For those of you who guessed at why Naoko took off her shoe during the battle with Todoroki, there were some really close answers that may not have been correct, but certainly were smart! The ones who got it right on Wattpad were thestewisStu and scottadam862. Over on Quotev, Panturderkaticron or Burritos are awesome, FaNgAsEm,nemurikayama or m i d n i g h t, and bengalcatz7 or Blep.

Eventually, I want her to be able to sense vibrations like Toph in Avatar the Last Airbender, but for now, she hasn't put any effort into developing that talent. The reason she threw her shoe at Todoroki is that she is an overdramatic bitch... And also because her quirk requires skin contact with the ground or else she'll melt whatever's between her and her target. Her hero costume has special features that allow her to work around that and she is better at controlling her quirk with her hand, but for that instance, she needed to take off her shoe to properly battle Todoroki.

If anyone wants a full writeup on her quirk and her costume, let me know, I've written (and drawn) one for reference and I can post it whenever!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hospital Visit

Todoroki Rei and Naoko sat across from each other in the hospital room, a sense of familiarity lingering between them as they chatted amicably. Hasame had been there until recently, talking about the sports festival and everything that had happened. 

Both women were horrified at what Naoko had said to Endeavor, though there was a small hint of a smile edging Hasame's lips. She would never admit it, but she hated Endeavor almost as much as Naoko did. Rei was family to the two of them, the only family the both of them had left; in some sense, Hasame was the older sister, while Rei was the mother, so it was understandable that both Fujimura's would be incredibly protective of Rei.

Once Hasame had left, the conversation changed, going instead to talking about Naoko's mental health and her son's progress in school. They were diverse topics, but somehow they made perfect sense the longer the two spoke. Naoko at one point even removed her sweatbands to give the still healing cuts some fresh air.

 As far as days went, this was pretty much near perfect, there was nothing for Naoko to feel guilty about for the first time in many years, and she was able to just spend time relaxing with Rei, who was smiling genuinely. The shadows that lingered in both of their eyes were able to be pushed to the background for a scant few hours, which was a major blessing in and of itself.

If there was anything that heaven was supposed to feel like, then perhaps this was it.

The hours passed quickly until noon, when Naoko prepared to go get lunch for the two of them, "Shut up Rei-sama," She muttered avoiding the all-knowing gaze of her mother figure, "You know that nothing was going on with Shinso, we worked together well, that's all."

The woman's rich laughter echoed through the room as Naoko stared down at her, only the smallest hint of a blush tinting her cheeks, "You say that, but I have never heard you speak this warmly towards anyone else."

Naoko fiddled nervously with her wallet as she finally looked away from Rei, "That's... That's because he treated me normally... He didn't ask questions about my obvious issues and he treated me like a normal member of the team... That's all, I promise."

It was quite apparent to Rei that Naoko had meant what she said, so she simply tilted the girl's head back to her as she leaned forward and touched forehead's with Naoko, "I know, I know. Don't put so much thought into it Naoko, I was proud of you."

At that moment the happy atmosphere of the room was broken by the door sliding open. Rei tilted her head slightly to look at who had come in with a soft smile on her face; it was about the time that the nurses usually came to check in on her, but who she saw there wasn't a nurse. Rei froze completely as her eyes met a pair of heterochromatic ones, who seemed to be equally shocked.

It only took a moment for Naoko to realize that something was off and she pulled away from Rei enough to see what had caught her attention, "Todoroki?" Naoko's voice caught in her throat as she looked between his shocked gaze, the flowers in his hands, and Rei, who looked to be on the edge of tears., "I'm so sorry!" She yelped, jumping from her seat, "It looks like I'm interrupting here! I'm... I'm going to go get... something... I'm going to go get... Lunch! Yeah, that's what I'm going to get!" 

With that, Naoko barrelled past Todoroki and out of the room with a loud, "I'll be back in an hour or two!" Called over her shoulder as Todoroki stared at her back with even more shock than was there before.

"Interrupting? Shouldn't that have been my line?" He inquired to the now empty hallway.

A soft voice from the room immediately forced his attention away from the enigma that was his classmate and back to the reason he came in the first place, "Shouto, is, is that you?" 

It took a deep breath and several more seconds of composing himself (it's not like he was standing outside the hospital for a good hour before he even tried to enter), Shouto turned back to the mother he hadn't seen in years, "Hello Mother."

***

Naoko leaned against an alleyway wall as she allowed her breathing to return to normal, of all the things she had expected to happen today, this was certainly far down of the list... Not that she was complaining that her time with Rei had been cut a bit short. A grin curved on Naoko's face as she realized that not only had she just witnessed something happening that she had been hoping for, for three years now, but also the fact that this could be the start of Endeavor could be losing his sway over the Todoroki family with this move.

With that happy thought, Naoko pushed off the wall and sauntered down the street, she had promised Rei that she would buy them both lunch, it shouldn't be too much more to buy a classmate lunch as well...

 Hero Names

A harsh poke to the back of Naoko's head caused her to jerk up in her desk as she shot her quirk out instinctively. Aizawa's capture weapon had been a pain in her neck, literally, for the entire day today. Every time she almost managed to fall asleep, she received a sharp poke, forcing her to try and pay attention once more.

"I swear, poke me again and I will melt that wad of toilet paper." She growled out, ignoring the eyes of her classmates, all of whom were looking between the teacher and the student in amusement. On any given day, these two were amusing to watch, but since Eraserhead had gotten his bandages removed they had practically doubled how much they went back and forth.

"Go ahead and try," Aizawa said calmly, his eyes showing no interest in the entire situation. Technically class was almost over and Aizawa had finished all his housekeeping, but he seemed determined to keep the quiet girl on her toes.

Naoko leaned back in her seat as she watched him with an equally unimpressed look, "Your bandages may be off but somehow you've gotten harder to read, it really makes sense that I don't even try to pay attention anymore."

The class as a whole looked over to Aizawa, the ball was in his court, they may not have entirely understood what Naoko meant by her comment, but they saw her challenge well enough.

Somehow the yellow sleeping bag ended up in Aizawa's arms as he prepared to get into his favorite outfit, "Perhaps if you devoted half of the energy into school as you did to your comebacks you might not be failing so miserably."

Jaws dropped all around at that. To think that Naoko, a girl they had all assumed to be one of the smartest girls in the class, was actually failing was a slap in the face. Iida stood from his chair, preparing to intervene but he was quickly cut off by the monotonous girl.

"Well aren't you quippy," Naoko drawled, "Though I'm only failing when you're my teacher, Present Mic loves me and unless I'm mistaken I hold the number seven position in this class overall, which is far from failing miserably."

"Present Mic doesn't love you, he's terrified of you, there's a difference," Aizawa shot back a scowl painting his face, "And to fail in a single class shows a greater weakness than to fail in many classes, it shows an active desire to ignore one single person or subject, which is the hight of foolishness. If you want to succeed even slightly then I would suggest you force yourself to pay better attention."

At this point, the class truly was watching this like a tennis match, their heads bobbed back and forth between the two parties, even as a slight sense of fear filled them. It was like watching a slow-motion car wreck, terrifying yet absolutely entrancing. 

"Are you sure you want me to pay attention?" There was a threat lingering in Naoko's tone, which horrified the class president, who seemed to have lost all color as his arm remained frozen in a chopping motion

Thankfully, World War Three was prevented from happening by the door slamming open and Midnight walking in dramatically, "And those who fail to meet my standards will be punished." The woman practically crooned as she winked at the class, completely unaware of the threatening aura.

Silence followed her out of context pronouncement, which led to her looking around in confusion... Though that quickly turned to embarrassment as she brought her whip up to cover her face, "Eraser, I told you to lead me in! That whole entrance was ruined!" The tired teacher shot Naoko one last glare, warning her to not do anything she would regret later.

As he turned away, the entire class breathed out collectively, though they couldn't help but wonder just what Naoko was threatening Eraserhead with... It seemed intense, whatever it was.

Before they could even blink, Aizawa was in his sleeping bag as he stood at the front of the class, "Yes, yes, today we're deciding your hero names, these can always be changed later, but it's likely that these will be kept. Be careful or you could be known for the rest of your life as something stupid." An arrow seemed to point to Aizawa as he slumped to the floor, "Midnight here will make sure your names are appropriate."

The R Rated Hero nodded sulkily as she began to pass out whiteboards, but Naoko wasn't paying attention to that, as soon as she read what Aizawa had said she froze. Hero names? Sure, she knew that eventually, she would need to come up with this, but she had put literally no thought into it.

Her mind was racing as she grabbed the board and watched it blankly, hoping that the words would just appear on the board if she stared at it hard enough...

Perhaps she could do something cool in another language... Maybe... State of Matter, but in a different language or something?"

No, that would sound stupid, besides, she had to know how to pronounce it, otherwise, she would look like an idiot whenever she said her name. In fact, she should probably just cut out any other language.

Naoko's breathing began to pick up as she continued to stare at the board hopelessly. Some children thought about what their hero name would be from the time they were small, when Naoko was small she was thinking about how to put her barbies through hell and what she wanted to cross stitch on her mom's pillowcase before she got caught. 

Well, Naoko wanted to be a rescue hero primarily, so maybe she could base her name off other rescue heroes... Though the only rescue hero that Naoko was really aware of was 13, and it's not like she could base her name off of that. What would her catchphrase even be, 'Don't worry citizen, 12 is here to save the day!' That sounded terrible and Naoko didn't want to deal with all the number jokes that would come along with that.

Perhaps she could do a play off the fact that she was deaf... No, that would be way too obvious. The only feature she had that she could make a play off of was her mangled ears, so she couldn't exactly go the Gang Orca route since that was a feature she really preferred not to accentuate.

A body jostled her desk, which forced Naoko to look up, apparently, they were already reading off their hero names, Asui was standing in front of the class at the moment, with her whiteboard that read, 'Rainy Season's hero: Froppy.' Naoko blanched slightly, that was absolutely adorable... While it fit the sweet frog girl, Naoko highly doubted that she could pull off such a sweet sounding name.

More great names followed that just had Naoko dropping her head to land heavily on her desk in despair. She really didn't care if people knew her name as a hero, that wasn't why she came, she would much rather be unnoticed, helping out from behind the scenes before disappearing without notice.

Rhythmically, Naoko's head lifted and dropped over and over on the desk, drawing concerned looks from her peers. There were so many words out that that the idea of grabbing one or two of them and adding her identity was so weird. 

Naoko looked up long enough to see Bakugou at the front of the room with a ticked off look on her face and a board that had Naoko snorting, 'Lord Explosion Murder.' It was something that made so much sense that she simply couldn't stop the chuckle.

Bakugou glared at her, "What the hell are you laughing at, idiot?"

"Oh, nothing," A happily sadistic grin covered Naoko's face, "I'm just glad that it was you to get the award for the most stupid name chosen, and not me."

Miniature explosions erupted from Bakugou's palms as he yelled angrily, "What was that, you bitch?! I'll kill you!"

The only response Naoko gave was an eyebrow raised in amusement as she looked back down to her whiteboard still unsure, but certainly less panicky.

Maybe she could do something that would pay homage to her parents, as that whole event was the reason she wanted to become a hero in the first place... It would be sad, but perhaps she could...

A heavy sigh escaped her as she solemnly wrote down a few words and looked up, noticing that everyone was looking at her, "Is it my turn?" She asked, receiving only nods as her classmates looked at her shocked. Of all the things they were expecting, a sudden and dramatic mood change from the class enigma was not one of them.

She didn't want to do this, but at this point, there was no backing out, her feet moved reluctantly to the front of the room as she bit her tongue, trying to stop the whimper that wanted to break free. "The Scarred hero," She said, her voice wavering, "Hodoreo."(It's okay if you don't know the meaning of this name, it is a mixture of her mother's and father's name, Hodori and Reo)

***

It took a few minutes, but partway through Present Mic's class, a yell made everyone jump and the voice hero let out a scream that shattered the windows. After being showered with glass, the class descended into madness with some running to grab supplies to clean up the mess, and a few needed to run to Recovery Girl's office because of slight lacerations they had received.

The cause of it all was staring at Todoroki Shoto in horror as she took in the terrible sight that faced her.

"I could have just used my name?!"

Choosing the Internship

"Normally there is a wider spread of drafts, especially in first years, but this time many of our students stood out, and as such, there is a dramatic gap." Aizawa, once again stood at the front of the class as he did every other day, which meant that he had only reluctantly left behind the yellow sleeping bag. 

As he stepped aside to show the numbers of draft offers, several members of the class gasped, which was certainly to be expected. The first two names on the list, Todoroki and Bakugou, had several thousand offers next to their names, while the next three only had several hundred. Everyone scanned the list for their name hopefully, but unsurprisingly, only those who had progressed on to the third round received drafts.

Ochako, who had temporarily switched seats with someone leaned over to Naoko, who was staring at the board in disinterest and nudged her side, "Hey, we both got drafts! Isn't that awesome?"

That perked Naoko's interest, she had only given the board a cursory glance until that point, but when Ochako pointed that out, she immediately looked closer and sure enough, her name was right under Yaoyorozu, a big 98 had been printed out... As it sunk in that people were actually interested in Naoko, her eyes grew wide in horror. 

"Why would they want me?" She asked anyone who cared to listen, "I walked out of the third event and showed no desire to be there at all?! Why the hell would anyone want me to work with them?" 

Ochako found herself in the odd position of consoling Naoko for something that the majority of class members would see as a good thing, "There, there?" She said awkwardly as she patted Naoko's back.

Only a moment later, Ochako was relieved of her burden by an explosive blonde, who grabbed the back of Naoko's uniform and pulled her to face him, "Why the hell are you giving me this whole self-pity shit? You've got people who want to take you on, be fucking proud that someone is willing to deal with your know-it-all ass!"

It was always weird for the class to see Bakugou's semi-kind side, it was obvious he was paying her something that resembled a compliment, yet he seemed to be incapable of saying it in a way that was actually nice. 

Several of the more observant in the classroom, mainly Izuku who had known Bakugou since they were children, couldn't help but notice that the way he spoke to Naoko was more controlled, almost as though he was making an effort to control his tone. This was something that had never really happened before and it took everyone who noticed it back.

Bakugou noticed the attention he had been given and turned to snarl at the onlookers before dropping Naoko back in her seat harshly before sitting down in his, throwing his legs on top of it, and looking for all the world like a child pouting.

This continued until the end of class, when he cornered Naoko and stole the stack of papers that she was given by Aizawa, "Let's see what loser heroes thought you would be a good sidekick."

Naoko stared at him with a cocked eyebrow, as she folded her arms and glared at him, he had been prissy all day and she was sick of it, "Don't you have your own drafts to look through? I thought that you had to go over a lot..." She really was trying to gently hint for him to go away which was probably a bad idea, as Bakugou was about as subtle as a jackhammer.

True to form, he ignored her completely and continued flipping through, muttering little words like, "Idiots," and other derogatory terms as he saw each agency.

"I don't think you understood," She snapped, loosing her patience completely, "Look through your own crap and leave mine alone or I'm going to drop you through the floor."

Unfortunately, it seemed as though Bakugou had found an adequate reason to ignore her again as he pulled another sheet out of the pile, "What the fuck? How did you get a draft from him?!" Just by his facial expression, Naoko could tell that he was pissed, but so was she.

She reached out and snagged the paper from his hand before shooting a venomous glare, "Give me the rest now." She demanded, brandishing  her hand at Bakugou, staring him down. After a moment he growled and shoved the papers into her waiting hand before stalking away.

Finally, she looked down at what had Bakugou so irritated... Wait, what? As soon as she saw the hero name posted at the top, Naoko froze, completely unsure as to what she was looking at... He had to realize that she was the one who humiliated him at the Sports Festival, and didn't he only recruit the best of the best? 

Why did Endeavor draft her of all people?

A hand dropped on her shoulder, which pulled her out of her head suddenly, causing her to jump about a foot in the air. Naoko spun around as the pile of papers she had been holding spilled from her grip, a concerned Todoroki watching her as he narrowed his eyes, "Are you alright, Fujimura-san?" He asked before bending down to start picking up the papers she dropped.

From what Naoko could tell, he continued talking, but she couldn't read it, so she just bent down and helped him pick then up, staring at the ground as she tried to work through this new information.

Either Endeavor had sent out that draft by accident or he had been impressed by her for some obscure reason. His sheet was still gripped safely in her hand, but that was only temporary, Naoko already knew that by the end of the day it would be pinned to her wall with a several darts in it. 

Todoroki stood as the last paper was picked up and offered his hand to her, "Did I see that right, Fujimura-san? Did you receive a draft from my father?"

Naoko's jaw tightened reflexively, "Yes, do you know why that would be Todoroki? Personally, I think I did a pretty bad job of presenting myself to him, don't you think?"

A slight smile tugged at Todoroki's mouth as he nodded before he ran a hand through his hair, "Will you take it? Despite your personal feelings about him, he is the number two hero, you'd be a fool to turn his offer down."

Once again he misread her entirely, as Naoko shook her head as a humorless chuckle escaped her, "Well then, I guess you can call me a fool, I would rather deal with the League of Villains alone then accept his invitation that is probably rigged." 

With that, Naoko grabbed the papers from Todoroki before walking away, she had agencies to look into and darts to throw.