Chapter 178

The Woman Called La Brava (ラブラバという) is the one hundred and seventy-eighth chapter of Kohei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia.

Summary
At U.A. High School, Neito Monoma comments on Itsuka Kendo's gorgeous dress, to which Itsuka interprets Neito's remark as belittling, but Neito assures her that he was complementing her since he entered her in the beauty pageant and is a surefire to win. However, Nejire Hado is indifferent since the winner has not been declared yet. As Nejire wishes Itsuka good luck, Bibimi Kenranzaki arrives and arrogantly states that she will win.

Mirio Togata, Shota Aizawa, and Eri are riding in a taxi to U.A. Mei Hatsume is told to clean up for the festival. Midnight is discussing with Toshinori Yagi about Izuku's permission to leave, as the boy needed to go shopping.

At the construction site, Izuku Midoriya jumps down using the construction beam which bounces and discovers that traces of Gentle Criminal's Elasticity remains. As such, Izuku goes to the construction hook that Gentle and La Brava used and sling shots himself towards him. Izuku manages to catch up while Gentle wishes to save La Brava's Quirk until they have to retreat. As they land in the forest, La Brava believes that she must use her Quirk otherwise they are doomed to fail. Izuku sees Gentle in firing range and, remembering the positions of the elastic aerial barriers Gentle created, Izuku jumps off one of Gentle's elastic aerial barriers and lands behind him.

Gentle creates an elastic aerial barrier behind him. However, Izuku fires his Delaware Smash Air Force at the front elastic aerial barrier. The force rebounds off the barrier and directly hits Gentle, damaging him. As La Brava rushes to the damaged Gentle's aid, Izuku uses his enhanced speed and pins down both La Brava and Gentle. Gentle is unable to move as Izuku tells the duo to stop resisting and surrender. La Brava starts becoming teary eyed as Gentle's grand ambition is slipping away.

La Brava remembers her past and how she came to meet Gentle. At the beginning of summer vacation at her first year of middle school, La Brava whose real name is Manami Aiba, wrote a love letter to a boy she liked, but the boy dismissed Aiba's love letter and saw her as a stalker. Pained by the rejection, Aiba stopped believing in anything and became a reclusive adolescent with no goals or aspirations, gluing herself to her computer screen all day long.

One day while surfing the net, Aiba found Gentle's video about him changing the world's deplorable state for the better; Aiba became inspired by Gentle and desired to meet him and eventually did who welcomed her with open arms. After spending time with him and Aiba becoming attracted to him, Gentle decided to make Aiba his sidekick and gave her the villain name La Brava, believing that they will be the perfect combo. Izuku declares his intention to hand both of them over to the Police Force.

Refusing to let Gentle's ambition die, La Brava goes against Gentle's wishes and activates her Quirk, telling him that she loves him, which Gentle reciprocates. By whispering the word "love" to them, La Brava can power up the person she loves most for a short period of time. The deeper her love for the person, the stronger the power boost is and when used at a critical time, the power boost is multiplied by a dozen. Suddenly, Izuku is knocked back by the powered up Gentle who frees himself and kicks Izuku aside, wishing to not use brute force. Wanting to end the battle quickly and while apologizing to Izuku, the powered up Gentle delivers an enhanced karate chop to Izuku which hits him, having declared himself the victor since love will always prevail in the end.

However, Izuku states that he has fought people who were stronger and faster than him several times and has not lost yet, which surprises Gentle as it is revealed that he hit Izuku's arm leaving it scraped. Izuku puts his scraped arm over his shoulder and prepares to fire a Delaware Smash Air Force at the powered up Gentle.

Chapter Notes

 * La Brava's Quirk is revealed to be Love.
 * La Brava's real name is revealed to be Manami Aiba.

Author's Comment
"I thought my hay fever, which has been dormant for a while, had suddenly returned. But then it went dormant again. What the?"

- Kohei Horikoshi

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