My Hero Academia Teases How All for One Stole Shirakumo's Quirk

My Hero Academia's latest arc is all about the buildup to the upcoming Meta Liberation Army war. We've taken a break from the kids of Class 1-A to get a rare look at the backstory of Shota Aizawa / Eraser Head. As we learned in the previous chapter of the manga, Eraser Head lost a treasured friend named Oboro Shirakumo - a friend that may or may not have been transformed into the League of Villains' personal transporter, Kurogiri! In this latest chapter of the My Hero Academia manga (254), we get more of the story - including how and why All For One stole Shirakumo's quirk!

Warning! SPOILERS for My Hero Academia Chapter 254 Follow!

As it turns out, Oboro Shirakumo, Shota and Hizashi Yamada (aka Present Mic) were a trio of inseparable friends in U.A.'s Class 2-A when they came up. Known as "The Three Dumbigos," the group went into th work study phase of their education, hoping to one day open their own agency. However, Shirakumo died during that work study, and the theory is that his corpse was used as the baseline for an intelligent Nomu that became Kurogiri!

As for why All For One hijacked Shirakumo's quirk and corpse? In a brief scene from All For One's interrogation, the archvillain explains that "Superior Quirks tend to end up clustered at U.A., so... It's perfectly rational, yes?"

And as Gran Torino further elaborates:

"He said it was like dumpster-diving outside a three-star restaurant. He probably swapped out the body before it got cremated, and turned it into one of his isnane toys. One of the Nomu. So don't go looking... For meaning in any of it, DJ. It's nothing but pure evil."

If All For One didn't seems like a menacingly frightening villain before, this certainly helps make the case! We knew that All For One was a quirk thief - we didn't know that he would go so far as raid the corpses of children to achieve his sick ends! Then again: All For One did permanently steal the quirk of one of the Wild Wild Pussycats (a young Pro Hero), and was more than happy to take his nemesis' Nana Shimura grandson (Tomura Shigaraki) as his own, after already taking her life. So maybe looting children's corpses is to be expected?

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he's eventually scouted by the world's best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015. My Hero Academia will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this December.