My Hero Academia Reveals Dark Shadow's Reaction to Hawks and His Injuries

My Hero Academia's current "Paranormal Liberation War" arc has gotten deadly serious, very quickly. The Pro Heroes and police force have launched a coordinated surprise attack on the strongholds of The League of Villains and their new Paranormal Liberation Front army. However, the villains are striking back, with some terrible new power-players all their own. Pro Hero Hawks went undercover in the PLF as a spy, and put himself on the line to keep the villains from deploying their secret weapon (Twice) on the battlefield. However, Hawks has been gravely injured by Dabi, and the heroes young protege, Fumikage Tokoyami, isn't taking it well!

Warning - My Hero Academia manga SPOILERS Follow!

Chapter 271 of My Hero Academia's manga takes a break from the main storyline concerning the evolution of Tomura Shigaraki and awakening of his All For One power, in order look at the another part of the battlefield. Hawks and Dabi were locked in a brutal fight, after Hawks used his feather quirk to brutally kill Twice, and prevent the villain from becoming a one-man-army of clones. Dabi was not happy that his teammate got taken out, and utterly roasted Hawks. It seemed that Hawks was about to become rotisserie BBQ, until Tokoyami swooped in and saved his mentor!

In this latest issue, we see Tokoyami finally get a good look at Hawks, and his Dark Shadow entity definitely feels some kind of way, seeing Hawks in such dire condition:

"Fumikage, it looks bad," Dark Shadow tells Tokoyami. When the boy refuses to acknowledge the report, Dark Shadow adds, "His back... It's gone!"

What's interesting about this scene is it reveals just how much personality and emotion that Tokoyami's Dark Shadow possesses. We're used to seeing the entity having a grumpy and/or aggressive attitude, but this scene with Hawks is the most emotional Dark Shadow has ever been - and Tokoyami isn't that far behind him!

As the chapter ends, Dabi tries to mind-screw Tokoyami by leveraging Hawks' assassination of Twice as proof of the corruption in the Pro Hero world. Tokoyami ends up fleeing the scene with Hawks, weeping that his mentor is no less a hero, for his drastic act during the war. However things play out, it's hard to imagine that Hawks will have much of a Pro Hero career (if he survives), based on his level of injury. If he's done, then Fumikage Tokoyami is the next generation of bird-like hero to take his place - as so many Class 1-A students may have to step up and replace lost heroes.

My Hero Academia has finished airing season 4 of the anime on Hulu and Funimation. Online chapters of the manga can be found HERE.