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A/N: Happy two year anniversary to the fic. I'm very happy that so many people are still reading this story, As a bonus, here's a double-length update! I'm still going to be updating the chapter in pieces over the month, but today's piece is 6-7k instead of the 3-4 I expect the rest of these to clock out at. If you're reading this on FF-net and are frustrated with the update delays, there's always an option to read it over on the Spacebattles thread (don't let the size intimidate you, you can use 'threadmarks' to skip between the important forum posts without having to read them all) or over on AO3!

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There were many armchair theorists who blamed Quirks for the disintegration of modern society and the fact that humanity as a race hadn't made it into space yet. Personally, I assigned at least as much blame to cell phones. Somehow, an entire weekend had gone by, and yet I'd accomplished almost nothing of consequence other than eating and sleeping. I'd tried my best to restore a few quirks, of course, but keeping my concentration on doing absolutely nothing other than sitting still and storing quirk energy was difficult even when there wasn't an electronic device beeping every so often to demand my attention.

I suppose that a quirk that kept you awake almost twenty-four hours a day would make it easy to run out of things to do; at least, that was my best explanation for why Kawasaki kept texting me even after we'd made tentative plans for lunch next week. (Okay, there was another explanation, but I'd suffered through enough humiliating rejections to keep my feet firmly on the ground.) In any case, over the course of the weekend Kawasaki and I swapped stories about our families (she was the oldest sister of five,) anecdotes about our school years so far (I heard a lot of complaints about a girl named Mei,) random chats about the sports festivals (she was a little upset that the non-heroes seemed to have less and less of a chance to shine every year,) and just general chit-chat (which I constantly felt like I was bungling, but she never seemed to notice - not that I was trying to impress her, exactly...) So while I'd decided with the best of intentions to start making good my losses from the Sports Festival immediately, I just… didn't make nearly as much progress on that as I would like.

Not that it was all Kawasaki's fault, of course; Komachi and my parents seemed to have made it their mission to have a 'family weekend', and it wasn't exactly like I could just explain that I suddenly had a pressing need to 'meditate' for hours on end. Reluctantly, I suffered through Mandatory Puzzle Time, Family Corny Movie Night, Get Trashed By Mom At Board Game Night, Celebratory Dinner At Saize, and so on; don't get me wrong, actually getting the chance to spend some time with Komachi and our parents was nice, but the timing of it had me squirming in my seat with anxiety over the feeling that I was falling further and further behind the rest of my class for every day that I couldn't use my quirks.

Still, the silver lining to the storm of family togetherness was the fact that pretty much throughout the entire weekend my parents had surreptitiously managed to place bowls of chips, popcorn, or other snacks within a convenient snacking range of me at all times. As I stood on the bathroom scale that morning while I was getting ready to go to school, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had already gained two kilos. The surprise I got from the bathroom mirror, on the other hand, was less pleasant. "A zit? Seriously?" I mumbled, fingering the bright red spot at the corner of my mouth. "Must have been all that oily food…"

My usual response to skin problems was just to slap on Regeneration until the problem went away, but given my mandate from Recovery Girl I didn't feel like that was the smartest idea. I was going to have to get creative - or else go to school with a bright red mark on my face, but even if UA wasn't nearly the hellhole that Jakku Middle was I still couldn't bring myself to offer such a tempting target to any potential wise-asses and bullies. I started with Hot Skin since heat was supposed to be good at getting rid of pimples, but after a minute or so I quickly realized that even if it was a solution it wasn't going to be an immediate one. Sadly, neither Hard Skin nor Metal Skin solved the problem either; if anything they only armored up the pimple and kept me from getting it open. After a few more abortive attempts of various quirks, I eventually remembered that they sometimes used mild acids to treat acne, and switched to Ashido Mina's Acid quirk.

Sure enough, I rapidly felt a stinging sensation on my face, and with a wince I saw the bright red puffy bit on my face open up, releasing a bit of white goo that fizzled slightly in the acid being released from my face. Carefully, I stopped releasing acid but didn't release Ashido's quirk, making sure to try to rinse as much acid off of my face as possible before finally letting it go. Unfortunately, the corner of my mouth was still red and inflamed looking, so after a moment of consideration I switched to Regeneration, just for a few seconds. As soon as my face was looking even mildly better I turned it off and weighed myself again. Either there was some variation in our bathroom scale, or even just those few moments of use for a super minor issue had cost me a tenth of a kilogram of weight. "Right," I said before heading to finish getting ready for school. "Guess I'm eating a granola bar on my way to the train."

Beyond being fuel-efficient, affordable, faster than traffic (especially with a muscle license,) and excellent exercise, on my trip to UA I realized that bicycles had another advantage: they were private. To my horror as I squeezed into the crowded train I realized that the other passengers were looking at me.

"Hey, I saw you on TV! You're one of the power copy kids at UA, right?" A younger salaryman said, smiling at me bizarrely like he wanted to sell me something. "You did great!"

"Look, it's Casanova!" One of a pair of high school girls said to another, prompting a storm of giggles. I felt my ears flush, and pulled my chin in, hunching my shoulders. If I ever met whoever came up with that idiotic nickname I was going to go Villain, I resolved.

"Ooh, he's even cuter in person!" The other one said back, and if anything I flushed harder. What the hell?!

An older gentleman caught my eye. "Chin up, young man," he said. "Stand up straight." Reluctantly, I unfolded from my half-crouch, and he smiled. "That's the way," he said conspiratorially. "Never let them see you sweat."

Luckily, as interesting of a novelty as I was to the travelers on the train, I was still just a slightly-more-notable-than-average high schooler, and the crowds slowly lost interest in me. But as the feeling of paranoid embarrassment slowly receded, the feeling of guilt set in. Was this the sort of attention that a real hero would have enjoyed? Were there students at UA who I had stolen this from? As I was lost in thought, I noticed the gentleman who had given me the advice earlier was leaving, so I nodded at him. "Thanks," I said, not knowing if he would even hear me over the noise of the crowd.

He turned and smiled at me, a twinkle in his eye. "I've been riding this line for years," he said, "you're not the first young hero I've seen."

The gratitude curdled in my stomach. "I'm not much of one," I blurted out in apology.

Surprisingly, his smile didn't fade. "Fake it until you make it," he said, and then he stepped off the train with a jaunty wave. It wasn't bad advice as a general principle... but there were certain kinds of fakes that could never become the real thing.

Finally, my stop arrived, and I gratefully escaped the crowds of enthusiastic train passengers. As I stepped out of the train station and started walking up the hill towards the school, the average age of the commuters near me got younger and younger, until I was surrounded by students. If the people on the train had all been excited to spot a hero-in-training, the reception from my fellow students was much more mixed. It seemed like word had gotten around about the dirty tricks I had played with uniting 1-A against everyone else, because in comparison to the weirdly admiring looks I had gotten after making a 'speech' about hard work, there were a lot of students who now seemed hostile, or envious as I passed them.

To be honest, while the envy was new, an atmosphere of distaste from everyone around me was pretty familiar territory; compared to the weirdness that was public approval, being hated was oddly soothing. Of course, not everyone was so unfriendly. "Oh, Hikigaya-kun. Good morning, kero."

I turned around. "Oh, uh, morning, Asui-san," I said to the froglike girl coming up from behind me. Her long green hair was as usual tied in a bow at the middle of her back to keep it from falling to the floor, but something about it looked a little different. I almost asked if she had just washed it, but I realized just in time that it would be super creepy. "Uh, did you have a good weekend?" I asked instead.

Her wide, thin-lipped mouth curved into a slight smile and she nodded. "Call me Tsuyu-chan," she croaked, "And yeah, it was nice. I got to go home and see all my brothers and sisters, so that's always good."

My eyebrows raised. It was easy for me to forget that a lot of my classmates were coming in from other parts of the country, and that they didn't have the option of going home every day like I did, painful commute or not. "That is nice," I said. "My sister is a pain, but I bet if I didn't see her for a few weeks I'd miss her, for sure."

Asui - no, Tsuyu - nodded. "I know what you mean, my brother Rashu is a hyperactive pest, but he's always so happy to see me that I just give up and let him climb all over me anyway," she said with a wistful sigh.

"So where's home for you, um… Tsuyu-san?" I asked.

"Toyohashi," Tsuyu said promptly, "It's in Aichi, right off of Mikawa Bay."

"Oh," I said, then immediately felt self-conscious for having done so. Damn it, how did other people do this smalltalk thing? "That, um, that's a ways, I guess. Do you just rent an apartment around here, then?"

Tsuyu nodded. "There's a place down by a beach near here that used to be all covered in junk, kero. It was super cheap because the beach was all messy, but then someone cleaned the place up right before I got there. I got lucky and rented the apartment right before the company I was renting from realized they could raise rents." Tsuyu's face didn't really tend to change expressions often, but looking at her I thought something about her smile looked subtly smug.

I raised an eyebrow appreciatively. "Nice. That sounds super convenient for training, swimming is a good workout."

"It's not bad, kero." Tsuyu said. "I'm looking forward to the summer when I can swim without wearing a wetsuit, though."

I didn't really know how to follow up that topic - talking about swimsuits was creepy, right? So for a second, we just walked in awkward silence, heading for the classroom. Eventually, I finally figured out something to say. "So did you watch the other years' Sports Festivals?" I asked.

"I did, kero. It's kind of scary how good the third-years are already." Tsuyu said, her wide eyes dancing with excitement even as the reset of her face barely moved. "Some of them looked like pros, kero, it was hard to believe they're only two years older than us."

I sighed. "I know. Don't remind me." As Tsuyu tilted her head in a questioning motion, I shook my head. "So, you know how I copy quirks, right? I was watching the festival to see if there were any upperclassmen whose quirks I wanted to borrow… but the thing is, at the seniors' level, I can't really tell whether they're super strong because they have a really good quirk, or whether they're super strong because they're super good at using it."

"What do you mean, kero?" Tsuyu asked.

"I mean, I already copied the quirk of the guy that won the third-year tournament a couple weeks ago…" I paused for effect, then hung my head. "And I had to throw it out because it was useless to me. When I look at other years, I can kind of tell the difference between quirks that are easy to use and ones that aren't, but the third-years are so good that everything looks easy to use." Of course, that brought up the scary thought that I was going to somehow find time to practice with over a hundred different quirks until I looked like I was using them all effortlessly, but with a deliberate effort I managed to push that panic-worthy idea away. I had more than enough stuff to panic over not being able to do so I could keep up with first-year classes, no need to borrow trouble from upperclassmen just yet.

Tsuyu blinked. "I see," she croaked. "I guess I never thought about that, kero. My quirk isn't really one that you use, so when I train I just practice jumping or tongue strikes or wall climbing, that sort of thing. Makes sense that some would be easy and some would be hard though, kero." She paused. "Who's quirk is hardest for you to use from our class?"

It didn't take me long to come up with an answer. "Yaoyorozu's, for sure."

"My what?" Belatedly, I realized that Tsuyu and I had made it to the classroom. About half the class was already there, and as we walked in together people welcomed Tsuyu with a wave of hellos and calls of "good morning," while Yaoyorozu turned around and addressed us with a smile.

I nodded at the rest of the classroom just in case some of them had been intending their greetings for both Tsuyu and I, then walked over towards Yaoyorozu, since my seat was right in front of hers. "Oh, uh. I was just explaining how your quirk was really tricky to use right. It's probably the most complicated quirk in our class."

Yaoyorozu put on hand to her chin. "I see," she said pensively. Then her eyes met mine, and she smiled knowingly. "Other than yours, you mean?"

Suddenly, I was reminded of the conversation we'd had about quirks with a lot of options earlier. I scoffed. "I only have a hundred and eight options to choose from, and you theoretically have infinite; I'm pretty sure you win that competition."

"I am curious, Hikigaya-san," a deep voice called out from the seat right next to mine. I turned to see Tokoyami, who had allowed Dark Shadow to emit itself from his midsection. "How does my quirk compare in complexity? In dark environments, I sometimes find it difficult to control Dark Shadow's unrelenting bloodlust; do you experience the same problem?"

Consciously or unconsciously, I had been avoiding Tokoyami a little, ever since the USJ. Not that he'd done anything wrong, of course - he just reminded me of a certain tubby bastard a little bit too much for comfort when he started going all in on phrases like 'unrelenting bloodlust.' Forcing down the pangs of regret, I shook my head. "If anything, it's sort of the reverse?" I briefly attuned my copy of Dark Shadow, letting it fitfully sputter to life in the bright lights of the fluorescent overheads. I focused intently, and my shadow slowly waved its hand, moving like a geriatric old man. "In bright environments, my copy of your quirk feels like it's almost asleep, and I have to really push it to get it to move at all. It doesn't start getting useful until there's enough darkness nearby for it to power up." I dismissed the quirk, having made my point. "Once there is some darkness, though, it's actually one of my easier copies to use," I said. "The fact that it has a mind of its own is pretty helpful."

"You hear that?" Dark Shadow sneered, its voice echoing eerily. "Without me you'd be screwed, Fumikage."

Tokoyami nodded, then retracted Dark Shadow with an expression of concentration on his corvid face. "I see. As expected, the source of my curse is also the source of my strength. I thank you for your insight."

"Don't mention it," I waved his thanks off uncomfortably. Not wanting to continue the conversation, I dug into my bookbag, busying myself with my notebooks and pens to avoid eye contact.

While I'd been talking, a few more people had joined the classroom; the room was full of people noisily sharing stories from their weekends, gushing in excitement over the possibilities of internships, commiserating over their subpar performances during the festival, and just plain chatting. What surprised me however was that while a few perennial latecomers such as Denki and Ashido hadn't made it in yet as usual, Todoroki was also running late. He was normally one of the first ones in the classroom; part of me wondered if he was intending to skip today, but just as I was about to write Todoroki off entirely he walked in, just before Aizawa-sensei did the same. "Alright class, settle down," Aizawa said. "Today's class is going to be a little special, so we're going to get right to it."

That was never a good sign. Usually Aizawa was content to leave the morning attendance and announcements to me and Yaoyorozu while he took a nap, but when he took charge from the beginning it was usually something along the lines of a pop quiz or a surprise exercise session. I pulled my notebook and pen out, getting ready just in case.

"Today, we're going to be coming up with your hero names, or code names." As Aizawa said that, the class erupted with shouts and cheers. Even I was a little excited - show me a little kid that never pretended to be a superhero on the playground, and I'll show you that they're actually some kind of robot in a small child suit, because pretending to be a hero was practically the law. Best of all, the only thing that pretending to be a superhero required was a little bit of imagination, which made it the perfect choice for someone like me who had a surplus of imagination and a deficit of friends. I'd more or less outgrown most of my childhood whimsies, but even as jaded as I was there was still some part of me which couldn't help but look forward to choosing a name.

"Basically, this is related to the internships that you all will be experiencing next week," Aizawa droned, shuffling through some papers on his rostrum as he did so. "Some of you will be working in public and in costume, so it's a priority to make sure that if need be your branding and aliases are ready." He looked up at the class, flaring his power-cancelling vision for a second to make sure that we were all paying attention. "So. Before we talk about hero names, let's talk about internships."

"In normal years, a first-year internship is something like a show of interest from a pro hero," Aizawa explained. "Typically, most pros will wait until students' second or third years, when you'll have picked up enough training that your capabilities can be measured more accurately, before they give any serious thought into considering you as a potential partner or subordinate. A first-year internship offer would ordinarily be considered more like a statement that a pro hero thinks you might have potential, so don't make the mistake of seeing an internship offer this early in your schooling and thinking that your future career is all taken care of, because those expressions of interest can and will dry up if you don't deliver on those expectations."

Aizawa stared at us all harshly, as if trying to make sure that we got the message. "And that's doubly the case for this year," he said. "As it just so happens that everyone in Class 1-A has received an internship offer."

Again, the class erupted into cheers, but this time they only lasted a short period of time before Aizawa slammed his hand on the rostrum and used his quirk to stare us all down. "Let me be clear," he said, "Your class's plan to leverage the League of Villains' attack and create a name for yourselves as a class appears to have worked. But for some of you, all that means is that you're leveraging other peoples' accomplishments. Some of the offers you have received will be from heroes more interested in the cachet of being able to claim that they mentored one of the students from the USJ incident than in your capabilities as a person, while others of you will potentially be thrust out into the spotlight before you're ready."

He paused, allowing us to chew on that idea in somber silence. My stomach twisted in guilt. Riding on other peoples' hard work and being thrust into things before I was ready; yeah, Aizawa-sensei had my number. My only consolation was that Cyberpunch had seen what I could do already and wanted me for my quirk analysis skills instead of my combat skills, so I could probably count on her offer being legitimate - even if it was the only one.

"With that said," Aizawa said, his bangs settling back down over his face, "as long as you choose your internships carefully and work hard to impress the hero you intern with, this could be an excellent opportunity for you. If you decide that you don't like any of the internship offers you received, you can always choose to take part in a work-study program with some UA affiliated heroes, but the downside of those work-studies is that you're not guaranteed to get one-on-one instruction, and your quirk might not line up with your instructor's very well for training purposes; and even if you're lucky enough to find a good match considering the first two, most heroes who take part in the work studies aren't typically looking to hire sidekicks or partners. So, I urge you all to think about it carefully." Aizawa paused and held up a piece of paper, then turned to the chalkboard behind him. "In the meantime, here's the counts of the nominations that you all received."

Unsurprisingly, the counts of the nominations more or less paralleled everyones' results in the Sports Festival. Midoriya was in first place with just under three thousand two hundred nominations, with Bakugo right behind him at just over three thousand one hundred. Yukinoshita was next in line with a little under a thousand nominations, while Todoroki had closer to eight hundred. Maybe if Yukinoshita hadn't been related to a pro hero herself, Todoroki would have been able to pass her just relying on people wanting to kiss up to his dad, but then again maybe not.

Because how the fuck did I have more offers than Iida? Somehow, I was sitting at four hundred twenty-four offers to Iida's three hundred and eighty-nine, with Uraraka, Denki, Ashido, and Yaoyorozu rounding out the three-digit counts of votes before it dropped down to the double and single digits. I mean, technically I placed the same as Iida and Uraraka in terms of washing out during the second round of the tournament, but in terms of my actual fundamentals I'd expect pro heroes to notice that I was nowhere near their league. On the other hand, if the heroes didn't realize that the Sports Festival had been a performance that I wouldn't be able to repeat for the foreseeable future, then they might have gotten the impression that I was way more capable than I actually was.

"Congratulations, Todoroki-kun, Hikigaya-kun," Yaoyorozu said from the seat behind me. "You both performed admirably."

I twisted in my chair to turn back and look at her. "Congratulations yourself." As I did, my eyes met Todoroki's; he looked somewhat uncomfortable, and had his arms folded in over his chest.

"I don't deserve to be congratulated," Todoroki said in a somewhat tense voice. "This was so much less than what I'm capable of."

Any possible response that I might have had to that was drowned out by the sound of Bakugo's shout. "This is fuckin' bullshit!" He yelled, slamming his hands on his desk in a fury. "You sure you didn't get those numbers backwards, sensei?"

Eraserhead glared at Bakugo. "Yes, Bakugo. I'm sure. Believe it or not, it's fairly common for the first place winner to receive the first place number of internship nominations."

"There's no way all those pros in the fucking audience couldn't tell that I would have won that fight if I'd been fresh." He turned around and viciously glared at Midoriya. "And don't you even fucking dare denying it, you shitty nerd."

As Midoriya stammered helplessly at being put on the spot, Aizawa continued glaring at Bakugo. "It's not my job to debate the reasons why pro heroes made offers or didn't make them towards you. But assuming that what you're saying is true, then maybe the lack of offers you otherwise would have received is due to the childish behavior you displayed on stage. Just like the childish behavior you're showing right now. Now sit down!"

Bakugo sat. An awkward silence spread after Aizawa's declaration, broken suddenly by a new and unexpected voice. "And that sounds like the perfect segue into discussing why hero names are important!" Striding confidently into the room was Midnight, who took the time to pose as she entered the room, pivoting between postures like she was conducting a magazine shoot.

It walked the line between being titillating and just being over-the-top, but either way it was a very effective way of resetting the mood. I heard a muffled cry of "alright!" coming from over by Denki and Kirishima, and it was entirely possible that some people - who will remain nameless - had to shift in their seats a little to … adjust.

"After all, public relations is a very important part of the hero business," Midnight said with a significant look at Bakugo, "and the hero name you pick now can and will affect your branding in the future. Not everybody who tries to change to a new name when they go pro actually succeeds - so it's best to choose something that you don't mind getting stuck with."

"Split up into your HEART groups," Aizawa said. "You all have fifteen minutes to discuss names in your small group before you'll be presenting them to the class."

"And I'll be judging the names. I know what works and what doesn't, so make sure you come up with something good!" Midnight said. "If you have any questions or want some help, just let me know and I'll swing by to chip in. If you really can't come up with something right away, you can always use your first names as a default, so don't sweat it if you get stuck - but ask your friends, that's what they're there for!"

For quick discussions like this, it wasn't necessary for our HEART groups to split off into our individual private rooms; mostly people just walked over to a particular corner of the room. Since Yuigahama, Bakugo, Yukinoshita and I all mostly sat in either the back or the left sides of the room, our group had wound up with the back-left corner, right around where I sat. I smiled apologetically at Yaoyorozu as she left her desk to give us room and headed up to the front to meet up with her usual team. "Hikki! Yukinon! Bakubaku!" Yuigahama called out as she practically bounced over to us. "You have to help me! I don't have a name yet!"

Yukinoshita sighed tolerantly as she walked over. "Don't worry, Yui. That's what we're doing this for, remember?"

In comparison to Yukinoshita's restrained approach, Bakugo practically stomped his way over to our corner, going out of his way to bump Midoriya's shoulder with his own as he passed him. At Yui's statement, however, the fuming head of anger he had built up receded slightly, to be replaced by a cocky smirk. "Heh. Scrub," he said derisively.

"Mou, Bakugo, what's that supposed to mean?" Yuigahama pouted. "I can't be the only one who doesn't have a name picked out, right?"

There was a moment of relative - well, not silence, because everyone else in the room was also jabbering away at high volume, but certainly quiet - as the three of us simultaneously failed to speak up and reassure Yui that she wasn't alone. I coughed awkwardly. "Well, um, should we just get our names out of the way so that we can all work together and help Yuigahama?" I suggested.

"That sounds reasonable," Yukinoshita said. Taking a deep breath, she said, "I've chosen the name of the Winter Hero: Inverna."

"Ooh, sounds classy!" Yuigahama said, eyes wide in appreciation.

Bakugo sneered. "And here I thought you would have just picked Ice Queen."

Something about the way Yukinoshita had said that had sounded a bit odd. "You don't seem too excited about the name," I pointed out. I thought I saw her flinch a little bit, so I thought for a second before something else came to me. "And, well, the name itself is just fine, but it kind of clashes with your hero outfit. 'Inverna' is something European, right?"

Yukinoshita nodded evenly. "It's based on the Italian word for winter," she said.

"Right, so… it doesn't really fit with a kimono at all," I said. "Have you considered going for a more Japanese style name?"

Suddenly, Yukinoshita glared at me. "Apparently, my current choice of hero outfit renders me fairly vulnerable when I'm in close proximity to water, so I needed to change it anyways."

Oh, so it was my fault? "Whoops," I muttered.

"I mean, at least you found out about the problem now before you picked your name and all that stuff though, right Yukinon?" Yuigahama said cheerfully.

"Ah, yes…" Yukinoshita stammered for a second before finally agreeing.

"I mean, you can still go for like an Ainu theme, or maybe the story of Sengen-no-kami if you wanted to play up the mountaintop angle and stay with a Japanese influence," I said. "I'm sure there's a way to do something to a kimono that makes it less of a water hazard."

Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes at me. "I appreciate the thought, but I've already commissioned a new costume," she said. "In any case, rather than belabor my name - which as you said is perfectly fine - we should move on so that we can help Yui-chan."

"Fuckin' finally," Bakugo muttered. "Right, check this out," he said, spinning a piece of paper around so we could all see the horror that was written on it. "Lord. Explosion. Murder."

I felt the palm of my hand being irresistably drawn towards my face, as if by magic, or some strange twist in gravity. "Uhm…" Yuigahama said, biting her lip slightly.

"You must be joking," Yukinoshita said in disbelief. "Not even you could be that dense."

No, Yukinoshita. He's serious. "It… might need some work," I said as tactfully as I could.

"Huuh?" Bakugo said aggressively. "What the fuck's wrong with it? Baku-satsu-ou works with my name and everything! It's perfect!"

Yukinoshita just stared at him blankly. "I don't even know where to begin," she said. "Do you want the reasons listed alphabetically, or categorically?"

"Um, Bakubaku," Yuigahama said, putting a hand on Yukinoshita's shoulder to quiet her temporarily, "I think what Yukinon is trying to say is that maybe it comes off as… a little too aggressive?"

"So what?" Bakugo barked. "I ain't planning on being a fuckin' rescue hero. You don't see battle heroes like Gunhead dicking around with pansy-ass names like Mister Fucking McShooty."

"Hold on," I said, extending my palm towards Yukinoshita and Yuigahama in a 'stop' motion. "I think I can handle this. Bakugo," I said, meeting his eyes squarely. "Have you ever played a video game before? Especially a RPG, but really, just about anything that isn't a sports or rhythm game?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Bakugo asked.

I didn't break eye contact. "Humor me."

"Yeah, sure. I played DragonShock 2 a bunch as a kid." Bakugo said, irritation in his voice. "So what?"

Okay, Irrational Squares, I could work with that. "So, you know how like every IS game has some sort of big demon lord that acts as a fake 'final boss', and then in the new game plus you harvest their dragonsign or plunder their essence chi or whatever, and that lets you take on the true eldritch evil as long as you have the right social links maximized?"

"I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled by your expertise in this area, Hikigaya," Yukinoshita interjected.

"Sshhh!" Yui shushed her. "I think it's working!"

"Yeah?" Bakugo said. His voice wasn't quite as irritated now, instead sounding a little confused. "You're talking about Pyroclasmos, right? The Dark Lord of Hellcinders?"

I nodded sagely. "Right. So, what Yuigahama is trying to say, is that -" I bit the inside of my lip to keep from smirking "- 'Baku-satsu-uo' sounds a little bit too similar of a name to something like 'The Dark Lord of Hellcinders' in order for the average person to be able to tell that one belongs to a hero, and one belongs to a villain."

I gave Yuigahama a significant look, and she started nodding rapidly. "Right! Yeah! I mean, I probably wouldn't have made all those video game references but it totally does sound maybe a just a little bit villainous, right?"

Bakugo scowled. "So what? Who gives a shit what extras think?"

"Given that hero popularity ratings are literally a measure of what so-called 'extras' think, I'd wager that you probably do," Yukinoshita said coolly.

"Ugh. Fine." Bakugo said, throwing his hands up. "What about Baku-metsu-uo; I can do Lord Explosion Obliteration and take out the 'murder' part."

I stifled a laugh behind my hand. "Eh… I think that, uh, 'extras' would probably have trouble with the 'Lord' part too, Bakugo. And even the 'Obliteration' part might be a little bit too intense for some people - ideally, you want people to feel safe with you around, and a really harsh name might get in the way of that."

Bakugo crossed his arms with a pout. "Fuck! Dammit, if you're so smart, why don't you come up with something?"

"Oh! I know!" Yui said, eagerly leaping at the chance to help Bakugo before he got too stubborn about the idea. "What about… 'Hanabi no Hero, Firework!'"

"Fuck that." Bakugo said instantly. "If my only option is a girly-ass name like that I'd rather just go with 'Bakugo'."

Yukinoshita rolled her eyes at him. "Well, if the conclusion that you reached after hearing a single option that you disliked is that the whole process of finding a hero name for yourself is too difficult, I suppose that you would know best where the limits of your own capabilities are."

Bakugo ground his teeth. "I assume you've got a fucking better idea?"

Yukinoshita nodded. "When considering explosions that are reasonably safe for civilians, the most famous would undoubtedly be dynamite. Together with a simple spelling change, perhaps; such as Dyna-Might, and you could have a name that simultaneously associates you with 'safe explosions' and with the Number One Pro Hero."

To give Bakugo credit, he actually slowed down and thought about that one for a minute. "...No," he eventually concluded. "I see what you're going for, but no. I'm gonna be Number One, but I ain't gonna be the next All Might. I'm gonna surpass him, and become the first Me."

Nine times out of ten, Bakugo's belligerent arrogance was obnoxious, crude, borderline nonsensical, and incredibly off-putting. But every so often, he said something that was … kinda cool. "Okay," I said. "So, long story short, you need a name that involves explosions, makes civilians feel safe, fits your personality, and doesn't reference any other heroes, right?"

"I mean, I still think Baku-satsu-uo is fine, but yeah, whatever." Bakugo said. "You get one shot Hikigaya, and when you fuck it up I'm just gonna call the pervy hag over and get her to approve my name."

I was tempted to just let him get it out of the way now to let him embarrass himself, but we were already more than halfway through our fifteen minutes and Yuigahama still needed help, so there really wasn't time. "Okay, so how about this. Usually when a Demon Lord dies, it's the Hero who beats him, right?"

"Obviously," Bakugo said.

"So what do you think about a slightly fantasy-ish name?" I asked. "Specifically, I'm thinking… Claymore." He didn't immediately shoot it down, so I hurriedly continued. "It's a big-ass, badass sword, and also one of those antipersonnel mines - the ones that say 'This End Towards Enemy' on them."

As Bakugo clearly gave the idea some thought, Yukinoshita spoke up. "I admit, the name seems to meet all of the listed requirements, but I'm not entirely sure that Bakugo can pull off a 'Knight in Shining Armor' name like that."

"On Game of Crowns, knights swear all the time," I retorted. "Anyway, Bakugo, why don't you think about that, maybe see what Midnight-sensei has to say about your original name when she stops by? In the meantime, we should get to helping Yuigahama pick her name before we run out of time."

"Right!" Yuigahama said. "Yeah, that'd be super helpful! Um, so… basically I've got like a million name ideas but they all sound kind of lame and I don't want my whole name to just be about sewing, but I don't want to just ignore it either you know?" She put a hastily scribbled list on Yaoyorozu's desk, turning it upside-down so that Yukinoshita and I could read it.

"Right, that makes sense," I said, bending my head to read her list. "Now let's see…"