My Hero Automata

Summary: Back to class! It's time to deal with Internship offers! As well as an unexpected absence. (See the A/N's at the bottom before you buy your torches and pitchforks. I will explain my reasoning there, even if you don't like it.

Chapter 26: Internship Offers

... ...

After the long weekend, Group A finally found themselves back in class on Wednesday morning. Midnight had strolled in right on time, and quickly gathered the attention of the class by thumping down a set of thick binders on her desk. The loud noise drew all attention, the few remaining side conversations trailing off as the students involved realized their professor was present.

"Internships!" Midnight leveled an old-fashioned wooden pointer stick straight at Izumi. "Overly well-informed minion, explain them!"

Izumi blinked, making a 'who me' gesture even as several snickers were heard around the room. When Midnight just made a 'get on with it' motion in return, Izumi nervously tugged at a bit of her hair. She instinctively entered hyper-cognition mode for just a few moments to muster her thoughts, then dropped back out to obey Midnight's…order?

"Ah...internships are a Heroics Course student's first exposure to acting in our capacity as heroes. We aren't even provisionally licensed yet, so they are more ride-along equivalents than they are proper hero work. Essentially, they combined a chance for heroics students to get an up-close look at day-to-day Pro-Hero operations, with continuing to show us off to the General Public for future recognition. Additionally, ideally, we will get offers from heroes that may have something additional to teach us. Sometimes due to similar Quirk, other times a useful fighting style, or even something like public relations for those that aren't good at that sort of thing."

Izumi trailed off as Midnight flicked the pointer away with a nod, apparently satisfied with the explanation.

"An excellent summary, minion! Of course, it's only a summary. What each student gets out of their internship tends to vary not just by the student, but by the hero they intern with. Veteran heroes will often let their interns get involved in minor ways with actual operations, comfortable that they can protect them if something goes wrong. Whereas newer heroes might focus more on offering training, instead. Each case is at least somewhat unique. Which is why UA is very careful about who it lets make requests."

Midnight stopped to tap one binder, differently colored than the others. Unlike the ones she'd carried in it, and several copies of it that appeared identical, had already been on her desk before she arrived.

"Our University has ongoing deals with a handful of agencies, roughly two dozen in fact, that will always take interns from among our First Years. Most are our alumni, and all have run multiple successful internships before being added to that list. Each of you have the option to go to any one of them and be assured it would be a good experience for you."

Her tapping finger moved to the pile of other binders, far more varied in size.

"These, however, are the specific offers for those who have earned them. I'll display everyone's total offers in a moment. Note, however, that the actual numbers of received offers were higher than what you will see. These are simply the ones that got through UA's filtering process. Meaning they we do not believe the internship would be a case of our students being taken advantage of."

Midnight produced the remote for the room's projector, activating it to display a list of each student and the number of offers they had received.

... ... ...

Yaoyorozu – 1, 890

Midoriya – 1, 685

Tokoyami - 856

Jirou - 427

Iida - 215

Bakugo - 193

Kaminari - 187

Hagakure - 112

Ashido - 111

Asui - 83

Uraraka - 72

Kirishima - 51

Mineta - 33

Shoji - 27

Sero - 12

Sato - 7

Ojiro - 5

Aoyama - 2

Koda - 1

... ... ...

While most of the students began murmuring or exclaiming about their offers or lack thereof, Izumi frowned at the list. Looking around the room, she confirmed something she'd already noticed. The double check wasn't really needed, but she did it anyway, a little bit of disbelief filling her. Tentatively, she raised her hand. Midnight saw her look and raised hand, a slightly pained grimace flitting across her features. Looking exhausted for just a moment, she hesitated for a heartbeat or two, then slapped the pointer against her hand to get the class's attention. The sound was surprisingly loud, and they all had enough experience with her by now to quiet down quickly. Anyone that didn't would end up on the rough side of her teasing, which was far more effective at preventing repeats than mere yelling at them would have been. With a resigned sigh, she pointed to Izumi.

"Why isn't Todoroki on the list? And…where is he?"

There was a flash of mixed emotion across Midnight's face. Clearly, she'd been expecting the question. Just a clearly…she didn't really want to answer it.

"I'm afraid that Todoroki Shoto is the first casualty of this year's Heroics Course. After repeated psych exam failures, he has been removed from the UA Heroics Course permanently. With a record on his file prohibiting him from applying to any other Heroics Course in the country until such a time that he's been cleared by a recognized independent Heroics psychologist. No. I will not go into the reasons. They are, frankly, not your business. I trust, however, that this removal brings home for you how serious we are about mental health. The last thing the world needs is unstable heroes."

There was dead silence in the classroom, all chatter over the offers having vanished. While no one had been close to the stand-offish heterochromatic student, all of them had known full well that he was the son of Endeavor. You know, the current number two hero who had held that position for over a decade and a half. To remove someone like that from the UA Heroics Course was going to be a politically dicey move. The fact that UA had done so, and done so relatively early in the year, spoke volumes about how serious they were about creating only the best heroes, and stomping hard on any chance of unstable ones making it professionally. Thankfully, the tension was broken a moment later as Midnight spoke up again.

"Now, enough of that. While you'll have until the end of the week to look over your offers and make a choice, there's something else to consider! Hero names! Those of you who already have an idea what you want to be called, I'll be vetting said names starting today. Those of you who have no idea, the floor is open for you to get advice from me and your classmates. Now, let's get started…"

With that, the atmosphere eased a bit as several excited students tried to speak over each other. None of them would be forgetting the removal of Todoroki anytime soon. But he hadn't exactly made himself popular. Hero names were something far more exciting…

... ...

Despite it having been All Might to invite them to his office after the last class of the day, it was Momo who moved immediately to prepare tea. Mostly, Izumi thought, in response to the fact that their mentor was visibly nervous. Had something serious happened? Before she could voice that question, Toshinori braced himself and started talking, even as he nodded thanks to Momo for the calming tea she handed him. Izumi's lips quirked as she recognized the scent of the calming tea Momo often made when Izumi herself was suffering from anxiety issues.

"So…about your internship offers. I'm not sure if you've considered where you want to go yet, but there's one more for Young Yaoyorozu that I think she should consider."

They both blinked at the man, not having considered this to be the possible topic. It seemed rather mundane for how nervous he apparently was. It was made all the more surreal when his hands shook as he sipped his tea. Practically gulped it, actually. Eventually, he seemed to muster his courage.

"M-my old mentor. G-gran Torino. Y-you probably wouldn't have heard of him...but I contacted him after you displayed Float, young Yaoyorozu. He's a hard instructor…terrifying actually…but he also was the one responsible for most of my training. Both as a Professor here at UA, and when we fled to America to train in the aftermath of Nana's death…"

Momo was a little wide-eyed at the continued nervousness displayed by the usually fearless hero. She took her own sip of anti-anxieTea, then chewed her lip in a cutely nervous fashion of her own that she rarely showed.

"…Why? That is, why would you contact him after I displayed Float specifically?"

All Might took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them, they were far away, his fear of the man seeming to have been replaced by old pain.

"First of all, he's one of the few people aware of One for All. I didn't mentioned him in the list of those I'd told, because I wasn't the one that told him. He was Nana's best friend long before she received One for All, and the only person I know for sure she told about the Quirk. He was there to help her and me both get a handle on the Quirk, which would make him valuable to you all on its own. But, even more than that, he's intimately familiar with Float. He knows exactly how Nana trained with it, both before and after she received One for All."

The pain faded a bit as All Might kept talking. Nervousness returned, but so to did sheepishness. An odd mix, though the sheepishness was at least somewhat familiar to them. All Might wore his heart on his sleeve most of the time, and they'd seen that expression quite a few times as he made mistakes trying to learn to teach or train them.

"Gran's own Quirk, Air Jet, even allows him limited flight. So the two of them often shared training ideas and techniques. The movement redirection that you've incorporated via those thrusters of yours is right up his ally too, as he fights in a very similar fashion. In truth, I've known since the moment I saw you using your thrusters in training, that I should introduce you to him…but I have to admit I was putting it off. I was justifying doing so as you needing time to get the basics of One for All down. With Float now added to the mix, though…"

Momo nodded. With the sudden need to quickly master what was, for all intents and purposes, a third quirk, reaching for someone who was an expert with how that Quirk worked made sense. Particularly if that person already knew about One for All and apparently had other things in common with Momo's fighting style.

"You think I should take the offer, then?"

All Might sighed but nodded.

"He's effectively retired now, but he's maintained his Hero License. I know you might miss out on some exposure by not going with one of the big names on your list, but…"

"But it makes sense. Very well, I shall make him my first choice. Even if I'm a bit disappointed that he probably won't take Izumi too?"

All Might shook his head.

"If we had more time, he might. But for just a week internship, he'll want to focus just on you. Besides, while Izumi could certainly learn from him, he doesn't have all that much in common with her own fighting style." Shifting his gaze to Izumi and seeming relieved to leave the subject of Gran Torino behind, he asked, "Speaking of which, do you have any idea who you might choose? I admit I haven't had a chance to look at your offers yet, since I was busy dealing with…his…last minute offer."

Doing her best to ignore the worrying shudder that went through the number one hero, Izumi hummed for a moment. She'd had a lot of offers, but with 2B's help it had been relatively easy to narrow them down to just a few. She supposed she might as well get All Might's input on those that remained.

"I've narrowed it down a lot. My top options are Ryukyu, Air Jet, and Gunhead."

All Might hummed at that, considering all three of them with a critical look in his eye.

"Ryukyu and Gunhead I can see. Why Air Jet?"

Izumi blinked, frowned, then abruptly tried to remember if All Might knew she could…no. She rarely used it and hadn't mentioned it to him as far as she could recall.

"Um…one of the things I can summon is a fairly powerful Flight Unit. I've never used it much because it's a bit too obvious. I'd have gotten in trouble for Public Quirk Usage if I did much more than basic tests with it. Since Air Jet uses a jetpack, he's a logical choice to train with if I want to explore it? Which could be important if Momo is going to be flying everywhere now…"

Momo made a noise of disagreement, drawing their attention.

"On the surface, it makes sense. But your Flight Units are almost more like mecha than they are jetpacks, Izumi. They are also supersonic, several times over, and technically capable of extra-atmospheric flight in some cases. I'm not sure how well Air Jet's experience would translate to that."

All Might's eyebrows had climbed a bit. It was probably testament to how used to Izumi's ridiculousness that such was his only reaction to the revelation that Izumi was technically capable of reaching space. Though if he'd actually realized just how potent those 'Flight Units' were…he might have been a bit more reactive. She hadn't mentioned the missiles and other weapons, after all. Of course, Izumi couldn't currently keep one summoned for more than a few minutes anyway. Which was the other reason she'd not trained with them much.

"I can follow your logic then, though given you're capable of super-jumps like my own, I think you might be better off choosing Ryukyu. You don't really need flight capability, even if it would be nice. I think I understand your logic with Gunhead, given that his is one of the few agencies that focuses on Armed combat. But I think you're likely already beyond what he could help you with in such a short time frame. Ryukyu might not seem like as perfect a fit for technical skills she can share, but she's well known for picking promising female students and doing exceptionally well at training them. In truth, she's probably the best trainer among the Top 10, and she is at least in shouting distance of your strength. There's another advantage with her, as well…"

All Might grinned, back to his old self as he paused for dramatics. Always happy to play along, Izumi prompted him.

"What's that?"

"Simple! She's currently mentoring one of UA's new Big 3 for a Work Study! Young Hado is one of the few UA students who's actually in the same general weight class as the two of you, if in a slightly different way. You'd learn just as much from working with her as Ryukyu, I think. And I suspect the two of you would get along quite well, too."

Izumi blinked, considering what she knew about the female member of the Big 3.

"Oh no. Momo! She's an extrovert! And you won't be there to protect me!"

Izumi pouted as her girlfriend and All Might both laughed. She hadn't been kidding! Extroverts are scary!

... ... ... ...

A/N 1: So. About Todoroki. I know what some of you are probably thinking. I salvaged Katsuki, so why not him, right? Do I hate the character? Nope. Actually, Shoto is one of my favorite characters in MHA, since he's basically the only one in the entire series that shows actual emotional growth. No, unfortunately, he's a victim of three things:

1) This isn't a fix-it fic. I'm not trying to make sure every bad thing from canon doesn't happen.

2) This UA is a university dealing with people who are technically adults. Even if just barely. They do not treat their students with kid gloves when it comes to things like this. They are not willing to risk making emotionally unstable heroes. They DID try to help him before kicking him out. But...

3) No matter how I looked at it, there's no way the additional three years of age would have helped Todoroki. There were no major changes to his situation. Katsuki lost his safe target and got hammered for his delinquent behavior when he targeted people that weren't willing to ignore it. Shoto, on the other hand, was stuck in an environment where no one COULD help him, under Endeavor's thumb. If no one helped him in the 15 years of canon...than another 3 weren't going to do anything but bake the problem in more. Shoto is MORE emotionally damaged than in canon, not less. And he reacted badly to UA's attempts to help him. What happens to him now is a bit up in the air...but he won't be becoming a hero in any traditional way. He's been blacklisted for psychiatric instability. Which, to be fair, might well have happened in canon without Izuku's shonen protagonist friendship punch.