Chapter 333

Tomura recalls how much he dreaded seeing New Order land in the same hands as One For All, which is why he broke the Hero Public Safety Commission first, then had his contacts abroad stir up trouble to slow the foreign heroes down. The plan ran in order: perfect the body, take One For All, then take New Order, and with both in hand nothing on the planet could stand against him. Facing New Order this early in an unfinished body was a gamble forced on him, and he crows that the bet has come good as the theft begins.

Using her own name, Cathleen Bate declares that she will not Decay. The rule sits beyond the cap on her own strength, so she starts decaying anyway, slowly, while Ethan Drive shouts at her over the choice. Tomura explains it cheerfully. Her body had already begun rotting while he was pulling the Quirk out, so she spent it on saving herself and lost it in the process. His thoughts drift to Yoichi Shigaraki and the comics they read as boys, and he muses that he always knew the story went further, and simply chose to stop reading.

He is about to turn New Order on the air when the vestige world drops him and All For One directly in front of Star and Stripe, and his body starts bursting from the inside out. The pilots realize she has done something to him. In her last instant she had spent the Quirk on a rule turning it against every other Quirk sharing a body with it. A colossal Star and Stripe goes to work on both of them and on the vestiges of every power he ever stole, while All For One curses her name.

She reflects that the worst outcome would have been dying while handing her Quirk over intact. She would have liked to keep her body, but she will trade it to stop a threat on this scale, and she thanks her brothers in arms, silently, for all of it. Tomura finds his Quirks rebelling against one another and laments that he can steal and bestow Quirks but never discard one, so he starts hunting for anyone he could shove New Order into.

The pilots open fire in a barrage, shouting that Star is still fighting inside him and that her sacrifice will not be wasted. Her vestige destroys Reflect and keeps tearing the pair apart from within. As the Decay finishes her, she reflects that All Might's rescue let her live out a wonderful dream, counts this as paying him back, gives her pilots one last salute, and fades. All For One curses the specter of All Might while the barrage continues without end.

The theft goes through. New Order leaves Star and Stripe and her body begins to Decay, a process she can only slow because her own strength is already capped.

Her final act before losing the Quirk was a rule turning New Order against every other power sharing a body with it, so her vestige begins dismantling the fused pair from inside, along with the stolen Quirks now rioting around them.

Reflect is torn apart, which finally opens a window for the fighter squadron to land their lasers.

Her full name reaches the page as Cathleen Bate, and All For One's limits are clarified. He can take a Quirk and he can hand one over, but he has no way to throw one out.

Part of the Star and Stripe arc, the chapter runs fifteen pages in Volume 34, published November 15, 2021 in issue 50, and is adapted in Episode 140. Tomura Shigaraki, Star and Stripe, and Izuku Midoriya share the cover.

Japanese airspace is the only setting, and the Quirks featured are Decay, New Order, Super Regeneration, and All For One.

Kohei Horikoshi's author comment admits that he enjoys inking but recently realized he is not good at it, and that he keeps learning something new.