Zoro stepped out of his room on the fifth floor with the same energy he woke up with anywhere else in the world: immediate and without ceremony. He pulled on his training clothes, rolled his shoulders once, and headed for the elevator.
The doors slid open. He stepped in, looked at the panel, and pressed what seemed like the right button for lower.
The elevator went up.
The doors opened on the seventh floor. Zoro stepped out halfway, looked left, then right. A long, quiet hallway stretching in both directions with no exit and no ground anywhere in sight.
"This isn't lower." He stepped back inside. "Damn."
He returned to the panel and studied it for a moment with the focused patience of someone who had navigated far worse situations than this. Numbers going from one to eight. One marked G at the bottom. He pressed another button.
The elevator descended. Stopped. The doors opened on the third floor.
Iida was standing in the hallway already in his training gear, a water bottle in one hand and a printed morning schedule in the other. He looked at Zoro. Then at the elevator. Then back at Zoro.
"Roronoa-san." He adjusted his glasses with two fingers. "This is the third floor."
"I know."
A pause that suggested he did not entirely know.
"The ground floor is the button marked G," Iida said, stepping into the elevator beside him with the precise movements of a person who had never once pressed the wrong button in his life. "At the very bottom of the panel." He pressed G. "You are training outside?"
"Yes."
The elevator descended.
"That is admirable." Iida said it in the very serious way he meant most things. "Though I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the building layout when time allows. Efficiency in navigation is as important as efficiency in combat."
Zoro said nothing.
The doors opened on the ground floor.
"Ground floor," Iida announced, gesturing toward it with the focused energy of someone who had just successfully completed a mission.
Zoro stepped out without a word, but paused for exactly one second before the doors closed. "Thanks."
Iida straightened, water bottle in hand, looking quietly satisfied.
Outside, the first light of morning was barely a suggestion on the horizon. Zoro found a clear stretch of open ground away from the building, planted his feet shoulder-width apart, and started.
Push-ups first. Strict form, no shortcuts, chest to the ground every rep. Then he shifted to one arm, steady and controlled. After two sets he moved to explosive squats, then into a slow handstand hold against the open air with nothing behind him, balancing on locked arms while the sky above shifted from black to dark blue. No equipment. No weights. Just his body and the morning.
On the third floor, Midoriya opened his eyes.
He finished his usual routine quickly and stepped out onto the balcony for a breath of morning air. He hadn't expected to find anyone at this hour. But movement below pulled his attention.
He looked down.
Zoro. Moving through a set of one-arm push-ups with the mechanical patience of someone who had done this ten thousand times before. Not rushing. Not slowing down. Each repetition as clean as the one before it.
Midoriya kept his voice low, careful not to wake anyone else. "Zoro!"
Zoro looked up from the ground. His sharp eyes found Midoriya's in the same second his name was spoken.
"Good morning. I didn't know you woke up this early." Midoriya smiled with slight shyness.
Zoro pushed himself back to standing in one movement. "Training doesn't wait." He added after a short pause, his voice a tone quieter: "You too. Don't waste your morning staring. Start your day."
It was a short sentence. But coming from Zoro, it was about as close to encouragement as it got.
After a quick shower, Zoro changed into the official UA uniform and headed to the dining hall. Students were gathering in small clusters, trading light conversations and tired laughter over their plates. Zoro chose a quiet spot away from the main noise and ate without joining the discussion, his eyes drifting across the room in the unhurried way of someone observing rather than participating.
Breakfast ended and the walk to class was short. Everyone settled into their seats, and Aizawa walked in.
His usual tired eyes swept the room in one slow, scanning look that missed nothing. He stood in front of the board.
"Good morning." He started there and moved directly to the point without preamble. "The next step toward becoming professional heroes is the provisional hero license exam. This license is not a piece of paper. It is legal permission to intervene in emergencies, and it is a test of your abilities and your responsibilities."
He paused. "The passing rate does not exceed fifty percent. In the coming weeks, you will work on developing your ultimate moves. These are the core of your strength and what will distinguish you as heroes." One last look across the class. "Costumes. Training Gym Gamma. Ten minutes."
Everyone stood at once.
Gym Gamma was unlike anything they had trained in before.
A massive multi-story structure stretching hundreds of meters, its interior held complex iron frameworks built to simulate real urban combat environments: suspension bridges, towering pillars, narrow corridors, open spaces. The artificial lighting gave the place an atmosphere that pressed down on you, making the danger feel real rather than rehearsed.
The students arrived one after another, each in the hero costume they knew by feel. Seeing each other in these costumes inside UA again, after everything that had happened in Kamino, gave the training ground a seriousness that hadn't been there before.
Zoro stood slightly apart at the back of the group, away from the cluster.
His white open-collared shirt met loose dark trousers that gave him full freedom of movement. The dark green haramaki was wrapped firmly around his waist as though it had grown there rather than been put on. A light green bandana sat across his head, and three rings in his left ear caught the artificial light. On his right hip, his three-sword carrier: Wado Ichimonji with its pure white sheath in the center, Sandai Kitetsu with its rough hilt on the left, and Yubashiri with its engraved decorations on the right.
Uraraka looked at the costume with the particular look of someone who had seen it before and still couldn't fully process it. "Zoro, no matter how many times I see you in this outfit, I always feel like you've walked in from a completely different era."
He didn't turn to her. "History doesn't lie."
Kirishima glanced at him from the side with open admiration. "Seriously, this look is incredibly manly. The three swords together hit different in a place like this."
"They're not decorations."
Before the conversation could continue, a voice came from the top of the iron staircase leading to the upper observation platform. Three figures descended with measured steps.
Midnight in her professional costume. Cementoss with his heavy features and cement-thick arms. And Ectoplasm, Aizawa's usual assistant, a data tablet in one hand and a stylus already moving across it before he had fully arrived.
Midnight stopped at the edge of the observation platform and looked at the students below with an evaluating gaze. "Welcome to Gamma. Some of you may have heard about this place from older students. Hearing about it is one thing. Standing inside it is something else entirely."
Cementoss stepped forward, his voice heavier and rougher. "This gym was designed to replicate real urban combat conditions. There are no comfortable distances here. No clean floors. No sufficient space. You will fight in narrow corridors, on suspension bridges, and between pillars. This is what the real world looks like."
Ectoplasm added in a calm, neutral tone: "The focus here is not strength and not speed. It is control. The ability to use what you have in the tightest and most complex conditions. Many students lose control when their space tightens. Your goal is to be the exception."
Midnight continued: "We will begin today with individual assessments. No group training in the first stage. Each student will work alone in a different section of the gym, and we will observe how you handle the environment and how you use your abilities under that pressure. Success is not the goal today. Understanding your starting point is."
Bakugo shifted where he stood, cracking his knuckles with small successive explosions. He kept his voice low but not quite low enough to prevent Kirishima from hearing. "Assessment. Like they don't know us after Kamino."
Kirishima responded quieter: "Maybe the goal is different this time."
Zoro was already reading the building with steady eyes, measuring distances and marking anchor points. Suspension bridges at ten meters. Pillars spaced far enough to jump between but not far enough to forgive mistakes. Corridors so narrow they nearly touched both shoulders at once. For the first time since arriving in this world, he felt that the environment in front of him resembled something close to what he had grown up fighting in.
Midoriya raised his hand with slight hesitation. "Professor Midnight, is there a specific objective we need to reach in this assessment?"
Midnight smiled. "The right question. No. There is no passing or failing today. But what you do here will determine how we design your training in the weeks ahead. What you do naturally under pressure tells us more than any pre-planned test ever could."
Cementoss pointed toward the corridors. "The gym is divided into twenty-one sections. Each section is an independent environment. You will be assigned by lottery."
At the mention of the lottery, Ectoplasm began reading names in sequence. When he reached Zoro's name, he pointed toward a section at the far left of the gym. "Section seventeen."
Zoro walked toward his section with slow, steady steps. No rush. No hesitation. When he reached the entrance and looked inside, he stopped for one second.
Section seventeen. Interlocking corridors with no fixed floor in several areas, only thin iron pillars and narrow bridges suspended over a deep open void below. Moving through it required constant balance. The sword was a liability here if you couldn't manage it well in a space that didn't allow freely extended arms.
For the first time in this world, the corner of Zoro's mouth pulled into a faint smile.
"Now this is something worth doing."
He placed his right hand on Wado Ichimonji's hilt and stepped inside.
Across the gym, where Aizawa was watching the small screens relaying each section's feed, he stopped at screen seventeen.
He said nothing. He only watched Zoro with steady eyes. Watched him enter that complex section with confidence and quiet, as though he saw no obstacles in it but merely familiar ground. A true swordsman who knew how to breathe in difficulty.
Ectoplasm moved to his side and spoke in a low voice. "Someone will contact you today. Did Principal Nezu inform you?"
Aizawa answered without moving his eyes from the screen. "Yes."
"When do they arrive?"
"Tomorrow. At dawn."
.
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