Final Exams Arc

The seventh arc of the series and the seventh within the U.A. Beginnings Saga, titled Kimatsu Shiken-hen in Japanese. It covers Chapters 60 through 69 and Episodes 34 through 38, sitting between the Vs. Hero Killer Arc and the Forest Training Camp Arc.

Late June brings the end of term test, and Class 1-A splits between the confident and the panicked. Momo Yaoyorozu, who leads the class academically, organizes study sessions for the strugglers, while Katsuki Bakugo drags Eijiro Kirishima through cram work and picks a fresh fight with Izuku over who will place higher. Itsuka Kendo lets slip that the practical half is supposedly a robot battle like the entrance exam, which delights everyone who fights better than they read. The written portion goes by without a single failure. Then Nezu announces that the surge in villain activity has forced U.A. to change its methods: the students will fight their own teachers, in pairs already chosen, and Class 1-A goes first.

Each duo has thirty minutes to either cuff their instructor or push one member through an escape gate, and the teachers wear weighted restraints built by Mei Hatsume to blunt the mismatch. Shota Aizawa draws Shoto Todoroki and Momo, Ectoplasm takes Fumikage Tokoyami and Tsuyu Asui, Nezu handles Denki Kaminari and Mina Ashido, and All Might is set against Izuku and Katsuki, the one pairing neither boy wants.

Katsuki insists on a straight fight and dismisses every argument Izuku makes for running. All Might plays a villain who does not care what he breaks, swatting both aside without effort, and tells Katsuki that his fury is jealousy and that borrowing another person's strength is not a defeat. Katsuki says he would rather lose. Izuku hauls him clear anyway, reminds him that he was the kid who never accepted losing, and the two improvise: Izuku straps on one of Katsuki's Grenadier Bracers and pulls the pin at point blank while Katsuki draws the eye. All Might shrugs the blast off, impressed enough to note the pair have taken a real step forward, then runs them down at the gate and crushes the bracers. Katsuki finally admits he was a fool for thinking he could win without risk, spends everything to buy Izuku a window, and Izuku, instead of taking it, turns back with a smile, punches All Might in the face, and carries his unconscious rival across the line.

Momo spends her exam convinced she is the weak link of a recommended student. Shoto's plan cuts her out of the fight entirely, and Aizawa punishes it, stringing Shoto up over a bed of caltrops and telling him his scheme leaned on nobody but himself. When Shoto admits the mistake and mentions he voted for her as class president, her nerve returns. Flash grenades hidden inside matryoshka dolls blind Aizawa, a colossal ice wall kills his sightline, and a decoy mannequin eats his capturing weapon while Momo launches her own version, forged from nitinol, and has Shoto heat the ground so the alloy snaps shut around him. They cuff him first.

The remaining matches turn on personal limits. Tsuyu's composure steadies Fumikage against Ectoplasm's clones, and a handcuff she regurgitates and slips to Dark Shadow ends it from inside a giant's mouth. Koji Koda swallows his terror of insects and sends a swarm underground, where sound cannot reach, to break Present Mic. Ochaco Uraraka rides Thirteen's own Black Hole into cuffing range and finishes it with what Gunhead taught her. Minoru Mineta fakes cowardice to lure Midnight away from the gate, then pins her with Grape Rush, his mouth taped shut against her gas, and drags a sleeping Hanta Sero out with him. Tenya Ida, Mashirao Ojiro, Mezo Shoji, and Toru Hagakure clear their matches; Nezu's wrecking ball and Cementoss's endless walls do not fall.

Eijiro, Rikido Sato, Denki, Mina, and Hanta fail the practical, but Aizawa reveals the stakes were a deliberate ruse to squeeze out their best. The whole class goes to the forest lodge, with the five who lost facing rougher training once there. The exercise also rewrites U.A. doctrine, since simulations against machines give way permanently to live opposition. Aizawa's own quirk, damaged by the Nomu at the U.S.J., now needs longer between uses.

Elsewhere, Stain's notoriety brings recruits to Tomura Shigaraki's door. A broker delivers Himiko Toga, wanted for a string of blood-draining killings and desperate for a world easier to live in, and a young man calling himself Dabi who withholds his real name and claims he will be the one to fulfill the Hero Killer's vision. Tomura nearly attacks them both before Kurogiri warps the clash apart and argues that refusing every offer of help leaves him with nothing at all.

During a class shopping trip for camp supplies, Tomura corners Izuku at the mall with his face uncovered and forces a conversation. He cannot understand why Stain earned reverence while his own destruction earned him nothing, and Izuku's answer, that Stain can at least be understood because All Might set him in motion, hands Tomura the thing he was missing. Every act from that point will serve a world stripped of All Might and an exposure of what justice really is. He walks off promising to kill Izuku the next time they meet, and Ochaco, who had returned to apologize for fleeing her own feelings, calls the police.