Chapter 38: Visible Spectrum

A week after the attack, the U.A. auditorium was a sea of tense silence. Class 1-A, seated in the red velvet chairs, no longer looked like a group of enthusiastic teenagers. Their faces were somber, their postures rigid. They had seen hell, and the experience had aged them.

On stage, under an austere light, Principal Nezu addressed them. His small figure emanated an immense authority.

"As you know, U.A. has resumed its activities," he began, his voice calm but firm. "Security has been reinforced to unprecedented levels. A breach like the one at the USJ will not happen again. I personally guarantee it."

Beside him, Detective Tsukauchi stepped forward, his face tired and his trench coat wrinkled. He held a tablet with an air of professional gravity.

"We have been investigating the organization that calls itself 'The League of Villains,'" he said, his voice filling the auditorium. "The two individuals who led the attack, the ones who identified themselves as 'Tomura Shigaraki' and 'Kurogiri,' are ghosts. They don't exist in any database. There are no birth certificates, no academic records, not even a traffic ticket. They are aliases, identities created to operate in the shadows. This tells us we are not dealing with simple criminals, but with an organization that has resources, intelligence, and a purpose we do not yet fully understand."

The detective looked up from the tablet, his eyes scanning each of the students.

"We have no leads on their whereabouts or their true identities. You must consider them an active and highly dangerous threat. Be on alert at all times, both on and off campus."

A murmur of unease swept through the hall. The threat wasn't a distant nightmare; it was a shadow that now loomed over them.

Then, a metallic screech caught their attention. Screeeech! Shota Aizawa, wrapped in bandages like a mummy and seated in a wheelchair, pushed himself toward the center of the stage. His eyes, barely visible between the gauze, were fixed on his students.

"You survived a real battle," he said in his dry, monotone voice, which was somehow more impactful than any shout. "Don't waste the experience. Every scar, every moment of panic, is a lesson you can't learn in a classroom. But don't let fear paralyze you."

He paused, letting his words sink in.

"The Sports Festival is still on. More than ever. The world will be watching us. They'll want to see if U.A. is weak, if its future heroes are scared. Show them why messing with us was the worst mistake of their pathetic lives."

The speech wasn't inspiring. It was a challenge. A harsh, direct order that ignited a spark of defiance in the heart of every student. They weren't just victims. They were survivors. And they were ready to fight.

The atmosphere in the U.A. hallways after classes was heavy. The serious speeches, the police presence, and the fresh memory of the attack had left a patina of tension over the school routine. Toru Hagakure, with her cheerful and optimistic personality, felt like she was suffocating in it.

Ugh, what a depressing day, she thought to herself, leaning invisibly against the wall of a little-used side corridor. Villains, detectives, serious speeches about duty… I need some fun! This place is more wound up than All Might's spandex! Okay, plan of action: the next person who walks down this lonely hallway is going to get the scare of their life. We need to lighten the mood! Operation Adorable Scare is a-go!

The sacrificial lamb didn't take long to appear. Izuku Midoriya was walking down the hall, head down and completely absorbed in his analysis notebook, muttering to himself about the possible applications of thermodynamics in fire Quirks. He was using a shortcut he had discovered, one that would save him a few minutes to get to his beach training with the girls sooner. He was the perfect target.

Toru smiled to herself, a smile no one could see. She positioned herself in the center of the hallway. Her plan was elegantly simple. She waited, holding her breath, feeling the playful adrenaline build. He was getting closer… a little more… he was almost next to her…

She braced herself, took a breath, and…

"BOO!"

The shout was sharp and sudden, but Izuku's reaction was not that of a normal person. He didn't just flinch or let out a frightened yelp. His new reflexes, assimilated from Toga and perfected by his bio-vectorial control, didn't distinguish between a prank and a deadly attack. His body went into combat mode before his brain could process the sound.

In a fraction of a second, he spun on his heels, bent his knees, and leaped backward in an evasive move of impressive fluidity—a defensive pirouette that would have made his own teacher Aizawa proud. The problem was the power. His reaction was so explosive that he lost his balance in mid-air.

Toru, meanwhile, stood frozen in place, completely stunned. What kind of person reacted to a simple "boo!" as if a grenade had been thrown at them?

Izuku fell backward, his arms flailing through the air in a desperate search for something to grab onto.

And his hands found something. Two soft, round obstacles. He clung to them with the strength of a drowning man. For a fleeting instant, his brain registered the sensation of having grabbed two strangely warm and pliable balls.

WHAM! His back hit the floor, and the weight of Toru, whom he had unintentionally grabbed by the breasts, fell on top of him. The contact was total. Firm. Skin to skin.

In the instant of impact, Izuku's Quirk activated at full power. A torrent of data, a tsunami of information about light refraction, photonic manipulation, and particle physics, flooded his brain, leaving him completely dazed on the hallway floor.

The intrusion of Izuku's Quirk into Toru's was like a power surge in a delicate system. Her invisibility, which had been a constant in her life, flickered. Once, twice, like a faulty lightbulb about to burn out. And then, with a final sizzle that only she could feel, it went out. Bzzzt.

For the first time in the halls of U.A., Toru Hagakure was completely visible. And, of course, she was completely naked, lying on top of a very confused Izuku Midoriya. Her figure was curvy and attractive, with a flat stomach and a cute navel that stood out under the harsh hallway light. Her hair, a messy whirlwind of vibrant green with pink streaks, fell across her face.

But she didn't know it yet. She was more worried about the fall and her classmate's ridiculous reaction.

"Hey! What an overreaction!" she complained, trying to sit up. "Are you okay? You almost ripped my—!"

She stopped cold. Her complaint died in her throat as she realized where his hands were. Still clamped firmly to her breasts.

Izuku slowly opened his eyes, his mind still swimming in an ocean of data about photons and wavelengths. He saw a face he didn't know. A pretty girl, with greenish hair and beautiful sky-blue eyes that were now looking at him with a mixture of annoyance and concern.

His gaze lowered. He saw his own hands. And he saw what they were attached to.

He was about to let out a scream of apology when he realized the impossible: he could see her.

Toru was still oblivious to the catastrophe.

"Hey, my breasts aren't emergency handholds, Midoriya-kun!" she snapped, trying to push his hands away.

Izuku was in absolute shock. His brain had ceased to function. His gaze, filled with an almost scientific amazement, swept over the girl's visible body, past her flat abdomen, her hips… and stopped lower. He swallowed hard. His short-circuiting brain, desperately searching for a word to describe what he was seeing, only managed to form a choked whisper, an involuntary and terribly specific observation:

"…Green."

The confusion on Toru's face was total.

"Green, what? Did you hit your head? What are you talking about?"

She followed the direction of his gaze, confused. She looked down at her own pubis.

She saw skin. She saw hair. She saw… the color. She saw herself.

Reality didn't hit her. It annihilated her. The shockwave of understanding left her breathless. She wasn't invisible. He was seeing her. Completely. Naked. And his first comment had been about the color of her pubic hair.

Her reaction was a shriek that could have shattered the reinforced glass of U.A.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! YOU CAN SEE ME! YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME! I'M NAKED! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, YOU PERVERT?!"

Total chaos took over the hallway. Toru shot to her feet, her body now trembling with hysteria and shame. She tried to cover herself with her hands, a gesture as futile as trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella.

"My Quirk! It's not working! I don't know how to turn it on! Give me back my invisibility, right now!"

Izuku, also panicking, scrambled to his feet. Survival overrode shame. He ripped off his U.A. uniform jacket and threw it to her.

"Cover yourself! I didn't do anything, I swear! It was an accident! You fell, I touched you, and suddenly I could… I could read your manual!"

Trying to calm her down, and while avoiding looking directly at her body now barely covered by his jacket, he began to frantically recite what he had seen in his mind, his "Trainer" mode activating as a defense mechanism.

"Your power isn't just invisibility! It's so much more! It's light manipulation at a photonic level! You could create flashes to blind your opponents, you could refract light around you to create mirages, even distort your silhouette to appear larger or smaller! Your potential is incredible! You could be the ultimate stealth hero!"

Toru, who was still hyperventilating from shame, stopped. Her sobs caught in her throat. In the midst of the most humiliating moment of her life, this boy—the same one who had just commented on the color of her… well, that—wasn't mocking her. He wasn't taking advantage of the situation. He was revealing a power she never knew she had. He was telling her about her potential.

"But I don't know how to become invisible again! You broke it!" she whimpered, tears of panic and shame streaming down her cheeks.

"No, I didn't break it!" Izuku hurried to say, waving his hands. "I just… rebooted the system! I can help you! I know how to train it! It's my Quirk, I told you! It's called 'Trainer'!"

Toru froze. Her sobs ceased. The word hung in the hallway air, charged with a new and terrible implication. She processed the information: the name of the Quirk, the fact that he had used it on her, the general school knowledge about the nature of Izuku's power.

She looked at Izuku, wrapped in his jacket, her sky-blue eyes wide with a new kind of horror.

"Wait… 'Trainer'…" she murmured, her voice barely a thread. "Like… for training pets?"

She looked at herself, at her visible and vulnerable body, and then back at him, her mind connecting the dots in the most humiliating way possible.

"Am I a dog?"