Chapter Text
In retrospect, there were a lot of things to blame for the way it happened: the nightmares, the moonlight, the mochi, her.
The heat.
Ochako tosses in her warm, rumpled sheets and imagines herself anywhere else in the world but her sweltering room. Summer, in the middle of July, in an apartment with a broken AC and a lazy landlord, are already some of the worst conditions she can think of. The nightmares every time she closes her eyes are just the icing on the cake.
In the days following the attack on the training camp, Ochako can safely say she can count the hours of sleep she's gotten on one hand. Even now that Bakugou’s been rescued and the announcement of the UA dormitories was made, Ochako still finds herself lying on her futon with an ever-tightening knot in her gut.
It’s ridiculous. None of her friends seem to be stuck on it. Not even Bakugou, who seemed more intent than anyone on moving on from the incident.
And yet, Ochako can’t help but toss and turn in the dead of night like a feverish child. The attack was terrifying. Smoke rising from the trees, the polluted air clouding your lungs, the sudden realization that you and all your friends weren't safe like you thought you were.
And what's worse. What's so much worse is that none of that is what’s been plaguing her mind all these nights.
No, what's replayed in her head ever since that day is—
“You like someone, don’t you?”
She can still picture her crimson face as she said it. Her smile. The leering cadence of her voice.
Reflexively, Ochako brushes her fingers over the small, bandaged wound on her thigh. The bruises have since healed, but that tiny, insignificant gash brings back every sensation, as if she were still there in the undergrowth with a sharp needle lodged in her thigh.
She had been too disturbed, too distracted. She had let that villain get away. If she had just been a little stronger, smarter, maybe she could’ve done something real heroic that day. Maybe, she wouldn’t be sleepless thinking about—
A mosquito lands on her forehead, and she slams her clammy palm down before she can think better of it.
Shit.
Half-alive, Ochako drags herself to the bathroom and flips the light switch. Blinking away the harsh shine of the florescents, she stares at herself in the mirror.
The zombie that looks back at her should really consider getting more sleep; if her dark circles get any deeper, her eyeballs are going to fall in.
She splashes tepid water on her face, scrubbing away at the smear of blood and mosquito guts across her forehead. The water refuses to run any colder, and eventually Ochako gives up on hoping it ever will, so she looks up from the sink to stare at herself in the dirty mirror. It’s only then, as she watches water cling to her eyelashes and drip off the tip of her nose, that she realizes just how pathetic this is.
Keeping yourself up in the middle of the night, having nightmares about some cheap villain, Ochako thinks bitterly. Yeah, she was future pro material for sure.
She scowls to herself, turns off the water, and decides then and there that she won’t be spending another second lying on her sweaty sheets in this suffocating apartment.
Taking only her phone with her on the way out, Ochako traverses between moving boxes to get to the front door. She can't imagine she'll miss this place much when she’s finally free from it.
The air of the late summer night is stifling, and the feeling of her clammy skin rubbing against her clothes is anything but pleasant, but Ochako is too on edge to be bothered.
After around ten minutes, Ochako is regretting every decision she’s ever made up to this point. She’s feverish and sweaty. Her sandals keep making this slapping sound against the concrete with every step, and it’s quickly becoming the worst noise she’s ever heard. Not to mention, the air around her consists of sixty percent water vapor and forty percent mosquitoes.
There’s also the lingering thought of yellow irises that keeps slinking to the forefront of her mind, but she’s stubbornly trying to ignore that.
The night continues this way, aimless walking and restless thoughts, until she spots the tell-tale LED lights of a konbini around the street corner.
Ochako initially disregards it, before her insufficient breakfast, light lunch, and forgotten dinner loudly make their consequences known to her, and so she sheepishly makes a detour.
The buzzing lights in the konbini flicker as she makes her way through the doors, past the unenthusiastic cashier, and straight to the brand of packed red bean mochi she likes. The yellow price tag reading “1000 ¥” stares at her menacingly. Digging into her pockets rewards Ochako some crumbs and one impressive lint ball. She probably should have grabbed her wallet on the way out, she is now realizing.
All this junk is overpriced anyway, she thinks, sighing wistfully at the product’s plastic packaging. And even if she had the money, she probably would’ve guilt-tripped herself into saving it. Which would have been for the better, she rationalizes.
"Forget your money pants at home?"
Ochako jumps and nearly knocks into the shelf with how fast she turns around to face the startling voice. She hadn't even noticed someone else had entered the konbini.
The voice belongs to a boy, not much older than her, with shaggy orange hair. He’s dressed in ordinary streetwear that obscures his physique, but Ochako can tell he’s pretty scrawny. She can definitely fight him, if need be.
Ochako, now flustered for her overreaction and immediate thoughts of self-defense, laughs off whatever he said lightly.
“Guess I should’ve come more prepared, huh?” she replies and goes to put back the bag before a pale hand is shoved in her face, clutching a 1000 yen note. The boy is looking at her expectantly, but Ochako feels a bit awkward now.
Ochako shies away from his offering hand. “Oh, you really don’t have to do that, it’s fine!” she reassures him.
Still, the boy is determined, “No, take it, I insist!” and Ochako doesn’t know how much she likes that.
“It’s alright, honestly,” she looks away and mumbles, just a little mean, “I could really do without the charity.”
A little voice in Ochako’s head berates her for being so bitter when he probably just wanted to help. She can’t help how offerings like that make her feel so small, but she can be a little nicer about it.
Just as she turns to face the boy and half-heartedly rectify the situation, she notices the suddenly thoughtful look on his face. “Then don’t think of this as charity,” the boy says carefully, “Think of it as a favor.”
Ochako stares, dumbfounded, so the boy smiles devilishly.
“Which means…you owe me one.”
That gets a snort out of Ochako, so she rolls her eyes and takes the money.
Sure. She could make do with a favor.
As she goes to pay, Ochako finds herself standing in front of the cashier, talking to the mystery boy. Apparently, he’s staying in this part of the city only for a short time while he's traveling with a group of friends.
Ochako takes the mochi and thanks the cashier. “Really? So what are you doing here then?” she asks as they walk to the glass doors.
The boy pauses thoughtfully for a bit before continuing as he opens the door for her, “We’re starting, like, this business thing? Trying to garner investors and stuff.”
Ochako nods along as he prattles on about awfully vague start-up happenings. Ochako likes it. Free food aside, she prefers the company of others to being alone when her mind isn’t right.
Even if this guy's a complete stranger.
“But, you, you’re a hero student, aren’t you?” the boy comments as they turn a corner. Ochako is taken aback for a second before remembering. Right. The sports festival.
“Haha, guess everybody in the country was tuned in to watch me lose my match, huh?” she replies, dismay bleeding through a thin coat of sarcasm.
She’d rather not discuss her disappointment about the festival. She knows, logically, that defeat is a necessity to improve, but the loss still stung like an old wound.
“You can’t possibly mean that!” the boy says, instantly outraged, “You were incredible out there!”
Ochako’s surprised by his response, but feels herself flush at the compliment regardless. “Oh, I really wasn’t! But, uh, all the more motivation to get stronger, right?” This is embarrassing.
“Doesn’t mean you have to put yourself down. I mean, you clearly had all this plan and technique.”
“Well–”
“And way more grace than that explosion guy.”
Ochako laughs away how awkward she feels right now. Still, she finds that a part of her is absolutely elated to know that anybody genuinely thought of her as good enough to earn the victory and not just pitiful enough to be handed it.
“Come on,” she cuts the guy off lightly. “If I were really better than him, I would’ve won.”
“And maybe you could’ve,” he counters. “Maybe you weren’t really putting everything you had into it because you didn’t really believe you could win.”
She scoffs. “And what would you know about me?”
“I know you’re attending what’s supposedly the most prestigious hero school in the country. And that you made it all the way to the final tournaments.”
Ochako pointedly looks away, suddenly feverish.
“You’ve got a wonderful quirk, but more than that, you’re strong…”
He keeps going. Ochako almost wants to stop him.
“… you have pretty eyes, a great haircut, by the way…”
Her body temperature is probably reaching fatal levels the July humidity couldn’t dream of. He’s awfully observant. How far has she been walking with this boy?
“…and you’ve got all those nice friends, too, like Tsuyu-chan and especially Izuku-kun! ”
Ochako abruptly stops in her tracks. The boy does too.
The knot in her gut has begun to form again, but this time, instead of shame and regret, dread pulls at her insides, trying to tell her something she’s barely finding out.
How could even a fan know all that about her? Ochako, who’s never done so much as an interview, and this boy, whom she’s never met in her life. What was going on?
Turning to look at the boy face-to-face, she realizes his eyes are already fixed on her as they’ve been this entire time that they’d been walking down these streets he’s supposedly unfamiliar with.
He continues, smiling so familiarly, “And you’re just so cute, Ochako-chan.”
The animal part of her brain ignites with the sudden sense of danger. Now, Ochako’s really looking at him when she asks, quietly, like she’d rather not know the answer, “Do I know you from somewhere?”
The guy leans his head to one side and pouts, with a petulance that doesn’t suit his face in the slightest, and replies, “Huh? Don’t be a stranger, Ochako, it’s rude.”
Ochako watches with growing horror as his face begins to melt away. The shaggy hair falls apart and fades into a murky, gray substance as the skin on his face and the material of his clothes soften the same way.
But what’s most concerning to Ochako is the color she sees as the stranger blinks away the gray goo and flutters their eyes open.
That piercing, violent yellow stares back at Ochako again for the first time since the attack on the training camp. The night she became well acquainted with the knife of–
“Toga Himiko,” Ochako spits.
Toga’s eyes light up with wild joy, and Ochako spots a glimmer in the corner of her eye as Toga gleefully proclaims, “I knew you hadn’t forgotten me, Ochako-chan!” and raises her arm so swiftly that if the young hero hadn’t been anticipating the knife, Toga most certainly would’ve gotten her.
Thankfully, Ochako wasn’t going to let that happen.
Before the blade can get any closer, her right hand has a grip on Toga's forearm. Ochako holds back a wince as she hears the plastic crunch of the mochi bag hitting the concrete. At least it wasn't her money that paid.
Toga's unbarred hand is quick to move, but Ochako is quicker and forcefully pulls the arm she is holding forward in one direction while moving her own body to the side.
It’s a similar move to what she did at the training camp, only Toga must recognize this too, as she breaks out of the hero student's grip and maneuvers her body just fast enough to avoid slamming face-first into the brick wall.
When she dives past her, Ochako instantly turns to keep her eye on the villain, only to be met with the empty shadows of the street.
What the hell? Did she just vanish? Ochako thinks as she spins her head in every direction, trying to spot the girl. They were fighting in the darkest part of the street, and now Ochako has no idea where she might be.
After far too many seconds left standing there breathing heavily, Ochako lets herself consider, with tentative optimism, the possibility that the villain fled.
“Ochako-chan!”
Toga pounces on her, and Ochako is almost sent tumbling as she maneuvers her feet to find any semblance of balance once again, but Toga tousles with her until the hero student’s front is flush against the wall. She can feel Toga’s knife where it’s just barely grazing the side of her neck. That single, terrifying sensation stops her breathing entirely. She is never going for a late-night walk again.
“I'm so happy we get to see each other again!” Ochako shivers at how close Toga is, her voice shrill in her ears.
“I couldn't believe it when I saw you walking around here, I mean, I really didn’t – I even followed you into that konbini just to be sure – but it really is you!”
Toga’s hold wasn’t too strong, but Ochako still felt paralyzed from the sharp edge of her knife resting against the soft skin of her neck.
“I mean, this has to be fate or something, us seeing each other. Oh, Ochako, I'm so happy! I don't have a lot of girlfriends anymore; there's so much I wanna talk to you about!”
In the girl's incessant yammering, Ochako finds some space to think. Okay, she can’t move right now, or Toga will slice her knife through her artery, so she needs to get creative. She can do that, she knows she can.
“Like your UA friends! Could they be our friends? They’re not all so cute, but I don’t mind it!”
Toga is quick and allusive, but she’s not all that stable. Ochako may not be able to get out by fighting and writhing, but she could distract her.
“And all about your quirk, too! Can you show me the pads on your fingers? I could show you my fangs!”
With what was the real question? The villain seemed to have a unique talent for knocking Ochako far away from her senses and rational thoughts. What could Ochako say to mirror that same effect?
“Hey, your hair smells sweet! What’s your shampoo? I used to use cherry blossom scents back then– not anymore, though. Nowadays, my hair mostly smells gross.”
Could she be quiet? Ochako’s trying to figure out how to throw this girl off her, and it’s become needlessly difficult.
“Oh! And I had been trying to mention it to you back in that forest, but now we got all the time in the world to talk romance!”
Romance? Right. That could work.
“You mean, you want to hear about my crush?” Ochako says slowly, turning her face to peek at Toga unassumingly.
Toga looks like she’s going to faint.
“I mean, I really haven’t spoken to anyone about this, but the boy I like… ” She’s not selling this well, but it seems to be working on Toga, who’s staring wide-eyed and mouth agape with anticipation. Her grip on Ochako has also loosened tremendously. Perfect.
That’s when Ochako strikes. She elbows Toga in the ribs hard enough to throw her off. Now out of her hold, Ochako moves to disarm Toga. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really go as planned, and both her hands end up joined with Toga’s in a death grip contest. Of course, Toga takes this opportunity to keep talking. “Come on, Ochako. You can’t just leave me hanging like that!”
Her words don’t match their current struggle at all. With her face so close to Toga’s, Ochako gets a good view of those awful yellow eyes again. Her predatory gaze burns itself into Ochako’s retinas all over again. She needs to end this. She kicks Toga's leg out from under her, but only ends up getting dragged down with Toga when she refuses to let go.
They stay like that for a while, struggling on the ground, exchanging and dodging kicks and punches. The knife had fallen somewhere in their scuffle. Ochako had tried to keep an eye on it, but Toga proved herself far too spontaneous an opponent to pay attention to anything but her in the moment. Adrenaline felt like it was pounding through Ochako’s veins. An odd mix of fear and thrill ran down her spine every time she or Toga prevented the other from getting up. Toga’s piercing laughs rang loud in the silence of the streetlights; it made her feel like it was all some game.
Maybe that’s why, after a few minutes of rolling around on the concrete and gaining a considerable amount of cuts and bruising, Ochako felt a rush of sweet victory when she finally had the villain truly incapacitated, pinned to the ground on her stomach, both hands wrestled behind her back. This, this exact moment, is what she wanted to show everyone that day at the sports festival. Ochako, stubborn and strong, and all the more a victor for it.
Her winning spirit is soon dampened by the vibrant laughter that comes from beneath her. Apparently, not even being beaten to the ground was enough to kill Toga’s mood.
“That was fun! So what are we doing now, Ochako-chan?” Ochako can barely hear the evidence of Toga’s defeat in the way her breath is slightly labored. Fun? She cannot be serious.
“Stop talking!” Ochako snarls. In her pajamas and sandals, she didn't exactly feel like the most authoritative figure, but Midnight is always telling her to “fake it ‘til you make it” anyway.
“Don't be mean to me, Ochako-chan.” She can practically hear the pout in her voice. “You were enjoying yourself just now.”
And that makes Ochako's head spin with indignation. Who the hell was Toga Himiko to tell her that she was having fun in a fistacuff with a wanted murderer?
“I said be quiet!” Ochako repeats, and then, quieter, just to defend her honour, ”I was not.”
Toga turns her head to look at her—as much as she physically can, anyway. Ochako tries not to cower at her gaze. Even apprehended, face pushed to the cruel, concrete ground, Toga still stares at her like she has the upper hand. Ochako swallows and tries unsuccessfully to not think back to the training camp and being in this exact position with the villain, feeling all too much the same way as she did now. Weak.
“Then what’re you doing right now, huh?” Toga asks, coyly, as if she knows something Ochako doesn’t.
“Capturing you! I’m turning you in to the–” Ochako paused. She didn’t exactly plan to fight any criminals on this midnight walk. Did any heroes patrol the area at this time? Was her phone even on? The situation slowly became more dire in her head. She could call for help with no guarantee anybody willing was around. If she had change, she could’ve used a payphone. And what would she do with Toga? Tie her up? Knock her out? Leave her floating? Ochako had no energy left for any of that. Panic has started to grip her, and Toga’s shrieking laughter is not helping.
Shoulders shaking, Toga jeers, “Look at your face! You really didn't think this through, did you?”
Refusing to let the villain see how much she really hadn’t thought this through, Ochako stays silent and stares resentfully back at Toga.
“I just mean,” she starts again, “are you even allowed to do this?”
A jolt of realization, followed by its companion anxiety, hits Ochako at the villain’s words.
She was right. She wasn't allowed to do this. It was more than just a class rule; it was the law. Maybe at the training camp it was acceptable because of the circumstances, but right now, Ochako was acting as a vigilante, not above punishment.
The grave of everything she's been working for up to this point begins to dig itself in her mind. She can't risk getting in trouble. Not for something as trivial as this.
Deku, Iida, and the others had done something similar just a few days ago, she tries to rationalize. In their ragtag effort to rescue Bakugou, they’d gone against what every authority figure had drilled in their heads since their enrollment: breaking the law makes you no better than a villain. Yet, they all managed to get out of the situation with a slap on the wrist.
Acting out of line, however, was not a privilege everyone could afford. Without their weighty names, big connections, or noble intentions, Ochako severely doubts her likelihood of getting away with something like this.
People have gotten in trouble for much less, right? Just last month, there was that news story about a 14-year-old kid facing time in prison for using his quirk in public to retrieve his cat from a building. Yaomomo told her that the story was being grossly overblown in the media, but still. Ochako couldn’t get in trouble with the law, and she couldn’t believe she let herself get wrapped up in this situation!
In her racing thoughts, Ochako doesn’t feel her grip loosening on the villain, nor does she see the grin that envelopes the villain’s face.
She does, however, feel the bruising impact of being thrown off her target and flung to the side, head hitting the brick wall of the alley they had found themselves in.
Ow.
Ochako lifts her pounding head off the ground and rolls to the side lightly, being held up on her left elbow. Toga had gotten up from the ground and was now dusting off her skirt, as if it was ever clean to begin with. Toga looks down, once again fixing her eyes on Ochako.
As the villain begins to take steps toward her, Ochako briefly ponders with the half of her brain that still functions what she could’ve possibly done in a past life to warrant this kind of death. Her mildly concussed and fully sleep-deprived brain laments that she didn’t just swallow some melatonin four hours ago instead.
Toga stops just short of where Ochako’s lying and crouches down to smile sweetly at her. “I had fun tonight, Ochako-chan, but it’s getting late, don’t you think?” Ochako wishes she’d just stab her already, and by the mournful look in Toga’s eyes, she can tell she wishes she still had her knife on her.
“So!” Toga stands back up again and skips to the entrance of the alleyway, stopping right around the corner to look back at Ochako and say, ”Let’s do this again sometime!”
Ochako just stares, dumbfounded, as Toga disappears around the corner and the sound of her shoes frisking on the sidewalk quickly dwindles to silence. For one long moment, she just lies back down, aching brain slowly catching up to her circumstances.
Then, unbalanced and disoriented, Ochako slowly struggles to her feet and drags herself against the brick wall until she’s leaning on the corner, peering down the road the villainess just walked down. She’s not there, obviously, but Ochako still strains her eyes against the darkness, searching for any trace of a blonde head or a pleated skirt.
It’s no use. It’s as if Toga Himiko was never even there to begin with. Though her head wound would beg to differ.
The walk back to her apartment is dizzying and humiliating, regardless of Ochako being the sole witness to what had just occurred. Once she enters her room, she immediately goes to vomit up the small contents of her stomach in the toilet. The most she does to tend to her injuries is fill a plastic bag with the melting ice in her freezer to cool her aching head, before she passes out on her futon.
Even in her unconscious state, Ochako’s dreams are full of only one thing. Could you guess who it is?
—
When Ochako wakes up, her head is pounding, the ice in her DIY ice pack has melted and leaked all over her pillow, her entire body aches with exhaustion, and she’s over an hour behind her usual schedule.
Ochako jumps out of bed, gets ready for school, leaves her apartment at a speed the new number two hero would be jealous of, and still shows up exactly one minute before class begins. Tsuyu and Iida give her matching concerned glances from where they sit in front of her. Ochako attempts to smile reassuringly, but it definitely comes off as more of a toothy grimace.
As Aizawa drones on about some probably important lesson, Ochako replays the events of last night over and over again in her head.
Had that all really happened? She wants to believe it's just a dream–a nightmare, really– but she could still feel where her head had crashed against the wall painfully well. She still had dried blood scraping her elbows, for crying out loud!
What was she supposed to do? Was she in trouble? Every time Aizawa glances at her, she feels herself flinch. Does he know what happened? she thinks, hysterically. Was this the end of everything Ochako had worked for? The entire morning session passes by with Ochako anticipating her immediate expulsion any second, only for the lunch bell to chime and her to find herself sitting in front of a bowl of steaming rice, unscathed.
Her paranoia doesn’t cease, however, and the pair of round, inky eyes drilling into her sure doesn’t help.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tsuyu asks bluntly, out of genuine concern, though you’d never guess it from her impolite tone. Tsuyu was never one to dress things up.
“Whatdoyoumean?” Ochako replies, like a normal person.
Tsuyu observes her quietly. Her eyes seem to absorb all the light that passes through; Ochako wonders sometimes if it’s all pupil. “Did something happen last night, kero?”
Memories of the rough grate of brick against her cheek and concrete below her knees, pinning down a villain that laughs and laughs and–
“Bad dream,” she answers curtly.
Tsuyu doesn't say anything, just continues staring. Ochako feels like a dam about to burst. Some part of her is terrified that if Tsuyu prods, even just a little more, the whole truth will fall out of her mouth right there at their lunch table.
“I get it. I had one the other night too,” Tsuyu’s eyes finally tear away from her to join their friends' conversation, and Ochako finally starts breathing again.
—
Somehow, Ochako makes it through the whole school day with her racing thoughts. They’re walking back from UA now, she and her little group consisting of Tsuyu, Deku, Iida, and, occasionally, Todoroki. Usually, they walk halfway back to the station before the group splits in two, she and Deku turning back around while the others head to the station. They’re the only ones who live within jogging distance of UA’s building, albeit on complete opposite sides of the city. So for a short distance, the two get to walk together before they inevitably part ways as well.
And it’s really nice. To have that small moment where it’s just them, the afternoon sun, and whatever rapid-fire debrief they can squeeze into the time before they have to say goodbye. Ochako always appreciates this part of the day, but on this particular afternoon…
She looks at Deku, as he rambles on about something they probably learned in class that morning, and visualizes him melting. How the dark tufts of his hair would bleed into gray, how the image of his freckled cheeks would distort and fade before running down his face in thick clumps, how his legs would dissolve, dragging his stature down to about her height so they’d be eye-level when the disguise melts away, revealing a girl she wished only existed in her nightmares.
“Is there something on my face?” Deku asks, cluelessly patting at his cheeks.
“What?” Ochako jolts. She’d been staring, hadn’t she? “Oh, um, no! I was just–” she fumbles around for an excuse for a second before a thought occurs to her. A question only Deku can answer.
“Deku-kun,” she says, stopping just steps away from where their paths would usually diverge. Deku turns around, looking at her with a worrisome gaze before nodding his head in answer.
“When you and the others went on that rescue mission for Bakugou…why did you do it?” Deku opens his mouth to reply instantly, but Ochako cuts him off with a raised hand. “I’m not saying I still think you shouldn’t have disobeyed our teachers. I’m glad you did. Who knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t? I just wanna know…”
She looks up, staring deeply at him. “What made you go? Why did you feel like you had to go out of your way to help him when you knew what the consequences could be? Why risk it?”
Deku looks at her with wide eyes, puzzled by her questions, but eventually relenting an answer. “Well, I guess I thought…” he swallows. “Actually, I didn’t think at all. I was more like a feeling, y’know? Like, maybe it was wrong to do it, but it felt wrong to not do it just as much. Maybe more so. And the feeling kept gnawing away at me until…”
“Until?”
Deku meets her gaze with the kind of silent intensity she’s not used to from him. “Until I went.”
His answer burrows itself into her mind, even as he nervously laughs away the magnitude of the moment, asking why she wanted to know. Ochako dismisses it just as easily with a wave of her hand and curiosity as her alibi.
They go their separate ways at the crossroads, but not before Deku points to her hand, at the yellow and purple splotches over her knuckles littered with an array of dark scabs. “You should really go see Recovery Girl about that! It looks pretty bad.”
Ochako immediately goes to cover up the bruising with her other hand, a useless effort because it shares the same damage. “Hadn’t even noticed! I’ll do it first thing in the morning, I swear!” she shouts across the street as she subtly makes her escape from the conversation.
“But we don’t have school tomorrow! We’re moving into the dorms, remember?”
“See you later, Deku, bye!”
“Bye?”
—
Ochako almost makes it all the way home before, at the juncture where she’d usually turn into her apartment complex, she veers off on her pink sneakers and starts the trip to another part of the street.
She’s on a warpath.
What Deku had said, about a feeling gnawing away at you until you did what you knew you had to, Ochako knows about it all too well.
The horrible truth is, ever since she met Toga Himiko, she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Every time she closes her eyes, it’s the same pair of eyes that stares back. Every strange dream, every horrifying nightmare, every time she thinks she sees something in the corner of her eye, she’s everywhere.
And Ochako has earnestly tried to ignore it, she has, but maybe she wasn’t supposed to. Carefully trudging along with what she’s told to do and what rules she has to follow has done nothing for her. She’s the least impressive person amongst her classmates, she has lost every battle when it truly mattered, and she has yet to prove to anyone that she actually deserves to be a hero.
Last night, Toga had laughed at her. Mocked her. She certainly could have killed her, but she didn’t. Because even a villain like Toga can see how positively pathetic she is.
But not anymore. Today, Ochako is going to find Toga Himiko, fight her, and win. And she’s not going to care about what rules she has to break to do it.
Surely Aizawa and the others will understand; when your life is being threatened, you have to do what you can to protect yourself. And taking a member of the League of Villains down while you’re at it? Well, that’s just a beautiful coincidence.
Tracing her steps back from last night, Ochako ends up right outside the konbini where she ran into the villain the first time.
The place jogs her memory of the night. Had the boy with the shaggy hair been a disguise? Made of what, that weird sludge? Was that the effect of someone else’s quirk? Perhaps even Toga’s quirk?
It’s embarrassing to admit, but the second Ochako got home from the training camp attack, she’d booted up her UA-assigned laptop and scrounged for any trace of information on Toga Himiko. It’d been scarce, of course. The attack had occurred so recently that Ochako’s wound was still fresh, but eventually descriptions of the organization’s members leaked to the press.
Names, quirks, mugshots; everything that could be found about each given member, but almost nothing on Toga Himiko. Not even a clear photo.
It was a definite possibility that Toga’s quirk was unknown information because it was an ongoing investigation. One that Ochako will be happy to contribute to by handing the villain over to the rightful authorities. Just the thought puts a smile on her face.
Now, the only thing left to do was to find her prey.
Ochako slows her pace, taking careful steps past the store’s faulty LED lights, walking only so far, peering into alleyways and shop windows before circling back to the convenience store again. So far, she’s just caught some rude glares.
That’s fair. It’s unbecoming of a future pro-hero to be seen loitering around a sordid part of town, but Ochako has an objective. This is the place she had her run-in with Toga, supposedly by pure chance.
Circling back to score the block again, Ochako held her head up high and her hopes even higher. Surely even villains had routines. Was it really impossible to say that Toga would come back to this place?
—
It might be impossible.
It has been hours. Even with the summer sun making the days last so much longer, the sky has still started to darken. Toga’s not coming.
And even if she is, not for a couple of hours at least, Ochako thinks as she swats away another mosquito. Maybe it would’ve been smarter to do this later in the night. It had been so late when she ran into the villain last time. Is she nocturnal or something? Ochako gives the thought some genuine consideration.
“Hey.”
Ochako nearly jumps out of her skin. Instantly, she turns around, fists raised in defense, fire on her tongue.
The cashier–the same one from last night–stares back at her, unimpressed.
“Ohmygod–Sorry! I thought you were somebody else,” Ochako stammers, shoving her hands behind her back.
“Can you leave? My manager says you’re intimidating customers.”
Ochako blanches with red-hot embarrassment. “Uh–yeah! Yeah sure, that’s no problem, but um, do you think you can tell me if you’ve seen anyone around here lately that seems… suspicious, to you?”
“Yeah. You.”
“What? No!” She laughs at the idea. “You’re mistaken, I’m going to be a hero,” she points to herself proudly.
The cashier just rolls their eyes. “Oh, I’m sure.”
The bell chime as they slam the door on her hurts more than she’d like to admit.
Defeated and dehydrated, Ochako starts the trek back to her apartment. Her conviction has all but dried out. Maybe she should just forget about everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours and move on with her life. Train. Study. Become a hero. Forget all about Toga Himiko.
She feverently pushes down her visceral dissatisfaction at the idea.
Toga Himiko can run off wherever she pleases tonight, and she can haunt her dreams all she wants, she can laugh that awful laugh to her heart’s content, but the next time their paths cross, Ochako swears on her soul, she won’t let her get away.
The opportunity comes much sooner than she expects.
Ochako feels Toga before she sees her. She’s only just given up on her hunt and is passing a narrow walkway when the subtle terror washes over her. She gets all of two seconds to realize what is happening before a body crashes into her own. Her heart lurches as her shoulders crack against cruel brick, but there’s scarce time to think about the pain as a wide smile fills her vision.
“Were you looking for me, Ochako-chan?” Toga preens, all too excited for this development. Ochako ignores the girl’s taunts to push her off, palms slamming into her chest, briefly freeing her from the cage of Toga’s body before forcefully shoving the other girl, sending her skidding a few feet away.
“Toga,” Ochako snarls. Toga’s grin seems to grow at her words, if that’s even possible.
“I’ve been missing you, too, cutie.”
Their fight erupts swiftly after that, roping Ochako in instantly. It’s just as intense as last time. Toga wields her knife skillfully, slicing through the air with ease and intention. Ochako dodges just as quickly, though not fast enough to avoid superficial cuts across her skin. She doesn’t take it lying down, however. Every time Toga’s smile breaks from wincing over a good hit, a hunger Ochako didn’t even know she had is momentarily satiated, and she’s ready for the reciprocation.
She doesn’t question her senses; she doesn’t question anything at all. In the moment, it is only her body and Toga’s and the endless give and take between them. In that space, there is no room for second-guessing.
But an ending inevitably comes in the form of a chime ringing faintly down the corner like a bad omen. It rips Ochako right out of her trance, and harsh reality sets in. Her knees dig into the gravel uncomfortably, covered in the now-ripped fabric of her tights. Her position looming over Toga now seems like the most compromising place in the world.
Footsteps approach them languidly, and a million different outcomes cycle through Ochako’s head in rapid succession, each one worse than the last.
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Whoever’s steps those are, civilian or hero, Ochako knows this can only turn out badly. Her limbs go rigid, petrified to the bone and awaiting the crack of the gavel.
Then, a gentle hand places itself upon her shoulder and pushes, the feather-light touch such a stark change to everything she's felt up until that moment.
Ochako falls to the side without resistance, and the gentle hand leaves her. She thinks, she sees Toga get up through the corner of her eye, but by the time she’s sat up and turned around to stop her like she was supposed to, the girl has already vanished.
Even as the steps arrive at the entrance of the alleyway, Ochako is still looking down the graffiti-covered walls of the dead-end as if Toga would emerge from the shadows if she stared long enough.
“Pardon.”
A deadpan voice jolts Ochako out of her stupor. It’s the cashier, who definitely hates her guts, standing in the entryway. “Please find another alleyway to piss in; we already have odor complaints.”
Her face scrunches in disgust. “I wasn’t trying to–” Ochako begins to defend herself, but one look at the cashier’s face confirms that her effort is fruitless. “You know what? I will. Have a nice night.”
—
As she makes her way home to her apartment for the last time before she moves out tomorrow, Ochako doesn’t need to repress the bitter sting of disappointment she’s grown so familiar with these past few weeks. Instead, Ochako walks down the pavement, cuts across her arms and pieces of sediment still stuck to her knees, and tries not to feel so shamefully light.
After her talk with Deku, she thought she knew what it was she wanted from Toga: to win against her and turn her in, as any hero would.
But that fight, that horrible, wonderful fight, was fought with no hero’s honor. She wanted to win, yes, but more than that, she wanted reprieve. And she wanted to…
She needs to know more about Toga. Tonight marks the third time they’ve ever interacted like this, and she still knows next to nothing about her. And isn’t that obvious? Any information she stupidly felt obligated to know about Toga Himiko could only be shared through an actual conversation with the girl.
Ochako could fight Toga. She could punch her. She could get stabbed by her. Those are all things that have already happened. The last thing she’d ever find herself doing is talking with the villain. She would laugh at the thought if her mind weren’t so clouded by questions.
Why did she go back? Why did she go out looking for her?
Why did Toga?
That night, as she’s getting ready for bed, Ochako makes a promise to herself. She was done. She’d never let Toga Himiko into her mind again. This would be where it ends.
And as she closes her eyes to go to sleep, for the first time since she saw them, no pair of yellow eyes stares back at her.
—
Waking up the next morning, Ochako hurries to hop in the shower and start the new day. She avoids looking at the scrapes and scars still marking her skin. Everything heals in due time, after all.
Before picking up the handle, she places all five of her fingerpads on her stuffed suitcase so it won’t be such a burden when she has to wheel it out of her door when she leaves.
For the final time, she thinks excitedly.
The idea of a whole new home, with a working AC and entirely funded by the school, no less, makes Ochako writhe in anticipation. This is what she needs right now, to move past everything and get back on track. She feels featherlight at the promise of a new beginning. The weight of the past, or earth’s gravity, has no pull on her anymore. She’s somewhere far off in the stratosphere, where nobody can lay a finger on her.
But when Ochako steps into the foyer, she feels herself drop back down to the cruel surface like a dead stone, gravity’s victim once again. She forces herself to step closer, even as her heart’s stopped beating. When she fully realizes what she’s looking at, bile rises so fast that Ochako barely has time to make it to the sink before she lurches over.
Because stabbed into her front door with a familiar knife, there was a small bag of packed red bean mochi with a note attached, written in pink gel pen, reading:
“You forgot these, Ochako-chan~♡”
And so it begins.