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Uraraka Ochako just finished penning the final word of her essay on ways to avoid qi deviation when a girl burst through her window, a knife pointed directly at Ochako’s neck.
“Help me hide and I won’t kill you, okay?” The girl asked breathlessly.
Despite the knife at her neck, Ochako couldn’t help but gasp at the girl’s appearance. She had yellow eyes, slit like a cat's, and fangs protruding just slightly past her lips. One glance and it was obvious. This girl had demon blood in her. The miasma of demonic energy surrounding her only confirmed it.
It was also obvious that this girl was nervous about being caught, a flush on her cheeks that spoke of a long time spent running.
“New deal. I protect you and you will answer my questions afterwards. Is that good with you?” Ochako demanded, trying her best not to sound too timid.
The girl grinned, flashing her fanged teeth at Ochako once more. “Deal!”
The knife disappeared into her sleeve in a flash of silver. Ochako pointed over to the corner of her room where she had several screens set up for privacy. The girl ran over to them but didn’t hide just yet, keeping her head stuck out.
“Will this thing hide demonic energies from cultivators?” The girl asked. “Because, funny story, but the people chasing me are cultivators.”
Cultivators? The only sect near this area was the one headed by the Uraraka clan themselves, the Senlin Jian sect.
She couldn’t be… couldn’t be running from oniisan, was she?
“Don’t worry,” Ochako said, thinking quickly. “I can help that.”
She pushed aside her essay, reaching for a new piece of paper. She ripped it up and scribbled down a sigil. It was a sigil that was very familiar to her, and the strokes came deftly, without the need to check that she was writing them correctly.
She’d never used this sigil in this case before, however, and had never tested trying to cover up something this large before. The demonic energy surrounding this girl was thick and heavy. Ochako didn’t think she would be able to remove all of it, but if she were right, she wouldn’t need to.
Ochako ran over to the girl and pressed the talisman to her head. It stuck there, the girl’s eyes going crossed to stare at the talisman dangling in between them. A giggle nearly rose in Ochako’s chest at the incongruity of the situation, but she shoved it down. It certainly wasn’t time to laugh.
There was a banging at her door.
Ochako shoved the remains of the ripped-up paper to the side. She brushed her hand through her hair and dragged her nails along her sleeve. Now hoping she looked properly dishevelled, she headed towards the door.
Her brother stood outside, other clan disciples standing around behind him. They all looked worse for wear, their normally well-kept robes and hair flying about the place. For her brother, looking unkempt was hardly unusual, but it was for the rest of the clan’s disciples.
“Tomura-nii!” Ochako exclaimed. “Thank the heavens you came!”
“Are you alright?” Shigaraki Tomura, her elder brother and future head of the Senlin Jian sect, asked. “She didn’t bite you, did she?”
“Bite me?” Ochako asked, confused. “No, she soon realised I wasn’t a cultivator and left.”
Tomura cursed under his breath. Ochako pretended she hadn’t heard him.
“The trace of demonic energies leads in here. I need to investigate,” he snapped and shoved in past her. Knowing her brother’s easy temper, Ochako let him in without a peep. Her eyes wandered over to the screens where the girl lay hidden behind, but she then jerked them back to the centre. The urge to look again was overpowering, but Ochako was stronger than to give in so easily.
“The energy is stronger out of the window,” Tomura said. He turned back to the disciples, who had followed him into her room. “She must have run off. Don’t let her leave! She has to pay for what she did!”
Tomura stormed past Ochako. She had to dart back into the wall to avoid his sword, swinging heavily on his hip. He always was so reckless with that thing.
All the disciples left, Ochako closed the door and sighed to herself. She did not enjoy lying to Tomura-nii, but sometimes it was just necessary.
Anyway, she didn’t want the girl to die. She had too many questions to ask her! What other chance would she get to see a demon in the flesh?
“He’s gone now,” Ochako called out into the silent room. “He won’t be coming back for a while.”
The girl crawled out from the pile of screens.
“Wow! That was so cool, and so brave too, standing up to Shigaraki Tomura like that,” the girl chirped, seemingly in no worry of how close she’d been to danger. She reached up to remove the talisman from her forehead.
“Don’t!” Ochako jumped forward and grasped her wrist. “If you remove it, the energies will just come back and they will find you!”
The girl blinked at her, wrist frozen in Ochako’s own.
Ochako let go, hand burning. She suddenly realised how demanding that action had been, and to a demon, no less.
She tucked her hands into her sleeve and drew herself back together, the very picture of the clan’s prized daughter.
“Well,” Ochako commanded, and then feeling silly about hearing her own voice like that, softened her tone, “You promised you would answer my questions.”
The girl nodded cheerily. She moved to sit on Ochako’s bed, bouncing on it just slightly. The talisman on her head moved to and fro with her movement. “I did say that! But see, I wanna know why you wanna know. Why not just hand me off to Shigaraki?”
“If I told him you were here, he would have killed you immediately,” Ochako said.
“But if he founds out you lied to him later, won’t he kill you?” The girl asked.
“He’s my brother,” Ochako said. “He won’t hurt me.”
The girl gaped. “Shigaraki Tomura, your brother? I thought he didn’t have any family? Not that I’ve heard any other Shigaraki’s around the place.”
“That’s because there aren’t any,” Ochako said quietly. “Look - it’s just complicated, okay? I would rather not talk about it.”
“Ugh, fine,” the girl sighed, but relented anyway. “Hey, wait, you’re the sister of Shigaraki Tomura, one of the strongest cultivators of our time, and you know demonic cultivation?”
Ochako froze. “No I don’t - I - I - you’re mistaken!”
The girl’s eyes narrowed, mouth stretching into a wicked grin. “You think I can’t recognise what this talisman is? You can’t hide your secrets from me.”
Realising, she’d been caught in a lie, Ochako sunk down on the bed next to the girl, eyes to the ground.
“Look, it’s not like - it’s not like that,” Ochako said. “I’m not one of those demonic cultivators that want to raze their family to the ground in revenge, or anything.”
“But that’s what demonic cultivation is for,” the girl said. Ochako risked a glance at her expression. She looked avidly curious, yellow eyes nearly glowing in the soft light. “Why not just learn spiritual cultivation?”
“My family won’t allow that,” Ochako admitted miserably. “It’s not a woman’s place to become a cultivator. We’re supposed to be - healers, and helpers, but never a fighter.”
“That sucks,” the girl said. “Kinda sounds like they deserve to die.”
“No!” Ochako cried. “Just because I disagree with them, doesn’t mean I want them dead. I just… I have to find a way to prove them wrong. I can’t compete in spiritual cultivation, everyone here learns that from birth. But demonic cultivation? People hate it so much they never want to hear a single word about it. Therefore they don’t know what I’m learning, that it’s not an odd form of healing. When I’ve learnt enough, I will be able to protect them and they will realise they are wrong.”
“So you got good at these talismans to hide your own work,” the girl surmised.
Ochako nodded.
The girl pounced on Ochako. Together, they fell back onto the bed, Ochako’s view suddenly obscured by the girl’s messy blonde hair.
“Wow, that’s so cool!” She cried. “Your whole family forced you down one path, but you said no! That’s so incredible I just can’t hold myself back~”
Pain darted like a pinprick on the side of Ochako’s neck. Instinctively she pushed back with her cultivation - not demonic cultivation, it was just her way, that’s all - and the girl fell away. The girl kept giggling even as she landed flat on the floor, hands now pressed to her cheeks.
A wetness lingered on her skin. Ochako reached up to her neck and her fingers came away red.
With that, she remembered Tomura-nii’s question. It had seemed absurd at the time but now…
Now she was looking, the girl’s teeth was dotted with blood.
Right. She was still a demon.
The girl’s laughs died down. She looked back at Ochako, still smiling.
“Your blood tastes so good,” the girl breathes. “Come on, you’re my friend! Please can’t I taste some more?”
The girl crawled forward, eyes wide and pleading.
“No! No more biting!” Ochako cried out. She pushed herself further up the bed, away from the girl. “Wait, you - you think we’re friends?”
“Of course we are!” The girl exclaimed. “You haven’t killed me, and I haven’t killed you, so that makes us friends, right? Everyone I met are all boring mean men, and they always try to stab me. Why is it okay for them to stab me but I can’t stab them? It’s not fair!”
The girl paused, taking in the fact that Ochako was still backing away.
“You do want to be my friend, right?” The girl said. Her eyes were large and round and looked close to the point of tears.
Ochako’s heart lurched. Could she really blame a demon for acting like a demon? It was like blaming a lion for killing deer. And anyway, a life constantly being chased by cultivators sounded so incredibly lonely…
“Of course we can be friends,” Ochako said before she could think better of it. “But, as a friend, please don’t bite me unless I say it’s okay beforehand, alright?”
The girl nodded desperately. “Okay! If you say so.”
She looked so eager, so pleased, by Ochako’s simple admission of friendship that Ochako really couldn’t regret her choice.
Anyone who cared that deeply about friendship couldn’t be all bad anyway, could they?
Ochako shifted back away from the wall.
“Why do you bite people anyway?” Ochako asked. “I haven’t heard of many demon species that are like you.”
Something flashed across the girl’s eyes, but it disappeared so quick Ochako dismissed it as nothing but a trick of the light. The girl moved forward, wrapping a finger around her hair and smiling coyly. “That’s because I’m not like most species.”
A unique demon? Ochako really had lucked out.
“Do you know many other demons then?” Ochako breathed out. “How many? Tell me!”
The girl giggled. “Don’t you want to know my name first? So nosy, wanting to know my species.”
“Oh, my bad!” Ochako said, slumping slightly. Right, politeness
She clambered back onto the bed, and rested her head against Ochako’s shoulder. It was closer to her neck than Ochako would have liked, but it didn’t seem like the girl was going to bite her again, so Ochako let it be.
“You can call me Himiko,” she said excitedly.
“Okay. It’s nice to meet you, Himiko, I’m Uraraka Ochako.”
Himiko squealed, teeth biting down into her lower lip.
“Ochako,” she breathed. “The name of my friend is Ochako.”
“Did you… did you not have any friends before?” Ochako asked softly. The way Himiko was acting, so excited that Ochako was behaving with a minimal amount of decency, Ochako couldn’t help but be concerned for her. Was it a demon thing, perhaps, to not have friends? Maybe that was what made her the odd one out. The only demon to want friends.
Himiko moved again, flouncing her head down so it now lay in Ochako’s lap. Ochako’s hands hovered by her side, unsure where to put them. No one ever behaved this intimately with her. She was the only daughter of her clan, and being Tomura’s little sister, people were wary of offending him, and thus, kept her at a distance.
It didn’t help that the sect viewed women as inherently delicate and needing protection and just… ugh. Everything Ochako hated. And would prove wrong, once she’d learnt demonic cultivation well enough to show she was capable.
She’d never had someone act so close to her before. Himiko was a demon, and so likely didn’t understand what exactly she was doing, but… still.
“Oh, I had lots of friends! Tons of them! They wouldn’t call me their friend though. They were all,” Himiko stuck her tongue out, “Too scared of me. Stupid.”
Ochako understood. Fear gripped people’s hearts all too easily. The unknown, such as anything to do with demons, was treated as horrible, inhuman, wrong.
It wasn’t like any of it was true. Ochako had taught herself the basics of demonic cultivation and nothing bad had happened to her! And yeah, Himiko may have threatened to kill her when she first came in, but so what! If she’d been found, she’d be dead too. Ochako knew her brother had killed many people before and she wasn’t scared of him.
Ochako thought the whole thing was stupidly irrational and had told her brother many times before, but he’d only told her she was naive and should go back to her studies. As much as she loved him, she wanted to kick him then.
“Don’t worry, I’m not scared of you,” Ochako said. She moved her hand forward hesitantly and rested it on Himiko’s shoulder. Himiko’s mouth blossomed into a smile. Any nerves Ochako might have had at the action flew away at the sight of that smile.
Ochako had a lot of learning to do on how to be a good friend.
“So? You going to ask me your questions?” Himiko asked.
“Oh, right.” Most of Ochako’s books were kept by her desk, but luckily one was tucked beside her bed after she’d spent the night puzzling over it. She hadn’t wanted to dislodge Himiko by getting up.
She flipped the book open and pointed to a section of text covered with notes.
“I’ve tried this a few times, and none of the variations I’ve tried has made it work. Is the explanation wrong or am I just not good enough to make it work?” Ochako complained. It had been frustrating, wasting hard-to-find materials on a technique that failed each and every time. And the worst thing was she didn’t even have anyone to vent her failure to, since she wasn’t supposed to practice any sort of cultivation, let alone demonic cultivation.
Himiko rolled over, staring at the book intently.
Ochako waited patiently.
She waited, only for Himiko to laugh uncontrollably.
“You tried this? This is a joke technique, it could never work,” Himiko said through her laughter. “Some demon must have tricked a human into believing it!”
“Oh,” Ochako murmured. She didn’t know how to feel. Annoyed she’d spent so long believing it to be true, or glad she wasn’t so much of a failure she couldn’t even have understood the basic written word.
“Have you been learning this only through books?” Himiko asked.
“That’s all I have,” Ochako replied. “I don’t have anyone who could teach me.”
“You’re not going to go very far with just books,” Himiko said. She twisted to look back at Ochako, a glint in her eye. “I can help teach you!”
“You’ll teach me?” Ochako gasped. She couldn’t help but lean closer, taken in by that look in Himiko’s vibrant yellow eyes.
Himiko nodded enthusiastically. “You’ll be my own little demonic disciple!”
Ochako’s heart welled up, overwhelmed with joy. No one had ever wanted to teach her before…
Apart from cooking, cleaning and healing, but that was different. Ochako hadn’t wanted to learn that.
But this, this, was different. This was her own fate she was now holding, power at the touch of her fingers.
Ochako reached out and grabbed Himiko into a hug.
“Thank you so much!” Ochako exclaimed.
She quickly let go before she reached the point of awkwardness. She turned to put the apparently useless book away, just missing the hints of a blush fade away from Himiko’s face.
“If you want to learn, you won’t learn a lot just by staying here,” Himiko said. Ochako quickly twisted back around to face Himiko. Himiko was looking at her, a curious look in her eyes.
“You mean… leave here?” Ochako asked cautiously.
“You can’t learn without action,” Himiko said. “Books are too boring, they don’t teach you anything real. Anything strong enough to be on par with cultivators like your brother.”
“They taught me enough to help hide you,” Ochako said, feeling a little bit petty. “Was that nothing?”
“That says nothing about the books, and all about you,” Himiko replied, looking smug. She poked at the talisman still on her forehead. “Done by most people, this thing wouldn’t be enough to hide me.”
Himiko moved forward, placing her hands either side of Ochako. Ochako couldn’t help but lean backwards in response. Himiko’s eyes were so piercing, viewed this close up.
“You’re strong, Ochako-chan,” Himiko squealed. “I could taste it in your blood. But you won’t get any stronger learning from these stupid, false books.”
Ochako swallowed. The proximity, the honorific, even Himiko’s words, it all swirled through her mind, a confusing mess. Himiko’s eyes flashed down, focused on the movement in her neck.
“What do you suggest then?” Ochako asked, bringing Himiko’s attention back to her face.
“Do whatever cultivators do. You know, go out on hunts, go exploring, practice on defeating demons. Your clan leads one of the most powerful sect around, shouldn’t you know?”
“Hey!” Ochako cried. “That’s not fair. They don’t tell me the details of what they do. Wouldn’t want me copying them and getting hurt.”
Himiko moved back, sitting up straight. She frowned. “Are you sure you don’t want me to kill them? Your clan sounds awful.”
“No,” Ochako said vehemently. “No killing my family!”
“If you insist,” Himiko said with a pout. “But I’m not wrong. If you want to improve, you have to leave here sometime.”
“But…” Ochako gazed out of the window. Out at the forest that surrounded this place, shielding them from any sudden attacks. “But I’ve never left before.”
“No time like the present, right?” Himiko giggled. “Come on, Ochako-chan.”
Ochako had no rational arguments. Himiko was right. She was a demon, so obviously knew far more about demonic cultivation than Ochako would.
But… leaving her family? Leaving the only place Ochako had ever known?
The idea was terrifying. Anything could happen to her out there.
And despite the terror, excitement was brewing inside her. Anything could happen out there.
Ochako knew the direction her life here would take. It was the same direction as most clan daughters had. Marriage to bring clans together, consolidate more power under the title of a single sect. Hopefully Ochako would also like the man involved, but she hadn’t been holding out hope.
It was safe. It would help her family.
But it was also so boring.
She could do so much more! She could actually protect her family. She could keep them all safe. There was war brewing, for there was always war brewing between the sects. She wouldn’t let herself sit around and do nothing when the next one came to burn down their walls. No sect was permanent, not truly, and that was the truth of it. The truth that in the end, it didn’t matter who someone was, as long as they could fight for what they wanted to protect.
“Okay,” Ochako whispered. “I’ll go with you.”
Himiko’s grin lit up the room.