My Hero

One For All at one hundred percent hurls Muscular into the cliff face hard enough to take a chunk of the rock with him. The blast throws Kota clear too, and Izuku Midoriya catches the boy's shirt in his teeth and drags him back onto solid ground. He apologizes and decides they should run while the villain is down, but Muscular is already rising: Muscle Augmentation cushioned the hit, though it did leave a mark. He compliments the strength while Izuku struggles to accept that a blow matching All Might's output left the man conscious. Rattled and short on ideas, Izuku stalls by asking what the League of Villains actually wants. Muscular neither knows nor cares, as long as he gets to cut loose and enjoy himself. Playtime, he announces, is finished, and he swaps out his artificial eye for a fresh one to prove he means it.

Izuku tells Kota to hold on and takes off on Full Cowl. The first swing misses; the second nearly connects and sends them both rolling back toward the cliff. Wrecked, Izuku considers luring the villain to the facility so Shota Aizawa could erase the Quirk, then discards the idea, since he cannot outrun him. There is only one option left, which is to win. He tells Kota to bolt for the facility the instant the two of them collide, and Kota, having watched every attack fail, doubts it. A hundred percent Detroit Smash holds Muscular in place long enough for Izuku to shout at the boy to run, though the villain treats the whole struggle as pointless. He starts winning the clash, grinding Izuku toward the dirt while demanding blood, and Izuku apologizes in his head to his mother and to All Might, remembering that All Might went past his own ceiling against the Nomu.

He is driven into the ground. Then water hits Muscular, and Kota is standing there telling him to stop. Muscular promises to kill the boy once he finishes the first job. That answer breaks something loose. Izuku forces him back, off, and up, and lands a 1,000,000% Delaware Detroit Smash that flings him into the cliff with enough force to pop the artificial eye out of his skull and leave him incapacitated.

Kota cannot process that a stranger who knows nothing about him would go this far, and the tears come. Mandalay's words return to him: one day, in a moment like this, he would understand why his parents chose to die for other people, and why heroes gamble their lives so that someone, someday, gets to call them my hero. He sobs while Izuku roars in triumph.

Muscular survives a full-power One For All by absorbing it with Muscle Augmentation, then drops the pretense of playing.

Kota blasts Muscular with his water Quirk, the first time he uses it to protect someone.

Izuku finishes the villain with 1,000,000% Delaware Detroit Smash, ending the fight.

Kota comes to understand what heroes are for, and why his parents made the choice they did.

The chapter runs twenty-two pages and carries a color page. Its cover is a large ensemble spread of the League of Villains alongside the U.A. students and All Might.

1,000,000% Delaware Detroit Smash debuts here. The Izuku versus Muscular fight concludes. Episode 42 adapts the chapter.

Horikoshi's author comment plugs a special edition of Volume 7 packaged with a drama CD, for which he drew a great deal of extra art including the cover.