Chapter 402: The Tearful Days

Reports reach the Counter-Force HQ: Shoto has smothered Dabi's heat and pulled the civilians clear, and Himiko is down, her Doubles dissolving with her. The Twice copies harrying the floating U.A. dissolve at the same moment. Creati had been shielding Mei from them during her repair work, and Mei notes that with the copies gone the school is light enough to stay aloft. Word then comes that All For One has arrived where Tomura and Deku are locked in combat. Naomasa reflects that the fight has been deadlocked since Deku leapt down from U.A., and the stalemate does nothing to calm him.

All For One explains that this spot has been the point of the whole exercise since he injected the Rewind drug: hand his copy of All For One to Tomura and let him become something greater. All Might tries to pull his attention back and is ignored, as the villain readies Warping on Tomura to sidestep Deku entirely. Tomura swallows the gloop instead and tells his master to stay out of it. Realizing that his successor's mind has beaten down his own, All For One looks at All Might and smiles that he will simply do the work himself.

Business Course students inside U.A. spot him flying at the school with a battered All Might dangling from one leg, and he tells the fallen hero to let them see how pitiful he looks and to answer for the dreams he planted in them. Tomura tries to peel Deku away by pointing him toward the rescue, calculating that it frees him to head back up and crush everyone who bested him before.

Looking at the hanging figure, Deku thinks he had put his tearful days behind him, yet here he is swallowing tears again to be the apprentice his mentor deserves. Then he feels the All Might vestige inside One For All beginning to thin, and screams. All Might, for his part, is thinking that Deku could be a hero without any Quirk at all, because he empties himself into every attempt and could never let a dream die, the same way he cannot surrender his own ambition of being the Symbol of Peace.

He clamps onto All For One, and the grip throws the villain back to Nana Shimura's last moments, when she traded her life for All Might's. Her parting line returns with it, that All Might would be the one to end him because he is the more unhinged of the two. Understanding exactly what is coming, All Might asks with total confidence whether this death will send him back to being a kindergartener, ready to take them both out at once.

The Counter-Force receives news of Dabi's and Himiko's defeats, and the vanishing Twice Doubles save U.A. from falling.

Tomura rejects All For One's attempt to Warp him away, keeping his fight with Deku alive and proving his will has overridden his master's.

All For One flies himself and the captured All Might toward the battlefield, taunting him in front of the students.

Deku senses the All Might vestige inside One For All fading and cries out in terror.

All Might resolves to detonate himself as a final sacrifice to end All For One.

Horikoshi's four hundred and second installment fills 15 pages of the fortieth collected volume, placed within the Final War arc.

It ran in issue 44 of 2023, published on October 2. The anime covers pages 2 through 15 in Episode 161.

Twice appears on the cover through his Doubles. Nana Shimura and Gran Torino feature in flashback, while Dabi and Himiko are mentioned only.