Awesome / My Hero Academia Final War Arc Part 2

Main Awesome Index | UA Beginnings | Rise of the Villains | Final Act Saga | Final War Arc (Part 1, Part 2)

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Chapters 380- 384

• Chapter 380:
  • When Gentle notices the business course students filming both him holding the falling UA building afloat and Izuku's epic battle on the ground, he yells at them to get to safety, only for them to rebuff him. Dangerous as it it, the drama unfolding around the scattered battlefields must be shown in its entirely to the world, so that the people recognise that heroes do still exist, even in this Darkest Hour. Gentle can only smile and chide himself for ever trying to infiltrate UA as a lesson in the fallibility of heroes, when such outstanding non-combat students are risking their lives to prove the exact opposite.
    Business Course Student: When Japan was falling to pieces, the nation placed the entire burden on Endeavor!! That day, we should have been documenting and curating the whole saga, and it should've secured the link between heroes and society! But we couldn't! So now we film to reforge that link!! This is how the business course does heroics!!
  • Said student's speech moves La Brava, who decides to make sure their efforts don't go to waste (and also primarily as a means of boosting Gentle's popularity) by taking advantage of UA's damaged electromagnetic barrier being down to hack into their phones and stream their footage live across the globe, ensuring the whole world watches as the fighting unfolds. When Tsukauchi calls her out on focusing on online popularity rather than restoring UA's flight capabilities, La Brava flippantly reveals she's already created a program capable of working with the damaged generators, mere minutes after Tomura devastated the hi-tech battleground.
  • With his mind still short-circuiting from Shirakumo's aspects Fighting from the Inside, Kurogiri is left behind atop UA, struggling against his programming and trying to remember who he's supposed to be fighting for... before catching a glimpse of both Present Mic and Aizawa falling off the side of the control room, being attacked by rabid Twice's all the way. Swiftly, Kurogiri/Shirakumo teleports both his old classmates out of danger, proving that there is still some part of him that remains a hero, even if those still fighting the horde notes that he also removed Erasure from being used against Tomura.
    Kurogiri/Shirakumo: I am...Pro..tector...of what?
  • It looks as if All For One has finally killed Hawks... only for it to turn out the 'Hawks' he killed was actually an illusion created by Camie while Seiji used Meatball to save Hawks. The two once more managed to prove All For One isn't as infallible as he likes to think he is by successfully fooling the Evil Overlord, through a 'weak' Quirk that is only able to affect him because of his regrown senses and arrogant disregard of his prior 'crutch' Quirks he used to compensate with.
    • All For One further smugly reveals his 'plan' to become the 'Perfect Demon Lord' has him injecting the copied Quirk factor he possesses inside his rewinding shell into Tomura, believing that the vestiges in his original and copies Quirks will undergo a Fusion Dance into a singular one strong enough to utterly erase Tomura's psyche after using it to Steal One For All... again highlighting how utterly doomed his plans are. Tomura has seized full control over himself, rejects the idea of indulging his master's obsession with his brother's Quirk in favour of just destroying it, and has torn his original Vestige apart. As much as All For One refuses to accept the reality, his stint as the Symbol of Evil is fast approaching it's end.
  • It turns out the Shiketsu High students were put on refugee duty but realized when no one arrived, something had gone wrong. Cue their Hero Course students arriving just in time to give some very much needed back up. This includes Inasa sucking up a huge number of the Twice clones inside of a whirlwind, his precise control over his far-reaching Quirk's abilities arguably the perfect counter to the rapidly-spawning horde of enemies, just like he demonstrated with the target balls in the License Exam. Inasa caps it off by giving a Shut Up, Hannibal! to All For One, who'd just said the wind was blowing for him.
    Inasa: Listen up, pal! I'm the guy who decides which way the wind blows!
• Chapter 381:
  • Though understated, Seiji comments that he's got a personal stake in facing All For One, as his father was one of the many Jailers he killed in the outbreak of Tartarus. Despite facing the man who took his family from him and remorselessly threatens to spread further destruction against his friends and his country, Seiji makes it clear that he's joining in the fighting not for personal vengeance, but to honour his father's memory and desire to protect the innocent against the crazed Villains of society, of which All For One has come to embody the pinnacle of, showing again how All For One's attempt to manipulate the narrative of the story around himself is only ensuring everybody moves on from him in disgust, desiring to make the world a better place without granting him the satisfaction of treating him as the 'Omnipresent Villain of the world' he wants to be seen as.
    Seiji: Indeed, as a prison guard, my dad set out to protect. I shall take up his mantle!!
  • With Inasa using the Twice clones as literal missiles against All For One, every available hero on the scene then starts to blast him with every ranged attack they've got, throwing a literal maelstrom against him to hold him down and prevent him moving on to interfere with Izuku and Tomura's climatic fight. All For One decides to retaliate with a glimpse of his old potential, combining multiple abilities together into a Wave-Motion Gun that devastates the landscape and the arrayed forces against him, mocking them for thinking multiple 'weak' abilities combined together could overcome his power. Without the force provided by outstanding individuals like All Might and Endeavor, All For One taunts the heroes that they're vastly overestimating how feasible an idea it is to face the Symbol of Evil and live, let alone win against him.
    • Though he doesn't draw attention to it, Endeavor's feat of almost killing All For One has left its psychological mark on him. He refers to the weakened, one-armed and half-dead man as 'the only one who can stand up to him' on the battlefield, something he once referred to All Might as, demonstrating how shaken he was by his near-death and technical defeat at his hands. Even if he's effectively cheated death for the moment, All For One is now demonstrably wary of an individual other that a holder of One For All and Star and Stripe.
  • As All For One blames their naive faith in his defeat as being born from the ignorance the younger generation has of his heyday, of the time when everybody trembled before his presence and the fear of his control over everything, Inasa shoots this down. Even if All For One himself is a complete non-entity to them, contemporary histories classes have educated the younger generation as to the dark age of Quirk history that All For One seeks to re-create, and none of the heroes, no matter their background, are willing to tolerate a return to such a barbaric era on their watch. Commenting that windy days only improve his Quirk's power, Inasa redoubles the bombardment around All For One, aided by the very cumulonimbus storm indirectly created by the Todoroki's family's flames, showing how Endeavor's actions have helped pull the fragmented heroes still willing to fight into a united front against All For One's malice. This noticeably irks All For One, commenting to himself that despite all he does, the heroes simply won't stop re-igniting each other's hopes for a better future.
    Inasa: Forget you and your ancient glory days! What I wanna see is a future built by the guys I'm cheering on!!
  • As All For One prepares to start stealing some Quirks to both break free of the encirclement and crush his enemies' hope, taunting them that they're still unable to attack him directly because of the danger his power brings, he's shocked from sensing something looming over him from behind — Dark Shadow, now in a gigantic Ragnarok form that dwarfs anything Tokoyami's released before. Using Pixiebob's Quirk to bury Tokoyami in the darkness beneath the earth, with the storm clouds above blocking the sunlight and the fires Dabi and Endeavor unleashed being removed by Inasa's gale force winds, Tokoyami can now unleash strength beyond anything he could alone, attacking All For One with true power wielded in unity. For a bonus — Tokoyami taunts All For One that Dark Shadow is capable of touching him because of his Logical Weakness, that he cannot drain a Quirk from the user if he is not touching the 'true' body, as he lamented being unable to do so earlier from the Twice clones. With Inasa's winds helming him in, All For One cannot do anything to stop Tokoyami unleashing an attack on par with One For All's strength directly at him, an attack he instantly realises he needs to dodge, showing outright panic at the sight of Ragnarok's fist bearing down on him.
    Tokoyami: Dark Shadow: Total Release. Abyssal Black Body: Light of Baldur!!
  • The panelling of Ragnarok's unleashed power emphasises how insignificant All For One truly is. Despite his delusions of being the pinnacle of darkness and evil in the series, with his present appearance and the Quirks he was using to attack the heroes having grown vaguely wing-like structures from his back, All For One resembles a Fallen Angel caught in the gaze of a true god, about to bring righteous punishment down upon him for his hubris in declaring himself almighty.
    Tokoyami: Even darkness comes in a range of shades. So you don't get to speak of The Dark. That muddied dismal darkness you brought about... we've already devoured it whole!!!
  • To add to Tokoyami's moment, he's one of the only people to ever make All For One flat out panic, the other one being Endeavor.
• Chapter 382:
  • Both heroes and villains alike realise that despite the good guys being outnumbered, Toga's version of the Sad Man's Parade has a fatal weakness: she cannot successfully replicate the Quirks of those she copies besides Jin, meaning that an endless horde of disposable attackers is all they have to contend with. Tsuyu theorises that Toga's Quirk, needing her to 'love' the target, likewise extends to the doubles she creates, meaning that, because she doesn't truly love her ostensible allies like she did to Jin, she can't duplicate their abilities as well, giving the heroes a fighting chance. Ironically, despite Dabi planning a sure-fire way to unleash the Parade no matter what Hawks did, his lack of true emotional camaraderie with Toga undercut his masterstroke, something he couldn't have predicted.
  • Tsuyu notes that despite this, Toga's powers being based on her emotional state means that this limitation could change at any moment with the right impetus, so they need to locate the real Toga and stop her asap. However on top of her specialised skills at hiding her presence, Toga now looks identical to the endlessly-spawning hordes of Jin on the chaotic battlefield, making the task near-impossible.... if not for one thing. In a fit of self-loathing at herself for her inability to truly 'become' Jin and kill all the heroes like Toga believes he would want, Toga cannot stop herself from crying in frustration, which Uraraka notices amongst the chaos.
    Narration: She's always loved seeing happy people. So of course, she zeroed in on her tears.
  • Tokoyami's full-powered Ragnarok keeps pinning down All For One, aided by every hero piling on as support, until the arch-villain unleashes another massive blast to destroy its arm and force everybody back, rising to his feet whilst mocking their attempts to stop him with brute force... only for him to stop short as his face comes into view, revealing that he's now visibly younger, about the age of a young adult. His Hour of Power has finally started to reach the limit of his lengthy lifespan, and because of him indulging in his revived strength at his physical prime against the 'gnats' he mocked for trying to beat him, All For One has wasted most of his 'second chance at victory'. His face doesn't express anything, but his instant attempt to flee the fighting again without a word shows that he's now deeply concerned about his chances of emerging victorious if any more of his time is wasted.
    • Going further than that, Hawks' slice healing on his face was accompanied by a stronger burst of Rewind energy over the cut, implying that the more All For One's body becomes damaged, the stronger the energy rewinds him to undo the damage at the cost of burning through his remaining lifespan quicker. All For One's visibly younger appearance and his fear towards Tokoyami's attack imply that it seriously damaged him to the point of pushing him back to his early years, potentially even outright killing him again without his current status.
    • Even better? The huge explosion that All For One put off...does nothing to Tokoyami and Dark Shadow but knock them back. The very next page, they're charging right after him with no visible damage. Tokoyami just No Selled an attack from All For One.
  • As All For One flees, pursued by all the assembled heroes determined to drag him down no matter what, all parties notice a new incoming threat on the battlefield: Gigantomachia, awakened and already in full-battle mode as he makes a beeline straight for his master, the heroes having apparently failed to stop the villains from rousing him. Certain of his escape, All For One smugly orders Machia to crush all his enemies, except...
    Hawks: Not quite the disaster it looks like? Right Tsukauchi!?
  • Cue Gigantomachia throwing an entire mountain at All For One, knocking his master backwards and stunning him over how his most loyal minion has turned on him, before noticing some figures standing atop Machia's head: A bloodied but still determined Kirishima, and Shinso, using his equipment and Quirk to control the otherwise-unstoppable asset the villains thought they had complete control over against them, at the worst possible timing for All For One.
    • Kirishima's presence also implies that he and his group, like Uraraka's, managed to win their respective fight, despite Machia's freed state indicating it was a close victory.
• Chapter 383:
  • A flashback to the villains ambushing Machia's containment facility reveals that, rather than try to fight their way through to him, they simply combined their Quirks with a high-frequency transmitter, designed to pierce sound waves mimicking All For One's voice straight through any buildings or bindings placed on the inert giant, aware one of his abilities, "Dog", would pick it up regardless of how faint the sound was and rouse him to action. Furthermore, despite the heroes having utterly stopped the assault on the ground thanks to Juzo's Softening burying all the ground-based forces in one move, the Scuba-Faced Advisor has hoisted himself and a few allies aloft to ensure the broadcast continues uninterrupted, mocking the heroes that all they need to do is make Machia respond to their call and they'll win regardless of the heroes' efforts. Mt Lady's desperation to stop them highlights the sheer unstoppability of the titanic behemoth, that everybody on both sides of the fighting is aware he's leagues beyond any efforts to stop outside of One For All or All For One.
  • Mt Lady gets to show her improved skills and determination as one of the main fighters, using Kodai's Rule quirk to grow massive spanners and wrenches about 50 feet long for her to wield as melee tools against the attackers, being about to wipe out their foes in a single blow before Machia erupts from the containment facility swatting her aside like an afterthought as he blindly screams for his master. Despite once again getting ragdolled by a force she's can't overpower, Mt Lady still has the presence of mind to rip the bindings off of Machia's ears to render him vulnerable to Shinso's brainwashing as per their fallback emergency plan, doing what she can to stop him even as he's beating her bloody.
  • However, the heroes run into an unexpected complication: the sludge villain that attacked Midoriya in chapter 1, just tagging along to the easiest battlefield he could find and aiming to pretend to fight before slipping away, as the only remaining heroes still opposing them are the ones with true grit, chanced upon the weakest opponent he could to attack, Shinso. Having unexpectedly upset the heroes' counter-attack, Kirishima can only helplessly recreate Midoriya's own frantic efforts to save Bakugo, futilely clawing away the sludge from around Shinso's mouth as he suffocates, as Machia prepares to impale Mt Lady through the head and march out once more on a bloody path of destruction straight to his master. As the Scuba Advisor gloats that their era of Liberation has begun...
    • Mina creates a gigantic blob of acid, large enough to cover Machia's hand, interjecting it between his attack on Mt Lady, at a high enough volume that it actually eats into his fingers and the giant is forced to pull back from the strike to avoid losing them, even with his inability to sense pain. The effort involved in creating that much acidic mass, larger than her own body several times over, leaves Mina so dehydrated that one of her black sclera is drained of its usual colouration, but she still has enough strength left in her to attack the Sludge Villain with her remaining acidic touch, forcing him off Shinso. She furthermore shoots back at the Scuba Advisor, dismissing his 'Law of the Jungle' Hannibal Lecture by yelling that she knows full well what it means to be weak: that's why she loves making friendships and grouping with other people, and that same fear of being alone and weak also goes the same for the villains as well. The Scuba Advisor remembering how Re-Destro claimed them to be one and the same implies her words got through to him, and he can only rant that Machia's power makes her sentiments useless — words he swiftly eats when Shinso turns said power against all the remaining flying opponents.
  • Shinso's Brainwashing gets again to prove how useful it is, instantly incapacitating not only Machia, but the otherwise-intangible Sludge Villain with a few careless responses. Shinso also gets to show how he's physically improved from his training under Aizawa, managing to parkour up Machia's body to get close enough to his ears to issue a command in All For One's voice. Furthermore, shutting off Machia's brain via his Quirk means that it doesn't matter how good his hearing is, no further orders given to him will register to the Dumb Muscle, turning his might squarely on the heroes' side for good.
    • Shinso was only able to mimic All For One's voice thanks to the Tartarus recordings of his jail cell, meaning that Stain's interference and providing said intel to All Might defanged one of the greatest assets available to the Diabolical Mastermind — a fitting karmic punishment given how he manipulated the Hero Killer's own crusade from the shadows to suit his own purposes.
  • The chapter ends on an epic double-page spread of everybody teaming up to fight All For One, Inasa and Tokoyami pinning him down with tornado-force gales and Ragnarok's empowered might, the brainwashed Gigantomachia casually chucking mountains at him like they were sacks of flour, Mt Lady striking him with another enlarged weapon and every standing hero remaining also pitching in on the side. Despite all of it, the ex-leader of the villains remains aloft, blocking every strike and holding his ground despite enough power being arrayed against him to count as an entire army, underscoring how powerful he remains, even with his time running low. However, it's equally clear that defending himself is all he can do, a shot of his face being visibly strained and his trademark smile utterly absent, making it clear that All For One is inching steadily closer to losing the fight, and his only hope being to find some means of escape, rather than being able to kill his foes by himself like he arrogantly presumed the revised "Demon Lord" could achieve with ease.
• Chapter 384:
  • All For One realises that Shinso is somehow controlling Gigantomachia, and unleashes a massive shockwave targeted at him that's powerful enough to actually knock Machia backwards and out of the brainwashing... but then the giant keeps attacking him anyway. As it turns out, Machia figured out it was All For One inside of Tomura - and thus his beloved master - who rewarded his loyalty by abandoning him and leaving him to rot. As Hawks points out, All For One managed to successfully turn even his most loyal minion against him, who joins Mt. Lady and Tokoyami into making sure All For One falls into the annals of history forever.
    Hawks: Looks to me that nobody's on board...with your grand tale, buddy.
  • Kirishima also deserves a mention for protecting Shinso from the attack, full-body blocking a blow that was powerful enough to make Machia falter. Shinso also fires back at All For One's accusation that controlling somebody to fight for him is something a villain like him would do, mocking him that as villainous as his power seems, it can't control anybody's heart, and all the heroes like him are here to do is make sure the Diabolical Mastermind reaps everything he's sown.
  • Meanwhile, two reporters flying far away from the battle between Midoriya and Shigaraki are determined to cover the story despite the ongoing risks of them dying in the story, since one of them has a personal interest in Midoriya since she realised that he was the "Dark Hero" acting as a vigilante and remembered he was the nervous wreck in the U.A Sports Festival who broke himself to pieces. Then they see another news chopper also trying to cover the story for the sole purpose of proving that Japan isn't going to fall without anyone fighting for it, whether the heroes lose or not.
  • Izuku and Tomura's battle has created a massive swirling maelstrom of destruction on the Japanese coastline, the collision of their mighty abilities large enough to dwarf the houses and streets nearby, showing how powerful the current inheritors of their respective powers are. Izuku is grappling with Tomura in a cross-arm lock despite the danger that a single touch can cause him, whilst his nemesis is Laughing Mad at the carnage they're creating and the thrill of fighting a Worthy Opponent who can take the full brunt of what his new body and fully-controlled powers can dish out. Meanwhile, the viewer counter on Gentle's website, streaming theirs and everybody else's battles, continues to skyrocket, reaching past 20,000 viewers without any signs of stopping, as a double-panel spread of various characters watching their climatic duel highlights: The World is watching. For bonus points, some of those observing are Melissa Shield, Mahoro and Katsuma Shimano and Rody Soul and his siblings, showing how all those Izuku has bettered the lives of with his heroic deeds before are now watching him ascend on a world-wide stage.

Chapters 385- 389

• Chapter 385:
  • Despite all the damage being piled onto him and the best efforts of the heroes to hold him down, All For One ultimately proves that his reputation as the "Symbol of Evil" was well-earned. Giving in to his inner fury over his predicament and utilising the rewinding state of his body to neutralise any backlash, All For One is able to push his various Quirk combinations beyond the limits his body could normally endure, creating a massive tendril that guts Mt.Lady, unleashing a sword-shaped light beam that slices Machia's arm and 1/3 of his chest off, and unleashing a Wave-Motion Gun to vaporise Dark Shadow: Ragnarok along with his own arm. In the aftermath, he stands victorious over the heroes despite the absolute overkill they heaped onto him.
    All For One: Perhaps this is my other self's influence...but something dark brews within my core. The younger I revert, the more untamable it grows. And the more I give myself over to this darkness, the more I can draw on my Quirk's latent potential. For instance, a cataclysmic blast of light. Youth is a wondrous thing.
  • Intent on avenging his humiliation by Tokoyami's hands, All For One heads straight for him to steal his Quirk, utterly ignoring Hawks' attempts to stop him via impaling his chest with his katana, and stealing his Fierce Wings as an afterthought as well. Just before he reaches him however, he's hit by one of Mineta's Pop-off balls, drawing his attention to the badly-wounded teenager. Mocking him that taking Dark Shadow would only make him even more of a "cringey edge lord" than he already is, Mineta taunts him to come take his own Quirk instead, saying it'd give the Evil Overlord a sick hairstyle. Though outwardly unfazed, All For One's inner recollection of Jiro's own stand against him and how that turned out implies that he's secretly unnerved by how even the weakest of the heroes refuses to break against his unstoppable might. Mulling over his dwindling time limit and noticing a nearby news helicopter filming the scene, All For One contents himself with letting the carnage break the watching citizens' spirits instead, choosing to head to Shigaraki ASAP instead. However, this doesn't quite disguise the fact that he's leaving the fight having utterly failed to break his enemies' resolve and he's even implied to be nervous that they could actually beat him again, forcing himself to settle for a close-enough victory to sooth his over-inflated ego.
    • In contrast to his imposting stature when he turned up to face Izuku, All For One leaves the battle at Gunga Living on Borrowed Time, clad in makeshift rags and with no concrete plan to achieve victory beyond gambling on being able to reach Shigaraki in time, and even that is uncertain with how much of his Hour of Power the heroes successfully managed to waste. He was repeatedly humiliated in battle by 'weaker' foes who aren't even a holder of One For All, technically killed (and his state whilst rewinding from the heroes' barrage, his body reassembling from practically nothing, makes it clear that it was more than once, if not for his current condition making him unkillable) and forced to cut down his most powerful minion after his own character flaws turned him against him. All For One himself notes that the damage done to him further cuts into his remaining time, and Hawks notes that he can't actually use mutation-type Quirks to fight back because the same rewind energy reduces them to an infantile state, actually limiting his ability to use Quirks the further back he goes. Though the heroes failed to stop All For One, their efforts in delaying him have severely reduced the threat he possesses, and it's clear that both sides are aware it's a hollow victory for him.
    • Despite potentially being taken out of the battle due to his injuries this chapter, a moment has to be brought up for Tokoyami. After being clobbered by both the student and Dark Shadow, Mt. Lady, and Gigantomachia to a point that he was pretty much a ragged legless corpse, once he had managed to take out everyone attacking him and is in the midst of taking out a desperate Hawks, All For One singles out Tokoyami as the one who pushed him so far and intended on stealing Dark Shadow for that reason. Not bad for one of the people that the so-called Demon Lord had called a "jobber" character several chapters prior.
  • Inside the evacuation shelters, All For One's extensive preparations continue to unravel. With Skeptic captured, La Brava has steadily taken back control of the shelters and continued moving them to a safe place, save one that is being actively sabotaged from within by a desperate mole attempting to produce some results to convince the evil mastermind to spare him. Gunhead discovering and attacking said mole implies the other shelters are likewise being investigated by their protectors to unearth any saboteurs, steadily rooting out All For One's spies one by one. When the mole's sabotage causes a section of the shelter to collapse onto the civilians within, who were just bitterly complaining about the results of the Gunga battle meaning that them putting their faith in the heroes once more was All for Nothing, the one who steps in to protect them isn't Tetsutetsu, but Death Arms, still retired and in civilian garb. Admitting that he knows it won't change anything, that he'll still be criticised for quitting when the going got tough, and he can't expect to be forgiven for it, watching Izuku battle and being reminded of his selfless heroism in their first meeting still moved him to action. Likewise, back at Kamino ward, Shoto and Iida are picking themselves back up after their intense ordeal with Dabi, unwilling to give up the fight either, watched over by Stain, judging their heroic conduct from the shadows.
• Chapter 386:
  • In the wake of All For One's conclusive defeat of their forces, the situation continues to go From Bad to Worse for the heroes. In addition to the now-freed demon lord speeding unimpeded towards Izuku and getting close enough to use his warping, the police's analysis of Dabi and Endevour's fight reveals the insane villain's final plan to kill both his father and the image of heroes with him. Having been using the Phosphor move to steadily accumulate thermal energy within his decaying shell of a body, Dabi has essentially turned himself into a Fantastic Nuke that will detonate within 10 minutes at best, blowing everything within a 5 kilometre radius off the map. Furthermore, the area he's charging towards his father in is where the evacuation shelters pass through to reach Shinketsu, with the damage done to the shelter the Todoroki family's in having left them stranded right in the blast zone. Tsukauchi is horrified to realise that Dabi might have done this on purpose, if Skeptic made him aware of the shelters and their routes, driving home his insane willpower to continue attacking both heroes and those they protect even as his body is little more than a charcoal corpse by now. With no heroes on standby nearby to help out and no means of stopping Dabi or All For One, it looks like their efforts were all in vain... until All Might's voice sounds over the radio.
  • Dabi deserves special mention as with one move, he's gone from being 'just' the Todoroki Family's Arch-Enemy to as big of a threat to the heroes' victory as Tomura or All For One.
  • All Might briefs both Shoto and Iida on the situation, dispelling their doubts with a Rousing Speech and telling them both how much respect he has for them, who struggle onwards even filled with doubt about their victory. He tasks Iida with carrying Shoto all the way to Gunga so his ice and flames can counter his insane sibling's detonation and protect the endangered civilians, a task Iida accepts despite the distance and the time limit. He reassures Shoto that he can make that sprint despite his stalled engines because of the storm rains cooling them down, reaffirming his conviction to be a hero with a statement that drives home to the watching Stain how different Iida's become from the angry teenager who confronted him in that back alley.
    Iida: I can do it. Because after all, Todoroki, my legs are meant to guide wayward children.
    Stain: (Quietly observing) Acting...for the sake of others...
  • Meanwhile, to deal with All For One, All Might reveals how exactly they can stop the currently-unbeatable force of nature he's become... by giving him a target he absolutely can't resist attacking, even with his remaining time having almost run out.
    All Might: You must remember the endless warring that got us here. And now I hear that Tomura Shigaraki's hatred is even affecting your original body. So I'm thinking you won't be able to ignore me. Isn't that right?
    Tsukauchi: No, stop! You're Quirkless!
    Izuku: (Via flashback) Can someone without a Quirk be a hero like you?
    [All Might stands alone before the revived Demon Lord, activating the briefcase he brought with him to transform Hercules into a suit of Powered Armour to fight him once again with a Grin of Audacity]
    All Might: I Am Here!!!
• Chapter 387:
  • As Toya's assault upon Endeavor continues, he continues to demonstrate why his self-destructive firepower is indeed naturally superior to his parents' despite the drawbacks, burning Enji even through his own natural heat resistance and unleashing a massive Elemental Punch that completely dwarfs Endeavor and wrecks the landscape around him. The blowback of this also self-detonates his own arm, turning it into a charcoal stump, which Dabi doesn't even react to, continuing to mindlessly assault Endeavor in an effort to showcase how strong he is. The interior of his injury shows that Dabi's insides are now almost entirely molten flames covered by his charcoaled shell of a body, demonstrating how tough he is that he can keep fighting even whilst basically dead. And Endeavor soon discovers the reason why as his insane son grapples with him — he was able to replicate Shoto's Phosphor move because the damage he'd done to himself and pushing him so close to death finally unlocked the ice Quirk he'd inherited from Rei, long-dormant in his body, but now able to use contrasting temperatures to freeze his heart and keep moving based on his insane tenacity. Toya was always determined to prove he was the Superior Successor Endeavor wanted all along despite his unequal inheritance, and now he's finally achieved that.
  • Seeing the proof of his son's success before him and realizing that he doesn't have enough strength left in his battered body to keep luring him away from the civilians and heroes before he blows, Endeavor resolves himself to do the only thing he can to protect everyone — using Toya's flames as propellant to launch them both into the sky to explode away from everybody else. Thinking back on his dreams of his family living happily without him, Enji prepares to do his duty as a hero and a father before he notices something...
  • Rei Todoroki approaching them both, using her ice Quirk to counter the heat long enough to reach her son, even as the raw temperature is visibly scorching her and starting to boil her eyes. Her face resolute, Rei's memories of Toya blaming her for his situation as well shows that she's determined not to fail him this time.
    Toya: (via flashback) You're guilty too, mom.
• Chapter 388:
  • One for the U.A. Robots. When aiding the civilians in evacuating the immobile damaged shelter, Rei, realising her son and husband are fighting nearby from the massive fireball Dabi's generating, hops abroad one of them and asks it to take her to the epicentre of the conflagration. Despite lacking a face to express itself and clearly being able to tell taking a civilian towards the danger zone is an illogical move, the robot proves to have enough emotional intelligence to sense Rei's determination to risk herself, and agrees to help her. The next shot is of the broken robot's arm triumphantly held in a thumbs-up pose after it self-destructed from the heat closer to Dabi, clearly conveying how the automaton considered everything Worth It to help Rei.
    Robot: We exist... to serve humans' desires.
  • Rei also makes it clear to Enji that she's doing this to save both of them, unwilling to let her husband sacrifice himself as a form of atonement, and wanting him to live beyond this fight despite his guilt for the harm he's caused. To have the emotional courage to demand that Enji keep living without taking the easy way out after all the pain that happened between them is no easy feat, and shows that Rei is far more than the Shrinking Violet she appeared to be on their first meeting.
  • Rei turns out to not be the only member of the Todoroki family unwilling to stand on the sidelines anymore, with both Natsu and Fuyumi also commandeering a robot to approach their self-destructing sibling with their own cooling powers, likewise getting scorched by his self-cremation. Fuyumi refuses to lose any more of her family to the mad obsession that Toya's demoted himself to, and Natsu reminisces on how Toya kept bothering him endlessly at night over his concerns, a panel of his younger childhood self impatiently listening to his brother's complaining driving home how he feels he also failed Toya and needs to pull him back from the brink.
• Chapter 389:
  • With the family's combined effort in applying ice to Toya despite the burns from the omnipresent heat, they manage to delay the explosion for a few moments more, but even with all three ice-users applying their Quirks to the limit, it's not enough to avert Toya's self-detonation. A montage of all those nearby the blast highlights everybody endangered by his Spiteful Suicide: the heroes grappling with Toga's Twice army, the 1B students struggling to evacuate the civilians from the shelter, the reporter who critiqued Endeavor recording from the skies, the footage even reaching the Can't-Ya-See supporter, who can only pray for everybody's safety, as the kindergarden teacher tries to reassure her charges that everything will be fine in the end... and the non-panicking children agree with her.
    Kid: Yeah, for sure, cuz after all...we've got five weiners on our side.
  • Cue a blur zipping past some abandoned buildings before the resulting sonic boom blows the pouring rain away in a visual display of the sheer speed Iida's achieved: with Todoroki providing support by creating a jet-plane out of ice around them to increase his aerodynamic velocity and allow them to go faster than ever before. With his Phosphor move already activated, he races towards his imperilled family as the velocity tears apart Iida's protective armour around him, prepared to finally quench his insane brother's fires for good.

Chapters 390- 394

• Chapter 390: Shoto finally arrives thanks to he and Iida managing to break the sound barrier and blasts Dabi with a gigantic Great Glacial Aegir that freezes him so thoroughly as to completely negate his impending explosion. He admits that the attack wouldn't have been successful if it weren't for the combined help of the ice quirks from Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo because Toya's flames were STILL hotter since their previous fight. As a result, the Todoroki family put an end to the threat of their own making known as Dabi so they can bring him down back to Toya and progress from there.
• Chapter 393:
  • A colossal one for Ochako. The danger of Toga’s exponential horde of clones is rapidly growing, with the clones drinking the fallen blood of heroes to take on their appearance to disorient the overwhelmed heroes and having multiplied to the point of washing over an entire city like a tidal wave or human Grey Goo event. The reporter covering the battle from a helicopter even says that Quirk Doomsday, the frequently speculated doomsday scenario, is seemingly upon them, and that Toga’s feelings of rejection, anguish and rage are about the change the world.
  • Despite having been stabbed in the abdomen by Toga in the previous chapter and bleeding heavily, Ochako refuses to give up the fight, using her suit’s boosters, her Zero Gravity, and her martial arts skills to repel the clone onslaught Toga sends her way. Toga insists that Ochako’s attempts to help and reason with her are hollow, believing Ochako will abandon Toga to her fate after capturing her or kill her outright if she can’t be taken alive, but Ochako defies her.
  • Though Ochako could end the fight by just deactivating her Quirk and dropping Toga, and despite Toga’s remark Ochako isn't actually hurting the clones, she refuses to do so and keeps fighting, insisting her Quirk isn’t for hurting people and tacitly refuting Toga’s accusation that Ochako doesn't actually care about her life. While fighting, Ochako continues to insist on correcting the miscommunications between the two of them that led to this mayhem, starting to truly get under Toga’s skin by expressing the empathy that Toga never received before becoming a villain, even expressing admiration for Toga’s ability to be so open about her feelings. Ochako’s affirmation of her ideals and intent to connect with Toga not only refutes Toga’s disillusioned view of her, but combined with her resolve to push through the impossible odds, the agony of her injury, and the exertion of pushing her Quirk so far causes her Quirk to awaken, sending out energy spheres from her fingertips which create web of energy that instantly sweeps away the entire tide of clones except for Toga and Ochako themselves and saving the heroes from being literally crushed under the sheer mass of the clone army, causing an astonished Jirou to exclaim Ochako’s Quirk is affecting things she didn’t even touch and the reporter to realize a single girl just halted calamity. Ochako then offers to donate her own blood for the rest of her life to persuade the stricken Toga to stand down and have their talk, a panel of child versions of both seemingly indicating Ochako has broken through to Toga. Ochako, while critically injured, just reached a villain who many including Toga herself thought was beyond saving, experienced one of the most massive power jumps in the series, and averted a potentially country if not world ending event, IN ONE FELL SWOOP.

• Chapter 394:
  • Tiger and Kamui Woods observing Uravity's quirk awakening and commenting how much she has grown in just year of hero training. It is great to see pro heroes discuss and praise Ochaco's abilities.
  • Uravity successfully stopped Himiko Toga's rampage by reaching out to her humanity and talking her down. Ochaco stayed true to her convictions about wanting to help everyone smile again, persisted against Toga's protests and attacks, and she managed to reach her archenemy through love and compassion.

Chspters 395- 400

• Chapter 395:
  • We see the aftermath of Toga's Legion of Doubles. Iida, the Todoroki family, and Hawks were all about to be bombarded by the doubles before they dissolved. Had Uraraka not managed to talk down Toga as she did it is very possible for Toga to have drunk the blood from one of her Twice clones to increase her time limit and continue her rampage indefinitely. Essentially Uraraka saved everyone at Gunga Villa area by empathizing with Toga and getting her to stop her attack.
  • After a lifetime of taking others' blood due to her twisted perception of love, Toga willingly spends what might be her last moments on Earth giving her own blood to save Uraraka from certain death, showing genuinely selfless love. It's powerful that, just like Uraraka, Toga finds a way to repay and help her enemy without compromising her own sense of self and is willing to follow through with it no matter the cost.

• Chapter 396:
  • Three words: Armored. All Might.
  • Toshinori knows he’s Quirkless and at a big disadvantage, even with the armor, and that this battle is more than likely the one that Nighteye predicted would end in his gruesome death. Does any of that deter him from being willing to try and Screw Destiny? Hell no. While he's clearly more than willing to do down swinging, it's obvious he's not planning on just throwing his life away without giving it his all. Even without superpowers, he's every bit the Superman Substitute he always was.
    All Might: We've known each other for long enough that you should realize something, [Tsukauchi]! Not once in my entire life have I gone into battle expecting to lose!
  • All Might isn't just going in and swinging blindly. He knows how All For One fights, explaining he relies on powerful long ranged attacks to wear down opponents before stealing their Quirks, which Toshinori doesn't need to worry about, being Quirkless himself. As a result, AFO has no idea how to fight up close, allowing All Might to immediately close the distance and force AFO onto the backfoot.
  • Better yet? All of the abilities of his Powered Armor are based on the 1-A kids' Quirks, showing how much the next generation has inspired All Might himself. And they're very effective, using gadgets based on Kirishima, Deku's Blackwhip, Kaminari, Sero and Sato to tank a laser blast that shears through several buildings, arrest AFO's regeneration, and reel him into pummeling range. And it goes deeper than just replicating powers; Toshinori utilizes his armor's capabilities in concert and deconstructs his opponent's tactics to exploit them, just like his protégé, even closing out the chapter by delivering a rocket-powered Shoot Style Smash.
  • And the designer of this armor? Melissa Shield! Melissa had already appeared in the canon manga alongside Mahoro, Katsuma and the Soul siblings, being seen among the people watching the final battle from around the world, but it's amazing a character from a side-story gets to make such a massive impact on the final battle of the main story, especially given her bond to Uncle All Might in her movie. All Might even says that this armor is his way bringing everything that he's been blessed with in his life, his bonds with his friends and students, to bear against AFO.
  • It's increasingly obvious just how screwed AFO is. His younger body is breaking under the strain of his Quirks' full power, the massive laser attack he hurls at All Might obliterating his own arm whilst leaving All Might unscathed, and instead of hanging back to regenerate he furiously charges straight ahead, allowing All Might easily paralyze his regeneration with an electric attack. AFO's running very short on time, his own powers are eating him alive, and he's now unable to escape a fight with an opponent he's completely unprepared for.
• Chapter 397:
  • All Might's physical barrage on All For One is accompanied by his far more devastating verbal beatdown on his arch-foe, mocking him about how bad it feels for a man in his 50s to pound the tar out of such a weak and helpless young man, and laughing in his face over the audacity of All For One calling himself a "Demon Lord" when he can't even win a fight with a Quirkless man. His mental dialogue makes it clear that he knows it's his words that are inflicting the more devastating impacts on All For One rather than the physical wounds that are being undone with rewind, and he's picking every one of them carefully to keep All For One as blind as possible to his reality until his time is up. In contrast to how he operated as the Symbol of Peace, Toshinori Yagi is fighting this last battle with his head, just like his protege Izuku, and not his heart and fists.
  All Might: Any real Demon Lord would be aghast! Getting whupped by a Quirkless man? I mean, really!?
  • All For One forced some distance between them with another mass Quirk combination that blows apart several blocks like they were made of cardboard. Despite the intensity of the attack, All Might guards against it with his mechanical cape's auto-guarding feature, designed after Dark Shadow and furthermore notes that whilst powerful, the Quirks were not working in synch in that attack, being just a mishmash of abilities that All For One lashed out with, further proof that All Might is indeed deeply pushing his buttons, and keeping him off-balance with them.
  • Despite his defenses, it's demonstrated that All Might's Powered Armor isn't capable of fully protecting him from damage regardless, due to the sheer force of All For One's unleashed accumulated abilities, with him sustaining several fractures in his left arm and the other layer of armor on said arm getting shredded. All For One mocks him that the weakness of his support items is that they cannot go beyond their limits like the Quirks he's solely fighting with and cannot hope to keep up with his godlike might for more than a few seconds — once they break, so too will All Might. Does that stop All Might? Hell no. He just orders his suit to assist his movement to max, the armor compressing on his damaged arm to hold it in place and still allow him to move it. All Might recalls his own advice to Izuku about over-relying on support items in a fight and continuing on his more devastating strategy of trash-talking All For One to extend the time he wastes on him.
  • It's revealed that Yagi originally met Nana Shimura when he — at the time a mere Quirkless middle school student — picked up a pipe and tried to fight off some low-level criminals despite the impossible odds, only for her to arrive and casually defeat them without trying. Her dialogue makes it clear that it's not just a case of Yagi being menaced by them, like Izuku, he couldn't remain on the sidelines despite his powerlessness, and risked himself to stand up against evil. And in an ironic fashion, his final fight is now a mirror of his first heroic action, fighting with a "weak" support item against a foe he can't hope to win against...but this time, Yagi has experience backing him up instead of his mentor.
  • Throughout their fight at Kamino and whenever they've interacted before, All For One's trademark snide taunting has always gotten under All Might's skin, making him aware that he's still being toyed with in the Diabolical Mastermind's plans despite all he does. At their final fight, it's now Yagi's taunting that is getting underneath All For One's skin, making him foolishly waste time he cannot spare in a pointless battle — and furthermore, All For One's unravelling psyche means that even if he knows this, he just can't let it go and walk away, being mentally cornered by the very ego that fueled his villainous actions, even if he continues to childishly deny how he's being outplayed.
  All For One: No, obviously I didn't fall for your cheap ploy to stall me. I can easily spare the time to clean up the trash by the roadside!!
  All Might: Desperate to play it cool, huh? How undignified!!
• Chapter 398:
  • As All For One relentlessly blasts All Might with a shockwave attack, the still-mobile Hercules, stripping itself down further to the car's framework with every support item it sends his way, arrives and launches another one, detaching in segments through the shockwave like a orbital rocket to deliver the payload straight to his waiting arms: an injector with a concentrated superacid designed to mimic Mina's Quirk, gutting All For One with incredible internal damage as the acid eats away at his insides. All Might having the skills to catch the injector with a backhanded catch even with his fractured arm and fighting to keep his position close-range to All For One showcases how skilled he remains, even as a retired hero. All Might continues to mock All For One's performance, both for his strategy and to showcase how superior he remains against his foe, not matter how much stolen power he wields, driving All For One insane with rage.
  All Might: I'm "trash", right? So much for that theory!!
  • Throughout the chapter, an ongoing flashback to All Might and Nana's first meeting highlights how similar the younger Yagi was to his pupil, following after his future mentor and begging her to let him help her, even whilst Quirkless and capable of only wielding a simple pipe to defend himself with. When Nana, still hurting after the loss of her husband and estrangement from Kotaro, dismissed him and told him to defend the "three-meter radius" he could with his weapon, All Might refuted her. For all that people could rebuild the damaged buildings and try to move on from the collateral destruction caused by the rampant battles of their time, their hearts would remain oppressed with fear of the next chaotic battle that would sweep them up in it. Yagi could not accept a world that suffocated the innocent with fear of constant loss and death, so whilst everybody else devoted themselves to protecting their own lives, he wanted to become the Symbol of Peace to bring them all hope of a better tomorrow, in addition to protecting them in the present.
  Toshinori Yagi: Everyone's got a tough enough time with their own three-foot radius. So Yes. I would step up. A Quirkless guy like me has no role otherwise.
  • A side-shot of the city visible across the canal they're talking beside underscores just how monumental the task Yagi wanted to undertake was. Entire swathes of the city are destroyed rubble, the damage comparable to the devastation unleashed at Kamino ward or Gigantomachia's rampage across the cities, with massive tower-like spirals sticking out of the ground visible for miles around. And yet, there's no indication that All For One or any minion of his was involved in the carnage, that is just how things were for the people back then, with each villain being a possible Person of Mass Destruction. And yet Yagi, more powerless than any other, wanted to single-handedly reverse this situation, to give the people faith in a better tomorrow, for no other reason than he wanted to, no matter the cost to himself, an attitude comparable to his inspiration. It's no wonder that Nana was convinced to choose him as her successor, or that he became the greatest one of the torch bearers before Izuku's turn.
    • The revelation of his motivation is also another massive dose of Laser-Guided Karma for All For One. He espoused with delight to Inasa over how people trembled in fear during his reign, afraid and oppressed by the unknown menace that he ruled over from the shadows, only for that exact state of affairs to motivate Yagi to become a being powerful enough to overturn it, in so doing creating All For One's worst nemesis.
      All Might: (explaining the origin of One For All to Izuku) An ironic tale, no? Justice is always born from evil.
  • In an amazing callback to the very first chapter, All Might crashes down into Tatoin station, the very place where he and Izuku first met by accident. Collapsed on a rooftop, his armour busted and broken as the system detects numerous internal injuries, fractured ribs, contusions and his very lungs being damaged from the blow, All Might lays eyes upon the same rooftop where Izuku discovered his secret and he himself once rebuffed the young hero about his dreams of being a hero, even Quirkless. Thoughts of Izuku's selfless heroism against the sludge villain resounding in his head, remembering Stain's tirade to him about the role that All Might, the Symbol of Peace served, All Might rises once more to his feet, the rest of his armour likewise compressing on his damaged body to enable him to stand upright even with his shattered internals. Noticing that All For One's appearance has again gotten visibly younger, even if his enemy is too lost in his own mad rage to notice, All Might cottons onto the fact that the more he hurts All For One, the less time his Arch-Enemy will have. Knowing what he has to do with his remaining time, All Might briefly goes Laughing Mad, again enraging All For One, as All Might thinks back gratefully on his life, preparing his Last Stand against his foe and his destined end. A shot of his face shows that the damage done to him has somehow drained the black sclera on his right eye, the effect combining with his Broken Faceplate to give the impression that half of Yagi's face has turned back into his younger Quirkless self's, a reminder of how he's at heart still the Quirkless young man who just wanted to save people's hearts all those years ago.
    All Might: To be of service to others...what a joy!
  • All Might summons more support items from Hercules to continue the fight, Combat Tentacles with suction cups to emulate Shoji and Froppy, a robotic tail to mimic Ojiro, robotic drones in the shape of birds to copy Koda and jet thrusters to enhance his mobility like Uraraka and Iida, armed with massive flamethrowers to bring Shoto's firepower into play, bringing all his students' powers to bear to support him as he supports them as a teacher. All Might's will to fight reaches his vestige within One For All, causing both it and Izuku to realise All Might's situation as the 9th inheritor remains locked in a literal maelstrom of conflict with Tomura, his own crazed Arch-Enemy focused on ending their battle. The message is clear: by the day's end, the decades-long conflict between One for All and All For One, both present and past generations, will be finished for good.
• Chapter 399:
  • Unable to cope with All For One's god-like strength openly, All Might sticks to the alleyways of the city to hide from the building-destroying blasts he's unleashing, operating the multiple robotic limbs of his suit like they were an extension of himself, highlighting both his skill and the engineering that Melissa put into it. When All For One uses Rivet Stab to try and skewer him in the cramped confines, All Might is barely able to dodge and evade, even as All For One hounds him relentlessly with nightmarish Quirk creations, his inner monologue analysing and calculating like Izuku as to the best possible option he's got to damage All For One immensely and really put a dent in his remaining time, deciding that if repeated massive damage is what it'll take to finish him for good, then there's one student's Quirk that's perfect for the job.
  • All For One demonstrates a horrifying, but impressive display of the sheer might he causally wields, even boasting that he's fighting All Might on "power-saver mode" to conserve his remaining time whilst killing the retired hero. Not only does he force him to hide for cover in the shadows with his wide-area attacks, he creates two gigantic misshapen fleshy constructs in the shape of faces with warped demented grins in the skies above the buildings with his spare tentacles whilst he forces All Might out from the alleyways, forcing the retired number one to leap back into cover whilst they literally chew through the buildings to get to him. When All Might calls him a liar for claiming he was holding back his power, All For One retorts that he is. That kind of insane might really is not that taxing for him in his current state at all. Topping off his gradual cornering of his Arch-Enemy, All For One breaks through the side of the building as All Might flees past him and slams him to the ground with a gouging attack aimed right on his old injury, all whilst taunting his hated foe over how badly he's failed despite all his efforts
    All For One: Smile, you're still on camera!! The whole world's watching, remember!? They'll see the symbol of peace falling to his doom, as the symbol of impotence! Their guiding light about to be snuffed out.
  • Though injured, All Might swiftly wraps All For One's attacking limbs up with his robotic limbs to pin him in place, retaliating with an uppercut blow that jams the flaming nozzle of his flamethrower through All For One's jaw, crushing it and literally shutting him up as he gives his own rebuttal to All For One's taunting, revealing that his real aim was to hold him in place for the Anima drones to safely target him with a floating support item themed after Aoyama's Quirk, draining power from a nearby substation and unleashing it in a massive Kill Sat blast straight down on him. All Might notes internally that the support item can only be fired once, but its power is enough that he's confident in finally killing All For One, using technology patterned after the very student he coerced into being his mole within his class.
    • Punctuating All Might's speech, the same visual of his weakened, powerless self adrift in a blizzard that was shown as Kamino Ward is used. Back then it was used to represent All Might determination to keep his remaining power alive long enough to stop All For One, but this time, the flame has gone out, and the weakened All Might is left in the cold and the darkness....until he turns around and sees shining lights in the snowy field, the massive size of one of them making it clear that they represent his protege Izuku and the rest of 1A, the students who re-ignited his desire to fight despite his powerlessness for the sake of their future.
      All Might: You still don't get it, good buddy!! Lights tend to flicker on and off! So while my light might be snuffed out, someone's sure to pick up my torch and shine on!... Let there be light in the darkness! So that I might twinkle as well!! So no, I'm not here to lose, All For One!! Know this name, as you burn away!! Can't Stop Twinkling!
  • Yuga himself gets his own moment to shine in tandem with this. The Tartarus escapee Kunieda's Quirk has allowed him to curb-stomp all the heroes assembled at his battleground, leaving only Fatgum and Aoyama conscious when the actions switch to them. Thanks to his Quirk's seedlings being able to slowly burrow into the bodies of living victims to consume them for nutrients, Fatgum's Fat Absorption Quirk is useless against him, and he can only leave the rest to Aoyama as he falls unconscious, leaving the 1A student alone, hoist aloft by the plants' tendrils and with several seedlings steadily eating away at him too. With his support item belt broken, Aoyama can only expel scattershot light blasts that can't hit Kunieda even as he mockingly lounges on his plants mere meters away from him, mocking him for his failure and inability to be either a hero or a villain with the powers "gifted" to him. Rather than breaking down in hopelessness over his situation, Aoyama instead again thanks Kunieda, telling him that his shameful memories and past regrets do not hold him down — rather, they instead spurn him onwards, to truly shine as a hero alongside the friends that still hold faith in him despite his betrayal, pushing his Quirk to the limit in unleashing a torrent of inaccurate light blasts on Kunieda, even as he mobs him with a swarm of man-eating plants and the strain from the seedlings eating away at his vitality.
    • Whilst Kunieda mocks him for his shameful efforts in the face of death, a double-page spread reveals why Aoyama's shooting attacks he knows he can't hit him with — because he doesn't have to. Hagakure, invisible and undetected, has snuck up behind Kunieda, her existence revealed as her invisibility fades from refracting and combining all of Aoyama's power into one concentrated laser beam that blasts Kunieda In the Back from point-blank. The attack is so powerful, that it shoots straight through him and hits Aoyama too, yet he endures his own power for the sake of taking down the dangerous villain and fulfilling the expectations his friends have of him.
      Hagakure: Took you long enough, hero!
  • All Might and Hagakure's uses of Aoyama's Quirk have deep thematic weight. Hagakure's Quirk combo with Aoyama poetically links to her discovery of Aoyama's mole status after the first war, allowing the heroes to redirect this to their advantage and disrupt AFO's endgame. For All Might, it's touching to see him put so much stake in the Quirk and student that indirectly led to his "retirement", and Aoyama's humility and determination in this chapter demonstrates why he inspired Toshinori as much as the other students despite being AFO's pawn. All Might knows how AFO coerces and manipulates innocent people into complicity with his crimes, and wouldn't reject his own student for experiencing that. Fitting that AFO giving Aoyama such a self-destructive and uncontrollable Quirk to put his family under his thumb comes back to bite him so hard.
• Chapter 400
  • Hagakure realises that her trademark invisibility is bugging out and exposing her real form because being pushed to the brink of death by Kunieda's attacks made Aoyama also tap into the Emotional Powers aspect of his bestowed ability, making his lasers stronger and showcasing that despite his doubts about being worthy as a hero with a "false" power, he did indeed make the Navel Laser his own quirk. Aoyama furthermore declares his intention to use this new strength along with Hagakure's fine control to burn away the rest of the plants still sucking the life out of their allies, despite the fact this increase in power comes with a corresponding backlash on himself, especially with his support item broken. Regardless, Aoyama is still determined to save as many lives as he can, since this day and this battle marks his last chance to be a heroic student of UA alongside all his classmates.
  • All Might reveals the "Can't Stop Twinkling" Kill Sat was inspired by Star's own final battle against TomurAFO, improvising his own method of emulating her tactics in honour of Star's memory as a further symbolic humiliation against All For One. Aware that All For One still won't throw in the towel despite everything — indeed, he continues to lash out with his Combat Tentacles even as the laser steadily buries him underground, further damaging All Might despite his precarious situation — All Might instead uses several of his remaining gadgets to continue restraining the Symbol of Evil to make him take the full force of the blast, using his suit's transformative capabilities (patterned after Yaoyorozu) to shed the armour on his right arm and make them into copies of Mineta's binding balls to restrain All For One's hands, noting that he also had the armour plated with an optical resin based on Hagakure to better resist being nearby the intense laser beam and ensure the bindings won't crumble away whilst their target does. Furthermore, he continues to hammer All For One on top of that with a chest-mounted sound speaker based on Jiro's quirk - the same Jiro that caused the Quirks inside All for One to revolt. And despite all his claims of fighting All Might without his full strength, All For One can do nothing to break free or defend himself from this assault.
    • All Might mentally reveals that the crushing attack that pinned him before was a Deliberate Injury Gambit of his, not a successful sneak attack like All For One believed. He guarded the attack with Tailman and left behind the Tentacole parts to hold All For One still long enough for the laser to hit him, and was even aware that All For One wouldn't kill him immediately despite the chance to — his immense desire to see him suffer in pain instead had him target his old wound rather than his more important head just so he could revel in the expression of pain and suffering on All Might's face, again exposing how inefficient All For One's sadistic mindset makes him when faced with an opponent who knows how to use it fully against him. Despite his success though, the damage done has crippled All Might's lower body, leaving him with just the shoulder-mounted hover jets to dodge All For One's wild attacks with... and yet the retired hero still has enough skill to keep in the thick of the fighting with just those alone.
  • Meanwhile, in another country a kid is watching the battle on TV. Despite being miles away and not fully understanding the situation, with his grandmother claiming that the battle won't affect them either way, the kid is transfixed on the image of the underpowered and badly-injured All Might with his hands clasped in silent prayer, clearly hoping for his victory regardless. Even retired and powerless, Yagi Toshinori is still such a pure hero that he continues to inspire others across the globe.
  • Just as he's on the verge of erasure, the Kill Sat finally overheats and explodes, leaving All For One still alive and All Might bereft of any further gadgets or moves with the necessary firepower to bring him down for good. Despite the sudden turnaround, however, it's also made clear that All Might nearly succeeded regardless of fighting Quirkless — All For One is reduced to the body of a young boy, roughly the same age as the watching child. But this is still All For One, so he immediately prepares to counterattack whilst spitefully taunting All Might that indeed, tools cannot surpass the limits of power like his Quirks can. Except, he finds his body frozen, unable to unleash his attack, or defend himself against the still-mobile All Might. And then, hoovering above their battlefield on a gliding support item, a piece of bloodied rock in his hands, an unexpected ally shows himself.
    Stain: All bleed red. Now conquer him! All Might!
    • Stain's success with paralysing All For One was only possible because All Might's efforts successfully drew blood from him, despite their insane power disparity at present. It calls to mind the quote, "If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in him.” All For One spent decades tirelessly cultivating the image of being an invincible, unstoppable Demon God beyond the reach of mere mortals, and yet All Might has successfully proven that claim of his false not once, not twice, but now three times over.
    • This is even better considering that when he was overseeing the League of Villains, All For One used Stain's image and fame to bolster their own reputation and numbers. And as a result of that, Stain purposefully recovered the security data from Tartarus and delivered it to All Might, informing the heroes of invaluable intelligence on All For One and how best to formulate their strategy against him, knocked Yagi out of his funk after he became doubtful about his ability to be of use as a Quirkless spectator to events, as All For One intended, and now has stepped in to support All Might when there are no other heroes available to save him in a moment of crisis, with the worst possible kind of Quirk to oppose All For One with, given his current situation. All For One created the very worst Spanner in the Works for himself through his own actions, and now he's forced to face the consequences of that.

Chapters 401- 405

• Chapter 401:
  • Caught between All Might and Stain, unable to move a muscle, and his time further running out, it looks like an unavoidable loss for All For One.... except, inches before either of their attacks can reach him, he uses his Forcible Quirk Activation power on one of his stockpiled Quirks "Bloodlet" to undo Stain's paralysis. How? By forcing every last drop of his targeted blood out of his body, with it exploding from his eyes, ears and everywhere else, leaving him utterly drenched in his own viscera and preventing either blow from reaching him. He's reliant on Rewind to ensure the tactic wasn't fatal regardless, and it's made clear it was incredibly painful for him, but afterwards, he's able to move freely again. A horrifying demonstration of his sheer commitment to not losing, that he'd mutilate himself that badly instantly the second his defeat seemed inevitable, just to squirm out of it.
    • When Stain tries to use the fresh supply of blood against All For One again, he reveals that he possesses a Quirk called Antigen Swap, that allows him to overwrite his very DNA as needed, enabling him to neutralize Stain's powers outright. Rather than coincidentally having the exact powers best needed to combat Stain, All For One mocks the hero killer that he prepared them precisely for Stain's potential interference, having actually noticed him sneaking away from Tartarus on his own and spurning All For One's "offer" of aid to the prisoners, and aware he was against him because of that. Further proof that his immense Quirk collection and insane willpower are both still secondary to the dangerous threat he represents, born from his maniacal preparations to ensure his inevitable victory. Their trump card is gone, All For One ends the chapter within view of UA and is able to warp straight to it, with only a crippled All Might left as his opposition. Villainous, evil, but undoubtedly awesome for how thoroughly he turned around his situation.
  • Unable to paralyze All For One anymore, Stain is swiftly overpowered, crushed into a nearby building, and has the unstoppable villain bearing down on him, mocking him that his role in their story ended once he'd been of no use in bolstering the League. Too broken to evade, Stain calmly accepts his fate, muttering only that his role had not ended, but remained part of the grander tale that All For One cannot see beyond himself. Raising his hands up in a position as if asking somebody to arrest him as the killing blow comes down on him, Stain recalls his challenge to All Might to find and arrest him for his murders of 40 heroes after the war was won. This, and his thoughts throughout the chapter, greatly imply that the real reason Stain interfered wasn't simply to kill All For One, but to ensure that All Might lived beyond a battle that (unbeknownst to Stain) was destined to take his life, even if that meant the Hero Killer would die in his place.
    Stain: Ah, All Might... surely you understand, yes?! Why I would dare to leave the shadows and expose myself! "Say a god has fallen, prostrate upon the Earth, and his divine soul has turned feeble and mortal..." Certainly he has the right to cling desperately to life! I am here...because you must live!!
  • All For One's following strike against All Might is almost certain to kill him regardless, only for the blast to be blocked by the last remaining piece of Hercules, the system's AI demonstrating just enough sapience to protect its user of its own free will. It blunts the attack just enough to ensure All Might is left breathing in the aftermath...but not much more. His Powered Armour is completely stripped off him, his injuries have crippled his legs, and the overall damage done leaves him hallucinating a vision of Nana and Nighteye encouraging him, which he recognizes as his subconscious motivating himself however it can to stay alive. Even without the means to face him head-on anymore, All Might refuses to give up.
    All Might: However...You are not dead yet. (flashing a still determined smile at All For One as he pushes his body up with his still-working arms) Do your worst.

• Chapter 402
  • The chapter begins with a brief summation from Tsukauchi's helpers, noting the success of Shoto and Uraraka's efforts in stopping the most wide-scale destructive abilities the villains had to play, and by the present point confirming that all the fighting has concluded, ultimately leaving the heroes victorious in their different battlefields, and All For One and Tomura as the sole remaining conflict still ongoing. The fact that victory is still uncertain thanks to the near-godlike power each contains individually speaks volumes about just how far beyond ordinary villains and heroes each has become...and contrastingly, just how powerful Izuku is, that he's now the greatest bastion standing between them and the world.
    • Uraraka's successful Talking the Monster to Death against Toga also indirectly saved UA itself, as the sheer weight of the infinitely-replicating clones threatened to overtax the engines and send the whole building plummeting to the Earth before they dissipated just in time. Whilst it was an Offscreen Moment of Awesome moment, Momo successfully single-handedly held back the horde alone, defending Mei as she worked to reboot the UA Flying Fortress. In addition to her usual staff and shield combo, Momo also creates the firing compartment of a handgun, as well as a gatling gun and missile launcher on each her shoulders.

  • We return to Deku and Shigaraki fight. We learn that Deku's new speed is fast enough to dodge Shigaraki's attack point blank range and is able to grapple him in a stalemate using Black Chains around his wrists, showing how strong the bindings are that they can hold Tomura down despite his raw power. Remember the original plan was for Deku to fight Shigaraki alongside the #3, #4, and # 5 heroes, the Big 3, and Bakugo. They hoped that with everyone working together they could defeat Shigaraki, most likely remembering just how much trouble Shigaraki gave them in the last major battle. Everyone wasn't expecting Deku to be strong enough to go to toe toe-to-toe with Shigaraki on his own before his body could handle 100% of OFA. Here we see Deku, with only a semi-complete mastery of his full powers and potential, is able to fight a Shigaraki with his completed body, evenly. The same Shigaraki who defeated all the other heroes before Deku showed up. He has come a long way from the boy who could only throw two or three Smashes before he broke his arms.

  • All For One has achieved his goal, since he used the Rewind drug, and made it close enough to Shigaraki to use his Gloop Warp Quirk. Despite All Might's best attempts to bait All For One, the villain ignores him. We see the black goop come out of Shigaraki's mouth, and all hope seems lost… only for Shigaraki to mentally tell his master not to butt into his fight and cancel the Gloop Warp Quirk by swallowing it. All For One realizes his apprentice has overcome his vestige and reclaimed full control of his body. Shigaraki stays true to his word about refusing to be his master's pawn.
    • Furthermore, All for One's mental dialogue has him believing that the vestige was "swallowed up" by Tomura's own consciousness, when the reader is acutely aware that's not the case — his successor utterly destroyed that piece of himself and left it in tatters around his Mental World, absolutely torpedoing any hope All For One has of enacting his plan to merge into Tomura, an outcome All For one cannot envision at all, because, despite all his plans and contingencies, that's not a setback he could ever recover from.
    • Whilst Tomura refuses to accept All For One's direct interference in his fight, he showcases his adaptability in playing off the efforts of other villains to achieve victory in the end, using All For One's attempt to kill All Might in front of Izuku and the watchers on UA to force a Sadistic Choice on him -if he tries to save All Might, Tomura will head straight to UA to kill everybody, mentally pressuring his nemesis when he proved capable of physically stalemating him. If not for All Might taking the choice out of Izuku's hands, it might have secured Tomura's victory.
  • All Might's final play against All For One. Most of All Might's armor’s destroyed, his legs are broken, and he can do nothing but watch as All For One attempts to warp Shigaraki to himself, futilely trying to keep his attention focused on himself rather than their successors. When Tomura shrugs off All For One as an annoying nuance to his fight however, the evil villain decides to "do the legwork" himself whilst smirking sadistically at All Might, who answers in turn with his own ever-present defiant smile. As the arch-villain grabs him by the leg and parades him around to demoralize his enemies and distract Deku, All Might shows why he was pleased at All For One's predictable sadism — it literally handed him the opportunity to turn the tables by grabbing his neck, causing All For One to recall the night he killed Nana and how she’d said he’d be defeated by All Might... because he’s even more unhinged than he is. To All For One's horror, All Might smiles and asks him a simple question:
    All Might: (With his left eye drained of its black sclera, now resembling his young self on the night of Nana's death) If you die one more time, you'll rewind into a kindergartner, right?
  • All Might then uses his seemingly-broken remaining gauntlet to blow himself up in a Heroic Sacrifice, catching All For One in the center of the blast, emulating the one 1-A student he didn't include in his arsenal, and the one all but stated to be a second protégé to him.
  • A subtle one for Nana. The whole series AFO has been taunting All Might by saying Nana died pathetically, and his inner monologue in this chapter still says she was a pathetic idealist without the power to back up her convictions. But when we actually she her in her final moments, bloodied and exhausted after her battle with AFO, what she is she doing? Smiling as she confidently declares All Might will defeat AFO eventually. Better, she was right as in the panel right next to hers, in his own final moments, All Might grins the same Will of D worthy smile as he unleashes his final attack. AFO's solipsism is shown once again as he could never understand the selflessness, conviction and belief in others that allows Nana and Toshinori, like the Second User of OFA and Star, to remain absolutely Defiant to the End.
    • And All Might's death won't be in vain - All For One's already burned up most of his remaining time fighting All Might, and this death will cut his time down from minutes to mere seconds.
• Chapter 403
  • Though All Might's willingness to die as a final attempt to stop him threw him for a loop, All For One reveals that he was counting on his nemesis pulling something out of the hat to turn the tables against him, courtesy of his own past experience with All Might's prior victory and both Star and Endeavor's actions against him. Therefore, he's able to just barely react in time, growing spikes from his body that impale the exploding support item and All Might's arm, stopping the detonation cold. Having now satisfied himself that All Might has no more surprise moves to pull, he uses Bloodcurdle to paralyse him completely, rendering him unable to exercise even the meagre strength left to him to resist. Once that's done, he flashes a demented Slasher Smile - which literally rips his cheeks like paper- and gloats that All Might's finally got the expression he's longed to see: complete and utter despair. Despite everything he threw at him, All For One's Crazy-Prepared nature allowed him to finally succeed in a decisive victory against his Arch-Enemy, leaving him poised to brutally finish him, and the hopes of the watching world, off in one move.
  • All For One proceeds to systematically thwart and deny any possible attempts any active heroes or helpers in the area could pull to stop him, devastating the newly-floating UA building with a lighting blast that tears through the entire structure with childish ease, forcing Gentle to keep it aloft again even as his strength is reaching the breaking point and the falling building threatens to crush him beneath it, and ripping through the supporting X-66 jets piloted by Star's squadron like they were made of cardboard, dismissing them as nothing without the aid of a powerful hero to work alongside. With the cameras rolling, people around the country falling into despair at the fight, those outside it writing off All Might's death as a certainty and Izuku still locked down fighting Tomura and Forced to Watch as per All For One's intention, the arch villain begins slowly tearing All Might in two as everybody either sinks into hopeless despair or prays vainly for a miracle to stop him.
    Tsukauchi: (In tears) Someone, anyone...
    ...
    KA-BOOOM!!!
  • Standing Atop UA, the power of his explosion clearing the smoke from All For One's attack and revealing him in full, a revived Katsuki Bakugo stands again, now the sole person who can stop All For One's victory and fulfil one half of the creed All Might taught both him and Izuku, whilst his rival upholds his own: "Win by Saving, Save by Winning". As his and Izuku's eyes meet, the chapter title repeats again, reaffirming that the time, the day for not one, but two symbols of peace to be shown to the world... has come.
    No 403: The End of an Era
    And...
    ...The Beginning
• Chapter 404
  • Despite his revival and his now speedier Quirk upgrade, the distance between Bakugo and All For One is simply too far to make it in time before All Might's ripped apart. How does Bakugo resolve this conundrum? Wordlessly, almost like they are communicating telepathically, he blasts towards Izuku instead, reaching out his hand to grab Izuku's own as the former spins him around to launch him as a Fastball Special towards their target, taking advantage of Tomura's momentarily stunned disbelief at Bakugo's return from the dead to pull the maneuver off in a literal second whilst he's still restrained by the Blackwhips and chains controlled by Izuku's other arm. On top of the strength of One For All, and Bakugo's own speedy Quirk, they have one more trump card to add on top of their combo — Gearshift, which the Second originally used on projectiles other than himself, can still apply that same effect with its enhanced capabilities, allowing Izuku to turn Bakugo into a light-speed projectile. The Second warns him that doing so risks leaving himself open to Tomura once the blowback hits, but Izuku doesn't hesitate or waver in his actions despite the danger.
  • Despite their turnaround, Tomura smugly taunts Izuku that it's still too late, as their shared mental link allows him to see the vestige of All Might within Izuku has started to take actual form as his death approaches, delighting in how the death of the world's Hope Bringer will bring the masses back to harsh reality... that is, until a wind starts to blow past Izuku. Around the world, watching the fight, nameless, faceless people are begging and pleading and hoping for All Might's survival, even if there's nothing they themselves can do. And yet, as every one of them still cries out for him to live, the narration again recalls Nighteye's dying words - that the unseen, immutable energy that comes from people wishing and striving towards a certain future can overcome his predictions and change fate when one man alone cannot. In a double-page spread, panels of all these civilians, recognizable and unfamiliar, seem to form the very wind itself at Bakugo's back, pushing him towards his target even faster, as the young man's own wish gets added to the momentum: his pain and regret about the part he played in All Might's forced retirement, and desire to fix his mistake...
    • The end result? Bakugo reaches All For One just in time, blowing his arms off to pluck All Might from his grasp before he can finish his sadistic execution, the vestige of All Might again resuming its indistinct appearance as he's pulled back from the brink of death.
    • Because of the combined power of their wishes and willingness to keep fighting despite the odds, Bakugo, Izuku, and all their supporters around the world defied Nighteye’s prediction and subverted the Obi-Wan Moment, the one trope that’s expected to play out (and completely straight, no less) during the course of any superhero story. All For One's stunned expression of frozen rage at Bakugo's interference is the icing on their victory cake.
    • Furthermore, this turnaround flips the Sadistic Choice Tomura was forcing onto Izuku onto All For One. Bakugo’s now fleeing with All Might in the opposite direction of UA, where Izuku and Tomura's clash continues, and All For One's remaining time's run low enough that he's now visibly younger than either UA student. With minutes left to live at best (and about to lose even more of his already limited time restoring his hands), All For One’s left with two choices - either pursue the super-fast Bakugo in a vain attempt to spitefully crush his nemesis before he dies, or save himself by getting to Tomura and successfully performing a Grand Theft Me on him, despite knowing that his successor will fight tooth and nail before he’ll ever let him control him again. He just doesn't have the time to do both. All For One's actually, truly alone, and thanks to his heartless nature, no one's there that could help him to have both desired outcomes. Whichever choice he makes, All For One's hopes for a seemingly “perfect” victory have just gone up in smoke.
    • And it’s AFO’s own fault - his obsession with being a living comic book villain has caused him to screw himself over by falling for the biggest cliché in the book: the villain has the hero at their mercy, but they're so cartoonishly evil and sadistic that they can’t do the pragmatic thing and just kill them - they have to mock their hopeless situation and draw out their death just long enough for The Cavalry to swoop in and save them at the last minute.
• Chapter 405
  • The chapter starts out with a vision meeting between All Might and Sir Nighteye, confirming what was pointed out in the entry for the chapter above: that was the fate that Nighteye saw, and Bakugo, with the unseen aid of the world Yagi sacrificed so much to protect, stopped it at the final hour. After so many chapters of the villains trying to deride the irrational idealism prevalent in a hero saving others like a comic book, it's awesome to see Nighteye use that same argument to confirm his own prediction is null and void.
    Nighteye: Fate was reshaped, you see. What's true is that the dream did end here. And... your promise is intact.
    Yagi: But everyone knows the old master is meant to die after passing on the torch.
    Nighteye: You've read too many comic books, Toshinori Yagi. (smiling) You are a hero, but you're also human. You can't possibly die so readily.
  • Once the heroes land, Edgeshot finally emerges from Bakugo's body and reveals something amazing: It wasn't Edgeshot's Quirk that revived the young hero, but Bakugo's— his creation of nitroglycerin^* Nitro is actually used as a medicine to help treat certain heart conditions and does so by relaxing the blood vessels and increasing the amount of blood and oxygen that flows through the arteries. caused a small explosion to kickstart his heart when a bit of his sweat got into his bloodstream. The power of science, people!
    Edgeshot: I only held you together. What brought you back was the power you've honed.
  • Even with his arm still damaged from saving All Might, Bakugo is still willing to go back and help Izuku, showing his traditional brash confidence in facing All For One, even calling him "that runt I'm about to destroy" without a hint of doubt. What does All Might do? He gives Bakugo the remaining Support Item, a gauntlet, from his armor to act as a splint, revealing he named it "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight", after Bakugo himself. The paneling of the support item passing from All Might to Bakugo as he names it and the young hero in one almost feels like All Might is knighting Bakugo with both his hero name and his faith that he can succeed where the old Symbol of Peace could not, and stop All For One for good. Bakugo's childishly happy expression at hearing his hero's faith is him is but the capper on the moment.
  • Meanwhile, we've confirmed another thing the previous chapter hinted at: AFO is running out of time and knows he needs to get to Tomura and attempt the merge. However, it looks like that's not happening either— before he can even fly towards the fighting enemies in comes Bakugo, declaring that he will be the wannabe Demon Lord's Final Boss, unleashing a massive explosion right in All For One's face that punches him straight into the ground, the arch-villain too slow to even defend himself. Even more, Bakugo is no longer calling himself Izuku's rival— he's the guy who's stepping up to handle what Izuku can't on his own!
    • On top of that, his inner thoughts reveal that losing All Might right at the crucial moment was a setback All For One couldn't ignore or downplay. As a montage of all the "side characters" who've faced him flashes through his head, it becomes clear that even his ironclad delusional viewpoint cannot warp or deny the facts for much longer — he's losing this fight, no matter what he tries. His humiliation gets another layer added on top of it when the visage of the Second User, the one he maintains an unnatural hatred of even decades afterwards, flashes through his head right as Bakugo pounds it into the pavement. The user who scored the first chronological loss All For One suffered almost seems reborn to thwart him again in the present as his final heroic enemy.
      All For One: Oh, how it boils the blood! How can it be that the gears have gone so awry?! The wind was meant to blow my way!
  • In short, Bakugo's act of saving All Might from his clutches managed to accomplish even what All Might couldn't in his prime or any other One For All bearer for that matter against All For One: completely and absolutely obliterate his ego.
  • And one more thing to consider, Edgeshot mentions that even though he was able to stitch Bakugo's organs and body back together, they're not actually healed and he can't do anything about the pain, so for the entire time since his revival, Bakugo has been suffering unimaginable agony every time he breathes, yet it doesn't slow him down at all!

Chapters 406- 410

• Chapter 406
  • A brief wide-area transmission at the chapter's start tallies off the various crises areas the heroes are fighting at. Save for National Takoba Arena, wherein Ojiro and Ryukyu are still fighting against one of the Tartarus escapees, almost all of them have been suppressed or resolved in the heroes' victory, Gang Orca having succeeded in defeating the Near-High End on Okuto island, the central hospital secured and providing treatment for the wounded, the evacuees to Shinketsu safely arrived, and all other villains are at the Jaku hospital ruins, immobilized by Mudman. The heroes have almost won this war, but their biggest challengers won't go down without a fight...
  • Izuku mentally cycles through his options as Tomura keeps easily breaking the hold Black Whip has on him, lamenting that he doesn't yet have any idea how to decisively overcome Tomura's combination of instant regeneration and Touch of Death abilities, at best being able to stall him momentarily. He notes that with his current state, he will be immobilised and left vulnerable should he use Gearshift once more, but he doesn't have anything else that stands a chance at meaningfully damaging Tomura's current form. Resolved to make his last move count, Izuku activate his Super Mode once more as Tomura readies himself to weather whatever Izuku dishes out.
  • Refusing to be delayed by an unexpected nuisance and desperate to make his last moments count, All For One dismisses Bakugo as "A mere pebble in my path" and tries to go around him, using a shockwave blast to launch himself through the still-standing buildings in a beeline for Izuku's battle. Does Bakugo take that lying down? Hell no, as he calls out All For One on his foolish belief that he's the main villain when he's already lost that position to a worthier successor, relegating him to a nuisance that refuses to go away during the climactic battle.
    Bakugo: Still at it? You filler character!
    • Bakugo finally realises how to control his new speed boost: using the immense pain caused by the exploding sweat globules distributing around his body as a handle to properly time his backup blasts. It self-damages him every time he does it, and the speed is simply too fast for him to control, but Bakugo doesn't care. With a massive smile on his face, he manages to catch up to the fleeing All For One even moving at his top speed, taking the wannabe top villain by surprise even as his new move causes him to crash along the ground. Rather than let himself be stopped by this, Bakugo simply turns this into a headlong roll at breakneck speeds to properly manoeuvre himself into unleashing a point-blank blast that smacks All For One down, forcing him into a confrontation he cannot escape from.
    • All For One's frustrations with Bakugo's interference causes him to realise why he's starting to feel even angrier with him than against All Might. Bakugo's uncanny resemblance to the Second reminds All For One of their confrontation, revealing why it is that the psychopathic villain maintains such animosity against the rebel leader even generations later: he used his last words to mock All For One with the truth. That Yoichi's death was due to his own actions in roleplaying a villain, and either directly or indirectly, All For One killed the only other person in the world he ever cared about. Furthermore, All For One's immediate shifting of the blame to the Second rescuing Yoichi and taking him out of the vault in the first place shows that, on some level, he knows he's right, and has spent decades in denial over his own culpability because of it.
      All For One: The one I loathe above all others. You're to blame for it all, Kudo!!
      Bakugo: Finally gone senile, bub?! That's Kacchan Bakugo to you, ya grade-A moron!
• Chapter 407:
  • A flashback to a year before the worldwide news of the glowing baby was announced tells the story of a nameless prostitute, suffering from her poor living conditions and an unknown pregnancy that sapped her strength, eventually leading to her passing away after giving birth underneath a riverside bridge, leaving only the two babies beside her corpse. When rats emerged to eat the carcass and the newborns, the flooding river swept all of them away. And yet, despite the odds, the babies survived. How? Because the newborn AFO, manifesting his Quirk apparently on instinct, absorbed the Quirk that had developed within his mother, unbeknownst to her of what it was, allowing him to grow hornlike growths from his body to pierce into her corpse, holding onto it as a makeshift raft in the floodwater, and then using the Quirk as an assist to allow him to feed on what nutrients were left in her breast. From absolutely nothing, he used his powers from birth to raise himself up into becoming a threat that would eventually try to dominate the entire world. Utterly nightmarish, but it perfectly underscores the tenacious willpower that drives AFO, even at his most desperate moment by the present day.
  • Though young, and left utterly powerless by his frail body, born from AFO naturally and unthinkably monopolising the majority of the nutrients from their mother in the womb, Yoichi's natural goodness and empathy shines through despite, and particularly because of the twins' destitute situation. When AFO brutalises others to steal their Quirks or possessions for himself, the weak Yoichi throws an empty soda can at him, crying at him to stop. Despite being too young to even know about right or wrong, Yoichi knows what pain feels like, and doesn't wish that on others, showcasing the beginning of his natural opposition of AFO's own inherent evil nature.
• Chapter 408:
  • Though the exact specifics of exactly how it happened are ambiguous, it's shown that Yoichi managed his initial Quirk transfer to Kudo right on the very moment of his death, passing the genesis of One For All into him right as his body was blown to pieces by his brother in his own attempt to prevent "losing" Yoichi. Given Kudo's Meaningful Look at the hand that was holding Yoichi's at the moment he fell to pieces, its implied that Yoichi, being the Quirk's original holder, succeeded in doing what no other holder has done since and instinctively transferred his own Quirk to Kudo on touch, just like All For One can. Despite living a life that was defined by his brother's control over him, Yoichi found a means through death to not only be truly free, but actively resist his twin.
    • Furthermore, though it never stopped him from pursuing his path of villainy at all costs, it's shown that Yoichi did leave an emotional impact on his Twin, with him being unusually shaken by his sudden death, allowing Kudo and the 3rd user to flee when he had the resistance movement dead to rights. This mania, whilst later mutating into his absolute obsession with targeting the holders physically and emotionally with every dirty tactic he could, is ultimately the reason why he keeps letting chances to seriously kill Izuku slip by the present day, giving the heroes a fighting chance against him.
  • The subsequent montage of All For One facing off against the holders of Yoichi's will has a moment for each of them.
    • Kudo, beaten and broken, managed to emotionally enrage the tyrant to a degree he'd never been before by his mockery of his attempt to reclaim "Yoichi", causing him to shed Berserker Tears over missing his chance to reunite with him, an emotional outburst All For One makes a point to deny he ever had, claiming they were mere Crocodile Tears to confuse Kudo, rather than admit how badly hurt he was by it. Even generations later, this proves the be the root of his absolute loathing towards the rebel leader, enough that being reminded of him in any way is a bigger Berserk Button than All Might.
    • The 3rd wielder, Bruce, apparently made a Last Stand against All for One with the remnants of Kudo's resistance movement, fighting him despite the hopeless odds. Though he was overwhelmed and impaled for his efforts, it's implied the battle bought enough time for Hikage Shinomori to escape and hide from All For One's frenetic searching for his brother
    • Though he never openly faced him, it's showcased that Shinomori's decision to hide from All For One and cultivate the inherited power was the correct one, as All For One is seen fruitlessly searching for him before being forced to give up and focus his efforts on his empire instead, and after the 4th, the subsequent users were strong enough to actually fight against the arch-villain directly.
    • Banjo was powerful enough to fight All For One head-on, but was ultimately overcome. Despite that, it's shown that he was the first time that All For One failed to steal the Quirk, leaving him absolutely stunned with a look of visible shock at his unexpected resistance to his signature ability.
    • En is shown to be sliced in half from behind by All For One, yet despite being left a torso with a single arm, has enough strength left in him to tear out his hair to pass onto Nana with a smile, the imagery of the 7th holder glaring at All For One through En's smoke greatly implying he continued to output his smokescreen to his last breath to hide her and allow her to flee.
    • Though Nana's efforts aren't shown, the impact she left through her immediate successors of All Might and Izuku, and the message she provided of being a Hope Bringer that inspired them both, more than speaks for itself, being the greatest upset to All For One's efforts than any of her predecessors
    • And at last, All Might's fateful victory and decisive blow against All For One is finally shown, his Megaton Punch liquifying All for One's upper cranium into bloody viscera, all whilst holding his injured stomach wound with his other hand, implying that if not for said injury he'd have done worse to the body. The fact that Garaki had to recover All For One's body from a morgue makes it clear: All Might genuinely killed the bastard, and if not for Garaki frankensteining the corpse Back from the Dead, that legitimately would have been the end of him and his insane ambitions.
  • All For One realises why Bakugo reminds him so much of his hated enemy despite his absolute extermination of his bloodline — Bakugo's eyes are filled with the determination to beat him, unlike at Kamino, showing how he's changed and matured in the months since that battle. Pissed off by his interference, having no means of removing Bakugo from the fight, All For One decides to settle everything in a final move: Unleashing every single Quirk factor he possesses into a massive misshapen blob of flesh straight out of a nightmare, all to propel himself through Bakugo and reach Tomura in a single move, even if the blowback will ensure he'd rewind into an infant. The energy from this abomination charging up starts to vaporise the nearby buildings, looking like massive cannon pointed straight at Bakugo, who merely has his wounded body and newly-discovered Quirk attribute to resist with. What does Bakugo do? Smirk, and sarcastically chide himself for ever hoping to become a hero powerful enough to overcome the sheer power One For All and All For One possesses, though his undaunted attitude hints he still has faith in his victory.
    Bakugo: Some genius I am. How could I ever hope to beat that?
• Chapter 409:
  • As All For One launches his massive, monstrous body straight at Bakugo, the latter merely ruminates on his shared journey with Izuku, swearing that he won't stand in his rival's way of becoming number one, nor will he let the old villain intrude in his climatic fight, yelling out for him to "Blow the hell up!"... and he does. His head is torn apart form the inside by a small powerful blast, stunning him from the unexpected attack that seemingly had no input from Bakugo himself, cutting his charge short and leaving his misshapen form to crash down into the city, reeling from confusion. Bakugo moves in close and taunts him that his last attack on All For One had him sneakily toss some of his explosive sweat beads covered by regular sweat inside his mouth as a time bomb, taking a cue from how the downpour around them was affecting his new move. With All For One's own volatile movements having set them off and the same mass Quirk combination now leaving him a giant, immobile target against a speedier opponent, Bakugo now has him dead to rights despite — and in fact, because of — his same ridiculous levels of power. Fitting for the man who desired to be stronger than anybody, and contrasting against his and All Might's climatic Punch Parry struggle, Bakugo beats him by just not letting him use that strength.
    Bakugo: If nothing else, I've always earned kudos for my intuition. The one Quirk I've got is enough!!
    • Bakugo's move not only fittingly takes advantage of the fact that All For One never shuts up in a fight, as well as feeding into his obsession with devouring and his Body Motifs of mouths, but chucking a bomb into the big monster's mouth, waiting for it to go off and then wailing on it is a classic video game tactic. Contrasting against his Superior Successor's enjoyment of video games as an entertainment medium, All For One being obsessed with comic books instead left him too confused to react properly to Bakugo's tactic.
  • Enraged by being so casually outsmarted by a mere child, All For One starts up another tirade about how this is his story....only he's talking to the character who has zero tolerance for bullshit. Starting with a point-blank Howitzer Impact to his face, what follows is a glorious 4-page montage of Bakugo unleashing an utterly non-stop No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of explosions on his helpless target, regardless of how badly he tears himself apart as well, drowning out his objections with unstoppable tenacity and a louder voice.
    All For One: This is...my tale!! Move aside! You extra!! You NOBODY!!
    Bakugo: GET WRECKED!! AND SHUT THE HELL UP!!
    • All For One's frantic attempts to resist the barrage has him noticing his various Quirks are getting torn apart too easily, the synergy between them degrading and weakening them enough to blast his body to scraps. At first he thinks it might be because of his child's body being too delicate to wield them properly anymore, before a voice from within him draws his attention to the Vestige Realm within him. He sees the vast group of vestiges all standing opposite from him, united in their animosity, crowded around the vestige of Hawks, who taunts him that his poor grasp of Tomura's negative emotions weakened his iron grip over his subdued prisoners without him noticing, allowing Hawks to hold a "fan club meeting" within, using his charisma and popularity with the masses to unite all the Vestiges once more in denying All For One their powers at the point he needs them the most. Even if the death of All For One means their death too, all of these nameless remnants of his victims are willing to make that sacrifice rather than be monopolised for his selfish ambitions forever. Hawks taunts "Shigaraki" that he'd failed to swallow them up as efficiently as he thought before Bakugo lands the final blow.
    • In contrast to his fearsome, inhuman appearance when he devoured the vestiges before, All For One appears as he is on the outside, and has always been underneath the fearsome image of the Demon Lord he tried to be: a child clad in rags raging against reality, alone and abandoned in the rocky nothingness of the vestige world without anybody to leech from. Whilst it might be because of how his changed body affects his mental state, it can also be seen as the vestiges managing to see past the image of the fearsome oppressor he was to reduce All For One down to his true pathetic self in their eyes.
  • The final blow: a double-spread Facepalm Of Doom that blows apart All For One's upper cranium, the paneling framed in such a way that it references not only All Might's fateful victory over the Sore Loser, but also Tomura and his own touch-based abilities. The recoil from the blow is strong enough to not only break apart All Might's support brace, but Bakugo's arm as well, bending it 180 degrees backwards, yet just like his rival, the young hero still follows through on the hit to shatter All For One's delusions along with his face: literally knocking him down from his delusional heights down to reality as he spells it out for him.
    Bakugo: Get it straight. This is...our tale!!
  • As the dust clears, it reveals all that's left of All For One: A naked, crying infant lying helpless atop the filthy rags he wore to protect his modesty, now exposed humiliatingly as the baby he was underneath before the entire world for all to see and remember. His remaining time could only last a minute at best, he's lost control of the Quirks he controlled and his body is in no fit state to reach Tomura anyway. At long last, after generations of effort and united teamwork in opposition to him, All For One, the overarching villain of the narrative, has lost, and there isn't a single further trick he can pull to avert his fate.
    • Both All Might and Bakugo note this isn't just Bakugo's actions, but the actions of everybody who'd faced him, both during the Final Battle and over the years since he began his villainy. Every hero who stood up to him, delayed him and gave it their all to force him to fight for every inch he advanced towards Tomura wore him down to the point Bakugo could drive the final nail into his coffin, as he notes by repeating his earlier statement.
      Bakugo: Yeah, I never coulda hoped to beat that. At least, not alone.

• Chapter 410
  • The title alone should tell you how awesome it's gonna get: "Farewell, All For One". This is the end for AFO.
  • The chapter begins from AFO's POV as he slowly drags himself through the dirt, his mental monologue still ranting about how he has a chance for victory if he can reach Tomura, how his vestige self didn't get to use the "trump Card" he'd prepared within him, how he needs his brother, that he wants to destroy the future of the world so nobody will ever forget about his existence... And then, we see his current state: reduced down to a baby, too young to even speak his ravings properly anymore. Then, before he can drag himself any further, Bakugo steps out of the smoke to stand in his way once more, incredulous at his childish foe's obstinacy as the reduced Evil Overlord freezes in fear.
  • Despite his physical advantages over his diminutive opponent, Bakugo is in worse physical shape, coughing blood, motor functions shutting down and fighting to stand up. This is literally Coughing Bomb vs. Hydrogen Baby. Noting All For One's current state means his odds of interfering somehow in Izuku's battle are practically nil, that he'll vanish regardless even if he doesn't do anything, Bakugo starts to collapse to the ground in sheer exhaustion from all his injuries. However, before he does fall, he's reminded of his own comment to Kirishima about how "standing through anything makes you crazy strong" and he finds his Heroic Second Wind, slamming his foot down to steady himself before he hits the dirt.
    Bakugo: That was close. (flashes a bloodstained Grin of Audacity at the terrified baby AFO) Nah, nothing less than absolute victory... ...FOR ME!!
    • Moreover, All For One's attitude prior showed a frenzied hope that Bakugo would just collapse and give him a chance to pass before he caught himself. All For One exulted in being a Hope Crusher who let his victims know they were doomed through his trademark Slasher Smiles before remorselessly executing them. In this moment, in addition to his resemblance to Kudo and intentionally modelling his behaviour off the heroic All Might, Bakugo takes on traits of All For One and turns them against him, letting him experience the same fear and hopelessness he's subjected countless others to. All For One can only stare in shock at finally meeting an opponent whose mania with winning outstrips his own.
  • In sheer primal terror at his enemy's resolve and unable to think of a way out, All For One fires a Spearlike Bone from his mouth to try and impale Bakugo, the same tactic he used when he was a child and arguably the only Quirk he can still control with his stolen powers rebelling against him. Bakugo's response? To pull a Punch Catch on the projectile with his own teeth before blowing it up. All For One can only stare in shock at his crazy foe's tenacity, right before the shockwave travels down the bone and hits him. Whether from the damage done or his remnant time simply having been exhausted, this proves to be the final straw for his physical shell, causing him to scream Rapid-Fire "No!" as the last traces of him start to fade. All For One then turns into a fetus, then an egg cell, then disappears. And with that, All For One, the Big Bad of the series, is gone forever.
    Bakugo: Nighty night, All For One.
    • Even more, it wasn't Bakugo who ensured his reign of terror was forever gone, but, in an indirect way, All For One himself. His selfish monopolisation throughout the generations, all to benefit himself, ensured that he never created a legacy that would outlast him, because he never planned to be anything less that the eternal Big Bad of the narrative, forever lording his power over everybody for the rest of time. Instead, his own "successor" destroyed his vestige, his most loyal minions turned on him and hold his memory in contempt, and he died in the most humiliating manner possible, recorded for posterity as an eternal failure who dies without ever having a true name to characterise himself. Being given exactly what he wanted through Eri's Rewind, a means to restore himself to full power and be invincible in battle, ultimately only resulted in there being No Body Left Behind to revive All For One a third time, ensuring every last trace of his being, physical and spiritual, is gone for good. Deader than Dead doesn't begin to describe that.
  • The Quirks within All For One Face Death with Dignity, each any every one of them aware that his end means their own and accepting this as a necessary sacrifice. Hawks' vestige is the last to fade, wistfully noting it'd be too convenient for them to return to their owners upon their captor's death.
  • Back at Izuku's fight, the narration reveals how the stakes of The Hero's climatic fight are still higher than taking down the nigh-immortal and godlike power of the Diabolical Mastermind of the story's history. A flashback reveals that the heroes would have actually preferred to fight All For One rather than his protege. Vile, irredeemable scumbag he may have been, All For One's desire to Take Over the World meant that he did have some limitations on the devastation and destruction he'd unleash against them — limitations that Tomura, with even greater power in his enhanced body, doesn't possess. Shigaraki reveals just what this means in the present — he has honed his skill with his Decay Quirk even further since the first war, enabling him to choose to shift his direction below, allowing him to bore into the Earth's crust and destroy the very foundations of the country. With this new display of his power, he has Decayed the ground beneath himself and Deku until nothing was left, causing ocean waters to come pouring out and flooding the area, creating an awe-inspiring display of the very world collapsing into chaos around the two combatants, just from the collateral damage of their god-like powers.
    • Shigaraki clarifies that he plans to keep this simple but efficient tactic going, unleashing his Decay non-stop until it affects all 378,000 kilometers of Japan to completely destroy the nation, leaving only sky and ocean in his wake. In contrast to his master's impressive but inefficient usage of multiple powers with poor skilful handling, Shigarkai is using his own arsenal to take a page out of Izuku's book, using his various powers to enhance his simple combination of non-stop Decay and Hyper Regeneration to endure whatever blows Izuku unleashes on him whilst the world falls apart around him, With the lives of literally every person in Japan riding on his victory, the stakes have never been higher for Izuku....and yet, he has still to come up with a means of actually defeating Tomura despite all of that, as his all-powerful foe simply seems to have no weaknesses and all he can do is stall him whilst time runs out for him and the country both.
    • To make matters worse, Shigaraki showcases his adaptability in a fight once more, claiming his brief face-off with Bakugo's own new speed gave him the insight needed to match Deku's combo of Gearshift and Fa-Jin. He speed-blitzes the young hero and manages to get his hand right on his face. While Deku is quick to act and cut off his fingers, Tomura reveals he actually wasn't trying to Decay him that time. As Banjo appears to warn Izuku, he realises that Danger Sense, the Quirk he was relying on to predict Shigaraki's lethal attacks...is missing. The predecessors' worst fears become a reality; Shigaraki can indeed steal One For All, and now he intends to strip Izuku of all his Combo Platter Powers until his Arch-Enemy is weak enough to be obliterated, followed by the rest of the country, if not the world.

Chapters 411- 415

• Chapter 411:
  • A flashback to within the Vestige Realm of OFA shows what happened when Tomura stole Danger Sense: Shinomori's Quirk naturally warned him of the massive hand that appeared behind them, all focused on the outward battle, allowing him to react in time to shove the rest of the Torch Bearers out of the danger zone so only he was taken by the giant facsimile of Tomura's fist. As the only holder who didn't wind up preforming a Heroic Sacrifice against All For One, Shinomori more than made up for it here, giving the rest of his allies a chance to recompose themselves against this new threat.
    • It's also a moment for Tomura as well. En's dialogue points out that if not for Shinomori's early reaction, he could have stolen more of the vestiges in that split second, if not the entirety of Izuku's power in one go. Tomura's hatred has advanced to the point that there's no longer even a contest of wills against him: If he touches them again, he could very well Depower Izuku fully — and he's not even focused on achieving that outcome unless it'd make killing Izuku easier. One way or another, Tomura intends to put an end to the only obstacle that can oppose his unrelenting drive for destruction, unlike his master allowing the preservation of "Yoichi" until it became too much for him.
  • Izuku instantly attempts to get some distance between them, unleashing Combat Tentacles of Fa Jin-enhanced Black Chains to swing at Shigaraki only for him to neatly dodge all of them, demonstrating that he's instantly adapted to Danger Sense after stealing it. Now no longer able to predict his foe's movement whilst Shigaraki can do the opposite, the villain presses his advantage on Izuku, unleashing a blistering amount of shockwave attacks on him, knocking him backwards from their oceanside battleground and repeatedly hammering him through the landscape again and again, all whilst mocking his belief that Shigaraki can still be "saved", laughing that he's no longer a mere human being who can be reasoned with.
    • Despite losing one of the powers that allowed him to go on the offensive against Tomura, Izuku shows that he's not totally defenceless either, wrapping himself in a layered ball of Black Whips to endure the barrage and still able to stand at the end of it, something no other hero could have done. Even cornered, Izuku's still thinking on his feet to find a way to win.
  • Tired of Izuku's stalling tactics and unwilling to allow the ninth holder to flee for another chance at victory down the line, Tomura points out to Izuku that their fight has taken them to the very slopes of Mt Fuji, making it clear that he intends to leave them no further chances or places to run away, so he'll start his countrywide destruction by destroying the famous inert volcano first. The vestiges realise that Tomura intentionally pushed Izuku towards the site, all to force him into a Sadistic Choice. If Tomura decays the volcano, it'll unleash a cataclysmic eruption of magma that'll ravage the countryside independently of him, ensuring massive loss of life even if Izuku keeps him occupied, forcing him to stand his ground and face a literal Walking Wasteland that has no apparent weak spots and who will kill Izuku if he gets a direct hit in.
    • Despite his dire situation, Izuku still espouses his faith that Tomura is not the irredeemable villain he presents himself as, no matter how monstrous he makes himself or the death toll he intends to commit, even as he also prepares himself to stand and fight to the end, once more wrapping his arm with Black Whip as a recoil booster to unleash 100% attacks, combined with Fa Jin, on Tomura, the force tearing apart his support braces from the sheer power he's channelling. On Tomura's end, his newly-stolen Danger Sense starts going berserk at the danger Izuku presents now, causing enough warnings to make even Tomura wince from the intensity.
    Izuku: No, it's all... somehow connected. And somewhere inside you... is a person.

• Chapter 412:
  • Izuku reveals that, rather that reinforcing the outside of his arm with Black Whip, like he did in the war, he's using it subdermally on his muscles underneath the skin, manually flexing his muscles to build up power for Fa Jin along with better reinforcing his arm against the blow, all whilst enduring Tomura's prior attacks. Along with the still-active Gearshift, Izuku swings an underhand punch that he shifts into an open-hand flick of air, creating a literal sea of air through Delaware Smash, scooping up the onrushing wave of destruction that Tomura was unleashing and blowing it all harmlessly away in a single blow. Tomura's impressed that Izuku calculated the full range of his Decay's spread and countered it in a single move as the gale-force winds lift him skyward.
    • Tomura believes all he needs to do is restart his Decay wave once again until Izuku's efforts are exhausted, but as he shoots himself back towards his foe, he realises that the dust cloud that the wind picked up hasn't vanished. Smirking as he realises he's fallen for Izuku's next tactic, Tomura's new Danger Sense gets overwhelmed by multiple Black Whips bursting from the clouds, leaving him too distracted to properly react to the real threat of Izuku's new Megaton Punch blow, cleanly chopping through his super-tough arm like it was made of paper mâché. Izuku reveals he's using both his experience against Lady Nagant to exploit Danger Sense as a weakness against Tomura, as well as the ingenious move of combining "Low gear" and Smokescreen to create long-lasting smoke cover to hide in whilst he peppers Tomura with attacks his resilient body can't withstand.
    • However, Tomura's adaptability in a fight ultimately wins out, as rather that continuing to rely on Danger Sense, he instantly switches to Search to accurately pin down Izuku's location and hits him backwards with Rivet Stab, the same power also letting him know Izuku's Achilles' Heel: that Gearshift's time has run out, leaving him slower and vulnerable as the recoil affects him. Despite his chaining of his remaining Quirks, no tactic Izuku pulls can keep an advantage against Tomura for long.
• Tomura continues to mock Izuku's naiveté in trying to "save" him, insisting that he's completely fine with being Beyond Redemption and it's only Izuku's hubris that's deluding himself into believing otherwise. He even points out that their mental link between the Quirks works both ways, so Izuku can see inside Tomura's head just as he can see the Vestiges within Izuku....and can thus see that there's so sign of the young Tenko left within Tomura, only the swirling chaos that demonstrates his never-ending desire to destroy. Seeing this, even Nana cannot help but advise Izuku, however regretfully, that he needs to kill Tomura, that he doesn't need to feel guilty over making a hard choice that compromises his ideals as a hero in order to save millions in reality. And yet, even with that seeming to be his only option, Izuku still refuses to give up on Tomura. It's not merely about his own desire to save the piece of Tomura that's suffering, but an acknowledgement that Tomura and the rest of the villains who wanted to change the status quo are correct: the world needs to accept that there's flaws in the system that hurt and overlook those it's meant to protect, and if Izuku picks the "easy" option of killing Tomura to stop his threat now, it will merely allow the problems to continue festering, maybe even giving birth to an even more dangerous "Tomura Shigaraki" down the line. Izuku is not just fighting for his or Tomura's sake, he's fighting to stop the cycle of hurt and suffering for future generations, even without any clear idea of how to pull off that miracle. For both good and ill, he truly deserves to be called "History's Maddest Hero", moving Nana to tears with his dedication.
  Izuku: No. I have to ask why he can't let go of that sad, lonely past of his!! All he did was put a lid on it. So until that lid shatters to pieces, I won't stop smashing away at it!
  • Another point for Izuku: Both Nana and Tomura's dialogue makes it clear that, even with Tomura's threat against him and the entirety of Japan, Izuku is actually still holding back against him, avoiding unleashing the maximum amount of force he potentially could straight at Tomura, which even he admits could be enough to put his body beyond recovery. Even with all the enhancements and emotion-driven evolution that Tomura's body has undergone, Izuku's peak is still actually faster and stronger than him thanks to One For All's accumulation over the generations, again driving home how doomed All For One's efforts to "cheat" a way to victory against his brother's power were.
  • Seeing Izuku resolutely stalemating Tomura, his empathy chaining back their best hope for victory, Kudo can only muse that his assessment was correct: Izuku is indeed incapable of finishing the feud between the twin powers because his idealistic belief in the inherent goodness of everyone, even their deadliest enemy, means he refuses to make "the hard decision" even with millions of lives counting on him....and yet, having observed Izuku's memories from within, not even the hardened Kudo can find it in himself to deride that same pure belief as "unnecessary", seeing his forgiveness and redeeming of even those he should have hated the most, like Bakugo. And so, Kudo likewise decides to make his own "insane bet", as an image of Star and Stripes appears pointing at Tomura's inner world, symbolising both the inherited will to defeat him that Izuku's carrying on, as well as giving Kudo a slim hope. If fighting Tomura externally is doomed to end in failure....
    Kudo: I'm betting everything on you, Ninth. The time has come...to part ways with One For All.

• Chapter 413:
  • The chapter begins with a flashback to Star and Stripe's perspective during the finale her Quirk's rampage inside of Shigaraki's mindscape, revealing that she in fact witnessed the core of Tenko still within the chaotic mass of Tomura and AFO's fusion, and despite her Quirk's power burning out, enough of her will remains to relay a crucial piece of information to the vestiges within One For All: Within Tomura's mindscape, every bit of his trauma, rage and hatred that made him who he is has been compressed into a seemingly impenetrable "lump of lead" representing his indomitable will, except for a single small crack left behind from his battle with Star, a psychic wound that none of his Quirks are capable of healing, which Star's spirit points out to All Might and the other vestiges by proxy. Though her battle with Tomura only temporarily delayed his upgraded body's completion and the Quirks she destroyed could be replaced, Star's battle nonetheless created a crucial weakness in the sheer face of Tomura's willpower and her will lingered on long enough to both allow Deku and the vesitges to exploit it and confirm that no matter how deeply buried, Tenko and Tomura's humanity still exists.
    Star and Stripe's vestige: Master... There's a forlorn little boy in there...
  • Kudo explains his crazy gambit to exploit the flaw in Tomura's mental fortress: by imagining OFA's transference as an attack and basically using the individual Quirks as ammunition, Deku can send the individual Quirks into Tomura with such force as to blast apart the crack in Tomura's mind, hypothetically possible since Tomura accidentally proved the Quirks can be separated from One For All itself through Shinomori's sacrifice, with the supercharged Quirks of OFA having the potential to each inflict tremendously more damage than even Star's New Order could due to the power they've accumulated over the years. Kudo knows this is still incredibly risky and likely to be a Heroic Sacrifice... which is why he volunteers to go first, explaining that either his Quirk is destroyed on "impact" before Tomura can even use it, or the transferred backlash from Deku's own overuse of Gearshift will cause Tomura become exhausted and allow Deku to regain his stamina in one fell swoop.
  • After the plan is explained, Nana observes that Deku is still struggling to commit to it, not out of a selfish fear of death or of returning to being Quirkless, but because even after all the time he spent training and earning OFA, he still views it an irreplaceable treasure trusted to him by the hero and man he admires most in the world, All Might. Though despite his trepidation at giving up the very thing that allowed him to pursue his dream of being a hero and literally struggling to breathe and get upright from his prone state, at Kudo's prompt for Izuku's affirmation, the boy shouts with complete conviction:
    Izuku: I'LL DO IT!!
  • Cue a massive burst of Blackwhip tendrils shearing one of Tomura's arms clean off faster than he can react even with Danger Sense, a feat that last chapter was achieved by a direct strike with OFA's Super-Strength. When the dust clears, we see that Deku has gotten around his fatigue from Gearshift by spreading Blackwhip tendrils throughout his entire body to puppeteer himself from within, the result being an absolutely savage new look with tendrils suspending him off the ground like spider legs, webbing across his body resembling a symbiote al a Venom or Carnage, demonic looking eyes and claws, prompting Shigaraki to make a remark calling back to an iconic moment of the Dark Hero Arc as a Quirk spark begins to shine within Deku's hand as he prepares to put the plan into motion:
    Tomura: Looking at you... I'd never guess you were a hero.

• Chapter 414:
  • Resuming the fight, Izuku and Tomura each charge towards the ground, racing each other to prevent/activate the Decay Wave. Izuku blocks Tomura's vision once more with En's "useless" Smokescreen, to his surprise, as the former unleashes a double-handed Decay strike on the ground...only for a double-page spread to reveal that Izuku had lifted a huge chunk of the earth free with Black Chains as support underneath through the Smokescreen, neutering Tomura's attack just like the UA defence system. Banjo notes that rather than using the Chains' raw strength alone, Izuku had actually dragged them underground when Tomura blew him through the landscape last chapter, tearing up the ground in preparation to counter Tomura's Decay even as he himself was getting beaten bloody.
  • Tomura instantly reacts to Izuku's follow-up attack out of the cloud cover, turning around to Decay him as he attacks from behind...only to discover it's Gran Torino's cape suspended on a Black Whip, the same decoy tactic Izuku used against Nagant. Tomura, confused, notes that he was using Search to track Izuku's position in the low-visibility to avoid this, only to Decay the cape to dust and reveal what's underneath it. A clot of blood gripped by the Black Whip Tendril, shining with Kudo's Vestige within. From Tomura's own taunting against Izuku and the vestiges beforehand, Izuku realises that their Psychic Link between the Quirks allowed Tomura to "see" them, and thus, allowed their individual vestiges to be tracked by Search as well, allowing him to distract Tomura with a decoy attack whilst he readies the real finisher. Realising he's wide open, Tomura tries desperately to unleash a Hand Cannon blast against Izuku's actual body as he emerges from the smoke, already unleashing his simultaneous attack to stab Tomura with the blood clot, as he mentally reassures En that his "useless" power was crucial to their combined effort against Tomura.
    • The Kicker? Tomura, faced with Izuku's impending hit, instinctively tries to re-form the high-defensive hand armour he used against the Heroes before, the same form that made him a massive punching bag for Izuku in, because he knows on a primal level that taking that punch is worse than leaving himself wide open.
      Tomura: My body rejects what's coming. It can't afford to take this hit!
  • Despite Tomura's counter gouging out a chunk of Izuku's forehead, his attack lands, Kudo's vestige, smile on his face, impacting the "Dark Mass" of Tomura's soul like a meteor in a blow that rocks him physically and mentally. The blowback from the attack leaves both Tomura and Izuku hallucinating a jumbled mixture of their memories, facsimiles of Dabi, Toga, Spinner and Shoto at the Sports Festival appearing all around them. En quickly snaps Izuku out of the disorienting experience, his will to fight restored by Kudo's sacrifice, pointing out that Tomura's genuinely reeling from the attack with his mutation faltering from the psychic damage, and pushing him to unleash another hit whilst they have the opening.

• Chapter 415:
  • Pressing his advantage, Izuku charges his fist with all the Vestiges as one, aiming to force every part of his accumulated power into Tomura's revealed Achilles' Heel to finish the fight in one go. Desperate, Tomura rapidly grows more finger armour around himself whilst lashing out at Izuku with Rivet Stab, aiming to keep his distance at all costs, only for that effort to prove futile: Izuku sheering through his Combat Tentacles with Black Chains of his own to keep his hands free for another direct strike that tears into his chest, launching the combined vestiges straight at his core. Yet, Tomura's insane adaptability in a fight still pulls through at the last moment, as he uses his never-ending hatred for the inverse intent of what All For One groomed him for: rejecting One For All's non-consensual transference ability and forming a "shield" around his leaden mass that bounces the attack off, something that All Might explicitly stated was impossible to do when explaining how the transference worked. Tomura once again proves that all bets are off as to how the twin Quirks interact with each other thanks to his powerful will.
  • Despite that, Tomura was a step too late, and En alone managed to slip through the cracks in his "armour" to land another direct strike, leaving what looks like lasting physical damage on Tomura's body from the interlink of his mental and physical states. In contrast to his unarmored humanoid form that demonstrated his absolute confidence in his victory against Izuku, and his constant taunting of his Arch-Enemy over his desire to "save" him, Tomura now cannot articulate a single word from the mental agony he's inflicting on him, and his body completely distorts with more finger-masses growing into a vaguely butterfly-like shape to keep his physical self safe from Izuku (as the transfer can only work on his original body). Tomura has done a complete 180 from the unstoppable force he was minutes prior and gone onto the absolute defensive against the hero he was overpowering one-sidedly.

Chapters 416- 420

• Chapter 416:
  • As Izuku continues his assault on Tomura's sealed-off body, he showcases his skill and commitment to protecting everything, not only ripping through each massive fleshy finger pressing in on him from all sides, when but a single graze could start Decaying him instantly, he also uses Black Whips from his fingers to lasso the fingers from the bottom of Toura's mutated form, yanking them upwards to avoid scraping the ground when their mid-air clash swerves too close to it. In a situation wherein anybody else's focus would be on keeping themselves as safe as possible from Tomura's omnidirectional attacks, Izuku is not only keeping his mind on stopping the damage from spreading any further, but managing to do so with such ferocity that Tomura's "shield" is getting torn to pieces faster that he can can attack.
  • The broadcast of Izuku's non-stop efforts against Tomura gets shown across all the settled battlefields, civilians and exhausted heroes alike watching him heroically stand against Tomura's destruction, outmatched, exhausted, bloody and desperate, lacking any of the usual confidence that was trademark of the prior Symbol of Peace's battles. Yet, as Rock Lock and Lady Nagant discuss, what Izuku has instead that makes him worthy of the successor is his simple and pure compassion for everyone, even monsters like Tomura. His simple heroic spirit is shown in a double-page spread to have rendered a massive crowd of onlookers mostly silent at the sight of him fighting Tomura with tears of sympathy for his enemy's pain in his eyes.
    Lady Nagant: He managed to wrench open my heart. He has this special way of doing it. And there's nothing harder for a Villain to bear than that. [.] I bet that's what he's up to right now. He's not merely out to punish evil, like it's all so black-and-white. That boy's dream is taking him down a thornier, more nuanced path. And that look on his face, when he's up against the wall and running himself ragged? It makes you wanna risk it all to back him up.
    Crowd Onlooker: (spoken quietly) You can do it.
  • Tomura, in a full emotional breakdown, screams at Izuku to keep away from him, the paneling bringing up a flashback to Kotaro's own reaction to his son's fatal approach to drive home how much Izuku is making him fear him as another blow tears into him, bringing Izuku a concrete, unwavering vision of the Shimura household as he gets closer to Tomura's emotional core.

• Chapter 417:
  • It's revealed that Izuku's connected blow last chapter successfully transferred all the Vestiges into Tomura's Core at once, in spite of his iron willpower, leaving it on the verge of breaking despite his mental and physical defences. The only exception is Nana alone, which as she realises is because of her own subconscious emotional rejection of Tomura's innermost pain and suffering born from her own family line, not any failing on Izuku's part. Regardless, the Ninth successor still affirms that he's glad to have her on his side as they both venture into Tomura's innermost self, the vision of his family house, Izuku no longer dressed in the rags of his hero costume, but the middle school uniform he wore on first meeting All Might and starting his heroic journey, affirming for all that he's changed and grown, his simple heroic desire to help others has never wavered, being the greatest tool he can bring to bear in stopping Tomura's unending desire for destruction.
  • As Izuku discovers, objects and beings within this deep a layer of his Mental World can affect Izuku's avatar physically, shown by a memory of a speeding truck grazing his backpack. Despite the danger this poses on Tomura's home ground, Izuku still fearlessly advances through his memories and twisted perception of reality, even as Tomura seeks to impede him every step of the way.
    • Tomura first confronts Izuku through a twisted shadowy mirror of himself in hero garb, showing the young boy how he doesn't see anything good or heroic in his efforts to face him and trying to undermine his willpower in order to empathize with his deepest pain, pointing out how even if he understands how Tomura's a Tragic Villain, knowing exactly why he became this way won't change a thing about their mortal battle out in reality. Izuku immediately agrees with him, but affirms that he'll still proceed regardless, because just killing Tomura without understanding him wouldn't feel right to him no matter what.
      "Dark Hero" Izuku: How about you die instead.
      Izuku: You will let me in.
    • As Izuku pushes onwards towards the front door, Tomura physically pins him down with the memory of Stain doing the same to him, his face morphing into both Re-Destro's and Overhaul's as the memories of their own conversations and challenges to Tomura's convictions become part of his own Breaking Speech to Izuku. This too barely impedes Izuku, as he affirms he's got no plan for how to "save" Tomura or the people imperiled by their fight, but he's going to anyway, before smashing through the phantasm.
      Memory Stain: (Stabbing Izuku's arm) That's why you're about to die. (face morphs into Re-Destro) What burdens do you bear?! What do you seek to build?! (morphs into Overhaul) Got a plan?
      Izuku: Nope!! Get outta my way!!
  • Entering the house, both Izuku and Nana witness the memory of Kotaro striking Tenko in a fit of rage after he found him with Nana’s photo, paralysing Nana with grief over how twisted the painful scars left by her absence turned her son. This close to the vision of Tenko, Izuku finally hits a barrier he cannot overcome, the concentrated emotional rejection stemming from him erecting an invisible wall that steadily pushes him away. Nana, after hearing Kotaro’s bitter tirade against her and heroes, is reduced to broken tears... that is, until he raises his hand for a further blow on his son. Despite her regrets, sorrow and self-loathing for failing them both, this time, Nana accepts her guilt and pushes through the barrier alongside Izuku, doing what she could not before and grabbing onto Kotaro's image to stop his attack on his son, as Izuku reaches out to comfort Tenko's shade, successfully transferring Nana's vestige into Tomura and shattering his core to pieces.
  • The result of their efforts? Izuku finds himself alone, confronting the root cause of Tomura's pain and villainy in one, a shadowy vision of Tenko in the back garden as his Decay activates on Mon, finally having a chance to deal directly with his enemy's greatest source of strength.
• Chapter 418:
  • Seeing Mon crumble to bloody pieces, Izuku realises the tragedy that's about to unfold with Hana is the starting point of Tenko/Tomura's origin, and that he has to stop it....which he does by forcibly willing his vestige body to physically exist within Tenko's memory, standing between him and Hana in the form of the young child he was in the very opening pages of the manga, holding back Tenko's uncontrollable Touch of Death from reaching the memory of Hana with his bare hands, even as the Decay painfully and slowly rips his arms apart. When Tenko insists that he chose the tragedy to occur, given how Quirks reflect upon the nature of the wielder, Izuku accepts this, but remains adamant and firm in his stance that he's there to save the part of Tenko that suffers in guilt from the death and pain he's caused, the memories of Class 1A reaching out to him during his Dark Hero moment giving Izuku the final push to force his own Vestige against Tenko until they both collapse to the ground.
    Izuku: Others have reached out to take my hand and give me peace. That's why....I Am Here.
    • Whilst Tenko/Tomura's vestige is left still intact in the aftermath, he quietly and sadly rejects Izuku's offer of atonement, noting that, despite having found a true hero to save him from his misery, he still has to oppose him regardless, because he’s a hero to the Villains who look up to him and supported him all this time, with images around the world showing that even at his most monstrous, there are still misanthropic individuals witnessing their fight in reality who are cheering for Tomura to win, a dark reflection of Izuku's own Hope Bringer nature. Regardless, with the Decay having stopped consuming Izuku up to his shoulders and Tomura's quiet resignation, it's clear that Izuku's empathy has finally succeeded in smothering the burning hatred that relentlessly empowered Tomura's rampage at long last, leaving both heroes at a standstill on how to proceed, neither one having the will or the means to continue their fight.
  • However, before either one can resolve the standstill between them, they're suddenly assaulted by memories of Kotaro talking to somebody, memories that are explicitly not Tomura's, to their confusion. As these memories continue to cascade and overwhelm them both, they're suddenly knocked off-balance by a force rising through the ground beneath them, like a zombie bursting forth from its own grave to consume Tomura's weakened vestige now his willpower has faltered, deriding him for losing the mental and emotional struggle to an "absolute nobody" as he looms over the armless and powerless Izuku to reclaim his role as his final opponent. ALL FOR ONE IS BACK.

• Chapter 419:
  • All for One makes his return by revealing he manipulated Shigaraki’s life from the start - after realizing Kotaro’s first child was too old for his plan to work, he approached the family over the years as a neighbour, subtly convinced Kotaro to have Tenko whilst also encouraging his anti-hero mindset, and once he was born he secretly replaced his original Quirk with Decay (revealed to be a modified copy of Chisaki's Overhaul Quirk with its reconstruction aspect removed), patiently waiting for it to awaken in the worst way possible. All these reveals shake Shigaraki to his core as All for One claim this means he’s nothing but a puppet he crafted for his own use, and at Shigaraki's most emotionally vulnerable he destroys his mind and claims his body as his own, with it reforming in reality into an amalgamated appearance of every significant villain in the story as All For One takes his place as Izuku's last enemy. All for One proves his petty and heinous actions make him an unrelenting antagonist to Izuku and Tomura both...
  • But despite All for One's claims, we get a moment for Shigaraki as well. All for One reveals the only reason he could come back is because Midoriya's mental attack weakened Shigaraki enough for All for One to break free and use his trump card. This means despite what All for One said, his puppet became too strong for him to handle, and his consciousness was swallowed up by Shigaraki, meaning that if Midoriya hadn't tried to reach out to Shigaraki, AFO would’ve stayed locked up in his mind forever. All for One got lucky, and the only way he can stay in control is if he destroys Shigaraki's self-worth in order to beat Shigaraki in a battle of wills. In the end, even though All for One was confident his attack fully destroyed Shigaraki he can still hear an echo, which is implied to be Shigaraki's consciousness lingering. All for One simply isn't strong enough to permanently get rid of his tool, proving he is inferior to Shigaraki in the end.
    • Decay being a modified version of Overhaul's Quirk retroactively lends an extra dose of Karma to Tomura using that same power to neuter the original's ability in the most humiliating and gratifying manner possible.
  • Deku is faced with his darkest hour. Despite having lost his predecessors’ Quirks and vestiges, despite having potentially lost One For All itself and now having lost his own arms, Deku refuses to admit defeat. He is still utterly determined to stop All For One and save Tenko and everyone else despite bleeding out helplessly on the ground before him. All For One utterly failed to conquer his will. Demonstrating why All Might chose Izuku and what Yoichi’s vestige saw in Midoriya. Heroic Willpower indeed on Midoriya’s part.
  • Deku's actions weren't All for Nothing - All for One discovers that Shigaraki's body was damaged from the mental attack, with both Decay and Tomura's unstoppable hatred and willpower that fuelled his abilities having vanished alongside his psyche, leaving the body he inhabits as a crippled shell of what he envisioned. Even more dammingly, the Vestiages' Heroic Sacrifice means he’s lost the chance to claim Yoichi for good. On realising this, All For One, the epitome of a Sore Loser, sincerely admits that his "mid-term goal" has failed, dropping even his Evil Is Hammy theatrical personality as he hits a Despair Event Horizon over losing his Twin for good and revealing what his true self is like: a disturbingly placid Empty Shell who cannot even take sincere joy in his villainy anymore and has only two goals left to motivate him to do anything. Take Over the World out of "obligation" to the Demon Lord's reputation, and taking brutal bloody vengeance on Izuku with ice-cold fury in his gaze. It shows the ninth successor that All for One has always declared useless has essentially set him back even further than All Might did.
    • All For One spent the war obsessed with Izuku as a mere component in his plan to become the "Perfect Demon Lord" whilst deriding him personally as an Inadequate Inheritor of One For All's power. By refusing to allow his verbal bullying to affect him and focusing only on the genuinely important goal of facing Tomura as his opponent, Izuku has pushed All For One to the wayside in his envisioned climatic face-off with his brother's power, such that when he finally "claimed" his prize, it was in the worst, most hollow victory imaginable for him, having hurt him on an emotional level even worse than his original losing of Yoichi. Now, All For One is focused on Izuku out of mere petty spite for having destroyed his own dreams of reuniting with his twin, like he did to so many countless others, and damming him to an eternity without any happiness.
  • As All for One gets ready to finish Midoriya off once and for all, Sero, Ojiro, and Sato appear to rescue their friend. Together, they stop the self-proclaimed demon lord from attacking and manage to push him back. Midoriya happily exclaims they are still alive, as a Warp Gate opens, and Aizawa walks out apologizing for being late. The heroes are still fighting back and somehow, they have managed to get Kurogiri on their side.

• Chapter 420:
  • In flashback, Aizawa and Mic are revealed to have been teleported to a random rock in the middle of the ocean, the latter furiously beating the comatose Kurogiri in frustration over being separated from the important ongoing battle with their students risking their lives and Kurogiri's aid to the villain's side. However, Aizawa stops him, seeing faint tear marks in Kurogiri's smoky head. Whilst Mic insists their friend is gone for good and they can't expect a repeat of their prior "miracle" in Tartarus, Aizawa actually agrees: even if they can dredge up Shirakumo's buried personality, their former friend has been inevitably tainted by evil, and all it takes is further "black" added to him to smother the "white" of his former self, as Spinner achieved. Yet, even with that, Aizawa notes that Kurogiri still didn't drop them to their deaths, showing that there's still some part of him that remembers them. Reaching out to that buried piece of his old friend, Aizawa notes to him and Mic both that guiding wayward souls until graduation is the role they're entrusted with as teachers, and if Shirakumo's Origin in the same, then he too will never forget the memories of once being a hero, no matter how twisted he becomes. This succeeds in awakening Shirakumo's personality into a merging of his old and current selves, giving them access to Kurogiri's warping once more.
  • Aizawa immediately starts assembling the scattered heroes across the various battlefields in the backdrop of Izuku's clash with Tomura, moving quickly whilst Kurogiri's support lasts. Being witness to Izuku's heroic struggle, even the non-action civilians volunteer what clothing, supplies and resources they can spare to help the heroes side, whilst even retired heroes like Death Arms volunteer to accompany Aizawa to the frontlines in support of him, showing just how far-reaching Izuku's efforts have been.
  • Besides the climatic showdown against Tomura, the only remaining major battleground the heroes are struggling in is Tacoma National Stadium, against the Tartarus escape Gashly. Gashly's powers are tailor-made for long battles against overwhelming odds, with him mobbing the remaining fighters with an endless sea of creepy baby-like creations in a manner equivalent to the Sad Man's Parade Toga unleashed whilst he maintains a safe distance. Not having the time to waste on a pointless fight, the heroes simply open a portal right behind the Villain and mob him with numbers before he can say a single word.
    • Despite not being standout members of 1A, Sero, Ojiro and Sato are all depicted as being some of the last remaining heroes holding their ground against Gashly's endless forces, besides Number 13, whose Quirk provides her a distinct advantage against a mob of mindless enemies. Sato in particular, is a demonstration that he's definitely trained himself to overcome the Heroic RRoD that became his downfall during the Final Exam against Cementos. And then, after the most stamina-draining battle of the entire war, they're the first through the portals to immediately jump into battle by Izuku's side. They're not flashy, but they're all certainly heroes.
  • Aizawa checks if it's only been a few minutes since Izuku's arms were destroyed before pulling something from his pocket: Eri's horn, given to him by the little girl to allow her power to help Izuku even if she herself won't be allowed anywhere near the dangerous battlefield. Whilst Aizawa is angered at Ectoplasm for helping Eri to self-mutilate herself, noting it could cause permanent damage to her Quirk, his fellow teacher just retorts that Eri has learned both Aizawa's rational and irrational ways, determined to help her saviour no matter the cost to herself. Stabbing Izuku with the horn, Aizawa relays to him Eri's dream to one day sing for Class 1A like they did for her at the Cultural Festival, telling his student he cannot die before he hears her. Izuku bursts into grateful tears as the incumbent energy begins slowly restoring his arms from nothing.
  • In true endgame-style fashion, all the battered heroes begin to emerge from Kurogiri's portals to stand behind the recovering Izuku, facing down the weakened All For One in one last clash to end the war and his dreams of world conquest for good.

Chapters 421- 425

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