Chapter 255

A Tartarus guard picks up irregular brainwaves and reports rising agitation in Kurogiri to Naomasa and Gran Torino. Naomasa immediately presses him on the Nomu production site and Tomura Shigaraki's location.

Watching him slip, Shota keeps calling him Oboro Shirakumo, doing everything he can to force the memory without letting Erasure lapse, and Hizashi joins in. Kurogiri keeps insisting they have the wrong man, that Tomura's protector is what he is and Kurogiri is his name. The two heroes keep at it, and eventually they land: the fog making up his head thins enough for Oboro Shirakumo's shadowed face to appear.

Oboro tries to say Shota's name, and Shota tells him to keep fighting. What comes out is "hospital", and then the fog closes over him and Kurogiri drops unconscious. Naomasa thanks both heroes. Hizashi worries about eyes held open on Erasure that long, and Shota, crying, says they are only dry.

Outside the prison, the pair see Naomasa and Gran Torino off. Shota wishes he had done more, but Naomasa insists they moved things forward. Gran Torino apologizes for tearing an old wound open and says something will come of it. Asked why All For One makes the Nomu at all, Gran Torino repeats a metaphor from the villain himself, who likened it to wine: trample the grapes, meaning people, press out the juice, meaning Quirks, and let it ferment into wine.

Once they leave, Naomasa passes the new clue to the Madam President. At the Paranormal Liberation Front's base, Hawks takes a call while coaching Twice through the organization's ideology. He is asked to assist at Wakagumo Hospital and declines, saying he is busy, then goes back to the lesson. The seemingly harmless call was how the word "hospital" reached him, and it matters a great deal to what he is hunting.

Elsewhere, Doctor Ujiko is delighted with how Tomura's operation is progressing, better than he planned for. Daruma is impressed and cheers from the sidelines while, on the table, Tomura endures a gruesome ordeal in exchange for more power.

Shota gets through to Oboro Shirakumo inside Kurogiri, confirming what Gran Torino and Naomasa suspected. Oboro manages the word "hospital" before he goes under.

Gran Torino relays All For One's wine metaphor for Nomu production. Hawks receives the clue in coded form through a routine-sounding request for assistance. Tomura Shigaraki is shown mid-transformation, with the procedure exceeding expectations.

Fifteen pages long, in the Paranormal Liberation War arc and collected in volume 26. It ran on December 23, 2019, in combined issues 4 and 5 of the 2020 Weekly Shonen Jump run. Kurogiri shares the cover with Present Mic, Oboro Shirakumo and Eraser Head.

A continuity slip appears here: Tomura's left hand is drawn without its pinky and ring fingers, keeping thumb, index and middle, which reverses the fingers he had already lost. Chapter 254 precedes it, Chapter 256 follows, and Episode 107 adapts it. Horikoshi's comment mentions the cold weather, repeated illness that winter, and a throat that still hurt.