I'm Holding on to Nothing (An MHA AU Story)

16. Ups and Downs

(this chapter contains spoilers for the UA traitor, be advised.)

"At least nobody thinks you can't be trusted with knives," Saijuuta said, rubbing his forehead. Sero gave him a look. "Can you though?"

Saijuuta groaned, putting his head on his desk. "Sero, please shut up." Kaminari patted his shoulder. "It's not all bad! Look, you've got memes!" on his phone, Saijuuta saw the moment where he punched Dark Shadow away from him, with an old jingle for nestle crunch added to the audio. "Did Dark Shadow actually scream like that or was that from the audio?" he asked, still not lifting his head from the desk.

Dark shadow bumped into Kaminari, shoving him aside. "It definitely wasn't me! I love that meme, but I know I didn't sound like that!" Tokoyami cleared his throat. "You... may have. By a small margin.

"Shoji, Fumi's bullying me!" Shoji patted the shadow's head in confusion. "There, there?"

Behind them, someone grumbled in annoyance. Tokoyami glanced at the short boy responsible for the noise. "What did occur, with Mineta? I never got a clear answer this weekend," he whispered. Saijuuta sighed, sitting up straight. "I said some shit and he's mad at me. I'll deal with it." Tokoyami nodded, still confused. "Good luck then, I suppose," he said, walking and sitting down next to the boy.

"Morning." Saijuuta turned to see Aizawa sensei, free of bandages. "Sensei! Good morning. Good to see you're healed up." Aizawa waved him off with a small nod. Apparently, Recovery Girl felt he'd demonstrated to them enough to take injuries seriously. Finally.

"Today we're getting right back to business. We have a special lesson on hero informatics." he paused, letting the class panic momentarily. "It's time to pick your hero names."

Saijuuta grimaced. Wonderful, cause this was something he was prepared for.

"This is related to the pro hero draft picks I mentioned the other day. The drafts really start in your second and third years, once you've gained experience. In other words, for them to extend offers to first years like you shows that they are interested in your future potential." Aizawa sounded like he'd memorized this part of the lesson. Or maybe he was just impatient to take a nap. "Here are the results."

Todoroki won, no surprise there, but wow there was a big margin. 'Bakugo got 3800, but I'm right behind him and I got 500? What's the gap?' "Midoriya, you got none! They were probably grossed out by the crazy way you were fighting!" Saijuuta turned to look at Mineta. "I stabbed a guy on live TV and I got 500 offers." Mineta quietly flipped him off.

Aizawa glared at him. "Yamahoshi, Mineta." Saijuuta shut up, wow this desk was interesting, would you look at that? Aizawa took a deep breath. "In any case, those without offers will be supplied one with UA's connections so you all can do your internships."

Midoriya raised his hand. "So all of us will be able to intern with someone?" Aizawa nodded as the class put together the dots. If they were going to actually work with pros in the field, they needed their hero names ready. "These names are probably temporary, but take this seriously." Saijuuta ducked as the door was shoved open. "Or you could be stuck with it for life!" Midnight said, sauntering into the room.

Eraserhead nodded. "Exactly. Considering that's what happened to me, Midnight will be judging if your names are acceptable in my place." Saijuuta nodded as Midnight launched into an explanation about how their names should match their image.

But what was his image? He stalled, holding the marker he was just handed. 'Initially I wanted to go for a no-nonsense hardass kind of image, but I can barely keep that up at school, let alone for civilians. And when I did act like that at the diner, it just screwed things up. I can do better than that... wait, maybe...'