WARNING: The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Vol. 29, by Kohei Horikoshi, Caleb Cook and John Hunt, available now in English from Viz Media.
My Hero Academia Vol. 29 has hit the shelves, and it raises the ongoing Paranormal Liberation War to a fever pitch as the villains show off the full force of their power. The volume covers Chapters 277-285 of the manga in a nonstop, life-or-death brawl where the heroes do all they can just to stay alive. Deku and his allies are in a deadly clash against Shigaraki, Gigantomachia is closing in on them and Class 1-A alone stands in the path between this rampaging monster and utter annihilation.
The volume begins in the rubble of Jaku City. In the aftermath of a Decay wave that took out much of the town, only a motley force of heroes remains to deal with Shigaraki – including Endeavor, Deku, Bakugo and Aizawa. Despite temporarily disabling Shigaraki's All For One and Decay Quirks, the heroes are still struggling to put him down on account of his new synthetic body. Both the heroes and Shigaraki are beaten and bloodied but resolute in seeing the battle to its finish.
The pro-heroes aren't happy that Deku and Bakugo have joined the fight but recognize that they need all the firepower they can get to take down Shigaraki. The two sides trade blows, with neither making significant headway. As long as Aizawa doesn't blink, Shigaraki can't unleash his full destructive power against the heroes. But Shigaraki ominously vows that he will reclaim his "Little Brother," causing both him and Deku to realize that he's not in full control of himself – All For One's will is slowly seeping in.
Many kilometers away, Mt. Lady grapples with Gigantomachia. She fails to subdue the massive titan and instead can only slow him down by gritting her teeth and refusing to let go even as he continues his advance. Other heroes attempt to aid her, including Midnight and Kamui Woods. Midnight concludes that power alone won't stop Gigantomachia, and so she bravely swings towards him on the back of Kamui Woods. She instructs her fellow pro-heroes to get her near his face since her Quirk, Somnambulist, allows her to emit an aroma that puts everyone who breathes it in to sleep.
Neither she nor Kamui Woods are aware of the villains – Dabi, Mr. Compress, Spinner, Himiko Toga and Skeptic – riding on Gigantomachia's back, and so they unwittingly fly straight into enemy fire. Dabi lets out a torrent of flames, and Mr. Compress uses his Quirk to throw a giant slab of concrete at Midnight.
Midnight is struck by the concrete and crashes to the forest floor. Badly injured, she contacts Momo Yaoyorozu over the radio and instructs her to create sedatives to stop Gigantomachia. They have no way to stop him without this tactic. Yaoyorozu is willing but worried, not understanding why this vital task has been entrusted to her. In the next panel, it's revealed that a squad of Paranormal Liberation Front villains have closed in on Midnight. A man in a skull mask declares, "She's mine." As her parting words to Yaoyorozu, Midnight shouts, "I trust your judgment!"
Yaoyorozu screams into the radio but gets no response. Though she agonizes over whether or not to order her fellow classmates into battle against a seemingly unstoppable foe, she quickly asserts herself. Yaoyorozu begins manufacturing sedative canisters while directing the other students. She warns that no matter what, one of them needs to get a single canister into Gigantomachia's mouth.
Gigantomachia soon arrives, bounding straight into their traps at breakneck speed. He falls into Mudman's earthen pit; all the students rush forward and use their powers in concert to keep him trapped. But the League of Villains goes on the offensive. This gives Gigantomachia the opening to blast most of the students back with a sneeze, while the remainder are hampered by Dabi's walls of flame.
But, in a last-ditch effort, Mt. Lady surges up and punches Gigantomachia to the ground. The students rally and Mina Ashido rushes towards Gigantomachia. She doesn't count on recognizing her monstrous foe as the villain that terrorized her in middle school. Flinching, she loses her grip on the sedative she's carrying even as Gigantomachia rampages to break free from both Mt. Lady and the students' traps.
Kirishima races forward to save Mina, taking the sedative canister from her while he's at it. He claws his way up Gigantomachia's arm just as the massive villain escapes from Mt. Lady's grasp. "I am Red Riot!" Kirishima shouts. "And no one behind me is gonna bleed!" With that, he successfully tosses the sedative into Gigantomachia's mouth. The Class 1-B student Lizardy catches him as he falls. Yaoyorozu calls out that the sedative won't take effect right away. The more Gigantomachia moves around, the faster he'll fall under its influence. Majestic and a cavalry of other pro-heroes arrive to take things from there.
Back in Jaku City, Shigaraki monologues about how warped society has become under the guidance of heroes. "You've got the common trash, all too dependent on being protected," he says. "And the brave guardians who created the trash that need coddling. It's a corrupt, vicious cycle. Everything I've witnessed ... this whole system you've built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it." He defines himself as a villain willing to destroy a society built on lies.
Endeavor used Shigaraki's monologue as an opportunity to recover from overheating. He then rushes to deliver a fiery blow, only for Shigaraki to leap above the torrent of flames with a maniacal grin. He's about to descend upon Endeavor when Gran Torino slams Shigaraki into the dirt using the full force of his Quirk. Gran Torino, agile as always, immediately leaps off Shigaraki to retreat from the greatest danger zone -- but he's not fast enough.
Shigaraki catches Gran Torino by the boot, his grip so inhumanly powerful that Torino's leg is crushed. Deku shouts out in horror but is too far away to do any good because, in the next instant, Shigaraki punches Gran Torino straight through the chest. The .heroes can only stare, speechless. Deku's face becomes a mask of tears and rage, screaming that he'll never forgive Shigaraki. The white-haired killer just smiles hollowly and says he'll never forgive anyone.
Unleashing a 100% Wyoming Smash on Shigaraki, Deku breaks the villain's jaw. Ryukyu provides support by pinning Shigaraki to the ground when she notices that he's aiming two Quirk-erasing bullets at her fellow heroes. As someone who participated in the Overhaul raid, she's able to recognize the Quirk-erasing bullets for what they are in a split second and shout a warning to everyone else.
The other heroes react, but not quickly enough to save Aizawa from the incoming bullet aimed his way. It pierces him through his wounded leg. Aizawa's vow to live to take custody of Eri and see Class 1-A's graduation all likely steel his resolve for the decision he makes next. Taking his knife, Aizawa stabs his leg and severs it from his body.
But Shigaraki is determined to take Aizawa out of the fight by any means necessary. He bounds forward and has Aizawa by the face when he's suddenly impaled by a spike of ice – Shoto Todoroki has arrived as backup. The other heroes seize the moment to attack Shigaraki again.
We then cus away from the battle to show the chaos seconds from hitting the cities of the Greater Kyoto region. Ochaco, Tsuyu and Iida are evacuating Jaku City's civilians in the absence of Deku, Shoto and Bakugo, but wonder why the radio suddenly went silent when the civilians they're escorting start panicking at the news coming up on their phones. The trio of students ask to see the broadcast themselves, only to be horrified by what they see.
The reporter on the screen reads out a list of cities that must immediately evacuate on account of a "supermassive villain" heading towards Jaku City – a list that includes nineteen cities and counting even as the broadcast cuts off. Ochaco, Tsuyu and Iida can only stare into the distance, shocked at the sheer scale of it all.
That's the moment Ochaco realizes the situation is even worse and utters a horrified, "Most heroes ... are away for this mission, right?" For the heroes have vanished from their local patrol routes in order to combat the Paranormal Liberation Front, leaving all the civilians in evacuation zones defenseless.
Back at the fight against Shigaraki, the heroes have lost the upper hand now that he's regained the use of his Quirks, as Aizawa's self-amputation has forced him off the battlefield. However, the fact that Shigaraki only achieved 75% completion of the All For One transfer is starting to show itself as sudden bloody wounds are appearing across his body. Luckily for Shigaraki, he has his regeneration Quirk to fall back on, but it's an alarming weakness he's aware he wouldn't have if the procedure had gone according to plan.
Resolving to end this quickly, Shigaraki unleashes another Decay wave against the heroes to wither them to dust once and for all. However, Deku refuses to let such a tragedy come to pass. Leaping high into the sky, Deku activates a new Quirk stored in One For All. Known as Float, it once belonged to Nana Shimura, the seventh user of One For All. He combines Float with Blackwhip to lift all the other heroes on the battlefield safely in the sky where the deadly Decay wave cannot touch them. Deku swears in front of everyone that he's going to defeat Shigaraki from the skies.
His control over his Quirks is shaky, so Deku returns his allies to the ground once the Decay wave passes. Shigaraki and Deku then come to blows in the air. Deku punches him over and over again with 100% Smashes, thinking to himself that he has to defeat Shigaraki here and now, no matter what happens to him.
However, Endeavor, Shoto and Bakugo are troubled by this. They begin a plan of their own to take down Shigaraki, knowing Deku will lose this endurance match against the villain with his arms out of commission. Shoto and Bakugo fly Endeavor up to Shigaraki in order to keep the No. 1 hero as cool as possible; then, Endeavor grabs the villain and unleashes a point-blank Prominence Burn.
The gambit pays off. Shigaraki feels himself being burned alive, past the point that his regeneration powers are able to bring him back. Out of desperation, he accepts All For One's offer to submit to his control, allowing All For One to take control of his body. Forced Quirk Activation tendrils shoot out from Shigaraki's blackened, faceless body and skewer Endeavor in the shoulder and side. The tendrils lash out for Deku next.
At the moment the tendrils shoot for Deku, Bakugo narrates, "There were no thoughts in my head. My body just moved on its own." Mirroring Deku's attempt to save him from the slime villain in My Hero Academia Season 1, Bakugo shoves Deku out of the path of the tendrils and ends up being impaled in his stead. It's the ultimate sacrifice, but one the remaining heroes now must make count.