Chapter 120: Rootin' For Ya!

The clash between Koichi Haimawari and Number 6 keeps escalating in a way All For One can only describe as play, two combatants trading brutal hits as though romping. He cannot account for the source of that energy or for what their Quirks are drawing on, and it gnaws at him, because reaching the territory past the singularity is exactly what he wants. Then a voice behind him, Knuckleduster's, tells him that a hoarder like him will never grasp it. He turns and finds nobody there.

Koichi shears off one of Number 6's arms and readies himself for the next, but the limb grows back quicker than he judged, and Number 6 slams his hands together around him, wrecking his midsection. As his concentration slips and the accumulated damage floods back, cheering reaches him from the streets below.

The Narufest crowd's shouting jolts him awake in time to catch a building's edge and bleed off some speed, though he still hits another rooftop hard enough to hurt. Looking down at them, he notices ordinary residents recognizing him and stopping to watch, and the realization lands badly: the fight has drifted back over populated ground. He shouts at them to run. They cannot hear him and keep cheering him on.

A collapsing building nearly takes several bystanders with it before the Hotta brothers pull them clear. Together with the Hopper's Cafe staff and the Narufest crowd, they start funneling civilians toward the cafe, calling up to Koichi to keep the monster away from their shop. Overhead, a news helicopter's reporter tries to broadcast an evacuation order, and Number 6 swats the aircraft, spilling everyone out of it. Koichi lunges but knows he cannot cover the distance. A thread catches the reporter's megaphone while the fibers in their clothing stretch and anchor to a building, holding all of them. Best Jeanist announces that even in a crisis this steep the thread of hope has not parted, and that with Edgeshot, Ingenium, and Eraser Head working elsewhere across the city, Naruhata still has its heroes.

All For One keeps studying the fight, unable to explain how either combatant has moved beyond the singularity of their Quirks, until an apparition of Knuckleduster interrupts and dispels the All For One illusion.

Badly injured, Koichi recovers his resolve when the Narufest crowd and the residents of Naruhata cheer for him, while the Hotta brothers, the Hopper's Cafe staff, and the Narufest crowd move civilians to safety.

Best Jeanist saves the falling news crew and confirms that Naruhata still has heroes working it, with Edgeshot, Ingenium, and Eraser Head active elsewhere across the district.

Written by Hideyuki Furuhashi and drawn by Betten Court, this nineteen-page chapter was published on February 26, 2022 and collected in the fifteenth volume of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

It falls within the Naruhata Lockdown arc and follows Chapter 119, leading into Chapter 121. Number 6 and Koichi Haimawari share the cover.

Both All For One and Knuckleduster appear here only as illusions.