Work Text:
The tape recorder is turned on, and the cassette begins to roll. It is quiet.
[The door opens, and someone walks in and sits.]
- So you're the interview guy, right? The one that Aizawa-sensei said we were each individually meeting up with?
- That is correct, yes.
- Great. I have a question for you, before we start?
- Of course.
- What did you say to Deku? He came back from his interview with you like he'd been told that he had killed his own mother in his sleep. What did you do to him?
- Deku? Oh- you mean Midoriya-
- Yes I mean Midoriya. Answer the question.
- Well, I- I'm sorry, but I can't exactly tell you that. I'm not going to go around telling other people-
[A chair creaks, and it is clear that someone who is not The Archivist has made a sudden movement.]
- no matter how good of a friend they are-
[The chair creaks again, as though its occupant has relaxed slightly.]
- the contents of my interview with Midoriya. Just as I will not disclose any details about my interview with you- all that is said in this room remains between me, you, and the tape recorder. If you want details, you're going to have to ask Midoriya yourself.
- Okay. It was worth a shot. Sorry for prying.
- It's quite alright. I'd have done the same thing in your place, believe me. Now, about the interview; you're going to be giving me a Statement, if you're amenable?
- What's the statement about? I'm pretty sure that I haven't experienced anything weird recently, so I don't think there's really anything to give a statement on!
- Well, that'll be determined by my Quirk, which helps the both of us identify anything that you may not realize is unusual, and encourage you to tell the full story. May I use it on you?
- Sure! I'd love to help catch some villains!
- Fantastic.
Statement of Uraraka Ochako, regarding an accident at her parents' construction company during her youth. Statement direct from subject, recorded 22 September 20XX. Statement begins.
For as long as I can remember, my parents have always owned a construction company. They started it together, before I was born, when the market was booming and new things were being built all the time. When I came along, it was a bit more strain on their wallets, but we were fine until the recession hit.
We barely scraped by. I remember having to move, just before my quirk came in, to an old, cramped house, because we couldn't afford to keep our old one. I remember thinking that the walls were going to close in and swallow me whole. Even though, eventually, times got better, we've continued to live life by just scraping by.
I remember being about six, in that cramped and claustrophobic house, still thinking that the walls were just too close. I remember eating dinner alone, often, because we couldn't afford more than one person's worth of food. That's why I decided to become a hero; not just to save people or be like an idol, though that was part of it, but to get a big enough income so that my parents wouldn't have to struggle anymore.
Not having a lot of money also meant not having any to spare on babysitters. Most of the time that my parents would need a babysitter for me, I was at school, so it generally wasn't even a problem. Sometimes, though, they would have to supervise a site at the same time I was out of school. So, sometimes, I had to go with them.
Construction site safety was therefore drilled into my head from a young age. I knew that I had to wear safety goggles and a hard hat and stay near my parents and all of that. For the most part, I followed all of those rules to a T. However, I was also a small child, and so sometimes I thought I was big enough to go "exploring" sites on my own.
I did that a few times, when I was six, then seven, then eight, and for the last time when I was nine. Most of the time, it just involved me running around the piles of dirt for a few minutes while my parents were distracted. Occasionally, I'd get somewhere marginally dangerous, like near some beams or too close to the cranes or something, but I was generally pretty safe.
Nothing even happened until I was nine.
It wasn't even anybody's fault. Not mine, not really, and nobody was doing anything on the site at the time, so it's not like someone was careless and didn't see a small child run in front of whatever they were doing.
It was just a freak accident. That's all.
It was a Sunday, and the current site was behind schedule, so my parents had to supervise. I came with them, and it was the end of the work day anyway, so it was a boring meeting between my parents and some subcontractors or something. I didn't pay a lot of attention, I was nine!
I was small enough and bored enough to bail out of that hot and stuffy room about ten minutes into the meeting. I just stood up from where I was supposed to be sitting, and silently slipped out. The sun was setting, and the shadows that it cast on the site made it seem like it would be a very cool place to look around in.
The structure was supposed to be stable.
It was slowly getting darker as I climbed over concrete blocks and under metal beams, making sure not to accidentally activate my quirk and start floating things. Eventually, I started to see some stars appear in the sky, and I was in a clear spot in the partway-built structure. I never actually found out what the building was supposed to be, funnily enough. I think they ended up cancelling the project? It got transferred to another company, at least. My parents weren't willing to work on it again after what happened.
I stood, for a moment, in about the middle of where the building was going to be, staring up at the few stars I could see in the light-polluted environment of the city. Then, I heard what sounded like an ominous creaking noise. I tried to turn towards it, and all of a sudden I was trapped in the dirt.
I could feel metal and stone digging into me. I didn't think I was hurt, no more than a few scratches. That didn't really matter though. I was being buried alive, eaten by the walls of this building-in-progress.
I couldn't even tell which way was up. It was completely dark, and I could barely breathe. I tried to scream, but all that came out were choked gasps. I could taste dirt and something coppery in my mouth. I think I might've bitten my tongue when everything crashed around me. I kept trying to scream, but nothing came out except for gasps full of air and dirt.
I pressed all of my fingertips to wherever I could stretch them, but my hands must have been touching dirt, because nothing happened.
I think that that's when I started to panic. It became even harder to breathe, and I felt tears track through the dirt on my face, and pool into mud on my chin, because there wasn't enough space for them to fall. There wasn't enough space for me to move.
I could barely even breathe.
I felt like I was there for days. I was so, so tired, but I was too scared to sleep. I kept trying to scream, but my mouth and throat were too dry and clogged with dirt. At one point, I decided that I would give anything for just a sip of water. Just one pure gasp of air.
I saw light filter through some dirt in front of me. I couldn't tell which direction it was coming from, if I was facing up or to the side. I just knew that it was the sparkling, tantalizing gleam of the sun. I tried to pull my arms forward, so that I could slowly, painfully begin to dig, but they wouldn't move. The dirt and debris on them was too heavy. I tried to kick my legs, to squirm my way up or forwards or out like a worm, but nothing.
I was in there for a week before I felt someone digging above me. I knew that a week had passed because I had seen the sun seven times, for hours and hours at a time, glaring at me, taunting me. I tried screaming again, with the same luck as before. That didn't matter, though. Someone was slowly coming for me. Someone was coming to save me.
When I was pulled out of the ground, I was told that it had been three hours. That I had been gone for three hours. That's all. That's it. Just three hours. I coughed up so much dirt, when they pulled me out of the ground, that I had to go to the hospital to make sure that I hadn't swallowed too much. Of course, I had to go anyways, to make sure that nothing was broken, but that's one more thing that they had to check for.
When I was pulled out of the ground, though, it felt like the dirt had gotten somehow tighter around me. Like it was trying to grab on to me, like it was trying to keep me there forever. I could've sworn, at the end, that a hand had grabbed my foot as I was pulled out.
I refused to go to my parents' construction sites for years afterward. I wouldn't go to basement floors of buildings. I wouldn't even get into elevators, for a while. I hated crowds, I hated close walls, I hated feeling like I was going to be swallowed again, by the Earth or by the crowd.
Sometimes, I swear that there's still dirt under my fingernails, from trying to claw my arms forward. Sometimes, on bad days, I have to take the stairs.
Sometimes, I can feel the dirt move around my feet, like it's going to suck me in again. Sometimes, I can hear the creak of the unfinished building before it fell. I don't think that I can escape it, the Earth, the closeness, if it decides to come after me again.
Statement ends.
The tape recorder stops and starts again, the cassette inside along with it.
- That is a rather unfortunate event for Uraraka to have experienced, but unfortunately, this Statement gives no insight as to more Avatars or their activities. Midoriya remains the only confirmed Hero to have become a fully realized Avatar, and while I am certainly glad not to have confirmation of another, I do still suspect the existence of more. Hopefully my next 1-A interview will help clear that up, or give more insight, this one with a... Mineta Minoru.
- I've got a few more sessions with Mustard before that, though, so I'll receive more insight as to the Villainous side of things. Speaking of which, Todoroki Fuyumi has been exhibiting some rather concerning behaviors as of late. She still appears to have her brothers as her anchors to humanity, but, given that her youngest brother isn't the best example of a human, her recent increase in favor towards him, and the subsequent periods of time in which she cannot be accounted for by any witnesses, is certainly a bit of a red flag. Given that Todoroki Shouto is not disappearing at the same times as his sister is, I highly doubt that she's in the Lonely with him, which only leaves the option of her performing activities related to the Stranger.
- I'm going to need to investigate more leads on adult Heroes, as well, and hopefully starting with Hawks, as I feel that I am making a bit of headway with the HPSC. He needs to be informed of what kind of snake bed he is walking into, trying to be a spy in the League of Villains. I'll also need to begin trying to convince Endeavor to interview with me as well, as I suspect that he'll be difficult to convince as well. I say that I want to interview him because, well, he reminds me of Daisy. Not in a good way, either.
- I've got a lot of work ahead of me, if I want any hope of trying to stop whatever the Entities are planning with Japan.
- End recording.
The tape recorder is clicked off.
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