Chapter 339

Mei Hatsume asks what the two of them want while Izuku Midoriya nurses his wounded pride over Danger Sense staying silent. Tenya Ida explains they need their hero costumes repaired. She wonders why the item agency is not handling it, and Tenya notes that the agencies have been thrown into disarray, which leaves the support course. Her breezy indifference convinces Izuku that she has no clue what is happening beyond the walls.

Power Loader steps out of the smoke to scold her again and waves the students in. The Development Studio has been reconfigured, and he explains that his people now build and operate the U.A. Barrier. Izuku offers up his Mid-Gauntlet and Mei refuses on the spot, since the damage would demand a fresh build and they lack the condenium the compression mechanism needs. Tenya asks about his armour and gets shot down just as fast, since he has brought no spec sheet. A pair of her classmates step in and volunteer to handle both jobs.

Tenya finds it strange that someone who adores building things would pass the work along, and Izuku spots what she is actually deep in: evacuation shelter blocks. Power Loader explains she was brought aboard to reinforce the barrier and has since been designing systems for a mass evacuation, and he praises how her mind works. She says she always has to dream up new babies so they keep improving.

Izuku compliments her for being so absorbed in her machines that the outside world passed her by, and gets called dense for it. Even she knows what the heroes are up against. The support course does not throw punches, but it protects people all the same, and building things is how they do their heroics.

Before he can answer, she flings his Air Force Gloves, now fitted with improvised gauntlets, straight into his face, admitting it is not a perfect copy but the best available. Izuku is stunned that she managed it with only her left hand. Fresh armour hits Tenya in the face next, to the exasperation of the other support students at her speed. Tell the hero course, she says, that they are going to win this.

Outside, the pair rejoin their classmates and Mt. Lady. Whatever the two of them have just been through, she says, the assignment has not moved: track down and wipe out what survives of the League of Villains and the Paranormal Liberation Front, and do it without rushing. Mina Ashido wonders whether Yuga Aoyama will take their hand after all, and Izuku and Shoto Todoroki both say he will come back. The search squad drawn from Class 1-A forms up and moves out.

Over in the Kansai region, a team of Ryukyu, Fat Gum, Suneater and Nejire Chan has just put down a villain and pulled civilians clear, with Shiketsu High School as the destination for the rescued. Ryukyu warns that a shrinking population means less information coming in, and Fat Gum reckons the era of raids and ambushes is over, with both sides now bracing for open war. At Central Hospital, All Might and Hawks discuss Plan B, and the second confrontation that may settle everything.

Responsibility for building and running the U.A. Barrier turns out to sit with the support course, and Mei has been assigned to invent systems for a possible mass evacuation.

Mei assembles an improvised gauntlet by combining the wreckage of Izuku's Mid-Gauntlets with his Air Force Gloves. A search squad drawn from Class 1-A sets out after whatever survives of the League of Villains and the Paranormal Liberation Front, while All Might and Hawks meet at Central Hospital over Plan B.

Mei Hatsume takes the cover for this instalment, which runs fifteen pages in Volume 34 and was adapted in Episode 142.

The chapter is the middle piece of the three-part The Story of How We All Became Heroes sequence, and it is the point where the story explicitly frames non-combat invention as its own form of heroism.