Chapter 299

Years back, Keigo's father rages at him for slipping into town, certain the boy informed on him. Keigo explains that his wings prickled and he only went to look at the fuss before coming home, which convinces no one, and he is ordered to stay indoors. His mother mentions the television being out and gets shouted down; she is told to find her husband his next job while she pleads with him not to go. The shape of it comes out plainly. His father once killed a man over pocket change, and Tomie sheltered the fugitive, which is how Keigo came to exist at all. The abuse ran physical and verbal, delivered with the complaint that if he had not leaned on his wife's Quirk he would still be free instead of wasting himself on a brat. Keigo saw exactly how ruined both parents were and swallowed everything he felt to avoid ending up like them.

Then his mother tells him his father was arrested trying to make off with a car, and Endeavor was the one who took him down. Heroes had been a fantasy to Keigo until that moment; suddenly one had reached into his life. Afraid of prosecution for harboring a fugitive, mother and son abandon the house, but she has nothing left to keep either of them going and tells him to earn money and finally make his wings useful. The high-speed rescue that follows puts him in front of the Hero Public Safety Commission, which offers full support for the pair in exchange for wiping every trace of the Takami name away so the two can begin again.

In the present, Best Jeanist wakes Hawks in the passenger seat as they near their destination. Ruined vocal cords force Hawks to type his half of the conversation, and he apologizes for having slept. Best Jeanist notes that without Central Hospital's advances he would be somewhere between living and dying, and that the procedure that held him in a death-like state was modeled on Nomu, a fact he has not made peace with. Hawks owns it: nothing cheaper would have fooled the Paranormal Liberation Front with the Nomu's creator watching, and the fake worked so completely that Dabi inspected the corpse and believed it, then proposed keeping the body until it was useful, which is how Best Jeanist ended up stored in their facility until Hawks brought him back at the decisive moment. The car stops abruptly at a marketplace where the Glutton God Gang is causing trouble, and Best Jeanist folds them up in moments. He asks a bystander what happened to the local heroes and the police, and learns the police are chasing escapees while most agencies have simply closed under public criticism. Dabi's broadcast cut deeper than he thought. He arranges for sidekicks to cover the neighborhood and registers how split the onlookers are.

At Hawks' house, no one answers his call. He finds a letter: men forced his mother to talk about the family, and she has left rather than weigh him down, wishing him well and saying she is proud. He admits he already suspected the leak came from her, and refuses consolation. Discarding Takami meant discarding her too, he says, and there is relief in all of it landing back on him. With the Commission dissolved, nobody remains to give him orders, and he pulls off his neck brace as a free man, remembering the Endeavor plushie she once bought him with the wish that he grow up strong like that. People show what they truly are when cornered or when nothing binds them, he tells Best Jeanist, which is why he holds Twice up as genuinely good for wanting to help others, and why he wants the same for himself. Even granting Dabi's claims about the Todoroki Family, he believes the present is a different thing. Asked what comes next, he answers that he will speak about where he came from, because Endeavor is in trouble.

Hawks' background is laid out: crushing poverty, a father who killed during a mugging, a mother who hid the fugitive and conceived Keigo unintentionally, and a home where drink, fear, and anger produced constant abuse. Endeavor, whom Keigo idolized through a doll from his mother, arrested his father during an escape attempt, and the remaining two fled to avoid charges. His rescue of a group from a car wreck drew the Commission, which supported them and erased their family name in exchange for his training. In the present, the assassination of Best Jeanist is confirmed as staged, with Hawks inducing a Nomu-like coma and reviving him mid-war. The pair capture the Glutton God Gang, find the manor ransacked and a farewell note from Hawks' mother, and Hawks, finally unshackled, decides to come clean publicly to help Endeavor.

Horikoshi's author comment marvels that he and his editor bonded over SD Gundam and Beast Wars despite the age gap between them. The chapter introduces Takami, Tomie Takami, and the Glutton God Gang, moves between Fukuoka and the Hero Public Safety Commission building, and features Fierce Wings, Fiber Master, carbon fiber wires, an unnamed additional eyeball Quirk, an unnamed slime Quirk, and Hellflame in flashback. Best Jeanist's fight with the Glutton God Gang begins and ends within these pages.