The Hellish Todoroki Family, Part 2

A shack on the edge of a city. A feathered man knocks his son down for slipping out into town and accuses him of informing on him; the boy explains flatly that his wings had tingled and he thought something was happening. His mother, Tomie, complains that the television will not turn on with the same hollow affect. The family lives like this because the father killed a man over pocket change and she sheltered him, and the boy came later, unplanned. The man kicks his son for looking away, rifles the fridge, and blames both of them for a life he never wanted.

The boy takes it, understanding that his parents are broken, and quietly hopes his own adulthood will look different. Then Tomie tells him his father was caught during a botched carjacking escape, arrested by the No. 2 Hero, Endeavor. Heroes had been a fascination and a refuge, watched at a distance like fiction; the arrest collapses the distance. He clutches a stuffed Endeavor his mother bought on an outing they hid from his father, and the two of them flee.

Living rough, Tomie pushes her son to steal with his wings and needles him about being born. He refuses and suggests the police instead. Help arrives after Commission men watch him pull civilians out of a car wreck: professional training in exchange for erasing the family entirely, and full financial support. Accepting, he asks his plush whether Endeavor's kind of heroism is open to him: beating down the bad, brightening the world for everybody.

Years later, Best Jeanist wakes him in a moving car, grateful the hospital's technology kept him alive through the death-like coma that bought Dabi's trust. Jeanist swerves after a loose thread and ties up the Glutton God Gang looting a shopping district, then learns the police are chasing escapees and the local heroes have all quit under public pressure. Hawks reads the unhappy faces in the crowd.

Their destination is the Ukai house, where Tomie has lived since the Commission's deal. It is empty. Her letter explains that Dabi's men forced her family history out of her, and that she left rather than burden her son further; she closes by saying she is proud of him. Hawks calls it karma: he erased her instead of saving her. With his mother gone, though, and no Commission left to hand him orders, he is untethered for the first time he can remember. He decides Twice was a good man, tells Jeanist he doubts the Todoroki household is what it was, and resolves to go public with his own past because Endeavor needs support.

Society keeps sliding. Escaped villains including Stain run loose, heroes resign, Nomu turn from rumor into fact, and civilians arm themselves with black-market support gear rather than accept help. In Central Hospital, Endeavor watches the crowd calling for him, weeps at realizing he froze in front of Toya exactly as he froze for Natsuo, and concludes the hero is dead and Enji cannot fight his own son. Then Natsuo, Fuyumi and Shoto come in, and Rei, out of her hospital, cuts off his apologies to say she is here to talk about their family and about Toya.

Hawks' origins are laid out: his father was a thief and murderer arrested by Endeavor, his mother Tomie sheltered the fugitive, and the Hero Public Safety Commission recruited the boy after seeing him rescue crash victims, erasing the family's history in exchange. Tomie disappears after Dabi's men extract that history from her, leaving a farewell letter.

Best Jeanist confirms his coma was a planned deception to win Dabi's trust, and he captures the Glutton God Gang. Hawks decides to disclose his own past publicly in Endeavor's defense. Public trust in heroes collapses nationwide, and Rei Todoroki leaves her hospital to confront Enji about Toya.

Chapters 299 and 300 are adapted here, airing 21 January 2023 in Japan and 11 February in English.

The manga only mentions Hawks watching heroes on television; the anime shows it, with an original Endeavor fight and All Might's rescue reusing footage from Episode 64 and Taneo Tokuda's recollection. Best Jeanist's post-handover procedure is expanded. When the car swings around, the manga has a muffled Hawks asking what is wrong, while the anime mashes his face into the window and has him use his text-to-speech program instead. The Glutton God Gang scene runs a little longer, and Hawks narrates the state of post-war society.