History#
When Kaina Tsutsumi was a young girl, the President of the Hero Public Safety Commission invited her to join the agency. With a bright sense of optimism at becoming a great Pro Hero, she accepted, becoming the Hero "Lady Nagant". For years she was trained conscientiously until she became really skillful with her Rifle Quirk, becoming not only a popular Hero, but also the best marksman in all of Japan.[1] Her skill and precision with her shots was admired and envied by the likes of Snipe and other Heroes with long-range Quirks.[2]
However, the Commission primarily used her for classified missions, secretly disposing of Villains planning to commit acts of terrorism, and corrupt Heroes seeking more fame and fortune. At first, she carried out these orders efficiently and without question, but over time the stress of the seemingly never-ending string of murders began to get to her, all the while needing to keep the front as a public Pro Hero.
One day, she came across a group of kids who wanted to shake her hand, leading her to hallucinate her completely bloody hand, and resulting in her questioning her purpose as merely just a cog to maintain the phony illusion of their society.
Lady Nagant's disillusionment came to a breaking point when the then-President of the Public Safety Commission ordered her to make two corrupt Heroes who were taking advantage of the system "go missing". She expressed her reservations about the order, questioning whether the lack of transparency was akin to brainwashing. When his insistence on the act's necessity failed to convince her, the President gave Lady Nagant a veiled threat. This proved to be the last straw, with Lady Nagant killing him in response.
She was promptly arrested and incarcerated in Tartarus; the Commission covered up the nature of her arrest, claiming that she killed a fellow Hero in an argument instead.[1] This decision was made by the succeeding President of the Commission, to prevent Lady Nagant's execution as well as make her a scapegoat to discourage other Heroes from falling into conflict.[3]
Synopsis#
Paranormal Liberation War Arc#
Within hours after the end of the Paranormal Liberation War, Tomura Shigaraki, possessed by All For One, started an Assault on Tartarus with his accompanying Nomu. Inside the prison, an EMP attack shuts down Tartarus' monitoring system, and ends up freeing all of its inmates, including Lady Nagant.
As the inmates start attacking and killing the guards, Lady Nagant makes her escape, noting how the system isn't responding to their Quirks, before noticing an inmate banging on his door, unable to escape. Lady Nagant uses her Quirk to open the door, as Kai Chisaki comes out running, desperate to reach out to his Boss.[4]
Shortly after the breakout, Lady Nagant is approached by All For One, who is honored to meet the "treacherous hero", while she muses about targeting him sometime in the past. All For One asks Lady Nagant for a favor, considering her to be leagues above the other escapees. He explains that a boy will be leaving U.A. High School soon, so he wants her to capture and bring the boy to him. Lady Nagant interrupts, insisting that she has no interest in anything but escaping Tartarus. All For One convinces her that so long as the boy lives, the collapse of hero society she sought will never arrive, so she reluctantly accepts his proposal.
All For One notices the mentally broken Kai muttering about his Boss, and asks if he's a friend of hers. She denies this, but sees use in Kai's broken state, so she intends to bring him with her. To seal their deal, All For One offers a gift, and transfers Air Walk to her.[2]
Dark Hero Arc#
While getting new clothes in an abandoned store, Kai reveals to her that he knows their target, Izuku Midoriya, as he ruined his plans in the past, saying he has a severe case of "hero syndrome". Lady Nagant is surprised by this revelation, seeing this as fate, and asking him to come along and identify him for her. He agrees on one condition, and while she initially insists on not taking up any old grudges of his, he quickly denies this, saying he just wants to see his old Boss again.[5]
After several days of searching, Lady Nagant finally manages to find her target. On a rainy night on a rooftop, Nagant, accompanied by Kai, fires a bullet and hits Izuku's phone using a sniper rifle protruding from her right elbow. With the phone pinned to a nearby wall, Lady Nagant talks to Izuku through a microphone inside the bullet. She tells him that if he complies, she will keep his limbs intact.[6]
Izuku then moves, prompting Lady Nagant to fire at him. As he is avoiding her shots using Blackwhip, she curves a bullet and lands a hit on Izuku, although he figures out her location and makes his way towards her. While retracting her Rifle, Lady Nagant notes that this is the first time anyone has deflected two of her bullets. Kai then blankly mutters that he wants to get back to his Boss.
Annoyed, Lady Nagant picks Kai up and hides him in the rooftop exit, and begins having second thoughts about bringing him along. Seeing that Izuku is approaching her position, she uses Air Walk to move away, and goes to finish her mission.[2]
Lady Nagant swiftly moves through the air and shoots two bullets at Izuku from different angles, with one getting deflected and the other grazing Izuku's stomach. As she shot once more, Izuku unleashes a massive smokescreen, catching her off guard. Now knowing that Izuku has multiple Quirks, she repositions up away from the smoke, aiming at Izuku again. She shoots at moving figures, only to learn that they are decoys. She tells Izuku that he can't hide in the smoke for long, but is surprised when he charges out of a building and grabs her arm.[7]
As Izuku asks where All For One is, she proceeds to punch him with the end of her Rifle, as he falls through the sky. He tries to ask why she's working with him if she used to be a Hero, but she tells him he couldn't understand as all he's ever seen is the manufactured sense of order, and not the real truth. Continuing to shoot at him, she explains about her history working for the Hero Public Safety Commission, the dirty work she did for them, and how this ended with her killing the former President.
Izuku is shocked by the revelation, having previously believed the news that she killed a Hero in an argument. Lady Nagant tells Izuku that he's ignorant, that a superpower society is an illusion, that bringing back the status quo will just have history repeat itself, and that no matter how bad a world ruled by All For One would be, it'd be much more transparent.
However, to her surprise, Izuku admits that he was ignorant, and that he's begun to understand that most things in the world aren't black-and-white, but shades of gray, and that is why he wants to be someone to extend his hand to help those in need. Lady Nagant, unconvinced by Izuku's resolve, seeing it as more of just phony education, decides that she needs to distract his focus, pointing her Rifle directly at Kai, who's on top of a nearby building.[1]
Amplifying her muscles as much as possible, she taunts Izuku, telling him that their Hero education has made it so that anybody dying on their watch, no matter who it is, will weigh in on their conscience, shooting the bullet at Kai with the intention of using Izuku's hesitation to catch him off guard and finally stop him. However, he once again sends her into complete disbelief as he manages to blast his way forward faster than the bullet, realizing he had already changed directions the moment she was about to shoot.
She attempts to realign herself to try again, but he suddenly appears blasting her Rifle arm with a Faux 100 Percent: Manchester Smash, breaking it and taking her out of the fight. As her Air Walk starts to give in and she begins to fall, she thinks about how Izuku didn't hesitate at all to save Kai, even though he recognized him as an enemy, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and wondered when it was that the Commission's "platitudes" started to make her sick.
Izuku then catches her, telling her he could tell the trajectory of the bullet heading toward Kai was slightly off, and that if she really was on All For One's side, she would've just shot Izuku from the beginning rather than give him the chance to surrender. He tells her that because she has seen the darkness, she should know how to bring back the light, asking her to join him as he believes she still has the soul of a Hero.
Seeing his bloody arm grabbing ahold of her, and hearing Izuku's words, causes Lady Nagant to smile as she is about to call him a true hero. However, she suddenly explodes, as unaware to them, All For One had placed a countermeasure within her in case she failed her mission or tried to turn on him. As her charred unconscious body starts to fall again, Hawks arrives to try and save her.[5]
After being once again rescued by Izuku, Hawks cries out to his predecessor, yelling at her for letting All For One manipulate her, and that now she must know they can't give up, begging her to tell them what she knows, still calling her a Hero. As she starts to wake up and notice Hawks, Lady Nagant thinks about how the Safety Commission must've also made him do bad things too, and can't understand how he and Izuku still have that heroic fire in their eyes.
Regaining her composure as they land on the ground, she manages to scream out that her orders were to deliver Izuku to a mansion in Haibori Woods within two months, as well as revealing there are others All For One called upon in Tartarus as well. She weakly tells Hawks her heart couldn't bear the dark side and asks how he can still be hopeful, as he responds that he's optimistic to a fault. Lady Nagant passes out as she is apprehended, alongside Kai, by an arrived Endeavor and All Might, as they prepare to take her to receive medical aid, while Izuku watches over her body, festering over rage towards All For One.[8]
She is then taken to Central Hospital to recover, where she is barely alive, but still unconscious.[9]
Final War Arc#
By the time of the Final War between the remaining Heroes and the Villains, Lady Nagant regains consciousness, albeit still recovering from her injuries. After Kurogiri escaped from his containment at Central Hospital, she emerged from her bed, ignoring the doctor's warnings that she could die if her wounds reopen. She doesn't care and asks where the enemy is, but the doctor won't say due to her still being a convict. Despite this, she resolves to redeem herself and help the Heroes, inspired by Izuku who pleaded her to fight alongside them once again.
Rock Lock then appears, telling the doctor he'll take responsibility for her and gives her coordinates for U.A. and other information regarding the current battles. He tells her their full mobilization hinges on their faith in Izuku, and if her heart tells her to act for him, then Rock Lock will put his trust in her.[10] Positioned atop Central Hospital, she watched as the falling U.A. Fortress was rescued by Gentle, and just as Tomura is about to use his Decay, Lady Nagant took the opportunity to use her Rifle and fired a shot directly toward him, splitting his right arm that was about to touch the ground.[11]
Although she was successful in taking the first shot, the strain of her wounds causes a blowback to the damage internally in her body. Despite the pain, she still has one shot left in her, and thinks about how she was drowned in darkness until Izuku and her successor reminded her of her shining hopes and reason for being a Hero in the first place.
Using her last remaining strength to make it reach Izuku, she shoots out another bullet, blasting Tomura's left arm right off. This final shot gave Izuku the time to recover and fight Tomura once again, while she collapses in exhaustion.[10] Rock Lock appears to help her and treat her injuries, as well as showing her on his phone the battle that is being broadcast at that moment between Izuku and Tomura.
He asks her why she is going so far to help him, as Nagant explains he wrenched open her heart, and that he has a special way of doing things which there is nothing harder for a Villain to bear. Rock Lock continues that beating Villains is about making them lose the will to fight, which Nagant figures is what he is doing right now, that he is not out to merely punish evil like it is all so black-and-white, and that his dream is taking him down a thornier, more nuanced path; the look on his face when he is up against the wall and running himself ragged makes her want to risk it all to back him up.[12]
Epilogue Arc#
After the war, Lady Nagant is seen being visited in prison by Hawks, who is now the current President of the Commission, pardoning her thanks to her efforts in the battles. To Hawks' surprise however, Lady Nagant chooses to remain in prison. She expresses that the outside world is a scary place, fearing history repeating itself and being exploited once again. She then explains that she wants to see how society will receive this and how things will change, so won't leave until it pans out. Nagant jests that until then, she will be dining in the taxpayers money for a little while longer. Hawks responds back playfully, calling her a Villain while sticking his tongue out at her.[13]
Eight years later, Kaina has been released from prison and is in retirement, now living a normal life and enjoying her free time by partaking in some hobbies. She also still receives occasional visits from Hawks and Izuku.[14]