Mezo Shoji

Six arms hang from him, joined by a web of skin. While his Quirk sits idle only the front pair end in hands, the rest tapering into thin stumps, and all of them are physically strong. Pale gray hair sweeps forward over most of his face and folds down at nearly a right angle across one eye.

The face beneath is somewhat elongated, the eyes pushed toward the sides, and because of his scars he keeps it hidden behind a light blue mask that runs from just under the eyes down to his neck. It almost never comes off: he skips the hot springs when the other boys bathe, and it accompanies every outfit. No ears are discernible, though he hears without needing his Quirk.

His school uniform matches the other boys, a gray blazer with turquoise trim, white dress shirt, blue-green trousers, brown shoes and a red tie, the one difference being a sleeveless blazer, cut that way to clear his tentacles. His hero costume is a tank top in tight light blue marked with six eye shapes, joined at the top to an indigo mask like the one he usually wears but with three light blue indents at the back, a belt centered on a larger yellow eye, slightly baggy trousers to match the shirt with darker lines down the legs, and indigo boots.

When Spinner and a crowd of rioting civilians tore the mask away during the Final War, what was underneath proved to be a long, noseless face with an extended mouth full of large teeth, prominent scarring ringing the lips, one line tracking from the back of the mouth down toward his neck.

Eight years later he is huge, taller, with bulkier arms, his hair gathered into a ponytail with a few strands loose, and he no longer masks outside of costume. The costume itself lightens its blues and pales its darks, drops the large yellow eye for a pouch at the back of the belt, turns the leg lines into a circular pattern, and adds a dark purple line across the top of the mask.

The appearance frightens people and the man does not. Mezo is friendly, gentle, and easy to work with. He does not hold grudges and bears no ill will toward those who hurt him unintentionally.

Selflessness is total: he will put his life on the line for anyone. He is empathetic and understanding, yet mature and responsible enough not to act on emotional impulse even when he has regrets, and he becomes fiercely protective of his classmates when they are hurt. He claims no desire for material things, content with few possessions, and has been that way since childhood. He is thick-skinned as well, used to being feared and unbothered when Pony Tsunotori compared him to an octopus and admitted she disliked looking at him.

In his hometown, prejudice against people whose bodies are outwardly altered by their Quirks is still alive, and he frightens people simply by existing near them. He began wearing his mask after his face reduced a young girl to tears, because he did not want to cause anyone sadness. He is aware that his scars and his heteromorphy invite the assumption he became a hero to take revenge on whoever marked him, and that assumption is false. Part of what drives him is tearing down the walls society has kept standing against heteromorphs for over a century, and because he knows one generation cannot finish that work, he has little patience for the shortsighted belief that force and violence will speed it up.

Dupli-Arms grants him tentacles alongside his arms whose tips he can shape into copies of his own body parts, mouths, ears, eyes. The duplicates outperform the originals, so he hears better, watches more angles at once, and gains substantially more strength. He speaks through duplicated mouths most of the time rather than his real one. He can extend the tentacles and, with an arm on the end, use them like grappling hooks, scaling walls, catching pipes to slip an attack, or climbing to a vantage point, and during the Obstacle Race the webbing worked as a pair of wings, letting him glide between stone pillars without touching the ropes.

Detection is where the Quirk turns unfair. At the U.S.J. he heard Toru Hagakure moving from a sizable distance despite her Invisibility, and confirmed every remaining member of 1-A was still inside, which renders sneak attacks against him largely futile. His training focused on producing duplicated parts faster and controlling more of them at once, work Horikoshi has commented sounds especially brutal next to what the rest of Class 1-A faced.

The body carrying all this is formidable on its own. He posted 540 kilograms of grip strength in the Quirk Apprehension Test, up from 46 in middle school, taking 6th place overall, and his Quirk multiplies that brawn by replicating the arms, giving him half a ton of force from a single set of tentacle arms. He carried Tsuyu Asui and Minoru Mineta together without difficulty, sent Himiko Toga flying several meters with a mere slap, shattered Pony's horn projectiles, and damaged a colossal Spinner through an active Scalemail. He is fast enough to pull several classmates clear before Kurogiri could warp them and to outrun Dark Shadow at full power while injured and carrying Izuku Midoriya, and his stamina let him keep that up after a full day of Quirk training, then chase Pony at a sprint for fifteen minutes. The Vanguard Action Squad Invasion cost him an arm outright, with three more scorched by Dabi's Blueflame, and he kept fighting well enough to save Izuku from Himiko afterward. He shielded Mahoro and Katsuma Shimano from falling debris with his own body and took Nine's Bullet Laser with only moderate injury.

He is analytical too, placing 10th in the midterms. He worked out that Fumikage's negative emotions were what slipped Dark Shadow's leash in the dark, and deduced the mechanics of Mr. Compress's Quirk after seeing its aftereffect once. Gang Orca took him on as an intern and improved his search techniques. In the Final War he briefly routed a mastodonic Spinner, was overpowered when the villain activated Scalemail, then recovered and fought him on even terms until Spinner retreated to Central Hospital.

His ultimate moves are Octo-Searcher, a spread of eyes and ears manifested at once for reconnaissance, Octoblow, a barrage from many arms simultaneously, and Octospansion, in which he morphs an arm into a giant fist. Eight years on he is the No. 9 hero and a winner of the Imamura Peace Prize.