Neo Heroes Introduction Arc

Seventeenth in the overall run and second within the Neo Heroes Saga, this installment marks a turning point for the setting's hero landscape. It introduces the Neo Heroes, a well-funded new organization luring away talent from a Hero Association battered by Garou's hunt, and threads through numerous heroes reckoning with their futures in the wake of the Monster Association war.

In the present, the vigilante Accel and the sumo wrestler Raiden both turn down S-Class offers, dismissing the Hero Association as corrupt and pointing to a promising new outfit already courting its sponsors and personnel. Across the city, the aftermath sinks in: Fubuki resolves to climb into A-Class, Tanktop Master vows to retrain, and a fearful Superalloy Darkshine wrestles with the fights ahead. Zombieman presses Dr. Genus to remove his limiter, while an aging Bang tells Kamikaze he intends to retire, feeling responsible for having produced Garou.

When the Forest Tribe invades Y-City, Genos wipes them out with a fresh upgrade and challenges Saitama to a sparring match, confessing that he feels stagnant and is weighing a move to the Neo Heroes. Saitama's flat refusal to join leads Genos to stay put as well. Elsewhere, Kamikaze and his disciples track down King and test him, and although King bluffs his way out, a single unseen sword stroke leaves the master convinced of his impossible skill.

The story soon confirms that four notable figures, Superalloy Darkshine, Metal Bat, Child Emperor, and the staffer McCoy, have defected to the Neo Heroes, cementing the fledgling group as a genuine rival power. King, desperate to expose his own fraud and finally get real training, is passed from dojo to dojo until he arrives at a remote mountain temple, where he discovers Garou meditating beneath a waterfall.