One Punch Man in Baki's World

A Narrow Passage - Minutes Later

The labyrinth narrowed into a crooked, sloping passage.

Its walls pulsed faintly with red light, like the veins of a slumbering beast.

Steam hissed from hidden vents, and strange symbols glowed dimly along the floor, Kanji twisted into unreadable forms.

The passage ended at a towering black gate sealed by an interlocking grid of steel, wires, and bone-like structures.

Before that gate, three figures arrived from three different directions, at nearly the same time.

Saitama, scratching his head, stood facing the door. Behind him trailed the remains of what looked like a melted turret.

"Huh," he mumbled, examining the gate. "Guess this is the place."

From a connecting tunnel, Doppo Orochi emerged first, bloodied but sharp-eyed. His bare feet made no sound as he stepped beside Saitama.

Behind him, Oliva followed, brushing off the last bits of debris from their skirmish. His arms were crossed, eyes narrowing at the bizarre gate.

"Well, look who got here first," Oliva said with a grin. "The lost one."

Saitama turned. "Oh hey. You guys made it."

"You didn't get attacked?" Doppo asked, narrowing his eye.

Saitama pointed vaguely down a hall. "A few weird machines. Some bald guy with a mask tried to hug me. He's probably still stuck in the wall."

Doppo didn't know if it was a joke.

Oliva stared at the gate. "So what is this? The boss room?"

"It has to be," Doppo muttered. "Kurozuchi built this place with ritual and madness. Everything has led to this."

A long silence passed.

Then, from behind them, heavy footfalls echoed.

Jack Hanma emerged, half-limping but grinning with blood still fresh on his teeth. Kozue followed close behind, helping him along.

From another hall, Baki appeared next—his breathing steady, clothes torn, cuts fresh.

He looked to Saitama first.

Their eyes met.

Baki nodded once. "We're ready."

Kozue's face, still pale from what she had seen, turned toward the gate. "He's in there."

"Who?" Saitama asked.

"Kurozuchi," Jack said, straightening. "The man who built all this."

Oliva stepped forward. "So we knock?"

Saitama reached up and tapped the door lightly with his knuckles.

The gate didn't budge.

Instead, the floor beneath them pulsed with a low thrummm—and the gate began to unfold like metal petals.

It pulled back, revealing a spiraling staircase descending into darkness lined with lights that flickered one by one as the path revealed itself.

Retsu emerged last, panting from a distant corridor.

"I caught up," he said. "They're all converging. Shadows. Monsters. We need to end this now."

Doppo stepped forward first. "Then let's go."

Oliva followed, cracking his neck.

Saitama shrugged and walked third, hands in pockets.

The others—Baki, Jack, Kozue, and Retsu—followed silently.

The gate closed behind them with a heavy finality.

Down the spiral steps they went, deeper into the earth, where Kurozuchi waited, surrounded by twisted science, failed warriors, and something worse than hatred.

Something… transcendent.

The spiral staircase felt endless.

Each step took them deeper into heat and pressure, as if they were being lowered into the lungs of the Earth itself.

The walls changed from concrete to black obsidian, and then to something else, fleshy, organic, veined with pulsating lines that lit up with every footfall.

No one spoke.

Even Oliva, for all his bravado, glanced around with quiet suspicion.

They finally reached the bottom, and the staircase opened into a massive chamber.

The air smelled of blood and incense.

The room was circular, hundreds of feet wide, with pillars carved from what looked like petrified bone.

Hanging from the ceiling were ancient scrolls, torn and spinning slowly in unseen wind. A single spotlight illuminated the center.

There, standing on a raised obsidian platform, Kurozuchi waited.

His robes shimmered with scales, half monk, half serpent. His back was to them.

Rows of his disciples stood around the edges of the chamber, silent, eyes gleaming in the shadows.

Some were enhanced, their bodies twitching, pulsing with artificial muscle. Others bore the brands of failure—still alive, but broken.

Kurozuchi turned slowly.

His face was older than the photos.

Weathered by solitude.

Sharpened by madness.

Yet his eyes were still, calculating and gleamed with an almost childlike delight.

"You came," he said. "The last gods of a dying world."

Saitama scratched his cheek. "You're the guy?"

"You stand at the threshold," Kurozuchi said, stepping down from his platform. "Strength. Will. Legacy. I have studied you all. Tested you. Bent the system of this world around you."

Doppo narrowed his eyes. "You mean the attacks. The shadows."

"I forged them," Kurozuchi said. "From the discarded pieces of warriors long forgotten. I resurrected failure and sculpted it into art. All for this moment."

Oliva stepped forward. "You used my name to draw the U.S. into your game. You manipulated surveillance systems. You planted fighters across Tokyo. Why?"

Kurozuchi smiled.

"To see how far gods can fall."

He looked at Baki.

"You were the first to learn. That your fists, however trained, tremble before the unknown."

He turned to Jack.

"You somehow lost to Yanagi but managed to survive all my disciples. You embodied brutality."

Then finally, his eyes landed on Saitama.

"And you… you are the question I've been trying to answer since I felt your presence. A being who defies every principle. You're just pure existence."

Saitama stared back blankly. "You talk a lot."

Kurozuchi chuckled softly.

"I've waited so long to meet you. And now I ask… are you the end of martial arts?"

Behind him, a massive slab of stone began to rise from the ground, etched with symbols, glowing softly.

Retsu whispered, "He's activating something."

"I will show you," Kurozuchi said, stepping into a pool of light. "What martial art looks like after it's been burned, broken, and reborn."

From the shadows behind him, six figures stepped out—resurrected shadows, the failed ones defeated by Baki and the others. But this time… they were even more enhanced.

"You may all step forward," Kurozuchi said calmly. "But only those who embrace the void will survive."

Saitama yawned.

Baki clenched his fists.

And the room began to shake.

The chamber darkened as the six enhanced shadows stepped forward.

Their bodies were no longer human, they pulsed with biomechanical enhancements, veins glowing with unnatural energy.

Some had metallic grafts on their spines, others had entire limbs replaced with fluid-armor constructs.

One of them—Gora, a former sumo with a mutated frame, let out a beastly roar. His skin cracked like concrete as he moved.

Another, Zetsu, a fallen monk twisted by failed chi experiments, walked in silence, his hands constantly vibrating at impossible speeds.

The other four fanned out, each once-defeated warriors now made monstrous.

Baki's eyes narrowed.

He recognized some of them.

The broken form of Renga, reanimated and grown even larger.

The one Saitama and Hanayama had taken down.

The twisted grin on Shigure's face, now half-covered by cybernetic plating. Her presence chilled him.

"They've been modified," Retsu said under his breath. "He's turned them into weapons."

Kurozuchi raised a hand. "These are not mere clones or puppets. These are warriors reborn through my understanding of pain. Each of them fell once—now they rise with no memory of defeat, only instinct."

He snapped his fingers.

The six shadows launched.

Chaos erupted instantly.

Jack Hanma met Gora head-on, their collision creating a shockwave that knocked dust from the high ceiling.

Jack ducked under a sweeping forearm and struck with a hook that cratered Gora's ribs, but the enhanced sumo didn't even flinch.

He absorbed the blow and responded with a double-palm slam that forced Jack to backpedal.

Across the chamber, Shigure blurred, vanishing into the air before reappearing behind Retsu.

Her palm was aimed at his neck, but Retsu twisted just in time—deflecting it with a rising knee.

Sparks flew.

Her strike had enough force to split stone.

"You're not the same," Retsu muttered.

"I'm better," she replied, voice laced with static.

Baki leapt into action, intercepting two of the shadows that made a beeline toward Saitama.

He didn't know why.

He just moved.

One was Zetsu, his hands vibrating fast enough to slice air. T

he other was a small, hunched figure with no name, only scars. They fought like animals, like data given physical form.

Baki dodged the first few blows, countered with an elbow to Zetsu's ribs, felt it land, but it barely slowed the man down.

"Fast," Baki muttered.

Too fast.

Suddenly, Saitama stood between them.

"Yo," he said.

They all stopped.

Zetsu lunged.

And Saitama casually slapped him into the wall.

Not a punch.

Not even a backhand.

Heck, not even a flick this time.

Just a lazy slap that sent Zetsu spinning like a top, crashing and embedding into solid rock.

The other shadow backed away.

Kurozuchi's smile twitched.

"I see," he whispered. "You hold back. That's your way."

Doppo called out, already engaging one of the shadows. "We can't let them surround us!"

Retsu nodded. "Divide and isolate!"

Saitama scratched his head. "Should I do something?"

"Keep doing what you're doing," Baki grunted, ducking under another strike. "But maybe with a little more effort."

Saitama sighed.

Then looked up at Kurozuchi, who still hadn't moved.

"Are you just gonna watch?"

Kurozuchi smiled.

"I've already begun."

Above, the ceiling began to shift.

Stone gave way to metal. The chamber… was moving.

TO BE CONTINUED...