Out of all the battles in My Hero Academia, the one I am looking forward to the most would be the inevitable showdown between Izuku Midoriya and Tomura Shigaraki. The thing I like about these two is that they are reflections of one another. As children, they both dreamed of becoming heroes, but their upbringings were as different as night and day. Izuku was raised by a kind mother who always supported his dream of becoming a superhero. Shigaraki, on the other hand, was raised by an abusive father and a cowardly family who did nothing to protect him. As Supreme Leader Snoke from Star Wars once said, “Pups who are abused often grow into vicious creatures.” If they swapped upbringings, Izuku could have become the villain and Shigaraki the hero. That is how similar they are. This similarity reminds me of opposites like Green Lantern and Sinestro, Flash and Reverse-Flash, and Aquaman and Ocean Master.
Izuku and Shigaraki were both trained by two sworn enemies: Izuku by All Might and Shigaraki by All For One. Due to their respective tutelage, Izuku and Shigaraki have been groomed and trained to succeed their mentors as both the greatest superhero and greatest supervillain. These two represent the next generation in the never-ending battle between good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos, life and death.
There have been hints that both Izuku and Shigaraki may become more powerful than their mentors ever were. This was foreshadowed by the fact that Izuku is in the process of awakening powers that have been dormant in One For All, which was something even All Might could not do. As for Shigaraki, he is undergoing a transformative surgery that will allow him to surpass both All For One and One For All. When both Izuku and Shigaraki reach their full potential, it will be a serious clash of the titans the likes of which society has never seen before.
However, before that final clash can begin, we must look at the story so far. For the moment, Shigaraki is at 75 % power and may not reach 100%. Izuku has only awakened one of the dormant powers in One For All and has only mastered 20% of One For All’s full power. Given the fact that Shigaraki will be remade to surpass One For All, even at 75% power, I strongly believe that Shigaraki could easily thrash or even kill Izuku in his current state. As the main hero, we all know Izuku will not die, which means Shigaraki will just give him a serious beating in their next encounter. This will mark the gap between them and present Izuku the challenge of catching up to Shigaraki in order to fight him as an equal. Also, if Shigaraki stays at 75% power, that may be what prevents him from surpassing One For All, which will give Izuku the fighting chance he needs in the endgame.
If Shigaraki destroys hero society, Japan will be in a constant state of war and chaos. With the concept of a Hero License becoming irrelevant as well as law and order vanishing, Izuku and his classmates may become vigilantes and constantly resist the new supervillain society. Since Izuku will survive his next encounter with Shigaraki, he will be given plenty of opportunities to fight supervillains, which will allow him to grow stronger with each battle. Real life-or-death situations tend to be more effective training than any kind of simulated training. This will allow Izuku and his classmates to grow in a way they never did in school. With enough battles and life-or-death situations, Izuku may be able to reach his full potential, setting the stage for his final battle with Shigaraki.
When both Izuku and Shigaraki fight one last time, I can imagine it being a clash between god-like beings. At the start of the story, Izuku said that the story of My Hero Academia is the story of how he became the greatest superhero. Perhaps this battle is what allows him to achieve that status. I haven’t been this excited about a battle between superheroes and supervillains since the Avengers going against Thanos in Endgame. I know there is much of the story that needs to be told and it could take a long time for the final showdown to appear, but I am willing to wait and enjoy the story.
Grady P Brown - Author 