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| Tenya Iida was intense even at 8. |
Last time on My Hero Academia,
things were not looking good for the fledgling Ingenium, Tenya Iida, as he
fought the Hero Killer Stain. The serial killer wasn’t much impressed by this
Ingenium and quickly disabled him. Before he could kill either Iida or his
original captured hero, Izuku Midoriya flies in and knocks the villain away.
Despite being disabled himself shortly thereafter, Izuku is saved by Shoto
Todoroki. He rallies after shaking off Stain’s Quirk-based paralysis and the
two heroes-in-training do battle while a furious Iida watches the fight
impotently.
We open on a pair of Iida
flashbacks. One is to a previous episode where he was gushing about how great a
hero his elder brother, Tensei, is. The other is to an older memory of Tenya
gushing to Tensei about how awesome he is, and the elder Iida telling young
Tenya that he’s such a great hero because his little brother believes in him.
In the present, Iida once again tells his friends to run, but they just keep
battling Stain. His body is twitching all over as he tries to break free of
Stain’s Bloodcurdle quirk. Stain gets in close to Todoroki, chiding the
hero-in-training for relying so much on his quirk and goes to slash off his
arm. Iida is able to finally shake off the paralysis and rushes Stain with a
Recipro Burst. For those who don’t remember, that’s when he shifts his engine legs
into overdrive and moves with blinding speed. He’s able to knock Todoroki out
of the way and snap Stain’s sword with a kick.
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| Here he comes to save the day! And he's kicking swords in half! |
Revitalized, Iida says that he
won’t allow his friends to bleed any more. Stain is unimpressed, claiming that
he doesn’t believe that Iida can be a hero and that he’ll always be a fraud.
Iida agrees he’s not a hero, but refuses to back down. They all start battling
again. The licensed hero that Stain captured, Native, tries to get Izuku and
Todoroki to run as the villain is only after him, but the boys refuse. Todoroki
notes that Stain’s movements and behavior are becoming more erratic. The
villain still nicks Izuku, stunning him again. Iida has Todoroki freeze his
legs, to circumvent the fact that they’re overheating due to the damage his
Recipro Burst causes to the engines in his legs. He also takes a few knives to
the arm defending Todoroki. Izuku is
able to shake off Stain’s Bloodcurdle again, and he and Iida both rush and hit
stain with their respective special moves, Recipro Burst Extend and Full
Cowling 5% to the villain’s face. Side note, the level of blunt force trauma
that Stain can take to the face is impressive.
We take a brief jump back to Gran
Torino and Endeavor battling the Nomu along with the rest of Hosu City’s
heroes. The Green monster puts up a decent fight, but is quickly incinerated
and flattened by the two heroes. Endeavour, confident in his own abilities to
stop the Nomu and remembering his son asking him to send pros if things start
winding down with the Nomu, asks Torino to look into where Shoto ran off to.
So… Endeavour isn’t a total bastard.
Back with the boys, Stain is able
to get one more slash in on Iida before another kick plus a fire blast and a
hard smack to an iceberg knocks him out. With that, our three heroes in
training have defeated the notorious Hero Killer. I really hope they have a
good healer on hand or Iida in particular is going to have some really gnarly
scars.
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| Double strike! |
Back with the heroes and Nomu, the
local heroes are having issue with the two remaining Nomu. Faceless Nomu and
his flying buddy are smashing things and being a nuisance respectively. Apparently
being weaker than the one that attacked the USJ still makes them tougher than
the average bear. The Faceless one nearly kills a hero, but is stopped by
Endeavor. The flame elementalist knocks the creature back and then incinerates
the creature’s brain, killing it easily despite the monsters healing powers.
Apparently burnt cells don’t regenerate. Neat. The flying Nomu nabs a hero to uses
as a hostage, or maybe for a snack, and buggers off. Endeavor chases after it,
hitting it the face, destroying one of its eyes, and forcing it to drop the
hero. But I guess Nomu have a high pain tolerance as the beast continues to fly
off.
The boys get Stain tied up and
disarmed. Which probably took a while, the dude had a TON of knives and other
sharp implements hidden in his gear. Iida and Todoroki try to move him as Izuku
gets a piggyback ride from Native. The kid was running on fumes by the end of the
fight and I guess being paralyzed twice can screw you up. While everyone is
happy with the victory, Todoroki is the first to point out this was mostly due
to luck. Stain was faster, stronger, and more tactically minded then anyone
else. His downfall came about because he was getting desperate to kill at least
Native and run. As such, he started to make a lot of mistakes due to his haste.
Still, a win is a win. Gran Torino arrives and gives his pupil a sharp kick to
the face for getting off the train. Despite this bit of discipline, Torino is
honestly impressed with Izuku. More heroes arrive and are shocked to see Stain
in custody. Iida is able to apologize to his friends for getting them into
danger like that, just before it hits the fan again.
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| Endeavor is an asshole, but he's #2 for a reason. |
The Flying Nomu swoops in and nabs
Izuku in its claws. It splashes some blood around from the wounds Endeavor put
into it. Before anyone can react, Stain pulls a hidden blade from his sleeve,
breaks free of his bonds, licks up the monster’s blood to stun it, leaps, and
stabs in the head. This is all the more impressive when you consider the
incredible concussion that the serial killer must have been suffering from. He
declares that in a world of fake heroes, Izuku is a ‘worthy’ hero.
Shigaraki, watching from atop a
building is infuriated. Both by his Nomu being defeated and by seeing Izuku
meddling in his plans again. I’m sensing a pattern forming between these two.
Namely, Shigaraki has a plan and Izuku fowls it up. Nice to have a hero/villain
dynamic set up so clearly.
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| Someone should probably check his pulse. Not it! |
Endeavor arrives at the scene,
which throws Stain into a murderous fury. Can’t imagine why. He screams that
the only one that can stop him is All Might, everyone here is going to die, and
all that jazz. His sheer, indomitable will keeps everyone frozen with terror at
the sight of him. But, instead of capitalizing on his advantage, Stain passes
out. Future Narrator Izuku reveals that after the fact they found Stain had
punctured a lung and essentially passed out standing up. Well, all’s well that ends
well.
This was an excellent climax to the
Stain Arc. Seeing this murderous psycho put the young heroes through their
paces and shake Iida to the core like he did was both exciting and terrifying.
This has been an excellent character arc for Iida, as he was forced to look at
the sort off hero that he wants to be. While Stain’s words and actions were
cruel throughout, he did push Iida into pushing beyond his desire for vengeance
and instead focus on doing what was right to protect others. I especially liked
the point that Iida tried to be true to his word, intentionally taking several
blows meant for his friends during the battle. An excellent counterpoint to
Stain’s adamant belief that a leopard can’t change its spots. Being intensely
convicted doesn’t mean one is correct, after all. I especially enjoyed how it
took the combined effort of all three boys in order to deliver the finishing
blow. Yes, I just realized that I was miss spelling Nomu as Noumu. My bad.
While Stain has been defeated, his rampage will have far reaching consequences
to this universe. But I'll get back to that on another day.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25012857
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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