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Ochako remembers the first victim. Staring at a TV in her old high school homeroom, the past two years seem to play out on the broken screen. They had barely had time to celebrate their graduation–six months tops–before the virus hit Japan and ravaged the pro-hero population. The new grad sidekicks, Ochako included, were pushed to the frontlines and made to be the new face of public safety in Japan.
Safe had always been relative and the frontlines were nothing new. As students, practically babies, UA had Ochako and her classmates fighting the wars of their mentors. They had fought some of the most dangerous villains in global history.
But it hadn’t been a supervillain that took down most of the world’s pro-heroes. It hadn’t even been a quirk.
“Oi, Cheeks!”
Ochako’s attention shifts reluctantly from the empty TV. She wants to keep rewinding the playback of her memory. She wants to submerge herself in thoughts of her friends and their laughter in the common room and their words of encouragement in the classroom and the hopeful determination everyone had as they trained.
Those days were good. The last good days, probably.
Katsuki glares at Ochako from across the classroom. It looks like he’s in the middle of digging through a locker. “Come make yourself useful and see if you can find anything worth taking.”
Ochako gives the classroom and her teacher’s old desk a once over before scrunching her nose. Desks and chairs are turned over and strewn around. Some of the glass in the windows are shattered. Some ceiling tiles are mission. But even with all the damage in the room, there is no stuff lying around–no pencils, no textbooks, nothing. As if someone, probably multiple someones, had already been through and picked the place over. “You really think no one’s been through here already?”
“Lighten up, sweet cheeks, I’m sure we can find something useful. Since when are you such a Debbie-downer?” When Katsuki turns back to the locker he’s digging through, Ochako sticks her tongue out at him. They were an unlikely pair, she would admit. But they were a good team. And they had kept each other alive this far.
Katsuki had taken over Best Jeanist’s agency early on in the pandemic after Jeanist caught the virus. He had been the first pro-hero victim of the virus. No recovery quirk was working and his fever kept getting worse. And it just got worse and worse until Best Jeanist the man had burned away and all that was left was his quirked up corpse. The fever-eaten, zombified Jeanist leveled the hospital he was at. It took seven pro-heroes to bring him down and then three of them caught the virus, presumably from the fight with Zombie Jeanist. The virus spread like wildfire–both figuratively, in its speed and viciousness, and literally, in the way that burns up its victims from the inside with an incurable fever until they’re just a husk.
Ochako had always looked up to Katsuki while at UA. She always felt his determination and drive was unmatched by anyone except her and maybe Deku. But he had to step up early. And he wasn’t just taking over the agency, he was taking the spot of the #3 hero. If Japan wasn’t being actively overtaken by zombies with quirks, Katsuki would have filled that role with ease. But Ochako knows how much he feels like a failure for not being successful despite all that, so she doesn’t bring it up.
“I’m gonna go downstairs and check out more of the first floor. Maybe there’s stuff in the development studio we can hang on to.” She doesn’t want to be here in their old homeroom anymore. It’s suffocating.
“Are you sure you wanna split up?” Katsuki scrunches his brows up suspiciously, but Ochako just nods vigorously. “All right, then. Suit yourself.”
“If there were any infected near here they would have already attacked-” Ochako attempts to explain herself, but Katsuki is already waving her away.
She finds the development studio easier than she was expecting. Even with the “Development Studio” sign splintered on the ground, Ochako recognized the overbearing double doors. She leaned on the handle and pulled, the door sticking to its frame.
“Is it locked?” Ochako wondered out loud, almost at the doors as if she might receive a response or perhaps a key.
But she doesn’t actually expect a response. So when the handle of the door jiggles against her hand and the bottom of the metal door scrapes against the floor, Ochako jumps back. There are a couple heavy pieces of wood and metal in the hall around her–most likely remnants of the last support class’ work–so Ochako touches what she can and lets them float around her, fingers pressed together in anticipation. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s dropped something heavy on an infected, and, if she had any say in this, it wouldn’t be her last.
The door pushes out towards Ochako and, despite the nature of her quirk, she can feel the weight of it as it moves out towards her, heavy against the ground. But, much to her surprise, there is no attack waiting on the other side.
There was, however, a familiar face.
“Ururaka?”
A golden eye stares into Ochako through the crosshair of a very large gun. And when she lowers the gun, a bright smile meets Ochako where she’s at. It’s Hatsume, Ochako remembers, relief washing over her. From the UA support class back in high school.
She looks different, but still unmistakably Hatsume. Her long pink hair has been chopped off into a pixie cut, though she’s still using goggles to push the sweaty strands off her face. Her jumpsuit still hangs tied below her waist and Ochako tries desperately to ignore how the fabric pulls at Hatsume’s curves and is torn along various spots on her abdomen and chest. Too much of Ochako’s focus is on Hatsume–more specifically, her focus is entirely on not focusing on Hatsume–and she forgets about the tons of raw material hovering only feet above her head. The wood and metal crashes to the ground around her and she jumps, letting out a little yelp at her own lapse. Hatsume flinches as well before settling into a hearty laugh. The sound calms Ochako in a way that she hasn’t felt in months. Katsuki was great, but he’s not exactly a soothing presence.
But Hatsume’s voice and smile and fucking existence soothes Ochako’s aching nerves.
“You’re here,” Ochako says and she’s not sure if it’s a question or not. Maybe both.
“Yeah,” Hatsume says, stepping back into the workroom to set the weapon down, “it was the first place I thought to come to when everything started going to shit.”
“So you’ve been here for a while?”
Hatsume lowers her shoulders, rolling them forward like she’s about to fold in onto herself. It’s not a look that Ochako ever remembers seeing Hatsume wear before. Ochako supposes even Hatsume Mei is susceptible to the effects of a years long zombie pandemic.
“Oh, uh, yeah…” Hatsume rubs the back of her neck with a gloved hand. “When I was first here, actually, there were still students.”
Oh.
Ochako doesn’t have to ask what happened. She had heard the news a while ago. A couple of the students had gotten infected by the virus. And when those students didn’t make it, they shut down the school indefinitely. It just wasn’t safe to have that many people with powerful quirks all in one place like that.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Ochako says softly, the pain echoed in her voice.
“I just stayed here.” Hatsume gestures to the studio. There is a cot in the corner that Ochako hadn’t noticed before and multiple other little machines, most likely some of Hatsume’s inventions. “It seemed like the best place for me to, you know, survive.”
“It must have been terrible to not be able to share your inventions with people. You were always so generous with them.” Ochako says that last part mostly just to be nice, but the more she sits on it, the more true she realizes it is.
Hatsume lights up. In a way that makes Ochako completely forget that there is a zombie pandemic devastating Japan. In a way that makes her feel like she is in high school again, seeing Hatsume for the first time. Brilliant white smile, the curve of toned muscle in her arms and upper back, the bounce of her chest each time she talks excitedly about something or runs across the shop to grab a tool.
Hatsume leans forward, grabbing Ochako’s hands in hers. For a moment Ochako thinks Hatsume is going to kiss her and, honestly, Ochako would probably let it happen. An unfamiliar warmth settles between Ochako’s legs at Hatsume’s touch. She is unsure if it’s specifically Hatsume’s touch making her feel this way, or if Ochako just hasn’t had much in the way of physical contact for the past couple years. Ochako settles on the latter. Less to unpack there.
“Ochako- Wait, Ururaka- Can I call you Ochako?” Ochako nods but Hatsume is already talking again. “I have been working on weapons and survival gear and defenses against various quirks. I think they could really help, possibly even save lives but I don’t know the best way to get them out there and it’s just so-” Ochako can’t help but smile. It reminds her of Izuku’s rambling, his passion. They always shared that and Ochako always envied it from the outside looking in. It’s just another way she was a little more like Katsuki.
“What?” Hatsume looks warily at Ochako. “Sorry, I don’t get a lot of guests here for obvious reasons.”
Ochako remembers Katsuki upstairs searching for resources. “My friend is somewhere around here scavenging for stuff, but we couldn’t really find much. It seems like maybe there were people here at some point.” It comes off a little more accusatory than she means it to. But it’s weird right? A building that must have been chock full of weapons and useful gear at some point, now empty save for one person. Fortunately, Hatsume seems unmoved by Ochako’s tone.
“There was a group that passed by a little while ago… Some were pretty familiar, other students like you, I think.” Hatsume places a finger to her chin and spaces out for a moment, memories playing out on the ground in front of her. “I tried to work up some gear and weapons for them but I never got the chance to give it to anyone.”
My classmates , Ochako thinks. She hadn’t seen anyone else from UA in so long. If they had been here, they might not be too far away. Ochako’s chest swells with hope. She ignores the nagging corners of her brain that whisper about the more lethal fates that her classmates could possibly have met.
“How long ago wa-” The beginning of Ochako’s interrogation is cut short by the clang of someone knocking against the large double doors. Both of them flinch, years of anticipation and watching friends slowly became a shell of themselves and knowing that there was a very real possibility that you could be next. All of that. Bottled into these kinds of moments where uncertain death waited on the other side of the door.
“It’s probably Katsuki,” Ochako says, trying to convince herself more than anything.
“Like, Bakugou Katsuki? Explosion Murder God Dynamight?”
Ochako chuckles freely at his full hero name. If the great Murder God had heard her, then he would have blasted her into tomorrow. “Yeah, remember him?”
Another aggressive knock resounds through the door. Hatsume leans over to whisper into Ochako’s ear, but the feeling of Hatsume’s warm breath on her neck fills Ochako’s stomach with various fluttering insects. “Should we answer it?”
Ochako leans back to answer but loses her words when she realizes how close her mouth is to Hatsume’s face. If Ochako stuck her tongue out enough, she could probably lick Hatsume. Which is something that Ochako was becoming increasingly hopeful– for whatever reason –that Hatsume would be okay with.
“Do you have things ready that we can use?”
“Things? Oh, my babies?!” Hatsume lights up. “Honey, you know I do.” She flashes an assured smirk towards Ochako and Ochako feels the butterflies in her stomach multiply at an alarming speed.
Hatsume takes one more calculated look at the double doors before taking Ochako by the wrist and pulling her toward…her cot?!
We don’t have time for this! There are potentially multiple infected on the other side of the door , Ochako thinks as she lets Hatsume lead her. But then she looks down at the calloused hand wrapped around her arm and reconsiders. Well…. I mean, if it’s going to be my last minutes... It might not be such a bad idea….
But those next moments of bliss don’t arrive. There are no soft lips against her neck or strong hands creeping up her shirt. There are no clothes on the floor or curious fingers between legs. No matter how much Ochako wants to live in this imaginary reality, she is unfortunately standing in front of a pile of machinery instead.
Well, not really a pile. It’s a well-organized table. But it is covered in a bunch of things that Ochako doesn’t recognize.
“Take your pick,” Hatsume says proudly.
Ochako analyzes the pile, but is frozen in her decision. Her eyes can’t settle on one item and her mind is still racing with thoughts of Hatsume’s mouth on the inside of her thigh.“I’m sorry, Hatsume. I, uh, am not sure.” She studies Hatsume’s face for signs of disappointment, but it never comes. “I don’t really know much about support items.”
“Your quirk is gravity-related, correct?”
Ochako nods and puts her fingers together with a self-conscious smile. “Yeah, I make things float.”
Hatsume studies her earnestly and Ochako can feel a hot blush rise to her cheeks under Hatsume’s gaze. “Well, I mean it’s more than that.”
She sifts through the various tools and drags–quite literally drags –a chain from the table. It hits the floor with a deafening rattle. Hatsume winces at the strain on her arms and Ochako reaches out to help pick it back up. It’s heavy, really really heavy. Honestly, Ochako isn’t sure how Hatsume even got it off the table.
“Your quirk, hon. Use your quirk on it.”
“Oh, fuck!” Ochako activates her quirk in her hands and feels the weight of the chain dissipate.
Hatsume laughs as she straightens up, the muscles relaxing along her back and arms. “I don’t think I ever recall hearing a word like that come out of that pretty mouth of yours while we were at UA.”
Ochako rubs the back of her neck and tries not to overthink Hatsume calling her mouth ‘pretty’ . “I guess I picked up a few things since I’ve been working with Katsuki.”
“The chain is hundreds of pounds. I mean I would have made it heavier but I gotta be able to haul it around the shop. Even so, it should still be heavy enough to do some damage in a fight.”
“So you’re basically giving me ammunition?”
“Essentially. But-” Hatsume holds a scolding finger up “-you only have the two. You’ll have to get to them each time, obviously, to activate them.”
If it was Katsuki saying this, Ochako would have snapped at him that, yes, she knows how her quirk works. But hearing Hatsume say it isn’t condescending at all. It’s sweet. She made this with Uravity’s quirk in mind.
“You’re technically one of the strongest heroes, obviously, when it comes to being able to lift things. You could literally lift anything I made. But this time I was limited by what I could lift and move around the shop-'' Ochako can tell that Hatsume is about spiral head first into some overcritical ramble, so she reaches out and touches the top of Hatsume’s hand “-next time it will heavier and better made.” Hatsume’s hand steadies under Ochako’s and they sit there for a while like that in the moment. And Ochako swears that she feels Hatsume’s hesitancy too.
The pounding on the metal doors quickly dissolves whatever hesitancy there is however. Ochako instinctively brings her hands together, ready to try out her new toy on their unwelcome guests. Hatsume grabs a wrench, though Ochako wishes Hatsume would have grabbed that huge gun that she greeted her with earlier.
“Ready?” Hatsume asks, one hand on the door handle, the other raising the wrench almost comically.
Ochako nods once and Hatsume swings the door open away from them just as an explosion tears down the hall outside the design studio. Hatsume covers her face and coughs as a gust of smoke engulfs her. Ochako squints outside the doorway, attempting to identify any zombies that might burst through. “Shit, I can’t see anything,” Ochako says, but maintains her hold on the chains hanging above them.
“Do you think Dynamight-” Hatsume pauses to cough “-you know?”
“No,” Ochako says quickly, voice walking a tight line of desperation. “There’s no way. He would never let an infected touch him. Not in a million years.”
And, like an answered prayer, Katsuki comes barrelling through the smoke, chasing his explosions.
“Katsuki!” Ochako calls out, unsure if he’s seen them yet. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s “mistaken” her for an infected and sent her flying.
“Cheeks!” Ochako takes in a deep, relieved breath at the call and response.
Ochako is glad he’s on her side. His quirk on the virus would be a pain to fight. She had come a long way since the first sports festival, even winning some of her and Katsuki’s sparring matches since then. But she wasn’t naive. An uninhibited explosion quirk could kill her easily. Best to keep Blasty healthy and virus free.
“So I shouldn’t hit him with a wrench?” Hatsume lowers the wrench slowly.
“No, please don’t. We need him,” Ochako says, “but we might still need your wrench too.”
“I gotta better stuff than this!” Hatsume abandons her station at the door to dig around some shelves. “I always wanted Dynamight to use my babies. I bet if I can take out a few of these zombies now, he will.”
When she returns back to Ochako’s sightline, Hatsume is holding what looks like a more streamlined version of Katsuki’s old gauntlets–which had since been lost over the years–and a harness that crosses over the chest, reminiscent of his hero costume in school. The harness is lined with little pucks and Hatsume plucks one off. They wait for the smoke to clear and on the other side is Katsuki, fist against a zombie’s face. The person–well, the used to be person–hits the ground from the impact. Ochako winces at the sound of skull against concrete, but the infected man doesn't get back up. Another zombie, this one with a giant crab claw for a hand, brings his arm down on Katsuki’s shoulder.
“Fuck,” he yelps and turns to Ochako. “A little help here would be great.”
“Watch this,” Hatsume says, a mischievous glint in her golden eyes. Hatsume tosses the puck she’s holding at the feet of the crab-quirk zombie.
“Jump!” Ochako yells.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Katsuki yells back as he jumps, explosions propelling him into the air. Hatsume’s little puck ticks quickly before bursting at the zombie’s feet, shattering the windows across from the door and dismembering the zombie in a way that Ochako knows it wont get back up. She’s seen many zombies taken down very similarly with Katsuki’s own blasts, but even his explosions hadn’t made a crack in the quirk-resistant glass that UA had installed years ago.
“There’s more,” Katsuki says when he lands and then gives an approving nod towards Hatsume. “Nice tech.”
Hatsume beams and Ochako doesn’t know whether or not to roll her eyes or giggle. Sure, Katsuki doesn’t give out praise to just anyone, but under Dynamight he’s still just Katsuki . Something people tend to forget.
Also. There’s more. Since when are there more? Since when do zombies travel in packs?!
She doesn’t get a chance to say it out loud because the footsteps of three more zombies get closer. Katsuki looks around the corner and his face drops. “Oi, cheeks, you might not want to look at these.”
Ochako narrows her eyes and snaps, “I can handle gory stuff, Blasty.” But it doesn’t take long to realize what he means.
It’s Tsuyu. But she doesn’t look as much like Tsuyu anymore, slimy greenish-brown skin and little warts covering her exposed skin. Tsu’s tongue dangles out of her mouth in a way that makes Ochako think it doesn’t fit all the way in her mouth anymore and when she looks closer, Ochako’s pretty sure Tsuyu’s tongue is covered in little spiky teeth. More weird frog monster than girl at this point.
Ochako feels like she is about to vomit, but Zombie Tsuyu lurches forward at her. Still puppeted by adrenaline, Ochako reacts, releasing her quirk onto her attacker. The two chains fall heavy onto Tsuyu’s small frame and she crashes to the ground like a split piece of wood. Ochako screams and reaches out for her friend, but Katsuki sticks his arm out to hold her back.
“Take her,” Katsuki says to Hatsume, serious and solemn.
Ochako yells curses at Katsuki, but lets Hatsume drag her away. She remembers the dismembered crab-arm man and the group of zombies makes a bit more sense. Crustacean , the crab hero and Froppy’s sidekick. The other zombies must have also been part of Tsuyu’s agency. Great heroes reduced to nothing.
By the time Hatsume’s carried Ochako out of the shop and outside the school, away from the danger, she’s curled up against Hatsume’s chest. She can’t tell if she lightened herself at some point during the escape or if Hatsume’s strong enough to carry her with this much ease. When they stop moving, Ochako dares to look up from where her head rests on Hatsume's chest. By the way Ochako’s head is heavy on her neck to lift and the way Hatsume’s arm muscle tightens against her upper back as she moves, Ochako surmises that she hadn’t activated her quirk.
“Tsu,” Ochako says weakly. She tries so hard to twist her voice into a question, but she knows there’s nothing to ask. So she says Tsuyu’s name as a goodbye instead, grief blooming in her chest.
Hatsume’s jaw clenches and she tightens her embrace on Ochako. She’s got some blood splattered against her shoulder and cheek. It could very well be Tsuyu’s blood, Ochako thinks and swallows what might be vomit. Hot tears sting the corners of her eyes, but she doesn’t try to swallow the sob this time. She lets it flow freely out of her in choking gasps, punctuated occasionally by a scream that tears through her core.
With each cry, Hatsume squeezes Ochako as if trying to hold her together. It feels good, honestly. Because it does feel like she is about to unravel. And something about the way Hatsume keeps her so close makes Ochako sure that she will remain in one piece as long as Hatsume is holding her. Hatsume lowers Ochako slowly to the ground until she is sitting, knees tucked against her chest, and Hatsume is kneeling next to her. Hatsume never takes her hands off of her though, one hand resting on Ochako’s knee and the other behind her neck. Ochako feels Hatsume’s fingers against the back of her neck as if Hatsume’s quirk is actually electric.
Ochako knows what she looks like. Blotchy red skin and wet cheeks. But Hatsume kisses her forehead.
And it’s so fucking tender.
Unlike her calloused hands, Hatsume’s lips are soft against her skin. Again, feeling electric at the contact. She moves her hand from the back of Ochako’s neck and lifts Ochako’s chin with her index finger. “Was that okay?”
Ochako’s answer catches in her throat so she just nods. It is okay. Definitely okay. More than okay maybe.
In fact, Ochako realizes it’s possibly the only okay thing that has happened in months so she brings her own hand around the back of Hatsume’s neck and pulls her in, soft lips meeting her own hungry ones.
“It’s okay, ‘chako,” Hatsume says, rushed and repeating the words between kisses, “everything is okay, everything is okay.”
Ochako lowers her knees from her chest and leans back on her hands under Hatsume’s weight. Hatsume leans in, one knee settling in between Ochako’s legs and a hand on the ground on either side of Ochako’s hips. Their kissing becomes hungrier as the adrenaline of fighting shifts into whatever form of adrenaline fuels…fuels…fuels this .
“Oi, cheeks!”
Hatsume falls back onto her heels and Ochako’s body follows her forward as if Hatsume has taken all the air with her. But Hatsume’s attention is on the irritated looking blonde man approaching them at an alarming rate. An aggressive blush rises to Ochako’s face and spreads like a rash along her ears and down her neck.
“I, uh- It’s not-” Ochako holds her hands up defensively.
“I thought I had to be worried about you back there-” Ochako releases an endeared breath and files his concern in the back of her brain to tease him about next time he gets on her nerves. “Looks like I had nothing to worry about though. You seem to be-” Katsuki pauses to do a once over of Hatsume “-taken care of.”
Hatsume smirks briefly, smugly, at Katsuki and then looks back down at Ochako. Her expression changes back to the soft, safe smile that had wrapped up a scared and sobbing Ochako minutes ago. Hatsume rocks forward on the balls of her feet and kisses Ochako’s forehead again before standing, protective and close. Katsuki meets up with them and Ochako looks up at her friends. Their clothes are torn and bloody and their chests rise and fall with adrenaline drunk breaths.
Safe is relative. Safe will always be relative. But with Katsuki and Hatsume, Ochako thinks, safe at least feels a little more sure.