Chapter 286

Shoto snatches Katsuki out of the air after the rivets tear through him, and the wounded student, bleeding badly, still has breath enough to warn Izuku against carrying the fight alone. Control of the enemy body then slips. A second voice speaks through Tomura, dismissing the day's bloodshed as waste, and singling out Katsuki's stand as the emptiest waste of all.

That insult lands on top of everything Izuku has already watched happen: Shota Aizawa, Sorahiko Torino, Masaki Mizushima, Ryuko Tatsuma, an entire city torn open. He breaks. Teeth clamped on the tendrils, he roars at the villain to take the words back. Kilometers away in Sairo City, Osaka Prefecture, Gigantomachia bulldozes onward and catches something odd in the air: not one master's scent, but two.

Out in the suburban district, command hands evacuation duty over to the rescue crews and the Police Force so hero units can turn and press the villain advance. Runners are dispatched to carry word to the squad grappling with Tomura, since long-range communication is still dead. Ochaco Uraraka, moving with them, admits privately that nothing has improved, that ever since Tomura Shigaraki walked into their lives the shadow has only stretched longer as the light fades.

Then the hand reaches Izuku's face. Instead of losing his Quirk, he is flung inside it. From a distance he watches Tomura and All For One argue over who owns the body, the elder villain pointing out that without the takeover the boy would have burned or fallen to his death, the younger snarling that this dream was supposed to be his. Izuku tries to close the gap and pitches forward instead. A hand settles on his head. Nana Shimura tells him he still cannot move in here, and that this part will be handled for him.

Katsuki lives through the rivet strike, caught by Shoto, who is already carrying his father. Izuku abandons composure and rips at Tomura's tendrils with his teeth.

Gigantomachia reaches Sairo City, and the detail that matters is olfactory: he registers two masters instead of one, confirming that All For One has taken the wheel of Tomura's body. Every hero unit in Jaku City redirects toward intercepting the giant.

Tomura gets his hand onto Izuku's face and reaches for One For All, which triggers the vestige vision. Inside it, Tomura and All For One wrestle each other for control, and Nana Shimura appears to tell Izuku that since movement is still beyond him here, the others will deal with it.

Kohei Horikoshi titled this seventeen-page installment The Ones Within Us. It ran in issue 44 of 2020, dated October 5, and belongs to the Paranormal Liberation War arc. Volume 30 collects it.

Deku, Katsuki Bakugo, and Tomura Shigaraki share the cover. Episode 123 of the anime adapts the chapter. Horikoshi's author comment for the week is a small lament about September vanishing on him.