Chapter 45: The Man Returns

Soga Kugisaki visits Tamao Oguro in the hospital with Moyuru Tochi and Rapt Tokage. Rapt clowns around with her guitar until she laughs, Moyuru asks her to play, and she brushes it off, saying she only ever picked it up to needle her father. Soga takes the instrument and tunes it, surprising Moyuru, who had no idea he knew music. Rapt explains that Soga once owned a guitar and wrecked it in a fight. Handing it back, Soga tells Tamao that being able to make music at all is a privilege plenty of people never get.

Knuckleduster walks in. Tamao's only comment is that the beard is gross, and Soga calls him out for vanishing so long. He does not argue, but wants Soga to keep her company a little longer, since an old pal is waiting, and promises to visit again once he is done. His daughter's one request is that he shave. After he leaves, Soga suggests she make as much noise as possible on the guitar purely to irritate her old man, and Rapt and Moyuru rib him for being a sweetheart.

Somewhere out of the way, Detective Eizo Tanuma is waiting for him. The detective knows exactly who O'Clock was, and now addresses him as Mr. Kuroiwa. He hands over a memory card carrying everything he pulled in Hong Kong on the Trigger trade, names of Japanese importers included. On his way out, Eizo mentions police running into a villain with an acceleration Quirk that mirrors O'Clock's and asks whether he knows the man. Knuckleduster says no, then advises shooting the villain down on sight. Eizo objects that gunning people down would wreck the Police Force's image, so Knuckleduster says he will handle the man himself, and they part.

Elsewhere in Naruhata, Koichi Haimawari is again fleeing a train-headed villain past the Hotta brothers' shop, with no Shota Aizawa around this time. Kazuho suggests calling Midnight, a prospect that thrills the brothers, and Ichiro Hotta shouts at Koichi to keep the thing circling until help lands. From a nearby rooftop Knuckleduster watches his student cope on his own, proud, and leaves without making contact. Koichi passes close enough to think he saw him, then decides he imagined it.

Knuckleduster returns from Hong Kong and delivers Trigger trafficking intelligence, including a list of Japanese importers, to Detective Eizo Tanuma.

Eizo reveals that police have encountered a villain wielding an acceleration Quirk like O'Clock's, and Knuckleduster claims the man for himself.

Knuckleduster watches Koichi handle a villain unaided and departs without revealing himself.

The forty-fifth chapter of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court. Nineteen pages, published January 12, 2019, part of the Team Ups arc, collected in Volume 7, and adapted in Episode 18. Soga Kugisaki takes the cover, and Willy Wanda debuts.

Serialization ran the chapter as Mr. Kuroiwa, a title changed when the volume came out.