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"Oh, Todoroki! Can I help you?"
Training was over for the day and the hero students were about to return to the dorms. Cheat Code, or perhaps Izuku Midoriya would be more appropriate now that everyone knew his identity, as well as the other chaos gremlin Mei Hatsume had recently started to participate in class 1-A's training at times, as Hitoshi told the class the other week. Shouto had already made some progress with reclaiming the fire side of his quirk thanks to his analys packet, so it made sense that Midoriya could give advice on other questions too. Thankfully, Shouto had managed to reach the chaos duo in time before they vented away Among Us-style.
"Yes. I'm pretty sure that you're already aware, but I never chose a codename, and since I started using my fire, I think it's a good time to change that. And my costume at that."
Midoriya's eyes widened. "Of right! I'm so sorry for being insensitive in my earlier analyses, I should've realised that you had a reason for not using it and-"
Something exploded and Hatsume landed right next to... her boyfriend, right? They were apparently dating now, and while Shouto isn't one to keep up with gossip, when news spread like wildfire it was hard not to come across them.
"Hi Icy Cat-kun!", Hatsume waved innocently, as if nothing had happened. "Does this mean that you need me to make you babies? How about tanks to gather up your elements like Bully-kun's gauntlets? Or wait! Maybe you could use a thermoelectric generator? How about-"
"I thought you two were dating, why would you make my babies?", Shouto asked. "Anyways, that's not what I was thinking about. I was thinking more in terms of public image."
While Hatsume looked like her usual self, Midoriya's face had a redder tint than usual. "R- right, your streaming career could potentially be used in conjunction with your public hero image. We can also work with that image of you with, oh right, you named her Epurr I believe? The one that became a meme a while ago. Wait, is this even what you had in mind?"
Shouto nodded with a smile.
Enji hated this current situation. A lowlife lizard villain had attacked him in his own home and spouted some crap about him being a false hero. What right did that snake have to say that, Endeavor is clearly the strongest! He doesn't deserve anything less than being No. 1 Pro Hero, and he definitely didn't deserve being stuck on a hospital bed with several deep cuts!
What's worse is that there was apparently no one available with a healing quirk, forcing him to remain here for possibly weeks! Like usual, those support people are all worthless. Even so, not even Recovery Girl could get to this hospital, and while she too was a side character, she was still a Pro Hero. It's almost as if people avoided him or something.
"Ugh!", Enji cursed to himself and reached for the remote at the bedrest table. "I suppose I can get my mind off things."
Breaking news! Hero-in training reaches No. 1 in popularity!
What? This doesn't make any sense, here Enji has been dedicating several years of his life to be at the top, but here some new meat had already taken that spot! It didn't help matters that Endeavor had gone down to No. 16 since he got attacked! Actually, he had somehow already dropped to No. 4 before said attack, so being hospitalized couldn't be the only reason.
Even so, how was this kid even able to surpass All Might? Enji had wasted so much time and money on creating his successors for that very purpose!
Speaking of which, Enji hasn't heard at all from the brat since he kicked him out. That didn't go as planned, why hadn't the kid come back?
Did he lose another son just like Touya?
Our new top ranker gained success overnight due to a combination of a powerful quirk, good public relations and recent virality.
Good public relations, what kind of BS is this? Why does everyone go on about needing to be kind to people? Friendship does not equal power, this isn't like those cartoons he had once caught one of his kids watching. Damn media, corruping children like usual...
And here we managed to get an interview with our star, say hello to Icy Cat!
This spotlight thief was wearing the most ridiculous costume Enji had ever seen. He initially thought it was a feline quirk, but no, this bastard was actively choosing to wear fake cat ears and had a tail at the back of his costume. The costume itself was mostly black but with a bunch of glowy colors, as if it's meant to replicate those fancy computer keyboards some people wasted their money on.
As the glory hound was speaking with the interviewer, Enji took a closer look at his face. The ugly costume included a hoodie which covered most of his hair, but Enji could see some slight traces of red and white above his eyes. Now that he thought about it, his eyes were surprisingly handsome, it was as if Enji looked into a mirror. Wait...
The kid had a scar over his left side of his face.
For some reason, the name "Shouto" loudly echoed around the hospital district.
"Hello Icy Cat, congratulations on reaching the top spot! You're not even a fully graduated hero student and still did the impossible, tell us your secrets!"
"Thank you, ma'am. So I started streaming a month ago or so with my friend Dusty, we already had a bit of an online presence due to that."
"That's right, Dusty and Icy Cat! Who could forget the iconic duo? Master and apprentice, tsukkomi and boki, a match made in heaven!"
"If you're implying that Dusty and I are dating, I'm afraid that's not the case. We are aware of certain parts of our fanbase, pretty sure we did a yaoi reading stream last week... But I digress. I didn't mean to say what I said, I try to keep the gamer lingo to our streams only."
"But this incident was the reason for your recent rise in popularity, couldn't we say that it was, as you kids say, 'pretty cash money of you'?
Shouto sighed. "This is so not poggers..."
The reporter laughed. "And there you go again, good job sport! Anyways, why don't we rewatch the now-viral moment?"
A few days prior, there had been a robbery in a tech district. The three villains didn't get very far before Icy Cat had made it to their location and blocked his escape route with an ice wall, but the trio was a decently formidable group. The first villain had some sort of wolf based quirk; with thick fur and large fangs he started eating his way through the ice while shrugging off the cold, but a sudden fireball both took him by surprise and was super effective against said fur.
As Cheat Code suggested, Shouto could keep his fire hidden to lure villains into a false sense of security.
The second villain had a quirk that let him create and manipulate yellow slime, which also just had to resist both cold and heat. The amount of slime also made this villain a most sizable opponent, who would've cornered Icy Cat had he not managed to escape down a manhole. Regardless how how large and fast the slime villain was, Icy Cat had maxed out his Stealth and got advantage due to how dark the sewers were. Icy Cat managed to trap the villain by freezing the water around him and tasing him after having charged up Hatsume's thermoelectric generator. Shouto would have to thank her later.
The third villain, while the brains of their operation, was the least combative one, preferring to abandon his allies and run on his own. Icy Cat surmised that he had some sort of indifference-causing quirk, as while he had his eyes on the opponent, the public barely noticed him as he ran past them. Either that, or they were more preoccupied with taking pictures of their favorite streamer in action.
While tailing the villain Shouto concluded that the former was more likely true, as civilians filmed the robber but seemingly forgot about him once he got close enough, thus causing them to start focusing on the next best thing, which just so happened to be Icy Cat chasing something invisible.
Icy Cat decided that a stealth attack was the best option, and climbed back into another manhole.
Unnamed villain #3 looked behind himself, seems like he finally managed to lose Icy Cat. He stopped to catch his breath, even if he still was out in the open, no one was currently paying attention to himself. That was until a nearby manhole lid started shaking, causing people to start filming that, and by extention him.
The lid flew off and Icy Cat jumped out, freezing the villain in place up to his head before he could reactivate his quirk. If only he had been completely frozen so he wouldn't have to hear his captor's one liner.
"GET SKIBIDI'D!!!"
"Whaddya say, everyone, should we turn Icy Cat's latest catchphrase into more merch?"
"I- Dusty, we can't do that!" Shouto would've read the chat to see their replies but he was too focused on the game. He had improved and even if he was doing pretty well against this fiery spider boss, he couldn't afford to die yet another time.
"'I would love a Skibidi Icy Cat', someone says." Shigaraki was therefore reading the chat instead. "Hmm, perhaps it would be a good idea." A ding sound was made, meaning that someone had donated money and was likely going to send a text-to-speech message.
"heck yeah skibidi bro.", the robotic voice said. Shouto took his eyes off the game for a split second and read the donor's username. "Not you too...", he said mostly to himself before reading "YOU DIED" on the game screen. "Shoot, my bad."
Rei Todoroki was proud of her son. He had not only gotten way from his father, he had at least one new friend, he was making a good career both as a Pro Hero and as an internet personality and judging from his voice, he was happier overall. Due to her institution's rules she could rarely watch him stream live, but she would check out his VODs whenever she could. Right now she looked at the merchandise she had ordered.
It was a plush toy (hence why the institution allowed it) resembling a toilet seat, with a head sticking out of it. The head was mostly covered in a black hoodie with cat ears, while the head itself sported a scar, white and red hair along as well as two embroided blue eyes.