Chapter 340

At Central Hospital, All Might and Hawks brief the American military alongside the police as the counter-force against the League of Villains and the Paranormal Liberation Front comes together. Yuga Aoyama's situation has opened the way forward, and everyone present has been vetted. Hawks explains that the field is currently under the command of Best Jeanist, Endeavor and the rest of the heavyweights, so the circle handling the classified material stays deliberately small.

Ragdoll of the Wild, Wild Pussycats is among them. She wishes her teammates had been included, but with her Search Quirk now serving evil she intends to contribute whatever she can. All Might sticks small markers for All For One and Tomura Shigaraki onto a whiteboard and states the one requirement shared by Plan A and Plan B alike: the two must be separated.

Data from the clash with Star and Stripe shows Tomura has climbed well past his master in raw power, with Kamino serving as the benchmark for the older man's strength. All Might also raises the mind meld the pair exploited back at Tartarus, admitting nobody knows how far that shared consciousness reaches beyond communication via Radio Waves, and concluding that a joint attack would be unwinnable. Asked by one of the pilots why the pair did not fight Star together, he suggests All For One feared exposure to New Order once she spoke his name. Ten kilometres, he says, is the minimum gap that gives them a chance.

Naomasa Tsukauchi notes the enemy will fight to prevent exactly that, and All Might raises Dabi, whose flames could stall the entire operation single-handedly. Ragdoll takes that to mean Dabi must be isolated first, but All Might means all of them: peel off each major operative, draw them out individually, beat them one at a time. Told that is easier said than done, he answers that a strategy is precisely what they need, and Naomasa works out that the strategy is Yuga. He sympathises with the boy while insisting his office demands caution. All Might chooses faith in Yuga, and faith in his teacher.

In an interrogation room, Shota Aizawa sits with Yuga while the attending doctor reports that his brain waves and bodily functions show nothing unusual. Shota reasons that whatever killed Lady Nagant came from something All For One acquired after his defeat, and that planting a bomb in Yuga would have made the theatrical threats against his family pointless. What was planted in them was fear.

He tells Yuga that friends willing to defend him like that are a rare thing, then asks whether he fears All For One. Yuga says yes, and admits something worse: every ounce of faith his classmates place in him drains away his faith in himself, and even if he takes their hand he suspects he would make the same choice again if that man appeared. The fear leaves him wanting to stop entirely and die alone somewhere. Shota warns that leniency will not erase the sin, and that once the war ends U.A. may no longer be his home. Even so, he says, he will fight, because fighting is all he can do.

Yuga accepts that he must become another piece used for victory. Shota concedes they may be no better than All For One in using him, but refuses to let him be tortured by his sins forever, promising that every student stays his responsibility as long as he runs the hero course. He does not teach anyone to live buried in guilt, and shame or not, Yuga must walk beside the people offering their hands, a thought that carries Shota to Kurogiri. They will protect him, and with them he will be all right. Yuga's face hardens with resolve, and he asks what use he could possibly be. Shota tells him he will not be sent in alone, because the road ahead is one they all walk together. On the U.A. campus, a costumed Hitoshi Shinso is called on by his General Studies classmates: it is time to move.

A counter-force takes shape against the League of Villains and the Paranormal Liberation Front, drawing in Naomasa, Ragdoll, Hawks, All Might, the police and the American allies Star left behind. Their approach is to keep Tomura and All For One at least ten kilometres apart so their power cannot combine, and to strip away every major League operative individually so neither can be supported.

Shota interrogates Yuga and confirms he carries no explosive trap of the kind that killed Lady Nagant, theorising that only those All For One contacted after his defeat could be rigged. He warns Yuga that accountability still stands and that U.A. may not take him back after the fighting ends, yet refuses to expel him, and talks him into fighting rather than letting guilt swallow everything that comes after. The chapter also unveils Hitoshi Shinso's hero costume.

Hitoshi's pose in the closing panel nods to Spider-Man's classic upside-down hang.

Fifteen pages, the first chapter collected in Volume 35, adapted in Episode 142. Hitoshi Shinso takes the cover, and the chapter closes the three-part The Story of How We All Became Heroes sequence.