The winter's night fell swiftly and with all the mercy of an executioner's axe. Uraraka Ochako's breath bloomed white roses before her in the cooling air as she picked her way across the half-ruined street, the waning moon providing scant illumination as her eyes darted around. The world had fallen quiet, still as deep water in the absence of openly visible sentients and sapients alike, but she knew better than to trust the silence to equate to safety. It had been a hard lesson to learn; but most important ones were. She'd keep going regardless, no matter what happened.
"It’s getting late, Tooru-chan," she said to her companion, as she gazed up at the darkening sky. "We should get back soon, before we get froze out."
"I know," Tooru said agreeably; she audibly stumbled against a chunk of rubble, her foot landing heavily, the sides of her shoes scuffing against the concrete. "You don't have to rush, though. We'll make it."
Ochako chanced a sideways look at her companion and saw only the barest refraction of colour, vague hints of green and pink and white, flickering like dying fireflies over a plain jacket and t-shirt. As the week had faded away, so too had the intense fear that had accompanied the citywide riots, and as that emotion had drained away, so too had Tooru's visual presence. The girl had been solid and whole when they'd first met, all wide eyes and smiling pink lips - now that image was little more than a memory. Ochako wondered when - or if - she'd see it again. "You're tired," she said. "I don't wantcha to get hurt on my account."
Tooru made a soft noise in her throat. "You must be tired too, Ocha-chan!" she protested, clothes rustling as she waved her arms around. "You spent all that time lifting stuff - and distracting people for me!"
"And you fought that guy all on your own!" Just recalling the scene - walking out of a half-burnt store and watching Tooru face down a man twice her size with nothing but an old broom and *win* - made her stomach flip-flop. "That was scary, Tooru-chan!"
"I know it was," Tooru said, and her hair made the faintest noise, the air distorting just slightly as she leant fowards, clothes rumpling at the stomach. "You'd never seen me do something like that, after all. You can trust me, though! I'm real good at it."
Tooru's shoes and clothes flitting around, twirling the broom as if it was meant for it; the man hitting the pavement, and Tooru cheering, half-translucent face flickering into view and refracting light like a star. "You're slow, Ocha-chan! I had to deal with this guy all by myself!" she'd chirped, a faint pout audible in her sing-song voice, and Ochako had wondered, then, if the sensation in her chest was something other than fleeting terror. And then they'd had to keep moving, and she'd put it out of mind.
"I know," she replied. "That I can trust you. To be strong. But I don't wantcha to have to."
"I don't want you to have to, either," Tooru pointed out. It was a sweet statement, Ochako thought.
"D’you wanna hold my hand?" she blurted, and felt her cheeks burn a moment later. "So we don't lose each other in the dark, I mean! And so you don't get anymore tired."
Tooru hummed. "That depends, I guess. Are you gonna float me away like a Tooru-shaped balloon, huh?"
The image was absurd, and extremely plausible. "No! I'll be careful with my fingers, promise! Besides, you said it, didn'tcha? I'd probably just - throw up again if I floated you!"
There was a brief silence, and for a moment Ochako worried she'd stepped wrongly, somehow; and then she felt a small hand slip itself into her own, four slender fingers winding around three of her broad ones and grasping tight. She looked down, then next to her - Tooru was nowhere to be seen. "You'd better tell me if you see any cute animals!" the girl demanded. "I won't forgive you if I miss out on a kitty because you didn't say they were there!"
"You - don't worry about that!" Ochako exclaimed; although Tooru couldn't see it, she waved her free hand in emphasis. "I'll keep my eyes peeled, and - and make sure that if I see something cute, you'll be the first to pet them...!"
Tooru giggled. "Okay."
"Okay."
They walked without saying much for a while, Ochako only speaking to call out obstacles as they slowly stepped around rubble and overturned cars, the moon continuing to rise and the stars winking into existence like flashes of light upon an ocean; and then, after a few minutes, Tooru spoke again.
"Your hands are warm," she said, and Ochako squeaked.
"Ah?"
"It's nice," Tooru assured her, squeezing Ochako's fingers lightly.
Ochako didn't know what t say to that; and so, all she managed to get out was "Broken glass, left," - and then it would have been weird to say anything about it at all. So she didn't.
"Are you hungry?" Tooru asked, after they'd made it past the glass.
"I -" Ochako's first instinct was to deny it, but she knew from scant day's experience that Tooru would bother her mercilessly if she lied about it. "Um. Yeah. Ma says I'm a growing girl." Says, not said - but she didn't correct herself. There wasn't much point to it, anyways.
"Well, it makes sense! You puked up all your lunch, yknow," Tooru pointed out. "You shouldn't eat something that's too heavy, after that. Mina's got a friend who makes good soup - we can see if they'll make any of that!"
"What’re you gonna eat, then?" Ochako asked, worriedly. "You said you always burn yourself with the soup, if you're invisible."
"I'm gonna eat caramels," Tooru informed her, primly.
"You're gonna - Tooru-chan! You can't just eat caramels for dinner, there's not enough and you'll get hungry again!"
"But my caramels..."
"If I'm eating a full dinner, you should too," Ochako said, huffily. "Besides - shouldn't you be hungry right now? Everything's calmed down again, and all you ate for lunch was that weird half-burnt chicken sandwich!"
Tooru paused; took a slight breath, just barely audible over their footsteps on the rubble-covered road. "I was," she said. "Hungry, I mean. There's not a lot of fear around anymore. Everyone's angry or - or they ran away. And there's not many new things, either. But..." She paused as Ochako led her around an open manhole, the cover nowhere to be seen. "...I've never experienced this before." She wiggled the hand holding Ochako's for emphasis, the movement making their sleeves brush together. "Have you?"
Ochako had held hands with a lot of people in her life, and rescued about half as many from ceilings and trees besides. "No," she said truthfully. "I haven't."
The stars winked above them, and their footsteps, half out-of-sync, echoed against the buildings around them in the deep blue silence.
"I'm not so hungry as I used to be," Tooru told her. "I guess you're right, though. I should probably eat something that's not sweets."
"We can see if there's any more stores along the road," Ochako said. "Maybe they'll have something easy to eat there. Like - some onigiri, or a microwave sandwich or something. One that hasn't been set on fire."
"...yeah," Tooru agreed. "That'd be nice."
She leant heavily into Ochako's shoulder, an unseen presence on the empty road, and the pair continued on home.