"He's reached his limit."
He saw the trembling hand. Saw the blood. Saw the three swords on the ground without color.
"If I touch him right now, it's over."
A small marble turned between his fingers.
One step. Another. The caution of someone approaching a wounded apex predator, knowing full well that wounded doesn't mean finished.
Zoro had his head down. His heavy breathing alone signaled he was still conscious.
Five meters.
"I'll be honest with you," Compress said, his voice gentled into something almost conversational. "I did not understand what that black color was. I still don't, entirely. But I understood that it runs dry." A quiet beat. "And everything that runs dry ends."
Four.
"The finest performances always know when to take their bow."
Three.
His hand extended slowly toward Zoro's shoulder, toward the wound specifically.
"Ta-da."
In that same moment.
Zoro's eye opened fully.
Compress froze.
He didn't see the movement. A small black spark lit on Wado Ichimonji. The very last of it, one single pulse gathered from every corner of his body.
Shshshwoooosh!
The strike launched. And it landed.
Dakh!
The edge cut from his left shoulder to his right side in one clean line. The sound of the cut was real. The pain in Compress's eyes was real.
He made a sound that was almost theatrical in its shock, a sharp exhale pulled wide, the reaction of a man on a stage who had not prepared for this particular act.
But in the moment his eyes widened, his body began to dissolve.
His face ran like black mud. His arm twisted. His features turned to viscous sludge dripping to the ground, and the wound itself disappeared inside the dissolving.
The strike landed. But there wasn't enough body left beneath it to hold.
Shwoom!
The trees behind him cracked in a clear line.
Zoro stayed rigid, Wado extended forward trembling in his hand.
His eyes narrowed slowly as he watched the remains of the mud evaporating above the ground.
"...Hah?"
Not enough flesh under the strike. Not enough bone. What he'd cut was there, but what remained of it was far less than it should have been.
His hand tightened on the handle. "He was real."
The forest hadn't gone quiet. It only changed its voice.
A dull thud echoed between the trees as Ochaco Uraraka slammed Himiko Toga against the ground, pinning her wrists with both hands, breath uneven, dirt smeared across her cheek.
"Stay down!"
For a second, Toga didn't struggle. She just smiled. Soft. Crooked. Wrong.
Her golden eyes flicked upward, meeting Uraraka's trembling gaze.
"You're shaking." Her voice slipped out almost sweetly. "Is it because you're scared, or because you're thinking about him?"
Uraraka's grip tightened. "Shut up."
"But you are thinking about him, right?" Toga's smile widened, her voice lowering into something intimate, invasive. "Izuku Midoriya. You like him."
A heartbeat. That was all it took.
The hesitation was small, barely there. But Toga lived in those moments.
Her body twisted unnaturally fast. "Got you."
A flash of steel. Dakh.
Uraraka gasped as a needle slipped in, quick and precise. A small vial filled with dark red.
Toga rolled back, landing lightly on her feet, holding the syringe up to the dim light filtering through the trees. "Ahh. Warm."
Leaves rustled. Footsteps. Fast.
From the trees, Izuku Midoriya burst into view, breath sharp, eyes scanning. Beside him, Shoto Todoroki advanced with controlled urgency, ice already creeping along his arm. Behind them, Mezo Shoji moved silently, his gaze locked on the threat.
Toga's head turned. Her eyes landed on Midoriya.
And for a moment she just stared.
Then she giggled. "Found you."
In a blink, she slipped back, vanishing between the trees like she'd never been there.
Uraraka pushed herself up, Tsuyu arriving at her side instantly.
"We're okay." Uraraka started, breath still uneven. "But Midoriya."
Midoriya stepped forward, urgency cutting through everything. "Bakugo's the target. We need to move now. He was right behind us, we were."
"Behind you?" Uraraka frowned. "Where is he?"
Midoriya turned. "He was."
Todoroki turned too. Shoji's eyes widened slightly.
Empty. No explosions. No voice. No presence.
"Bakugo?" Midoriya called.
Nothing answered.
A thin, slow clap echoed above them. "Magnificent timing."
All heads snapped upward.
Between the branches, under the shadow of the trees, Mr. Compress stood balanced on a thick limb, one hand raised in polite applause.
A laugh followed. Light. Refined. Cruel.
"Allow me to conclude tonight's performance with a proper finale."
His fingers opened. Two small marbles rested in his palm.
Inside them, tiny figures. Compressed. Visible.
Katsuki Bakugo. Fumikage Tokoyami.
Midoriya's breath caught. "No way."
Todoroki's eyes sharpened, disbelief cutting through his composure. "What kind of Quirk is that? He took them without us even noticing."
Compress tilted his head slightly, amused. "A magician never reveals his methods."
His fingers closed. "And he never stays after the trick is done."
In the next instant, he was gone.
The branches swayed. Then stilled.
Silence. Heavy. Crushing.
No Bakugo. No Tokoyami.
Only the sound of breathing and the realization settling in too late.
Far from them, deeper in the forest, a figure moved.
Slow. Unsteady.
Roronoa Zoro.
Blood dripped from his shoulder in heavy drops, staining the ground behind him with each step. One hand pressed against the wound, the other barely holding onto Wado Ichimonji.
His vision blurred. The trees bent and twisted at the edges.
But he kept walking.
Forward. Into the dark.
Not toward them. Not toward safety. Toward something else entirely.
And the forest let him pass.
On the other side of the forest, where blue flames were quietly devouring the trees in a terrifying silence, Dabi and Twice stood between shadow and fire.
The blue fire lit Dabi's face from the side. Shadows and flame, nothing between them. The smell of burning wood and smoke filled the air around them.
Twice turned his head toward the smoke rising from the battle site, then back to Dabi.
"Compress failed! The copy was cut by Roronoa! And the Nomu, there's no response! Nobody! No Compress, no Nomu! Nobody!"
Dabi didn't move his head from the flame. "We know."
"How do you know? You weren't."
"We were here." His fingers moved slowly and lit a small blue flame in his palm, not for anything, just a habit. "We heard the last strike from here."
Twice turned toward the battle site. "So, both of them."
"Both." The blue flame in Dabi's palm extinguished slowly. "No Nomu. No Compress."
A burning branch fell from a tree beside them. The blue flame consumed it before it touched the ground.
Then a faint smile appeared on Dabi's face. Not the kind born from pleasure. The kind reserved for the very few things that earn genuine interest.
"Roronoa Zoro."
His blue eyes reflected the flame.
"Now I understand why Shigaraki wants him alive."
Twice looked at him. "Does that change anything?"
Dabi finally turned. And his face in the blue fire looked like something between interest and resolve.
"A lot."
.
.
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The Breaking of the Bet & the King's Arrival
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