Chapter 12
"That One Filler Episode: The Bathman"
It was a relief to get her suit, and with a spare on the way, into her hands. Even if she had to risk some of Aizawa's wrath, by avoiding Hatsume, to pick it up. Though she had told Midoriya that she still wanted to work with him in that extra gym time he had, she realized after the last visit that it was time approved by All Might, and that was why he had the space every evening.
Heading back to the dorms in a normal way, with other people, she overhead Kirishima as he ran over, pale as a white paper sheet, walking a little awkwardly as he tried to relax. Bakugo didn't question him, but Alarice wasn't the only one to notice that he was acting a little on the weird side.
Kirishima kept what he'd seen when he went to do a single good deed to himself, heading right up to his dorm room to wash his face and start forgetting as soon as possible. Except, there was a gentle knocking on his door as soon as he splashed water on his face. "Hang on!"
Mina was there, notably alone, when he opened the door. "Hey, you okay, Eijiro?"
The red headed boy paused for a second, before motioning for her to come in, "listen, Mina... I got something to tell you."
Mina nodded as she came in.
"I think...I um...saw something, in one of the general studies classrooms." He looked away, scratching the back of his head anxiously. Mina waited for him to finish explaining what 'something' was. "I don't...really know what it was but it...kinda looked like a student."
"Kinda looked like a student?"
"Yeah..."
He paused for a long moment, thinking about what to say next to her, "Mina I think I saw a ghost."
The pair shared a long quiet moment to let that sink in, before Kirishima could feel the light in Mina's darkened sclera. "That's so cool!"
"It wasn't as fun as I thought it would ever be to see one," Kirishima hanging his head down for a second; Mina's excitement grew. "It just kinda looked at me, but it looked short enough that it was maybe a student at one point..."
"Kirishima, do you know what this means?" Mina was still going strong on the energy of his revelation to her. He couldn't really blame her, and her energy was starting to get him to buck up about his encounter. The pair enjoyed watching the occasional ghost show, not intentionally together, but they started making it a thing to do since no one else seemed wildly interested in the shows. Still, seeing something like that was a lot scarier than he thought it would be.
"Our school has a ghost in it?"
"It means we get to go on a ghost hunt!"
"Except that it was in the main building, which gets locked at up at night, so we'd have to sneak in if we wanted to do a 'proper' ghost hunt, Mina." Kirishima pointed out, and her hand immediately went to her chin. She made a thoughtful noise.
"Yeah, and we don't have anything, except our phones, to do any kind of ghost hunting with..." she let out a slightly disappointed sigh and folded her arms over her chest again. Kirishima just gave her a slightly twisted frown, she noticed and apologized. "Sorry, it's just that this the first time we might get to do a ghost hunt."
Kirishima looked at his friend for a moment, prolonging the silence before finally smiling, and nodding. "I bet we could hang back a bit after class tomorrow and try. If you're serious, anyway"
"Of course, I'm serious!" Mina exclaimed, an excited, infectious smile on her face that Kirishima eventually imitated in full, shark-tooth glory.
The end of the school day had the pair of them making some excuse to Iida about some chore or what-not, before finding a space to hang back reasonably till they could sneak into the haunted classroom. Getting a confused look from the last general studies student they saw.
As the sky turned purple the pair, hiding in said classroom took out their phones, turning on the cameras to record any ghostly activity. Thumbs hovering just above the record button as they crouched.
"He was right there," Kirishima whispered, pointing to the desk right by the window, "maybe he'll re-appear right there again."
Mina nodded and waited in eerie silence for the apparition to re-appear. "Maybe we should try talking to it? You know, like for EVP stuff?" Mina suggested in a whisper.
"If there's anyone here, could you give us a sign?" Kirishima called, as loudly as he dared, into the rooms silence. Waiting made the air feel heavy, he felt himself and Mina try to quiet their breaths, straining for any sound in the room. They swept the phones over the room, trying to catch any sign of their prey, but nothing was there.
Kirishima swallowed hard.
Nothing.
Mina shifted, making her own plea,"We just want to know if you're there."
Still nothing, just the dull sound of the building around them as the air conditioning turned back on again.
Footsteps in the hall forced them to keep even more silent.
The sky was now becoming quite dark, and they'd have to leave soon, since they didn't have a plan for staying till dark in the school building. Not to mention, UA security would likely catch them.
Suddenly, the chair nearest them scooted forward, almost touching Mina's leg. The pink girl sucked in air like she'd been dropped into cold water suddenly. Kirishima felt like every hair on his body was suddenly standing straight up. Before either could say anything, they bolted from the room, forgetting playing it safe and high tailing back to the dorms.
Being stopped at the stairs by Sero who was coming in from a walk he'd taken. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised that you two are together huh?" He teased, flashing them a wide smile.
Kirishima frowned at Sero, Mina quickly hid any flush in her face, before countering first. "Don't be a pervert Sero! We weren't doing anything like that."
The other boy chuckled at her. Waving his hand at her casually as if to brush away the excuse. "Mhmm, sure. Well, I promise I won't tell, or anything like that. "
"She's right, we were uh..." Kirishima balked at the idea of admitting the truth of what they were doing, then decided it was better to admit the childishness then let Mina's honor take a hit, "We were ghost hunting."
Sero looked at them confused, then seemed to start to smirk again.
"We were! Look!" Mina hissed angrily, then tried to find her video on her phone, prompting Kirishima to vocally agree too, and pull up his phone video. The pair hastily pulling up the last videos they took.
"Mine didn't catch anything..." Kirishima said downcast, forgetting the accusations at the loss of no proof. Mina let out a noise of frustration. She'd barely caught the chair toward her leg. She thrust it at Sero regardless, who looked at the video wide eyed, as it was shoved into his face.
"Okay, okay, I was just teasing. That's... not great proof though," Sero's voice wavered a little. "Was that from 1-E's classroom?" his voice was lowered, as if he was trying to hide it. His frightened classmates looked at him as he let out a breath. "Follow me, I got stuff to help you guys out. If you want to try again at proving you weren't playing around in the school building."
Despite his teasing commentary and toothy grin, they let out sighs at him rather than fighting further about it. They followed Sero up to his room where he nervously pulled out a drawer, with a few devices in it that could only be described as 'ghost hunting gear'.
"Sero, you're into it too!?" Kirishima burst out, Sero put his hands out as if to quiet Kirishima's voice with open hands.
"Yeah, just a little, but I've also seen some weird stuff in 1-E's room." They nodded, and Sero continued. "We can use my gear, but I have to come with on the next hunt."
By the next night they were putting their new plan into action. As the three put themselves into position to wait until the right moment to begin the hunt for more ghost evidence from 1-E's room, another hunter found them, her voice making Mina start from the tension alone.
"Sorry." Alarice said, trying to look apologetic about spooking Mina, "but, what are you guys doing?"
There was a quick explanation, and their party had grown to four, and with the help of Alarice's sensitive nose, and sudden appearance of her hell-hound-ears over her normal ones, were able to successfully wait out robots and staff to begin their little ghost hunt. The four students settled into a little corner away from any tables or chairs, to avoid the same situation as last time.
"So...how does this work?" Alarice asked quietly, being answered in hushed tones by Mina as Kirishima decided again to take lead on asking for a presence's response. Which, again, was rewarded with dead silence. The little device to indicate electromagnetic energy was also dead and still in Sero's hands. They gave Alarice the recorder to handle for EVPs, since all she had to do was hold it and be quiet.
The long silence grew again into darkness. The students weren't worried about getting back out of the school for the moment, only about getting the tantalizing proof of a ghost to materialize.
Their eyes adjusted to the darkness, making it easy to notice a faint glow at one desk, forming the rough the shape of a person. The shifting color light flowing inwards to give the shape of a teenage boy more definition. He stood up, the hair on the backs of their necks standing up, it was so silent that they could hear a pin drop.
To their horror it looked at them, then made some gesture, and the door to the room opened. They were being ushered out or...?
Instead, a bedraggled mess of hair and black walked in silently. A book under one arm, his attention on the ghost, before... The four students of 1-A wanted to be invisible as their homeroom teacher looked at them with irritation in his dark eyes. "What do you think you are doing?"
The group stood up quickly, somewhat alarmed and concerned that their teacher couldn't see the ghost at all. It led to an awkward silence before Kirishima forced the thought on the kid's minds into the silence, "Sensei, there's a Ghost right there!"
"Ghosts aren't real." Aizawa's gravelly voice carried as he looked away from his students to hand the ghost student next to him a book. The ghost took it graciously. "Thank you, Aizawa."
The book was placed on a desk while the kids stared at the display in front of them. Before anyone could ask, said ghost explained themselves. "Ghost is my Quirk."
A moment of dead silence while that settled in "How can your quirk be 'ghost'?" Alarice asked, trying to be polite about her question.
Seeing how this was going to be an irrational, but almost unavoidable conversation, Aizawa let out a sigh, and settled himself against a wall. Any attempt to stop this would probably end up dragging it out.
"That's... just what we call it. No one else has it, I as far as I know." He nodded knowingly. "My name is Hisato Hirai" He even gave a little bow. "It's nice to meet you. I tried not scare you guys, but it just kind of happens, I guess."
The students introduced themselves to Hisato, but were clearly still a little confused and maybe bothered. "I don't understand, how is your quirk ghost..,are you just..,ghostly looking or are you...?"
"Oh, I'm dead, yeah," He gave a shrug. "Legally, anyway." Which didn't alleviate the concerns.
"So, how did..." "I fell in the bathtub and drowned."
Mina and Sero stared with a combo of pity and disturbance at their new 'ghost friend' who was very blasé about the manner of their own life's ending. Alarice, who had tried to ask how, was back to her stone faced routine, unsure of how to react in the face such treatment of mortality. Kirishima was unbothered, or at least, didn't let himself seem like it. "So...that happened, and then you came back to school? I don't get it."
"Hah, at first, neither did I!" The ghost boy, Hisato, smiled a big smile at that. "It made sense as time went on, see, I knew something had happened, I remember feeling the pain, and then it felt really wrong, then, nothin! I felt lighter than air. My whole body the moment of death changed, and I woke back up and went right on to school. Didn't want to be late, you know? That was a really rough day, I'll tell you that!"
He seemed genuinely not bothered by the fact it had happened at all. He paused for a second, looking at the kids then to the ground. "I mean…I feel bad for my mom and dad, but I know they made peace with it in the end."
"You just…went on?" Kirishima asked, curious to know more about this rather morbid story.
"Well yeah, I had no idea what had really happened, I figured it out eventually, of course, you can only try to be called on so many times in class before you realize it. Or, when you go home, and your parents don't react to you."
"Dude…I'm so sorry, Hisato." Sero commented, looking genuinely sad for the ghost-boy, Mina nodded.
"Don't be." Hisato said, with a shrug. "That was at least 20 years ago."
"You've been in the school for 20 years?!" the kids burst out, except for Alarice who noticed Aizawa looking at them with an expression she couldn't decode.
"Well, yeah, If I was going to figure out how to live as a ghost, what better place than a school that trains heroes to use their quirks to their fullest? I was already a general studies student here, anyway." The ghost said with a big shrug. "Plus, it's not like any one could stop me, it is kinda cute that I'm considered a 'good luck' spirit, and I appreciate being kept on the roster." He chuckled a slightly disturbing laugh at the commentary. He noticed the kids talking to themselves and nodding.
"We have one more question Hisato, does anyone else know you're here?" Mina asked.
Hisato scratched the back of his ghostly head and made a face as he sort of seemed unsure of how to answer. "Well…yes and no. Principal Nezu knows, and Aizawa knows…and sometimes a student notices but…it's a bit of effort to get noticed, either because of my quirk, or that ghosts simply don't exist to most people, so they don't pay attention to me. Every so often a kid notices, and then decides not to tell anyone. I don't really like to let people notice me these days... you kids seemed like good kids though, and it was nice that you were trying to get that kid his ID back, Kirishima."
Kirishima smiled wildly with all teeth. "Did he get it back? "
"Oh yeah, I put it on his desk after you dropped it."
"It takes a lot of effort to be visible?" Sero asked this time, changing the subject from the Lost ID back to what was really interesting.
"Used to," Hisato said with another casual ghost shrug. "Doesn't anymore, I mean, the first person I really managed to appear to was Aizawa." The ghost smiled as a hint of humor invaded his tone. "He just looked at me then kept walking, and his blond friend just kept going on talking, and telling him to sleep more!"
"If Aizawa looks at you with his quirk, would that..." "That's what I tried the second time I saw Hisato." Aizawa grumbled, almost giving a look to the ghost who, looked embarrassed, cutting off Alarice's question. "He just vanished, and came back the next day, that's how I knew it was the result of a Quirk, not a ghost."
"That indeed! I have to admit, you gave me such a fright when you did that Aizawa! I'm glad you've never done it again to me." Aizawa nodded to him, before looking disinterested again in the matter. Sadly, the topic was now firmly focused on him and Hisato's history.
"What was Aizawa like as a kid?" Mina couldn't help but ask, even though her teacher was right there.
"Short." The ghost said with a calm smile. Aizawa rolled his eyes.
"What was he like?" Slipped out of Alarice's mouth, and immediately her ears began to burn.
"Quiet. Thoughtful." Hisato smiled. "In his own way."
"So it's just…Aizawa and Nezu?" Sero asked, steering the conversation away from his teacher as a teenager. Not that he didn't have plenty of questions himself.
"Pretty much. Nezu's high specs found me out pretty quickly, and he was pretty sympathetic to my situation. Since I can't be killed again, and I don't really use-up any resources, I'm completely allowed to stay as long as I don't cause trouble." Hisato gave another, casual as could be, shrug.
"Yeah but…20 years in school the whole time... that seems kinda boring." Mina uttered trying to keep her voice down a little bit. As much as she did love her hero classes, and learning to be the best hero possible, it was also true that she didn't want to stay here forever.
"As boring as it seems... I actually really like it. No one bothers me when I study any more, I can read for as long as I like because I don't need to eat, and sometimes I help other people without having to deal with their attention." His hands came together, and he became very thoughtful, his voice lowering, "and since Aizawa started teaching here himself, I've been learning more with this quirk, and maybe I'll be able to really help people around here, too."
The ghost seemed to flicker as he seemed to become disinterested in continuing to converse with the kids. He picked up the book and it practically seemed to float in midair, rather than be in his hands. "Aizawa, thank you for the book, I'll get it back to you when I've finished it."
Sleepy-eyed Aizawa nodded wordlessly to Hisato, who, book and all, alarmingly just vanished. Only to pop back into existence quickly, "oh, have a good night kids," and back out he went, to wherever his quirk allowed him to go.
Aizawa ushered his collected small flock of 4 out of the room, and out of the main UA building. The kids attempted to question him next, of course.
"Aizawa-Sensei, you know a ghost!" Mina seemed excited about it, now that the ghost wasn't in her presence. "What is it like having a ghost for a friend?"
"He's not a ghost."
Alarice remained silent, pondering personally about the nature of the friendship he hadn't denied having with a ghost. It had to be weird growing into an adult while the person next to you never aged.
"Does he feel anything? Like is he like an actual ghost-ghost?" Kirishima was next to ask, also excited, now that there wasn't an actual dead child talking to them
"That's a question for Hisato, not for me." Aizawa responded, increasingly tired of being questioned.
"Where did he go? Is there a ghost realm he goes too?" Mina asked, thinking about the sudden and distressing way he had just vanished from their view.
"I wouldn't know."
The student to teacher interrogation continued as they walked, with Aizawa deflecting most of it. When they got to their dorm, he shooed them to bed and headed off towards the teacher's housing for his own sleep. Listening to the kids exchange thoughts of the ghost kid and even of how he factored into that. Keeping that Cheshire smile to himself as he heard them talk about asking others about it, knowing full well that no one would believe them.