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Lying there, ever so close to Ochako and on the brink of finally knowing her place in this world, Himiko Toga felt the blood draining from her veins.
It was a strange sensation. She had always been the one drinking blood. Maybe she would finally know what it was like to be on the other end of that transaction. And maybe she could finally understand what was so appealing about being a hero in the first place. Because seeing the color return to Ochako’s face through her half-lidded eyes, Himiko thought for a moment that she knew. She knew what made the girl in front of her tick.
Being able to save someone like this, let alone Ochako, Himiko felt it too. She wanted to be here forever. Lying there with her hero and watching the life return to her, Himiko felt… content.
She loved Ochako, that was certain. But it was different than the kind of love she had for Izuku or Jin. While what she felt for the two of them was certainly real, this love felt more solid, more real. There was more to her feelings than just wanting to become her. Ochako was someone Himiko could picture herself spending the rest of her life with. A companion, maybe.
The force of gravity was beginning to take a toll on her eyelids, and Himiko fought to keep them open for a little longer.
She knew she was going to die. She’d made that decision when she drank Ochako’s blood. And she was okay with it. For her whole life, Himiko had been shunned for being herself, but she finally found someone who accepted her. And even if they didn’t truly understand each other until the very end, Himiko was still happy they met. They wouldn’t see each other again, or have any future together at that, but the pressure of the world was lifted off her shoulders when Ochako reached out to her, and that was enough.
Himiko had spent her life living and loving how she pleased, and that was all that mattered.
As she eventually gave in to the pull and let her eyes flutter shut, Himiko wondered what awaited her on the other side. She would probably end up with the rest of the League, right? They’d all done some pretty bad things, so they’d probably all be together. The thought brought a smile to her face as she slipped further away. She really did hope that she didn’t see all of them there though. It would be a shame if they’d all been defeated.
So, with the warmth now radiating from Ochako lulling her to sleep, Himiko faded away.
-
And after a rest better than any she’d had before, Himiko opened her eyes to the one thing she hadn’t been expecting.
She was… looking at Ochako again? That couldn’t be right. Ochako wasn’t dead, Himiko saved her. She had to have, hadn’t she?
A gross feeling crawled into her chest and made her shiver. Did Himiko make a mistake when starting the blood transfusion? Did she not give enough blood?
Himiko looked down at herself suddenly. She was dead, right? She was definitely transparent, which wasn’t something typically found in the living.
So… she was a ghost. That wasn’t really what Himiko had imagined the afterlife as, but it could have been worse. At least now she could go see for herself how the rest of the League fared in the war. And Ochako too…
Himiko lifted her head, now taking in her location. Ochako was in front of her, asleep on a hospital bed, covered in various tubes and bandages. Himiko wasn’t very well-versed in hospitals, but judging by the lack of nurses hovering over her, Ochako probably wasn’t in critical condition.
Hopefully.
Himiko figured she probably woke up next to Ochako because that’s where she was when she died. Which was an oddly comforting thought, but she didn’t really know where she was now, and if she was a ghost, didn’t that mean she couldn’t touch things? Things like doorknobs that lead out of the room?
Quickly bringing her hand down against the edge of the bed, Himiko confirmed her question, it slid straight through. That did mean she could probably slide through walls, but the thought made her skin crawl.
Just then, Himiko heard the echoes of a yawn beside her, along with the sound of sheets being moved around. Her heart jumped in her chest and she quickly whipped her head around. Ochako was sitting up and rubbing at her eyes. She turned her head and squinted in Himiko’s direction for a moment and Himiko held her breath. What would Ochako say about her being here? Would she be upset? Did she know that Himiko was dead? What if-
Himiko’s thoughts were cut short by Ochako looking away soundlessly.
Himiko floated there blankly for a moment. Did Ochako just ignore her, …or was she not able to see her? The notion, while obvious in hindsight, was embarrassingly disappointing to Himiko. With her becoming a ghost, the idea of being able to see the people she loved again was presented to her, it just never crossed her mind that she wouldn’t be able to talk to them too.
With that, she figured there wasn’t much point in staying there any longer. Hospitals tended to be suffocating, and she’d done what she wanted to. Himiko got to see Ochako again, alive and, probably, well. Perhaps once she’d seen the rest of the League, she would come back and check on her.
Yeah, that would be nice.
Himiko floated her way to the door and braced herself for the feeling of passing through it…
…but she never felt anything. Opening her eyes revealed that she was barely an inch away from the door still. That was strange. Maybe she forgot to move forward? Silly her! She braced for the feeling again and made sure to go this time.
But again, she didn’t feel anything. And again, she opened her eyes to find herself still an inch from the door. Furrowing her brows, she floated to the side to make sure she remembered how to move. She did. So why wasn’t she able to go past the door?
Floating to the wall next to the door, Himiko began trying to phase through that one instead. Maybe the door was just made out of ghost-proof material or something.
But the wall didn’t work either. In fact, she was stopping about three inches away from it now. She moved even further to the side and found herself stopping further away again…
After a few more tests, Himiko came to a conclusion. She was stuck to something . She hadn’t figured out what it was yet, but it was stopping her from going into certain places in the room. Which meant that whatever it was, she couldn’t leave its close vicinity. Which also meant she couldn’t go visit the League.
So she was stuck in a hospital room for the rest of eternity. Great. Maybe this was her punishment. Like a sort of limbo or something. At least she was lucky enough that Ochako was there. So it wasn’t all that bad.
-
It took three days for Himiko to realize what she was attached to.
She’d been observing Ochako for most of the time she was in the hospital. Not like she had anything else to do since she was stuck there and all. But doing so had filled her in on a few things that had happened after Himiko died.
For one, the heroes won the war, unfortunately. She’d found this out when Ochako’s parents came in and began trying to cheer her up by explaining that they’d won. It didn’t work very well. You’d think Ochako would be happier that they’d won the battle she’d almost died fighting in, but she seemed very neutral on the matter. The smile she’d given her parents was very fake. Himiko would know, she was an expert on that kind of thing.
Secondly, Tomura was dead, and Touya was on the way there. She’d found this out when the rest of the heroes from Ochako’s class — the ones that weren’t horribly injured at least — paid her a visit. They were quite eager to fill her in on everything but Himiko didn’t listen to much of what they were saying. The League wasn’t a thing anymore. It couldn’t be with Tomura gone. The thought left her feeling hollowed out. The people she loved, her family, were gone. And instead of being able to see them, especially Touya in his final moments, Himiko was stuck in a hospital.
It left her bitter.
Things changed on the day Ochako got discharged from the hospital though.
It started out as a normal day. Her parents were there trying to lift her spirits again, but it got the same result. Honestly, Himiko was curious, and maybe a little worried, as to what was bothering Ochako so much. She’d been acting so differently than any other time Himiko had seen her. Maybe something else happened in between Himiko’s death and the end of the war that nobody knew about. Whatever it was, it must have been bad enough for her to not even be excited that they’d won.
Ochako — and her depressed demeanor — stayed the same for the rest of the day until lunchtime when a nurse came in and told her parents that she was good to leave. Himiko felt her heart sink at the notion. She had been clinging to the time she got with Ochako in the hospital room, because once she left, Himiko would never see her again. And she’d be stuck with random sick people.
For the entire time the room was being packed up and Ochako was getting ready to leave, Himiko was slightly panicking. What was she going to do for the rest of the time she was stuck here? How would she deal with being alone like that? She didn’t want to be alone.
She didn’t want to be away from Ochako.
So, as Ochako and her family were leaving, Himiko trailed behind in a sort of last-ditch effort to cling to what she knew. And when she came upon the threshold of the door, she almost didn’t bother going through it. During the time she’d been encased in her prison, whenever the door was opened by someone, she would try to go through it but to no avail. So why bother?
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should try one more time. Just one more time, then she would give up.
And when she hesitantly opened her eyes, Himiko found herself in the hallway.
…
It… worked?
A rush of excitement passed through her and she began floating excitedly around to test the limits. She was able to go even further away from the door than she already was! She might even be able to make it to the main entrance!
Moving forward, though, Himiko saw the back of Ochako’s head and she paused. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t bring herself to move any further. Should Himiko really leave? It wouldn’t make a difference to Ochako — not unless she decided to take an interest in seances — but the idea of leaving her alone left a bad taste in Himiko’s mouth. She should stay, shouldn’t she?
Her question was answered quite quickly when her body began moving on its own.
Himiko looked down, startled. She wasn’t telling her body to move at all, but the tiles on the ground were still passing beneath her. She tried to push back but the same barrier keeping her from leaving the hospital room was there again, this time keeping her from going back in it. So she was still connected to something. And she was moving along with it?
Eventually, the movement stopped and Himiko was left floating near the entrance of the hospital. She looked up to find that Ochako and her family had stopped at the front desk, and a possibility began forming in her head.
Was there a chance that she was connected to Ochako?
Himiko floated to the farthest point she was able to go before she found the wall again and waited, keeping a close eye on Ochako at all times. If Himiko began moving when Ochako began walking away, then her theory would be correct.
And not even a minute later, she was given her answer. Ochako began walking to the doors to leave, and Himiko was pushed along with her.
So she was connected to Ochako . That was so much better than a hospital room, the relief that was filling her translucent form was almost too much to bear. If she was tied to Ochako for the rest of eternity, maybe she would be able to enjoy being dead. Even if it meant not being able to see the League.
She was still bummed out that she and Ochako couldn’t talk or interact or anything, but this was good enough. She was more than happy.
—
Ochako was going insane, she was sure of it.
Ever since she’d woken up in the hospital, she kept seeing Himiko Toga out of the corner of her eye. But whenever she would look, there’d be nobody there.
And Ochako knew she was dead. She had held out some hope when she’d first woken up, but when the nurse came in and started explaining to her parents the extent of her injuries, it was obvious Himiko couldn’t have survived giving her that much blood.
And the paramedics would obviously rush to get Ochako treatment way before even thinking about helping Himiko when they arrived at the scene, so even if she did survive the initial transfusion, the lack of immediate treatment would have done her in.
The thought disgusted Ochako.
She knew that the whole point of the war was to stop the League of Villains, but they were still people . They deserved to live.
And… after she had gotten through to Himiko and they were able to talk, Ochako had hoped that maybe they would be able to see each other in the future. As friends or… something else. She wasn’t lying when she said she would give Himiko blood for the rest of her life. She just wished she could have actually done so.
The thought of a world without Himiko made Ochako’s chest ache with something she’d never felt before. And the worst part? It was her fault. If Ochako hadn’t been stabbed, then Himiko would have never needed to give all her blood away.
This thought stuck to Ochako like a parasite during her recovery period. She just couldn’t stop thinking of a life where Himiko got to live on and have a happy future. Maybe even one where they were together, side by side.
Ochako had a feeling that the two of them would’ve been best friends if they’d met sooner.
But they didn’t. And now Himiko was gone. The only part of her that remained was the blood flowing through Ochako’s veins and the images of her ghost she kept seeing out of the corner of her eye.
-
There was something that was nagging at Ochako.
It had been a week since she’d been discharged from the hospital, and things were beginning to return to normal. Class was set to start up again in a few days, and most of her friends had recovered from their injuries. The country was healing too, and even starting to change for the better.
But something was still bothering her. Well, more than everything else that was on her mind.
Ochako was still seeing flashes of Himiko out of the corner of her eye, and the more she saw her, the worse she felt about it.
Himiko had to have a grave right? Ochako wanted to visit it. It was the least she could do to honor the dead.
And of course, given it was a public grave, Ochako expected it to not look the best. But when she got to the site and actually saw it, she was horrified.
The entire tombstone had been defaced. It was covered in disgusting words regarding Himiko’s actions, and there was trash all around it.
And for a moment, Ochako wondered what the point of taking down the League of Villains was if the rest of society was going to be just as evil. But that thought was short-lived. She knew regular civilians weren’t going around killing people, but it still made her blood boil to see something so blatantly disrespectful be so normalized. These people had no idea who Himiko really was. What gave them the right to touch her grave?
She swore she could see Himiko staring at it too.
Ochako shook her head and began walking back. There was a nearby convenience store she could get cleaning supplies from. She didn’t have much money on her, but she could at least use what she had. There was no way she was going to leave Himiko’s grave like that. Even if she had to keep returning every week to get rid of any new vandalization, she would. She had to.
After returning to the graveyard with some general cleaning supplies and a trash bag, Ochako got to work picking up the garbage lying around. She made sure to get any stray pieces that had spilled onto the other graves as well. It wasn’t fair that the families of those buried nearby had to deal with this as well. Honestly, Ochako wondered if the people who’d done this had thought of anybody but themselves at the time.
Once all the trash was collected and the bag was tied up, Ochako moved on to the actual tombstone. And it was when she kneeled down to start scrubbing that she heard it.
“...You’re actually going to clean my grave, Ochako?”
The voice was so faint that Ochako was worried it might have just been the wind. But it was familiar, too familiar. And when she whipped her head up in the direction of the sound, Ochako was certain she saw her .
Even though there was no way Himiko was actually in front of her, Ochako spoke out despite herself. She was alone anyway, nobody would see her look crazy.
“Himiko?” she called cautiously, staring at the space above the tombstone where she swore she could make out her dead friend’s(?) figure.
A gust of wind that could have been a gasp passed by and blew Ochako’s hair from her face, but she didn’t move. Her eyes were locked on one intangible thing like her life depended on it.
After the silence stretched for so long that her arms began to ache from holding them up, Ochako activated Zero Gravity on the cleaning supplies in her hands before letting go of them. And immediately once her hands were free, Ochako lunged forward trying to “catch” whatever was in front of her. Which, in hindsight, was a stupid idea. Because if her leading theory was correct and she was looking at the ghost of Himiko, then trying to grab her physically would be redundant because she was a ghost . But Ochako never claimed to be good at thinking those kinds of things through anyway.
Shockingly enough though, Ochako didn’t fall face-first into the granite stone in front of her, and instead felt her hands grasp fabric.
Fabric?
Gasping, Ochako looked up and found herself staring into the equally as shocked eyes of Himiko Toga. And the fabric she was clutching was actually the ghostly white robes the blonde was wearing.
Ochako was frozen in place trying to make sense of anything that was going on. Thankfully, Himiko had enough to say for the both of them.
“Wait, Ochako can you see me? Can you actually see me? How are you touching me right now though? Aren’t I a ghost? I haven’t been able to touch anything so far! Wait, did I just come back to life? Is that why this is happening? Am I alive?”
Despite her confusion and swirling emotions, Ochako still found a way for a smile to develop on her lips. This was definitely Himiko, that she was sure of.
“Himiko?” Ochako broke out, voice raspier than intended. And once she got the other girl’s attention she continued. “Have you been a ghost this whole time?”
“If by ‘this whole time’ you mean since you were in the hospital, then yeah. I actually thought I was stuck there! I couldn’t leave the room at all, and I was starting to accept my fate of being stuck in a hospital room forever, but it turns out I was stuck to you , not the room. That really scared me for a sec!” Himiko laughed.
Ochako stared at her, wide-eyed. “Wait what do you mean you’re stuck to me?”
Himiko shrugged. “I can’t get too far away from you before I hit a wall. And if you start moving and I don’t, I’ll just get pushed along with you. It’s kinda annoying when I’m trying to look at something, but I don’t mind being closer to you!”
Ochako felt her face begin to heat up at Himiko’s words but she shook her head. She had other things to focus on right now. “ So you’ve just… been here? This whole time?” Suddenly the amount of nights she’d spent crying just this week popped up in her head. Not only was it embarrassing enough to have cried that much anyway. But for the girl she was crying over to see? That was just mortifying.
“Yep! Don’t worry though. I looked away when you were changing,” Himiko smiled proudly, and Ochako found a smile sneaking up on her too. She didn’t know why; she wasn’t even worried about something like that in the first place. Himiko’s smile was just contagious.
It really was the cutest.
“One more thing though,” Himiko started, glancing down at Ochako’s hands that were still tangled in her robes. “I haven’t been able to touch anything without passing through it, so how come you’re able to touch me?”
Ochako also looked down at her hands. She was reluctant to let go of the robe, lest this moment be lost forever. She had the mind to know she probably wasn’t imagining things by this point, but the possibility was always still there. Plus, what if she let go and suddenly she wasn’t able to see Himiko anymore? What if she never-
Ochako’s thoughts were interrupted by a cold, wispy sensation on the back of her hand. She jumped, and focusing her eyes back in front of her, she found Himiko had placed her hand atop her own.
“I can definitely touch you too…” she trailed off, poking the skin of Ochako’s hand repeatedly. “Maybe we’re soulmates!”
“Soulmates?” Ochako laughed. “That would be nice.” She finally got the courage to let go of the fabric she was holding onto. But only for a moment. Her fingers quickly found a home on Himiko’s cheek. “I think I can touch you too,” she smiled.
Himiko paused for a moment before leaning into the touch, and the two of them stayed like that, brainstorming stupid ideas for why their situation was so strange.
“Maybe it’s because I gave you all my blood?” Himiko landed on after a few minutes.
Ochako paused at the serious possibility. “That would… probably make the most sense actually.”
Himiko was silent for a long time after that. The two of them had moved so they were both staring at the sunset now, and Ochako was about to start heading home when she finally spoke again.
“So you’re like… part me now?” She shifted so she was looking at her arms. “I think… if that’s how things are… then I’m happy with how my life ended.” Himiko let out an amused breath of air. “Throughout my life, I always thought that becoming someone was the best way to show my love. But how I feel now, after being able to save you like this, I think this is what I was truly looking for.” She turned so she was looking into Ochako’s eyes now. “A way to show my love without hurting the person I care about. I just wished I could have seen it sooner. Maybe things would have ended differently for us then.”
“Himiko…”
“It’s not all that bad though. We have each other now don’t we?”
Ochako took the hand of the girl beside her. “I guess you’re right.”
And for the next four months, they did. Ochako lived her life with Himiko right at her side. It was comforting to have someone like that, especially in the time right after the war.
However, there was one thing the two of them had failed to take into account about their connectedness.
Blood doesn’t stay in the body forever. Blood transfusions, specifically, only stay in the recipient's system for about 135 days, or four months.
And Ochako, too absorbed in her second year at UA, failed to notice Himiko slowly fading away until it was too late.
So when she woke up that cold Saturday morning, there was nobody to comfort her through the realization that she was alone again for the first time in months. The only thing she could cry to was the empty air beside her.