Mission Midoriya || A RuthTheNerd MHA fanfiction||

Chapter 24: Setback

Ochako yanked herself from Deku's grip. "What?"

He nodded, a little confused. "You've been comatose for a week. Apparently, Ura's darts had enough ketamine to knock victims out for a while."

Ochako hardly registered that fact. A week. She'd been out for a week.

A week.

"I..." her hands began to tremble. She opened her mouth, but nothing useful came out.  How much time had she wasted, sleeping the days away? How much time had she thrown away, when her children could be in the worst situation possible? When they could have gone ages ago-

"Ochako," Deku sensed her worry and placed a hand over her own. His, rough and littered with scars. Hers, gentle but packed with a painful punch. So different, yet so at harmony with one another. 

"I know you think this is your fault," he brushed his thumb over hers, soft as a feather. "But it isn't."

Ochako bit her lip, blood oozing out of the plump flesh when she bit too hard. "It is. If I hadn't gone to rescue Satashi-"

"And rescuing Satashi was a good and noble thing to do."

"How about getting shot in the leg?"

"Also very noble, taking a bullet for someone else. And, er, painful."

Ochako couldn't help but laugh, a light giggle spilling out of her throat. "I'm sure you'd know all about that, huh?"

His smile was all sheepish. "Oh, yeah. Definitely. The point is, you did what you had to do - be a hero. And we all have to make sacrifices, too. Satashi was very grateful."

"I'm sure he was, especially after I tossed him into that portal earlier."

Deku shrugged. "You did what you had to do."

Ochako rolled her eyes, lifting herself away from her husband's grasp and stretching. The last rolls of shock melted away, replaced by determination. She'd slept for days, and man, was she feeling omnipotent. Everything and anything kind of attitude. 

Pumped, she reached over and pressed a hand against her thigh. It still hurt, but that was fine. She'd ask Meiying for some more of that healing salve (it was working wonders) before they left. 

"It's been a week, right?" she asked. Izuku was peeling off a jacket he'd been wearing, revealing his muscular arms and a faint blue shirt. 

"Mhm," he replied. "We figured out that Madame is the head of one of the biggest quirk-trafficking centers here. The police had her name at the top of the blacklist, and we managed to take the place over. The henchmen, security officers, and Madame herself are all in custody right now, so we thought we'd use the warehouse until you woke up."

Ochako sighed. All that, in a week. It just made her feel even more useless, knowing that she wasn't there to help apprehend those criminals. 

"The police also come here every afternoon to haul out the rest of the inventory," Izuku added. His face turned grim. "Ochako...what they did to those people...to extract the quirks. It's awful."

Rotten curiosity perched on her shoulder. "What did they do?" she asked, before pinching herself. The memory was obviously painful for him, why had she opened her big, stupid mouth?

"They would take the bodies and put them in stasis. Children, adults...babies, too. Anyone with a useful quirk. They would extract the RNA and put them in tubes with proteins, and, well, cells can't function without directions..."

Ochako put a hand to her mouth. "There was no other way?"

"Nope," Deku shook his head. "And if there was, I doubt it would matter. If they let people go, it could pose a risk to the company's security."

Scenes of terrified victims and mutilated bodies discarded like garbage flashed through her mind and she blinked, trying to dispel of them. She'd dealt with illegal human trafficking institutes before, this wasn't new. Yet the disturbance never felt any less appalling than the first time. 

Another question came to mind. "Izu, Meiying and Ura were familiar with each other. Did she happen to have a link with that group?"

He ran a hand through his curly green hair. "Well, she did buy some of their products."

Ochako knew that already, considering the wore them like a belt across her waist. Literally.

"Ura tried to kill her, once."

"Huh?" Ochako snapped out of her daze. "She tried to kill her? Why?"

"Meiying had paid them with gold, and Madame wanted to desperately know where she'd gotten solid golden coins from."

Right, Ochako thought, thinking about the coins they'd found in Meiying's bag back home.

"She was also irked at the fact that Meiying wouldn't 'address her properly.' But Meiying couldn't, she didn't have the translation quirk vials, so she couldn't speak to them without them not understanding. I think Ura thought of that as some sort of disrespect."

Ochako remembered how Madame had taunted them with that vial, holding it over the balcony and asking, practically pleading, for Meiying to just utter a word. How important was authority and entitlement to her that she'd do that? Was she that inflated?

She felt Deku's hands unfurl hers, and that was when she realized she'd balled them into a tight fist. He gave her a smile, immediately calming her nerves. 

"Anyways," he continued, "They'll probably be charged with death. We didn't find any bodies, though a DNA test is being done on some ashes we found." He gulped. "They would burn the bodies, put them in fancy urns, and then..." he sighed. "Mail them to the families who they had kidnapped from."

Ochako gasped. This was a brand of cruelty, an inhuman practice she'd never seen. Did humankind, or at least the demented, evil people who made up a percentage of humankind, grow less fond with time and instead, more ghastly?

"I should stop." Izuku murmured, his eyes analyzing the horrified expression on her face. "Besides, don't we have people to rescue?"

She grinned. "As Bakugo would say, 'Like hell we do.' Come on, where's-"

"Right here," Meiying appeared by the door, donning her dark cape. "Is someone going to wake him up?" she pointed at Satashi's sleeping body. 

"I'll do it," Izuku volunteered. He leered over the man, nudging him on the back.

He snored.

"O-kay," Ochako muttered. "I'll do it." She nudged him, this time harder.

He snored on.

Meiying rolled her eyes. "Goodness. You'll have to try harder than that. I shall attempt once. If he does not awaken, we leave him for the vultures."

Izuku sweat-dropped. "Er...or we just try a little harder?"

Meiying ignored his suggestion and strode across the room. Her golden eyes looked into Satashi's sleeping eyelids. She rose her muscular leg and slammed it straight into his stomach.

"Argh!" Satashi screamed, his hands flying to his wounded stomach. Ochako and Izuku rushed to his aid, though Ochako was trying very hard to stifle a laugh. Meiying stood nearby, still as a stone. 

"What was that for?" he yelled, furious and in pain.

Meiying lifted her head up high, staring at him as though she were addressing an idiot. "For not waking up."