Tooru loved Shouto. She had since high school when they had been put together in 1-A. She had never thought she actually stood a chance, of course. One of the most promising Heroes of their school, the son of the Number Two with looks that could sweep any girl off her feet, she couldn't help but think he was out of reach. She was, after all, completely invisible.

And then she had asked him to go out with her, and he had said yes. That had to have been the best day of her life. No correction: every day with him was the best day of her life. Even when things went bad, he was there to hold her up. And she wanted to believe she was there to do the same.

So it grated her to watch her husband – and wasn't that something she had fantasized on for so long – pace up and down the room like a dog staring at a bone that was just beyond reach. Which, considering the situation, was hardly a wrong comparison.

Behind the bars of a cage originally meant to hold exotic animals, in the warehouse where they were all waiting, sat mockingly Kurono, the number two of the Shie Hassaikai. Their first real shot at figuring out where the Bullets were being made. Kurono was looking at them defiantly since he had woken up, despite their exams showing he wasn't hiding any tracker, so it was just for the sake of mocking them. A sign of loyalty to Overhaul, or perhaps he just knew he was backed into a wall.

"Where is she?!" Shouto finally shouted, punching the cage with his right fist.

"And why would I know?" He asked back.

"The Hassaikai won't act without you knowing! You are…"

"Overhaul's trusted companion? Please, Chisaki doesn't trust me, he just knows I'm the most competent of the surviving members. If he doesn't tell me, I don't know. It's simple like that."

"You expect me to believe that?" Shouto's voice asked.

"Of co-" Kurono's answer stopped as his eyes went blank, both arms falling to his side.

"Why don't we put it to the test then?" A new voice asked, a purple haired man entering the room. His hair had once been kept upwards, but he had long since adopted a look eerily similar to Eraserhead's. Shinsou sighed as he walked forward. "Good going Todoroki, that was really easy."

"Just get the answer out of him."

Shinsou nodded and opened the cell, ordering the man to walk out and move to a nearby table with a command. Kurono obeyed and sat down. "Alright. Let's see…" He pulled out a map. Tooru knew how Shinsou's Quirk had evolved since high school. An Awakening that allowed him to get non-verbal answers to questions had been why All for Deku was so hellbent on killing him and taking his power. Why he needed to move underground and stay away from the Villain no matter what.

As the young man mumbled something, Kurono started moving his hands tapping various points on the map. The man frowned and asked another question. "Think this will go well?" Tooru asked. There were still limits to his power, of course. He couldn't get the answer in a written form, since it required too precise of a movement, and couldn't get it in sign language either, since most people didn't know how to speak it. All he could do was ask yes or no questions, so the target could nod or shake his head, or have them point to locations on a map.

"If it doesn't, we will have to clear the town." Todoroki replied. Hagakure nodded. It made sense. If All for Deku came hunting them down in person they were done for. She had already found a new base in Kyoto, to be used after they had captured Toga… or if they failed to capture Toga and had to flee. "But I know we can do it. We have been working on this for too long."

Tooru bit her lip. She had her doubts that all of the Imprisoners were on the same page. She didn't want to suspect her friends, but Yui had approached her a number of times on a better alternative from… from doing what Todoroki wanted to do. She had noticed how tense Ojiro seemed whenever the plan was brought up.

And she knew she, too, didn't like the idea.

She had no sympathy for Toga. She had killed too many people, too many of her friends, to be someone she cared for. And yet, there was a difference between that and trying to use her to farm bullets. The ideal solution was to kill her, since they didn't have a prison to put her in.

'All the deaths since then are on you, not on us.' Kurono's voice echoed in her head, but she gritted her teeth. He was wrong. This was All for Deku's fault, whether his henchmen acknowledged it or not. The Heroes couldn't just pretend to not see what he was doing to the country. Pretend to ignore how criminals and murderers were ruling Japan. "Todoroki, if this doesn't work…" She stopped herself for a moment, "If this doesn't work, what will happen to the Imprisoners?"

"I think we should split once we reach Kyoto." He replied calmly, "The team came together to capture Toga. Once that is accomplished, there won't be any reasons for it to continue to exist." He looked at her, "Still, this is just my opinion. If all the others want to stick together, I don't see why we shouldn't. I just think the others will have different goals after this."

Different goals… "Like what?"

"Ojiro and Yui will remain with us, I think, but they might want to keep a looser team approach. It's safer for both couples if we don't patrol together all the time, especially considering Ojiro's Tail is hard to miss. As for the others… Mineta has always been a bit of a loner, so he will probably go back to that. Sero isn't doing well. He thinks I haven't noticed, but I can tell he barely sleeps. I think it's better for him to go into hiding for a bit and rest. Hero work is dangerous, and he needs to figure out if he is still up to it. If not, we still have a ton of money hidden. I can pay him a one-way ticket and forged documents to somewhere safe. I bet he'd like New York. He always side his favorite Hero was from there."

Hagakure thought about it. "Why do we stay?"

Todoroki froze. Ironic, from someone that was half ice. "What?"

"Why don't we leave, Shoto." Tooru asked, "I can see what this is doing to you. Signing the agreement, the villains you killed, the… the incident. You say Sero isn't doing well, but what about you?"

"I won't leave." He replied coldly, a tone Tooru never heard directed towards her, "I can't go."

Tooru held back her tears. She knew Todoroki couldn't see them anyway, but she couldn't take it. Her husband was so fragile right now. He was building a wall of ice between himself and everyone else, and she was afraid of the day she would find herself blocked out by that wall. "I know you feel like that, but Shoto… We are just human. Maybe we can't do this."

Todoroki gritted his teeth, "Then who? Mirio already failed, Bakugo is Quirkless, and my father is getting old. I…" He looked at her, and Tooru could see he was looking in her eyes. That was one of the reasons she loved him. He could always find her eyes, somehow. He suddenly grabbed her, holding her in a hug. "I'm sorry." He whispered, "I didn't want this for you. For us. I wish I could give you a normal life. A family. I can't. I'm sorry."

He was shaking, and she hugged him back. "It's okay." She replied, "I'm sorry too, Shoto. It's just… Hard. For both of us. I know that. Sometimes I just wish you could let it go, but then again… That's not what being a Hero is about, right?" Her smile shook, but she held it, even if he couldn't see it, "Plus Ultra and all that."

He chuckled, "Plus Ultra." And kissed her on the head. She chuckled.

"Ahem…" A voice spoke from behind them, and they turned to watch the annoyed expression of Shinso, the mind controlled Kurono still behind him, "Sorry for interrupting your lovey dovey moment, Bonnie and Clyde, but I'm done. Here is your base." He handed them a map with a circled building, "I got out of him that there are less than forty people in the building, including some higher ups, but I can't figure out how many. The more questions I ask the more my control slips, so he is starting to resist the questions and not answer. I doubt I will get anything else from him. You will have to scout it out yourself." He dragged Kurono back in the cage and closed it, releasing his Brainwashing. The man blinked in confusion, before shouting at him from behind the cage. Shinso ignored him.

"Thank you, Shinso."

"Just give me a call once you have the bitch and have decided what to do with her." He said, walking to the door before pausing. He turned around, "I don't like your plan."

"I know. Thanks for collaborating anyway."

"Just don't die on me." He replied coldly, "Aizawa will kick my ass the moment we meet again otherwise." His grim addition left the room cold, only covered by the screams of Kurono.

"What do we do with him?" Tooru asked, looking at Kurono, but she saw the look in Shoto's eyes. She trembled, "Shoto…"

"You heard Shinso. He can't get anything else out of him."

"We can try ourselves."

"We can't trust anything he says. None of us is Chief Naomasa. We can't figure out if he is lying, and he could lead us to our deaths. He would. He is Overhaul's second after all." He stepped forward.

"Shoto, you don't want to do this."

"I don't. I have to, though. If he rats us out, he will ruin our only chance or get us killed. Or both. And leaving him here is not an option either. I need to... kill him."

The words left his lips without any open emotion, but Tooru stared in the eyes of her husband. In that deep sea of anger for what All for Deku had done, of fear for what he could do to them… of regret for what Shoto was about to do.

He gently moved her hand away and took another step toward the cage.

Tooru looked away.

The heat and the screams raised at the same time, then the latter disappeared.

She couldn't help but cry. And looking at Shoto's shoulder he could see him tremble. For some reason, amid her grief and sorrow, she couldn't help but feel a hint of relief.

Her husband was still there. And she was going to make sure he never disappeared.

-x-

Tooru didn't have long to process. They rarely had that luxury. Ojiro and Mineta walked in and both were graceful enough to not raise a complain of any kind when Shoto asked them to bury Kurono properly. It meant he would get an unmarked grave in the closest abandoned garden, but it was better than what the Heroes that were falling over the edge did. She shuddered. Shoto was never going to become like Bakugo if she could do anything about it.

She, however, had another job. She left their warehouse, fully invisible, and rushed away, carefully moving through the city. Once she reached proximity to the building she activated the coolers in her suit – a marvel of technology that had been made by Hatsume through hundreds of hours of trial and error – lowering her external temperature so that she was almost invisible to termal scanners, and she reached the base. She sprayed herself with an odorless deodorant, and took her time to calm down.

Officially, this was a Feel Good Inc. facility and nothing more. Cybersecurity and the like. But according to Shinso's intelligence, under it were the laboratories where Chisaki was working to synthetize the anti-Quirk bullets. She took a deep breath and entered the belly of the beast, shadowing an employ that was returning from a smoke with a yawn.

She slipped away, following Shinso's notes. Left, right, left, reach the stairs. Wait for someone to open the door and slip in. Walk to the first underground level, officially the only one, reach a locked door with a do not enter sign. It opens on a closet with cleaning equipment. Close the door behind. Wait.

She did all that, no one the wiser, but now was stuck. They didn't know how the elevator – which was what the closet really was – worked, and she couldn't just fumble around and risk getting caught. So, waiting it was.

Five minutes became ten, ten became twenty, twenty became an hour. She was starting to despair when finally, finally the whole room started descending. She prepared, and when a guard entered she slipped by him, a ghost unseen.

The corridor the elevator opened on was white. A quick look at a panel showed her she was in basement -4. A floor under where she was supposed to be, but she would take it. There had to be stairs to walk from one floor to another, or she would have had to wait much less before the elevator moved.

She started walking quietly through the corridors. It was bizarre to see. If she didn't know where she was, she would have supposed she had just entered a normal laboratory. However, there were slight differences. Like the Yakuza with the traditional Shie Hassaikai masks, walking around the building. The first one had caught her by surprise, but it made sense. Overhaul was naturally paranoid. He wouldn't let Skeptic run his show. Silent movements led her to a series of stairs to -3. She grinned as she moved upstairs, but at the door of -3 she found her first issue.

The hulking figure of Kendo Rappa stood in front of the door. He looked restless, like a dog on a tight leash . She tried to think of her options. She couldn't hope to knock Rappa, a proficient fighter powerful enough to face the likes of Kirishima and Fat Gum and walk away, and he didn't seem intentioned to move any time soon. Those were the times where she really envied strength Quirks. 'Calm down. Wait for someone and make it through. Don't worry.'

It was uneasy. Being an Invisible Hero sounded cool, until one realized what it really meant. She had to do this a lot, stand there and watch a Villain because the place she had to reach was just behind them. It gave her time to observe them, true, and some people monologued to themselves, which had given her more than once useful tidbits of information.

Rappa shadowboxed. He would throw a couple of punches, and then groan in anger and return to lean against the door. The first time, Hagakure almost panicked, before she realized he hadn't found out about her but was merely venting.

Her wait came to an end when she heard steps from behind. She quickly and carefully moved to the side, out of the way, and saw two doctors and a guard walk upstairs. The three walked up to Rappa, and exchanged a few words, before the man moved aside. He almost stepped on Tooru's foot, the girl barely managing to move it out of the way in time. How embarrassing it would have been to be found out because the villain just happened to stub her toe?

She moved quickly, with practiced movements, and the door closed just behind her. She would have sighed in relief if she didn't knew better. Instead, she moved onward. The corridor was large enough for her to pass, and she followed the instructions Shinso had obtained once more, quickly finding the lab.

Her eyes went wide. Chisaki was inside, his usual jacket discarded for a lab coat but his mask still in place. Next to him, Momo – Toga, really – was looking bored as he examined a liquid.

"… and the count is all wrong." He was saying to the woman, who sighed in annoyance.

"This stuff is too hard. I don't know how Creati managed to do it, but I'm not in the same department when it comes to smarts."

"Of that, we had no doubt." Chisaki pretended to mutter, but he clearly wanted to be heard.

"Now listen here you Yakuza bastard…"

"No, you listen!" He hissed, pointing at the table, where Invisible Girl saw a series of deformed bullets, "Your dear husband wants my bullets. And if that's the case, you are going to get your shit together and learn this molecule composition if it takes your entire lifetime."

"This is all your fault. You were the one that fucked up and let your little golden goose burn in the oven."

He grabbed her by the cheeks, his gloved hand forcing her to stare in his eyes, "You know, maybe I should just give you Eri's blood like I wanted to originally and use you to extract her Quirk. If you weren't in bed with All for Deku…"

Tooru watched the knife appear in Momo – No, Toga's hand and make its way under Chisaki's chin. "You will let me go, or I will use this to remind you which one of us is in control here."

Tooru watched, almost praying she would actually go through with it, but after a tense second Chisaki let her go, grumbling. "I'll take five to check the test subjects. Get juiced up and try again." He stormed outside, dropping his lab coat on a chair.

Toga sighed, "That guy is just no fun. Well then, let's see…" She opened a nearby fridge, and Tooru had to hold herself from gagging. Blood, an entire fridge full. And she knew it was Momo's.

How much blood did a person have? Not that much, right? She watched her guzzle it down, a smile growing on her face as she did so, and it was too much. She walked off. She had found Toga and the blood, had confirmed the anti-Quirk bullets weren't ready yet.

It had to be enough. It had to…

She saw where Chisaki had gone, and froze.

-x-

The rest of the mission, finding the exit, went easily, thankfully, and her return to the base was anticlimactic, to say the least. She first managed to sneak away through the elevator, using the opportunity to see where the panel was hidden, and then leave Feel Good Inc. from an open window on the base floor. Making her way back to the base, she felt numb. Toga had Momo's face as she talked like that. As she drank a vial of her blood. And Chisaki's room…

She had shaken herself out of it once she had reached headquarters once more, but Shoto had noticed what was wrong with her. He had hugged her, making sure her head rested on his right shoulder, whose warmth always made her feel more comfortable. Finally, she calmed down a bit, enough to breath and relay her findings. Shinso had been right, and she had found her way down. On the way up, she had confirmed that the panel could be used by anyone so long as they had a five digits code she had stolen in advance. Their main issue, though, was getting out.

"They will stop the elevator as soon as we enter, so I confirmed there is a hidden emergency exit. They had to have one. Even if they have All for Deku to portal them out, he might be busy at that moment, not to mention they couldn't count on him before Toga was brought there." She said, and then tapped her finger on a small alley, "There is a door right here, and we can use it to escape. Ideally, we should make them think we don't know about it, but we need someone to ensure we aren't ambushed."

Shoto nodded, "I will leave that to you."

She nodded back, before realizing he couldn't see her, but before she could say anything, he nodded back. Her heart beat faster. She really loved him when he figured her out like that.

"You confirmed they have Rappa and Chisaki and they probably know Kurono is gone by now. Even if they think they have time, they probably won't wait long. We should do it today. Before they call in Curator, Bearhead, and who knows who else."

"You are right." Mineta replied, "We can take care of Rappa. My Pop Off can block him, and if it fails, Ojiro can at least hold him off long enough. We don't need to capture him, so we can run away. Todoroki, your fire is our best counter to Chisaki. We need you down there."

Shoto nodded, but Tooru couldn't help but grip her fists tight. Chisaki was a nightmare to fight, and Mineta wanted Shoto to do it alone?

"Yui. You are with us to recover the blood samples." He continued, and the woman nodded too before glancing at Ojiro, who put a hand on her own.

"Very well then." Shoto smiled, "If this is all…"

"One more thing," Tooru added, and everyone turned to her. She sighed, "Chisaki has some… test subjects."

Todoroki frowned, "For what?"

"Testing the bullets, I guess." She shivered, "He… He is using children." Everyone's eyes went wide after they processed what she had just said.

"Ch-Children?" Yui's hand shivered, and Ojiro gripped it tighter, "But why?"

"I don't know… He called them test subjects so… probably to test the drug?"

"It makes sense." Todoroki replied, and everyone's eyes moved to him, "Chisaki needed subjects that could be monitored to see if the Quirks could come back, but adults with Quirks are troublesome, and if their Quirk comes back unexpectedly they might cause damage or kill someone trying to escape. Children however… even if they have a Quirk, they would be novices at it, so they are easier to contain and monitor long term. Then if they are given the drug before the Quirk manifests, who knows if they will ever learn to control it."

"That's disgusting." Sero's stare went straight to Tooru, "How many?"

"Twelve."

"We need to save them." The tape user looked at Todoroki, "We can't let Chisaki get away with this again."

Todoroki looked at him, then at the others. His eyes finally fixed on Tooru, and she looked back. 'Please…'

"Fine. It will be harder, but we can do it." He said after a moment that seemed eternal.

Mineta frowned, "Todoroki…"

"It's not up for debate, Mineta. I know twelve children will make this harder, but we can't just leave them there."

"I wasn't going to suggest that. And if you did, I would have stuck you to the table and then slapped you until you regained some sense. I was just going to suggest we call in someone else."

"Who?"

"Setsuna. She has a hiding place in that area, she can hide the children there. Maybe I can even convince her to help." He replied, and Hagakure saw Todoroki's expression calm down.

"Will she do it?"

"I think so. Let me make that call and I will confirm it."

Todoroki nodded, and Tooru sighed in relief. Taking the kids to Kyoto would have been impossible, but taking them to a safehouse seemed a lot simpler. She gripped one hand with the other, trembling in excitement and fear, mixed together in a weird emotion she didn't know what to call.

This was it.

The last step.

-x-

Tooru was standing in the alley, looking at the door. She was incredibly tempted to try and open it, but the moment she did the camera set up further in the alley would have caught sign of that. So she had to resign herself to just wait and prepare to punch anyone in the face.

Setsuna had agreed, of course. She would take the kids in until they had a way to smuggle them somewhere else. She still had connections in China thanks to Hiryu Rin, her past classmate, according to Mineta, so probably there. Better than staying in Japan, if their Quirks were of any interest to Overhaul and All for Deku.

No movement yet, but it wasn't long now. She listened to the comms, but right now everyone was in radio silence, since there was too much of a risk of Feel Good intercepting their approach. Not that it would last long.

Right on que, the alarm rang, and Tooru stiffened. "We are in!" Mineta's voice shouted in the communicator, and she gritted her teeth, knowing that answering would have been too risky.

"Alright, head down to the elevator! Do not harm the civilian workers, and let's aim to…" Shoto stopped mid-sentence, "Curator!"

And then Tooru's hears were invaded by a crash that echoed on the street as Curator's Quirk activated. She couldn't see it, but she knew what it meant.

She had a second to process that, when he looked at another man walk into the alley. His features were partially human, but his arms were covered in dark brown fur and ended in sharp claws, the fur extending to his back. His face was a snout. Bearhead sniffed the air.

"I know you are here." He growled, and Tooru stiffened. He could smell her even with the odorless deodorant she used? "Let's dance, Invisible Woman."

He rushed forward and Tooru dodged out of the way just in time. The swipe was wide, so he only had a base guess, not a precise prediction. Still, it was enough for her to abandon any doubt he was just bluffing.

Bearhead was a Mutant-type with a Brown Bear Quirk. She had to fight for all intent and purpose a fully grown brown bear, and she prepared herself. 'Plus Ultra, I guess.' She thought, as Bearhead roared like the animal he took the form of and rushed forward. 'Good luck, Shoto.' She added, and the fight begun.

That was to be the last mission of the Imprisoners.

(xx)

Oh boy, would you look at that, Shoto wasn't lying when he said he has done some bad stuff.

Hagakure is an interesting person to write. Being completely invisible would make having a relation very hard, so I thought on how to show how much she loves her husband for trying and succeeding in doing that. It's sweet. People might know I'm on the camp that she is actually the Traitor in canon if it's someone from 1-A (or maybe you don't know. I don't know if I ever mentioned it in some comments), but here she of course isn't. Just putting this out there.

Chisaki and experimenting on children, name a more iconic duo.

Bearhead and Curator are from the game My Hero Academia: Clash! Heroes Battle, a Japanese arcade game. They are very niche, I know, but only throwing around the usual Hassaikai members seemed a bit reductive and using OCs wasn't something I wanted to do for this particular story, so into the arcades we go.

We know how this goes in Deku - Into the Multiverse canon, but are you ready to get the details? No? Me neither really.