Chapter 145

Convinced his refusal to help Mina Ashido's friends exposed the coward underneath the act, Eijiro scratches U.A. off his card. His Hardening had surfaced at three years old in a bathroom, when a hardened hand caught his eye and left him hating the power that hurt him. What turned that around was Crimson Riot, a hero with a comparable Quirk who staked his life without hesitation. Furious at himself now, Eijiro hurls a book at his shelf, and a volume topples, knocking a hologram projector loose.

The device switches on. Inside is Crimson Riot mid-interview, from a book of outstanding heroes his parents gave him years earlier. Asked whether a hero so recklessly self-endangering feels no fear, Crimson Riot says plainly that he does, and that anyone who feels none while risking their life deserves no praise for it. The recording dates from Eijiro's elementary years, when he was too young to absorb the words and simply loved watching the man charge in. Crimson Riot says he has been unable to save more people than he can count, and that those failures are precisely why he charges in. Asked what a manly spirit is, he separates it from confidence and fearlessness entirely: it is the posture a person keeps inside their soul. Rescuing people is simply what being a hero means to him, and once that choice is made he sees it through whatever arrives. A manly spirit, he finishes, means living so that nothing is left to regret. Eijiro cries, ashamed of having wanted to quit.

He writes U.A. back onto the form and swears off repeating the mistake. He apologizes to Mina's friends, who tell him not to worry, then trains until he passes the entrance exam. Arriving at U.A. for the first time, he runs into Mina, who asks about his new hair, spiked like Crimson Riot's horns. Eijiro tells her he will never regret standing still again and intends to protect people, and Mina tells him off for carrying that incident around and suggests beating his insecurities before announcing anything.

Back in the present, the half-conscious Eijiro knows plenty frightens him, but one fear dwarfs the rest: sliding back into the pathetic coward he was, and living with that regret again. Fat Gum, now slim and corded, gathers him up and tells Rappa and Tengai that all three of them underestimated the boy, which is why the villains lose. Tengai forces his barrier to maximum and Rappa recognizes the gesture as pointless. Fat Gum tells them to taste Red Riot's manly spirit and drives a punch straight through the barrier, blasting both yakuza away and leaving them badly hurt.

Eijiro's Hardening is shown to have manifested at age three, when he accidentally cut his own eye.

A recorded Crimson Riot interview reframes courage as acting despite fear, and Eijiro recommits to U.A.; his first day there alongside Mina is shown.

In the present, Fat Gum releases the accumulated power, shatters Tengai's barrier, and heavily injures both him and Rappa.

Titled Red Riot, Part 2, the chapter ran on July 15, 2017 in issue 33, runs thirteen pages, and is collected in volume 16. Episode 72 adapts it.

Eijiro Kirishima, Mina Ashido, and Crimson Riot appear on the cover. Hardening, Fat Absorption, and Barrier feature, with scenes at Mustafa Private Middle School, U.A. High School, and the Shie Hassaikai Compound.

The Battle of Spears and Shields concludes here. One of Eijiro's classmates wears a straw hat as a nod to One Piece's twentieth anniversary, which Horikoshi's author comment also marks.