Chapter 322

Deku silently admits he lacks the strength to shake off Ingenium's grip, and Uravity cuts her Quirk, sending both plunging. Red Riot catches them. He brings up an old news item about a boy his age who threw himself at a villain to save a friend, and realizes now who that was. Heroism, he argues, carries no requirement of being special or strong; that instinct is exactly what everyone here is acting on.

The others arrive. Pinky says she cannot stand to lose anybody else and asks him to come back so they can share a classroom again. Deku stands and confesses he wants that, but the people already sheltering there would be in danger, and he cannot return as the person he used to be.

Katsuki approaches and asks whether Deku remembers what he said when Tomura stabbed him during the Paranormal Liberation War. Deku does not, so Katsuki repeats it back to him: quit trying to take the win alone. Having said that much, he admits his body moved by itself that day, and then admits the rest. He looked down on a Quirkless kid and expected him to fall behind, but underneath he had always felt himself the lesser one. He could not stomach it, so he bullied and postured for years to prove otherwise, and once U.A. began he simply kept losing, which finally pushed him to study what Deku actually was, strengths and flaws alike. Changing nothing, he says, does not excuse silence, so he apologizes for everything he has done, calling him Izuku.

The words snap Deku out of it. Katsuki tells him his choices were never wrong, only impossible to carry alone, and that leaning on friends when a wall appears is the sole route past All Might, which means guarding U.A. and its civilians together. Deku sags, apologizing for saying nobody could keep up, and Katsuki catches him as he passes out.

Izuku wakes to Thirteen's uncovered face and a status report: most civilians have reached the evacuation centers, leaving anti-hero agitators and violent looters, though exhaustion is steadily driving the former indoors and the extremists move in groups that make them easy to sweep up. Everyone, the police especially, is pulling hard after his solo campaign. Carried by Mezo, he registers that he is back at school. Hanta notes the barrier is up and Toru adds that it can even link to Shiketsu High. Izuku still doubts he belongs, and a crowd of protestors inside the grounds seems to prove it, calling the boy Tomura wants a ticking time bomb and demanding he go elsewhere. He considers doing exactly that until Ochaco stops him, telling him not to worry, because protecting him is their turn now.

Katsuki apologizes to Izuku for everything between them, owns up to his inferiority complex, and tells him to lean on his friends, after which Izuku passes out from exhaustion.

The face of Thirteen is shown uncovered for the first time.

Activation of the U.A. Barrier reveals that it can link up with Shiketsu High.

Civilians sheltering inside the barrier protest Izuku's entry, taking him for the boy Tomura is hunting, and Ochaco prepares to defend him.

This is the first occasion on which Katsuki uses Izuku's given name.

Seventeen pages long, the chapter ran in the combined issue 36-37 of 2021 and sits in Volume 33, with Deku and Ingenium on the cover. Episode 136 adapts it, and the action moves from Ground Zero in Kamino to U.A. High School, concluding the Deku vs. Class A battle.

Horikoshi's author comment reports that his air conditioner leaked and flooded his books.