Chapter 176

Gentle Criminal compliments the boy for working out his identity while La Brava tries to place a face she has seen somewhere. Izuku Midoriya checks the street: nobody passing, no hero office nearby, no help within reach. He considers sending the shopkeeper for it, discards the idea, and brings up Full Cowl at eight percent, intending to stop Gentle himself. Gentle has La Brava keep the camera rolling, sheds cape and hat, and invites his audience to witness his dazzling ambition. The video already has a title: "Check This Out! I Snuck Into U.A!"

Izuku's charge stops dead against a sheet of nothing. Elasticity, Gentle explains, lends that property to whatever he touches, air included. Gently Rebound flings the boy down the street, and Gentle remarks on his distaste for solving problems with violence. La Brava is startled by the distance, which Gentle credits to the boy's own speed feeding the bounce. They turn to leave and Izuku comes straight back, warning them off his school. Gentle applies the Quirk to the ground, and Gently Trampoline launches Izuku skyward. He admits he threw himself into school festivals in his own student days and recognizes the same fire burning here, someone who will not have it ruined, but the infiltration is the first stone of his legend and he will not waver. He bids the boy farewell as a self-proclaimed internet celebrity and bounces away with La Brava. Then she places him: the U.A. Sports Festival. That news alarms Gentle, who wants nothing more to do with a student who can name him, and pushes to get inside before word travels.

Airborne, Izuku runs through the work everyone poured into this, from Eri to Kyoka Jiro to Katsuki Bakugo, and will not see it wasted. Landing can wait. He points a finger and fires Delaware Smash Air Force, the technique Toshinori Yagi has been drilling into him, and it connects. Gentle takes the hit and keeps going. Full Cowl's speed carries Izuku onto a telephone pole and into a leap that ends with a fistful of arm and cloak. This is bigger than one boy, Izuku tells him, and Gentle, reading that resolve, apologizes for his rudeness.

Izuku drives him into a building under construction as La Brava cries out.

Gentle Criminal's Quirk is revealed as Elasticity.

The Sports Festival gives La Brava the memory she needs to place Izuku's face.

Izuku lands his Delaware Smash Air Force for the first time in combat.

Titled Deku vs. Gentle Criminal, the chapter runs nineteen pages and appeared on March 23, 2018, in issue 17 of that year. It belongs to volume 19 and the U.A. School Festival arc, with Izuku, Gentle and La Brava on the cover, and Episode 84 adapts it.

The chapter opens the fight between Izuku Midoriya and Danjuro Tobita.

Featured super moves are Gently Trampoline, Gently Rebound and Delaware Smash Air Force, with the Air Force Gloves in use.