1

The cold, dry air at the end of the calendar year isn’t ideal for an active lifestyle, and while wild animals instinctively take it easy during this season, people are somehow busier than ever. For instance, take that hallmark of the year’s end in Japan—the big winter cleaning.

U.A.’s School Festival had ended without incident (relatively speaking), and Endeavor had formally taken up the mantle of number one hero. At first, he didn’t receive the warm public opinion once enjoyed by his predecessor and the Symbol of Peace, All Might, but following the number two hero, Hawks, down to Hakata was the first step to changing that. The two found themselves locked in a battle to the death against a High-End Nomu, and ever since, the public’s general unease over the absence of the Symbol of Peace had been steadily replaced with support for Endeavor. The run-in with the High-End had been no mere coincidence, however. Behind the scenes, Hawks was making contact with the League of Villains (at the request of the Heroes Public Safety Commission), and engineering this battle had been a loyalty test of sorts.

Right around when classes 1-A and 1-B were facing off in their joint battle training, the Metahuman Liberation Army had come under the control of the League of Villains, giving rise to a new organization called the Paranormal Liberation Front. The Safety Commission had become aware of Tomura Shigaraki’s newfound resources and his scheme to destroy society and the status quo, but out of the large number of heroes and hero fledglings with provisional licenses who would soon launch an all-out attack on the P.L.F., only a small fraction had any idea about what was to come.

In fact, nobody at U.A. High knew about these dark machinations at the moment, which was just as well, since the students were already occupied enough with the big winter cleaning. Within the dorm buildings, they had their own rooms—personal spaces marked by unique aesthetic choices that represented their personalities. Regularly cleaning these rooms was up to the individual, of course, and though tidiness was generally linked to soundness of body and mind, clearly not every student lived by that creed. Some cleaned their rooms every day, some every two or three days, some once a week, some once a month—while still other stubborn souls had never once cleaned their rooms since moving into the dorms. Those who made exceptional efforts to keep their spaces clean had already finished the winter cleaning, including class 1-A’s president, Tenya Ida.

“There we go. All the books I’ve finished reading,” he said, as he tied a stack of books with string and placed the bundle in a cardboard box.

A satisfied “job well done” smile rose on his face. Though Ida was never one to neglect day-to-day tidying, even he was prone to procrastinating when it came to cleaning his desk, his bookshelves, the space behind his bed, and the gutter out on the veranda, so he felt unusually refreshed as he surveyed his now impeccably clean room.

All that remained was to mail the box of books to his family. Ida’s “to read” pile had shrunk considerably, so he would have to ask his mother to ship over another bundle or two of new reading material. With the box in his arms, he left the room, but a cry from next door stopped him in his tracks.

“Ugh! I’ve done it now …” came the voice of his neighbor Mashirao Ojiro.

“Whatever is the matter?” asked Ida, peeking through the open door. Ojiro had clearly been wiping down the floor with a rag, but the tip of his tail was soaking wet. Ida’s look changed from alarm to concern.

“My tail took a dip in the bucket of dirty water,” said Ojiro.

“That’s a shame,” said Ida. “Let me fetch you a towel.”

“Ah, no need. I’ll clean myself off in the bathroom since I’ve gotta rinse the rags anyway.”

After wringing out his tail tip like a washcloth, Ojiro got back to cleaning, prompting a soft smile from Ida. Box still in hand, he kept walking down the hallway on his mission toward the first floor, but he was stopped once again, this time by some peppy music and a loud “Oooh …” coming from Denki Kaminari’s room. This door was also ajar, and Ida spotted his floor mate reading a magazine.

“I suppose your cleaning is coming along swimmingly, Kaminari?”

“Sure is! But y’see, I was sorting my mags, and I stumbled across this one,” replied Kaminari.

He turned the magazine around, showing Ida a page with an interview of the Laundry Hero: Wash and the Equipped Hero: Yoroi Musha. Though Wash’s answers were all some form of “Washashasha,” Yoroi Musha had been more than willing and able to share his thoughts and feelings with the interviewer.

“I skimmed through this the first time—lotsa words, y’know?—but now that I’m reading it for real, there are some great insights here,” said Kaminari. “Wanna check it out?”

Ida’s curiosity was piqued, but he had a greater concern at the moment.

“That’s all well and good, Kaminari, but aren’t you in the middle of cleaning?”

“Well, sure. But until I finish reading this, how’m I s’posed to know if it goes in the trash or the ‘keep’ pile?”

“You’ll never finish the task unless you learn to sort more quickly! In fact … Oh dear—look how many magazines you have left. And, hrm? Is that dust I spy in the corner? Even your skateboard is coated in it! Don’t tell me … you haven’t even begun to tackle the veranda?”

“Uhh, the veranda’s not exactly on my to-do list. Who cares?”

“If enough dry leaves have been deposited in your gutter by the wind, then the gutter will fail to serve its purpose during the next rainstorm!” explained Ida.

“Dang, really? But how’s a guy even s’posed to clean out the gutter, of all things?”

First, remove the debris, thought Ida, but before he could begin his next lecture, he glanced around the room again.

There’s little sense in jumping ahead to the veranda when the room itself is still a mess, right? In which case, why don’t I just …

Ida was fully prepared to dive in and offer to help Kaminari clean, but he stopped himself at the last second.

Proper cleaning is a component of self-discipline! My helping Kaminari would be decidedly against his own interests!

Rather than rob a friend of a chance for self-improvement, Ida turned to Kaminari and said, “I have tools for cleaning the veranda in my room. They are yours to use, if you’d like.”

“Oh, y’mean it? Thanks.”

Ida returned Kaminari’s carefree thank-you with a smile and left the room.

If he hasn’t finished by the end of the day, I can help tomorrow.

The class president was always reluctant to abandon a constituent in need.

As Ida rode in the elevator from the third to the first floor, Izuku Midoriya was in his second-floor dorm room, lovingly wiping down the All Might figures that adorned the various surfaces there. The boy didn’t just have reverence for All Might as a mentee—he was also a die-hard fan. He wanted to know every last detail about the man. He cherished All Might merchandise, and he would gladly dive into a swimming pool full of the merch, if possible, though certainly not at the expense of scratching any of it. Yes, he was a fanboy beyond hope, and it had become something of a yearly tradition for Midoriya to dust and wipe his All Might products during the big winter cleaning. That turned the time spent cleaning into a labor of love that brought him nothing short of bliss. Those action figures watched over him day in and day out, and he’d lost count of how many times the mere sight of them had brought him peace and encouraged him to try just a little harder.

Thank you for all you do, thought Midoriya with a small smile. Naturally, his appreciation was directed not only at the pieces of plastic but also at the man himself.

“Midoriya.”

Midoriya spun around at the sound of his name to find Shoto Todoroki peering through the open door.

“What’s up, Todoroki?”

“I found this mechanical pencil. Is it yours?”

“Oh, sure is,” said Midoriya. “I must’ve dropped it when you were helping me out with English the other day? Anyway, thanks for bringing it back. I take it you’re all done cleaning?”

“Yeah,” came Todoroki’s nonelaborative answer. He stood still for a moment, his eyes scanning Midoriya’s room.

“You really do have a lot. All Might stuff, I mean,” he said.

Midoriya somehow managed to detect a note of admiration in Todoroki’s voice, so he decided to take the comment as a compliment.

“I guess so,” he said, scratching the back of his head as he blushed.

“Maybe I could use one of these things for my room.”

Todoroki’s offhand comment sparked a glint in Midoriya’s eyes.

“Oh? For your own room?! I have just the thing!” said the fanboy, zipping straight to his closet like an arrow in flight before extracting a figure still in its box. One trait of fanboys is their need to propagate more of their kind. They delight at any opportunity to do so. It’s a remarkably pure desire that seems to spring from their love of spreading the joys of fandom.

“This one came out early in the Golden Age!” began Midoriya, practically snorting with excitement. “Limited edition, which means they didn’t make a lot of them! Anyway, check it out! The eyebrows—at that angle, spaced just like that—create an expression brimming with confidence! And that All Might smile! You can’t help but grin at it yourself! They even used a newly developed type of paint to replicate that particular gleam on his teeth! See how it sparkles when I shift it around under the light?! And don’t get me started on the detailed muscle lines! One look tells you that he’s packing enough power to send villains flying with a single punch! Not to mention the hair! Or the cape, which flutters so naturally! They even paid attention to the poses of his fingers! And didja notice how they got the costume color just right? To the point that, honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if this little guy popped right out of the box to fight crime! It’s pretty darn clear how much love was put into crafting this, right? I wish I could run off right now and find those artists to thank them for a job well done! Every fan worth their weight pretty much drools over this figure! Well, what do you say?!”

With the monologue over, Midoriya finally took a much-needed breath as Todoroki thought for a moment.

“Why don’t you have this one out on display?” asked Todoroki.

“I’d love to!” said Midoriya. “But also not, if you catch my drift? Something this rare has to be treasured, and it just feels more right to admire it in secret.”

“Then in that case—” began Todoroki, and instantly Midoriya realized that his friend was about to turn down the offer of the apparently nondisplayable figure.

“Ah, don’t get me wrong! I’m offering … because I have two of them!”

Midoriya spun around and plucked an identical box from the closet with a “ta-da” flourish.

“You see, my mom didn’t realize that I’d already bought it for myself, so she went and stood in line for hours to get me the perfect birthday present. No sense in displaying both of them, so you’re welcome to take one off my hands.”

There was an element of bashfulness in the offering, and Todoroki stared at the figure, paused, and shook his head.

“But what if I dropped it and broke it? No, just forget it.”

“Oh. Okay …” said a dejected Midoriya.

“But can I drop by to look at it sometime?”

“Yeah, sure! Of course!”

Midoriya’s full-throttle smile managed to soften Todoroki’s expression a little, but before either could say another word, a new voice sang out from the doorway.

“Yoo-hoo! If you intend to gaze upon treasures, I shall lend you my sparkle light. ☆”

Midoriya’s next-door neighbor, Yuga Aoyama, had apparently overheard the conversation and now directed a beam from some sort of handheld spotlight directly at the All Might figure. At the sight of the illuminated figure, Midoriya’s dinner-plate-sized eyes grew to serving platters.

“Bright Might!” he said. “That’s amazing, Aoyama!”

“Oh, neat,” said Todoroki, genuinely impressed despite his unchanging expression.

“Hey, Aoyama,” came a new voice from the hallway. It was filled with unbridled desire. “Why not shine your light on my rare treasure … ?”

Minoru Mineta, the embodiment of lust, swaggered up and tried to shove a page of a lewd magazine into the beam’s path. When Midoriya noticed the contents, he blushed fiercely, shielded his own eyes, and said, “Y-you can’t have that sort of magazine, Mineta!”

“Oh, stuff it,” said Mineta. “Maybe the right sorta light would expose everything, if you know what I mean! Just, like, baring it all … Which would be great, but, hmm … Maybe having some stuff hidden fires up the imagination, y’know? Like how even after the music stops playing, there’s still a recording of it? There’s just something about this paper, this analog media, these photos—that capture the true sexiness of babes’ bodies!”

With a voracious look on his face, Mineta kept pushing his magazine closer to the light source, illuminating it from behind. Aoayama gasped and recoiled in disgust at his classmate’s zeal, but Mineta didn’t care. His eyes were practically pressed against the paper when the light’s heat ignited the magazine.

“Whoa! M-my eyes! My eyes!”

Mineta dropped to the floor, writhing around, and Todoroki wasted no time in blasting the burning magazine with a shot of ice.

“You okay?” asked Todoroki.

“Not burned, I hope?!” cried Midoriya.

As his concerned classmates gathered around, Mineta shot back up, shocked but not injured by the fire.

“Didn’t see that coming,” he said, sounding relieved, but then he spotted what used to be his magazine—now a burned and frozen clump of paper—and exploded.

“Argh! My rare treasure!”

“Did you just hear a scream?” asked Ida.

He had made it to the first floor and was now speaking to Koji Koda just in front of the elevator.

“Nuh-uh,” said Koda, shaking his head. He held a black garbage bag filled with the sand that served as litter for his pet rabbit, Yuwai. Being a responsible pet owner meant that Koda was another student who dutifully cleaned his room daily.

“Perhaps not, then …” said Ida, who was now contemplating checking up on his classmates’ cleaning progress, as any good class president would. That’s when he spotted Eijiro Kirishima dragging something toward the entryway.

“And what might that be, Kirishima?” asked Ida.

“Just hauling my busted punching bag off to the garbage,” answered Kirishima with a smile, gasping for breath. The punching bag weighed at least one hundred kilograms, not including the stand, which was dented and bent past the point of usefulness.

“How on earth did your equipment end up that way?” asked Ida.

“Got a little too fired up during training, I guess?” said a glum Kirishima, scratching his head.

Ida’s and Koda’s eyes popped. It would take quite a bit of “fire” to warp the punching bag’s sturdy stand, but Ida was impressed by what this implied about Kirishima’s training regimen.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you train in your own room!” he said.

“These muscles don’t lie, dude! And there’s nothing more trustworthy than good ol’ fashioned hard work!” said Kirishima.

“What a shame, though,” said Ida. “No more training for you, now that your equipment is broken, right?”

“Not to worry! You can buy anything online, so I’ll have another one before you know it,” said Kirishima cheerily as he continued dragging the punching bag toward the front door. Seeing Kirishima’s braced legs shuffle awkwardly, Ida set his box down, ran over, and grabbed one end of the heavy load.

“Allow me to assist.”

“Eh? You mean it? Weren’t you in the middle of something or whatever?”

“My task can wait, and this is far more efficient.”

“I can grab the other side,” said Koda. He slung the bag of rabbit litter over his shoulder and gripped part of the punching bag stand.

“Dang, you really don’t gotta! But thanks?” said Kirishima, as if he could hardly believe his good fortune.

“No reason not to help each other out,” said Koda as the three boys started moving toward the garbage area.

“How is your cleaning effort coming along, Kirishima?” asked Ida.

“I wish I could say ‘just dandy,’ but I ain’t so great about sweating the small stuff. Not like Bakugo, who was up there scrubbing every little nook and cranny.”

“Ah, despite what one might assume, Bakugo does have an eye for detail,” said Ida. “When he and Midoriya were under house arrest, he was sure to clean every corner of our home away from home.”

They walked beneath the leaden winter air, talking about everything and nothing. The boys remarked on their white, faintly visible breath, they said hi to a cat who had decided to settle down on the U.A. grounds, and they chatted about effective training regimens, their academic studies, distinguishing the several moods of Aizawa Sensei, and even the dinner menu.

“Hmm?” said Koda, prompting the other two to notice Fumikage Tokoyami up ahead. He was carrying a large paper bag and immediately realized where his classmates must be going with the busted training equipment.

“The usual garbage spot is full,” said Tokoyami. He had his own trash to dispose of but had been forced to seek out the provisional dumping area, set up to accommodate any overflow during the big winter cleaning.

“I believe this is our garbage’s new destination,” said Tokoyami, showing a map on his phone to the other three. It looked to be at the edge of the woods, not far from the dorms. Apparently the info had just been sent to all students, but Ida, Koda, and Kirishima hadn’t brought their phones, since they’d assumed the chore wouldn’t take them long.

“We’re lucky we ran into you,” said Ida with a decisive nod.

The trio was now a quartet, and they proceeded toward the provisional dump, now with Tokoyami’s “Dark Shadow” also supporting part of the punching bag. The chitchat continued until they came across one of their teachers, Power Loader, sitting on a bench. He was alone, drinking a canned coffee, with an empty instant ramen container at his side. The boys said hello, prompting Power Loader to wave awkwardly before scampering back to the staff lodgings. The teachers were doing their own cleaning today as well.

“Why dine outside when it’s so chilly?” wondered Ida aloud with a tilt of his head.

“Change of pace, maybe? Like, to wake himself up?” suggested Kirishima. Ida seemed convinced enough, and Tokoyami changed the subject.

“Have you three felt the small earthquakes at night recently?”

Koda gasped and nodded, but Ida and Kirishima simply turned to each other and shrugged.

“I have not,” said Ida. “Perhaps because I make a point of going to sleep early each night?”

“Same here. After training, it’s a quick bath, then snoozeville,” said Kirishima.

Tokoyami looked puzzled and said, “I see … How odd. I’ve been checking my phone for any reports of earthquakes, but I haven’t seen any.”

“Maybe just your imagination, dude?” suggested Kirishima.

“That was my thought at first, but my imagination can’t be responsible for nearly twenty instances …” said Tokoyami, sounding gravely serious about the matter.

Ida turned to Koda for his take, which the latter offered timidly.

“Jiro said that she hears a strange noise during each little earthquake. Like something’s breaking somewhere. Or maybe scraping, or grinding …”

Kyoka Jiro’s “Earphone Jack” Quirk allowed her to pick up even the faintest sounds, and the boys knew that testimony from someone so skilled at reconnaissance shouldn’t be taken lightly.

“What on earth could it be … ?” wondered Ida.

Assuming the phenomenon were really happening, was it something natural or not? This question nagged at Ida and made his brow furrow, but his thoughts were interrupted by a jangling and rattling that approached from behind.

“Garbage run?” asked Mezo Shoji, who held a number of cardboard boxes with arms produced by his “Dupli-Arms” Quirk. It was an odd sight since everyone knew that Shoji was an avowed minimalist who didn’t own enough stuff to fill that many boxes. He noticed the boys’ stares and answered before they could ask, explaining that he had finished cleaning his own room as well as the communal bath and kitchen before offering to take out the girls’ trash for them, as they hadn’t finished their cleaning yet.

The five began walking again, and the gang asked their newest member about the mini earthquakes and strange noises.

“I was wondering about that too,” said Shoji. “The noises are too faint to pinpoint, though.”

Since Shoji’s Quirk let him produce extra eyes and ears at the ends of his tentacles, he was another classmate skilled at scouting, so the fact that both he and Jiro were still in the dark about this phenomenon told them they would ignore it at their own peril.

“I can’t claim to know what’s going on, but we ought to inform Aizawa Sensei posthaste, once we’re finished out here,” said Ida.

The group finally reached the backup trash spot near the woods and placed the punching bag near the edge of the small pile that was steadily forming. Shoji deftly set down the cardboard boxes, and instantly Tokoyami’s gaze was drawn to a bat-shaped decoration in one of them.

“Could that be … Batboy?!” asked Tokoyami, barely able to contain his excitement. He put down his paper bag and reached for the object.

“Ooh, that brings me back,” said Kirishima with a sparkle in his eye.

“What is ‘Batboy,’ dare I ask?” said a confused Ida.

“A real popular American movie from way back when,” said Kirishima. “Batboy! The kid superhero who controls bats! Kinda cool how he was more of a dark hero, y’know. You’ve never seen that flick?”

“Apologies. I’m woefully ignorant when it comes to most entertainment,” said Ida.

“So lemme guess, Tokoyami—you’re a Batboy fan?” asked Kirishima.

“Indeed … The young loner who commands jet-black bats to carry out justice. A character I admire very much.”

Passion filled Tokoyami’s voice, as if this talk had revived within him emotions from years past. But then his paper bag fell over and its contents spilled out, including ripped black clothing, a tapestry with a geometric pattern, and a crystal ball about ten centimeters wide. Though the ground was relatively flat, the slight slope began to carry away the rolling ball.

“Ah, my Dark Night Crystal!” cried Tokoyami, but it had already rolled into the nearby woods. As he rushed off in pursuit, Ida tilted his head and raised a question.

“That looked to me like an ordinary transparent crystal ball, so what exactly was ‘dark’ or ‘night’-like about it?”

Kirishima shook his head as if to say, “Don’t ask, man.”

“It’s cuz, y’know …”

“I know what, exactly?” said Ida.

“There’s a time in a kid’s life when he’s just gotta give names like that to stuff …” explained Kirishima. Ida still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but he could accept that everyone went through phases. It just so happened that during the height of Tokoyami’s middle schooler syndrome, the boy had named the crystal ball after the hero he idolized—Dark Crystal.

A murder of cawing crows flew overhead. Tokoyami still hadn’t returned.

“You think he’s okay?” asked Koda, glancing worriedly toward the forest. It wasn’t as if much time had passed, but it had been more than long enough to retrieve the ball.

“I guess he couldn’t find it right away?” suggested Shoji.

The four remaining boys crossed the tree line, determined to help Tokoyami search, but he was nowhere to be found. Ida shouted for him.

“Tokoyami!”

“Over here.”

They followed their friend’s voice through the dense trees and found him staring at a certain spot on the ground.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ida. Tokoyami raised his head and pointed down.

“My Dark Night … erm, the crystal stopped rolling here, but … the ground seems soft.”

“Soft? How so?”

Ida moved toward Tokoyami as he spoke, and sure enough, that first step gave him confirmation. Not only was the ground soft, but it suddenly collapsed under Ida’s weight, crumbling apart and swallowing the boys with an earth-shattering rumble.

“Wahhh?!”

“Hey … Hey! Wake up, fellas!”

“Hrm? Is that you, Dark Shadow … ? Urgh.”

Dark Shadow’s voice had roused Ida, but when he tried to lift himself up, he groaned in reaction to the pain shooting across his back and arms. That’s when he noticed how dark it was. Ida pushed the pain aside and fixed his askew glasses. How had they been transported from the forest to a dimly lit cavern, surrounded by walls of boulders?

Right, of course. The ground collapsed … Some sort of cave-in?

Ida realized he must have blacked out, so he shot up with a gasp and said, “Is everyone okay?!”

Dark Shadow had floated up to the top of a rock pile, where it was trying to wake up Koda. Nearby, a hardened Kirishima burst out of a pile of rocks and yelled, “Phew, thought I was a dead man!” Tokoyami and Shoji had also just opened their eyes, and their own pained grunts alerted one to the other. The boys confirmed that everyone else was relatively uninjured, and a relieved Ida began examining their surroundings.

The ceiling was an arch-shaped slab of stone, and it seemed that the hole they’d fallen through had been naturally plugged by rocks during the cave-in. It was hard to tell just how far they’d fallen, given the whole blacking-out thing. Since the cave was more than large enough to swallow up the massive quantity of rocks that had fallen in, Ida assumed that this hollowed-out space was responsible for the ground crumbling beneath their feet to begin with.

“Hey, hey! Check this out!”

The darkness had put some pep in Dark Shadow’s step, and Tokoyami’s shadowy familiar now pointed beyond some of the rocks. The boys fought past the aches and pains to stand up and investigate.

“What could that be … ?”

Their eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, but they didn’t need night vision to see a string of red lights that seemed to burn, faintly. The lights led down a passage, like a beckoning trail of bloodstains, informing the boys that surely not everything about this space was entirely natural. In fact, when they got a closer look at the first red glow, they realized it was coming from a basic light bulb.

“Hmm?”

Alerted to the presence of intruders, a shadowy figure elsewhere adjusted a screen for a better look. The curious students had no idea that the lights that had captured their attention were in fact also capturing a live feed of them.

The passageway illuminated by the faint red lights was broad and tall—about five meters across and three meters high, so plenty large enough for an SUV to drive through. Despite the lights, the darkness was pervasive, and the boys couldn’t see an end to the passage through the gloom. They could, however, see a number of offshoot tunnels, each as wide as the main one. The walls appeared smooth from a distance, but a closer inspection revealed them to be coarse and rough-hewn.

“I never imagined such a cave structure existed beneath U.A.,” murmured a stunned Ida. Kirishima gasped, as if he’d had an insight. “Maybe it’s a new school facility?”

“That could explain it,” said Shoji. Koda nodded in agreement.

“If they’ve been constructing this facility,” said Tokoyami, “that would also explain the minor earthquakes and the sounds Shoji and Jiro have heard.”

“Yes, in all likelihood,” said Ida. The creeping unease brought on by the unfamiliar space was replaced with relief at this reasonable explanation.

“Let’s explore, then!” yelped Dark Shadow, who’d been fidgeting and glancing around excitedly the entire time.

“No,” said Ida, shaking his head. “As of this moment, we’re victims of an accident. We ought to escape as soon as possible and … Ah, Tokoyami! Is your phone working?”

Tokoyami had indeed forgotten about his phone, but he yanked it from his pocket and made an attempt. His face quickly clouded over.

“No, I have no signal.”

“Then we have no choice but to break free by our own power,” stated Ida.

“Guess so,” said Shoji. Koda nodded beside him.

“Let’s freaking do this!” shouted Kirishima, as if he’d been waiting for an adventure to kick off.

“Indeed,” added Tokoyami.

“Aw, ‘break free’? What’s the harm in exploring?!” whined Dark Shadow.

“If this is a new facility, then they’ll probably schedule a visit for the class soon enough. Be patient,” said Tokoyami, attempting to wrangle his unruly familiar. Meanwhile, Ida stared back at the ceiling they had fallen through.

“We have two potential means of escape,” he began. “One: somehow remove the rocks that plugged the hole …”

“Or follow these paths and hope one of them leads back aboveground?” suggested Shoji.

“Makes sense,” said Kirishima, surveying the massive underground space. “If someone’s building this place, they’ve gotta have a way in and out.”

“Yes, but we are without a proper map, and there’s no telling how expansive these caves really are,” said Ida.

“S’why we gotta explore!” said Dark Shadow, chiming in.

Which escape option seemed safer? As class president, Ida was duty bound to make proper decisions, but his thoughts were interrupted by a brassy clanging from deeper in the cave. The boys all spun around toward the source of the noise. Something small was moving in their direction. As it approached one of the red lights, the full form of a toy monkey with cymbals came into view. The group exchanged uneasy glances and walked over to the toy.

“The heck … ?” said Kirishima, who—after a tense pause—hardened one hand and lifted the monkey. They all stared, waiting for something to happen, but the toy remained a toy. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“This little dude definitely wasn’t chilling over here a minute ago, right?” asked Kirishima.

“Maybe it was just too dark for us to notice it,” suggested Shoji.

“Why would such a contraption be here in the first place?” Ida wondered aloud.

Before anyone could answer, the monkey sprang to life and began smashing its tiny cymbals together with aplomb.

“Whoa!” yelped Kirishima, who dropped the toy in shock. The others flinched as well before chuckling in the silence that followed, perhaps out of embarrassment over their overblown reaction. Any shock on their part was soon justified, however, when the monkey’s head spun around. Its eyes lit up, as if confirming targets, and a powerful beam aimed straight at the boys shot from its open mouth.

“Yikes!”

They narrowly avoided the point-blank attack, but the monkey—now somehow on its feet—wasted no time in firing off more beams.

“What’s up with this?!” yelled a panicking Kirishima.

“Obviously I cannot explain it!” shot back Ida, whose fleet feet had put some distance between himself and the monkey.

“Get it, Dark Shadow!” shouted Tokoyami.

“Aye, aye!” replied the familiar, eagerly diving in to attack with claws and fangs bared. The dim surroundings neutered the beam blasts’ range, but one close-up beam from the monkey hit Dark Shadow squarely in the eyes.

“Gahh!” it yelped, quickly shrinking back and retreating into Tokoyami’s body.

“Dark Shadow!” cried Tokoyami, his voice wavering with concern.

Kirishima and Shoji were up next. The former’s hardened body withstood the beam blasts without trouble, but as the duo moved within striking range, the monkey scampered off, so Shoji picked up a massive boulder and hurled it straight at the toy. When the dust had settled, the boys moved closer to make sure the target had been destroyed, but a good half of the monkey—including its head—was still intact. The toy’s mouth popped open and closed.

“… urse … urse … urse . . .”

“Nurse … ? How brazen, to request medical assistance from us at this point!” said Ida.

“I believe it’s saying ‘curse.’ Like the sort involving voodoo dolls …” said Tokoyami.

Curse. The word hung in the air, and it slowly transformed the monkey into something far more sinister than it had seemed even a moment ago. Once again, the toy’s mouth opened.

“Curse … Curse . . .”

They heard it clearly now, and it seemed obvious that the toy’s creator had imbued it with malice and ill will. The boys gulped in unison. Under different circumstances, they might have laughed it off, but not in this dim, otherworldly space, where they were feeling quite down the rabbit hole already.

Suddenly the monkey’s jaw popped open again, as if the head might split in two.

“Curse … Destroy!”

“Gahhh!”

The boys ran, but the mangled monkey toy floated into the air and pursued them.

“W-what now?!” shouted Kirishima.

“Don’t ask me!” shot back Ida.

The solution might have been as simple as wrecking what remained of the toy, but the premise that it was cloaked in some invisible, unknowable curse made it all the more terrifying. Perhaps destroying it would curse them forever? Motivated by that primal instinct known as fear, the boys’ every reflex was suddenly dedicated to escaping, but as they ran deeper into the tunnel, they were surprised to find more than just a few side passages. They saw countless openings, all evenly spaced apart. Still, it was all they could do to dodge the incoming beams from the pursuing toy.

“Any thoughts yet, Ida?!” asked Kirishima.

“First, we remove ourselves from its range, then wait for an opening, and …”

“Ida! Up ahead!”

Shoji’s cry alerted Ida to an entire swarm of toy monkeys flying at the group from the other direction, all firing beam blasts.

“Whoa!”

They leaped down one of the side tunnels and were shocked to discover that this one had more branching paths of its own. They kept running, but dodging the curtain of beams was quickly becoming unfeasible.

“Ida, they’re not stopping!” said Kirishima.

Still running, Ida considered their options before proposing a plan.

“You keep luring them ahead, Kirishima. Meanwhile, we shall conceal ourselves on either side.”

Shoji and Tokoyami nodded in agreement and dove down a passage to the left while Ida ran to the right. Kirishima screeched to a halt, hardened his entire body to withstand the beam attacks, and took the opportunity to smash two or three of the toy monkeys with his rock-hard fists.

“Come and get me!” he shouted at the rest of the swarm before taking off running again.

Just as the monkeys flew past, the other three boys leaped out and attacked from behind, prompting Kirishima to once again spin around, effectively catching the pursuers in a pincer move.

“Curse … Curse … Curse curse curse . . .”

“Arghh!”

A final string of curses echoed like death throes as the toys were destroyed for good. Any hypothetical fear of invoking the curse by fighting back had been overshadowed by the much more tangible fear of the ominous talking monkey toys. Having satisfied both their flight and fight instincts, the boys heaved sighs of relief.

“Seriously, what was their deal … ?” asked Kirishima.

“I would very much like to know as well,” said a scowling Ida, no better equipped to answer Kirishima’s third such query than the first two.

“Is Dark Shadow doing okay?” asked Shoji.

“Yes … Any damage will be healed after a short rest,” said Tokoyami.

“Wonderful to hear,” said Ida, but his relief was soon replaced by the sense that something was off.

“Where is Koda?”

The other three hadn’t realized their classmate was missing until that moment. They shouted for Koda, but the only answer was their own echoes. Even the ears on Shoji’s dupli-arms couldn’t detect any trace of their classmate.

“Perhaps he became separated earlier as we fled?” suggested Ida.

They tried retracing their route back to their starting point, but the pile of rubble that had marked the spot where they’d fallen was nowhere to be found.

“Huh?” said Kirishima. “It was definitely here, yeah?”

“No, I think it was that way,” said Shoji.

“I believe that was the way we came from,” said Tokoyami.

Each of the three pointed in different directions, and realizing that, they grimaced at what seemed to be a bad omen.

“Please don’t tell me … that we’ve lost our way as well?!”

The tinge of panic in Ida’s voice was apparent. The many side tunnels they’d observed earlier revealed just how convoluted and enormous this underground space really was.

“What’s our course of action, Ida?” asked Tokoyami.

“We search for both Koda and the exit.”

“Gimme back my lint roller, Kirishima … Wait, huh?”

Katsuki Bakugo, who had nearly finished his cleaning, stopped by Kirishima’s room. He was none the wiser that his friend was at that moment battling it out in the underground dungeon.

“How long’s it take to trash a freakin’ punching bag?”

With his usual grumbles, Bakugo barged into his friend’s room and found the lint roller he’d come to collect sitting on the floor. As he clucked his tongue in annoyance and bent over to pick up the tool, he noticed a prominent dust clump under the bed.

“Y’call that clean?”

The skilled kid known as “the Talented Mr. Bakugo” to his classmates was, needless to say, a pro at tidying as well, so it barely took him a second to swipe at and extract the dust with the long-handled lint roller. Bakugo stood up with a derisive snort and then noticed a torn poster on the verge of ripping off the wall, hanging near other pieces of paper on which Kirishima had written inspirational phrases.

“Whatcha doing in Kirishima’s room?”

Hanta Sero had also been dropping by to borrow Bakugo’s lint roller, and as he’d passed Kirishima’s doorway, he’d found Bakugo busy rehanging the poster.

“When Kirishima hung up those weird papers, he somehow ripped this poster, so I’m fixing it. Duh.”

That was obvious enough, but what Sero wanted to know was why this task had fallen to Bakugo in particular. Before he could rephrase, though, he noticed Bakugo managing the job with dexterity and guessed that Kirishima’s half-assed cleaning hadn’t sat well with the meticulous Bakugo.

“Y’know, Bakugo,” said Sero. “If, against all odds, the whole hero thing doesn’t pan out, you could totally start an odd-jobs shop.”

“Huh?! There’s no universe where that happens!”

While Bakugo was roaring at Sero, Kirishima and the others were busy staring at a wall. They’d been cautiously creeping down passages in their search for Koda, but the pathways had kept branching until they had no clue where they were or where to go next. Finally, they hit a dead end, but attached to the wall was a strange button that seemed to scream, “Push me!” It was as if the simple protrusion was enchanted to draw in passersby and fill them with an inescapable desire to push it.

“Should we?” asked Kirishima, unable to hide his childlike curiosity. The others felt the same way, but Ida resisted and shook his head.

“We haven’t the faintest what pushing this button could do!” he said.

“But it might alert the ones running the facility to the danger we’re in. Pushing it could get us rescued,” suggested Tokoyami.

“Assuming this really is a U.A. facility.”

Shoji’s words of doubt—spoken cautiously, since he was the first to bring up the idea—were met with silence. Ida had secretly been thinking the same thing.

“I have my doubts as well,” he said. “A mazelike training facility is certainly within the realm of possibility, but I cannot explain the toy monkeys. Even if they were meant to represent villains, why unleash them before construction was completed?”

“But if it’s not connected to U.A., then …” murmured Tokoyami. The other three finished his thought under their breaths, in unison.

“Villains …”

A dark pall fell over the group, but Kirishima forced a smile in an attempt to smash the bad vibes.

“C’mon, though—how would villains create a huge place like this without anyone noticing?” he said.

“I shudder to think villains could be behind this,” said Ida, “though we’d be remiss not to consider the possibility.”

As the four boys carried on with their grave conversation, Dark Shadow slowly emerged from Tokoyami, having recovered from the earlier damage. Still wary of the monkey beams, it glanced around nervously. Tokoyami ignored his familiar for the moment—rather than interrupt the serious talk of potential villains—but this proved to be a mistake.

“Ooh, what’s this?” said the curious Dark Shadow, pushing the mystery button without an ounce of hesitation.

“Argh!”

“Dark Shadow! What have you done?!” shouted Tokoyami.

Dark Shadow had no idea why the boys were gasping in horror and freaking out.

“Please! Remain calm!” said Ida.

“If villains really are to blame for all this, they might’ve set traps …” said Shoji, who had wasted no time in scanning their surroundings for impending danger.

“Sure, like in the movies,” said Kirishima. “In this kinda sitch, the first trap is usually a trapdoor …”

They glanced at the ground and noticed a nearly imperceptible seam.

“Everyone, to the wall!” shouted Ida, fearing a sudden pitfall. The others obeyed, slamming their backs to either side of the dead-end tunnel. But the ground showed no sign of splitting open. As the group peered at the suspicious seam, Ida felt a bit of crumbling dirt fall on his head and glanced up just in time to see the ceiling rushing toward them.

“Everyone! Run!”

“Huh? Ack!”

Ida’s timely alert had kept them from being crushed by a two-meters-square block falling from the ceiling, but before they had a moment to breathe, another block was descending upon their new position.

“What nowww?!” yelled Kirishima as the chain of blocks began falling faster and faster. Shoji, running at the back of the group, had a leg grazed by one of the weighty death traps. Meanwhile, after confirming that Tokoyami had cloaked himself with Dark Shadow and was using his Black Fallen Angel mode to fly down the tunnel, Ida slowed down just enough to grab Shoji’s and Kirishima’s hands.

“Here we go, you two!”

“Whoaaa?!”

The three boys blasted down the tunnel at a ferocious speed, courtesy of Ida’s “Engine” Quirk. Within seconds, the falling blocks were far in their rear view, and after another moment, they’d moved a safe enough distance away to pump the brakes.

“You saved us … I’ve never moved quite that fast before …” said Shoji, gasping for breath.

“Felt like we turned into a gust of wind, there …” added Kirishima, also panting.

Ida apologized for the impromptu escape tactic and breathed a sigh of relief when at last the sound of falling blocks had subsided.

“Yes, we seem safe for now,” continued Ida. “And clearly that button was indeed linked to a trap.”

“Let’s hope it’s the last one we trigger.”

“Wanna do it again!” chirped Dark Shadow, treating the death trap like a ride at a carnival. As Tokoyami glanced upward to scold his floating familiar, he noticed a monitor attached to the ceiling. One completely out of place in the rocky environs.

“What is that screen doing here?” he said.

As he spoke, a “10” flashed on the monitor. The other three boys were now paying attention as the monitor displayed “9” and then “8.”

“What is it counting down to … ?” said Ida.

Countdowns are one way to exert control over human psychology. They inspire both a sense of caution and excitement, driving the viewer to stick around and see what happens at the end. This countdown had the boys in its grasp, drawing their eyes while also causing them to back away instinctively. When it reached “0,” the much-discussed trapdoor flapped open beneath them.

“Wahhh?!”

They had been standing directly over the pitfall that lay in wait, so there was no hope of grabbing onto the edge or otherwise stopping their descent. Nor could they resist zooming down the convenient slide placed directly below, which had been slicked over with some kind of oil in preparation for just for this very moment. As they slid down in the darkness, any attempts to right themselves only got them more tangled up, to a comical extent.

“Ida, your exhaust pipe thing’s taking a trip up my butt!” said Kirishima.

“Apologies. Allow me to … Ouch! What just stabbed the back of my head?!”

“Dah muh eek!” mumbled a muffled Tokoyami, attempting to explain that it was his beak drilling into Ida’s head, though his explanation was drowned out by Ida’s pained cries. Meanwhile, Shoji was at the head of the pack. When the other three slammed into his back, he tried to peel them away but only managed to get his own arms tangled up in the flailing ball of limbs. The four boys’ combined weight shot them down the greased slide with more momentum than ever, and the slide shifted to a near-vertical drop, until …

Freefall.

“Ahhhh!”

The boys were rendered speechless for a moment by the jarring sensation of their stomachs floating around in their bodies, but they managed to gasp when they saw what awaited them at the bottom of the fall.

A lattice of iron bars, shaped into a giant birdcage. The top was popped open and seemed ready to slam shut the instant that unwitting victims fell in. Imprisonment seemed inevitable, especially since their greased-up bodies had no means by which to resist. Just before falling into the cage, however, the boys suddenly found themselves floating back up.

“I! Hate! Birdcages!” grunted Dark Shadow, holding all four aloft. The boys’ eyes sparkled as they beheld their savior—a dark angel incarnate.

“Well done, Dark Shadow!” said Tokoyami.

“Keep the praise coming!”

Having cleared the birdcage’s yawning opening, they landed a short distance away in a nearby tunnel. Unlike the other passages, this one had no offshoots and seemed to slope downward. Not ready to move on just yet, the group slumped to the ground in a circle.

“So many intricate traps,” said Ida. “All designed to capture intruders such as ourselves. I’m hard-pressed to believe that this is truly a U.A. facility.”

“This labyrinthine trap hoard seems more like something constructed by villains,” said Tokoyami.

“Y’think … the villains are in here with us?” suggested Kirishima.

“There’s a good chance they’re somehow watching us, at least,” said Shoji.

“Regardless, our objective remains the same. Find Koda, and find the exit. Then, we report back to Aizawa Sensei and inform him about our discovery!” concluded Ida.

The thought that villains were once again taking aim at U.A. from the shadows lit a fire in the hearts of these four, who could very well be the only ones aware of the plot at the moment. They were inspired to fight back.

“I hope Koda is unharmed … We’ve traveled quite a bit since losing him,” said Ida.

“We can only hope that the villains haven’t caught him,” said Tokoyami, assuming the worst.

But Ida took control of his own panicked thoughts, stood up, and said, “Let’s press onward.”

Suddenly there came an enormous slam from behind. Several paces away, a perfectly round boulder had dropped—one that seemed an exact fit for the breadth of the tunnel. Succumbing to gravity, it slowly began rolling down the slope.

“No way … Nuh-uh! We’ve gotta be on a movie set, right?” shouted Kirishima.

“Sadly, Kirishima, I’m afraid this is reality!” said Ida as the boys ran from the boulder, which was already picking up speed. The slope’s slant grew sharper, and just as the old cliché would have it, they spotted a dead end ahead. With nowhere left to run, Kirishima found the resolve to spin around, plant his feet, and shout.

“We’ll see who breaks first!”

Kirishima’s whole body hardened up, and behind him, the other three braced themselves for impact.

“We have your back, Kirishima! Get the job done!” said Ida.

With Ida’s cheer encouraging him, Kirishima thrust his fists at the spinning boulder, just barely managing to withstand a force that would’ve crushed a lesser man. Small cracks spread across the boulder’s surface and quickly blossomed into massive fissures that tore the raging rock in two. A fully prepared Ida leaped at one half with a kick, while Shoji smashed the other half with his Octoblow assault. A splintered piece of rock bounced off the wall and flew toward Tokoyami, however, who was caught off guard and couldn’t react in time.

“Ugh!”

Ida winced, having taken a direct hit to the shoulder while shielding Tokoyami.

“Oh no, Ida!” said Tokoyami, gasping as his face crumpled. Kirishima and Shoji also ran over to their injured friend.

“That’s blood, dude!” said Kirishima.

“Let’s try to stop the bleeding,” said Shoji, but before he could tear off a strip of his own clothing, Ida pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and said, “Please—use this.” The wound was dressed with the handkerchief, but blood began oozing right through it.

“Apologies!” said Tokoyami, clenching his fists in frustration, but Ida forced a smile past the pain.

“It’s just a scratch, so don’t let it trouble you. Besides, we haven’t the luxury to fritter away our time sitting here …”

Ida stumbled a bit from the pain. Tokoyami was ready to assist, but when his hand accidentally grazed the bloody wound site, he flinched and ripped his hand away to stare at it.

“I’m so sorry …” he said. “This is my fault!”

Tokoyami typically presented himself as an aloof loner, but on the inside, he actually cared about his friends a great deal. When the League of Villains had attacked the class during the forest training camp, Shoji had been hurt shielding Tokoyami from an attack, and the latter had then lost control over his emotions, leading to Dark Shadow’s monstrous rampage. Then and now, in situations where darkness was more prevalent than light to begin with, Tokoyami’s heart was primed to snap. In turn, Dark Shadow grew larger and more ferocious in response to these heightened emotions.

“The dark is my domain! Lemme go wild!” it roared.

“Enough, Dark Shadow …” pleaded Tokoyami as his familiar loomed over the boys, with the dead end at their backs. Tokoyami struggled, but in the darkness, Dark Shadow reigned supreme. Ordinarily, it was like class 1-A’s lovable little sibling—friendly, chatty, and reliable in a pinch—but the darkness had a way of throwing off Dark Shadow’s shackles, turning it into a powerful beast prone to attacking friend and foe alike. If Tokoyami himself couldn’t rein it in through force of will, then a flash of light was their best hope.

“Light … Of course,” murmured Ida. “Lend me your cellular phone, Tokoyami!”

He reached into Tokoyami’s pocket and grabbed the phone, hoping to use the flashlight function to weaken Dark Shadow, but before he could aim the light properly, the monster’s sweeping claws smacked the phone out of Ida’s hands and knocked it against the wall.

“Dun need light!”

Intent on eliminating any threats to its existence, Dark Shadow bared its fangs at the boys, ready to strike. But then Shoji gasped.

“Something’s coming!”

Ear-piercing screeches. The flapping of wings. A swarm large enough to block the width of the tunnel. A close encounter with more black creatures that thrived in darkness.

“Bats?”

The countless bats swallowed up Dark Shadow, as if to shield the stupefied boys.

“Gah!” yelped Dark Shadow, as Tokoyami’s jaw dropped.

Suddenly, they heard a familiar voice amid all the flapping.

“Yes, surround that dark, shadowy creature.”

“Koda!”

“Calm yourself, dark one,” implored Koda as he used his “Anivoice” Quirk to command the swarm of bats.

“Batboy!” said Tokoyami, his eyes practically sparkling with adulation. As Tokoyami’s own spirit was calmed, Dark Shadow seemed to come to its senses.

“But I’m way cooler than Batboy!” it shouted, shrinking down to its normal size before Tokoyami shoved it back into his body. Koda sighed with relief, thanked the bats, and released them from his control. The other four ran to him.

“We were about to be Dark Shadow chow, so thanks!” said Kirishima.

“We’ve been searching for you!” said Ida. “Where on earth were you?”

“Well, you see …”

Koda explained that after getting separated from the group, he’d fallen through a trapdoor and gotten horribly lost. However, the bugs and bats in the area had helped lead him to this spot.

“Koda … I must thank you for stopping Dark Shadow. What a powerful Quirk you have,” said Tokoyami, the admiration apparent in his voice and eyes.

“Really? I dunno …” said Koda, who couldn’t help but blush and smile sheepishly.

The celebration was cut short by the appearance of a giant hose near the tunnel entrance. Water began gushing out, and within seconds, the boys were underwater. Fortunately, the dead-end wall rumbled, shook, and shifted open.

“Wahhh!”

The torrent of water—desperate to find an outlet—rushed through the opening, dragging the five boys with it. They flipped, flopped, spun, and plummeted down the impromptu waterslide. Not wanting to lose anyone again, Ida reached out toward Tokoyami and Kirishima, but the chaotic current prevented him from grasping their hands. It was all they could do to keep their heads above water, until Shoji grabbed each of the other four and pulled them over to his back.

“Grab ahold!”

“Thanks, Shoji!”

His broad back gave them some degree of protection and reminded each of them of a parental figure’s back that had made them feel at ease when they were children.

At last the instant river deposited them into the most enormous tunnel yet. They slowly regained feeling in their sopping, chilled bodies and started to tremble. The cold couldn’t stop them now, though. They marched onward and began to warm up.

“Anyone else suddenly feeling toastier?” asked Kirishima.

“Yes, though I couldn’t tell you why,” said Ida.

While the gang wondered about the temperature change, Tokoyami noticed puffs of steam coming from the other side of the area. Rushing to the source, they discovered a large underground hot spring. Kirishima tested the water with one hand.

“Yep, that’s steamy …”

A hot spring conveniently available for their frozen bodies? It was hardly an offer they could refuse. They poked around a bit more and found a changing area that for some reason was furnished with five tracksuits and five towels. It seemed increasingly unlikely that villains would have provided all this, including a tracksuit that looked like it would perfectly fit Shoji’s large and unique body.

“It’s hard to imagine that any villain would be quite so hospitable,” said Ida.

“Right … ?” agreed Kirishima.

It was definitely suspicious, but the boys decided to take advantage of the hot spring, making sure that someone was keeping watch at all times. As they slipped into the water and relaxed, they realized how utterly exhausted they were. And though it weighed on their consciences a bit, they decided to use the towels and tracksuits after all. Ida and Koda were the last to emerge from the hot spring, and a flustered Shoji returned from scouting just as they were changing into their new outfits.

“This way, guys! Quickly!” he said.

The other four followed Shoji to a passageway lined with impressive metal doors that looked out of place in an earthen tunnel. They approached one of the doors, and Shoji whispered, “I hear people in there.”

“Huh?” blurted out Kirishima loudly before clapping his hands over his mouth.

At Shoji’s signal, they all moved toward the door gingerly and placed their ears against it.

“So when’s this operation going down?” came a voice.

“Ain’t it obvious? Right freakin’ now! We’re gonna do some real damage, I tells ya!” said another.

The boys gasped and turned to each other. Not only were their suspicions confirmed—villains really had built this place—but the villains in question were about to launch a full-scale attack on U.A. There would be dire consequences if they couldn’t escape and tell the teachers, but that was easier said than done, considering the scope of this subterranean labyrinth. That left them with one other option—confronting the villains on their own.

Without speaking a word, each knew what the others were thinking, and all five nodded in unison. Even Dark Shadow emerged to pitch in.

“Dark Shadow, bring the door down!” whispered Tokoyami.

“Aye, aye!”

The metal door looked as sturdy as anything, but powerful blows from Kirishima and Dark Shadow smashed it inward without trouble, and all five boys leaped into the room, prepared for battle. But they found nobody to fight.

“My poor Suprah … We’re gonna hit ’em back ten times as hard for keying my baby!”

“For sure. Let’s send their precious Fairlady X to the boneyard!”

“Don’tcha mean the scrapyard, ya numbskull?”

“Huh?”

The confused boys found themselves staring at a projection screen that showed a car covered in scratch marks and surrounded by a gang of supremely ticked-off looking hoodlums. The scene happened to be from Ridge Racers: Righteous Car Crusade, a C-tier cult movie that nobody outside of the niche fandom had ever heard of, least of all these high school boys.

“Is this … a small movie theater … ?” wondered Ida aloud, as he and the others glanced around.

It certainly seemed to be. The impressive screening room had about thirty seats and was equipped with a state-of-the-art speaker system to create the perfect ambiance. Tokoyami finally spoke up and voiced the question on all their minds.

“Why would villains build a movie theater … ?”

Movie theaters were made for entertaining, and this simple fact only enhanced their confusion.

“Sorry …” said Shoji, apologizing for mistaking the movie characters for villains.

“An understandable error,” said Ida. “Though it would seem there are no villains in our immediate environs after all.”

“Should we check out some of the other doors?” asked Kirishima.

They agreed and approached another door. This one wasn’t locked, so they opened it gingerly using the actual doorknob.

“This one appears to be someone’s room,” was Ida’s succinct assessment, and the others nodded. There was a leather sofa and a desk with a half-drunken mug of coffee and an instant ramen container. Posters of cars were plastered up on the walls, offering a glimpse at the inhabitant’s interests. It was indeed someone’s personal quarters, plainly and surely.

“Y’think someone’s living down here?” asked Kirishima with a tilt of his head.

They tried the next door, which was also unlocked, allowing them to slip right in. They were shocked to discover that this chamber contained an entire full-size racetrack and a number of classic cars. Ida suddenly realized the common factor between the contents of the chambers.

“This villain seems to be a car lover! A gearhead, if you will!”

This wasn’t a particularly useful nugget of information, so they made a mental note and proceeded to the next room, which was a workshop crammed full of machines, half-built robots, weapon-like objects, and devices whose purposes evaded conjecture altogether. The boys crept around and inspected each baffling machine with suspicious scowls on their faces.

“They seem to be producing weapons in here?” said Shoji.

“Maybe this entire underground lair is the villains’ home base,” added Tokoyami.

“No freaking way!” said Kirishima, whose red alert senses had just kicked into high gear. Koda also fidgeted and began to show signs of panic. After a moment of tense thought, Ida made his assessment.

“If they truly possess the resources to construct a facility of this scale, unbeknownst to U.A., then I’m afraid we’re dealing with a band of well-prepared, terrifyingly brazen, low-down and dirty villains!”

An unsteady pile of inventions collapsed, and one malfunctioning machine popped out of the heap, moving erratically. Somehow it managed to activate some of the other devices before taking aim at the boys with plumes of weaponized fire.

“Holy cow!”

They dodged the flames, but the chain reaction wasn’t slowing down. Some of the machines leaped around the room with deadly momentum, some fired laser beams, some emitted blinding flashes of light, and still others launched bevies of mini missiles, all contributing to the utter chaos. Was it a villain attack? Or merely malfunctioning machines? Ida didn’t have a spare moment to mull over the question, so he shouted the only order he could.

“We have to stop them!”

They fought back as best they could given the turmoil, figuring that the only way to stop the machines from activating others was to wreck each one within reach. When the last rampaging device was destroyed, a small figured appeared behind them.

“Hello, boys.”

“Principal?”

Yes, the adorable, diminutive mammal standing in the doorway was none other than Principal Nezu—the head honcho at U.A. High. The scar over his right eye ran counter to his otherwise charming appearance, giving him an air of someone with a darker past than he tended to let on. In any case, the five boys instinctively rushed over to Nezu, whose presence was immediately reassuring.

“We have grave news to report!” blurted Ida. “We seem to have stumbled upon a villain lair!”

Ida went on to explain the tale—from their accidental fall until that very moment—while the other four chimed in to support his story and insist that this was an emergency of the highest order.

“Quite a day you’ve had, indeed. But rest assured, this is no villain hideout,” said Nezu.

“Huh?”

The boys were visibly confused, so Nezu spread his hands wide and went on.

“This entire place is actually an old U.A. facility!”

“H-huhh?”

“We planned to create a survival training facility underground,” he explained, “but in the end, we deemed it too dangerous and sealed it off. The ground above must have weathered over time, leading to your unorthodox entry into the maze. I’m so very sorry you were exposed to these dangers.”

“That’s quite all right,” said Ida, with a robotic bow. “I’m only sorry we jumped to such a hasty and erroneous conclusion!”

Ida may have been convinced, but Tokoyami still had questions.

“What about the room with the sofa, though? There was evidence that someone had been in there not long before we came by.”

“Ah, that,” said Nezu. “I’ve been down here recently, assessing whether or not the entire facility should be demolished, and that has been my break room, so to speak. So much assessing to be done, you see. Now then, let’s put this place behind us on the double, and I’ll have your clothes sent back to the dorm later.”

Principal Nezu’s familiar smile was enough to convince the boys, although he did make them promise not to speak a word of what had happened to anyone. They followed his precise directions down the tunnels and came upon an elevator, which brought them above-ground and to another door.

But instead of trees and sunlight, a sort of staging room was waiting for them on the other side. More half-built machines. A wall calendar featuring cars. They couldn’t help but wonder why the dungeon exited into such a place, but they pushed the question aside and stepped out into a hallway within the main school building.

Nezu had given them permission to visit the nurse’s office, so after a quick trip to Recovery Girl (who healed Ida’s wound), they finally emerged outside, where their euphoric sense of liberation was enough to clear their minds of any small doubts or misgivings. It was already evening, and the sky was shifting from mellow shades of orange to deeper blues. Feeling the cool breeze against their skin, the boys breathed deeply and stretched.

“I gotta say, that was kinda fun, right?” said Kirishima, smirking like a naughty schoolboy and looking to the gang for validation.

Tokoyami, Koda, and Shoji nodded, not nearly as grumpy as they had every right to be. Ida, however, spun his arms wildly and countered.

“One wrong step and our misadventure could have ended in tragedy!”

“I’m sorry,” said Tokoyami, remembering Ida’s injury. “You were hurt on my account …”

“Yes, but, that is to say …” blurted a flustered Ida, clearly embarrassed, before finding the resolve to speak his mind.

“I suppose I had a bit of fun as well. It was a grand adventure for the ages.”

He and Tokoyami exchanged awkward smiles. The other three also smiled as they watched the exchange play out, until Koda’s stomach began to grumble. He gripped his midsection as if to suppress the noise while the others chuckled.

“Tonight, we shall feast on hamburgers!” declared Ida with a grin as wide as any.

As the boys ran back to their dorm sweet dorm, Principal Nezu was still underground, surveying one of the rooms with an air of exasperation. This was a room the unwitting intruders hadn’t stumbled into, filled with even more mountains of machines than the other workshop. Nezu sensed someone approaching from behind and spun around.

“Unbelievable … Did you have to make this place quite so labyrinthine, Power Loader?”

“Sorry, boss …”

The earnest apology came from Power Loader—the shirtless Support Course teacher who went around wearing a steam shovel helmet. In his hand, he clutched a device that alerted him to intruders in the maze.

Principal Nezu’s explanation to the boys had been an outright lie. In truth, Power Loader had been at his wit’s end about what to do with Mei Hatsume’s inventions (or “babies,” as she called them), which had started to overflow the Support Course workshop she’d made into her home away from home. When he’d brought up the issue with Nezu, the principal had suggested carving out an underground storage chamber. Once the project had begun, however, Power Loader had started enjoying himself a little too much, eventually constructing a room of his own, a racetrack for the cars he loved so much, and a cozy home theater.

When he’d struck metaphorical gold and unearthed a natural hot spring, Power Loader had come up with the idea to expand the project into a subterranean survival dungeon for the students’ benefit, which had led him to excavate just a bit too close to the surface. That was where Ida and the boys had fallen through the ground, of course. Meanwhile, the beam-firing toy monkeys were an invention of Hatsume’s—designed to train heroes to overcome fear—and the towels and such in the changing room had been sneakily placed by Power Loader himself, who didn’t want the hapless boys catching cold in the dank underground space.

“The home theater, the racetrack, the hot spring … This wonderland is wasted on you alone … Oh, I know! Why not make these facilities available to all the staff, as a means of R&R?” suggested Nezu.

“Erm … I suppose, but …” stammered Power Loader, at a loss for words. Nezu observed this reaction carefully before chuckling.

“Just kidding, of course!”

“Huh?”

“I’m well aware that socializing is hardly your forte. I place a high value on camaraderie among my staff, but I would never force an introvert out of his comfort zone. We all need our personal space, don’t we?”

It was all true—as an eccentric genius type, Power Loader was something of a loner who found it difficult to be around others. He definitely kept his colleagues at arm’s length, but it wasn’t out of dislike. Cementoss was an occasional conversation partner, since the two men often worked on construction projects together, but for the most part Power Loader regarded the other teachers as work friends, which was enough. He found much more meaning in time spent communing with machines, which maintained an irreplaceable position in his life. Principal Nezu understood this well.

“A mind like yours requires time and space to work on projects, yes? And this isolated space allows you to devote yourself to that work without interference.”

As Nezu spoke, he toddled over to one of the piles of machines, which happened to be the accumulation of Power Loader’s prototype support items.

“Thank you, sir,” said Power Loader, forcing the words out. “But fooling the boys like that … It’s kinda not in a human way.”

“Heh heh … you think so? Just as well, since I’m not human at all.”

Power Loader chuckled at his boss’s little joke. Despite being an animal, Nezu’s mind operated at a higher level than that of most people, so these two geniuses understood each other all too well.

“I know what it’s like to get caught up in the excitement and take matters too far, but you’ll have to implement better safety protocols for this underground dungeon if you don’t want me to rescind my permission. Everything in moderation!”

“Yes, sir,” said Power Loader, slumping his shoulders.

“That said, expect me to visit your hot spring from time to time,” added Nezu.

Only a select few individuals know of the underground dungeon beneath U.A. High.

If ever a day comes when another ragtag group of students falls into the dungeon, the experience will be sure to fluster them, encourage growth, and deepen friendships. Until that day, however, the labyrinth slumbers, providing only an odd bit of rest and relaxation for those in the know.