Chapter 118 (Vigilantes)

All For One studies Koichi and breaks his Quirk down to its parts: force fields that push or absorb, handled with genuine skill but fundamentally unremarkable. The occasional burst of output never lasts, exhaustion follows quickly, and what remains is polish applied to a power with no decisive edge. That, at least, was the assessment.

Then Knuckle Style lands, a torrent of blows that shreds the plasma body of Destruction Style Number 6. Regeneration puts him back together fast, and the Pop☆Step illusion flags the danger, only to find Koichi relieved instead. As long as his punches avoid the real body inside, he can keep throwing them and keep buying time.

Number 6 lines up another blast and Koichi runs again, illusions of Pop and Knuckleduster keeping pace. Sliding clear of a toppling building, he notes how much worse this would have gone somewhere populated and congratulates himself for luring the fight to the old town. Pop suggests running somewhere safe, but he says he feels unexpectedly sharp, slides up the side of a building, and rains more punches down.

The output baffles All For One, running well past what should be possible. He suspects passion is being poured into those fists, and wonders whether the Quirk is only now showing its real ceiling, whether it was masquerading as weak all along, or whether this ordeal triggered a growth spurt, and he asks what obsession drives the boy.

Pop keeps yelling at him to run, since the regeneration is quick, while Knuckleduster tells him to wait for an opening. Koichi leaps and meets an incoming punch with one of his own, sent tumbling backwards, thinking that he ought to be more careful but is having far too good a time, falling with a grin on his face.

His mind goes back to childhood, when he loved hero games the way every kid did and the neighborhood spent whole days lost in them. He was never able to read a room, so when the others drifted home he was the last one on the playground, working out too late that the fun had stopped a while ago. By high school his friends had all set the dream aside, and since hero school was the only real route, he understood it was time to think about an ordinary life. He read the room at last and started preparing for one, the games wrapping up long before he was ready to stop. In the present, he decides the dream ends today, alone again as Number 6's fist comes forward and appears to swallow him in flame.

Koichi keeps hammering Number 6's plasma body with Knuckle Style to buy time, since only the real body inside matters.

All For One notes that Koichi's output far exceeds what his Quirk should allow, and wonders what is fueling it.

Koichi realizes he is genuinely enjoying the fight and recalls his childhood hero games and giving up the dream in high school.

Number 6 appears to engulf Koichi in flames with a direct punch.

Titled Golden Age, the chapter runs nineteen pages and was released on January 22, 2022. It is collected in Volume 15 and belongs to the Naruhata Lockdown arc, following Chapter 117 and preceding Chapter 119.

Number 6 and Koichi Haimawari share the cover. Hideyuki Furuhashi writes the series and Betten Court draws it.

The chapter originally carried the title Tanoshī Jikan, meaning All the Fun, and the title was changed once the volume collected it.