[MHA Characters are test subjects in a secret, underground lab, because for some unknown reason they were born with strange and mysterious powers. They were all brought there against their will, nineteen because they had powers, and one to see if those powers could be given to, or awakened in a regular person (part 2) Yaoyorozu is brought down to the lab later than the others and she helps them discover their real names.]

Most of the children had been there since they were born. 04 and 07 had both lived with their parents for a little while, but were brought there before they were old enough to form memories. 10 had been over a year old when he first came down to the lab, but still too young to remember anything from the outside.

They all remembered when Yaoyorozu first arrived, though. For some of them, it was their earliest memory, but they all remembered. She had been five at the time, but some of the kids whose birthdays were earlier in the year were already six. She had been scared. She was right to be scared. For the rest of them, the lab was the closest thing they'd ever had to a home. It was all they'd ever known, and even they were still scared of it sometimes.

The lab was a scary place, after all. It was all steel and concrete, and it was deep, deep underground, hundreds of miles maybe, or at least, to a group of five-and-six-year-olds who had known nothing else, regardless of how deep it actually was, it may as well have been hundreds of miles down.

Yaoyorozu remembered the long ride down in the cold, dimly lit elevator, which hummed and creaked as it sunk into the earth for what had felt like hours. She remembered asking over and over again where they were going, and why she was there, and why her family wasn't with her, but never getting an answer. She remembered not wanting to leave the elevator when its doors finally opened, and being grabbed by the wrist and forcibly dragged out by Miss Inko.

Miss Inko was the woman who ran everything down there. They all knew her, but they didn't see her much, since she was usually busy organizing the staff, and keeping the facility functioning properly. She was Subject 20's mother, but he didn't see any more of her than the others did. Miss Inko was usually nice when they did see her, but nonetheless, the kids had never liked her.

Yaoyorozu had hidden behind Miss Inko's legs when she was brought into the children's room for the first time. They all crowded curiously around her, the first new person their age that they had ever met, and it made her nervous. Some them looked mostly normal, but others looked unnatural or downright monstrous, and it didn't make her any less afraid.

"Children," Miss Inko had addressed them. "Line up quickly and quietly." They did so, silently ordering themselves by age and standing shoulder to shoulder as they always did. "This is Subject 15, and she'll be joining you from now on."

"My name is Momo Yaoyorozu," Subject 15 had said, and the other children gasped in wonderment while Miss Inko shot the girl a subtle scowl.

"You have a name?" asked Subject 13, who was completely pink, with black and gold eyes and little horns on the top of her head. She started to take a step out of line, but thought better of it when Yaoyorozu took a sharp intake of breath, and Miss Inko sent her one of her signature looks. "I thought only grown-ups were allowed to have names!"

"It's not fair that the new girl gets to have a name and I don't!" came the loud complaint of Subject 05. "How did she even get one, anyway?"

"My parents gave it to me when I was born," Yaoyorozu squeaked.

"How come our parents didn't give us names?" Subject 12 wondered, he looked nice enough until she saw his weird elbows. "Unless they did and nobody told us... But Miss Inko is 20's mom, so she woulda said something. I guess she mighta given 20 a name and just not told him yet. Right?"

"Is that true Miss Inko? Do I have a name?" asked Subject 20 uncertainly. 20 was always a little more afraid than most.

"Silence children!" Miss Inko snapped, and the children stood at attention, then she took a deep breath and plastered on a smile. "Your names are classified information."

"So we do have names then," Subject 09 started to say, he was one of the more ordinary-looking ones as far as she could tell except for the jagged black streak in his blond hair. Another look from Miss Inko silenced what he would have said next.

"You'll see more of Subject 15 later." Then Miss Inko took her away to show her the other parts of the lab facility. The other children were practically buzzing as the pair left, excited at the prospect of secret names and a new friend. They were too young to realize that she wasn't just a new friend, she was another innocent child condemned to a hellish life in the lab.

The next time they saw Yaoyorozu, she had a number on her right forearm, just like the rest of them did. None of the others had been old enough to remember when they'd been numbered, but Yaoyorozu remembered the pain of the buzzing needle, and the tears that streamed down her face as the numeral 15 was inked into her skin.

"It was Momo Yaozurozo, right?" 13 asked. "It's so cool that you know your name!"

"It's Yaoyorozu," she corrected, eyes wide and heart in her throat.

"Yaorozu," 13 tried again.

"Yaoyorozu."

"Yaozoramu?"

"Yao-yo-ro-zu."

"Yaoyoyoyoyoyu..."

"That's not it."

"Why don't I just call you Yaomomo?" she asked. "Is that okay? It's both your names together!"

"That's not my... I guess that's fine," Yaoyorozu relented. She realized with relief that, after only that brief, goofy exchange, she'd grown more comfortable with the other girl who looked so alien. "Do you really not know your name?"

"Nope," she sighed. "I'm 13." The rest of the crowd had gathered around the pair of girls, and they started introducing themselves by their numbers.

"Can we call you Yaomomo too?" Subject 14, a redheaded girl with dark green eyes, requested shyly.

"Sure, you can all call me Yaomomo if you like," she permitted. "It's so sad that you all don't know your own names." The conversation distracted her from the pain in her forearm. "What if I... what if I helped you all find them?"

"What do you mean?" 09 asked, up close she could see that his eyes were very yellow, and it startled her when she turned her head.

"They must be written down somewhere," Yaoyorozu said. "They do science here, and my mom said that scientists always write everything down, so they must be written somewhere."

"Do you really think we could find our names somewhere, Yaomomo?" 13 asked.

"I'm sure of it! You guys deserve to have names, just like everybody!" she said. The children spent the whole day, a rare day off to acclimate the new subject to the lab, asking Yaoyorozu every question they could think of about herself and the outside world, and searching every room they had access to for a piece of paper or anything that might have their names written down.

By the end of the day, Yaoyorozu was ready to go home and sleep in her own bed, but Miss Inko said she wouldn't be going home, and that she would sleep down in the lab, in the same room as all the other children. And she didn't just mean for that night, but forever.

The pods were the hardest thing for Yaoyorozu to adjust to. The children didn't sleep in beds in the lab, they slept in high-tech sensory deprivation pods, suspended in fluids with oxygen masks on their faces and electrodes attached to their skin to monitor their vital signs while they slept. Each pod was numbered one through twenty, and the pod numbered fifteen had been empty until Yaoyorozu arrived.

Her first night sleeping in pod number fifteen, Yaoyorozu had to be removed in the middle of the night because of nightmares. It took a long time, but eventually she could sleep through the night in the pod, and suffer through her nightmares without causing a fuss, like the other children did.

After the first day, they went back to their regular schedule of lessons and training and experiments and tests. The children had two trainers, Mister Enji and Mister Shota, and though they were both intimidating men, the kids all, without exception, preferred Mister Shota, but were too afraid of Mister Enji to say as much. The new girl couldn't keep up with the same physical training that the other kids did, and they worried that there might be something wrong with her, but Mister Shota assured them that she was just unused to it yet, and she would catch up with them in time.

She didn't seem to have any trouble keeping up in the academic lessons, and far and away outpaced the academic progress of most of them after only a few days. Mister Hizashi was their language teacher, and he was the only grown-up that really tried to connect with the kids personally.

"I heard you kids were talking about names yesterday," Mr. Hizashi had said during their first lesson. He was a nice man with long blond hair, and square glasses and a silly little mustache that made the children laugh when he stroked it while he was thinking. Like most of the grown-ups, he always wore a white lab coat, but his had the sleeves ripped off, and patches sewn onto it. He told the children that it was 'punk' and that the style was considered super cool on the outside.

Mister Shota told them that punk wasn't actually considered very cool and Mister Hizashi was just trying to impress them, which was ridiculous because they were just little kids and who cared if they were impressed. Mister Hizashi and Mister Shota argued a lot, but for some reason after they were arguing for a while they'd start to smile, and even if they never settled their argument, they never seemed very upset about it.

"Yeah, Yaomomo said that she was gonna help us find our names!" 11 said excitedly, his hair was blond, like 09, but it didn't stick out the same way, and 09 was much skinnier than 11. "She said scientists write everything down, so our names must be written down somewhere in this lab!"

"Yaomomo's gonna help ya huh?" Mister Hizashi said, grinning his manic grin. "Well how's about a deal, then? I happen to know where your names are written down, and if 15— wait it was Yaomomo you said, right? If Yaomomo gets a hundred percent on her equivalency test at the end of the week so she can join right in without any supplementary lessons, then I'll give them to you. Just don't tell Miss Inko it was me, alright?"

Yaoyorozu studied hard that whole week, determined to win her new friend's names for them, but nothing could have prepared her for the test itself. It wasn't that it was difficult, on the contrary, it was the easiest thing she'd been given to do since she arrived. The lessons they were taking were far more advanced than the test she'd been given, and she earned a perfect score without any difficulty at all.

Later, she realized that Mister Hizashi must have collaborated with the other instructors to make the test easy on purpose. He had always planned on giving them their names. He knew that if Miss Inko found out he had done it, he would have been in deep trouble, but he trusted the kids to keep it secret, and they never told a soul that it was him who leaked the information.

The children got very little free time during the day, what with training, and testing, and experiments which none of them wanted to talk about, and everything they did was heavily monitored. It was a few days before the other children remembered to tell Yaoyorozu that nothing she ever did would be secret anymore, and they never did figure out how Mister Hizashi managed to get the list to them without anyone knowing.

"I bet my name's gonna be better than all of yours!" shouted 05 when they got back to their room that night for their brief free time before bed. "My name is gonna be the coolest!"

"05! Be quiet so Yaomomo can read the list!" 16 scolded. As Far as Yaoyorozu had seen, 16, a boy with shoulder-length crimson hair and a scar over his eye, was the only one of the kids who could scold 05 like that without getting attacked. "Miss Inko's gonna come check on us in an hour, and we have to have them all memorized before then because she'll definitely take the list when she sees it."

"Read it Yaomomo!"

"Yeah, read it!"

They were all crowded around her, trying to see over her shoulder to get a good look at the characters printed on the paper.

"Okay, 01, your name is... Shoto... um... Todoroki, and it's written with the characters for burning and freezing and roaring fire," Yaoyorozu said. 01, Todoroki, nodded. "02, your name is Tsuyu Asui and the characters are plum, uh... frog? Rainy season."

"What's a 'rainy season' kero?" 02, Asui, asked, putting one of her large fingers thoughtfully to her lips. At first glance, Yaoyorozu had thought Asui looked strange, but now that she was used to her, she actually thought the girl just looked kind of friendly.

"It's the season where it rains," answered Yaoyorozu, puzzled.

"What's that mean? 'Rains' kero?" Asui asked.

"Rain is water that falls from the sky so the plants can grow, and the rivers and lakes can refill," Yaoyorozu says. "Didn't you learn about the water cycle? Rain is a form of precipitation."

"Oh, I see kero. Never heard it called rain before. I'd like to see rain someday. It sounds really nice." Yaoyorozu looked at her sympathetically. It was easy to forget that she was the only one who remembered seeing the world outside of the underground lab.

"Let's see, 03's name is Me... zo? I think? Mezo Shoji. A shoji is a type of sliding door, and Mezo is... eyeball... something. I don't recognize the second kanji, I'm sorry." She was very smart for being five years old, but even she couldn't know every word.

"Don't worry Yaomomo," said 03, Shoji. "Thank you for telling me." Shoji was very scary looking, but once the others convinced Yaoyorozu to look past his horrific face and arms, she discovered that he was a very kind and gentle boy.

"It kinda reminds me of something my dad says. 'Walls have ears and doors have eyes.' I think he was afraid of something..." Maybe he was afraid of Miss Inko and her underground lab, afraid that his only daughter would be taken away.

"Keep going! You're almost to mine!" 05 said.

"Ah! Right! 04 is Tamaki Amajiki which means link, and... eating heaven."

"Eating heaven huh?" 11 said, patting 04, Amajiki, on the back. "Like the sun and stars and stuff? That's so cool Tamaki!"

"If you say so 11," Amajiki said ducking his head, and taking a few steps back from the crowd.

"Me next!"

"05, your name is—" 05 snatched the paper from her.

"My name is Katsuki Bakugo," he read for himself. "The kanji means victorious and powerful bomb. Ha! I told you guys I'd have the coolest name! That's way cooler than 'eating heaven' whatever that even means."

"Hey, don't be so mean, 05!" 11 said, defending his shy friend.

"It's Katsuki!"

"Give the paper back to Yaomomo!" 06 said, waiting to hear his name next. Bakugo harrumphed and handed the paper back to Yaoyorozu, who swallowed. He was one of the most normal-looking of all of them, but he was still the scariest.

"Thanks," she mumbled, then scanned down to find her place. "06, your name is Mashirao Ojiro. It means monkey man with a white tail."

"Hey, do you think we were named after they knew what our abilities were?" 08 asked, and Yaoyorozu jumped. The invisible girl often startled her, and it had never yet been on purpose.

"But my tail's not white?" 06, Ojiro, said, face scrunched up in a confused frown.

"Ojiro is that part that means 'white tail' and it's your family name, so your parents didn't pick it, they passed it down," Yaoyorozu explained.

"I didn't know that," Ojiro said. "I wondered why we each got two names. Keep going, Yaomomo."

"Yuga Aoyama is 07's name, and it means more graceful, I think, and blue mountain."

"I like it," 07, Aoyama, said, smiling. "I think it suits me. I am more graceful than anyone else here." That was met with some griping, followed by shushing while they waited for the next name. They weren't even half done yet.

"08 is Toru Haga... Toru Hagakure. Transparent, disappearing leaf? Or maybe, hidden in leaves?" she stared at the paper and muttered, "Where does a wise man hide a leaf?"

"What was that?" asked 08, Hagakure.

"Another thing my dad says. He used to ask me, 'where does a wise man hide a leaf?' and the answer is 'in a forest.' My dad always says stuff like that... or he used to... I..." she cleared her throat and continued down the list. "Denki Kaminari, that's 09's name. It means, um, thunder and lighting, I think. And 10 is Hitoshi Shinso. Hitoshi is 'use person' and Shinso is... heart? Sounds like heart."

"Oh, I'm next!"

"11, you're Mirio Togata. Which is... maybe... million? And conformity."

"Well million is cool at least, but wow, 'conformity' kinda sucks."

"That's your family name, remember 11. I mean Mirio," Amajiki mumbled from the sidelines. "Your parents didn't stick you with it on purpose."

"You're right Tamaki! That's a relief. So what's twelve's name?"

"Sero, Hanta," Yaoyorozu read. "Ah! Hanta Sero I mean, the family name is written first on this list."

"Sero Hanta sounds kinda like cellophane tape," 12, Sero, noted.

"It means, um... path of the rapids and example, I think." Yaoyorozu said. "13, Your name is Mina Ashido. Three apple trees and—"

"Acid!" 13, Ashido, interrupted excitedly. "I know that one! That's appropriate."

"It sounds like acid, but the kanji actually mean reed door."

"Oh. I'm gonna spell it like acid anyway."

"I guess you can if that's what you want." Yaoyorozu laughed a little. "It's your name after all."

"It is my name. I have a name! Gosh, it's so exciting. Keep going Yaomomo! There's not much time left."

"14 is Itsuka Kendo, beautiful one and wisteria fist."

"I thought kendo was a type of martial art," 14, Kendo, said.

"I think it is, but it's also your name."

"I'm named after a martial art? I love it!"

"15 is... oh, that's me. 16—"

"What does your name mean, Yaomomo?" Ashido asked her.

"All together it means an uncountable number."

"Wow, that even better than million!" Togata said. "I always thought your name was cool, but that's like, super duper cool!"

"Oh, thank you." Yaoyorozu smiled softly down at the paper. "16 is Kirishima Eijirou. Kirishima means 'to cut an island' and Eijirou means 'sharp newborn son.'"

"He was definitely named after he got his ability," Kaminari ribbed.

"This is odd... 17, your given name is Tetsutetsu which means 'pierce iron,' but your family name is Kirishima too. Are you two related?"

"We're twins," 16 and 17, Eijirou and Tetsutetsu, said in unison. "We have gotta stop doing that. Argh!" they groaned.

"We're fraternal twins, so we don't look alike," Eijirou explained. "That's probably why you didn't know."

"Yeah," Tetsutetsu agreed. "Don't worry, we won't take it personally. Pretty much the only thing we have in common when it comes to looks is our teeth." They both pulled back their lips to reveal matching sets of pointy, shark-like teeth, and Yaoyorozu's shoulders tensed until they took a step back.

"Uhhh... 18, your name is Fumikage Tokoyami, which means walk through shadow and everlasting darkness." She looked up to the boy with the head of a blackbird, 18, Tokoyami, and he simply nodded in a way she thought was meant to be approving.

He was quieter than most of the others, and she still found him a bit off-putting, though Ashido assured her she'd get used to him over time. Ashido was the one who made the biggest effort to reach out to Yaoyorozu and make her feel welcome, and even though she was pink from head to toe, and had really strange eyes, Yaoyorozu had gotten used to her almost right away.

"Ochaco Uraraka is 19's name, and it means tea child, and lovely day, that's kind of a sweet name, huh?" 19, Uraraka, smiled and nodded in response.

"It's a really cute name. I like it. One more left. What's 20's name?" Uraraka asked.

"Well since we know Miss Inko's his mom, that must mean his family name is Inko, isn't it?" Asui said thoughtfully.

"Actually, his family name is Midoriya and it means green valley," Yaoyorozu said. "Inko must be his mother's given name, and his given name is Deku."

"What, like blockhead?" Togata asked, confused.

"Ha! 20's name is actually useless!" Bakugo laughed callously.

"It's pronounced Izuku, actually," a familiar voice corrected, and all the noise from the children was instantly silenced. They scrambled to line themselves up as fast as they could as Miss Inko walked in with a loaded smile on her face. "It means coming from an old story, or a long time ago. I didn't think we had to name him at all, given the circumstances, but his father insisted, so I let him pick. Now tell me children, where did you get that list?"

Her question was met with silence, some fidgeting, and a number of glares. She asked again, but again got no reply. The children had promised Mister Hizashi they wouldn't rat him out, and even when she threatened punishment, the would not tell her. In the end, she promised their physical training the following day would be more difficult than ever before, but Mister Shota was their trainer, and he let them off much easier than Miss Inko had instructed him to.

They would always be thankful to Yaoyorozu for their names, but since Miss Inko knew of the girl's promise to find them on her first day there, Yaoyorozu received worse punishment than the rest of them. She had to be put in her place, Miss Inko had told them, and taught a lesson about how things were done in the lab.

Yaoyorozu was not allowed to sleep that night, and instead trained with Mister Enji until the morning. She trained until she was so sore she could barely move, and so exhausted that she threw up. She kept going with no breaks until she was dehydrated from sweating, and from crying.

Yaoyorozu cried a lot when she first arrived. She cried about how she missed her family, and about how much she wanted to go home. She cried about all the horrible training she had to endure, and the experiments that she hated. She cried about the pods, and about the lab, and about Miss Inko and Mister Enji and the other grown-ups. It seemed like she cried every day when she first arrived.

But that had been ten years ago, and no one had heard Yaoyorozu cry for a long time since.

[Sorry if the number thing was kind of confusing at the beginning, after this, I'll be using their names, but since the discovering of the names was central to the plot of this part, I opted to start with numbers. Originally, this was about 900 words, but my little sister said it felt too short. I agreed, but I wasn't sure how to make it longer, so I decided to put more focus on the name thing, and then suddenly it was 4000 words long, so I guess that worked. Send requests! Love y'all.

<3 Raaor!]