"Oof, that's the third person to yak up, really hope we don't get that when we have our first festival." Awa-Kun commented nose scrunching up as if he could smell the puke from all the way up here.
To be fair to him though Ochaco also thought she could smell it too though that should be impossible with how far away they were from the field.
And having dealt with a lot of nausea from her quirk she had to agree with the statement.
It wasn't much fun puking, and she was sure that a doctor would be concerned over the damage to her throat she managed to do over the years of trying to train her quirk.
Well, that was before Izu-Kun helped her learn to counter-balance the nausea.
Ochaco didn't think that she'd ever stop cursing herself for not realizing that she could make things heavier because it fixed the whole issue with using her quirk on herself.
As Izu-Kun had said before quirks normally bend the rules of the universe and very rarely break them outright, and her quirk wasn't one those exceptions hence her nausea.
"Hey, you okay Uki?" Jiji quietly asked and she blinked.
"Huh? Yeah, why do you ask?" she questioned and the small hand mouth pursed it's lips.
"You've been quieter since Izu-Kun's entrance." Jiji answered and Ochaco's chest felt constricted at the reminder, she ducked her head.
That moment was such a chilling one for her.
Izu-Kun always joked about himself being dismissed because he was quirkless, something that hadn't really made sense but if how the crowd reacted was anything to go by...
Ochaco felt a lump form in her throat at just how bad could the discrimination get?
"Uki?" Jiji repeated and she gave shot him a smile and dismissively waved her hands.
"I'm fine Jiji, just wasn't expecting... that." Ochaco admitted dejectedly.
The small hand mouth nodded in turn.
"I assumed that Mido-Kun had been, troubled by others for his lack of quirk but this... was surreal." Jiji confessed to her.
Ochaco's shoulders slumped hearing that.
It was probably very naive of her to not even consider that people would bully Izu-Kun for that, she's seen some of the girls at school bully others for their quirks before, but she just hadn't made the next logical step that the lack of one would be considered worst.
Awa-Kun gave a hum, having heard them apparently and scoffed as he leaned back in his seat on the other side of her.
"All the more we'll shine once we hit the ground. Though to be fair it won't be hard to outshine those dumbasses." Awa-Kun said jutting his chin as he spat the second part as he put his hands behind his head.
Both she and Jiji stiffened at that remark and Ochaco couldn't stop herself from scowling as she remembered the girl with rainbow arms, because though she hadn't known the girl very well, she had become the face Ochaco had come to associate the event with the most.
Better than the fire or the people who had been badly injured that day.
But either way Ochaco mentally found herself back to that day she was at the shrine with Jiji, Awa-Kun, and Izu-Kun.
It is then with disgust that she looked up in the stands, dozens of heroes she couldn't help recognizing and her nose scrunched up, a renewed fire beginning to boil her blood.
Izu-Kun had tried to keep them from being too jaded with heroics, often giving them examples of the heroes that he felt were the good ones.
She was very glad her personal hero Thirteen was on that list but that was beside the point.
Cause as much as Izu-Kun tried, Ochaco couldn't help noticing how much more jaded she was of things now, even being to the point that she knew that she was unrealist to the people around her.
Especially heroes.
Every time she saw a hero in an advertisement or on a commercial she'd easily figured out how much money the hero would make for royalties and compare them to how much more she knew Izu-Kun was doing for others with so much less money.
Shaking her head Ochaco forcibly turned her attention back to her friend Awa-Kun "I think a three-day old glowstick could outshine most of them." she spitefully added and Awa-Kun began chuckling along with Bakugou.
She mentally preened at that since that was Bakugou's way of saying 'nice one Newton fucker'.
Tokoyami and Sadi however looked very shocked at her scathing comment, which surprised her at first then she remembered that the two would be less likely to know anything about what happened at the South Side by only being a friend of a friend.
From that point of view her comment definitely would seem very out of nowhere, especially to other aspiring heroes that were less jaded than she and her friends were by now.
Embarrassed at letting the comment slip now she turned away and rubbed one of her arms, the different texture of the gloves she was wearing helping to take her mind off it.
She heard the snort of Bakugou before the boy spoke up.
"Don't look so shocked Muppets, most folks in heroics have been feeding us a load of crap long before now, and like the ele-bitch down there, I ain't the only person willing to say it." Bakugou said and the pair shyly ducked their heads.
Jiji reached a hand over and lightly patted Tokoyami's back.
"Don't feel so bad about it, Mido-Kun has his star-struck moments still with heroes." Jiji told them and Ochaco couldn't help smiling as the boy did.
Jiji had become much more comfortable in the role of comforting others since the fire, the kids at the community center had been a real help to boost Jiji's confidence in the area.
She wondered for a moment if Jiji had ever considered being a rescue hero like she wanted to be.
With the track of thought now in mind she tried to remember if any of them talked about what kind of heroes she and her friends wanted to be, she didn't have the best memory for these kinds of things but thought that she would have remember that at least.
"Hey guys." Ochaco called getting their attention and quickly glanced at the field to see if they were still busy and that they wouldn't miss anything.
"Yeah Newton-fucker?" Bakugou replied not bothering to lean forward and see her.
"I never asked before, but what kind of heroes do you want to be? I'm planning on a branch of rescue work, but what about you guys?" Ochaco asked, getting a round of blinking from others.
"Oh yeah, we haven't talked about this yet. I think I'm gonna be a Supporter on the underground circuit, could probably go frontline combat but I don't think I got the mental constitution for it." Awa-Kun offered up.
Ochaco tilted her head at the thought but couldn't think of a reason to argue with her friend's choice.
"Fumi and I were thinking of going underground." Sadi said next and Ochaco nodded, she could easily see them being a great asset to the underground, especially in the Opts section specifically.
"I probably should go underground myself." Jiji said musingly and raising his arms, likely refencing his quirk but Ochaco couldn't help balking at the way he said it.
"Should? Should!? Should nothing Jiji! You'd be great in most branches of heroics, especially as an auxiliary hero." Ochaco heatedly argued shooting to her feet to further argue her case, as if the added height would help her in some way.
Jiji looked shocked by her outburst and the parts of his face that were visible turned pinkish before Jiji hid his face.
Normally she might turn bashful after such an outburst since there were other people to overhear her but like hell was she just going to let Jiji dog himself.
Not today, not after what happened not even half an hour earlier, and especially not because of all the stupid negative labels forcibly attached to him because of what his quirk made him look like.
She might have let herself be blindsided by the hatred of the quirkless, but she wasn't going to let anyone stop her from acting against this and defending her friends against the discrimination.
"Planned on being a line-holder." Bakugou added breaking the silence that had formed and re-gaining the attention of the group, back to what they were talking about.
"A what?" Sadi questioned, they and Tokoyami were both confused by the term.
"Their people that hold off villains, a mix of combat and support heroes, they usually keep villains busy so people can evacuate civilians, or keep them from doing more damage. Think of Crimson riot from a couple decades ago, he was one of the biggest line-holders." Ochaco answered, having remembered Izu-Kun's explanation on the other types of hero when she first asked.
The pair nodded, either knowing the hero or understanding what she meant either way.
"Bakugou-San would best make merry in the trenches of sheer chaos." Tokoyami commented almost musingly so.
Ochaco blinked shocked by the odd words of the boy, Bakugou at the least didn't seem offended and snorted throwing his head back slightly, like he didn't want to laugh out right.
Awa-Kun didn't have the same reservations "Dude do you always talk like that?" Awa-Kun said chuckling and Tokoyami ducked his head bashfully.
"Hey, hey it ain't bad, just want to make sure my goofy ass doesn't offend you when I laugh, cause there's no way I'm going to be able to keep a straight face if you keep that shit up." Awa-Kun quickly cleared up.
"I know right? Fumi here should try to be a comedian on the side." Sadi exclaimed moving to glomp their twin from the side.
"Sadi." Tokoyami hissed, likely embarrassed.
Bakugou shrugged rolling his eyes "I'd paid to see you squawk on stage Patchy." Bakugou added and Tokoyami's head whipped around towards the red-eyed boy surprised.
Bakugou tsked and turned his head away "I said what I said." Bakugou gruffly told the boy.
Sadi chirped loudly and moved to hug Bakugou tightly, the boy surprisingly didn't fight the embrace and Ochaco thought that he was merely acting grumpy since he didn't actually move to push the shadow being away and even wrapped and arm around them.
Ochaco had to resist the urge to squeal at the sight.
An angsty person and a cheerful person getting together, that kind of couple, romantic or not was a guilty pleasure of her's to watch whenever it came up in the media.
And she really could use something light after all of the depressing quirk discrimination stuff.
"Alrighty little listeners I think that all the kiddos moving on are ready to get back into the thick of it and the field has been cleaned up now." Mic said bringing everyone's attention back to festival.
"They're tenacious bunch of ankle-biters aren't they?" Hawks joked.
"That they are, but I'm not sure how they'll deal with what coming next, especially with their pledge of not using their quirks." Mic pointed out.
"Well, we won't know until the next event is picked Mic, so what do say you show us what these kids have to deal with next Midoriya-San?" Hawks replied and sure enough Izu-Kun was down on the field on the stage once again.
The event wheel is spun once again.
Eventually landing on one of the events and Mic squealed with happiness, and Ochaco and many others clutched their ears from the sound.
"Sorry for the feedback there folks, but as I think everyone knows Scavenger pack is my favorite of the second round events." Mic apologized.
"If I go deaf over this I'm sending you the bill Micheal." Hawks pointedly said in response making Mic laugh some more.
"I'll be sure to add it to the pile." Mic answered and Ochaco wondered if that was a joke over not, because as nice as Present Mic was, she could see the man accidentally making others deaf.
"May I explain the rules to the kids now?" Izu-Kun questioned with his arms crossed from what Ochaco could see.
"Go ahead Midoriya-San." Hawks encouraged.
"Right. Scavenger pack is a game that needs teams of three, each person will have a specific role in the game." Izu-Kun started to describe.
"One will be the carrier, someone that will be responsible for keeping the group's loot safe.
One will be the thief, who'll steal from other groups, and one will be the collector that will have the list of 'items' the group will need to collect for the group to move forward to the one-on-ones." Izu-Kun said the three roles with their own silhouettes.
"The entire game revolves around each group collecting a list of 'items', their little plastic replicas like this," Izu-Kun told them holding up a small solid red plastic rabbit that would fit in the palm of his hand "The list will include what items to find and what color the item has to be." Izu-Kun further explained.
"They'll again have ten minutes to gather these items from the many different areas around the arena where the items are located.
The five groups with the most items will more on, with the sixth highest score able to send only one of their members forward." Izu-Kun elaborated.
"Students will be allowed five minutes to form their groups and who will play what role in the game, then given both a grab bag and this list reader." Izu-Kun finished off showing both items for the crowd.
"Now find yourselves some teammates kids." Izu-Kun encouraged the kids before all of the screens took on a timer face.
Ochaco had that moment when you're spend so much time in your small friend group that you forget the shit you say ain't normal.