Chapter Summaries

Uraraka Shige moved to a new shared cell and met five new inmates, who watched him to judge what kind of person he was. He dismissed their attempts to provoke him, leaving the apparent cell boss awkwardly unsure how to respond.

• A guard brought Uraraka Shige to a new shared cell and told him he would live there from then on.
• The five inmates watched Uraraka Shige as he put away his belongings, assessed them, and lay down for a nap.
• The youngest inmate challenged Uraraka Shige for ignoring them, but Uraraka Shige answered with an indifferent grunt.
• The apparent cell boss tried to back up the youngest inmate by calling Uraraka Shige arrogant.
• Uraraka Shige gave another dismissive grunt, leaving the apparent boss regretting that he had spoken up.

Uraraka Shige spent his first day back in Area A catching up with Gu Yu about their families and the prison’s changes, then kept watch over his new cellmates. At midnight, he stopped them from urinating on him in his sleep by waking suddenly and beating them down.

• Uraraka Shige attended classes and learned from Gu Yu and Qu Zhi that their families were safe.
• Uraraka Shige learned that Ying’s group had grown influential in Area A and that a new inmate had earned a single cell.
• The suspected boss stopped the youngest cellmate from provoking Uraraka Shige, while the men stayed silent and watched him.
• Uraraka Shige pretended to sleep as his cellmates gathered beside his bed and prepared to spray him with urine.
• Uraraka Shige sat up, punched the suspected boss and the other inmates, and discovered their plan after they fell to the floor.

After injuring two inmates while retaliating against his cellmates, Uraraka Shige received a week of cafeteria work as punishment. He navigated a confrontation with a stocky inmate, finished his shift, and returned to a peaceful cell for a good sleep.

• Uraraka Shige covered the inmates he had kicked with blankets, but two suffered internal injuries, earning him a week of cafeteria work.
• At the cafeteria, a stocky short inmate tried to claim Uraraka Shige's workspace and grab his clothes, but Shige slapped his hand away and bluntly insulted his hygiene.
• The stocky inmate backed off rather than fight, and Uraraka Shige prepared ingredients, washed tableware, and followed the cafeteria's hierarchical meal order.
• Uraraka Shige returned to his cell without further trouble, found his bed clean, and slept well.

Uraraka Shige settled into his prison routine while Qu Zhi warned him that someone intended to target him. After a series of deliberate provocations, Uraraka Shige recognized the cafeteria workers’ coordinated exclusion as the testing that came before bullying.

• Uraraka Shige joined Gu Yu for a gravity-enhanced workout, and Qu Zhi asked about his younger sister and warned him that someone planned to target him.
• Uraraka Shige ignored the stocky short guy’s smug looks and took another worker’s claimed spot in the cafeteria kitchen, earning resentful glares from both men.
• After returning to the kitchen the next morning, Uraraka Shige found himself assigned the edge spot while nearby workers snickered at him.
• A stranger took Uraraka Shige’s usual classroom seat, and when Uraraka Shige asked about the missing chairs, the man replied that this was just the beginning.
• At lunchtime, the cafeteria workers united to give Uraraka Shige the worst ingredients and pressured him to do their work before his own.
• Uraraka Shige recognized their actions as the testing that usually preceded bullying.

Uraraka Shige recalled how bullying had once driven him toward darkness, but decided to handle the prison inmates’ probing without losing control. He used his Quirk to make one of the men clean up the ingredients, leaving the group’s strained relationships as a possible way to turn them against one another.

• Uraraka Shige considered ways to resist the inmates, deciding he could keep their probing from getting the result they wanted and exploit their schemes against them.
• Uraraka Shige grabbed the stocky short man by the collar and used gravity to pull him from his place, making him handle the ingredients prepared for Uraraka Shige.
• The stocky short man activated his muscle-compressing Quirk and tried to reclaim his spot, but Uraraka Shige threw his arm aside and knocked him backward with gravity.
• Uraraka Shige warned the stocky short man against fighting in the kitchen, and the man chose to handle the ingredients instead.
• Uraraka Shige realized that the inmates’ relationships were less harmonious than he had assumed, making it easier to turn them against one another.

Over ten days, Uraraka Shige retaliated against the inmates targeting him and made enough progress with his Quirk to improve his defensive technique. The chapter ended with his group gaining a third member after the newcomer tested Uraraka Shige’s Quirk and saw encouraging results.

• Uraraka Shige identified the man who had tried to recruit him into Snake as the main figure behind the targeting.
• Uraraka Shige used Gu Yu and Qu Zhi’s help, his hard-to-detect Quirk, and a series of schemes to turn his targets against other inmates, leaving most unable to trouble him.
• Uraraka Shige forced the man who had recruited him to leave the Snake Group and receive two weeks of punishment.
• Uraraka Shige made small advances with Strike and improved Level enough to block very weak attacks.
• The skinny inmate with a muscle-strength-storage Quirk tested whether Uraraka Shige could help him grow stronger faster, then joined Uraraka Shige and Gu Yu’s group.

Uraraka Shige’s group gained Kurasu Rikizo as a third member, while Qu Zhi and AFO independently began treating Shige as a useful pawn. Unaware of their schemes, Shige trained with Gu Yu and Rikizo in the disciplinary prison, improving his Quirk control as he adjusted gravity for them.

• Qu Zhi used the targeting affair to test Shige, judge him useful, and begin devising schemes to make him his pawn.
• AFO investigated the Alliance after his defeat by All Might, considered recruiting Yamato but rejected the idea, and grew interested in Shige as a potential pawn.
• Shige trained with Gu Yu and the newly joined Kurasu Rikizo, adjusting gravity for each of them while strengthening his own body and Quirk control.
• After two months of gravity training, Gu Yu became leaner and stronger, while Rikizo’s muscle and strength gains outpaced his previous solo training.

Qu Zhi approached Uraraka Shige and claimed he needed help escaping prison to warn his younger sisters about problems with his old plan. Uraraka agreed to help, unknowingly falling into Qu Zhi’s scheme.

• Inmates failed to befriend Gu Yu, Kurasu Rikizo, or Uraraka Shige, so they could not influence Uraraka on behalf of their backers.
• Qu Zhi approached Uraraka directly after his other attempts to draw him into the scheme had failed.
• Qu Zhi claimed that his younger sisters were following his plan and that he needed to escape to tell them how to correct it.
• Uraraka sensed something was wrong but agreed to help Qu Zhi in return for his earlier help.
• Qu Zhi began explaining his plan, or excuse, to Uraraka.

Qu Zhi prepared to stage a riot at the correctional prison so he and Uraraka Shige could escape, but as the plan approached, Uraraka Shige grew hesitant about helping him. He worried that assisting another escape after his own would provoke far harsher consequences.

• Qu Zhi planned to start a riot during the post-lunch break to distract the correctional prison’s guards and officials while he and Uraraka Shige escaped.
• Qu Zhi prepared backup schemes in case the riot failed to draw enough attention.
• As lunchtime arrived, Uraraka Shige reconsidered helping Qu Zhi because he had already escaped once and been punished.
• Uraraka Shige feared that helping Qu Zhi escape would make his repeated defiance of the prison’s rules seem even more outrageous.

Uraraka Shige secretly decided to escape alone and leave Qu Zhi behind, unaware that this matched Qu Zhi’s true plan. They used a deliberately planned riot to reach an access passage, where the escape operation went smoothly and left Uraraka Shige to choose whether to help Qu Zhi or flee alone.

• Uraraka Shige changed his intended outcome but kept the revision from Qu Zhi during lunch.
• A chain of fights in the cafeteria escalated into a planned riot involving inmates and prison personnel.
• Uraraka Shige and Qu Zhi left the cafeteria by a farther passage and avoided the guards responding to the riot.
• Uraraka Shige and Qu Zhi teamed up with two inmates to ambush the guards at another access passage.
• The inmate with the Crossing Quirk took Uraraka Shige and Qu Zhi through the passage door, leaving Uraraka Shige to decide whether to help Qu Zhi past the electrified fencing or escape alone.

Uraraka Shige and Qu Zhi attempted another prison escape, but Qu Zhi and the man with the Crossing Quirk were struck by the patrol officers’ weapons. Uraraka Shige escaped alone and headed to Tottori Prefecture to carry out Qu Zhi’s request.

• Patrol officers spotted Uraraka Shige, Qu Zhi, and the man with the Crossing Quirk and opened fire with charged metal ammunition.
• Uraraka Shige used his Quirk to help the three leap over fences and cross several open areas, while secretly holding back his strength.
• The man with the Crossing Quirk and Qu Zhi were hit by ammunition and fell, leaving Uraraka Shige able to escape alone.
• Qu Zhi asked Uraraka Shige to take Plan B to someone before he and the other man became unable to speak.
• Uraraka Shige escaped the correctional prison and set off for Tottori Prefecture, remembering that he still owed the elderly villagers for their help.

Uraraka Shige struggled to find his way through the mountains while surviving on wild food. After rescuing a handsome hiker from a pit trap, he learned the man could guide him out, and the two reached an unfamiliar city the next day.

• Uraraka Shige spent a second night in the wilderness, using his Quirk to fend off insects and finding shelter in a tree.
• Uraraka Shige followed stone and tree-marked arrows through the mountains, eating wild fruit and vegetables when he found no prey.
• Uraraka Shige heard a distant scream and found a handsome man unconscious in an abandoned pit trap.
• Uraraka Shige rescued the man, who thanked him after waking and offered to guide him to Tottori City.
• Uraraka Shige followed the man out of the mountains and arrived in an unfamiliar city by noon the next day.

Uraraka Shige traveled to Tottori City with the handsome man after cleaning up at his home. He wandered the streets, expecting Qu Zhi's younger sister to find him, and heard her recognize the smell of incense.

• The handsome man offered to drive Uraraka Shige to Tottori Prefecture and took him to his home to bathe first.
• Uraraka Shige showered, then went with the handsome man to the garage and rode in his convertible sports car.
• The handsome man drove Uraraka Shige to Tottori City and dropped him off.
• Uraraka Shige wandered through the city, and Qu Zhi's younger sister soon said, "It's... the smell of incense!"

Uraraka Shige followed Qu Zhi’s younger sister and her brother to their home after learning that Qu Zhi had left a mark on him and wanted him recruited. There, she handed the task to a skinny, bespectacled man who was good at recruiting.

• Qu Zhi’s younger sister mistook Uraraka Shige for an errand boy and sniffed him to find the mark Qu Zhi had left in the “smell of fragrance.”
• She told Uraraka Shige that Qu Zhi wanted him recruited and invited him to their home to meet someone who could handle it.
• Uraraka Shige followed the siblings to a rundown apartment building near a waste disposal plant, whose clean interior housed more than a dozen children and two adults.
• Qu Zhi’s younger sister sent her brother to take her to a skinny man with a scallion-green bowl cut and cracked glasses, then asked him to recruit Uraraka Shige.

Uraraka Shige spoke with Qu Zhi’s green-haired acquaintance, whose Quirk let him see people’s “essence” and the paths leading to it. The man declared that Uraraka Shige had found neither his essence nor a path, then invited him to join their group and promised to help him pursue whatever he was destined to obtain.

• Qu Zhi’s younger sister sent the green-haired man to carry out Qu Zhi’s task and showed interest in the scent on Uraraka Shige.
• The green-haired man studied Uraraka Shige and said that, like Qu Zhi, he was lost, though Uraraka Shige had not even begun seeking a path.
• He explained that his Quirk let him see a person’s essence and that he could see no path leading Uraraka Shige to his.
• The green-haired man invited Uraraka Shige to join them and promised to help him reach his essence and obtain whatever he was destined to seek.

Uraraka Shige asked the green mushroom-head to prove that he could see a person’s essence, and the mushroom-head identified Shige’s conviction and essence. Shige remained doubtful about the claims, while the mushroom-head also offered Qu Zhi as an example.

• After three days of hearing the mushroom-head’s claims, Uraraka Shige asked what the mushroom-head’s own essence was.
• The mushroom-head said he could not see his own essence, then offered to prove his ability by identifying why Shige felt lost.
• The mushroom-head told Shige that he needed the conviction of hard work to train, learn, and accept in order to reach his essence.
• The mushroom-head described Shige’s essence as craving and exploration, leaving Shige unconvinced that the description was unique.
• The mushroom-head said Qu Zhi’s essence was pursuit and proof, without explaining what Qu Zhi sought or wanted to prove.

Uraraka Shige began following the green mushroom-haired man's advice by training and seeking books to study gravity. He settled into a demanding daily routine, and three months passed.

• Uraraka Shige trained his body and Quirk, using sand-filled balloons to practice precise gravity control.
• Uraraka Shige asked the green mushroom-haired man for books, but learned he could not access the apartment's reading room.
• Uraraka Shige traveled to a bookstore and persuaded its elderly owner to let him borrow physics books about gravity under strict conditions.
• Uraraka Shige established a daily schedule of training and studying, and three months passed.

Uraraka Shige tested new gravity techniques, including a barrier, an outward force, and rudimentary armor. On his way back, he encountered Granny Gray, who wanted to take him to meet a powerful person and offered help with his family.

• Uraraka Shige shaped distorted air with gravity and practiced his new techniques, including Barrier, Disperse, and Armor.
• Uraraka Shige considered whether to leave the apartment building and visit his family.
• Granny Gray found Uraraka Shige and said a powerful person wanted to meet him.
• Uraraka Shige rebuked Granny Gray for using him and rejected his comparison to All Might.
• Granny Gray argued that the meeting could help Uraraka Shige and offered assistance with his family.

Uraraka Shige agreed to meet AFO after Granny Gray offered help for his family’s struggling construction company. AFO revealed he had assessed Uraraka Shige’s Quirk and tried to recruit him with promises of protection, training, and power, leaving Uraraka Shige torn as the call ended.

• Granny Gray offered Uraraka Shige mutual assistance, including help for his family, and Uraraka Shige agreed to meet the person he had mentioned.
• Granny Gray brought Uraraka Shige to a barbecue restaurant, where they found AFO waiting on a laptop video call.
• AFO analyzed Uraraka Shige’s Quirk and said it was not suited to his disciple, Tomura.
• AFO claimed Uraraka Shige had disrupted his plans against All Might and invited him to join his side.
• AFO promised to help Uraraka Shige’s family, train him, and let him challenge AFO, leaving Uraraka Shige struggling with the offer.
• AFO told Uraraka Shige to take his time, then ended the call remotely.

Uraraka Shige turned himself in again to escape AFO’s influence and was sent to the correctional prison’s heavily guarded core area. There, a delicate-featured boy named Sakinagi Shushin greeted him by telling him to hit him.

• Uraraka Shige decided he needed to get away from AFO and returned to the correctional prison, also intending to report Qu Zhi’s scheme involving the “scent of incense.”
• Uraraka Shige sought out a hero, who investigated and handed him over to the police; after their investigation, the authorities returned him to the prison.
• Guards escorted Uraraka Shige into the core of the independent area, where he suspected the prison was built to contain its special independent educators.
• The guards brought Uraraka Shige to an alloy-barred cell and withdrew on the squad leader’s command.
• Sakinagi Shushin introduced himself and told Uraraka Shige to hit him.