They hadn't said a word since they split with Mina's group. They'd been walking for close to five minutes and they just walked on, not looking or saying anything to each other. Both were far too nervous and embarrassed to be the ones to break the silence. Eventually, though, Ochako couldn't bear the silence any longer.

"I'm surprised you uh, didn't try to refuse Mina once. She can be a bit much to handle for people who've never met her before, haha..." Ochako said, laughing awkwardly.

Izuku glanced at her, but it was too dark to see her face clearly.

"I've had to deal with people who act similarly to her in the past; they weren't as positive or happy as she was though." He said.

Then before she could say something, he continued,

"It was... nice. Meeting someone like her. Reminds me of the days before the war. Outside of Mr. Sasakura, I guess I just forgot that things like happiness could still exist. That there will always be optimists like her about." He said looking up to the sky.

Ochako looked up to the sky as well, the stars shining above.

"She and Kirishima were the ones that kept us all sane during the war. Even if it hurt them, they always tried to smile for our sake. That was something they took to heart from All Might's lessons. "It's the times when you're scared or worried that you should deal with it by smiling! You've made it this far. It's fine if it's a bluff." " She recited from memory.

"They would always smile after every fight, try and cheer us up. Even if they had just watched a teacher get blown to bits by a villain, they'd still smile, even if it broke them to do so." She said, her own voice breaking as she remembered Mina smiling at the end of a battle, tears rolling down her cheeks, even after they had all witnessed Hound Dog's death first hand.

"I really wish, there were more people like her. The world needs people like her, and less like me." She whispered to the stars.

"I... I think you're pretty great..." mumbled Izuku from beside her.

Ochako jerked her head so sharply to face Izuku that she cracked her neck. Izuku was looking at the ground, hands in his pockets and not looking at her. Even so, she could tell he was blushing and she felt herself go red in turn.

"Thanks..." She replied, just as quietly.

They stood around for a few moments before Ochako coughed and started walking forward again. Ten minutes later, with some off and on talking they eventually got to Ochako's apartment complex.; where they stopped at the door.

"Thanks again, for dealing with us all tonight. I know it was probably a bit crazy having to deal with everyone like that." She said, with a laugh.

Izuku just smiled, and he gave an automatic bartender response. "It was my pleasure, we hope to see you again in the future." giving her a small bow as he finished.

"I'd like that, good night Izuku." She said genuinely.

"Goodnight," he said, as she opened the door behind her and walked into the complex.

Izuku stood there a moment longer, watching her leave before turning and heading back home himself. He liked talking to Ochako, even when the conversation turned sad or melancholic, he still enjoyed it. Mr. Sasakura had been relatively old during the war and hadn't really witnessed any of the horrors it had contained. While talking to him about it helped, they were a dissonance between their experiences that couldn't be bridged. With Ochako though, he felt that there was a connection there, that she could understand him where no one else he had met could.

After talking to her, his heart felt... lighter. He really, really, hoped he'd see her again. It was at that moment that he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the message that had just come in.

From: Ochako
Be careful on your way back.

Izuku felt his stomach turn over, he had completely forgotten they had each other's numbers now. He sent her a quick message back saying he'd stay safe, and he smiled. This had probably been the best night of his life.


Ochako awoke the next morning actually feeling relatively well-rested. IT hadn't tried to break free during the night, so her brain was actually able to rest some. It was also the day that she had her appointment with Dr. Kouta Minoru, and she had been hoping she would be able to get enough sleep by then. When she checked the clock, she was surprised to see that she had actually managed to sleep in. She had her appointment in the afternoon, so she had a few hours to get ready.

As she was eating her lunch a few hours later, she couldn't help but feel scared at what Dr. Kouta would tell her by the end of the appointment. The only thing that scared her more than IT, was the QUEESS, and the idea that he might not be able to fix the seal was terrifying to her. Fortunately, she was spared having to think on the matter when she heard a knock on the door. She quickly went and answered the door, eager for something to distract her. She opened the door to reveal Tsu who had a small shopping bag in one hand.

"Tsu! I wasn't expecting you for another half-hour at least," she exclaimed, gesturing for her to enter.

Tsu put down the bag on the kitchen counter and started removing stuff from it, talking as she did.

"I was getting groceries early and got some stuff for you while I was out ribbit," she said, pulling out some tea, and a few other assorted foods. After she had emptied the bag, she pulled out Ochako's teapot and two cups.

Before long, they were seated at Ochako's dinner table with some tea.

"Everything went all right on your way back last night?" asked Tsu.

"Yeah, no problems, just talked with Izuku some on the way back. Told him I'd try to visit the bar again in the future," she said, taking a sip of the impeccably well-made green tea.

"He's a good guy, I'm glad you found someone other than us you can talk to," said Tsu.

"Yeah... it's nice. He's a lot like us, but also different. Talking to him is a lot easier than I thought it would be." she said, almost wistfully, thinking back to their conversations during the walk home.

Eventually, their conversation came to end, and they hopped into Tsu's car so she could drive Ochako to her appointment. Tsu was one of the few members of the class that had a car, since everyone else was a hero they lived relatively close to the agency they were a part of and didn't have far to go. It took them about a half-hour to get to Dr. Kouta's office, where Tsu dropped off Ochako.

"I'll let you know when I'm done, thanks for the ride." Said Ochako.

"No problem, ribbit. Hope it goes well." Tsu replied before pulling away and heading back to town.

With that, Ochako headed into the office and after checking in the secretary, had to wait for five minutes until Dr. Kouta called her in. No one left the way they came in, instead, there was another door into the office that lead out to the small parking lot. It was a small thing, but some people felt better about leaving when they didn't have to pass people on the way out.

Ochako went into Dr. Kouta's office, which was more a small study than anything else, and with everything arranged very spaced apart and affixed to the floor where possible.

At the noise, Dr. Kouta looked over to the door, a smile on his wizened face as he continued to type away at the small laptop in his lap.

"Ah, I assume that's you Ochako?" he asked.

"Yes sir it's me," she confirmed. Before making her way over to a small loveseat positioned across from him.

Dr. Kouta was a kind blind man in his late 70's, a large grey full beard was well kept, sporting heavily tinted reading glasses, and wearing horribly mismatching clothes. He loved looking completely ridiculous, and Ochako supposed it might help some patients feel at ease. Since taking notes with pen and paper was out of the question, he had a laptop with braille lettering that he used to take notes instead. As he typed, a special printer wirelessly connected to it would slowly emboss special paper designed for it which he could then read at his leisure.

"Well Ochako, how have you been as of late?" He asked.

"I've... been better," she admitted, clasping her hands together in her lap.

"I'm sorry to hear that. When you called you said there might be something wrong with the seal?" he asked.

"Yes, lately IT has been trying to get out during the night and it's made sleep very difficult," she said

"Hmmm... That's quite unusual. Perhaps you should start from the beginning and work to the present. That way we are both on the same page." He said.

Ochako took a deep breath and after taking a moment to decide where to begin, she started telling him everything. She started from the briefing and led up to the present moment.

There was a minute or two of silence as Dr. Kouta typed away at his keyboard, but eventually, he seemed to have taken it all in.

"You've certainly had a busy time as of late, but I can see why you might think the seal is malfunctioning. However, let me first assure you that I do not think you have anything to worry about in the short term. SHE is not about to break the seal and take over your body as you fear. Technically it is functioning properly, but whatever happened in that basement seems to have damaged the seal. SHE seems to have noticed the seal has weakened and believes it may be possible to break it entirely. While this is impossible to do from her side, it is possible that an external force of sufficient powercould cause the seal to react in an abnormal way.A near-death experience and an abrupt, mysterious recovery could qualify," He said.

"Is there anything you can do to make it go back to normal?" she asked fretfully.

"I was just about to suggest I go and take a look for myself. At the very least I will have to go and reset it back to its normal functionality." He said.

Ochako took a deep breath and leaned back into the loveseat, getting herself comfortable.

"Ochako Uraraka, do I have your permission to use my quirk?" Dr. Kouta asked formally.

"I give you permission," she said back, giving him the formal answer necessary.

Dr. Kouta put his laptop down on the ground next to his armchair and then settled back into his chair. Then he removed his glasses and opened his eyes. His eyes shone with blue light, and as Ochako stared into them she felt her consciousness fade...

"Mind Dive." He intoned,his voice ringing with a strange power.


Deep in the darkness, she sat, gazing into the fire she had willed into being. The thoughts and feelings of both her and Ochako reflected within its depths. In the stillness and the silence, a wind suddenly blew through the withered garden behind her, sweeping through the dead grass and swirling about the campfire before ending as quickly as it had come. She looked up past the rusting gates, through the endless sea that separated her from Ochako's world. Past the far distant surface in the sky, she saw a great blue light arcing like lightning and a mighty boom echoed down from above.

Then there was silence, only the faint crackling of the campfire in front of her could be heard. She looked back down to the campfire, waiting.

When the fire waned for a moment before returning to full strength she looked up and saw him. Standing in front of her, his solid blue eyes looking at her. They stared at each other for a moment before she inclined her head, and gestured for him to sit across from her.

He seemed surprised for a moment before walking up and taking a seat on a log that appeared below him as he sat. She felt herself anger slightly at that, his casual manipulation of her "home" angering her.

"So? Come to fix everything up? Make it all nice and tidy with some extra locks and chains to make sure I don't get out again? Or maybe you'd prefer toseal me in a coffin this time?" she snarled at the old man.

The old man looked at her sadly.

"I have no intention of causing you harm," he said.

OCHAKO glared at the man, before sighing and sagging where she sat. The boiling anger and hatred pouring out of her. Leaving an equally strong sense of sadness and hurt in its place. The fire that had been roaring strongly, dying down to embers along with her anger.

"It still hurts. I didn't want to hurt her... I just wanted to keep her safe..." she said, sniffling as she started to cry.

"I know you didn't want to... but you were dangerous, you hurt a lot of people, even her friends. The way the two of you interacted was hurting not just both of you but those around you. I made the seal to help you both, and so far it's prevented both of you and both hurting yourselves and others. The fact you are rational enough to talk to me now and the way you designed this place is proof that the separation has helped." He said gesturing to the perfect replica of her and Ochako's parent's house. The house sat dark and abandoned behind her, the garden wilted.

OCHAKO didn't move. She just continued to stare into the fire.

"Being isolated from her meant that the only thing I could touch was her mind. Eventually, I became more in tune with her mind than her body. I know everything she knows, but she only knows bits and pieces of what I know." She said eventually.

"And why is that? Why isolate Ochako from certain memories?" He asked.

"Because if she knew what I or perhaps WE had done... it would break what little of herself she has managed to put back together. The war was far more terrible than the media ever allowed to report, and many of the witnesses were sworn to secrecy using a quirk that ensured they could not tell others. While the villains were responsible for a lot of it, I and others racked up our own fair share of sin. Ochako suspects the truth subconsciously, she dreams of the events sometimes but believes them creations of her own broken mind. I can't let her know, I can't lose her to suicide, like two of the other angels did, I cannot release them to her. Perhaps, I never will." She said, seeing the events play out within the fire like a movie, though only she could see it.

"She'll have to know eventually, she won't ever fully recover until she is whole." Said Dr. Kouta.

OCHAKO felt her anger rise, and the fire matched her fury, coming back to life.

"And I suppose that involves killing me!? Or melding me back into Ochako!?" She suddenly yelled at him.As she stood, the fire turned into a pillar.

"I don't know why you exist, let alone how to came to exist in the first place, but you shouldn't be able to exist. Your existence defies everything I and others know about the mind, and when I initially came here I couldn't find the place in Ochako's psyche where you might have been born from. It's as if you just spontaneously came into being, but despite having no ties linking your birth to Ochako, you are undoubtedly a part of her. So I will never consider killing or "melding" you back into Ochako, which is assuming such a thing is even possible. You are your own entity, you feel and think just like any other person; and while you don't have a body, you still have a mind that houses you." He said placatingly.

OCHAKO glared at him, breathing heavily before sitting back down. The fire settled back down to a moderate size.

"So why not just let me out then? I'm not about to take over her body and start butchering innocent people," she said.

"What about villains?" Dr. Kouta countered.

"They," she started to say, the venom and pure hatred causing the fire to turn a sickly green color and increasing in heat. "Deserve nothing less but death, they are all guilty, and must pay the price for existing." she spat.

"That isn't very hero-like, and it runs counter to everything Ochako believes. While she might harbor animosity for villains, she doesn't want to butcher them." he pointed out.

"That's what I am. Before me, she was already well into the deep end of the pool. She was a roiling ball of emotion, hate, anger, fear, lust, sadness, all those emotions, and more, barely kept in check by her fraying strands of optimism, hope, duty, and trust. I fully came into being when the last of those strands snapped, I AM those emotions. Oh, I feel positive emotions too, but only faintly in comparison to Ochako." she said a manic look in her eyes.

"What about love? Ochako's friends and colleagues?" he asked.

"If there is one thing we share in complete unity with each other it's our desire to do anything to protect our friends. When she and her friends were attacked at the Yaoyorozu mansion, we were truly united in purpose. I could seep through the cracks in the seal and our desires became one for a short time. As for love... well lust is much more apt in my case. I wouldn't mind fucking Bakugo, Todoroki, Kirishima, Tokoyami, or even that Hunter guy, he was a nice piece of work, and his work ethic is to die for." She said, licking her lips.

"I'd even go for a tumble with Asui, Ashido, or Mirko if I could swing it. I don't have any attachment to the concept of sexual orientation since I'm more or less a mass of emotion and desire given consciousness," she said shrugging, the fire turning blue with ribbons of pink as she thought of Ochako's friends and colleagues.

"And Izuku Midoriya? What do you think of him? Ochako seems to have developed a fondness for him." he probed.

The fire stopped moving as if frozen for a brief moment, before fading back to a normal orange-red color. OCHAKO looked at the doctor as if appraising him, before speaking.

"He... is different. Ochako's feelings towards him are complicated, but I can feel a faint spark of love there. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize those feelings unless he did it first. Then I'd probably crush him slowly under a massive rock." She said, a dangerous gleam in her eyes, and the fire flashed violet and then red, swirling like a whirlpool before settling back down.

"You're remarkably forthcoming." He noted, a bit surprised at how readily she had been talking to him about herself.

OCHAKO merely shrugged, "Why not? You're leaving now anyway, and you're not going to remember most of this when you leave." she said smiling.

Before he could respond she spoke again.

"See, I've been locked up in here for a while, separate from Ochako's body and connected only to her mind I've been able to process everything at the speed of thought since I'm not occupied by the needs of the body. I've been able to develop myself to this extent because of that, and I've also been able to get a good grasp of your being here. While I can't break the seal, I can at least expel you. You can go and tell Ochako that I'll stop trying to get out, you've fixed the seal anyway so it wouldn't do me any good. I didn't mean to hurt her trying to escape, please tell her I'm sorry" she asked.

Then before Dr. Kouta could react, she waved her hand and he felt shoved backward through the seal and back into the sea of Ochako's psyche.


Ochako came awake gradually, she blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the light before taking a good look around. Dr. Kouta was sitting in his seat, eyes closed once more, and drumming his fingers on the armrest of his chair. When he heard her shifting in her seat, he stopped drumming his fingers and focused on her.

"How was your nap?" he asked, smiling.

"It was good, but what about the dive? How did it go?" she asked nervously.

"Hmmm... It was illuminating in many ways. But for starters, I'll tell you that the seal is working properly and that she won't try to escape anymore. Even if I hadn't fixed it, she would have stopped. She seems to regret hurting your ability to sleep and apologized. Secondly, I've said it before and I'll say it again Ochako. She is not an IT. She cares for you and does have your well-being in mind when she acts. So please try to be more understanding of her. When you can do that, then we can well and truly work on creating a dialogue between you two." He said encouragingly.

Ochako felt a bit uncomfortable at that. She knew she shouldn't be so afraid and hateful of her, but it was hard not to be when she remembered what IT... She, did when she had control in the years following the death of Shigaraki. Granted, she didn't remember a lot of it, but there were some things she did remember, and she shuddered at the memories.

"I'll... try. Thanks for your help Doctor," she said, getting up from her seat and stretching her arms and legs.

"It was my pleasure to see you still in good health. Have a good night Ochako," he said, getting up himself and heading towards the entrance.

"You as well" she replied and left through the exit, sending Tsu a text as she did.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She could finally get back to work without feeling like she was trying to work through mud.