Chapter 309

Mr. Smith and Boomerang Man arrive to find something overhead: Muscular, beaten, bound in Blackwhip, and hauled through the sky by a floating Deku. Turtle Neck holds Grand, regretting that she never thanked the hero, while the civilians bring a stretcher and offer to help, their leader saying they want nobody dead either, so they may as well listen. Grand comes to, measuring the kid from the Provisional Hero License Exam against whatever just went past overhead, the vibe entirely different, and wonders whether they are the same person.

Deku drops his cargo at the Daina Police Station, asking after iron maidens sturdy enough to hold him, then bolts into the air before the guards can question him further. With Danger Sense quiet, he calls All Might to say he will be back soon and meets him in an alley, where All Might checks him for injuries. Limbs intact, he reports, helped along by a new support item All Might ordered out of America before the borders shut: the Mid-Gauntlets. They are still a prototype built for endurance, All Might warns, able to reinforce the body but not to take a hundred percent, so restraint is mandatory until the rematch.

All Might's phone rings with Hawks on the line while he, Endeavor, and Best Jeanist box in a villain. Asked how Deku is doing, All Might says the boy is holding up, just as he takes off again on another Danger Sense warning. Hawks reads it as a refusal to put anyone else at risk, and notes that although they could seal him away entirely to prepare, the power behind the Tartarus attack means a well-prepared enemy ends everything. Following Deku's approach and actively hunting them instead raises their odds. He knows the position this puts All Might in, and says support is all they can offer.

In flashback, most of Central Hospital's patients have been discharged with help from Recovery Girl, but Izuku stays longer. A doctor sits with him, All Might, and Inko, and explains the shift: he had been warned that worse injuries would leave him immobilized, but the picture changed. Where the damage once stayed inside him like small explosions, this time it surfaced. Wrapping his limbs in Blackwhip to brace them from within, and a body transformed since the days of five percent to a capacity of forty-five, kept the harm far lighter than expected. Even so, immobility remains possible, and the doctor advises care.

With the doctor gone, Inko wants answers, and the two of them hand over what One For All really is. She grasps that Quirklessness lets him hold the power and that the power makes him a target, and asks what becomes of him. All Might lays out a plan to keep him safe inside U.A., but Izuku says he will not go back. Tomura can locate him, he explains, possibly at any moment, even now, and he refuses to watch anyone else get hurt; he means to bring down All For One and Tomura before either reaches full strength. Inko protests that he is in a hospital bed because he lost. He answers that he will get stronger. She remembers feeling reassured once and cannot manage it now. Izuku takes her hand and tells her that her thanks and her smile made him tremendously happy, and that the happiness is the very reason he must leave, with a promise to come back to her.

All Might, remembering bowing to her in their home, admits he cannot stop the boy and offers to come along. He informs Best Jeanist, who accepts, observing that Izuku may be the only means of pinpointing Tomura and proposing they treat him as the focal point, trailing behind at a safe remove. Before checking out, Izuku visits Gran Torino and passes on Nana's regards, which he takes with a smile. He confesses he should have killed Tomura, warns Izuku against rigid beliefs, and suggests death can be its own form of salvation, handing over his cape as the boy goes to join All Might and the top three against the League of Villains.

Deku trusses the beaten Muscular up with Blackwhip and leaves him at a police station. His new compression support item, the Mid-Gauntlets, is revealed. A flashback establishes that his injuries proved far milder than feared thanks to his strengthened body and the Blackwhip reinforcement used mid-battle. Inko is finally told what the power is, along with her son's intent to quit U.A. so that nobody else stands near him when Tomura and All For One arrive, and All Might announces he is going too. Gran Torino receives Nana's regards, hands over his scarf, and tells Izuku that killing can be a way of saving. Izuku and All Might join Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist, with Izuku serving as bait to draw out and track the League of Villains.

Seventeen pages, published April 19, 2021, in issue 20 and collected in Volume 32 within the Dark Hero arc, adapted in Episode 132. The cover gathers Boomerang Man, Mr. Smith, Deku, Muscular, Turtle Neck, and Grand. Horikoshi's author comment described a happy dream about playing with a cat, ruined by waking to find he had overslept by three hours.