Bloody Love

A news segment recounts a middle school girl who savaged a classmate and left him badly hurt. She remains at large; the investigation continues. Faces are cropped out of the interviews with people who knew both parties, and one witness describes what she saw: Himiko Toga pushing a straw into Saito and drinking him, wearing an expression that turned her stomach. A memory surfaces of a small Himiko holding up a dead fledgling to her parents, delighted by how sweet it looks.

The fight goes on, and Curious finds it marvelous that Himiko believes her life is ordinary. She calls the girl a living symptom of hero society's underside. Battered, Himiko drops to the ground, and Curious lowers herself beside her with something like sympathy, resuming her theory of how badly Himiko's Quirk has cost her. Stroking her head, she claims that anyone forced through Quirk counselling comes away feeling further from other people, worn down by the scolding. Given that she can wear the shape of whoever she drinks, Curious reasons, blood was always going to pull at her.

The flashback continues as Curious argues that admiration is universal and that Himiko's misfortune lies in admiring blood above all. The child sinks her teeth into the bird. That, Curious says, is why the girl learned to hide, mask herself, and clamp down. In the memory her parents catch her mid-bite and tell her to stop, calling her a deviant and telling her she looks disgusting. The scene shifts to a slightly older Himiko being asked why she cannot simply be normal.

Himiko screams at her to shut up and drives a knife at her. The Detnerat bracelet on Curious' wrist unfolds into an armored block, the Curious Flattener, and she cracks Himiko across the face before the blade lands. She keeps talking: what Himiko calls normal and what the Army wants are not far apart, which is precisely why Himiko will die as a martyr and prove the cause to the world. Warriors ring them both. Die, Curious tells her, and become a tragedy. Then she asks whether any of it was accurate.

Himiko wheels around and hits her, gets up, and runs. Curious calls after her that escape is impossible, drawing a blood sample from her belt. Furious, Himiko wonders where anyone gets the idea she is unfortunate. Warriors swarm her as she drinks and takes Ochaco Uraraka's form, thinking that people kiss the ones they love and she drinks them, which is the same thing. Curious lights up at the transformation and starts reciting the mechanics of the Quirk, deciding Himiko chose Ochaco to die looking cute. She asks for a comment; Himiko shrieks a refusal, reaching out to touch her while thinking about the trust between Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco and how badly she wants that too.

Curious begins to rise off the ground. A soldier calls out in confusion as Himiko flits between them, tapping each one with her fingerpads. She thinks about the years of being hunted by Heroes and police, and how that pursuit built the villain she became. They are floating, she explains, because Ochaco's Zero Gravity came with the face. Curious, astonished, wonders whether fear of death just evolved the Quirk. Himiko denies it and declares that she intends to live like anyone else, die like anyone else, and love harder still. The transformation lapses, and everyone she lifted drops.

Walking off, she laughs at the state of herself and thinks she looks like Izuku. She regrets not leaving more of them breathing for Gigantomachia to work through, then decides the choice was never hers, citing Tomura Shigaraki's rule about destroying what you hate.

Himiko Toga undergoes an awakening. Transform now lets her copy and use the Quirk of whoever she is impersonating.

Fifteen pages in Volume 24, published April 27, 2019 in the combined issue 22-23 of 2019 and adapted in Episode 109. Himiko Toga has the cover to herself.

Set entirely in Deika City. Landmine and Transform feature, with Zero Gravity used through the latter, and the Curious Flattener appears as an item. The Revival Celebration continues while the fight between Himiko Toga and Curious concludes.

Himiko's ability to copy Quirks had been raised before this chapter, in the Volume 19 Extras, and shown in the game My Hero One's Justice.