[GUNHEAD MARTIAL ARTS AGENCY – OSAKA – DAY 3 – 11:47 AM]
Ochako's back hit the mat for the fifteenth time that morning.
"Oof .."
"Better," Gunhead said, offering her a hand up. His surprisingly gentle voice carried approval after the repeated takedowns.
"You're starting to adapt to the shifts in momentum against your opponent. But you're still thinking too much about the technique instead of feeling it."
"Yes, sensei," Ochako panted, accepting his hand and pulling herself upright. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, and every muscle in her body ached in ways she never thought it could, but there was progress. She could feel it.
Three days into her internship, and she was already seeing results."
'Three days and I'm already more aware of my center of gravity and how to use an opponent's weight against them.'
She thought.
"Take five," Gunhead said, gesturing to the water station. "Catch your breath. We'll run the sequence again, then move on to defensive grappling."
"Thank you, sensei!"
Ochako trudged over to the corner of the training room, her legs wobbling. She grabbed her water bottle and drank.
"Hahhh!" Never had she been so grateful for the cool liquid running down her throat. Around her, the agency hummed with activity. Gunhead's sidekicks were running drills on the other mats. Practicing throws, testing reaction times, working through combat scenarios with familiarity.
Familiarity that came from years of training together.
It was... nice. Everything an internship should be.
'Would Yuta-kun have liked it here?' The thought crossed her mind. The pleasant thought however, was soon followed by the memories of the Shinkansen incident.
The sleeping gas. Waking up disoriented in a clinic ... Honestly, she had never expected to be attacked on a train. 'Yeah.' she thought, looking up at a nearby screen playing a news report of the YAMANOTE LINE Tragedy.
'Just like they never expected something like that either.' She was unable to help comparing.
The tragedy of the Yamanote Line had long evolved past a local disaster; it had become a national trauma.
In the digital age where news traveled faster than anything else, the initial reports of a "disappeared train" had fueled forty-eight hours of frantic hope, but that hope grew weaker and weaker with each additional hour that passed with no result.
'Perhaps I and many others on the Shinkansen would have been no different if not for Yuta-kun.'
She shook her head, dispelling the memory
That was then. This was now. And Yuta was fine. Probably getting the training of his life under Aizawa-sensei's direct supervision.
'I wonder how his internship is going,' she mused, taking another sip of water. 'Knowing Aizawa-sensei, he's most probably run into the ground. Underground hero work has to be way more intense than martial arts drills.'
"Uraraka-san!" one of the sidekicks called from across the room ... a muscular guy named Takeshi who'd been with Gunhead's agency for three years. "Come join us for lunch when you're ready! We're ordering takeout."
"Oh! Yes, thank you!" Ochako waved back.
She glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. 11:50 AM. Close enough to lunch.
Gunhead clapped his hands together, drawing everyone's attention. "Alright, everyone! Good work this morning. Let's break for an hour. Takeshi, go ahead and place the order. Uraraka-san, make sure you eat something substantial. We're doing stamina drills this afternoon."
"Yes, sensei!"
The training room slowly emptied as people filtered into the adjoining break room. A modest but comfortable environment with a few couches, a small kitchenette, a TV mounted on the wall, and a table large enough to seat the whole team.
Takeshi was already on the phone with the takeout place, rattling off orders while the others settled in.
Ochako collapsed onto one of the couches. The cushions of the agency's break room couch felt like a cloud compared to the rock hard density of the training mats.
"Hey, Uraraka-san," another sidekick, a woman named Yui with a speed-enhancement quirk, sat down beside her. "How're you holding up? Gunhead's been putting you through the wringer."
Ochako smiled tiredly. "I'm okay! Sore, but okay. It's a lot harder than I expected, but I'm learning so much."
"That's the spirit," Yui said with a grin. "Stick with it. By the end of the week, you'll be throwing people twice your size without even thinking about it."
"I hope so!"Just then, the television channel, previously displaying a daytime talk show with two hosts discussing something mundane ... celebrity gossip,she presumed, had changed into something new.
The image of a high-contrast newsroom appeared on the screen.
Takeshi stopped talking mid-sentence into his phone. Gunhead, who had been leaning against the kitchenette counter, slowly straightened his posture, his masked face turning toward the monitor.
"Hey, one of you, Turn it up," Gunhead asked.
BREAKING NEWS: YAMANOTE LINE PASSENGER MANIFEST RELEASED
The room went quiet. Everyone's eyes turned to the screen.
A news anchor appeared. A middle-aged woman with a grave expression and red-rimmed eyes that suggested she'd been holding back tears all morning.
"We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this breaking update on the Yamanote Line tragedy. The Hero Public Safety Commission, in coordination with the National Police Agency, has just released the full passenger manifest."
The camera cut to a document. A long, scrolling list of names.
"The families of the missing have been notified over the past seventy-two hours," the anchor continued, her voice carefully controlled. "And as of 11:30 this morning, the complete list of passengers has been made public. We want to remind viewers that this is an ongoing investigation, and authorities are still searching for any sign of survivors or wreckage."
The list kept scrolling. Name after name after name. Ochako stared at the screen, her heart heavy.
"This is awful," Yui whispered beside her. "716 people. Just... gone."
On screen, "The nation mourns with the families of the victims. Vigils are being held across the country, and the Prime Minister himself has issued a statement expressing his condolences."
The screen shifted to footage of memorial sites
With the release of the passenger list, all over Japan, people had begun paying respects. Flowers piled high, weeping families and people standing in silent prayer.
Ochaco's positive mood from her training only soured even more.
'All those people,' she thought, her hands clenching in her lap. 'They were just... living their lives. Going to work. Visiting family. And then ...'
"It's the League of Villains, right?" another sidekick spoke up from across the room. "That's what they're saying?"
"Yeah," Takeshi confirmed. "Same group that attacked USJ and Hosu. They're escalating."
"Escalating is an understatement," Yui muttered. "This is mass murder."
The reporter went on.
"Despite the combined efforts of professional heroes, military forces, and the coast guard, there has been no positive results. .."
"The HPSC has issued a statement that the search will continue indefinitely, but privately, sources tell us that hope of finding survivors has been abandoned. The focus now shifts to recovery ... and justice."
The screen behind changed to show grainy security footage: the empty Yamanote Line platform. The time stamp: 1:05 PM, Day 1.
"The League of Villains has not claimed responsibility, but authorities have already confirmed their involvement. The HPSC have authorized a Manhunt for the League Of Villains nationwide especially the villain known as Kurogiri, whose warp-gate quirk is believed to have been used to displace the train. The exact location remains unknown,.."
The mood was at an all time low. Gunhead stepped forward. Glancing at the TV before glancing back at his team.
"I know this is difficult to watch," he said. "But don't let it distract you from why we're here. This is exactly why we train. Why we fight. So that tragedies like this... happen less."
He paused, his gaze lingering on the screen.
"The best thing we can do right now is be ready. Be better. So that the next time villains try something like this, we're strong enough to stop them."
The room was silent for a moment.
Then Takeshi nodded. "Yes, sensei."
"Yes, sensei," the others echoed.
Ochako swallowed, her eyes still fixed on the screen.
The list of names kept scrolling. She didn't recognize any of them.
'Thank goodness,' she thought, then immediately felt guilty for the relief. 'That's awful. I shouldn't. These were all real people with families and ...'
The commercial break ended. The talk show resumed.
Someone changed the channel.
The mood in the room remained heavy, but people started talking again eventually. Ochako leaned back against the couch, her exhaustion from training now mixed with a deeper, emotional weariness.
'716 people.'
The number felt incomprehensible.
She thought about her parents. About her classmates. About how easily any of them could have been on that train.
'What if it had been the Shinkansen I was on?' The thought struck.
'What if Yuta-kun and I were attacked by the League Of Villains and warped away to an unknown location? What if ...'
"Uraraka-san?"
She blinked, looking up.
Yui was watching her with concern. "You okay? You looked a little pale there."
"Oh! Yes, I'm fine!" Ochako forced a smile. "Just... thinking."
"Yeah." Yui's expression softened. "It's a lot to process."
"Mm."
The door to the break room opened, and a delivery person stepped in with several bags of food.
"Order for Gunhead Agency?"
"That's us!" Takeshi moved to collect the bags. Lunch commenced as such. Food was distributed. People started eating, though through muted conversations. Ochako picked at her bento box, her appetite significantly diminished.
On the TV—now on a different channel, another news program was covering the same story.
Takeshi was still on his phone, scrolling through social media with an increasingly disturbed expression.
"The internet's going crazy," he muttered. "Everyone's trying to figure out where the train ended up. Theories about ocean currents, satellite data, conspiracy theories..."
"People want answers," Gunhead said while eating his lunch. "Can't blame them."
"Here I thought the villains couldn't get any bolder after Hosu."
"Yeah. Why would they go after a random train like that? It makes no sense."
"Is spite not enough? Don't try to make sense of what these lunatics do. First U.A, then Hosu. They've been foiled twice already. It would be no surprise if this was an act of revenge against Hero Society."
"Huh?" Uraraka looked over. "An act of revenge?"
Gunhead paused. "Yes. Precisely that."
"Sensei? What do you mean? How does attacking a random train count as revenge?"
"Depends. To us it might look random, but there should be a motive we just can't see yet." Gunhead explained.
"The league of villains attacked U.A with the intent to kill All Might. Then attacked Hosu trying to kill Endeavor. Perhaps ..."
He didn't finish, but everyone's eyes widened.
"Was there someone on the train they were after? Another hero?"
"Not really." Gunhead shook his head. "All major heroes are accounted for. However that doesn't mean they didn't possibly fulfill their objective. An attack on hero society goes beyond just targeting heroes. They could also target people connected to heroes or just the general public. It would have the same effect if a bunch of the passengers had ties to the hero industry. Family members of pros. Agency employees. Support tech workers ..."
Everyone fell silent.
"If ... If that's the case then .." Yui said, spoke up hesitantly. "If that's true... if they're targeting civilians connected to heroes... doesn't that mean anyone can be a target now ..."
"Technically yes." Gunhead replied after a moment of silence. "However, that just means we need to exercise greater caution. In time the HPSC and heroes will come up with a solution to this."
"For us, it means we don't take unnecessary risks. And it means we definitely don't let this information leave this room until the HPSC makes an official statement."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"Understood?"
"Yes, sensei."
Ochako's thoughts drifted again to the Shinkansen incident.
How close she'd come to being in a similar situation. Just as she was lost in thought,
"Hey." Ochako looked up. Takeshi was leaning against the counter, his phone in hand. "You guys seeing this?"
"Seeing what?" Hideo asked through a mouthful of rice.
Takeshi's expression was strange, somewhere between shock and disbelief. "There's... something going viral. About the passenger list."
"What about it?" Yui frowned.
Takeshi scrolled through his phone. "No way, it can't really be .... Holy shit." His face staring at the phone completely drained of color.
"Takeshi?" Gunhead frowned, setting down his food. "What ..."
"There's a U.A. student on the list."
The room went dead silent. Uraraka was stunned
"What?" Yui stood up abruptly. "A student? From U.A.?"
"Yeah." Takeshi's hands were shaking. "It's all over social media. Someone cross-referenced the names and ..." He scrolled frantically. "It's confirmed. A first-year. Hero Course."
Ochako's hands went numb.
"It's from class 1A."
Gunhead frowned and took the remote. On the wall, the news broadcast shifted from the memorial footage back to the anchor.
Uraraka turned to the screen.
"We are receiving a confirmed update from the HPSC regarding the identity of one of the passengers," the anchor stammered. "Initial reports suggest that among the 716 missing is a student currently enrolled in the Hero Course at U.A. High School."
'That ... That can't be right. No. It's a mistake. They're all at their internships. Iida is in Hosu. Deku is with Gran Torino. Everyone is safe.'
"The student has been identified as a participant in the recent Sports Festival," the anchor continued. A photo bloomed onto the screen. It wasn't a professional headshot.
It was a still-frame from the festival: a boy with messy red hair in a U.A tracksuit.
YUTA AKUTAMI, 16
U.A. HIGH SCHOOL – HERO COURSE 1-A
SPORTS FESTIVAL FINALIST
Ochako's bento box slid from her lap. The wooden sticks clattered against the floor, but she didn't feel the impact
"Yuta-kun?"
Yui turned to her. "Uraraka .. Is that... isn't that the guy you were talking about?" her voice laced with horror.
"That ... That's not right. It can't be ..."
Her mind wandered.
'Yuta.'
'Yuta was on the train.'
"No," she whispered. "No, that's ... That's wrong. He was interning with Aizawa-sensei. He's ... He's .. He was ..."
It wasn't just her.
Simultaneously, all Of Class 1A across their internships, saw the news report at the same time. As well as everyone else in Japan.
__
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