Ochako yawned as she stood atop an apartment complex as she looked over the streets below her. She, Todoroki, and Yaoyorozu had been doing a sweeping patrol of the city areas that bordered the ruined sectors. It had been five hours since then and they were near the end of their sweep.
In those five hours, they had surprisingly, not found any sort of commotion happening. It really did look like tonight was going to be trouble-free. This wasn't unheard of course, there were nights where nothing happened, and the heroes out on patrol just ended up missing sleep as a result. This time though, it felt different. Ochako couldn't say how, but the night just felt tense, like the calm before a storm. The only question was, when would the storm hit?
Ochako alighted silently onto a roof and crouched down on the edge of the building. She looked about the area and saw nothing but empty streets and the odd flickering street light. Being on the edge of the ruined sectors, this part of town didn't have a lot of permanent residents, unless you counted the rats and the homeless. For the most part, these areas were just riddled with bolt holes for criminal elements. Rooting them all out was infeasible, so the city had settled for slowly pushing them out as they cleared rubble and rebuilt portions. It would take years, but it would work.
She sighed, stretched, and yawned again. She hadn't been out this long in awhile and her body just wasn't as used to it as it once had been.
She did a few more inspections in the general area before heading to the next spot on her route. She could see the other two from time to time as they went about doing the same. They made sure to stay close enough that any one of them would know roughly where another person was at all times in the event of an ambush or larger commotion. They also all carried flare guns on them to help ensure they could summon aid from another should they be unable to escape from a situation they may have found themselves in.
After another careful survey, Ochako was about to head off to another area to scout out when she heard the sound of something very loud being knocked over nearby. Likely some animal knocking over recycling or garbage in an attempt to get food, but she had to check it out regardless. She flew over the rooftops until she came to the roof of the building that overlooked the alley she guessed the sound had come from. She looked over the edge and saw trash and other debris scattered all throughout the alleyway. The mess painted a trail leading out the alleyway to her left. She felt, more than knew, that something was wrong, and dashed along the roof following the trail from the rooftops. Eventually, she could hear cries and coming from nearby and eventually came across an end to the trail leading into an alleyway that had a dead-end at the end of it.
She jumped across the alleyway onto the next roof over and glided along with it until she came to the roof edge that overlooked the alleyway the noise was coming from. She slowed down right before the edge and looked over the edge into the alleyway.
Ryū Sasakura liked to think of himself as being in good shape for his age. Unfortunately, tonight showed him just how much age had dulled his once finely honed body. He had been running for the past several minutes and could feel the onset of fatigue. He'd been causing as much noise as possible along the way in hopes someone like a passing hero or police car would hear it and investigate the noise. Unfortunately, he seemed to have just missed them all. He cursed age and his aging body as he wheezed.
He turned a corner in the alleyway and stopped as he ran straight into a dead-end, with only the wall of another apartment complex to greet him. Stopping though, proved too much for him and he stumbled forward until he braced himself on the wall and turned around. his legs didn't want to run anymore and he couldn't run any further. He'd have to stand his ground and try to fight.
"Well, well, well, finally caught between a rock and a hard place, eh gramps?" Said a voice from the corner.
A figure in ratty jeans, worn t-shirt covered by an equally worn leather jacket, and greasy and matted hair that hung down to his shoulders, flanked by two other disheveled and equally rough-looking thugs walked slowly down the alleyway panting slightly.
"Gave us quite the chase there, but now you're out of options, so just cooperate peacefully like and I promise I won't break you badly enough that you won't be able to limp home. Don't want to worry dear old grammy now do we?" said the figure as his two thugs laughed to either side of him.
"All you own on the ground, or we'll just have to rip them off ya by force, and believe me, my two friends here would love nothing more than for you to refuse."
Sasakura grimaced and got into what he hoped was a fighting pose. He didn't know how to fight barehanded too well, but he knew how to use his quirk at the very least and it might be able to save him from this mess.
"You can try, but you better not or I'll break you and your goons in half" growled Sasakura.
This only made the three muggers roar with laughter, and he had to admit he must have looked quite comical in this situation.
"hahaha... ahhhh... all right, have it your way, gramps. You heard him, boys, show him a great time." said the leader of the thugs.
Sasakura braced himself for the fight and felt the tingle in his fingers that meant his quirk was ready. The two thugs got closer and right as he was getting ready to pounce before they could, was when there was a crash and an explosion of dirt and debris from the center of the alleyway, right in between the thugs and their leader. The thugs spun around in shock and their leader yelped and jumped backward. The cloud of dirt and dust started to dissipate and they could see a figure standing in the crater left in the concrete from their entrance.
"Step away from the civilian, you're all under arrest and you will be forcibly detained if you resist." declared a female voice that echoed off the walls with great authority.
Sasakura slumped against the wall, relieved that a hero had come. He didn't fear for the hero at all, most of the heroes nowadays were all veterans and they were dangerous foes to be reckoned with. Granted he could have handled the thugs, but he hadn't had to use his quirk in combat for nigh on two decades. The villains, on the other hand, had other ideas.
Emboldened by the appearance of just a single hero and a woman at that, the two thugs charged the heroine.
The hero just sighed and as the first thug closed in, unleashing eight shadowy arms that came in at impossible angles. The second thug meanwhile threw out a half dozen glass-like orbs that swerved around the hero to strike her from behind while the shadow fists hit in the front.
The hero merely stood there as all the attacks were suddenly deflected by the ground around her exploding upwards and knocking away all the attacks. Bits of concrete and rubble fell to the ground and a cloud of dust started to drift away
Before Sasakuro even realized what had happened, the hero had flown through the explosion of rubble and concrete and punched one thug in the chest, launching him into the brick wall several feet away, from where he didn't get up. Then just as quickly, she seemed to slide as if on invisible rails to her left and in front of the next thug. The second thug had just turned in shock at how quickly she had moved and didn't stand a chance as she glided past him and decked him square in the face with her momentum. Then the hero continuing her path turned and flew towards the leader head-on, not losing any momentum as she did so.
While his thugs were busy, however, the leader had taken those few moments to create five clones of himself. Each one had fanned out and by the time the hero had gotten to the thug leader, she had been surrounded. They all drew knives and each attacked the hero at different moments to keep her off balance. The hero moved like water, flowing in and out of the attacks. Then she struck, punching one of the clones with a quick jab to the stomach, the same kind that launched the first thug into the far alley wall.
Upon being struck, however, the clone promptly exploded into a ball of fire. The hero got launched backward but recovered quickly enough to avoid the sure fatal stabbing attacks from two clones behind her. She backflipped over and landing behind them, avoiding another clone attack from her right, and then grabbed the clone by the shirt. To Sasakura's surprise, she spun the clone like a ragdoll while gliding upwards and then threw him into the clones that she had backflipped over. The clones, caught off guard by the sudden maneuver didn't manage to avoid the thrown clone as it crashed into them. The resulting explosion was three times larger than the first one and set off a chain reaction with the other clones which only multiplied the force of the initial explosion even further.
Sasakura dove to the ground, avoiding the worst of the explosion. The real version of the thug leader was not so lucky. He was lying on the ground, burned all over, and unconscious with a large scorch mark on the alley floor. It was fortunate that this area of the town was abandoned, else the explosion would have left one poor soul without an apartment wall.
Sasakura got to his feet and brushed himself off, thank goodness he was in good enough shape, that sort of dive could have been worse otherwise. The hero he noticed, was floating in the air and didn't have a single bit of ash on her suit. She floated down to the ground and glanced at him before moving to examine the thugs. She looked over the thugs one by one, ensuring they were fine but unconscious. The thug leader being the sole exception with multiple burns but none requiring immediate treatment, he must have had some resistance to fire Sasakura figured.
After she was done looking over them, she approached him.
"you all right? Sorry about that explosion, I didn't expect them to multiply upon themselves like that." Said the hero.
"Oh I'm quite all right, thank you so much for your help!" Said Sasakura. He was very impressed with how easily she had taken the thugs down, the whole fight had barely lasted 20 seconds.
"I'm just glad I got here in time, I was about to move on from the area during my patrol when I heard the noises. Oh! I'm Uravity by the way, nice to meet you!" She said with a little bow.
"My name is Ryu Sasakura. Thank you for your help again Uravity." Sasakura responder in kind with a deeper bow.
He winced however and clutched and put a hand over his lower back. He'd strained a muscle he knew, and he'd feel it for the rest of the week.
"Are you okay Mr. Sasakura?" Asked Uravity, reaching out a hand.
"Wait, don't touch...!"
But it was too late, the moment the hero had touched him, his quirk that he had activated earlier, took effect.
Ochako gasped, the moment she had touched Mr. Sasakura, she had lost the ability to see color and she couldn't see anything more than a few feet away clearly. Instead, it was fuzzy, blurry, and distorted.
"I am very sorry but now we have a problem." Mr. Sasakura appeared to be normal to her vision, and he was running a hand through his hair.
"See, my quirk is odd in the fact that I don't control when it goes off so to speak. I activate it and then the first person to touch me within two minutes is affected, at least when I designate it to affect someone or something other than me anyways."
"What's your quirk? This is bizarre, some sort of alternate dimension perhaps?" Asked Ochako looking about the area curious now.
"No, it's closer to say we have entered into a pocket reality located within my mind. See, my quirk is called Condition." Said Sasakura, sitting down on a chair that suddenly appeared underneath him.
Suddenly, Ochako found herself in a chair. She looked at the ethereal chair in surprise.
"So in order to leave this place, I will have to impose a condition or conditions upon you. The restriction, however, is that it must be realistic. I could not, for instance, force upon you the condition 'You will commit suicide the next time you see me.' It must be a condition that is both realistic and not outside the realm of possibility given your personality. It can be used in a variety of capacities, I could give you the strength of ten people but the condition for that to activate would also have to be appropriate. Fortunately, I have an excellent solution in mind. I do apologize for all this, but when this is over you will have no recollection of this event. Believe me, that is something I've been trying to work around for decades now." Said Sasakura apologetically.
Ochako was about to speak when Sasakura clapped his hands and everything went white.
Ochako blinked, for some reason her head had started to hurt when she touched Mr. Sasakura with the intention of providing support in case he needed help.
"Miss Uravity, are you all right?" Asked Sasakura peering at her intently.
"I... uh... yes. I suddenly got a headache is all... oh right! Do you need any assistance walking?" She asked putting the sudden headache out of her mind for now.
"No, I can assure you I am quite all right! In fact, I was hoping to thank you! Please, take this." Mr. Sasakura pulled out a small business card from his wallet and handed it to her.
Ochako opened her mouth to refuse a reward of any kind when she stopped and thought it over for a moment. It was just a business card, it's not like it was money or anything. In fact, it would be ruder to refuse to take a business card... Yes, she should take the card. So she reached out and took the card and looked at it.
The card seemed to be quite simple, it was your standard business card but on the back, it seemed to have some sort of repeating symbol. Unfortunately, it was too dark to make out details.
"What you see on the back, is to ensure that the card is in fact authentic. You see, I own a private bar and only people with that card are allowed entrance. Despite this, I can assure you that the prices are more than reasonable and we do have a hero discount." Said Mr. Sasakura with a slight chuckle.
Ochako thought about it and decided that she might stop in if she had the time. It wasn't too far out of the way from her apartment, and she hadn't gone out for a drink in quite a long time.
"If I have the time, I'll be sure to stop by. Are you going to be all right though?" She asked him again.
"Yes, I can assure you I'll be fine from here on out, at least from any more thugs. Though, I wouldn't mind some directions if I'm being honest. I am a tad bit lost I'm afraid, I was visiting a friend of mine when I was jumped on my way back home and all the running has gotten me lost."
Ochako gave him directions after double-checking her map and cross-referencing it to the address of Mr. Sasakura's home. After he had departed, she called in some cops to transport the criminals and then followed after Mr. Sasakura for a bit to ensure he didn't get into trouble again.
After he had made it back into a more safe and more populated part of town, she doubled back continued her sweep through the city. By the time she was done, she was happy to know she had managed to do something to help that night.
After a quick debriefing with Todoroki and Momo, she headed back to her apartment to sleep. Apart from rescuing Mr. Sasakura, none of them had seen much action. Todoroki subdued a street thug that was all jacked up on some kind of drug and causing some problems for some nearby shops. Momo had run into an electrical problem along the main road, but she had just made the necessary parts and handed them off to the repairmen at the scene. While Ochako had prevented a mugging. It wasn't a complete wash of a night, and she felt a bit happy after a decent night's work. Not a bad way to get back into the swing of night patrols.
As she walked back to her apartment, she pulled out the card she had received earlier and looked it over again. In the dim light, she hadn't been able to see much but under the more brightly illuminated streets, she could see more details. The front of the card had the name, address, and icon of the bar displayed. The name of the bar was The Invisible Glass and featured an icon of half an old-fashioned glass, with one-half visible and the other half invisible with a liquid inside of it.
It was a creative title and symbol and it did pique her interest a little. Her interest rose even more when she read the address. The listed address was along a street that she walked by every now and then on the way to buy groceries. However, no matter how much she tried to recall seeing or passing by the bar, she just couldn't. Granted she wouldn't have been paying attention to any bars, to begin with, but she would have expected to at least have a vague recollection of noticing the establishment at least once. This puzzled her, but she assumed it must be tucked out of sight to prevent the casual passerby from seeing it and trying to get into the private bar. It was probably located either behind another building or was on a lower level from the rest of the street making it impossible to notice from any casual viewpoint.
She pocketed the card again, and as soon as she made it to her apartment, she was really starting to feel the drag of not being used to this kind of activity. She kicked off her shoes, deposited her suit at the foot of her bed (she'd put it up properly in the morning), and changed into pajamas. Despite her tiredness, she decided to head out onto the balcony and just watch the stars for a bit.
The air was cool and the sky clear, she could hear the noise of the city and tried to tune it out as best she could. She just looked up into the night sky and tried to spot as many constellations as she could. Her thoughts drifted back towards her childhood, where her father would go stargazing with her. It seemed a million miles away now, just like the night sky that stretched onwards for an eternity before her.