Pastimes of the Invisible Girl

The Pain of Visibility

The circles under Aiyazawa's eyes were especially pronounced when he finally called her in to go over the results of her natural disaster rescue. Since a rescue could potentially take all day, each region of the building, and in turn each group, had one teacher to oversee the results. She had the luck of having him again, so at least her nakedness wasn't spreading around school too much.

After staring each other down for a few minutes, with her fidgeting, he sighed.

"If your streaking becomes habitual, I'm going to consider signing you up with Togata Mirio's tutor." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Naked teenagers aren't healthy for my eyesight, which needs all the help it can get. But, to my main critique, I'm basically going to tell you the same thing I told Midoriya." He leaned forward on his folded arms. "A hero who ends up needing rescuing themselves is useless."

She sighed too. "Yes. Recovery Girl let me know how stupid I was, you can stop there, I get it."

"However," the corner of his tired eyes crinkled. "You did exactly what the assignment was meant to do: stretch your abilities. Even though it wasn't fully successful, that concentrated ball of light you made did get you much farther than you would have in any other case, so we can call it a success. Though it took off a good deal of your invisibility temporarily, I'm sure you can find a use for it in the future."

Weakly, she returned his smile.

Back in her room that evening, she tried again to recreate the warm ball as she sat before her vanity. After blinding herself several times with flashes, she toppled back onto her shag carpet to brood.

It was obvious what was different from then and now. Back then she had been freezing and in pain, both mentally and physically, as she pushed herself to the limit. In the comfort of her favorite silky pajamas and in the privacy and comfort of her own room, that certain something, that needle-like focus and the giant strength behind it, were missing, leaving her light free to bounce all over the room in the usual flash rather than concentrated into her palms, or wherever, theoretically.

"Maybe I could go outside naked?" She bit her lip. Would it be cold enough? Probably only cold enough to be uncomfortable, especially given how used to it she was after skittering around everyone's windows at night. Speaking of which, she hadn't done that in a while, having been scarred by the whole Bakugo experience. Her checkups on her classmates could probably go weekly by now anyways unless something else came up.

Figuring she'd think more on it as she went, she shimmied out of her silkies (which was the main reason she liked them so much, they came off like water) and headed to her window. She took handfuls of her paisley pink curtains and pulled them aside-

To see Bakugo toeing onto the scene.

Both the sudden curtain open and her shriek sent him toppling over the side.

His hands caught the railing. Boss reflexes, like Mina.

Toru threw open her window.

"What the heck are you doing?"

"YOU NEARLY KILLED ME!"

"Just pull yourself up already, you got the arms of a god, don't you?"

Emitting his usual stream of profanity, he pulled himself up with ease and, without so much as a warning, proceeded to crawl through her window. She scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid getting her face smashed in by his skull.

"Ask much?"

"You didn't." He all but slammed her window closed behind him, all growl, all scowl-the usual. "I can't believe you're still alive after crawling on that shitstain excuse of a ledge, and down a floor, no less. What are you, a gecko?"