Episode 42

Kota remembers Mandalay telling him he would one day understand why heroes exist, refuses to believe it, and stands to find the mountain burning. Shota is escorting the remedial group to class, where Neito mocks them for failing exams he also failed, when Mandalay reaches everyone telepathically: two villains have attacked and more are surely coming. Shota orders Vlad King to guard the students and runs out into the firelight, where Dabi ambushes him with blue fire.

In the Beast's Forest, Spinner names his team as the League's Vanguard Action Squad. Magne threatens to finish Pixie-Bob and Spinner invokes Stain's principles to stop her. Recognizing Tenya from Hosu, Spinner draws his sword and swears to make the Hero Killer's dream real, while Tiger, enraged at the thought of Pixie-Bob's life being cut short, tells him exactly whose life it is.

Deeper in, Tetsutetsu finds Itsuka and hands her a gas mask Momo produced. She wants to retreat; he refuses, arguing that Class 1-A grew strong by fighting villains and this is 1-B's chance to close the gap.

Kota receives Mandalay's warning and freezes, because the masked villain in front of him removes the mask and becomes Muscular, the man who murdered his parents. Izuku dives in as the blow falls, wrecking his phone in the chaos and cutting off any call for help. Certain he cannot both win and shield the boy, he stands anyway and tells Kota it will be all right.

Shoto and Katsuki run into Moonfish, who has already severed someone's arm, leaving Shoto fearing for Fumikage or Mezo. Tiger saves Mandalay from Magne's strike and answers with a flurry of punches, naming the many counts of killing and attempted killing on her record. Mandalay notes that Ragdoll has not answered her telepathy, and Magne hints at why.

Muscular knows Izuku by name, the League having ordered his death after some tormenting first, and asks where a kid named "Bakugo" is. The distraction costs Izuku a hard hit, and his five percent smash does nothing. Muscle Augmentation, Muscular explains, grows his fibers past what his skin can hold, and he calls One For All a lesser version of his own power. Kota throws a rock and asks whether his parents were tormented before they died; Muscular calls the meeting fate, since those two destroyed his eye, blames their own choices for their deaths, and says the only real tragedy is a promise left unkept. Izuku wedges an arm into the muscle fibers so his opponent cannot dodge, answers that winning is beside the point because heroes are obliged to stake their lives on turning promises into fact, and lands a full hundred percent smash, catching Kota in his teeth when the shock nearly throws the boy off the cliff.

Muscular rises, having cushioned the impact with his own Quirk, and calls the attack too predictable. He admits he joined the League only to use his power on people freely, seats a fresh artificial eye, and stops holding back. Izuku carries Kota through the assault until both go down, and, too spent to outrun anything, decides to hold the line while the boy escapes. A hundred percent Detroit Smash only stalls the charge before it starts losing. As Izuku apologizes to All Might and his mother, Kota blasts Muscular with water and screams at him to let go. The taunt Muscular cannot resist answering buys the opening, and Izuku, lifted by the boy's courage, ends it with a 1,000,000% Delaware Detroit Smash straight through the muscle. Kota, weeping, finally recalls Mandalay's promise that he would meet someone who saved a life through sacrifice, and calls Izuku his hero.

Adapts Chapters 74 through 76. Kota's recollection of Mandalay's words is split in the anime, landing both before he learns of the invasion and again after the finishing blow, where the manga placed it only at the end. Magne taunts Mandalay about Ragdoll here rather than simply leering. An extra beat of Izuku dodging a punch before being slammed down is added after Muscular's boast about One For All. Izuku's right hand also shows somewhat less damage than on the page, where the fingers are drawn snapped into a zigzag.