Rule #4: The best way to keep a secret? Keep it to yourself. Second best? Tell one other person if you must, there is no third best.

BLINK

Worried faces and beeping medical equipment blurred together in a mish-mash of psychedelic colours and sounds as her body was rocked to and fro in the wailing ambulance. The person to her left let out a muffled curse when the gurney bumped into their leg as the vehicle swung around a corner.

BLINK

"…ow…eart rate…ear me…?" Panicked voices sounded above her; broken glass lay everywhere and a fiery hand gripped hers in a tight grip. "…onna…okay…omise, you're…be fine…!" Something smelt burnt and the once blinding light that surrounded her couldn't grow any more, though it was trying its best.

BLINK

The lights on the ceiling above her flickered violently and shattered into a million broken pieces as she passed by. The ceiling and electricity flowing like water as her hospital bed was rushed through the twisting hallways. A fiery hand still gripped hers, but a nurse to her left let out a curse as glass rained down upon her.

BLINK

A hand no longer held hers. She was encased in light that flowed down from the sky like the sun was crying tears which she absorbed like no tomorrow. Floating high above the cityscape, she felt like she could reach out and hold the fiery ball in her hands; hug it tight to her chest like a teddy bear in a child's arms. Around her, four glass walls kept her from going too far and the scent of aloe vera and catnip assaulted her senses.

BLINK

Toru woke—fully woke—to a heat so intense, it made the summer heatwaves in Okutama look like a child's easy-bake oven. "Oh Kami!" She croaked, fruitlessly wiping the rivulets of sweat from her brow, "What…is that?…Is—is that…me?" No sooner had she spoken, did her body fall from the height at which it had been floating.

"Ack!" Toru cried when she quickly lost altitude, bouncing once or twice on the hospital bed below her as her head snapped back giving her whiplash. "Ow!" She whined rubbing her neck at the sudden action. "Where am I?" The crisp sheets beneath her crinkled as she shifted in place and her mind began to clear from the fogginess of sleep.

Wedding. Party. Deku. Message. Run. Native. Iida. Todoroki. Stain. Fight. Heart. Kill. And just like that her memory snapped back into place. "Sh—shit! Did…did that really happen?" She panted, wiping her soaking brow yet again. Gazing out from underneath sweaty lashes Toru saw that she was placed in some kind of greenhouse atop someone's roof. A butterfly fluttered across her vision, dancing from plant to plant as it ate without a care in the world and the sun rose high in the sky.

This was all Toru was able to process before the environment became too hot for even her to bare. Ripping herself from the crisp white sheets, Toru tumbled from the bed and scrambled towards the glass door on her left. In her hurry to escape the boiling room, she didn't even notice the person propped up against the door until she tripped over them.

"Gah! Oompf!" Toru cried when her bandaged foot became caught and she fell head first over top of the once sleeping person.

"Ack! Toru!" Came the masculine cry as hands grappled at her figure, "You're okay!"

"Ugh!…More or less" She grumbled. Glancing up from the person's lap, Toru got a eyeful of familiar indigo-coloured locks, "…'Toshi?" Toru's eyes roved over Shinso's perpetually tired form. He still wore his wedding attire from the day before and his usually untameable hair was still as wild as ever.

"Thank Kami, you're okay!" Shinso pulled Toru into a bear-tight hug as his fingers dug into the flimsy material of her hospital robe.

" 'Toshi what are you doing here?" Toru returned the hug, tucking her head into his shoulder.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Shinso suddenly pulled back from the hug and whacked her in the chest. "You could've been killed! Or worse!"

"Ow!" Toru whined, grabbing the front of her shirt where he had hit her. Shinso's face morphed back into one of concern and relief as he pulled her back into another hug. He gripped her tight as if she would disappear if he didn't.

"What's going on, Toru?" Shinso mumbled into her shoulder.

"…I-I-I can't tell you" Toru stammered, tears collecting in the corner of her eyes as the reality of the situation began to really sink in. He'd hate me if he knew what I did!

"Why not?"

"I-I just…I c-can't…'Toshi!" Toru cried, hers shoulders shaking as she quietly cried into his shoulder. His grip tightened on her, holding her close as she became undone.

Together the two sat in each other's embrace on the hospital roof, holding tight to one another as the morning sun shone down its warm rays and in turn embracing everything below. Family—not by blood, but by choice—as they silently comforted the other on the precipice of secrets untold.


Following her wake-up call, Toru was herded into a black leather-bound wheelchair and carted down to one of the nursing stations and handed off to one of the attending nurses. Once there, it didn't take long for Toru to change hands and she was carted off towards the cardiologist department.

The morning was filled with the jovial chatter of Doctor Moto Yui and a multitude of heart-related tests. It had been a blur of needles, beeping machines and busybodies moving to and fro, inspecting her body without any sense of morality. To quote Dr Moto, she was just "…the most interesting specimen! So many uses for such a simple Quirk! So powerful and dangerous!"

It was safe to say that Toru hadn't particularly enjoyed the many eyes on her nor tests that had been performed that morning. Thank Kami that's over! Toru yawned widely, slumping further into her wheelchair before she took another bite of her cross-hatched mango. Dr Moto hadn't left her to wait in the conference room for long, but the morning's rigorous activities seemed to be catching up with Toru and exhaustion pulled at her heavy lids.

Just out of reach, sat a clipboard containing several sheets of paper that held some of the test results from the exams she had completed earlier in the day. First the blood test: that had been done in order to measure the other substances in her blood like cholesterol, and make sure that her heart muscle remained intact. Thankfully, the tests had come back fine with everything in working order.

Next had been the electrocardiogram or ECG which was supposed to read her heart's electrical impulses and make sure that there weren't any abnormalities involving her heartbeat. With all the small sticky dots and wires covering her chest and limbs, Toru had felt like some kind of odd robot.

Dr Moto had been shocked at what the results had shown him, which was odd considering he knew that her Quirk involved (electrical) light absorption/manipulation and therefore it was only logical she would have more electrical frequent impulses than others. I mean, 'Toshi even said he was the one who put me on the rooftop when I arrived!

After that had been the echocardiogram ultrasound. Despite its rather long and complicated name, it was a rather common test which took a picture of her heart using the ultrasound as some kind of x-ray. She had adamantly refused the probe down her throat despite Dr Moto's persistence. The results for this too, had come back fine.

And finally, Toru had been given a physical exam which—amongst the usual tests—had involved her performing something call a 'stress test'. All this had meant was that this particular ECG test was done while exercising. Dr Moto had placed her on a treadmill, instructing her to first walk and then run. First she did this without the use of her Quirk, and then with it.

It was supposed to see how well her heart did when physically active. For this test, only a single note had been written in barely legible handwriting, explaining that if she went too far overboard when using her Quirk anymore, then she could experience some very dire consequences—even if her life expectancy still had a few years left. Aside from that, the only other notes were on how her physical wounds had healed—all the medical staff seemed baffled by how she had done it without even consciously thinking about it.

But that wasn't what was driving the butterflies to flutter in anxious hordes around her stomach. Fingering one of the sticky nodes still stuck to her chest, Toru anxiously nibbled at her lower lip as she worried. There's no way I can explain my way out of this! Toru's nerves grew, outweighing her exhaustion as she waited for Nezu (UA's headmaster), Detective Tsukauchi and Karasuma to arrive. Kami! What are they going to do to me? There's no way I can go home! Not now—Mother'll kill me! Maybe I can plead self-defence?

A rapid knock on the door caused Toru to jump in her seat as she turned from the window she had been looking out of, to face the door where UA's short headmaster and Tsukauchi was standing. Karasuma-Sensei (thankfully) was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean much; if anything, it gave Toru only a little bit of relief as he wasn't yet there.

" 'ullo Hagakure" Nezu greeted as he padded into the room.

"…Hello Nezu-Sensei" Toru bobbed her head in a quick nod, her figure tense. Her eyes followed the little white rodent the entire way as he cheerily headed towards the trolley at the back of the room which contained the tea things.

"How are you?" Golden eyes followed sharp and practised movements as he poured the kettle and deftly spun the teaspoon between his fingers.

"…Uh…g-good" By this point, Toru's hands had fisted themselves into the scratchy woollen blanket draped across her lap, in an order to stop them from visibly shaking. Across from her, Tsukauchi had situated himself on the other side of the conference table; where the detective pulled out some sort of recording device and a notepad with matching knobbly pencil.

"Alright, Hagakure—" Nezu stood on his tiptoes to place his decorative china teacup on the table before unceremoniously climbing onto the chair next to her like a toddler."—We're just here to talk, okay?"

"…" Toru didn't reply, but her gaze anxiously swept from the people around her as she furiously tapped her pointer finger against her knee in an attempt to calm her nerves.

"Whenever you're ready, Tsukauchi" Nezu nodded towards the detective who flipped over to a blank new page in his notebook and pressed play on the recording device.

"I-I thought Karasuma-Sensei was s'posed to be here?" Toru interjected, stalling for time just as the detective opened his mouth to begin.

"Well, we can start now and catch him up later when he arrives" Tsukauchi suggested, eager to get things underway.

"No need" Interjected Karasuma, announcing his arrival from the doorway, "I'm here"

Shit! Toru tried her best to slide down in her seat, tugging part of the blanket up over her face in an attempt to hide from the furious agent.

"Just because I can't see you, doesn't mean I know you're not there" Karasuma crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her, looking every bit as intimidating as she remembered. "I thought I told you not to get involved in something like this again"

"A-ah well,—you see—" Toru stammered as she sheepishly fiddled with the hem of the blanket in her hands.

"I don't wanna hear it" Karasuma pulled out the chair to Toru's right, at the end of the table and sat down.

"Yessir" Toru abashedly murmured, unable to meet his eyes.

"Just answer the detective's questions and we can be on our way" He sighed, running a hand through his messy locks.

"But-but I thought I wasn't allowed to talk about those kind of things? That's what the gag order was for"

"Not anymore" Karasuma carelessly chucked a slim manilla folder onto the table between the two parties, "Gag order was officially removed this morning"

"Really?" Toru's head snapped upwards as she searched her former sensei's face for any signs of deception. In turn, Nezu waisted no time in leaning across the table to grab the manilla folder and read through it before anyone else.

"Really" He grunted, leaning back in his chair.

"Huh" Toru leant back in her own seat and stared down at her lap in thought. It's gone? Just like that?

"Ah-hem!" Tsukauchi interrupted impatiently.

"Ah—yes?" Toru's head snapped up to meet the detective's expectant expression.

"I've got a few questions for you now, if you're ready?"

"Um, yup—uh, y-yes"

"Good" Tsukauchi nodded, "Can you state your name for the record?"

"Hagakure Toru"

"Birthday?"

"Uh, June sixteenth"

"Age?"

"Fifteen"

"Quirk?"

"Prism, I can…uh…I'm, uh, invisible and can manipulate/absorb light"

"Right" Tsukauchi nodded, rapidly writing all the information down, "Now can you tell me everything that happened?"

"Like 'everything' everything? Or just the stuff involving Stain?" Toru questioned.

"Let's start with the events leading up to it"

"Okay, um, I was attending a wedding of a family friend—"

"—Is this the one you asked to take leave for?" Tsukauchi interrupted.

"Uh huh" Toru nodded, "Shinso Ichika and Noah Davies"

"And you've known them how long?"

"Uh, I'd never met Noah before, but I've known Ichika for about…five years now? She's part of my donor's family"

"Donor?" Tsukauchi paused at this, his concerned gaze meeting her anxious one.

"Uh yeah" Toru nodded, "My heart—I had the transplant when I was ten"

"Right…Continue"

"Um, where was I? Oh yeah! I went to the wedding with Shinso Hitoshi, we left around mid-morning I think? Um, I said goodbye to Matchstick and Todoroki who were going with a couple of other heroes from the Endeavour agency to patrol around Hosu—they were waiting in the lobby when we left. Um, towards the end of the reception I got a mass text from Midoriya. It didn't say anything—it was just his GPS location on a map"

"And then you left?"

"No, I, uh, replied to his text first—I asked what he meant and when he didn't reply, I called him. Midoriya's usually pretty good with replying to messages and the like—I mean he worries more than Isago, which I never thought possible, but y'know…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Toru could've sworn that Karasuma's lips twitched upwards at the last comment. "…Anyway, when I called him, he didn't reply but I could hear the sounds of intense fighting on the other end" Toru continued.

"And that's when you left?"

"Yeah, I saw that I wasn't far from where the map was pointing and I thought it was better to check it out, just in case, y'know? I mean worse case scenario he was fighting a villain on patrol with the hero he was interning with, right?"

"Hmm" Tsukauchi nodded, flipping over to a new page "What happened when you arrived at the scene?"

"Ummm, when I got there Todoroki seemed to be the only one still standing, but just barely. Midoriya, Iida and Native were all injured in some way and Stain seemed to have taken some serious damage but was still standing"

"And how were you able to see all this if you had just arrived at the scene? How were you not spotted by Stain?"

"Ah, I went via the roofs. When I got there, there was clearly signs of a fight—large shards of ice covered a lot of the alleyway so it was pretty easy to hide myself. Also y'know the whole invisibility thing and previous stealth training" At this Toru nodded in Karasuma's direction. "After assessing the situation, I removed Native first from the scene and then Iida and placed them at the entrance to the alleyway, where it met the street. Uh, I tended to what wounds I could and then had Ritsu call any heroes in the area for assistance"

"Ritsu?" Tsukauchi questioned.

"Ah yeah, she's a uh, AIFA—or at least originally, but I used the mobile version" Toru explained.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh! It stands for Autonomously Intelligent Fixed Artillery"

"…Right…"

"Anyway, after I had Ritsu send out the call, I returned to where Todoroki, Midoriya and Stain still were. Uh, I engaged Stain in battle—he seemed to have sustained some serious injuries by this point and his stamina was waning. Ah, we fought for a bit and then he was able to injure me enough that I couldn't move too well"

"And how were you able to circumvent Stain's Quirk?"

"Ah well, at one point I had moved back to heal a couple of scratches that I had—Midoriya and Native had mentioned beforehand that he used a blood-control Quirk so I assumed that if I healed fast enough I'd be okay…"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh well, when I heal, I absorb the light around me as well as whatever's already in my body. Kinda like I'm photosynthesising, y'know? So I guess my blood got to the point where it was too hot to handle, even for Stain"

"Hmm. And then?"

"After I reengaged Stain in a fight, it didn't take long for him to cut me down, but I uh, was able to move enough to land a final hit"

"By tearing out his heart?"

"I, uh, had been aiming for his head, but I misjudged it. The next bit's kinda blurry" Toru furrowed her brow in thought as she tried to remember what had happened after that, "I remember Todoroki bringing me over to the entrance of the alley and the arrival of the Pros…Ah, something grabbed Midoriya…a Nomu? I think? So I, uh, threw one of my daggers in the general direction of it"

"Your daggers?"

"Uh, it was an Anti-Sensei dagger"

"And do you always carry these…Anti-Sensei daggers around?"

"Uh, no not usually, but I took to carrying one of them around ever since the USJ incident"

"Uh huh. Anything else?" Tsukauchi pursued.

"Uh, no" Toru scrunched up her nose as she tried to figure out any further details, "No, that's it"

"Right" Tsukauchi nodded, flipping through all the notes he already had, "Just a few more questions before we move on, okay?"

"O-okay" Toru yawned widely.

"Does anyone else know about your involvement in the Kunugigaoka Junior High, Class 3-E case, regarding any other information?"

"Uh, beside my mother and my grandparents? I think Todoroki might have an idea" Toru replied from beneath her blanket.

"You told him?" Nezu piped up.

"No" Toru replied sharply, "But, uh, Todoroki's one conspiracy theory away from a stringed cork board and a tinfoil hat" Karasuma smirked at that, "I mean, he still thinks Midoriya is All Might's lovechild and that I'm some kind of Yakuza princess, so there's that. But no, I didn't tell him"


Toru's head bobbed up and down as she tried her best to keep herself awake; taking long languidly lizard-blinks, she was thankful when Detective Tsukauchi eventually ended the interrogation. Her phone had been returned to her at some point, seemingly buzzing every couple of seconds as someone messaged her. A quick glance at her home screen showed several messages from the 3-E group chat and a couple from the 1-A group chat—though most of the latter messages had been well-wishers.

Following this, it was Nezu who turned to the tired albino in the doorway of the conference room and asked her something that had been burning in his mind for some time now. "Hagakure—" He began.

"Hm?" Toru blinked blearily up at the rodent headmaster before her.

"Did you enjoy killing Stain?"

"Sir, tell me something" Toru sat up a little as she turned to the rodent headmaster (she would later blame her exhaustion for her shortness with the rodent). "Have you ever had to watch the light disappear from someone's eyes? Have you ever held them as they died? Was it you who killed them? No? So how can you ever ask me if I enjoyed it?"

"Are you freely admitting to killing someone, Hagakure?" Nezu questioned.

"Of course, it's not a secret and I never hid it to begin with, y'know" Toru relaxed into the wheelchair, more tired than she originally thought. "If you had the initiative to look into my background, you'd see that. Of course, since you're the headmaster to hero academy full of bull-headed heroes, you'd also probably assume I was a little villainess.

And you'd be right, of course. Because on paper, I'm the perfect little villainess: trained at a young age, first kill before 16 years, breaking and entering, torture, exposure and connections to seedy underground; I could go on…" Toru sighed, running a slightly illuminated hand over her face and through her hair, "But real life's not theoretical, is it? There's always more to the story, even if you don't like it"

Nezu didn't speak as Toru continued to ramble, simply watching the girl in front of him with beady little eyes trained on her. However, out in the hall both Karasuma and Tsukauchi stood tense and stiff as they froze in their positions. Karasuma seemingly taking offence at the jab towards the government agency in which he worked for and Tsukauchi who appeared offended by the notion that she was a likely candidate for an infiltrating villain.

"…You have to understand, of course, that this decision had to pass through several politicians and higher ups before it even fell into our laps. All those military men with rifles and fighter jets and missiles couldn't land on a single hit on him, so what were the chances that a bunch of school children would? I mean the guy blew up the fucking moon! Did anyone really think it through? Were we just scapegoats? I guess what I'm really asking, is whose fucking idea was it to turn kids into killers? 'Cause I still don't know"

"And yet, you still defend him as your teacher. Why?" Nezu asked.

"Because he gave us the one thing that no one else did"

"And what was that?"

"A second chance"