Chapter 407

The story reaches back to an era with no Quirks at all. A woman selling sex spends more than a year troubled by hard growths along one arm, and an unsteady life keeps her from noticing her pregnancy until the eighth month, since the pair inside her drain her without ever making themselves felt. She delivers on a riverbank and dies there, the growths gone without explanation. Rats close in on the bodies before rising floodwater carries the newborns downstream.

Twelve months later the Luminescent Baby draws global attention as Meta Abilities surface, appearing in newborns and also in adolescents hitting puberty. Researchers blame a "novel disease" and label the powered a genetic offshoot of humanity, a rushed verdict that splits the public and feeds panic. Masked soldiers plotting against "meta freaks" spot a small boy nearby and choose to spare him, guessing children carry the trait. He answers by driving Spearlike Bones through every one of them, using the power taken from his mother at birth.

Arrogance shapes the child from his first breath. Anyone within reach counts as his, and anyone who ignores his crying or offers him nothing earns his contempt. He kills freely and collects abilities until his smaller, sickly twin, starved of nutrients in the womb, begs him to stop and gets knocked down for it. The younger boy, teaching himself to read through Captain Hero comics, admits he wants to be a hero someday, still trusting a dim memory of a gentle hand that once held him.

Three years on, the elder brother sneers at the ten million sympathizers gathered behind the Luminescent Baby, arguing that being recorded first grants nobody the right to lead, especially with fifty powered infants born in India a fortnight earlier. He admits to murdering that figure and taking the ability, leaving his brother stunned and asking why.

He then throws the comic's own slogans back, "One for all" and "All for one", contrasting a hero who hides his face and fights alone against a demon lord paid tribute and obeyed out of fear. Inspiration landed on him too, he says, and his dream is a world existing purely for his own sake.

The chapter closes on betrayal. The younger twin flees despite the power he was handed, with Toshitsugu Kudo running beside him. The elder demands his property back, decides he has had enough of refusal, and spots his brother's hand lying in a spreading pool of blood.

The installment fills in the shared past of All For One and Yoichi Shigaraki. Their mother, a prostitute, died delivering them, and her Spearlike Bones became the first power ever filed inside the All For One Quirk.

It also charts how fast society fractured once Meta Abilities became public knowledge, and how the Luminescent Baby's calls for peace and coexistence attracted a following before All For One killed them out of spite. Yoichi's comics inspire both brothers, one toward heroism and the other toward rule by fear.

Kohei Horikoshi's chapter runs thirteen pages, published November 20, 2023 in issue 51 of that year, collected in volume 40 of the Final War arc and adapted in Episode 163. His author comment jokes that a single sip of alcohol nearly stopped his heart.