"Scandal strikes the most prestigious academy in history... are we witnessing the collapse of trust in hero society?"
The sentence echoed like a grim refrain down every street, every alley, every square. Massive screens hanging from skyscraper facades, phones in the hands of passersby, morning newspapers scattered across sidewalks, all of them broadcasting the same nightmare.
Doubts had begun to gnaw at the reputation of the storied UA High. Parents spoke in the streets with fear, and mothers refused to consider sending their children to a place that could no longer protect them. The villains had succeeded in striking the symbol where it hurt most. The reports came in one after another, revealing the identities of the attackers: the League of Villains, Vanguard Action Squad.
Among the horrifying details that shocked the public, news surfaced of the professional heroes Water Hose being killed by the villain Muscular years ago, the same villain who had targeted their son in the forest. Though police managed to apprehend three of the most dangerous villains, Muscular, Mustard, and the escaped death-row prisoner Moonfish, it was not enough to smother the fire of fear and outrage.
Because there was one image that had taken over every screen. A student with green hair and a sharp gaze.
Roronoa Zoro had been kidnapped.
Silence filled the old wooden dojo. Kenji sat with his usual composure and picked up the remote control to turn on the small television in the corner.
Instead of ordinary news, the screen flashed with aerial footage of a forest burning with blue flame, followed by a wide red banner along the bottom.
Breaking: Student Roronoa Zoro kidnapped by the League of Villains.
The remote slipped from Kenji's hand.
It struck the wooden floor with a dry crack that broke the room's silence.
The teacher went completely still. The calm, measured expression he always carried vanished in a fraction of a second, and a faint pallor crept across his weathered face. His fingers began trembling against his knees without any will of his own, as Zoro's image in his academy uniform appeared again on the screen.
His eyes widened slightly. His breath stopped.
"No."
The word came out with tremendous difficulty, as if it were tearing through his throat.
His jaw tightened gradually until the veins in his neck stood out. He looked away from the screen for a moment, as if trying to absorb the shock, or perhaps refusing to believe what his ears were telling him.
"If the news reaches him..."
Kenji stopped speaking.
A heavy, lethal silence filled the dojo. He raised his eyes to the screen again, and this time, for the first time in many long years, genuine and profound fear was visible in his gaze as clearly as daylight.
In a corner of one of Hosu City's crowded streets, people had gathered with their eyes fixed on the massive screen above their heads, while whispers of shock and dread rose among the passersby.
Shimotsuki raised his head slowly in the middle of the crowd.
Images of destruction and fire filled the screen. Then that familiar face appeared.
The old man stopped where he stood as if time had stopped with him. The heavy bag of rice slipped from his hand and hit the asphalt, its white grains scattering across the ground without drawing any attention from him.
He stared at the screen in complete silence. The wrinkled, hardened features that were always so steady lost their composure entirely, and his eyes widened gradually as if they had returned to a nightmare he thought he had buried long ago.
"Boy."
The whisper left his dry lips trembling, carrying the weight of years.
He closed his fist slowly until his knuckles went white, his eyes still locked on Zoro's image filling the screen.
"Not that place."
Silence settled for a moment in his mind against all the noise of the city around him. Then Shimotsuki closed his eyes with visible exhaustion. For the first time in decades, he tasted the bitterness of true helplessness in his soul.
In the villains' hideout, a click.
Shigaraki turned off the television with the remote. He turned toward the dark room, a wide, unhinged smile splitting his face that was half-hidden behind the severed hand.
"I'm genuinely grateful for all this media noise." His raspy voice was full of satisfaction. "Excellent work, everyone."
In the middle of the bar, where the smell of damp and rust hung in the air, the scene was nothing like what the screens were showing.
On a massive steel chair, Roronoa Zoro was bound.
Thick iron chains coiled around his chest, his arms, his legs, locking him in place with a force that allowed no movement at all. His left shoulder carried a deep, torn wound that was still bleeding dark drops slowly onto the floor. His right forearm held another sharp cut.
His school uniform had been torn completely open down the middle, exposing a chest covered in bruises, and more significantly, exposing that old scar, deep and terrible, the one the Hero Killer Stain had left running across his chest.
He had been stripped of all three swords, Wado Ichimonji, Sandai Kitetsu, and Yubashiri, which had been placed deliberately on a table far beyond his reach. He looked utterly exhausted and drained, his breath rising and falling with difficulty. But what made it terrifying was that he had not lost consciousness. Despite the enormous amount of blood he had lost, his eyes were open, tracking every movement in the room with a piercing sharpness.
Standing before him were Shigaraki, Dabi, Twice, Toga, Magne, Spinner, Kurogiri, and Mr. Compress.
Spinner stared at the massive scar on Zoro's chest and swallowed with difficulty. "That scar." His voice was low. "How does a human body survive something like that?"
"He's unbelievably stubborn!" Twice shouted, grabbing his head. Then in a different voice immediately after: "No, he's just an idiot who refuses to die!"
Mr. Compress stepped forward and tilted his hat in a sardonic show of respect. "Still conscious and maintaining his focus after losing that much blood." He paused. "What a terrifying force of will."
Shigaraki let out a quiet laugh and turned toward Dabi, who was leaning against the wall. "Excellent plan. Losing that Nomu out there is no problem at all."
Shigaraki approached the steel chair with slow steps and leaned slightly to examine the deep wound in Zoro's left shoulder. His smile widened. "That Nomu did its job perfectly."
From behind, Himiko Toga moved closer. Her cheeks were flushed deep red and she was breathing fast like someone in a state of ecstasy. She moved until she was nearly touching Zoro's face, her eyes gleaming with obsession as she stared at the blood covering him.
"Zoro-kun." Her voice came in fragments. "All this blood, and through all this pain, you're still looking at us like you could tear every one of us apart." A quiet laugh. "I want to see more."
In the middle of all of this, Zoro stopped his labored breathing for one moment.
He raised his head slowly. His sharp eyes met Shigaraki's through the fingers of the hand covering the villain's face. Despite the heavy chains, despite the blood staining his face and flowing from his shoulder, the corner of Zoro's mouth lifted into a predatory smile, cold as steel.
"Are you done talking?"
His voice came out rough and deep, carrying a threat that made the temperature in the room drop suddenly. He continued with a mocking, provocative tone, his eyes never leaving Shigaraki's face:
"By the way. Where is this one they call All For One? They say he's your leader."
The iron chains shifted slightly as he leaned his head forward.
"Why doesn't he face me himself, instead of just sending his dogs?"
Shigaraki's features went rigid. Dabi's eyes ignited. And a suffocating, lethal silence settled over the hideout, a silence that warned that the villains had not kidnapped a mere student. They had summoned a beast that knew nothing of surrender.
.
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For Advanced Chapters:
Chapter 89 is Available Now
What Was Born Tonight
All For One now knows everything about Zoro.
All Might feels more like he's All For One.
All Might: Zoro is not your pawn !
All For One: No... The pawns do not carry Conqueror's Haki
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
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