DIGGING

Shoji woke to the rhythmic scrape-tug-thump of a shovel hard at work. Blinking blearily, Shoji looked out his window and found the view obstructed by a massive mound of dirt.

"Did Kaminari dare you to dig to America again?"

Shoji's voice echoed down the hole. It took a few seconds for Izuku's reply to return.

"Friend Kacchan informed me that there was a civilian in need of aid deep underground. My ground penetration scanners are ineffective at a depth beyond twenty kilometers."

"The deepest hole ever dug was only twelve. How would anyone even be alive down there?"

"I do not know. But I do know I will find out once I dig far enough to scan the location Kacchan had specified.

More soil shot out of the hole. It smacked a passing bird and left behind a few drifting feathers. Just as Shoji was about to walk away, the faintest trace of a drumbeat caught his ears. He put a bigger ear to the hole and heard the rhythmic beat more clearly.

"Midoriya, are you playing drums?"

"That would be the dwarves. Mom has a trade agreement with them."

As Izuku's hole grew deeper, Shoji caught the faint trace of voices rining from below.

"How did we never find out about them?"

"We did. The Neanderthals got driven underground by the Homo Sapiens, subsisted off of mushrooms grown from their own fecal matter, and eventually evolved stockier bodies, low-light vision, and powerful limbs better suited for life in the tunnels."

The drumbeats rose in a crescendo, and Shoji caught the faintest traces of the words being sung. "Brothers of the mine rejoice! Swing, swing, swing with me!"

The earth trembled. From below, Izuku shouted up, "Sorry about that. I hit a tectonic plate.

Even as the earth settled back down, the dwarves sang, "Skin made of iron, steel in our bones!"

Heat rose from the hole in a massive wave. "You didn't make a volcano erupt, did you?"

"Negative. The heat you are sensing are the dwarves' furnaces. They also use them to cook the mushrooms."

Shoji pinched his nose. "That explains the smell."

"To dig and dig makes us free, come my brothers sing with me!"

"Watch yourself, big one," Izuku warned. A sleek alien spacecraft plopped onto U.A.'s lawn. Shoji looked inside. "Aliens went to Egypt?"

"They gave them tools, but the locals had no idea how to use them. They built the pyramids with sticks and slave labor instead."

With one last thrust of his shovel, Izuku flung a massive geode out of the hole. It split open, and a man spilled out.

"W… where am I? And… who am I?" The man felt himself over. "Why am I?"

"I am a dwarf, and I'm digging a hole! Diggy diggy hole, digging a hole!"

"Oh, I'm a dwarf. Time to get digging."

The man leapt back down. Izuku leapt back up, shoved all the dirt back into the hole, and went to class.

499

I don't know how Diggy Diggy Hole snuck into this drabble but I'm not complaining