Chapter 49

Gran Torino frames the stakes plainly. Moving while One For All hums through every limb would draw a clean line between Izuku and the boy who fought at the Sports Festival. Three minutes is the opening allowance for their rematch.

It goes badly at once. A blow from behind snaps the current off, and the old Hero comes at Izuku from every angle while the boy flails without a counter. Flat on the floor, Izuku accepts that speed like this cannot be met head on, buys himself cover beneath the couch and relights the power there. Gran Torino closes in, only for the couch to launch across the room on the end of Izuku's fist, breaking the assault apart.

With the Quirk circulating properly, Izuku springs upward and comes within a hair of connecting, and the veteran slips it at the last instant. Gran Torino lunges to take him from behind; Izuku vaults over the attempt, drops into what looks like an ideal firing line, and swings a One For All punch that finds nothing but air. The old Hero kicks off a wall as Izuku falls, buries a strike in his stomach and drives him into the ground, the power guttering out again.

Three minutes elapse and the drill stops. Izuku dwells on how poorly he sustains the full body activation, yet Gran Torino praises his thinking. Privately the old man registers how far the boy has traveled in almost no time, and notes the cut now sitting on his own face. Izuku grazed him while he was fighting in earnest. The instruction is simply to grow accustomed to carrying the power everywhere, with training to resume once they eat.

Inside the hideout kept by the League of Villains, a conversation between Stain and Tomura collapses into violence. He overwhelms the younger villain effortlessly, pins him down, drives a dagger through his right shoulder and holds a second blade at his throat. Anything worth accomplishing, Stain argues, demands conviction, and an amateur without one will not last. Tomura shouts for Kurogiri to remove him, but Kurogiri stands frozen, apparently caught by Stain's Quirk. Stain spells out his contempt for a society he sees as choked with counterfeit Heroes and with villains who sling power around aimlessly, then moves to open Tomura's neck and take the hand off his face.

Tomura catches the blade instead and begins eating it away. He has no lofty creed, he admits, only an appetite: to grind down the world that props All Might up and bury it. The dagger crumbles entirely and Stain springs clear. Their aims differ, he concedes, yet the hunger to demolish the present order is shared ground. The beating was a test, and Stain decides something warped is taking root inside Tomura, curious what it will bloom into. The League may live, at least until he has judged it with his own eyes. Business concluded, he demands passage back to Hosu, where matters remain open.

Tenya returns to the Hosu Hero Office from patrol carrying research on the man who crippled his brother. A pattern has surfaced in the Hero Killer's strikes, and Tenya calculates that three more Pro Heroes in Hosu are still owed. Quietly furious, he dares Stain to show himself so that his own hands can finish it.

A second round against Gran Torino leaves Izuku unable to land a real hit, though he does open a cut on the old Hero's cheek. Stain beats Tomura down to measure his conviction, then returns to Hosu City. Tenya resolves to bring the Hero Killer down himself.

Nineteen pages long and part of the Vs. Hero Killer Arc, the chapter ran in issue 32 on July 6, 2015 and was collected in Volume 6. Izuku and Gran Torino share the cover. The extra Chapter 49.5 sits between this entry and Chapter 50 in the reading order. Episode 28 covers the material. Horikoshi's author's comment records losing three hours to writing blurbs for the back of a graphic novel and producing nothing at all.