~~~~

"Okay, we're almost there!" Deku exclaimed. And he was right; the room being just around the corner. The last of the students made their way in... curiosity overtook the little dragon. "I wonder what this will be about.."

"It is a mystery..." Shouto adds.

Kiri chuckles, turning back to face his friend. "You ready Baku-..go...?" 

His voice softens at the sudden lack of the blonde wolf. Todoroki and Midoriya look to his direction, and all three of them are stunned.

"Kacchan?!" Deku called out.

Nothing.

He tried again, clasping his enlarged hands on either side of his mouth; "KaCCHAN?" he yelled.

Still nothing.

The three shared concerning looks, before all speeding off in the direction they came.

-

"Where could he have gone?" 

"Kacchan?!"

"What's gotten into him? Is he alright? Bakugo where are you?!"

Suddenly, a sound, a whimper, slowed them to a stop.

Kirishima's ear twitched, and he quickly found where Katsuki was...

...curled up in a ball around the corner.

He was having a panic attack, clutching his bandaged arm tightly.

"Bakugo!"

"Kacchan!"

~

Izuku and his friends finally make it to the cafeteria, though it wasn't easy...

Katsuki stayed near Deku the whole rest of the way there, which neither were complaining about. Although the greenette noticed that the vampire may have been... jealous? He wasn't sure, being more focused on his friend.

They understood now, why he was so upset... it was the cafeteria. Or more importantly, what happened there...

Anyways, the four of them arrived, in the back of the monster-filled room.

Midoriya, intrigued, wormed his way to the front of the crowd, with Bakugo following.

_

"Hello, students! Thank you for coming here today!" Their principal says- almost at a yelling tone with their current lack of a mic.

An unknown, white-haired, darkskinned woman stands next to him, giggling. Deku is quick to notice her bunny ears, and muscles.

Izuku turns to the closest person to his left and whispers, "Who is that?", only now realizing that person was Jirou.

'Ahhh shit' he thinks. Deku decides to turn his attention back to the front, not wanting to piss off the girl more than he did already.

"...Murko." she whispers back.

Midoriya is a bit surprised she answered, but happy she did nonetheless. He nods slightly. 'So, Murko...'

 A man walks up to their principal's pedestal, holding both a microphone and his own head. Aizawa hands the bear a microphone finally, before facing the students yet again next to a now pouting bunny woman.

"Alright," Nedzu clears his throat. "Now, I am happy to say that once again our dear friend Murko has returned to say a few things."

The students cheered, aside from Bakugo and Deku, who seemed to be thinking the same things;

'..returned? from where..'

Nedzu calmly steps off the pedestal, handing Murko the mic.

But she does the exact opposite of calm.

She quickly hops into the air, slamming her feet down hard on the platform, shouting out-

"HELLO UA!!"

Her booming voice is almost enough to outshine that of Present Mic, to which all the students are sure he noticed.

The bunny woman stands upright on the podium and begins to talk, still yelling a bit,

"I am SO HYPED to be here with you all again! And since now we have out final members~" she points out Deku and Bakugo, "Hey you two! Now with them, you know what time it is!!!"

Once again the students start cheering, this time even louder.

"THAT'S RIGHT! GRAB A PARTNER EVERYBODY, GET READY FOR THE HAAAUUNTINNG!" Murko yells over the students, before the mic is snatched away by a scarf. Shota, now with his head on, rewraps his scarf, handing the microphone back to the principal.

The students disperse and start to form pairs. Izuku and Katsuki stand in the open, confused until Deku asks,

"...d-do you wanna pair with me?"

Though it would be fun, Bakugo shakes his head, and leaves him, possibly to go find Kirishima. 

Midoriya sighs. 'Fair enough, they are really close.' 

The bunny girl rolls her eyes, hopping off the podium and leaning back on it, scanning the room.

Her eyes fall on the dragon, and she waves.

Not knowing what else to do, he waved back shyly.

Present Mic walks up to her, holding a box of some kind, and she happily takes it before skipping off to the other students.

From the pairs already made, Izu can tell that each pair has to pull out a sheet of paper at random.

'...so is it just a competition?...'

"Hey Deku!" Uraraka's sweet voice tore him away from his thoughts. "So, do you have a partner yet?"

"U-Uh... well no..."

"Oh! Well then, Todoroki will be happy!" she smiles. "He wanted me to ask you. So, you wanna be his partner?

Looking around, Deku spots Todoroki not too far from him, though as soon as they lock eyes, the Warrior turns away. Confused, but happy, the dragon agrees, "Uh...sure!...has it been a while since you've done this..?"

"Yeah, the last time we went was when Mrs.Midoriya...you know, so we couldn't go again, and had to wait for you guys!" As she explained this, her partner Tsuyu walked up to her, hugging the witch from behind.

Midoriya replaced his thought of the undeniable closeness between the two of them with a more important question."I feel like I should ask how time works here..."

"I can explain it quickly for you." Shinsou butts in, holding Eri protectively. "Here, every one year we age, the village goes by about 5."

"Oh....so when I was seven, you guys were two years younger?"

Uraraka chuckles. "Exactly!"

"That's so cool..."

Todoroki walks up to him, nodding. "It is still odd though, even we don't know exactly how it works..."

Before they can talk more, the bunny woman walks up to them finally. "So, you guys got your partners?"

Asui smiles- sort of. "Yep,ribbit."

"Alright! Here ya go, pick your papers!" Murko hands them the box, Tsu picks out a random slip, frowning a bit at the name. Once Ochako reads it, she is quick to console her friend.

"Somethin' wrong? You can get a new one if you want."

She is about to accept, but evidently declines. "No, it's okay. It'll be some good nostalgia,ribbit." The frog girl waves off the concern, and the latter woman can only go with it as she approaches Deku and Todoroki.

Izuku is about to pick a sheet, but Shouto pushes the box away.

"Thank you, Murko, but I already have someone specific in mind."

"Ohhhh." Hey eyes widen, and she quickly changes to a serious tone. "Right, stay safe you two." She walks off towards the front, calling out,"Okay, that's everyone!"

The principal nods, instructing the students to- "Everyone let's all go outside, stay with your partners!"

They follow Murko towards a door near one of the side walls as she yells out,

"Right, LET'S GET THIS STARTED!!!

The majority of the monsters have left, with the drgon and his partner being the last ones to leave. Just before they exit, Deku stops.

"Uhm...Todoroki?" 

The latter hums. "What do you need?"

"Where... where are we going?" he nervously asks.

Shouto exits the building, staring at Izuku with a deadpan expression. "...the village." 

"I know but-"

"I'll explain more once we get there." he quickly shushed his friend and the two head out with the rest of the class.

~~

Bright blue light from the moon shone through the trees and grass, coating everything with a lapis shine. Trees looking certainly different than Midoriya remembers; bark and leaves all seeming normal, along with the bushes, and evident lack of crystals along the ground... this must be a part closer to the village.

The students walked carefully, staying with their partners as instructed, beginning to talk about the so-called Haunting.

"How long has it been since we've done this?"

"I think.. about four years?"

"Wow!"

"This is gonna be awesome!"

"I cannot WAIT to do this again!" Nejire flutters around her scarecrow partner happily. "It's been FOREVER, Yu!" the nymph giggled.

"I know, I know, save your sparkles for when we get there, yeah?" Hara chuckled, wiping off her clothes, scattering blue sparkles along the ground. 

"Kami and Sero are always excited for this, I can't even imagine what they've planned now!" Mina excitedly rants to her partner, a blonde- sort of normal looking- boy, with his eyes and mouth glowing, almost like a jackolantern.

"Oui, we will have to wait and see." he says.

'Yuga.' Deku reminds himself. 'I haven't seen him in a bit.'

"Hey Aoyama!"

"Bonjour, Midoriya!" the 'candle' waves. Ashido giggles, waving to the greenette as well.

'He's pretty interesting for a monster... I should ask him about it later.' 

Izuku quickly takes out his notebook, flipping to the newest page and jotting down a reminder, as he began to write his seventh entry about what will come soon.

Scanning over his prior entries, he still has a few questions unanswered.

"Something bugging you 'Zuku?" Hadou asks. The so-called Big Three, along with Yuyu, were in the near front of the group, so they saw the dragon's expression quite easily.

He waved it off quickly, "I'm okay, just uh- can I ask a few questions?"

"Sure?" the ghost replied, though it almost sounded like a question with the amount of uncertainty in his tone.

"Okay..." holding his pencil firmly, he asked the first question- "About the curse the village talked about-"

"That's still a thing?" Mirio sighs. "Yeahhh, that's not real."

"OH!" quickly jotting that down, Deku begins to be more intriuged about this new world. "Really? Wait so-"

"Do you ever stop asking questions?"

Midoriya turns to the direction of the voice, happy to see Bakugou again, as he expected, clinging to the vampire's side. He still disregards the question, writing down the newfound information. With his new confidence, he re-asks his question quickly.

"So- about the kids who went mis-sing......" he drags out the last part because of Eijirou's sudden shift in expression.

Tamaki clears his throat, "That... that p-part is true, yeah.." though he still mumbles. "...but uhm- p-please don't talk about that now..." Though quiet, he sounds on the verge of tears as his partner Togata comforts him.

Iida begins to walk in front, since they are nearing the edge of the village, making weird gestures once again. "A few village teenagers did leave, and arrived at the academy..." he explains.

There's an awkward quiet as the students walked, guilt filling Midoriya entirely. He shouldn't have asked that at all...

A hand on his shoulder jolts him back to the present, and realizing that it was Todoroki, he calmed down.

"It wasn't your fault." Shouto states.

He nods, as he finishes his entry inside of his journal.