The End of An Era, And The Beginning (
Summary[]
Toshinori recalls his past.
Despite the eventful life he's led up to now, All Might believes his origin, consisting of precious moments such as reading Anpanman books as a little boy on his patio, and singing the "Anpanman March" while he did so as his mother laughed and sung along with him, was a simple one that anyone could've started off with.
As he thinks on his life and what he's done up till now, he looks back at the path he left in his wake, and spots several "lights" of something just as small and precious, but much more significant when examined closer.
Stain uses his sense of smell to find All For One's blood.
In the present, the man and Stain take advantage of the opening the Villain made using Bloodcurdle to resume the takedown of All For One. Back then at Ground Zero, Stain, after commending Shoto and Ingenium's heroic dedication to stopping Dabi by all means, he was able to deduce that All Might was in trouble based on his eavesdropping of their conversation. He then hopped on his glider and retraced the steps of where the retired Hero and the Villain fought and was able to scout and sniff out a useable sample of All For One's spilt blood on a broken chunk of concrete to use his Quirk on. Almost immediately afterward, he spotted "Can't Stop Twinkling" firing off in the distance.
As the two men close in, Stain knows All Might would understand the significance of someone like him putting himself out in the open like this, as like he said to All Might in their conversation back at Ground Zero, if a "god" like him were to bear the soul of the mortal, then he must bear the struggle to keep on living like they would. Stain is here to help that be realized, and as he readies his katana and All Might cocks his armored fist, the ex-Hero acknowledges that.
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All For One expels all the blood in his body to counter Bloodcurdle.
To their horror, their two clean hits were interrupted, as a fountain of blood billows from All For One's body, thanks to him using Forced Quirk Activation to trigger Bloodlet, which flushes every last liter of blood out of the boy's body. All For One yells at Stain, calling him by his real name, that he expected him to show up, as he was the only inmate from the Tartarus breakout who immediately escaped on his own terms instead of following him.
Stain tries to lick the expelled blood to paralyze him again but is quickly vised by a mouth morphing out of his spiked, shoulder growth. All For One tells him that it wouldn't work, since he swapped his blood type with Antigen Swap, and all of that fluid he dumped out of his body has made his energy spark back. All Might screams for Stain as he dives in to try and help, but All For One tosses the Villain through several blocks worth of buildings and into a large sign before flying towards him in an instant.
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Death of the Hero Killer.
All For One declares that he'll steal Bloodcurdle for himself, and remembers the Hero Killer was a big part of the League of Villains' development, especially Tomura's. He then tells the man that his role is drawing to his close, while hypocritically calling Stain a murderer. Stain has no energy left to fight and can only wheeze from the pain and exhaustion as he spots All Might flying towards him in desperation through his clouded vision. In his labored breath, Stain cranes his head up and tells All For One that his role doesn't end and that everything is a process.
Stain then reaches for the sky and cups his battered hands, and says that while he never took the path of higher education, watching the No. 1 Hero in action for all these years has taught the man everything about what a true Hero should be. In his dying breath, Stain tells All Might to live on and win the fight, as All For One crushes his body with a single punch and steals Bloodcurdle before he can finish saying his hero's name.
All Might sees a vision of Nana.
All For One then turns back and fires a laser from his palm at his archenemy, before it is suddenly blocked by the remains of Hercules's armor. The A.I. finishes the Hero Killer's words, as it too is obliterated, and All Might is unfortunately swallowed by the aftershock.
A battered and bloodied All Might, bearing eyes without their shadow for the first time in years, hallucinates Nana crying out to him in a white void, encouraging her successor to keep fighting as the story he's in still needs to be told. He then sees Sir Nighteye looking down at him with a pensive expression, and admits to himself that he can longer fight, since Hercules' assistance and his Armored All Might have been reduced to scrap, and his legs are crushed and rendered feeble. All Might slowly comes back to reality, as he lies face up on the filthy road with rain pouring down on his defeated state.
All For One fails to warp Tomura.
Although his body is past his limit, his grits his teeth and keeps his spirit burning, fuelled by his promise to Inko to take care of Izuku, and another promise he made to that same to boy to keep fighting the grim fate that was spelled out to him by Sir Nighteye, so he can see his successor grow up and take the mantle he's been working tirelessly for. All Might says that he's not dead yet and uses his remaining energy to flip himself onto his stomach and stare All For One dead in the eye, goading him to come down here.
While the opportunity is ripe to waste his longtime adversary, the young Villain puts it on hold to look out at the shoreline, as he gleefully watches a smoking U.A. inch closer to the ground while Deku continues to hold back Tomura in the giant, energized whirlwind both combatants kicked up.
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Deku and Tomura's battle continues from afar.
At the Coffin in the Sky, the last remaining Twice Doubles begin to disappear, and Mei declares that they they're now light and stable enough to keep the structure airborne. However, the situation still worsens, as one of Naomasa's men alerts the detective that All For One has reached the minimum range to use Warping on Tomura. The Villain prepares to transport Tomura directly to himself, and by forcefully giving his protege the massive amounts of reproduced Quirks in his own body, he will turn his successor into a being that far surpasses his own strength. All Might crawls closer and tries shouting for the boy to come get him to stall for more time, but All For One is much too focused on his main goal to care.
He says that Deku needs to be out of their way in order to pull this mass transfer off, so All For One beckons for his protege to come to him as he activates Warping, and the disgusting sludges spews out of Tomura's mouth. However, Tomura rejects the transfer and gulps the fluid down, as he threateningly tells his Master not to interrupt the fight. All For One just looks at him flatly, acknowledging that the man has fully regained consciousness of his body. A wide, obsessive smile then crawls across his cheeks as he flies down to the road to answer All Might's desperate call, with the battered ex-Hero flashing a similar grin back at him.
All For One shows the world the beaten Symbol of Peace.
Shortly after, Futo and Ronaudo freeze up and shriek in terror as their eyes and cellphones catch something flying towards the school: All For One, with a devilish grin and holding All Might by the back of his knee, as the man's body helplessly flaps around in the wind. The Villain can barely keep himself together, as he tells All Might that he's about take responsibility for showing the youth his futile dream.
From afar, Tomura notices the display and eggs Deku to let him go so the boy can run off to save his idol, and his newly awarded spare time can be spent on murdering all the people who fought him on the Coffin in the Sky. While Deku keeps his hold, he gets an eyeful of the mutilated body of his master and Hero, and shudders as the memory of him promising to twist fate alongside All Might rushes to his mind. He clenches his teeth and struggles to hold back tears at the sight and feels the vestige of All Might inside One For All slowly fading to sparks, before he hoarsely whispers his name.
All Might is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice...
While wading in his ruin, All Might thinks about the first day they met, when the then-middle schooler asked if it's possible to become a Hero even if he doesn't have a Quirk. While he said the opposite back then, All Might goes back on his answer now, as he knows Izuku pushes himself to the fullest when it comes to everything he throws himself into and says that the boy isn't the type to fully abandon that dream.
All Might then says he can't abandon his own dream of being a Symbol of Peace either, as he reaches up and wraps his arms around All For One's shoulders with a blank, decrepit stare on his face. All For One then flinches as the action gives him flashbacks of his final battle with Nana and remembers what she told him before he killed her: he was going to be indisputably defeated by All Might down the line, as she feels her successor is crazier than he is.
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...only for All For One to ruin it.
Suddenly a piece of armor on All Might's now-exposed left forearm begins to glow bright orange, as the man prepares to go for a suicide bomb, with the hopes that the resulting explosion will regress All For One back to around the age of a preschooler. As he thinks backs on what he's left behind, All For One cuts All Might's noble sacrifice short by skewering his arm with a few Spearlike Bones, shorting out the device.
All For One then grabs All Might by the throat with his left arm and paralyzes him with Bloodcurdle using the bloody residue on his right hand. He knows full well how scary wounded Heroes can be, so he's not going to get sloppy and give the retired man any room to accomplish anything. Fully drained and truly out of options, All Might's eyes widen from bewilderment as he aimlessly stutters, and the rush of euphoria All For One feels from the look on his face reaches such a high, that the smile he made in response tears open the skin and muscles on his mouth and stretches up to his eyeline.
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All For One stops Gentle from getting in his way.
La Brava asks Gentle to go help All Might now that U.A. is stable, but before he can leave, All For One blows a tunnel into the levitation system and totals it, forcing the man to maintain his hold on the school. Star and Stripe's X-66 flight squadron then dives down to prepare a laser barrage on the Villain, but he quickly slices the planes in two and sends them tumbling to the ruined city.
All For One maniacally lifts the former No. 1 Hero's body up in the air for the world to see clearly, as All Might's loved ones, fellow Heroes, the countless people he's saved and inspired, and everyone else on the planet watch as what slowly unfolds appears to be the grizzly end for the man and the era he ushered in.
Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight returns.
In these few nail-biting seconds, Deku instinctively reaches up at his teacher, as Naomasa shuts his eyes and buries his face into his fists, silently begging for someone to save his longtime friend.
As if his prayers were answered then and there, a colossal, bright explosion bursts atop the plummeting wreck of the Coffin in the Sky. From the fizzling light, Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight looks out, caked in blood and sparks of his explosive sweat trickling down, but unquestionably alive and clutching the trading card he's always wanted All Might to sign. Deku looks up at his friend and gasps with tears spraying out of his eyes, as Dynamight stares right back at him.
The beginning of a new era.
When All Might looks back at those precious "lights" he leaves behind, he sees two of them being cheerfully waved around and marvelled at by a young Izuku and Katsuki, as the light shapes himself into the pair of those same All Might trading cards they mutually unwrapped one afternoon.
While the end of All Might's era still treks on, a new beginning for him and everyone is instantly born thanks to those two, as it seems that the story of the Symbol of Peace won't end in despair.
Characters In Order of Appearance[]
- Toshie Yagi (Debut, Flashback)
- All Might
- All For One
- Stain
- Ingenium (Flashback)
- Shoto (Flashback)
- Nana Shimura (Fantasy)
- Sir Nighteye (Fantasy)
- Inko Midoriya (Flashback)
- Twice (Doubles)
- Creati
- Mei Hatsume
- Naomasa Tsukauchi
- Tomura Shigaraki
- Deku
- Himiko Toga (Flashback)
- Kamui Woods (Flashback)
- Dabi (Flashback)
- Kurogiri (Flashback)
- Futo Nagashira
- Ronaudo Keage
- Manual (Flashback)
- Phantom Thief (Flashback)
- Eraserhead (Flashback)
- Best Jeanist (Flashback)
- Lemillion (Flashback)
- Nejire Chan (Flashback)
- Suneater (Flashback)
- Mirko (Flashback)
- Muscular (Flashback)
- Yoichi Shigaraki (Flashback, Vestige)
- Toshitsugu Kudo (Flashback, Vestige)
- Bruce Lee (Flashback, Vestige)
- Hikage Shinomori (Flashback, Vestige)
- Daigoro Banjo (Flashback, Vestige)
- En Tayutai (Flashback, Vestige)
- La Brava
- Gentle
- Ethan Drive
- Star And Stripe (Flashback)
- Timothy Agpar
- Tamashiro
- Melissa Shield
- Sorahiko Torino
- Katsuki Bakugo
Quirks[]
- All For One (Duplicate)
- Luminescence
- Bloodlet
- Antigen Swap
- Unnamed Repulsion Quirk
- Spearlike Bones
- Bloodcurdle
- Engine (Flashback)
- Transform
- Double
- Infinite Doubles: Sad Man's Death Parade
- Sad Man's Legion
- Double
- Creation
- One For All
- Blackwhip
- Warping (Flashback)
- Manual's Quirk (Flashback)
- Copy (Flashback)
- Erasure (Flashback)
- Fiber Master (Flashback)
- Permeation (Flashback)
- Wave Motion (Flashback)
- Rabbit (Flashback)
- Jet (Flashback)
- Elasticity
- Explosion
All Might's Technology[]
- Hercules
- Armored All Might
- Can't Stop Twinkling
- Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight
Locations[]
- Yagi Family Home (Debut, Flashback)
- Ido City
- Ground Zero (Flashback)
- Hosu City (Flashback)
- Tatooin Station (Flashback)
- U.A. High School
- Coffin in the Sky
- Tartarus (Flashback)
- Midoriya Apartment (Flashback)
- Shield Family Lab
- Central Hospital
Battles & Events[]
- All Might vs. All For One: Finale (Continued)
- U.A. Students vs. Hero Killer: Stain (Flashback)
- Deku vs. Tomura Shigaraki (Continued)
- Nana Shimura vs. All For One (Flashback)
- "Tomura Shigaraki" vs. Star and Stripe (Flashback)
Anime & Manga Differences[]
- The anime extends the scene of young Toshinori reading Anpanman with his mother and includes a full shot of their family home instead of just the patio.
- In the manga, when All Might is walking down his "path", he imagines himself back in middle school. In the anime, it's his current appearance.
- The anime extends the scene of Stain tracking All Might and searching for traces of All For One's blood and adds a sequence of him spotting "Can't Stop Twinkling" firing off before he joined the fight.
- When Hercules tells All Might to live on before being destroyed by All For One, the manga cuts off its words before exploding.
- Before All Might crawls on the street, the anime adds him being motivated by his promise to keep Izuku safe he made to Inko, and his promise to Izuku to fight the fate Sir Nighteye warned him about.
- The anime excludes the scenes of the Police confirming the neutralization of Dabi and Himiko.
- The anime extends the buildup to Futo and Ronaudo spotting All For One and All Might.
- During All Might's recollection of Izuku's journey, the anime shows flashbacks from across the entire series, instead of just Izuku in the Entrance Exam.
- The anime extends the scene of the "lights" being left in All Might's path and being picked up by Izuku and Katsuki.
Trivia[]
- This episode's title was cut off and rendered as The End of an Era, and — (
The End of An Era ,And — Ji Endo Obu An Iara, Ando —?) in its preview from the previous one, in a similar way to how it is initially presented in the manga.