Rule #18a: Better safe than sorry
Toru wasn't sure how long she had been walking for, nor how far from the inn she was now, but she hoped that it wasn't too much farther to the Trigger facility because the mud caking her boots had started to steadily climb further up her legs, rendering the whole "invisibility thing" useless. There was very little that they already knew about the facility, such as the fact that it was located somewhere in the section of the forest that bordered the country of Kaflin. But that was still a lot of ground to cover and she was only one person (two, if you counted Edgeshot on the other end).
The tracks beneath her feet swerved & curled around on each other like bends in the famous river and it was only by navigating via the stars (the ones she could see, anyway) that the invisible girl even knew where she was going. Silently, she thanked Ochako for her love of the stars as Toru used the Big Dipper as her guide point and travelled northwest from the inn. Originally, she had been travelling on a path that was kind of northeast from the inn, but she had been turned around so many times that she had to stop and reorientate herself more than once. Oh well, she was here now.
For once, some strange little tidbit that she had picked up in teenage conversation had actually come in handy and she once again thanked the gravity girl for it. Because if it had been up to the invisible girl, she would have of definitely forgotten how to use the simplest of navigational tools, if Ochako hadn't so adamantly ground the knowledge into their heads (that jingle was quite catchy). Normally, the invisible girl was—what she liked to call—geographically-challenged. Essentially, it just meant that she was bad at directions; even with a map & a compass in her hands. No, routine and muscle memory were more her thing, whilst directional orientation had been more up Kurahashi Hinano's alley.
Still, she followed the tracks like a good little girl, even as they wound around through the forest until they eventually emerged out into a clearing where a rather large lake (man-made, by the looks of it) stood front and center. The albino stopped short of the water's edge and just let the gentle waves lap at her muddy boot-clad toes. Standing still for a moment at the lakeside, she just let the tranquility of the place wash over her as she watched the calm surface of the lake bob & ebb. It was strange to think that this place could hold such dark secrets.
Then with a hiss of a sigh, she dropped to her knee and dunked one of her hands beneath the cool waters before she could back out, shivering a little as she did so. With a snap of her fingers, her palm ignited and the light that emanated lit up the previously dark waters below. It was her hope that her quirk would allow her to illuminate anything of worth beneath the surface—something, anything—that she could retrieve in her scouting mission. But the waters were too dark & murky, and all she saw was the muddy abyss of nothing. There was nothing beneath the waters but the murky marsh that swam about in circlets of dirty lake water and if she wanted a better look, she may very well have to go further in or, at the very least, dunk her head under the water. Something she was not looking forward to.
Hissing out a sigh of frustration, Toru clambered back to her feet as her palm returned to its regular stasis and instead, her fingers moved to continuously run through the locks in her ponytail once more. The absent petting of her own hair helped calm her a little as she tried to analyse what was going on. The tracks she had found led down, down, down towards the dark waters but there were no other signs of human life; no signage pointing towards the strangely absent facility, no security outlining the perimeter and not even a single late night worker was left idling about the place. The most likely option—and the one that seemed the most reasonable—was that this infamous Trigger facility was someone located under the water.
As evident by the word of the locals, most believed this area to be haunted thanks to the sounds they had heard echoing about from this clearing. Which was understandable, considering what were producing here and how they were producing it; not to mention all of the testing that needed to be done. For something like that, live lab rats were the best option; or in this case, the missing workers. See, it couldn't possibly be good for you to be around that many quirk boosters on the daily, which was probably why they had such a high turnover rate of employees in the first that there was anyone left to talk about that kind of thing; it was all heresy and the worried word of families just speculating about what had happened to their missing members. She could only guess what had happened to them; none of them pretty.
Toru sucked in a deep breath and released it, pulling on her resolve like it was an old coat as her hair fell from her fiddling fingers. The tracks to the water's edge were all well and good, they needed more and she didn't particularly feel like going for a midnight swim right there and then. So, she inspected the tracks themselves and the surrounding area, instead. It didn't look like much; just a muddy marina with a makeshift boat ramp that trailed off into the lake. Accompanied by the occasional footprint from the wandering wildlife that called this rainforest home, as they came to drink at this watering hole pressed into the soft muddy ground. Silently, she praised any creature that would dare to drink from those murky waters because they did not look at all appetising.
The invisible girl narrowed her illuminated eyes at the ground beneath her feet and focused on the junction where the ground met the lake. That was odd too. Mostly in the sense that they stopped right before the water's edge but upon closer inspection, she found that there were no signs that they had descended into the lake, itself; at least not straight through. It was almost like the last transport vehicle which had taken this path had been plucked clean off of the ground and moved elsewhere.
Stepping back towards the water's edge again, she bent to study the tracks more closely; almost pressing her cheek against the stinking mud in an effort to see better. It was there, when lain flat against the ground, that she allowed her gaze to follow the path towards the dark waters and she found something flickering back at her. There, reflecting against the surface of the water like the hi-vis of a construction worker's vest. Moving ever-so-slowly as if to prevent whatever it was from startling, she reached out to retrieve the thing and, once again, dipped her (previously) clean hand beneath the cool waters of the lake.
Wiping the muck from the item she had retrieved, as she sat up and back on her haunches, she found that it was cool to the touch and relatively flat (if a little warped by the water's touch). The edges were worn down, eroded by time beneath the lake and what little imaging that she could make out in the dark, pointed towards this sheet of metal being a sign of some sort. Likely the very signage that she had been looking for, earlier and the post sticking out just a few feet away was probably what it had been standing on. Ugh! She groaned to herself, I'm gonna have to go for a dip, aren't I?
Quietly, the invisible girl set the old sign down on the ground beside her and clambered to her feet, now far dirtier than she had been a moment ago. Mud climbed up her limbs like ivy climbed up the vine and with one last longing glance back at the path leading out of the clearing, she waded out into the cool waters. Fuck! She swore, shivering at the sudden drop in temperature and silently cursed the lack of cloth that made up her costume. It's cold! Better get this over and done with!
Illuminated eyes searched the area closest to the shore (mostly because she didn't dare go any further) as she searched for someplace that those tracks could lead to, or if they even reappeared amongst the lakebed. Instead, she found the roots of the large gnarled cedar trees lining the edges and deceptively-shaped rocks across the lakebed that sent her heart racing. And she was trying her best not to think about whatever slimy thing her calf had briefly touched upon before her leg had recoiled at the feeling of it.
It was strange though. Even under the water with her sight illuminated, it was hard to see what was there. Hard to see…oh, duh! Of course! She slapped her forehead in realisation and then quickly shut off the connection her quirk had with her sight. It might've seemed like a strange thing to do, but she reasoned that it was similar to looking down the barrel of the sun or a blazing torch; you weren't going to be able to see anything if you were blinded. So, off went the light. And she was quickly rewarded with the sight of flickering green lights that trailed down into the dark. They were faint and might've of normally been mistaken for the distorted reflection of the environment above, but she could see it! The Trigger facility that they had been searching so hard for was silhouetted by a trickle of green lights out on the horizon; that was where they had to do, wherever there was.
Aside from the track that stopped & started, there wasn't any other clear path to the facility and there had to be, considering the workers who came & went from this place. Turning her quirk back on, Toru swam closer to the post where the sign had previously sat and followed the metal shaft down to the lakebed. It was there that she found a series of metallic buttons; ones that were made from similar materials to the sign which she hoped meant good news. Feeling up & down the pole, her knuckles eventually knocked themselves against a rather large clamp that sat towards the top of the shaft. Running her fingers over it, she thought that it felt like a railroad handle more than anything else. But before she could investigate further, her lungs began to beg for oxygen and she was forced to retreat back to the surface.
"Gross! B-bleh!" She spluttered as she emerged from the waters, coughing up the muck that had tried to make its way into her mouth. Paddling in place to keep herself afloat, Toru turned to face the supposed direction of the facility as she pulled the wet strands of hair pasted to her face, out of her mouth. She had felt it—the control in which the path would raise and fall—along the weathered shaft of the pole. It was ingenious, if this was how they had hidden the Trigger facility for so long. With the handle cranked just so, the path either raised into a tunnel to allow access to the building or it opened up a length of tunnelling that descended beneath the waters. Either way, the Trigger facility was kept away from prying eyes.
Paddling back over to the shore, Toru frowned to herself as she hauled herself out of the dark waters. For a facility that boasted such investments as the Trigger drug and alignments such as the Paranormal Liberation Front, it sure did go to the extremes to make sure that no one dared to interfere with their works; not even those who were their so-called allies. Which seemed a bit odd, in hindsight. It was good to keep something precious like that hidden, sure, but to this extent? It seemed like a bit much, especially considering that she was speculating all of this just from watching from afar—she hadn't even gone anywhere near the facility, let alone inside it. Who knows what other security measures it boasted in there? Either way, she felt a bit better knowing that they at least had some sort of breadcrumb to follow, even if she didn't know exactly where that breadcrumb trail led to.
Okay, now was the hard part: getting back to the inn without attracting the locals' attention too much with her drowned rat impersonation. Perhaps if she raised her core temperature a little, then she would be able to dry off just that little bit quicker? Not that she minded the muck, per se, she just wasn't looking forward to Mineta's perverse comments about her appearance or Toga's ribbing that would follow as such. Perhaps she could make up a story about slipping in a puddle? Puddles 'round here were deep enough, right? Glancing back at the lake and the facility that it held beneath, Toru heaved a sigh that had her shoulders slumping forward. The things she did to to fit in; oh well, at least she had the practise.