Chapter 133

Eijiro Kirishima's body takes the shot meant for Tamaki Amajiki, who rises without a scratch, to the gunman's confusion. Yet when Tamaki reaches for Manifest to make the arrest, nothing answers. The shooter runs, Eijiro and Fat Gum give chase, and Tamaki is left to hold the scene, admitting through his shock that he is uninjured but somehow cut off from his own power.

Eijiro closes the distance and berates the man for abandoning his friends rather than helping them. A dead end ends the flight, so the shooter turns and fights, three small blades sprouting along his arm. They scrape uselessly against Hardening, and Red Counter drops him with a single stiffened fist. Ordered to give up, the man breaks down instead, weeping about a feeble Quirk that never gave him the nerve to stand with his brothers. Eijiro reaches out with genuine sympathy and helps him stand, which only enrages him further. He resents the idea that anyone could understand, and injects himself with Trigger. Screaming through the pain while Eijiro tries to calm him, he erupts as dozens of long blades burst outward and skewer the young hero.

Above ground, the Police Force rounds up the brothers thanks to Tamaki's earlier work. Piecing together that the bullet is the cause of his silent Quirk, Tamaki sulks when one of the captured criminals snarls at him to die, and the officers tell him to leave the rest to them. Something about it all still sits wrong with him.

In the alley, the enhanced blades carve up the surroundings. Eijiro recognizes the drug at work and refuses to let those edges reach the open street, so he warns the civilians clear and commits to finishing things where he stands. This time the blades slice straight through his Hardening and draw blood. The man proclaims the age of heroes finished and the age of outcasts begun, deciding to go free his brothers with Eijiro merely in the way. Recognizing that his current defense will not hold, Eijiro recalls All Might's advice about pairing raw brute force with his ability, and a night in the Heights Alliance common room with Denki, Katsuki, Hanta and Fumikage, where he measured his own versatility against theirs. Katsuki had thrown his Sports Festival declaration back at him, that he would never crumble, and pointed at the unbreakable will All Might showed at Kamino.

Drawing on that memory and the Quirk training he had ground out ahead of the Provisional Hero License Exam, Eijiro pours every scrap of spirit into his skin and pushes past his ceiling. The blades shatter against him. Unbreakable has arrived, leaving his body rugged, monstrous and utterly unyielding.

The bullet's effect becomes clear when Tamaki finds himself unable to activate Manifest despite taking no wound.

The shooter injects Trigger, amplifying his blade Quirk enough to cut through ordinary Hardening.

Eijiro converts his training and All Might's example into a new technique, Unbreakable, raising his Hardening to a previously unreachable degree.

Nineteen pages, collected in Volume 15, released April 10, 2017 in issue 19.

Adapted as Episode 68 of the anime, and set entirely in Esuha City.

Red Counter and Unbreakable both debut as super moves. Horikoshi's author comment confesses an addiction to cup noodles eaten alone late at night.