One Punch Man in Baki's World

The grinding noise grew louder.

Above their heads, the massive ceiling plates groaned and shifted, revealing intricate steel mechanisms—pistons, gears, and locking columns older than the Tokyo skyline itself.

Dust rained from above as lights embedded into the moving slabs flickered to life, casting the entire underground arena in a ghostly amber glow.

"Everyone MOVE!" Doppo shouted.

Too late.

With a deafening CLANK, the floor beneath them shifted.

Jack stumbled as the panel beneath him tilted sharply.

Baki leapt, grabbing Kozue before she could slide into a widening gap.

Retsu rolled back into a stance as the entire chamber began transforming, its layout reconfiguring like some ancient Rubik's cube.

Walls descended. Platforms rose.

What had once been a single battle floor was now a fragmented maze of elevated columns, retracting bridges, and rotating gear-plinths.

Each fighter found themselves isolated or forced to pair with someone else. It was no longer a warzone.

It was an arena of traps.

Kurozuchi stood at the highest platform now, arms behind his back. The shifting floor had elevated him above the chaos like a conductor above his orchestra.

"This," he announced, "is my true dojo. Forged beneath Tokyo from scraps of war. You thought strength was forged through struggle? Let's see how you fight when your footing disappears."

Jack roared from one pillar, charging across a narrow bridge toward Gora, only for the platform to retract mid-stride.

Jack dropped, grabbed the edge, and swung himself back up with sheer force.

"I don't care what floor I'm on," he growled, blood streaming down his face. "I'll tear your maze down brick by brick."

On a rotating platform, Baki stood face to face with two of the enhanced shadows—Shigure and the unnamed beast.

His breathing slowed. The ground spun beneath him like a carousel, but he remained centered.

He whispered, "Balance is part of martial arts."

He jumped between platforms mid-spin and kicked the unnamed shadow in the gut, launching it off.

Doppo, on another elevated ledge, squared off against a new opponent, a clone of a long-dead karate master, rebuilt using footage and motion capture data. It threw a perfect combination of strikes.

Doppo blocked two. Took the third in the gut.

And smiled.

"You can't replicate soul," he grunted, and responded with a hip toss that shattered the clone's knee on landing.

From a lone corner of the chamber, Saitama sat cross-legged on a ledge, still holding the miso packet.

He blinked as the floor moved beneath him. Without effort, he jumped casually to a higher rotating platform and sat back down.

"Okay, now this is getting silly."

Suddenly, a shadow leapt at him.

He flicked it away without looking.

Kurozuchi's smile faltered slightly.

He turned and walked away from his high perch, disappearing into a sealed corridor behind him.

The true fight hadn't even begun.

And already, his perfect battlefield was crumbling at the edges.

Moments Later

Jack Hanma was bleeding.

His lip had split again. His chest bore three slashes that looked more like claw marks than blade wounds.

His breathing had turned guttural, and steam curled from his skin like a warhorse in winter.

Before him stood Rakka, Kurozuchi's most twisted disciple, unveiled at last.

He wasn't a man anymore.

Beneath the flickering lights, Rakka looked like something excavated from beneath a mountain.

His flesh was a patchwork of surgical scars and implanted armor plates. His eyes glowed a pale orange, and tubes ran from his spine into the reinforced veins across his arms.

Each breath he took sounded like a dying engine turning over.

But he moved like lightning.

Jack had already taken five hits, none clean, yet each one had felt like a freight train.

Rakka fought with a brutal blend of aikido, jujutsu, and what could only be called mechanized savagery.

"Hanma," Rakka growled, voice filtered through a chest-mounted speaker. "Your genetics are admired. But not optimized."

Jack spat blood to the side. "Then stop running and show me your upgrades."

Rakka surged forward with explosive speed.

Jack ducked the first elbow, barely sidestepped the knee to his ribs—but the third strike, a piston-powered backfist, clipped his temple and sent him sprawling across the platform.

Steel scraped his back.

Rakka gave chase.

But Jack was already on his feet. Bruised. Broken. Grinning like a devil.

"You know what I am, freak?" Jack barked, squaring up. "I'm what happens when obsession doesn't stop at limits."

Rakka lunged again—but this time, Jack didn't dodge.

He absorbed the hit.

And used it.

His right hand grabbed Rakka's shoulder mid-strike, and with a roar, Jack twisted and hurled the enhanced fighter into a nearby gear column. Sparks flew as Rakka's armored spine tore through steel plating.

Jack didn't wait.

He pounced.

Fists rained down like hammers. Left. Right. Left. Right.

Each punch shattered a reinforced section of Rakka's frame. Tubes snapped. Blood blackened from whatever cocktail ran through the man's body, splattered across the floor.

Rakka gurgled something, tried to raise a hand.

Jack grabbed the arm, twisted, and broke it at the elbow with a sickening crunch.

Then, with his knee, he crushed the shoulder joint.

"You're not fighting a man," Jack snarled. "You're fighting a need. And I need to win."

He grabbed Rakka by the throat and lifted him like a ragdoll, slamming him into the ground with enough force to make nearby pillars tremble.

The mechanized disciple convulsed.

And then went still.

Jack stood over him, panting, bruised, barely conscious.

But victorious.

From above, Kurozuchi, watching through his private viewport, narrowed his eyes.

He whispered, "Impressive."

And then turned his gaze toward the central platform, where Baki was still fighting for his life.

The platform beneath Baki's feet was slick with blood.

Not just his own.

Opposite him stood two of Kurozuchi's elite, Kasura the Blind Monk, whose poisoned fingers could paralyze a man with a graze, and Yun the Leaping Blade, a masked figure whose curved sabers danced like silver tongues in the wind.

They circled him like jackals, patient and precise.

Baki's breaths were shallow. His shoulder had dislocated earlier, and although he'd snapped it back into place mid-fight, it hung heavier now.

His left leg trembled from the deep cut Yun had scored on his thigh minutes ago.

But his eyes, they burned with focus.

"This is no longer a fight," Yun taunted, voice muffled by his silver mask. "It's a dismantling."

Baki didn't reply.

Kasura raised his hands in a calm, open stance, the back of his knuckles already tinted purple from his own toxins. "If you give up, we end this mercifully."

That made Baki smirk.

"Mercy doesn't grow in the same garden as your master."

He moved.

Fast.

Baki lunged toward Yun, drawing the masked swordsman's attention. Just as Yun prepared to slice, Baki dropped under the blade and kicked backward, catching Kasura in the chest and knocking the monk off balance.

Baki rolled forward, came up swinging, and landed a sharp uppercut on Yun that shattered the edge of his mask.

Yun reeled back, dazed.

Kasura recovered quickly and dashed in, striking with his index and middle fingers.

Baki twisted just enough to avoid a direct hit, but the brush of those fingers still made his left arm go numb.

He grunted, shifting his stance.

He would now fight one-armed.

Yun roared and came again, slashing in tandem with Kasura's poisoned jabs. The choreography was beautiful—an elegant, murderous rhythm. But Baki knew rhythm.

He broke it.

He dropped to the ground mid-charge and swept Yun's legs, then used his momentum to launch himself upward, his knee driving straight into the monk's chin.

Kasura went airborne, and Baki leapt after him, delivering a spinning roundhouse mid-air that sent the monk crashing into the metal beams above.

But before Baki could land, Yun slashed upward.

Blood sprayed.

Baki hit the ground, clutching his ribs, but still moving.

Still fighting.

Kasura dropped from above, groaning, blood streaming from his nose and ears.

He charged again, blinded now by fury, but Baki caught him in a clinch, absorbed the needle strikes into already-dead nerves… and headbutted him three times in quick succession.

The monk dropped. Motionless.

Baki turned to Yun. The masked assassin hesitated for the first time.

That hesitation cost him.

Baki surged forward and delivered a devastating right hook that shattered Yun's jaw and sent him spinning into the side rail.

Both shadows were down.

Baki collapsed to one knee, gasping.

His body was completely broken—but his heart?

Still beating.

TO BE CONTINUED...