Chương 2025: 44
Interning with Gunhead was everything she hoped it would be. Ochako's whole body was sore, but she'd managed to throw Shinso just as often as he'd thrown her and even managed to hold her own against some of the other interns as well. The only downside was the One for All had been much more active now that she was in a combat situation for some reason, but she was getting pretty good at controlling it, so it wasn't a problem. Overall, she was satisfied, exhausted and ready to go to sleep.
After taking a shower, she dried her hair and went to the shared kitchen to get herself a cup of tea. She was so tired that she didn't even register Shinso sitting at the table until he spoke up, "Alright, you've been off all day. What's up?"
"Huh?" Ochako looked up and smiled. "Oh...I'm just tired, I guess."
Shinso raised an eyebrow, "I am the king of insomnia, I know that's bullshit."
Ochako sighed, "I...I guess I'm just feeling insecure? I mean, I just...are you gonna judge me if I say something kinda bad?"
"Only if it makes you a villain." Shinso deadpanned. "In which case, I will not hesitate to hand you over to the police, or worse, to Izuku and Mei."
Ochako laughed tiredly and slumped down in the chair beside him, "it doesn't make me a villain...just a bad person, i'm pretty sure."
"Alright?" Shinso looked at her oddly. "I shouldn't be recording this for posterity, right? Cinnamon roll admits to being a murderer would definitely be a viral headline."
Ochako shoved him and he laughed, "Alright, but seriously, I'm not gonna judge you. What's on your mind?"
"I…" Ochako screwed her eyes shut and just spewed the word out as fast as she could to get it over with, "I only became a hero for the money!"
When Shinso didn't respond after a long moment, Ochako slowly peaked her eyes open, just to see him staring at her, looking...neutral. Of all the times when he just had to decide to confuse her! She was so angry that she almost lost her grip on One for All, but managed to reign it at the last minute.
"Well?" She huffed. "Aren't you gonna say anything?"
"My primary motivation is spite, Uraraka." Shinso rolled his eyes. "I am literally the worst person on earth to be able to judge your heroic motivations."
"Wait..what?" Ochako looked at him in shock. "Your motivation is spite?!"
Shinso shrugged, "Pretty much. Well, that and pettiness."
"Huh…" She sat back. "Seriously?
"Yep." He said. "Turns out, after enough times of being told I'll be a villain, I wanted to prove everyone wrong."
"Oh." Ochako nodded. "I guess that makes sense. I mean, it's still better than just wanting to be rich."
"Debatable." Shinso grinned. "But if you're feeling insecure, you should talk to Mei-chan. She's an inventor because she's insane, obviously, but she's also planning on owning a company and being filthy rich. I don't know, it seems to work for her, so why not for you, right?"
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Ochako took a sip of her tea and felt One for All welling up inside her for a split second before she instinctively pushed it down again. "I'll talk to her when we get back."
Izuku grinned at Mei's reactions to everything as Melissa gave them a tour around the island. He didn't think her eyes ever stayed still, zooming in on every detail she could find as they both nerded out and asked questions about everything. There were so many cool quirks and even more cool tech on display everywhere and by the time they reached the building Melissa's dad worked in, Mei had already filled half a notebook just with ideas for inventions. It was awesome.
The security on I-Island was especially impressive. To get to Dr. Shield's office, they had to pass through two layers of security at the building, and then there was a biometric lock and a keycard entry to get to his private lab. He was immersed in a project, but looked up when he heard them come in.
"Aw, Melissa, right on time!" Dr. Shield grinned. "And these must be Powerloader's gremlin's that I've heard so much about."
"All good things…?" Izuku began but Mei cut him off.
"Don't care, are those temperature regulators?" Her eyes were wide as she ran up to the device he had been working on. "Wait, are you just using water vapor?"
"I see that none of the stories about your eagerness to invent were exaggerated." Dr. Shield laughed, "And yes. Sometimes the best solutions are actually the simplest, it's just our job to make them usable and convenient."
Mei looked at the device from every angle and Izuku could see her quirk working overtime as she took in every angle before looking the doctor for permission. When he nodded, she picked up the device and started fiddling with it, "You might want to move the capacitor over here. It's a little too far from the water tank to be effective."
Dr. Shield smiled, "Good work. You pass."
Mei didn't even look up as she kept fiddling with the device, "Pass?"
"It's a test that Dad gives newcomers." Melissa explained. "Let them handle an old invention and see if they can point out what's wrong with it."
"Old invention?" Mei put the device back on the table. "That means there's new, improved versions of this baby! Where are they? Can I see them?"
"They're all around you." Dr. Shield gestured widely to the whole room. "I designed the entire climate control system for this building and most of the other buildings on this island. Never greenlight an invention you're not willing to use yourself, right?"
"Right!" Mei grinned. "So! What's the plan? I can't wait to start making babies with all these fun toys! Are we gonna be building robots? Networking? What are we doing?"
"A little bit of all of it, honestly." Dr. Shield said. "It's getting late, so tonight, we'll just let you get familiar with the lab where you'll be spending most of your time and then tomorrow, we'd like you each to choose a project to work on this week. We'll help you out with design and troubleshooting and basically workshop it all together. Does that sound good?"
Mei grabbed Izuku's hand and started pulling him from the room, "Let's go Izu-kun! We're wasting baby-making time."
"But Mei-chan!" Izuku yelled at her as the Shields laughed behind them. "You don't even know where we're going!"
Tenya turned down his covers and resisted the urge to beat up the pillow he'd been provided by Manuel's agency. Half a day in Hosu and he hadn't seen any sign of the hero killer. He couldn't have moved on to another city, not with only one victim here, so he had to be around and Tenya would find him. He took a deep breath. He just had to be patient. Stain was a master at laying low, so it was understandable that he was still hiding in the shadows. He had all week to find him, so he just had to be patient.
Ochako had woken up refreshed and exhilarated, ready for another day of sparring and maybe even a patrol or two if they were lucky. The worries and insecurities were still there, obviously, as was One for All, but she was able to let all of that fade into the background as she focused on everything she was here to learn.
Most of the other interns were already there when she skipped into the kitchen, "Good Morning!"
"Good morning Uraraka!" Shinso grinned. "How'd you sleep?"
"Like someone knocked me out." Ochako answered. "It was amazing!"
"Well, I'm glad you're finally here to make us breakfast." One of the other interns laughed. "I mean, the woman's place is in the kitchen, so I don't know what took you so long!"
Ochako stopped and stared at him, as did the other interns. Shinso gave the kid a long, disappointed look before sighing, "Would you care to repeat that?"
"Come on, guys, it's a joke!" The kid rolled his eyes. "You know, cause she's the only girl! It's not like I actually expect her to make breakfast for all of us, though I wouldn't complain if…"
"Yeah, that's enough." Shinso took a sip of his coffee as the kid's body went slack under his control. "MIsogyny isn't a funny joke, and Uraraka has every right to slap you for that, but let's save her the effort, yeah? Slap yourself in the face and then wake up."
There was a slap and a chorus of laughter from the rest of the watching interns as the kid woke up and started stuttering out an apology. Ochako caught Shinso smiling, even though he tried to hide it by taking another sip of coffee. She shook her head and rolled her eyes at him, but he just grinned wider and took another sip of coffee.
She still couldn't believe that he was becoming a hero out of spite, but from what she knew of him, it made sense and honestly, maybe part of the reason he was such a strong hero was because he was constantly having to stand up for himself and do things his own way. It was admirable and he made it work, despite how it might sound to someone who didn't know him. Ochako didn't know if she could do the same, she still felt really guilty about wanting to be a hero just for money, but maybe if she talked to Mei about it, she might be able to give it a chance, at least. Ochako still wasn't sure if Shinso was telling the truth about Mei being motivated by money too, but if he was, then at least maybe she'd know she wasn't alone.
She let her insecurities fade into the background as Gunhead led them through warm-ups and ordered them to spar. Ochako grinned at Shinso and he looked bored, but at this point, she was about 75% sure that meant he was actually taking her seriously. She charged first, going through the movements that Gunhead had taught them yesterday and forcing Shinso to take a step back before he was able to move to counter her.
She still felt like a fake, but the repetitive movement and action helped. The trade-off, of course, was that One for All seemed to wake up as soon as she was in any sort of combat situation, but she was confident that she could make it stay where she wanted it to. She launched a punch at Shinso and was unsurprised when he sidestepped her and grabbed her arms. She felt One for All well up in her as he followed through with the move and started forcing her to the floor, but she pushed it away. Maybe after she'd talked to Mei, she'd be able to...
Her eyes widened as she felt One for All push back. She tried to stamp down on the power like she had been doing for days now, but this time, the power was like a tsunami and whatever control she'd assumed she had over it was washed away as she felt gravity shift.
David Shield tinkered away in his private lab, working on an actual project this time. He had been impressed that the Hastume girl didn't even need prompting to tell him what was wrong with the invention, and he was excited to see what she would choose for her project this week. Nedzu had warned him that Midoriya would seem quiet in comparison, but that he was just as smart and observant as Hatsume was, if not even moreso, so they should give him a quirk or a computer program to work on rather than discounting him. David was sure the boy would get along well with their analysts, so he wasn't too concerned. If Nedzu said the boy was smart, David wasn't stupid enough to think he was anything less than a genius.
Suddenly, there was a crash and David jumped to his feet to see a young girl in what looked to be a hero costume steadying herself against the table. She looked up at him with wide eyes for a moment, and he only briefly noticed that she looked both green and absolutely exhausted before she stumbled quickly toward the nearest trashcan and started puking her guts out.
He was torn about whether he should comfort her or call security and he ended up just staring at her in shock as she hunched over and grabbed her stomach. How had she gotten in?! She felt vaguely familiar, but then again, she was also a teenage girl that looked like every other teenage girl he'd ever seen, so he didn't trust that enough for it to do any good, especially since she had somehow gotten into his private office! There were two layers of security just outside the door, and then she would have had to bypass even more security to enter the building and that's not even counting getting onto the island and yet he was fairly certain that the only teenagers authorized to get on the island this week were his interns, which considering that he didn't even know who this girl was, meant that there was something really wrong with their security.
After a minute, the girl finally stopped puking and she looked up at him, her voice scratchy and barely there from exhaustion, "That...that wasn't supposed to happen."
He lunged forward just in time to keep the poor girl from slamming her head against the floor as she passed out. Questions whirled in his brain as he pulled out his phone. Who was she? How had she gotten here? What was supposed to happen?
The line only rang twice before someone picked up and David finally managed to pull his gaze away from her and look around the room, "Yes, Island security? We have a level seven security risk. Put the island on lockdown."
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