Chapter Text
There she was, standing in the field. The wind was blowing that school uniform ahead of her and whipping the free strands of blonde hair everywhere. She started to turn, mouth open, but another gust of wind forced Ochako to squint, so she couldn’t see the eyes. Those lips, though… they mouthed the words slowly. “I’m”... “still”...
She woke up.
Uraraka Ochako didn’t realize how sleepy she had been until Izuku pointed it out to her.
They were at the burger place, which had become a regular date spot since they reconnected several months ago. Though it was hard to get ahold of Izuku between his teaching and hero work, Ochako had a flexible enough schedule as an independent hero that they could squeeze a meal or sleepover in most weeks.
“...And then I literally fell asleep on top of my paperwork!” Ochako completed her story, laughing.
Izuku was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Like, actually fell asleep at your desk?”
She nodded. “It’s so boring.”
He twirled the straw of his milkshake, glancing away from her for a few seconds before taking a deep breath. “You know, Ochako, have you ever considered that you might have… some sort of sleep issue?”
She blinked. “Sleep issue?”
“When we first started dating earlier this year, and you told me stories of ‘literally’ falling asleep while doing things, I thought it was just hyperbole, something to emphasize how bored you were, but I’ve noticed… You’re always late to wake up, and if we spend a whole day together you almost always take a nap break, not to mention our movie dates–”
Ochako blushed. “The theater is dark! It’s impossible not to get sleepy.”
“But most people don’t fall asleep for almost every film.” He grimaced. “I’m not trying to say it’s bad exactly, you’re adorable when you sleep, it’s just that… considering the scale of it, maybe it’s worth looking into.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
He coughed. “Like, medically.”
Her burger was cold. She crossed her arms, suddenly self-conscious. Some part of her was aware that she had been tired recently, but his cautious tone, the implication that something was ‘wrong’ with her, was too much. It hadn’t been an issue until they’d started dating. “Lots of people nap.”
“Every single day?”
Ochako couldn’t help it, sometimes she’d come home from work and stretch out on the couch to catch her breath, then would look up and find an hour had passed on her clock in the blink of an eye.
“I have a physically demanding job, so it makes sense I’d get tired.”
“Me too, as do a lot of our friends, but we can consistently sit through a movie without dozing off.”
Izuku not only taught high schoolers how to be a pro-hero, but had picked back up his hero career. If there was anyone who ought to be sleeping any chance he got, it was him. And yet he was always the first to wake up after they slept together.
Still, Ochako scoffed. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. I’m a little tired recently, but that’s not a crime.”
He was always looking for the next thing to target to fully self-actualize and become the greatest in every department of life. Ramming himself against every problem seemed to work out for him, but Ochako preferred a steady and sustainable pace, and didn’t appreciate him trying to impose his plus-ultra tendencies on something as harmless as her sleeping habits.
There were still a few bites of burger left on Izuku’s plate, but he hadn’t touched them for the past several minutes. “I’m just worried about you.”
They finished up in awkward quiet. Fortunately, Izuku had a night shift, so they weren’t going home together that night.
She forced a smile and squeezed his hand before they parted, trying to show no hard feelings. It wasn’t that big of a deal, anyway, even if he was trying to make it one.
“Do you think I sleep too much?” Ochako asked Tsuyu.
They were riding the same train after giving a talk on quirk counseling to a school. Ochako still wanted to finish up the day at her office, but Tsuyu was going home.
“Do you think you sleep too much?” Tsuyu asked.
“No… or at least, it’s a normal level of just being, like just on the higher end of the bell curve. But Izuku like, confronted me yesterday acting like it’s some sorta medical issue. That seems like too much, don’t you think?”
“Hmm. Do you think he has a good sense of how much you sleep?”
She pursed her lips. “We’ve been spending more time together recently. Like, sometimes we’ll spend almost a whole day together.”
Ochako had spent so many years alone, deflecting offers to date with vague excuses about needing more time to work. A part of her had carried a candle for Izuku the whole time, and it was easy to turn towards that to reassure herself when she turned away from other opportunities. I can’t help pining, she’d told herself.
Then Izuku had turned around, reached out for her hands, and asked her on a date. The subject of her idle fantasies suddenly faced her seriously, and facing the dream of getting together with her longtime crush, she decided she would open herself up to anything, everything that came with dating. As scary as it was to be vulnerable, she thought she’d done a good job so far. It had been exciting to let him inside, to crack open and release strange, ugly parts that had been dormant all those years as she’d deprived herself of romance. Ochako threw herself into him. She had fun. She wanted it to stay fun.
She continued to Tsuyu, “So I guess he does see a lot more of me napping than most of my other friends do. But even so… you don’t think it’s that bad, do you?”
“Hmm. Is Izuku the type to suggest that it’s an issue just to cause trouble?”
“Well, no… he’s probably genuinely concerned. But really… it’s overreacting to a harmless little quirk of mine.”
“You did miss our brunch two weeks ago from oversleeping.”
Ochako’s face grew hot. “That was just one time.”
Tsuyu shrugged. “Still, if Izuku’s noticed more beyond that recently, it seems like it could be a lot.”
“Is it a crime to enjoy sleeping?” she muttered. “It doesn’t feel like an issue to me.”
For a minute, they were quiet. Ochako almost regretted bringing up her couple’s argument to Tsuyu, but she let the silence linger since Tsuyu was the type to like time to think.
Then Tsuyu asked, “Do you still dream about her?”
There was no need to specify who. “Yes.”
Though Tsuyu allowed her another stretch of silence to elaborate, Ochako couldn’t. She’d already told Tsuyu about those dreams—what else was there to be said? That the girl she failed to save was still in her head, maybe still pulsing through her veins, and there was hardly a day that went by where Ochako didn’t catch at least a glimpse of her in that dreamy space before waking.
So Tsuyu said, “Do you suppose that could be connected to the oversleeping?”
“What!” Ochako sputtered, hackles raising. “It’s not like I even usually get to talk to her in those dreams, it’s not like I’m trying to see her more, it just happens–”
“I mean that perhaps your guilt is mentally fatiguing you more than you thought.”
Her shoulders lowered. “Oh. I don’t know…”
“Since when have you been oversleeping?”
She perked up. “That’s the thing, it’s only been a handful of months. I’ve felt guilty about her for far longer than that.”
“But around the time you started dating Izuku?”
Ochako paused. Thought. “I… guess? Maybe?”
She nodded. “Maybe dating him has stirred up some new guilty feelings.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “What? Why would it?”
“I supposed you might feel strange about experiencing something she never got to. I mean, you guys were in some sort of love triangle, right?”
Ochako flushed. “Not really.”
Where did Tsuyu think the vertices of that triangle lay? Ochako didn’t dare ask, and it was useless besides. She was gone, and all that was left was Ochako and Izuku. She had stepped out of the game, sacrificing herself so Ochako could keep playing.
Tsuyu sighed. “Sorry, I’m not good at love stuff, and I’m no doctor, but I don’t think a psychological explanation is impossible. If it’s weighing on you, it might be subconsciously exhausting you. Is there anything you can think of that might help give you closure on her?”
As if anyone would be able to close out the memory of Toga Himiko.
“I’ve already tried. I visited her parents…”
It had been one of her most awkward experiences as a pro-hero, and as a person in general. It had been a few months after the reconstruction began, and she’d been desperately seeking somewhere to put those feelings that kept bubbling. Even though Himiko’s parents had forsaken her when she’d been labeled a villain, Ochako imagined deep down that they might want closure too—that they might want to know about their daughter’s last moments.
In the end, Ochako had barely gotten a few sentences out before Himiko’s parents slammed the door in her face. She was not proud of her behavior afterwards—rudely banging on the door and demanding they at least tell her where Himiko’s grave was. The police had determined her family had the right to choose what to do with her body, and by the time Ochako had recovered enough to think to ask, the police told her the family’s decision was private.
After making a shameful racket, a head had peeked over a windowsill, with bright yellow eyes that reminded her so much of Himiko that she froze with her fist in the air and heart pounding anew.
When the person stood up fully and opened the window, though, it was clearly someone else—a teenage boy, maybe in middle school, who craned his body out to whisper to Ochako, “Go away, you’re making Mom and Dad upset.”
“Are you Himiko’s brother?”
His eyes had darted all over, nervous. “My parents say she’s not part of our family anymore. Please stop talking about her, she’s really bad, and we’re not even supposed to mention her. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
Even thinking about it today, Ochako felt sick at that rejection. Unlike Ochako, these people had had the opportunity to reach out to and save Himiko before she’d even fallen in with the League of Villains, but failed to do so.
Fighting her family when she was already dead was useless though, so Ochako had simply said, “I’ll leave if you tell me where her grave is.”
“There’s no grave. After cremating, they didn’t keep any ashes. Go away.”
Ochako sighed, turning to Tsuyu. “...her family just wanted to ignore she ever existed.”
“Her whole family?”
Ochako hummed, thinking about the brother again. He had seemed nervous, and was young enough that he was beholden to whatever his parents thought. By now, he was probably an adult, possibly living on his own, and might be more open to discussing his late sister.
“I guess I could try her brother…” Ochako mused.
They reached Tsuyu’s stop, and she had to leave. “I hope whatever you do, it works out.”
When Ochako got to her office, she looked up the Toga family members online, and eventually found a social media profile for Toga Masahiko, who had studied at a university and recently started a new job as a salaryman.
His social media didn’t allow strangers to follow or message him, but she was pleased to discover that his work office was only a twenty-five minute walk away from hers. Less if you were pro-hero Uravity, who could hop from roof to roof without waiting for pedestrian traffic lights below.
Fortunately, it was reaching the end of the work day. Ochako got up from her desk, determined. It was time for her to take a break from this rented office and see whether she could meet up with this Toga family member.
At the door though, just before she put her hand on the knob, it turned and opened on its own. Behind the door, a young woman froze at the sight of Ochako being so close, big eyes somehow opening wider in surprise, despite the narrow, sharp glasses frames that tried to contain them. Though she was shorter than Ochako, her cropped brown hair led up to a pair of antlers that, technically, reached above Ochako’s height.
“Oh, Yukino!” Ochako exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I was about to head out—I thought you had the day off today.”
Yukino gave a tiny smile. “I did, and I was supposed to go on a family trip—but some stuff came up with my aunt, and my parents wanted us to have an outing next week instead. Since I ended up staying in town with nothing planned I thought, gosh, why not pop in for the evening and make sure the paperwork is set? Especially with the upcoming deadline. Aside from your quirk counseling visit, your schedule didn’t have anything else on it.”
When she stopped speaking, she looked at Ochako meaningfully, waiting for an explanation.
Having a business student intern was a whole new experience for Ochako. As an independent pro-hero, Ochako thought she didn’t have time to manage and develop the skills of interns. However, a few months ago Yukino had approached her directly and presented a clear plan as to how Ochako could take her on as a business intern and get a huge “next generation development” tax break.
Ochako hadn’t even known that tax break was a thing, proving that she could really use a business-agent, even a novice one. So under the pressure of the ambitious business student, who was apparently enough of an Uravity fan to approach her directly despite Ochako never putting out internship offers, she had taken Yukino on for a third-year semester work study.
They were already a few weeks into it, and Ochako could admit that having someone around to not only handle the paperwork but generally organize her work and schedule was a huge boon.
So Ochako was genuinely apologetic as she said, “I’m sorry, I have to go out and handle some personal business. I’ll come back here afterwards, if it doesn’t take too long.”
Yukino said, “I hope you do. I’m planning to consolidate your rescue numbers for the Commission’s quarterly stats today, and will need you to double-check before submissions.”
Prior to Yukino, Ochako didn’t even know there was a quarterly submission option to the Commission. She’d always saved all her work for the end of the year and was left totally swamped and scraping through all her post-mission reports to the organization the week or two right before the final submission deadline.
“You’re the best!” Ochako said. “You know where the files are—help yourself.”
The front desk of Masahiko’s workplace kindly called him for her, and he came down with only the slightest furrow to his brow.
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Uravity. I must admit I do not know what’s going on, but I’m happy to help in whatever way I can. Is there a particular issue…?”
“Nobody’s in trouble,” Ochako assured him, “but is there any way we could speak privately?”
“...Let me talk to my boss, then I’ll be right back.”
Ochako took a seat in the lobby and watched him walk away. He had a straight, tall back that perfectly fit his business suit. He was the picture of a standard young man, down to his neatly clipped light brown hair.
When he returned, Ochako’s gaze was drawn right to his eyes, the familiar bright gold that still made her heart stutter whenever they looked right at her.
“There’s no open meeting rooms, but my home isn’t far from here, if you are alright with discussing there. I’ve received approval from my boss to leave a little early.”
“Yes, so long as you’re comfortable with it!”
When Ochako had started dating Izuku, it had taken him weeks to feel comfortable having her in his apartment. He later told her that he felt embarrassed by his mess and had to clean and rearrange his furniture two times before he was ready to have her over. Even then, he was sputtering and blushing the whole time, rendered clumsy at the mere implication of a girl being alone in his space with him.
Masahiko did not appear anywhere near as nervous. “Of course. It’s not as though I have anything to hide.”
So the two of them set off down the city streets.
They spoke quietly, politely. All the most mundane topics—the weather, the traffic, then the weather again. Ochako barely paid attention, though, her head swelling with thoughts of what exactly she’d say, how he might react, and what sort of connection they could build.
The difficult part with discussing Himiko was that so few people truly knew her. Ochako spoke with Izuku about everything that had happened, and he comforted her, but in the end that’s all he wanted to do—comfort her. He didn’t want to go back and forth reminiscing about what Himiko was like, or discussing what may have been going through her head when she’d given up her life for Ochako. Tsuyu took a similar stance, willing to listen to Ochako when she needed to vent or share with someone all the memories that still kept her up at night, but she didn’t actually respond with anything of her own.
How could any of them? They hadn’t seen her cry like she had.
Again, her eyes slid to Masahiko. Surely, her own brother had seen her cry at some point. He probably had all sorts of mundane and interesting stories about her from childhood. Having met his parents, Ochako knew that he couldn’t talk to his family about those memories, or how he might miss his sister. Maybe he and Ochako could save each other, joining Himiko’s childhood and her brief adulthood into a picture they could mourn together.
“We’re here,” Masahiko said.
His apartment was small, but there was a low table and some cushions he directed her to as he prepared some tea. Around her, she saw various frames with pictures of friends from middle school up through college, Masahiko with his parents, and a diploma.
When he entered with two mugs, he said, “I apologize for not having snacks, I wasn’t expecting a guest.”
“Oh, no I should be the one sorry to impose on you like this! I appreciate you being willing to speak with me.”
They were soon settled. The way he smiled at her, so at peace, gave her courage. This man was reasonable, and she could bring up the difficult topic.
“So?” He said.
“I’ll admit this is a somewhat personal issue. I wanted to discuss someone from your past, someone important. She may have passed on, but I got to know her towards the end of her life, and I… I wanted to share that with you. Maybe for, um, closure, I guess, if that’s alright with you.”
He tilted his head, as though he couldn’t guess from just that. Maybe it was the way she faltered towards the end. Even she didn’t feel confident, but now she was stumbling towards some sort of confession and just wanted to get to the end of it.
“Your sister,” she clarified, “we fought but in the end—”
“I don’t have a sister.”
It wasn’t a shout. The words were shockingly casual, his face placid as ever, but he interrupted her with a certain sense of finality. As though that was everything.
Ochako held her cup of tea tight. “I know your parents didn’t want to associate with her because she became a villain, but I got to know her, and truthfully I think you should know—”
“I don’t have a sister,” he repeated more firmly.
“—she saved my life. I would have died if she hadn’t given up her life for mine.”
“She wouldn’t have done that.”
His voice was suddenly harsh, the tranquility completely lost. In its place was a man whose hands shook as he tried to take a casual sip of tea.
Ochako forged on. “She was full of love.”
“She was a monster. You must have misunderstood her actions. I can’t imagine why a… b-blood pervert like that would have helped you.”
“We spoke sincerely, and I got to understand at least a part of why she was the way she was. There were reasons she turned to villainy, pain in her heart that just needed someone to listen to her. I promised to give her blood for the rest of her life, and she—”
There was a shattering sound, and Masahiko’s mug was broken on the floor.
He wrapped his hands around his head, as though protecting himself from an assault. “Stop talking about her!”
Ochako was stunned by his abrupt personality change. “But—”
“She was bad. She was horrible. Thinking about her just makes things worse and worse and worse and… and…”
Her heart broke.
Here she thought she had found a potential ally, someone who could connect with her love of Himiko, and what she found was just another person who not only failed Himiko, but wanted to fail Himiko. Another fool who refused to look beyond the surface of her villainy.
He was just a civilian. She had no right to disturb him, even if he sickened her.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m sorry, I thought you might have wanted to discuss her too, but I see I was wrong.”
Ochako bent down, deciding the least she could do after barging into this guy’s house and leaving him shaking was cleaning up the mug he’d broken in his panic.
“Ow,” she muttered, her haste making her accidentally slice a bit of her finger.
Blood welled up from the side of her pointer finger, creating a charming little bead before it built into a full droplet that fell upon the carpet.
“Get out!” Masahiko shouted.
Her head jerked up. The distress had turned to anger, his face a furious red. He didn’t meet her eyes, staring instead down at the scene she’d caused.
She scrambled up, and he turned around suddenly, waving a hand urgently towards the door. “Out! Get out!”
Ochako apologized again as she fled, but he never turned to look at her.
Ochako returned to her office with a headache building. The stress of the meeting must have gotten to her. When she opened the door, Yukino was crouched by Ochako’s main office chair.
Yukino got up abruptly, “Sorry, I dropped some papers.”
She was holding an intimidating stack of papers. “You audited the rescue reports?”
Yukino nodded, pushing her slightly askew glasses back up so they were even and controlled. “Yes. You’re back earlier than I expected, which is perfect for this. You can start reviewing these while I organize the next set.”
Ochako sighed. “I trust you, Yukino, I’ll just sign off…”
She shook her head. “Legally, you will be liable if I make a mistake and get you charged with fraud. I have streamlined the process, but you should take responsibility for the results.”
Sometimes, Ochako wondered who was really the boss between the two of them. All Ochako wanted to do was lie down and sleep off the tension in every muscle, especially her head. One look at Yukino’s serious expression, however, made her meekly accept the stack of papers and sit at her desk.
Off in a corner, there was a desk and chair which Ochako had purchased for Yukino’s internship so she’d have a space to work. Though Ochako only had one office room rented, it was sufficient for the two of them. Unfortunately, it also meant Yukino would see if Ochako ignored the stack to lay down on her desk for a nap.
With another sigh, Ochako settled in with her work.
Around the time Ochako’s head felt like someone was taking a sledgehammer to it, Ochako said, “Yukino, I’m dismissing you early.”
Yukino, who had been laser-focused on her work as Ochako had flipped half-heartedly through impeccably organized and labeled reports that tracked just how many people Ochako had rescued and more, raised her eyebrows. “Early? I could still do some more…”
“Moderation is important. Besides, it’s getting late, and you’re still a student. Aren’t there laws about minors and working too late?”
Her lower lip jutted out. “I’m technically eighteen now. And I wouldn’t mind staying longer…”
“Yukino,” Ochako said sternly, “You’ve done some amazing work. Because your work is amazing, you’ve saved both of us lots of time. That means there is no need for you to stay out late. For my sake, I’d feel more comfortable knowing that you’re going home while the streets are still busy and relatively safe.”
“You could always walk me home,” Yukino muttered, looking to the side.
Ochako blinked. “Do… you want me to walk you home?”
“What!” Yukino exclaimed, blinking fast. “Um, just a joke. Of course. Gosh, having a pro-hero walk me all the way home…? No, no, no, that’s way too much, what would I tell my parents? They might invite you in for snacks, and then my room…”
Yukino’s face suddenly went red.
“No way, no way, you can’t go in there…!”
This was not the first time Yukino had gone on one of her rambles. It reminded Ochako of Izuku, so she didn’t mind it, but she had to interrupt to confirm. “So you’ll go home now?”
She took a deep breath, then let it out. “Yes, ma’am.”
The moment Yukino left, Ochako put the papers on her desk to the side and stretched out. She would go home soon, too, but she’d wait a little to make sure Yukino was well on her way out so she didn’t see just how quickly Ochako gave up on her final reviews.
Ochako crossed her arms on the desk and let her head fall. It felt like it was going to burst with how painful it was, and all that squinting at reports hadn’t helped at all. She just needed a little bit of time with her eyes closed, purely resting, and she’d be fully energized to go home and take a painkiller or something…
Ochako sat beneath a tree. There was a storm in the distance, so it was best she stay beneath the branches. She breathed in. Breathed out.
The storm moved, slowly approaching. So far, none of the rain had hit, but there was an electric feeling in the air, promising it would come. Wind shifted the tall grass around her tree, creating wave-like patterns. An ocean waiting to swallow her whole.
Somehow though, Ochako didn’t feel worried. She just kept breathing slowly, relaxing against the tree trunk. She was safe. Protected.
Suddenly, there was something coming up from between the blades of grass. Someone. Blonde hair clung to her face, obscuring her expression, but the low set of her shoulders showed her weariness. She stumbled forward, out of the grass, towards the tree.
Ochako got up and opened her arms automatically, catching the girl who was soaked to the bone. Not just water from the distant storm, but blood. Blood all over her back, dripping down… down…
Ochako woke up in her bed, darkness all around her. Her headache had eased, but the rest of her body was aching as though she’d gone on a bigger mission than teaching some kids what positive quirk counseling looks like and paperwork. Her back stung weirdly; scraping it while rearranging her position seemed to hurt.
She glanced at her clock. There it was, as expected. This was her room. Three in the morning? The pain must have woken her up.
When had she gone home, again? Ugh, she was too tired to think about it.
Ochako still forced herself to get up and go to her bathroom. She had painkillers in there.
The mirror revealed she looked awful. Her hair was sticking up everywhere, and when she placed a palm to try and neaten it a bit, she found it was a bit damp. She forgot to dry it after her bath? She must have been really exhausted.
Where were her painkillers? She always kept them behind her mirror. Sometimes she’d find them elsewhere, though, probably when Izuku borrowed them. She had to talk to him about that, tell him to stop putting them…
Ah, there, in the bathroom sink drawer. And… was that her Recovery Girl gummies pack too? She couldn’t imagine when Izuku would have borrowed them, since it was the sort of powerful healing that Ochako only used in an emergency, but it was rude to take something like that without asking. Recovery Girl was so busy that those gummies were hard for someone outside of UA to get their hands on.
Which is why she wasn’t going to use them for this random soreness affecting her body. She popped open her regular, over-the-counter painkillers which for some reason Izuku thought went in the sink drawer. That was annoying—she could have been back in bed by now if Izuku hadn’t inadvertently hidden them from her. She popped just one pill, being cautious since she couldn’t remember whether she’d taken some earlier when she’d gotten home.
Then she stumbled back to her bedroom, landed on her sheets, and fell right back asleep.
Ochako was not a morning person at the best of times, but today was worse than usual. Since she could set her own hours, she usually set her work to start around noon, but when she finally gained the strength to open her eyes, she found that it was 12:32 PM.
She jolted up. Yukino was scheduled to work today. Ochako shouldn’t be late!
Scrambling, she stumbled out of bed. At least she felt mostly better—no longer actively hurting, just a bit sore and tired. Ochako hurried, looking for her hero suit. She found a lot of the external pieces in the bathroom, but the primary fabric component was hung up in her bedroom closet.
As she pulled it out, she realized there wasn’t a spare behind it and frowned. Though her suit was sturdy, there were times it broke, and so she always had a spare in case it needed repairs or time to be replaced. In other words, she was holding the spare in her hands, and what she’d worn last night was nowhere to be seen.
She shook her head and opted to just wear her spare. She must have been super out of it last night if she hadn’t even put her suit up properly. It was probably buried in some laundry pile or another weird place she didn’t have time to dig into right now.
When she finally reached her office around one, she rushed through the door. “Sorry I’m late, Yukino, my alarm… didn’t…”
A police officer with a cat head turned to her. “Miss Uravity.”
She blinked several times, and wondered if she was still half asleep. Her gaze darted around the room, and found Yukino standing politely beside the officer. No handcuffs on her or anything. Not that Ochako could imagine Yukino ever committing a crime—but she also couldn’t imagine why the police would suddenly come visit her office like this.
“My name is Officer Sansa. I was coming by to let you know about a crime that was committed very close to here last night.”
“Oh!” Ochako calmed down.
This was business, something she was comfortable with. Police sometimes asked pro-heroes to help with investigations. Though it was embarrassing for an officer to see her late to her usual work hours, the investigation was the important part.
Sansa already had photographs spread on Ochako’s desk. “Earlier today, someone reported these large bloodstains in an alley behind this building. We’re still working on analyses, but it seems likely there was some sort of attack.”
Ochako squinted at the alley. It was familiar—she had certainly passed by it on her way home before. “Any witnesses?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Nobody reported an attack, which is concerning for many reasons. There’s no body in the alley, which means the victim either survived and walked away, or…”
“Or the perp hid the body,” Ochako completed the macabre thought.
He nodded. “Since no one reported an attack to the police, the second theory is unfortunately likely. Not guaranteed, of course, as there are many potential circumstances… but we are keeping an eye out for recent and incoming missing persons reports. There’s enough blood that the injury could have potentially been fatal, especially if it’s only a portion beyond what ended up on the victim and perpetrator’s clothing, but it’s hard to be certain.”
“Well what is certain?” Ochako asked.
“Based on some initial bloodstain analysis, we think the crime occurred between midnight and one AM. Did you happen to be in the area around that time?”
Her heart started to race. “I… I can’t quite remember.”
He frowned.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I had a huge headache last night. I meant to leave on the earlier side, but I…” She coughed, and avoided looking at Yukino. “I ended up taking a nap, then went home after waking up, but didn’t really pay attention to the time.”
Officer Sansa’s feline face was mostly stoic, but he tilted his head in what felt like a judgemental way. “You don’t even have an estimate?”
Ochako wracked her brain. She was pretty forgetful sometimes, but it usually didn’t matter as much as this. “I… I’m really not sure, officer, but there’s cameras just outside this building. I can talk to the front desk about recordings, then reference those to get an accurate time. I don’t want to give you a half-baked guess.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Please let us know as soon as you have the information. And just to check, did you hear or notice anything unusual when you went home?”
If she couldn’t remember, that must have meant it was so uneventful that she forgot. “No.”
“Alright. Thank you for your cooperation, Uravity. We will keep investigating, but I would caution you and your intern to keep an eye out when walking home at night, just in case.”
Maybe she should walk Yukino home. “Of course!”
He left, and she slumped down on her seat.
What could have happened last night?