The common room of Heights Alliance had never felt so vast, or so cold. The oversized sofas and the large kitchen island, usually the stage for Kirishima's loud laughter or Sato's baking, were now just shadows in the dim, emergency lighting.
Ochaco Uraraka sat on the edge of a chair, her knees pulled tight to her chest, staring at the steam rising from a cup of tea that had long since gone stone-cold. Tenya Iida sat across from her, his posture as rigid as ever, but his hands, usually so expressive, were clasped tightly in his lap to hide the slight tremor in his fingers.
"The exams..." Iida began, his voice barely a whisper in the hollow room. "They weren't supposed to be like that. We were supposed to be tested on our resolve, not our capacity to survive each other. What... what was wrong with Bakugo? To use an explosion of that magnitude on a teammate... It was certainly a choice."
Ochaco's face darkened, a bitter scowl twisting her features, a look Iida had never seen on the usually cheerful girl. "He's always been like that," she said, her voice dripping with a cold resentment. "He just finally stopped hiding it."
Iida pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean by that? He's always been aggressive, yes, and his temperament is... difficult. But to imply he's always been capable of..."
"He bullied him, Tenya," Ochaco interrupted, finally looking up. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her voice shaking with the weight of the secret. "I got these texts. Last week. Someone from their old school in Aldera... they sent me things. Videos. Audio. Bakugo spent ten years treating Deku..." she winced at the name, "...teasing and beating on Izuku because he was quirkless."
Iida's jaw dropped. "Quirkless? Midoriya? But his power is..."
"It doesn't matter," Ochaco said, clutching her arms. "But I know what I saw. I know what I heard. Bakugo told him to... to take a swan dive off a roof. He treated him like trash for a decade."
"How do you know this for certain?" Iida asked, his voice thick with a mix of shock and budding anger.
"The texts," she repeated. "But they're gone now. When the school's system went dark during the hack, everything on my phone from that number just... disappeared. Deleted. Like someone was cleaning up the trail. I told Principal Nezu about it, but I don't know if he's even had a chance to look. But after seeing Bakugo in that exam... I think I believe every word of it."
Iida let out a long, shuddering breath, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Considering the way he fought... the way it looked like he genuinely wanted to kill him... I truly hope he doesn't get a chance to come back. A man like that cannot be a hero. He doesn't have the heart for it."
They both fell into a heavy, mournful silence. The thought of their other friend was even more painful.
"And Izuku..." Ochaco's voice broke. "He's just gone. No one will tell us where he is. The teachers just keep saying he's being 'handled.' But I saw the screen, Tenya. I saw the way he moved when he fought All Might. It didn't make any sense. He loves All Might. He's the reason Izuku even breathes... why would he do that to him? Why would he look at him with those... those dark eyes?"
"We have to trust the teachers," Iida said, though his voice lacked conviction. "We have to believe they know what they're doing. But everything feels so... out of control."
Suddenly, both their phones buzzed on the coffee table. It was a synchronized, sharp vibration that felt like an alarm.
They pulled their phones up, and the screen automatically redirected to a site that had been blocked by UA for weeks. The Harvest Leaderboard.
For the last few weeks, the site had been a haunting, empty grid. The League had announced it, but the numbers had sat at a defiant, hopeful zero.
Now, the zero was gone.
At the very top of the list, a new entry had appeared in bold, blood-red characters.
NAME: [Meteor]
POINTS: 10
Below it, other names began to flicker into existence, names of villains they had heard of from the Tartarus break, with points of 1, 2, or 3. But the top spot, the ten-point jump, stood out like a beacon of death.
Ochaco's breath hitched as she scrolled down to the news ticker beneath the board. CONFIRMED: PRO HERO NEVERMORE FOUND DEAD IN YOKOHAMA. CAUSE OF DEATH: UNKNOWN.
"Ten points," Ochaco whispered, her face going pale. "Someone killed a hero. And they did it in one go."
Iida stared at the screen, the blue light reflecting in his glasses, making him look older, more tired, and deeply afraid. He slowly set his phone back on the table, the weight of the world finally settling on their shoulders.
"The Harvest has started," Iida said, his voice cold and final. "And at such a bad time."
___
The air on the hilltop was thick with the scent of ozone and the heavy, metallic tang of blood. Below, the dark, churning expanse of the Pacific Ocean hammered against the rocky shoreline of Kanagawa, the grey waves white-capped and hungry. A storm was coming, the horizon was a bruised, purple bruise of clouds, and for Yuta Shimizu, the man the world feared as King Fin, it felt like a homecoming.
The massive shark-mutant stood seven feet tall, his blue-grey skin glistening with the humidity. He held a smartphone in one massive, webbed hand, the screen looking like a toy against his palm. His other hand rested on the hilt of a "Trench Cleaver", a slab of rusted, high-tensile steel four feet long and a foot wide, currently buried deep in the chest of a man in a tattered yellow costume.
King Fin scrolled through the "Harvest" app that was installed on the specific phone that the league presented all escapees that day, with a low, vibrating rumble in his throat, a sound that was half-purr, half-growl.
"Well, well," he chuckled, his rows of serrated teeth gleaming in the dim light. "Look at you, Kazuo. Meteor is making moves in Nagoya."
He tapped on the name METEOR (KAZUO HOSHIKAWA), which was currently sitting at the number one spot with ten points. Just above him.
"Ten points for Kazuo," King Fin mused, a joking, shark-like grin splitting his face. "Trying to be an overachiever. Throwing rocks from the sky... it's a bit flashy, isn't it? No personal touch."
He looked down at the plateau where he stood. It was a slaughterhouse.
Four bodies lay scattered across the dirt. Three of them were low-tier "D-Rank" as Tomura would call them, heroes, their costumes bright and hopeful, now stained a dark, final crimson. But the fourth... the fourth was special. He was a young man, barely nineteen, wearing a high-tech suit with the UA alumni crest still visible on his shoulder. He had graduated only a year ago. He wore that badge with such pride and honour.
"You had potential, kid," King Fin said, pulling the massive cleaver out of the yellow-clad hero with a sickening, wet schlop. "But potential doesn't stop a tidal wave."
The rules of the Harvest were simple, designed by Shigaraki to turn murder into a viral spectacle. To claim the points, the hunter had to provide a "Status Report."
King Fin raised his phone, framing the carnage in the camera's lens. He took a high-definition photo of the four corpses, the grey, storm-tossed sea in the background providing a dramatic, cinematic backdrop. Then, he began to type with his thick fingers, his movements surprisingly agile.
[HARVEST REPORT - USER: KING FIN]
[LOCATION: KANAGAWWA OVERLOOK]
[TARGETS: 3 LOCAL PATROL HEROES (MUD-SKIPPER, NIGHT-LIGHT, GULL), 1 UA ALUMNUS (SWIFT-STREAM)]
[METHOD: TOTAL HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE & TRENCH CLEAVER DISMANTLING. SWIFT-STREAM ATTEMPTED A HIGH-SPEED EVASION; I COLLAPSED THE MOISTURE IN THE AREA BEFORE RIPPING A HAND THROUGH HIS LUNGS BEFORE HE COULD CLEAR THE RADIUS. CLEAN. ORDERLY.]
He hit SUBMIT.
The screen flickered for a second, a loading icon of a skull spinning in the center. Then, a sharp, triumphant chime echoed across the hilltop.
[VERIFIED. POINTS ADDED: 20]
[NEW RANK: 1]
King Fin threw his head back and laughed, a booming, resonant sound that seemed to rumble in the very earth beneath him. He watched as the leaderboard refreshed, pushing Meteor down. His name, KING FIN, now glowed at the very top in a jagged, pulsing red font.
"The Harvest has started," he whispered, his black, doll-like eyes fixed on the horizon where lightning was beginning to dance.
He wiped a smear of blood off the rusted steel of his cleaver, feeling the rush of the sea-air in his gills. The points were good for the ego, but they were empty calories. He was a predator, and a predator eventually tired of eating minnows.
"Five points for the pros, five for an alum, and one for a hero student. But so far zero for civilians." he mused, looking toward the distant, glowing silhouette of the Tokyo skyline. "I wonder how I match with Endeavor."
He turned away from the bodies, walking toward the cliff's edge. He wanted someone stronger. He wanted a fight that would make the ocean boil.
"Come on, heroes," King Fin growled, his voice lost in the first rumble of thunder. "Show me you're worth the effort. I'm getting hungry."
___
The walk from the campus gates to the Heights Alliance dorms felt longer than the train ride from Yokohama. Shota Aizawa moved with the heavy, rhythmic gait of a man who had forgotten how to rest. His capture scarf was tucked tight, a shield against the biting wind that carried the scent of a coming storm, but it couldn't block out the cold in his chest.
He had cut his investigation into Kenji Hoshino short, too short. But the moment the "Harvest" leaderboard flickered to life, the moment Takaomi Suda was woven into the skyline like a gruesome signal fire, Aizawa knew his place was no longer in the shadows of Yokohama. It was with the children who were currently sitting in a fortress that felt more like a tomb.
As he pushed open the heavy, reinforced doors of the common room, the silence was instantaneous.
Class 1-A was gathered in the center of the room. They weren't playing games or studying, they were huddled around the soft, blue glow of their phones, their faces pale and drawn. As Aizawa entered, twenty pairs of eyes snapped to him, eyes filled with a desperate, frantic hunger for truth.
"Sensei," Iida said, standing up with a mechanical stiffness. "The leaderboard... it updated. We know that the villains sick and twisted games have started. You're here to tell us we're grounded, aren't you? That we aren't allowed to step a foot outside these walls."
Aizawa didn't answer immediately. He walked to the center of the room, his eyes scanning the group. He saw Uraraka's red-rimmed eyes, Todoroki's stoic but tensed jaw, and the empty spaces on the sofas where their two most volatile elements used to sit.
"I'm here because you're my responsibility," Aizawa said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "And because the world outside has decided to turn your lives into a game. You won't be 'sneaking out' because there is nowhere to go where you aren't a target."
"What about Bakugo and Midoriya?" Kirishima asked, his voice cracking. "We haven't seen them since the exams. Nobody is telling us anything."
Aizawa took a slow breath, choosing his words with a surgical precision. He had to lie, not out of malice, but because the truth of Yoshi Abara and his students odd link.
"Katsuki Bakugo," Aizawa began, "is currently in a high-security holding facility. Due to the nature of his actions during the exam, and subsequent evidence regarding his conduct prior to UA, it is highly probable that he will not be returning to this class. Ever."
A wave of shock rippled through the room. Some students, like Sero and Kaminari, looked down at their feet with a profound, confused sadness. Others, like Uraraka, didn't flinch, their expressions remaining cold, as if they had already written him out of their story. Aizawa didn't elaborate, he didn't mention the "Cataclysm" designation or the arrest warrant.
"And Midoriya?" Tsuyu asked softly.
Aizawa's jaw tightened. "Izuku Midoriya is currently missing."
A collective gasp filled the room, a sound of genuine, sharp terror.
"Missing?" Mina cried out. "How? How could he just... go missing?"
"After the confrontation in the exams, Midoriya exhibited a level of quirk evolution we didn't anticipate," Aizawa said, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth. "He vanished from the facility at speeds our sensors couldn't track. We have put out a confidential notice on hero networks to locate him. For now, we are treating him as a high-priority missing person."
"Do you have leads?" Yaoyorozu asked, her hands clasped tightly. "A location? A sighting?"
"No," Aizawa lied, his eyes not wavering. He couldn't tell them about the hospital in Musutafu, or the idea of hunting for him in Yokohama. "We are in the dark."
The room erupted into a flurry of theories.
"Maybe he ran because he's scared?"
"No, he probably felt guilty about what happened to the city... or what he did to Bakugo."
"It's because of All Might, isn't it? He hurt his idol and he couldn't handle it."
"Stop," Aizawa commanded, and the room went silent again. "Theorizing is a waste of energy. He has spent months with you as his friends, his closest friends. If he reaches out, if he makes contact with any of you, you are to report it to me immediately. Do not attempt to find him on your own."
"Sensei..." Sato spoke up, his voice trembling. "What about All Might? We saw the footage... part of it, anyway. Before the screens went black. Is he... is he okay?"
Aizawa sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to deflate his entire frame. He had wanted to keep this quiet, to maintain the illusion of the Pillar for just a few more days, but the Harvest had robbed them of the luxury of secrets.
"All Might is alive," Aizawa said, and for a second, a collective sigh of relief breathed through the room. "But he is in a critical, non-responsive state. He is in a coma. The doctors estimate he may be out for the next three to five months."
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the silence of a vacuum, of a world that had suddenly lost its gravity.
The Number One Hero. The Symbol of Peace. In a coma.
"Five months?" Kaminari whispered, his phone slipping from his hand and hitting the carpet with a dull thud. "But the Harvest... the villains... they're winning. If he's asleep, who's going to stop them?"
"We are," Aizawa said, though even to his own ears, the words felt fragile.
The students looked at him, but for the first time, he saw something in their eyes that terrified him, doubt. They were looking at the man who had beaten their idol, a boy their own age, a boy who had sat in these very chairs, and they were realizing that the "good" of the world was no longer a guarantee.
"The public cannot know the extent of his injuries," Aizawa added. "If the news of his condition breaks, the panic will be worse than the Harvest itself. You are to speak of this to no one."
He looked at the twenty teenagers who had been broken before they could ever truly lead. They looked small. They looked like children waiting for a parent who wasn't coming home.
"Get some rest," Aizawa said, turning toward the door. "Tomorrow, we begin the transition to full-combat readiness. Act accordingly."