Death Penalty | BNHA Quirk Deku AU | DISCONTINUED

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SUCKER!

Lunch was uneventful. Somehow.

When they returned to their homeroom classroom for study hall, Midnight was there instead of Aizawa, which was mildly concerning but not the end of the world so the group sat down in their seats without comment.

Once everyone had returned from lunch. Midnight cracked her whip against her thigh, startling most of the class because nobody knew where she had pulled it out of.

"Alright, kiddos! Most of you guys did pretty good in the sports festival, and some of you got an insane amount of requests! And now that you're going into your internships, you all need hero names." Excited murmurs spread throughout the classroom, and Midnight shushed them. "I'll be handing out whiteboards and dry erase markers. Write your name on there and present it to the class. I will be judging your names and giving you feedback." She passed out whiteboards and markers to the class as promised, and gave them five minutes to write down their first idea. Then, they all stood up in front of the class and pitched their name ideas. 

[Key: normal text = Midnight approved, italics = not Midnight approved]

"I'm the taping hero, Cellophane!"

"Jet black hero, Tsukiyomi."

"The tentacle hero, Tentacole."

"I'm the martial arts hero: Tailman."

"The shining hero, Can't Stop Sparkling!" [Yes, I changed it. Fight me]

"The hearing hero, Earphone Jack!"

"Uravity!"

"King Explosion Murder!"

"Shouto."

"Tenya."

"I'm the everything hero, Creati!"

"LORD EXPLOSION MURDER!"

"The sturdy hero, Red Riot!"

"I'm the rainy season hero, Froppy. Kero."

"The sweet hero, Sugarman!"

The petting hero, Anima [Yeah, he doesn't talk]

"The stealth hero, Invisible Girl!"

"Alien Queen!"

"The fresh picked hero, Grape Juice!"

"I'm the stun gun hero, Charge Bolt!"

"Ground Zero, the explosion hero!" (Izuku's idea)

"Pinky!"

After everyone but Izuku had gone, he was still sitting at his desk, staring down his blank whiteboard.

"Midoriya, have you thought of something yet?" Midnight asked him. He shook his head with a sigh.

"I'll help you think of something, Midoriya," Momo declared, standing up and walking over to his desk. "What do you want people to think of when they hear your name?"

"Well, I don't want it to be obvious what my quirk is; I want it to be kind of mysterious, a little ominous, but still a hero-sounding name, you know? I just... can't think of anything."

"Yeah, I get what you mean. Although, personally, I think the name you gave your quirk was pretty ingenious. Maybe just go with that? Death Penalty."

"That's what I was going to do, but it just sounds... scary. It seems like the name of a villain, and I've dealt with that misconception a few too many times already."

"Hm..." Momo, thought for a moment, staring into space, before her eyes lit up. "I've got it!" She announced, clapping her hands together for a concluding effect. "Asher. It's a name, but it could also be a way to describe what you do. For example, killer. A person or thing that kills. You would be Asher; it could be interpreted as a proper noun, but it could have a deeper meaning of a person who ashes, with ashes being a verb. You ash things; you turn them to ash. Are you getting this?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. That's... actually a really good idea! Thanks, Yaoyorozu!" Izuku quickly wrote it down on his whiteboard and headed up to the front of the room. The class had been chatting, but they silenced upon seeing him. He turned around his whiteboard so they could see what it said: Asher.

Although Midnight doubted that anyone would understand the hidden meaning upon hearing it and would assume he was a foreigner who had no original ideas and just used his own name, she was glad he had found something that sort of made sense and approved it. Izuku gave Momo a high-five on his way back to his seat. Study hall ended shortly after, and 1-A continued to their next class.

------------ Time Skip ------------

Izuku opened the door to the address of Gran Torino to find a little old man playing dead on the floor. 

He stared blankly at the scene splayed out before him. He had to admit, the guy was a good actor, but he wasn't really in the mood to appreciate theatrical talent and skill, so he gently poked the man's face. Torino jumped up immediately, and Izuku startled and stumbled backwards a bit. Torino started laughing like a madman, collapsing back to the floor. Izuku stared incredulously, confused by the contrast between what Toshinori had told him and what he was witnessing. This reaction seemed to make the old man laugh even harder, and Izuku let out a nervous chuckle.

Torino finally stopped laughing, and stood back up, wiping a tear from his eye as he spoke.

"Oh, I knew your reaction was gonna be funny, but I didn't think it'd be that good! I really gotcha, didn't I?"

"Uh... no? I knew you weren't dead; I just wasn't expecting you to stand up that fast." It seemed that someone had pulled a plug at the bottom of Torino's facial expression and let all the humour pour out into a puddle on the floor, leaving nothing but stone-cold dissapointment. Izuku started to wish he had stayed quiet. Fortunately, the smile quickly returned, and Gran Torino appeared friendly once more.

"So you're the ninth one, huh? Interesting. I gotta admit, you're doing better than I would've expected. Toshinori's a good fighter, but he's trash at teaching. You must be smart enough to figure at least a few things out on your own, but you've still got a long way to go." Izuku didn't really know how to respond and just kinda nodded. "What's your name again, kid?"

"Oh, that's right! I didn't introduce myself. Sorry about that! My name is Izuku Midoriya, hero name Asher!"

"Asher, huh? Interesting choice. I'm assuming it's a reference to your natural-born quirk."

"That would be correct. Although the public has only seen me melt stuff so far, ashes are my specialty. If I end up not making it as a hero, I'll probably work at a morgue."

"That's honetly pretty metal. Depressing, but metal."

Izuku laughed. "Yeah, I guess it kind of is. Anyways, what are we going to be doing?"

"Well, first off," Torino started, grinning deviously. "we'll be playing a little game of tag."

"Tag?" Izuku sweatdropped.

"Yup. Tag." And with that, Torino was bouncing off the walls. Literally. "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SUCKER!"

[A/N] Kindly ignore the three-month gap between this update and the last one.

In case you aren't following me and didn't see the announcment I made, I went back through the more recent chapters and revised a few things that I felt were interfering with my ability to fully understand how Izuku's mind works. I figured, if I don't really know my own characters, how will my readers even begin to understand their personalities? So I changed it. That was one of the reasons I havn't updated in so long.

Another reason is that as I am being exposed to more things, I'm starting to change how I feel about things like LGBTQ+ and cursing and other stuff like that. See, I'm being confirmed in the Catholic church later this year, and up until recently I figured I'd just get confirmed to please my parents, and then when I moved out I'd stop going to church and not commit myself to any one belief. But now, some things have happened, and I really do believe in the Catholic faith. I wasn't really sure how I felt about this fanfiction, or about the BNHA community in general. There's just so much sacreligious stuff going on in the fandom, and I really needed a break. I think I'm good to keep going, though. Thank you for understanding.

[Author-san has left the server.]