Chapter 82

What a Twist! is the eighty-second chapter of Kōhei Horikoshi's Boku no Hero Academia.

Summary
Inside the facility at the time of Mandalay’s telepathic notice, Eijirou and Mina ask Blood King to allow them to fight in order to help Katsuki. However, Blood King prevents the students in the building from fighting because although Shouta’s order allowed them to fight, his order was meant to allow the students to defend themselves. Someone approaches the facility and blows down the door with flames; Blood King saves Eijirou and Mina from the impact of the flames. Outside the destroyed it is a clone of Dabi. Blood King takes action and smashes the Dabi clone into the wall. Unable to escape or fight back due to Blood King restraining his body with Blood Manipulation, the Dabi clone explains another goal of the Vanguard Action Squad besides capturing Katsuki. The Dabi clone states that while society could forgive U.A. for the attack on the USJ, society will not be so forgiving when another attack happens again. The Dabi clone explains that the Vanguard Action Squad’s attack at the training camp and the capture of Katsuki Bakugou will cause society to criticize U.A. for its sloppy management as well as blame U.A. for letting another attack happen again, which will hurt U.A.’s reputation and slowly sever society’s trust in Heroes. Suddenly, Shouta appears and defeats the Dabi clone, causing the clone to extinguish. Shouta hands Kouta’s safety over to Blood King. Shouta notes that the villains are using clones to keep the Pro Heroes occupied due to their lack of numbers; the students of Class 1-A wish to fight since there are a small number of villains. Shouta refuses their action and orders them to stay with Blood King since they do not have enough information on the villains' mission, deciding that the safety of all students is top priority; he goes back outside and heads to the frontlines.

Back in the present at the Vanguard Action Squad’s rendezvous point, Dabi asks Mr. Compress to dodge and launches his flames. Mr. Compress uses his Quirk to compress himself to avoid the attack; Shouto is able to dodge Dabi’s flames, but Izuku and Mezou are not able to, causing their right and left arms respectfully to be hit by the flames. In an instant, Twice appears behind Shouto and attacks him, only for Shouto to block Twice’s attack with his ice which sends Twice reeling. Himiko also decides to fight and attacks Izuku, telling him her name and thinks that he should bleed more. Mezou smacks Himiko off Izuku while Shouto deals with Twice. Mr. Compress deactivates his Quirk and approaches Dabi, preparing to give the captured Fumikage and Katsuki to him. However, he searches his pocket and is unable to find the marbles containing the targets; Mezou reveals that he took the marbles from Mr. Compress immediately after they landed on the ground.

Suddenly, the Vanguard Action Squad’s Noumu appears as well as Kurogiri who has arrived to teleport them away. Himiko, Twice and the Noumu go into Kurogiri’s Warp Gate and successfully teleport away. Mr. Compress reveals that the marbles Mezou took are not the captured targets and are decoys instead; the marbles Mezou took transform into ice, which shocks Mezou. Mr. Compress removes his mask and sticks out his tongue which has the actual marbles; the magician puts his mask back on while explaining that he wanted to give the young Heroes a sense of false hope and is satisfied by it as well as his flaunting which he considers a bad habit. Mr. Compress slowly enters Kurogiri’s portal after bidding farewell. Having overheard what is happening; Yuuga takes action and fires his Navel Laser at Mr. Compress’s face, which breaks Compress’s mask and causing Mr. Compress to spit out the marbles containing Fumikage and Katsuki. Izuku, Mezou and Shouto rush to grab the marbles, although Izuku starts succumbing to his injuries which causes him to fall to the ground. Mezou and Shouto continue rushing towards the marbles; Mezou grabs the marble containing Fumikage, thus saving him. Shouto is almost in reach of the marble containing Katsuki and nearly grabs it, but Dabi snatches it away before Shouto can grab it.

With Katsuki in his grasp, Dabi orders Mr. Compress to deactivate his Quirk; he does so which frees Fumikage and Katsuki from their marble prisons. Dabi and Mr. Compress begin teleporting away along with Katsuki. As the teleportation is nearing completion, Izuku gets up and desperately tries to stop Dabi from taking Katsuki but to no avail. Before teleporting with the villains, Katsuki tells Izuku to stay away. Dabi, Mr. Compress and the captured Katsuki successfully teleport away.

The Vanguard Action Squad has disappeared from the battlefield along with Katsuki. Izuku howls in grief due to being unable to save Katsuki.