Chapter 172

Planning resumes in Heights Alliance. Momo Yaoyorozu volunteers the piano, an instrument she grew fond of during childhood etiquette training, and Kyoka Jiro approves, which disappoints Mina Ashido, who wanted Momo dancing beside her. Kyoka takes the bass and still needs guitar and vocals, with everyone left over going to the dance team. Staging falls to Shota Aizawa. As Mina brainstorms, Ochaco Uraraka asks who is singing. Minoru Mineta, Yuga Aoyama and Eijiro Kirishima all audition and fall short, and Eijiro suggests the obvious candidate: Kyoka herself. One listen to her voice settles the matter unanimously.

Guitar goes to tryouts too. Denki Kaminari plays well; Minoru cannot even reach the strings on his. Fumikage Tokoyami collects the abandoned instrument and produces something heart rending. He had stayed quiet, he explains, until he beat the F chord, and he tells the deflated Minoru he is glad to take the job.

Past one in the morning, a spent Tenya Ida reads out the finished roster for the dance hall performance. The band is Momo, Kyoka, Denki, Fumikage and Katsuki Bakugo. Staging goes to Hanta Sero, Shoto Todoroki, Koji Koda and Eijiro. Everyone else dances.

The next day Izuku Midoriya finds Toshinori Yagi in the break room, who asks why the boy has chosen this moment to talk. Izuku lays out the Shie Hassaikai raid: twenty percent of One For All was not enough, Eri's help was the only reason he was not left helpless, Overhaul outclassed him, and he had no answer at range. Toshinori's reply surprises him. Fight at range too.

Out in the forested part of the grounds, Izuku holds twenty percent despite the pain and, told to stay put and swing, jumps and kicks. The wind pressure strips bark off two trees. Toshinori had meant to teach this once the boy's ceiling passed fifteen percent, but the fight with Overhaul got there first, in circumstances too desperate to notice. The body holds; the technique works.

Toshinori tells him to stop and take stock of the road so far. Izuku traces it: a hundred percent through one limb, then control at that one point, then a percentage spread across the whole body, then Shoot Style, then five percent raised to eight, and now twenty when the moment demands it. It occurs to him that Toshinori was not running at a hundred percent as a young man either, which points at twenty percent concentrated in a single spot, enough force to matter without locking his body up. Far subtler control than this, Toshinori says. Izuku sees which parts of himself move most and need it first.

In front of the school, Mirio Togata welcomes Eri to U.A.

The rest of Class 1-A's band comes together, with Kyoka installed as vocalist, plus the crews for staging and dancing.

All Might tells Izuku that clearing fifteen percent of One For All puts ranged wind attacks within reach.

Mirio walks Eri onto the U.A. campus.

Titled Prepping for the School Festival Is the Funnest Part (Part 1), the chapter runs seventeen pages and appeared on February 26, 2018, in issue 13 of that year. It belongs to volume 19 and the U.A. School Festival arc, and Episode 82 adapts it.

The cover gathers Momo, Kyoka, Mina, Hanta, Koji, Minoru, Mezo Shoji, Denki, Tenya and Shoto.

Quirks in play include One For All, Hardening and Half-Cold Half-Hot, with Full Cowl as the featured super move.