A.N.
I would like you all to know that this fic has fan art!
One can be found on instagram with this tagged on: p/BwDiUXshRBB/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=fseznj368dq
The other is also on instagram: /p/BvkS6_mAAWV/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=44wy5s9d60tf
Note- for the second one you have to click through to the artists main page to see the full comic. Apparently instagram wouldn't let them post the whole thing together.
"Well, this place is certainly gloomy." Was the first thing Aizawa said once he was through the door. Hizashi and Izuku followed close behind, and they couldn't help but agree. The walls and floor were two different shades of gray, and the first thing they saw was two large black hands sticking up out of the floor in front of pictures of a woman and a man, both of whom looked crestfallen.
"A bit ironic coming from you. Given how you always dress I figured you'd like the new color scheme." Hizashi gave Aizawa a teasing nudge. "But yeah, I see what you mean. The color makes everything seem darker, and the artwork is really bringing me down. Gotta say, my least favorite color scheme so far."
"You mean not all of the halls were red on the way here?" Izuku asked. Hizashi nodded.
"Oh yeah, we started out in a blue area and went through green and brown before we got to the area you were in. We could almost make a rainbow at this point. And each area has had some puzzle or secret we had to solve before we could get through it."
"Can I help you look? I'm good at puzzles!" Izuku bounced excitedly.
Aizawa frowned. "This isn't a day trip kid, there's a lot of dangerous stuff here. You're gonna have to stay focused."
Izuku stopped bouncing, but the eagerness remained. "So, I can help as long as I'm careful, right?"
"You can help, but you have to listen to us too, okay?" Hizashi said, kneeling so he could look Izuku in the eyes. "Don't go running off on your own, and be careful about approaching paintings or sculptures, because the painting ladies aren't the only things that come to life."
"Don't touch anything either, and above all, keep your rose safe." Aizawa added.
Izuku nodded along with each rule, accepting them easily. These two were pro-heroes after all, so he was confident they knew what they were doing.
Hizashi smiled, and patted Izuku on the head. "Thanks kiddo, now let's take a look around."
The first order of business was to examine the room they were in more closely. Keeping in mind the heroes' warning, Izuku steered clear of the skeletal black hands. He felt safe enough approaching the portraits when the heroes did the same though.
"These pictures are weird." Izuku said. "The man the the lady are dressed up like they're gonna get married, but they look really sad. Aren't people supposed to be happy to get married?"
"Most people are." Aizawa agreed.
"Well, the title cards say 'Grieving Bride' and 'Grieving Groom', so obviously there's trouble in paradise." Hizashi said.
"Do you think we can make them happy again? Maybe if we do they'll show us where to go."
"Not a bad theory, kid." Aizawa told him. "Let's check out the rest of this area, and we'll see if it holds up."
"Yeah! Let's look for more clues!"
Hizashi couldn't help but smile as they headed up into the narrow hallway between the bride and groom portraits. The kid's excitement seemed to make the place just a little bit brighter.
It wasn't long until the hallway came to an intersection that allowed them three choices: going right, going forward, or going left. Each of the hallways was much wider than the one they just exited, and the left hallway had a gray door that could be seen from where they stood.
"Which way do we go?" Izuku asked.
"We'll probably have to try each way before we can get through, so which one we choose first probably doesn't matter too much." Hizashi explained. "We've flipped a coin when we only had too options in the past, but three is too many for a coin flip. Why don't you pick which way we go first?"
Izuku's eyes widened in surprise, but then he nodded. He looked down each hallways, seriously considering his options.
"Well, the path to the right is really short. So we could investigate that one really quick, and then when we are done we could try one of the others. We could use the coin then, right?"
"Sounds like a plan, little listener."
They went right, which was indeed a very short bit of hallway. The only thing of note there was a close up painting of a mug of coffee and a piece of cake.
"Is something like that a clue?" Izuku asked, looking at the painting.
"Maybe, maybe not. We won't know until we see more of this place, get some context." Aizawa said.
"Well, in either case, we got that bit out of the way and can decide where to go next." Hizashi said, bringing out his coin. "You wanna call it, Midoriya?"
"Ummm, tails for left, heads for forward." Izuku said.
Hizashi flipped the coin, caught it midair, and slapped it on the back of his hand. When he brought his other hand away the coin was showing tails. So, left it was.
Even from the intersection they could see that the hallway leading left turned right after a little while, and that there was a gray door at the midway point between the intersection and the turn. Shouta and Hizashi steered Izuku away from the door for now, wanting to get the lay of the land first.
"Seems kinda bare in here." Hizashi commented as they took the turn. "The other areas had art all over the place. Aside from that first room we've only seen one painting in here and- and I spoke too soon."
There were eyeballs on the floor. Without any warning or indication they were there, eyeballs the size of Izuku's head had appeared all over the floor. They couldn't see the whole of the eyeballs, because they were stuck in the floor, like the floor itself had grown them.
"We're going to go past them, but slowly and carefully. We don't know if they'll do anything if we get too close." Aizawa announced.
"Hopefully they'll be nice as long as we don't step on them." Izuku said. Instead of looking scared, as Hizashi and Shouta both feared he might be, he looked fascinated. The boy's own eyes kept darting around, like he was trying to take in every little detail at once.
"We should, heh, keep an eye on them as we go. Both for safety, and in case the number or color is a clue later. You just never know in a place like this."
They started forward. Izuku held his hand out to Hizashi, and the man didn't hesitate to take it. He hoped he wouldn't have to pull the kid out of the way of anything, but it was better to be prepared. Thankfully the eyes were spaced out far enough that they could weave a path through them without having to step over any of them. As he said he would, Hizashi counted the eyes as they went past, and couldn't help noticing that one of the eyes looked different.
"Hey Shouta, looks like we've got one eye here that can relate to you." Hizashi said with a laugh. The eye in question was red and dry, much unlike the clear ones all around them. Aizawa only graced him with a roll of his own eyes, but Hizashi counted that as a win.
Once they had gotten past the eyes and to the end of the hallway, the eyes disappeared into the floor once more.
"Stupid built in jump scares." Aizawa muttered to himself. More loudly he said "Looks like our 'left' path has officially rejoined with the 'forward' path."
The hallway had indeed turned once again, and going a short ways down it lead to another turn that allowed them to see the intersection they'd been originally standing in. The two pros started going down the hall, but paused when Izuku didn't start to follow them right away. He was busy staring up at a painting of a white snack that they had passed a few moments ago.
"Come on kid, told you not to get distracted." Aizawa reminded.
"Something's different about this painting though." Izuku said, tilting his head.
"What about it, little listener?"
"I'm not sure...but I remember seeing it before. I don't think it was in the gallery, but it was on the website my Mom showed me, the one that explained the exhibit and talked about the artist. I know it's the same picture, but it looks just a little different."
"Well, keep it in mind as we look around, and if it comes to you, let us know."
Izuku agreed to Aizawa's compromise, and continued following them. They soon discovered that the 'forward' hallway had another path branching off of it. It went off to their left, and another gray door stood just inside it. The hallway itself continued on before sharply turning left again. Once again ignoring the door for now, they continued down the path. The hallway narrowed a bit here, and at the very end of it was another painting with a goofy, moving face.
The background was black, and the face was drawn in light blue. The two eyes looked in different directions, and the lines coming off of the mouth gave the impression that it was drooling.
"ehehehe, hehehehe..." a low pitched giggle caused each of them to jump. Izuku took a step closer to Present Mic and both he and Eraserhead instinctively moved shield Izuku.
"Flowers...flowers're nice...gimme a flower and I'll let you through." The painting promised giddily.
The pros glanced at each other. Considering that the only flowers they had were their roses...
"No deal." Eraserhead said firmly.
"Come on, pretty please? hehehe..."
"Nope." Present Mic shook his head.
One of the painting's eyes shifted to the half hidden Izuku. "How about you, kid? I just wanna have a snifffff..." Izuku put his hand over his rose and hid further behind Present Mic.
"Come on, I just want 'em for a lil bit...eheheheh, hehehehe, hahahahaha, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Izuku covered his ears to block out the hysterical laugh. Present Mic pulled Izuku back down the hall, with Aizawa close behind them, throwing looks over his shoulder to make sure laughing was the only thing the painting was doing.
The sound of the laughter stopped when they found themselves back by the gray door they had seen when first taking this offshoot.
"That was one of the creepier things we've seen in here." Aizawa noted blandly. Izuku nodded vigorously.
"Well, let's look at the positive side of that...encounter." Hizashi said. "We didn't have a goal in mind for this area before, but we do now. We should be on the look out for spare flowers."
"He could have been lying about giving us a way out." Shouta pointed out.
"Maybe, but its the only clear clue we've gotten for this area so far. Might as well take it."
"Um," Izuku's voice drew the pair's attention. He fidgeted when both of them looked down at him "I remember that the bride from before had flowers. Does that help?"
Aizawa mulled that over, and then gave a small nod. "Maybe, we can't afford to dismiss anything as coincidence."
"Thanks for the reminder, little listener, we'll keep it in mind."
Hizashi smiled at the boy, who visibly relaxed and smiled back. "So what do we do now?"
"Time to explore the rooms, I suppose." Hizashi gestured to the gray door next to them. "Shall we?"
He marched up to the door. He took a cautious peak inside, then snorted and opened it wide. "Looks like the world's worst organized painting class."
It was a decent sized square room filled with stools and paint easels. Each easel had a canvas on it, and each canvas had detailed painting of a single drop of water at the center. It wasn't exactly messy, nothing was knocked over and everything looked very clean, it's just that there was so much stuffed into the room. Stools and easels had been placed haphazardly, and they were so close together that they wouldn't be able to walk around the room without moving them.
They started in on searching right away, the pros only stopping long enough to remind Izuku to stay near one of them. It didn't take long to search the room, despite the clutter there wasn't a lot of spaces to hide anything, and the thing they needed to find ended up sitting right out in the open. Aizawa was the one to spot it first.
"Well, this certainly looks familiar." Aizawa said, crouching down to examine the little bottle sitting on the stool.
"Why?" Izuku asked.
"Because I carry the same thing on me." he reached into his pants pocket and handed another little bottle over to Izuku.
"Eye drops." Izuku read off the label. "Oh! You said you're quirk is canceling out other people's quirks, right? Do you do that by looking at them? Is that why you carry around eye drops?"
Aizawa raised an eyebrow at him. "I carry eye drops because I have dry eye. Not everything has to do with quirks, kid."
"Okay...but does the dry eye interfere with your quirk?"
"...yes."
Izuku grinned.
"The point still stands." Aizawa grumbled.
"Speaking of points, it looks like the point of this room is for us to find the eye drops." Hizashi pointed out. "So we must need to use them on something, and I seem to recall seeing a very large, very dry eye not too long ago."
"Sounds like a good next step to take then."
Hizashi reached for the bottle, but was intercepted by Shouta. "If anyone is putting eye drops into a giant eye then it's gonna be the person that applies them everyday already."
"Well, yeah, but you've only ever used them on yourself, not someone else, so we should have the same amount of experience." Hizashi pointed out, following behind Aizawa as he and Izuku headed for the door.
"I assure you the same principle applies."
They went back to the hallway with all the eyes, which opened again as soon as they got close enough. Aizawa around the eyes until he was next to the dry one, and carefully applied a couple of drops. The eye vanished suddenly, only to appear again, as though it had blinked. When it reappeared the redness was gone. Then it started to move across the floor.
Aizawa quickly sidestepped, nearly hitting one of the other eyes in his haste to get out of the way. The eye continued to move until it was at the edge of the 'eye area', then moved over by the wall near where Izuku and Hizashi were waiting.
"It's staring at that part of the wall." Izuku noticed. Hizashi moved closer to examine it as Aizawa made his way back over to them.
"I didn't notice it before, but there's a section of wall right here a few feet wide that's just a little darker that the rest of the wall." Hizashi leaned forward further and pushed on it. The bit of wall swung inwards easily.
"Now if only the walls had done that when we tried to find the disappearing stairs earlier." Aizawa said. He carefully stepped over the eye and into the tiny room. The other two quickly followed. The little room was empty except for a small red gem sitting on the floor.
Izuku gasped when he saw it. "I remember now!" He tried to run forward, but was stopped by Aizawa grabbing his shoulders.
"Remember what we said about touching things?"
"Oh...right. I'm not supposed to touch things because they might be dangerous." He looked down, his face heating up in embarrassment. "I'm sorry."
Aizawa sighed, and Hizashi glanced at him before turning back to Izuku.
"It's okay, just remember to talk to us instead of rushing in." Hizashi gave Izuku a pat on the shoulder. "Now tell us what you remembered, you sure seemed excited about it."
"Oh yeah! I remember what was wrong with the snake picture. On the website it had a red eye, but in here the eyes was black. So maybe we're supposed to put the red rock into the snake eye."
Aizawa nodded. "Sounds like you've got a good memory for what you see, now you just have to extend it to what you're told."
Izuku looked up in surprise. Had Aizawa given him a compliment so soon after scolding him? It was a small one, but that still counted right?
Hizashi was the one to grab the red gem off the floor, and the one to place it into the eye of the snake painting. He half expected the snake to come to life when he put it in, and was ready to jump back if it did. And he did end up jumping back, just not for the reason he expected. When he placed the gem into the painting, it came loose from the wall and fell forward. He yelped and leaped back, but nothing else happened.
"You alright?" Shouta asked, coming forward to look things over.
"Oh sure, it's only my twentieth heart attack today, I'm sure I'll be fine."
Izuku giggled, and Shouta smirked as he crouched down to look at the back of the painting. "There's something written here, in English again. Looks like it says...'behind the big tree'."
"I don't remember seeing any trees in here." Izuku said.
"We saw some in an earlier part of the gallery, but that was a ways back, and no puzzle has ever asked us to leave the area we're already in to solve it." Hizashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"There's a door we haven't searched here yet. Maybe the it's referring to something in there."
Taking Aizawa's suggestion, they trooped back to the first door they had seen by the intersection.
Hizashi opened the door, and he and Aizawa stiffened. There was nothing immediately alarming about what they saw, it was just a long horizontal bit of hallway that had four openings along the opposite wall. But beyond those openings the pros could hear the familiar hissing of rogue artwork.
"What's wrong?" Izuku whispered, having caught onto how tense the adults had gotten.
"It sounds like there's something dangerous further in." Hizashi said.
"More painting ladies?" his voice trembled.
"Maybe, won't know for sure until we take a look." Aizawa said. He glanced at Hizashi. "You up for some stealth recon?"
"Not exactly my strength, which I'm sure you know," that made Aizawa snort "but I'll manage." Then he knelt down in front of Izuku. "We're gonna scout ahead and see what's roaming around, but you have an important job too."
"I do?"
"Yep, you've gotta stay here and keep an eye on the exit. We don't want anything sneaking up on us while we're in there, or anything getting out to attack us later. So if you see anything that isn't one of us, you yell so we can get back here and take care of it. You up for that?"
Izuku stared up at Present Mic with wide eyes while he spoke, hardly believing that a hero was trusting him with something like that. His eyes shone with determination when he nodded. "I'll do my best! You can count on me!"
"That's what I like to hear!" Hizashi held out his hand for a high five, and Izuku slapped it. With that they left Izuku on guard duty, and went through the opening furthest to the right.
"That was a good idea, keeping the kid out of the way with a job." Shouta said softly.
"No biggie, figured it'd be best for everyone. Sense of control helps everyone in weird or scary situations, and even if he's gaga over heroes he's just old enough that he's not gonna want us to wrap him in bubble wrap. This way he can participate and we don't have to worry about getting separated from him in here."
"Isn't he more separated from us this way?"
"Technically, but there was a word on the center of the first wall we saw in here. It said 'labyrinth', so I figure they'll be plenty of twists and turns in here, and I don't want to lose the kid around any of them. Especially if there's something lurking around."
"Speaking of lurking..." Shouta said lowly. He nodded his head toward an opening on their left. The hissing had grown louder, and they saw a black statue in a red dress lumber past.
"I'm never gonna be able to look at store mannequins the same way after this." Hizashi muttered.
They slowly made their way through the maze. Thankfully it didn't seem to be a very big maze, and there were only a few of the creepy statues moving around. Still, that was a few more statues than they would have liked to deal with. They found their first clue in a corner, which they didn't care for at all. Aizawa had to use his scarf to topple a statue for them to get out of the corner without losing any petals, which of course made sound that attracted the others. Soon they had to dodge a statue every time they turned a corner.
The clue had been an art easel that had 'look south of the red paint' written on it. They had noticed slashes of red paint on the floor as they were sneaking around, and had to back track to find them again. The first couple were a bust, but looking south of the third one revealed a hidden button. Which, of course, they pressed.
There was a distant rumbling noise. It agitated the roaming mannequins even more, and Aizawa had to rope another while Hizashi kicked one out of the way to get out of the maze. Their hearts nearly stopped when they didn't see anyone by the door.
"Midoriya!"
"Kid!"
They rushed forward, and almost smacked into Izuku when he opened the door. The sight of him stumbling through allowed their hearts to restart.
"I'm sorry! I heard a loud noise outside so I went out to make sure nothing was sneaking up like you said."
"It's okay, let's just get out of here before the statues decide the maze isn't good enough for them anymore." Mic urged.
They hurried out of the door and back into the hallway.
"I did find out what made the noise though." Izuku said. He pointed to the path that went to the right, the one that was empty save for one painting when they explored it. There was now a gray door there that matched the one they had just exited.
Hizashi narrowed his eyes at the new door. "There's a lot of things I don't care for in this place. Doors appearing in places they weren't before is now on that list. It's pretty low on the list, but it's still on the list."
Aizawa shook his head. "Let's get this over with."
They pushed open the door, and nothing seemed immediately threatening. It was a rectangular room with four different statues in it, thankfully none of them looked like mannequins. Though the multi-colored, kneeling skeleton statue was more than a little unsettling.
"Are you supposed to sit on this one?" Izuku asked, pointing at a work that looked like a giant wineglass with a cushion inside it, the top cut so that one might actually be able to climb in unassisted.
"Well, the title of it is 'Wine Sofa', so I suppose you could, but I wouldn't. Not even because of how dangerous the art can be here, it just doesn't look comfortable." Hizashi said, eyeing the bean bag cushion.
"I think it would be comfy."
"Yeah, but you're a kid. You can handle no lumbar support, but I'm old and need a decent backrest." Aizawa said. Hizashi looked scandalized.
"Shouta! How dare you call yourself old?! If you're old then I'm old and I refuse to be labeled as such!"
Izuku giggled. Hizashi's mouth fell open further.
"Midoriya! You don't think I'm old do you?"
"Uh...you're older than I am. Does that make you old?"
"No!"
"Yes."
"Shut up, Shouta."
Aizawa smirked. Hizashi scowled at him, and cast his eyes around for a subject change. His eyes landed on the statue furthest into the room.
"Hey, you suppose that tree statue counts as 'the big tree'?"
Aizawa still looked amused, but he followed Hizashi's lead over to the tree. As they got closer they saw there was something glittering near the base of the tree, and Aizawa knelt down to get a look at it.
"It's a ring." He said, picking it up the silver band to show it off to Hizashi. The man put his hands over his heart and struck a surprised pose.
"Why Shouta! It's beautiful, but you already gave me a ring."
Aizawa rolled his eyes, but Hizashi could see the slight curve of his lips. Izuku looked confused.
"Did Mr. Aizawa give you a different ring?"
"He most certainly did, and it's very pretty!" Hizashi said, showing off his hand to Izuku. The boy looked closely at his hand, and saw a thin, black ring with little sparkly stones set into the middle of the band.
"I like it! Does it mean you guys are married?"
"Yep. We're trying to keep it quiet so the media stays away though, so mums the word, okay?" Hizashi held up a finger to his lips, and Izuku nodded and did the same.
"On that note," Aizawa interrupted "if the ring from the tree means the same as our rings, then I have an idea of what to do with it."
They trooped out of the room and went back to the first gray room, the one with the sad bride and groom and grasping hands. Aizawa leaned down and read the plaques by the hands.
"This says these are supposed to be the bride's hands. So if I'm remembering the rules for this type of wedding right..." Aizawa took the silver ring and slipped it onto the left hand's ring finger. There was a gasp behind him, and Aizawa turned to see Izuku pointing at the paintings.
"We did it! The bride is happy now, and so is the groom!"
Indeed, the bride and groom now wore happy smiles, and as they watched, the painting of the bride threw her bouquet up and out of the frame. A moment later, an identical bouquet fell from the ceiling and next to the left hand.
Aizawa looked up in confusion. "Where did that come from?"
"I don't know, but I do know exactly what to do with these." Hizashi said, scooping up the bouquet. "Who wants to visit that flower crazy painting again?"
Based on the flat look he received from both of his companions, the answer was 'no one'. Still, it was the only thing they could think to do with the bouquet, so back to the flower fiend they went.
"Ehehehe, you got flowers for me? Do ya?"
"Yep." Hizashi said, holding out the bundle. Aizawa stood at the ready behind him, and Izuku hid behind Aizawa. Hizashi took small steps forward, until the bouquet was pressed against the face's surface.
"Ehehehe, thanks...it smells nice...eheheh."
Izuku tilted his head. Had the painting been telling the truth when it said it just wanted to smell the flowers?
"Well, chow time!"
The painting turned violent shade of red. A tearing sound filled the air and the flowers were ripped to shreds. Izuku squeaked in fright and took a step back.
"Ahhh, that was good...eheheh. Thank you, thanks so much..."
"...you're welcome..." Hizashi said faintly.
"As promised, you can go through. Just take the door in...see ya...ehehehe!"
With that, the face disappeared, and the frame instead became a dark opening in the wall.
"Well, that happened." Aizawa said, sounding even more tired than normal. Hizashi and Izuku didn't reply. "You two okay?"
"Y-yeah, just needed a moment." Hizashi said, dropping what little was left of the bouquet.
"He was creepy." Izuku said in a small voice.
"That he was little listener. Let's get out of here so we can get back home and forget all about him."
Keeping Izuku in the middle, the little group climbed through the opening and into the next area.
"Okay, forget about crazy flower guy, this place is a lot creepier." Hizashi declared.
"But it's just a bunch of mannequins heads...right?" Izuku asked tentatively.
They had entered a long hallway, lined with identical white mannequin heads on each side. They all faced the center of the hallway, meaning that every mannequin head would stare at whoever walked down the hallway. There were also three paintings of a white, round face on the walls, each of them with their eyes in a different position.
"Mannequins are, and always have been creepy. Putting them in a setting like this just makes it worse. Plus, I'm pretty sure those paintings' eyes are following me..."
"Didn't you once tell me that it was the mark of a great portrait was if it looked like the eyes were always looking back at you?" Aizawa asked, trying and failing to sound innocent.
"Ha! I knew you were actually listening during that lecture. You were only pretending to be asleep!"
Despite the atmosphere, the exchange between the two pros made Izuku smile. They still walked quickly through the hallway though, not wanting to stay here longer than needed, and kept a wary eye on their surroundings. Thankfully, the door at the end was unlocked, and they soon found themselves in a new area.