Chapter 281

Manual and Rock Lock haul Eraser Head toward Tomura's position, the latter coaching the former on his water flow. Gran Torino, down on one knee, demands to know what the villain just said about heroes. Tomura obliges. To him the profession has only ever performed protection: count the times heroes looked away from what they could not save, or brushed society's filth out of sight. He is thinking of his own childhood. That rot compounds, he says, with the coddled trash on one side and hollow heroes indulging a pathetic society on the other. The destruction that follows is the natural product of a reckless system, the cast-out breaking and hitting back on a loop. He calls this the divide between heroes and villains, something he does not believe they can grasp.

Endeavor's reply is a gout of flame and a dry thank-you for the speech, which gave him time to cool off. Tomura leaps clear of it, and Endeavor demands to know how he is still mobile. Gran Torino tackles him and privately notes how much Endeavor's fire has faded, the price of leaning on showy moves. Tomura twists around, seizes the old man's left leg, crushes it, and drives him down into the pavement. Katsuki, Deku and Endeavor all break toward the pair. Studying the warped face above him, Gran Torino remembers the day Nana Shimura gave Kotaro up to foster care, explaining she had scrubbed the boy from the family registry so All For One could never trace and exploit him. She insisted to both of them that no child of hers existed, then broke down weeping in his arms. He weighs that against the words Tomura attributed to his father, connects them, and is left wondering whether the two of them chose correctly as a fist punches clean through his chest.

Deku screams and swings Blackwhip, but Tomura slips past both him and Katsuki, fixated on Eraser Head. Ryukyu catches him in her claws and he registers his own stamina draining. Blackwhip finally takes hold and Deku shouts that he will never forgive him; Tomura says he forgives nobody either and drives an elbow into the boy's gut. Deku takes it and converts the fury into grip, holding the villain long enough for Katsuki and Endeavor to charge. Unseen by any of them, Tomura digs a pair of Quirk-Destroying Drug rounds out of Ryukyu's hand and lines up on Eraser Head, while a Christmas photo of Eri surfaces.

Tomura articulates his view of hero society as a broken system run by selfish heroes that manufactures villains out of the people it oppresses.

His injuries and burns catch up with him, his body cracking and bleeding, with regeneration unavailable while Eraser Head's Quirk holds.

Tomura punches through Gran Torino's chest. A flashback shows Nana Shimura grieving the decision to give Kotaro up, with Gran Torino comforting her.

Ryukyu restrains Tomura and Deku pins him with Blackwhip while Endeavor charges an attack, but Tomura palms two Quirk-Destroying rounds and takes aim at Eraser Head.

Nineteen pages, published in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 38 of 2020 and collected in volume 29 as part of the Paranormal Liberation War arc. The cover gathers Endeavor, Katsuki, Rock Lock, Eraser Head, Manual, Deku and Tomura Shigaraki, and Episode 121 adapts the material.

Kohei Horikoshi's author comment for the issue is a single grim line about attending his third funeral of the year.

Everything unfolds in Jaku City, continuing the hospital raid and the fight between the raid team, the trainees and Tomura Shigaraki.