The atmosphere in Class 1-A had shifted from a room of students to a room of survivors. Outside, the sky was a bruised charcoal grey, and the persistent hum of security drones against the reinforced windows acted as a metronome for their collective anxiety. Shota Aizawa stood at the podium, his yellow sleeping bag discarded, his eyes bloodshot and weary as he tapped the digital chalkboard.
"The dossiers I've just shown you, King Fin, Meteor, the historical records of the White Standard and the Amur Tiger, these are not just names for a test," Aizawa said, his voice flat and heavy. "These are active variables. The prison break was the return of an era. An era that was supposed to be dead."
The class was silent. Kaminari was chewing his lip, his hands twitching under his desk. Jiro looked toward the window, her jacks swaying nervously.
"Sensei," Ashido whispered, her voice small. "What about our parents? If these people are in the streets with us as their targets... how are they supposed to be safe?"
Aizawa paused, his gaze softening by a mere fraction. "Principal Nezu has already initiated the 'Aegis Protocol.' We are in the process of contacting every family member of the Hero Course. They are being offered immediate sanctuary within the UA campus. The dorms are being expanded, and the underground bunkers are ready to serve as residential blocks until this matter is resolved."
"But what about their jobs?" Uraraka asked, her brow furrowed. "My parents… they have to work. They can't just stop. If they stay here, we'll lose everything."
"Once the immediate threat level is stabilized and safe-zones are established," Aizawa replied, "we will facilitate transport to specific, high-security safe houses closer to each parents' places of employment. But for now, the priority is life over livelihood."
"This is so messed up," Sero muttered, his voice thick with a mix of anger and grief. "They have to uproot their whole lives? They didn't do anything wrong! Why do they have to live like prisoners just because some rats broke out of jail?"
Aizawa looked at Sero, his expression grim. "It is unfair, Sero. It is deeply, fundamentally unfair. I apologized to you all once before, and I will say it again, we failed to keep school life stable for you. You are being asked to carry a weight that was never supposed to be yours. It is an incredibly unfair world, and I wish I had a better answer than that."
A heavy silence followed. Finally, Bakugo, sitting stiffly with his arms crossed, let out a sharp, impatient scoff. "Just get on with the lesson, Sensei. We know it sucks. Who else is out there?"
Aizawa nodded and swiped the screen. The image of the Amur Tiger disappeared, replaced by a grainy, unremarkable photo of a man who looked entirely out of place among the titans they had just discussed.
"The last name for today is a man who was broken out of the Akugara Vault," Aizawa said. "His name is Akira Furuhaya."
The class looked at the screen with confusion. Unlike the shark-mutant King Fin or the towering Meteor, the man in the photo looked like a tired accountant. He had a narrow face, hunched shoulders, and a soft, careful look in his eyes. He didn't look like a killer.
"Who is he?" Kirishima asked. "I haven't seen anything about him on the news."
"That's because Akira Furuhaya was never meant to be frightening," Aizawa explained. "Before his fall, he was one of the most successful detectives in Japan, from Minato Police Department. His quirk made him the most effective forensic tool in the nation. His quirk is called CHEW."
Aizawa let out a slow breath. "If Akira consumes even a fragment of an object or a biological sample, he sees its history. He absorbs the sensory memory of the item. He sees the fear in a victim's final moments. He sees the hands that built a bomb. He sees the casual cruelty of a routine. It made him a genius at solving cold cases, but it cost him his mind."
The class listened, a cold shiver running through them as Aizawa described Akira's life, how he began to hate food because every meal was a life of suffering, how he lived in a state of constant, layered nausea, absorbing the memories of slaughterhouses and violence with every bite.
"He was arrested three years ago," Aizawa continued. "The reason was never made public, but the Hero Commission labelled him a high-risk 'Information Threat.' He wasn't kept in Tartarus because he wasn't physically violent, but he was kept in the Vault because he knows where every secret in the underworld is buried."
"Wait, a detective became a villain?" Yaoyorozu asked, her eyes wide. "That's…"
"It's rare, but not impossible," Aizawa said. "When you see too much of the rot, sometimes you stop believing the house can be saved."
In the back of the room, Izuku's pen was flying across his notebook to copy the information down for later, but his mind was racing even faster now to distract him from all the wrong that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
CHEW, Izuku thought, his pupils dilating as he analysed the quirk's potential. It's an amazing intelligence quirk. If a villain group like the League gets a hold of him, they could do untold damage with it. They just need a piece of a hero's uniform. They could find out our weaknesses, our patrol routes, even the secrets of our homes, just by having him eat a discarded scrap of fabric. He could deconstruct a hero's entire life through a single hair. If he's not physically strong, he's a strategic nuke.
"There have been no sightings of Furuhaya since the break," Aizawa added, snapping Izuku out of his trance. "But he is someone you need to be aware of. Not every threat comes with a fist or a fireball."
The discussion continued, the class vibrating with a mixture of terror and a strange, new resolve. They were no longer just learning about the past; they were learning the names of the shadows that were currently stalking their streets.
"The Harvest is ongoing," Aizawa finished, his voice like a gavel strike. "Stay focused. Stay vigilant. And remember, you are no longer just students. You are the targets. Class dismissed."
___
The track at Ground Omega was a grey loop of penance.
Izuku's sneakers slapped against the rubberized surface in a rhythmic, punishing cadence. Thud-slap, thud-slap. He had been running for an hour, his lungs burning, his t-shirt clinging to his back like a second, colder skin. He was pushing himself until his vision blurred at the edges, trying to outrun the suffocating coil of stress that had settled in his chest since the day Tokyo was attacked.
He felt sick. It was a physical, roiling nausea that sat in the pit of his stomach, independent of the exertion. Every time he slowed down, the reality of the world rushed back in to fill the silence.
He thought of Room 412. He thought of the hiss-click of the ventilator. He had spent his nights scrolling through hidden forums and professional quirk registries, his eyes stinging as he searched for anything, a healer, a cellular restoration specialist, a miracle worker. But in a world where people could create black holes or turn into dragons, the specific, high-tier restoration his mother needed was a rarity guarded by the highest levels of government and wealth. To the internet, she was just another statistic of the "Tokyo Incident." To him, she was the only reason the sun was supposed to rise.
I just want her to wake up, he thought, his jaw tightening until it ached. I want her to open her eyes and see that I'm okay. Even if it's a lie. I want to tell her that being a hero isn't the slightest challenge to him.'
His mind shifted to the news, to the "Harvest." The League had updated the rules of their sick game this morning. It wasn't just UA anymore. Every hero student across Japan, from Shiketsu to Ketsubutsu, was now a one-point target. It made sense, a cold and logical expansion that made Izuku feel "slow" for not seeing it coming. Shigaraki wasn't just hunting a class, he was culling a generation.
The country was under duress, a held breath that felt like it was on the verge of shattering. There had been no reports of mass casualties since the prison breaks, no new Tokyos, no new Hosus. But that was the most terrifying part. The escapees were out there, hidden in the shadows, waiting for the signal. King Fin, Meteor, and the first prisoner, the Amur Tiger... they were the storm clouds gathered on the horizon, and the air was getting heavy.
I want to be out there, Izuku thought, a sudden, sharp surge of One For All sparking around his ankles, propelling him forward in a violent burst of speed. I don't want to be a student in a bunker. I want to be the Champion they need me to be. I want to be strong enough that All Might doesn't have to hide me.
He wanted to be trusted with the truth. He wanted to be the shield. But as he rounded the final turn of the track, his legs gave out, the exhaustion finally catching up to the adrenaline. He stumbled into the grass, gasping for air, his hands buried in the dirt.
He pulled his phone from the waistband of his shorts, his thumb hovering over the screen. The glass was smeared with sweat and dust. He checked the notifications.
Nothing.
No messages from the group chat. No updates on his mother's condition. And most glaringly, no word from the Symbol of Peace.
"Where are you?" Izuku whispered to the empty training field.
The sun was high and bright, but it felt cold. He hadn't seen All Might since the morning of the prison break. He hadn't heard his voice or seen his gaunt, reassuring shadow in the hallways. The man who had promised to stand beside him was... just gone.
Izuku sat in the grass, the silence of the campus pressing in on him, and for the first time, the "Champion" felt entirely alone.
___
The tea in Nezu's office had long since gone cold, a thin, oily film forming on the surface as the three pillars of UA sat in a silence that felt like lead. Outside, the sky was a bruised, sickly purple, but inside, the monitors flickered with grainy footage of the "Golden Ghost" of Tokyo.
"I still haven't been able to get a hold of him," Recovery Girl said, her voice sounding older, thinner. She set a tablet down on the mahogany table. "I've sent four encrypted pings to his personal frequency. No response. Not even a read receipt."
"The sightings are consistent," Nezu added, his paws folded neatly. "He is in the Chiyoda and Minato wards. He's moving with a frantic, unrefined speed. He's clearing rubble, handing out food, and even funding temporary shelters out of his own pocket. But the moment a news crew or a police liaison approaches, he vanishes. He's avoiding the world, Aizawa."
Shota Aizawa let out a harsh, frustrated breath, his hand going to the bridge of his nose. "He's burning himself out. He's trying to be the Symbol of Peace with a body that can barely hold a lungful of air. If he keeps this up, we won't find him, we'll just recover him."
"That's where you're wrong, Shota," Recovery Girl interrupted, her eyes sharp behind her goggles. "I don't think he can burn out."
Aizawa looked at her, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What are you talking about? His quirk is gone. Midoriya has it. Toshinori is just a man with a hole in his stomach."
"I've spent the last month running deep-tissue biopsies and marrow analysis on Toshinori," Chiyo said, her tone shifting into something clinically precise. "The results that Nezu and I discovered aren't just interesting, they are an anatomical impossibility. Shota, do you remember what Gran Torino always said? That Toshinori took to One For All 'all too easily'? That he never suffered the feedback that young Midoriya does?"
Aizawa nodded slowly. "He called him a 'Perfect Vessel.' We always assumed it was just luck. Or a strong constitution."
"It wasn't luck," Recovery Girl said, tapping the tablet to display a fluctuating DNA sequence. "I've been tracking his cellular regeneration. Toshinori's body has a unique 'Homeostatic Reset.' Every night, when he enters deep REM sleep, his body undergoes a systemic cellular rollback. Any new stress, any new muscle tears, any exhaustion... it all resets to the exact state it was in twenty-four hours prior. He isn't healing, Shota. He's reverting."
Nezu sipped his cold tea. "We believe Toshinori Yagi was never quirkless. He was born with a passive, invisible quirk. Adaptability."
Aizawa sat back, stunned. "But the medical records... the extra toe joint..."
"A statistical correlation, nothing more," Nezu dismissed with a wave of his paw. "Medical folklore that became a convenient excuse. The truth is that Toshinori's body was designed to adapt to any force placed upon it. When he received One For All, his DNA didn't struggle against the power, it shifted to accommodate it instantly. It's why he could use 100% so early on. His body 'adapted' to the vessel's requirement."
Recovery Girl sighed, her expression turning somber. "But there's a tragedy to it. Since the day he fought All For One five years ago, the day half his respiratory system was destroyed, his quirk has been trapped in a loop. His 'Adaptability' has locked his body into the state it was in immediately following that battle. His cells 'remember' the trauma. They remember the necrotic virus that All For One's quirk must have introduced into the wound, a lingering, quirk-based infection that defies standard medicine."
"So he can't get better," Aizawa whispered.
"Exactly," Chiyo said. "But he also doesn't get worse. He resets to that 'Day of the Injury' state every single morning. He can run himself into the ground in Tokyo today, and tomorrow morning, he will wake up exactly as he is now, wounded but functionally operational. He is a man perpetually living the aftermath of his greatest tragedy. He can't burn out because his body won't allow him the luxury of collapsing."
The trio shared a moment of heavy silence, the name of Gran Torino hanging in the air, the man who had first seen Toshinori's potential, now gurgling for breath in a hospital bed somewhere in the city.
"It's useful information," Aizawa finally said, his voice low. "But it makes him more dangerous to himself. He'll thinks he's invincible because he can't die, so he'll just keep suffering until there's nothing left of his mind. I'll keep trying to find him."
"Do that," Nezu said, his tone shifting into something more strategic. "Because we have other fires to put out. Shota, I am moving forward with the Special Exams at the end of next week. For all years. Not just the third-years, but the first and second as well."
"Exams? Now?" Aizawa asked. "The students are barely holding it together."
"Which is why we must act," Nezu countered. "I intend to present the results to the Hero Commission and demand Provisional Licenses for the entire Hero Course. We are in a state of national emergency. The students' parents are being moved into bunkers. Their homes are gone. Sero, Midoriya, Iida... one already tried vigilantism, so how long before the next?"
Recovery Girl looked worried. "Is it smart to send them out there, Nezu? They're children."
"If we don't give them a legal path to act," Nezu said, his black eyes reflecting the flickering monitors, "they will make a path of their own. It is only a matter of time before one of them sneaks over the wall. If we give them the license, we give them a leash. We give them rules. And more importantly, we give them a sense of agency when there are so many trying to turn them into victims."
"They won't wait much longer," Aizawa agreed, nodding solemnly. "If we don't let them be heroes, they'll become something much more unpredictable."
"Then it's settled," Nezu said, closing the tablet. "Prepare the exams. If the world wants to hunt our students, then it's time we taught our students how to hunt back."