Word Count: 2,151
Pack up, go home. You're through.
The captain's words had sent Momo into a dizzying haze, hardly allowing her to process the events before cramming Iida's reins into her hand and walking away. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, getting kicked out, aside from those six words; after all, mere minutes ago, Uraraka had been going on about how well she'd do with just a little time.
"Momo. Momo." Uraraka wriggled out of the human girl's hood the second Captain Todoroki was out of sight and gently held her face in her claws. "Calm down. You're going into shock. You can hear me, right Yaomomo?"
Momo blinked once, twice. She shook some of the cotton out of her head. "Yeah," she said, "yeah. I can hear you just fine." Uneasily, she adjusted her grip on Iida's reins as he snuffled her hair.
Uraraka breathed a sigh of relief and let go of Momo's cheeks. "Good," she said as Deku hopped onto her head. She probably said a bit more after that, but Momo wasn't listening anymore. Already, her thoughts had wandered away from her own well-being back to what went wrong.
Well, it's not as if what went wrong was really a question worth asking; really, she should have been asking what went right during her training. From her chronic weakness of being weak, to her flat-out garbage aim, to looking like she talked to herself every ten minutes when Uraraka funnelled her advice, perhaps it should have been more of a surprise that she hadn't been kicked out earlier.
Oh, what would she do now? She fidgeted with Iida's reins and bit the inside of her cheek, her gaze zoning far off into the distance. Going home would leave a black mark on her family name for eons. The "son" of a famous soldier sent home before he even saw the battlefield, all out of incompetency? There wasn't much more shameful than that. But she couldn't walk back in. That would be stupid.
Momo yelped, twenty sharp, little pinpricks on her scalp pulling her out of her thoughts, and she yanked Uraraka off her head to face the dragon head-on.
"I'm sorry, Yaomomo, but you weren't responding anymore," Uraraka apologized. "I was scared that you might have lost consciousness or something. I did the only thing I could think of."
Momo loosened her grip on Uraraka and sighed. "Well, it's not like it really matters if I'm gone or not. This is it. I've failed. There's not much I can do anymore other than accept it."
The dragon scrambled up Momo's arm as the latter began leading Iida away. "C'mon, Momo! Don't say that. I believe in you!" Deku chirped in agreement, but Momo wasn't really in the mood to listen to a cricket's advice. She ignored both animals and trudged back to her tent.
The moon was bright that night, bright enough for its light to cast shadows upon the earth. When Momo arrived at her tent to pack up, much to the distress of her tiny dragon, a shadow already lay over it. Ever curious, her gaze was drawn back to the top of the pole in the center of camp and the arrow that had nestled at its top since day one.
Ah, the beauty of the unattainable. There was something very lovely about the way the moonbeams came through the fletching, the way the moonlight glinted startlingly bright off the arrow's head. Momo found herself staring at it for much longer than she'd ever care to admit.
A streak of light flew across the sky in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of moment, drawing her attention to the thousands upon thousands of stars that had come out since she finished cleaning the latrines at twilight. They were pretty with their twinkling. Maybe the further out of reach something was, the prettier it got.
She wasn't sure how long she stood there, watching the stars trail across the sky. Something about the passage of the night sky calmed her down and cleared her mind, but the moon creeping into her line of sight broke the spell it had on her. With a sigh, Momo turned her gaze back down to her feet and began dragging her feet back to her tent.
"Hey!" It was a barely vocalized whisper, but considering the only other sound to be heard in the near-dead silence of the night was that of men's snoring, it still managed to startle Momo. She picked Uraraka off her shoulder and held her face-to-face. "What if you tried getting the arrow?" the dragon asked with a spark of hope in her eyes.
Momo blinked slowly, her eyesight still adjusting to the dark of her own shadow. "I don't understand."
"What if you tried getting the arrow off the top of the pole?" Uraraka repeated, just as hopefully as the first time. "Nobody's tried since the first day, and so much has happened since then. I bet if you put yourself to it, you could get that arrow down and prove the captain wrong!"
Momo looked back at the arrow, then trailed her gaze downwards. She couldn't see the base of the pole from where her tent stood, in the outskirts of camp, but she knew Captain Todoroki kept the test's weights hanging on a fencepost near the pole. She absolutely could give it a shot, if she wanted.
"I'm not sure, Uraraka," Momo said. "I can't have actually improved that much if they're kicking me out."
"They don't know you like I do. I think you can."
"They've been watching me especially since the day I fainted. They're higher-ups in the military. They're bound to have way more experience, so their judgement must be sound."
Uraraka huffed, a tiny pillar of flame escaping her lips as she did so. "Yeah, well, they may be more experienced than you, but I've also been alive for over a millenia and seen way worse than you, Momo. Remember, I have dragon omnipotence. Wouldn't you think my opinion weighs more heavily than theirs?"
Iida tugged impatiently on the reins, eager to simply get things moving. Momo looked at him, and he flicked his head towards the pole. What have you got to lose?
Reluctantly, Momo paused to give it some thought. She supposed it was true; she had nothing left to lose but her life. Though, that didn't really seem to be of much worth anymore. Imagine the dishonor on her family if she got herself killed without even setting foot on the battlefield.
Uraraka seemed to notice and patted Momo's hand lovingly. "There's nothing wrong with trying, you know. And besides, you risked it all just to come out here. You have nothing to lose if you try again, but everything you've worked for to get back. C'mon, Momo."
Momo sighed and let the reins and the dragon slip from her grasp as her hand fell back to her sides. Iida promptly trotted over to her tent to wait while Uraraka scrambled up her sleeve. Momo looked about one last time, then with great hesitancy, walked silently to the center of camp.
The moon was high in the sky when she got there, almost directly above the arrow itself. Strange how bright it was tonight.
Well, all the easier to see what I'm doing, Momo thought as she lifted the brass weights from their peg and dragged them to the pole. She slipped her hands into the wrist loops and stared at the tooth marks Bakugou had left behind.
No one so far had made it past them.
Neither did she, the first time she reattempted the pole. Nor the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth…
Her muscles were screaming bloody murder at her at the end of her seventh trial as she sat at the base of the pole, her butt aching from a bruise that was sure to form by morning. Sweat dripped from her brow, stung her eyes, ran down her back. How was she supposed to climb a pole that was— what, thirty meters high?— with like, fifty kilos dragging her down? No trial seemed any better than the last; hell, if anything, they were getting worse as she tired out.
"C'mon, Yaomomo, don't do this to me! I know you're smart," Uraraka pleaded.
Momo pursed her lips, still trying to recover from that last trial. Seven times now she tried, but eight was a lucky number. She stared down at her hands, at the long strips of cloth that bound the weights to her.
Now that she thought about it, why were the straps so long? No human in all of China could possibly have wrists that thick. Curious now, she unbound her wrists and tried it around her waist. She was certainly more balanced now.
A little giddy, Momo twirled around, and while it took some effort to get started, she really got going afterwards.
It was a little too much, though; when she dug her heels into the ground to stop, her legs simply twisted around, and she fell to the floor.
Groaning, Momo stared up at the sky as she tried to figure out which of the stars were real and which were simply dancing before her eyes.
"Momo? Are you okay?" Uraraka asked as she wormed her way out from beneath Momo.
Momo took in a long, raggedy gasp in an attempt to regain the wind knocked from her lungs before she let out a light, breathy laugh. Alarmed, Uraraka crawled onto her face, but the girl simply smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said as she sat up. She reached a hand toward the arrow for all of a minute, then retracted it, staring at the hand afterwards. "I think I know how to get the arrow now."
"Oh? How?" Uraraka asked, but Momo wasn't listening anymore. She unwound the weights from her waist and looped them back around her wrists, leaving ample length for the weights to nearly reach the ground.
They didn't have to be deadweight, she realized when she fell. Momo swung the weights around the base of the pole, smiling to herself when they entangled themselves on the other side. Adjusting her grip on the straps, she pulled her full weight on them as she took her first steps up the pole.
Hope began to flutter in her belly when she yanked the weights higher and crawled higher up. She could do this. She could.
It all became real when she passed the tooth marks, but it also all became a blur.
Heave weights, grip straps, climb higher. Heave weights, grip straps, climb higher. Heave weights, grip straps, climb higher. As with all skills, it became easier the more times she did it.
Heave, grip, climb. Heave, grip, climb. Heave, grip, climb. Barely halfway up, and her arms were already begging her to stop. The toll of the previous attempts was indeed great, and Momo paused to stare off into the horizon. The moon had set, and the stars were already fading from sight. Down below, a tent stirred as its groggy occupant stumbled out.
Momo grit her teeth. There was no time for a break. People were rising already! She'd have to streamline the process somehow…
Heave weights, yank self higher. Heave weights, yank self higher. Back on earth, several trainees had already awoken and taken notice of her. She couldn't hear their mumblings, but she saw them pointing from her position mere meters away from the arrow. Had she not dedicated every ounce of strength to obtaining that arrow, she would have smiled to herself. But now was not the time. Heave, yank, heave, yank.
When Momo finally pulled herself to the top and took a seat there, the relief at her journey's end hit her like a tidal wave. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in those last few seconds and turned her face to the sky, where the last few stars winked out of sight.
Captain Todoroki came out of his tent with the grey light of dawn, Momo yanked the arrow out from its position at the top of the pole and threw it down at his feet. The men down below murmured in shock, and the captain's gaze shot up to look at her just as the sun peeked out from over the horizon, backlighting her as she grinned at him.
"Hi."
Author's Note xiii. usually i try to hold my chapters to a minimum of 3k, but sometimes i break that for thematic purposes. and sometimes, shorter chapters just feel right. most of my writing goes on late at night in the summer (i'm talking at like, one in the morning kind of thing), so if you notice an uptick in typos just remember that i edit maybe 3% of the time. bad habit, i know.
anyway, that's all for now~ you know the drill: thanks for reading follow/fave if you're new leave a review (if that's what you're into) and as always, have a greaaat daaay~~~