Spoilers for My Hero Academia Season 6, Episode 4One major advantage that My Hero Academia's villains have had is Kurogiri's Warp Gate Quirk, allowing them to instantly teleport over immense distances, and capturing Kurogiri was a big win for the heroes. But as was revealed in episode 4 of season 6, Kurogiri was never meant to exist at all, and the corpse this Nomu was based on should've been a different hero altogether.
Fans of My Hero Academia will remember that Kurogiri's backstory was revealed previously: he was once a UA student by the name of Oboro Shirakumo, and a good friend of Eraserhead (Aizawa) and Present Mic, who died in a tragic work-study accident. The incident was elaborated upon in the spinoff My Hero Academia Vigilantes, where several chapters were devoted to a flashback. Shirakumo's body was recovered later by All for One's followers, and it was poked, prodded, and mutilated until it was able to arise as the Nomu known as Kurogiri. Kurogiri has no memory of being Shirakumo, however, and now lives only to serve All for One.
As Present Mic was taking in All for One's mad scientist Dr. Garaki, the doctor admitted to some of the things they'd done together, explaining that All for One was the only one who believed his Quirk Singularity Theory, even after he'd been laughed out of science for proposing it. He then refers to Present Mic as "Kurogiri's friend," and explains that on the day that Shirakumo was killed, they were actually targeting Aizawa in order to steal his Erasure Quirk. Present Mic doesn't say anything in response to this information, even though the heroes have already figured out Kurogiri's original identity. Shirakumo was shown in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes to have died of debris falling during what should've been a minor robbery, and Aizawa was indeed present at the time, as the pair were assigned to the same work-study.
All for One's Erasure Nomu Would've Changed Everything
While the villains have certainly gotten a lot of use out of Kurogiri's Warp Gate, using it for ambushes and rapid escapes, it's nowhere near as strategically useful as Aizawa's Erasure would've been. Erasure has been shown to cancel any non-mutant Quirk, which includes One for All (as he's canceled Deku many times) and All for One. Given how much trouble even All Might had with the first Nomu at the USJ, one can only imagine what a disaster that would've been if the Nomu had been able to cancel hero's Quirks, too. And although the villains generally prefer to use Warp Gate, All for One does have access to a different warp Quirk with shorter range, so killing Aizawa instead of Shirakumo wouldn't even have ensured they lost the warp ability. A Nomu with Erasure could even overcome some downsides of the Quirk, like eliminating the need to blink by adding a second eyelid or even just more eyes to look at more targets, and it would have offensive Quirks to ensure it could attack incapacitated targets.
It's intriguing to learn that Shirakumo's death was no accident, as it first appeared to be in Vigilantes. Hopefully, Aizawa never learns this fact, or he'll blame himself for what happened even more than he already does. But while Shirakumo's death was undoubtedly a tragic fate for an up-and-coming young hero, My Hero Academia's pro heroes have no idea how much worse things could've been had Aizawa been the one to die instead.
My Hero Academia's latest episode is streaming now on Crucnhyroll and Hulu!