First, to those who are asking, no, I'm not technically back, I just finished My Hero Academia's Season 3 and I couldn't focus on my ACTUAL manuscript until I wordvomited this thing into existence. I technically haven't completely left FFnet either, I'm just a sad old fart now and have to play the adult, which of course means that fanfics have to take the back burner…the WAY back burner. For those who are concerned, I promise I will one day finish the chapter things that need finishing, and I have a special request from the like, one person who hasn't given up on me, but I can't promise any solid time schedule.

Disclaimer: You guys know the drill. Also I'm old and super busy, so I had to limit my research time to half an hour and I only have time to watch the dub (while I work), so using dub spelling here. Sorry guys, I just don't have time to be particular about this stuff anymore…

Also I spent WAY more time editing this thing than I probably should have. Oops. Hope ya enjoy!

Sometimes, she wished she weren't invisible. This moment was not one of those times.

"There's no use hiding, little kitten. I can smell you."

A cliché villain line, but even so, it still gave her chills. It certainly didn't help that the man followed his threat with exaggerated sniffing, and his dog head did nothing to ease her fears.

This was only supposed to be a recon mission. That's what she excelled at.

But Toru Hagakure wasn't prepared. This wasn't in the mission detail.

The whole country had been in a bit of an uproar with the discovery of an old lady whose quirk could permanently alter the appearance of those with mutation-type quirks.

Meaning, if they wanted, people like her and Tokoyami and Shoji could choose to live a more "normal" existence, with normal relationships and a normal daily life. It wasn't something she'd necessarily want, considering her quirk was what made her able to work as a hero, but sometimes she'd wonder…

What would it be like for someone to look her in the eye?

Was that something she'd really desire?

If something like that ever happened, would she be able to handle it?

It had caused quite the debate across the country. Most of the populace was against changing one of the things that made a person unique and special, but there were those who wished for an "easier" lifestyle, and the divide gave rise to fanatics on both sides.

Which was precisely where this mission seemed to have landed her. Right smack in the middle of the conflict.

A construction company heading a new project on the city's outskirts had discovered the first grisly sight when they went to dig for a skyscraper foundation. A human body had seemingly been crushed to death, perfectly mummified in a state mangled by the surrounding orb of rock. The coroner had estimated the death to be rather recent, and the police had opened an investigation. It wasn't until a second body was found on the other side of the city that they had called upon Power Loader to help investigate and search for additional possible victims. He unearthed an additional five bodies.

The pattern was all the same, though whether the person suffered asphyxiation or being crushed to death first was different from victim to victim.

They were dealing with a bona fide serial killer.

The police had managed to I.D. most of said victims, which was impressive, considering the sometimes unrecognizable state of the bodies. They also managed to connect them to a science lab downtown. A science lab that had been researching the "mutation-curing" quirk. The upfront investigation and search yielded no results though, so they decided on a new approach.

They were looking for a villain dubbed Implosion, and called her in to do recon on the lab staff, to see if she could glean any information on "Implosion's" identity.

They'd tried to saddle her with a guard, just in case something happened, but Toru Hagakure was invisible, and none of the registered hotel staff seemed to have any quirks that would interfere with her job, so what could possibly go wrong? She'd rejected the notion of backup, even when they offered to call someone in that she'd be familiar with. Any new person to show up, particularly right after a police investigation, would only alert potential suspects of her presence.

She had to do this alone. Besides, if they happened to call someone she graduated with at U.A., she couldn't think of a single person whose personality or appearance would be subtle enough for the task, if they hadn't made themselves infamous across the country already…Regardless of how much she'd like to see them again, any one of them might put her mission in jeopardy.

If there was one thing she alone was good at, it was being overlooked. And if she could use that to her advantage to save lives, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

But she'd miscalculated.

The police were on the right track, for sure. But no one had anticipated that Implosion might have had an accomplice. True, no one working at the hotel had registered quirks that would directly threaten her, but that didn't mean her prime suspect didn't have a literal guard dog snuffling about to keep himself safe.

She'd wildly miscalculated.

This dog-headed man seemed to not only have enhanced smell, but she suspected he could secrete some sort of gas from his skin. She covered her mouth and nose with her arm, choking back the need to cough. If she made a single sound, he'd find her immediately. To top it off, she thought she'd found her serial killer, but as it was, she could do nothing about it. She was cornered with no means of escape.

The suspect paced the room, alternating between chuckling and raging as he talked. "We all know you're in here. Tell me, how do you feel about the heretics trying to erase quirks we were born with? Were it not for yours, you wouldn't be here, digging into our business and making money off the government. Yet those lunatics seek to destroy everything our society has built! They seek to tell us who we should become! Or, do you agree with them? Would you rather be seen? Acknowledged? Would you rather your friends, your parents, your lover, actually see you? Or perhaps you'd rather stay invisible to hide your ugliness? Are you so weak that you're afraid they will forget what they can't see?"

No windows, one door, and one monologuing villain. It might have been advantageous for her, but there was one problem. The dog-head focused on sniffing her out and intimidating her while her suspect started on a rant about how he was going to kill her. So there was no way of skirting by or creating a distraction as long as the dog-man stood in the way.

Her thoughts threatened to wander, but she couldn't let the villain's words get to her now. She wouldn't.

The villain chuckled, folding his hands behind his back. "Implosion is what they call me now? Rather appropriate, I'd say. My quirk allows me to create and manipulate a hyper-dense rock that shrinks over time. In short, kid, you're done. Nice try, newbie hero. Hellhound, smoke her out."

Hellhound, of course, not pretentious at all. The dog-man amped the gas secretion, she could feel it permeating her lungs now. Her vision blurred and lightheadedness swarmed over her. She felt the darkness threaten her eyelids, expecting the last thing she saw to be the flurry of rocks hurtling towards her. That is, until a thundering crash erupted through the wall, and the gas fled the room like a villain from jail.

Hagakure only had a moment to see a mass swooping in to block her view as the rocks engulfed her and her mind went black.

Pitch blackness. The feeling of the walls closing in. Literal claustrophobia.

She could feel the rocks beginning to cramp on her body, and the air was stale and warm, like being trapped in a shrinking cardboard box. The sound of rocks scraping together sent her skin tingling, and the ragged sound of breathing far too deep to be her own fueled her panic. She felt around herself, discovering cold rock above her, behind her, and beneath her. As she searched around, she found warm arms propped on either side of her body, and an experimental reaching into the darkness found a heaving masculine chest before her. She withdrew her hand immediately and tried to calm herself.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

A choked, rumbling voice answered her, "It's me, Hagakure, don't worry."

He growled as the rock tightened around them further, and her heart clenched. She recognized that voice. The only thing standing between her and becoming an invisible meat cube was a living mass of muscle and webbed appendages.

Poor Shoji.

"Are you hurt?" he hissed painfully, and Hagakure reached out once again, feeling for him to make sure he didn't do something rash in protecting her.

"I should be asking you that."

When she went to touch his arms, she felt the smoothness of his extra shoulders morph into the roughness of stone. Shoji's tentacles had been imprisoned in dense, collapsing rubble, and his only free appendages seemed to be his actual hands, the ones stationed on either side of her, using them as leverage to keep the shrinking rock at bay. He was trapped.

He'd gone and done something rash.

"Shoji, your arms…can you break it?"

He paused. "No, I'm sorry, Hagakure, but I think I can hold out until help comes for us."

A niggling thought scratched at her brain. "Shoji, how long have I been unconscious?"

Another pause, this one longer.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, "but they should be here soon."

"Are we still in the building?"

News apparently just kept getting worse with each question she asked, as the pauses became longer with each one. He clearly didn't want to answer, but he also couldn't lie to her.

"No, I believe they've taken us underground and buried us."

"Buried?" She couldn't keep the terror out of her voice.

Shoji growled as the rock prison contracted further. "I'm so sorry, Hagakure, I should've been able to protect you."

Hagakure took a slow, deep breath. She had to keep a cool head. She wasn't the one doing all the work to keep them alive, and Shoji seemed to be doing his utmost to keep his composure.

"Don't worry, we'll get out of here, we just have to hold out a little longer," she chirped. He gave her a hopefully affirmative grunt. But as she thought about it, she replayed the scenario in her head and frowned. "Hold up, how did you know where I was?"

"The agency was worried about you going alone, so they contracted me and Jiro to trail you and make sure you were safe. I could only guess where in the room you were, but I'm glad I made it."

Shame curdled in her stomach. She thought she could handle it, but her agency knew better, they knew she wasn't ready to take on a job alone. "Thanks for saving me, Shoji. I'm…sorry you got into this mess on my account."

"As if I could just leave you after hearing what was going on, you know better than that. This is what we do."

The more time passed, the more strain she could hear in his voice. She cringed and bit her lip when the rocks contracted and Shoji drew a repressed seething through his teeth. His tentacles were enveloped within that rock; if it was constricting this badly, how much pain must he be in?

And Hagakure couldn't do a single thing to help him.

His breath grew steadily more labored, despite how he tried to hide it. She wasn't sure if it was a good idea to distract his mind from the agony, but she couldn't do anything else. Perhaps she could keep his mind off it.

"They're after the old lady with the 'mutant alteration' quirk. The murderer took a job in the lab that was investigating a way to mass-produce the effect of her quirk. His victims have been scientists and those working closely on the project."

"They thought as much," Shoji breathed, and she felt his hands adjust, his thumbs unintentionally brushing against her upper arms. He was trying so desperately to keep the space within their prison. But there was another problem.

It was only a matter of time before their air supply dwindled. The strain had him panting too, so that was definitely a concern. Plus, some of the victims had died of asphyxiation before being crushed into human nibblets, and those victims were alone. There was no telling how long they could survive with enough oxygen for two.

One thing was for sure, though, as his breathing escalated, Hagakure knew something was wrong.

Wait a second—

His mask, his bound tentacles…He couldn't breathe.

He was already suffocating.

"Shoji, please, take off your mask."

"I-I can't, Hagakure, I—"

"Then let me do it!"

"No." He shook his head sharply, she could tell because she felt the droplets of sweat splashing in her face. She needed to keep him calm, but she needed to get that mask off. It was only making it worse for them.

She sighed. "Listen, Shoji, neither of us can see. If it's about what you look like, there's no one to judge you here. And even if I could see, it's not like you could see my reaction anyway."

"That makes it worse. I'd have to imagine it."

Her chest thumped curiously at his statement, and she breathed slowly. This wasn't helping. Time for a different approach.

"Listen to me. Our graduating class consisted of a pink girl, a guy with a tail, a rock head, a girl who has to do her hero work naked, and a guy with a crow's head. A crow's head, Shoji."

The statement only drew her attention to the fact that she was in that previously mentioned unclothed state while she was so close to him, and her insides felt like the burst of a rapidly rising thermometer. He wasn't quite close enough to touch though, and his focus had likely remained on keeping them alive, which eased her suddenly erratic heartbeat.

"Raven, actually, I believe."

Good, good. She'd gotten his mind off it. Now if only she could convince him to take the mask off. It was painful to listen to his shuddered attempts at breathing.

"It's not that simple though."

Dangit.

"Does the mask help you breathe?"

"Well, no."

"You do have a mouth, I know that…"

"Yes, but—"

"Then the mask needs to go."

"The mask stays."

Higakure was getting frustrated. His adrenaline had clouded his judgment. His obstinance was only killing them faster. To make it worse, the rock imploded further around them, and Shoji released a loud snarl, and she heard him gasping. She couldn't imagine the torment. She had no idea how his tentacles fared. Were they broken? Mangled? Crushed?

She had to get that mask off.

"What's the matter? Taking it off won't hurt anything!"

He growled, then heaved a sigh. "That's easy for you to say, you actually want to be seen."

Oh, Shoji…

For once, he'd actually said what he felt. And what a doozy it was. She froze. His words struck a chord, one she wasn't sure if she was ready to engage in yet. But if they died, would she ever get the chance? It was then that the stone suddenly stopped shifting. All the shrinking halted in place, and they held their positions for another minute to affirm that the steady caving-in of their prison had ceased.

Finally, Higakure swallowed. "Looks like his quirk has a time limit. Might be why some victims suffocated before being crushed to death."

She winced inwardly. Not the time, terrible wording, come on, she wasn't helping at all. Her old friend didn't seem to notice though. Shoji released a wheezing sigh as he released the wall behind her, his hands brushing against her thighs as they dropped. He panted deeply, the rasping in his throat devolving into coughing. The air felt thin already, this wasn't good. Higakure had to think of something. Her heart twinged. She had to tell him the truth. She wasn't sure if it'd do any good, but maybe…

"Shoji, um…that old lady with the alteration quirk…After they found her, I—well, yeah, I started to wonder, even if it was only a tiny part of me, what it would be like. For people to see me, for them to actually look at me. Sometimes I feel like even my friends might not see me as a person because of how I am. Like, no matter what I do, I'm different, and no matter what I do, I won't fit in the same way as everyone else. I'm always so easy to forget."

"Hagakure—"

She reached towards him, feeling around until she found his wrist, sliding her fingers down until she caught his palm.

"But, at the same time, I'm scared. I'm scared too, Shoji."

She flinched away when his fingers twitched, and she curled her hands to her chest. Whether she was ready or not, she had to tell him. She'd already said half of it, there was no going back. "I'm so scared that, if my friends and family could see me, would they be disappointed? Would they not want to be with me if they saw me for what I looked like without my quirk? Would I be repulsive to them?"

Hagakure swallowed. "I don't know if this is anything like how you feel, but I think we just might be the same in a way, you know?"

When he said nothing, she tried to resist the deep breath she wanted to take. They needed to conserve the oxygen, so she'd just have to manifest the courage without it. His breathing seemed to have slowed, but it was still far too labored for her liking. Hagakure felt like she had no right to be as concerned as she was, especially compared to people who would logically have it way worse than she did, but she couldn't just stop halfway. So she felt around for his hand again, and this time, she grasped it in both of hers.

"Here, Shoji. I want you to...see me." Higakure brought his hand to her face, brushing his knuckle timidly against her cheek. An invitation. He didn't answer, but turned his hand and she could feel his palm cupping her face. Invitation accepted. She leaned into his touch and bit her lip. "Let's be honest, Shoji, we don't know if anyone's coming for us. We don't know if we'll be rescued. They may have even forgotten. And if we're going to die here together, I want someone to know me as I am, I want one person to see me, just once. And if it could be anyone, I..."

Her throat clotted before she could finish.

But when she felt his other hand move to her opposite cheek, she couldn't help but smile. Hesitantly reaching towards him, her fingers gingerly touched his sweaty, matted hair, and slowly meandered down to his face. He didn't pull away and he said nothing, so she brushed her fingertips against the fabric of his mask, finally pinching it and dragging it slowly over his nose and mouth. He gasped like a swimmer emerging for air.

Success.

But now she felt his breath puffing against her face, and her hand moved nearly of its own accord to linger on his visage. He breathed heavily, and she felt the jagged edges of his teeth as her fingers brushed over his lips. She felt his nose, his elongated jaw, his closed eyelids, and she treasured the sound of his panting dying to a slow, regulated inhale, exhale. He still trembled now and then, likely from the pain, but he seemed a little better now.

"See? That doesn't seem so bad, does it?" she soothed, brushing his sticking bangs away from his forehead.

Shoji's hands were gentle in response, his thumbs roaming the contours of her features as his fingers stretched further back.

"You have hair," he remarked, clearly surprised.

She giggled. "Of course I do. What, did you think I was bald? It's not like anyone would be able to see to shave my head."

As Shoji's hands began threading through her hair, she sighed. "Shoji, you're good and strong and kind. If I'm going to die down here, I'm glad it's with you."

Then she grimaced and shut her eyes. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

One of his hands took her chin. "Higakure. Don't blame yourself. And as much as I'd rather be trapped here with you as opposed to others, I'd much rather not see you die."

Her heart thumped curiously again, and she tried to stifle it with another giggle. "I'd rather you not die either, but could you imagine being trapped in here with Bakugou?"

Hagakure felt him shiver beneath her hand. When she calmed her laughing, she placed her other hand to his chest. "Thank you, Shoji. Thank you again for saving me."

"…You're welcome."

She became acutely aware of his breath on her face, and she could feel the heat radiating from his still steaming body across the gap between them. She wasn't sure if he remembered that she was technically still naked, but she hoped he'd forgotten so she wouldn't die of the awkwardness before she'd had a chance to suffocate.

He brought his hands to frame her face, and she found herself staring into the void where she suspected his face would be, if his wavering exhales were any indication. "We're not dead yet. So long as we're alive, there's hope."

Hagakure smiled and stroked his jaw with her thumb. "You're right. Just stay with me, okay, Shoji?"

His hands had begun shaking, and within moments, they went limp and slowly dropped.

"Shoji?"

No answer.

"Shoji!"

She sprung forward, feeling around to check his vitals and make sure his air pathways were clear. He'd gone unconscious. Higakure pressed her forehead to his and closed her eyes. "Come on, Mezo, don't you dare leave me behind now!"

The atmosphere was so thick and stuffy, and the air was so thin. They didn't have long.

As her eyes started to warp and hurt, she felt a distant shaking, not unlike an earthquake. Faraway voices seemed to fade in and out, and the shaking intensified with an accompanying rumbling sound. The rumbling stopped and some kind of hammering shook their prison. The rocks above her crumbled and light burst through, along with a shout.

"I found them!"

She coughed at the dust and rush of oxygen that flooded her system, then squinted into the invading light. She released a relieved gasp, "Mr. Power Loader?"

The Excavation Hero shouted again, likely to the other members of a rescue team. "They're alive!"

He turned back to her. "Are you guys okay?"

Hagakure took a massive inhale. "Yeah. Yeah, we're alive. Please, you gotta get Tentacole out of here though, he's caught inside the rock and I think his tentacles might be really messed up. He passed out a few minutes ago."

Power Loader nodded through his helmet. "Don't worry, we'll get him, but I need you to climb up first."

Their rescuer maneuvered the armor's excavator bucket extension just above the sphere of rock they'd been trapped in. Clamoring out of their confinement at last, she crawled into the bucket and gripped it tightly. "Okay. Okay, I'm in. Now hurry, please!"

The moment she set foot on solid ground, it was all swarming med techs and woozy colors. She tried to stand, but her knees wouldn't hold, and neither would her eyes.

Everything went black.

When she came to, she felt the warmth of a blanket over her shoulders and various medical instruments being placed on her skin. As much as she wanted to be embarrassed by all these people handling her bare body, she couldn't bring herself to have the energy to do so.

Her slushy meandering brain snapped back to reality when she saw one of Power Loader's extensions rise out of the earth only to be mobbed by more rescue team members.

Shoji.

Toru Hagakure hopped to her feet, wobbling until she found her balance, then she rushed over to Power Loader, startling him. "Mr. Power Loader, how is Tentacole?"

She had shifted into using Shoji's hero name when speaking to her elder.

He laughed nervously at her interruption. "Miss Invisible Girl, I thought we talked about using the 'Mister' after you guys graduated, it makes me feel old."

She ignored his statement and sent him the largest, most pleading puppy eyes she could muster, hoping the sentiment would carry through. Apparently he caught on, or had simply just digested her previous question. "Nothing unfixable, recovery will probably take a while though, it wasn't pretty."

She thanked him and started towards the stretcher they'd laid Shoji on. Managing to sneak a peek, she saw him drift back into consciousness. She had to get his attention. To make sure he was okay.

"Shoji!"

His bleary eyes darted in her direction, and instantly focused. Hagakure grimaced when she saw the state of his tentacles. They were twisted so badly…

"Hagakure, are you alright?"

She could see the strained grit of his teeth from here, and her chest clenched. She couldn't just stand there and carry on a conversation with him in that condition. "Yes, yes, I'm fine thanks to you. You'd better rest now, okay? I'll check in soon."

She moved to turn around, but his voice interrupted her.

"Hey, Hagakure, wait a second."

When she looked back at him, he had shifted his suddenly uneasy and awkward gaze far away from her, and one of his tentacles had weakly risen from the cot and morphed into a malformed mouth.

"For what it's worth," the mouth declared, "I think you're really beautiful. And I don't need to see what you look like to know that."

She felt engulfed by a sudden fever, even as the medical team hauled Shoji away. She stood there amidst the excavation site, self-consciously feeling over her steaming face and subsequently hiding it in her hands.

Two sentences.

That was all it took for her to completely forget the fears related to her quirk, or that she was even invisible to begin with.

If you ask me it's a sin that Shoji is so overlooked. I mean, I wouldn't want him to be popular, but finding a LITTLE more stuff about him would be nice…maybe one good AMV, I'd settle for that. :P I'm actually a little surprised and sad I couldn't find hardly anything relating to these two, I thought they had a really solid chill low-key dynamic, and I found it a more interesting concept than pairing her with Ojiro (sorry!). I thought there was a lot of dynamic character growth potential in there too, especially since Horikoshi-san hasn't told us Shoji's backstory yet, so I can do what I like for the time being. Now just wait and see how long it takes for the story to shut down my headcanons. XD

There MAY be a companion fic or two for these at SOME point if I need to wordvomit again, but please don't hold your breath for timing! I have a little something something in mind, but I dunno when it'll manifest itself in the flesh.

Hope you guys enjoyed! Take care now, blessings and prayers! Tootles!