Chapter 125

Kai Chisaki reaches the League of Villains' base with Jin Bubaigawara in tow and meets Tomura Shigaraki alongside Kenji Hikiishi, Atsuhiro Sako and Himiko Toga. The place strikes him as derelict, and the people in it strike him as worse.

Magne bristles at the contempt. Tomura identifies the guest: a yakuza, and the man who runs the Shie Hassaikai. Himiko senses he belongs to some other species entirely, and Mr. Compress fills in the history. Once, dread organizations owned the underworld. The spread of professional heroes cut them down, and All Might closed that chapter for good. Whatever syndicates survived have lived under constant watch ever since, branded criminals and scraping along at the bottom. Overhaul and his people, in Mr. Compress' phrasing, are leftovers of a dead age. Overhaul does not argue. Magne asks whether he is simply cashing in now that All Might has stepped down.

What interests him, Overhaul answers, is the collapse of All For One. His generation knew that figure as the Emperor of Darkness, a feared rumor who ruled everything beneath the surface. Word says he has fallen and been locked away, which leaves no one holding either the day or the night. So the question stands: who takes the seat? Tomura claims it, describing a growing roster whose combined strength will pull down hero society. Overhaul asks how, exactly.

Tomura had assumed this was an alliance. Instead Overhaul lectures him: an aim with no method behind it is fantasy. He wants to know what happens once the numbers are gathered, whose hands work the strings, what the organization is meant to become. Stain, Muscular and Moonfish were pieces worth playing, and Tomura burned through all three.

The visit, it turns out, was never about joining. Overhaul's opening move requires serious money, and an antique like himself struggles to attract backers, whereas the League's inflated reputation would solve that overnight. He offers them the reverse arrangement: come work beneath him, learn what control actually looks like, and watch him claim the underworld.

Tomura orders him out. Magne charges instead, declaring that nobody puts the League under their thumb. She talks about a friend who admired her for refusing every chain, and how living unchained is the whole reason she signed on. Magnetism yanks Overhaul into range and her weapon cracks against his skull. He answers with a fingertip against her arm, and everything above her waist bursts apart. She is dead before the others finish reacting. Overhaul notes that they swung first, then grumbles about the mess. Mr. Compress lunges to seal him away, his left hand makes contact, a gunshot rips through that arm and the Quirk never fires. Overhaul destroys the limb for the offense of touching him.

Tomura closes in with Decay ready. Overhaul calls for a shield, and the underling shoved forward crumbles to nothing. The rest of the Hassaikai burst in, prompting Tomura to remark that they might have done that from the beginning. With one loss on either side and no chance of a clear-headed answer now, Overhaul calls the meeting off until tempers cool. Himiko and Twice want him dead; Tomura, furious himself, orders them to stand down. On his way out Overhaul asks Tomura to think hard about what he is building, and drops a business card at his feet, to be used once his temper settles.

Inside U.A.'s nap room, meanwhile, Toshinori Yagi gathers Izuku Midoriya and Mirio Togata to cover a few matters.

Overhaul and the League of Villains meet face to face for the first time, and the negotiation collapses into violence.

Magne becomes the first character to be killed on-page, destroyed by Overhaul's touch.

Mr. Compress' Quirk inexplicably fails at the moment of contact, and Overhaul blows off his left arm.

Overhaul leaves a business card behind, keeping the offer open for whenever Tomura reconsiders.

Kohei Horikoshi's one hundred twenty-fifth chapter ran in issue 10 of 2017, dated February 6, filled eighteen pages, and was collected in volume 14 as part of the Shie Hassaikai arc. Overhaul fronts the cover. The anime adapts it in Episode 65.

Joi Irinaka, better known as Mimic, debuts here, and the Quirk-Destroying Drug makes its first appearance. The clash is catalogued as Overhaul versus the League of Villains, featuring Magnetism, Decay and Overhaul's own Quirk.

Horikoshi's author comment jokes that he had gotten through two days on a single bag of hineri age rice crackers and needed to eat better.