My Hero Academia Cliffhanger Tests Izuku With A Surprise Hostage

My Hero Academia's manga is continuing the intense fight between Izuku Midoriya and All For One's new elite sniper bounty hunter, Lady Nagant. The latest round sees Deku braking out all the powers he has at his disposal through One For All, in a desperate scramble to stay ahead of Nagant's pinpoint aim and self-made power ammunition. That includes powers we haven't (officially) seen before from Izuku - including the "Fa Jin"speed bursts of OFA's third user, and the smokescreen quirk of the sixth user. However, Lady Nagant's ruthless nature is equally as dangerous as her power, and she springs a surprise hostage on Izuku that could throw him off his game!

Warning! My Hero Academia Chapter 314 SPOILERS Follow!

Lady Nagant was introduced to My Hero Academia with a bizarre armless hostage in her company; a flashback sequence revealed that armless man to be none other than Kai Chisaki, aka the Yakuza crimelord Overhaul. A flashback sequence revealed that Lady Nagant escaped from All For One's Tartarus Prison jailbreak with Chisaki in her company, and it seemed as though there was a bond between the two. However, the end of My Hero Academia chapter 314 sees Lady Nagant reframe her relationship with Overhaul in a big way: using him as target practice!

Nagant's strategy is straight out of classic comic book hero/villain battles: the villain threatens a bystander, in order to force the hero to save him/her. Despite still being somewhat clunky with using parallel processing with his various quirks, Deku manages to combine powers like danger sense, Fa Jin, and a perfected pin-point Blackwhip attack to get in close and beat Nagant's advantage.

A big chunk of the story in My Hero Academia chapter 314 is examining Lady Nagant's past. We get the dark reveal that the Nagant went from being an idealistic would-be hero to being recruited into the Hero Safety Commission's assassin shadow program, where she was served as executioner for villains and terrorists that threatened the facade of calm and order fostered by the Pro Hero system.

In short, Nagant is a skilled and blood-soaked killer - and, more importantly, she used to be an idealistic hero type just like Midoriya. Nagant knows that Deku is the type to save even his worst enemy from danger - a vow that Izuku has in fact made made to Tomura Shigaraki. Few fans probably expect to see Deku saving Overhaul as My Hero Academia races towards its final battles - but it just speaks to the wonderfully full-circle themes of Kohei Horikoshi's story that we're getting this moment.

My Hero Academia releases new chapters weekly Free in Shonen Jump Magazine. Season 5 of the anime streams new episodes weekly on Funimation and Hulu.