Rise of Villains Saga

The Rise of Villains Saga follows the aftershocks of All Might's retirement and All For One's imprisonment, the two outcomes of their final clash at the close of the previous saga. It gathers nine story arcs, spanning volumes 12 through 31 and chapters 98 through 306, adapted across episodes 51 to 131.

Where the U.A. Beginnings Saga was about students learning to be heroes, this one is about a society discovering it no longer has a pillar. Villains organize, the public grows anxious, and the rankings at the top stop meaning what they used to.

U.A. High School converts into a boarding school after the Kamino Incident, partly to shield the students and partly to keep watch on a suspected traitor among them. Class 1-A settles into the dormitories and prepares for the Provisional Hero License Exam, which everyone clears but Katsuki Bakugo and Shoto Todoroki. Afterward Katsuki confronts Izuku Midoriya, having worked out where his Quirk came from, and once the fight burns out All Might explains One For All to him directly.

Licenses open the door to Hero Work-Studies. Izuku apprentices under Sir Nighteye, All Might's estranged former sidekick, who considers him the wrong successor. Meanwhile Kai Chisaki of the Shie Hassaikai builds a Quirk-Destroying Drug out of a girl named Eri, intending to drag the yakuza back into relevance. A joint raid by Pro Heroes and students frees her and breaks Chisaki, but Nighteye does not survive it. Katsuki and Shoto take remedial lessons for their licenses while Enji Todoroki wrestles with the meaning of his new position and the family he damaged getting there.

Class 1-A stages a school festival to lift everyone's spirits, and Izuku foils the criminals Gentle and La Brava before the show. The new Hero Billboard Chart names Endeavor number one, and he proves it by killing a High-End Nomu after a punishing fight, while Hawks quietly infiltrates the League of Villains on the Hero Public Safety Commission's orders. During a Joint Training exercise Izuku accidentally awakens Blackwhip and learns that five more Quirks are coming to him.

The League, meanwhile, is tested by All For One's confidant Doctor Ujiko and by Gigantomachia. When the Meta Liberation Army summons them to Deika City to be destroyed, Tomura Shigaraki recovers the memory of his own past, decays the city, and receives Re-Destro's surrender. The two groups merge into the Paranormal Liberation Front, and Tomura enters surgery to obtain ultimate power. Hawks locates him, and nearly every hero and student in the country is thrown at the Front at once.

The war goes badly. Tomura wakes early bearing his master's Quirk, All For One briefly seizes the body and fails to take One For All, Dabi broadcasts himself as Toya Todoroki to poison the public against his father, and the villains withdraw to raid Tartarus and free All For One's original body.

Cities lie in ruins, escaped criminals roam freely, civilians take up arms or flee, and faith in heroes collapses. Endeavor reconciles with his family, who resolve to face the Toya problem together. Izuku learns the deeper truth of One For All and decides he wants to save Tomura rather than simply kill him. With All For One loose and the name One For All slipping into public knowledge, Izuku walks away from U.A. to keep his classmates out of the blast radius.