Chapter 44: Phantom Thief

A toy manufacturer invites help from U.A., and the visiting party is made up of All Might, Neito Monoma, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, and Izuku Midoriya. The machinery on display leaves All Might openly delighted. Three staff members explain the crisis: counterfeit versions of the firm's products have saturated the market, and the founder, who prizes originality above all else, has stopped designing entirely. Revenue is sliding, and the employees fear the business will not survive their boss's paralysis.

The CEO emerges only long enough to cancel a lunch appointment before his assistant, Kurosagi, dismisses the heroes outright and scolds the staff for airing company troubles to strangers. Undeterred, the group agrees at the entrance to act anyway. All Might proposes checking retail shelves for fakes and passing whatever they find back to their contacts inside the firm. Neito, irritated to be paired with a Class 1-A student, converts the task into a contest, arguing that separate searches cover more ground and sharpen everyone's effort. He drags Tetsutetsu off promising another Class 1-B victory, leaving Izuku with All Might.

The tallies come back lopsided. Neito claims five knockoffs and Tetsutetsu four, while Izuku produces a bag stuffed with fraudulent All Might figures that he spotted instantly and furiously. Neito rules the surplus invalid so his class still wins, which Izuku notes is awfully convenient. All Might then holds up a pair of figures even he cannot tell apart, and the staff confirm that having samples lets them examine materials and construction for evidence.

One counterfeit copies a product released only days earlier, which points to leaked designs rather than reverse engineering. Tetsutetsu guesses a thief has the plans, and the staff confirm that only the founder and his assistant can reach them. Suspicion lands on Kurosagi, who also fields every bootleg complaint and therefore sits perfectly placed to move illegal stock. The group heads for the office and catches him mid-theft while the oblivious CEO frets about running dry of ideas and of the wealth he has been living off. Kurosagi's denial collapses, and he bolts, sealing the shutters behind him.

Neito borrows Steel from Tetsutetsu, then works the three employees for their abilities: one produces cotton, one turns objects to brick, one makes things bouncy. They insist the powers are useless. Kurosagi taunts that no copy ever beats an original, and Neito answers that a clever enough copy does, chaining the borrowed Quirks to close the gap before flattening him with Steel. Bound and facing trial, the assistant is told he will answer for every yen the company lost, and the staff make him repeat his apology louder.

The founder takes Neito's remark to heart, concluding that making something new sometimes means borrowing a little, and asks his three employees to contribute ideas, which delights them. Izuku praises the layered Quirk work, though Neito notes he skipped One For All since copying it yields nothing, and files that away as one more win for Class 1-B. Left wondering what shaped Neito, Izuku gets only a shrug from Tetsutetsu, who says that is simply their Neito Monoma.

Kurosagi, the CEO's assistant, debuts and is exposed as the source of the leaked toy blueprints.

Neito Monoma stacks Steel with the three employees' Quirks, cotton, brick, and spring, to bring the thief down.

The founder breaks his creative block by accepting that invention can start from imitation, and opens his design process to his staff.

Yoco Akiyama writes and draws the chapter, the forty-fourth of My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions. It runs 26 pages, appeared on April 4, 2024 in the May 2024 issue of Saikyo Jump, and collects into Volume 7. Neito Monoma takes the cover.

The trio of employees each nod to a classic toy: springs for a Slinky, stuffing for a rag doll, and a brick helmet for a Lego minifigure.