Chapter 5: Ochako
Todoroki was waiting on the steps of the dorm as Tsuyu, Bakugo, and Ochako returned from their unsuccessful search. The sun was beginning to set again, shadows casting a grim coolness over the courtyard they walked through. It was a perfect match to the gnawing feeling in the pit of Ochako's stomach despite how reassured Bakugo had made her feel in the subway tunnel only a few hours earlier. As they walked up to meet him, Todoroki stood with a distant look in his eyes.
"No luck," he stated simply. Ochako nodded, while Bakugo folded his arms across his chest and glanced away from the group. "Well… you all must be tired and hungry, so come inside. We prepared dinner for you."
Tsuyu followed Todoroki inside the dorm, but Ochako grabbed Bakugo's shoulder before he could follow.
"Can we talk?"
"What?" Bakugo restrained himself from adding the snarl that he usually had in his voice.
"I think we should start planning our own search operation immediately. We have no idea what kind of condition Deku is in, so, I mean, time is of the essence."
Bakugo gave a slight nod in response, waiting for her to continue. Instead, she carefully pulled a small piece of paper from between her belt and her hip, unfolded it, and handed it to Bakugo.
"I wrote down the address where I saw Deku on the map last night as best as I could remember it, but I'm not entirely sure how accurate the GPS was and I wrote it down around ten minutes after I saw it. I was freaking out too much for my brain to process that I should probably keep it somewhere more permanent."
"It's a good thing you did that," Bakugo responded as he looked down at the paper. "Considering he disappeared from the map right after that."
"I think we should go there, even if we aren't sure he's there. It's our only lead."
"Should we let Asui or anyone else know?"
Ochako looked through the glass panes of the door to try to catch a glimpse of Tsuyu and Todoroki. They were sitting at the kitchen table with piping hot bowls of food. Other students were spread out around the kitchen and the living room, eating and chatting as well. Tsuyu glanced upwards and towards the door, so Ochako quickly jerked her head back towards the porch and hoped that she hadn't seen her looking in.
"I don't want to cause Tsu-chan any more trouble," Ochako sighed. "She's been working all day and is probably tired, and I don't want to waste her time on something I'm not even sure about."
"Well, why'd you ask me then?" Bakugo couldn't help from sneering a bit. "You and I have been through just as much work."
"Yes, I know, but I can't wait another minute when I know how much Deku went through in the attack yesterday alone. I won't rest until we find him. You just promised me that we'd find him together, but I'll understand if you're tired and want to stop for the day."
Bakugo huffed and blew some of his rough blond hair away from his eyes.
"Just give me five minutes to grab me and you both some dinner to go. We'll be no good to shitty Deku if we're tired from hunger."
Ochako nodded, then sat down on the first porch step and folded her hands across her knees as Bakugo pocketed the sheet of paper and stepped inside. As she waited for him, she let her eyes glaze over as she absentmindedly scanned the courtyard stretching out before her. But she couldn't help herself; memories of standing just inside the dorm, watching Deku training out here late at night, came flooding into her head, bringing with them first warm sensations of pride for how much Deku had accomplished since starting at U.A., then the shivering coldness of the uncertainty of his situation now.
It was almost completely dark when Ochako heard the front door swing open again, the sun having set rapidly as she had been lost in her thoughts. Bakugo stepped forward from behind her and offered her a granola bar.
"It's nothing special, but it's easy to eat quickly before we get on the train. The address is basically on the other side of the city."
Ochako took the granola bar, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the thought of the looks the two might receive for eating while walking around, but at least a granola bar would be less conspicuous than something like a bowl of ramen. She stood as she tore the wrapper and began munching.
"Let's move fast," Bakugo continued as he jogged down the steps. "That hot-cold bastard looked at me weirdly when I was leaving, so he might try tailing us or something. Plus, we need to get out of here before the teachers head back from their debriefing with the police, otherwise we'll get caught."
Ochako quickly caught up with him, then the two began jogging across the courtyard and across U.A. property until they reached the city street outside. The station they were planning to head out from was only a few short blocks away, so they decided to walk briskly as they wolfed down the rest of their granola bars.
Once at the station, Ochako stood a few feet away from Bakugo on the platform, hands folded behind her back, and glanced around constantly as she waited for the train to approach. She noticed Bakugo watching her, then quickly averted her gaze and began staring at her feet. The two hadn't really spoken since leaving U.A., and now Ochako noticed that there really wasn't much that they could talk about until they got to the address they were searching for and could keep working on their plan. Talking to Bakugo was difficult, she had come to understand since first meeting him, but she was happy to have his company nonetheless. She decided to catch his eye and offer a small smile in appreciation. Bakugo, seeing this, looked the other direction and pretended not to notice.
Never one to be sensitive, Ochako noted as she stifled a grin. Even if he wasn't showing much reciprocity to her attempts at some sort of friendly connection, trying to get something out of Bakugo was a good enough distraction in itself.
After the train pulled up to the platform, Ochako and Bakugo clambered into one of the cars with a handful of other people, then found that they were forced to sit rather closer to each other than Bakugo seemed to be comfortable with. He leaned away from her and stared out the window across from them.
"So…" Ochako began carefully. "It's way more packed in here than I was expecting. What about you?"
"It's a Saturday night," Bakugo mumbled back. "People are probably going out."
"Oh, right. Okay, Bakugo-kun, what do you usually like to do on your Saturday nights?"
Bakugo turned to look at her, eyes wide with what looked like surprise that she had bothered to ask.
"Um… it depends. If I have a lot of downtime after class I'll go rock climbing."
"Ooh!" Ochako clapped her hands together. "That sounds like so much fun! I would love to come with you sometime."
"Yeah," Bakugo shrugged and turned away again. "Maybe once we find shitty Deku we could all go or something."
Ochako felt her face getting hot from surprise. He wants to take Deku?! She smiled widely, genuinely, for the first time in quite a while at the thought of the three of them actually getting along and having fun, all of their current worries far behind them. But the happy feeling faded quickly.
Suddenly, a loud chirping tone sounded and Ochako watched as Bakugo pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Others around them gave pointed looks at him before turning away again, but Ochako looked on with interest. He glanced at her quickly, a look of concern seeming to register in his eyes, then picked up the call.
"Hello, Aizawa-sensei? Uh, yes, she is with me… But, sir, we're out in public… Yes, sir." He pulled the phone away from his ear and flashed an annoyed eye roll in Ochako's direction, then pressed the speaker button on his cell phone.
"Please tell me that you two are not out by yourselves looking for Midoriya." Aizawa-sensei's voice grumbled thickly through the phone, garnering several more glances from passengers on the train and causing Ochako to cringe.
"Wha-Why would we be doing that?" She stammered, locking eyes with Bakugo and knowing instantly that his blank stare meant he had no ideas on how to get out of this situation. "We know how dangerous that is for students!"
"Where are you?" Aizawa continued in his lackadaisical tone. Ochako knew that despite his way of speaking, he was definitely furious. Suddenly, she had an idea. She snatched the phone out of Bakugo's grip and pressed the mute button, then turned back to him.
"Did we ever tell him or the other teachers exactly where the address on the paper was?"
"I don't recall you saying anything about it. Aizawa-sensei kind of shot you down when you brought it up this morning. And I guess I kinda backed him up. Sorry."
"It's fine. Let me handle this now." Ochako murmured as she held her finger over the mute button again, ignoring Aizawa's repeated requests for them to start talking, then turned it back off. "Aizawa-sensei, we've decided to take this matter into our own hands. I know Deku is at the location I found last night, though I can't explain how he got there so fast. Please just trust us, because you can't stop us." Then she ended the call.
"You just hung up on a teacher!" Bakugo's mouth was wide open in shock.
"Turn off all your location services and shut down your phone," Ochako instructed as she handed the phone back to him. "I'll do the same. We don't want anyone at U.A. finding us before we find Deku."
"Will we be able to find this address once we leave the station without the maps on our phones?"
"Fair point," Ochako replied. "But I don't want to risk getting hacked. The heroes who work at U.A. have access to some pretty unbelievable tools. If we get lost, we'll just have to ask around. I don't think the address is too far from the station though, so we should be able to manage."
Bakugo shot her a skeptical glance before relenting to her instructions and shutting down his phone. They sat in silence for a few minutes before he turned to face her again.
"What if Deku tries to get in contact with one of us and we don't know?"
"We hopefully will be seeing him before that becomes a problem." Ochako replied as she caught herself picking at her nails from the anxiety. "Now, please stop freaking me out and help me concentrate on keeping both of us calm."
"I'm calm, I'm calm," Bakugo asserted with a confident, somewhat annoyed expression, but there was a wavering in his voice which proved to Ochako that he was still just as worried as her.
The train finally slowed to a stop a few moments later, and Ochako pulled Bakugo off the train and up the steps to street level. The area was much quieter than the neighborhood around U.A. had been, only the occasional person strolling by the station, where most people congregated. The buildings were also much smaller and more spread out, the alleys in between them much wider and stretching back farther into the shadows. As they walked further away from the station, many buildings had broken windows and boarded up doors. Even the main streets were sparsely lit by street lamps.
This area is definitely suspicious, Ochako thought as she subconsciously inched closer to Bakugo. She glanced at him to gauge his reaction to their environment, but he didn't seem to be uncomfortable. Returning to her thoughts as they continued to move, Ochako couldn't shake the feeling that however Deku had gotten here, it was not of his own free will.
"Do you see any streets that match the one on the address?" Bakugo's question made Ochako jump. She turned towards him just in time to see him cover up a snicker with his hand. He then took the piece of paper with the address out of his pocket and spread it out between his hands. "Sorry."
Ochako stuck her tongue out at him, then moved her line of sight from paper to street and back again as she searched for the right street number. They walked at a slow pace and stuck close together, opting not to go with a 'divide and conquer' mentality. Finally, Ochako spotted a street with the correct number about three streets ahead of them and began running, pulling Bakugo along by the arm.
Once they reached the street, it wasn't long before they came across the right address. Here, the buildings were few and far between, with long stretches of empty gravel lots in between. Everything was constructed with hard gray stone and metal, giving it a strong industrial atmosphere. The building in question was at the opposite end of the street, a narrow but tall building that was nestled closely behind an even taller one. The taller one had at least five floors, while their target likely had three. Ochako and Bakugo stopped once they arrived at the taller building, both noting that it appeared to be empty.
"Let's go inside and see if we can look in any of the windows from the upper floors." Bakugo suggested as he began traversing the walkway.
"But that's breaking and entering!" Ochako grabbed onto his arm and he paused, flicking an annoyed glance in her direction. "We shouldn't do anything illegal if we don't have to!"
"Fine!" Bakugo yanked his arm away. "Let's at least go around the back of the building so we can check things out without being seen."
He continued walking, going around the side of the taller building in the opposite direction of their target, Ochako following. When they reached the back of the taller building, they had a good, close-up view of the back and side of their target building.
"It looks abandoned, too," Ochako whispered, noticing that the long line of windows on the first two floors were completely black. She felt tightness begin to form in her chest. Bakugo turned around to face her.
"We can't just assume that, based on what we can see from the ground. Can we use your quirk to check out the third floor?" He turned and pointed consecutively to three windows, two larger ones towards the front of the building and one smaller one, set higher than the others, towards the back. Ochako nodded.
"Let's head down this alley between the buildings and stand right under the two near the front," Ochako pointed and began walking. "I'll float up there and peek inside."
She waited until Bakugo had his back against the wall before her, then activated her quirk. He quickly grabbed her ankle as she began to float and pulled her towards him, allowing her to press against the wall and stay close as she began to go upwards. She halted her motion by pressing against the bottom of one window's sill, then looked down at Bakugo still on the ground.
"Look inside! What are you waiting for?!" Bakugo hissed in as much of a whisper as he could manage.
Ochako carefully began to pull herself upwards using the lip of the windowsill until she had just popped her head over the bottom edge of the glass pane. Ochako gasped, letting go of the sill to stifle the noise with her hands, and began floating upwards into view from the window.
Shit! She panicked and smashed her finger pads together, instantly canceling out her quirk and beginning to fall.
"What the hell!" Bakugo whispered as he scrambled to catch her. "Why did you just stop using your quirk?"
He supported her so that she could place her feet down on the ground, but she buckled and collapsed as soon as he let go of her. He kneeled down next to her as she began to cry.
"What's wrong? Did you see something?"
"Yes, yes…" Ochako gasped, reeling. Bakugo stared at her until she finally caught her breath.
"Well, what is it?"
"The… the League of Villains!" Bakugo's face instantly went white as a sheet. "The room was dark from the outside because they're using candlelight, but there was enough to see! There were a lot of people we've run into before, and… and…"
"What?!"
"Shigaraki Tomura was there! Sipping on a cup of tea like he was the most contented man in the world."
"Did you see Deku?"
"No!" Ochako cradled her face in her hands and tried to recount in detail the brief glance she had gotten of the room. No, Deku definitely was not there. She groaned.
"Hey, stop that," Bakugo said sternly as he took her by the shoulders and pushed her back up into a sitting position. "Let's check the third window. They might have him in there. Can you do that for me?"
Ochako nodded, then let herself be pulled to her feet and led back down the alley. The two stopped underneath the third window and Ochako breathed deeply.
If the League of Villains is here, she began processing, then they were definitely involved in yesterday's attack and they definitely wanted Deku for some reason. They kidnapped him after he fell in the hole and used their quirks to move him here, and that's how Deku got here so fast. So if they needed him for something, he has to be okay right now.
Walking through the chain of events in her head gave Ochako the composure she needed to be able to face whatever was on the other side of the window three stories above her head. She turned to face Bakugo, who was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. It was a cross between concern and… fear.
"I know he's okay." Ochako tried to reassure him, taking his hand between hers.
"Yeah, whatever, just go look."
Ochako nodded with a forced smile, then activated her quirk and let Bakugo pull her closer to the building again. She moved slowly this time, taking a moment to peer into the windows of the first and second stories as she passed them, seeing nothing but construction equipment and abandoned scraps of wood and metal.
She finally made it to the bottom lip of the windowsill and stopped her movement, then paused to take a breath. "He's okay. He is okay. And he is here." She reminded herself out loud, not caring if Bakugo heard her. Then she slowly pulled herself up and over the windowsill.
The room was much darker than the one at the front of the building had been, with no source of artificial light at all. But the moon had risen steadily in the sky behind Ochako, and she moved her head to the side to let some of its light into the room. Moonbeams began to wash across the floor, which was far below where she floated, looking in. There was a small rectangular item on the floor, but she couldn't make out what it was in the limited lighting. She continued to follow the path of the moonlight as it swept across the room until she stopped cold, her fingers tightening on the windowsill.
Ochako felt new tears forming along her lids as she caught sight of the only thing fully illuminated by the moonlight. Ghostly pale skin, distinctive freckles almost unrecognizable in a mask of blood, tousled hair damp with the same dark redness, and his eyes, half-closed and glassy, empty.
"Deku-kun!" Ochako screamed and pounded on the glass with one hand, letting sobs shake her. She let go of the windowsill and began pounding furiously with both fists, unable to break through the glass or register any kind of reaction from the lifeless body in the room below her. Her body began slipping away from the window, Deku's face fading from her vision. She couldn't move, couldn't think, all sense stripped away by the sight of his face. Was he alive? Dead? She was too far away and nothing she could do would get her closer.
Ochako let her arms fall limp at her sides and watched as her tears rolled off of her cheeks and fell three stories to the pavement below her. Bakugo was gone now too. So he had left when she screamed Deku's name, thinking she would catch the League's attention? She didn't care. There was nothing left to hope for if she wasn't even a good enough hero to save one of her closest friends. She closed her eyes and let herself hang in the air, trying to picture what Deku's face had looked like yesterday morning, when he had waved goodbye to her and the others with a smile on his way to his work study. She couldn't see anything but the blood.
Then suddenly, her body was moving through the air again, free of its state of suspension. But she wasn't going down-she hadn't had the energy or the focus to cancel out her quirk. She felt warmth wrap around her shoulders and her head, then the sound of shattering glass tore Ochako away from her thoughts. She opened her eyes to see that her face was pressed against Bakugo's chest, the top of her head cradled under his own, the world around them spinning wildly and blurring her vision.
An enormous thud sent a shock through Ochako's system, and she lifted her head to see the window many feet above them, pieces of glass sticking up haphazardly. She turned her gaze to see Bakugo lying beneath her, gashes strewn across his skin, a small smile on his face as he locked eyes with her. She looked up and noticed the small rectangular box-Deku's cell phone! Ochako raced to her feet and took in her surroundings, and it dawned on her. Bakugo had not abandoned her, but had gone into the building next door and jumped straight across from one of its windows, tackling Ochako and sending them both flying through the window and into the room where she had seen Deku.
And there Deku was. Ochako could see his body in its entirety now that she was only feet away from him, and it was obvious that Shigaraki had had his way with Deku. Ochako ran faster than she had thought possible, sliding to a stop in front of the chair where Deku sat, slouched over with his head leaning to one side. She carefully reached forward and cupped his face between her hands, stroking his bloodied cheeks gingerly with her thumbs. His eyes stayed just as they were as she carefully touched his face, completely dark.
"Deku-kun…" Ochako whispered as she pulled her face close to his. Bakugo, limping slightly, walked up behind her and leaned down so that his face was also level with Deku's. He glanced at her and nodded for her to continue talking, almost as if he were saying, Don't worry, he can hear you. Ochako breathed deeply, then parted her lips. "We're here to get you out."
"Oh, really? I don't think you are though." Ochako dropped her hands from Deku's face and whipped around, Bakugo following suit. A man with spiky black hair and patches of multicolored skin stood in the doorway, which Ochako had not even noticed was open. He slowly raised one hand and cupped it towards the sky. Then a ball of massive blue flames erupted from his palm.
"It's Dabi!" Bakugo screamed. "He was at the training camp!"
"Nice to see you, too," the man chuckled, then stepped into the room without extinguishing the flames. Ochako and Bakugo backed up until the backs of Ochako's knees felt the slippery sensation of blood dripping off of Deku's own knees behind her. "I have to say, I don't think the boss will be too happy you're here, kids. I better take care of the situation before he gets too upset."