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Chapter Text

"Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones / There’s something in this richness that I hate."

Excerpt from  'Wild Peaches'  by Elinor Wylie

-

Uraraka Ochako has always been like that - almond-colored eyes and unwavering determination. Her mom says she's stubborn as a mule, that no hero, villain, or alike could change her mind once she's made it up. Her dad, though, wouldn't call her stubborn exactly, just passionate and driven. To which Uraraka Haruko would respond, with a loving chuckle,  "You just say that 'cause you're both the same, this bull-headed family of mine" . This all adds up to be precisely why, when a warm family dinner turned into Ochako revealing that she wanted to take the UA hero course entrance exam, they both knew she meant it, and that she would do it, no matter what.

There was the worrying, of course. Not about her safety, no, Lord knows UA is a powerhouse no evil-doers would mess with  (or so they thought, everyone thought) , and Ochako has never been weak, not at all. But about her reasoning: their daughter was very upfront about why she made that decision, what with the family business drowning and the bills that won't stop coming. Though Takahiro and Haruko tried with all their might to get into the daughter's beautiful, hard-as-a-rock head that she's their  kid , and she's too damn young to be worrying about such things, she wouldn't budge. No surprises there, they supposed. So they went with their second best option - to become the most loving, supportive parents they could.

The next handful of months were a blur, colored only by great struggle but even greater love. Ochako can't help out on the site today, she's going over those math textbooks at the public library? Great, let me pack her a snack so she won't study hungry. Ochako needs beginner fighting classes, she's worried about the practical exam? Well, we might have to cut some expenses for a couple of months, but of course, let's do it! She studied and trained for almost a whole year, and they made sure to be right by her side, backing her up at every step of the way.

The night before the Entrance Exam, Haruko and Takahiro finally faced the beast. In their pajamas, sat on the living room floor, with a stack of papers spread around them. They went over their math, again and again, just to be sure. UA released the information regarding tuition in the upcoming school year, and it took about five cups of tea between the two of them to not pass out. It was expensive. Not impossible-expensive, considering the sheer amount of donations the school gets, and the financial aid they briefly mentioned being willing to give out, but it was still expensive enough to do damage, enough for them to have to reconsider if they should start walking to work and getting their groceries in a more affordable market across town. Quietly, so they wouldn't wake up their daughter in the next room over, they agreed:

"It's going to be tough, yeah, we might have to take a loan at some point. It's the parents' duty, though. And it's worth it. For 'Chako, it's all worth it."

Unbeknownst to them, such words only fueled Ochako's drive even more. Lying awake, going over equations and combat moves in her head at once, she let a single tear spill. She's going to make it. And her family will never have to struggle again.

-

The sun did not hold back in the face of Ochako's battle. Instead, it burned unblinking into her eyes, forcing her to shut them. A huge piece of concrete crushed her torso, she struggled to breathe and she couldn't reach far enough to float it. She's exhausted, quirk and otherwise, and there's drying vomit in her clothes. The zero-pointer is approaching, the plain-faced boy from outside is running in her direction and she hasn't been keeping count of her points. She might have enough to pass, might not. Either way, the pull in her muscles, the sweat dripping down her neck and the new bruises all over her body all feel the same.

They feel like victory.

-

The letter came in the mail inconspicuously, in between bills and advertisements. A hand-sized envelope with thin colorful stripes along the edges, it barely even looked like it held a whole family's fate inside.

Ochako came in fourth place in the exam, and UA is willing to negotiate away upwards of 80% of the tuition for students in need - only one of those news was surprising to the Uraraka family. Sparkly multi-colored balloons leftover from old birthday parties hung all over the apartment, making it obvious how certain Haruko and Takahiro had been of Ochako's success - there were just so many dang balloons, no way they filled all of them up in the few minutes it took for their daughter to dry her joyful tears in the bathroom.

The three of them shared a family-size pizza, popped cans of soda like glorious champagne on New Year's Eve, and hugged a thousand times. They laughed and cried like champions, like Ochako had won a war, when in reality, she'd won something much better. A chance, fully deserved and fought for, one she'd keep close to her chest and remember forever. 

Back then, she couldn't help but think, gleefully, that her life would change forever. Their lives. It's a pity she had no idea just how right she was. 

Chapter Text

"and after the long journey / from border to border, wanting / only piece after piece of these walls around me to start / breaking, / what does  not  getting used to it / do for me?"

Excerpt from ' Border Wisdom'  by Ahmad Almallah

-

Ochako tries her hardest not to feel out of place at UA. She's a social butterfly; on the very first day, she walked in shaking in excitement and walked out with people she could already call friends. And yet. Just every now and then, an introduction, a comment, a glance would throw her for a loop, and remind her that she's way out of her element. 

Her smile doesn't falter and her voice doesn't break, but she feels the sting.  That  Soumei Academy?  Whose brother?  That  Yaoyorozu?  That neighborhood?  Whose son? It's the first day of class, and she's already dizzy. Her feet feel just a little bit like they've been swept out from under her, but she does not allow herself to think twice or stumble over her words when she mentions her own family's business. She will not feel shame. She can't.

She doesn't comment on that dizzy feeling, to her classmates or anyone else. Faced with seemingly everyone else's wealth and/or fame, she tries to express only the appropriate amount of surprise, however much that is, but her shock might be see-through. 

(Later at home, when she tells her smiling parents all about her first day, Ochako will avoid mentions of expensive shoes and surnames she sees on the news.)

-

Their homeroom teacher is... well he's certainly something. Not as nice as she'd hoped for, but he sure acts like he knows what he's doing. She knows UA's staff is all-heroes (even the chef at the cafeteria is the famous Lunch Rush!), so she tries her hardest to place that face, name, costume, and quirk, but nothing. They might as well have grabbed a random man off the street and sent him to class. She tries not to feel a bit shaken by that notion.

When he threatens expulsion on the first day of school, two things happen. First, Ochako freaks out,  hard, because it is the very first day, damn it, and she and her parents worked their asses off to get her here and she absolutely refuses to throw their effort away, and if she has to throw a ball into outer space, she will. Second, she respects her homeroom teacher a little bit more. Expelling someone on the first day is an insane idea, especially in such a high-status school as UA, but it shows a kind of confidence in his own teaching abilities that she can trust. If he's so sure he can tell, with just a simple test, whether someone is fit to be a hero or not, either he's a fool or a genius.

As it is, he might be neither, because no one is expelled. Ochako takes a moment to be profoundly offended that a UA teacher would lie to their students like that, before letting relief run over. If it'd been true, Midoriya would've been expelled, after all, and she'll be damned if she loses a friend so early on their journey. When the weird teacher (Aizawa-Sensei, she reminds herself) explains his lie away as a mere logical ruse, as encouragement for them to push themselves, it almost sounds like good teaching.

Without even noticing, Ochako adapts to the idea of being lied to by heroes.

-

The next day, they get their costumes, the ones they'd sent drafts of before school started. Hers is pinker than she'd asked for, and certainly tighter than she would've liked. She mulls over complaining about it, not sure if it's worth the trouble of getting a new one, maybe just a redesign - until she catches sight of her classmates, and then she's mulling over something else entirely. Is it a coincidence that the girls' costumes are all so much more... revealing than the boys'? Sure, Kirishima is fully shirtless, but he also said that he explicitly asked for it, because of his quirk, and she's not sure that's the case with the girls having their stomachs and legs exposed. If anyone asked about it (if anyone cared to ask), she wouldn't be able to explain it, but it... bothers her somehow. Ochako hopes it's a coincidence. And besides, even if it isn't, adapting to sub-optimal circumstances is hero-like... right?

So she holds this tiny sliver of bitterness with both hands, (the first of many), crunches it up, and hides it deep down in her heart, where it won't be a bother. She'll adapt to... whatever that means. 

Thankfully, when she walks into Heroics for the first time, she can't even bring herself to think about costumes, because UA keeps throwing curveballs at her. They're being taught by  All Might, dear god, and she has to deliberately look away when the number one hero acts awfully familiar around her new green-haired friend. She thinks of their weird looks to each other, of their quirks that sparkle and break bones differently, but still walk, act, and quack so much like each other. She walks into her first practical exercise having asked no questions, but with some funny piece of knowledge rattling around in her mind. She can join the dots laid out in front of her perfectly well herself, thank you very much. Ochako forces herself to adapt to her friends being related to celebrities. 

Chapter Text

"Looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell, / But on earth indifference is the least / We have to dread from man or beast."

Excerpt from  'The More Loving One'  by W. H. Auden

-

It shouldn't have happened, it's what everyone says. The USJ was a disgrace, and it shouldn't have happened. Not on UA grounds, not against All Might, not to first years. And they're right. 

But that's not what's on Ochako's mind. Instead, it's drowning in a sea of cries, complaints, and judgment. She wasn't strong enough. Wasn't good enough. She just walked into UA, thinking that just making it into the hero course somehow made her strong, made her invincible, and made her parents proud. She was presumptuous, brash, and proud of herself even. And then she got what she deserved - the reality of her own unpreparedness shoved in her face. Violently.

In the days that follow the USJ attack, Ochako finds herself... shaky. Everyone in her class is, as they await the return of their teacher from the hospital. Nerves are up, as they each face again and again the memory of this man who'd met them just days before throwing himself into incoming death for them. Ochako tries to not let guilt creep in and fails miserably at it. She should've just been better.

It's one thing for Aizawa-Sensei to protect them, for Thirteen to face the villains unflinching: they're heroes. Even if she wants to be stronger, she knows there's no way she could be as heroic as them, in her first week. But she watched Bakugou and Kirishima attack the warp villain headfirst, without even thinking about it, didn't she? She watched Iida avoid the villains and make a run for it, getting the heroes to come save the day. She watched Todoroki freeze that monster, the Noumu, and watched Midoriya stare it down like it wasn't the most terrifying thing in the world.

She watched her own classmates, despite supposedly being as fresh-faced and out of their depth as she is, put on brave faces and act as heroes. And she did... nothing.

She finds pockets of time, then, to go to the gym and work out. She goes at the punching bags like she's never gone before and every drop of sweat burns like acid in her skin and it never feels better. In class, she acts as upbeat as she can, she keeps her spirit as unbroken as she can manage, but she also starts putting a thousand percent of herself into training. She takes a while to notice that so does the rest of her class. No one ever acknowledges it.

If anything , she thinks dryly,  at least it's humbled me . It's a petty, self-hating thought that she doesn't see coming but weighs her down all the same. As if she hadn't already been humble enough, hadn't been ever so conscious of her own strengths and weaknesses. All that's changed is she now understands that those weaknesses will be exploited, mercilessly, and will kill her and those around her if she lets them. 

She doesn't know it yet, but that knowledge has made her meaner. Angrier, in a way she wasn't before. Very quietly, something beautiful and young has shriveled up and disintegrated inside of her. She has adapted to a terrible little thing, but she might just become a better hero for it.

(Many months later, Bakugou will be taken by those very same villains and she will think back to this feeling, this first wave of something that the USJ attack dragged out of her. She won't recognize in herself the alertness, the fear, and the rage molten together, burning deep inside. The unfairness of it all will make her sick, and her guard will go too long without ever being lowered. This will become scarily customary.)

(She will then be too busy trying not to fall apart to worry about anything else. She will wade, heartbroken and just a little bit paranoid, between visiting bed-ridden classmates in the hospital, plotting a way to rescue Bakugou, shadowing her parents in construction sites, and lifting the heaviest of each burden. She will have no time left to be alright. She will wonder, then, when her life had become a schedule split between helping and helping. When she last allowed herself to be helped, and when her breath last fully filled her lungs. She will silence that thought quickly, because helping is what heroes do.)

But for now, it was just the USJ. A freak accident, a once-in-a-lifetime slip-up on security that UA would never allow to be repeated. A horror that shouldn't have happened. That will never happen again.

Surely.

Chapter Text

"Strong men mate their strength with strength. / Little men go to bed, // Afraid of the dark, afraid of love, / Of anything / That would poise on the high windy air / On a stone wing."

Excerpt from  'Strong Men Love a Building'  by Willard Maas

-

The Sports Festival is exhilarating and heartbreaking. From the go, Ochako gives it her all, Plus Ultra, and it pays off. 

She gets through the obstacle race by herself and doesn't hesitate to join Deku's team in the cavalry battle, even knowing they'd have a target on their back. 

Hatsume, the crazy girl from Support, joins them, and it's just  so nice  to have another girl on the team. Now if only she wasn't carrying all those fire hazards. She's a lot, undeniably. But she's also smart and confident and self-assured in a way that Ochako admires. She decides right then and there that they'll be friends. 

Having every single team out to get them proves to be a challenge, but they still make it, and Ochako gets to walk onward to the one-on-one fights shrouded in joyfulness. Everyone's eyes are on her class, the public is paying attention to the first-years like they haven't in years, and that's not even the important part to Ochako. 

Beyond impressing the audience and securing her internship, she gets the one thing she's been  craving , that's been crawling up her throat since the USJ attack: a shot to prove herself. To perform her very best, to be strong, to show her folks watching at home that she's more than fine at UA. That she was  made  for heroics.

Until her fight against Bakugou comes up. It's  Bakugou . Ochako takes a grand total of ten seconds to second-guess herself and then it's time to work. It's not too often that Ochako feels genuinely insecure about her own potential, but when it happens, it hits hard, so she makes sure to stop herself from going down the rabbit hole of self-doubt before she can even enter it. 

Instead, she takes all of her concerns about fighting the explosive boy and turns them into ideas. If she's afraid she'll lose because she's not as good at hand-to-hand as he is, then she'll try to avoid direct, clear-cut combat. If she envies the way he uses his quirk to move around the field, and worries he'll be able to avoid her quirk, then she'll find a way to restrict his movement, or at least the area he can move in.

When Deku approaches her, kindly offering to share some of his own ideas of how to take Bakugou down, Ochako already has thought up about seven different plans on how to do it. 

They're all gambles, more or less. Some depend on Bakugou falling for a trick or a distraction, others depend on him overusing his quirk, and  all  of them depend on him underestimating her. That was the one gamble she was just  certain  she'd win. If only she knew.

With dirt on her usually pink cheeks and legs cramping from running around, she lost the fight. Being eliminated hurt less than the audience being completely unsurprised by it. During most of the battle, the blood pumping hot in her ears deafened her to their shouts, but it soon got so loud it was impossible to miss. They were  heckling  Bakugou. The whole time. For doing nothing more than fighting her like an equal. The rage settled deep in her, reddening her face. 

Ochako felt so pitied, so humiliated, she almost stopped fighting right then and there, just to shout back at the audience. In between breaths, she imagined herself yelling  How dare you! After all I did to get here, after everything my parents sacrificed! Take! Me! Seriously!

She didn't, though. She took that anger, bottled it up nice and deadly, and redirected it all into focus. She gave it her all. Surely they'll open their eyes and  see , see Ochako for who she is, if she tries hard enough. If  Bakugou , for fucks sake, can see her for the worthy opponent she is, then how come the public doesn't? 

She pours her blood and sweat (and no tears because she  refuses  to cry for them) into the fight, comes out defeated but hopeful that she's made her point, that she'd fought hard enough for those jerks to see her a future hero, not a helpless little girl to be looked down on. 

But it seems it was for absolutely nothing. Leaving the concrete arena, she can still hear comments here and there about how  "That Bakugou kid is just too harsh",  and  "He needs to control his strength" , and the absolute worst:  "I mean,  look  at her". 

On her way to the waiting room, Ochako wonders if there even is such a thing as fighting hard enough for those people, when you're a girl. In the back of her mind, she thinks  "Is it because I'm a kid or a girl? Or neither? The other girls sure don't seem to get this patronized by the crowd. Is it because Bakugou is scary? Or because I'm too... myself? Will I become a hero and still hear those words? Will I always be too weak for them, even when I'm at my strongest?"

She adapts, though her ego fights and thrashes the whole way, to being looked down on.

She tries to convince her friends that she's not hurt by the loss, or by any of it, really, but as soon as she hears her dad's voice through the phone, she crumbles, and Deku might be able to hear her sobs from the hallway.

Chapter Text

"Was I buoyant. Was I / suddenly everywhere. Could I then / be recalled, remade, the strange // clear metal of myself come / back together in another, / fresher shape. If not, // could I just end. If not, could / I teach you how to bend, / to escape, to float—"

Excerpt from  'Charm'  by Karen Leona Anderson

-

Uravity. She reads over it, again and again. A decision made long ago, before all of... whatever this is. God, it's like the first year hasn't even begun but still so much has happened. 

In between the excited whisperings of classmates exchanging names (not just names, hero-names, who they are, who they're going to be), Ochako can't settle her mind.

Is there something wrong with Uravity? Is it too cute? Too childish? How do you even tell? She tries to imagine, being a villain and hearing "Uravity's here!" Would she be scared? The little mock villain in her mind, who looks just a little bit too pale, blue-haired, and dusty, laughs, not feeling threatened at all. Is that even the goal of a hero name, to scare villains? If so, how do you not scare civilians as well? Paying attention to her classmates' choices, she only seems to feel more and more lost. They said Alien Queen was too scary... but wasn't Shouto too boring? Wasn't Shiny Hero: Can't Stop Twinkling... literally incomprehensible? She doesn't want to be Great Explosion Murder God type scary, just... a little bit intimidating, maybe. Someone who could do damage, but could also be comforting. With a name like Great Explosion Murder God (what a mouthful), Bakugou can't tell little scared kids that they'll be alright. But perhaps, with a name like Uravity, Ochako can't get a villain afraid they'll get their ass handed to them. 

She didn't use to think about making people fear her. She knows this. The new thought, though, acclimates to her brain like it's belonged here all along.

While the rest of the class goes up to present their names, Ochako reads over her twenty internship offers. 12 rescue-oriented heroes, 7 media-oriented, 1 combat-oriented. Is this what it'll take to be taken seriously? Being a rescue hero has always been the goal, it's always been what makes sense , but she's not even sure anymore if that's because of her quirk, or just because people have always looked at her and assumed she couldn't hurt a fly. 

She thinks back to the jeering crowd of the Sports Festival, so certain that she was small, fragile, harmless . If that was anything to go by, it's either getting tougher or getting used to being treated like a child. The creeping shame the audience's heckles had planted in her weighs down her heart, and she knows she can't stand to live with it. Battle hero: Gunhead's agency it is. Now as to her hero name...

Midnight-Sensei's voice rings out, curious. "Hm! Tell me about that..."

Ochako holds back a stutter as she says "You can read it like Oxygen, or O-2, or Zero Two, or just Zero. It's a little bit of an homage to my favorite hero, Thirteen. It's supposed to be adaptable, like the kind of hero I want to be."

Her board reads 'Infinity hero: 02'

"I won't lie, the numbers threw me off a bit, but I'll allow it because you're just so darn cute!" The compliment stings in a way it never did before. "Zero! So creative! So refreshing! Now who's next?!"

Ochako adapts to changing her image, however much it takes, until she can step up to fight someone as loud and scary as Bakugou, and have the crowd pity  them .

Chapter Text

"And when we saw it there, exposed and tense - / The part of her that no one else had seen - / We wondered if we'd earned such confidence, / Or if our being there had turned obscene / The thing that in her solitude made sense"

Excerpt from  'Private Showing'  by Arthur Meryash

-

Every tiny little thing, every uncomfortable moment, every comment Ochako pretended not to hear, everything gets harder when classmates become housemates. 

At the beginning, she was ecstatic at the prospect of living with her friends, as one can imagine. Having her friends available 24/7, dorm parties, her own honestly huge and expensive room to herself. 

But then, just as quickly as you'd expect from twenty teenagers, boundaries were torn down. She loves her classmates, but living with them is fun at its best and infuriating at its worst.

Here's the thing. Ochako was raised on kindness, honor, and care. She has no trouble looking after others, and picking up what others can't. 

Still, it's all been getting a little bit under her skin. 

The first thing she notices, when the honeymoon phase of Heights Alliance fades away, is that it's just  expected , not talked about, that the students who know how to cook and clean should do it, and the ones who don't, shouldn't bother to learn. 

And once she notices that first little thing, she can't  stop  noticing.

It's an unspoken agreement that laundry is individual and unorganized, and that you don't have to ask before changing decorations, or taking up the dining table with a thousand books, or having a surprise sleepover in the common room.

She needs to train herself to not read too deeply into the labels of the coffee or tea in the kitchen, or she'll find it's all brands she's never heard of, gold stickers, and terrifying price tags that make her stomach turn. 

She needs to look away from the clothes someone left in the dryer, or she'll recognize the tags from TV and runways and have to suppress a real-life flinch. 

She needs to breathe so, so deeply to be glad that her classmates come back from home visits well-rested, smiling, with expensive gifts in their arms. Her parents told her, asked her, and begged her to  not  come to the construction site with them over the weekend because they knew she'd end up helping and tiring herself out. They couldn't convince her, of course. The headache she got from quirk exhaustion, she nurses with someone else's crazy expensive tea.

But she tells herself those are just petty, living-with-teenagers problems. It doesn't even matter. Even if her friends seem to think they can barge into her room without knocking, take her stuff without asking, and talk for her when she's not there. Boundaries do  not  exist in 1A dorms. But she'll survive.

The other side of this alienating coin, what actually throws Ochako for a loop, what is weird and almost worrying, in a way, despite all their differences, is how  similar  she and her classmates are. 

When she goes downstairs at 5:30 a.m. to sweat out her anxiety in the gym, she finds Bakugou, Deku, Ashido, and Sero doing the same. When, in the middle of the night, she steps out of her room to get fresh air after a nightmare full of deep woods and dark-purple ooze that takes her right back to Kamino, she can spot Yaomomo, Kirishima, Tokoyami, and Iida in the same position, looking forlornly at the sky, in their respective balconies. When she drowns in guilt because she just can't bring herself to visit her parents this weekend (to  help  anymore), and can't do anything else besides rot away in the dorms, she shares the Common Room with Todoroki, Jirou, and Kaminari. When she just wants to lock herself in her room and sleep the night away after a particularly draining training session, she finds the dorms  quiet .

And if that wasn't strange enough, there's a new development. 

Ochako has understood for months now, instinctively, that she's  always  training - and so did all her classmates. Sleeping is training, dorm parties are training, and cooking is training. So they should do their best and give their absolute all, Plus Ultra, at  everything , or else they might as well drop out of school. This is so obvious to them, on such an unspeakable level, that they never stop to consider that it's unordinary. When it becomes clear that they all find themselves utterly incapable of letting their guards down, a few of them ask Class B about this phenomenon.

"Don't you guys also feel like, I don't know, even when you're just chilling, you're still like,  supposed  to be working and alert, and bettering yourself in some way? Like everything you do is a chance to get stronger? But it also kind of comes naturally?"

They're surprised to learn that their twin class doesn't relate.

(Months later, then Class 2A will make up their own party games, and Class 2B will refuse to participate. All the way to graduation, it'll be well known that you shouldn't go to their class parties, and it'll become a campus legend.

"I swear, dude," the rumors will spread, "the invisible girl can make it so someone random is invisible at all times, and if you manage to  stab  them, they have to drink! And then someone else becomes invisible, and it's like that  all night . They don't even hunt them down or anything, you'll just see someone chilling on the couch and then out of nowhere swinging a knife in the open air. I'm  never  going to another one of those!"

"My only goal tonight is finding Kyouka's target. I swear, she is so stealthy it's impossible to get her when she hides it. But I've lost too many drunk-capture-the-flags. At this point, it's my pride on the line."

"Ok, whoever can name the most heroes with this quirk type wins... how much is the pool... 10 thousand yen! Midoriya is forbidden from participating, or we'd be here all night, so he'll be the referee. Remember, between every name you either do a push-up  or  a shot! Category is... animal-type mutations! GO!"

"Since we got our butts kicked in Aizawa-Sensei's espionage training, we came up with a new one! It's Undercover Murder Mystery Night, yeah!"

"No, I'm afraid as Class President, I simply can't allow for another rendition of Blindfolded Fight Club. It's a bad idea, Kirishima. Last time Sero almost passed out from blood loss.")

For now, they're still first years, and they're not that... out of it yet. 

It's just extra training most days after class, working out in the mornings, study groups and quirk practice and flashcards and occasional lifting competitions and sometimes throwing things at each other because  "Watch your six, dude" . 

They never run out of ways to turn their leisure into work. They couldn't, even if they tried. Ochako has adapted to never letting her guard down, even when in the dorms, when on UA grounds, when surrounded by friends. They all have. For the first time, it seems they all adjusted together. She is not sure if this is any better.

Chapter Text

"There is blood, there, he says / Blood here too, down here, she says / Only blood, the Blood Mother sings"

Excerpt from  'Blood on the Wheel'  by Juan Felipe Herrera 

- Extra

It's embarrassingly short, the time her parents spent with her before noticing her changes.

They finally had more than a couple of days to spend together, so they saved up and took a tiny little vacation to a nearby town. Haruko and Takahiro were all joy and relaxation, finally getting a break from work  and  having time with their darling daughter. It was a few days in a tiny family hostel up in the mountains, and it was the perfect opportunity to take a breather from the responsibilities of their daily lives.

It became awfully clear, however, that one of them was unable to. 

The first thing they noticed was Ochako's new weird... not-quite-flinching.

If one of them dropped something or made a loud, sudden noise, she had this weird reaction. Instead of flinching  away  from the noise, she leaned  in , turning her head automatically and getting up. She flexed her arms without noticing and her almond eyes darted around the room, looking for the source of the noise  (of the danger) . And when she noticed it was nothing, she just whispered the tiniest "Oh" to herself, and sat back down with a wobbly little smile.

As a child, Ochako had always been a little bit jumpy, but not like  this . 

Besides that, when one of the other guests' children tripped in the dining hall and started crying, Ochako almost tripped over herself running towards the little boy. With poorly concealed panic on her face, she forced up a little smile and talked softly to the child, softly like the child was traumatized from scraping his knee, like he was a victim of something.

She pulled a band-aid from Lord knows where, and calmed him down at a record-breaking pace. The kid walked away with a Thirteen-themed bandaid on his knee and no complaints.

Ochako had always been good with children, but not like  this .

When they sat down to eat, she chose to sit with her back against the wall. When they made their bags to go for a quick trek on a nice forest trail that went around the hotel, Ochako packed her Provisional License and a first aid kit. When they went to sleep, Ochako double and triple-checked the locks on doors and windows.

Ochako wasn't like this, her parents couldn't stop thinking.

Something had changed in their kid. Something had disappeared from her heart, some levity and trust in the world around her, and something else had been put in its place. 

The Urarakas didn't know how to bring this up. They just exchanged worried glances and quietly decided to leave this conversation for the next time. Right now, even with their daughter looking around like the walls were about to pounce on her, there were still some little moments of peace here and there.

Ochako closing her eyes and sighing in the Hot Springs. Ochako smiling wide at the delicious food in the Hostel Cafe. Ochako's tight, tight hug before they had to go home and she, to UA. She was different, but she was their daughter, and she still managed to smile like she used to. They wouldn't dare to take this away.

Chapter Text

"It was not Death, for I stood up, / And all the Dead, lie down - / It was not Night, for all the Bells / Put out their Tongues, for Noon."

Excerpt from  'It was not Death, for I stood up'  by Emily Dickinson

-

When Mineta was expelled, Ochako tried really hard to not be surprised. 

As Aizawa-Sensei broke the news to her class, face as impassive as ever, she tried to be cool and collected about it. "Better late than never", Yaomomo said, all serious talk and business face. "It's about damn time that bastard was kicked out", Jirou mumbled, sounding angry but tough.

Ochako would like to be like that. Kept together. But instead, she didn't even get to celebrate Shinsou taking Mineta's place, because she was already in tears. 

When a couple of her classmates reached out to console her, like she was  upset  at Mineta's expulsion, she could only spit out a bitter laugh, sounding unlike herself. The truth is, she was just drowning in relief. 

She would finally be able to let her guard down a  little , in her own school. She'd be able to get dressed in the changing rooms without checking the wall for peepholes first. She'd be able to, maybe, on a hot summer day, wear a shorter skirt or top, without being ogled at. Able to do random pairing exercises without her pair spending the whole time trying to touch her where he shouldn't. 

It felt so good, to finally have some piece of mind where she'd be studying, training, and living, for the past months, that it suddenly didn't feel good at all anymore.

Because that was it, wasn't it? It'd been  months.  Months of discomfort and embarrassment and anger and deep, deep shame. Months of complaint after complaint, of getting all the girls together to knock on Principal Nedzu's door with an ugly, horribly long list of all the lines their classmate had crossed. Months of hearing "At this time, there is not much we can do." Months of practically begging anyone to do anything. Months of hearing someone say their hands are tied, and having to deal with the consequences. 

And what had finally been enough for it to stop was not any of this. It was the incident at Rescue Training.

It wasn't the first time Mineta put someone in danger because he was too busy being a creep, but it was the first time it happened in front of dozens, in front of someone  else . It was only a simulation, of course. Similar to the Hero License Exam, professional actors had been hired to lay all around the mock city and be their victims for the day. They were supposed to be doing search and rescue, but Mineta didn't even think about it. Whenever he'd see one of the actors crying, with fake blood pooling around drawn-on wounds, he'd scoff and walk right by, not even looking twice. That is until he found one of the actresses  whining about not-really-torn skin and fake-broken ankles. Then he'd judge out loud whether they were attractive enough to be saved, and if so, begin carrying them to mock safety, with too many wandering hands. 

Ochako assumed, thinking back on it, that the only reason this was the last straw was because none of those were students. They were civilian actors and actresses, from a team not related to UA at all. They had to be kept safe and comfortable. But when it was she and her classmates complaining, it was just... unworthy of attention, she presumed. Heroes in training just need to be able to deal with things like that. 

So it wasn't really all that surprising that the one time a complaint was actually heard, it came from the acting company's Human Relations department.

The conversation happened behind closed doors, of course, so it's anyone's guess what went down in the principal's office. But they could've very well threatened to sue the school, though Ochako isn't sure what  for , or maybe they could've gone to the media with this. She doesn't know. All she knows is that when a man in a suit with an HR name tag speaks, people listen. Or at least they listen more than when teenage girls speak, anyway.

As this realization attempted to settle inside of her, her heart once again molding itself to these new circumstances, it hurt. She knows that what she and her classmates had to say was  just  as important as what that man said. But it was treated as if it was meaningless.  And what really is the difference,  she thought as her tears dried,  between being unimportant and just being treated as such?

She imagined herself, adapting to this. Treating herself, and her own experiences, as irrelevant, just because someone else did so first. Since this immovable object was going nowhere, Ochako would simply not be an unstoppable force, not anymore. She would stop. 

And all that came to mind was her parents' faces. She knows they noticed it, how shaken she is, nowadays. She knows they worry about her. And she knows, before anything else, that their love for her is not born of guilt or duty or responsibility but of pure care. Of a belief that she is valuable and that she deserves a good life. She knows if they saw her putting herself down, even for a moment, they would feel like they failed.

She knows it's inevitable, in her future career and also in her life, that she'll be looked down on. She'll be disrespected and disregarded. This is a fact of life that she can see coming from a mile away. But for the first time, it dawns on her the other side of this coin.

She mustn't go along with it. 

She takes a deep breath, and shrugs off her friends' worry, at the sight of her dried tears. She raises her hand.

If her teacher is surprised, he doesn't show it. "Yes, Uraraka?"

"When is the public apology coming?"

Oh,  that's  what Aizawa-Sensei caught off guard looks like. She files that expression away, for it only lasts a moment before he recomposes himself.

"Excuse me?"

"When is Mineta, his family, or even the school going to apologize for what happened? You're not just letting him go quietly like that solves anything, right?" And her voice  doesn't  waver and she  doesn't  break eye contact because her decision has already been made: she will be brave now.

"His expulsion is a very grave matter already, kid. And it was fought for." Her teacher looks around the class, his face suddenly looking solemn, his voice serious in a way it wasn't before. "I trust you can all keep what I'm about to say to yourselves. The fact is that Mineta's mother carries some serious weight in the Hero Commission, which UA, as a hero school, obviously answers to. Nedzu had to jump through hoops for me to be able to expel him in the first place."

"Besides," he continued, almost quietly "with no push for a different approach from anyone, there's just no reason for the school to do anything else."

At this point, Aizawa looks straight into Ochako's eyes, unwielding. He holds some kind of...  challenge , in his face. Like he's daring her to say something, to do what, apparently, many had refused to. And he must see the response he's looking for in the sudden fire in her eyes, because he looks, dare she think, almost  impressed , as she blurts:

"But with all due respect, Sensei, that's just not enough! He spent almost a year harrassing who knows how many students... I get that expelling him is a big deal, but it's nothing compared to all he's done! I mean, who's to say he won't just apply to a different hero school and get a license anyway?" And isn't that possibility just terrifying ? "As you said yourself, Sensei, even UA  had a hard time showing him consequences! So in a less prestigious school, what will they do? Leave him unchecked? So he ends up as a hero, using his power to hurt more people? All because he's got a powerful family backing him up? I'm sorry but this is UA! It's a school of heroes and you're letting politics stop you from doing the right thing? That's just cowardly! And not hero-like at all!"

...

You could hear a pin drop.

She somewhat expects her friends to pipe up, with their agreement or not, with  something . Instead, she looks around to find wide eyes fixed on her, in different levels of shock-surprise-disbelief. 

She's suddenly so small.

She is suddenly so  empty , and while she's pretty sure her outburst wasn't...  too  harsh, she knows she's being stared at like she's just pulled a knife on a puppy. She doesn't know when her breath had picked up, or when she'd stood up, but now she's got her hands flat on her desk, and her chest is rising and dropping quickly.

In the faces of her classmates, she finds wavering eyebrows, shifting eyes, furrowed foreheads, and bitten lips. She can almost hear them think  Since when does Uraraka have  complaints  to make? 

And that's it. Maybe the one consequence of letting the world walk all over her that she hadn't really seen coming: she'd be thought of as lesser for it. Even by those who'd looked up to her, before. Her own allies. No one had ever told her to fight back, to push back. But maybe that was because they expected her to know to, and when she didn't, were left disappointed. To some extent, it finally made sense to her. At least some people hadn't always underestimated her. Not until she'd given them a reason to. 

In the deathly quiet of the classroom, a silent chuckle draws her eyes in the direction of her teacher, whom she'd neglected to look at, up until now. 

In his face, she expects to find condescendence, snark, or belittlement. Instead, she finds something she's seen very few times before. 

A most discrete smile, one many wouldn't be able to tell was even there, but knowing how her teacher's usual expression is one of utter boredom, this new relaxed expression must mean some kind of satisfaction. 

Aizawa-Sensei looks almost...  fond , as he asks "And what, pray tell, do you suggest we do, Uraraka?"

Her almond eyes alight in a way they haven't for months. They had almost forgotten how to. She opens her mouth. 

"Well..."