The cold wind howled through the dark forest, carrying a pressure that only those who had walked the line between life and death could perceive. On the rocky ledge, Zoro stared toward the source of that weight, his eyes sharpened with a focus that had nothing casual about it.
He turned toward Kota, who was shivering slightly from the sudden drop in temperature.
"Kid." Zoro secured Wado Ichimonji at his hip as he spoke. "Stay here. Don't move. There's something hiding in those trees."
Before Kota could answer, Zoro was gone.
He plunged into the heart of the forest like a dark shape, one hand resting on his hilt, Observation Haki stretched wide like an invisible net catching every heartbeat in the dark. The pressure was approaching directly, a killing intent clean and undiluted.
He vaulted over a massive fallen trunk and landed in a clearing. He drew Yubashiri halfway, body angled and ready for whatever came out of the brush.
"Fast, when it comes to running toward danger you know nothing about."
Zoro went still. That wasn't a villain's voice.
Shota Aizawa stepped out of the deep shadows, hands in his pockets, that flat unreadable gaze cutting straight through Zoro. No monsters. No criminals. The suffocating pressure and killing intent had been coming from Aizawa himself, the aura of a pro hero who had spent a decade in dark alleys facing the worst society had to offer.
Zoro pushed Yubashiri back into its scabbard with a resentful click and let out a slow breath. "You? I thought for a second there was actually someone worth waking up for. Do you enjoy playing around in the dark, Sensei?"
"That wasn't playing." Aizawa's tone didn't shift. He pulled a small device from his pocket and switched it off. The artificial pressure dissolved instantly. "It was a response test. And as usual, you failed the part that matters most."
Zoro's brow dropped. "What are you talking about? I reached the source of the threat in under a minute."
"And left a five-year-old civilian alone on a cliff edge in a beast-filled forest, to go rushing toward a fight you knew absolutely nothing about."
Zoro had no answer for that. Not because he felt guilty, but because, truthfully, Kota had ceased to exist in his mind the moment he smelled a fight.
One week earlier, Principal Nezu's office.
Nezu sat in his large leather chair, tea in hand. The midterm results were spread across the desk. He slid one paper across to a visibly tired Aizawa.
"Roronoa Zoro." Nezu's smile was perfectly unchanged. "Dead last in the written exams. His final exam paper contained one crude drawing of a sword and a note that read: fighting doesn't need a pen and paper. We've decided to exempt him from the written final. Forcing him through it won't produce anything useful."
Aizawa picked up the paper. "He doesn't care. About the academy, the rules, the title. His body and mind are set up for one thing."
"Precisely!" Nezu pressed his small paws together. "Roronoa is a boy with monstrous strength and a will that doesn't break. As a combatant, he may be the most capable student in this school. As a hero?" A short pause. "A disaster on two legs."
Nezu opened a black file. "We've analyzed his behavior patterns. First: no directional awareness whatsoever. Send Zoro to rescue a hostage in an urban environment and there's a real chance he ends up in a different city. Second, and more importantly, the way he thinks." Nezu looked up. "If he's facing a criminal holding hostages in a crowded building, what are the odds that Zoro simply cuts through the building, the criminal, and the hostages in a single strike because it's the fastest path to winning?"
Aizawa closed his eyes. "High."
"This boy has no framework for rescue. No concept of collateral damage." The lightness had gone out of Nezu's voice entirely. "Release him into society as he is and people won't see a hero. They'll see a monster." He folded his hands. "So your task at this summer camp is not to train his body. It's to reach his mind. Make him understand that a sword that only knows how to kill is a criminal's weapon. A hero's sword needs to know what it's protecting."
Back in the dark forest, Aizawa dropped a heavy bag at Zoro's feet. It fell open to reveal three human-sized dummies made of dense unfamiliar material, and a hand-drawn map layered with detail.
"What is this." Zoro's face had the expression of someone who had been handed something personally offensive.
"Your individual training." No preamble from Aizawa. "For the duration of this camp, you won't be training alongside the others to build offensive power. You will carry these three dummies. Each one weighs as much as a full-grown adult. Your task is to navigate this forest at night and deliver all three to a marked point on that map."
Aizawa held his gaze. "The whole time, Pixie-Bob's earth beasts will be coming at you without stopping. If you lose your way, you fail. If a single dummy gets a scratch, whether from the beasts or from the pressure of your own swords, you fail. And if you cut down one tree and cause collateral damage to the surrounding area, you fail."
The widening of Zoro's eyes lasted less than a second before his face went to pure fury. He kicked the bag. "Are you serious right now?! I didn't come here to play babysitter with a bunch of dolls! I have actual techniques I need to develop. A fighting style I need to work on! If I wanted lessons in morals and rescue operations, I would've stayed in the tent with Deku and Iida!"
Zoro felt the walls closing in. He turned to walk away. "Find someone else for this. I'm going to find something worth cutting."
The capture cloth wrapped around his wrist and sword hilt before he'd taken two steps. Even without activating his Quirk, knowing Zoro had none to cancel, Aizawa's movements were those of someone who had been tying people down for a very long time.
"I wasn't asking for your opinion, Roronoa." Something in Aizawa's voice had shifted from its usual flat cold to something with more weight behind it. "You believe that absolute strength is what makes you untouchable. So imagine a real fight. The villain is standing behind someone you care about. What do you do? Cut them both?" A breath. "Your ability to cut is terrifying. Your ability to control what you cut is pathetic."
The cloth loosened slightly. Aizawa pointed at the dummies. "A swordsman who can't protect what's behind his back dies alone. Prove to me you're more than a tool of destruction with a pulse. Start the training."
Zoro stood there. The words had landed somewhere they weren't supposed to, touching an old promise and a responsibility he had stopped thinking about a long time ago. He looked at the map. Then at the dummies. Then he put a hand over his face and stayed like that for a moment.
"Deliver dolls. Read a stupid map. Don't cut trees." He grabbed one dummy and hauled it onto his shoulder with zero gentleness. "I swear, when this camp is done, I am cutting these dolls, I am cutting this whole forest, and I am cutting you too, you miserable gloomy teacher."
Aizawa watched Zoro walk off with the dummies, still muttering, heading in the completely wrong direction according to the map. He exhaled slowly, the kind of exhale that comes from accepting a truth you already knew. The coming days were going to be the longest of his professional life.
Somewhere else, in a dim bar.
The air held the smell of old wood and something uglier beneath it. On the screen at the back of the room, surveillance footage of the UA forest flickered in the dark.
Tomura Shigaraki sat at the bar, his fingers never quite still. In front of him stood the new members of the Vanguard Action Squad: Dabi, Toga, Muscular, Spinner, and the rest.
"The time is here." His voice was dry leaves on concrete. He pressed one finger against a photo pinned to the board, a grainy shot of Zoro standing over the wreckage of a giant robot. "The primary target is Roronoa Zoro. He's an anomaly. A glitch in the system. We take him back with us."
He moved his finger to the photo beside it. Bakugo Katsuki. "The secondary target is the explosive one. He has the eyes of someone who doesn't belong with the heroes. Bring him as a gift. He'll make an excellent project."
Dabi leaned against the wall, a faint blue flame curling between his fingers. "Tomorrow night, then? While they're tired and tucked away in the forest?"
"Yes." The smile spread slowly across Shigaraki's face, visible beneath the severed hand gripping his head. The low laugh that followed didn't fill the room with noise. It filled it with weight.
"Go. Break their peace. I want to see how the swordsman reacts when his world starts to burn."
.
.
For Advanced Chapters:
Pat reon is one of the biggest way to help your author to write more and also to get advanced chapters;
Pat re on.com/AZTh
Apple users should subscribe through the website, not the app, because the app costs about five extra dollars due to Apple's fees. That's why I strongly recommend using the web version.