Work Text:
“START!” Present Mic announced. Momo immediately created her shield she was so familiar with. It was something easy that she had made hundreds of times—an effective defense for her until she could find an opportunity.
A dark mass flew towards her so fast she barely had time to raise the shield. She grunted and pushed against the bird, trying to throw Dark Shadow off of her so she could create something else that could be useful. Maybe a rope? Or a net?
But she couldn’t do that if she could get her arms free, too busy doing what she could to push against Dark Shadow’s strength. She just needed to—
“Yaoyorozu! Out of Bounds! Tokoyami Wins!” Midnight called out, signaling her defeat. But no, she wasn’t out of bounds. Looking down revealed that she had been careless and was over the line. The whole battle over in the matter of seconds. Her pitiful performance displayed for the whole nation to see.
She slapped on a smile and bowed to Tokoyami like her parents taught her. “Amazing job, Tokoyami. A victory deserved.”
She quickly left the arena with all the grace she could muster. How could she have lost? She had been training for this her whole life, and she still went out in the first round? She was a recommendation student! She was a Yaoyorozu!
Her face fell the minute she was back in the tunnel. She didn’t want to head to the locker room, where she knew others would be. She wanted time alone. She didn’t deserve to be surrounded by so many talented people when she was given all of the tools to be better and still failed.
She should have come up with a plan beforehand! Maybe if she had made a cannon? But it would have taken too long. Maybe she should have made the net first. But would that even do anything against a shadow? She just wasn’t quick enough. If she was stronger, she could have thrown him off. If she was smarter, she wouldn’t have needed the strength.
Tears fell down her face as she silently made her way to the closet bathroom. She wanted to get out of potential public view before someone saw her shame. How vulgar of her. How shameless.
She let the door shut softly behind her as she walked over to the mirror. Other than her tears, her face showed no signs of her flaws. It was perfectly pale, with no redness or puffiness. Except the tears were causing some of her foundation to melt away, revealing her lack of control.
How could she say she was going to be a hero when she couldn’t even get past the first round? She was a failure of a Yaoyorozu. She was a failure of a daughter. She dreaded going home, seeing the letter they would leave of their disappointment. Too shameful to even come in person.
“Gods, I am so stupid!” She slammed her fist down in an uncharacteristic outburst. She needed to control herself. She should do what she could to stop further digging herself into a pit of failure.
She straightened her posture and grabbed a towel. Not her preferred face wipe, but it would do. She carefully blotted away the tears, taking care not to smudge the makeup further. Once satisfied, she created a basic foundation and took another towel to pat some into place, putting it on her hand first to warm it up so it would blend easier. The paper towel caused it to be slightly streaky, not blending quite how she would like, so she kept blending—patting her face with the towel over and over again until she was satisfied that no one would be able to tell it was there.
“No way! You wear makeup? I thought they didn’t allow that here!” a voice called out next to her, causing her to jump and drop the towel.
“Oh, Mi-Mina! I didn’t see you there! Um, I just wear some tinted moisturizer, hardly counts,” Yaoyorozu waved off. The girl’s gym clothes seemed to have been replaced since Yaoyorozu last saw them, but her hair seemed more wild than usual and she seemed slightly out of breath. But more importantly, she was focused on the paper on the ground and not the evidence of shame on Yaoyorozu’s face.
“That’s some pretty tinted moisturizer,” the pink-haired girl picked up the paper towel from the floor, revealing the quite colorful surface.
“I suppose so,” Yaoyorozu hummed before turning back to the mirror and washing her hands, needing something to do.
“Anyway! I need to vent ‘cause I am so annoyed! I lost right before the semifinals! Like I had no shot of winning, but I thought I could tie for third maybe, ya know? But Tokoyami pulled the same move he did on you! Like I should have seen that coming!” the girl complained as she leaned against the sink.
She lost as well? To Tokoyami? So he made it to the semifinals. She was happy for that at least. It meant that though she lost, it was to a formidable opponent. Maybe there was some pride she could get from that. But she still lost in the first round, and that was shameful.
Happy for the distraction, Yaoyorozu turned her attention to the girl. “Were you not aiming for first?”
“Pft! Me? First? With this group? No way!” Mina laughed. “Honestly, I’m not all that upset about it. I still did pretty good!”
Yaoyorozu passed at that. If she was honest, she agreed—the girl was not skilled enough to make it to first place. But if she knew she wasn’t good enough, why still try? And why was she not upset with herself like Yaoyorozu was? Was she just that flippant about her own career? The girl obviously cared and tried. As much as she had a laid-back attitude, she still tried out and got into UA. While Yaoyorozu herself had been a recommendation student, UA’s exams had a reputation of being brutal—brutal enough to separate out those who were willing to do the work and those who were not.
“Why did you sign up to be a hero?” Yaoyorozu asked. Maybe her answer would shed some light on Yaoyorozu’s confusion.
“Where’s this coming from?” Mina shifted to face Momo head-on, her face of smiles and laughs gone, replaced by a curious squint of the eyes.
“Humor me,” Momo smiled.
“Well, I guess it’s—well, I’m—’Cause being a hero is cool? Ya know? I grew up watching these heroes take down bad guys and save the day, and I just thought that’d be something cool to do. I mean—there’s more to it now, but yeah. What about you?” Mina stuttered, flustered. Momo couldn’t think of a time she had seen the girl anything but confident and bright, but here she was, struggling to answer while waving her hands about.
It was clear the girl didn’t really know. Of course, heroes were seen positively by the general public. They needed to be for their trust to be established. And public perception is everything. It made sense why the horned girl would see heroes as something to strive toward. But that didn’t tell Yaoyorozu why.
But to Mina’s question—why did Yaoyorozu want to be a hero? Nowadays it just felt like what she was expected to do. A path carved for her long ago. One that she couldn’t dare step off from or deviate from. But what was it at the start? A dream? To be “cool”?
But she knew why. Even if she wanted to pretend it was some wish to be seen as cool, she knew the truth. The truth was that when she was younger, that was her only option. Her brother was set to take over the company from their parents. As such, the expectations for her were to continue the line and get married. But at five, this didn’t sound like a fun idea. Boys were gross and had cooties; she didn’t want to get married and have babies.
Her parents, always the serious type, had taken this to be a committed stance against them. Momo didn’t know why, but she fought it. A part of her thought that deep down, she didn’t want to be a trophy on display. She wanted to do something, be something.
Her parents gave her the choice of getting married off to whoever they decided or to become a hero. Celebrity heroes, while not the most favorably looked at, were wealthy and brought in a lot of attention. It would be good for the company to have someone in the hero industry representing their brand. She would flaunt the latest technology and products her brother designed—another trophy on display.
So she was trained. Not only in combat, but in how to persuade the public, how to wave her hand, how to redirect questions, how to pretend like everything was fine when it wasn’t. She was taught the best way to verbally take down an opponent while making it seem like she was innocent in it all. She was taught how to apply the perfect layer of foundation so as not to let the cracks show.
She was taught that she was already a failure, and that every step she made was to show that she could make up for it. She was a failure for not wanting to get married to a man of their choice. She was already a failure since she needed fat to make her quirk work, and that wasn’t attractive. She was taught that every move should be made to hide her shame—for the family. She had to be the perfect hero because anything less would mean she truly was a failure.
But then she remembered how she felt after a long day of combat training. How she felt strong and confident as her muscles burned and she took out another dummy. How she felt when she looked in the mirror and saw the evidence of work: the greasy, messy hair, the sweaty clothes, the bruised knuckles. She remembered thinking this was when she was her prettiest—not when she had glitter decorating her eyelids and a floor-length dress, but in her sports bra and shorts with sweat and dirt covering her face.
“I want to be something. Being a hero means that every day I will have an impact on those around me. Every day I will stand up and fight for those who can’t, who need help. Every day I will be something to those I help. I won’t just stand off to the side and support those around me. I will stand on my own and forge my own path,” Momo finally stated.
“Oh my gods, your motivation is so much cooler than mine! What the heck, Momo! Trying to make me look like a loser?” Mina whined.
“Oh, of course not! I’m so sorry!” Momo rushed to correct.
“Relax! I’m just messing with you!” Mina chuckled. “But seriously, that’s a cool motivation.”
“Yeah. I just… I have spent too much of my life supporting other people’s wants and wishes.” She wasn’t going to be a trophy that her parents could put in a display case. She was going to become a hero for herself. To be something. To look in the mirror every morning and know that she was proud of herself—for being herself, for being something. So what if she got defeated by Tokoyami? She still had time to get better. She still had time to make her own path.