Chapter 30: Scattered to the Wolves
The heavy, metallic doors of the USJ were sealed shut. The lights overhead buzzed erratically, casting long, shifting shadows across the vast training facility.
Down in the central plaza, an army of thugs, murderers, and criminals poured out of the swirling purple vortex. At the front stood the man covered in severed hands, scratching his neck with a sickening, raspy sound, while the hulking bird-monster stood completely motionless beside him.
"Thirteen, begin evacuation!" Aizawa ordered, his voice sharp and steady despite the impossible odds. "Try calling the school! These villains had something to counteract the sensors. It's possible they have someone with radio-wave type Quirks interfering with our communications. Kaminari, you try contacting U.A. with your Quirk, too!"
"What about you, Aizawa-sensei?!" Midoriya yelled, panic seizing his chest. "You can't fight them all by yourself! Your Quirk, Erasure, is suited for stealth and one-on-one combat, not fighting a massive army head-on!"
Aizawa didn't look back. He simply pulled his yellow goggles over his eyes.
"You can't be a pro if you only have one trick," Aizawa said flatly. "Thirteen, I'm leaving the kids to you."
With a powerful leap, Aizawa dove straight down the massive staircase toward the central plaza. As he descended, his capture weapon uncoiled around him like a living serpent. The villains at the front raised their guns and activated their mutant Quirks, ready to tear the lone hero apart.
But suddenly, their Quirks failed.
Aizawa crashed into their front lines like a cannonball. He wrapped his binding cloth around three thugs, effortlessly using their own weight to smash them into each other. He flowed through the crowd with ruthless, calculated martial arts, disabling villains left and right before they even realized what hit them.
Standing near the top of the stairs, Zoro watched Aizawa fight. The swordsman's single eye tracked the teacher's movements, silently analyzing his footwork and efficiency.
Not bad, Teach, Zoro smirked slightly. You actually know how to throw a punch.
"Amazing..." Midoriya muttered in awe. "He's actually holding his own against a group!"
"This is no time for analysis! We have to go!" Iida yelled, waving his arms toward the exit.
The students turned to run toward the heavy metal doors, but before they could take more than a few steps, the air in front of them violently warped.
A massive wall of black and purple mist erupted from the floor, blocking their only escape route. The mist slowly formed the shape of a towering man with glowing, narrow yellow eyes. He wore a sharp, elegant bartender's suit, but his body was nothing but swirling darkness.
"I am afraid I cannot allow you to leave," the mist man spoke. His voice was deep, polite, and chillingly calm. "Greetings. We are the League of Villains. Forgive our audacity, but we have invited ourselves into U.A. High School... in order to have All Might, the Symbol of Peace, take his final breath."
The students froze. The sheer weight of the villain's words crushed the air out of their lungs. They were here to kill All Might.
"I believe he was supposed to be here," Kurogiri continued, his yellow eyes narrowing. "Has there been some kind of change? Well, it is neither here nor there. This is the part I am to play."
Before Thirteen could open the caps on their fingers to use Black Hole, Bakugo and Kirishima launched themselves forward with a ferocious battle cry.
"Did you consider you'd get beaten by us before you did it?!" Bakugo roared, unleashing a massive, blinding explosion right into the center of the mist villain.
Smoke and fire clouded the air.
"Did we get him?!" Kirishima yelled, hardening his arms.
"Get out of the way, you idiots!" Zoro's harsh voice cut through the smoke.
The smoke cleared, revealing Kurogiri completely unharmed. The explosion had simply passed through his misty body. However, as the mist shifted, Zoro's sharp eye caught the only solid thing on the villain's body: the metallic armor brace around his neck.
He's hiding his real body behind the mist, Zoro deduced in a fraction of a second.
"Physical attacks are useless," Kurogiri said calmly. "My job is to scatter you and torture you to dea—"
Shing!
Kurogiri didn't even see the green-haired boy move.
Zoro bypassed Bakugo and Kirishima in a blur of terrifying speed, drawing his sword from his hip. He didn't aim for the mist. With lethal, surgical precision, Zoro thrust the blade directly toward the tiny sliver of metal acting as Kurogiri's neck brace.
Kurogiri's yellow eyes widened in pure, sudden panic. He saw it?!
Operating purely on survival instinct, Kurogiri desperately warped the space directly in front of the blade. The tip of the sword sank into the purple portal, missing the metal brace by a millimeter.
A drop of cold sweat materialized on Kurogiri's mist. Such lethal, unhesitating killer intent. If I hadn't warped the blade away, I would be dead.
"You dodged," Zoro noted coldly, his eye glowing with a dangerous light. "That means you can be cut."
"You are far too dangerous to remain here!" Kurogiri declared, his polite tone replaced by urgent alarm.
Instantly, the dark mist exploded outward, expanding into a massive, suffocating dome that swallowed Zoro, Kirishima, Bakugo, and half of the class in absolute darkness.
Zoro felt the ground vanish beneath his feet. A sickening sensation of falling through a void overtook him. He kept his grip firm on his sword and prepared for impact.
Thud.
Zoro landed gracefully on his feet. The ground here was hard, flat concrete. The deafening sounds of grunts, breaking bones, and fighting echoed right next to him.
He slowly stood up, looking at his surroundings. He wasn't in a ruined city or a fake lake. He was at the absolute bottom of the stairs. The Central Plaza.
Less than thirty feet away, Aizawa was engaged in brutal close-quarters combat. And standing near the fountain were the two figures Zoro had seen earlier: the man covered in hands, and the massive, brain-exposed monster.
Shigaraki Tomura paused his scratching and slowly turned his head to look at the green-haired student who had just fallen out of a warp gate.
"A warp error?" Shigaraki muttered, his raspy voice filled with irritation. "Kurogiri, you idiot. Why did you drop a piece of trash right into my zone? Hey... you guys. Get rid of the kid. He's an eyesore."
About two dozen low-level thugs broke off from the main horde surrounding Aizawa. They grinned, cracking their knuckles and drawing their weapons as they formed a tight, deadly circle around Zoro.
"Looks like we got an easy target!" a mutant with blades for arms laughed. "Let's chop him to pieces!"
Zoro let out a heavy sigh. He drew the Wado Ichimonji, its white scabbard clicking sharply.
The thugs charged all at once. Zoro moved with fluid, lethal precision. He blocked a heavy axe strike with his blade, kicked the attacker in the chest, and smoothly sliced through another villain's iron club like it was made of butter. He ducked under a stream of fire and knocked two more thugs out with the hilt of his sword.
But for every villain he dropped, three more stepped up. Bullets ricocheted off the ground near his feet as snipers took aim from the back. The sheer number of enemies and the tight space made it impossible to finish them off quickly with just one blade.
This is getting annoying, Zoro thought, deflecting a barrage of throwing knives. Fighting them one by one will take too long.
He kicked a massive villain away, creating a few feet of distance. Slowly, Zoro reached up to his left bicep. He untied the dark black bandana wrapped around his arm and pulled it over his head, tying it firmly in place. The moment the bandana was secured, the lazy student was completely gone.
He raised the Wado Ichimonji, shifting its pure white hilt to his mouth and clamping down firmly on it with his teeth. Then, he reached to his hip, drawing the cursed Sandai Kitetsu with his right hand, and his third, ordinary sword with his left.
The villains paused, confused by the absurd three-sword stance. But their mocking laughs died in their throats as a sudden, terrifying, demonic aura erupted from the boy, making the air feel impossibly heavy.
Zoro lowered his stance, crossing his two swords in front of his chest. A fierce, bloodthirsty smirk appeared on his face.
"You better brace yourselves," Zoro's muffled, demonic voice echoed through the plaza around the blade in his teeth, sending shivers down the villains' spines. "Because you're about to get swept away."
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For Advanced Chapters :
Secrets that Master Kenji had been hiding began to surface. Zoro seemed to be learning new things about something. He issued a challenge to everyone as the sports festival approached.
Chapters 31-38 are currently available.
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