Chapter 30:
Recap
But he was too late, all he heard was "I'm sorry" clear as day before everything turned pitch black.
Resume
"NORIKO SACHIKO HAS WON THE U.A. SPORTS FESTIVAL" Present Mic cheered, the stadium leapt to its feet, the cheers were deafening. Noriko bowed lightly before moving aside so the paramedic robots could remove Shinsou from the stage and bring him back to Recovery girl. His head lolled to the side easily as they picked him up, her hit having loosened all of his previously battle tensed muscles.
"THE AWARD CEREMONY WILL BEGIN ONCE SHINSOU REGAINS CONSCIOUSNESS, ENJOY THE BOOTHS OUTSIDE OR READ A BOOK UNTIL THE NEXT ANNOUNCEMENT THANK YOU FOR LISTENING" the first thing Noriko wanted to do was just call Shigaraki, she may have won but she felt kinda bad for roughing up a prospective recruit.
Those dreams were dashed however once she walked off stage. What she expected to be an empty hallway was actually filled to bursting with classmates and students from other classes. All of them bombarding her with questions not only on this fight but just about herself, one kid from a general education department class actually asked for her autograph. She answered most of the questions and refused the autograph, how was she going to write one if she didn't have one planned out?
The attention was something new, her work as "Puppet" was anonymous and just about everyone who saw her do any did, died, plain and simple, no witnesses. The attention was kind of growing on her and she saw how heroes get drawn in by it. But that didn't change her ideology, she was still going to kill all of the good for nothing heroes that lived for glory, fame, and money instead of the people.
"It wasn't anything special, and sorry but I can't do an autograph right now," she says, a happy lilt in her voice. The crowd just rushes forward praising her for being so humble, her statement being completely ineffective. Overwhelmed she stumbles backward only to be saved by her friend Mina who had snuck past the crowd silently (which had been quite the challenge for the normally loud girl) and grabbed Noriko's shoulders, steadying her before grabbing her by the armpits and lifting her like a child.
"My friends" she said, lifting Noriko up like a sacrifice, or maybe a god, "Noriko has other engagements at the moment and must leave, worry not, she will be in school tomorrow and every day after" and thus the crowd parted like the red sea and they simply walked through heads held high and giggling whenever their eyes made contact.
"Thanks, Mina," Noriko said quietly, "I wanted to call my friend but I couldn't get out" she explained.
"No prob," Mina said cheerfully placing her hand in a peace sign at the edge of her eye as she placed Noriko on the ground. Then she bounced off the talk to the rest of the Bakuquad leaving Noriko blissfully in peace so she could call Gaki with no interruptions.
She ran to the locker rooms to grab her phone and quickly clicked Gaki's name in her contacts and waited anxiously as it rang over and over. Finally, it clicked and she could hear Gaki's deep, rough breathing over the speaker.
"HEEEYYY Gaki" she cheered, making Shigaraki groan in fond annoyance, "DID YOU SEE ME WIN" she crooned.
"I saw you rough up that kid you wanted to join us yeah"
"Awwe I didn't do that much, recovery girl is seeing him now so he'll be fine I promise"
"Is that KOKO!" Toga's voice cried in the background.
"Shit" Shigaraki swore under his breath before a slamming sound indicated that Toga had indeed recognized her voice, proceeded to tackle Shigaraki to the ground, and take his phone from the four fingers that held it, and was about to screech into Noriko's ear.
"HIII TOGA" Noriko cried gleefully waiting for an equally happy response only to have her dreams dashed when Shigaraki took his phone and hung up simply to keep the screeching in his ears at a minimum for the next few hours.
"HITOSHI SHINSOU HAS REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS SO THE AWARDS WILL RESUME SOON" Mic loudly announced over the PA system.
Noriko rushed to exit the tunnel entrance for the last time and jumped up the levels of the podium until she stood at the top, both of her arms raised in proud victory, a large smile plastered across her face shining from ear to ear.
Shinsou sluggishly walked out the opposite tunnel entrance, the bags under his eyes more prominent than ever thanks to recovery girl draining his already lacking energy pool.
Kendo smiled and walked out proud and carrying the joy of all her class 1B friends, she waved at all of the cheering spectators and subconsciously looked up at the blimp over the stadium and saw herself. She smiled even wider and looked up at Monoma using her quirk to enlarge her hand and give him a very large thumbs up.
Bakugou was far less happy and graceful in his entrance to the stadium. In fact, he didn't even walk in, he was carted onto the 3rd place podium, arms chained and a muzzle over his mouth. The chained clattered over the drone of the crowd and he shook in anger.
Midnight calmed the spectators for All Mights entrance as he crashed down and was handed the awards. He stood in front of the 3rd place podium giving the medal to Kendo first.
"Young Kendo, you have done your class and your friends proud along with every teacher here. We are glad that you are using this hero academia to it's greatest potential" he hugged her tightly before moving onto Bakugou.
"You Bakugou, You did well to fight your way this far, and you have a new goal to reach please take this experience and learn from it so you may become a better hero in the future" he placed the medal around Bakugous neck and unhooked the muzzle in hopes he would calm down without it but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a stream of death threats and curses. The muzzle was quickly re-strapped to his mouth silencing his protests.
"Young Shinsou, You fought well and learned from your experiences in my class! Continue to work hard and I know you will become a great hero, there is no doubt in my mind" Shinsou let a small smile grace his exhausted features as All Might moved on to Noriko.
"Young Noriko, you surprise me at every turn, you fight like you have been for years and with your family, I have no doubt that you do, you worked hard to be able to compete, though your trick with the crutches was slightly alarming I am glad you found a bright place in your misfortune. Continue your training you will become one of the best heroes I have ever met, I promise." Noriko jumped up to envelope him in an unexpected hug. She smiled gratefully for the praise while ignoring his comments about becoming a hero.
The festival ended with much confusion and quite a bit of laughter before everyone had to return to their classrooms for one last announcement.
"Hero internships" Aizawa declared slapping a pile of paper on his desks and clicking on a live survey a couple of numbers changing every few seconds through the largest number just kept climbing. "Usually the numbers would be more spread out, but as you can see, a certain little girl in the running made quite the splash". The name Noriko Sachiko sat firmly at the top of the list with 6431 offers, the second most votes being Todoroki with 3567 votes, then Shinsou with 2985, and Bakugou with 2984 votes. Roughly ten other students had names up on the board but it was clear which ones had the most hero attention.
"Students who have offers have specific lists" Aizawa started, walking down the isles and distributing those lists, "The other students with have a generic list to choose from, please pick three options in case you don't get your first or second choice, have it filled out and completed by the time school starts again in two days, dismissed, get out" Aizawa said as he walked out of the room.
"I AM SO PUMPED" Noriko shouted jumping up and down on her desktop, Luckily Iida was not there to criticize such action.
"YEAH!" Mina and Hagakure yelled with her. "By the way, do you know what specialty you want to go to for your hero internship?" Mina asked her.
"I was thinking one that spends a lot of time in interviews and with the media, I'm not so good with large groups of people so I want to work on it, I'm really good at fighting so I don't need help with that but media and how to talk to and persuade people sounds really helpful" Noriko explained, actually sounding serious for the first time since they had met her.
A.N. TADA! A NEW CHAPTER! I'm so happy I wrote it, though I did so with wet nails so they are totally messed up, but I had ideas. there are a couple of things in this chapter that are very forshadowy so yeah I think its kinda clever but also like idk. I went to a book festival the day before yesterday and it was really cool I got a book signed so like whoa excitement. anyways, HAVE A GOOD DAY/NIGHT BYE!