The monday they were set to return to school after the few days the class had gotten off following the sports festival, Amari was at the school earlier than normal- which was usually roughly the second the bell rand. She had taken two trains earlier to ensure she would be there before even Bakugou, who she knew rode one train earlier.
She knocked hesitantly on the classroom door, opened just a crack, before pushing it all the way open. Her eyes quickly landed on the bright yellow sleeping bag of her homeroom teacher behind his desk. The man- this time bandage free- blinked at her dazedly, clearly having just woken up.
Wincing at his inevitable less than stellar mood after being awoken so stupidly early before class, she hesitantly shuffled closer to the man, crouching on the floor next to him.
"I'm sorry for waking you up, sensei." She spoke softly, awkwardly twirling her thumbs. "But I was hoping you could give me some advice."
Aizawa's eyes narrowed slightly but he decided to sit up on the floor to give her his undivided attention. It wasn't often that the usually quiet girl came to him after all.
"We'll see what I can do." He spoke in his low baritone.
Amari took a sharp breath as her eyes flitted around, never quite meeting her teacher's. What if he thought it stupid? Or if he refused to help her because she was not one of his hero students?
"Well, it's uhm." She swallowed anxiously. "You see, Midoriya recently gave me an idea to apply my quirk in a more... offensive manner."
Her teacher quirked his brow at that, seemingly interested, so she quickly explained her theory, alongside a very embarrassing rendition of the fish situation.
It was quiet for a few seconds as the man contemplated her reasoning.
"The fish, it was too small." He finally spoke up thoughtfully. "As you surely know, the smaller the organism, the smaller the organs inside it and the more precise your control needs to be to induce a small but precise injury."
Amari winced slightly, she had known that of course but what else was she to do?
"I know, sensei, but I can't practice on humans for fear of causing permanent damage and I don't think the ethics commission or myself would feel comfortable purposefully injuring bigger animals..."
"I'll figure something out." Aizawa said after a few more moments of contemplation.
Amari knew a dismissal when she heard one so she made her way to her seat, pulling out a book on the functioning of the nervous system, focusing on the chapter describing the nervous system in the spine.
True to her promise, she had been using the few days off to study up on spinal injuries, scouring the internet for cases of successful quirk healing. There were only a handful of such cases, but just enough to give her hope.
She had visited Iida's brother once more during her time off, glad to see he was faring better after the infection had been staved off. She had used the visit to help along the healing process of several more of the gashes, but she was too afraid to touch the severed spinal cord.
Eventually, Ingenium had been woken from his medically induced coma. Iida's mother had called her to thank her profusely, inviting her and her parents out for dinner in a fancy restaurant. Her father had scolded her for her recklessness, touching a critical patient without having a license, but preened and complimented her during the dinner in the way he usually did in front of his colleagues.
Admittedly, one of the reasons Amari wanted to fine tune the offensive side of her quirk was to eventually induce a similar injury in whatever Aizawa got her to practice on so she could practice treating such an injury in a low-risk environment. Not that she had any illusions of completely fixing the problem, some of the nerves had been too damaged even for her quirk to fix, but she was determined to at least give it her best. Iida deserved as much.
It was raining buckets by the time the rest of the class trickled in, some drenched to the bone while others were smart enough to invest in an umbrella.
"You're uncharacteristically early." Kirishima said to her as he shook his head viciously, sending rain droplets flying everywhere.
Amari pulled a face as she wiped off the water that had landed on her cheek.
"Thanks for that."
"Oh sorry." Kirishima grinned apologetically. "This morning was crazy, all these people that saw the sports festival came up to me."
"Better get used to that, future hero." Amari teased easily.
She was rather glad no one remembered her face from the brief moment she had been on the screen. Being approached by people when you were just minding your business sounded miserable.
"The same totally happened to me this morning." Mina interjected as she eagerly joined the pair. "There were even some people taking pictures off me. It was kinda creepy actually."
Amari winced in sympathy. She could only imagine the kind of attention some of her female classmates were now getting after being shown on national television like that. There were always some creeps taking it too far.
"How about you, Bakubro?" Kirishima asked the blonde as he took his seat, hair impeccably dry so definitely one of the umbrella investors.
"Those extras should learn to mind their fucking business." He scoffed with that ever present scowl on his face.
Right at that time, Midoriya and Iida entered the classroom. Amari paused at the tightness in Iida's eyes that had been growing ever since Ingenium's incident.
Excusing herself, she approached the boy just as he'd taken his seat, blankly staring ahead. He didn't even bother scolding Kaminari for not wearing his tie properly.
"Hey Iida, how have you been?" She inquired softly.
He snapped out of whatever trance he was in to look at her, straightening in his seat.
"Tensei's recovery is getting along well. The doctors say he will be discharged in two weeks. My mother has taken some time off work to care for him for the time being."
"That's wonderful to hear." She smiled. "But I was wondering how you have been holding up."
Before Iida could formulate an answer, Aizawa clambered out his sleeping bag, sending everyone scampering back to their seats as chatter broke out at the lack of bandages on his frame.
"Today, we have a special Hero Informatics class." The man effectively silenced the class. "Sit back down, Shuzenji."
Amari winced as everyone looked at her, halfway to standing up out of her chair to visit her grandmother seeing as there would be hero business during homeroom. She awkwardly sat back down, cheeks flaming at being called out.
"You'll be picking your hero names today." Excited muttering filled the room, being stopped only when their teacher activated his quirk, eyes gleaming bright red.
"Midnight will be coming to help with that but first I'd like to discuss the internships. As you know, this is an opportunity for heroes to invest in students they find promising. Just because they show interest now, does not mean they will indefinitely. Take this seriously and prove yourselves."
The man then pushed a button, and the smartboard behind him blazed to life, revealing a list.
Class 1-A Internship Offers
Todoroki Shouto - 4,123
Bakugou Katsuki - 3,556
Tokoyami Fumikage - 360
Iida Tenya - 301
Kaminari Denki - 272
Yaoyorozu Momo - 108
Kirishima Eijiro - 68
Shuzenji Amari - 34
Uraraka Ochako - 20
Sero Hanta - 14
Amari nearly choked on her own spit as she saw her own name on the board. She wasn't even aware she could receive offers.
Annoyed protests vibrated through the class at the unfair spread of offers. It seemed like only those that reached the finals had raked in some offers. Amari gritted her teeth at the fact that Mina hadn't received any offers while she certainly hadn't done worse than Sero or Kaminari in their rounds.
Midoriya was also jarringly absent from the list but she figured that no pro was willing to play nurse after the boy inevitably broke a limb during the internship.
"Did they mix up first and second place?" Kirishima chortled at an absolutely livid Bakugou. His bravery was truly heroic. Or stupid.
"They're probably scared off by his personality." Sero chimed in, nearly earning himself a punch in the face.
"If they're fucking scared, they're not worth my time anyway!" The blonde retorted, landing a blow in Sero's stomach.
"Quiet down." Aizawa commanded sternly. "Even if you weren't directly offered an internship, you will still be doing one. I'll hand out the list of agencies that take on students, look it over and choose wisely."
"So all of us are interning?" Midoriya asked hopefully.
"Correct." Aizawa confirmed. "You already experienced conflict with real villains during the USJ attack, but it will still be helpful to see the Pros at work first hand."
"Is it my time yet?" Midnight called as she strutted into the room. Amari rolled her eyes in disgust at Mineta's drooling mouth.
"You're here whether it is or not." Aizawa drawled, pulling himself back into his sleeping bag and mentally checking out. "Midnight is better at this than I am, but remember that you're stuck with this name for the foreseeable future. Don't be dumb."
With that pep talk, small rectangular white boards were distributed and the class sat in silence for a good ten minutes as they all tried to come up with a hero name.
Amari was blankly staring at the empty whiteboard in front of her. Logically, she had known she'd be picking a name too if she was to follow in her grandma's footsteps, tying herself to heroics institute instead of a hospital. But she hadn't ever really thought about it.
Healing Girl? No, that was too similar to her grandma, not to mention totally lame. It had to be something that sort of had to do with her quirk though. Heal... Healia? No that was stupid.
"Whoever's ready can start us off." Midnight interrupted her pondering, hopping off Aizawa's desk and moving towards the side of the room.
No one moved for an awkward moment until Aoyama stood up and strutted to the front of the room, dramatically holding up his whiteboard like he was posing for an ad.
"The Shining Hero: I Cannot Stop Twinkling!"
Uhhh
Midnight smiled at the boy as she appraoched him. "Why don't you take out the 'I' and we can shorten 'cannot' to 'can't'".
Amari gaped at the fact that Midnight agreed to the frankly ridiculous name. The bar was a lot lower than she had expected.
"Let me go next!" Mina squealed as she hopped out of her seat. "Alien Queen!"
Midnight looked mildly disturbed by the girl's choice.
"Uh maybe choose something a bit less... monsterly."
Mina pouted as she sat down again, back to brainstorming.
After that Tsuyu came up with cutest name ever: Froppy, followed by several more accepted names such as Uravity, Red Riot and Deku. Even the hero name 'Shouto' was accepted. Which, in Amari's opinion, was totally lame.
Bakugou's proposition to be called 'King Explosion Murder' was met with overall amusement and the mortification from Midnight, commanding the boy to sit back down.
"You could be Explosion Boy." Kirishima chortled.
"Shut the fuck up, shitty hair."
Finally, Amari stood up, nervously peering around at her classmates. If her name got rejected by Midnight, that would be embarrassing.
"Right so I was thinking something like Mercy..." She trailed off, waiting with bated breath what Midnight would say.
"Mercy as in a relief from pain? Yes that's perfect!"
With a smile, Amari sank back down into her chair, content to listen to the few individuals who hadn't chosen a name yet, biting her tongue to prevent laughing out loud as Bakugou suggested 'Lord Explosion Murder' like that was any better than 'King Explosion Murder'.
Finally, Aizawa emerged from the yellow cocoon that was his sleeping bag, passing out the internship forms around. She grinned as she saw Recovery Girl offering her an internship place. Maybe she'd bake some cookies to give to her grandma this weekend.
The rest of the offers were from hospitals spread around the country. The most prestigious one by far however was the Shizuoka University Clinic, the one her parents worked at. She was sure her father pulled some strings to get her to intern in his department.
"Now that most of you have decided on your hero names." Aizawa spoke. "We can go back to the matter of your internship. They last for a full week so you have plenty of opportunities to see a Pro at work. Remember that each agency has a different specialty and choose the one most appropriate to you."
