Chapter 33

The first round begins with Izuku Midoriya rooted in place. Up in the booth, Shota Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada trade background on Hitoshi Shinso and his Brainwashing. By any fair reckoning a Quirk that potent belonged in the Hero course, but it does nothing against machines, and the entrance exam was built around machines.

Hitoshi remarks how pleasant it must be to draw a heroic Quirk, then instructs him to about-face and step outside the boundary. Izuku complies without hesitation and starts for the edge. Shota notes that in a contest of pure physicality Izuku wins comfortably, but under brainwashing the match belongs to Hitoshi.

Watching from the arena entrance, Toshinori Yagi mutters for him to stop. Inside his own head Izuku strains against a body moving on its own while his thoughts go soft and distant, and the edge keeps getting closer. He remembers what Mashirao Ojiro told him beforehand: a hard enough jolt cuts the control. Ojiro also asked him to win this one on his behalf.

One stride from elimination and running out of hope, Izuku sees eight pairs of eyes surface from the darkness ahead. Something goes wrong with his fingers, and One For All fires on its own, snapping his index and middle fingers and jolting him free. Hitoshi cannot work out how he escaped. Recalling All Might's description of a power handed down across generations, Izuku guesses those figures are the holders who came before him.

Hitoshi tries taunting him into speaking again, but Izuku keeps his mouth shut now that he understands the trigger. Hitoshi says a combat Quirk user could never grasp what it is like to be born with one unfit for fighting. Charging in, Izuku grasps it perfectly well, having spent his childhood with no Quirk at all. He drives Hitoshi toward the boundary, absorbs a punch to the face, and keeps pushing. When Hitoshi grabs his throat, Izuku catches the arm and slams him over his shoulder into the ground, putting his feet outside the ring. The match is called and Izuku moves on to the second round.

Aizawa lays out why a Quirk this dangerous never reached the Hero course. The practical entrance exam pitted applicants against robots, and Brainwashing has nothing to say to a machine.

The rules of Brainwashing are established, including the requirement that a target answer the user before control takes hold.

Eight shadowed figures surface inside Izuku's mind and trip One For All on their own, snapping two of his fingers and breaking Hitoshi's hold.

Izuku takes the bout and moves on to round two.

Part of the U.A. Sports Festival arc, the chapter runs nineteen pages in Volume 4 and was published March 2, 2015 in issue 15. Izuku Midoriya appears on the cover, and the events are adapted in Episode 20.

Settings run from Musutafu, Japan to U.A. High School and the Sports Festival Stadium, with Brainwashing and One For All the featured Quirks and the Capturing Weapon the only item shown.

The bout concludes the Izuku Midoriya versus Hitoshi Shinso match within the First Year Stage of the Sports Festival. Kohei Horikoshi's author comment mentions drawing while the mystery program Hosokinshi plays, and the fun of solving the cases as a group.