Chapter 59 (Vigilantes)

Out on patrol, Shota takes a call from Midnight. She is enjoying teaching at U.A., mentions that Hizashi Yamada starts next semester, and points out that he is the only holdout. Shota answers that he never agreed to anything, and she relays Present Mic's read: he just needs a decent shove. Irritated that Hizashi has opinions about him at all, Shota calls him a meddler. Midnight does not disagree, but tells him he has been dodging what actually matters, which gets her lumped in with Hizashi as a nose-poker before he hangs up.

Right then he spots a wolf-like villain chasing Koichi and a small girl, the vigilante clutching a box that holds a kitten. Shota steps in, drops the villain without difficulty, and calls the police. Koichi explains: the girl found the cat near the station, he stopped to help, and the villain turned up out of nowhere just to harass the cat, so they ran. The girl asks them to look after the kitten and goes.

Rain starts and the two take cover under an awning. Asked what he intends to do with the cat, Koichi figures he will take it home, which earns him a full inventory of what a cat actually requires and the advice to put it back where he found it if he is not ready. Koichi asks whether he has something against cats, since he keeps avoiding looking at it. Shota only says he refuses to be swayed by feelings: someone unprepared for the responsibility should not get involved to begin with.

The memory surfaces anyway. Sixteen, second year at U.A., summertime, his spirits on the floor and his usefulness as a hero looking like zero. Walking to school through the rain, he found a box holding a soaked kitten and left his umbrella over it, then arrived at homeroom drenched. His teacher told him to change; he said he was fine, and was told that looking after his own health matters for a student on the hero path. He could not picture that path at all, and said as much to himself: powerless.

Hizashi Yamada overheard, read the gloom, and started ribbing him to lift the mood. A third voice joined in at both their expense: Oboro Shirakumo, a classmate, had come in through the window on a cloud of his own making, and the teacher told him doors exist for a reason. Dripping himself, Oboro interrupted roll call hunting for a towel, then returned Shota's umbrella. Shota tried to ask what had been underneath it, but Hizashi cut in to ask why Oboro was stripping. His underwear was wet too, he said, so he would be changing into gym clothes right there. Ignoring the reaction, he covered his lower half with a cloud, declaring his Quirk built for exactly this, worked in a joke that set off the room, and then produced the cat he had rescued from the rain, which the class adored. Shota recognized it as the one he had left under his umbrella.

The rain stops. Both boys are in gym clothes, roll call resumes, and Oboro sets the cat down on a pillow of cloud. Looking back, the adult Shota remembers how powerless he felt, and understands that Oboro's cheerfulness is where his own grim streak began, slowly, to give.

Midnight presses Shota Aizawa about teaching at U.A., noting that Hizashi Yamada joins the staff next semester and that Shota alone is holding out. He defeats a wolf villain harassing Koichi and lectures him on the responsibility a cat demands.

A flashback to Shota's second summer at U.A. introduces his classmate Oboro Shirakumo and his Cloud Quirk, and reveals that the kitten Shota sheltered with his umbrella was the one Oboro rescued. Shota credits Oboro's cheerfulness with beginning to change his outlook.

Nineteen pages, published August 9, 2019 and collected in volume eight of the Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court spin-off, with Eraser Head and The Crawler on the cover.

The chapter opens the School Days arc after the Sky Egg storyline and is adapted as Episode 19. Oboro Shirakumo and the Wolf Villain both debut. Chapter 58 precedes it and Chapter 60 follows.