Chapter 21| Ri and Zerø
—The Next Day: Your POV
It was raining. Hard. Scratch that, POURING! It was just sunny a minute ago! Like what the hell? And guess what? I don't have a fucking umbrella either, so that's great!
Years before, I would always be in the air, next to the clouds. With the wind pushing my hair back, and where nobody except me and some of them were. Where birds looked at me like I was some type of flying freak. Where the wind ruffled my feathers-ish. Where I soared with them. Being airborne was when I felt alive.
But again, that was years before.
Now, I can't. I miss it, a crap ton. Now, the closest thing to it was lying on the rooftops.
I stuffed my mouth with bunch of beef jerky leftovers from a few days ago, snacking on it as I went looking for my school bag. Which was a dark grey color and a little bit better than my mini one that I always take with me.
Taking a deep breath, I sprinted. I was feeling crappy already.
—Hero Department: Class 1-A
They were all talking about the sports festival a few days ago. All busy chatting away, Urakaka was telling me how great I did. I told her thanks, but deep inside, I knew that I'll need to work harder than I am now to reach the title, pro hero.
Cause all the other damn kids were good at being Prince Charming/Princess and hero.
"Oi, Ri, what the hell are you glaring at?" Bakugou asked. I snapped out of it to find myself staring at Katsu the entire time, who sat behind me.
"Nothing." I replied, feeling myself heating up a bit, and turned around.
"Admiring my looks?" I practically heard him smirking behind me.
"You wish, I seen cuter and definitely fucking hotter. But, you're a pretty cute Hedgehog, gotta admit." I threw back with a lopsided grin.
There was some 'ouch! That burns!' And 'ohhhhs!' Just like in the movies, the minute things were getting spicy, Aizawa walked in the classroom. With this bandages off. I still had a pool of guilt and felt responsible for the bandages.
"Morning."
"Good morning! Aizawa-Sensei, I'm glad that you got your bandages off!" Tsuyu said.
"The old lady made it more serious than it was. Anyways, today's class is a bit special, I must say." Aizawa announced, scratching under his eye.
Almost immediately, I thought of those damn quizzes. I took a few in my other classes before, I didn't fail, but boy, are those stressful. But what the hell are we going to be tested on? We straight up had that sports festival last week!
What the fuck was I suppose to study?! Or at least fake it?
"We'll going to be formulating your codenames, or hero names you may say."
I swore everyone stood up and cheered for it. Aizawa went on with the votes from the sports festival of popularity according to the pros.
Todoroki, 4,123. Bakugou, 3,556. Tokoyami, 360. Iida, 301. Kaminari, 272. Momo, 108. Eji, 68. Urakaka, 20, and Sero 14. And guess who was dead last? Me! I had 1.
It actually surprised me, I had a vote.
"Typically, each year's votes are more even. But this year's spot light was those two."
"1st place and 2nd place is reversed!"
"Yeahh, seeing Bakugou all retrained on the winner's podium must have scared them off!" Sero joked.
"THEY AIN'T FUCKING SCARED!!"
"Awwww, Akari-Chan you only got one?" Urakaka sighed, patting my shoulder.
"Eh, didn't expect anything really. I mean, who would recruit a villain, right?" I chuckled, making the situation so it wasn't so "sad".
"Poor Akari-Chan, she must have been letted down so many times she's just to it...I'll make sure she at least have more choices!" Her face told me, as she tighten her hand into a fist.
"Either way, whether if you got votes or not. All of you are getting something called a 'Work Place experience'. Some of you already have a an idea, while other don't. So placeholder names are fine, as long as they're appropriate-" Aizawa started, I could tell by his eyes were screaming sleep.
"Or else it would be hell! The names you choose now are the names you all are going to be known as to the world! So choose wisely!" Kayama/Midnight stepped into the room in her hero costume, pretty much taking Aizawa's place.
And so, the name choosing game began. And I was staring into space without a fucking clue on my name.
"If I ever become a hero, I'm going to be the Hero from the Moon, Artemis!" My sister's words echoed throughout my head, bouncing from corner to corner.
"I would be Flame Eater!" Taki's voice said.
"Welll...If I became a hero...I....want to be known as Koreijo! Never more in English!" Senri shouted in my mind.
As each person presented their names, they seemed to each have a backstory to it. Relating it to their quirk or appearance, like Mina, Jirou, Kaminari and Tsuyu, or represented a hero, like Eji.
Or some were just stupid and ridiculous.
"King of Explodo-kills."
"PFFFFT...AHAHAHAHAHA!!" I bursted out laughing at the ridiculous name, almost crying at how hard I laughed.
"SHUT THE HELL UP SHORTIE!!"
——
"All that's left is Bakugou, who is revising his, Iida and Midoriya."
I looked over to Iida, his hand that held the board was trembling a bit. Was his family issue that bad? It can't be fucking worse than mine. Mines fucked up...
"Iida? Your actual name too?"
He nodded.
Izu went up next, I caught a small glimpse of his board as he passed me. He looked at me as he stood up facing he class, letting his emerald eyes meeting my dull (E/C) ones. I gave him a small reassuring smile, and mouthed him, the stage's all yours.
He turned his board to us.
Deku.
"Whaa? Are sure with that name, Midoriya?" Somebody asked.
"Y-yeah. For a long time, I didn't really like it. But a certain somebody turned the meaning of the word, and blew my world away. I...I was so happy. Deku, would be my hero name." Izu explained, and I knew who the person was. Urakaka. I ship it.
Behind me, I could literally sense Katsu glaring at Izu. Then, my gears clicked into place. I wrote it down.
"Good job! Now, Ak-Kageko! Show us what you got!" Kayama smiled at me and winked.
I took in a deep breath, and walked right up like nobody's business.
"So um...as you all know, I'm a former villain. I went by a name that...had a really twisted meaning behind it. It described me. Ruthless, cold-hearted, empty, nothingness. Zero. Nothing.
But...I also went by another name when I wasn't...uh...sending people to their graves. It's a nickname I had since a child. Ri, to me, it meant a lot of happy things.'A lot of my closest...friends and family called me that. 'Till this day, I'm still known that around them.
I have been told that you can't escape your past, which is a huge bummer. So why not take 'Zero' the villain me and 'Ri' the child me, together to become something they both wanted to be once upon a time?" I flipped the board around to the class.
"Ri-Zerø is going to be my hero name."
Call me crazy, but Katsu was smiling. Smiling. I saw Izu smiling at me too. Although my eyes darted back to Katsu's crimson ones, I blinked a few times. He was smiling.
I felt myself burning, burning and burning up. The hell is wrong with me?
——
(A/N) Enjoying this? Vote and share with your friends! Also, I made another book! It's called Agathological and it's a Tokyo Ghoul fanfic ^^
It's on my profile!