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"Did you know that All Might has a different catchphrase in English?" Kaminari asked the room while everyone was studying.
The class turned their heads to Midoriya, as the resident hero Otaku.
"Well...yes, of course he does." Midoriya said, blinking owlishly at the sudden attention. "He spent some time in the US and speaks English, so of course he has an English catchphrase as well as a Japanese one. ['I AM HERE!']. I thought everyone knew that?"
Kaminari chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, poor naïve classmates of mine. Let me teach you some English that Mic-sensei won't."
This piqued interest and slowly, students who were less interested in what Kaminari was up to started putting down their books and wrapping up their conversations. Kaminari raised his hand in the air. "First! What does [I am here]! Mean in Japanese?"
Yaoyoruzu answered readily, "The most direct translation would be [私はここです watashi wa koko desu], but...that sounds awkward to say. [私が来た Watashi ga kita!] sounds stronger and more direct, which is why All Might changed it in Japanese."
"Eh? But he came up with the Japanese catchphrase first," Midoriya said, thinking back to the debut video, "they're similar enough, so maybe he didn't put that much thought into it? [I am here] sounds more like 'I have been here all along' whereas in Japanese it's more like 'I have just arrived now'. Maybe he was just tailoring the catchphrase to meet with American or English-speaking culture, where they might find it more comforting to think of All Might and heroes in general as a sort of omnipresent force of justice who doesn't need to 'arrive' because they've been there from the start? Ah, so do we Japanese see All Might and other heroes as closer to people who need to arrive and leave like anyone else? Is there some kind of cultural divide in how we perceive heroes? I guess I've never thought about it that way- I wonder if the prevalence of Christianity in English-speaking countries and the thought of an omnipotent, omniscient being has bled into cultural perceptions of heroes, whereas in Japan..."
A hand was clamped over Midoriya's mouth. Kaminari stood above him, a little dazed. "Dude. I mean, you could be right? But dude, no. The reason-" he turned to the rest of the class, beckoning everyone to listen closely. "Okay, so did you know that in English when people...you know, do it they don't say [いくiku] when they...finish?"
"No shit, Pikachu. They would say it in English. [Going], or whatever."
"NOPE! Ha ha Bakugo, you're WRONG. That's what they say when they're taking a piss, unless maybe you're into that sort of thing-"A fight broke out between the two of them until Todoroki managed to encase Bakugo in ice from the neck down.
"Finish your point while I melt him, I'm not going to hold him back after that."
Kaminari had a few more bruises and lumps on his face than before, but was gleeful in telling the others, "They say [来るkuru]. [Coming]."
The pieces clicked in all nineteen of their heads and half of them started laughing and shouting, the others fell into resignation, exasperation, or (in Midoriya's case), horror at childhood lost.
"[I CAME! I CAME!]"
"Wow, that puts a whole lot of English songs into context."
"Kaminari, whyyyy. We didn't need to know that. We didn't need to think about that."
"You have used your bilingualism to spread chaos and despair to our class, casting darkness on all our minds. I would applaud you, were I not trying to scrub my brain clean of everything I just learned."
"Why do we even use words like [いくiku] and [来るkuru] for...that? How did that even get started?"
"Fear not, citizen, because [I CAME!]"
"Everything will be fine! Why? [I CAME!]"
"I just want you to know, Kaminari Denki, that when Todoroki-kun is done unfreezing Kacchan you will deserve literally everything that you get. Now every time I hear his catchphrase I'll be thinking of this, and that's not okay."
Even once Bakugo was set loose and charged after Kaminari for previous insults (and an equally destroyed childhood), Kaminari couldn't stop laughing.
THE NEXT DAY!
"GREETINGS, STUDENTS! Are you ready to- is...is something wrong?"
"Sensei!" Kaminari called out from his seat, fresh from an intensive treatment from Recovery Girl, "say your catchphrase!"
"Uh..okay? WATASHI GA KITA! ...why is everyone laughing?"
Even a high school of heroes was, after all, still a high school.