More of a Hero Than Anyone

Third term opens with Class 1-A back from their first work-study week and three months left of their first year. Tenya credits Manual with teaching him to be gentler, and the class is ready to head out before Shota even arrives, which throws him. Then Nezu calls him to the staff room. In the locker rooms, the girls tease Ochaco over an All Might keychain that tumbles out of her belt, which she snatches back while insisting it means nothing. The boys congratulate Izuku on controlling Blackwhip, a conversation Katsuki ends by throwing part of his costume at Izuku's head. All Might greets the class outside with cotton candy and a pun that lands on nobody.

Shota and Hizashi reach Tartarus, deeply unsettled by what they have been told. Naomasa and Gran Torino explain that Nomu are engineered human corpses, supposedly will-less, an assumption they have begun to doubt. Kurogiri shuts down whenever questioned, and analysis has revealed his Warp Gate is several factors fused into one new Quirk, the base of which belonged to a man declared dead years ago: Oboro Shirakumo, who once proposed the three of them open an agency together and who died crushed under rubble during their own work-study. Gran Torino cites All For One's habit of picking through U.A. for outstanding Quirks and warns Hizashi to look for nothing in it beyond malice. Shota calls hoping for a miracle unreasonable, but Naomasa's threat to contact Oboro's family settles it.

Kurogiri wakes and is startled to see them. Hizashi notices the mist survives Erasure, meaning it is now his body. Kurogiri asks after Tomura and calls worrying about him his duty, adding that he is not the sort to neglect anyone. The phrasing lands on Shota hard. He talks about the friend who would rescue a kitten he had walked past, whose easy warmth dragged him along, and about the teacher he became instead, one who expels students on paper and reenrolls them, a permission he sought from Nezu so he could teach the difference between self-sacrifice and throwing a life away. In tears he tells Oboro they can still be heroes. Kurogiri's brain waves scatter, Oboro's face forms out of the smoke, and he forces out one word, hospital, before Kurogiri collapses back into sleep. The tip reaches Hawks in coded form. In a laboratory, a doctor cheers on Tomura through an agonizing operation.

Kurogiri is revealed to have been constructed from the body of Oboro Shirakumo, the high school friend of Shota Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada, with Oboro's Cloud Quirk serving as the base component of his fused Warp Gate. Erasure fails to disperse his mist, confirming it is part of his body rather than an active Quirk effect.

Shota's emotional appeal briefly surfaces Oboro's consciousness through Kurogiri's smoke, and he manages to say the word hospital before losing control. The tip travels to the Commission and reaches Hawks disguised as a hero request.

Shota's expulsion policy is explained: he obtained Nezu's permission to expel and reenroll students, intending to give them a death to overcome and teach them the line between sacrifice and self-destruction. In the closing scene, Kyudai Garaki oversees Tomura Shigaraki's operation while describing the goal he and All For One share: a human possessing total control and limitless power.

Adapted from three chapters, aired in Japan on August 14, 2021, and dubbed on August 28. This episode opens the Paranormal Liberation War Arc, with Merry-Go-Round and Believe continuing as the themes.

The adaptation adds a scene of Ochaco retrieving Izuku's Christmas gift, extends All Might's pun attempt, and both extends and adds material to Oboro's flashbacks. Tomura's surgery is altered, with the blood of the source replaced by electricity.

A shot of a young Shota facing U.A. references the cover of Chapter 62 of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. The locker room scenes contain continuity slips, with Kyoka's socks vanishing between cuts and Mina's footwear changing twice across the keychain sequence.