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Chapter 31: A Mother’s Oath, a Friend’s Tears
🕑 Added 2025-09-28 18:16:23 +0000 UTCThe plaza of the USJ was a warzone. The air, thick and heavy with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder from Bakugo's explosions and the unnatural chill of Todoroki's ice, now also smelled of blood. Amidst the chaos of pro heroes securing the area and paramedics moving with grim efficiency, Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi knelt before the motionless figure of Ochako Uraraka.
Her face, normally warm and kind, was blank; her gaze, vacant. The pink aura of her power had vanished, leaving her like a broken doll in the middle of the carnage she herself had created.
“Uraraka Ochako,” the detective said, his voice professional but not without a weary compassion. “I’m sorry to interrupt at such a difficult time, but I need you to come with us. There are… there are many questions that need answers.”
He extended a hand, not to arrest her, but as a gesture to help her up.
She didn’t move. She didn’t blink.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
The shout came not from a hero, nor a villain. It was a mother's roar.
Inko Midoriya burst onto the scene, breaking through the police cordon with a force no one would have expected from her. Her face, normally so gentle, was twisted by panic and a leonine fury. She ran and threw herself between the detective and Ochako, spreading her arms like a human shield.
“Don’t touch her!” she hissed, her voice trembling with rage. “Can’t you see the state she’s in? She’s just a child! She’s a child and she’s in shock!”
Tsukauchi rose slowly to his feet, his expression hardening with professional patience. “Ma’am, please, I must ask you to step back. This is an active crime scene. I understand your concern, but…”
“No, you don’t understand anything!” Inko interrupted, her green eyes shining with furious tears. “My son is in one of those ambulances, maybe dying, because of these monsters! And this girl fought! She fought to protect him, to protect her friends! And now you want to treat her like a criminal! I won’t allow it!”
“Ma’am, with all due respect,” Tsukauchi said, his tone now firmer, “that ‘child’ is the one presumed responsible for the deaths of over a dozen villains. The law is clear. It is my duty to investigate every one of those deaths.”
The word “death.” The word “investigate.” The veiled accusation. Something inside Inko, something that had been held together by threads of hope and denial, finally snapped.
SMACK!
The sound of her hand striking the detective’s cheek was sharp, clean, and utterly stunning. An astonished silence fell over the nearby group of police and heroes. Everyone was frozen.
“She defended herself!” Inko hissed, her hand trembling, her face a mask of pain and defiance. “She defended her friends when no one else was here to do it! Isn’t that what heroes are supposed to do? Isn’t that what this damned school is for!?”
Two police officers, recovering from the shock, took a step forward, their hands moving toward their handcuffs. “Ma’am, you’re under arrest for assaulting an officer…”
“ENOUGH!”
The voice wasn’t a shout. It was a command. A thunderclap that rumbled with an authority so absolute it froze everyone in place.
All Might, still in his muscle form, appeared among them, his massive figure casting a shadow over the tense scene. His smile was completely gone, replaced by an expression of profound pain and an icy fury.
He ignored the police officers. He ignored the detective. He walked straight to Inko. And he bowed. A deep, humble bow—the bow of a king begging a peasant for forgiveness.
“Midoriya-san,” he said, his voice booming, yet tinged with unmistakable guilt. “There are no words in any language that can express how sorry I am. All of this… your son’s condition… young Uraraka’s state… it is my failure. My total and absolute incompetence as their teacher and as the Symbol who is supposed to protect them.”
He straightened up slowly, his gaze meeting Tsukauchi’s, who was still rubbing his reddened cheek.
“All Might,” the detective said, his tone professional but tense. “This is standard procedure. Lives were lost. The law must run its course.”
All Might turned to him, and the air temperature seemed to drop several degrees. His blue eyes, normally beacons of hope, now burned in the sunken sockets of his face, two pits of glacial fury.
“Detective,” he began, his voice dangerously quiet. “Are you truly going to try and take a student in catatonic shock for questioning, a student who just came out of a hell that I, through my own negligence, allowed to happen?” He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. “Let me be clear: that is a ridiculous idea. She will go nowhere but a hospital. I, as her homeroom teacher and as this nation’s Number One Hero, assume all legal and moral responsibility for every one of her actions. They were carried out in self-defense and under extreme duress that you and I can barely imagine.”
“But the law, All Might… the law makes no exceptions…”
All Might’s voice dropped to a whisper more menacing than any shout: “The law can wait. That child needs psychiatric help, not an interrogation in a cold room. I assure you, Detective Tsukauchi, that any attempt to forcibly remove young Uraraka from here will be taken as a personal affront.” He locked his gaze on the detective’s, hard and unyielding. “And I highly doubt you want to make the Symbol of Peace your personal adversary in this matter. Do I make myself clear?”
There was no doubt in his tone. It was a threat. A promise. Tsukauchi looked at him, saw the righteous fury burning behind the calm, and knew it was a battle he could not win. He let out a sigh of resignation and, with a wave of his hand, ordered his men to stand down.
A black, unmarked U.A. car pulled up silently beside them. All Might opened the back door. With a gentleness that contradicted his enormous size, he helped a meek and trembling Inko into the vehicle. Then, he walked over to Ochako, who was still kneeling, her gaze lost. He lifted her into his arms as if she weighed nothing and placed her gently in the seat next to Inko.
“Go to Musutafu General Hospital,” All Might told the driver. “I’ll take care of everything here. And Midoriya-san…” He looked Inko in the eyes. “He’s strong. He’s the strongest kid I know.”
Inko could only nod, as tears rolled down her face.
The car pulled away in silence. Inside, Ochako stared out the window, not seeing the landscape pass by. She was trapped in the loop of the last few minutes, the image of Izuku falling, replaying over and over in her mind.
Inko, despite her own broken heart, acted on maternal instinct. She wrapped her arms around Ochako’s trembling shoulders and pulled her close. She held her tightly, cradling her head against her chest, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, a gesture of pure comfort.
“It’s okay, my child,” she whispered, rocking her gently. “It’s over. You’re safe now. Shhh…”
Izuku, my baby… she thought, as her own storm of fear raged within, hidden behind her facade of strength. Please, hang on. Please, be the hero you always wanted to be and survive this. Don't leave me alone. Don't leave us alone.
She stroked Ochako’s brown hair, a mother comforting the girl who loved her son, while her own heart shattered into pieces.
The sharp, steady beeping of the heart monitors was the only rhythm in a world of chaos. Momo Yaoyorozu hadn’t let go of Izuku’s hand since they had loaded him onto the stretcher. Her elegant hero costume was stained with his blood, her face streaked with dried and fresh tears. Her usual decorum was lost somewhere between the Shipwreck Zone and the central plaza.
It was my fault, the thought replayed in her mind, over and over. My plan. My device. My moment of concentration… It should be me. I should be on this stretcher…
She created a soft silk handkerchief and, with infinite tenderness, began to clean Izuku’s face: the blood, the dust, the grime.
What good is all my intelligence if I couldn't protect you? she thought, a choked sob escaping her lips. He gave his life for me… for my idea… and I can’t do anything… I can’t create anything that can truly fix this…
For the first time in her life, Momo Yaoyorozu didn’t have a plan. She only had pain. And the memory of a desperate kiss.
The two vehicles arrived at the Musutafu General Hospital emergency bay at almost the same time. The ambulance doors burst open with alarming efficiency.
“Massive impact trauma! Uncontrolled internal bleeding! Multiple fractures in the lower extremities and right arm! We need an OR now!” a paramedic yelled.
They rushed Izuku’s stretcher out, running toward the emergency room doors. Momo ran beside them, still clinging to his hand, her face a mask of desperation.
The doors of the black car opened. Inko helped a still-absent, vacant-eyed Ochako out of the car. The first sound Inko heard was the paramedic’s shout. Her eyes locked onto the stretcher carrying her son’s broken body.
A raw cry of pain escaped her lips.
The emergency room doors swung shut behind the stretcher, separating Izuku from the world.
And there, under the harsh, unforgiving lights of the hospital entrance, the three women finally met: a terrified mother whose world had just imploded, a brilliant genius broken by guilt, and a formidable heroine shattered by trauma. They were bound together, not by a plan or a strategy, but by their love and their pain for the boy who now lay between life and death.
