Boy Hero

Instead of trading blows, Phoenix Man grows fascinated by Child Emperor and his so-called costume, pulling the young hero into the Phoenix Space, a shared mental realm reserved for those who wear costumes. He lays out his wish to recruit the boy, convinced that Child Emperor has the ideal makings of a costume monster like himself. Recalling how he could never trust a soul during his mascot days, he insists the child longs for that same trust, offers to be that person, and proposes a new organization built on spiritual unity. To the boy's shock, he takes his hand, kneels, and earnestly pleads for his strength, aiming to monsterize him and steer him down the path he calls correct.

Child Emperor turns the offer down flat, wrenches free of the Phoenix Space, and slams the monster. Phoenix Man retaliates in Prominence Hawk Mode, hurling Brave Giant backward through a row of pillars, then shifts into Phoenix Fire Falcon Mode to blur around the mech and rain rapid strikes, vowing to peel its armor like an apple until the boy is forced past his limits. Child Emperor answers with an energy whip, swinging 20,000 Fold: Rope Skip Grinder like a jump rope to smash the monster into a pillar. When Phoenix Man unleashes Phoenix Flares, Brave Giant blocks them, and the monster suddenly finds himself snared in an electromagnetic web the boy had secretly strung mid-flight. Child Emperor lands a punch, but Phoenix Man catches it and triggers Full Power 10000C Prominence, which starts melting the mech's fist. Sensing water beneath them, Child Emperor removes the output limiters and drives them both plunging downward, thinking on how the monster's encouragement was something no one in the Hero Association had ever given him.

This one hundred second chapter had an unusually tangled release. Murata struggled to storyboard the fight and consulted ONE before settling the details, publishing it in redrawn pieces originally titled Take-Off and Heat Up before consolidating them and renaming the whole thing Boy Hero for Volume 22, with a final version arriving June 8, 2020. It adapts into anime Episode 33, features Garou and Saitama on the cover, and reveals the fate of the Subterranean People, absent since surrendering to Saitama back in Chapter 4.