Chapter 185

Though the chart weighs resolved incidents, social contribution, and public approval together, the resolution rate is what matters most, and the names near the summit belong to heroes who handled the largest crises. The president of the Hero Public Safety Commission talks about the current top ten and the hopes and dreams of society's future now resting on their shoulders. During her remarks Hawks asks Endeavor how it feels to be Number One and collects a glare for it. The heroes offer their comments in turn, most pledging to do their level best and stay worthy of the weight they carry, until Hawks, unmoved, questions aloud whether any of that striving makes anyone happy. The stadium goes silent. Rising into the air, he argues that approval ratings, meaning the public's trust, are the statistic that counts, and asks why heroes ranked beneath him with thinner results keep offering the same boring answers. With All Might retired, he says, the day is important and things have to change to match. Hawks is twenty-two, placed within the top three last time out, opened his own office at eighteen, and reached the top ten within half a year of doing so, a pace nobody has matched. Some in the stands agree with him. He passes the microphone to Endeavor, who remembers All Might's advice and offers a single line: just watch me. The heroes are startled, and Hawks applauds.

Backstage, an angry Endeavor confronts him, and Hawks insists the stunt was staged to make the new Number One look better. All Might never had him as a fan, he says, and imitation was never the goal, yet the retirement still landed hard. What society needs is not an icon of that sort but a leader with the mental fortitude to hold everyone up, and he is impressed enough with Endeavor to think he has it. Endeavor cannot tell whether any of this is sincere, sarcastic, or mockery, and asks why Hawks does not take the role himself; Hawks admits he would rather sit lower and keep his freedom. Told bluntly that his immaturity is unwelcome, and to go apologize to everyone, Hawks stops him leaving with his real reason for the conversation: the number of concerning sightings back home in Fukuoka has been worrying him, and he wants the Number One working beside him. The word Nomu catches Endeavor's attention.

Elsewhere, in an unnamed building, a lone figure expresses confidence in the creature he is addressing, calling it High-End. To his listener's credit it answers aloud, telling him to leave everything to it.

Hawks derails the top ten ceremony with his remarks, and afterward backs Endeavor as the successor to All Might. Endeavor answers the stadium with a demand that it watch him. Hawks passes on word of Nomu sightings around Kyushu. Dabi is shown plotting alongside a Nomu that can speak, called High-End.

Titled Wing Hero: Hawks, or Wingu Hīrō Hōkusu, the fifteen-page chapter ran on June 4, 2018 in issue 27 and sits in Volume 20 of the Pro Hero arc. Madam President and Hood debut here. The cover lines up all ten ranked heroes, and Episode 87 adapts it. Horikoshi's comment admits he already has the air conditioner running, since he handles heat poorly and much prefers winter.