Chapter Sixteen: Conflicts


BAEREN: rie

BAEREN: when the hell did my precious child become a badass ;;

BAEREN: so proud of you!

rie: Haha.

rie: Not a badass but thank you! Gotta talk to you about something later btw.

.

(unsaved number): COUSIN!

(unsaved number): YOU PERFORMED ADMIRABLY!

(unsaved number): I'M IN AWE AT YOUR NEW PASSION!


Who the hell was this?

Morie stared at the phone blankly. Then it all clicked- there was only one person alive who would talk in such an obnoxiously loud manner. She couldn't help but wonder, though- how had her cousin managed to get her number?

(Ren was looking awfully suspicious now.)

But then she sighed resignedly- her cousin was the type of guy who would not take 'no' for an answer. As she began to type up a reply to her hotheaded cousin- seriously though, what was with the capitol letters?

rie: Thank you.

rie: You doing alright?

.

(She took the opportunity to save his contact.)

.

Guy Who Passes Wind: Of course!

Guy Who Passes Wind: Let's fight when we meet again, dear cousin!

.

(Fighting in any form, she thought, was plain exhausting.)

.

rie: Eh, no thanks. Good night, I guess.

'Go to sleep,' her dad's voice rang in her head and she looked over her phone only to see him frowning at her. The man had evident just stepped out of the shower- he was ruffling at his dark hair with a white towel and wiping at his glasses with the hem of his shirt.

Not feeling particularly sleepy, the brown-haired girl agreed simply for the sake of agreeing, but not before she read one last message ('have a blissful sleep, cousin!')

'Yes dad,' she droned back in response, before climbing upstairs and dumping her phone at the side of her bed.

Rolling around on the covers, Morie stared out into space. The fact that tomorrow was a free day lifted her moods a little- she certainly looked forward to all the newfound free time.

A familiar headache throbbed within her head, and she knew for a fact that for once, it wasn't induced by Pressure- rather, it was caused by her irritable neighbour, Bakugou Katsuki. The events of the day kept replaying in her head, and hastily she shook her head as if hoping that she could be free of the memory.

Morie made a sour face as the visage of his ash blond hair and red eyes flashed across her mind.

'I hope your headache is as bad as mine, you bastard.' Then she reminded herself that the whole disagreement was technically her own fault in the first place- she had been meddling and nosy. Bakugou was not obliged to accept anyone or their help- though she couldn't deny that the rejection had stung.

'I guess I was a bit pushy? I'm convinced he has a pole up his ass though.' At that thought, she cringed a little.

Letting out a sigh, she tossed and turned in her covers a bit, before her dark almond eyes snapped open again. Somehow, she just couldn't sleep. The stubborn thumping of her heartbeats that refused to calm down, as if she'd chugged down an expresso; the restless feeling she got when she lay down- there was just no explanation for it.

'Must be all the excitement today,' she shrugged it off.

In that very moment, a notification flashed over her screen- a message on Care-or-Sell, illuminating up her phone screen in the dark room.

Tapping on the notification (no harm in reading one more message, right?), she was redirected to a chatroom with the user 'hero', and Morie remembered that she still owed him his commission from god-knows-how-long-ago.

'Hello. When will my commission be available?' came the message.

Morie crept over to her table, shining her phone light over the drying canvas to assess her nearly-completed painting.

'It should be done by next week,' she estimated. The buyer didn't reply for a while, and only sent a message a few minutes later.

'Noted.'

The brown-haired girl set down her phone for real this time as she flopped back onto her bed, feeling exhaustion dulling her ability to feel. She couldn't help but smile, however- if she'd remembered correctly, the user 'hero' had long followed the postings of her art on Instagram. When she had first announced that she would be doing commissions, they had seemingly went to place an order immediately on Care-or-Sell.

Morie was extremely fond of her long-time supporters of her work; not to mention that she appreciated the politeness and straightforwardness of 'hero'- the user was certainly one of her more pleasant clients thus far.

At least I know what I'm going to do tomorrow, the artist thought glumly, eyes flickering over to her painting in all its unfinished glory. Even so, a familiar excitement ebbed into her veins- her hand was itching to pick up a wooden brush to mix up a myriad of colours and trace out intricate details and to just create.

The fact the end-of-terms, had to be coming soon didn't help, as it signified that she needed to study. How fun- studying was definitely not a torture for her- she could live and breathe on studying alone!

Yet the terrible memories of what cramming before a test felt like made her shiver, and Morie knew she was better off slogging her ass off now, than later.

...urgh. Easier said than done.

(Maybe all she wanted was a sense of fulfillment- enjoyment, after all.)


Morie's ears were turning red at an alarming rate. It was quite a feat, seeing as the last time her face heated up that quickly was when Mina tackled her in a tight smoth- hug.

"Hey! You're Minamoto from the Sports Festival!"

"Woah, you're seriously a girl?"

"You fought against the Bakugou guy, didn't you?"

"Shut up dude, she might be traumatised- "

"Bakugou was a monster though- half his matches were against girls, he seemed to love betaing them up -"

She had to admit: the comments about Bakugou was bugging her. What was with them talking about him like he was some villain, anyway? Hell, couldn't she just take the train in peace?

It seemed that the unwanted attention from participating in a widely-publicised event was now catching up with her, as Morie resisted the ever-growing urge to bury her face somewhere- maybe even dig a hole right in the middle of the train so she could jump into it. Right now, that stupid idea sounded absolutely splendid to her.

There were too many compliments, too many strangers looking her way and too many goddamned whispers. Of all the days, she just had to pick that day to leave her precious earphones at home.

Her predicament did get her thinking, though- thank goodness there was the option of going anonymous in the Hero business- she could fully understand why her mother didn't want the publicity, it would altogether be too disruptive to her life.

Earlier on, her trip to the train station had been considerably slowed down as heavy rain abruptly poured buckets down in innocent street-goers- Morie had been drenched slightly before she was able to locate her umbrella. The said delay did mean that she would reach school later, however, something which didn't matter much considering that she was confident she would still reach on time.

The train doors opened a few stations later, and she spotted the owners of familiar-looking red and black hair squeeze onto the crowded train. That was all it took for the slew of comments to start flooding in again.

"Ooh, it's the tough guy!" She could've sworn that someone catcalled. "Kirishima, right?"

"And that tape guy, Sero!"

"Hah, don't mind, don't mind!"

"Woah, didn't you go up against Minamoto over there?"

Sero and Kirishima, both understandingly turning bright shades of pink, turned to look around at that last comment. Morie caught their eye meaningfully and waved.

'Too crowded let's talk later,' she mouthed.

After standing in the tense, uncomfortable whispers for what seemed like forever (most of them revolving their match-ups, and the fact that Kirishima and Morie went up against each other,) Yuuei Station arrived at last like an unspoken blessing. All eyes were trained (no pun intended) on the seemingly out-of-place trio as they alighted, and Morie immediately let out a sigh of relief, her face feeling warmer than usual.

"That was terrifying," she commented flatly, pulling out her umbrella and holding it over for Kirishima to grab onto. Walking out into the rain, she shared her umbrella with Kirishima while Sero walked on her other side.

The black-haired Tape user jerked his head in solemn agreement. "I can't believe that group of middle schoolers said that to me." He sighed, a hand placing itself on the back of his head. "It's embarrassing, to be honest."

Kirishima had a similar look of incredulity in his features- his red eyes were wide and filled with wonder. It was clear he felt somewhat flattered yet conflicted on the sudden celebrity treatment. "They kept staring, man! I didn't know how to react all."

"Yeah," she echoed her agreement, reaching over to pat their shoulders in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. "I was pretty embarrassed when they pointed out me to you guys, too. It's like they were expecting a duel between us or something, which was weird."

"Well," Sero spoke again, eyes furrowing a little. "We're friends and all, but to the public we're just the next generation of heroes. l imagine ten years down the road we'll all be fighting for the top ranks, or something."

Kirishima frowned at that notion. "That's competition taken too far, isn't it?" He questioned, his voice sounding surprised. "I know I probably won't be as popular as say, Blasty or Todoroki, but seriously? Fighting over something like that?"

"Well, Midnight and Mt. Lady often go at it," Morie shook her head- she couldn't help the distaste that subsequently entered her tone. "There's rumours saying that Midnight mentored Mt. Lady at some point, but it doesn't stop them from going at each other's throats every time they have an interview together. They're not the only ones- Endeavour and All Might, Endeavour and Coriolis..."

At the mention of her mother, Morie couldn't help but ponder about the existing feud between the top heroes, and specifically what was her mother's opinion on the current hero industry. Her voice faltered off unknowingly.

There was a window of small, depressed silence, as all there was to be heard were the steady beat of falling rain and the pitter-patter of their splashing footsteps.

"All of us are buddies, right?" the one to break the brooding silence was Kirishima, who had the formings of a wide, uplifting grin across his face. "We won't be like them- we're way too manly for that."

The trio exchanged glances, and Morie felt the ghost of a smile flicker across her face. "Yeah," she echoed. "I hope so."

They finally reached the school, and they shook their umbrellas dry before entering the classroom. It seemed that majority of the class had similar experiences, as unlike their solemn air, almost all of them were buzzing in excitement. Her attention was drawn to Mashirao, however, who was talking to someone notably not from 1A.

"They were staring at me all intently, Ojirou-kun! I felt so self-conscious!" A bubbly, disembodied voice rang out. Squinting, Morie made out what seemed to be a floating uniform.

"Yeah, I got that too." Mashirao replied, before his eyes flickered over the the form before him. "On another note, aren't you going to get into trouble for being here, Hagakure-san?"

The invisible girl shifted, the movement only being visible due the shifting of her uniform. "It's fine, you worry too much!" From the brief silence, one could only assume she was petting Mashirao's arm reassuringly. "Anyway, I'm going to be a Stealth Hero, might as well start my training now!"

Morie settled down in her seat, opting to lay her head down to doze off rather than doodle as she usually would. She felt overall too sapped of strength for some reason- she wasn't the best with attention, and too much focus on her wore her out. The only comforting thought she had was that the buzz would die down after a few days, and all would return back to normal- her mornings would be peaceful again.

Bakugou Katsuki chose that moment to storm into his seat, and she instinctively averted her eyes, feeling a morose feeling settle in her stomach at the sight of him.

Maybe not.

"Good morning," Aizawa spoke, shuffling into the class and looking relatively bandage-free. There were a series of light footsteps as Hagakure ran out of the classroom and back next door.

"You finally took off your bandages, sensei." Tsuyu remarked, echoing her thoughts.

The shaggy-looking teacher shrugged before waving it off. "The old lady was being overdramatic," he scratched the area under his eye, suppressing a yawn as his dark eyes lazily swept across the classroom. "Putting that aside, today's Hero Informatics period will be a little more special."

Morie would've have chuckled at the tense and nervous expressions of Kirishima and Kaminari in particular, had the thoughts 'oh shit' not just surfaced in her mind herself.

Aizawa continued on, oblivious to their reactions reflecting varying degrees of horror. "It's time to formulate your Hero codenames," he explained, just as the class broke out into cheers.

Morie blinked, dark almond eyes widening a little from bewilderment. 'That's surprisingly... normal.'

It didn't take long for Aizawa to write some figures on the board, causing some questioning glances to be raised at how... unbalanced the numbers looked. Interestingly, the numbers for the first and second place were reversed, with Todoroki coming in first with 4,123 nominations. Bakugou had strangely gotten fewer nominations, with a total of 3,556.

She would wrinkle her nose at Todoroki's popularity, but what could she say? Having Endeavour for a father, a strong, flashy quirk and a cool personality was bound to make him popular with the professionals-

- no. Stop thinking like that. He's not that bad; he helped you out the other day, didn't he?

Shame made itself evident over her features as she shook off those negative thoughts and focused on the sheet of paper before her, a light shade of pink dusting itself on her cheeks.

Eyes skimming down the list, Morie was pleasantly surprised to find that she had gotten a fair number of 59 nominations. Compared to the top two, it was a measly amount, but she was more than grateful that anyone had noticed her at all.

As she received her list of nominations, her eyes scanned down the list, feeling flabbergasted at the number of familiar Hero names.

Backdraft's Rescue Agency, Buster Hero's Office...

She caught sight of one which made her eyes widen.

Kamui Woods' Office, Office of the Hero Native, No. 13...

Thirteen? That definitely piqued her interest. Apparently, signing up under him would be less like an internship and more of a training, as he was a teacher with an agency out of school. Morie certainly liked the idea of getting trained in search and rescue, and by one of her favourite heroes, no less...

Moving on, her eyes flit through the remaining names before what she saw next made her heart stop.

'Office of the Wind Hero, Coriolis.'

The brown-haired girl openly gaped, blinking dumbly for a few moments as she digested this new piece of information. She suddenly felt like her spirits were soaring, a light, elated giddiness blossoming within the pits of her stomach. Then, she lightly drew a star next to the name after a few moments of considering, before hastily stowing the pencil away. Her lips rose up without restraint into a wide smile.

(It was safe to say that Morie knew where she would be spending the next week at.)

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(ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ ✧゚・: *ヽ(◕ヮ◕ヽ)

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Fifteen minutes to decide on a hero name felt alarmingly short.

In retrospect, such an important decision should have had more... warning given, though she probably should have started her own name selection process sooner.

Morie silently stressed out over the choice of a name as she repeatedly scrubbed her options off of the tiny whiteboard given to them.

Warm Front? Breezie? Barometrium?

None of them had the image she was going for in her mind, heck, the last option was too tacky for her liking. Morie was aspiring to have an image like her mother- 'Coriolis' was elegant, classy, and memorable. It went without saying that her hero name was especially important if she really wanted to keep her identity anonymous; after all it would truly be the only thing people associated with when they thought of her.

What should she do?

A sigh escaped her as she forced herself to calm down and think. Maybe she was thinking too much about this. Maybe what she was looking for was much, much simpler than a couple of flashy names.

"You have one more minute!" Midnight called out from the front of the classroom.

Her eyes snapped open. Morie jolted up suddenly, and once more she uncapped her marker and began to write on the whiteboard with great care- she felt like she had just rushed to write down an answer in the last few seconds of a test.

Her hero name was penned down on her small board neatly, and nervously Morie's eyes scanned across her handiwork one last time.

"Time's up! Who wants to go first?"

Aoyama got up and strode his way to the front, his eyes surveying the class with a glint as his lips quirked up.

I cannot stop twinkling

She stared at the name displayed on the whiteboard and let out a giggle- a full sentence? That was fitting of the strange French dude. Not to mention, pretty adorable. It might be a bit of a mouthful when trying to call out for his help, though.

Midnight stared at his chosen name appraisingly. "Remove 'I' and change 'cannot' to can't'." She suggested, waving him away with a hand before her gaze darted back up to the class expectantly. "Next!"

It was Mina's turn, and Morie watched on with interest as the pink-skinned girl slid up to the front of the class with an imp-like grin. She brandished the board in her hand like a banner.

"Right, hey, call me Alien Queen!"

A scowl spread over Midnight's face. "You want to go for the image of that thing?" The Hero turned to the side, clicking her tongue in annoyance. Morie blinked.

"Next!"

After that came Tsuyu ('Froppy,') and Kirishima, who proclaimed his want to be known as the Red Riot with bright, shining eyes.

'After the Crimson Riot, then,' she thought, smiling. 'Geez, Kiri, you're getting cooler every day.'

Catching his eye, she sent him a thumbs-up, giving him a high-five as he made his way back to his seat next to her.

Thus began the stream of name presentations. Morie watched as many of her classmates went up to share their name- Sero, Jirou, Mashirao, and Kaminari, to name a few, but somehow she just couldn't summon the courage to walk to the front of class with her whiteboard. It was like her legs had inconveniently turned into lead, for a familiar anxiety bubbled in her stomach and rendered her unable to move.

Next was Todoroki, she realised, as the boy with mismatched eyes raised his board to show his chosen name:

Shouto.

"Just your name?" Midnight questioned. Morie imagined that she was expecting a more flashy name from Endeavour's son. Todoroki half-shrugged in return, seeming to be highly disinterested.

As the dual-haired boy proceeded to walk back to his seat, Morie swallowed and found that she was standing and walking to the front a split second later. Standing in the front, her fingers fiddled between each other before she hesitantly raised her whiteboard to display the words she had written:

continental.

"... it's a pun." She clarified, dark almond eyes shiftily darting about the class and deciding to focus on Todoroki for some reason, and a corner of her lips curled upwards as she met his impassive stare. "The hero I look up to the most is named after a geographical term, so I based mine off the Continental Effect."

Her eyes darted to Midnight for approval, and the older woman examined her chosen name silently.

"Would you mean the Wind Hero, Coriolis?" The older woman questioned, a contemplative look flashing across her features before she barked out once more. "Otherwise, the simplicity is sleek and attractive! Keep the names coming!"

Morie grabbed her board and hurried back to her seat, pink fading away from her cheeks, catching Kirishima's eye and grinning. For one, that turned out better than expected; second, Midnight, a professional hero of all people thought her chosen name was 'sleek and attractive'- she was positive that those words alone just made her day. Then her eyes darted back to the front of class and widened as they caught sight of familiar ash blond hair.

'Bakugou, huh, ' she thought, 'wonder what he came up with?'

Making sure to avoid eye contact with the red-eyed boy, Morie straightened in attention as her eyes surveyed his chosen name.

"King of Explodo-kills?"

Midnight stared at the name, looking either done or incredulous. She jabbed a hand at her waist and let out a sigh. "That's too violent. You'd be better off retiring on that one."

Bakugou stormed back to his seat at that, unironically cursing loudly under his breath as he scowled at his whiteboard. For some reason, Morie found that display extremely amusing and turned away before he could notice that she was chuckling.

It would be a lie if she said that she wasn't expecting a more ... badass name, for the lack of a better word. Seriously, it was like Bakugou was secretly a dork or something. Then, remembering the events from yesterday, the brown-haired girl deliberately turned away so that she wouldn't have to face him when he walked past her seat to reach his.

Finally came Iida, (who totally pulled a Todoroki) and then it was Midoriya, who declared his chosen name in the most adorable way possible- and she wasn't the only one who was surprised.

'Deku'? Wasn't that Bakugou's way of insulting him?

(She'd never really understood the relationship between the two- one was kind, one was just not- to her it might as well be one of the Seven Wonders of the World.)

Then the brown-haired girl shrugged off the thought as he explained that a certain someone changed the meaning for him, and she had to admit that it was touching, at the very least. From where she sat, she could clearly spot an impish grin growing across Mina's jovial features- the girl was undoubtedly thinking something along the lines of 'ship material!'

At long last, Bakugou went up again after Midproya scampered back to his seat. This time, though, he still comically proclaimed that his name be 'Baron of Explodo-kills'. Morie squashed the urge to giggle, feeling quite determined to maintain her uncharacteristic poker-face but failing somewhat.

(It still didn't fly.)

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(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ

.

Lunch, she thought, was the best period of the day.

It was probably the only time she was genuinely happy- heck, good food which was relatively cheap? That had to be the best thing in the world!

"We didn't get to talk during class," Kirishima started in between mouthfuls of donburi. "but where are you guys going?"

Normally she did the answering, but the question made her hesitate. Would it be too much of a giveaway? But they would have already known that she admired Coriolis, from the name-sharing earlier.

"A patrolling office somewhere near here," Sero was theone who spoke first.

"Snipe's office," Kaminari chimed in, tapping his chin. He seemed to have been carefully considering his options, even during class.

"I'm impressed," she raised an eyebrow. "Your first choice wasn't the hero office of a pretty lady?"

The yellow-haired boy grinned and leaned in closer.

"Believe me, I was considering it," he told her seriously. "Mt. Lady's my second choice."

Morie laughed at that. "Well, you better hope that Mineta gets her instead of you, then."

"Why?" Kaminari perked up at that, confusion clouding his yellow eyes though he quickly sent her a sly look. "What, you jealous or something?"

Jealous? Absolutely not. She sent him a flat look.

"No," came her deadpanned response. "Why don't you wait for Mineta or some other poor bloke to come back and tell you?"

The yellow-haired boy looked mildly disturbed at the warning, and he cleared his throat. "Anyway, that just leaves you, Morie-chan. Where are you thinking of heading to?"

"Um- "

Her throat went dry as a slam made itself heard from across the table.

'Ah, shit.'

Bakugou had evidently decided to join them for lunch once more- not that he looked happy about it.

Kirishima looked up at the new arrival. "Blasty, my man! Glad you joined us!" He called out in excitement, sending him a wide grin. Bakugou twitched at the nickname, but he seemed to have deemed correcting the overzealous Kirishima as a fruitless cause, for his only response was lowly biting out a 'shut up, shitty hair.'

Watching as Bakugou took a seat, Morie stiffened as a feeling of discomfort began to well up within her. Her conversation with Bakugou yesterday had left her frustrated yet mortified; as a result she was at a loss as to how she should act around him now. Would he still be mad at her?

As always, the red-haired boy merely grinned at Bakugou's response, seemingly unfazed, before he turned to glance at her. "Rie-san, you were saying?"

Morie froze. She had almost wished that they had forgotten about her for a moment- and oh shit now Bakugou would be made aware of her presence, too. Fiddling with a stray marble in her pocket, she let out a soft sigh.

It seemed that there was no helping it, then.

"... Coriolis' office," she hesitated, before bashfully trudging on in her reply- though she couldn't help but feel like she was venturing into untested waters. "I was quite surprised."

Kaminari's jaw fell open, eyes growing comically wide.

"Coriolis? You gotta be shitting me, she's in the top five!"

"You struck gold, man," Sero commented, shaking his head in disbelief.

Kirishima had a thoughtful look in his eyes, however.

"Hm, I thought you would choose Thirteen, since he's in the list," he pointed out. "You like him, right?"

Her cheeks flushed at the implications of his statement, but she hastily waved it off.

"Yeah, but not in t-that way!" She protested. Even if she did have a small crush on the Space Hero, that would have to mean that she had feelings for every other hero out there. Or did it?

Argh, maybe she just had a soft spot for those with the whole 'gentleman' vibe going on. She hoped that it was just a phase.

"Denial," Sero deadpanned, earning him a flustered and vehement 'I am not!' in response.

In the meantime, Kirishima was laugjing loudly at her as he straightened up, his hands propped on the table.

"Seriously, I'm really happy for you, Rie-san!" He exclaimed, eyes gleaming brightly as he reached over for a fist bump. Morie obliged, beaming. "I'm going to Fourth Kind's office, he seems pretty cool, don't you think?"

Then Kirishima turned to Bakugou, who had been all but ignoring the conversation, his aura as unapproachable as ever.

"Hey, Bakugou, where are you planning to go?" He asked good-naturedly. Morie's eyes darted over to him as well, though she remained silent- there was no denying that she was just a tad bit curious about the agency Mr Spiky Hair was going to, out of the thousands that had nominated him.

Predictably, the aforementioned boy fixed his eyes onto him and a scowl crossed his face.

"None of your goddamn business." The boy grumbled, before proceeding to stab the hell out of the chicken in his bowl, stuffing it in his mouth with a vengeful fury.

... okay then.

(Not that she had been expecting much, anyway.)

Morie decidedly turned back to her food with a small scowl- one that didn't go unnoticed by Kirishima.

.


A/N:

Didn't like all the linebreaks so you got some emojis!

Also, this seems like a lighthearted, mundane chapter at first glance, but I wonder if Morie's inward turmoil is obvious? I'm also curious to know what you think of her hero name 'continental' and the parallel between both her and Todoroki going over to their parent's agency.

With every chapter I'm rewriting, I'm derailing further and further from what I pictured Bakugou and Morie's relationship to be, to the point where I'm certain Katsurie will be am extremely slow burn. I would be grateful to have any kind of feedback regarding them and the story in general.

Don't forget to let me know what you think in the reviews! Thank you for reading- and also, consider this a new year surprise!;)