4

Grim faces and deer skulls—illuminated only by eerie candlelight—seemed to float in a circle, as if participants in some demonic summoning ritual.

“Of course the man was terrified,” said Hanta Sero. “But he couldn’t exactly turn back now, so he kept making his way down the dark tunnel, one trembling step at a time… Right when he’d made it halfway, through, a warm puff of air tickled his throat. This was odd, since there shouldn’t have been any wind blowing from up ahead.”

Sero was really selling his story.

“W-why not…?” asked Denki Kaminari with an anxious gulp.

“Because the tunnel had been a dead end ever since the year before, when a landslide had caused a cave-in.”

“No way…” muttered Mina Ashido, astonishment painted all over her face. Sero glanced around at his captive audience and went on in a whisper.

“The man stopped for a second and felt something drip on his hand. Something cold. He’d been careful about not draining the batteries of his flashlight, but the dripping didn’t stop, so he turned it on and shone the beam of light directly above. That’s when he saw it… A blood-soaked corpse!” said Sero, his voice rising for the story’s shocking ending.

“Gahhhh!” cried Minoru Mineta as he scrambled to grab ahold of one of Mezo Shoji’s massive arms, like a koala wrapping itself around a tree.

Next to Shoji, Tsuyu Asui spoke in her typical flat tone. “Quiet down, Mineta.”

“Seriously!” agreed a grumpy Ashido through pursed lips. “Your screaming killed the scary factor, Mineta!”

Still clinging to Shoji and with tears in his eyes, Mineta shot back.

“H-how’re you girls not scared? Girls are s’posed to be wimpy and all!”

“That’s big talk, coming from the screaming guy who’s grabbing on to a big, strong man!” mocked Sero, but Mineta dug his heels in.

“Can’t help it! Your story was just too spooky!”

The kids were getting used to dorm life, and on this particular Sunday, resident party animals Sero, Ashido, and Kaminari had decided to get together for a scary-story session. They’d also invited Shoji and Asui to join the fun.

“Why’d you even wanna be here, then?” asked Sero.

An enraged yet still terrified Mineta struggled to find a retort, but Asui poked her head around Shoji and answered for him.

“If I know Mineta, he was hoping to grope us in the dark.”

They all knew well enough by this point that their tiniest classmate was the embodiment of lust itself, so rather than seat him next to the girls, the group had sandwiched him between Shoji and Kaminari.

“C’mon, men are basically treasure hunters, always looking out for a lucky-perv chance!” declared Mineta, implicitly admitting that Asui had hit the nail on the head.

“Don’t lump the rest of us men in with you,” said Shoji through a mouth on one of his dupli-arm tentacles.

“What a creep! Good thing we’ll finally be able to take our baths with peace of mind, starting today,” said Ashido with a smile.

“Agreed. That will be a relief,” added Asui.

Mineta realized what they meant and grimaced.

“Tch. Damn that chick from the Support Course with the sweet rack… Sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong!”

The girls of class 1-A had all agreed that they couldn’t live with the threat of Mineta peeping every time they bathed, so they’d gone to Mei Hatsume and asked for an anti-peeping security item to place at the entrance to the girls’ bathing area—something that was sure to keep a certain creeper from sneaking in.

“Oh, I know!” said Ashido. “Let’s go back to Hatsume and have her whip up a ‘stop Mineta from groping us in dark rooms’ item!”

“Nooo! You’re killing off all my lucky-perv chances, one by one!”

“Enough…” said a voice from the corner. “Or else find another room for your antics…”

Fumikage Tokoyami sat in a chair outside the story circle with a clear scowl on his beaked face. The gang had decided that his room was the best setting for spooky stories, so Tokoyami was now part of this whether he liked it or not.

“But this’s the only pitch-black spot at this time of day! Plus, you’ve got skulls and stuff to set the mood!” said Ashido with a grin and a thumbs-up.

The skulls were purely decorative, of course, but they could’ve been mistaken for real bones in the dim candlelight.

“I didn’t furnish my room with you people and your ghost stories in mind!” said Tokoyami with another scowl.

“Pretty lucky that you had candles lying around too,” added Ashido.

“Not lucky for me!”

“No, wait, I’ve got it! I’m about to tell a tale so spooky it’ll scare the feathers right offa you, Tokoyami!” said Ashido, though her sunniness didn’t seem to penetrate Tokoyami’s dark mood.

At that moment, Momo Yaoyorozu, Ochaco Uraraka, Toru Hagakure, and Kyoka Jiro were in Jiro’s room on the third floor, where the latter was showing the rest of the girls a thing or two about playing music. Uraraka plucked a guitar string, producing a low tone.

“Ooh, I played a note!”

Next to her, Yaoyorozu also had a guitar in hand.

“How does one hold a pick properly, Jiro?” she asked.

“Just how you’ve got it. And the movement’s all in the elbow and wrist.”

“Listen to, like, the wailing of my soul!” cried Hagakure as she dove into an ambitious solo on air guitar.

But learning guitar proved harder than expected, so the girls asked Jiro to give them a demonstration.

“Eh? Okay. Maybe just a short something or other,” said Jiro, obviously embarrassed. She took a deep breath, raised her pick, and proceeded to play a quick piece that involved some masterful finger work on the frets. The other three girls gaped in awe.

“Super rad!” said Ochaco.

“You’re basically a pro!” said Hagakure.

“Encore, Jiro! Encore!” said Yaoyorozu.

“Aww, knock it off. Geez!”

The unexpected compliments turned Jiro’s face several shades redder, but she went ahead and honored Yaoyorozu’s request for an encore all the same.

Outside, on the lawn in front of the dormitory, Izuku Midoriya was getting tips from Tenya Ida in the hope of adding some kicking moves to his repertoire.

“You won’t achieve speed or power by moving your legs alone, Midoriya. Put your entire body into it… Now, observe once more!”

“Right! Let me see how it’s done!” said Midoriya, who watched with wide eyes as Ida demonstrated a series of kicks. So as not to forget the nuances, he began scribbling in his notebook immediately.

“I see… He drops his hips nice and low for a firmer stance… Like his whole body is coiled up…”

“Oh. You guys. Hard at work, huh,” said Shoto Todoroki, who’d just emerged from the front door.

“Heya, Todoroki. Leaving already?” said Midoriya. Both he and Ida knew that if nothing else was going on, Todoroki was sure to visit his mother in the hospital on Sundays.

“Anyway, hope you have a good time!” added Midoriya.

“Give our best regards to your mother,” said Ida.

“Sure. Thanks,” said Todoroki as he set out.

As the two boys watched their friend fade from view, Midoriya gasped and said, “Sorry, Ida!”

“What for?” asked Ida, confused by the apology and the guilty look on Midoriya’s face.

“Y’know, for asking you to spend your day off training with me. I didn’t even ask if you had other plans already.”

Ida let loose a deep laugh.

“Nonsense, Midoriya. You wished to learn, so I am here to teach. It’s the very least I can do as class president and, more importantly, your friend. Besides which, it gives me great pride to assist someone I respect so much.”

“Wow, Ida…” said Midoriya, matching Ida’s wide smile.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?”

“Sure!”

If this diligent pair had their way, they’d be training together from dawn to dusk.

In Eijiro Kirishima’s room on the fourth floor, Mashirao Ojiro was attacking all sides of the punching bag with his tail. As a martial artist, he’d taken immediate notice of Kirishima’s punching bag and asked if he could smack it around a bit.

“This is great. It feels like I’m strengthening my whole body,” said Ojiro.

“Right? The perfect way to train for dudes like us, who hit stuff!”

“Do you mind if I try kicking it?”

“Go ahead! Oh, but wait…”

Before Kirishima could mention that strong kicks tended to send the punching bag crashing to the floor, Ojiro’s next attack did just that. Seconds later, the door to Kirishima’s room slammed open.

“Thought I told you to pipe down in here!” yelled Katsuki Bakugo, clearly fed up with the noise coming from next door, and not for the first time.

The fourth floor was having an action-packed Sunday as well.

Back in Tokoyami’s room, Ashido was wrapping up her scary story.

“And then, the medium got the shock of her life, cuz, like, the closet was full of ghosts and stuff! Spooky, yeah?”

“Eek!” screamed Mineta, once again clinging to Shoji for dear life. But the rest of audience blinked blankly, plainly unimpressed.

“Wait. Was my story not scary?” asked Ashido.

“Not really,” said Asui with a tilt of her head. “The story itself had potential, but not the way you told it, Mina.”

“Right, if you’re gonna tell a ghost story, you gotta use your voice to up the spooky factor, the way I did. You gotta be a performer, basically,” said Sero with a haughty chuckle.

“For real. You’ve got the knack for making it real hair-raising, Sero,” said Kaminari, recalling how freaked out he’d been just a few minutes ago.

“What the heck!” said Ashido, pouting again. “That was the scariest one in my roster.”

She paused a beat before her face lit up with a new idea.

“I know! How about a story from Tokoyami? I bet he’s a master of horror!”

“Ooh, good idea!” agreed Kaminari. “Tokoyami’s normal voice is already scary enough for this kinda thing.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” asked Tokoyami, not thrilled with Kaminari’s assessment.

“I wouldn’t mind a story from Tokoyami,” said Asui.

“C’mon, horror master!” said Ashido.

“Not too scary, Tokoyami, okay…? Unless it’s got some sexy parts. Then feel free to go nuts,” said Mineta.

With all eyes and expectations on him, Tokoyami scrunched his face, sighed, and cleared his throat.

“The following is a story told to me by my grandfather when I was young. Maybe it will leave you all sufficiently terrified,” he said, with the slightest hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“Many years ago, the youths in a certain village amused themselves with the Hundred Tales.”

“I feel like I’ve heard of those, but what’re the Hundred Tales about, again?” asked Kaminari flatly.

“It’s a way of telling ghost stories, passed down through the ages,” explained Shoji. “You light one hundred candles before starting and blow out one for every story you tell throughout the night. When the final candle goes out, they say a real ghost is supposed to show up.”

“Ooh, we’ve got candles right here! Perfect for the Hundred Tales!” said Ashido, growing excited.

Tokoyami swiveled his chair toward the group and went on.

“In this particular village, the Hundred Tales was one of the few amusements these youths had available to them. Wary of summoning a real specter, they were always sure to stop at the ninety-ninth tale. One day, however, a blond woman came to the village from the city. As a world traveler, she had heard about the Hundred Tales and was eager to join the fun, so the youths happily welcomed her to their storytelling circle that night. Not one of their tales made her cry out in fright, though. In fact, partway through, she began to grin, which only served to frighten the youths. At last, they got through ninety-nine tales and decided to stop, as always, but the visitor broke her silence and began to tell the one hundredth tale of the night. The group implored her to stop, but she did not. When her tale concluded, the final candle blew out all on its own.”

“Probably just a breeze that did it, right?” said Sero, taking a stab at a logical explanation.

“S-so? Did a ghost appear…?” asked Ashido with a terrified gulp.

“One of the youths kept a brave face and pointed out that no ghost or ghoul had emerged, but when he tried to relight the candle…the blond woman had vanished altogether. The next morning, the entire village and its police force conducted a search, but she was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she’d simply gone home, some thought, while others whispered that maybe she had been spirited away. Time passed until most had forgotten about the blond woman, but one day, one of the youths present that fateful night claimed that he had spotted the woman again. The others were convinced his eyes had deceived him, until the next day when his body was discovered, his face twisted in an expression of sheer terror at the moment of death. And wrapped around his neck? A single blond hair…”

“Yikes!” said Ashido, squirming timidly. She wrapped her own arms around one of Asui’s and took refuge behind Shoji.

“What’s up with you?” asked Kaminari.

“This position just makes me feel, I dunno, safer…?” said Ashido poking her face out from behind her large classmate.

“I get it. Shoji is big enough to feel like a protective dad or something,” agreed Asui.

“I need some protection too, in that case,” said Mineta, sensing a lucky-perv chance and scrambling toward the girls, but one of Shoji’s arms held the boy back.

“The next day,” Tokoyami went on, “another of the youths from that night turned up dead. Then another, and another, until everyone who had been present for the blond woman’s hundredth tale was no more. The rest of the village was convinced that the woman must be a soul-sucking demon of some sort.”

“Eh? Why’d they jump to the demon explanation?” asked Sero.

“Because of a certain legend in the village,” explained Tokoyami. “Long, long ago, it was said, a local couple had given birth to a daughter with blond hair. The dark-haired husband assumed his wife had been unfaithful, and despite his wife’s protests, he abandoned her and their newborn daughter on the mountainside. Deep in the mountains, the wife sacrificed the baby to a demon in order to lay a powerful, grudge-filled curse upon her cruel husband.”

“So the baby turned into a demon and eventually came back to cause trouble…?” asked Asui, who felt Ashido’s trembling grip tighten around her arm. “Or at least, that’s what the villagers assumed, all those years later?”

Tokoyami nodded and glanced around the group.

“However, the story did not end there. The friend who told my grandfather this tale moved away from the village in question at a young age. As a grown man, he found himself nostalgic for his hometown, but when he returned for a visit, he found the village deserted and in ruins. According to those in the next town over, the village was afflicted by a terrible plague that killed off each and every resident. Was it really illness that destroyed them, though? Perhaps not, as rumor has it that strands of blond hair were found near the bodies…”

“Okay, whoa. This is getting way too freaky for me!” said Ashido, tears forming in her eyes.

“Sero had more of a straightforward story, but this slowly gets worse and worse,” said Asui, with a slight look of concern on her usual poker face.

“I’m afraid there is still more to come,” said Tokoyami with a shake of his head after pausing for his listeners’ comments.

“After the man returned from the ruined village and told my grandfather his story, he began acting strangely. Apparently, he had spotted the grinning blond woman and was now afraid that spreading word of her had cursed him too. ‘Maybe you were just imagining things?’ suggested my grandfather, but the friend was convinced. He died, suddenly, several days later, with a single strand of blond hair wrapped about his neck.”

This final, terrifying development left the group aghast. With a strained smile, Sero rubbed his arms as if hit by sudden chills.

“This one’s gonna keep me up tonight…” he said.

“This is fiction, yeah?” said a visibly frightened Kaminari, pressing Tokoyami. “Totally made up, right?”

Tokoyami seemed a bit flustered by his classmate’s reactions.

“I apologize…if this was too scary. But no, my grandfather really told me this tale. As for whether or not he made it up? I cannot say.”

“Shoji. Stand watch while I go pee, okay?” begged Mineta, tossing any notion of manly pride out the window.

“Your room’s just down the hall. You’ll be fine,” said Shoji.

“Just stand outside the door while I go! C’mon!”

“The stories we pass down,” said Tokoyami, eyes fixed on his audience, “contain lessons. The lesson of my tale is that stories themselves should be treated as more than mere amusements or ways to pass the time. Wandering, cursed spirits roam closer to home than we might expect, and they are always listening. Even here and now, perhaps…”

There was no levity in Tokoyami’s concluding words. The group swallowed hard.

“Tokoyami is right. That seems like enough ghost stories for today,” said Asui.

“Darn right! This just got a little too real,” said Ashido, who seemed relieved, and Sero and Kaminari nodded in agreement.

“H-how about we forget the spooky stuff and go for pervy stories next time? I’ve even got some choice videos back in my room that we can have playing in the background!” said Mineta, his desperation palpable.

“No thanks,” said the two girls in unison.

Late that night, Mineta found himself tossing and turning. He’d tried falling asleep, but his mind kept drifting back to Tokoyami’s story. He was regretting attending the storytelling circle in the first place, since he hadn’t even pulled off the lucky-perv moment he’d been hoping for.

Suddenly, a small, sharp sound.

Mineta’s eyes bulged, but when he realized it was just the creak of the dorm building as the temperature dropped, he breathed a sigh of relief and scolded himself for being so on edge. In this jumpy state, he knew that a pervy fantasy or two would be just the thing to help him settle down and fall asleep. But as he started pondering what to fantasize about…

A low buzz.

It was faint, clearly not the rattling of the building, and not coming from Midoriya’s room next door. It was out in the hallway.

J-just my imagination!

The buzzing continued, louder than a moment ago. This was not in Mineta’s head.

Aw, dammit…

Mineta decided to investigate, since there would be no fantasizing about anything if the noise kept up. He crept toward the door, cursing the noise for scaring him enough to disrupt his plans. Probably just one of his second-floor neighbors, out in the hall with a buzzing cell phone, right? That’s what Mineta told himself as he pushed open the door.

The corridor was empty, though.

Mineta’s face froze. He shut the door, made a beeline back to the bed, and dove under his blanket.

L-like I said, just my imagination! Nobody and nothing out there!

He poked his head out from under the blanket to make sure the noise was gone, but there it was again, getting still louder. Louder and closer.

Why would it be coming after me? Naw, it’s gotta be the vents in the building or something!

Except the ventilation system had never made this sound before—a fact that Mineta tried desperately to bury deep and out of sight in his mind. The buzzing grew and grew until it stopped just outside his door.

In the next instant, a thumping knock against Mineta’s door, and a woman’s voice.

“Minoru… Mineta…”

“Gahhhhh!”

During a break between classes the next day, the classroom was abuzz with talk of the buzzing in the night. It hadn’t just been Mineta—Asui, Sero, Ashido, Kaminari, Tokoyami, and Shoji had also heard it.

“Why’d she only call out our names though? Please tell me one of you is lying and that it wasn’t just our group specifically!” said Mineta, upon learning that the rest of the class hadn’t received visits in the night.

“You seriously didn’t hear anything, Midoriya?” he said, getting desperate.

“Sorry, but no! I was exhausted from training yesterday, so I fell right asleep…”

“Heh, if we’re the only ones who heard it…maybe Tokoyami’s tale really did curse us?” joked Sero.

“C-cut it out, man,” said Kaminari. Both boys wore forced smiles.

“You guys really believe that?” said Rikido Sato with a laugh. “Sounds like that scary story has you imagining things!”

“N-not like we’re that gullible, but it was super scary, okay? The blond ghost lady is no joke,” shot back Kaminari. This caught Kirishima’s interest.

“Ooh, so how’d this story go, exactly?” he asked.

“Well, first off…”

As Kaminari started to explain, Bakugo and Todoroki—both at their desks—took notice.

“Quit it with your weird-ass stories when I’m within earshot!” shouted Bakugo, bolting up out of his chair. With hands in pockets, he slid open the classroom door with his foot—like always—and stormed out.

Maybe he scares easily…?

Midoriya kept this thought to himself, though.

Kyoka Jiro hadn’t said a word until now, but she decided to speak up, her voice trembling.

“Um, I heard it too, actually. The strange buzzing… It kept going until dawn.”

“There, see! It must’ve been real then,” said Kaminari, grasping at that small triumph, though part of him still wished it had been their collective imaginations. For better or worse, Jiro was class 1-A’s resident expert on all things sound related, so her word was as good as proof. An aura of unease settled over the entire class, and Ida stepped forward with his own commanding assessment.

“Curse or no curse, the fact that several of you heard this odd noise is concerning indeed. There may be something wrong with the dormitory itself, so we need to get to the bottom of this. As class president, I will take responsibility and solve this mystery!”

That night, Ida sat outside his room in the hallway, wrapped in a blanket. He found himself fighting to keep awake, which was no surprise, as he was the type to adhere to a strict bedtime under ordinary circumstances.

“Oh my, almost nodded off again…” said Ida before taking a sip of the coffee prepared for him by the girls. Midoriya and some of the others had suggested they keep watch in shifts, but the class president had refused their offer, feeling that it was his duty to ensure a good night’s sleep for his electorate. The coffee wasn’t doing much to keep him awake, though.

Let’s just hope that nothing comes of this.

As his eyelids started to close, Ida heard the buzzing.

He gasped at the faint, unfamiliar noise and glanced around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Within moments, Kaminari, Ojiro, and Koji Koda had all popped out of their rooms to join Ida in the third-floor corridor.

“Were you all awake this whole time?” asked Ida.

“After hearing that story, I couldn’t sleep a wink,” admitted Ojiro with a pained smile.

“Seriously, though—what’s that crazy noise?” said Kaminari. He and an equally terrified Koda scanned the hallway for the source of the sound but couldn’t find a thing. The four boys glanced at each other warily.

Then, a small scream from below.

“Was that Mineta?” asked Kaminari.

“Let’s check!” said Ida with a nod.

They raced down to the second floor to find a trembling Mineta clinging to Midoriya’s leg. Yuga Aoyama and Tokoyami stood nearby, looking drained.

“What happened?” asked Ida.

“Sh-she called my name again!” said Mineta.

“I heard it too. First a knock on Mineta’s door, then a voice…” added Midoriya, and Tokoyami and Aoyama corroborated his account. They all seemed more than serious enough to give Ida pause.

“What on earth is behind all this…?” he wondered.

That night, the entire class heard the buzzing.

“A noise. Really?”

Shota Aizawa did nothing to hide the doubt in his voice, though his entire class looked as gloomy as the overcast sky. The weather forecast was calling for a storm that night, and stronger and stronger winds were already whipping through the trees outside.

The kids had all slept terribly and had been unable to focus in classes, earning Aizawa’s quiet wrath during the final homeroom of the day. The teacher was used to one or two slackers, but the issue was widespread enough to make him demand an explanation.

“You can’t possibly believe in something so irrational as the paranormal, though,” he said, visibly annoyed.

“W-we don’t, necessarily,” said Yaoyorozu, her voice cracking. “But after a series of inexplicable events, we can’t help but be shaken…” The six girls of 1-A had also heard the buzzing and had spent the night huddled with their respective floor mates.

Ida shot his hand up and stood.

“Sensei! This is a real predicament! Some anomaly is afflicting our living quarters, and if this keeps up, I’m afraid it will affect our academic performance! I believe we ought to ascertain the cause and resolve the matter posthaste!”

“I-I can’t take it anymore! No way I’m getting a wink of sleep when that ghost keeps calling my name! I mean, if she wanted to join me for cuddles… Wait, no, she’d probably just murder me in bed! But then again, if this ghost wanted to show up naked… Nope, even then, no curses for me! No thanks!” said Mineta, clutching his face as he considered the erotic potential of a spectral curse.

“Paranormal happenings… I remember hearing about that here at U.A.” said Aizawa, recalling something.

The whole class stared, wide eyed, and Ashido blurted out, “Seriously?”

“One of the ‘Seven Mysteries of U.A.,’ yeah…” said Aizawa, as calmly as ever. “They say that the ghost of an alum who couldn’t make it as a hero haunts the campus, cursing anyone who spots it. Especially in the woods behind the main building, which is… Oh. Right where they built the dorms, actually.”

The class sat still for a beat before erupting in pandemonium.

“And now that ghost is haunting our new home!”

“Nooo!”

“Heights Alliance is, like, totally haunted!”

The class was prone to laughing off most things, but the terror of a ghostly haunting was too much for the kids’ psyches. Aizawa sighed, regretting his addition of fuel to the fire.

“Listen…” he started.

“If the whole building’s haunted, we’ve got nowhere to run!”

“S-salt! We need salt to purify the place! Wait, crud, all we’ve got is that gomashio salt full of sesame seeds!”

“Do y’think the ghost will come after me even though I’m invisible? Please say no, please say no,” shrieked Hagakure.

Since he did feel responsible for riling up the class even further, Aizawa tried using kid gloves to calm everyone down. But alas, they forced him in the end to resort to one of his usual sharp rebukes.

“Enough already!”

With an almost Pavlovian response, the class registered Aizawa’s low voice as it penetrated the hubbub—the voice that meant serious business. They fought to contain their fear and, though still trembling, fell silent. Aizawa gave them a conciliatory sigh and decided to throw them a bone.

“If this disturbance is really such a problem, I’ll drop by tonight to check it out. That’s the rational approach, especially since it’ll be storming tonight. So be sure to be in your rooms when I come around to do the roll call.”

“Th-thank you, Sensei!”

They could feel the love from their teacher, even if he was as blunt about it as ever.

The rain began that evening, and it was coming down in sheets by nightfall. Whipping winds rattled the windows of the sturdy Heights Alliance building. Construction of the dorm building had taken only three days, so the students hoped it would stand up to nature’s fury.

Aizawa arrived for his inspection and surveyed the first floor. Outside the windows, the storm buffeted the trees violently. They might not last the night, Aizawa thought, and he feared for the streetlamps by the front door as well.

There was a sudden low rumbling in the distance and a flash of lightning across the dark sky. A storm of this magnitude could cause a blackout, so Aizawa wanted to be prepared for the worst. He double-checked the location of the breaker switch (in case the backup generators failed), flashlights, and other emergency supplies.

The real problem…will be the kids themselves.

Aizawa scowled, remembering the childish uproar in the classroom earlier. If they experienced a blackout on tonight of all nights… Just imagining it practically gave him a headache. The mysterious noise in the night couldn’t be overlooked, though; passing it off as a mass hallucination would be irrational indeed.

“So what’s making this noise…?” muttered Aizawa to himself as he glanced around the first floor. He sensed something nearby and detected a slight mechanical buzzing, barely audible amid the rain, the creaking trees, and the rattling windows.

What is that…?

With bated breath, he searched the first floor, attempting to track down the source of the noise. Knowing that this was likely what the kids had heard somehow allowed Aizawa to focus his senses even more. It wasn’t coming from any one direction; it was on the move.

Something alive…? Wait, no. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me…

Aizawa stared in surprise at the source, which he discovered in the dining area.

As the second bolt of lightning struck the earth, Ida was paying a visit to Mineta’s room, accompanied by Todoroki, Sato, and Sero. The class president had found it odd when their teacher hadn’t shown up for the roll call at the appointed time, so he’d taken it upon himself to ask around.

“Nope. No Aizawa here. Maybe he started up top?” said Mineta, who’d been lying awake in terror of receiving a ghostly visitor again. Fifth-floor resident Sato said, “Nope. He didn’t show.”

“Hey, guys…” said a troubled Midoriya, appearing from one end of the corridor. “Kinda weird that Aizawa Sensei hasn’t come by, like he promised…”

“P-pointing it out just makes it scarier, Midoriya! When it could be another ‘rational deception,’ like he’s always doing!” said Mineta.

“Let’s find Sensei,” said Ida, as he and his posse arrived on the first floor.

“Craaazy weather out there, huh?” said Sero, glancing out the window at the pounding rain.

“Perhaps Sensei is preparing for the worst outcome of this extreme weather event? As U.A. students, we must ensure we’re ready to take action as well!” added Ida.

Midoriya gasped.

“Wait! Look, over there… Is that Aizawa Sensei…?”

Their teacher lay on the floor near the dining table.

“How on earth did this happen?” asked Yaoyorozu with a grave shake of her head.

Aizawa was still out cold, though at least the kids had carried him to the sofa. Given the dire situation, the entire class was now gathered in the common area.

“D-don’t tell me he’s got a blond hair on his neck…” said Kaminari, almost too scared to look. “Ack! He does! Oh wait. That’s just one of my hairs.”

“Don’t freaking joke about that, dunce-face!” roared Bakugo—just like always—but a trained ear might’ve detected a slight stiffness to his voice.

“He got whammied by the curse, for sure!” cried Mineta. “I mean, what else?”

“It could’ve been a villain attack. But they’d have to be a tough customer to knock out Aizawa Sensei!” said Ojiro. The rest of the frightened class kept freaking out about curses, ghosts, and villains.

“Calm yourselves, everyone!” shouted Ida, but his attempt to quiet his classmates went unheard through the din. Asui, however, found just the right moment to insert her levelheaded thoughts.

“Paranormal occurences aside, we should alert the other teachers about what happened to Aizawa Sensei.”

This brought them to their senses.

“Well said, Tsuyu!” agreed Ida. “There should be a landline phone in Sensei’s room, so—”

Ida was interrupted by crashing thunder, and an instant later, Heights Alliance went dark.

“Eek!”

“Just what we needed—a blackout…”

“R-restrain yourself, Dark Shadow!”

“Geez, Tokoyami! Don’t release Dark Shadow now, in here!”

“Wahhh! Somebody save me!”

With the lights out, there was no telling who was who. Humans have always instinctively feared the dark, and talk of the paranormal and ghosts only triggered that latent, primal fear in the kids of class 1-A.

“Everyone! There’s nothing to fear!” shouted Ida.

“Th-that’s right, no cause for alarm, now!” said Yaoyorozu. She attempted to take action by using her “Creation” Quirk to produce a working flashlight, but before she could, something scurried across her feet.

“Ahhh!”

“Was that you, Momoyao? W-what happened?” asked Jiro.

“S-something is running about underfoot!” said Yaoyorozu, her voice shaking.

“Whaddaya mean, ‘something’…? Eek! I felt it too!” said Uraraka. Whatever it was, it was quick.

“I can’t deal with any more somethings!” said Kaminari, almost in tears. The disturbance darted around the room, raising shrieks from more members of the class.

“We need some light!” commanded Ida. This was enough to snap Kaminari and Bakugo into action; they used their respective Quirks to illuminate the room for a brief moment, during which the class saw a flash of white jumping through the air before disappearing back into the darkness. Most students were too stunned to scream at first, but like the light, that silence didn’t last either.

“W-w-w-what was thaaat?” said Hagakure.

“Definitely a ghost! That’s what ghosts look like, right? Somebody back me up—I’ve never seen one before,” said Kaminari, in full panic mode.

Even Todoroki was shaken, but at least now he knew Midoriya was nearby.

“M-Midoriya… Which is more effective against ghosts—ice or fire?”

“Huh? I can’t say I’ve ever thought about that, but we think of ghosts as being cold, right? So maybe fire would work? But honestly, I’m not sure physical attacks have any effect on spirits! Since, by definition, they don’t have corporeal bodies,” said Midoriya, managing to provide a reasonable analysis despite being equally disturbed.

“Then what do we do…?” said Todoroki, sinking into despair.

“We’re done for, guys!” screamed Mineta. “About to die by ghosts for sure! Dammit! I always wanted to die being crushed between some hot babes’ bodies!”

The front door swung open, and the kids froze. Backlit by a flash of lightning, a figure with long blond hair stepped into the building. As the figure shuffled toward the group, drops of rainwater dripped from its hair onto the floor.

“Ugh… You kids…” said the apparition, raising its head toward them. Somebody screamed.

“The blond ghost!”

The class had already received plenty of training on how to counter villains, but none of those lessons had mentioned spectral opponents, so when they attacked the home invader in a panic, they didn’t exactly hold back. Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow flew ahead of the pack.

“This prey is mine!” it roared.

“Whoa… Hang on!” said the blond figure, but its voice was drowned out by the barrage of Quirk-powered attacks. The kids snapped out of it when they heard the figure fall to the floor. A moment later, the lights came back on, and Dark Shadow retreated back into Tokoyami with a yelp. Though the class was relieved to see clearly again, they didn’t let their guards down just yet. A combination of explosions, ice crystals, fire, and acid had produced a cloud of smoke, and as it cleared, the defeated ghost came into view.

“Th-the ghost didn’t disappear…?” said a shocked Mineta, whose own “Pop Off” balls were scattered here and there, stuck to the floor and walls. Still on high alert, he and the others crept toward the motionless figure. Between the stringy strands of blond hair, they spotted a short, manicured mustache. Though relatively slender, the body was much more than skin and bones.

“This ain’t a lady. And that ’stache looks familiar…” said Ashido, peering at the supposed ghost’s face. Jiro got a look from behind Ashido, gasped, and went pale.

“It’s Present Mic Sensei!”

Shock and horror. Their boisterous English teacher’s hair was usually gelled to the nines and sticking straight up, so they hadn’t recognized him with a flat, soaking-wet do.

“S-Sensei? Present Mic Sensei!” cried Uraraka, clearly worried.

Jiro used one of her “Earphone Jack” earlobes to check for a heartbeat.

“Phew. He’s just knocked out.”

“Perhaps,” said Ida, “he came by to check on us during the blackout? Quite the reception we gave him…” The class president was feeling guilty.

“What’s going on…?” came a familiar voice from behind.

The class spun around. Aizawa was standing, awoken by the clamor a moment ago. They ran to him, finally feeling a bit less panicked.

“We thought the blond ghost was here to murder us, so we attacked on sight!”

“Sensei, what knocked you unconscious? Was it a villain? Or a real ghost…?”

“Hang on, there really is that little white ghost running around the dorm!”

Like a conditioned reflex, they piped down and straightened up after one more sharp “Enough” from Aizawa. First, he had them carry Present Mic away from the wet, windswept doorway. Then he started scanning the ceiling, moving around the space while the confused class followed behind instinctively.

“Hold on,” said Jiro. “What about the buzzing noise?”

The class gasped, suddenly remembering that unsolved mystery.

“I figured it out,” said Aizawa. Upon finding what he was looking for, he pointed to a spot on the ceiling and said, “Asui, see that tiny thing up there? Get it down.”

“The black one? Okay, Sensei.”

Asui’s long, sticky tongue shot out and nabbed a black object too small to identify from afar. She handed over the buzzing device to her teacher.

“This is the source of your noise, and it’s what knocked me out, indirectly.”

“What? How?”

“I noticed it on the ceiling, but when I climbed on the table to get it down, I slipped on a kitchen rag that somebody had left out.”

“Oops, that was me! Totally forgot to put it back when I remembered we had to be in our rooms!” said Hagakure with a sheepish giggle.

Aizawa turned to the invisible girl with a glare that promised a good scolding but decided against it.

“Never mind that. Look.”

He extended the hand that held the black object so the class could get a better look. As they stared, Yaoyorozu said, “Please use this,” and passed around a magnifying glass she’d created on the spot. They realized it was a miniscule machine and that its motor was the source of the buzzing.

“Where’d this thing come from…?”

“I have a pretty good idea. You don’t recognize it?” said Aizawa. He walked toward the newly affixed anti-peeping security panel at the door to the girls’ bathing area and tossed the black machine toward it. The tiny device flew over to the panel and slotted into a hole, like an insect returning to its hive.

“Recharging… Recharging…” came a female voice.

Aizawa figured the most rational course of action would be to ask the inventor herself, so he called up Power Loader and asked his colleague to put Hatsume on the phone.

“Oh, that?” said Hatsume. “That’d be my supercute add-on baby that goes on independent scouting missions at night! Since you’ve gotta live in the same space as that tenacious perv, what’s his name… Mini…Minu…something? Doesn’t matter! You know who I mean. Anyway, my baby is programmed to fly around at night to make sure that megaperv is in his room, where he belongs! Heh heh. Pretty handy, huh?”

The conversation ended abruptly and the phone went dead when Hatsume realized she had blueprints to get back to drawing.

“That meddling chick! Still, I’m sure glad it wasn’t a haunting after all,” said Mineta, feeling a combination of rage and relief.

“B-but what was the white ghost? You all saw it, right?” said Kaminari, just as the creature in question leaped into Koda’s arms. Kaminari screamed before realizing it was none other than Koda’s pet rabbit.

“I’m sorry, I must have forgotten to shut my door all the way…” said an embarrassed Koda, his large body in stark contrast with the small white animal he embraced. The rabbit had escaped his dorm room and run about in the chaos once the kids started panicking.

“Geez… And here I thought I’d spotted my first-ever real-life ghost,” said Kaminari with a sigh.

With this last mystery solved, the kids’ faces broke into smiles.

“All’s well that ends well!”

“What, exactly, ended well?” said Aizawa in a low and menacing tone, prompting his class to gulp and notice the state of their common area. The wrecked entryway looked as if a bomb had gone off near the door, whose glass had been shattered and blown outside, allowing the wind and rain to pour and gush in.

“You barely just moved in, and already… Ugh. And ghost stories are to blame for all this? How could you let yourselves go to pieces over fairy tales?”

With his black hair whipped by the wind and his cold, red glare, Aizawa resembled a demon straight out of one of their tales. His class stood at rapt attention, experiencing a new type of fear.

“I want apology essays from each of you, by tomorrow! And for the next few days, at least, it’s lights-out at eight, sharp! And no more ghost stories! Got it?”

“Yes, Sensei!”

Hauntings and ghosts were scary, but one of Aizawa’s bad moods? A much more rational fear.