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Floating was one thing for Ochako. She made an object or herself float and when she was ready to land it or her body, her fingers just pressed together and down it goes.
Flying wasn’t that much different. Both involved being in the air, so surely, this wouldn’t be too far out of her realm of skill. But once she got to the rooftop and peered over the edge, Ochako briefly considered just bolting back downstairs.
Tsuyu, on the ground below with her other friends, must have noticed the expression on her face because of what she said next. “You got this, Ochako!”
Kirishima joined in on the encouragement. “Yeah, Uraraka!” he yelled with a grin. Others followed suit with the exception of Bakugo, of course. Who knew why he was even there? Probably just because Kirishima was. Despite Bakugo’s aggressive nature, those two were peas in a pod.
There was a loud clap, startling enough to remove Ochako from her internal world of nervousness. “Ok!” Hawks began, coming to stand in front of her for his grand plan. “So! Plan review! When you’re ready, I’ll touch you to make you float. Once you get high enough and you give me the ‘good to go’ signal, I’ll release you and off you go!”
Hawks made it sound easy, though it wasn’t as easy as he was cracking it up to be. While she respected all the good he’s done as a hero, he wasn’t exactly the first person she’d want trying to teach her. It must have been some strange luck-curse scenario that she painfully spawned wings while he lost his and gained Float thanks to a stranger’s quirk. It’d go away, eventually, but until then, she might as well make use of the expansive auburn and coral wings stemming from her back. At least they were beautiful, and fun to curl up in (something her friends appreciated, too).
Ochako nodded nervously in understanding. “But what’s the backup?” she inquired as soon as it came to her.
“Nothing except for your classmates. It’s fly or die, kid,” Hawks answered nonchalantly. He seemed remarkably unbothered.
“Die?!”
“If your classmates don’t help you, that is. Midoriya can catch you with his Blackwhip, Asui can use her tongue, so on, and so forth.” Hawks looked down at the class of kids plus a slightly nervous All Might, a curious Present Mic, and an unfazed Aizawa. “You got her if she falls, right, kids?” he called down.
“Yeah, of course, we do!”
“We got you, Uraraka!”
“She’s not going to fall, you idiots—flying’s not that hard!”
“See? They got you. Good kids.”
Ochako looked out at the ground, again, and bit her lip. They were so high up, and she’d be even higher up trying to use wings and not Float. Briefly, she wonders if it’d feel different to have Float cast upon her rather than being the user and the affected. Logically, no, there wouldn’t really be a difference, but she couldn’t help but wonder, just like she couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take her to learn to fly. She could try again, and again, and again.
Hawks made it sound easy. But as for flying actually being easy? He said it was, most likely, varied by the person. Maybe she’d be one of the lucky people who got a hang of it quickly.
“Hey,” Hawks started, quieter and not in normal Hawks-esque fashion like before. “You don’t have to learn to fly, you know. I can just teach you how to control your feathers, instead.”
But they didn’t know how long they’d be this way, and Ochako wouldn’t stand by with a versatile quirk and waste it. Hawks surely wasn’t, despite Zero Gravity not being his pace or style. Why shouldn’t she turn it up a notch and take flight when he was willing to slow down and just float?
“No,” Ochako shook her head. Determination set upon her face. “I’m doing this.”
Hawks looked satisfied. “Atta, kid! Whenever you’re ready.”
She looked up at the sky, shaking her arms and hands out for a moment. It was gorgeous, clear, and blue. The world was some people’s oyster, and the sky was to become hers. All she had to do was get there.
Ochako took a deep breath in, held for five seconds, and breathed out while a smile crept onto her face. “Ready when you are.”
Hawks took his hands and pressed all ten fingers on her arms and her body immediately left the ground.
This part was all familiar. Ochako simply floated up, up, and up into the air. She caught sight of her friends and teachers on the ground with Deku, Kaminari, and Hagakure among those cheering her on.
The higher she went felt like a scary rollercoaster she just wasn’t prepared to go on. Ochako glanced at the city through her eye visor (Hawks warned her that she’d need a pair, along with earphones equipped for altitude and high speed). For now, Musutafu was far down below, and the sky was infinitely high above.
Ochako began to flap her wings as a warm-up, breathing in and out for long lengths as an exercise to accompany it. The wings weren’t quite as heavy as they appeared on Hawks, probably because hers were a bit smaller with her body being much smaller than his, so at least that didn’t require strenuous effort. Flying, on the other hand…
“Whenever you’re ready, Uraraka, just give me the signal!” Hawks yelled from a number of feet below one could only guess at. Maybe twenty from the roof, forty from the ground?
Her body continued to float further and further. Ochako nodded, finding it to be no use using that much breath to yell. The higher, ideally, was safer, so she had time to collect herself and try to fly before someone sprung into action and caught her. She could go higher. Much higher.
From the ground, her classmates began to look confused and concerned at just how far up she had gone in the span of minutes. “YOU OKAY, URARAKA?!” Kirishima shouted.
Maybe she should ask him that from his tone. Ochako emphatically nodded. The world just seemed to grow the higher she got. Speaking of height, how tall was this? Seventy feet? Eighty? How far should she go?
“I think you’re good now, Uraraka!” Hawks yelled. Even he was pitching in his opinion.
Ochako thought this over. If her current height in the air was getting his attention, then it must have been pretty high. But she needed the cushion. Just a little bit more…
Five seconds…Ten…Fifteen.
Ochako stopped flapping her wings, gave two thumbs up, started flapping again, and mentally prepared. This would be fine!
Hawks pressed his fingers together. The release fell.
The hold of Zero Gravity left Ochako, and she screamed, beginning to fall from her spot in the sky. This was not fine!
The yells and screams of many things from encouragement to panic just made it worse. Ochako spread her wings and flapped, but it was harder to use the wings when so high up in the air and falling at the same time. The force was just that much.
She flapped, hoped, and prayed—
Until the falling came to a stop, and she was floating. No, not floating. Flying.
Ochako’s eyes became moons, and her smile grew to be blindingly bright. “I did it!”
There were cheers and enthusiastic yells from her friends, her teachers (or at least All Might and Present Mic) looking relieved. There was no need to catch or rescue her from the doom that was falling to her death. One page had just turned, a page turning to the chapter that was the sky.
Ochako let out a triumphant, excited laugh at the new development, eager to take the next step beyond just using her wings—her awesome wings—to stay afloat from death. Could she fly forward—how would she fly higher? Much more valuable to her, how did she land?
Forward, backward, up, and down. It was kind of like ‘WASD’ on a computer for a computer game or using a joystick on a video game console controller. Or even better, flappy bird! She just needed to master one at a time.
Ochako opted to choose to try to move forward before anything else, which came easily, but not without shock. The speed at which she began traveling at was fast. Really, really fast.
She came to an abrupt stop, adapting to the feeling that her heart might burst right where it felt like it sat in her throat. Ochako tried again, now realizing she was out of everyone’s sight. This went on for a few minutes before she could finally grasp a comfortable pace flying around campus.
“This is amazing!” Ochako exclaimed. There was no nausea or vomiting to worry about, no motion sickness, none of that. The breeze was cherished as it shot past her, tickling her skin, toying with her hair and feathers. It elicited a giggle and she looked at the world around her, then up even higher beyond it. The sky was the new world, and she was its explorer.
Ochako experimented for a few minutes more, in her own bubble, before finding the group in the courtyard and carefully attempting to land. It was a balance of her wings and letting gravity take her—she couldn’t simply swoop down with ease like Hawks could. That kind of skill, smoothness and grace was something learned over time. Time she may or may not have. But if she did…that would be great.
She continued training bit by bit with Hawks over the next week and a half, learning to fly in all directions and maintaining different levels of speed. The whole time, though, Ochako wanted to fly higher, but always came back down. And, today, in her free time, she stared at the sky. It was bright blue, but dappled in clouds fluffy like cotton candy, white as paper beneath the sunlight, calling to her with no words.
Theoretically, Ochako should be able to travel high enough until she reached the altitude of where, for most people, altitude sickness would set in, so around eight thousand feet high. Her actual limit, however, she didn’t know. She’s never even been on a plane before, and commercial air travel jets traveled much higher than that.
The roof used to be a place of nervousness, but now, it’s a place of joy. It’s a jumping-off point to get to her next destination. Now that she could reach it, the sky was so intriguing. The sky was her friend, not her enemy. The sky was…opportunity that wasn’t the same with Float.
With energy buzzing in her blood, she thoughtlessly ran off the roof and took flight, barreling around in the air with the wings she’s grown to adore. They could carry her anywhere, shield her from harm, and when she learned to, send feathers to do things of all sorts. Yes, Fierce Wings was a neat quirk, but to actually experience it and its potential was something to behold. It wasn’t something glorious like All Might’s or a Todoroki-style powerhouse, but that was fine. She made the most of Float, and now, she would make the most of Fierce Wings for however long it was hers to use.
Ochako spread her wings as far as they could go like stretching muscles, thrilling in how far off the ground she was, beaming from what she could do. She dove up and down, doing another barrel roll because there weren’t many fancy smooth moves she had down yet, all while going higher and higher into the sky. Hawks said he didn’t fly as high as he could go too often, his maximum being just more than eighty-one-hundred feet, but that if she wanted to fly high that she needed to take it slow and not exert her limits, adding half-jokingly that doing that was a pro’s job.
Each day, she chose to fly higher and further. Once she grew confident enough in her ability to land safely and change her trajectory to avoid objects and buildings, Ochako wanted to take the next step, the next, and the next. This was just the next step—or for her, at least. She’d learn so much about how to apply it to her hero training and had successfully exercised her new knowledge at the gym grounds in class exercises, but this was just something special for her. An indulgence, she might say. What was stopping her a thousand feet, two thousand feet, and beyond in the air?
If it wasn’t for the earphones, Ochako’s ears would surely hurt and if it weren’t for the visors (and many layers of sunscreen), the sun would damage her skin and eyes the further up she flew. Up here, there were no worries, no problems, no people. Don’t get her wrong, Ochako loved people! In her opinion, you needed to in order to be a good, well-intentioned hero. But, sometimes, you needed time alone, whether it be to improve yourself or just to relax. Who could you help if you couldn’t even help yourself?
The sky isn’t the place of humanity, but it’s a place they’ve tried to conquer just as they had the land, sea, and space. Ochako flies higher and higher as if nothing could stop her. The only foe up here was gravity and herself, and it was wonderful.
Ochako took her time, adjusting to the levels of altitude to just look back down at Musutafu and smile. She could guess where things were, like the coffee shop she went to with Mina every once in a while, or the train station she rode daily before the dorm life was implemented. So many pieces of her life were all far down below her. And as she looked to the empty air around her, all Ochako found was the new piece of her life she wanted to make friends with.
She flew higher and higher over time, overcoming new levels of altitude with relative ease. Ochako found herself more elated the closer she got to the clouds—so close that she could almost touch them…Could she?
Ochako altered her trajectory, taking another spin for the hell of it, and gave herself a speed boost while aiming for a particularly voluminous and fluffy cloud. Briefly, she wondered if it’d be as satisfying as it looked.
Once she hit the fluffy white, she got her answer.
Increasing her speed, eyes closed, Ochako burst through the cloud’s top and giggled at what she’s just done. The amusement of that quickly changed to something else. She just flew through a cloud and has greeted what was beyond it.
It almost felt like sci-fi, or a fantasy novel. Everything here is quiet, but the scenery is loud and wondrous like out of artwork. This world—this realm is blue and white, no residents, only a small amount of tourists like planes and a tiny batch of flying heroes. This realm is another planet, an oyster, her new second home if she so desired.
Ochako found herself breathless and still with the exception of her slowly flapping wings, the sun gazing upon her eyes and feathers, surely making them look like gems and shining silk. Her eyes catch the moon, a welcome, non-eye burning opposite of the sun. It’s a sharp crescent, unlit, but still dramatic. To her left is the sun, her right is the moon, below her is the cloud field, and surrounding her for as far as the eye could see was the sky. The sky that felt like it was her own.
She circled a cloud, another, and another. It didn’t feel like she had limits, but Ochako logically knew she did. Besides, she’s spent so much time flying around that her break might be over. Gazing lovingly at the moon like at a cherished friend, she put all her faith into her skill and let herself begin to fall.
It’s adrenaline-inducing, like a rollercoaster, and most of all, it’s dangerous. Ochako screams for most of the freefall because she’s already regretting this party trick five seconds into it. She corrected her error after two additional seconds, spreading her wings and soaring downwards through another cloud before she could change her course. It felt like Ochako was inhaling puffy water and by the time she emerged from the cloud like an angel from heaven, she sputtered and burst into laughter. Everything was so much, but everything was amazing, too.
Ochako made her way down back to the U.A. campus, circling the classroom windows while she was at it with the largest grin on her face, snorting at the way Kaminari’s shocked face from inside the building. She eventually landed and as soon as her feet hit the ground, Ochako halted and fell to her knees on the courtyard grass, trying her best to catch her breath.
The flying spree caused her to be late to class, a very abnormal anomaly, but Ochako brushed it off and got on with it. Fierce Wings wasn’t hers forever. The quirk-swap’s effect would end at one point or another. But until then, she’d make the most of it, using it for good and personal indulgence until the feathers wilted away and the bone structure had to be removed from her body. Until then, the sky was her world just like the Earth.