20 Chapter 19

Misaka had been allowed to leave the hospital sometime before night fell. By then the wounds she had sustained had been largely healed and she was able to walk again with no pain. She had managed to explain her rapid rate of regeneration to a quirk and after that she checked out of the hospital. She grumbled remembering the fact that the A.A.A had been destroyed, but ultimately took a taxi to go back to her apartment.

As she went up the stairs, she remembered telling Mr. Haru that she'd remind him when she returned. Before the fight she had made sure to inform him. He didn't want him to start worrying, and with the excuse of using her magnetism quirk to help people, she had been allowed to leave. Otherwise, she was pretty sure that he'd inform the authorities, and she didn't want to deal with that.

She tiredly opened the door to her apartment, the day catching up to her. She was so tired that she immediately went to sleep, remembering that the next day was a school day. She closed the light of her room, and as she closed her eyes, she remembered the weird cube she had been given by the pair that had visited her this morning.

'I'll deal with that in the future… Now I just want to sleep.' With that, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

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The ringing of the night clock woke her up. She had not had a great sleep. She was plagued by nightmares caused by the fight, and she struggled to get up without looking tired. She fixed herself some breakfast, looked at the clock on the wall and panicked a little bit. She hurried up, fearing that she'd miss the morning train. She ate, quickly put on her school uniform, and left, foregoing any of her other routines.

"The train is now departing. I repeat, the train is now departing. You are kindly requested to stand behind the yellow line." The announcer of the station was the bringer of bad news. The doors of the train had closed, and it was starting to accelerate out of the situation.

'GAH! I was late! Wait, why am I panicking?' It wasn't something she hadn't done before. She'd just attach herself to a wagon and ride it. After all, magnetism was her <<quirk>>. A spark of lightning, and she found herself on top of a train that was already beginning to pick up speed at a rapid pace; it was going to reach a speed of something less than a mach. Misaka had complete faith in her power and stood down, barely putting any effort to just make it bearable for her to stand down.

Half an hour later the train arrived at the station close to the school, and to no surprise she saw Uraraka also getting off the train. She jumped down as well and hurried to find Uraraka. She hadn't had the time to talk to her last night, and she wanted to find out how she was coping.

"Hey, Uraraka-san! How are you?"

"Hyah!" Uraraka jolted, startled by the voice she heard behind her back. "Misaka-san, what a surprise! I didn't see you in the station today, so I thought you'd be absent. I'm doing fine. I'm unharmed so that's great! But still, it was so scary. I hope they caught the Villain. I mean, everyone from the top 10 was there, there is no way he wasn't caught. How about you?" It was great that Uraraka was her same bubbly self, and if she was worried about something she had managed to hide it well.

"I'm fine. I got a bit injured while going to grab my bike, but other than that, after a visit to the hospital I was ready to go. You know, it got crushed under the debris. Damnit! And it cost me a fortune…Ah, sorry, that was a bit insensitive."

Remembering the destruction of the A.A.A made Misaka curse at the realization that she'd have to rebuild it. The cost of building it, mostly the cost of bringing in materials by the black market, had been close to the range of 100 billion Yen. For all intents and purposes, it was a crazy amount for a singular unit that back in Academy City she was able to build in her school, but with the rise of quirks, technology had stagnated and had remained comfortably 10 years behind that of Academy City.

That proved to be a big difficulty, as the required expertise and technology just wasn't available. In a way Misaka had to reinvent the wheel. It was also a possible factor to the fact that the A.A.A had been taken down. Subpar materials and bad work by the ones putting it together combined might have been one of the reasons. She had stopped mulling about it though and had already started trying to find solutions to her problems.

"I'm sorry for your bike Misaka-san. It looked important to you. Also, don't worry about what you said. I'm not so delicate to need you to be careful with what you say." Uraraka-san said that, and she did truly look sad about the fact that the A.A.A had been destroyed. "Anyways, you wouldn't believe it! Almost everyone on my cart came up to greet me! I was so overwhelmed I thought I'd faint. If you were there, we'd have endured it together."

"I'm lateeeeeeee!!!" As they were walking under the rain, a figure in a raincoat ran straight besides them.

"Was that Ida-kun? Why was he in such a hurry?" Misaka, for the life of her couldn't understand why Ida was running. Classes started in five minutes, and they were quite close to the school.

"Hm, I don't know. Well, he's such a diligent student. He wouldn't want to be late, would he? Also, aren't you getting wet without an umbrella? Come here."

"I hadn't thought about that… Well, I guess that is why he is Class representative. Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine, really."

"Well, your loss."

They were the last ones to pass the gates of U.A, and as they walked in the main hallway, they saw their teacher, and decided to make a sprint for it.

They entered the class to a general unrest, though that quickly died down when Aizawa-sensei entered the room.

"Morning."

"Good morning Aizawa-sensei!! It's good to see you in good shape."

"Yes, that old lady got a bit overzealous… Anyways, first things first. I'd like the girls to stay a bit after the class. They know why. And, to start the lesson, our lesson today is gonna be a bit special… It's time for you to formalize your Hero Names."

"YEAH!!!"

"LET'S GO!!!"

Aizawa's announcement lit the class, which devolved into a frenzy of shouting that had to be put down by a shout from him.

"This is in relation to Pro Hero draft I mentioned earlier. For now, these nominations will not really matter, and are only for your potential to be judged as a show of interest from the Pro Heroes. Now then, the nominations for this year are as follows." Behind him, a blue screen lit up, and the name of the ones who had participated in the tournament showed up, as bars accompanied by a number.

The top two positions were dominated by offers for Misaka for Todoroki, each one amassing about 3.000 offers each. Surprisingly, Midoryia had no offers, while Bakugo had about 1.000 of them.

"Well, regardless of if you are here or not, all of you will get some workplace experience. Unfortunately, you've already had a first encounter with Villains, so I think getting some hands-on experience will be beneficial. That of course means that all of you need names; for now, they can be place holder names, as long as they are appropriate…"

"Because if not… It'll be hell from there!!! The names you pick now are most probably going to follow you into Pro Hero-hood. They will be the names the world knows you by." A particularly loud hero interrupted Aizawa, and his annoyance was palpable. Midnight had been able to capture the interest of every student present.

"Midnight… Well, she's correct. She going to help you with your names. Your future will approach the one projected by your names… <<Names and natures often agree>> after all. Think of All Might for example." He sighed and sat back down on his chair, and Midnight took the lead.

"Well, I'm going to give you 15 minutes to come up with a name, and then you'll present them."

Misaka already knew the name that she'd choose, so as soon as the board was presented to her, she grabbed a pen and wrote it down. After that, using the table as an uncomfortable pillow, she lied down, hoping to catch some sleep.

In what seemed like no time at all, she woke up. The 15 minutes had passed, and already some people had presented their hero names. She was lucky enough to wake up just in time to silently laugh at Bakugo's name. She knew that the boy was smart and outright dangerous to most, but she found his <<lethal>> tendencies funny, and the choices he made to project that image, along with his outbursts were too funny not to laugh at.

"King of Explodo-Kills!" Misaka thought that it would be hard to emulate a five-year old's imagination, but Bakugo had achieved it. She thought he would be an interesting case study for something. What that was, she had no idea.

"Nope. Rejected. Go find another one." Bakugou's kingly ambitions were shot down, and after a bit grumbling, he returned to his seat and started scribbling down alternative names.

Up next was Uraraka, who chose the name Uravity. Misaka found the combination between her quirk and name charming and so did Midnight.

"That went far smoother than what I expected… All that's left is, apart from Bakugou's new name, Ida, Midoryia and Misaka."

Tenya was the first one to come up of the three left. As he turned his board to show the name, all there was, was an extremely modest <<Tenya>> written on it, following Shoto's example. Misaka had asked Uraraka who was sitting next to her the names of everyone, and she found most names fitting.

Next was Midoryia. He slowly revealed his name, and as it was fully revealed, most were scratching their heads.

"Midoryia, are you sure about that name?"

"Until recently I didn't like this name at all, but someone changed the meaning of the word for me, and I was so happy. This will be my Hero Name, Deku."

Midoryia quickly left the stand and Midnight called for Misaka to come present her own name.

Misaka had no doubt had her name would be. If a Hero Name could be said to be the culmination of one's personality and powers, then there was only one she could choose.

"The Electromaster - Railgun? Is that so… Well, it's fine, though I don't see how it relates to you. Now Bakugo, have you found another name?" It was true, the U.A student Misaka Mikoto had no relation to magnetism, but really it was her core, a part of herself by now.

"Yeah! Baron of Explodo-Kills!"

"Oh god… We are going to be here all day… Look, try to find a suitable name. For now, we can move on with our programme. Aizawa, if you'd please."

"Good, that's over and done with. Your field training is going to be weeklong. All the places are good, however those with recommendation will be able to choose where to go from the list they'll be presented with. As for the others, you can choose a workplace from one of the 40 in this list. They all excel in their areas, so choose wisely. Turn them in by the end of the week. You have basically two days."

Soon after that the class splintered into cells, each one discussing where they'd go. The news of the Hero training had uplifted the general mood of the class. Those that thought they'd lose out this great opportunity were grateful for it, and those that had actual offers were patiently sifting through those in order to find the most suitable one.

Misaka in particular was swamped. She had received more than 3.000 offers, and while she'd prefer to not take part in them and actually do something about the magicians, the training was mandatory. So now, she was stuck trying to find someone who could actually help her in some way or wouldn't interfere with her. She knew however that the second one would be impossible. If someone let a student of All Might and U.A be harmed, they'd surely be ridiculed.

To start off, she quickly dismissed all Heroes outside the top 250. She did that because from what she had observed in the places below that, while the quality of the Heros could be identical to those above, it widely varied. This was due to how the ranking system worked. Those with flashy quirks, but of lesser skill were higher, while those of good skill but unassuming quirks went by largely unnoticed. Still, in the top 250, the members were carefully documented, and she would be able to take her time evaluating each option.

With only them on the list, it had shrunk to about 200 applications. Next, she sorted through each and every one of those in regard to their quirks. If they were related to her own power, they were pushed to the top, and if they had no relation, they were pushed to the bottom. That way she could easily find someone who had an interesting power that she could copy. Unfortunately that list was ripe with quirks unrelated with hers, so she found those outside of her list with the quirks she wanted and put them in as well. That way, the applications reached about 250.

It was something she had realized. While most quirks seemed to defy logic, and they did, they still had some scientific basis. If someone could do something outlandish with electricity or magnetism, then she could do it, and do so even better them.

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Back in her apartment, she booted up her computer and entered the Hero Registry database. There she searched each Hero on her list, those with electro-magnetic powers first. The list was a modest 25 person one and she started filtering through them. She dismissed any Mutant-type quirks, as those more often than not relied on mutations and was left with 18 Heroes. Then she rejected the ones with abilities she could easily replicate and was left with 7 Heroes. She looked at the remaining Heroes quirks and sighed.

Ferrofluid: The user can secrete black magnetic fluid that can be hardened into any shape.

Gyro: The user makes a magnetic field to control gravity to negate it or make gravitic bursts that repel objects.

Laser Sword: The quirk user can morph their hand into a sword made from pure energy

Aurora: The quirk user can produce solar wind to make constructs and objects out of the northern lights.

Ion Wisp: The quirk user can transform their body into a wisp of plasma and is able to charge ion particles to form electrical attacks.

Whip: The user makes a tether of energy bolts to form a solid rope that extends to latch onto targets or to swing.

Proximity: The user can convert electrons into explosive black spheres that release an unstable electrical explosion.

The quirks that intrigued her were three: Proximity, Ion Wisp and Gyro. As she deliberated on these three options, she started ranking them on the users and the usefulness and feasibility of these quirks. For example, Ion Wisp would be certainly impossible for her to use as it relied on the Quirk Factor doing an esoteric action. But Gyro and Proximity could have interesting applications.

Proximity reminded her of the black ball she had summoned during the Daihasei festival, only massively scaled down. She didn't deny that the possibility intrigued her, but she struggled to see how it could really help her arsenal.

Gyro though, the possibilities were almost endless. IF she figured out how to copy it, she could rudimentarily control gravity. Just controlling one of the four fundamental forces was good enough, but the possibility of being able to at least have basic control over gravity excited her. After electromagnetism, gravity was the second most useful fundamental force to be able to control. She had already realised that after her fair number of encounters with people who had some control over gravity.

So, she decided. The next day she would turn the paper in. The Hero who had this quirk, Graviton, was even in the top 50, so it wouldn't cause such an uproar when she turned it in.

With that over, she focused on the next thing on her agenda. The intricate object the magicians had delivered was as heavy as ever and it still pulsed with the same pale blue light. She had already surmised that it was a test specifically made for someone with control over magnetism like her. From what she understood she had to find a way to grab the shining blue orb by using her magnetism. It was likely given her to test her intelligence, as they had already seen her raw power.

She put it down and closely observed. The shape of the object was conventionally impossible to create. However, through clever application of quirks and/or magic the impossible cube had been able to be built in the real world. She smiled at this. She had never encountered such a unique object, and she was sure it was going to challenge her.

After careful deliberation of her moves she started manipulating the little metal pieces. She had already tried crushing them, but she had failed. Her first steps led to failure, but slowly she started getting the hang of the puzzle. Each time she tried and failed she got one small step closer to the blue orb. The fact that there was visible progress pushed her to fight on and not give up. As she got more and more focused on reaching the solution of the puzzle, she slowly started losing track of time.

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In what seemed like no time at all, night had fallen, and Misaka was reaching ever so closer to her prize. She only had two or more layers to go, and she could finally grab it. Her stomach growled, complaining, but she carried on.

An hour later, she finally reached the final layer. The more layers she peeled off, so did the difficulty of the puzzle increase, exponentially in a way. The first layers took no less than one minute combined, but the further inside she got, the harder did it get progressing further and further. Of course, the more she did it, the more efficient she became, as she started understanding the impossible shape, but she was starting to grow tired.

It was almost dawn when she found the solution to the last layer; dark circles had formed under her eyes, her stomach was constantly growling, and she could not feel some of her muscles. But she refused to give up at this stage. After a long 16-hour long puzzle solving lesson, she had arrived at the solution.

Frantically, she ran through the motions, blazing through the now relatively simple puzzle in just half an hour, opening it and immediately grabbing the blue orb.

It immediately broke apart into small blue particles that she instinctively recognized as magic. However, she didn't panic. Magic was still the great unknown to her, yet she knew that it could not harm her in this state. She patiently waited for 10 minutes but seeing nothing happen she fell asleep. After all, she still had school to attend, and it started in 2 hours. It would not be good if she went to classes in her current exhausted state.

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In another part of town, the two magicians who had delivered the cube felt something.

"Ah, she got the orb!" Tatsuya sounded surprised. In his experience, opening the cube, took at least one or two weeks. Misaka had achieved it in the span of three days. It was a truly great sign.

"Yeah, but it's weird. Immediately after she picked it up, it broke apart. It's not supposed to do that. At worst, it'll crack when a person with minimal potential picks it up. Breaking like this… it's unheard of. The only thing I can think is that somehow her quirk can negate magic, but that's absurd." In the other hand Yuna was puzzled by what had happened. It meant that Misaka was either someone they should, had to eliminate immediately or someone whose only strong point was her quirk.

The puzzle was a magical artifact that could react to the mana of a person, and if the person had enough, it would open. Of course, they had made it so it could be solved like a normal puzzle, but that was impossible. The orb inside, when freed would react to the magical potential of the user, in such a way that those with great potential would see the orb shine brightly, and those who didn't, would see it crack or slowly dim.

So, it was a great paradox that someone opened it in record time, only for the orb to show potential less than a new-born's. She decided to report it, though she would refrain from inserting her own assumptions. This was an urgent case that she didn't know how to handle. She was however sure, that the Director, with his many years' experience would know what to do in this situation.

With a final disappointed sigh, she cleared her head of these distracting thoughts, and focused on what she was doing before. With any luck, she'd be finished with her task in the next two days.