Chapter Text
Midoriya sputtered out a wet cough, hand instinctively going to the wound in his side. The hand keeping him roughly pinned against the wall finally let go, and he felt himself sway before sliding down to the floor.
He coughed again, feeling a warm liquid burn the back of his throat and a tiny droplet spill from the corner of his mouth. There are panicked voices screeching at each other over his head, from the people of his school.
People say kids are cruel. Somehow, Midoriya doubts they know the full extent of the truth of that statement.
His hearing had gone static ages ago, but it sharply tuned in now.
“-**, we’re gonna get arrested! Oh my gosh, we just killed him!”
“Yondou, calm down! Listen. He’s an autistic freak; no one’s gonna care! But to get out of this, we gotta go, now!”
“O-okay…” The pitter-patter of sneakers dashing away filled the tunnel he had been attacked in, leaving him behind like a doll, thrown behind and forgotten. Another harsh bout of hacking spewed more red from his mouth, and he would have been worried if his vision wasn’t getting spotty, specks of black growing to the size of mountains.
His last thought, with hands weakly applying pressure to the stab wound in his side and hearing going fuzzy again, was of the bullies.
Were they happy? Were they proud of what they accomplished?
Uraraka puffed a sigh out, her cheeks blowing out as she sighed. They had been skipping through starshields and through what was called the ‘Milky Way’ by its inhabitants for what seemed like forever, on the run from their old planet.
On Kämil, it was illegal for people to learn how to fight. It was a utopia, perfect and shiny.
Only three men had seen beneath the glittering exterior of their society and seen it for what it was. The truth? Kämil was a festering pit, just on the brink of collapsing into a mass dystopia.
So the three men took it upon themselves to teach a select few people how to fight. Uraraka was one of these, and she mainly tutored under Aizawa-jungei along with her friends, Tsuyu Asui, Hagakure Tooru, and Jirou Kyouka. Their powers had been most fitting to his teaching skills, and he was the chosen Alpha of the ship. The head honcho, so to speak. He also tutored four males. Kirishima Eijirou, Sero Hanta, and Kaminari Denki were fun and outgoing, but Bakugou Katsuki intrigued her. He was different, and that was okay! She wasn’t judging! In their society, everyone was born with little quirks alongside their Quirks, a way to keep one person from being perfect. Uraraka’s eyes were just a little too wide for her head, and she had two pink circles on her cheeks that looked as if they were painted on. Bakugou had none of these flaws. Everyone was fairly sure that he actually came from another world, but nothing had been confirmed or denied.
“Attention, okuwçylar . We’re going to be landing on a small planet, with confirmed life, to meet with Hizashi-jungei and Toshinori-jungei. They will have their own platoons, and you will be kind to them. We have the largest ship, so we will travel together on our ship. Remember, don’t stray too far off. We don’t want our location transmitted to the Kämillik. They are the only ones trained in combat on the whole planet, and they know no mercy.” The authoritative voice of Aizawa-jungei helped soothe her frayed nerves, on edge from günler in the ship on end.
And they were finally leaving! Being allowed to ‘stretch their legs’! She was excited, because this was new! And exciting!
She felt a small disturbance in her field, and her hand snapped backwards. Catching the small bottle of dag şüweleňi in her hand, she cocked an eyebrow at Sero. At least he had the decency to look ashamed.
“
Dag şüweleňi
? Really, Sero-kuna? You do know that Aizawa-jungei has a strict ban on this, right?”
“Aw, come on Uraraka-chana! It wouldn’t hurt you to live once in a while!” She scoffed, smiling, and chucked the bottle back at him. He shrugged.
“Your loss then!” He popped the cap and took a deep swig of the bright yellow liquid, striding off to his room.
Aizawa-jungei had the largest ship, but he also had the largest platoon. Hizashi-jungei and Toshinori-jungei both only had five
okuwçylar
each, but Aizawa-jungei had eight. It showed how good of a teacher he was!
And, before Uraraka knew it, their ship was touching down in an area hidden by tall, brown things with green and pink speckles on them, and the doors hissed open. She was the first out onto the surface, and she startled when she felt something soft and springy under her feet.
“Uraraka-chana. Put your shoes on.” She ducked her head, taking the slippers provided by Aizawa-jungei and slipping them onto her feet. Next to her, Tsuyu was crouching, feeling the texture of the springy surface under their feet with her palms and fingers. Uraraka looked around, breathing in deeply. The air smelled like gowrulan bal, a sweet scent that Uraraka could never get enough of.
Across the expanse of green stuff, movement caught her eye. Turning, she saw two figures, shaped almost exactly like her and her colleagues, sprinting away from a small underpass. One of them was holding something sharp, and the taller one only stopped to toss the object into their little glade before they bolted into the dark. Furrowing her eyebrows, she picked up the object. It was shiny, and silver, and it had a scarlet liquid dripping off of it. Turning it in her hand, she stepped forward a few steps.
They had run out of the tunnel holding this, and if they threw it away, it was bad, right?
So, she stepped forward, turned the corner-
“Uraraka-chana!” She jumped three feet in the air, hands instinctively tapping together and helping her float. Hagakure snickered next to her, holding her ribs.
“Oh, oh my gosh, I got you so good!”
“S-shut up! Look, a native threw this over, and they just left this underpass, so I was exploring a bit!” Hagakure ooh-ed a bit, taking the object and holding it up to the sunlight filtering through the air. Uraraka, now that her heart wasn’t beating at three hundred beats an ikinji , rolled her eyes and disengaged her Quirk. Rounding the corner again, she looked straight ahead, wrinkling her nose.
The sweet scent had disappeared, replaced with something more cloying and pungent. Stepping a bit further into the dark tunnel, Uraraka’s nostrils flared as she tried to pinpoint the smell. It had been on the object dripping red, earlier, so it had to be important.
She took another step, and almost instantly she stopped. There was something warm soaking through her slipper, a liquid. Looking down, slowly, she froze when she saw what was laying in the tunnel.
She barely registered Hagakure’s terrified scream, and the clinking of the object hitting the ground and bouncing once amid the bright, tell-tale flash of her light refraction lashing out against her control. A heavy, calloused hand landed on her shoulder, guiding her back. Her eyes were fixated on the small native, that red liquid dripping from its side and out of its mouth. Its eyes were dull, but Uraraka could tell that they would be a bright emerald green.
The worst part? Uraraka could see it breathing. The wound, barely covered, fluttered everytime the native took a staggered breath in. Aizawa-jungei stepped in between her and the native, crouching down and beginning the basic medical procedures that he had drilled into her mind from day one.
Uraraka turned and lunged for the opening of the tunnel, vomiting as soon as she reached fresh air. That sweet smell, the one that was so appealing earlier, no longer brought her pleasure as she retched.
Aizawa-jungei’s frame passed by her, the native draped in his arms. The red liquid was still dripping from the tiny figure as her jungei sprinted back to ship, snapping at Kirishima to ‘man the comms, and tell Hizashi-jungei and Toshinori-jungei to get here now!’
And Uraraka stayed on her knees until Jirou’s warm fingers and long, lanky earjacks picked her up to her feet and guided her in trembling steps back to ship. She was numb when the two other teachers barged into the room, Hizashi-jungei already holding a medical kit and Toshinori-jungei wheeling around and checking on the okuwçylar. She didn’t register the pink hands gently shaking her, or the flashlight shining in her eyes.
All she felt was numb.
She later learned that the natives were called ‘humans’, and the red liquid was blood. She learned that the human she found was on the brink of passing, and if she hadn’t gone into the alley that he would be dead.
But it didn’t matter. There was cotton between her ears and a muffler on her emotions and she had never felt so empty.
Toshinori-jungei called it shock. Uraraka could definitely see why it was named shock.
She drifted off to sleep that night in the medical bay, gripping the human’s hand tightly in her own and hoping, praying, that he would not die. For in this present, she did not know that he would be safe.
All she knew was fear, for this life-form she had never met before.