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She was born on an otherwise uneventful night. Tomura remembers the snow, how it floated slowly to the ground, as if suspended in the air. He wasn’t there for the birth, of course, but he heard about it. Sensei likes to tell her the story, turning it into a dream. The snow gleaming under the glare of the hospital lights, the ease with which she was born, how quietly she came into the world and her soft cries after, her eyes brown and open after being born only hours ago, the tuft of brown hair on her head.
(He never mentions her mother, although Tomura knows she must have played a role. Who is she? Where is she now? She no longer plays a part in this story. It’s easier not to ask. There are no memories of her, no attachments to consider. He never met her. She was before his time, before the memory of his own parents. She isn’t important. That’s what Sensei is for.)
One of Tomura’s first memories — one of his strongest — is seeing that tiny bundle in Sensei’s arms. He was only four. He remembers ash and dust; he remembers Sensei holding a hand out to him and promising to take care of him and guide him; and he remembers a little bit of life. He didn’t know what it was at first. Surely he saw a baby before, but he couldn’t remember. He remembers her.
“You have to be very careful,” Sensei told him in a low voice. “You don’t want to scare her, do you?”
Tomura shook his head and instinctively held out his hands. He was small for his age, but she was impossibly tiny. He didn’t know people started out this small.
“Remember,” Sensei warned him gravely, “don’t use all five of your fingers.” Tomura flexed his fingers, tasting the ash that covered them once before, and lifted his pinky finger out. “There’s a good boy. We don’t want you to hurt her. She’s very fragile.”
“Fragile?” Tomura asked, sounding out the word slowly.
“Babies are weak when they’re born,” Sensei explained. “They can’t fight or fend for themselves. You must be gentle with her for now.”
With a soft touch, Sensei passed the bundle into Tomura’s arms, situating him so his elbow kept her head lifted. Her tiny feet stuck out of the blanket over his other arm. When he peered into the bundle, he was surprised to find the baby awake and staring back up at him, big brown eyes locked on his red ones. She didn’t cry or try to squirm away. She didn’t look away like others did. No, she watched him and he watched her.
“One day, she will be so strong, but only if we help her.” Sensei’s voice was clear as day even in memories. “She will need you to watch over her as she grows.”
Tomura nodded emphatically. “I’ll protect her.” Like Sensei protected him. Like a big brother. He vaguely remembered having a sister before, but he had one now. Maybe she wasn’t one by blood, but they were bound together by something even greater. “Does she have a quirk?”
“Not yet, but she will and it will be great.”
He remembers that day like it was yesterday. How perfect she felt in his arms, how she trusted him to hold her as he carefully held his pinky fingers out and promised to never let anyone hurt her. It’s a memory imprinted on his mind as he grows older, that protective streak burning through him and that constant thought of mine . They will do great things together, Sensei assures him, and he believes it. He believes everything his Sensei says. He’s the only one who was there for him, after all.
You won’t be alone, Tomura told the baby in his mind. From the way she coos at him, it was almost like she understood him even though she was only days old.
*
“Whatcha doin’? Are you playing a game? Can I watch? Can I play?”
She was a quiet baby. She is not a quiet child.
Tomura shoves her away from him on the couch. “‘Chako, you’re blocking the screen.” She isn’t deterred in the slightest. It’s like she thinks he’s a jungle gym, climbing on his shoulders and over his back, wrapping her little arms around his neck so she can hang over him and watch him play. “You’re gonna get me killed. I can’t lose another life if I’m gonna beat the boss.”
“The boss?” she asks curiously. “Like Papa?”
“Like me ,” Tomura shoots back with a smirk.
She sticks her tongue out. “You’re not the boss.”
“I’m the boss of you ,” Tomura replies smartly, jerking sideways so she tumbles off his shoulders and bounces on the couch. She giggles, which makes him want to smile, but he’s trying to act like a tough older brother. It’s hard to ignore her though even when he’s absorbed in his games and not long before she’s perched on his shoulders again.
He’s entirely focused on the fight, but he can see her in his peripheral vision and catches the intensity on her face as she watches him shoot bad guys. He’s let her play before. She dies almost instantly, not yet equipped to play advanced games. He’s not fond of the cute kiddie ones she loves to play, but sometimes he’ll indulge her to get her to be quiet. Certainly not to amuse her. Tha makes him sound nice.
At four, Ochako is a bundle of energy, a sharp contrast to him unless he trips into a manic state. She always bugs him, wanting to be in his space and involved in whatever he’s doing. It’s annoying, but he never really tells her to stop. He’s eight and already sees the way adults steer clear of him. Besides Sensei and the Doctor, she is the only not afraid to be close to him.
(“Are you sure it’s a good idea to let him so close to her?”
“Tomura would never hurt her,” Sensei declared, an underlining edge to his words that shuts the other person up.)
She’s bright like the sun and has two sun-kissed pink spots on her cheeks. During a cutscene on the game, he reaches over his shoulder to poke one. She swats his hand away with a cry of, “Tomura, stop!” that makes him grin. He doesn’t have a good smile — he’s seen the way people flinch away from him when one slips onto his face — but it doesn’t affect her. She never notices she’s supposed to be bothered by him.
Ochako nuzzles against him and squeezes him a hint too tightly. “Can I stay tonight?”
“You have to ask Sensei,” Tomura tells her, poking his tongue out as he concentrates on the game. It wouldn’t be so hard if he didn’t set it to the highest difficulty, but he doesn’t like it when games are easy. Sensei says he should strive to always challenge himself. It’ll make him a stronger leader when he’s older and can help Sensei with his goals. He can’t wait.
“I wanna stay and play video games all night,” Ochako demands in a no-nonsense tone only a child can manage. He makes a slightly offended noise. He doesn’t play video games all night. “I don’t wanna go back.”
Tomura can’t blame her. Unlike him, she doesn’t live with Sensei. She stays with what he assumes is a very nice couple, so that she has one foot in their world and one foot in the other corrupt one. It’s been her life since she was born and she’s only recently started to rebel against it. Acting up, as it were. She always acts like an angel when Sensei is around, but Tomura has seen her throw fits when she has to go back. It’s only natural for a kid her age.
“Aren’t they nice though?” he asks.
“They’re boring ,” Ochako complains. He agrees about that, but her being raised by a bland, unassuming couple is the point. He doesn’t exactly understand Sensei’s reasoning — she would be safer if she lived with them — but he knows better than to question it. Sensei always knows what’s best for them. It will help them in the future, he reassures them. She can do things no one else can. She’s special. He’s special too, just in a different way. That’s what Sensei says.
They all have their roles to play. Hers will be one of stealth as she gets older. In his mind, this equates to teaching her how to sneak around their base as silently as possible. She’s terrible at it, loud and bubbly as she is, but she’ll get better. He’ll teach her.
For now, she’s stuck playing the role of a normal child. Outside of here, she has a normal life. She goes to school like a normal kid; she lives in an apartment with normal parents; she has normal friends; she does normal things like school plays and going to birthday parties. Tomura hasn’t been to an actual school since Sensei took him in and can’t remember if he did before, but Ochako’s stories about it confirm it’s as dull as he expected it to be. She likes it, but she’d rather be here with them.
“Why can’t I stay with you and Papa?” Ochako asks, laying on him like a sack of rice. Even if he hasn’t looked out a window in days, he can tell it’s getting late by how much energy she has in her. It won’t be long before her bedtime and she’ll be taken back to the little apartment she lives in with her pink bedroom. Little kids need to be on a schedule.
Tomura checks to save his game before going into the boss battle. “Because you’re not like us. You’re different.”
Ochako goes quiet. It’s out of the ordinary enough to draw his attention. He glances over to her partially hidden face pressed on his shoulder, her cheeks bunching up and pink as ever. Her eyes, which rest on nothing in particular, are sad in a way he’s never seen before. He assumed she’s always happy. She smiles and giggles so much that even he’s bit by jealousy every now and then.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she did get sad. After all, she couldn’t be with them all the time. Was that why she clung to him so tightly when she was allowed to visit on the weekends and some nights? Did she hide behind those smiles and laughter like he hid behind his games?
“I don’t wanna be different,” Ochako mumbles, her voice muffled by his shoulder.
Tomura rolls his eyes. “It’s not different in a bad way.”
When she doesn’t look at him, he knows she doesn’t believe him, which is frustrating. He’s used to her believing everything he tells her. She’s so confident in him. Either that or she’s easy to trick. He likes to think it’s the former since it makes him feel better about himself. Huffing, he pauses the game and sets it aside. He twists on the couch to gently peel her off of his back, careful to keep his pinky fingers raised like he always does when handling her, and sets her next to him.
Ochako stares down at her hands in her lap. “Is it because I’m a girl?”
“That’s dumb,” Tomura says flatly.
“Because I don’t have my quirk yet?”
“You’ll get it soon.” His manifested he was four. It… He doesn’t think about it. She doesn’t ask like he expects a curious child like her to do. Sensei says she’ll have a great quirk. And if she doesn’t have one, he’ll give her one. He’s very generous. She doesn’t have to worry. “Think of it like this: we’re playing on different consoles. You’re PC and I’m a gaming system.” She peers up at him, naive hope gleaming in her eyes. “But we’re playing the same game and that’s all that matters.”
“We’re a team, right?” Ochako asks.
Tomura snorts and pokes her in the cheeks again. “I don’t have babies on my team.”
“I’m not a baby!” Ochako launches herself at him, wrapping her arms around his middle and tackling him so he’s thrown back on the couch. It knocks his game onto the ground and he yelps at her to get off of him — he can’t break it after accidentally disintegrating the first one out of anger — but as usual she doesn’t do as she’s told. She’s got a stubborn streak worse than him. He’s left to snag the game off the ground and hold it above his face to continue playing while she lays on him. So annoying.
*
A few months later, Ochako bolts out of the car and Tomura finds out the hard way that her quirk has finally manifested. He’s hanging back in the doorway, watching as Sensei speaks to the underlings that entrusted to watch her, as she darts toward him and exclaims, “Look at my paws!”
“Wha-?” Tomura has no time to look at her “paws” or even react before she full on slaps her entire hand against his stomach and sends him floating in the air. He yelps when his back smacks into the ceiling and flails in the air helplessly like he’s swimming under the ocean and can’t get anywhere. “What the hell! Put me down!”
Ochako gasps and puts her hand over her mouth. “Aw, you said a bad word!”
Tomura swipes a hand to grab her, but he can’t do it from the ceiling. “You little brat, put me down!” She giggles at him from her safe spot on the floor. After managing to put his feet on the ceiling, he kicks off and tries to snag her again, but she jumps away and he floats back to the ceiling like he weighs nothing. “It’s not funny! Down — now!”
“Okay, Tomura,” Ochako sings as she presses the pads of her fingers together. “Release!”
He yelps even louder when he clumsily crashes back to earth. She’s still giggling as he groans and pushes himself to his feet. “Little brat,” he growls before he leaps to snatch her. She screams, though not out of fear, and dashes into the bar with him chasing after her. He’s got longer legs and is much faster, so despite her ability to hide in small spaces, he catches her quickly enough. He picks her up from behind, easily holding onto her as she flails and kicks like he did on the ceiling.
When he hears the door shut, Tomura sets Ochako down and lets go of her. He takes a step back and watches with a guarded gaze as she spins on her heels and runs into Sensei’s waiting arms. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been held the way she is right now, but that’s fine. He’s too big for that. It won’t be long before Sensei can trust him to do stuff besides making sure Ochako stays out of the way when he’s doing business.
“Let’s see those paws,” Sensei says as he carries his daughter further into the room. Ochako holds out her hands palms up. Right away, Tomura spots the pink pads on her fingertips. They match the spots on her cheeks perfectly. Sensei prods one of the pads gently and she wiggles like the action tickled. “I was told you got sick after using it on yourself?”
“I wanted to fly like the couch!” Ochako exclaims, flapping her arms in the air like a bird.
“And did you?” Sensei asks.
Ochako nods enthusiastically. “But then I gots sick. I puked sparkles .” It sounds terrible to Tomura, but she seems excited to do it again. She’s always liked shiny things.
When Sensei glances at him, Tomura steps forward, knowing he can finally join them. He takes Ochako’s left wrist and pulls it down to examine the pads on her fingers closer. She twists her hand in his grip and touches his wrist with the pads. A pink hue he didn’t notice before glows briefly before he floats again. This time, he keeps his grip on her so he doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling.
“So what?” Tomura asks. “She makes things fly?”
“The Doctor believes she’s canceling out gravity,” Sensei replies thoughtfully.
“You’re a floaty,” Ochako laughs.
Tomura manuevers in the air so his feet are pointed down. Ochako brings her fingers together to release him from her quirk and he drops to the ground, still a bit clumsily, but at least he doesn’t fall on his face this time. That still smarts. He wasn’t meant to drop from high places.
“You’ll have to be careful about touching things with all five of your fingers, my dear,” Sensei tells her, both gentle and serious. It’s the tone of a father, one he has become familiar with as well. Just as Tomura did done four years ago when he held Ochako for the first time, she nods in understanding. Then, Sensei smiles and pats her on the head. “Aren’t you two a pair with your quirks? Why don’t you take her to show the others? You’ll have to teach her your ways, Tomura.”
“Of course, Sensei.” Tomura flexes his fingers and Ochako wiggles hers in return. After Sensei sets her down, Tomura holds out a hand, his pinky raised, and Ochako takes it without hesitation, mimicking him with her pinky out. She blindly trusts him not to hurt her when she’s seen the kind of damage he can do with a single wrong touch.
“You two are going to do great things together,” Sensei tells them. Pride bursts in Tomura’s chest while Ochako stares up at him innocently. One day, they’re going to change the world. Those stupid heroes won’t know what hit them. They’ve got no idea about the storm that’s brewing.