Event Announcement!

An unmasked Knuckleduster sits at the Naruhata Disaster Medical Center with a sickly woman in an eyepatch who will not acknowledge him. He tells her he has found things to look forward to lately, hobbies, friends, time with family, and that his only regret is not getting here sooner. A nurse calling for Mr. and Mrs. Oguro gives up his surname along with the fact that this patient is his wife. The doctor explains her cognitive prognosis, and he tunes it out and remembers finding her collapsed and swarming with bees while Kuin Hachisuka stood over her, smiling.

Across town Soga canvasses Kuin's private school with a middle-school photo until faculty chase him off. A vanished classmate then finds him in an alley, turns sultry when he says he is running an errand for someone else, and releases a swarm of Kuin's bees as she collapses. Soga punctures a can of insecticide with his Spikes, but the bees come through untouched and chase him into the street, until Rapt and Moyuru arrive on motorcycles, Moyuru torching bugs with Ignition, and the three ride clear.

Knuckleduster tells his wife the doctor could still be wrong; she mutters at the window for their daughter to hurry home, and he promises they will see Tamao soon. In the waiting room Soga hands over Kuin's school and a surname the older man immediately pegs as false. Asked whether he worries about Koichi and Kazuho being dragged into this, Knuckleduster answers that their noise already works as bait, and suggests Soga go play the goofball in an All Might hoodie himself.

That evening Rapt and Moyuru warn Soga off Trigger and "Freaky Fist Grandpa". Kuin returns home to two withered corpses she calls her parents, a couple she killed, watches the news cover the classmate she possessed, and decides she is bored of Naruhata. In a warehouse, Knuckleduster trains alone, then promises her photo a reunion.

An e-mail through Kazuho's blog arrives the next morning, booking Pop☆Step for the Marukane Department Store rooftop. She is nervous, having only ever done street work. Knuckleduster tells Koichi that trying and failing beats never trying. Koichi brings in Makoto Tsukauchi as a creative consultant, which enrages Kazuho until she learns Makoto had already deduced both alter egos back at the Monster Cat incident and will keep it quiet. Makoto reads the offer as dinner theater rather than a concert, and Kazuho's complaint that the scale mocks her gives Makoto the idea of upgrading the event.

Captain Celebrity dispatches a flying crab villain, and Makoto calls to tell her boss that East Naruhata still resents his fight with the Kaiju Villain. He points to insurance, reconstruction, and arrests; she floats an unnamed opportunity to improve his standing, and he tells her to handle it. As chief manager of his corporation she locks in Kazuho's appearance with room to reshape the venue, then mentions the staff want Pop in an ensemble singing the store's jingle. Kazuho crumbles and Koichi accepts for her.

At the park, Ichimoku and Jube promise to rally friends for the show, and Pop slugs The Crawler for a generic pep talk. In the city Kuin reads the flyer, muses about loosing her bees on it, flinches in sudden pain, calls the concert too boring, then circles back to the idea anyway. From a rooftop, Knuckleduster watches her through goggles, glad she is still buzzing around town.

Knuckleduster is revealed as Iwao Oguro, married to a woman left catatonic by Kuin Hachisuka's Queen Bee and searching for their daughter Tamao. Soga Kugisaki traces Kuin to her private school and is ambushed through a possessed classmate. Kazuho Haneyama is booked onto the Marukane Department Store roof, and Makoto Tsukauchi takes over as her consultant, pulling Captain Celebrity's agency into the event. Knuckleduster finally lays eyes on Kuin.

Built from Chapters 19 and 20 plus the first three pages of Chapter 21, the episode aired 9 June 2025 with a same-day dub, using Kekka Alright and Speed.

The hospital scenes move ahead of Soga's school investigation, reversing the manga order, and gain a flashback of Iwao's encounter with Kuin right after the attack, confirming outright what the manga only implied about his wife's condition. Her muttering becomes a "conversation" with Tamao, and she is placed in the hospital where Rapt stayed. The possessed girl vanishes after the teachers chase Soga off rather than before.

Knuckleduster names Koichi and Pop as his bait in the anime, where the manga has him say Soga. The meeting with Koichi and Kazuho moves from a street to a park at sunset. A news report on the discovery of the possessed girl's body is added to Kuin's homecoming. Captain Celebrity's opponent changes from Eiji Okameda, a Gamera-inspired Instant Villain, to a giant flying crab, and the fight is extended. Pop learns about the ensemble immediately after Makoto's pitch rather than the next day.