Does Deku Lose One for All at the End of Heroes Rising? Explained

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is one of the most popular and successful anime movies in recent memory due to the fact that it has one of the greatest battles ever animated in movie history. Of course, we are talking about the battle involving the duo of Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo against Nine, who had a copy of All For One’s powers. Of course, in that fight, both Deku and Bakugo had One For All. So, did Deku lose One For All at the end of Heroes Rising?

Deku did not lose One For All at the end of Heroes Rising. Although he gave One For All to Bakugo so that they could defeat Nine, the transfer was never completed because Bakugo lost consciousness before the transfer was complete. But All Might believed that a miracle happened when the Quirk stayed with Deku.

The fact that One For All stayed with Deku even though he thought that the Quirk would leave him and go to Bakugo is evidence of the fact that not even All Might knows everything about the nature of this Quirk. In that regard, we don’t really know why or how the Quirk stayed with Midoriya, but it’s interesting to see the different theories and possibilities regarding this phenomenon.

Does Deku Lose One For All In Heroes Rising?

One of the things that we know during the events of My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is that the nature of One For All is still quite mysterious to Deku and All Might. That’s because something weird happened during the events of the series as the students of Class 1-A were defending a boy against a powerful villain that wanted to take his Quirk and use it for his benefit.

In Heroes Rising, Nine was a villain with a copy of All For One’s Quirk and was able to use nine Quirks. However, he was looking for a Cell Activation Quirk that was compatible with his body so that he could use it to cure his body of a terminal illness. In that regard, he was forced to go after a boy named Katsuma, a boy with the Cell Activation Quirk. At that time, the Class 1-A students were on the island where Katsuma and his community lived.

During the fight against Nine, the entirety of Class 1-A didn’t stand a chance against Nine, as it all boiled down to the duo of Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo. However, both Deku and Bakugo were still no match for the powerful villain. And that was what made Deku decide to do something he never thought he would ever do.

As Nine was approaching Katsuma, Deku decided to give One For All to Bakugo by touching hands with him, as their bloodied and wounded bodies allowed Deku to transfer his DNA to his friend and classmate. Despite the fact that Bakugo knew what this meant for Deku, who was supposed to end up Quirkless after giving One For All to him, they still agreed to do the transfer as they were now a match for Nine.

With two users that had the ability to use One For All fighting Nine, the villain was finally defeated as Deku had to burn up all of the embers of One For All, similar to how All Might burned up all of the embers of the Quirk in his United States of Smash attack on All For One. And Deku even said goodbye to the Quirk after they defeated Nine.

In a sense, Deku was supposed to lose One For All in that fight because he intended to pass it on to Bakugo so that there would be two users of the Quirk before Midoriya was going to burn up all of the remaining embers within him. But when All Might saw the two boys injured after the fight, he noticed that One For All stayed with Midoriya instead of going to Bakugo. That means that Deku did not lose One For All after the events of Heroes Rising.

Why Didn’t Deku Lose One For All?

As mentioned, All Might noticed that One For All didn’t leave Deku as the transfer to Bakugo was never completed. This means that the Quirk remained with Izuku Midoriya even after he intended to transfer it to Bakugo. So, why didn’t Deku lose One For All?

The first thought that All Might had was that Bakugo had passed out before the transfer could be completed. Back when he transferred the Quirk to Deku during the early portion of the story, All Might said that the transfer process would take hours. Because Bakugo had passed out before the transfer could be completed, the Quirk never moved on to him. 

Think of it as downloading a video that you could already open midway but ended up becoming useless when your internet connection gets interrupted. You are left with a file that couldn’t even be opened. The same case probably applied to Bakugo when he was able to use One For All after it was transferred to him but lost it when he lost consciousness before the transfer could be completed.

But All Might retracted his earlier theory by saying that a miracle happened, and that was the reason why the Quirk didn’t move to Bakugo. And it all boils down to the very nature of what One For All is.

Despite the fact that All Might spent decades using the Quirk, he never fully understood the nature of One For All because it was only during Midoriya’s time that it evolved. As Nana Shimura said, this Quirk contains the collective wills of all of the previous users, and that was the reason why Deku could see the previous users of One For All in the inner world of the Quirk after it went through an evolution. Take note that Heroes Rising takes place before the events of season 5, where Deku first awakened the Black Whip Quirk, which was the Quirk of one of the previous holders.

As such, during the events of Heroes Rising, neither Deku nor All Might knew the true nature of what One For All was. And we also need to look at the events of season 6 to understand what One For All is.

In the fight between Deku and Tomura Shigaraki, the villain successfully touched Midoriya and proceeded to steal One For All from him. They are both taken to the inner world of One For All, where Shigaraki was trying to steal the Quirk, all while Nana and the first user of One For All were there. A tug of war happened in that inner world, as the first user told All For One and Shimura that they were going to stay with Midoriya.

Back in the real world, All For One said that the reason why Shigaraki failed to take the Quirk was that his body was still too weak to handle it. However, it could also be possible that the Quirk itself “resisted” because it had a mind of its own.

There is a good chance that All For One could actually be sentient and is capable of deciding on its own because it contains the collective wills and consciousness of the previous holders. This could imply that the previous users decided to stay with Midoriya when they were touched by his gesture of giving the Quirk to Bakugo despite the fact that being a hero was everything he ever wanted.

As much as Deku always wanted to be like All Might and become a hero for everyone in the world, he knew that sacrifices needed to be made to become a true hero. Even sacrificing One For All wasn’t above him as he was willing enough to give it to Bakugo to save a boy and quite possibly a lot of other people as well. This gesture might be what caused the “miracle” that made the collective consciousness of the previous holders decide to allow Deku to keep One For All.