They moved through the shadows like smoke, avoiding every sliver of light, until they reached the outer wall of the dark building. Midoriya stopped, his eyes fixed on the rusted gate, searching for any movement, any sound, anything at all that would betray a human presence inside that heavy darkness.
Nothing.
"There's absolutely no reaction. Even at this distance."
Kirishima narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce through the gloom. "Lights are still off too. Doesn't look like anyone's home."
"I think they chose this place deliberately." Todoroki's voice carried its usual, unchanging calm as he swept the facade with a cold, measured gaze. "An abandoned warehouse. The perfect front."
Midoriya closed his fist against his arm and let his mind spin. The weeds under the front door were thick and completely undisturbed, weeks of growth at minimum. Was there another entrance? Were they using someone's quirk to mask the movement? They couldn't afford a single reckless step. If they got this wrong...
Bakugo was gone.
Midoriya looked right, left, then behind him. Nothing. Then he caught him, moving in silent, deliberate steps toward a narrow, pitch-dark alley running along the factory's side wall.
"Oi, Bakugo!" Kirishima's whisper came out sharp as a blade. "Where the hell are you going?!"
"Don't do something stupid, Kacchan!" Midoriya went after him, his heart climbing into his throat.
Iida pushed his glasses up slowly. His eyes held something between worry and resolve. "He'll get us all killed. Let's move."
They followed him into the narrow passage. The concrete walls were close enough to brush both shoulders at once, and the smell of mold and damp rot filled every breath.
Yaoyorozu pressed her cloak close, careful not to touch the filthy walls. "This is so tight... I feel like I'm going to get stuck."
"We're not exposed here." Midoriya glanced at her for a moment, then looked ahead. "We're safe, for now."
Todoroki tilted his head upward. "Small windows near the ceiling. That's what caught his attention."
At the end of the alley, Bakugo stood staring up at a narrow, dust-caked window near the roof. The quiet confidence on his face was the look of someone who had already made his decision long before anyone else caught up. "This will work." He turned to them. "Kirishima. Come here."
Todoroki looked up at the window, a thin thread of skepticism in his voice. "Even if we get up there, how do we see anything in that darkness?"
"I can create a small night-vision device..." Yaoyorozu started.
"You people overcomplicate everything." Bakugo cut her off, no apology in his tone whatsoever. He looked at Kirishima. "Take out the thing we brought."
Everyone exchanged confused glances. Kirishima reached into his small bag and pulled out, slowly and carefully, a heavy professional piece of equipment.
Military-grade night vision goggles.
Midoriya's eyes went wide. "Impossible. That model costs a fortune. When did you even plan to bring these?"
"Shut up, Deku. You're not helping anyone." Bakugo said it flatly, already moving to Kirishima. "Get on my shoulders."
Todoroki turned to Midoriya. "You're with me."
In seconds, Kirishima was on Bakugo's shoulders and Midoriya was on Todoroki's. Both of them level with the window.
Kirishima pressed the goggles to his eyes and moved his gaze across the interior. Below, not a single person breathed.
"How does it look?" Bakugo asked, impatience bleeding through every word.
"Filthy..." Kirishima turned his head slowly. "I can't really see..."
He stopped.
He turned his gaze left.
And froze.
He inhaled sharply, loud enough to be heard. His arms shook with a tremor he couldn't control, his face pulling into an expression Midoriya had never seen on him before. The expression of a man seeing something he was never meant to see.
"Kirishima!" Midoriya's whisper broke. "What's in there?"
"What did you see?" Todoroki asked from below, quiet as always, but there was a new weight in it.
Kirishima lowered the goggles slowly. His hands still shook. He held them out to Midoriya and swallowed hard. "In the back. Left side. Look at the back left."
Midoriya grabbed the goggles with a racing heart. Pressed them to his eyes. Turned.
Everything stopped.
Dozens of massive cylindrical glass tanks. A viscous, glowing green liquid filled each one to the brim. And inside every tank, a creature waiting in artificial slumber. Nomu of every shape and terrifying size, their exposed brains catching the eerie green light, living weapons stored like ammunition.
"Impossible..." The word came out barely a whisper, his mouth completely dry. "All of them... Nomu?"
Inside the factory, at that same moment, the silence had only one sound cutting through it. Drops of blood falling from Zoro's body onto the cold concrete floor.
A single precise strike had shattered the steel chains. Now he leaned on his sword hilt, pulling himself upright, every muscle in his body screaming, and his left shoulder redefining pain with each movement.
He swayed. Then steadied.
He retrieved his other two swords from the floor in a motion that muscle memory alone carried out, and secured all three at his waist. He walked. Heavy steps dragging through dark corridors, his vision blurring at the edges, the green-glowing Nomu tanks casting a sickly light across everything.
His feet stopped.
In a dark corner, on the cold floor, there was a body.
He approached slowly and blinked until the image sharpened. A woman. A hero's uniform, torn and stained. A face pale as the walls around her. Unconscious.
Zoro murmured in a voice barely above a rasp. "This is..."
He recognized her in the next breath. Ragdoll. From the Wild Wild Pussycats. One of the heroes who had overseen the summer training camp.
He ran the pieces together fast. The crushing pressure of that man's presence. His talk of taking things. The conclusion was immediate and ugly. "That bastard they call All For One. He stole her quirk."
He bent down slowly. His right shoulder was the less damaged one. He lifted her onto it, adjusted the grip on his swords with his other hand, and kept walking. He didn't know where the exit was. He didn't know exactly where inside the building he was. That wasn't a question that needed answering right now.
BOOM.
The entire factory shook. Walls shuddered. Chunks of concrete and steel scattered like shrapnel as a massive foot drove straight through the front wall. Mt. Lady came in first, and behind her, a wave of professional heroes that didn't break.
Before any Nomu could blink, steel threads were already in the air. Best Jeanist worked without a sound, his threads weaving and wrapping around every dormant weapon in the room, binding them before they had any chance to wake.
Zoro followed the light bleeding in through the shattered front. He walked out through the dust and rubble, the blood on his body finding new paths to run with each step.
The three heroes stopped.
Best Jeanist. Mt. Lady. Gang Orca.
They had come expecting a broken teenager in desperate need of rescue. They found a bloodied teenage swordsman carrying an unconscious professional hero on his shoulder, with eyes that had seen things no one in this building should have seen.
The corner of his mouth pulled into a dry, worn smirk.
"You took long enough." His voice was rough and tired, and it didn't lose an ounce of weight. "I almost died of boredom waiting for you."
From their window above, all six students saw it.
Midoriya. Bakugo. Iida. Todoroki. Yaoyorozu. Kirishima.
They had come ready for the worst. They had prepared for a broken comrade fighting in darkness with nothing left. They found Zoro standing in the rubble and the blood, carrying a professional hero to safety. No one said a word. There was nothing to say.
All Might entered through the shattered front. His expression was sharp, his eyes scanning every corner with precision. The raid had worked. But something in the weight of the air slowed his step. An old, familiar heaviness. A pulse he knew too well.
Outside, Endeavor and Detective Tsukauchi led the police in locking down the entire perimeter.
Iida exhaled slowly. "We withdraw. Now. The pros are here. We heard All Might. The only thing we can do from here is get in the way."
Midoriya and Todoroki nodded. It was over.
It was over.
Then they heard a sound.
Not an explosion. Not a shout. Something worse than either.
Click. Click. Click.
Slow applause. Quiet and unhurried, its echo rising from the depths of the rubble like a man greeting guests in his own home.
Below, Zoro's pupils sharpened first.
He didn't need to see. He knew the presence alone, that pressure that settles into the chest like stone and makes breathing an effort. His hand found his sword hilt, and he spoke toward the darkness without hesitation.
"All For One."
All three heroes locked in place.
The man stepped out of the shadows at a pace that made the word "unhurried" seem rushed. His black suit was immaculate, untouched by whatever had happened around him. His mask reflected the pale green light of the tanks. Even his footsteps were deliberate, each one placed by someone who understood, completely, that time was his.
"Roronoa Zoro." His voice was quiet, certain, the kind of voice that sounds like a verdict being read. "Every time I encounter you, you manage to surprise me further. But if you believe I intend to let you walk out of here..."
He raised his hand, taking his time.
"You are very much mistaken."
"Don't move!" Gang Orca dropped into a combat stance in a fraction of a second.
Best Jeanist didn't wait. His threads launched and spread like a net weaving itself in midair, wrapping around All For One from head to foot with speed that made the eye doubt what it tracked.
But Zoro had watched this man move before.
He turned sharply to Gang Orca and shoved Ragdoll toward him. "Get her out. Now."
Something in his voice, in the eyes of this bleeding, half-destroyed teenager, made Gang Orca take her without a word and run.
And in that moment, All For One attacked.
Across the city, in a bar its occupants had believed was an absolute secret, Shigaraki was scratching his neck raw and talking about Zoro with the kind of hatred that didn't need an audience.
Then the walls came apart.
No warning. No time to react. Gran Torino burst through the wooden wall like a yellow comet, and Tiger, Edgeshot, and Kamui Woods poured in behind him in a wave that was precise and deliberate and completely without mercy.
"Kurogiri! The portal!" Shigaraki shouted.
Before the words had fully registered on anyone's face, the wood came. Kamui Woods' Branching, hard as steel cable, erupted and spread and wrapped around every body in the room in a single breath, pinning all of them where they stood.
Blue sparks crept across Dabi's fingers. "Wood? What the..."
A yellow blur moved through the air, and before those sparks became a flame, Gran Torino's kick found Dabi's face with a force that cleared every thought out of his skull at once.
Dabi dropped without a sound, his blood marking the floor.
Shigaraki stared at Gran Torino with eyes that couldn't believe what they were seeing. "How... how did you find this place?"
Mr. Compress, behind his mask, barely kept the panic out of his voice. "Don't tell me this was all arranged in advance."
Gran Torino stood in front of Shigaraki. No hurry. No softness in his eyes. "Where is Zoro? And where is All For One hiding?"
Shigaraki didn't answer. His head lowered slowly.
Then it rose with a laugh.
A muffled sound at first, growing and widening until it filled the room with something that didn't sound like defeat at all. Something that sounded like the opposite.
Shigaraki raised his bloodshot eyes, and his smile split his face wide open. "Where is the symbol of peace? Aren't you heroes? Why didn't All Might come here himself?"
.
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For Advanced Chapters:
Chapter 94 is Available Now
The Last Ember & a Will That Never Breaks
The battle at Camino ended
Zoro is still in the hospital
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