[MHA Characters are test subjects in a secret, underground lab (part nine) Before Yaoyorozu came to the lab, the pod numbered fifteen was empty, but Hagakure liked to think it was full.]

Most young children have excellent imaginations. They concoct games and stories and fabricate a world in their minds very different from the world they actually live in. Imagination enhances every experience in a child's life, and even in a laboratory, deep underground, the young test subjects were no exception.

Before Yaoyorozu arrived in the lab, the number fifteen belonged to no one. There was an empty sleeping pod with the number fifteen, an empty number fifteen chair in the meal room. The number fifteen on the carpet in the math classroom was always vacant when they sat around in a circle for the lightning addition game. All the other numbers were occupied, so why wasn't number fifteen?

"What if there is a number fifteen, but they're just invisible like 08?" 19 suggested one day, during their recreational hour. It was January of their fourth year in the lab, which meant that, except for 01 whose birthday had already passed, they were all three years old.

"Haha, maybe I secretly have a sister like 16 and 17 are brothers," 08 tacked on, giggling. "Maybe she can even turn her clothes invisible. That would make her even better than me!"

"Tha'd be pretty cool if she could even turn her clothes invisible," 06 said, his heavy tail wagging involuntarily at the excitement of a prospective new friend, very nearly throwing him off balance. "I mean, invisibility is already a super cool power though, so it's hard to make it even cooler like that."

"I bet she's really good at fighting, too!" 14 said, lifting an enlarged fist enthusiastically. "I mean, she's right next to me and 16 so she must be!"

"Yeah, my sister could totally kick your booty in a fight! She'd be moving so fast you can't even see her!" 08 grinned animatedly, though no one could see it, since she was invisible.

"She's invisible though," 17 said. "We can't see her even if she's going really slow."

"Oh yeah... that's true, I guess..." 08 said. "Still though, she's super strong and way powerful!"

"How come she never talks?" 13 asked, gravitating toward her friends, attracted by the buzz of excitement that surrounded them.

"She does talk, but she just talks really quiet because she's shy," 08 decided. "I can tell you guys what she's saying if you wanted!"

The children often made up games to play in their meager free time, usually based on the educational games their teachers taught them, or based on the repetitive exercises they learned during physical training. It was nice to have something new and different to occupy their time.

"Yeah, tell us about her!" 06 said brightly, scooting close to 08, tail still wagging back and forth behind him, though he'd taken a seat on the floor to avoid falling over because of it.

"How about you all ask questions and I'll tell you what her anses are," 08 said.

"Okay!" 13 agreed. "How about... what's her favorite subject?"

"Well, 15?" 08 prompted. Then she leaned over a little, nodding as if listening to an invisible figure beside her. "Okay. 15 says she likes language class the best because Mister Hizashi is really nice."

"Me too!" 11 said. "How about this one: who's her least favorite instructor?"

"Ask her, not me," 08 corrected.

"Oh, right! Who's your least favorite instructor, 15?" 11 repeated, this time looking at the air to 08's left instead of the air above 08's collar.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," 08 muttered, repeating the process of pretending to listen to the invisible 15 they all now imagined to be there. "She says it's Mister Enji, and who's isn't?"

"I don't hate Mister Enji that much," 01 mumbled in defense of the combat instructor he felt strangely connected to, even though Mister Enji was, undoubtedly, the meanest of their teachers.

"Yeah, but you gotta admit you're the only one," 08 said. "Uh... that's what 15 says, not me." Everyone giggled, 08 and 01 included. There was no telling how many antics they might get up to with 15 around.

"Let's see, 14 answered last time, so, 16!" Mister Higari, their math teacher called. "Count by twos to tell me what two times seven is."

"What about 15?" 16 demanded, mostly to prolong having to do math, even if just by a little it.

"There isn't any 15, don't you kids know that by now?" Mister Hiragi said, knowing very well what 16 was doing.

"Yeah there is!" 16 insisted, rubbing his shaggy red hair nervously, pretty sure he wasn't about to get away with this, but willing to try anyway. "08's invisible sister! But she's quiet so 08 always tells everybody what she's saying."

"Right... okay..." Mister Hiragi chuckled slightly, but who was he to take away these children's coping mechanisms. "08, is it okay with you to translate 15 for us?" he asked, quite indulgently. He would just have to give 16 a slightly harder problem to make up for giving more work to 08.

"Sure!" 08 agreed.

"Okay then, 15, please count by twos to tell me what two times seven is," he repeated, directing his question to the empty number 15 on the carpet. 08 made a show of crawling over to the empty seat and leaning in close to hear what her imaginary sister was saying. Mister Hiragi's lips twitched as he tried to hold back an amused smile.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," 08 mumbled, then she turned to look up at Mister Hiragi and gave him his answer. "15 says it's two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen. Two times seven is fourteen!"

"That's correct, 15," he said. "Now, 16, count by threes to tell me what three times twelve is."

"Aw man! That's way harder!" 16 complained, and 08 giggled none-too-subtly as she crawled back to her own spot on the carpet.

"Subject 08," one of the scientists called out while the children were in endurance training with Mister Enji. "Come with me to the experimental ward."

"Can I bring 15 with me?" 08 asked in a small voice.

"Uhh..." as far as the scientist knew, there was no subject fifteen. She did a quick headcount of the kids and came up with nineteen, as usual. "Sure, whatever."

08 closed her invisible fist around the air next to her, and imagined that she was holding tightly to her imagined sister's hand. She imagined a voice telling her that she wouldn't be alone this time, that she would have her sister with her.

"OK!" she followed the scientist out of the training room and down the hallway, feeling stronger than she usually did on her way to sector 1A. Even as she stood in front of the dreaded door, she put on a brave face, not that anyone could see it, because she wasn't alone this time. She didn't think she was alone.

The scientist brought her to a room where one wall was a television screen that would display different backgrounds, and with overhead lights that could show all sorts of different colors of light, on and off the visible spectrum. Once there, the scientist left her standing in the room alone, and locked to door behind her as she left.

"Please remove all of your clothes, and stand in the center of the room," ordered a voice from the speaker system.

08 swallowed hard and followed the instructions, folding her jumpsuit and underwear neatly on the side of the room and going to stand on the red dot that marked the exact center of the room. She knew the drill. She had been in this room before.

The screen behind her switched between complicated backgrounds as a test, though they had already determined that her ability was invisibility, not camouflage. Then the room went pitch black.

"15," she squeaked.

"Please be silent," ordered the voice. 08 bit her lower lip and imagined that her sister's arms were wrapping around her to protect her from the darkness.

The overhead lights shone ultraviolet rays down on her, and the voice told her to wave her arms, and she complied. The overhead lights shifted to infrared, and she was asked to wave her arms again. They changed the light frequency, again, new frequency, again, new frequency, again.

Someone entered in a radiation suit, blocking the entire doorway so as not to risk her slipping out, not that she had the courage to. The radiation suit was bulky and yellow, and swallowed up the person inside completely. No face could be seen behind the polarized face shield of the rubber suit. As far as 08 was concerned, the suit may as well have been empty.

The radiation suit approached her slowly and she tried not to squeal in terror as it did so. The voice had told her to be silent. So silently, she prayed for her sister to protect her as she stood there, naked, and completely exposed to the radioactive lights. Without a word, the radiation suit stretched its gloved hands slowly toward her, it crouched methodically lower until it was kneeling, and its horrible rubber hand was resting on her head. She squeezed her eyes shut as the radiation suit felt around for her shoulders, and tried to imagine that they were her sister's hands, but they were too big, too heavy, too cold.

Instead, she imagined an invisible figure standing right next to her, as she always did, she imagined her sister telling her over and over again that she wasn't alone, no matter what happened. In the light experiment room, she wasn't alone, in the radiation shower surrounded by guards, she was not alone. No matter how exposed she felt, she kept telling herself that she wasn't alone as long as her sister was with her, even though that sister only existed in her imagination, and her friends'. She was real enough, real enough to help, if only a little.

Two years later, someone new came down to the lab: the real Subject 15, Momo Yaoyorozu, and 08 was so excited. Toru Hagakure, as she would shortly learn her name was, was so excited. Subject 15 was real! But she quickly realized that Yaoyorozu was nothing at all like the fifteen she had imagined, the sister that she'd created for herself out of emptiness.

Her strong, brave, powerful sister, had been replaced by a girl even more scared than Hagakure was. Her comforting sister had been replace by a girl in need of comfort. Her only protection was replaced with a stranger, and for a while, she couldn't help but mourn. The 15 she'd imagined, that she knew and loved, was gone, and in her place was a girl in desperate need of the 15 that no longer was and technically never had been to begin with.

After the first few weeks, Hagakure realized that she had to be the strong one now, for Yaoyorozu. She had to be brave, encouraging, and positive, even on the worst days. She had to become what her sister was to her, or else... she wasn't sure if she could keep going. Without that, she just knew she would break down, and it didn't take anyone long to realize what a breakdown would mean in the lab.

Hagakure would keep an invisible smile on her invisible face, for the benefit of no one more than herself. She would stay unshakably positive in the face of any adversity. She didn't have a choice.

[Aaand we're back to the confusing numbers again. Sorry about that, but since most of this takes place pre-Yaomomo, that's just how it is. Aside from 08 being Hagakure, the rest don't matter that much but, here's a list of all the ones with spoken lines in order of appearance just because.

19 = Uraraka, 06 = Ojiro, 14 = Kendo, 17 = Tetsutetsu, 13 = Ashido, 11 = Togata, 01 = Todoroki, and 16 = Kirishima.

Love y'all.

<3 Raaor!]