Chapter 72: A Day of Being Visible

The sun filtered through the kitchen window, illuminating the domestic setting that had become the unlikely sanctuary for their strange little team. Izuku, Inko, and Toga were sitting at the breakfast table, but today's conversation wasn't about training or homework. It was a mission report.

"So, yeah..." Izuku concluded, taking a sip of his orange juice. "Nezu knows everything. About the manuals, the enhancement, the contact... everything."

Inko set her teacup down on the table, her face a mixture of worry and amazement. "And what did he say? Are you in trouble? Are they going to expel you for having such a... peculiar Quirk?"

"On the contrary," Izuku replied, a small, disbelieving smile on his lips. "He said it was fascinating. He classified it as a U.A. Level-S Secret. And he assigned all of us to the same internship with Mt. Lady so he can supervise us under an official cover. He says he'll handle the situation personally."

"So the principal is a sly fox!" Toga exclaimed with a delightful laugh, chewing on a piece of toast with jam. "I like him! He uses a secret to create more secrets. He's an evil genius!"

"He's a strategic genius," Izuku corrected. "But... there was something else. To prove his trust in us, to make us understand the gravity of keeping secrets... All Might told us something in return."

He hesitated for a moment, the weight of his idol's confession still fresh in his mind. He looked at his mother, then at Toga, and knew they were in the inner circle. They were his family. They deserved to know.

"The truth about All Might... is that he's dying."

He revealed the whole story. The injury, the skeletal form, the time limit. Inko brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears of a deep, painful empathy for the man her son admired so much.

"That poor man..." she whispered. "To carry so much pain, so much weight, and still keep smiling for the world..."

Toga's reaction was, as always, completely different. There was no empathy in her eyes, but rather a predatory fascination.

"How interesting!" she said, leaning forward, her yellow eyes gleaming. "So the great Symbol of Peace has an expiration date! The pillar of the world is fragile! He has a weakness! This makes everything much, much more fun. Knowing the king can bleed..."

The crudeness of her analysis sent a shiver down Izuku's spine, but he didn't scold her. It was Toga being Toga. Logical, in her own twisted way. The scene solidified their new reality: the deepest secrets of the hero world were now discussed as casually as the grocery list in his mother's kitchen.

The doorbell rang punctually at ten in the morning. Inko opened the door to reveal a smiling but visibly nervous Toru Hagakure.

"Toru-chan, dear, welcome!" Inko greeted her with a warm hug. "Come in, come in. Izuku and... Kageko-chan are almost ready."

Just then, Toga emerged from her room. She was no longer Toga. Thanks to a blood sample Izuku had discreetly obtained from a general studies student with a harmless Quirk, she had transformed. She was now "Kageko," her alter ego for public outings. She wore a black gothic-style dress, fishnet stockings, and dark makeup that contrasted with her pale skin. Her blonde hair was now jet-black, styled in two pigtails. It was a perfect transformation.

"Hello, Toru-chan," Kageko said, her voice a bit deeper and more melancholic than Toga's. "Ready for our foray into the mundane world of consumerism?"

Toru laughed, her nervousness eased by the strange comedy of the situation. "Ready. Though I'm still not sure I can survive the crowds."

The plan was simple: a shopping trip. A normal day. But for Toru, who had spent her whole life as a ghost, and for Toga, who was a fugitive, a "normal" day was the strangest and most dangerous adventure of all.

"We'll be with you every step of the way," Izuku said, coming out of his room, his voice calm and reassuring. "If you feel overwhelmed, if people stare too much, if you need a break, just tell me. We'll find a quiet place. That's a promise."

The sincerity in his eyes was enough to quell the last vestiges of Toru's panic. She nodded, a grateful smile on her face.

The Kiyashi Mall was a temple of consumerism, a three-story labyrinth of bright stores, neon lights, and a river of people flowing ceaselessly through its corridors. For Toru, it was a sensory assault. The noise, the smells, and above all, the looks. Hundreds of gazes that landed on her, registered her, judged her.

"There are... so many people," she murmured, instinctively moving a little closer to Izuku.

"It's okay," he replied, his presence beside her a shelter in the storm. "They're just people. And most of them are too busy thinking about what shoes to buy to pay any attention to us."

But he was wrong.

"Hey! It's you!"

An excited, childish voice stopped them. A little girl, no older than seven, with pigtails and an All Might plushie, was pointing at her, her eyes wide as saucers.

"You're the invisible girl from the festival! The one on the rocket team! You were amazing!"

Toru froze. She'd been recognized?

"Honey, don't point, it's rude," her mother chided, though she too was looking at Toru with an admiring smile.

"C-Could you... could you sign this for me?" the girl asked, holding out a small notebook and a pen with trembling hands.

Toru looked at Izuku, panic in her eyes. He gave her a small, encouraging nod. With trembling hands, Toru took the notebook and scribbled her name, adding a small, clumsy drawing of a smiling ghost.

"Thank you!" the girl exclaimed, hugging the autograph as if it were a treasure. "When I grow up, I want to be a cool, stealthy hero like you!"

They walked away, leaving Toru standing in the middle of the corridor, a look of pure, overwhelming happiness on her face.

"She... she asked for my autograph," she whispered, as if she couldn't believe it. "Someone... wants to be like me."

"Of course they do," Izuku said gently. "You were incredible at the festival."

That small interaction was like a balm for her soul. The joy of being seen, of being recognized for something she had accomplished, was a new and intoxicating feeling.

But the world wasn't always so kind.

Later, as they were looking at a clothing store display, a group of older boys, probably from another school, walked past them.

"Well, well, look at that," one of them said, his voice thick with cheap lechery. "Isn't that the invisible girl from U.A.? Turns out she's not so invisible in all the right places."

They gave a rude whistle, their gazes roaming over her body in a way that made her feel dirty, exposed.

Toru froze. The earlier joy shattered, replaced by a wave of humiliation and fear. She shrank into herself, wishing with all her might to become invisible again.

Her team's reaction was instant and coordinated.

Izuku stepped between her and the boys. He didn't say a word. He just stood there, his posture relaxed, but with a gaze so cold and analytical in his green eyes that the boys stopped in their tracks. It wasn't a physical threat. It was the look of someone who was dismantling them, analyzing their every weakness in an instant. It chilled them to the bone.

At the same time, "Kageko" made her move. With feigned clumsiness, she stumbled and bumped into the group's leader.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said in a sweet, melancholic voice. And as she helped him steady himself, she leaned in and whispered something in his ear, something only he could hear.

The boy's face went from white to green. He stared at the goth girl in pure, absolute terror.

"What... what did you say?" he stammered.

"Problem solved," Kageko said, returning to the group with a sweet smile, leaving the bullies trembling and confused.

They hurried away, casting frightened glances over their shoulders.

"What did you say to him?" Izuku asked, curious.

"Oh, nothing important," Toga replied innocently. "I just described to him, in great anatomical detail, the six different ways I could use my knife to remove his ability to ever whistle again. Or speak. Or breathe."

Izuku decided it was better not to ask.

They found a quieter area by an indoor fountain and sat down. But the damage was done. Toru was curled up on the bench, her gaze distant.

"It's so... exhausting," she said quietly. "One minute, a little girl admires you. The next, some jerks make you feel like a piece of meat. Being invisible was easier. No one looked at you, no one judged you... you just existed."

Izuku sat beside her, his voice soft and earnest.

"It was easier, yes. But... were you truly living? Hidden. Without anyone being able to see how incredible you are. Now people can see you, Toru. With all the good, like that little girl, and all the bad, like those idiots. And I..." he looked at her, and the sincerity in his eyes was so overwhelming it made it hard for her to breathe, "I'm so glad I can see you."

To lighten the mood, they decided to go to the arcade. Toga, with her natural competitiveness, tried to cheat at a dance machine, moving with almost inhuman speed. Toru discovered an unexpected passion for strawberry and chocolate crepes, eating three in a row with childish glee. Izuku, for his part, was dragged to a claw machine, trying to win a limited-edition Mt. Lady plushie.

After spending an embarrassing amount of yen, he finally got it. He handed the plushie to Toru.

"For you. So you'll remember the good side of being visible," he said with a smile.

At the end of the day, shopping bags in hand and feet aching, they passed by a hero merchandise store.

"Wait a second," Toru said, and ran into the store.

She came out a few minutes later with a small box. She held it out to Izuku.

"I have something for you, too."

He opened it. Inside was a limited-edition statuette of Mt. Lady in her debut pose, the same one he had witnessed, the one that had set him on this path. It was an expensive and hard-to-find collector's item.

"Toru-san... I can't accept this. It must have cost a fortune."

"It's nothing," she insisted, her eyes shining with genuine emotion. "It's a thank you. For... for everything. For helping me see my own power. And for helping me not be so afraid of others seeing me, too. Thanks to you, today, I felt... real."

Izuku was speechless, moved by the gesture. He accepted the gift, his fingers brushing against hers for an instant.

They said goodbye to Toru at the train station, promising to see each other the next day for the first day of their internships. As Izuku and Toga walked home in the twilight, the silence between them was comfortable.

When they got to the apartment, Izuku went straight to his room. With almost reverent care, he placed the new Mt. Lady figure in the center of his bookshelf, next to his old, worn-out All Mights. It was a symbol of his original dream, now redefined by the people who shared his path.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He thought it might be Ochako or Momo, asking how the rest of his day went.

He pulled out the phone. The screen showed a message from a number he hadn't saved. "Unknown Number."

With a mixture of curiosity and a strange apprehension, he opened the message.

It wasn't a threat. It wasn't long. It was just a few words, without context, without a signature. A simple greeting that somehow felt incredibly intimate and dangerously familiar.

Hello, prodigy. Hope you had a good day off. ;)

Izuku stared at the screen, the winking emoticon seeming to mock him. He felt the color rise to his cheeks. Only one person had ever called him that. But how... how had she gotten his number?

The day off was over. And a new, mysterious game had just begun.