Chapter 93 (Vigilantes)

The maddened Masquerade fighters are still tearing through shopping streets and housing blocks while police and nearby heroes struggle to contain them. Eizo Tanuma reaches for backup and never finishes the call. All Might lands, and the crisis simply ends: villains down, civilians pulled clear, a stack of other problems handled in the same breath. When Eizo starts briefing him on the situation still unfolding indoors, Kurogiri notes bitterly that the distraction bought almost nothing. All For One disagrees with a grin. It bought three seconds.

Under the garage, O'Clock and The Rapper keep working the Hooded Man over. O'Clock reads the creature as a rebuilt engine of destruction whose enormous attacks grow easier to predict the longer they run. The Rapper holds its attention with a wall of punches while O'Clock circles for the quieter work, a knife across the body here, a shoulder into the balance there. Stepping back to breathe, he watches the Hooded Man tear loose a section of the ring cage and flatten The Rapper with it, smarter than its bulk suggests, and the follow-up swing has nowhere to be dodged. Tiger Bunny drops in and kicks the thing off its feet.

Both men tell her to go. She refuses to spectate, saying a hero in training does not turn her back on a villain, and O'Clock keeps his approval to himself. The Hooded Man rises howling that killing all three will make it the strongest. Those returning seconds cost All For One his window, because All Might is now on top of them. Kurogiri opens a Warp Gate and pulls the Hooded Man out mid-protest that the fight is not finished. All Might arrives to an empty room and a confused report from Tiger Bunny that the target slipped away, while O'Clock keeps his own conclusions private.

All Might resolves the street-level chaos almost the instant he arrives, giving All For One the three seconds he claimed to need and nothing more.

Tiger Bunny's return saves O'Clock from an ambush by the Hooded Man and costs the villains their remaining time.

Kurogiri warps the Hooded Man out of the garage moments ahead of All Might's arrival, leaving the heroes with no target.

The chapter runs nineteen pages, published January 9, 2021, and sits in the Underground Masquerade arc collected in Volume 12. O'Clock, Tiger Bunny, The Rapper and All For One share the cover, with All Might present only as a silhouette.

Its original serialized title was Three Seconds. The longer form, Three-Second-Back-and-Forth, was adopted when the volume was compiled.