Forest Training Camp Arc

The eighth story arc of My Hero Academia and the eighth of the U.A. Beginnings Saga, also known as the School Trip arc. It runs from chapter 70 to chapter 83 and was adapted as Episodes 39 through 45, following the Final Exams arc and leading into the Hideout Raid arc.

The first semester is over. Both first-year hero classes travel to a training camp supervised by their homeroom teachers and the Wild, Wild Pussycats. Before they can settle in, the Vanguard Action Squad ambushes them on behalf of the League of Villains, and the students are left fighting for their lives a second time.

After the mall confrontation, now on record as the Hero Incident, Naomasa Tsukauchi praises Izuku Midoriya for keeping his head, and All Might admits to him that he has failed to save people many times, and that the Symbol of Peace exists to make others act so that more are saved. The camp's location is withheld until departure day. It begins the moment the bus stops: Pixie-Bob drops both classes into the Beast's Forest, and the eight-hour crawl to the lodge is the first test.

Kota Izumi punches Izuku in the crotch on introduction and wants nothing to do with corny heroes. Mandalay's nephew lost both parents two years earlier when the Water Hose duo died saving civilians, and he read it as abandonment. Izuku, hearing an echo of Tomura Shigaraki's resentment, tries words on the boy and fails. Shoto Todoroki tells him that actions land where speeches do not.

Quirk training starts with Katsuki Bakugo's pitch barely improving, proof that the class has grown in skill and nerve but not in raw output. The Pussycats' wide-area Quirks let dozens train at once, and Tiger tells Izuku to push until the fibers tear. On the third night, during a test of courage, poisonous gas floods the forest and the Vanguard Action Squad attacks. Dabi burns at Shota Aizawa, who dismantles what turns out to be a double. Spinner, who claims Stain's dream, and Magne engage Mandalay and Tiger.

Kota, alone, meets the scarred man who murdered his parents. Izuku arrives with no phone and no backup, and fights Muscular knowing his own strength is inferior. Full Cowl fails, one hundred percent barely dents him, and only when the boy turns his own water Quirk on the man does Izuku break past his ceiling, wrecking his arms with a million-percent smash. Elsewhere Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Itsuka Kendo take down Mustard, and Fumikage Tokoyami loses control of Dark Shadow in the dark, until Izuku lures the rampaging Quirk onto Moonfish and Katsuki and Shoto bring light to calm it.

The Bakugo Escort Squad forms and immediately loses its charge. Mr. Compress lifts both Katsuki and Fumikage as marbles while nobody is looking. Ochaco Uraraka slings Izuku, Mezo Shoji and Shoto weightless from Tsuyu Asui's tongue to run him down, and Yuga Aoyama's laser breaks Compress's mask, spilling the marbles. Mezo recovers Fumikage. Dabi takes the other one and warps out, and Katsuki's last word to Izuku is to stay away. Izuku howls.

Fifteen minutes later the medics arrive. Twenty-seven students are injured, Muscular, Moonfish and Mustard are arrested, Katsuki is gone and Ragdoll has vanished. Momo Yaoyorozu's tracking beacon, welded onto a Nomu by Yosetsu Awase, is the one thing that went right, and it will lead the police to the League. Protests gather at U.A. the next day, Present Mic argues someone leaked the camp's location, and Naomasa calls All Might with a hideout.

In the hospital, Izuku sinks under the memory of Katsuki within arm's reach. Eijiro Kirishima proposes they use Momo's technology to go themselves. Tenya Ida demands the job stay with professionals and argues it out with him, and Izuku looks to Tenya with the plea he cannot say aloud.