Chapter 8 (Vigilantes)

Him ("あの人"のこと) is the eighth chapter of Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court's Vigilante - My Hero Academia: Illegals manga.

Summary
Kazuho Haneyama arrives at Koichi Haimawari's apartment while Koichi himself is busy fixing his hoodie due to it being ripped. After grabbing a pudding, Kazuho wonders why Koichi does not replace it with something new. Koichi refuses to since it is official All Might merch. Koichi tells Kazuho that he was planning eating the pudding, which makes her blush and causes her to blame him for not labelling the pudding, although Koichi does not mind.

As Koichi remarks on buying more pudding for her, Kazuho is annoyed that Koichi spends more time on his lame All Might hoodie. Koichi snaps at her because he refuses to allow anyone to insult his All Might hoodie since it means a lot to him. Koichi shows every limited edition All Might hoodie he has except for the silver age edition, which he is missing because he gave it to someone.

Koichi explains that until middle school, he was serious about becoming a Hero and signed up for a Hero course at a high school in Tokyo. On the way to the entrance exam at the high school, Koichi spotted a child drowning and tried to ignore it, but his Hero instincts kicked in. He jumped in to save the child and pulled him out of the water. Seeing that the child was cold and wet, Koichi gave the child his silver age edition All Might hoodie and rushed to the Hero course at the high school. However, Koichi did not make it in time and did not take the examination.

From time to time, Koichi still thinks about a future where he became a Hero if the incident did not occur. Koichi hopes that one day, the child he saved grows up to be a Hero who was inspired by being saved by his heroics, and hopes that his ideals reach the boy through the limited edition silver age All Might hoodie he gave him. Unimpressed at Koichi for messing up his Hero career so that he could rescue some nameless child, Kazuho goes home in a bad mood.

At home, Kazuho takes out the limited edition silver age All Might hoodie, revealing that she was the "boy" Koichi saved on the day of his examination, causing her to blush. Kazuho thinks back; on that day, she was trying to use her Leap Quirk to jump across a river as a shortcut, but it had been raining the previous night, causing the ground to become wet and slippery and the river to overflow. These factors caused her to fall into the river and start drowning, but was saved when Koichi came to her rescue. After that event, Kazuho could not get Koichi out of her mind and had been looking for him ever since, and although she has finally met him, she does not know how to properly thank him. She becomes annoyed at him for thinking that she cannot apologize.

After getting pudding to eat and returning to Koichi's apartment, Kazuho is grateful to him for saving her and is regretful that she made him miss his exam. Kazuho knows better than anyone else, that Koichi could have become a great Hero because he has always been a real Hero to her. Kazuho returns to Koichi's apartment and wants to talk to Koichi about something.

However, Knuckleduster's presence ruins her opportunity to tell Koichi that the boy he saved was actually her. Knuckleduster eats the pudding while Koichi asks Kazuho what she wanted to talk about. Annoyed at the inconvenience, she once again goes back home.

In her home, Kazuho puts on the limited edition silver age All Might hoodie, still thinking it is stupid that courage overflows from the hoodie according to Koichi's belief. Although she thinks it is dumb, deep down she believes there to be some truth in his belief.

Characters In Order of Appearance

 * Kazuho Haneyama
 * Koichi Haimawari
 * Soga Kugizaki (flashback)
 * Knuckleduster

Trivia

 * This chapter was initially titled Him (あの人), but this was amended in the volume release.