Festival over, the sun dawned on another regular day at UA high. Shining through the window, it landed on a ruffled, messy head of (h/c) hair.
Face-down on the table and feeling like death, the 'famous' hero in training (Y/N) (L/N) was already having a bad time.
"Today we have a special Hero informatics class." Aizawa, as cheerful and exited as usual, announced from his desk as everyone internally panicked.
Barely awake, (Y/N) sighed and slumped further over her desk. After a sleepless night, mainly thanks to her arm absolutely killing her, she'd burst into class about 30 seconds before Aizawa and slammed down in her seat. Wonder what we're doing today? Maybe there'll be a UA battle royale. At this point nothing would surprise me.
"You'll be choosing your hero names."
Thank god, nobody's going to die.
She half-listened as Aizawa announced the amount of internship offers the class had, with Todoroki and Bakugou coming in the top spot, predictably.
"...This year our top three stole the spotlight. There's usually more of a spread."
Yeah, because normal classes don't have three or four edgy anime protagonist kids. Just the usual zero. God help us.
After Midnight arrived, (Y/N) found herself staring at a blank piece of paper with raw fear in her eyes. After all, if she messed this up she'd probably get stuck with the name, knowing her luck.
What's a cool plant related name? Poison ivy is already a thing.. Venus? That's way too girly...
Feeling somebody poke her shoulder, she turned to see Kaminari smirk at her. "(L/N), I have the perfect name for you."
"I swear to god if this is something stupid-"
"Funguy. Get it? Because-"
"Oh my god. When is the last time I even grew a mushroom, you dense motherfucker?" She deadpanned, trying to hold back laughter as Kaminari gave a dramatic fake gasp.
"Oof. My feelings.."
"Time's up! Who wants to go first?" Midnight announced with an evil smile. Oh, great. Glaring at Kaminari with all the fury in her bitter soul, the girl turned back to her paper and scribbled down the first thing that flew into her head in panic. Am I just destined to have really bad luck? Considering what's happened so far, probably.
After a few of the worst and funniest hero names she'd heard in her life (Imagine being saved by a guy called Can't Stop Twinkling, or Lord Explosion Murder? You'd die laughing before the villains could even hurt you) it was finally her turn.
Walking nervously to the front of the room, (Y/N) grinned and spun her card around to reveal the words 'The greenhouse hero: Overgrowth' in horrible handwriting on the front.
This is it. Bad luck or good luck, I guess I'm Overgrowth now. One day, that'll be a hero's name!
"...(L/N), nobody can read that."
"Dammit."
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A few minutes passed, and the class was lazing about and chatting, mostly trying to figure out who they were going to intern with. Unfortunately, (Y/N)'s list of heroes may as well have been written in a foreign language.
400 recommendations is pretty good, considering I covered the arena in multicoloured vomit. It's a shame I know about 3 of their names.
To be honest, she wasn't a massive hero nerd like Izuku- there were only a handful of heroes she actually liked, and none of them were written on the paper in front of her.
With a sigh, she collapsed over her desk, deciding to just die instead of dealing with her problems.
"...(L/N), I need your advice about something."
Peeling her head off the desk for the second time that day, (Y/N) saw Yaoyorozu standing nervously in front of her, and grinned lazily.
"What's up?" The girl stretched and rested her head on her hands as her friend put her list of recommendations on the table in front of her.
"I can't decide which hero to intern with.. I really don't recognise most of these names." Yaoyorozu admitted awkwardly, causing the girl to snort with amusement.
"Dude, same. I think I know two of these people, and that's only because I dislike them.." Sighing, (Y/N) leaned over to read the list. "Hey, you have to eat to use your quirk, right? Why not go with Fatgum?" I'm lucky that at least some of the stuff Izuku told me about heroes stuck in my head. It's a shame none of it was about the people on my list, though.
"That's.. actually a very good point. Thanks, (L/N)!" Leaning over to pick up her paper again, Yaoyorozu glanced at (Y/N)'s. "Who are you going to choose?"
"I've got no idea. These people are literally all strangers or assholes.."
"What about the names on the back?"
"The what?" As Yaoyorozu laughed and made her way back to her desk, (Y/N) facepalmed. I'm such an idiot. I thought the sheets were one-sided..
Turning her sheet over in confusion, the girl saw 5 names written on the other side that she'd missed. Scanning over them, her blood turned to ice and she gasped slightly. That can't be right..
Written on the paper was the name 'Chrysalis'.
It's... been a while. We've not seen each other since..
Hands shaking, she circled the name and sat back in her seat, trying to get her heartbeat back to normal. I'll see you soon, Harumi. I guess...
This was going to be a strange week.
-
Later that night, when she was feeling much less shaken, the girl had a crisis when she suddenly realised she couldn't wear any of her shitty meme shirts to the internship. Turning up on the doorstep wearing a t-shirt that said 'I'm a Roblox youtuber' was probably a bad idea, so she texted her most trusty friend for help.
(y/n)
izuku I have nothing to wear to my internship blease help me
izuku :00
im probably not the best person to ask, I only wear all might merchandise
(y/n)
p e r f e c t
izuku :00
wait no (y/n) I didn't mean you should do that too
(y/n) answer me im worried
(y/n)!! that's bad advice!!
The next morning, (Y/N) showed up on the train platform wearing an ancient All might t-shirt and jeans, her costume and spare clothes in a plastic bag by her side. Running to catch up with the rest of the class, everybody piled onto the train noisily and started chatting.
Fighting through the crowd using her elbows as knives, (Y/N) collapsed on a seat next to Uraraka with a dramatic wheeze, and they spent the journey chatting about random subjects ("Could Megashark beat Godzilla?") as her classmates slowly began to disappear off to their agencies. Eventually, after a few stops, Uraraka said goodbye and good luck and left (Y/N) by herself.
Actually, not by herself. Todoroki was awkwardly sitting across the aisle from her, the usual neutral expression on his face.
With nobody to distract her, the girl was forced to think about her problems instead of shoving them away. I'm going to an internship with somebody I haven't seen in years, and the only person left on the train hates me, I think? Why is this so complicated...
(Y/N) wasn't exactly sure what was going on with Todoroki. He'd been avoiding her, so she avoided him, and neither of them seemed to know what to do to stop it being so damn awkward and obvious. I could apologise, but he might be angry. Nope! I'll keep my feelings right here, and then one day I'll die.
I wonder where he's going, though.
The train ground to a halt at Hosu, and she sprang up from her seat and hurried onto the platform, muttering under her breath as she tried to remember the directions to Chrysalis's agency. Take two left turns and a right.. or another left? I can't be late..
So far, (Y/N)'s life experience had just been one big run of bad luck, so she wasn't surprised when she glanced over to see Todoroki walking next to her. Awkwardly avoiding eye contact, the two of them wandered together for a few minutes as she tried desperately to figure out if she was going in the right direction. God, you're a pussy. Just ask him where he's going. Try to make conversation. It can't possibly be more awkward than this.
With a sigh of defeat, she turned to Todoroki. "Hey, where-"
"I'm sorry."
Caught off guard, the girl couldn't think of anything better to say than "You're what?" I love having no social skills. It makes my life so much easier.
"I was wrong about you. I shouldn't have judged you, and I let it go too far. You got hurt because of me."
"Whoah, no I didn't. I got hurt because I was being stubborn. You were right, there's no way I could have won that fight... Guess I just wanted to prove you wrong, but you kicked my ass, so that kind of backfired." Letting out a nervous laugh, (Y/N) twirled some hair around her finger absent-mindedly. "Sorry if I made you feel guilty, I just thought you probably wouldn't want to talk about it."
It was Todoroki's turn to be confused. The two walked in silence for a while, until (Y/N) spoke up again, feeling slightly braver this time. "Hey, y'know, if you ever change your mind about the whole 'no friends' thing, I think you're really cool."
"I already did change my mind." He gave a small smile, which the girl returned with one of her signature huge grins.
"Sweet! Now... do you have any idea where we are? Because I'm pretty sure we've been past this house three times already."
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A/N: Ooooo mysterious! Sorry for not updating in a million years, I'm back at school so I've literally got no time to write ;-; if this doesn't make a lot of sense or there's lots of typos im sorry in advance! I just wanted to get a chapter out tbh.
I'm really exited to write this arc though! Time for y/n's not very exiting backstory! woo!