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She was floating, floating in an ocean of darkness and fog. Yet it didn't worry her, rather it calmed her. Here she felt safe, alone, and free. She couldn't remember how she got here, but she didn't want to leave, she had a vague idea that if she did, she wouldn't like it. She looked down at herself, her body wreathed in fog and darkness, but she could see something roiling under the surface. Something dark, something sinister, something she didn't want to see or know. She slowly turned herself over, gazing up at the infinite abyss above her, where a myriad of stars showed down.
Their light, so distant yet so warm, curled around her like an embrace. She closed her eyes, letting herself bask in their warmth and light. She could feel her body below her, felt what it felt, but it didn't feel right. Like she was there but not, a sensation she remembered experiencing before. She shrugged it aside, it wasn't important, not right now.
Her languishing was broken by a noise, far yet close, loud yet quiet. Then came the voice. Rippling across the fog, calling her.
"Ochako..." it said, beckoning her to it.
She turned her head towards the distant source and saw, on the horizon, a building light. Like the sun it slowly rose into the air, its light banishing the void and the fog.
"Ochako..." it called again.
She started to float towards it, she wanted to be nearer to it, every part of her craving the light.
"Wake up Ochako... Wake up..." it said, and then the world lurched around her.
The world flashed white, then became pitch black.
She opened her eyes, the world a dim blur, save for the one figure before her. He shone with an ethereal light, outlining his body, obscuring his face and form. Yet she knew this figure to be a friend. He was... a guiding light, within the darkness of her life... A life she didn't care to remember, all that mattered, was helping that light, helping... him.
"Good, you're awake, stand up now, come on." He said, his sweet voice filling her with strength.
He reached forward and slowly helped her to sit up, then, grabbing her arms helped her stand. She wobbled a bit, but he steadied her.
"There you go, you've done well. I'm so happy. Come, follow me, there is something I need your help with, something only you can do." He said kindly, gesturing for her to follow.
She took a step forward, unsteady at first, but with each step, she regained just a bit more strength in her body. As she followed him outside of the darkness, and into a corridor, light spilling in from a chamber beyond she smiled slightly.
She was free of the darkness, and now, she could help that light in all that it asked. She was a hero, and heroes helped people, and she knew that by helping this light, she would be helping not only those around her but the entire world.
But... there was something... strange. She knew she ought to help the light, knew it to be just and true. Yet... some deep part of her, hated that light. Some deep part of her told her to run, to flee, to find... something... someone... She couldn't remember who or what her deepest self wanted to find. So she shrugged it away, it wasn't important. If it was, she would have remembered.
So she followed the light, slowly down the corridor of shadow until she finally stepped out into the light. Within herself, she rejoiced.
The figure turned back to her, his radiant smile filling her with pleasure.
"Here we are, do you see the man against the wall?" He asked, stepping aside and gesturing to something ahead of him.
She slowly looked up and to her mild shock, she saw a red-eyed demon, chained to a wall. Its snarling visage trying to intimidate.
"I tried to get this one to see reason, tried to enlighten him to the truth but he just wouldn't listen. What do you think?" He asked her.
She felt her mouth open, and utter the truth she... knew...? To be true...
"You... are the guiding light, you... will guide us... all... to the truth... you will set us free... and Japan... will... be... the land of... the Rising Sun... again..." she heard herself slowly say and was inwardly pleased with herself.
She saw the red-eyed demon roar and pull at its chains, eyes blazing as it stared at her guiding light. The figure was saying something, something to the demon. She tuned out the conversation, as her attention was drawn inexorably closer to the demon. To its eyes, that blazed with anger, but she noticed something else as well. Two thin lines below its eyes went down to its jaw.
Her light shook its head and turned towards her, but as he opened his mouth, the demon let loose a roar that shook the very foundations and its chains exploded. The figure of light started to turn toward the demon, while it ran at him, its left hand materializing a dagger.
The world seemed to slow to her, the movement of everything slowing to crawl as a sudden lance of white-hot pain shot through her head. She saw and felt herself clamp her eyes shut, and grit her teeth. Then from the apparent heavens, a booming voice called out, the same as the figure but grander, more imposing, and impossible to disobey.
PROTECT ME.
She saw and felt herself move, using her gravity she accelerated toward the demon, hand outstretched. She grabbed the demon around its neck and slammed it into the wall without slowing, cratering and pinning it to the wall.
She stared up at the demon's face, as it clawed at her hand, but its efforts were useless against her gravity-fueled grip. It stared at her, screaming at first, but gradually quieting down as her grip made it hard for it to breathe well.
"Thank you Ochako, I am proud of your service." the figure behind her said.
Another wave of pleasure and happiness washed over her, while that small part of herself fought against it.
"You see now? She serves me, mind, body, and soul. This will be her first real work done in my name. Your death will begin a new era, the era of Japan's rise to true greatness!" The figure laughed.
The demon just stared at her, its rage gone, replaced by... something... she... couldn't remember what that emotion was... and trying made her head hurt.
"Now, Ochako, kill him." The figure said.
She saw and felt herself raise her right hand, coalescing gravity around it, preparing to slam it through the demon's heart. As she was about to strike though, it opened its mouth and for the first time, it spoke intelligible words.
"I'm sorry Uraraka..." it gasped out.
Something broke.
More pain lanced through her mind, greater than ever before, she cried out shutting her eyes to the pain.
She opened her eyes, she was in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by corpses. She blinked again, she was standing in a wet and dark alley, blood pooling around her feet, and a figure in white armor lying before her. She blinked again, now she was inside a burning building.
"KILL HIM"
The command pounded into her skull like a sledgehammer, and she screamed.
"I'M SORRY..."
Images flashed through her head once more. A graveyard, a dimly lit bar, a rainy forest, a figure clad in lightning, a gun pointed down at a prone figure, and a rooftop at sunset.
"Can I be a hero?"
"KILL HIM!"
She screamed even louder, her throat threatened to tear itself apart just as the world and her mind were ripping themselves apart, as two different voices echoed through her mind.
Then, it all went black, and she lost sense of everything.
She just stared off into the infinite darkness.
She slowly closed her eyes, sinking into the darkness, and then, she awoke.
She was on a floor, a hard unyielding concrete floor, and she was in danger. Every instinct, every bit of training, and every nerve in her body screamed at her to move. She lurched sideways, using her quirk to right herself she looked around her, eyes wide, taking huge breaths.
She was surrounded.
Enemies on all sides. She could see enemy hordes bearing down on her, and directly in front of her she could see Himiko Toga, flanked by Mr. Compress. Yet those two mattered little in her mind. She only registered one thing. She was surrounded.
By Demons
By Monsters
BY VILLAINS
There was only one thing to do. She had to do what she was best at.
KILL THEM ALL
Shigiraki could be here at any moment. She had to secure her position.
She slapped both hands to the floor and sent out an enormous pulse. It traveled through the floor and walls into the earth, up the wall, through the ceiling into the rest of the building, and then beyond it. Then, she applied a massive gravitational force up and outward, and the world ripped itself apart.
Ochako slapped both her hands down onto the floor and Izuku felt shock and fear shot through his recently oxygen-deprived brain. He wasn't sure what was wrong with her, but she didn't see him or anyone else for that matter. He was only able to do one thing before everything went straight to hell. Shield his face with his arms as best he could. Then the world ripped itself apart.
The floor exploded upward, along with the walls, ceiling, and building above. Ironically, it was Demon Mask that saved him. Demon Mask was in front of him, and his body bore the brunt of the destruction. He saw Demon Mask's body ripped, shredded, and pulped, the deluge of concrete, steel, wood, and stone slamming into him, instantly killing him.
Izuku for his part was flung upward as the remaining debris shredded his body. He couldn't tell up from down and then he was free falling. He looked desperately around for anything he could use and saw a huge floating chunk of masonry. He reached for his belt and withdrew a steel cable line with a large blunt end. He swung it as best he could and let it fly toward the masonry as he shot past it.
As he fell faster and faster, he worried it might be too late, then the line went taught and with a jerk, he swung like a pendulum. As he swung forward and upward, he got close enough to another large piece of masonry, close enough to grab a jutting piece of rebar. He managed to haul himself up, but his taught line tugged at him and he had to detach the line from his waist, which now hurt a lot.
He clambered up onto the floating piece of debris and looked out at the devastation. Small and large pieces of masonry floated about in the air, as other bits fell to earth and dust covered everything. He looked down to where he had been earlier and saw a large crater where the building and much of the surrounding area had been before. He must have been at least 50 meters in the air.
He gazed down where Ochako must have been, and felt a hopelessness wash over him.
He didn't know what to do.
"We breach in 10, on my mark." came Rikugun-Shōshō Genryusai's voice over the comm.
Bakugo stepped up to the edge of Dark Shadow, crouched down, and gripped the shadow feather that it had made to serve as handholds for everyone. Everyone else did likewise, Momo's Gauss Rifle held securely by its strap around her chest. He looked down at the building below them, imagining what they might find.
The countdown started, and everyone tensed.
"GO!" Rikugun-Shōshō Genryusai's voice boomed through the comms and Dark Shadow dove.
The wind rushed by them as the building rapidly approached, while Genryusai and Ahmya started to move toward the building themselves.
They'd all gotten halfway to the building when it simply exploded.
They were flung off of Dark Shadow as a reverse avalanche of debris crashed into them.
Bakugo righted himself in the air with several controlled explosions, then released a series of chaining explosions around him to destroy any nearby debris. Then continuing a series of explosions to stay aloft he looked all about him, scanning the air, and saw Dark Shadow below him, with firm holds on everyone who couldn't fly. Todoroki was off on his own above him, floating with a continuous jet of flame.
Shoto let himself fall to Bakugo's level before leveling out, while Dark Shadow swooped up to meet them.
"Do you know what happened?" He asked.
"If I had to guess, it's Ochako having freed herself." He said, mind racing.
"I'm going to check it out," Bakugo said and blasted himself downward.
Todoroki and Dark Shadow holding the others followed him and together they touched down in the crater. The dust cloud was too thick to see anything though, not to mention he started coughing. Fortunately, Dark Shadow grew one massive hand and with a couple of waves blew most of the dust away from the crater.
With an unobstructed view of the crater they all immediately saw a lone figure in the center of the crater, hunched over and coughing wildly.
"I'm going to light up the area," Momo said and created several flares and threw multiple white flares all around the area.
With the area now illuminated they saw, clear as day, they saw that it was indeed Ochako in the center of the crater. Bakugo immediately started forward, everyone else close behind him.
"Ochako!" He called out, and as they got close he noticed the bright reflective spots in front of Ochako.
Ochako turned toward them and they came to a halt, her hands and chin were coated with blood, but it was her wide, wild eyes and her nudity that disturbed him.
Her expression didn't last long however as her wild, shell-shocked look gave way to horror and fear, and then morphed into pure hatred and fury. She screamed and launched herself at him. Her flying punch slammed into his chest and all the air was expelled out of his lungs, then she elbowed him in the back which spiked him into the dirt. There were shouts and more sounds of pain before a wall of ice slammed into Ochako causing her to go flying backward across the crater. Then he was hauled to his feet by Kirishima.
"You okay?!" He asked.
"Y-yeah, what happened?" He asked as he staggered and coughed, forcing Kirishima to grab hold of him and steady him.
"Shoto and Tokoyami are fighting Ochako." Kirishima said, pointing ahead of them.
Shoto and Tokoyami were indeed fighting Ochako. Keeping her at bay, unwilling to take the offensive as they tried to reason with her.
"No good... it's..." Bakugo started to say before a coughing fit struck him.
"It's like Takayama City." He finally managed to say.
He felt Kirishima's grip on his arm tighten as he recalled the event where Ochako had somehow undergone a psychotic break in mere seconds. The resulting fight had killed the surviving members of class 1B, along with Spinner and Mr. Compress on the League's side.
It had taken a truly cataclysmic explosion from himself to knock her unconscious. Still, every surviving member of the battle had been sworn to secrecy by the Silent One, unable to reveal the events of that day to anyone save those who already knew. The public fallout from the news that one of the Angels had, from the public POV, gone crazy and killed more than a half dozen heroes could have shifted the course of the war had it not been covered up.
It was fortunate that Ochako had no knowledge of the event, more fortunate yet, was the fact that Ochako didn't have the QUEESS at the current moment. It meant they could deal with her themselves, even if it would be challenging. Ochako didn't just hit hard, she could take extreme amounts of punishment thanks to her gravity armor.
Bakugo managed to right himself, as he recovered from the blows and waved Kirishima off.
"You need to leave, you, Mina and Momo. You are too vulnerable to her quirk since you can't fly. Momo, I know you have your traversal gear, but you won't be maneuverable enough to evade a serious assault from her." He said, looking back at the three.
He could see that they were torn. They wanted to help, desperately wanted to help, but they also knew he was right. One touch from Ochako could result in them falling from the stratosphere. Without a word, Momo grabbed the arms of Kirishima and Ashido and together started back toward the edge of the crater.
Bakugo turned back toward the battle that was raging ahead of him and took a deep breath. Then he blasted himself into the battle, beginning their offensive against Ochako.
Or they would have. As Bakugo closed with Ochako, a monstrous creature bounded over the lip of the crater and advanced toward them rapidly. Bakugo shifted targets, arresting his movement he focused on the new threat. Bounding on all fours, a myriad of different mutant-type quirks on display, and trailing blood behind it, Aria Lin was sprinting at Ochako. She crashed into Ochako, sending them both tumbling end over end. He could hear the monstrous snarling roars of Aria mixed with Ochako's outraged screams.
The ground surrounding the two exploded upward as they wrestled, sending Aria back towards the three of them. She recovered in mid-air, landing on all fours like a cat and her head turned towards the three of them, the two stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Aria lunged at them. Dark Shadow intercepted her, the two grappling for dominance. While that happened though, Ochako flew over the tangle and charged at Bakugo and Todoroki, the fight starting all over again.
What was intended to be a rescue mission had turned into a desperate fight to not only save Ochako from herself but also to ensure their survival.
