Joint Training Arc

The fifteenth story arc of My Hero Academia and the sixth of the Rise of Villains Saga, running from chapter 194 to chapter 217 and adapted as Episodes 91 through 100. It follows the Pro Hero arc and precedes the Meta Liberation Army arc.

The two first-year hero classes are pitted head to head across five rounds of a Joint Training Battle. Hitoshi Shinso fights alongside them, determined to earn his way into the Hero Course. Midway through the exercise, Izuku uncovers something about One For All that none of its previous holders ever suspected.

Izuku Midoriya's dream of the predecessors leaves him unsettled, and All Might can offer little, since neither he nor Nana Shimura ever experienced the vestiges speaking. Whatever is happening, Izuku seems to be the first it has happened to. Forty-one students gather at Ground Gamma in winter gear. Hitoshi introduces himself by calling everyone present an obstacle and announcing he is not there to make friends, and draws into both Team Asui and Team Monoma, fighting each class once. Four captures wins a round; twenty minutes ends it.

Round one goes to Class 1-A, though barely. Jurota Shishida and Kosei Tsuburaba dismantle their formation early by predicting Koji Koda's scouting and using Ibara Shiozaki as a decoy. Tsuyu Asui smears her own mucus on Denki Kaminari and Hitoshi to scramble Jurota's nose, Denki offers himself as bait, and Hitoshi's Artificial Vocal Cords turn Class 1-B's own voices against them until Hiryu Rin and Jurota knock each other cold.

Round two belongs to Itsuka Kendo, who reads her opponents twice over. Shihai Kuroiro baits Fumikage Tokoyami into a duel while actually hunting Yuga Aoyama, and when Fumikage's new Black Fallen Angel breaks that plan, Kinoko Komori floods the field with mushrooms and Manga Fukidashi walls Momo Yaoyorozu off alone. Itsuka crushes her with raw force and wins, and still feels she lost, because Momo spent her last conscious seconds firing a lucky bag of goggles and fungicide to her team and tethering Itsuka to a cannon.

Round three ends in a draw. Juzo Honenuki turns Shoto Todoroki's own ice soft, Tenya Ida unveils Recipro Turbo, and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, having trained his steel against heat, pushes Shoto into producing flames on his father's level. Pony Tsunotori settles it by simply flying out of reach until time runs out. Round four is Katsuki Bakugo's, a flawless four to nothing in five minutes, won by handing out his own grenades and promising his teammates a rescue the moment any of them got into trouble.

Round five breaks open. Neito Monoma taunts Izuku about Katsuki being the reason All Might fell, and the rage cracks something loose. Black tendrils erupt from Izuku's arm, tearing the landscape and dragging him around while he begs the Quirk to stop. Ochaco Uraraka, who once wondered who rescues a hero, dives in and holds him, then calls to Hitoshi. He removes his voice changer and simply asks for their rematch, and Izuku says yes and falls under the brainwashing.

In the fog, a bald predecessor explains it. The tendrils are Blackwhip, his own Quirk, summoned by Izuku's will to seize Neito. One For All was only ever a strength multiplier because its core was small; now the core is expanding, and six Quirks are waking with it, each stronger than it was in its original owner. He warns about anger, and tells Izuku the others are all standing behind him.

Izuku wakes, refuses to use the Quirk, and wins anyway with Ochaco. Neito, who did touch him, finds the copy useless, and Class 1-A takes the exercise. Hitoshi is told he joins the Hero Course in his second year. Afterward Shota Aizawa has Neito try copying Eri's Rewind, which fails for the same reason his One For All copy did: accumulation-type Quirks lend their mechanism but not their stored power, which is the only thing that spared Neito during the match. In Tartarus, All For One notes that he is beginning to feel his younger brother's presence again.