Chapter 126 (Vigilantes)

Over New York, Skyfall Flight 400 loses its engines and drops toward the skyline. Passengers brace themselves until a child spots a figure clinging to the wing. Koichi Haimawari, working now as The Skycrawler, grins at the kid and promptly loses his grip. Falling away from the aircraft, he takes stock of a punishing year: crushing debt and a pile of lawsuits have made returning to Japan impossible, so hero work in America is what is left.

He plants his feet on nothing, sprints back up through the air and catches the plane while the cabin openly doubts he is any use. Latching onto the underside, he turns Slide and Glide into repulsion thrusters and shoves the airframe high enough to set down safely in the Hudson River. Rescue crews move in. Koichi, thrashing in the water, gets hauled out by Captain Celebrity, who scolds him for embarrassing himself and warns him the job is not over.

Earlier, Makoto Tsukauchi had laid out his problem. His vigilante past has made him a national argument, hero or villain, and Japan has already decided against him. America, where vigilantism has deeper roots, offers a second jury, so all he needs is goodwill. The interview immediately following an incident carries enormous weight and can turn opinion outright. Koichi worries that his English barely exists, but Makoto plans to slip one of their own people into the press pack, leaving him a single safe line to deliver: he will fight on with all his might.

At the microphone a broadcaster asks about his record in Naruhata and whether he means to bring that energy stateside. Then a drunk barges in, brands him the Destructor of Naruhata and demands to know whether Wall Street is next. Thrown by the interruption, Koichi recites Makoto's line into exactly the wrong question. Every hand in the room finds a forehead, and his public standing sinks.

Japanese broadcasts pick up both his American work and the new scandal, while people who know him react or simply carry on with their day. Reporters keep firing questions he cannot follow until a souvenir vendor waves him over.

A text reaches Kazuho Haneyama: Koichi showing off the All Might hoodie the locals handed him. She and Miu laugh that a Pro Hero has no business being this thrilled. Half a world away he wonders how Naruhata is holding up and worries about the ugliness that always festers just out of sight. Then again, he reasons, friction ran through human society long before anyone invented heroes, and that neighborhood has always cleaned up after itself.

In Naruhata, thugs corner a boy who tries warning them that The Crawler lives around here. They laugh it off, pointing out he is off playing hero in America and would not care regardless. A voice answers from the dark. The Crawler might be absent, the heroes might be stretched thin, but none of that entitles two-bit villains to act like they own the place. Iwao Oguro walks out of the alley to face them down, announcing that he is here.

The Skycrawler stops a powerless airliner from crashing into New York, guiding it to a water landing in the Hudson.

His post-rescue interview goes badly wrong, deepening the controversy around his vigilante record and driving his public standing down.

People who knew the Naruhata Vigilantes are glimpsed carrying on with ordinary routines, and Kazuho, discharged from the hospital, stays in contact with Koichi.

Knuckleduster reclaims his post as Naruhata's vigilante, and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes comes to an end.

Numbered one hundred twenty-six, this installment closes My Hero Academia: Vigilantes for good, ending the run written by Hideyuki Furuhashi and drawn by Betten Court. It saw print on May 28, 2022. It runs twenty-one pages, closes the Naruhata Lockdown arc in volume 15, and features Knuckleduster on the cover, which came with a color page and a sketch version.

The three thugs in the closing scene take their designs from three King of Fighters fighters: K', Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami.

They also echo Soga, Moyuru and Rapt, mirroring the series' opening chapter.