What Happens to One for All in the MHA Manga?

10/05/2024

The story of My Hero Academia has evolved beyond Midoriya’s journey, with other characters and the Quirk, One For All, playing crucial roles.
One For All’s creation by All For One involved a dark history, with multiple users fighting against him and growing stronger over time.
Despite transferring One For All to Shigaraki, Deku still has the Quirk’s embers, hinting at potential hidden powers and his ability to continue fighting.

The following contains major spoilers for the My Hero Academia manga up until Chapter 421, “We Are Here” by Horikoshi Kohei, Caleb Cook and John Hunt, available now in English from Viz Media.

While My Hero Academia may have begun as the story of Midoriya Izuku’s ascent into Pro-Hero history, the story has morphed into so much more. Several other characters, like Bakugo Katsuki, All Might and Shigaraki Tomura, have become inextricably baked into the narrative, and this same quality is possessed by the One For All Quirk. Just like Deku, One For All had its own purpose and destiny before the events of MHA began. With the manga’s ending on the horizon, One For All’s fate seemingly hangs in the balance for now.

Soon after All Might transferred One For All to Deku, he began hinting that the Quirk came with a great purpose. Since All For One reared his head, the Quirk’s goal of stopping the villain has been synchronized with Deku’s. However, as Deku has learned firsthand, One For All has decades worth of history and lore that far preceded him. As its second previously Quirkless user, One For All has been able to evolve even more than it did with All Might, making Deku the one who finally completed it.

How One For All Was Created In My Hero Academia

what happens to one for all in the mha manga?

MHA One For All

How MHA’s One For All Became Problematic Plot Armor

Deku has embraced his destiny with One For All’s power, but it also takes all the suspense out of My Hero Academia’s final war arc.

One For All was created by All For One himself. When he was younger, his brother, Yoichi Shigaraki, refused to be complicit in All For One’s plans for global domination, subtle as they may have been at the time. In return, All For One held him prisoner and forced a power-stocking Quirk on Yoichi, hoping it would make him more amenable to his selfish cause. Unbeknownst to either of them, Yoichi secretly had a useless Quirk that allowed him to transfer power. When All For One’s power stocking gift was mixed with Yoichi’s original Quirk, the result was One For All.

After Yoichi was rescued from his prison, he used the One For All Quirk to resist his brother in any way he could. Even after death, the Quirk continued his campaign, constantly gaining strength with new avatars. Each successive user fought against All For One and made the Quirk even more powerful as it continued to accumulate strength while the years passed. Over time, All For One’s goal shifted to stealing back the Quirk he had brazenly created, but unlike other Quirks, it wouldn’t bow to his influence so easily. This fact only made him pursue One For All with even more fervor.

Although its previous users weren’t aware, their own vestiges were permanently bound to One For All when they accepted the Quirk, along with their original Quirk factors. These Quirks lay dormant within One For All until Deku inherited the Quirk, when they began to manifest as separate abilities once again. After existing for so long in proximity to a power as potent as One For All, these Quirks become noticeably stronger than they were in their original wielders’ lifetimes, empowering Deku to complete One For All’s mission even more.

The six Quirks hidden in One For All are Blackwhip, Float, Danger Sense, Smokescreen, Fa Jin and GearShift.

How One For All Was Destroyed In My Hero Academia

Deku Sacrificed One For All in Order to Save Shigaraki

Deku on top of a splash page from MHA 421

REVIEW: My Hero Academia Chapter 421 Class 1-A Returns in an Underwhelming Start to the Final Stretch

Class 1-A Returns to support Deku in My Hero Academia 421, sidelining the original successor of the Symbol of Peace to uphold the banner themselves.

Deku’s plan for the final war in My Hero Academia had always been to save Shimura Tenko, instead of merely defeating Shigaraki. To do so, he had to unearth Shimura’s personality from under several layers of Shigaraki’s that it had been buried under. Deku chose to begin this process by transferring One For All and its vestiges to Shigaraki. Once they were in his body, the vestiges were free to destabilize Shigaraki’s vestige as much as possible, allowing Shimura’s consciousness to front once more. This plan worked, but maybe a little too well.

Shigaraki’s body has three distinct personalities inhabiting it; Shigaraki Tomura himself, Shimura Tenko, his childhood personality, and All For One. All For One is present because Shigaraki possesses the original copy of his Quirk.

After transferring most of the vestiges, Deku was able to interact with Shimura. His connection was so strong that he was even able to alter a formative part of the young boy’s origin story from within the vestige realm. Losing the hate for his home and family that had fueled Shigaraki for so long left even Shimura’s vestige hollow and weak. With both Shimura and Shigaraki in bad ways, the stage was set for All For One’s vestige to seize control and once again become the dominant personality in their shared body.

As All For One asserted his control, both Shimura and Shigaraki’s vestiges were eaten away by the Decay Quirk’s effect, presumably taking One For All away with them. So far, All For One can’t seem to access the Quirk he coveted for so long and has only confirmed the theory of its destruction. He mourned the loss of One For All and his brother, Yoichi, citing the heartache from Deku’s reckless abandonment of the Quirk as the only reason he was able to escape the same annihilation that befell Shigaraki.

Any hopes of a revival for One For All likely lie with Shigaraki. If he does somehow manage to piece his consciousness together and return to battle All For One, he should do so with the other vestiges that Deku transferred to him specifically. At this point, it’s still wishful thinking to imagine that One For All could be restored by the action of Shigaraki simply transferring the Quirk back to Deku, but given his possession of the All For One Quirk, there’s no precedent in the series that prohibits Shigaraki from doing so.

Why Deku Can Still Use One For All For Now

One For All’s Transfer Was Completed, But Deku Isn’t Helpless Yet

Deku charging toward the viewer with Eri riding on his back in My Hero Academia.

My Hero Academia: How Does Quirk Transferring Work?

Any superhero story is going to have something that needs a little explanation and My Hero Academia is no exception.

Before rejoining the battle against All For One, Deku confirmed that despite transferring One For All to Shigaraki, he still possessed the Quirk’s embers. Losing the Quirk itself shouldn’t limit Deku’s abilities. So far, he’s been relying on One For All in conjunction with its other users’ Quirks in the war. Limiting him to just One For All’s embers in the final stage should force Deku into unearthing any hidden potential the Quirk still has. Until now, he still hasn’t delivered a proper 100% Smash, even though his body has likely become tough enough to withstand it.

Fans should note that everything All Might has achieved since the third episode of My Hero Academia has been with similar embers to what Deku now possesses. Deku is still one of the most powerful characters in the series and, unlike All Might, he doesn’t have an existing lung injury. In his case, Deku won’t have a time limit on how long he can use his embers on any given day. He also possessed the One For All Quirk for much less time than All Might did. Although, there’s no guarantee yet, Deku might hold on to the embers for much longer than the 6 months All Might did.

There’s also the possibility that One For All hasn’t actually left Deku at all. Deku did indeed complete the transfer, as evidenced by all the vestiges of the previous users leaving him, but Shigaraki was actively rejecting the Quirk the entire time. One For All might still be within him by virtue of Shigaraki never fully embracing the transfer. Whatever the case, only time will tell whether One For All will be fully returned to Deku along with the exact process of its return.

Boku_no_Hero_Academia manga cover art poster

My Hero Academia

Izuku Midoriya, a Quirkless teenager, inherits the powerful Quirk “One For All” from his idol All Might, embarking on a journey to become a hero. As he and his classmates at U.A. High School face challenges from the League of Villains, led by Shigaraki, societal unrest unfolds, leading to revelations, betrayals, and intense battles. The story culminates in a final confrontation against the League of Villains, All For One, and a transformed Shigaraki, with Izuku and his friends striving to protect a society on the brink of chaos.