The three now stood perfectly still in the dark corridor, occasionally lit up by the flashes of light that leapt from Toru. Izuku's quirk had made her visible, just not in the way he suspected. Her body was now formed of patterns of flashing light, occasionally interrupted by dark patches that absorbed all light that came into contact with them. "S-sorry!" Izuku shouted, quickly wrapping the girl's arm in capture tape before dropping his Order, returning the girl to her previous transparent appearance.

The two were forced to move again as All Might announced that only half their time remained, leaving Toru to lean against the wall, and stare straight through her hand. It had been for five seconds at most, but it was quite possibly the most exhilarating five seconds of her life.

"Mina Ashido has been captured! The hero team wins!"

She was only broken from her trance when Mina came running down the hall, unaware of the chaos bouncing through her best friend's mind.


This was a terrible idea. He'd probably think she was weird for asking, or he'd think she was desperate for attention, or- "Hagakure?" He questioned, his nervousness when she asked him to sit with her at lunch was gone, replaced with concern for the usually extroverted girl. "I'm sorry if I offended you yesterday. I didn't consider that I might have been crossing a boundary and-"

"It's not that! Well, it sort of is, but I'm not angry. I-" Should she really go through with this? She had come to terms with her quirk a long time ago, at least she had thought that. The whispers of those bigots from junior high still clung to the edges of her thoughts, but now she had the chance to see what it was like to be normal. "I want you to use your quirk on me again."

Izuku's eyes widened at that. He began to respond, already theorising on the reason for her previous appearance, but didn't get the chance. "Level 3 security breach, all students are to calmly make their way to the emergency gathering area."

'Calmly' was certainly not what Toru would describe the hoard of students that poured towards the exit to the cafeteria, dragging her and Izuku along with them. The two were slammed into the outer windows, Toru looked out to see- "It's just the media? Midoriya, it's just the press!"

Just barely hearing her over the crowd, he shuffled around until he could push himself onto the windowsill, turning to face the crowd: "Izuku Midoriya's voice is louder. Everyone, calm down! It's just reporters, there's no danger!" The students went stock-still at the announcement, before proceeding from the room in a far more controlled manner.

Izuku and Toru were some of the last to leave, as they did, Izuku returned to their original conversation: "If you still want me to, Hagakure, I'd be more than happy to help you." He smiled brightly as he spoke, helping to remove some of her previous worry. Something about the half-American's smile was familiar, perhaps it was simply just refreshing to have a new friend, but that didn't seem quite right.

She recalled the heroics class from the day before, yes, that was it. It was the kind of smile that was present on the top heroes of the world, a reassurance that things were all right. Soon, maybe she'd be able to show someone that smile. Her contemplation was put on hold as the warning bell rang, though she had been late to many classes because of Mina, she'd rather try to keep that number to a minimum.

"Come on!" She shouted, grabbing Midoryia's wrist and dragging him behind her as she ran: "Don't want to be late, do you?"


Technically, he hadn't been lying when he told his parents that he was going to help a classmate with quirk control, but he wasn't being entirely honest either. Hagakure's parents were away on a business trip, so she had insisted they meet at her house, much to Izuku's anxiety. Once he had arrived however, it wasn't too bad; so now he found himself sitting across from her, with a coffee table in between them.

"W-well, to start-" He retrieved a notebook from his bag labelled: 'Orders for the future: Volume 21' "I've figured out why that multicolour thing happened." He flipped towards a later page, on which was a sketch of how she had looked in the heroics class. "You said your quirk refracts light to make you invisible, right?"

"Yep, the whole electromagnetic spectrum passes straight through me! I can't be seen, I don't get sunburned, I can't be X-rayed and so on."

"Perfect! My quirk can be kind of overly specific sometimes when I use it, so when I told it to make you visible, it only disrupted your light manipulation enough to make you 'visible', not make you look how you do without your quirk."

"So... does that mean you can do it?"

"I don't see why not." He extended his hand, before pausing awkwardly. "Do you want me to see or..."

"I-" She mulled over it, fidgeting slightly as she did. "I'll tell you when to look." Reaching out, she gripped his hand and braced herself. Even if she knew it was perfectly safe, her nerves said otherwise.

"Toru Hagakure's quirk will not effect her own body."

...

...

...

"Um, did it-" He was interrupted by a squeal of joy, a form crashing into him and wrapping him in a aggressive hug.

"Look, look!" He opened his eyes, only to be met with a mass of chartreuse and pink hair, along with a blindingly bright smile. He didn't get a further chance to inspect her appearance as she hugged him again. Unfortunately, now that he wasn't distracted with helping her, his nerves returned and his face lit up red, at least it would have, if his face was visible.


Humming happily to herself, Mina bounced into the arcade. Toru apparently had a surprise for her, though she had no inkling of what it was. She moved toward their usual meeting place, where an invisible person leaned against the wall. Except, it wasn't the invisible person she was used to. "Boo!"

She jumped back in fright, turning to see someone dressed in familiar clothing: "Toru?" Her head spun round to the invisible man who approached them, his horrifyingly bad fashion (seriously, a shirt that read 'T-Shirt'?) giving away his identity. "Midoriya?" Her head spun back and forth between the two in confusion, only barely registering the explanation on Izuku's quirk and its backlash causing his current transparency.

In the end, she'd just excepted it, her thoughts distracted by the joy she felt for her friend. Toru had told her before that she expected her quirk, but some of the comments she had overheard in junior high weren't the kinds of things that someone could just ignore.

On the other hand, Toru seemed as happy as ever, laughing at Izuku's attempt to play arcade games when he couldn't see his hands. Perhaps she was overthinking this, if Toru wanted her help, she'd ask. Trying to distract herself, Mina skipped over to the machines, prepared to show the others how far they were from masters at her expertise.