Izuku insisted on being the one to open the door to the next area. He did so carefully, just like he'd seen Mr. Aizawa and Mr. Mic do countless times. When nothing jumped out to attack them, Izuku opened the door all the way and he and Mary stepped inside.

The first thing Izuku noticed was that the room was big; he couldn't even see all of it from where he was standing. The second was that the floor had light brown carpet and the walls were now dark brown.

"We'd better take a look around, make sure there aren't any mean statues or painting ladies anywhere." Izuku said. Mary nodded.

"Good idea."

There was already two doors in their immediate area. One was on the upper wall next to a painting of a fisherman with his line in the water, and the one on the lower wall didn't have anything any painting nearby it. However, just past the lower door was the opening to a short hallway that had...something occupying it. Izuku wasn't sure if it was mist or smoke or some kind of gas, all he could tell was that it was red and drifting up from the floor. Thankfully something seemed to be preventing it from spreading through the rest of the room, but that didn't mean he wanted to get any closer to it. One look at Mary showed she felt the same, and they skirted along the opposite wall to keep far away from it.

The next sight was much more welcome. There was a small table with a vase of water sitting out in the main area of the room.

"Yay!" Mary cheered. "Now even if we find something scary we'll have this to help us out."

Izuku smiled and agreed with her. He did eye the painting across the way from the vase a bit suspiciously, it displayed a pair of bright red lips. Mr. Mic had mentioned another creepy pair of lips at one point, and then there was that face painting that ate up those flowers like an industrial mulch machine. Izuku made a point of staying away from it as they explored.

On the farthest side of the room were another two doors, once again with one on the upper wall and another on the lower wall.

"Well, it's big, but not as confusing as some of the other rooms, since it's really just a big rectangle." Izuku decided.

"So it's really just a big rectangle huh? At least the lay out is simpler than some of the other areas." Hizashi said.

After leaving the creepy doll the heroes had made a sweep of the room. If there was a home for creepy dolls somewhere around here it would be good to try and figure out where it was, to hopefully avoid it, and it never hurt to get the lay of the land. There were three doors on the 'upper' wall and one on the lower wall. The floor space was mostly dominated by a standalone room, which was more toward the left side of the room, and on the right there was a random section of wall with a few paintings on it. Plus, thankfully, there was one water filled vase stashed into the upper corner.

"Hey, look at this." Aizawa said, noticing something a bit off with one of the paintings. The subject of the paintings was what looked like a circus performer juggling a colorful set of balls, and was appropriately named 'Juggling'. What was curious about it was that there was something written along the bottom of the frame.

The words 'What year was I born?' were carved into the wood, and after them was four zeros. On closer inspection, the zeros could be turned to show different numbers.

"You suppose it means when the painting was made? Or does 'born' mean it must be the person in the painting?" Hizashi wondered.

"No clue." Aizawa said. "Not yet at least, hopefully something around here will help us narrow it down.

After the general sweep, it was time to start investigating rooms, or try to anyway. They started with the the doors on the 'upper' wall, and on the right side since they were already in the area. The right most door was next to a painting that showed nothing but clear water and had a line and hook that extended past the frame. It reminded Hizashi of the room where they found their very first colored key, the one that had the woman's hair coming out of the frame. It made him wary as he stepped forward to try the door, but this time his fears were unfounded. Nothing happened with the painting, and the right most door proved to be locked.

The middle door had a simplistic painting of a tree over it, one that looked like it had been painted directly onto the wall rather than a canvas. This room was also locked.

"Hope the gallery doesn't work on baseball rules, because if we luck out with the next one then we'll have three strikes." Hizashi joked.

"Well, if three strikes means 'you're out' then shouldn't we hope for that?" Aizawa challenged. Hizashi shook his head.

"Somehow I don't think this place would interpret that rule so generously."

"Probably not."

It didn't matter either way, as the left door was unlocked. The room they walked into was a small one. There were seven empty pedestals taking up the floor space, arranged into the shape of a triangle. On the wall across from them there was a painting of an artist's color palette, and there was a plaque underneath it.

"Collect the seven balls of paint. Then the room will be colored and your bridge will be made." Hizashi read. He frowned in confusion, and looked around the room. "Weird, this place seems plenty colorful to me already."

"Whoa, where did all the color go?"

Mary and Izuku had decided to explore the part of the room farthest from their entrance, and had started with the door on the upper wall. Mary said that sentence as soon as they stepped into the room, and Izuku found himself wondering the same thing. Stepping into this room felt like stepping into an old black and white photograph.

There was a stool and art easel set up just to the side of them, which overlooked the gaping hole in the center of the room. On the other side of the hole was a pedestal with something on it; it looked like a key but he couldn't be sure from this distance. The pedestal was white, the hole black, and everything else was in shades of gray.

"How are we supposed to make it all the way over there?" Mary wondered, frowning at the other side of the room like the distance personally offended her.

"I guess we gotta do something first. No way we could jump across it." No amount of running start would make them able to do that. He went over to get a closer look at the easel, to see if it held any clues, but stopped short. He hadn't noticed before, but it wasn't just a stool and easel. There was also a color palette and brush, which hung suspended in midair. They were placed in just the right way that Izuku could imagine the artist sitting there, holding them in place as he decided where to place his next brush stroke. There was clearly no on there...yet the longer Izuku looked at it the more he felt like there might be something looking back at him.

"Izuku?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin, but started to calm down when he heard a familiar giggling.

"Geez you really are a scaredy cat." Mary teased. "What were you looking at anyway?"

"Am not." Izuku protested weakly. "And I was looking to see if the easel was a clue."

"Oh, good idea." Mary took a couple steps past him and leaned over to see the easel, seemingly unbothered by whatever strange presence had disturbed Izuku. "Mmmmm, don't think it is, it's just more gray stuff."

Izuku stood on his tiptoes so he could see the easel without getting any closer. She was right, it was just stripes made with different shades of gray.

With nothing else to do in that room, the kids exited and headed for the door on the lower wall. But getting into this room wasn't as easy as the last. The doorknob didn't turn when they tried it, which prompted them to take a closer look at the door itself. There was a painting in the middle of it, one of a starry night sky and a couple of dark hills, and there was something written across the bottom of the frame. Just below the painting itself was a plaque with multiple lines of letters. Although he couldn't read them well, it still made Izuku think of a pop quiz.

"What's it say?" Izuku asked. Mary leaned in a little closer, and her mouth moved a bit as she read.

"Oh, it wants the name of the painting. Which is great because I know this one! It's called Marvelous Night!" she declared proudly. She pressed her hand against one of the possible answers, and she must have gotten in right, because Izuku heard the familiar click of a door being unlocked.

"Good job!" Izuku said, giving her a thumbs up. Mary grinned and copied him.

This room was much more normal than the last, and much smaller too. There were two bookshelves placed against the farthest wall, with a little bit of space left at the end.

"Well, I guess we'll just have a look at the books then." Izuku said.

"More like I will, since you can't read so good." Mary pointed out.

"Oh, right."

"That's okay though, I'll just read them aloud."

Izuku felt caught between gratitude and embarrassment, but thanked her anyway. They started pulling on books to see which ones would come out, and Mary stumbled across the first accessible one.

"The title is 'A Child's Demise'." Mary read aloud. She frowned when the words sunk in. She opened it and started reading without another word, and the frown only deepened.

"What is it?" he asked. Mary looked at him for a moment, then closed the book and put it back.

"Just some dumb story. I'm gonna look for something more useful."

She went to search a little further down, and Izuku sneaked the book back off the shelf and opened it quietly. Not because he didn't trust her, but because he was annoyed. She'd just said she would read stuff aloud for him, and then she put the first thing they found away without doing that. He quickly scanned the pages. There were a lot of words he didn't know, but he recognized some. Words like 'parents', 'child', 'lost', 'hungry', and 'hurt'. At the end of the story was a drawing of a child laying on the ground. Izuku couldn't tell if the kid was supposed to be unconscious or dead, and he wondered if he had looked like that when Mr Mic and Mr Aizawa had found him.

'Another thing just trying to scare us? Is that why Mary didn't read it? Was she trying to protect me?' Izuku wondered.

"Found another one!" Mary's exclamation had him hastening to put the book back. Thankfully she seemed not to notice as she flipped the book open. "It's got stuff about some of Guertena's paintings in it." she cleared her throat and read in a loud voice:

"Paining #6223- Juggling: A work based on a juggler he saw at the circus with his grandchild. As it is extremely rare for Guertena to use real people as models, this piece is highly valuable."

She flipped the book around to show him, and he took in the sight of a man in a colorful outfit juggling a bunch of balls while sitting on a unicycle. It did look like something you'd see at a circus, but Izuku was too distracted by the other page to enjoy it.

"Isn't that a painting lady?" he asked, pointing at the page. Mary nodded, and turned it around so she could read the caption

"Painting #6210- The Lady in Red: It was said that he based this on a lover he had at the time, but he has denied this claim. In truth Guertenta based it around the women who attempted to court him for his inheritance."

Mary frowned once she was done reading, and looked at Izuku. "You think that's why their so mean to the people who enter the gallery?"

"Maybe? I guess it would kind of make sense...if he only thought about bad stuff when he painted them then maybe that got...put into them somehow?"

Mary nodded in agreement as she closed the book and returned it to the shelf. She started looking over it again, and Izuku wandered to the end of the shelves. He started pulling on random books, hoping to find something else for Mary to read, when something caught his eye.

"Hey Mary, look at this."

The bookshelves cast a shadow on the bit of wall next to them, and in that shadow was a simple painting of a tree. It didn't have any frame, it was painted directly onto the wall, which was why it blended in as much as it did.

"You think it's a clue?" she asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Maybe." He squinted at it. He couldn't see how a tree could be dangerous. Even if it came to life, it would still be just a tree right? So it should be safe to get a closer look. He leaned in close.

"There's a hole in the middle of the trunk. It looks like the ones you see on old doors, the ones that had big keys."

"We don't have a key though."

"Did you find anything more in the books?"

"Nope, and I checked them all."

"Then I guess it must be in another room."

The heroes now had a plan. Well, less of a plan and more of a general goal, but that's still more than they had before. They had balls of paint to find, and a whole mess of rooms to search for them in, assuming they could get any of the others to open.

"Oh hey! I think I see something!" Hizashi cried as soon as they were out of the pedestal room. He jogged over to a yellow blob that stood out against the violet carpet not far away. "Yep, looks like a paintball to me."

"That seems suspiciously easy." Shouta noted.

"Well, it's only one, and there are six more to find." Hizashi crouched down and picked up the ball. He only had it in his hand for a second before it suddenly made a 'pop' sound and vanished. "Huh? What the heck was that?" He turned his hand over, then looked around himself. No sign of it.

"Found it." Shouta said. Hizashi looked up and saw his husband pointing into the room they had just left. He got up and joined him, and saw that the yellow paintball was now sitting on one of the pedestals.

"Well, isn't that handy."

"Yeah, even if we're incapacitated the paint will still show up here."

"Ever the optimist, huh Shouta?"

"You're already an optimist. If I was too then things would be unbalanced."

Hizashi rolled his eyes at the age old back and fourth, and started on another sweep of the room. Shouta joined him of course, hiding his smirk in his scarf. Unfortunately, no more paintballs had miraculously appeared on the floor.

"Guess we get one freebie and have to work for the rest." Hizashi surmised.

"I'm surprised it gave us that first one so easily." Shouta admitted.

They tried the two upper doors again, and found they were still locked. The stand alone room was also locked, which meant the only option for further exploring was the lower door near the juggling painting. Aizawa opened the door, and immediately jumped back.

There was a thick red haze inside the room. The color change had surprised him, and he jumped back when he realized that it wasn't due to the walls or floor, but because of something wafting through the air. On instinct, he threw his capture weapon out, twisting it so it snagged the handle, and yanked the door shut from a distance.

"What the heck was that?" Hizashi asked.

"No idea, but it didn't look pleasant."

"No kidding. You okay? No burning in the lungs?"

"No, but I don't think I breathed any of it in." Shouta frowned. "Which is odd, isn't it? The air being disturbed by the door opening should have pushed some of that stuff out."

"Yeah, that is weird." Hizashi could recall a training exercise back from his school days where he had been up against Nemuri, now known as Midnight. She'd filled a whole room with her sleeping gas, and managed to trick him into going inside. He'd been out almost as soon as he opened the door. "Let's try it again, slowly, and see if any wafts out."

None of it did. They could stand at the threshold of the door and none the red gas billowed over them. Hizashi tentatively put his hand through the door, and found there was no barrier.

"Not sure how that works, but that goes for most of the stuff in here. At least we don't have to worry about this stuff spreading into here."

"Right." Shouta peered through the door as best he could without actually entering the room. The door stood at one corner, and it looked like there was a table and vase in the corner across from them, but he couldn't tell if there was water in it. He couldn't clearly see what was in the other two corners from here, but he could see a small ball on the floor between the door and the vase.

"Think that's one of the paintballs?" Hizashi asked, following his gaze.

"Probably."

"Think you could grab it with your capture weapon?"

"Maybe, but that could break it, and gallery might not like that. Besides, it's not too far. I can hold my breath for that long."

Hizashi chuckled "Yeah, that's one upside of having to go up against Nemuri so much, you learn to make the best of your lung capacity."

Shouta insisted on being the one to make the plunge, since his capture weapon could work as an extra layer of protection by wrapping it around his head. This turned out to be a good thing, because stepping into the room burned. His skin felt too hot and prickly and the edges of his eyes burned fiercely, but he was used to the second part. He went as quickly as he could, and snatched the paintball in a few quick strides. He forced himself to look past the burning to take in something about the rest of the room, and registered a pull chord and an umbrella before launching himself back out.

He gasped when he passed the door, thankful for whatever force was keeping the haze back. He looked down just in time to see the violet paintball disappear, then Hizashi was there guiding him toward the flower vase. He tried to protest, saying he was fine. Hizashi just shook his head, and pointed back at the door. Shouta looked, more slowly than he felt he should have, and saw clear line of black rose petals extending from the door to where the paintball had been. Ah, no wonder he felt sort of out of it. He let Hizashi help him without further complaint.

Izuku and Mary had just two doors to inspect now. That quickly went down to one door as they found that the upper door by the fisherman painting was locked. That left them with the lower door right across from it.

The room seemed innocuous enough when they opened the door. Sure, there were some creepy looking mannequin heads sitting on tables along the walls, but Izuku figured that wasn't so bad. Outside of giving them a scare one time, the only thing the heads had ever done was watch them. There are three in total, each sitting on a rectangular table.

"Oh my." Mary walked a ways in and crouched so she could look one of the heads in the eyes. "Have you seen any of these before?"

"Some. They've never tried to hurt us though."

"Oh, that's good." she tilted her head. "Do you think they have bodies somewhere?"

"Um, I don't know." now he couldn't help but wonder if the headless statues and the mannequin heads were somehow related "Either way, we should still be careful."

Izuku walked up to join her, which is when he noticed one more artwork in the room. It was a painting the hung on the same wall as the door, and showed the silhouette of a woman against a white background.

"Hey Mary, can you read the title of that one?"

She stopped her staring contest with the mannequin head and crouched in front of the painting instead.

"It says 'Lady without an Umbrella'." Mary reported.

'Huh, that's an oddly specific title.' Izuku thought to himself. He was distracted from this thought when he caught sight of something sitting on the table furthest from the door, something other than a mannequin head. He went over to the table, and found that it was a key. It was big and old fashioned, and the top looked just like the painted tree they had found. It was just, sitting there, without any puzzle to guard it or anything.

'I know Mr. Mic said they found keys just laying around before, but it still seems a little too easy.'

CRASH!

Izuku nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled toward the noise. Mary was leaning against the middle table. The mannequin head that had once occupied it now lay shattered on the ground. Before either of them could say anything, that strange red gas burst up from the floor at Mary's feet. She stumbled back in surprise, and started coughing harshly.

"Mary!" Izuku had to remind himself not to run through the gas in his hurry to get to her. "Mary are you okay?" He grabbed her shoulders to keep her steady, as she coughed again.

"I, ugh, I'm okay, just try not to breathe that stuff. It's really gross."

Izuku didn't relax until he glanced at her rose, and saw that it was fine. No sign of having lost any petals.

"What happened?" He asked. Mary winced slightly, and hunched in on herself.

"I'm sorry, I know you said to be careful, but I thought I saw their eyes move and wanted to figure out what they were looking at. When I got closer I tripped, and when I tried to grab the table I accidentally knocked it off."

Izuku suddenly didn't feel quite so good about being in this room. The heads hadn't hurt them before, but they'd never hurt them before either.

"W-well, that's, um, not good. But it was an accident. Uh, we should probably just get that key and get out. And apologize before we go."

Mary was agreeable to this plan. She knelt down and directed some contrite murmurs at the shards of the head, making sure to keep out of range of the red haze now hanging in the air. Izuku skirted around it himself as he went to pick up the tree key. He looked uncertainly at the head beside it, and tried to tell himself Mary was just imagining the eyes moving.

"Um, we're really sorry that your friend got hurt. We didn't mean too, honest, and we promise not to do it again. So, if it's okay with you, we're gonna take this key and go."

The head offered no reply or movement, and Izuku hoped that meant it wasn't angry.

"What was that?" Hizashi asked, staring into the red haze room.

Shouta's rose was once again full and blooming after a dip in the vase. However, now they had the problem of trying to decide what to do. They had just used up the vase available to them, but there was still more to explore among the red haze. They had been in the middle of an argument over how far they could risk going in now, and which of them would be doing it, when a loud thump sounded over their heads.

"Sounded like our upstairs neighbors in the early mornings." Shouta observed.

"Upstairs...could that have been the kids?"

"Possibly, they were above us in that other room. If they ended up moving on from there, they could be above us now."

Hizashi sighed "They just can't stay put! Still, if they are exploring a new area, they might have found something we could use." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Shouta looked skeptical.

"If we want to know what they've found then we'd have to get them to go back to that room we all spoke in before. How are we supposed to communicate that? They probably don't even know we're below them still."

Hizashi grinned, then dropped down the floor. "I have an idea about that."

"Oh boy..."

Izuku had lead Mary out of the room once they grabbed the key and made their apologies. Upon seeing that numerous mannequin heads had now spawned in the main room while they were gone, he wasn't so sure that the apologies had been accepted.

"Maybe they're just...keeping a really close watch now." Mary ventured hesitantly. "To make sure we keep our promise."

'I sure hope you're right.' he gulped nervously. "E-either way, we have this key now, so-"

thump

Izuku and Mary both startled at the sound, and the slight vibration that went through their feet.

Thump thump thud thump thwack

"Is there something in the floor?!" Mary anxiously switched from standing on one foot, then the other, in a vain attempt to get away from the sound.

"I don't know..." Izuku frowned. There was something familiar about that pattern. After a short break of silence, the noises started again. They came in the same exact pattern as before, and a light turned on in Izuku's brain.

"That's the opening beat to Mr. Mic's show!"

"The what?"

"Mr. Mic has a radio show he does when he's not out on patrol. The intro to it always starts with those beats."

Mary slowly put her foot down. "Okay...so, what does that mean?"

Izuku put a hand to his chin. "Mr. Mic and Mr. Aizawa were able to talk to us through that hole before...maybe they're still below us and trying to send a message."

"What message? And how do we even reply?"

"Well, if we can hear them through the floor, they can probably hear us through the ceiling."

"Dare I ask how you acquired this skill? And with shoes no less?"

Hizashi grinned at Shouta, one shoe in each hand. "I went through a phase of communicating with a neighbor via tapping on a wall. The shoe thing is pretty new though, you should praise my ingenuity."

Shouta did the polite clap he saved for dreaded public functions, which only made Hizashi grin wider. He hefted his shoes, ready to throw them at the ceiling again, when it started thumping instead. It relayed the same beat that Hizashi had just done.

"We have achieved communication!" Hizashi cheered. Something in Shouta relaxed a bit, knowing the kids were well enough to understand and respond to their call.

After it was done, Hizashi threw his shoes again, this time in the short ending beat of his show.

"Here's hoping the kids can figure out what we want." Shouta said.

It turned out, they did. When the heroes got back to the room without a ceiling, they called up, and Izuku and Mary's voices called back down to them.

"Great job, little listeners!" Hizashi called.

"Izuku figured it out. Then he told me how to jump to make the best sound. It was fun!" Mary relayed cheerfully.

"You've both done a good job." Aizawa acknowledged. "Now, I think we need to exchange information if any of us hope to get out of here. You guys left that room, so what did you find?"

After a bit of back and forth, it wasn't hard to parse out the connections between the two rooms: The colorless room above, and the gathering of colors for a bridge below. The fisherman painting in the upper room, and the fishing line below it. The tree key above and the door with a painted tree below. The upper room that had now red haze leaking into from the room below it, one having an umbrella and one missing it. The heroes asked about any information on the Juggling painting, and Izuku was able to recall the painting number that had been listed for it.

The described incident with the mannequin heads was worrying of course, but there wasn't much the heroes could do about it. Instead, they made a plan for how to move forward, and a signal for if they needed to get together and talk again.

When they each got back to their areas, they started with their respective 'red haze' rooms. Aizawa made a quick dash to get the umbrella, using his capture weapon to grab it and accrue minimal damage. Hizashi attached it to the fishing line, and it reeled up into the painting and out of sight. Izuku volunteered to reach into the fisherman painting and grab the umbrella, and was the one to offer it to the 'Lady without an Umbrella' painting. The red umbrella was absorbed inside, and the two kids ran back out with a shriek of surprise as it started raining inside the room.

They stomped around to let the heroes know they were done, and to shake off some of the water. The pros looked into the red haze room to see if anything had changed, and saw that water was dripping from the floor above, and into the flower vase inside the room.

"Looks like I should be able to get in there and use the vase to get to the corner of the room." Hizashi said. "And yes, Shouta, I said I. You've already been in twice, and I have more petals to lose so it's my turn!"

He pulled his shirt up over his nose, as a little extra protection, before rushing in. He reached the vase, used it on his wilting rose, and then rushed to the corner, where he found a pull chord. He yanked on it, and the red haze instantly vanished, much to his relief.

"Hizashi?" Shouta came into the room once it was cleared.

"I'm fine. Well, mostly fine. Glad we waited until we contacted the kids to try that, because no way were we gonna get this far in without a pick me up. Whatever that stuff is, it's intense. Hope Mary's okay after getting a face full of it."

"She sounded fine. Cheerful even."

"Yeah, hopefully that's a good sign. Let's go see if anything else changed."

Nothing had. The other rooms were still locked, so the pros signaled the kids to try the next thing.

Up above, Mary used pushed the tree key into the proper spot and turned it. Once it gave a satisfying click, they stomped to show their progress again.

"We could make our own language like this! We should try it sometime!" Mary bounced excitedly.

"Morse code is kinda similar, so it might be easier just to learn that."

"I guess, but making up your own is more fun. So what do we do now?"

"Well, that's all we can do up here. So I guess we just wait until something changes here, or they signal they want to talk again."

"Okay. Wanna go see that black and white room again? It would probably be the first thing to change."

"Good idea."

Izuku followed Mary out of the room.

While the pros waited for the kids to use the tree key, they entered the four digit number Izuku had given them into the 'Juggling' painting. It must have been the right one, because they were rewarded with a blue paintball.

Then there was stomping from above, and they could hear something shifting from the direction of the tree door. They approached cautiously, and found that the knob was now willing to turn. When they opened it, they were once again faced with a number of book shelves.

"I'm starting to think Guertena must have been an avid reader for so many books to make their way in here. No way this many were written about him." Hizashi mused.

"They might not have been written about him exclusively. He was probably referenced a lot." Shouta pointed out.

The room was divided into two halves, each with four bookshelves. The left side had a painting of an eye, and the right a painting of an ear. By the room divider sat a red paintball, which Hizashi was quick to pick up. After it vanished, they each went to a side and started looking. Shouta took the left side, and pulled on book spines until one came out. Fittingly enough, it was called 'The Essentials of Color'. He pulled it off the shelf, and a green paintball rolled out of the space it had been occupying.

"I got one." Shouta called, picking it up. "You find anything yet?"

There was several seconds of silence.

"Hizashi?"

When he got no reply again, Shouta put the book back and started to go to the other side of the room. When he turned corner at the divider, he almost ran into Hizashi. Shouta was about to reprimand him for not saying anything, when he registered how pale his husband was.

"Hizashi? What happened?"

"I think we have a big problem." he said, his voice strained.

"What kind of problem?"

Hizashi beckoned him over, and held up a book. The cover declared it to be another one containing the collected works of Guertena. He let the book fall open, then turned it to face Shouta. The image displayed on the page made the breath catch in his throat.

It depicted a young girl, with familiar blonde hair and blue eyes, and a long sleeved green dress. It was a painting of Mary, framed by thorny vines and yellow rose blossoms. She stood with her hands folded in front of her, and smiled warmly out at the viewer. It was done in such fine detail that it could have been a photograph of her.

"I..." Shouta struggled for words. It could be a trick, another thing to scare them or make them turn on each other. But even though Hizashi fell into jump scares easily, he wasn't the type to jump to conclusions. "I'm...guessing there's a reason that you don't think this might just be another trick of the gallery? Or that Mary might have been used as a model at one point?"

"I can't be sure it isn't a trick, but the caption really suggests it's not other option."

Aizawa leaned in a bit closer, and read the words printed below the picture.

"The last work of Guertena's life. While the girl appears almost lifelike she is not based off of a real person."

Not based off of a real person. The idea bounced around in Shouta's head. Was the cheerful girl truly not real? Could Mary actually belong in this world, this gallery? Little things came to the forefront of Shouta's mind: how ignorant Mary seemed of some common place things, how quickly she'd latched onto Izuku, how she reacted to what Izuku had seen as rabbits, how she'd grabbed Izuku's hand and jumped away from them when the stone vines appeared. Not to mention the circumstances of their first meeting. Suddenly, all of it could be viewed in a much different light.

"I don't know for sure what this means." Hizashi said, uncharacteristically grave. "But we need to find out as soon as possible. Because if she is a painting, and Izuku is alone with her..."

Shouta's fists tightened. Unbidden, another line they'd read here came to mind: 'The women here love playing loves me loves me not.'

"Come on. We need to see if anything has changed, and press forward until we find them."

They put the book back and headed for the door, determination and fear blazing in them stronger than ever before. They were so caught up in it, that they didn't notice that ear painting had started twitching.