2,213Howdy folks, how's it going?
Another weekend, another chapter. Man, at this rate I may actually end a story within the span of the next couple of years. Makes for an inspiring thought.
Anyway, as always, huge shout out to Chaos Productions for his continued assistance.
And as always, I own neither BNHA nor WH 40K.
Now, without further ado, enjoy.
/
Just like that, their days of respite had come and gone, and it was time for things to start moving again. Momo had to admit, one of the unexpected benefits of dorm life that she had found herself enjoying was the ability to go to school with friends and enjoying the chatter, as short as the commute may be. Nothing against the limousine rides from home, but there was something to be said about the companionship that she hadn't really felt much of up to this point.
That being said, for once, the pony-tailed girl had opted to forgo the company. She had some duties to attend to as class president, so she had left the dorm a bit earlier. And now she found herself sitting alone in the classroom, and funnily enough, the situation brought her back to the first day of school, when she had found herself in the very same situation. When one stopped to consider it, it was almost staggering how much had happened and how many things had changed in so relatively short an amount of time. And not all of it pleasant…
Her musings were interrupted however, when the door to the room opened. For a split-second she wondered if the first day was repeating itself and it was Midoriya arriving, but then she registered that the door hadn't been loudly slammed open and promptly disregarded the possibility, before she recognized who it truly was.
"Oh, Iida-san." She said, at once happy to see him after his absence, and incredibly concerned.
The news had broken out, during their break, of what had happened to his brother, the hero Ingenium. Ambushed, crippled and left for dead by the hero killer, Stain. It had been a huge shock when the class had found out, a deep silence on the dorm lounge after the tv reported it. Many of them had tried reaching out to Iida afterwards, but none of their messages had seen a reply.
"Yaoyoruzu-san." The spectacled boy replied with a polite nod. "Apologies for my absence."
Momo hesitated. Even by her standards, Iida had always been a stickler for rules and protocol to an excessive degree, but the detached, calm veneer to his usual, rigid demeanour did not feel natural to her, even with her somewhat lacking social graces with people her own age.
"That's not important, Iida-san. We've… heard what happened." She replied, with a slight bow. "I am so sorry."
"Thank you, Yaoyoruzu-san. It was… a harrowing period, I won't lie, but at least Tensei is still alive. That is more than most others that suffered what he did can say."
Momo fretted, worried by the almost casual, dismissive tone of his words, but before she could say more, the rest of the class started arriving, in groups, pairs and alone, most of them sharing their own condolences and well-wishes with Iida, who replied to all with the same polite, but dismissive demeanor. Something about it all was seriously concerning her, and she made a note to keep a close eye on her friend. His behavior was worrying.
That said, not long after it was Aizawa-sensei that walked in, free from all the bandages and looking much better than when they'd previously seen him, which helped to lift the mood as they took to their seats, while congratulating him on his recovery.
"Appreciate the concern." The man replied lackadaisically, (but, Momo couldn't help but notice, without it sounding in anyway as forced as Iida had…), as he dropped a stack of papers at his desk and grabbed a bit of chalk, scribbling on the board as he spoke. "Now then, let's get down to what matters. As you know, after the festival, your hero internships are coming soon. Needless to say, your performance was being watched, and many heroes have sent nominations to those who caught their attention. Normally, these are fairly uniformly spread, but considering how… different from the norm this festival was, you'll see that there's some discrepancy."
He turned as he finished talking, revealing a list of names and numbers. A ranking of the students with the most nominations, the class swiftly realized, and Momo could barely suppress a wince. Not counting her colleagues who hadn't even made it in, her name was sitting at the very bottom, with a number of nominations that could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The part of her that felt some surprise at even getting that much was not helping matters…
And also surprisingly, the name at the top was not the one some have expected, chatter breaking out over it.
"Wow, Todoroki really stole the show, uh? To get that many nominations while at second place."
"Probably a mix of that, his family fame, and the final critical hit to the nads scoring some sympathy…"
"Uh, would've expected Midoriya to have more…"
Indeed, despite being the winner of the festival, Midoriya's name was second in the rankings, and unlike Todoroki's didn't even break into the quadruple digits. Despite herself, Momo couldn't help but feel unsurprised by this development, glancing at the boy in question, who while frowning and grumbling softly under his breath, looked distinctly less bothered than she would've expected. By contrast, Bakugou was glaring at the board so fiercely one might think he was trying to evolve his quirk into allowing him to explode things by eyesight alone. The others decided it wasn't worth ribbing him on his name not being on the list at all.
"With that said," The teacher quieted them all by continuing, as he once again took the stack of papers and handing them over to Aoyama. "Here are your nominations, in seating order. Spread them out."
The students proceeded to do as ordered, and the teacher allowed them a little bit of time to check their listings.
"For those of you that didn't get any nominations, you will have to pick from one of the agencies that have agreements with us for just that purpose. You have a week to decide, and I really recommend that you give this a thorough think, because your choices will have an enormous impact on your progr-"
"GASP."
…Aizawa blinked at the sudden interruption, most students equally caught off-guard as the looked around, trying to figure out the perpetrator… and most eyes landing on Midoriya, who was looking at the sheet of paper, held in his trembling hands as if it was something fragile that he feared breaking, a wide-eyed, slack-jawed look of pure wonder in his face, so much so that one could almost see sparkles flashing all around it. Aoyama grumbled something in French under his breath about copyright infringement.
In the blink of an eye, before anyone could question what was going on, the green-haired boy had grabbed a pen and started to frantically scribble, bringing to mind thoughts of a novel writer desperately trying to make a deadline in a caffeine-induced haze. And in the next blink, he was up and rushing to the front of the room, loudly slapping the sheet at their teacher's desk.
"DONE!" He declared, with the sort of smile of a kid who's had every single birthday and Christmas happening all at once.
Aizawa after a moment to process all of this, before picking up the document, crudely but still properly filled out, of the boy's internship choice. And then he saw who said choice was.
…
…
…
After a long moment of just staring, the hero slowly closed his eyes, and let out a long, weary breath through his nose. Only Jirou picked up on the quietly whispered 'Of course…' that escaped him.
"Duly noted, Midoriya, get back to your seat." He said, the boy obeying with nary a word, all but skipping as he went. "Now, as I was saying, I expect everyone else to properly think this through. And with that, it is time for something else of vital importance to your future as heroes. Of course, I am talking about-"
"TIME TO PICK SOME HERO NAMES!" The door to the classroom suddenly slammed open with a loud proclamation, as in sauntered Midnight like she owned the place.
Aizawa barely reacted, other than the faintest twitch of his eyebrow. Today was a day for being interrupted, apparently. But on the bright side, less hassle for him, as he stepped back and quietly lied down in the corner, letting his co-worker take the reins.
"Yes, you heard me right, ladies and gentlemen, time to come up with your hero names." The woman repeated with a grin, taking in the excitement as the children realized the implications, before taking on a calmer, more patient tone. "Now, if you've been paying any sort of attention to any of my classes, you already know why this is such an important step. Your name is gonna be a symbol of everything you will represent as a hero, and how it is viewed will have a huge impact on your careers. But there's no need to feel too much pressure just yet, while it'll leave a mark, the first name you pick is not necessarily the one you will keep when you've found your footing in this job." She gave them all a wink then. "And that's why you have little ol' me here to help. You'll have 15 minutes to decide on a name, present it to the class, and then I'll be evaluating whether it'll be appropriate or not."
Some of those present found that there was a great deal of irony to that, but they all knew better than to voice it.
Once again, papers where handed out to the students, and they were allowed the time to figure things out for themselves. Some stared at the sheet, mulling over their options in quiet introspection. Others had giddily written their choices within moments, and were now just eagerly awaiting for the 15 minutes that seemed to stretch forever to finally end. And others still seemed to still be working on the writing with deep focus.
"Alright, that's 15 minutes, kids, pens down." Midnight called out, looking around inquisitively, curious despite herself. "So, who wants to go first?"
A fair few hands made to go up at that prompt, but as was becoming frequent in that particular class, one of them was faster.
"Oh, oh, oh, me, me, me!" Midoriya said, with all the excitement of a sugar rush, all but standing up from his seat, hand as far up as he could physically lift it, and then before anyone could say a word otherwise, promptly moved towards the front, holding his sheet up high above his head, for all to see. "Dis be mah hero name!"
The paper had something written on it, alright, crudely drawn, but still somehow legible. It was in hindsight unsurprising that calligraphy wasn't one of the green-haired boy's strong suits, but the thing that had probably occupied most of his 15 minutes had been the explosions drawn all around the words, and leering, stylized skull that accompanied it…
…
…
…
"The… Waaagh Hero: Mekboy?" Midnight inquired after a moment of deciphering what she was looking at.
"Yup!" Midoriya replied chipperly, completely failing to catch her confusion, or the general quiet reaction in the room. "Been wantin' it like dis fer years."
"And what is your… reasoning, behind it?" The teacher once again prompted. She had no idea what she had been expecting, but this was… well, she had no idea what this was either. It sounded simple enough but… she had the feeling she was missing something here.
And Midoriya's reply didn't shed much light on the matter, the boy simply blinking owlishly at her before giving a slight shrug.
"It'z wot I am, it's wot I do." He said, as if that explained everything. "I did make me a list'a othah options when I wuz a wee git, but Mah sed dis wuz dah least likely tah be censured, fer some reason."
…At this point, Midnight was far from the only member of the school's staff to get the sneaking suspicion that the world owed that woman a great debt, and that helped her make the decision to approve the name. She shuddered to think of what else might have been on that list…
/
It didn't have the most family-friendly options, no, awesome as they might have been from the appropriately Orkish perspective.
If it seemed like a chunk of this event was glossed over, it was mostly because everyone else got the same stuff as in canon (Although I still think that Midnight vetoing Alien Queen for Mina was a bloody waste). Needless to say, Izuku didn't get what was wrong with Bakugou's suggestions, they sounded great to him.
Anyway, leave a review, lemme know what you thought.
Next time, some interactions between students, and the official beginning of the internships. Look forward to it.
Cya all on the next one, stay safe and take care.