Chapter 168

Yuga Aoyama studies a sleeping Izuku Midoriya through his window, busies himself with something outside, and slips away. Izuku, it turns out, was awake for all of it, and the message left behind in cheese, claiming knowledge of something about him, unnerves him as much as the condition it arrives in. Come morning, Tenya Ida rouses the dorm and demands an orderly start while Hanta Sero and others grumble at him. Izuku joins Tenya and Ochaco Uraraka and gets a warning about the health cost of late nights. He apologizes without explaining that Yuga's behavior is what kept him awake, and Yuga then greets him breezily, which only frightens him more.

On the way to class, Izuku reflects that he has barely spoken with Yuga and puzzles over him, since the conduct on show sits so oddly against the flamboyant, showy persona everyone knows. After class, discussion turns to newly announced hero team-ups involving Shinji Nishiya, Shinya Kamihara, and Yu Takeyama. A few students think such pairings could open up new moves in their own training, and others dismiss certain combinations outright as Quirks that would never mesh.

Training follows, where Ken Ishiyama tells the class they will be refining their moves so their growth can be measured. Eijiro Kirishima activates Hardening with obvious relish, recalling how it went last time, and invites Katsuki, Rikido Sato, and Izuku to take a swing at him, though Sato hurries to explain what that invitation leads to. Izuku says he is training alone and Eijiro takes it in stride. Katsuki asks whether Izuku's Quirk has improved at all, hears that it has not, and berates him for the lack of drive, throwing his promise to surpass him back at him before going to accept Eijiro's offer, with Sato still warning the delighted Eijiro.

Yuga then calls Izuku over and unveils a new move he devised, which leaves him with severe stomach trouble. Seeing the state he is in, Izuku gets clearance from the instructor to walk him somewhere quieter to recover, then asks what the message was supposed to mean. Yuga says he knows Izuku is not accustomed to his own Quirk, and Izuku wonders whether his secret is out. Instead, Yuga describes a parallel: as a child, his body could not handle his power and he wore a belt to keep it from leaking out, and he recognized the same early loss of control in Izuku, along with the fact that both of them pushed past it. Hardship, he tells him, is not something to shoulder alone, because facing it together is what allows a person to excel.

The words reframe everything. Izuku understands that the whole business was never meant to frighten him but to encourage him, and he smiles and thanks Yuga for the support, just as another wave of stomach trouble hits. From then on the two are good friends, and some of the class notice how much livelier Yuga has become.

Word arrives that Edgeshot has joined forces with Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods, prompting Class 1-A to debate Quirk compatibility in their own training.

A new Ultimate Move from Yuga, the Navel Buffet Laser, wrecks his stomach. Katsuki confronts Izuku over his stalled Quirk progress and his promise to surpass him.

Yuga reveals that his body could not handle his Quirk as a child, forcing him to wear a belt, and that the same struggle is what made him recognize a kindred spirit in Izuku. The two become friends.

Number 168 fills 17 pages, still counted within the Remedial Course arc, and opens volume 19. Japan saw it on January 29, 2018, in issue 9 of that year.

Yuga Aoyama takes the cover alone, fitting for a chapter built around him, and Episode 80 handles the adaptation. Navel Laser, Hardening, and Explosion appear, along with the Grenadier Bracers, and the action moves across Heights Alliance, Class 1-A, and Gym Gamma at U.A. High School.

Chapter 167 sits before it, Chapter 169 after.