Chapter Text
The first time Ochako stumbled upon The Hero Journals, it was completely by coincidence.
For weeks, she’d been hunting a vigilante known as Umbra. Or, at least, they were technically classified as a vigilante in police records, but in her mind Umbra had crossed the line from vigilantism to villainy long ago.
She still had nightmares about the first time she’d stumbled across one of their victims on patrol one night. The stench of blood was the first sign that something was wrong. In the dim light of the streetlamps, she hadn’t been able to see into the alleyway. In the darkness, she had assumed the alley floor was covered in bits of trash, or maybe bits of dark fabric.
Then she’d made the mistake of stepping on one, and her heart stopped beating when realized they were scraps of human skin.
From that point on, she’d been relentless in her pursuit of the vigilante. They’d murdered seven more people in the four weeks she’d been on their case, every corpse found tortured to death in the same horrific way. And now, four weeks later, she still knew next to nothing about them. She’d never even seen them in person.
But Ochako would work with what she had: the victims. At every crime scene, every person’s shoes had seemingly been deliberately dyed completely red with the victim’s own blood, all the way down to the soles and the laces. All of the victims were or had been small-time criminals of some variety - pickpockets, petty thieves, etc., though they didn’t seem to have any connection to each other. And the kicker: every single one of them had been quirkless.
In the back of her mind, Ochako wondered if quirkless discrimination was making her job harder. She’d taken on long-term cases before, but she’d never gone this long without a new lead. Her best sources of information seemed to be useless, normally helpful heroes suddenly had other important cases when she asked for backup, and the agency kept trying to transfer the case to the local police, who she knew were all but completely incompetent. Everything she tried kept coming up blank.
She brushed the thought away. Ochako wasn’t naive enough to think that quirkism didn’t exist; she’d grown up in a poor neighborhood, and she’d seen the quirkless old folks who lived near her get stopped at the bank and hassled in the park. Quirkism was very real and an awful, awful thing. But people were dying, in horrible and brutal ways. There was no way anyone, let alone a pro hero, would let something as small as the victims’ quirk status get in the way of stopping a serial killer, no matter how quirkist they might be.
The lack of progress was starting to get to her, though.
After the third consecutive day of banging her head on her keyboard, Ochako decided that maybe she needed a walk. Maybe some fresh air would give her a new perspective on the whole situation. She didn’t feel like grabbing too much attention, so rather than reaching for her hero costume, she just left her agency in her civvies.
She walked aimlessly for a bit, letting her feet carry her mindlessly forward and trying to let her mind drift away from thoughts of Umbra. The part of her mind that was always alert noticed a few in the crowd who pointed and whispered when they thought she wasn’t looking, but for the most part Ochako was as incognito as could be in her long brown cardigan and jean shorts. She enjoyed these small moments of anonymity - it wasn’t like she didn’t love being a limelight hero, but it definitely taught her to appreciate the times when she was just Uraraka Ochako, another person out enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Maybe Umbra’s next victim is in this crowd.
She tensed without thinking, before sighing at her own brain. Her whole body suddenly itched to get back to work, knowing that every second wasted was a second Umbra might be plotting, but she was at a point that she needed to force herself to take a break. Ochako was at a roadblock, and at some point, pushing harder only makes it worse on the person pushing. She had to find a way around it.
A window display caught her eye: it was a three-foot-tall plushie of a chibi Red Riot, posed to look like it was flexing. She giggled without thinking, feeling some of the stress lift off her chest. It really wasn’t too far off - Kiri-kun was already basically a giant marshmallow anyway.
A sign on the top of the doorway read The Hero Journals: All Things Heroic. The window displays were filled with hero merch, collectibles, and a few signs that said things like Custom Merch Upon Request and We Buy Collectables and Other Hero Stuff! With a start, Ochako realized that a standee of Uravity giving a big thumbs-up was right up by the window, and she couldn’t help but blush. Even after three years as a full-fledged pro, seeing her face on T-shirts and posters still felt a little unreal.
Maybe this was just what she needed for a distraction. It was maybe a little weird for a pro hero to browse in a hero shop, but it would certainly be good for a laugh, if nothing else. She knew for a fact that Todoroki’s PR manager had somehow coerced him into a sexy photoshoot, and she had yet to find the pictures.
A small bell dinged above the door as she stepped inside. The shop was bigger than she was expecting, colored in shades of bright red, yellow, and forest green. Every exposed inch of space was occupied. Twelve-foot posters coated the walls, showing heroes in action poses and pointing out fun facts about them. Aisles filled with posters and figurines zigzagged up and down the back of the room, the empty tops used to pose cardboard cutouts of heroes, villains, and battle scenes. On the right, a glass counter displayed more valuable merch: signed baseball hats, a charred pair of fuzzy car dice, a few gemstones, and other knickknacks. Behind the counter were a few display boxes, proudly showing off golden action figures, rare trading cards, and a number of signed notebook pages.
Racks of impressive-quality cosplay accessories climbed all the way up to the ceiling, with the cheaper toys on shelves further to the back. She smiled as her eyes found familiar gear: kiddie-sized versions of Ground Zero’s gauntlets; long, fleshy earphone jacks that could attach like earrings; red feathery eagle wings; even a plastic version of her own headpiece. She wandered the aisles a bit, snapping pictures for laughs and blackmail as she went (she couldn’t wait to show everybody the official Phantom Thief body pillow).
In the back of her brain, she noticed that the security was a bit excessive for a place that sold hero merch. Back in her days as a UA freshman, she’d set herself the challenge to find every bit of hidden security in the school in order to practice her perceptiveness. She was sure she still hadn’t found everything by the time she’d graduated, but it had made her pretty good at spotting secrets and hidden tech, and her time as a hero had only reinforced her skill.
On the outside, it looked like the merch shop was protected by nothing but a few pretty obvious security cameras, but her trained eye spotted the red glint inside the face of a mannequin and the dark piece of glass cleverly hidden among a bunch of balloons, the strange pinholes in the floor near the entrance, the titanium reinforcements on the windows. Maybe hero nerds just took their collectables really seriously.
(Ochako was no idiot. There was no way someone could afford a high-tech security system like this one by solely selling hero merch, of all things. But she had enough on her mind right now, so, with a pang of guilt, she shoved it to the back of her to-do list and went back to laughing at the posters.)
“Nngh…”
The cry was so small and soft it was nearly a whisper, but Ochako heard it anyway. She turned to see a small little girl of no more than seven or eight pushing up off the floor where she’d fallen, face half-hidden behind a wall of streaked orange-blonde hair. She’d been climbing the shelves, trying to get at something near the top.
“Hey, hey!” Ochako rushed over, plucking the girl off the shelf and setting her on the floor. The girl froze at her touch and Ochako quickly stepped back. She watched her warily with big eyes the color of morning sunshine. Touch-sensitive. Okay.
“Can I help you get something?” Ochako flashed her friendliest hero smile, and was rewarded when the girl uncurled just a bit. All those PR classes they’d taken did have their uses. “Do you want one of those posters?”
“Do you think… you could help me get, um…” She faltered. After hesitating a moment, she pointed with a small finger at a rolled-up poster of Pinky, which was stocked all the way on the top shelf. “That one?”
Ochako glanced around. They were all the way in the back of the store; nobody else was around. She winked playfully. “Wanna get it yourself?”
The girl cocked her head warily, eyebrows furrowed in suspicion.
Ochako tried a different tactic. “Hey. It’s okay! What’s your name?”
“Um… O-kimi?”
“Can I hold your hand, Okimi?”
Yellow eyes squinted suspiciously at her outstretched palm. “Why?”
“So that I can do this!” Ochako touched the back of her own hand and felt her body leave the ground. She remembered the days when floating herself was nauseating and awkward, but after thousands of hours of practice, maneuvering in zero gravity was practically second nature to her. She barely needed to think about it anymore; her weight shifted unconsciously, leaning her forward so that she floated parallel to the floor.
Okimi’s yellow eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. With her mouth in a round “o”, she slowly reached out and rested her hand in Ochako’s own. Her hand was so small that Ochako had to curl her fingers around her wrist so that all five fingers touched. The girl giggled softly as she began to float off the ground.
“I’m flying!” she whispered in awe. “I’m flying!”
Ochako smiled fondly. The kids were the best part of her job. Knowing that she could make a little girl’s day with such a small thing was beautiful to her.
Pushing lightly off the floor, Ochako twisted around so that she was holding the little girl more securely by the waist. Together they rose higher, Okimi’s red sneakers flailing in midair as she clutched onto Ochako’s arm. Okimi giggled, and Ochako had to resist the urge to coo at the adorable child.
When they reached the shelf, Ochako grabbed the wall to steady them both and held Okimi out at the poster she wanted. The girl turned around, looking at her with wide, questioning eyes, like she still wasn’t sure she was allowed.
“Go ahead!” Ochako prompted. “It was that poster, right?”
She nodded and reached out with both hands, pulling the poster out from the shelf with some difficulty and holding it tightly as they fell slowly back to the floor. When her feet brushed the carpet, Ochako pressed her fingers together and caught the girl’s weight as it returned, lowering her back down to the ground.
“I-!” Okimi exclaimed softly, beaming. “Thank you! That was amazing, I-”
“No way!”
The girl went stock-still. Ochako watched with a mix of confusion and dread as her entire body language changed, curling in on herself behind her hair to make herself as small as possible.
Two girls were standing at the end of the aisle. They looked a bit older than Okimi, maybe ten or eleven, wearing matching pink sundresses. In fact, nearly everything about them was identical except for their curly hair: one was teal, and one was purple. They were feigning confused expressions, but Ochako could see malice in their eyes. Subtly, she stepped forward, nudging Okimi behind her and putting herself between them. The girl seemed all too happy to oblige.
“It’s the freak!” the teal one exclaimed, voice dripping with poorly-concealed contempt. “What is she doing here?”
“I don’t know!” the other one replied cheerfully. She tapped her chin in an exaggerated way. “You know what I think, Hanaye?”
“What, Hanako?”
“I think she’s here buying hero stuff even though she knows she’s a quirkless freak!” The girl growled the last word, spitting it forward like a weapon. Okimi recoiled like she’d been slapped, clutching her poster to her chest and looking at them with horror and rage and fear.
Ochako’s eyes went wide. Quirkless. Okimi was quirkless.
Suddenly, all of Okimi’s shyness made sense. It wasn’t shyness at all; it was caution. She was afraid. How could she know who was safe and who was dangerous? Who was kind and who was quirkist?
Suddenly, Ochako was aware that Okimi was not looking with fear at the bullies, but at her. She was afraid that Ochako would hate her.
Suddenly, she was back in that alleyway, nose filling with the stench of blood, the ground slippery with darkness and red, red, red.
Ochako saw red.
“And what exactly is wrong with that?” she spat. She stalked forward, fixing the girls to the spot with her glare.
“Didn’t you just hear her? Are you deaf or something?” the teal one mocked. “She’s quirkless. A useless, pointless, freak. She’ll never be anything, let alone a hero, so why should she even bother?”
“Yeah,” the purple one chimed in, backing up her sister. “Duh. Leave the heroes to people who might actually be able to learn from them, freak.”
Okimi whimpered.
“Well, I see you’ve learned jack shit, then, haven’t you,” Ochako growled. The girls jumped at the curse, and Ochako had to remind herself that these were just kids. She had to hold herself back. Just as she had the power to lift someone up, she had the power to tear someone down too far.
That wouldn’t stop her from ripping into them, though. They needed to be taught a lesson, if that was what they thought.
“Raw power means nothing in heroics. Above all else, do you know what a hero needs the most?” Ochako stalked forward with each word she spoke. “Kindness.”The girls stepped back unconsciously, scowling. “Love.” She knew there was venom in her gaze, and she didn’t care and didn’t bother to tone it back. “Empathy.
“I hope you two aren’t hoping to go into heroics when you’re older, because all I see right now are two sad little bullies attacking someone just because they can. That sounds more like villainy to me, don’t you think?”
The girls glared at her, and Ochako glared right back. The teal one mustered up her courage, baring her teeth right back.
“How the hell would you know?” she shouted. “I bet you’re a quirkless freak just like her! I bet you wouldn’t survive two seconds with the real heroes!”
Ochako blinked. The teal one smirked, thinking she’d caught her off-guard.
She snorted.
“My name,” she declared, “Is Uraraka Ochako. You might know me better as a pro hero.” Her hand shot out towards a shelf and closed around an action figure. When she took her hand away, it stayed, floating gently through the air.
“I’m Uravity. And I’m telling you that right now, you are not heroes.”
The girls went pale. Okimi made a little sound of astonishment.
“You said you’re learning from heroes? Don’t bother learning how to fight. Learn how to be good people. To everyone, even the people that everyone else seems to hate. Hell, even villains need some good in their lives every once in a while.”
“Look at me.” The girls wouldn’t meet her eyes, so she lunged in close. “Look at me!” The purple one squeaked and met her gaze, pulling on the other one’s hair until she did the same. Ochako faltered. There was fear in their eyes, too much fear for her liking. She’d gone too far. It was a miracle they hadn’t drawn any attention. She sighed, suddenly exhausted. Her hand dragged down her face.
“Look. It’s a hard lesson to learn, I won’t lie.” Bakugou definitely proves that. “But if you want to be good people, you can be. Or you can stay as you are: quirkist bullies who don’t give a fuck about anyone they see as lesser.”
She jabbed her finger towards the door. “Now go home. This shop - any shop - is for anybody. Go home and make the right fucking choice.”
The girls backpedaled a few steps before scrambling away.
Ochako closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe she’d been a bit too intense, but she wanted to hammer home that point. She knew as well as anyone that heroes came from unlikely places (Bakugou). Who knows what effect her words might have? Maybe they really would turn out to be heroes one day.
She was knocked out of her thoughts by a tiny, soft voice full of awe. “You… you’re Uravity?”
Ochako put her finger to her lips and flashed another smile. It didn’t feel quite as warm now, with the lingering emotions in the air.
“If you ever need me, Okimi - for whatever reason - you can call my agency, okay? Tell them you want to talk to Uraraka and I’ll be there.” She only gave out her real name to callers that were highest on her priorities list. Her secretary would always patch them through to her private cell.
Thoughts of Umbra raced through her mind as Okimi scampered off with her poster, a big smile on her face and a sparkle in her sunshine eyes.
She wasn’t about to fail another quirkless kid. Not now, not ever.
A man with green hair watched the security feed in wonder.
He rewound it. Watched it again. Scrutinized the same scene from half a dozen angles, eyes frantically searching for any signs of insincerity.
There were none.
The man leaned back in his chair, disbelief still lingering in his eyes.
“Well. You said we needed a friend, didn’t you?”
The girl with silver hair looked at him reproachfully. “That wasn’t what I meant, Deku-nii.” She glanced at the screen, uncertain. “You think you can trust her? Uravity always seemed nice, but I don’t know...”
The man didn’t reply. He reached for one of his many burners and dialed a number. The person on the other side picked up after three rings.
“Giran speaking.”
“I need everything you’ve got on the pro hero Uravity.”
He rewound the feed again. This time, he was watching only to sate the empty feeling in his chest.
The next morning, Uraraka Ochako walked into her agency to find an unmarked manila folder stuck to the underside of her desk.
Inside was a single piece of printer paper with a short typed message.
Umbra is frustratingly elusive, even for me. But if we find anything, we will share it.
Keep this secret. You need to keep this secret, even from those closest to you. Lives depend on it.
Thank you for being a good person. It’s rarer than you think.
- Useless