Phantom Thief is the forty-fourth chapter of My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions, written and illustrated by Yoco Akiyama.
Summary#
As Izuku Midoriya, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, Neito Monoma, and All Might arrive at a toy company, they all look around, and All Might is amazed at the technology. They then meet the three employees who were the ones who invited them to come. Neito, though annoyed that a Class 1-A student is on a mission with him, asks what their mission is. One employee says it's because the company's future is up in the air, explaining due to the owner getting into a creative slump due to bootlegs of his toys flooding the market. Because of his obsession with originality and the large number of bootlegs, he's been unable to focus on creating toys. The employee then says it's also caused their financials to go down, and since their CEO is in such a state, she's scared for the future of the company.
The CEO steps out of his office with his assistant, Kurosagi, who tells him about his lunch meeting, but the CEO immediately says to cancel it. The employee with the brick hat gets the CEO's attention, showing them the Heroes they've invited. The CEO then says that Kurosagi is handling it, who tells the students and All Might to leave, and to the three employees that internal matters should not be shared with outside parties.
They all arrive back at the entrance, and the stuffing employee apologizes, explaining about Kurosagi and what he does. Neito says they have no choice but to act, and both Izuku and Tetsutetsu agree. All Might tells them they'll have to investigate the actual stores themselves to find the root of the bootlegs. He says that once they find some knockoffs, they'll get in touch with their contacts at the company and have them take a look. Neito suggests a competition to see who can discover more; Izuku asks that aren't Team-Up Missions all about cooperation, but Neito yells that splitting up is far more efficient and that they'll all try harder with competition. He and Tetsutetsu run off, with Neito saying Class 1-B will again be proven superior, while Izuku and All Might go off on their own.
Each of them then investigates some toy stores. Afterwards, they all return, with Neito saying he found five bootlegs and Tetsutetsu found four. Izuku and All Might show them an entire bag full of All Might toys; Tetsutetsu says they got their butts kicked, with Neito accusing them of cheating. All Might says Izuku found most of them, to Neito's shock. Earlier, while they were still searching stores, Izuku found tons of All Might merchandise, immediately noticing which ones are bootlegs, spiralling and becoming furious about them.
Back in the present, Neito exclaims that all the extra All Might ones don't count, so Class 1-B wins, as Izuku remarks how funny the rules work in Neito's favor. All Might then grabs two toys and says even someone like him can't figure out which one is fake. The brick hat employee says that finding the bootlegs is a huge help, as now they can take a closer inspection at the parts and details to see if they're made with lower-quality materials.
They look at the toys All Might picked up, and all of them are confused about how a toy that went on sale last week already has bootlegs. Tetsutetsu uses his intuition and says someone must be stealing the blueprints, with Neito saying he may have hit the nail on the head. The brick hat employee says the plans are kept only by the CEO, and the stuffing employee adds that Kurosagi also has access since he's the assistant. Tetsutetsu then says Kurosagi must be the thief. The stuffing employee says Kurosagi devotes so much energy to supporting the CEO, but All Might says Kurosagi is the one handling the bootlegs and is in the perfect position to distribute the illegal toys. They decide they need to talk to him in the CEO's office.
Meanwhile, the CEO is freaking out due to not having any ideas, unaware that Kurosagi is stealing his toy plans. He thinks his abundant supply of money has run dry and that he needs to find a new source to leech off. The students, All Might, and employees catch Kurosagi in the act, although he claims the blueprints are unrelated documents. Nobody believes him, so he admits it was him, causing the CEO to volt from his desk. Kurosagi runs away with everyone chasing him and closes the building's shutters behind him.
Neito uses his Copy Quirk to copy Tetsutetsu's Steel Quirk. All Might asks if there's another path they can take to catch up, which the CEO tells them to follow. Neito then asks the employees what their Quirks are. Each of the employees explains their Quirk: the stuffing one can produce cotton, the brick one can turn whatever he touches into bricks, and the spring one is Spring, which lets him make anything bouncy. The brick employee says their Quirks won't be much help, though. As Kurosagi is running away, he says a copy can never surpass the original, but Neito remarks, "Unless one is remarkably clever". He then copies the employees' Quirks in order to defeat Kurosagi, which he does by using Tetsutetsu's Quirk after catching up to Kurosagi.
Later, Kurosagi is tied up. The stuffing employee says Kurosagi will be going to trial and will be liable for every single yen the company has lost. Kurosagi apologizes, with the employees demanding to hear him say it louder. The stuffing employee then says this puts an end to the bootlegs for now.
The CEO realizes, via Neito's words, that in order to create something new, sometimes you need to copy a little. He tells his three employees that he'd like to incorporate ideas from them, which makes the three employees very happy. Izuku tells Neito how impressive he was to use multiple copied Quirks, with Neito pointing out that he didn't bother to copy his Quirk, since it would only draw a blank, marking it as another victory for Class 1-B. Izuku then wonders what makes Neito the way he is, with Tetsutetsu saying he doesn't know, but that's Class 1-B's Neito Monoma for him.