Paranormal Liberation War Arc

The eighteenth arc of My Hero Academia and the last of the Rise of Villains Saga, running chapters 253 to 306 and episodes 107 and 113 to 131. It follows the Endeavor Agency Arc and gives way to the Dark Hero Arc.

A coordinated pre-emptive strike hits two targets simultaneously: the Gunga Mountain Villa, where the Front is assembled, and Jaku General Hospital, where Kyudai Garaki has been perfecting Tomura Shigaraki. Everything that follows is the cost of that gamble.

The prologue delivers the clue. Kurogiri's Warp Gate is built on a Quirk Factor belonging to Oboro Shirakumo, the friend Shota Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada buried in high school, and All For One built a Nomu out of his corpse. Calling his name reaches him for a moment, long enough for one word: hospital. Hawks receives it, having already mapped the Front's four regiments and coaxed a location out of Twice, whose trust he cultivated deliberately and whose kindness he genuinely recognizes.

In March the raids launch. Endeavor's squad finds Garaki at Jaku General only to watch him melt into a Double, and Mirko tears through the walls to the real laboratory, crushing Johnny before he can warp Tomura away. Garaki activates five untested High-Ends. Mirko loses an arm, kills the Nomu that took it, and refuses to fall, hammering the capsule until its resuscitation processor breaks with Tomura's stabilization at seventy-five percent. Crust dies pulling Eraser Head clear of what comes next. At the villa, Cementoss splits the mansion open, Denki Kaminari swallows an entire regiment's electricity, and Fumikage Tokoyami floods the tunnels with Ragnarök. Hawks corners Twice, offers him a way back, is refused, and kills him, and Dabi arrives to burn the wings off the man he never trusted and to call him Keigo Takami.

Tomura wakes anyway. His Decay eats the hospital, the surrounding blocks, and a third of Jaku City, and All For One's stolen Quirks come with it: Search finds Izuku, Radio Waves kills the communications, Super Regeneration erases the damage. Gran Torino's chest is opened. Eraser Head, the one thing holding those Quirks shut, amputates his own leg to stop a Quirk-destroying bullet, and loses his eyes to Tomura's fingers instead. Meanwhile Gigantomachia carries the League toward his master, and Midnight, dying, hands Momo Yaoyorozu a plan; the students soften the ground, trap the giant, and Eijiro Kirishima throws the sedative Mina Ashido could not.

Izuku takes the fight into the sky on Float, because the ground is a death sentence, and grinds Tomura down until All For One seizes the body outright. Katsuki, without thinking, takes the rivet meant for Izuku. Dragged into the vestige world, Izuku is shielded by Nana Shimura and Yoichi while All For One explains that consciousness rides inside a Quirk, and the theft fails because the body is unfinished. Below, Dabi hijacks the airwaves to name himself Toya Todoroki, produce a DNA match, and broadcast Hawks killing Twice. Best Jeanist drops from a plane very much alive, and Mirio Togata returns with the Quirk Eri gave back to him, but Mr. Compress mutilates himself to free Tomura, and All For One escapes on the backs of the Near High-Ends.

The arrest sheet reads 16,929, with 132 unaccounted for. Crust, Midnight, Majestic, X-Less, and Native are dead. That same night All For One raids Tartarus, frees his original body, and empties six more prisons, putting Muscular, Moonfish, Lady Nagant, Kai Chisaki, and Stain back on the streets to keep the heroes too busy to hunt him while Tomura's body finishes healing.

Hero society caves in. Yoroi Musha retires and a wave follows him, agencies close, civilians arm themselves and multiply the casualties, and the blame settles on one man. Rei Todoroki walks back into her husband's hospital room to tell him that guilt is not his alone and that the family will put him back on his feet, because Dabi is theirs to stop together. Shoto offers him a hand and tells him to get up when he is done grieving. Hawks, freed of the Commission and of the name he abandoned, brings Best Jeanist and joins them, and the three address the country in a press conference that concedes almost everything.

In the vestiges, Izuku learns the rest. Hikage Shinomori died at forty of old age because carrying multiple Quirks devours a life, and All Might held One For All for four decades only because he was Quirkless, which means the power can never be handed to anyone with a Quirk again. Nana asks whether he can kill her grandson. Izuku answers that One For All exists to save people, that its purpose has changed in their hands, and that he still wants to reach the crying boy inside Tomura. Then he writes his classmates a letter explaining One For All, and in April he walks out of U.A. alone.