"It's time to confer the medals! And the one who will present the medals is of course-"
"I AM HERE TO DISTRIBUTE THE MEDALS!"
"Our hero, All Might!"
…
A moment of awkward silence.
Then…
"Sorry, I talked over you" Midnight sensei apologized as he stared at her.
"Anyway, Let's begin the ceremony! Iida-shonen was unable to join us due to personal circumstances, so we will start off with the other person at 3rd place!"
Izuku had to hide a wince as he heard All Might's booming voice from practically right in front of him. He should have been used to it by now, what with the fact that they'd met up every day for almost a year, but maybe all the blasts from his earlier two battles had taken a toll on his hearing.
"Todoroki my boy, congratulations. I'm sure you had your reasons for supressing your fire side, right?"
Izuku couldn't hear Todoroki's words from where he was, but didn't pry as he saw All Might hug the boy and give him some words of encouragement or something.
"Now then, Bakugou-shonen! I must admit, I am surprised to see you this calm!"
"I gave my 100%. If I lost after that, it just means there's more shit I have to work on."
He said the words, but his expression said the opposite.
"…Right. Well, that is a great attitude to have Bakugou-shonen! Take this medal now, and grab the gold next year!"
Katsuki didn't resist All Might putting the medal, or the hug. His face when he glanced at the silver medal wasn't exactly reassuring though.
"And now, for the Victor of today's event! Midoriya-shounen, you truly went beyond today didn't you!?"
"I did what I was asked to do." Izuku said with a smirk.
At All Might's quirked eyebrow, Izuku leaned in and whispered to his mentor.
"I showed the world that I was here, just like you said."
His mentor's eyes widened before a booming laughter escaped him.
"That you did, my boy. Truly, exceptional work today."
With that, he put on Izuku's gold medal and gave him a hug before turning around with a flourish.
"And there you have it! This year, it's these three! However, heed these words, folks! There was a possibility for any of you in the arena to stand here! Just as you saw with your own eyes, they compete with each other, and go to greater heights! And to that sentiment I'll add one final thing! Everybody say it with me now!"
"PLUS ULTRA!!!!!!"
"Thank you for all your hard work today!"
…
"ALL MIGHT, THAT WAS OBVIOUSLY THE TIME TO SAY PLUS ULTRA!"
"But…everyone worked so hard today…"
"Hey, isn't that Izuku Midoriya!?"
"For real, where!?"
"That hair…it really is him!"
Izuku was not prepared for this.
He got on the train like normal, and checked his messages on the phone like normal.
And then people randomly swarmed him, showering him with complements, both about his quirk and his fights.
"You were so cool man!"
"Your shorter than I thought you would be."
He did have to remind himself that cutting up a train to run to school would be un-heroic a couple of times.
"What are you doing walking so leisurely!?"
Izuku jumped a little as he saw Iida sprint past him in boots and a raincoat.
"We've still got 5 minutes." Izuku called out behind his friend as he started sprinting behind him.
"The baseline for those in UA should be 10 minutes early!" Iida declared, matching his pace with Izuku to run beside him.
"If you're worried about my brother, you don't need to be." Iida said as he took of the raincoat's hood.
"The one I'm worried about is you." Izuku said, closing his umbrella " I know very well that seeing someone you admired so much in that kind of a state hurts more than you can put into words."
He pat Iida on the shoulder before moving past "No matter what, know that me and the guys from 1A have your back."
He wished he had turned back, because the expression on his friend's face wasn't one that a hero should have.
"You'll be coming up with your Hero names today."
"HELL YEAHHH"
"This is related to the internships I mentioned the other day." Aizawa sensei continued like no one had said anything "the work you'll be doing is an expression of interest in your future professional. It's not rare that interest dry up by graduation, so make sure to show off what you can do."
"now then, the tally of nominations is as follows."
Todoroki ------------------------------------4,123
Midoriya------------------------------------3,876
Bakugou------------------------------------3,556
Yaoyorozu----------------------------------498
Iida------------------------------------------306
Tokoyami-----------------------------------301
Kirishima-----------------------------------68
Uraraka-------------------------------------28
Sero-----------------------------------------16
"Normally it'd have been more balanced, but this year the attention leaned heavily towards three of you."
"Hey, how come Todoroki has more than Midoriya? Isn't the order reversed?"
"A lot of those must be because of my dad…" Todoroki said.
"Regardless of whether you got nominated, you'll be getting experience, so don't worry about that. For that, you'll be picking out codenames. You can choose temporary names, but you should be careful, because if you pick something strange then…"
"There'll be hell to pay later!"
The class turned together to see Midnight-sensei walk in.
"The names you come up with today might end up being the name the world will know you as! So, I'm here to make sure no one ends up with something weird."
Izuku clapped with the rest of his classmates as Kirishima sat down after showing off 'Red Riot' as his name.
"Midoriya, have you finished yours yet?"
Izuku blinked at sensei's question, before standing up to show off his name to his friends.
"The Light Hero: Beacon. I came up with the name when I was younger, so this was easy."
"Good! Simple name, and a great tagline! All right, next is Bakugou!"
"The Explosion God : Dynamight."
"Well Dynamight is good, but maybe use Explosion Hero instead of Explosion God? God is just… a big word to use you know?" Midnight-sensei gave her feedback.
"What about King then?" Katsuki said with a scowl as he changed his board.
"Sure! Sounds good!"
Eventually, Todoroki stepped up to show his.
"My brother suggested this. The temperature hero: Frozen fire."
"Todoroki, can you actually freeze fire?" Midnight questioned.
"No, I cannot."
"Then I don't think that'll work. That name might be a bit misleading you know."
"Understood."
Todoroki bowed, before moving to the side for Iida to show his name.
"I'll…just use 'Tenya' for now" Iida said in a low voice as he glanced at his own board, like he wasn't sure about it.
"Midoriya."
Izuku jumped a bit in his seat, and turned to see Todoroki standing beside him.
"The name I had picked out wasn't accepted, and I can't think of using anything but my given name, so I came to ask for help.
Momo, who had been talking about something with Jiro, paused as her friend suddenly looked at Midoriya.
"Todoroki is asking Midoriya and Bakugou for hero name suggestions."
"Jiro-san! Eavesdropping on others is not alright!"
"Yeah alright" her friend shrugged it off "Now that we know though, why not join in and help the poor guy out before they name him something stupid?"
Ignoring Momo's disapproving gaze, Jirou moved to stand on the other side of Izuku's table.
"Just use Icyhot." Katsuki argued with Izuku as the trio of 1A's strongest tried to find a good hero name for Todoroki. "it has both his powers, and its short."
"Yeah but you use it as an insult every time" Izuku pointed out "using an insult for a hero name is just dumb."
"You're dumb."
"And you've got the brain of a child."
"We are all children." Todoroki commented quietly.
Katsuki, who had been about to fire out another insult to Izuku, faltered at that.
"…you should change your name into 'the dense hero'."
Todoroki frowned in confusion.
"My quirk has no relation to density."
"It was a joke, Todoroki."
The trio looked up to see Momo and Jirou take a step towards them.
"How about Frostfire man?" Jiro suggested.
"I think the 'man' makes it sound dumb" Katsuki said with a snort.
"still better than icyhot."
"What did you say ears!? Your hero name is just your quirk's name, so don't get too cocky!"
While Jirou and Katsuki continued bickering, Momo joined Izuku and Todoroki's pondering.
"the Temperature hero: Crimson Frost."
"Great name!"
"I AM HERE! IN A STRANGE POSE!"
1A was so used to this by now that they just glanced at the door for a second before returning to their conversations.
Izuku, who had been about to open the door, looked down at his mentor with mild amusement.
"What's up, All Might-sensei?"
"Come out here for a second. I want to talk to you about one of your offers."
All Might's shuddering immediately let Izuku know what was coming.
"NO WAY! I'M NOT GOING TO HIM!"
All Might nodded sympathetically.
"I understand your pain, but I don't think anyone else knows as much about one for all as Gran Torino…"
"No, there is."
All Might blinked.
Izuku pointed straight at his mentor.
"You're here."
His mentor looked at him for a second with an unreadable expression, before gently shaking his head.
"I understand that you want to train more with me as my successor, but I'm afraid we can't do that. My time in my muscle form is all being used up in my day-to-day classes, so I wouldn't be able to really train you anyway."
Izuku nodded, before bringing up his own points.
"Big or small, you're still All Might. What I'm after isn't someone who punches like me. I need someone who can teach me about being the number one. There's only one of those, sensei."
His mentor looked at him quietly, searching for something.
He must have found what he was looking for, because he sighed and nodded.
"I'll call Torino sensei for handling the practical portion. You must understand though, that you won't get much benefit from juggling two teachers, especially when one of them is as intense as him."
Izuku nodded.
"that's what I'm gonna need. The sports festival showed me that I've got too arrogant."
All Might nodded.
"Your battle against Bakugou-shonen eh? So you think getting beat up for a week will help you lose that?"
Izuku chuckled.
"It's not like I just wanna get hit, sensei. If I just wanted people stronger than me I could have gone to Endeavour or Edgeshot, since they both sent invites as well. I came to you because I'm your successor."
"I…I've been neglecting my duty as your mentor haven't I? I'll make sure to take you out on patrol with me at least once Midoriya-shonen. This, I promise you."