Chapter 378

Counter-Force headquarters scrambles at the evacuation system failing, sending backup toward Gunga and fighting signal interference. Digging through Skeptic's servers, La Brava remembers hacking Feel Good Inc. back in her shut-in days to swap every advertisement for Optic Kitty, and notes his coding habits have not changed since. Skeptic is stunned and then enraged, so she rubs it in by replaying the ads across his monitors. As she takes the whole system, he prepares to run, refusing to surrender U.A. or the evacuation network, insisting her finding his address means nothing if he leaves, and that no one will put out his flames of revolution.

Word reaches Naomasa that U.A. is still dropping and near impact. Asked to fix it, La Brava explains the last blast wrecked the system, so keeping the joint airborne needs a new program written from scratch and there is no time. An officer says trusting a convicted villain with the last line of defense was the error, and Naomasa answers that a crime committed and a past that cannot be erased do not always add up to a lost cause.

On the falling fortress, Deku and Tomura hold each other's gaze while Tomura's words keep repeating in Deku's head. Mandalay pulls the electricity team clear, and Chargebolt and Comicman see the observation deck overrun by Twice Doubles with their teacher and classmate in it. The American soldiers debate firing their lasers and worry about hitting allies; Ethan Drive says the X-66 squadron is useless against an invasion from inside, then spots something else in the airspace.

Outside the villains' hideout, Skeptic runs straight into a cordon of heroes, the Ketsubutsu Academy students and Hound Dog among them, tipped off to his location and already close. Hound Dog remarks on the strange turns fate takes. At U.A., Naomasa and La Brava back Gentle, who reckons the boy is owed at least this much.

A month and a half earlier, during the Assault on Tartarus, Mikuzu Prison was one of the raided facilities, Muscular telling the inmates to go be free. Gentle stood in the doorway and asked, nervously, whether that was truly what they wanted. They said yes, and with Gori and Deku's words behind him, he took them all on alone. Mikuzu ended up the only one of seven attacked prisons with zero escapees. Gori asked what he wanted in return: to see La Brava, and to help.

Lover Mode carries him, La Brava telling him his joy multiplies hers, and Gently Super-Lover unfurls Elasticity across the sky to arrest U.A.'s fall. He wonders whether Deku is still fighting to protect other people's happiness, as Mandalay reports the save and describes the air turning into a trampoline. Deku hears it and knows exactly who is out there, while Gentle thinks back to the day he tried to catch someone falling and found his hope in being useful to others.

Banjo warns that Tomura is moving again, and that averting the crash counts for nothing if he touches the ground. Before he can, a bullet arrives out of nowhere and takes his arm off. Elsewhere, Naomasa says every villain, however far they have fallen, is still a person, and recognizing that is the heroes' job; borrowing his friend's phrase, deep in their hearts they will find their origin. Down in the city, a recovering Lady Nagant enters the war.

La Brava's past hacking of Feel Good Inc.'s servers is revealed, and Skeptic, losing his system, tries to flee only to be cornered by a group of heroes, among them Hound Dog and the Ketsubutsu Academy students.

La Brava works to retake control of U.A. but needs time because of the internal damage.

Gentle arrives overhead and uses his empowered Quirk to stop U.A. from crashing.

Gentle's record during the Tartarus assault surfaces: he alone stopped every inmate from walking out of his prison, and asked in return only for a reunion with La Brava and a chance to repay Deku.

Tomura moves to attack and has his arm sniped off by a still-recovering Lady Nagant firing from the city below.

Horikoshi numbered this one 378. It fills fifteen pages, debuted in issue 8 of 2023, and sits in Volume 38 as part of the Final War arc. Episode 154 adapts it.

The Optic Kitty is made to bust out the Da Pump Dance under La Brava's control, referencing the choreography from that band's song "U.S.A."

Horikoshi's author comment states that he wants to become a soccer player like Mitoma.