Don't You Wish That You Could See in Color Just Like Me (When it All Turns Gray and Your Vision Starts to Fade)?
"Paint the world in vibrant hues; let the colors sway, let me be your muse. You paint the ocean the deepest blue as the color wave washes over you. Don't you wish that you could see in color just like me? When it all turns gray, you'll see the forest for the trees. Don't you wish that you could flee to a place so far out to sea; follow the compass and you'll be free…"
('Colourwave' by 'Valiant Hearts')
"Ah!"
Izuku screamed as he fell, then he hit the water face-first with a splash. In his surprise, he breathed in water, too, then he was gasping for air and getting liquid instead. Izuku tried to scream again as he flailed, only to drink in more water, and that was about the point where he realized that this was the end.
He was going to die having accomplished nothing in his life and not having lived up to Toshinori's legacy.
He was going to die and not be remembered for having put smiles on people's faces.
He was abruptly hauled out of the water by Tomura, who sneered at Izuku as the latter coughed up his lungs.
"Jesus Christ, it's six inches of water, you useless lump!"
"I-I knew that…" Izuku mumbled in defeat once he was finished coughing; he did not know that at all. Then he blinked the water out of his vision and gasped when he looked at Tomura. Tomura still had Izuku by the back of the collar of his suit but Tomura… Tomura looked really different.
He looked… He looked vivid. His normally dark hair was a whitish-blue and his eyes were a stunning red, which contrasted sharply with the scars he had on his pale skin.
Izuku blinked slowly and looked around, then realized that everything now had that same vivid quality. The plants and flowers around the little marshy swamp they were in all had shocking sharpness and color to them; reds and blues and yellows and purples, with a shimmering beauty in the sunlight.
"What… where are we, Tomura?" Izuku breathed, and he turned to his stepbrother with wide eyes. Tomura rolled his eyes and looked around.
"I don't know, but look at yourself in the water and then you'll really freak out."
Izuku blinked a few times in confusion, then he almost fell forward when Tomura let him go. Izuku caught himself with a bit of arm windmilling, then looked at the water carefully for his reflection in the sunlight. The ripples from his movement eventually went away - then Izuku gasped sharply at the sight.
He was… his hair was green! And his eyes, too! That wasn't normal… and his freckles were more noticeable than before while his eyebrows had also changed color. His hair wasn't entirely green - it was dark at the roots, almost black, before brightening to green at the tips - but it was still shocking. Izuku looked down at his suit and noted that it had changed colors, too; before it was a dark, plain black, but now it was a dark, velvety green with black lapels, and the undershirt was a pure, clean white save for the fact that it was soaked. His stubby tie was replaced by a black bowtie, as well.
"What… what happened, Tomura?!" Izuku cried out frantically, his voice cracking towards the end of his statement. He turned and found Tomura flicking idly at the little bugs that weren't quite butterflies and weren't quite dragonflies.
"We apparently died and went to Heaven… and I can't say I'm impressed," Tomura said, and Izuku raised an eyebrow. Izuku remembered the tornado and then flying - then falling. He realized he didn't precisely have a good argument against what Tomura had said, so Izuku just shrugged. Then he turned and saw, through a break in the trees near the edge of the marsh, that there was the tip of something bright and glittering green poking out over the horizon.
"Hey, Tomura… there's something over there…" Izuku mumbled. Tomura, who was taller, stood up and turned then, and Izuku watched his now-whitish eyebrows furrow in confusion.
"Looks like a building. Let's go," Tomura said, and he immediately began marching towards the edge of the marsh, where there was a path.
"H-hold on, what if they're not nice?!" Izuku exclaimed as he scrambled to follow. Tomura was all he had, now. He was the only family Izuku had left to cling to, so he was going to cling for dear life, lest he be swallowed by the unknown.
Better the devil you know, after all.
Tomura scoffed at Izuku as Izuku caught up on Tomura's right.
"If they're not nice, then we'll beat on 'em until they give me what I want," Tomura said, and Izuku raised an eyebrow even though Tomura wasn't looking at him. Tomura had a frightening smile on his face that concerned Izuku.
Tomura was never very nice in the past. He had become a little better, though, when they first left home - and accordingly, when they were away from Tomura's father and Izuku's stepfather, who was a cruel, unkind man who deliberately manipulated Tomura. However, after Toshinori died Tomura got worse again, and soon he was even worse than he ever had been before.
But here, there was something… different about him. Like the vividness of this new place was affecting Tomura in new and unsettling ways.
Izuku frowned at that thought. It seemed impossible to him.
Yet also, scarily enough, it felt correct.
"Ah!"
Ochako screamed as she fell… only to land back-first in what felt like a field of flowers. Then Ochako blinked in confusion as she stared at the sky… and realized it was the most vivid thing she'd ever seen in her life.
It was vivid and blue and stunning, whereas normally Ochako was used to dull and cloudy gray skies on what once was the American frontier. Ochako sat up abruptly and looked down first, finding that her dress was now a vivid sky blue and bright white. Then she looked around and realized she was in a field of flowers: sunflowers, to be precise, though these sunflowers were of varying sizes, between three and six feet tall. Ochako looked around and frowned as she realized that the sunflowers had that same quality of vividness. They were beautiful, vivid yellow and brown and green, and she resisted the urge to pluck one, if only because it would be wasted since she couldn't really carry it.
Sero barked urgently from somewhere on her right and Ochako turned to look for him.
"Sero? Sero!" She called out, scrambling to her feet so she could go look for him. She made it about five steps before the strangest man she'd ever seen in her life popped up out of the flowers and smiled brightly at her.
"Hi there! Welcome to Oz!" He said, and Ochako screamed in surprise when she realized Sero was hanging off of the man's head, growling and biting for dear life. "Oh, hey there little guy. You can let go now!"
The man reached up and gently took Sero off him - not that Sero was intent on cooperating in any capacity - before setting the dog down gently at his feet. Sero promptly peed on the man's feet, to which the man yelped and jumped away. Then Sero ran to Ochako's side and hid behind her ankle as he tried to growl menacingly at the man.
"That's not very manly, little dog!" The man moaned, but Ochako was more distracted with how he looked. He seemed… young. Maybe he was her age - except it was hard to tell, because he was made of straw and burlap. Well, that wasn't quite true; he had a simple tunic and pants on that were typical for-
It dawned on Ochako then. This boy was a scarecrow… and, for some reason, all the straw on top of his head was blood red and so were his irises. The scarecrow boy turned to her and gave her a toothy grin, and Ochako raised her eyebrow as she realized he had pointed teeth.
"Anyway, as I was saying. Hi there, and welcome to Oz! My name is Eijiro and I'm a scarecrow!" Eijiro said, then he wiped his right hand off on his hip and held it out to shake. Ochako eyed his hand carefully - he wasn't precisely clean, but she lived on a farm, so that wasn't the worst thing in the world - then carefully shook it. When they finished, Eijiro smacked his closed fists together in a way that looked distinctly painful to Ochako, though Eijiro just grinned as he did it.
"Hello. My name is Ochako, and, er… I'm a human?" Ochako said, not precisely sure how else to describe herself.
"Weird. Don't got any of those around here, so far as I know. But I love meeting new people, so it's awesome to meet you!" Eijiro smiled genuinely again, and Ochako couldn't help but smile, too. He seemed nice.
Then she cried out in surprise when something fast and yellowish-white and big came flying out of the flowers and tackled Eijiro. Ochako rushed over to where they had landed only to find what looked like a man who was not quite a man - and indeed not quite human, since he was also part lion - pinning Eijiro down. The boy-lion wasn't wearing a shirt - though his whole body was covered in ash-blonde fur - but he did have some dark green and orange pants on, sans any shoes.
"What did I tell ya about just walking up to any random person who shows up here, Ei?!" The boy-lion growled - literally growled - as the two began fighting.
Well, fighting wasn't really the right term; they were wrestling certainly, but it reminded Ochako more of when she'd watch boys roughhouse near the school in town. She was sure there was no real trouble when Eijiro began to cackle happily, then the boy-lion let out an indignant squawk of surprise when Eijiro began to tickle him.
"God damn you, I told you not to do that!" The boy-lion yelled angrily as he bolted from his previous position of straddling Eijiro's chest to run away from the scarecrow. Eijiro was crying from laughing so hard as he chased the boy-lion around.
"They're very worked up today," another person with a deep, slightly monotonous voice said from somewhere on Ochako's right. Ochako turned and her eyebrow rose again with the sight of the new person she was confronted with.
He was… tall - substantially taller than her anyway - and he appeared to be made of metal, probably tin by the look of him. Most of his body was silver, though he had a large, sad-looking rust spot on the left side of his face that framed his eye there. He had a little funnel on top of his head as a hat, and it was two-toned white on the right and red on the left. The tin boy gave her a little wave that came with an awful squeaking sound, and she could just barely tell he was smiling.
"Hello. My name is Shouto. The scarecrow is Eijiro and the lion is Katsuki." Shouto paused for a moment and looked her up and down. "You don't seem like you're from around here."
Ochako smiled, though it was a little sad.
"My name is Ochako. I don't think I'm from around here, no. It doesn't seem like Kansas, at any rate," she said sheepishly. Shouto blinked a few times in confusion and Ochako noted his eyes were not the same color: his right eye was gray and his left eye was a soft, silvery blue.
"What's a 'Kansas?'" Shouto asked, slightly mangling the pronunciation. That was the moment that it dawned on Ochako that all three boys had been speaking in Japanese to her, and she had, too, on reflex.
"Huh. Interesting. Well, don't worry about not knowing what a Kansas is, Shouto. Save yourself some brain space on that one." Shouto did not look like he understood her joke - or perhaps just 'jokes' as a general thing. "I do need to get back, though… where the Hell are we, anyway? Eijiro called it 'Oz?'"
Shouto nodded, his metal head bobbing up and down, just barely perceptible for Ochako, though he was given away since he made a slightly awful squeak of metal-on-metal every time he moved. He seemed… shy, and a bit hard to read, but nice at any rate.
"Oz, a magical land full of wonder and mystery and… Well, it's actually kind of dull, honestly," Shouto deadpanned. Ochako giggled but Shouto just frowned, and that made her laugh in earnest when she realized he wasn't joking at all.
"It's so beautiful and pretty here, though!" Ochako said once she recovered. Shouto just continued to frown, though.
"Pretty on the outside doesn't mean pretty on the inside, Ochako," Shouto said evenly, and Ochako's amusement died on the spot. She'd seen enough people who were putting on a front to cover up how sad they really were - people whose family had died suddenly or who had left everything behind to move to the frontier and never got over it - to recognize what was wrong with Shouto. He was sad - a real, deep kind of sad, not just a passing feeling - and he was trying not to show it.
"Right, sorry Shouto," Ochako said after a moment.
"Why are you sorry?" Shouto replied immediately, clearly befuddled. Ochako just sighed and smiled; he wasn't ready for that conversation yet, she suspected.
"Don't worry about it. Should we stop these two from killing each other?" Ochako said, and she turned to look at Eijiro and Katsuki.
The two were still wrestling and Eijiro looked like he was having the time of his life. Katsuki, meanwhile, looked mad as hell - then he screeched in angry surprise when Eijiro grabbed his tail. Katsuki's pointy lion teeth were exposed in an angry grimace for all the world to see as he began to chase Eijiro around, while Eijiro's own shark-like teeth gleamed in the sunlight as he skipped away in the field of flowers.
"I don't think so, no. This is normal for them," Shouto said evenly. Ochako turned to him in slight surprise.
"Huh. Well, that's good, I suppose," Ochako said. In that moment, she was reminded of conversations with her mother about how 'boys in town will try and tease you because they like you; don't let them walk all over you, though' as she watched Eijiro and Katsuki run around.
Katsuki kind of looked like he was secretly having fun, too. It wasn't allowed, back home, for boys to like boys like that… but Ochako watched them run around and decided she couldn't precisely understand why. They were having the time of their lives after all, and doing it together. Wasn't that the whole point?
Ochako was startled when Katsuki appeared right up close in her field of vision; she didn't even hear him coming. He had vivid red eyes and lion whiskers to go with his ash-blonde 'hair' and mane.
"Oi! Round Face! You probably need to see the Wizard, or maybe one of the good witches. They'll tell ya how to get the hell out of here, and out of our hair, too!" Katsuki grumbled. He leaned forward at the waist to look at her, since he was taller, and he had his hands on his hips in clear disapproval. "You ain't shit, though, so I don't see what difference it makes if you come or go," he added. Ochako's response was to reach up and flick him in the forehead with one finger.
"Excuse you, Kitty Cat, I don't recall asking for your opinion," Ochako retorted calmly. Katsuki turned red in the face, but he looked furious, not embarrassed.
"Why you little-!" He was cut off by Eijiro grabbing him, with his arms under Katsuki's shoulders. Katsuki flailed, still trying to get at Ochako, only for his momentum to send both boys toppling back into the flowers. Their mixture of laughter and angry squawking become incoherent and incomprehensible at that point. Ochako turned to Shouto with a smirk.
"These two don't seem very much your speed, Tin Boy," Ochako said calmly, but with an edge of amusement. Shouto just shrugged and smiled a tiny bit.
"They're nice, I promise, once you get used to them. I'd be lonely without them," Shouto said. Ochako could see that. Shouto seemed like a quiet kid, so maybe he needed a little crazy in his life. It probably kept things fresh. Ochako could also relate to the feeling of needing more friends in her life and wondering if things were worse without friends.
"C'mon, we're gonna follow the Yellow Brick Road!" Eijiro declared as he popped up like a spring from the ground with no trouble at all. Katsuki got up much slower, pink in the face and rubbing his head indignantly. Katsuki shot Eijiro a glare only for Eijiro to smile like the sun at him. Then Katsuki turned away, blushing from neck to ear, and Ochako couldn't help but snort in amusement.
These three will be fun.
"So you're telling me this is 'the Emerald City,' and it's the seat of power in this land of 'Oz?'" Tomura said with a maniacal grin.
Izuku followed along on Tomura's right, feeling more and more trepidation by the moment. On Tomura's left was a very tiny man who had introduced himself as 'Joi' and who wore a little bird mask and a top hat. Joi had spent the last fifteen minutes of walking through the glittering, beautiful halls of the Emerald City explaining what Oz was to Tomura and Izuku - mostly Tomura - without seemingly a care in the world.
Izuku was too utterly amazed at what certainly appeared to be real, genuine magic all around them to spend too much time interrogating Joi. Besides, he knew better than to interrupt Tomura when Tomura was wheeling and dealing someone, and Tomura was definitely wheeling and dealing at that moment.
"Sure is!" Joi said gruffly. He had a rather deep voice for someone who looked to be about two feet tall.
They had been intercepted near the outskirts of the Emerald City by two rather eccentric young men wearing military-style uniforms. One was named Tenya and the other Inasa, they introduced themselves as, and they claimed to be members of the 'Gale Force.' Apparently that was the name of the guards of the Emerald City, and after meeting the two Izuku and Tomura were promptly guided towards the main plaza.
"You'll need to see the Wizard, Tomura and Izuku. He'll know how to get ya home!" Joi declared with pure sincerity and surety. Izuku's gaze snapped down to the little man at that; 'wizards' were something he was acutely interested in.
"Does the Wizard of Oz have a name?!" Izuku asked enthusiastically. Then he wilted a bit as Tomura shot him a death glare, and boy were his death glares a lot scarier with his new look. Izuku awkwardly twiddled his index fingers together, waiting for the coming, hard smack to the back of the head. Before Tomura could make up his mind on that, though, Joi answered the question.
"No! He is just 'the Wizard of Oz,' and you shall be respectful to him!" Joi declared. Izuku frowned in disappointment, but then he noticed that Tomura looked… pleased?
That's strange…
"Oh, we'll be respectful, don't worry," Tomura said, and his tone was icy. Izuku shrank a bit in response, but Joi didn't seem to notice with how excited he seemed to be about the Wizard of Oz.
"Good! If you're not, the Gale Force will throw you right out on your ass, so keep that in mind!"
"Got it!" Izuku said reflexively; getting thrown on his ass was no fun, and he was already well-acquainted with the feeling. Tomura just rolled his eyes and began to survey the crowds around them.
The people running around all had fabulous, vivid sparkling outfits in various colors or wore some kind of military regalia. Some of them stopped to stare at Tomura and Izuku but most didn't care. They also, Izuku noted, didn't look… normal. Some were really short, though not as short as Joi, while others had more angular facial features than any human Izuku had ever seen along with pointy ears. Izuku also noted a number of what appeared to be animal people and that was just utterly fascinating to him.
It was wild to finally see real magic in person. Izuku loved every moment of it, Tomura or no Tomura there to spoil his mood.
They got led into an unusual, long hallway with all kinds of bright lights and spinning designs on the walls, and it was starting to make Izuku dizzy. Joi left them at that point, telling them they just needed to walk forward and they'd be in the Wizard's chambers. Then he slammed the door behind him, and Izuku realized they probably wouldn't be allowed to leave without the Wizard's blessing.
"Come on, let's go meet this 'wizard' and show him how real magicians operate," Tomura said darkly. Izuku swallowed nervously at that.
"Tomura, he's going to have real magic, though! You've seen all this stuff!" Izuku exclaimed, pleading seeping into his tone. Tomura just cracked his knuckles.
"I have a feeling that this wizard won't amount to much," Tomura said frankly. Then he marched on ahead and Izuku made a slightly strangled, panicked noise as he rushed to keep up.
They crossed through the very green hallway into a room that seemed like a theater to Izuku, of all things. The walls all around were made of green, velvety curtains, and the stage was lit up by bright spotlights. It reminded Izuku of the big stages they had done shows with Toshinori on, and he began to tear up at the sight.
Then he and Tomura both screamed in unison when a giant evil bird demon head appeared on the stage.
"WHO DARES DISTURB THE WIZARD OF OZ?!"
Izuku and Tomura continued to scream together for about thirty seconds, before Tomura abruptly stopped and squinted at the stage.
"I SAID, WHO DARES DISTURB THE WIZARD OF OZ?!"
Tomura began to creep forward as Izuku reached out to try and stop him. Izuku barely missed the back of Tomura's coat with his fingers, hissing out coherent speech finally through his teeth.
"Tomura, what are you doing?!"
Tomura's creep accelerated into a brisk walk as he approached the stage. Izuku watched in frozen horror as Tomura stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked back and forth, carefully observing the giant evil bird demon. The giant evil bird demon, strangely, didn't appear to be looking at Tomura at all, or Izuku, for that matter. Instead, it was vaguely glaring at the middle of the room, as if-
As if it were a movie projection!
Izuku realized what Tomura had seen as Tomura turned back with a terrifying, toothy grin. Izuku swallowed nervously once more, then released the breath he'd been holding as Tomura power walked over to the far left side of the room. Izuku cautiously followed… only to jump in surprise as Tomura grabbed the curtain and pulled it back.
When he did, he revealed a strange, slightly gangly man wearing a big bird mask and an awful looking outfit of a green jacket and purple frilly thing over black and white formal clothes. There was also a little girl who looked terrified kneeling on the ground in the corner. The girl had vivid red eyes and a horn on her head, as well as pale white, beautiful hair. She couldn't have been older than six or seven and she was crying. Suddenly Izuku felt determination rather than fear, though Tomura zeroed in on the man instead.
"So, you're the Wizard of Oz, huh? Kinda pathetic, aren't ya?" Tomura asked as he gripped the man's collar with two hands and hauled him out of the chair he'd been sitting in.
"Ah! Wait, wait, I'm just… My name is Kai, please don't hurt me!" The man - Kai - said, and Izuku realized he was probably no good in a fight. He definitely hadn't done any real work in his life, and he looked terrified just to be in close proximity to other people for some reason.
"Can you tell us how this," Tomura began, gesturing with his head towards the strange machine the man had been sitting at, "works, or do I have to beat it out of you?"
The thing kind of looked like a demented typewriter made of brass, though it was much larger than a typewriter - about the size of a man - and flush against the wall.
"I don't- I don't know! The girl- the girl, Eri, she makes it work, I just direct the magic!" Kai blurted out. Tomura set him down then and Kai took a step back. Tomura looked down at Eri, who looked even more terrified in response, and eyed her curiously. Then he looked back at Kai and scowled.
"Then you're useless," Tomura declared as he popped Kai right in the forehead with a hard right hook. Kai went down like a sack of potatoes, his face all bloody, as Izuku and Eri both gasped in unison. Then Tomura looked around the little room behind the curtain for a moment, searching for something it seemed. "Izuku," Tomura began sharply, and Izuku jumped in surprise, "you're gonna learn how to use this contraption. I'm going to find somewhere to tie up this dope and hide him in the meantime."
As he spoke, Tomura hauled Kai up and over his shoulder and began moving towards the back of the curtained room - where it was revealed there was more space to walk, as Tomura pulled another curtain back.
"What?!" Izuku said, but Tomura just turned back to him and grinned again. It was horrible, and Izuku shrank in the face of it.
"You're the Wizard of Oz now, Izuku. Better start learning real quick. We're gonna run this town."
Izuku frowned at that. He understood, instinctively, that what Tomura really meant was that he was going to run this town while Izuku did all the work. That was how it usually went with his inane schemes, anyway. Izuku didn't want to run anything - he just wanted to do magic and make people smile - but he also wasn't seeing a better option at the moment as Tomura's capacity for violence seemed to be increasing.
And, after all, it was not like the people of Oz would be very happy if they found out what Tomura and Izuku had just done.
"Alright," Izuku said cautiously. Tomura grunted in vague acknowledgement and walked down the halls past the curtain, stopping only to close the curtain again behind him as he took the unconscious Kai away.
Izuku then turned to Eri, who was still terrified, and gave her his best winning showman's smile as he knelt down to be level with her. He brought his left hand to his chest and held out his right hand in the way that Toshinori taught him was good for connecting with a crowd and showing empathy.
"Hey there. My name is Izuku! I heard your name is Eri, is that right?" Eri nodded shyly; she was clinging to a little red blanket she had and futilely attempting to hide behind it. "I heard you can do magic, Eri. Could you show me? I love magic!"
"The… the bad man hurts me to make me do it. Will you hurt me?" Eri asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Izuku's smile almost fell right off his face but he willed himself to keep it up. At that moment he understood Eri clear as day, and if he were her, he'd want to see a smile.
"Never, Eri. I promise I won't hurt you. I'll protect you from the bad man if Tomura doesn't get rid of him, alright?" Izuku said, with an absolute conviction that surprised even him as he dropped his right hand slowly. He wasn't precisely sure he could protect anyone as he was… but Eri needed someone and he was all she had now.
Eri nodded shyly and held out her right hand. Izuku gasped when there was a beautiful golden glow and a single rose appeared in her hand, then he frowned when the thorns pricked her hand and drew the tiniest bead of blood.
"Oh, that's beautiful, Eri!" Izuku said, readopting his smile just as quickly. He gently plucked the rose from her fingers, finding a spot on it to hold with his own fingers that had no thorns. "You'll want to be careful with this, it's pokey!"
"The things I make usually hurt people…" Eri admitted quietly. "The bad man wants my magic to hurt people. He says that's all I'm good for."
Izuku brought the rose to his nose and smelled it. It was the nicest smelling flower he'd ever smelled in his entire life.
"I think you shouldn't spare the bad man a single additional thought, Eri. This rose is perfect!" Izuku said, and he meant it, too. Eri made a funny face at him - he might've said she was trying to smile, except it came out like a grimace - then she held out her hand.
"You… go like this," she began, and Izuku matched her motion, "Then… you think about… happy thoughts. Think about… beauty, or what makes you happy, and… something happens. It's hard," Eri continued, and she didn't seem like she quite understood what was happening at all. Izuku didn't hold that against her, though; she was rather young for something like this.
Izuku wasn't sure precisely what to think, so he thought of a recent happy memory. He thought about the brunette girl, Ochako, taking his hand and trying to protect him from Tomura, and how nice she and Himiko had been. It was a comforting thought even though Izuku was partially kind of glad he wouldn't see them again - he was just a burden, after all - and also rather sad.
Viridian, crackling lightning struck across the surface of Izuku's green suit like a little thunderstorm - then an entire bouquet of flowers appeared in his hand, of all different colors and kinds of flowers. Eri made an awed noise of surprise and began to clap, but Izuku was dumbstruck.
I can do real magic?!
Ochako was not precisely sure what she should have expected from the first real settlement of Oz she came to.
She did not expect a town of charming, adorable little people called Munchkins, in a town called Munchkinland. Ochako had to resist the urge to laugh at the name, but it really was a nice place. The Yellow Brick Road was so vibrant and beautiful and Ochako had a blast walking along and chatting with Shouto as Eijiro and Katsuki continued to be cute dorks together, dancing and skipping and chasing each other around.
Ochako paused at the edge of Munchkinland as the Munchkins began to emerge from their homes to regard them, turning to Shouto.
"Hey, Shouto?" Ochako asked, and Shouto turned to her with a head tilt to invite her to continue. "Are Eijiro and Katsuki… together?"
Shouto looked like she had asked him a question in Portuguese, furrowing his brows with a hideous metal-on-metal squeak as he turned to look at Eijiro and Katsuki. The two were in the process of talking to a group of Munchkins - or perhaps more accurately, Eijiro was smiling and talking while Katsuki dramatically yelled to the sky how much he hated Munchkinland as the Munchkins cackled and skipped around the pair in a circle.
"They're together right now, yes," Shouto replied after a moment. Ochako smiled at first, before realizing that Shouto did not understand her question at all. He thought she meant 'are they physically together at this moment,' and Ochako resisted the urge to smack her hand to her forehead.
"No, Shouto… I meant, are they… in a romantic relationship?" Ochako clarified. She watched the realization play out on Shouto's face in slow motion and only barely prevented herself from breaking out into laughter and drawing attention.
"I don't believe so. Why?" Shouto said after a moment in a slightly confused tone.
"I see," Ochako said. She pointedly did not answer Shouto's question, because the answer was that she didn't think Eijiro or Katsuki realized that they were already in a romantic relationship but hadn't quite figured that out yet.
Ochako was right about her new friends being fun.
"Munchkins of Munchkinland, I am the Wicked Witch Chitose of the East! Heed my words and FEAR ME!"
Ochako blinked in confusion and looked up. There, sitting on a broom and wearing vivid red, sparkly shoes along with a fairly traditional black witch outfit, was a strange looking woman. She had white hair and what seemed to be blue skin, and her eyes were black instead of white with green irises. The only deviation from a normal witch look she had going on was a strange, bright orange jacket over her black dress. 'The Wicked Witch Chitose' had a cruel smile on her face as she peaked out from her pointed witch hat, and she sat side-saddle on her broom to regard the people of Munchkinland as she hovered about fifty feet off the ground.
"There is a newcomer here, a girl! I have come to claim her!" Chitose exclaimed, and Ochako swallowed nervously. Immediately, Eijiro, Katsuki and Shouto were at her side and had adopted defensive postures. Sero whimpered and shrank behind Ochako's ankle again as she readied herself for some kind of attack.
Ochako had no idea how to fight, though, so she wasn't sure what she could do.
"You can't have her," Shouto declared simply, and Ochako watched Eijiro and Katsuki nod in agreement.
"Yeah, screw you ya old hag! Buzz off!" Katsuki declared. Ochako had heard Katsuki use much stronger language than that on the walk here, but she suspected that probably wasn't allowed in Munchkinland. Ochako leaned over to whisper to Shouto.
"Do you actually have a plan?" She said urgently. Shouto turned his head slightly with a metal squeak to side-eye her.
"We're supposed to have a plan?" Shouto said, and Ochako groaned under her breath.
Oh, they were doomed now. The boys didn't know how to fight either?! How was a lion, a scarecrow, and a tin man, along with a normal girl from Kansas (and her little dog, too), supposed to fight a literal witch? As if in reply, Chitose brought out a little black wand and began to flit it back and forth as fiery red magic appeared in a strange symbol in front of her.
"I see you're intent on making things difficult, then," Chitose said in a bored tone as she worked on her spell. Ochako cringed and tried to make herself small, expecting whatever Chitose was doing was going to hurt. The Munchkins ran for cover and hid, and the boys looked like it was starting to dawn on them that they'd bit off more than they could chew.
"Maybe… maybe we should try running," Katsuki grumbled under his breath. He sounded thoroughly displeased at that notion, but Ochako noted his knees were shaking.
"That wouldn't be manly, Kats. We gotta protect Ochako!" Eijiro replied quietly. He looked quite determined, but Ochako wasn't completely sure he understood exactly how deep they were in that moment.
"I'm not afraid of death," Shouto added, and Ochako couldn't help but groan.
"That's not a good thing, Shouto, good Lord!" Ochako hissed.
All four of them (plus one dog) tensed as Chitose seemed to complete her spell. Chitose grinned like a madwoman as a fireball began to manifest in front of her from the arcane circular symbol she'd drawn in the air. The air around the fireball began to sizzle and boil, and Ochako made a frightened gasp at the sight.
Then an entire house fell on Chitose and she got crushed against the ground, leaving only her feet and legs sticking out.
"WHAT?!" Ochako, Eijiro, Katsuki, and Shouto all yelled in unison. They were all rooted to the spot in their stunned surprise, and even Sero fell over onto the ground at Ochako's feet in confusion.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry! That was my fault!" A lyrical, slightly formal-sounding female voice called out, and Ochako turned to her right to see two women falling gently from the sky on glittering, ethereal umbrellas.
One of them was younger, perhaps Ochako's age, and her pretty, vivid glittery dress was royal red and white. She had sparkling red gloves that went down to her elbows and regal, long raven black hair tied back in a giant ponytail. She was thoroughly gorgeous and Ochako turned and saw that Shouto specifically looked both like he recognized her and was utterly stunned at the sight of her.
Oh wonderful, they seem to know each other, at least.
The other woman, meanwhile, also had raven black hair in a ponytail, although hers was shorter. She was clearly older and she had striking gray eyes and a glittering white dress that billowed in the wind. The older woman smiled and waved, and Ochako noted that her elbow-length gloves were a sparkling yellow.
"Hello there, little ones," the older woman said kindly. "My name is Nana, the Good Witch of the North. This is my new apprentice, Momo."
Momo, the Good Witch's Apprentice, waved nervously, clutching her little red wand in her other hand with a slight tremble. Nana carried a white wand and looked very pleased with how events were playing out.
"I was trying to prevent that house from falling because it came from somewhere else but I… I couldn't get the spell to work," Momo admitted earnestly. Ochako eyed the house carefully. It looked… familiar, but it was thoroughly smashed beyond recognition. Ochako had a suspicion that the house had to do with the tornado and she only hoped nobody was in it.
Momo turned and a look of gleeful recognition crossed her face.
"Oh, hello Shouto! How nice to see you again!" She said with a happy smile. Ochako also turned to look at Shouto and found that he appeared to have simply turned off.
"Do you two… know each other?" Ochako asked, feeling a growing understanding hitting her at that moment.
"Oh, yes! Shouto's home situation was… not ideal, and I met him when he ran away from home. He's very kind, and he and his determination to find a better life inspired me to try and become a witch's apprentice to help other people like him!" Momo said cheerily. Her cheeks were lightly dusted with pink as she spoke and she turned her own gray eyes down to the ground awkwardly when she finished.
"I did?" Shouto asked, having come back to reality at that moment.
"You did! I'm so glad to see you're still okay, Shouto!" Momo said kindly, and she looked back up with a happy smile even if she seemed embarrassed.
I've come to the land of the oblivious, Ochako thought with both amusement and dismay. Nana cleared her throat then, as the Munchkins began coming out to find out what had happened.
"Welcome, little Ochako, to Oz. I hope the rest of your stay goes better than this part, though," Nana said with a knowing smile that implied she probably knew better than that. There was a warmth and power radiating off her that was far greater than that of Momo, Ochako noted.
Then realization hit her like a freight train.
"I… I can feel it," Ochako admitted quietly, and everyone turned to her.
"Of course you can, little Ochako. You could feel magic even before you came, couldn't you?" Nana said kindly. Ochako raised a confused eyebrow in response. "You could see the colors after all, no?"
The vividness. That's what it was!
"I guess so," Ochako admitted, not sure how to feel about that realization. It had only been certain people; in recent memory, she only could recall seeing it on Himiko and Izuku. Nana just smiled and shrugged.
"You've been wondering if there was something off with your world, weren't you? Well, welcome to Oz… I think you'll rather like it here, compared to farming in Kansas. But where is little Izuku?" Nana frowned then and looked around, and Ochako was also baffled. "He was supposed to be with you," Nana clarified, and Ochako groaned and this time couldn't resist the urge to smack her forehead with her hand.
"He ran off to chase Tomura instead of staying with me," Ochako said. Katsuki, Eijiro, Shouto, and Momo all looked thoroughly bemused at that point, but Ochako saw a fleeting moment of pure sorrow and annoyance cross Nana's face before it returned to her perfect smile.
"Of course he did. Little Izuku is always trying to worry about others before himself, after all," Nana said in a cryptic, vaguely irritated tone. The way she spoke implied she knew Izuku much better than Ochako would've guessed, and it was already weird that Nana already knew who Izuku was as it was.
She also knew about the farm and Kansas and abruptly Ochako realized that Nana really was a witch - in a way perhaps that Ochako did not have appropriate words for. Nana turned and flicked her wand at Chitose's feet and her glittering shoes disappeared. Then Ochako looked down and gasped, finding the shoes on her own feet now instead - and they turned pink, too.
"Little Momo, you did an excellent job defeating Chitose. If not for us, she would've kidnapped little Ochako. I'm proud of you!" Nana said, and Momo looked baffled.
"Did you… Did you know that was going to happen?" Momo asked breathlessly. Nana just smiled, and this one was a little scary.
"I know a lot of things, little Momo," Nana said with amusement, then she turned back to Ochako. "Those shoes will protect you on your journey. To get home, you need to see the Wizard of Oz," Nana added, and Ochako furrowed her brows. Ochako hadn't said what she wanted yet… and Nana stressed the word 'home' in a strange way that gave Ochako pause.
"Are you sure you're a good witch and not like that one was?" Ochako asked, gesturing over to Chitose's feet. Nana just chuckled, and the sound carried a surprising power to it.
"I'm sure, little Ochako, but you'll see for yourself soon enough," Nana said, then she winked at Ochako. "Come along, little Momo. We have more practice to do!" Nana declared, then Momo gave a polite bow followed by a wave to Ochako's little group before scurrying off to follow her master. Ochako waved and watched them go, before they blinked away in a flash of white light as Nana flicked her wand again.
Then Ochako turned to Katsuki and Eijiro, who both looked utterly lost.
"What the Hell is going on?" Katsuki asked in a daze.
"No swearing in Munchkinland!" The Munchkin mayor yelled indignantly from somewhere behind them.
"I know, that's why I hate it here, jerk!" Katsuki yelled back, and Ochako chuckled.
"I think we should follow the Yellow Brick Road," Shouto said, and Eijiro gave a firm nod and thumbs up to that.
"The Yellow Brick Road will never lead you astray, right Kats? Maybe the Wizard can help us with our problems, too!"
"I don't need any darn help," Katsuki grumbled, not sounding convincing in the slightest. Eijiro just chuckled and threw his arm around Katsuki's shoulders. Katsuki turned scarlet but did not throw Eijiro off of him.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road, huh? Ochako thought to herself as she turned to regard the path before them. In the far distance, she could make out a glittering green something on the horizon, too far to really see properly. Nana had said that to get 'home,' she needed to see the Wizard of Oz.
Ochako had a feeling that home meant very different things to her versus Nana; she couldn't tell if that was good or bad, though.