At first, she assumes the girl with pink hair is from Class 1-B. It's a logical conclusion; few students from other courses passed the first round of competition, and she had immediately teamed up with the most targeted student in the cavalry battle, so evidently she felt she could handle herself. Mechanical equipment surrounded her and tools hung from her belt… perhaps she had a technological quirk?
No matter. Momo cannot anticipate what her quirk will be without further evidence; if it interferes, it interferes, and she can reassess then. For now, they have Midoriya, Uraraka, and Tokoyami to focus on and a plan to formulate.
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It's later, during the one-on-one battles that Momo realizes her error. Present Mic announces her as a support class student before she immediately commandeers his role as announcer, harping the features of each piece of equipment Iida rather unwillingly models. It's a clever strategy, Momo recognizes, although it is certainly unusual. She is bold as brass. Which in a tournament showcasing the hero courses, she must have to be.
Iida advances to the next round. The spectators are all talking, whispering about the pink-haired girl as she leaves the arena. It's not the kind of attention Momo would want drawn to herself, but it doesn't seem to bother the mechanic. Her grin is radiant.
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Failure. Momo walks out of the arena. Failure. Avoids the seats where her classmates sit. Failure, failure, failure. The words ring in her head, a soundtrack to her misery, and there is nothing she can do or create to quiet it. No earplugs, no music, no vibrations could drone out this sound. Her abilities are purely physical and this exists only within her mind, just like her loss to Tokoyami. She was supposed to be a brilliant strategist, but she had never seen his coming.
In the halls underneath the stadium, she thinks she sees a flash of pink through an open door. Just another reminder of her failure. A student from the support class mastered her battle without even using her quirk. So why was it at the first opportunity to rely on only her own abilities was she, a recommended student, eliminated within seconds?
She doesn't deserve it. Her recommendation, her spot in the hero course, her class vice presidency—any of it.
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Weeks pass. Months, maybe. Momo's daily planner is immaculate and her work is flawless; though the motions are there, the intent is not. She can detail her activities on each day since the Sports Festival and yet she cannot say how long it has been. All she knows is that as final exams loom, the specter of a word follows her.
Failure.
She takes to studying late into the night at UA, long after the lights have dimmed and all others have gone home. Here she doesn't have a façade to maintain, can let the frustration and self-doubt she cannot show to her classmates or teachers or parents out. But when she looks in the mirror, it whispers that she is telling herself the same lies as well. No matter the time she spends studying her chemistry textbooks and perfecting creations of increasingly complex structures, she does not find joy in this anymore. Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life, she had always heard. Of course, she knew hero work would be long and hard and require sacrifice, but now the chemical properties and imaginative solutions to problems that once lulled her to sleep every night now haunt her waking nightmares.
The textbook closes with a thud of frustration. Not again—she'd gotten lost in her head, staring at the same passage for five minutes. Maybe she just needed a few moments to relax. Midnight-sensei kept late hours as well, and sometimes was happy to share a cup of tea with Momo in the teacher's lounge. Perhaps she'd be there tonight.
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The dark hallways are lit only by Momo's lantern as she makes her way towards the teacher's lounge. Shadows are her usual companions on this walk but are those… crashes she can hear in the background?
The source of the noise brings her to the Development Studio. Odd, Power Loader was normally an early riser.
But when she opens the door, it's not Maijima-sensei she sees. Hatsume Mei , Momo recalls.
The pink-haired girl looks up from her tinkering. "Ooooh, is that a Fresnel lens?"
Momo blinks. "Yes, it is," she says and looks down at her lantern, but Hatsume already has it in her hands, examining the glass, then snaps her fingers.
"The invisible girl in your class, she can refract light."
To her knowledge, Tooru hadn't shown off that move outside of the hero course yet, and she was still in the early stages of developing it. Hatsume's thought process dawns on Momo just as Hatsume arrives at that point of the explanation herself.
"Significant amounts of light spread in all directions, which can be useful for fighting groups. But if she wanted to direct the light a particular way—"
"…a Fresnel lens could increase the efficiency of the light captured and target it in a particular direction," Momo finishes.
Hatsume's eyes shine bright and glossy as she clasps her hands together. "It would be such a perrrrfect support item."
The next second, Hatsume dives underneath the table, clashes and clangs reverberating through the room. "There you are!" she says, shooting up with a circular metal frame and calipers in hand. "That's what I like about you, you know," she continues in between muttered calculations. "You think out of the box to solve any problem!"
It's a nice sentiment… but her confidence is misplaced. "I don't. I failed at the Sports Festival," Momo says, hugging the arm holding the lantern closer to her body.
Hatsume doesn't miss a beat. "But that's the best part! Failure is at the heart of the scientific method." The tinkering continues. "If one solution doesn't work, you approach the problem from a new angle until you solve it. Your quirk lets you create absolutely anything! With a quirk like that, even now, you could beat any Pro if you approach it the right way."
Momo nods, mulling it over as she says her goodbyes and prepares to leave, tea forgotten. Todoroki would undoubtedly have a greater chance of defeating Aizawa, but if she needed to contribute, Hatsume's advice had some merit. Aizawa's eyes were more sensitive than most due to the nature of his power, so creating some kind of temporary irritant could prevent him from erasing their quirks…
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Time moves differently after that. Between finding herself during the final exams, training with the Pussycats, rescuing Bakugou, and moving into the dorms, it's hard to believe she's still the same person who started at UA only a few months ago. So it shouldn't be a surprise that when she sees Hatsume Mei cursing as she drags heaps of smoldering metal—clearly, some failed invention—along the grounds, her first reaction is indulgent amusement.
She walks across the grass, waving Hatsume down. "Do you need any help with that?" she asks.
"I just need to get it over to the wall so I can start repairing it." There's even more smoldering metal in the direction she points, which just makes Momo's amusement grow. "This is the fifth one in a row."
"Well, it'll be a lot easier to move with this." A large blue tarp materializes from her arm and drops to the ground. "What were you trying to make, anyway?" Momo asks, loading the metal onto the tarp.
Hatsume's nose wrinkles. "While your classes were at the training camp, the support course had our first opportunity for internships. I got scouted by one of the biggest support companies because of the Sports Festival, but when I got there all they wanted was to show me off and have me create flashy support gear, not anything inventive and impactful." Her voice deepens and fire burns in her eyes. "They rejected so many of my babies without ever giving them a chance."
Momo thinks of her internship with Uwabami. That was a feeling she knew very well.
"This baby is going to be my application to some smaller firms that are focused on innovation rather than profits. When they see what she can do, they'll have to let me work on the cutting-edge stuff."
They hit the wall then, and Hatsume runs off to grab tools from the workshop after hurried thanks.
Momo pulls out her phone and calls her father.
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Living in the dorms, Momo sees Hatsume in the halls so frequently it becomes second nature to wave at the energetic girl. The sight of her running down the hall, arms filled with supplies, never fails to make her smile. The way Hatsume always perks up and waves back makes her smile even brighter.
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Gym Gamma is filled with explosions and students perfecting their special moves. When she hears Iida, Ochako, and Midoriya leave to visit the Development Studio, she can't help but pause her own efforts. After all, what did a special move really mean to a hero that could create anything? Hatsume had helped her refocus her skills in the past, and if there was one thing Momo knew, it was where to find the pink-haired inventor.
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Hatsume is finishing tweaking a pair of boots for Ochako when Momo walks through the door. She looks up from her work and immediately beams. "Momo!" The boot in her hand whirs and Ochako winces. "Heh heh, whoops! I have just the thing to fix that," she says, running to the toolshed across the studio.
Ochako tilts her head as Momo walks over. "Oh, do you two know each other? Deku and Iida already left, but she didn't remember any of our names when we got here."
Something in her chest flutters at Ochako's words. "Since she's an inventor and my quirk is creation, we have some overlap. During the final exams, I changed my approach to defeating Aizawa-sensei thanks to her advice."
Brown eyes light up. "Oh, that makes sense! You two are a good match of strengths."
Heat colors Momo's cheeks. Thankfully, Hatsume takes that moment to reappear and saves her from responding.
"Found it!" she announces, holding up a drill with the longest drill bit Momo has ever seen. Ochako immediately sputters out an excuse about having to leave and that she trusts Hatsume to make the necessary changes when the boots were not actively on her feet. Rather wisely, Momo thinks.
"If you say so!" Hatsume calls after Ochako's retreating form. She turns to Momo, eyes glowing with that familiar manic energy. "Oooh, and what can I make you?"
"Actually," Momo says, "I wanted your advice."
Hatsume blinks. "Really?"
"Of course!" Was that really so hard to believe? She was absolutely brilliant, had a take on heroics and problem solving that Momo hadn't encountered anywhere else. "Your advice is what enabled Todoroki-kun and I to pass our final exams."
It takes a moment longer before Momo's words really seem to sink in. But when they do, Momo can see the expression on her face change, the smile grow wider and the eyes somehow brighter. She jumps up on one of the shop tables and pats the seat next to her. "So, what is it?"
Momo leans against the edge of the table, crossing her arms as she talks. "We're supposed to be developing super moves. But my powers already enable me to create anything, so I'm not sure if creating something specific is good enough. Ectoplasm said it didn't have to be an offensive move, but… I can't think of what to do."
Hatsume's feet swing back and forth for a moment before she slams her fist onto her palm with a gasp. "What if it's not what you make, but how you make it! If you create more efficient and weaker structures, you can keep up a constant stream. You could overwhelm your enemies by dropping small bombs non-stop!"
Non-stop bombs sounded extremely destructive no matter the size, but the concept was a good one. And if combined with her signature cannon…
Hatsume's eyes are focused on her, enormous smile in place, and her infectious energy makes Momo's heart soar. She knew coming to visit Hatsume was a good idea.
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It's later that week when Momo finds herself wandering the halls yet again, contemplating the upcoming provisional licensing exam. She feels confident this time that she can persevere and prove herself worthy of the title hero, but the failures of her past still linger at the back of her mind. The walk calms her. If the path she traces down the hall and the growing sound of explosions begins to seem familiar to her, she pretends not to notice.
The door to the studio is already cracked open when she presses against it. Within, Hatsume is crawling under and over some kind of exoskeleton, next to some form of… blaster? and next to that a pile of other inventions.
She steps through the doorway. "What are you making?"
Hatsume's head shoots up, and she lifts her welding mask. "Momo! I'm updating all of my old prototypes, one of the best innovation-focused support companies reached out to me! They said I was recommended! I didn't even have to apply to them! And they said they want to see the work I've done so far so they can consider commercializing some of it, so for this exoskeleton I'm recalibrating the gravity sensors and—"
A soft smile plays on Momo's lips, but she doesn't say anything. Hatsume continues showing off her inventions. Soon she's not just demonstrating them, but asking for feedback and making minor modifications.
Momo hums her approval at each change they implement, creating small sheets of different alloys for Hatsume to test, or creating minor components she needed.
An hour later, they're still going. "What width bolt did you need again, Hatsume?" she asks.
"3 mm, and call me Mei," she says, then glances at her wrist and squints her eyes at Momo as if realizing something for the first time. "You're up late."
Momo sighs. "I know. The Provisional Licensing Exam is next week, and I can't stop thinking about how I could freeze up and be out in an instant, just like the Sports Festival all over again.
Hatsume sets the tool she's holding down and reaches for Momo's hands. Hers are callused with smudges of grease where it had bled through the gloves, but they're as warm as the yellow eyes that look into hers, and Momo feels safe, feels relieved, feels loved.
"Don't worry about that!" Hatsume says.
"Why not?" Momo asks. "It's the exam that will determine if I even can be a hero."
Hatsume's smile extends from ear to ear. "You already are one."