MHA: A Cat’s Way

“Karma!”

“Overboard!”

“Vengeance!”

“Excessive force!”

“I used excessive force on your mom last night!”

“Kaminari! Inappropriate!”

“Revelry in the dark.”

Evidently, avoiding most of the others until class on Monday means that instead of them dealing with the fact I broke Shinso’s legs on their own, they felt the need to wait until we were all together. In class. Doesn’t make much sense to me, but it… is my business, actually. But I don’t particularly care, so why’s it such a big deal for the others?

Half the class thinks that I went overboard, while the other half thinks I was justified. Well, it’s more of a quarter that actually supports my decision to break his legs, but the others are at least of the mind that it’s not an unreasonable amount of damage. 

I’m not surprised that Iida is in the first half of the demographic, given he’s never liked me and is a stickler for the rules. Even if he somehow didn’t throw a fit over what I had my cats do, odds are pretty good he’d be lecturing me about how I skipped out on the ceremony afterwards. You’d think with his brother crippled he’d have other things on his mind, but I guess he’s latching onto familiarity in an attempt to take his mind off of it.

I wonder why he went after Ingenium though, from what the Cult has gathered on him, he’s actually a good hero. Outside of his usual target range.

Maybe I’ll send a cat to investigate, but it will really depend on where I end up interning. If it’s too far for me to show up myself, I probably won’t bother. No point if I can’t deal with him myself. Although…

My eyes drift to the speedster as he lectures Kaminari on what’s appropriate to say on school grounds. They focus not on his robotically chopping arms, or the movements of his mouth. No, what catches my interest are his eyes. Even while looking at the electric doofus in front of him, his eyes are distant. I know those eyes. They aren’t looking at his surroundings, at the now.

He’s looking at the future, at the vengeance he seeks. I smirk. It looks like he actually has some backbone~. But does he have the resolve to see it through?

“Yeah, I figured you’d find the debate funny.” Midorinya sighs beside me, his arms crossed while he leans back against the desk next to mine. “You could at least chime in, you know. It would at least quiet down some of them.”

I chuckle when I see Minya flick a glob of her acid at Sero, causing him to shout in surprise as he tries to wipe it off only to realize that it’s maxed on viscosity instead of having any actual acidity and he basically just smeared it all over himself. Meanwhile Tormew is poking people and acting like it was someone else, causing the ‘overboard’ group to start turning on themselves.

“Meow, where would be the fun inya that?” He just sighs in exasperation.

“Where’s Aizawa when you need him?”

As if his words are a summons, Aizawa walks through the door, glaring at the crowd of students who rapidly disperse and return to their seats. But as his gaze travels through the room I would swear that I feel a sense of hostility from him. It’s brief though, gone too fast for me to be sure whether or not it was just my imagination.

“We have a big class today on hero informatics.”

You can practically hear the panic of the less studious members of the class at his unusual word choice. For once, he only lets them panic for a moment before explaining. “You need code names. It’s time to pick your hero identities.”

Cheers erupt from the class, being silenced moments later after Aizawa uses his quirk to stare everyone down, immediately dropping into their seats and acting like perfect students. “This is related to the internships I mentioned back before the festival. Normally first years don’t get offers, but your class is different.” Going unsaid is the reason we’re different, everyone having banished Mineta from their memories in an effort to avoid thinking about their own mortality.

“Remember, by sending you offers now, pros are essentially investing in your potential. Any offers can be rescinded if their interest in you dies down before graduation. Here are the totals for those of you who got offers.”

Names and numbers appear after he clicks a button, with the top of the board having Three thousand five hundred, and my own under his at three thousand three hundred. I frown, not paying attention to the rest of the results. And I’m not the only one who notices the discrepancy.

“Shouldn’t Catia have gotten the most offers since she won?” Kirishima asks.

“Most of those are probably because of my father,” the dual-haired boy says with an air of annoyance. Understandable given that he’s probably right. He didn’t even make it to the semi-finals, after all. Or use his fire.

And his father looked pretty angry after our match based on what I saw of the video. His flames flared up, he held his fists in front of himself, and yelled ‘SHOTOOOO’ at the top of his lungs before going on a rant about how he isn’t allowed to lose after such a pathetic showing. It’s an incredibly meme-able moment, and there are plenty of gifs of it going around.

Honestly, I do agree that most of those offers for him are because of his father, but probably not for the reason he thinks they are.

A lawsuit of the number two hero for child abuse sounds like it would be interesting to follow. Unless the HPSC covers it up, which they probably will.

“Now, your hero names will likely be temporary, but they might form the basis of your career going forward. So take them seriously or-”

“You’ll have hell to pay later!” A sudden shout accompanies the door sliding open. “What you pick may end up your codename for life, so you better be careful or else you may end up with something utterly indecent.” Nyamuri says as she walks in with her arms behind her head and swinging her hips and chest exaggeratedly.

I’m not complaining, but how hasn’t she been fired yet?

After explaining how she’ll be the one to help us pick our names because Aizawa is apparently terrible at it, and how important they are, whiteboards and a marker are handed out. Meanwhile Aizawa takes a nap. But weirdly enough, I get another sense of hostility, though barely a wisp. It’s so weak that I probably wouldn’t have even been able to feel it if the one from earlier hadn’t happened. I can’t even tell where it came from this time!

I push it aside for now, if it happens more often then I’ll know I’m not imagining it. For now I need to think of a hero name. A hero name… Sure, I’ve thought of a few, but Hell Cat and something along the lines of my vigilante name aren’t particularly ‘hero-like’. And I do want it to be more than a pun name, even though it will still be a pun.

I decide to wait and see what the others pick for now. And what’s a bit more judgment coming from your peers~.

To little surprise on my end, Aoyama is the first to present. “The Shining Hero: I Cannot Stop Twinkling!”

“That’s a full on sentence, and sounds lick a medical condition, nya!” I’m not the only one who finds it ridiculous, but the others keep their objections to simple nods of agreement. Even Nyamuri is nodding! She takes the board from him and writes something else on it.

“Take out the ‘I’ and shorten ‘can not’ to can’t.” He agrees and I feel my tail twitch. The bar for hero names seems to be pretty low if that’s what she accepts…

Minya goes next. “Alien Queen.”

“A litteral villain! But also fitting, nya!” I object, but it really does fit with her quirk.

“That horrible monster with the acidic blood!? I don’t think so!”

How is that not ok!? Other than the obvious villain reference, of course. Does Nyamuri not like scary movies? Good to know~.

Following the two extremes is Tsu, taking the hero name ‘Froppy’. It fits her well, so I give her a thumbs up. With a normal one established, the others all come forth with their own hero names. Some of the most memorable are:

“Rock Hard Hero: Red Riot!”

“You’ll have to train your endurance a whole lot to not be called the soft hero~.”

“Captain Diabetes!”

“That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“Captain Hentai.”

“See me in my office after class and we’ll put that to the test!” He immediately changed it to Tentacole, making Midnight hide a snicker behind a pout.

“Pinky!” Cute~.

“Stealth Hero: Invisible Girl!” Can’t really think of anything else it could be.

Bakugou gets his rejected outright, and no one even bothers to wonder why. ‘King Explosion Murder’ doesn’t even sound like a villain name, much less a hero name! It’s basically the name a chuuni gives themselves! Even Tokoyami’s ‘Tsukuyomi’ is better, and he’s an edgelord!

Todoroki and Iida just use their names, and I perk up when I see Iida’s eyes flash as he explains that he has to earn his hero name. Finally Midorinya walks up, almost slamming the board down and glaring at the class as if to challenge his choice.

“The Quirkless Hero: Quirkless. The next time someone tells a quirkless kid they can’t become a hero, when they look it up I’ll be there to show them that they can.”

“Inspiring! It turns me on!”

TMI, Nyamuri. TMI.

Bakugou gets another four variations of ‘Murder Explosion’ rejected before she tells him to take some time to think about it. He returns to his seat with a vein pulsing on his forehead.

I’m the last one up, and it’s Midorinya’s choice that gives me the idea for mine.

“I’m Nya-Army. A furce unto itself~.”

“You’re more of a platoon, but I love the pun!”

I smirk back at Nyamuri, baring a fang and watching as a shiver seems to go down her spine.

“Oh, it’s not my current catabilities, but a promise fur the future~.”