Deadpool Reincarnated: Chaos and Blades in the World of KonoSuba

There is a very specific, stomach-churning sound that a multi-ton stone wall makes when it begins to move. It's a deep, grating GRIIIIIIIND that vibrates through the soles of your feet and into your teeth. That sound, combined with the dry shink-shink-shink of thousands of rusty spikes emerging from their hiding places, created a symphony of imminent, pointy death.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO PUSH THE BUTTON!" Kazuma shrieked, his voice cracking with pure, undiluted terror. He scrambled to the main door, pounding his fists against the unyielding stone. "THIS IS IT! WE'RE GOING TO BE TURNED INTO A KEBAB! A GIANT, FOUR-PERSON KEBAB!"

Aqua was in a similar state of panic, unleashing a torrent of holy magic against the advancing wall. "Sacred Protection!" she cried. A shimmering barrier of blue light appeared… and was immediately scraped away by the stone as if it were a coat of cheap paint. "It's not working! The wall has no soul to purify!"

Megumin frantically looked around the shrinking room. "I can't use Explosion! The blast would be contained! We'd be vaporized before we were impaled!"

In the center of this maelstrom of fear, two people were having a very different reaction.

"It's beautiful…" Darkness whispered, tears welling in her eyes. She turned to face the advancing, spike-covered wall, her arms spread wide as if to welcome a long-lost lover. "A slow, inexorable crush. An embrace of stone and steel. There is no escape, only the sweet, crushing oblivion! My flesh will be pierced, my bones will be ground to dust! This is the death a true Crusader dreams of!"

And then there was Deadpool. He was standing with his hands on his hips, critically observing the trap's mechanism.

"You gotta appreciate the classics," he said with the air of a connoisseur. "The closing walls, the spikes… it's a bit cliché, sure, but it's executed with real panache. Look at the craftsmanship on those spikes. Rusty, but with a good, sharp point. They're not messing around here. 7/10 for presentation, but I'm docking points for a lack of originality. Where are the laser beams? The poison gas?"

The cheerful announcer's voice chimed in again from the ceiling. "Thank you for the feedback, contestant! We'll be sure to pass your suggestions on to the design team for our next Gauntlet! You have approximately ninety seconds until you achieve a state of… extreme acupressure!"

The walls were now only about fifteen feet apart and closing steadily.

"This is not the time for a design critique!" Kazuma screamed, abandoning the door and now trying to find a seam in the wall to jam his sword into. "We have to stop it!"

Deadpool snapped his fingers. "You're right! We need a plan! And I've got one. It's brilliant, it's bold, and it's going to be disgustingly messy." He turned and beamed at the one person in the room who would appreciate his idea. "Darkness, my sweet, masochistic angel. You're up."

Darkness's eyes went wide. "Me? What must I do? Shall I throw myself against the spikes? Shall I attempt to slow the wall with my body alone, feeling every ounce of its pressure as my armor buckles and my ribs crack?"

"Even better," Deadpool said with a grin that was pure, weaponized insanity. "I need you to help me break my own limbs in a strategically useful manner."

The rest of the party stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Okay, here's the skinny," Deadpool explained quickly, as the room continued to shrink. "These walls are running on some kind of track or gear system, probably hidden behind the stone near the floor and ceiling. Brute force won't stop it. But you know what stops gears really well? Gunk. Specifically, a regenerating, self-lubricating, nigh-indestructible pulp of organic gunk."

He pointed at himself. "I am that gunk."

"What?" Kazuma said, his mind refusing to process the words.

"I'm going to be a doorstop! A human chock block!" Deadpool declared. "I'm going to shove my arms and legs into the seams where the walls meet the floor and ceiling. The gears will grind them up, but my healing factor will keep regenerating the flesh and bone. It'll be like trying to run a lawnmower over a pile of self-replicating bubblegum. The whole system will get gummed up and stall! It's foolproof!"

The plan was so horrific, so grotesque, and so utterly Deadpool that no one could speak.

"It's the most heroic, most disgusting thing I have ever heard," Darkness breathed, her face flushed with a mixture of awe and adoration. "To sacrifice your own body in such a gruesome, prolonged way… I will gladly assist you in this noble endeavor!"

"Right! Let's do this!" The room was now dangerously small. Deadpool lay on the ground, positioning himself near the base of one of the advancing walls. "Darkness! I need you to hold me down! Pin my torso so I don't get pushed away. Put your back into it!"

With a cry of rapturous purpose, Darkness threw her entire armored body onto Deadpool, pinning him to the floor. "I will not fail you!"

"Okay, here comes the fun part!" Deadpool yelled, and with a grunt, he shoved his left arm and right leg into the tiny, grinding seam between the wall and the floor.

The sound that followed was one that would haunt Kazuma's nightmares for the rest of his life. It was a wet, sickening crunch, followed by a high-speed grinding noise, like a tree trunk being fed into an industrial woodchipper.

"AAAAAAGGGHHHHH THE PAIN! THE UNBEARABLE, GRINDY PAIN!" Deadpool screamed, his voice echoing in the small space. He then paused. "Actually, it's not that bad. Kind of a deep-tissue massage. A really, really deep-tissue massage! Ooh, it's hitting a nerve cluster now! It's like glitter and electricity! WOOOOOO!"

The wall shuddered. The deep grinding noise of the mechanism began to sputter, choked by a constant supply of regenerating flesh, bone, and spandex. It slowed, groaned in protest, and with one final, agonizing shudder, it stopped. The other wall stopped in unison.

They were safe. The room was now a narrow hallway, only about five feet across, but it was stable.

Darkness slowly got off Deadpool, her face a picture of post-battle bliss. Deadpool's left arm and right leg were gone, replaced by mangled, rapidly regenerating stumps that were firmly wedged into the trap's mechanism.

He gave them a thumbs-up with his remaining hand. "See? Piece of cake. A very chunky, bloody cake."

The cheerful announcer's voice chimed in again, sounding genuinely surprised. "Well, I'll be. Contestant Red has successfully jammed the Crushing Corridor of Carnage using… himself. The judges are conferring… and they've decided to award you two out of ten for sheer, unadulterated lunacy. Congratulations!"

The stone door at the far end of the new hallway slid open with a heavy thud, revealing a new passage leading deeper into the dungeon.

"Now then," the voice chirped. "Let's get ready for Round Two! Please proceed to the next chamber for our exciting game of… 'The Floor is Literally Lava!'"

The party looked at each other in horror. Then they looked down. The obsidian floor at their feet was beginning to glow with a faint, ominous red light from the cracks between the stones.