The cold night air carried the sharp scent of crushed gravel and cheap tobacco. In the courtyard of the dojo, four men stood over the splintered remains of the front gate. They didn't look like professional villains; their clothes were mismatched, and their postures were sloppy. They were street thugs, the kind of bottom-feeders who thrived on the edges of a superhuman society, preying on those who the Pro Heroes overlooked.
Master Kenji stood on the wooden porch, his old, calloused hands resting heavily on his wooden cane. The wind tugged at his loose gray yukata, making him look even more fragile under the pale moonlight.
"I told you last month, Yamaguchi," Kenji said, his voice raspy but entirely steady. "This dojo is private property. We don't need your 'protection'."
The leader of the group, a heavy-set man named Yamaguchi, spat on the clean wooden floorboards. He rolled his shoulders, and with a sickening crunch, the skin on his forearms hardened, turning into jagged, gray concrete. It was a minor mutation Quirk, but enough to shatter a normal man's jaw.
"Times change, old man," Yamaguchi sneered, stepping closer. His concrete fist cracked against the wooden pillar of the porch, leaving a deep dent. "You're sitting on prime real estate. Either you pay the neighborhood fee, or accidents start happening. Maybe a fire. Maybe you trip and break your good leg."
The other three men laughed, one of them igniting small, pathetic sparks from his fingertips just to show off. They expected the old man to tremble. They expected him to beg or reach for his wallet.
Instead, Kenji simply closed his eyes and let out a long, tired sigh. "You should leave. Now."
"Or what?" Yamaguchi barked, raising his heavy, stone-covered fist. "You gonna hit me with that stick?"
"No," a cold, flat voice echoed from the shadows of the training hall. "He won't."
The sliding paper doors of the hall pushed open slowly. The rhythmic squeak of the wooden tracks sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
Zoro stepped out onto the porch. He was barefoot, wearing only his dark uniform trousers and a white undershirt that clung to his back, soaked in fresh sweat. But what caught the thugs' attention wasn't his intense, unblinking glare. It was the three swords resting horizontally at his left hip, secured tightly in a dark green sash.
He didn't look like a scared teenager. He looked like something ancient that had just been woken up.
Yamaguchi blinked, then let out a booming laugh. "Are you kidding me? You're hiding behind a kid playing samurai? What is this, a movie set?"
Zoro didn't speak. He walked down the wooden steps, his bare feet making absolutely zero sound against the wood. His thumb pressed against the guard of the uppermost sword pushing it open just a fraction of an inch. A tiny sliver of polished, silver steel caught the moonlight.
"Listen, kid," the thug with the sparking fingers sneered, taking a step forward. "Put the toys down before you hurt yourself. We're here for business, not a cosplay convention."
He reached out to grab Zoro's collar.
It happened in the span of a single breath.
Zoro didn't draw the blade. He didn't need to. He simply shifted his weight, dropping his center of gravity flawlessly. As the thug's hand reached forward, Zoro pivoted and thrust the heavy, lacquered bottom of his scabbard directly into the man's solar plexus.
Crack.
All the air violently left the thug's lungs in a choked gasp. Before the man could even drop to his knees, Zoro swept his right leg, kicking the thug's ankle with the force of a steel bat. The man flipped in the air and hit the gravel back-first, completely unconscious, his eyes rolled back in his head.
The remaining three thugs froze. The laughter died in their throats. Their brains struggled to process what had just happened. There was no flash of light. No explosion. No activation of a Quirk. The kid had just moved, and their friend was out cold.
"One," Zoro counted softly, his voice barely above a whisper. He didn't even look at the fallen man. His dark eyes locked onto Yamaguchi. "Who's next?"
"You little brat!" Yamaguchi roared, his face turning red with humiliation. He charged, raising both concrete-covered fists. "I'll crush your skull!"
He swung down with all his weight, aiming to smash Zoro into the ground. It was a slow, clumsy attack fueled by pure anger.
Zoro didn't dodge backward. He stepped in.
He sidestepped the heavy concrete fists by a mere hairsbreadth. The wind from the punch rustled his green hair. In that split second of Yamaguchi being completely off-balance, Zoro grabbed the hilt of the second sword. He didn't unsheathe it. Instead, he whipped the solid, wrapped handle upward, striking Yamaguchi directly under the chin.
The impact sounded like a wooden mallet hitting a thick melon.
Yamaguchi's jaw snapped shut, his teeth clashing violently. The sheer kinetic force lifted his heavy body a few inches off the ground before he collapsed backward, landing with a heavy, unmoving thud. The concrete on his arms slowly crumbled back into normal skin.
Two seconds. Two strikes. Two men down.
Zoro slowly turned his head to look at the last two standing thugs. His eyes were completely hollow, devoid of any fear or hesitation. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword again.
"Well?" Zoro asked, the coldness in his voice chilling the night air.
The two men looked at their unconscious leader, then back at the green-haired demon standing in front of them. The illusion of their superiority shattered entirely. Panic hijacked their nervous systems. Without a single word, they turned and bolted towards the broken gate, tripping over their own feet as they scrambled into the dark street, leaving their friends behind.
The courtyard fell silent again.
Zoro stood there for a moment, listening to their fading footsteps. Slowly, he released his grip on the sword and let out a long breath. The tension in his shoulders faded.
He looked down at his hands, then at the scabbard. A slight frown formed on his face.
"Sloppy," he muttered to himself. "I used too much force on the second one. My footing was slightly off."
"You used exactly the force required to end it," Kenji's voice came from the porch. The old master walked down the steps, his wooden cane tapping softly against the ground. He looked at the unconscious men, then up at Zoro.
"They were weak," Zoro said, his tone dismissive. He looked back at his master. "They rely on cheap tricks. But... the robots at U.A. won't have a solar plexus or a chin. If I hit solid steel with this scabbard, it will splinter."
Kenji nodded slowly. He didn't praise Zoro. He didn't scold him. He recognized the shift in his student's eyes. Zoro wasn't satisfied with beating up street thugs; he was already thinking about the mountain he had to climb.
"You are right," Kenji said softly. "The swords you carry are masterpieces. But they are meant to cut flesh and bone. If you try to cut a multi-ton machine with them now, your arms will shatter before the steel does."
Kenji turned around and walked back toward the training hall.
"Follow me, Zoro."
Zoro stepped over the unconscious Yamaguchi and followed his master inside. Kenji walked to the very center of the dojo, right below the main light fixture. He knelt down painfully and pressed his fingers against the corner of a specific tatami mat.
With a soft click, a hidden latch released. Kenji pulled the mat aside, revealing a dark, dusty compartment hidden beneath the floorboards.
"If you intend to walk the path of the Quirkless in a world of machines and monsters," Kenji said, reaching into the darkness. "Then training with wood and regular steel is no longer enough. You must learn the weight of despair."
With a grunt of effort, the old man pulled a long, rectangular box from the hidden compartment. It was wrapped in heavy, faded black canvas, chained shut with a thick padlock. Just watching Kenji pull it out, Zoro could tell it was unnaturally, absurdly heavy.
Kenji looked up at Zoro, his gray eyes shining with an ancient, dangerous intensity.
"Let's see if your hands are strong enough to hold this."