~O~

Morning came by as fast as it usually did for high school students and Midoriya, for once, found himself waking up after the sun had risen. Huh that was new, maybe searching in the dark yesterday tired him out a bit too much. His nerves always seemed to work overtime in those situations.

The green haired boy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, yawning in the process as he stood up from his bed and did a few stretches to warm up his stiff body before heading out. The hallway was silent as it was everyday for him. Despite Midoriya 'waking up late', he was still the earliest. Guess, this could be the one time he'd proudly call himself a morning person — he didn't call himself that on everyday basis since he used to stay up a little too late for someone who wakes up this early.

He hadn't stepped much further from his own room when the green haired boy just felt something. He stopped dead in his tracks and held in the breath he took right after stepping out of his room. Emerald green eyes were blown wide and there was this cold feeling inching closer to him by seconds. He took an abrupt turn to check the hallway of any sort of immediate danger. Was this another incident related to the exercise? Or was he just being paranoid? He'd like to keep both assumptions for the time being.

When he turned around to scan the area around him, Midoriya found nothing that could bring harm to his sleeping friends or him. It was strange. The thing he felt earlier — he failed to name it on spot but now with a much clearer mind, the green haired boy could put in under something akin to sharpness and cold.

Maybe, it was just one of those gut feelings...

Once Midoriya entered the common area, he realized that he wasn't the only one whose nerves seemed to work overtime in the dark. A few of his classmates were present there in the same condition as him; slept the entire night without a care in the world but still tired. Welp, nothing coffee can't fix.

Their morning classes were as normal as they could be with Aizawa prepping them for the day with laps around the campus until Present Mic came to their rescue, Kaminari short circuiting himself thrice in Ectoplasm's class, Snipe taking a surprise quiz and Midnight letting them off early for lunch — bless her soul.

Though, it all went downhill from there.

"Hah? Would you look at this? Class-1-A refuses to share their suspicions on us!" Monoma exclaimed with a petty glance, "Does that make you feel like you'll always be in the right? Does it make you feel superior? Oh, look at us! We're Class-1-A and we think you are the traitor but we refuse to say it in your face in case we hurt your feelings and make ourselves look like the bad guys! How trifling!"

Kendo sighed from her seat, clearly tired of the blonde's antics, "Monoma, please, they've barely even started the exercise. Leave them alone."

"Yeah! It's not like you were any better. You made sure not only your team but the entire class failed. Unmanly. Kirishima, support me." Tetsutetsu added.

"What he said. Unmanly." The redhead did as he was told with a mouthful of white rice.

"Worry not, Monoma," Kaminari spoke up in a heavy accent playfully, "We are certain that Class-1-B is as innocent as they could be!"

'For the real traitor is one of us, isn't it.' Thought a certain green head as he poked around his meal, 'Only us 1-A students and the teachers can enter our dorms past curfew. The note blatantly said 1-A and there's no possible way I see it to be a teacher... Something was off in the dorms this morning... But...'

The boy side-eyed Todoroki who was indifferently sitting beside Iida and then turned to the wall clock on the side of the cafeteria,

'I guess Kendo is right. It's still too soon to make such assumptions.'

The rest of his thoughts came and went silently. Just a few possibilities, perhaps a little too extreme for them to be true for a training exercise.

... Or were they?

~O~

There was something with the student's expressions that showed Aizawa and All Might how utterly unprepared they were for the second case in the series of these traitorous events. Then, there was something with the two teachers' expression that displayed how even they didn't expect this one to take such a sudden turn.

What do you know? Nezu really went all out, huh?

It was the same room Midoriya, Uraraka and Aoyama found the note stuck on to the door of and they had looked around it for a good five minutes before confirming that there was nothing out of the ordinary there last night. Today, however, was an entirely different case. The room could barely be identified as a 'classroom'. It was good to know that it was currently a free room, previously used by some third years. If it was a homeroom? The students might not sleep for a good couple of days or so.

Whatever desks were lined up in rows appeared to be absolutely wrecked, the remains scattered along all four walls left the centre of the room somewhat free of space with the word, 'TRAITOR' scribbled onto it in a deep red. The walls behind the mess appeared to be scratched with strong, sharp claws along with soot smeared across them in irregular patches. The faint smell of smoke and fire was evident in the atmosphere to confirm that it was indeed just UA going with it's usual and unnecessary sense of realism. Taking about realism, the dried up fake blood on the floor looked more realistic than the blood in those movies Tokoyami picked on Saturday nights.

"That blood really is fake, right?" Breathed out a very unsettled looking Ashido. Was it not bad enough that she had to see this stuff in movies that Nezu had to go and do this?

"Yup. Red ink. Nothing to worry about. Onto the case." Kirishima reassured.

"But like, this place really does look scary. Nezu is doing this on purpose, isn't he?" Sero pondered.

"I don't like it, kero..."

Bakugou chimed in, "Tch. I don't know what the fuck you idiots are so worked up about? Deku spills more and real blood when he's left alone in the kitchen for more than three minutes."

"It's not my fault! Apples are hard to peel!" The said green head justified.

"No, they aren't." The ash blonde argued.

"Oh, yes they are when your hands are shattered."

"Please continue this debate in your free time. No, combat is not allowed. Yes, I will give you both detention if you fought over peeling apples like dumb five years olds." Aizawa stated blankly, "On to the case; it appears that a free classroom on the second floor had a late night visitor yesterday. The incident was once again reported at seven in the morning when a teacher, Present Mic, happened to pass by the room. The door was open when Mic caught the sight of the mess supposedly made by the traitor. Everything in this room was left untouched after the report. What will you do next?"

"Well... This event is far much different than the last one. Till yesterday, the exercise seemed to have your average hide-and-attack-swiftly sort of villain. But now... The traitor's not really hiding. They're giving us an all out warning here." Yaoyorozu worded her thoughts.

"The traitor never really was hiding," Midoriya mumbled underneath his breath before suggesting, "I think it would be best if we look around here. The last person to touch anything here was the traitor, so there's definitely going to be something they left behind that could give us a lead."

Kirishima and Aoyama nodded while Bakugou wordlessly agreed. The other teams too either help with the investigation or asked more questions regarding the case.

"But what if this wasn't the traitor's doing? What if someone's quirk went wild last night? You know, like how Dark Shadow does?" Kaminari asked.

"Dark Shadow was somewhat well-behaved last night. He might have tried to rampage in the darkness but Todoroki was quick to assist us." Tokoyami replied while Todoroki nodded on his side.

Uraraka added, "And it can't be a quirk malfunction. We visited this room last night when we came to investigate the power cut."

"You guys did? Was there something wrong then? Anything of note?" Ojiro asked.

"Um, well..." The brunette found her eyes locking with familiar emerald green ones that happened to convey the message: We can't tell them about the note. "Not really. The room was pretty much normal last night."

"I see,"

"U-Um," Aoyama started, looking a bit too much terrified, "J'ai trouvé quelque chose qui pourrait vous intéresser..."

Bakugou quirked up an eyebrow, "What the fuck? Deku, translate."

"He said; I found something of interest... Or something along those lines. I'm not that fluent." Midoriya said as he walked next to his friend, "What is it, Aoya— Oh."

The green haired boy found himself staring at the same thing that his friend had just discovered. He was soon joined by the rest of the people that decided to investigate the room for any possible leads.

A severed human toe.

Bloodied, scraped and very very horrendously real.

The cut was obviously messy and difficult to make given by the red lines that surrounded the appendage's end. Something quite painful to imagine. The little bit of the bone visible at the bottom only made some stomachs churn. If the traitor was here and the wrecked up classroom was a proof of their presence then it simply conveyed that they were not scared of UA faculty finding out their identity neither they worked as discreet as they first appeared to be.

But this seemed to bring out a whole new aspect of the story. Why, the traitor had never shown any signs of direct harm to the students or the teachers. Then why? The severed toe was a little brutal in contrast to the rest. But then again, it was just the second case. They haven't fully understood the inner workings of that traitorous mind.

Todoroki was the first to break the silence, "None of the students have reported an injury this morning. Neither did any of the teachers. There was nothing out of the ordinary up until Present Mic found the room in this state. Then..."

"Then... That means... This is the traitor's..." Midoriya finished. Why would the traitor do something like this to themselves of all people? Just what was this implying?

Aoyama gagged at the thought of cutting your own limb off, hands covering his mouth as Kirishima rubbed his back and Bakugou's expression turned into an unreadable one. Yaoyorozu found her sweat turning cold while Hagakure and Sero stepped back. In horror or pure disgust? Who knew. They certainly did not. It didn't help them one bit by how neither Aizawa nor All Might looked to have any idea about this being real or not.

On the other hand, Midoriya thought he was finally getting more things cleared up.

~O~

Later that evening after school, the campus was quiet but not like the eerie quiet it was last night when the three students came looking around in the dark. It was a nice sort of quiet as all the noise and chaos had shifted to the dorms now. All Might found himself walking towards the principal's office, the day's files in his hands.

The retired blonde gently knocked on the door and poked his head in, "Nezu?"

"Oh, hey there." The principal in question greeted with much gusto from behind his computer that sat neatly on top of his desk, "You're right on time. Look at this, Class-1-C is setting up this huge prank on 2-C. Things are really heated up in the General Course right now. Only if people weren't completely blind to them, heh."

"Uh... Is that a way to ignore the fire you just set off in 1-A?" All Might sighed, pushing open the wooden door and walking in the room, setting the documents on the side of the rat-bear-dog-whatever principal's desk.

"I don't see why you look so troubled with that piece of information, All Might? That class is always on fire." Nezu shrugged, not looking away from the screen in front of him.

"That's... Not really a lie but regardless, they're still kids! And if they're traumatized or have seen what the real world looks like doesn't mean to traumatize them even more! Why did you change the case last minute? And without telling anyone of us? Don't you think a real severed toe is going a bit too far for a training exercise? I thought we agreed on robot gore and red ink not that."

"Well, you see, All Might." Nezu turned away from the computer momentarily as a much serious air surrounded him, "I designed this hunt to elicit a reaction from the real traitor. Testing the skills of our students and teaching them a few things about detective work along the way is just a veil to the main purpose. And believe me when I tell you that the appendage was never a part of my plan."

Sunken electric blue eyes widened at that last statement, "Then... That means—!"

"The traitor's caught onto us. And this serves as their first warning sign."

~O~

Look at me updating before a month >:D