Chapter FIVE
All For One's presence at the hideout decreases to almost zero since her first few meetings with him. It is as though he had been there for the sole purpose of seeing if she is suited for the job they needed her for, and now that it is done he no longer sees the need to be there.
Listening to Tomura, though, tells her that he is almost never there to begin with and that several visits to the hideout in such a short period of time were rare.
"Ever since he fought All Might, he's been away a lot," Tomura mutters. "I don't think he's truly gotten better."
Ochako keeps quiet. It appears All For One is still in a recovery phase, one no one knows if he will ever be able to move past. Usually, he spends his time over with the doctor, trying to heal.
Ochako knows Tomura does not know what to think of her, though his antagonization of her lessened since their raid into the warehouse. She thinks All For One's acceptance of her also contributed to it because Tomura listens to him like he is a holy being and since All For One deems her okay Tomura will try to be okay with her too.
Honestly, Ochako does not feel like a villain. She does not know what feeling like a villain is like, but the members of the League she has interacted with so far, All For One and Kurogiri, have been polite enough that she can forget where she is, and Tomura, she admits, is not the worst company she could find. He is older than her by five years and likes to shove this in her face as an excuse as to why she should obey his words, but he also did ask her if she wanted to play on his game set when he caught her watching him play.
"I've never touched one before," she breathes. The controller in her hands is a piece of technology she had never even dared to want up until now.
Tomura pauses in the middle of positioning her fingers in the right positions. "What? Really?"
Ochako frowns, feeling defensive. "Can't afford it."
"Huh." Tomura presses a button, unpausing the game. He does not press for details like she is sure her classmates might have. Maybe that is the maturity he likes to brag about. Or, maybe he simply does not care.
"So, you gotta shoot-"
A zombie pops up on the screen, Ochako screams, and the controller floats to the ceiling.
Tomura tells her he will never let her play again, Ochako replies that she is fine just watching and that it is not as scary when she is not the one behind the controls. Tomura rolls his eyes and then insists she floats herself up to get it because apparently he had disintegrated his last set and he did not want to have to get a new one in case they do not manage to catch it. Ochako's mind goes blank at the sheer idea
Still, she huffs but does as asked and Tomura tosses her a cushion without looking at her before he unpauses the game with a confident order of "watch and learn." She takes this as an invitation to sit next to him on the couch.
"You died," he says accusingly.
Ochako is about to argue that she had not done anything, but perhaps that is why she dies. "A zombie jumped out!" she says instead.
"You were supposed to shoot it!"
"You didn't tell me how!"
Tomura sneers at her. "Watch. "
When he lets her try again after a while, neither of them say anything.
"Congratulations on graduating!" Her father raises his cup.
Ochako blushes and looks down at her hands on her lap. "I graduated primary school," she says. "There wasn't even an entrance exam for secondary."
"But you were full marks for almost all your tests," her mother points out. "That is something to celebrate!"
And the fact that they are celebrating says a lot too because it means they can afford it, even if it is only once in a long while.
"Right, you're a secondary student from April," her father is grinning from ear to ear and is so proud. "The most fun years of your life are starting soon! Oh, to be a teenager."
"I'm still twelve," Ochako retorts.
She is sure not every teenager can boast of a position in the League of Villains. The name might still be small, known only to those who are Heroes or closely follow them for whatever reason, but they will get big one day. Tomura wills it, and she can feel it.
"How is your work going, dear," her mother asks, frowning a little. "Secondary is a big step towards high school and high school will have exams. If you don't think you'll be able to balance both-"
"No!" Ochako cuts in, then quickly waves her hands in front of her face when she realizes how abruptly she had jumped in. "I mean, I'll be okay! Balancing my schedule will be good practice for the future, and I'm sure everyone will understand if I take more off days."
All For One is worryingly understanding of the fact that she leads a completely separate life outside of their hideout, and if he is accepting of it no one else will dare complain to her about it.
Her mother relaxes. "That's good to hear," she says. "Oogami-san is a very good, kind man, isn't he?"
Ochako forces herself to smile at the fake name Wolfram had used years ago. She has not seen him in over a year. "Yeah."
Her father claps his hands together. "Enough of that," he says cheerily. "Today, we celebrate our daughter's graduation from primary, and entry into secondary!"
Ochako clinks her cup of orange juice, another luxury they would not have considered buying only a few months ago, with her parents. "I'll keep doing my best," she promises.
And she will.
Ochako studies physics whenever she can. An understanding of how gravity works will allow her to use her quirk better, and what fascinates her is the relationship between force and an object with equalled gravity.
If she cancels out gravity on a 1:1 ratio on an object and then pushes it, the object will move in the same direction it was pushed in, at a constant speed which is determined by the force behind her initial push. If she kicks off the ground or a wall while she is gravityless, she can fly forward through the air.
The first time she tries this, however, is also when she realizes that she has no way to stop. Deactivating her quirk will drag her down with gravity, but the forward velocity will still exist, which means she will crash land onto the floor as opposed to into a wall.
Either way, it will hurt.
If she had time to choose, she would have picked the floor because there are mats, but in that moment the panic clouds her judgement and she crashes straight into the wall opposite the one she had kicked off from. Her quirk still has a hold of her, and she slowly does circles in the air as pain engulfs her. Breathing hurts and coughing hurts, but she has to cough and she lets out a choked sob. Something wet fills her mouth and oh gods is that blood-
"Ochako!"
Tomura. She risks a look down and sees him staring up at her with wide eyes.
"Release," he tells her softly. "I'll catch you."
She shakes her head, and then cries out in pain when the movement jars her. "Can't," she coughs out. "Hurts."
Tomura looks torn, but then a warp gate is opening up beside her and arms gather her limp body. Kurogiri crouches down with her in his arms and Tomura crowds over her. "Stay awake, Uraraka Ochako."
Ochako wheezes. "Trying."
She apparently does not try hard enough, because she blacks out shortly after that.
When she comes to, she is asleep in a bed she faintly recognizes. The empty room beside Tomura's she sometimes uses.
"Told your parents you have a club trip you forgot to tell them about. It sounds like they're rarely home and with how small your brain is, I think it sounds rather reasonable."
She looks up to see Tomura sitting on a chair a little away from the bed.
"Oh," she breaths. "How long was I out for?"
"You flew into a wall two days ago. You broke a bunch of rib bones and stuff."
She winces. Her chest feels a little painful, but it is bearable. "Oh."
Tomura rolls his eyes and saunters over. "Sensei had shoes made for you," he tells her. "Something that absorbs impact, so that you can land on your feet without breaking your ankles, though you'll have to practice that."
That was rather thoughtful of him. She breathes out slowly. "I'll have to thank him."
Tomura nods. "He said to call once you're better. The doctor did stuff to help you with your broken bones, but the rest'll have to be naturally healed. You're lucky this happened over the weekend, but you'll have to figure out what to tell your parents."
"Club works, I guess," Ochako says. "Thanks."
Tomura rolls his eyes. "If you wanted to kill yourself, should've just come to me. No need to try and take down the hideout with you."
"Shut up."
The shock-absorbing shoes All For One has made for her arrive a few days later, but Ochako still finds herself scared to try them out.
"Then just stop kicking off full force," Tomura tells her. "Start with a weaker one, so you can catch yourself without the shoes."
That sounds reasonable, she guesses, and is surprised the idea comes from Tomura. The boy watches from a safe distance while she eyes the wall she had flown into a week or so ago. "Here goes," she breathes.
She casts her quirk on herself and turns herself so that she can plan both her feet firmly on the wall. She crouches and then pushes off, flying horizontally through the air. She flips a little away from the opposite wall using the functions on her new shoes and is surprised when she feels next to no impact on her ankles when she lands. "Oh!" She kicks off the wall and flies back the way she has come, this time with more force, and she lets out a gleeful laugh when she catches herself again. She repeats the action, this time with an up force included, and lands in a crouch on the ground as she deactivates her quirk midair. She skids a little, but again feels none of the impact.
"This is amazing!"
"Of course!" Tomura calls. "Sensei had the doctor make them."
"This is amazing!"
Tomura does not reply a second time but she can picture his eye roll. She finds herself too happy in the moment to care, however, because who could fly? Clearly, it was not Tomura.
Things settle into a routine, one that almost makes Ochako forget that she is in the company of villains. Almost.
Ochako sometimes accompanies Tomura and Kurogiri under orders from All For One, who now does all of his communication through videoless voice calls. The raid on the warehouse is covered on the news, and while the League of Villains is mentioned as the perpetrator, there is nothing more in detail and soon it is forgotten.
Ochako wonders if she should keep a kill count, then realizes that it is rather difficult to tell if the Tomura's kills partially count as her own, and she would not know if the large chunks of debris Tomura break apart for her to throw down from above actually hit anyone. Regardless, she does not confirm another kill by her hands despite seeing the numbers televised for days after she is sent out on missions, and the entirety of it feels as distant as it could be.
Strangely enough, she is never told to go along on the more public missions, and while Ochako doubts this is because All For One actually cares, she is glad.
Her parents are still grateful to Wolfram for taking her in, and the money she brings home helps. It is not enough, not yet, but it helps. Ochako cannot tell her parents the truth, cannot tell them anything, and most of the time she sneaks out through Kurogiri's portal when they are away, and pretends she is at a school club after school when in reality she is over at their hideout in Yokohama. She does not do much there; she mostly watches Tomura play his games and tells him what she did at school that day, only because it annoys him.
Half the time she is not even sure why she is there in the first place but she does not complain when Kurogiri appears outside her school and warps her back to where Tomura is waiting.
She suspects the boy is lonely, but since she also thinks he will disintegrate her if she so much as suggests it, she keeps the thought to herself.
One day, just as high school choices had become a rather heated topic in the corridors of her school, Ochako steps through Kurogiri's warp gate to see Tomura sitting at the bar counter. The TV had been set up and All for One is on the screen. There is an empty stool next to Tomura that Ochako knows is for her.
It is rare for All for One to be there to greet her, and even rarer for it to be through a video call, and she feels the air within her lungs rush out. Her fingers suddenly feel stiff.
"Welcome back, Ochako. How was school?"
Ochako steels herself. "It was okay," she says. "I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?"
All For One chuckles. "No," he reassures her. "Come, join us."
Ochako ducks her head. "Yes, Sensei." She quickly scurries towards the bar, tossing her bag onto the couch as she passes, and clambers onto the stool.
"It is time I tell you your role here."
Ochako pauses, then straighten herself. She understands Tomura's reaction a little, she thinks. When All For One addresses her, something compels her to listen. "Yes, Sensei."
"Your job, Ochako, is to become a hero."
It takes her a while for the words to settle, and a deathly chill creeps up her limbs. Her knees lock up and for a second, she stops breathing. "...What do you mean?"
All For One laughs softly. "You will become a student of UA in the upcoming term," he says. "You will relay any and all information you get your hands on. You will be the eyes and the ears of the League within the ranks of the Heroes."
And she realizes, years too late, that everything she had been doing under All For One, was a lead-up to this moment. She might not remember the faces of the people she's killed, might not know the names of those she crushed while watching on from above, but there are people out there who do. The numbers that are announced on the news the day following their rampages are more than statistics to those who lost their loved ones, and as long as a single person like that exists out there, her hands will remain dyed red and she will forever be tied to the League.
"Ochako?"
She can pretend, and she will pretend, but she will never be allowed to forget the crimson footsteps she had not even realized she had left behind. She will forever have to hide her bloody hands behind her back and hope no one sees why she can never be a hero.
What scares her most, however, is not the League's plans for her, or the dangers she will face as a member of it while within the heart of the hero community.
It is that a part of her that had reared its head the moment Wolfram had taken her under his wing, the part of her that enjoys Tomura's company and Kurogiri's silent attention and All For One's praises, the part of her that does not care about anything else as long as her parents can continue smiling forever, is growing and growing and growing and sees nothing wrong with the order.
Kurogiri and Tomura are watching her. Ochako takes a deep breath. "Understood."
1) Soooo it's been a while. I do feel bad for leaving this for so long but my motivation? my muse? got slaughtered and it took me a while to piece it back together again. I was sitting on this chapter for a long time too, and the writers block hacked away at my will to write as well. Hopefully, it's back. No promises though.
2) Thank you to all the people who've supported this story so far, I have no idea what made me write this in the first place (or I've forgotten) but I really do like the idea so I hope to keep writing for it.
3) Some shameless advertising of my Naruto x BNHA crossover fic:
So it Goes
Team Seven blinks and they're in a world they don't recognize. It's an established fact that fate hates them, and honestly, they've seen stranger things, but that doesn't mean they aren't confused.
Naruto's an easy-going guy in general, and he accepts his role as Bakugou Naruto rather easily. Being a Hero honestly sounds like a more appealing version of being a shinobi anyway. Sakura's kind of done with trying to be the single brain cell of Team Seven and just wants life to take her wherever. If fate wants her to become a yakuza, well…who is she to complain? Sasuke thinks that maybe it's in his blood to catch the attention of strange men. He accepts the strange masked man's offer if only to show fate that, no, he has not learnt anything.
It may be a while until they meet, but the world should dread the day they do.
If interested, please check it out!
4) I'm on Twitter and Tumblr with some art stuff under the same name ( darquedeath4444)
5) That's it for now, I think. I'll be back soon with a new chapter, I hope...
6) Thank you for reading!