Chapter Text
When Toru was born, there was quite the confusion at the hospital for several minutes after she got pushed out. They figured out what was going on quick enough, thankfully, but there was still some mystery to the whole affair since neither of her parents had any sort of invisibility quirk. Her mother had the simple ability of being able to make flowers bloom on command, and her father could make anyone within five feet of him hear soft jazz music. How those two came together to make an invisible girl, no one knows, but such is the nature of quirks and their sometimes-random nature. There were no siblings to compare her to, so they shrugged it off as a fluke and began to try and prepare themselves for the unique challenges raising an invisible child would bring.
On her first day of school, Toru found herself surrounded by curious classmates trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on with this floating pair of clothes. She had been so excited! As she had a mutation type quirk, she had been born with her ability, but most of the other kids had yet to have their own power kick in, so she stood out quite a bit. It was so easy to make friends, Hagakure thought that she was in heaven. But soon, other people began to get their own set of power. Controlling water, jumping super high, making plants grow, soon everyone could do something amazing. As more of her classmates found out what they could do, she found herself getting more and more distant with them as they moved on. One particularly memorable incident was the first day of middle school, when she rushed over to see her old classmates. They had seemed surprised to see her, which when she asked why caused some of them to look vaguely uncomfortable. Finally, one boy with particularly large feet stuttered that they must have forgotten about her, what with her being literally invisible and all. In that moment, Toru was very happy that they could not see the expression on her face, or the tears that nearly streaked down it.
She cried that night, into her fluffy pink pillow as she laid on her bed. She hated her stupid quirk, and the fact that it made her both figuratively and literally invisible to the world. she couldn’t hate her classmates, even though she desperately wanted to. How could she blame them for forgetting her, when she herself didn’t even know something as simple as the color of her own hair? In that brief dark moment, she thought that maybe it would be best just to slip out of the world’s view entirely, after all, it’s not like anyone would miss her. She turned her head on the wet pillow, looking at her room. It was filled with the girly stuff that she loved, magazines and stuffed animals littered everywhere.
She even had a makeup mirror that she had begged her parents to buy, despite their reluctance. She could never figure out why until she finally got one for her birthday, when she excitedly unboxed it to check it out… and to find nothing but the wall behind her in the reflective surface. So stupid! How could she have forgotten? She could tell that her parents sensed her being so upset, as they quickly came over and comforted her. They promised that they could return it and get her something else, but she didn’t want to do that to them. She had asked for it after all, and her family, while decent in the financial aspect, didn’t have a ton of money to throw around. So, she put on a happy voice and smiled at them (not that they could tell) and told them that it was OK, she could totally use it for storage and stuff.
There it sat, unused and pointless. She had put photos of a couple of her friends around it, like she had seen girls on television do, but she never actually looked at them because well, why would she sit at it? Makeup stuck to her face decent enough, but unless she put an obscene amount of it on herself, she looked terrifying, a floating mask above her clothes. It was pointless, so she didn’t even try. She glared at it, this object that mocked her and her horrible quirk, and in a fit of anger she threw a nearby schoolbook at it. The hard spine hit the mirror right in the center, sending a network of cracks throughout it and making a loud noise. She started to cry again, feeling guilty over wreaking her mom and dads’ nice gift to her. She was just so frustrated! How could she ever get the world to notice the invisible girl? She had never had a boy ask her out, she could rarely make friends because people had such a hard time telling what she was thinking, and she couldn’t even get the teacher to notice her when her hand was raised! She sighed and wiped away her tears, looking at the book she threw. Maybe she could study super hard and become a famous scientist or something? But she knew that while she wasn’t dumb exactly, she was just not cut out to research biology or whatever.
Her eyes wandered the room, coming to rest on one of the magazines that littered the ground. On it, displayed in big bold letters were the words, Pro Hero Midnight Reveals the Secrets of Her Love Life! Toru rolled her eyes. It was easy for her to get the world to notice her. She was bold, and in charge, and beautiful, everything that Toru wasn’t. Well, she might be beautiful, but she had no way of knowing. But other than those few minor things, what does Midnight have that I don’t? Toru thought to herself in a rare moment of sarcasm. Well, she was also a hero, for one thing. Everyone loved pro heroes, she saw them on the news every day, especially people like All-Might. The media ate them up. Toru sniffled to try to stop herself from crying again, wishing she could be like them, and be noticed for once in her life.
Well, why can’t I? The thought came to her out of nowhere. Be a hero? She had never thought about it before, to be honest. The idea of going out, saving people, and being in constant danger had never really appealed to Toru. But she had also never really given the thought the time of day before, and now that she was it didn’t seem so absurd. She could easily use her quirk to do hero work, she had gotten quite good at walking without being heard already so that she could pull pranks on her friends. She could see the TV now, reporters babbling about her as she walked out of some villain’s den with the hostages in her arms, everyone around thanking her. Oh Hagakure, your so brave, they would say, we love you, thank you so much, your amazing! And she would of course wave it off, saying that’s just what heroes do, it’s really not a big deal, no, really. The world would finally love her, talk about her, notice her! Lost in thought, she almost didn’t hear the knock on her bedroom door.
“Come in” she said. Her mother opened the door gently, looking worried. Toru glanced over at the mirror and mentally groaned, upset with herself. Of course they were worried, they had just heard a mirror shatter!
“Is everything OK honey?” her mom’s soft voice asked. She glanced over at the makeup stand, noticing the shattered glass. “Was there an accident?”
Toru stood up. “Uh yeah, sorry about that mom. I know that the mirror was expensive. My bad” She shuffled for a moment. “Hey mom, I think I’ve decided what I want to be when I grow up.”
Her mother seemed surprised at this sudden change in topic. She glanced at the broken object that had brought her up here but decided to see what her daughter was talking about instead of pursuing the mirror. “Well that’s great honey! What have you decided to be?”
Toru took a deep breath. “I’m going to be a Hero!” she declared loudly, intent on making her voice clear and obvious. Her mom was shocked at the words and the ferocity in which they were said. Her daughter had never displayed an interest in being a hero before, but if this was what she decides to do with her life, then as a mother it was her job to support her.
“That’s great darling! What made you decide that?” Toru hesitated, not sure what to say. I want to be famous did not sound like a very noble reason to be a hero, even if it was the truth. Eventually though, she came to an answer that was both satisfying and true.
“I want to see the hope in people’s eyes when I save them.” A bit poetic, but it was the best she could come up with. Her mom blinked at that response but smiled at her daughter. She had not expected something like that, but she thought that was a good reason indeed.
“Well, I support you 100%, and I’m sure your father does too. But you should know that it’s not going to be easy.” Toru nodded, which thankfully her mom noticed due to the movement of her shirt.
“I know mom, but this is what I want to do. I guess I better start studying huh?” Toru said, the end of her sentence having a bit of a teasing tone. Her mom gasped in mock surprise.
“My daughter, studying instead of slacking off and reading magazines? You really are serious!” they both laughed, Toru feeling much better. Her mother walked over to her bed and tried to give her a kiss on the check, but missed and accidently kissed her on the ear, a problem that popped up more often than not. She apologized, but Toru said it was fine. This was just another aspect of her quirk that she had gotten used to, for better or for worse. Mom left the room, saying that she should leave her to be studying then, to which Toru agreed. Everyone knew that the best school for heroes was the famous UA, and if she wanted to get into the prestigious high school she would have to start preparing right now.
Ever since that night, Toru had been like a woman gone mad. She studied, she prepared for tests, she even made flashcards to help herself out. And it showed, she started to do better and better in school, getting low A’s on tests that in the past she would have gotten C’s. her teachers noticed, complementing her on her apparent new drive to study, which she thanked them for. But it was not just schoolwork she focused on. She began to be louder when she talked so she was more noticeable, as well as using her body language to better communicate what she was feeling. It was nowhere near a perfect system, but it was much better than being ignored constantly, and it allowed her to meet a few new people, though none of them got to be as good of friends with her as she would have liked. Finally, she started to try to be even more quiet while moving, often scaring her parents and friends by sneaking up on them. She knew that her ability to not be seen was her one big advantage when it came to hero work, and she was going to make it count. Finally, middle school had ended, she had said tearful goodbyes to the few friends she had made, and she found herself at the gates of UA for the entrance exam. She inhaled, then started walking toward them. It was time to make the world notice her.