WARNING: The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia #315, by Kohei Horikoshi, Caleb Cook and John Hunt, available now in English from Viz Media.
Chapter 315 of My Hero Academia is the finale of the clash between Deku and Lady Nagant in the dark, villain-ridden streets of lawless Japan. Deku makes a bold save, Lady Nagant questions her understanding of pro-heroism, and in a shocking twist, the ultimate victor of their battle may be a third player entirely.
The chapter opens with a flashback. Lady Nagant and Overhaul are changing out of their prison uniforms, and the latter confesses that he knows the kid she's tasked with hunting down. Lady Nagant asks him to accompany her to I.D. Deku, and he agrees on one condition: that she help him get to his yakuza boss afterward. He's a broken man, with only the love he had for his comatose father figure left to him.
We shift back to present time, with Overhaul shouting at her that it's time for her to fulfill her end of the deal. Lady Nagant aims her rifle at him with the intention of forcing Deku into a corner -- the more factors he has to consider, such as saving Overhaul, the more likely he is to make a mistake she can capitalize upon. But she makes a mistake of her own in not truly comprehending Deku's skill.
Using his newest Quirk to the fullest, Deku shoots forward faster than a bullet to drag Overhaul out of its flight path. Fa Jin receives a more detailed explanation than in previous chapters, described as a power where, "Repeated movements build up motion-based energy for temporary storage and release." This in combination with One For All 45% allows him to achieve a state he calls "Faux 100 Percent."
Deku thinks about how when he limits how many Quirks he's using, he's less likely to lose control. Narrowing his usage down to One For All, Blackwhip and Fa Jin allows him to maintain the pressure on Lady Nagant without slipping up, and he takes advantage of this to rapidly burst towards her. She's unable to react in time, and he destroys her gun barrel with a Faux 100% Manchester Smash.
Lady Nagant reflects on Deku's lack of hesitation -- how he recognized Overhaul as an enemy but still saved him -- and wonders when she started seeing that kind of heroism as mere platitudes. But Deku's not yet done offering a hand of salvation to his enemies. He shouts that he knows her shot at Overhaul was off by a little bit, and that if she had wanted to take Deku himself out too, she would have inflicted a disabling shot on him before he was aware of her presence. Believing that she still has the soul of a hero, he asks her to fight on his side.
She smiles and begins to tell him something. But before she can get all the words out, her face cracks apart.
Far away somewhere in Japan, All For One laughs and reveals he added a failure clause to her contract to hunt down Deku. An explosion lights up the shadowed skyscrapers with Lady Nagant at the heart of it. Deku screams in horror even as Hawks arrives, swooping in to catch her charred body.
"To the very end you were just a tool to be used. Curse your blessing of a Quirk, if you must," All For One says. "Alas, the hapless, woeful Lady Nagant ..."
My Hero Academia Chapter 316 will release on June 13th through Viz Media.
