Chapter 45 (Vigilantes)

The Man Returns (帰ってきた男) is the forty-fifth chapter of Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court's My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

Summary
In the hospital, Soga and his friends Moyuru and Rapt take care of Tamao Oguro. Rapt play the fool with Tamao's guitar, which makes her laugh, and Moyuru asks her to play. She confesses that she just played the guitar to piss off her father. Soga grabs the guitar and tunes it. Moyuru did not know that Soga knew about music and Rapt tells him that Soga had a guitar, but he smashes it in a fight. Soga returns the instrument to Tamao, telling her that she has the privilege of being able to play music, something that many other people do not have.

At that moment, Knuckleduster enters the room. Tamao only says that his beard is gross and Soga criticizes him for being away a long time. Knuckleduster cannot deny it, but he asks Soga to stay a while longer, since he has to catch up with an old pal, but promises that as soon as he finishes he will visit her again. His daughter only asks him to shave his beard. When Knuckleduster leaves, Soga asks Tamao to make some noise with the guitar, just to annoy her old man. Tamao agrees and Rapt and Moyuru make fun of Soga for being a sweetheart.

In a secluded spot, Knuckleduster meets Detective Eizo Tanuma, who turns out to be aware of Knuckleduster's past as the hero O'Clock, and now he calls himself Mr. Kuroiwa. Knuckleduster secretly gives him a memory card with all the information he could get in Hong Kong about Trigger traffic, with the names of some Japanese importers.

When Knuckleduster is about to leave, Eizo tells him that the police have had an encounter with a villain who has an acceleration Quirk, very similar to O'Clock’s. Eizo asks him if he knows who he is, but Knuckleduster says no, but he advises him that, if they come across the villain again, they'll shoot him down immediately. The detective says they can gunning people like that, because it would give a bad image to the Police Force. Knuckleduster tells him that then he will take down that evildoer. After this, they separate.

In another area of Naruhata, Koichi is running away from a train-headed villain near the Hotta brothers' shop, although on that occasion Shota Aizawa is not there to help him. Kazuho has the idea of calling Midnight to help, the Hotta brothers are happy about the possibility of seeing the R-18 Hero again. Ichiro Hotta yells to Koichi to leading the villain around in circles until help arrives. Sitting on the rooftop of a near building, Knuckleduster observes proudly how Koichi gets on alone.

Knuckleduster leaves the place without contacting Koichi. In his escape, the young vigilante passes close to his master, believing he has seen him, but he does not recognize him completely and soon attributes it to his imagination.

Trivia

 * This chapter was initially titled Mr. Kuroiwa (黒岩さん), but was amended for the volume release.