Ochako Uraraka had to admit that this was a first for her. Sitting on the back seat of a motorcycle behind a boy she had just met. She kept her hands clasped lightly over his shoulders but made sure to keep herself from pressing up against him. She wasn't fully confident in her balance if it came to just holding the grips of the seat she was on. If she ended up startled and almost fell, she might just activate her Quirk on a massive pile up of crashing cars was so not what she needed today. Or you know, ever actually.
This wasn't something she'd usually partake in either. But he was nice, if a bit flirty for her tastes and he'd offered to give her a lift to U.A. She tended to kind of wall off any of the few flirty types that she caught the attention of, they kind of wigged her out. It helped though that the bit of flirting he'd done wasn't really full on hitting on her. It seemed more like something born out of interacting with girls a lot. Plus, the more money she saved the better, her funds were tight enough as it was, so she'd accepted his offer despite the mild embarrassment she felt.
The less she used her railcard to get around the better, it would give her a few extra rides on her card before she had to replace it, saving her a bit of yen.
She had to admit as well though, that this was a nice bike. She'd toyed with the idea of going for her driving license herself. Especially since a cheap car would be cheaper in the long run than taking trains to school every morning and back again for three years. But, the money needed for the exam and license, then to pay for even a cheap car was just too much for her family to pay at once.
She and her family weren't doing so swell in the money department after all, the construction company owned by her parents rarely got any work in these days and they struggled to save any money up before they had to pay it all out.
She wondered though how he had his license before he had even been accepted into a hero academy. As far as she knew, that kind of thing wasn't really possible without someone putting a good word in for you, and that usually meant a successful Pro Hero who could vouch for the applicants potential and such.
Ochako was a bit jealous that he could so casually afford a bike like this one, if the designer jacket he was wearing was anything to go by. She fisted her hands slightly tighter against his shoulders - that just lit a fire in her belly though! All she had to do was pass the exams today and she'd be well on her way to becoming a famous pro and getting all the money she needed to give her parents the comfortable life they deserved!
"So what department are you applying for?" Kano's voice echoing loudly over the steady thrum of the bike's engine roused her from her thoughts.
She noticed the bike slowing down to a stop and traffic lights shining red in front of them, "The Hero Department," she replied, raising her voice and sliding up the golden visor of her helmet, "What about you?"
"Me too," he shouted back, looking over his shoulder at her, his own visor already slid up and flashing her a smile before it slipped into a bit of a grimace, "My Quirk isn't really suited to anything outside of fighting after all." she tried not to look into his eyes too long. She wasn't really interested in looks all that much, his eyes though, were a completely different story, she wished she had eyes like those. No boy should have eyes that pretty. Ochako didn't even know eyes that vibrantly green could exist. They were like glistening, vibrant emerald jewels. Definitely way more beautiful than her own ruddy brown eyes. So not fair.
Ah, but they were dimming right now and he looked a bit annoyed and put out about his Quirk. It should be a crime for emotion to dim those eyes down. Still, she shook her head - it wasn't like Ochako couldn't understand his gripe with his Quirk, her own Quirk wasn't really all that great for combat situations and was much more suited to a rescue hero. It didn't really bother her too much, since she wanted to be a rescue hero like Thirteen anyway, but the more popular heroes were the stronger ones and they made more money. The most popular by far though were the strongest heroes who could also rescue people even after beating villains down, like All Might, or Hawks.
So he was pretty much on the other side of the spectrum from her. And he seemed kind of a bit bummed out by that fact.
They both fell silent for a few seconds and he turned his head back towards the traffic lights. Ah, she should say something right?
"Mine's the opposite ta' be honest," her accent slipped in a bit as she spoke up, "My Quirk's called Zero Gravity and it lets me remove the weight of anything I touch if I want, it's not really all that great for a fight though." She didn't have any training to compensate for that either, she couldn't really afford to learn a martial art, even the beginner classes cost a decent amount of yen. All Ochako had been able to do to mitigate her combat weakness even slightly was working out to get herself into good shape, mostly by jogging every morning and installing a few cheap pieces of exercise equipment like a pull up bar in her room. That, and whatever small tricks she could come up with for her Quirk.
"Nice, that's a pretty awesome Quirk," Kano noted with a whistle, "It's pretty much tailor made for a rescue hero, definitely a Quirk worthy of a Pro."
Ochako smiled at the praise and leaned forward, patting him on the back as if to pass on the burden of sharing their Quirks, "What about you?" she asked.
He glanced up at the traffic lights again making sure they were still red before he took one hand off of the handlebars of the motorcycle and pointed one finger into the air, just high enough for her to see over his shoulder, "Mine's called Power Quake," he said. There was a kind of clash of sound between something vibrating and a high pitched echoing pop followed by a small transparent and whitish sphere of - she wasn't really sure what to call it - something forming around the tip of his finger, it looked kind of like the very air itself was twisting and fracturing within it.
'Pretty,' she thought. The sphere flickered between different shades of white in an almost mesmerizing way. And the feeling in the air, just from that small sphere over his finger tip it felt like the air around them was vibrating, she had to make a conscious effort to stop her teeth from chattering together.
Ochako understood though why his Quirk was only good for fighting now. If even that tiny little sphere no bigger than the tip of his finger caused the air to vibrate so hard around them, then what must it feel like if he made one much bigger, like the size of someone's head?
"You can feel the tremors through the air right?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at her again.
Ochako nodded, boy could she feel it, "Yep! I can't believe such a little thing like that is causing that much vibration though."
"Yeah, that's the problem, see that's only the after effects of my Quirk," Wait, what? Just an after effect for something that strong, not really the full effect? He continued on ignorant of her thoughts, "See, my Quirk when activated causes the area it covers to constantly push and pull, every single tiny part of it and each motion bounces off of each other and amplifies those around it making them push and pull all that harder in a kind of loop effect. It's like the power of an earthquake focused in a tiny area and I can use it from any part of my body."
Kano lifted his other hand and clamped it around the fingertip, a hiss of pain leaving his mouth as he crushed the sphere out of existence, "That was as small as I could make it and it would probably tear a car apart if I hit one with it." he grimaced, "The kick back I get from using it isn't very pleasant either, I almost died when I first activated it."
'Oh gosh, no wonder he couldn't really use it for anything other than fighting,' Ochako thought, 'Heck, if that tiny little sphere could have torn apart a car, what about one the size of his hand like I thought of before?' It would probably tear apart a building. Even fighting with it without causing too much damage was probably really hard to do. And if even that little sphere hurt him to just power up and not even use, then how much must it hurt to use more?
Ochako was a bit glad the only kickback from her own Quirk was the nausea she got if she went over her three ton weight limit or removed her own gravity for an extended period of time. She couldn't really imagine going through pain like that for something she used constantly like she did her Quirk, sometimes she even used it in her sleep when she wasn't wearing her mittens.
"Eh," she patted him on the back again comfortingly, an awkward smile on her face, "At least it's super powerful right?"
Kano's eyes lit up a bit and he chuckled, "There is that at least," he conceded.
The traffic light above them flashed yellow, then green. "Hold on tight, we're off again." he told her. Ochako quickly pulled her hand from his shoulder, slipping her visor back down over her eyes and gripped his shoulder again, this time a bit more tightly. Then the sound of rubber on asphalt rang and he drove forward, quickly picking up speed.
She grinned in excitement as butterflies rose in her belly, she quite liked the speed the bike went at and the way the wind blew over her face. Thank god for the helmet she was wearing though or her hair would be messed up so bad, a total birds nest. That would be all she needed, a bad hair day during her attempt to get into the most prestigious hero school in the country.
With the tension more or less broken between them, conversation flowed between them much easier. She learned that he actually had a younger twin brother who was also taking the entrance exam with them today, that he surprisingly enough had a decently popular following on Wetube as he documented his training progress on the route to become a hero, and that he'd actually bought the motorcycle they were riding on with the money he made from it. She wished she could have done something like that, but she didn't even have a computer and her cell phone was a cheap-flip one on top of that.
'But jeez this guy's a real go getter type isn't he?' she thought. In turn, she ended up telling him about the limits on her Quirk, and how she was actually living alone at the moment in an apartment her parents got her for free since they actually built the apartment building. That she was doing so because she originally lived quite a bit away's and her new apartment was much closer to U.A. She told him that her favorite food was mochi and he ended up laughing, pointing out that he kind of figured that out with how much of it she had bought back at the store they met in.
"Hey!" Ochako pouted at his laughing and playfully thumped him on the back with one hand while making sure to maintain her balance on the bike, "Mochi's great and really cheap too!" It had been something she picked up at a young age. It was very cheap and just one little piece the size of a small matchbox was as filling as an entire bowl of rice. She loved the taste and texture of it in her mouth too so it was a win-win for her.
Stocking up on mochi tended to save her a lot of money.
"I didn't say there was anything wrong it," Kano chuckled, "Personally my favorite is kebab meat in chilli sauce. I had to eat a lot of meat and stuff like that for a high calorie intake when I was younger so I could bulk up and make my Quirk easier on my body."
She could certainly attest that he'd done a good job. She felt like she thumped a brick wall instead of a person's back just there. "Really, kebab?" Ochako snorted, "And covered in chilli sauce at that. That's so weird! At least mochi is a Japanese food." It definitely explained why he had bought three bento's that focused on meat though.
Once again though, so not fair! This guy was going to eat three bento's by himself and it would help him maintain a rigid body of powerful muscle. If she ate three bento's it'd go straight to her hips, and her hips were already too thick in her opinion. The other girls she knew at her old school had much more slender hips than her, just - so not fair at all. If it weren't for how little she actually ate and the jogging she did everyday she had no doubt she'd be a complete and utter natural chubster.
"Hey, don't bash on the kebab, I love that stuff!" he jokingly rebuked, "Besides, it's really filling and feels good in my stomach. One of the better things I've eaten before using my Quirk. Let me tell you, using it on an empty stomach gives me some annoying nausea to deal with, as if the pain wasn't bad enough already."
Ochako grimaced, "Ah that sucks!" she was sympathetic with that plight, she knew how much of annoyance Quirk based nausea was. She'd become an old friend with throwing up long ago thanks to her own inborn ability. "Will you be fine for the exam?" She didn't really know what the exam would entail, all she really knew from the hints in letters she received was that this year the entrance exam was going to have a much bigger focus on combat ability.
She tightened her hands on his shoulders a bit more when he sped up a bit and passed through two cars in front of them seamlessly, "Nah, the exam shouldn't be a problem," he replied, voice carried on the wind rushing over them, she had to admire his skill when driving, he made it look easy, "From what my sensei tells me we'll just be up against a bunch of robots called villain bots. Big and fast, but not really too much of a threat. each one gives a set amount of points and the more you destroy the higher your score rises, and the top scorers get in."
"Ah, really!?" Ochako demanded frantically. No doubt about it then, his sensei must be a Pro of some kind. That must be where he got the recommendation for this motorcycle of his. Still, big robots that could be really bad for her.
"Don't worry so much," he replied easily, "We get like ten minutes to rack up points and we can use any equipment we brought with us to help augment our fighting skills. With your Quirk all you've gotta do is touch them once and you should be able to bring them down without too much trouble."
'I'd still have to get in close though,' she bit her lip slightly. She wasn't the fastest person around, as far as running speed went she was pretty average.
No, it didn't matter! She'd just throw everything she had into it and chase those robots down like a wolf hunting a rabbit! And she at least knew in advance what to expect so there wouldn't be any surprises to slow her down.
Yeah! She could totally do this!
Fired up, she lifted her hands from his shoulders and punched her right hand into her left palm, "Yeah I'm gonna crush them!" Ochako agreed with him loudly and vehemently.
Then she wobbled slightly and realized she'd taken her hands off of what she was using to balance herself on the bike, "Ack!" she spluttered, quickly throwing her herself forward and gripping his back tightly before she fell off.
Kano just snorted in amusement.