Ochaco Uraraka

Small pink pads sit on the ends of Ochaco's fingers, thick and rounded like the digits of an animal's paw; touching them to a target is how her Quirk goes on, and pressing them together is how it comes off. Above them is a short, slender girl with fair skin and permanent pink patches high on both cheeks. Auburn runs through her hair and her large round eyes alike, and the bob she keeps it in stops above the shoulder, with short bangs and two long strands left down beside her face.

Her hero costume is a black bodysuit run through with pale pink and marked with two black semi-spheres at the chest, the signature of its designer, Sasori Nimaru. Almost every piece of it fights her Quirk's side effects: gauntlets that work the wrists like a blood pressure gauge to hold nausea down, a choker and headgear that press points at the neck and ease the strain on her ear canals, and boots with shock-absorbing soles over sprung heels. Her work-study upgrade added grappling hooks inspired by Blackwhip and thrusters at the heels.

Eight years on she is taller and more athletic, her face more angular and her hair a little longer, the costume largely intact but for a pink respirator at her neck and sleeves that run down into fingerless hands.

Classmates call her the most laid-back girl among them, bubbly and once something of an airhead, and she is blunt without noticing it. She reads people unusually well, having worked out what sat between Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo. She is also the reason Deku stopped being an insult, since she heard the word as close to the phrase for being able to do something.

The cheer covers a hard edge that surfaces under competition and startles anyone who only knows the bubbly version. Growing up poor left her frugal to extremes, sleeping so as not to waste oxygen and skipping meals to stretch food, and she is openly, if awkwardly, honest that money drove her toward heroism, though she wanted the work before she understood her parents' struggles. Rescue appeals to her most, but she knew her limits and chose the combat hero Gunhead for her internship. Carrying a dying Sir Nighteye out of the Shie Hassaikai raid hardened into a resolve to save people rather than merely win, and her admiration for Izuku became a crush she keeps subordinate to the job.

Her empathy reaches as far as Himiko Toga, who had tried to kill her. Noticing that Himiko wept when refused, she concluded she knew nothing of the person behind the crimes, and during the Final War chose to talk about romance instead of capturing or killing, offering her blood for life and admitting she envied that perfect smile. Himiko stood down. When Himiko died transfusing her blood to save Ochaco's life, Ochaco hid the grief behind a smile and broke down alone, then vowed to become good enough that nobody like Himiko is left behind again.

Third place in U.A.'s entrance exam and tenth in the Quirk Apprehension Test put Ochaco into Class 1-A as student number five. Zero Gravity cancels gravity for any solid thing her finger pads touch, and her fighting turns on closing distance to apply it, stripping opponents of their footing while she throws floated rubble as Meteor Shower or lightens herself for speed. Passing roughly three tons, or floating herself, brought severe nausea; training pushed the ceiling up and the sickness down.

She helped pin Kurogiri at the U.S.J. by spotting his neck armour as a weak point, then pressured Katsuki into full power at the Sports Festival despite a hopeless close-range matchup. Gunhead Martial Arts followed, giving her grappling, throws and takedowns that turn an attacker's force back on them. Nejire Hado's recommendation put her and Tsuyu under Ryukyu, whose squad stopped Rikiya Katsukame during the Shie Hassaikai raid, and in the Joint Training finale she took Neito Monoma out by exploiting his attempt to copy One For All.

Stabbed by Himiko during the Final War, Ochaco underwent a Quirk Awakening: the effect began spreading from any object she touched to everything in contact with it, the three-ton limit vanished, and she suspended hundreds of thousands of Toga's clones at once, holding on through massive blood loss. Eight years later she is a Pro Hero at No. 24, touring elementary schools with an expansion of Quirk counselling that the Hero Public Safety Commission backs, and sending home money her parents never spend. When Izuku admits his feelings are mutual, a vestige of Himiko inside her urges her to live as she wants, and she takes the relationship she had always wanted.