran Torino. The choice made a bit more sense once Aizawa looked into Gran Torino's background a bit more and found that the elderly hero had been U.A homeroom teacher for All Might forty-odd years ago. It was likely that All Might, having already taken a liking to Midoriya, had arranged this internship specifically for him. The internship request form from Gran Torino also showed that Sir Nighteye would be contributing to the internship as well, giving Midoriya a well-rounded experience.
The decision showed that Midoriya was more interested in becoming a good hero rather than just a highly ranked one, so that was a point in his favor, at least.
Of the other students in his class, most of those with offers simply chose one of the highest ranked heroes available to them. Todoroki choosing his father, for example, was not entirely surprising. Most of them would actually likely learn a lot from the internships regardless, such as Jiro with Gang Orca, Yaoyorozu with Hawks, Uraraka with Yoroi Musha, Honenuki with Wash, and Kirishima with Crust.
On the other hand, it was obvious that there were several of his students who picked the top ranked hero with no further thought, despite his explicit warnings not to do so. Ashido choosing to intern with Crust might be explainable by her wanting to stay close to Kirishima, but Kaibara choosing to intern with Best Jeanist reeked of aiming for prestige rather than anything else.
The student that Shota was most impressed with was Awase. Despite having offers from Crust, Wash, and Yoroi Musha, he had apparently taken his time and found a well-respected hero working in the same area that he aimed to. Rock Lock was not anywhere as near well-known as some of Awase's other options, but Shota had always respected the man's skills and no nonsense attitude.
And then there was Tokoyami. The boy had been one of the two students not to make the final round who received an invitation from Hawks. Given what he knew of Hawks' personality, Shota couldn't entirely rule out that he had extended an invitation to Tokoyami just because of their shared avian characteristics. Either way, he couldn't fault his student for taking up the number three hero on an offer like this.
After confirming that the rest of his students had made reasonable selections from among the standard offers, Shota turned his attention to 1-B. Of the six students in 1-B with offers, most of them had gone with the highest ranked offer. Kaminari would certainly learn a lot from Endeavor, as would Hagakure from Edgeshot, but it was unclear to Shota what exactly Aoyama was hoping to learn from Best Jeanist, aside from perhaps fashion tips. Yanagi was in the same position as Tokoyami, and again Shoto could not fault her for pursuing an internship with Hawks.
He was happy, however, to see that Shinso had obviously thought about his choices and ultimately decided to intern with Ms. Joke. For as annoying as she could be, she was a capable hero who would be able to teach him a lot about eliciting a response, as well as perhaps being a tad more personable.
Although Shota wasn't in any position to say much about that.
Finally, Asui was similar to Awase in that she had essentially ignored her top ranking offers from Gang Orca and Shishido entirely. In fact, she had ignored all of her earned offers, going with Selkie, one of the forty standard offers that every U.A student received. Shota understood that there weren't many aquatic-based rescue heroes out there, but this seemed like an overcompensation on her part. Still, Kan had signed off on the internship, and Aizawa was not about to overrule him.
There was only one student whose internship choice had been overruled by Kan: Tenya Iida. Apparently Tensei's little brother had decided on Manual as his choice from the forty standard options. Kan had noted that Tenya's entire motivation appeared to be that Manual was based in Hosu, the same city where his brother had just been killed.
There wasn't much that Tenya would be able to learn from Manual that he wouldn't have already learned just from growing up in a hero family, anyway. Shota was more than happy to support Kan's decision in this, if only to help protect Tensei's baby brother.
It was the least he could do, after all, in memory of both Tensei and Oboro.
---
Paralysis was a distressingly familiar sensation for Kurogiri. Normally it was in the context of conversations with his master or Doctor Garaki. Neither of them particularly liked the idea of one of their creations having even a modicum of self direction. Unfortunately for both of them, Kurogiri had been designed with that as an explicit goal of his existence. Raising a child, running a bar, and acting as primary transportation for a criminal enterprise required a great deal of independent thought to ensure that nothing went wrong. Hence, verbal overrides that would leave him paralyzed until a meeting was over.
His current paralysis was for similar reasons, even if radically different circumstances. They'd managed to organize a meeting with Stain but it had quickly gone off the rails. Now Kurogiri stood here paralyzed while a crazed serial killer held a knife inches from his charge's face, a second blade buried in Shigarki's shoulder.
"Society is Corrupt, rife with Fakers and Shams." Stain spoke with an odd cadence, such that Kurogiri was sure he could hear that certain words were meant to be proper nouns. It was similar to how Doctor Garaki sometimes spoke when he got into the weeds of quirk science, when he used words in a very particular way only known to himself. "Heroes who have lost their way, Criminals who aimlessly cause mayhem and destruction, both are targets of my Purge. To truly accomplish anything, one needs Will and Conviction. You lack both!"
Stain lashed out with a hunting knife, aiming for Shigarki's head, and Kurogiri held his breath. He wasn't sure what his master would do if he allowed Shigaraki to die, but it likely wouldn't be pleasant.
Thankfully, Shigaraki once again proved that he was faster than he looked, catching the blade of the knife with all five fingers of his left hand, decaying the blade away to nothing. "You sure like to hear yourself talk, don't you." Stain leapt away from Shigaraki and dropped the now useless handle that was all that was left of his knife. "You talk a lot about conviction and will. But I don't need any of that. I just want to kill All Might and crush the society that worships him to dust. How's that for conviction?!"
Across the bar, Stain studied Shigaraki as he climbed to his feet and inspected the wound on his shoulder. A sudden as a thunderbolt, Stain barked a harsh laugh. "Ha! Our goals couldn't be further apart, but it appears that we do share an Ambition." Shigaraki tilted his head at Stain. "Destroying the status quo."
A crazed grin stretched across Stain's face, ripping it open from cheek to cheek. "People show their true colors when staring death in the face. You have the seed of some Conviction deep within you. I wonder what that will yield."
"I've heard enough. We don't need to work with this sort of madman. Kurogiri!" Kurogiri realized that he was once again able to move and use his quirk. "Send him back."
"Indeed!" For once Stain seemed to agree with Shigaraki. "I still have Work to be done in Hosu. More Sacrifices are needed. If you survive, I'll be back to check your Conviction." There was a sheen of madness in his eyes that Kurogiri didn't much like. They had been hoping to recruit powerful allies, but it seemed obvious that whatever criteria Stain was using to judge them were known only to the man himself.
Kurogiri opened a portal behind Stain and the serial killer stalked through it. The moment it was closed, Shigaraki let out a scream and sank to his knees.
"Ow! That jumped up NPC fucking stabbed me! I'm not going to let him get away with that! Kurogiri, call the doctor!"
"At once, Tomura Shigaraki." In the moments that it took for Doctor Garaki to answer the call, Shigaraki managed to decay three bar stools and five shot glasses. Kurogiri didn't sigh only because of his instructions to look after Shigaraki. Thankfully, once the doctor connected to the video call, Shigaraki ended his tantrum, at least for the time being, taking a glass of water with one finger raised.
"Shigaraki." Doctor Garaki sounded unusually upbeat. Normally he only took these calls begrudgingly, resentful of the time away from his madnessresearch. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I need a healer and as many nomu as you have, in that order!" Under normal circumstances Shigaraki might not have yelled at the doctor in such a manner, knowing that it would be counterproductive. Kurogiri was already mentally preparing himself to contact All For One when Doctor Garaki surprised him for once.
"I'm fairly sure that your Sensei has prohibited me from providing medical services," Shigaraki's hand closed around his glass of water, spilling the liquid all over the bar top. Kurogiri could see the makings of another tantrum, but the Doctor continued speaking. "Nomu, however, are another matter."
"Explain." Shigaraki spat the word through clenched teeth; he didn't like working with Doctor Garaki. Kurogiri agreed; the man was the worst kind of monster.
"The dregs that Kurogiri removed from the USJ have proved to be a fantastic supply of quirks and raw materials. Only one nomu is immediately available, the eyeless one you have already met. But it's had some … improvements. You won't recognize it." Kurogiri wondered what exactly he meant by 'improvements.'
"That's good, but I need numbers." Shigaraki whinedreplied. "How quickly can you have more ready?"
"I can have three more ready next week. None are quite as strong as the anti-All Might nomu that you foolishly lost, but all three will be even stronger than anything else at the USJ."
"Fine. I can wait until then." There was a pause before Shigaraki managed to spit out, "Thank you, Doctor."
The line went dead.
"Next week both Stain and the heroes will pay." Shigaraki stalked off back to his room to play video games, while Kurogiri was left to clean up the bar.