Chapter Text
Life after the sports festival was oddly calm. People on the street congratulated her on making top ten. Her foster parents were acting strangely nice. Watanabe didn’t make his usual snippy comments as often, and Hana was teaching her more ways to style her hair.
Iida still wouldn’t pick up his phone for days after the sports festival. On the news she’d found that his older brother, Ingenium, had been hospitalized by the Hero Killer. Eesh. That had to be rough.
Uraraka had told her that Iida wasn’t picking up her calls either. They were starting to get worried. Maybe something really really bad had happened. Maybe he’d been paralyzed- or even killed.
So, when Monday came around and Iida showed up to class, Himiko had reacted very appropriately.
“IIIIIIIDDDDAAAAAA!!”
She tackled him. He managed to stay upright by catching himself on a desk.
“WHY WEREN’T YOU ANSWERING MY CALLS?” She wailed, “I WAS SOOOOOOO WORRIED!!”
“Well, I-”
“I’M SO SORRY ABOUT YOUR BROTHER!! THAT MUST’VE BEEN AWFUL!”
“It’s okay, Toga,” Iida shushed, patting her head, “He is stable. I’m so sorry that I didn’t answer your calls. I was busy.”
She looked up at him with wobbly eyes. “Don’t you ever disappear on me again! I was so worried!”
“Yes, you’ve said that already.”
“Cuz I mean it! I was so scared for you! What if something bad had happened?!”
“I promise that I will call you next time.”
“YOU BETTER!!”
“Toga.”
She shocked and whipped around, pigtails slapping her in the face. Aizawa was staring at her grumpily, face free of the bandages from last week. “Calm down, please. And go to your seat.”
“Yes, sir!” She squeaked, running to her desk.
“Aizawa-Sensei, I’m glad to see you got all your bandages off!” Tsu croaked.
“The old lady just got a bit overdramatic with her treatment. I was fine,” The man replied, itching at the brand-new scar under his eye, “But all that aside, today’s Hero Informatics period is a little special. Today you’ll be choosing your hero names.”
“HELL YEAH!!” Kaminari, Sero, and Kirishima shouted, high-fiving. Aizawa sent them a glare, and they immediately quieted down.
“This is related to the pro hero drafts I mentioned the other day. These nominations will really only matter as your skills develop in your sophomore and senior years. In other words, these nominations are more like expressions of interest in your future potential. And it’s not rare for interest to completely dry up by graduation.”
“So the nominations are personal hurdles, then?” Hagakure chirped.
“Yes.”
Hagakure wiggled in her seat, clearly excited that she’d gotten that right.
Aizawa turned on the blackboard, pointing to the chart on screen. “The nominations are as follows. Usually they’re more balanced, but this year the attention was pretty polarized.”
Todoroki was in first place, followed by Bakugou and Tokoyami. But the gap between Tokoyami and Bakugou was pretty severe. Bakugou had about three thousand nominations up on him.
“The first and second positions are practically reversed!”
“Seeing Bakugou all straightjacketed on the winner’s stand must’ve scared a lot of them off.”
“PROS AIN’T GONNA BE SCARED!!”
“Regardless of whether or not you got any nominations,” Aizawa interjected, “I’ll be having you all get some work-place experience. You’ve all dipped your toes into the world of heroes and villains, unfortunately. I think this kind of work will be more fruitful than your regular type of training.”
“AND ‘CUZ OF THAT WE NEED HERO NAMES, HUH!”
“Things have gotten a lot more serious all the sudden,” Uraraka pouted. Don’t ask why Himiko was looking at her. It was for normal reasons.
“Placeholder names are fine too, of course. Just make sure to pick something appropriate-”
“BECAUSE IF NOT, IT’LL BE HELL FROM HERE!” Midnight declared, sauntering into the classroom, “The names you pick now came become what you’re known as from now on! In many cases, people keep their names from their freshman year. You have to be careful.”
Aizawa rolled his eyes. “I’ll be having Ms. Midnight evaluate your name ideas because, to be frank, I don’t want to.”
Himiko let out a breath. That was Aizawa for you.
“The names you pick will affect your futures. They’re the image you put forward. Names and Nature often agree. Just think about All Might. He’s the symbol of peace for a reason.”
Himiko looked down at her bandaged hands.
Crap.
She was not good at names.
Midnight got whiteboards passed out. A few minutes went by. Aoyama came up with a hero name that was a full sentence, which was surprisingly not turned down. Ashido got turned down for Alien Queen being “too creepy,” so Himiko mentally crossed out the name Bloodsucker. Bakugou got turned down for Explosion Lord of Murder.
Then there was Tsu and Kirishima with much more sensible names. Tsu had apparently had her name picked out since elementary school- Froppy. It was absolutely adorable. And Kirishima went off of a vintage hero that he really admired, naming himself Red Riot.
Under her desk, she pulled up her phone and started looking up blood-related terms.
Hematoma.
She wrote it down on her board, and walked to the front of the class, grinning widely.
Midnight cringed. “You want to be named after a blood clot?”
Himiko cringed along with her. “Is that what a Hematoma is?”
Midnight dragged a hand down her face. “Go sit back down.”
“The hearing hero, Earphone Jack.”
“Tentacole.”
“Cellophane!”
“T-Tail Man…”
“Dammit. He took my name.”
“PINKY!!!”
Names kept going by. Himiko kept looking up stuff.
She definitely wanted a name that was cute. She couldn’t have a weird name like Bloodsucker or Hematoma. She wanted to do something cute and a little bloody, just like her.
Okay. She was kind of like a vampire. Twilight. Camila. Count Dracula. CountESS Dracula. No, there were tons of Draculas already. Countess something. Countess Kogal? No- NO. She had it. SHE HAD IT.
Himiko scribbled down a name on her board, fast as a flash, and ran up to the front of the class, slamming down her whiteboard.
“Countess Yami!”
“Oh!” Midnight smiled, “Like the whole Kawaii thing?”
She nodded furiously.
Uraraka looked up at her with a big smile. Uravity. Himiko smiled back.
--
“You’re going with Gun-Head?” Himiko asked, tipping her head, “I thought that was a more battle-focused agency.”
Uraraka nodded, kicking a rock. “After that whole battle thing in the sports festival, I wanna expand my horizons, y’know? I barely got Shinsou out of the ring, and he isn’t even a heroics student. I want to be able to fight without my quirk. Or, well, I kind of need to if you think about it. What if there’s a villain with a quirk-canceller like Aizawa-Sensei? I need to be able to hold my own.”
Himiko nodded. “That Makes sense.”
There was a moment of silence between them as they walked.
“Do you think Iida is okay?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Well, like,” She made a weird gesture with her hand, “Remember how excited he was to be an Ingenium a few weeks ago? And today, he was so sad when he just used his name for now. Something has to be up.”
“To be honest, I was so busy trying to come up with a name, I didn’t notice.”
Uraraka cracked a sad smile. “That’s fair. It did look like you were thinking pretty hard.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”
“No no, you’re fine,” The brunette assured, “I’m just worried about him.”
Then Uraraka tipped her head, looking at her curiously. “So who are you going with for your internship? I know you didn’t get a lot of nominations because of the whole bone-breaky thing.”
Toshinori had told her that he wanted her to go with his old teacher, Gran Torino. He apparently knew about One For All and had sent a nomination for her. He’d seemed really nervous about it. Like he was scared of the guy. And Himiko was scared of the guy if he was scared of the guy.
“Toshinori-Sensei wants me to go with Gran Torino,” She replied without thinking, “I- I mean-”
“Who’s Toshinori? Is he one of your old teachers?”
Oh thank sweet Jesus. That assumption at least made sense.
“Yeah. He’s the one who trained me for UA,” She smiled nervously.
“Is he that blond guy that visited you when you broke your arms?”
“He visited me?” She tipped her head.
Uraraka ran a hand through her hair. “I guess you were out for that, huh. He was kinda gangly and tall? Oh- and he had these weird dark eyes. And his hair was kinda floppy.”
That definitely sounded like Toshinori. Himiko nodded, mimicking Uraraka and messing with her hair.
“Gonna be honest, I thought he was your dad or something.”
Her eyes went wide. “WHAT?!”
Uraraka giggled and teasingly tapped her on the shoulder. “You look a lot like him! What else was I supposed to think?”
“NOT THAT!!”
They kept talking about this until they got to the train station, where they hugged and said goodbye.
--
“Christ, kid, have those wannabes taught you anything?”
Izuku, panting and sweating like a wounded animal on the floor, just wheezed in response.
Stain rolled his eyes. He traced his sword along the floor as he walked, making a rather painful noise. Izuku sat up, wiping sweat-plastered hair out of his face. He really needed to trim that, but it was kind of hard to walk into a haircut place when you were supposed to be dead. He whined and used both hands to pull his bangs up.
The Hero Killer squat down in front of him. “It’d be less hot if you took off the hoodie.”
“But-”
“Take off the hoodie,” He growled, “There’s a reason I don’t wear sleeves. Idiot.”
Izuku pouted but took off his top layer. Underneath was a black tee over a striped long sleeve.
Stain sighed loudly, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re wearing three layers. Of course you are,” He poked Izuku in the chest, “You got any other clothes?”
“I have other clothes!”
“Have your ‘Sensei’ get you some trainin’ clothes. We’re getting you into shape.”
Izuku was not looking forward to this.