Chapter 186

Teruo Hazukashi, thirty-one, stands outside the company he spent three years quietly despising, emboldened at last after reading Destro's autobiography in a new printing. He shouts "Banzai" and starts stripping to trigger Shame, a Quirk that strengthens him the more embarrassed he gets, and Hawks' feathers drop him mid-preparation. Hawks is busy the whole time asking Endeavor about his favorite food and pitching a restaurant with delicious mizutaki, plainly angling for somewhere the two of them can talk business. He keeps listing dishes while pulling a dog out of a truck's path and carrying an old woman's baggage up the stairs. The public notices him, a rare sight, and crowds in for photos and autographs while Endeavor stands by, unbothered. People clock the Number One as well but hang back, until one boy dares his friend, a huge fan, to ask. Endeavor spots it and walks over with his hand extended, offering the autograph himself. The child recoils, tells him that being gruff and angry suits him better, and bolts, leaving Endeavor puzzled, having believed his approach was as natural as anything Inasa Yoarashi might manage.

At the Umai Building the two sit down and pick over Endeavor's public image. Hawks sides with the boy, since the temper is simply Endeavor's personality, then asks for his companion's meal if it is going spare, drawing a remark about greed and gluttony. Wanting what he wants is his nature, Hawks agrees, adding that he sent Shoto an offer after the Sports Festival because the Number Two's son on his roster would have looked good for him. He is glad Tsukuyomi came instead, since Shoto's failure at the Provisional Hero License Exam would have damaged his image, which angers Endeavor and raises the question of how a non-U.A. graduate knows any of it. Done with the useless talk, Endeavor asks about the rumors.

Hawks lays it out: the League of Villains' modified humans were warehoused at a Kamino Ward site, and since that raid swept them up together with All For One, the creatures have barely surfaced, meaning either those were all of them or more exist somewhere only All For One knows. Endeavor wants proof before agreeing to any partnership, and Hawks cannot confirm a thing, which nearly ends the meeting. What he does have is spread: the talk is not confined to his area but running nationwide, picked up from gossiping wives and from schoolchildren walking home. He quietly opened an investigation with the Police Force after first hearing it on a business trip, and it came up dry; he then flew the country himself and found variations of the same story sprouting region by region, all of it written off as baseless. Without evidence, but knowing that everyone somehow knows of Nomu, he suspects someone is deliberately seeding fear into the public, and points to the villain from earlier as the same mechanism at work: frightened people buy more copies. Endeavor, tired of circling, demands the point. Hawks wants him to be the figure the public can lean on, someone who can bury the talk and tell the country to relax, and he describes an ideal world where heroes work without strain and keep more time for themselves.

Something is flying toward them. The High-End Nomu arrives, Hawks shields the waitress while Endeavor orders the building evacuated, and the creature smashes in demanding to know which of them is strongest. Endeavor, seeing the rumors confirmed and glad of the timing, strikes first with Jet Burn and blasts it back out into the open, then propels himself airborne on his flames and invites it to come learn what the No. 1 Hero is.

Endeavor's fans are surprised by the change in his manner. A Nomu of the type known as a High-End attacks, and Endeavor prepares to battle it.

The chapter, Endeavor and Hawks or Endevā Ando Hōkusu, runs nineteen pages and was published on June 11, 2018 in issue 28, collected in Volume 20 of the Pro Hero arc. Teruo Hazukashi and Hiroshi Tameda debut, and Endeavor and Hood share the cover. Episode 87 adapts it. Horikoshi's comment describes ordering normal mapo tofu, being delivered the Sichuan version, and eating it in tears.