Chapter 423

Deku's point-blank strike rattles "All For One", who cannot work out why Super Regeneration stopped taking on the body or why nothing felt wrong, and concludes that the heroes conspired: individually negligible, together they dulled his senses without his noticing. He grasps too that when Yoichi and the rest were driven into the core, the body had been written off along with the spirit. Deku remembers training under All Might to receive the power, and says that two years have made it stronger than the eighth alone; what stands before the villain now is all nine of them at once.

Damage and raw power together start breaking the body apart, Grand noting that the villain's Quirks and the constructs they made are falling apart, and Red Riot wondering whether Deku actually did it. Before he can vanish, "All For One" forces his own powers to clamp the body together, insisting he has achieved nothing yet and that nobody robs him of what is his, that only his dream is permitted to come true, that no one else picks up the torch, that the Demon Lord admits no equal and no second. Hurling shattered constructs at the heroes, he decides he only needs to repeat what he did with Tomura, transferring All For One into Deku now that the boy is Quirkless, or into anyone at all, and claiming that body for himself.

He calls for a new vessel; Deku says he is finished and charges. Eraser Head shouts for him, then sees "Kurogiri" move again. Sorry, he tells his two old teachers, but he has to protect Tomura, and he warps himself between hero and villain. Mic yells that of course, in the end, he would reach out a hand. Before the gate can close, Dynamight drops in and fires an Explosion from his mouth, dispersing him. Mic, baffled, points out he was supposed to be in the hospital and asks how he blasted all this way alone; Katsuki credits one of Shoto's ice ramps, then tells Deku not to let the villain outdo him and shoves him forward. Deku tells All For One he cannot overlook what he has done, but knows he is no incomprehensible monster and no Demon Lord, just a lonely man. "All For One" screams at him to stop and not to look, and the last punch lands in his arm.

Down in the vestige realm, All For One finds the surviving embers of Yoichi, who explains that Deku shaped the violent transfer so the barest fragment would endure. When the punch struck, that fragment resonated with the embers still inside Deku, so his last shreds could finish what the power was always meant to be. All For One laughs it off and grips the embers, begging his brother not to fade and to show himself, but Yoichi answers that his time is done. The elder brother's face returns as he panics, claiming Yoichi belongs to him, demanding to see his eyes, saying he loves him and is nothing without him. Yoichi only regrets never steering him right, calls what Deku built here their salvation at the end of everything, and tells him the price for using everyone else has come due. Deku woke more than him, he adds, and out of the void come the embers of Tomura and the remaining users, who strike with Deku and destroy All For One's vestige for good.

Deku and Tomura touch fists. Tomura thinks about believing himself annihilated when his Master consumed him, and how Nana somehow kept him from slipping away. He thinks of Kurogiri as the mist scatters, and of stealing his body back without destroying a single thing. He tells Deku he was only ever a crying kid who could not even destroy his own hands. Deku answers that none of it could be allowed to stand, that stopping him was the point and that he wanted Tomura to stop himself, so the grief would spread no further. Tomura laughs and asks him to tell Spinner, if he lived, that Tomura Shigaraki fought to destroy right to the end. It has already been destroyed, Deku replies. The sky clears as Tomura's body turns to ash.

Accumulated damage and One For All's power start crumbling the stolen body, and the villain strains to hold it together.

He resolves to transfer his Quirk into a fresh body, eyeing Deku and the heroes around him.

"Kurogiri" interposes himself to shield Tomura before either fighter can strike.

Dynamight arrives and kills "Kurogiri", clearing Deku's path to land his punch.

All For One reunites with Yoichi's last embers and begs him to stay, until Tomura and the surviving users, roused by resonating with Deku's embers, wipe out his spirit permanently.

Tomura accepts defeat, leaves a message for Spinner, and disintegrates.

"One For All vs. All For One" ran fifteen pages in issue 25 of 2024 on May 20, expanded to seventeen for its collection in volume 42, and belongs to the Final War arc. Episode 167 adapts it. Deku, Tomura Shigaraki and All For One appear on the cover.

The Pro Heroes and Trainees versus "All For One" battle concludes here. Omni-Factor Unleash is the featured super move, with Explosion, Half-Cold Half-Hot, Warp Gate and Decay in play alongside the two title Quirks and Danger Sense. Kohei Horikoshi's author's comment recounts showing off his 45 million Pokemon GO Stardust to a friend's four-year-old son.