~O~

Lights out.

The security alarms blared.

At once, all the students in the common area jumped to their feet and looked around frantically, not knowing what exactly was happening. The dim red emergency lights flashed across the room and were enough for them to know where everyone was standing, so they weren't completely blinded.

"Hey, what's going on?!" Kaminari was the first one to cry out, still holding his pen in his hand as he was doing his assignments before the lights went out.

Asui pondered, looking around, "Do you think it could be related to the training exercise, ribbit?"

"But what if it's villains? Real villains, you know?" Ashido suggested, her brows furrowed.

"We shouldn't ignore it either way." Yaoyorozu said, "Let's investigate the cause and report to our teachers if something really is wrong, though I doubt that if it was they wouldn't have noticed it till now... But still, I think it would be better if we search in teams. One team would look whether or not this is a villain attack and the other should see if it's a part of the training."

"Sounds reasonable enough to me," Sero shrugged before he fished out his phone from his pocket, "We can just contact each other if something's wrong, 'kay?"

The others only nodded silently. The fact that all of the students weren't present in the common area easily chalked up some suspicions against a lot of their own classmates. The teachers hadn't yet made a move even after they had went off in groups of varying numbers. It was most likely to be a part of the hunt, they all realized that but then again, this was Class-1-A we're talking about. One could never be too sure.

And that was how Midoriya found himself between Aoyama and Uraraka as the three of them ventured their way to the main campus. The path outside was as dark as it could be in a cloudy night. There were no emergency lights there to guide them so their only guidance was the pocket torchlight Aoyama kept with himself for situations like this.

The way to the main campus was dark and quiet, eerie would describe it best. The only sound that reached their ears was of the grass crushing under their steps and the crickets in the distance. No student from the other classes was out nor was any faculty member in sight. It was as if they all had vanished under a spell. The disturbingly quiet nature of the situation only proved the fact that this was indeed a part of the exercise. If it were the League of Villains, there would've been more burning trees and stuff like that.

So, was it safe to assume that the entire school was roped into this exercise to provide a perfect atmosphere? Midoriya thought that the probability of that assumption being true was higher than the other unworded ones in his head.

None of three spoke anything as Uraraka pushed open the huge door to the entrance of UA. With the help of the torchlight, they confirmed that the hallways were devoid of all life. The dim red lights were there but exclude that and it looked positively like an old abandoned building were a murder was bound to happen if it hadn't already.

'Mental note:' Midoriya thought to himself, 'Look out for traces of blood just in case...'

The three of them further confirmed that there was, indeed, no one on the first floor at least. So, they took the staircase and wordlessly began to search the second floor. The first closest thing to possible evidence the group of three found on the second floor was a small folded note taped on one of the classroom's doors. They all looked at each other, silently debating who would go ahead. In the end, the green haired boy reached out a shaky scarred hand and ripped off the note with an undescribable urgency. The boy then brought the note closer to him and his friends and unfolded it to read it's contents,

1̶̯̜́͠͏̷̨̧̛̀͏́5̷̴̶̸̢̡̨̢̨̛͙̜̹͕̱̦̪̠̰̘̗̠͔͉͇͈͕͜͟,̧̛̦̥͓̗̪̤̗̫̟̟̩̻͢͜,̸̸̨̨̨̛͕̪͚̦̻͜͢͢͏͝,̸̷̸̡̧̛̛̛̯̦̗͈̯̘̤͚̲̘͚̳̠̰̮͚̖̝̯́͟͜͡͝͏̷̴̧͟͠1̸̶̸̷̵̡̧̛̺͔̥͇͖͍̼̘̪͕̀́͘̕͟͜͢͠͡͠-̨̡̛̞͘͝͡A̴̠̣̤̖͚̪̯̮̻̰̺͙͚̣̤̮̥̕͟͞
'
'.        '

Just for the sake of it, Aoyama prayed that it was written in red ink and not what the other two seemed to think it actually was.

"Can... Can you tell what it says? It's too messy for me to read..." Uraraka admitted quietly.

"Not in this lighting, I can't." Midoriya replied quickly, a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, "Aoyama, torchlight..."

The blonde boy nodded and turned on the portable light once again, angling it towards the piece of paper. All three of them squinted their eyes on the object. It took them a good three minutes of useless staring before they gave up, groaning.

Then something suddenly clicked in the brunette's mind, "Oh, wait! Turn it over and try moving your fingers over it. Gently..."

Midoriya nodded, doing as said. Aoyama still kept the light focused on the piece of paper as the green haired boy turned it over and softly brushed his fingers against where the paper was a bit more bumpy than the rest. If the words were written with even a little force, there should be some traces left behind that they could detect by a simple touch.

"It's a number... Twelve or fifteen? Eighteen too, maybe? No wait, not eighteen. Twelve or fifteen. And there's... Err, 1-A? I think it says 1-A." Midoriya said, his eyes held their usual determined gleam but one could easily tell by his facial expressions that he was confused and nervous.

"A number and our class," Aoyama started, "A seat number perhaps?"

"Of whose? The traitor's?" Uraraka asked.

"Or a target?" Midoriya suggested, "If it's a seat number then it's Jirou or Todoroki. Neither of them were in the common area when the lights went out. They aren't the one's to go to sleep early either. What if the power cut happened to separate us so the traitor could get to any one of them much easily?"

"Should we inform them?" The brunette questioned before quickly interjecting herself, "No, if it's the traitor's then that would let them know that we found a lead to them."

"I think we should look into the classroom. The note says 1-A but we don't use this room at all. Then why this one of all?" Midoriya suggested.

Once he got the affirmative from his friends, the green haired boy reached out for the cold doorknob, turning it over slowly as its inner mechanism creaked in the silent night. He pushed open the door, not entering it yet for the sake of checking over for any possible traps first. Flashing over the torchlight in the already dimly lit room, Midoriya confirmed that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the classroom. Just the same rows of twenty desks and a dais.

The green haired boy hesitantly stepped in.

And the moment he did, the emergency lights and the distant sirens went off.

All three of them bit back screams of horror at the sudden darkness as the torchlight slipped out of Midoriya's shaky hands, hitting the floor with a thud. They were practically clutching onto each other for dear life when the green head dared to pick up the torchlight and move further into the room without considering any more unexpected circumstances.

Why did the emergency lights went out? What happened? Could it be that the traitor followed them here and found out about them reading the note? Was it one of them? There was definitely only three pairs of footsteps throughout the entire search so it had to be one of them, right? But even if it was, how in the world would they manage to cut off the lights completely from here? Then maybe it was someone else. It could very easily mean Kaminari sneezed or the traitor intended for this to happen so they could get to either Todoroki or Jirou. Maybe either Kaminari or Jirou was the traitor since they were both able to mess with the backup power generators.

A shadow of something ran pass the hallway they were just standing in a moment ago with a swish.

"M-Mon ami?" Aoyama was basically trembling at this point, "Did... Did you see that too?"

"H-Huh?" Midoriya looked back at the opened door, "Um... Okay, calm down, maybe just the backup generators failed. A small technical fault, someone's probably headed to check it. Nothing to worry about."

"This is UA, everything is to worry about." Uraraka mumbled with an ignorable hint of irritation.

There was no verbal agreement but the other two knew and partially hated how true that was. They took a quick round of the classroom and found nothing that could give them more leads.

"Hey, um, I have an idea. We should check the development studios just in case." Midoriya started, indirectly suggesting to take the path he earlier guessed the traitor to be at the end if.

"The development studios? Didn't we pass by it on the first floor already? I thought we should head over to our classroom since the note said 1-A and all..." Uraraka tilted her head to a side, confused.

"Yeah but think about it." Midoriya began to explain, "We all felt someone run past the hallway and there was no one else except for us here. You can mess with the power supply and cameras easily at the development studios if you pull the right strings. And whoever that person was, I felt like they ran down rather than up. So there's a higher chance of us finding them there than our class, right? For all we know they've already done what they wanted to do in our class but they will be more powerful in the development studios. We should stop them while we can." Please, let them believe it.

"That... Makes sense! One can always count on you to pick the more logical option, huh, Deku?" The brunette smiled.

Aoyama nodded, "Oui~!"

Midoriya returned a smile as well. Oh, thank god they believed it!

With that the three of them headed downstairs, carefully listening in all directions for any other pair of footsteps. They found none, for the time being. But they didn't let their guard down at all. Once they reached the silent and dark hallways of the first floor again, they made a beeline towards the development studios — they didn't forget to side eye every door they passed for any other notes like the one they found a while ago.

Midoriya, however, was too delved in his own mind thinking of every possible outcome they'd have to face there that he had to be snapped out by Aoyama when they arrived at their destination. The green head would've continued walking down the hallway until he had hit a wall otherwise.

Before any of them could make a move towards the door, the lights suddenly came back on.

"What...? Was it just a power cut?" Uraraka asked, uncertainty laced her tone.

"I-I'm not too sure..." Midoriya bit his inner cheek, confused.

"Oh hey, you guys!" A sudden new voice startled them. All three of them shrieked out loud in unison, latching onto each other's arms as they turned around to find the source of their horror was none other than Mei Hatsume, "Sorry if you got scared. I was just trying out one of my new babies."

"Hatsume?" Midoriya questioned, "So... That power cut was?"

"Yup. One of my babies malfunctioned. Now, don't rat me out to Power Loader and start running back to your dorms. I have lots of things to take care of!"

That was a strange encounter to say the least but they were all practically pushed out of the main campus regardless. The walk back to the dorms was a little less uneasy than the last one. All nineteen students were present in the dorms when they got back — Bakugou went to sleep fifteen minutes ago with no care about the power cut and possible traitorous events. Bedtime was bedtime and he wasn't hunting down some dumbass during bedtime.

None of the three who went to search around the main campus said anything once they Todoroki, Jirou as well as Kaminari in the dorms among other students, they didn't hold any different expressions than they normally do.

The class went back to their normal chatter, finished their assignments and called it a day after a relaxing cup of tea.

All in all, the exercise didn't seem that hard.

~O~

Morning came and proved that notion wrong once the seemingly ordinary classroom on the second floor had more than just one concerning marks of what could only be described as a silent unhinged rampage.

But the most concerning of them all was a severed human toe.

How could they have missed this now?

~O~

1-A ain't scared of no villains but they do be afraid of the dark.