Chapter 5 (Vigilantes)

Teruo Unagisawa, the eel Quirked superfan who went after Pop☆Step, sits under police questioning and gives up what little he knows. Someone handed him Trigger, told him to swallow it whenever life stopped going his way, promised it would make him formidable, and asked for silence in return.

Naomasa strings the incidents together. Teruo joins a list that already holds Akira Iwako, Moyuru Tochi, Soga Kugisaki and Mario Kugutsu, every one of them dosed immediately before the outbursts that have been piling up week after week. Eizo Tanuma reasons that the distribution keeps happening in identifiable spots, which makes the dealers findable. What baffles him is the giveaway pricing. Naomasa chews on what the suppliers actually want out of it, and Eizo lands on that word as the crux, floating either enormous profit or the deliberate collapse of public order before allowing that he may be reading too much into it. Teruo walks free regardless. He broke little, and no law on the books currently schedules the drug at all.

Naomasa tails him a short while as he wanders off. Jube Namimaru and Ichimoku Samazu spot him too and text Pop☆Step, who is over at Koichi's place. Koichi finds the courtesy of the message funny and gets told not to laugh. The pair have befriended the fan, she explains, which might let them learn who supplied him. Keeping Knuckleduster in the dark is Koichi's immediate concern, since his solution would involve fists, so the two decide to handle the conversation themselves.

A passerby recognizes Pop☆Step on the way and poses with her for a snapshot. The two vigilantes then find Ichimoku, who reports Jube is already with Teruo, and learn Knuckleduster is nearby and interested. The fan, meanwhile, is still glowing over her picture, never noticing the oversized bee that slides beneath her eye patch. Her friends flag it; she brushes them off and leaves for work. Kuin Hachisuka steps into view: a high school junior moonlighting as a villain.

Queen Bee lets her drive her workers wherever she pleases, and she has loaded them with drugs. They fan out across the neighborhood stinging civilians full of it, and dozens of ordinary people become Instant Villains with their Quirks running wild. Naomasa calls for reinforcements.

The noise reaches Koichi and Knuckleduster across town. Heroes descend, Airjet and Ingenium first, then Endeavor, Midnight, Eraser Head and others, and All Might personally puts down one enormous specimen. The whole outbreak is contained in short order. Koichi looks around and cannot find Knuckleduster.

Knuckleduster has bagged one of the worker bees. He rounds on Jube, who is hunting for Teruo, and tells him someone deliberately caused all that. Then he crushes the insect, and blood runs from Kuin's eye. She is irritated more than hurt, waves Teruo off, calls him a friend and offers to show him a photo of the idol herself.

A cafe table gathers Ichimoku, Jube, Pop☆Step and Koichi. Knuckleduster stews over the culprit who slipped him. The others enjoy a quiet that will not last, none of them aware of what is watching from the edges.

Teruo's statement confirms Trigger is being handed out deliberately and for free, linking the recent Villain Out-Break Incidents to a single supply chain. Eizo Tanuma and Kuin Hachisuka both debut, and Kuin's Queen Bee turns dozens of civilians into Instant Villains in a mass attack that draws out the Pro Heroes, All Might included. Knuckleduster destroys one of her bees and injures her without ever identifying her.

At thirty-three pages, the chapter is one of the longer entries in the Vigilantes Beginnings Arc. It ran on February 11, 2017 and was collected in Volume 1, with Kazuho Haneyama on the cover. Two bystanders in the crowd scenes are drawn after the protagonist and Pikachu from Pokémon. Episode 3 of the Vigilantes anime adapts the material.