Chapter 27 - Hero Name

The next day school was once again in session. As Hiroto was making his way towards his school on the train, a lot of people recognized him again.

"Hey, you're Moriyama from the Heroics department, right?"

"Hiroto Moriyama? Wait, you're the winner for the U.A. Sports Festival of the freshman category!"

"Ah! Can you please take a picture with me? My kids would go crazy if they knew I met the winner of the U.A. Sports Festival!"

"Hey, buŧŧ out! I was going to go first!"

"That was some stellar performance, kid! Reminds me of my old days…"

"It really is so shiny up close…"

The people started to crowd around him, taking pictures and videos of him. Someone even tried to touch his head, causing him to have to jump out of the moving train and run towards the school in the rain.

Although many people tried to take videos and pictures of him, he moved too fast for the cameras for them to take a clear shot, only showing a blur.

He saw some people from his class who were talking to each other about how they were recognized from the U.A. Sports Festival, even if they didn't get to the top 3.

"Ah, Hiroto!" Eijiro called out to Hiroto who was behind him as they entered the building. "Man, it's been crazy this morning, hasn't it? I bet you got mobbed the moment they recognized who you were."

Hiroto nodded and said, "It was bothering me at first, but I just learnt a trick to dealing with them."

"Oh? And what's that?" Eijiro asked.

"A tactical withdrawel." Hiroto said, narrowing his eyes, while Eijiro merely blinked. Todoroki, who was coincidentally behind the two had his eyes wide open as he quickly took out a notebook and wrote something down in it, nodding to himself.

"Well, did you do anything over the break? The rest of us were probably just recovering from the sports festival, but I'm guessing you didn't need the rest, right?" Eijiro asked him.

Hiroto shrugged, "Nothing special really happened. I went out to buy something but someone got in the way. Needless to say I won't be seeing him again."

Entering the class, everyone was also in heated discussion about how they were recognized during their commute to school.

"Ah, Hiroto! I bet that you got swarmed on your way to school, right? Since you're the winner of the festival afterall!" Mina said, waving towards him as he sat down in his seat.

"You do know I'm here too, right?" Eijiro said with a wry smile as he took his own seat.

"Yeah, but you didn't win, did you?" Kaminari said with a sly grin.

Eijrio frowned and fished out his phone, playing a video clip of Kaminari's match against Hiroto. The sound then played out, "Please be gentle…"

"Please be gentle… Please be gentle…"

"NOO!!!! Delete that!! Get rid of it!!" Kaminari cried out, rushing over to take Eijiro's phone, who stuffed it back into his pocket.

"Ha! Like I would ever do that! This is all over the internet already, you became famous for all the wrong reasons! Hahaha!" Eijiro held his stomach as he laughed alongside some other students.

Momo approached Mina and Hiroto, turning to Hiroto as she stuttered, "H-Hiroto. D-Do you have time this w-weeken-"

"All right, settle down everyone and take your seats," Aizawa said as he entered the classroom, with everyone immediately returning to their seats as though nothing happened, the same with Momo who practically disappeared and reappeared at her own seat at the opposite side of the class, sweating with a red face.

Next to Hiroto, Mina narrowed her eyes at Momo but didn't say anything, even if she wanted to tease her, something told her that she should approach it differently.

Aizawa rubbed the corner of his eyes as he said, "All right, today's Heroic's period is going to be a little special. It's time for you to formulate your codenames. Your Hero names."

"Oh my god yes!!"

"Finally!!"

"Now this is makin my ċhėst swell!!"

The students all cheered loudly as they were getting closer to their goals of becoming Pro Heroes.

"Settle down, you're going to make me have a migraine at this point. This is all related to the draft nominations by pros I mentioned the other day, where the Heroes would be scouting your potential during the Sports Festival. Although these nominations will only start to matter in your sophomore and senior years once you gain more experience and be properly judge, this is still relevant as a gauge of your personal progress in the eyes of others." Aizawa went on to explain.

He tapped the board behind him as a display lit up. "Although we have the requests here with us since there were too many we decided to go with this to give you a visual representation instead. Usually, the results are more balanced, but this year it seems 3 of you stole the limelight."

At the top of the list, there were 3 notable numbers that showed the gap between them and the rest of the class.

Hiroto Moriyama - 6,969

Shoto Todorki - 4,123

Katsuki Bakugo - 3,556

Tenya Iida - 301

Mina Ashido - 289

"Man, isn't that just way too exaggerated?" Kaminari said, looking solemn.

"You were the one who faced Moriyama, you tell me," Ojiro said, shaking his head.

Katsuki glanced over to where Hiroto was, and only scoffed before he ignored everything else.

Eijiro behind Hiroto whistled and said, "Man, look at the amount that you got. Nice."

Todorki was deep in thought as he glanced between 1st and 2nd place. Next to him, Momo said, "Well, as expected of Hiroto, but you also got amazing results Todoroki."

With a straight face, Todoroki answered her with a tone that contained no love for his father, "It's most probably just because of my dad..."

Aizawa then continued to explain, "Based on this… regardless of whether or not you received any nominations I'll be having you all go get some so-called "workplace experience." An internship, basically.

"Since you've had an encounter with the sort of Villains that you will be facing in the future, experiencing the activities of the Pro's firsthand will prove to be more fruitful than before."

Hiroto merely zoned everything out as he was thinking about what to do. 'Since I have this many nominations, it's going to be a pain to deal with them. Besides, I don't want to go to any of those agencies, since it will feel so clogged up.'

While Hiroto was deep in thought, Midnight entered the classroom and explained to the class why choosing a Hero name is important and how it will be the names that they will be known for by the world. Once she saw that Hiroto was zoning out, she approached his desk and slammed her hands onto it.

Hiroto snapped out of his daydream and muttered, "Marshmallows?"

*slap*

"Pay attention in class, kid!" Midnight said, slapping him over the head lightly. "All right, you all have 15 minutes to come up with a name."

"It seems that you already thought of something up, mister 1st place." Midnight smiled, "Come on up and show the class what your Hero name will be from now on!"

Hiroto complied and stood up, as everyone in the class gulped in anticipation. Standing behind the podium, Hiroto revealed the name on the board, causing everyone to almost facepalm.

Midnight rubbed her head and said, "Moriyama… it's upside down."

"Oh, right," Hiroto said, flipping it. On the board were 3 simple words that would be marked down as the most powerful Hero to have ever existed in the future to come.

One Punch Man