The clock had crossed well past midnight, but Sir Nighteye's office stayed lit by the pale glow of his screen. The map laid out in front of him looked ordinary to any passing eye, but not to his. He kept staring at the name printed in small red letters, as though simply reading it had reopened old files he thought had been sealed shut years ago.
Bubble Girl hadn't moved from her spot. She watched her boss's expression with growing unease. She'd never seen this kind of stillness on his face before. Nighteye was a man who calculated everything down to the last detail, a man who never let surprise crack his calm, but this was clearly an exception.
"Sir..." she whispered, fighting the urge to step closer. "Is this place dangerous enough to make you stop like this?"
Nighteye lifted his eyes toward her, then dropped them back to the map. "The danger isn't just in this place. It's in the history behind it." He said it low. "This isn't just some equipment transfer site. It's a historical location."
"A historical location?" she repeated, stunned.
"Yes." He corrected her, his tone cold. "It used to serve as a warehouse and archive for one of the old underworld networks. It's stayed abandoned for years, but its name never got erased from the records of the heroes who dealt with that era."
Bubble Girl's breathing quickened slightly. "And what does Yoroimusha have to do with this place?"
Nighteye rose from his chair and walked toward the window overlooking the distant city lights. He stayed silent for a moment, then answered in a tone carrying particular weight. "Yoroimusha never told us everything about the black blade. But this location was part of his old investigations. He knows this place well."
Bubble Girl froze in place. "His old investigations?"
"Before he became a known hero." He turned toward her. "Yoroimusha used to trace leads through the underworld connected to that black blade. This location was a key point in those investigations. And if Chisaki chose it specifically to relocate his assets, that's no coincidence. It's a deliberate provocation."
Nighteye fell silent. Bubble Girl's eyes widened bit by bit, and she said with barely restrained fear, "Should we notify Yoroimusha right away?"
"Of course." He answered firmly. "But not this moment. If we tell him now that their movements lead to this exact place, he's likely to act before the plan's complete. And he might drag Zoro along with him, who's no less reckless. We need a workable plan before either of them finds out."
The next morning, Zoro woke early as always, but this time a strange heaviness hung over the whole agency. Since the night before, he'd caught the odd movements: guards waking at unusual hours, phones ringing at times they shouldn't, Bubble Girl sprinting through the halls with eyes red from lack of sleep.
He stood on his balcony, watching sunlight bounce off the city, his hand resting on Wado Ichimonji's hilt without him noticing. He didn't know exactly what had shifted, but his combat instinct kept screaming that something big was closing in.
A hard knock hit the door.
Zoro opened it to find Midoriya standing in the hallway, his face pale, his eyes serious.
"Zoro, there's an emergency meeting right now. Everyone's needed in the main meeting room immediately." Midoriya said it in broken breaths, like he'd just run there.
Zoro raised an eyebrow. "What's happening?"
"I don't know the details, but Nighteye called everyone in. Even people who were out on other missions came back." Midoriya swallowed. "This feels way more serious than we thought."
Zoro blinked, then grabbed his sword belt and fastened it at his hip. "Told them they were wasting time on surveillance."
Midoriya didn't answer, but his worried look said enough.
When they reached the room, the place was already packed with all the heroes and trainees they'd seen the day before. But the atmosphere had changed completely. No side conversations. No whispers, no questions. Everyone stood or sat in their places, eyes fixed on Sir Nighteye standing in front of a large, darkened screen.
Yoroimusha stood by the far wall, eyes shut, arms crossed. His face carried a forced calm, but Zoro noticed his fingers gripping his sleeve tighter than they needed to.
Zoro walked in beside Midoriya and stopped in the middle of the room. His eyes met Yoroimusha's for a second, but the old man never opened his own.
Finally, Nighteye broke the silence.
"We start immediately. No time to waste." He pressed a button on a small remote, and the screen behind him lit up with an aerial shot of an old site surrounded by dense trees. "This is the new base Chisaki relocated his primary assets to. It's a historic old warehouse outside the city, once used as an archive storage site for a traditional organization."
The moment the image appeared, Yoroimusha's eyes snapped open, his expression shifting for a few seconds before he pulled his composure back together.
Nighteye continued. "The location's been officially abandoned for years, but it was never fully empty. Old records hint that the place was used to store documents and artifacts tied to the underworld, some historical, some dangerous."
Whispers rose across the room, and eyes turned toward Yoroimusha.
Zoro stood without moving, his eyes locked on the screen, feeling like this moment carried something heavier than just a new enemy location.
Rock Lock hesitated briefly, then asked, "How could Chisaki use a facility like that without anyone noticing? A historic site that size should be under some kind of local protection or surveillance."
Nighteye answered sharply. "Because the site's registered as collapsed after an old earthquake, never restored. But underneath the ruins sits a large underground vault, originally built as an emergency storage bunker. It seems Chisaki found out about it through private sources and decided it made the perfect base."
"So..." Ryukyu said in her deep voice. "They're not just hiding. They're holding a position with both historical and defensive value."
"More than that." Yoroimusha finally cut in, his voice calm but sharp. "The vault was originally built to protect sensitive assets during unstable periods. Its walls are designed to resist forced entry, and its corridors carry traditional traps. If they've dug in there, a direct assault would be mass suicide."
A heavy silence settled.
Fat Gum spoke seriously. "Do you have solid details on entry points or weak spots? Sounds like you know this place better than any of us, don't you?"
Yoroimusha turned to him, a shadow of a distant past crossing his face. "I know it well. I spent years tracing leads through that district. Never expected to come back to it like this."
Zoro's eyes narrowed further. He hadn't known any of these details, but they suddenly pulled everything into focus: Yoroimusha's obsession with the black blade, his precise knowledge of the organization's movements, that cryptic tone from the night before. He hadn't been chasing some passing piece of information. He'd been chasing something that had haunted him for years.
"That's why." Zoro's voice cut through the silence. "That's why you're tangled up in this. You don't just want to help the heroes. You want to find something you lost."
Yoroimusha turned toward him. "I won't deny that." He answered with a bluntness that made several people turn and stare. "There's strong intelligence pointing to the black blade currently sitting among the organization's holdings. But its story runs deeper than you'd imagine. That doesn't lessen how important this mission is."
Nighteye spoke firmly. "Which is exactly why we won't move recklessly. I'll put together a precise assault plan. Yoroimusha will give us every detail on the corridors and traps. We split into teams: an outside team to secure the perimeter and handle any reinforcements, and an inside team to breach the vault. The primary objective is rescuing the girl, Eri, arresting Chisaki and Chronostasis, and recovering the research materials. Any stolen historical artifacts will also be recovered as part of the operation."
Aizawa said coldly. "The students stay outside the operation until their readiness is properly assessed."
Kirishima protested from the back. "But we've trained so much! We can help!"
Aizawa turned to him with a stern look. "Training in the gym is one thing. Storming a fortified yakuza base is something else entirely. There's no room for recklessness here."
Kirishima fell silent, lowering his head.
Zoro didn't argue. He knew debating now wouldn't change a thing. But inside, he'd already made up his mind: he was walking into that vault, whether the heroes agreed or not.
After the meeting, Zoro met Yoroimusha in the agency's inner garden. Neither spoke for a long stretch. The early breeze stirred the leaves as the two stood facing each other.
"You know more than you're saying." Zoro finally said, his voice carrying a light edge of reproach.
Yoroimusha answered calmly. "There are things that can't be explained in a public meeting."
"Like what?"
Yoroimusha paused, looking deep into Zoro's eyes. "Like the fact that blade isn't just a sword. If the intelligence is accurate and it's actually landed in Chisaki's hands, that means the situation is more dangerous than Nighteye realizes."
"Why?"
"Because it's a heavy, demanding blade." He explained, low. "Its center of balance is nothing like a normal sword. Its edge is dangerous even to whoever holds it. More than one person has tried using it without proper understanding and ended up hurt. Not because of the sword itself, but because they never understood its nature."
Zoro stared into his eyes for a long moment, then said slowly, "You talk like you've tried it yourself."
Yoroimusha didn't answer. His eyes said enough on their own.
Zoro felt something stir inside him, something closer to overwhelming curiosity than fear. A sword this demanding. He couldn't tell if that scared him or pulled him in harder.
He said finally, "I don't need to know what the sword does. When I hold it, I'll know."
Yoroimusha looked at him with a strange expression, somewhere between caution and respect. "Be careful, Zoro. Not every blade forgives mistakes."
Zoro gave a faint smile that never reached his eyes. "The sword doesn't get to decide if I deserve it. I do."
Elsewhere in the city, inside an underground vault beneath the old facility, Chisaki was inspecting large crates set carefully along one of the side corridors.
Chronostasis stood beside him, carrying a case holding blood samples. "Everything's been moved as ordered. The research and samples are in the back section, and the girl's in a secure room."
"And the old archive?" Chisaki asked without turning.
"It's in the room assigned to it, on the western side of the vault." Chronostasis answered. "But there's something odd."
Chisaki stopped moving. "Odd how?"
"Among the old artifacts, the men found a sealed wooden box. They haven't opened it, but something about it made them uneasy." Chronostasis said it carefully. "Seems like the original owners of this place weren't just storing paperwork."
Chisaki turned, a cold flicker crossing his eyes behind the mask. "If it's not slowing down our work, leave it where it is. No need to open every box. What matters is keeping the equipment and materials out of the heroes' sight."
At that moment, the sound of light footsteps drifted in from the end of the corridor. Chronostasis stopped and looked toward it.
Eri appeared standing in the shadows, in her simple clothes, her eyes empty.
"She got out of her room." Chronostasis said.
Chisaki walked toward the corridor and bent down until he was level with her eyes. Eri raised her head slowly, but said nothing.
"Don't be scared." Chisaki said, his voice cold in a way that was gentle and terrifying at once. "We'll be home soon."
Eri didn't blink, but her lips trembled without a sound, and her mind drifted back to the face of the green haired boy who'd tried to help her that day.
In that moment, she felt something strange settle in her chest, not just fear of Chisaki, but a small spark of hope she couldn't quite name.
The first day of preparation ended. Zoro lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling while moonlight slipped in through the curtains.
He rested a hand on his chest, feeling the slow, steady beat of his own heart.
"An old facility... and a blade that doesn't forgive mistakes." He murmured it low.
He didn't know what waited for him out there, but he was certain of one thing: if that blade was real, he'd find it. And then he'd know whether it was a sword worth all this noise.
He closed his eyes.
Far away, underground, the stone doors of the old facility were sealing shut, one after another.
And behind the very last one...
the long wooden box waited in the dark.
.
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