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Z City Neighbors Chapter 9
🕑 Added 2022-05-08 03:23:28 +0000 UTCTwo men walked the streets of City B. One seemed to be a regular civilian wearing a purple tracksuit and carrying a duffel bag while the other was none other than the world renowned S-Class Hero and Strongest Man in the World, One-Punch Man. From the looks of both of men they appeared to have been caught up in battles though given their uninjured and unbothered states it didn’t appear to be an issue for either men.
Both men would have caught the attention of most by their mere appearance alone especially in hero’s case however the streets were completely devoid of people. This was as a result of a coordinated assault happening across the entire world by an organized group of monsters calling themselves the Monster Association. All civilians in the major cities across the world have been evacuated to the emergency shelters until further notice.
All the better, for these two needed the silence and privacy to do a bit of catching up.
“-and then you showed up” Tomoro finished, having recounted his abbreviated tale of his time in the Super Fight Tournament.
Saitama hummed “so you’re like a badass martial arts master or something huh?”
“More or less though I prefer the term Grandmaster” Tomoro corrected.
“What’s the difference?”
“Grandmasters are at a higher level” he informed only to receive a snort in return “hey I worked my ass off to get it so respect the title Saitama.”
Saitama rolled his eyes “yeah, yeah” the bald man waved him off before adopting a look of contemplation.
Tomoro gave him a sideways glance “hope this doesn’t make our friendship weird or anything.”
Saitama scratched his head “I mean, I already figured you weren’t like a regular guy for a while now.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about it.”
“Eh, if it was relevant then you’d tell me and besides it’s not any of my business to pry into your secrets anyway.”
Tomoro couldn’t help but chuckle ‘that was such a Saitama answer.’
Tomoro wasn’t particularly trying to hide his true strength from Saitama, he just didn’t think it was relevant in this case. The original idea was for him to be in the background overseeing the hero as he grew. Before he knew it the situation forced his hand and he ended up forming a friendship with him. Sure he could have further nurtured the man’s power but it seemed unnecessary and frankly giving him more power would have just made him more miserable in the end.
Plus what would revealing his skills right off the bat do for him? He supposed he could have acted as Saitama’s sparring partner but for any fight between them to have any meaning it would have to be done very far from civilization. And again it felt unnecessary since Saitama had all the power he needed even without his help and
“So, as you’ve just heard my day was exciting to say the least” Tomoro began “what’s been going with you? I heard you’ve been uncharacteristically active this week.”
Saitama took a moment before answering “did you hear about the Hero Hunter?”
“I think I heard something about heroes being attacked by some crazy guy, what about it?”
“Two days ago he beat up Tank Top Master and his pals.”
Tomoro raised an eyebrow “I’m assuming by ‘pals’ you mean the Tank Topper Army right?”
“Yeah, those guys.”
“Okay and?”
“Mumen Rider got caught up in the attack too.”
“Oh” realization dawned to Tomoro as he noted the pronounced frown on the other man’s face “Genos said you went out to run some errands without him yesterday. I guess those ‘errands’ had you visiting the hospital huh?”
“Yeah…”
~O~
Yesterday…
Saitama didn’t have a lot of friends. In fact the number of people he could call friends can be counted on one hand. There was Tomoro and Genos though the latter was more tentative considering how the cyborg constantly toes the ‘sycophant’ line. Outside of those two however there was one other person whom Saitama could call a genuine friend. Most of the world knew him as the number one C-Class hero Mumen Rider, however Saitama knew the man as Satoru.
Said man now lay on the bed covered in bandages. Despite his injuries the glasses wearing man still smiled when he saw his visitor “thanks for visiting. I know you didn’t have to but I appreciate it.”
Saitama pulled down his hoodie and took off his baseball hat which he used as a disguise to greet his friend.
“Hey Satoru” he held up a basket of assorted fruits “I’ll just put the fruits basket over here.”
As he placed the basket on the table next to Satoru’s bed Saitama helped himself to a banana.
“Aren’t those for me?”
“Which one do you want?”
Satoru could only shake his head at the man’s response before answering his question “I’ll have a banana.”
While Saitama retrieved the fruit Satoru used the remote to adjust his bed so that he was sitting up.
“We really need to stop meeting like this” Saitama commented as he gave the other man the banana.
The number one C-Class hero couldn’t help but chuckle “yeah, you’d think after the last time I would learn my lesson.”
Behind his calm façade Saitama felt an inkling of frustration. He and Satoru knew each other since the early months of the Hero Association’s inception. This was back before they were known as One-Punch Man and Mumen Rider. Back then they were a couple of C-Class heroes named Saitama and Satoru but funnily enough they actually met each other outside of the Hero Association.
When Saitama was doing his training regime Satoru was also training his cycling skills and the two shared the same route. They used the same convenience store as a stop marker for which they encountered each other coincidentally. It was on their fifth coincidental encounter at said convenience store that they ended up talking to each other. At the time Saitama was light on cash to buy a bottle of water and Satoru ended up buying one for him. It didn’t take long for the two to hit it off considering they were both training to be heroes.
After joining the Hero Association they actually ended up cooperating with each quite often during their time in the C-Class. Satoru had a knack for finding ‘mundane’ hero work such as helping civilians and petty crimes while Saitama would handle the bigger threats like monsters, robots or very dangerous criminals. Unlike Saitama who found his time in C-Class to be tedious due to the weekly quota Satoru actually enjoyed it, or rather he enjoyed how it made him put more focus on the smaller issues.
There may not always be a monster, robot or criminal to stop but there will always be civilians in need of assistance. In the end Satoru became a hero in order to help others and in this way he can accomplish his ambitions without getting involved in the politics within the organization.
Saitama respected Satoru as a fellow hero and while their paths may have diverged the two of them still kept in contact. In fact they meet up with each other every other week or so when their schedules allowed to hang out. Satoru was Saitama’s friend and that is why it bothered him to see the C-Class hero in such a state. Now Saitama would never presume to criticize how the man conducted his duties as a hero because really Saitama had less than a tenth of the man’s work ethic but this was another point of frustration for him.
Heroes were no strangers to injuries but this was the third time Saitama had to visit Satoru in the hospital in just as many months. First it was those bald copycats with the battle suits, then it was that fish monster and now this.
And speaking of which…
“So what happened? I heard that there’s a monster going around attacking heroes and Tank Top Master got involved. How did you get caught up with that?”
“It seems I was the original target but Tank Top Master and his students intervened.”
“So that means a single monster took you all down?”
This had the potential to be something worthwhile since Tank Top Master wasn’t a pushover, plus his group had A-Class heroes in it.
Satoru gained a look of contemplation as he spoke “I know the Hero Association gave the title of ‘monster’ but that person was a human.”
“Eh, he’s not a monster?”
Saitama did not expect that and suddenly his interest was piqued.
“No he’s a human and from what I saw, a young one as well. I don’t think that young man is even an adult” Satoru became a bit introspective as he continued “a human carrying the name of a monster” he sighed “I never thought I’d see the day.”
Saitama frowned a bit “so he’s just some punk then.”
Satoru shook his head “I wouldn’t say that. He was strong, scarily so.”
“Really?” Saitama looked up a bit “between him and the fish monster who do you think would win?”
The comparison was important and Saitama trusted Satoru’s judgment since having faced down both he would have a better idea of where their strength scaled.
Satoru looked down at his half eaten banana in contemplation “the Deep Sea King was quite a strong monster himself but it’s hard to compare the two.”
“How so?”
“I can’t really put my finger on it but something was different about this young man compared to the Deep Sea King or any monster or criminal I’ve encountered before really. I was only on the receiving end of it but his ‘strength’ was just different” he paused with a frown “how do I put this…?”
While Satoru was wracking his brain trying to explain his thoughts the two heroes were interrupted by a third voice.
“It’s technique.”
Satoru reached over pushed back his curtains to reveal yet another S-Class hero.
“Tank Top Master” Saitama greeted.
“One-Punch Man” the S-Class hero greeted “I apologize for barging into your conversation like this but I couldn’t help but overhear you” he eyed the bald hero “are you planning on going after that youngster?”
“I mean, it would be pretty irresponsible of me to just let him be after he did this much damage” the S-Class hero shrugged.
“Then as a fellow hero I feel I should warn you, that young man is unlike any of the monsters you might have faced before.”
“So I’ve heard but what’s so special about him?”
“I heard he was a former student of Silver Fang.”
“The old man.”
Tank Top Master continued through the interruption “which makes sense since his martial arts is of the highest caliber, Silver Fang raised quite the demon. the man gave a frustrated grunt and clenched his fist “dammit, it makes me angry just thinking about it. I’ve defeated numerous monsters with just a single punch but he completely caught me off guard. That martial art is the real problem.”
His angry rant was cut off when Saitama offered him a fruit “hey calm down and eat this.”
“Huh?” Tank Top Master looked from the offered fruit to the man and tentatively took it “thank you.”
With that the bald man smiled in mild anticipation “now start from the beginning, I want to hear everything.”
Tank Top Master was a bit put off by the other S-Class hero’s enthusiasm which seemed so out of place on the man he’s come to know all these years. If there was a single word to describe One-Punch Man for all the time Tank Top Master knew him then that word would be bored. Despite having the title of Strongest Man in the World One-Punch Man was surprisingly unassuming in both appearance and presence.
He always sported a blank face of boredom and despite his outlandish (most call it iconic) costume the man himself was mostly unassuming. In fact during meetings he always seemed to be the odd one out and from a certain standpoint was the most ‘normal’ out of the S-Class heroes who all had their own personality quirks. If the man can remain unfazed in the face of a possible world ending event in Shibabawa’s final predication and Tatsumaki’s insults then Tank Top Master didn’t think anything could.
Still as off putting as his exuberance was Tank Top Master wasn’t about to let his bewilderment distract him from the matter at hand. One-Punch Man was very interested in finding this young man and putting a stop to him. Tank Top Master wasn’t sure if he should feel sorry for the so called Human Monster or not.
“He repelled, nullified and redirected all of my attacks at once” Tank Top Master began his explanation “No matter how powerful my attacks were it didn’t matter because I was never able to land a hit on him.”
Saitama stood with folded arms and despite his blank faced expression he was listening to Tank Top Master’s explanation with a rapt attention that was uncharacteristic for him.
“He adapted to my fighting style and movements in a relatively short amount of time and countered all of my attacks. He focused specifically on my joints and vital areas so each of his attacks were devastating” he scratched the cast on his arm “under his disabling hits I lost the ability to fight back and now here I am.”
“So that’s what happened” Saitama’s expression morphed into a smile as a gleam entered his eyes “this guy sounds interesting.”
Again the sight of an enthusiastic bald hero unnerved him but Tank Top Master spoke up anyway “I know it’s only a matter of time before you cross paths with him One-Punch Man but you should know Garou might not be as simple as the regular monsters you’re accustomed to.”
“Why’s that?”
“Up until this point we’ve only gone up against monsters that rely on brute strength to cause widespread destruction but Garou’s different. He uses techniques designed specifically to destroy the human body. In other words he knows how to deal with heroes. It might not make a difference in your case but it’s still something to keep in mind.”
~O~
Present Day…
Tomoro hummed at the end of Saitama’s retelling of events “I’m surprised.”
“Yeah, this guy sounds pretty interesting.”
“Oh, not about that” Tomoro waved off “you actually managed to tell an accurate retelling of events without skipping over key details.”
Saitama’s response was an annoyed glare but only for a moment “so, what do you think?”
“What do I think?” Tomoro questioned.
“About this Garou guy, I mean you’re a martial arts mas-Grandmaster or whatever.”
“I have my opinions. What exactly do you want to know?”
“You think he’ll be a good fight?”
“For you?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know.”
“…”
“Don’t give me that look” he scoffed “you’re asking me to make a judgment on a hypothetical encounter between you and a guy whose true capabilities I’ve never even seen before.”
The S-Class hero sighed in disappointment “guess it was too much to ask then.”
“Why do you even care about this guy? He sounds like some punk kid to me.”
“Got caught up in the hype I guess. I mean some guy going around calling himself a ‘monster’ and beating up S-Class heroes, tell me that doesn’t at least sound interesting.”
“I can see most people raising their eyebrows.”
“Plus I heard he used to be the old man’s student once so he’s using his martial arts.”
“By ‘old man’ you mean Silver Fang” Tomoro hummed “when you put it like that it does sound interesting.”
“See?”
“You were right the first time.”
“About what?”
“You are getting caught up in the hype.”
“How so?”
“Before wanting to see if this guy is going to be a challenge you need to ask yourself if what he’s doing is really worth your time. I mean don’t get me wrong from what I heard he beat up a few A-Class heroes and Tank Top Master which is impressive but what about Silver Fang?”
“What about him?”
“It’s like you said he was this guy’s old master so if you want to know if he’s a good fight you need to ask yourself if Silver Fang would be a challenge to you.”
The question gave Saitama pause and it was not due to him pondering the question. Rather said question evoked a memory within the bald hero, one that he had buried a long time ago. The truth is Saitama could vaguely remember a time when he might have been interested in martial arts. Heck he remembered Tomoro explaining the hypothetical pros of learning a martial art.
“It’s not just about learning cool moves to get stronger Saitama, martial arts can help with better controlling the body.”
This advice came right around the time he became S-Class and Saitama hadn’t quite gotten a handle on his immense strength yet. Sure he could splatter a monster no problem but put him in front of a regular human criminal and that’s when he became unsure. Then came Silver Fang or as he would go on to call him, the old man who would offer to teach him his martial art, the Something Carbonated Water Polo Fist.
Despite not being interested in the art itself he was willing to learn if it meant easier control of his strength. Plus he was curious about what the old man could teach him but after multiple futile attempts at trying to explain his martial art the old man ended up opting for a practical demonstration instead.
That spar with the old man was the most frustrating fight he’d ever been in. The old man was strong enough to actually hurt him back then and fast enough to keep up with him. Saitama could take the hits but whenever he tried to hit back he’d always miss and at one point when Saitama thought he had him and put all his might into a single punch out of sheer frustration the old man somehow redirected his fist and Saitama ended up punching himself in the face.
The resulting punch ended up knocking out the then fresh S-Class hero. Saitama had never felt so humiliated. Even more humiliating was that the old man told him he lacked the focus and temperament to become his student. Saitama took it as him not being able to learn martial arts and left it at that. Naturally Saitama never told Tomoro about this encounter and he summarily purged it from his thoughts never to speak of it again.
And now the old man’s supposedly best student was out there beating up heroes…
This is the perfect time for-
“You’ve got an interesting expression there Saitama, want to share what’s on your mind?”
“Huh?” he looked to the other man who was giving him a raised brow “what?”
“Oh it’s just I asked you a question and you started staring out at nothing like a blank faced moron. Then you got this sinister smile on your face.”
Saitama blinked ‘sinister?’
“So I figure whatever you’re thinking about must be something to get that kind of reaction from you.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing.”
Saitama chose to remain quiet and after a prolonged silence in which Tomoro gave him a narrow eyed gaze the latter decided to change the subject.
“By the way I can’t help but notice you look almost as scuffed up as me.”
“Oh yeah, I beat up a bunch of monsters and some stuff happened.”
“Must have been some stuff if your clothes got dirty. Was it a fight?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because it means whoever or whatever you fought either survived your punches or you acknowledge them enough to let them get the first hit in.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what exactly happened?”
“…”
“Now I shared my monster encounter with you so now it’s your turn and you can’t use the excuse of me being a civilian not to talk. I’m plenty involved in this right now and I need to know what up.”
“Fine” Saitama sighed “so it went like this…”
~O~
Earlier Today…
The day started off well enough, Tomoro came by earlier to inform them that he would be going out to City C for some personal business. Saitama didn’t do much for most of that morning, simply lounging around while Genos was puttering around the house doing whatever. Now however the boredom was kind of getting to him and when things got like that he would usually go for a patrol.
‘Now might be a good time to find that Garou guy actually.’
After his talk with Satorou and Tank Top Master Saitama was very interested in Garou but didn’t know how he would go about finding him. He figured he would need to get started on this since Genos informed him that the Hero Association released an update on Garou. His designation was changed to ‘Hero Hunter’ and his threat ranking was changed to S-Class.
There was also a bunch of information spread out in there but it wasn’t anything Saitama didn’t already know or really cared to know.
“Hey Genos where do you think this Hero Hunter guy is gonna be?”
The cyborg perked up taking a moment before answering “based on preliminary sightings and reported behavior patterns it is most likely possible that he would be somewhere in the vicinity of-” Genos abruptly cut himself off.
This action brought Saitama’s attention back to the cyborg “huh, Genos?”
Suddenly his expression turned serious as his eyes light up “my sensors are detecting multiple heat signatures. Biological scans confirm that they are not human.”
“There are monsters here?”
He stood up and went to go change into his suit.
“1…5…10…20-impossible. Master there seems to be dozens of monsters appearing across a 500m area.”
“That sounds like a lot” came Saitama’s reply as buckled his belt “are they coming here?”
“No, they seem to be heading in different directions-ah, they are heading for the city!”
At that the door opened and One-Punch Man exited “then let’s go get em.”
Later…
It hasn’t been that long since he and Genos left the apartment and things were already hectic.
“Where are all these monsters coming from” Saitama mumbled to himself as he shook the gore from his gloved hand.
Genos’ censors didn’t cover the entire city but it’s comparatively small radius had been crawling with monsters. The two of them had decided to split up to cover more ground with Saitama relying on his senses to track them down. Saitama has never seen so many monsters in a single space before. He wasn’t overwhelmed by their numbers but the fact that they were spread out across the entire city causing general mayhem. It seemed that for every one he dealt with another two seem to occupy a different space nearby.
As he headed towards the next sounds of screams and mayhem his Hero Association issued communicator went off. Saitama used one hand to answer the communicator and another to splatter a monster before moving on to the next one at high speeds.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line sounded frantic as she answered “One-Punch Man we need your assistance! There are monsters attacking!”
“Yeah, I know, I’m dealing with it. By the way you guys know what’s up with all these monsters attacking Z City?”
“It’s not just City Z that is under attack.”
“What?”
“There are reported sightings of large scale monster incursions happening across all the major cities!”
‘So it’s not just happening here?’
“What about City C?” he calmly spoke, cutting through whatever the H.A. operator was saying.
There was a brief pause in which the operator was checking before their voce came back sounding even more frantic than before “I am not sure what the situation in City C is but I can’t imagine they are handling this situation any better than us right now.”
Just as he said this screams sounded in one direction, a roar sounded in another, a crash in another, an explosion and on and on it went until Saitama’s ears were drowned by a cacophony of noise.
Calmly Saitama spoke “I see, give me a sec.”
And with those words he hung up, now sporting a serious expression Saitama started stretching.
SUPER MOVES
He knelt down into a running start.
SERIOUS SERIES
The wind suddenly picked up fluttering his white cape as he looked forward until-
*BOOM!*
SERIOUS MARATHON RUN!
Saitama shot off with a sonic boom.
City Z Hero Association Branch…
“Hello? One-Punch Man! Dammit!”
The one whom shouted this was the head of the City Z branch of the Hero Association. He was only recently appointed his position after the old branch head was fired on corruption and arrested for embezzlement. Seeing that he had worked under the man for months and kept his integrity Solaria had seen fit to promote him. He was actually looking forward to this job and then out of nowhere monsters started attacking all across the city!
City Z was known for its frequent monster attacks but things have been relatively calm especially since it was alluded to that both Silver Fang and One-Punch Man based their operations in City Z. Having one S-Class residing in the city would be a load off of any branch manager’s mind but two and then a third in Demon Cyborg? With that in mind this should have been the safest city on earth but that was not the case as it turns out and now they were dealing with the largest incursion since the debacle that left an entire section of City Z abandoned.
Now Silver Fang was absent, having left his dojo some time ago leaving One-Punch Man and Demon Cyborg as the only S-Class heroes to quell the monster threat. Even with those two it was slow going with having to coordinate a mass evacuation, directing the heroes and keeping appraised of the situation but it was at least under control. And now the strongest man in the world had just hung up on him after asking about the situation in another city.
Why is that?
What does City C have to do with anything?
‘H-he’s not thinking of abandoning us is he?’
He didn’t know One-Punch Man personally, he’s never even met the man and his residing in City Z was more conjecture than fact. The truth is no one knew One-Punch Man’s home location save for possibly the executives and the only line of communication he had with the hero was the Hero Association issued communicator.
Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a worker “sir we have a situation!”
“Any changes?”
“Our sensors are picking up rapid movement within City Z!”
“Bring up the satellite feed.”
The image came up on a large screen, showing the geographical outline of the city highlighted by a slew of red dots.
“What happening out there?”
“I don’t know sir but the monster signatures we identified are disappearing!”
“What?”
As that was said the dozens of red dots that were prevalent all across the City Z geography suddenly began to systematically disappear.
“Sir, we’re getting multiple reports of monsters being destroyed by some unknown force.”
The branch manager’s jaw dropped before it finally clicked “it’s him.”
“Sir?”
“One-Punch Man.”
That single word signaled the complete erasure of the red dots on the screen. In the ensuing silence that followed there was an alert.
“Sir Demon Cyborg is calling.”
“Patch him through” the branch manager spoke while still in a state of disbelief.
A monotonous voice came through the line “what is the status of monster activities in City Z.”
“Ah well” the branch manager stared at the screen then at the operator.
“A-all monster activities have ceased sir, there’s none left.”
“All the monsters are gone.”
“Then we will move on.”
And with that the line went dead.
The branch manager could only let out a sigh of relief ‘things are finally back under control.’
Meanwhile With Saitama and Genos…
“You did it, master all monsters within City Z have been eliminated.”
Saitama nodded to him “good, we’re going to City C next.”
Just then his communicator went off and he sighed “hello?”
“One-Punch Man, this is the Hero Association Headquarters”
“What do you want? I already cleared out the monsters in City Z.”
“Metal Bat requires assistance combating a group of monsters in City S.”
“Eh? Metal Bat can handle himself” Saitama waved off.
“Metal Bat is also protecting Solaria Nova.”
“…who?”
The voice did not miss a beat “she is an important executive. The monsters appear to be organized and are attempting to kidnap her. From the reports Metal Bat is engaging two disaster level Demon monsters but more may be on the way.”
Saitama could only inwardly groan at the turn of events. He knew the other S-Class heroes were no pushovers but he knew how difficult things could get when civilian hostages were involved.
‘And what this about monsters being organized?’
“Hang on, I’ll get back to you in a minute.”
“Wha-Beep”
He hung up and turned away from Genos to make a call.
“Hey, Saitama.”
Tomoro’s voice was preceded by loud noises he couldn’t even make out.
‘What is that?’
“Tomoro? I can barely hear you…”
“Sorry about the noise, the crowd is getting rowdy over here. What’s up?”
“Monsters are attacking all the cities.”
“Really? The noise must be blocking the alert sirens then.”
“In any case you should get out of there.”
“Eh, actually it might be safer for me to stay here instead.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s a tournament for martial arts masters with two A-Class heroes and at least one guy who might be S-Class.”
That piqued his attention “eh S-Class, for real?”
“Yep, he just beat one of the A-Class heroes with a single kick” he chuckled “you might have some competition Saitama, this guy’s looking to become One-Kick Man”
“Master, allow me to eliminate the small fry in City C while you assist Metal Bat with the Dragon Level monster in City S.”
Saitama took a moment to give Genos a shooing motion as he gave his reply to Tomoro “he sounds strong.”
“Meh sure, bottom line is I’ll be fine.”
“Genos says he’s going over to City C to ‘eliminate the small fries’ or something.”
“What about you?”
“I just finished cleaning up City Z. Now the Hero Association wants me to help out Metal Bat. He’s having trouble with a monster and there’s some important V.I.P lady there too.”
“Well good luck with that. I’ll just stay here until everyone starts evacuating.”
Saitama hung up and true to his word Genos was no longer there causing him to huff a bit “guess I’m going to City S.”
~O~
“Man it’s really tearing the place up.”
Saitama arrived in City S to total pandemonium as what looked like a giant centipede monster was rampaging through the city.
“Where’s Metal Bat?”
Saitama had no idea what was going on and was thus hesitant to intervene. He did that a few times in the past and incidentally made things worse with collateral damage and injuries that could have been avoided. The Hero Association didn’t seem to care about his conduct when doing his duty but Tomoro lectured his ears off about ‘situational awareness.’
So as he made his way to the epicenter of the battle he only had three objectives in mind ‘find Metal Bat, find V.I.P lady and take care of the monsters.’
Turns out the first objective was fairly simple enough, all he had to do was follow along the centipede. He managed to catch Metal Bat as he was scaling along the centipede’s back. Saitama hopped towards the monster and landed beside his fellow S-Class hero.
“Yo”
“Whoa!” Metal Bat exclaimed at the sudden appearance of the bald hero “wha-One-Punch? What’re you doing here!?”
“HQ called, said you needed help dealing with this guy.”
“Forget about it One Punch!” Metal Bat yelled “I don’t need any help to take care of this thing!”
Saitama silently gave the other hero a once over, noting the disheveled appearance, numerous injuries and most noticeably the front of his face practically painted red with his own blood.
“You sure about that? You look beat up as hell.”
“Yeah I’m sure” he pointed his namesake weapon at him “if you really wanna help me then get the V.I.P outta here while I handle my business!”
And with that he put the handle of his weapon in his mouth and continued to scale across the massive body of the centipede monster.
“Alright suit yourself.”
Saitama didn’t like butting into another hero’s business unless it was clear they couldn’t handle it or if help was asked. Part of that was out of respect but mostly it’s because most wouldn’t appreciate the help. Most S-Class heroes are like this and he remembered earning the ire of Tatsumaki when he took care of a monster the Hero Association had specially called her to handle.
It was an honest mistake since he was in the area and saw said monster but the diminutive woman was insufferable he decided to make it a rule not to intervene unless asked or if it’s absolutely necessary.
Since he’d rather not be hassled by a pissed off Metal Bat he decided to just search for the V.I.P. A single jump cleared him of the centipede monster and his eyes immediately found what it had been after, two heroes running away with a woman being carried by one of them. Just as he was about to make his way towards them something else happened to catch him off guard. Metal Bat reached the head of the centipede and proceeded to whack its face with his bat.
There was a roar of pain and fury before
CENTIPEDE TIDAL WAVE MARCH!
The centipede started bucking, tunneling and tossing its body through the city causing the mayhem to become even more widespread as that entire section of the city was further destroyed in its rampage. The action caused a citywide alarm to go off and an automated voice urging everyone in City S to evacuate to the nearest shelter.
“What is Metal Bat doing over there?”
His question was answered when a cursory glance saw the lower ranked S-Class hero get tossed away with the force of a projectile missile.
…so much for handling his business.
Saitama inwardly sighed and bent his leg some before leaping off towards the head of the centipede.
“Oi!”
“Hurr?” the massive creature turned towards the noise.
“Stop causing a ruckus!”
BAM!
BLEARGH!
Despite shifting his body so as to avoid a blow directly to the face the centipede might as well had not even tried. A single punch from One-Punch Man shattered the side of its head with blood, chitin armor and teeth flying off the side. As if Saitama’s fist was a hammer the entire upper body of the creature slammed into the force of the ground with a force that actually shook the entirety of City S. Saitama landed on the ruined streets surveying his work for a bit before nodding to himself.
“That takes care of that.”
He was just about to leave when his communicator went off.
Answering it he spoke “hey, I took care of the centipede.”
The voice on the other line was different from the one who sent him to City S in the first place “excellent work One-Punch Man, now secure Miss Nova and bring her back to HQ.”
“I think I saw her with two heroes already so she’s fine” he informed “I should go help in the other cities under attack.”
“Never mind them!” the voice shouted causing Saitama the pull the phone back a bit“Miss Nova’s safety is the highest priority right now!”
Saitama twitched in irritation and was about to tell him where he could shove his orders when the ground started to rumble.
“What the…”
“One-Punch Man, we are detecting seismic activity in your vicinity. What’s happening?”
That was a different voice, the one he recognized as the Hero Association executive he dubbed ‘Bearded Worker.’
“Looks like the centipede’s still alive” he observed quite casually and without alarm as the creature pulled itself out of the hole he put it in looking just as fresh as it started.
“One-Punch Man that monster is Elder Centipede. It was last sighted two years ago when it went on a rampage but it was defeated by Blast.”
“Oh?” that’s interesting though he didn’t sound interested at all “I’m gonna go kill it now, bye.”
He hung up a moment later and regarded the towering creature with a look of consideration because if it managed to survive against Blast then it is indeed a strong monster.
‘I should take this a little serious’ his fist clenched.
Just as he was prepared to go after the centipede again a twinkle in the noon sky caught his attention. Next the sound of rocket propulsion hit his just before missiles detonated all along the Elder Centipede’s body.
“That’s bright” he had to cover his eyes a bit due to light caused by the explosions.
But as impressive as the explosions were they didn’t so much as scratch Elder Centipede’s carapace and only managed to get a grunt of annoyance from it.
“Annoying fly” the monster rumbled towards its attacker.
Saitama watched as said attacker landed before him and greeted “Metal Knight.”
“One-Punch Man, please clear the area, I would rather not have a fellow hero caught up in my weapon’s test.”
‘Is he for real?’
“Uh, excuse me but I came here first and I was about to take care of that thing before you interrupted. So how about you clear out and let me finish the job” he shouldered past the robot and added a few last words “besides your missiles didn’t even do anything to it.”
“I advise against continuing this One-Punch Man.”
“Oh yeah and why is that?”
“The V.I.P you were ordered to protect, the B-Class and C-Class heroes escorting her are being assaulted by monsters.”
Saitama jerked to a stop “what?”
“It doesn’t seem like those two are able to defeat them-”
A screech from overhead cut off the robotic hero’s words as Elder Centipede, tired of being ignored struck at them with his pincers.
“DIE!”
*BAM*
Suddenly Elder Centipede’s face exploded into gore, chitinous armor and meat from Saitama’s punch. Once again the Dragon Level monster was laid low, the force of the blow causing its body to tip backwards and into the ruined city. Metal Knight silently watched as the body made landfall causing an earthquake and kicking up dust as it did. Then the robot turned towards its fellow S-Class hero who was giving it one of his rare serious expressions.
“Where?”
The one word prompted the robot to point in a direction “approximately 3 kilometers that-” Saitama sped off before the robot could finish leaving a dust trail as he went “way…”
Metal Knight’s faceless mask stared in the direction of the dust trail for a moment before turning back to the body of Elder Centipede. Idly it picked up a chunk of the monster’s carapace before scanning letting the information filter from its systems to the lair of the man controlling it.
???
Dr. Bofoi observed the information for moment and the preliminary scans painted a troubling picture.
‘The Metal Knight unit was not outfitted with weapons to break through its armor.’
The roboticist looked from the information to the body of the creature again, the entire top of its head was completely gone. The kind of power that would be needed to do such a thing and he managed to do this with seeming little effort.
“His file will need to be updated.”
Yet another milestone added to the incredible (and sometimes absurd) feats of strength shown by the 5th ranked S-Class hero.
Meanwhile with said Hero…
“Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shiiiiittt!”
Saitama comically sprinted with a frenzied pace that bordered on anxiety. As he did there was a single thought in his mind.
‘I am not being blamed for that V.I.P getting hurt!’
It goes without saying that Saitama did not like dealing with ‘important people’ like the Hero Association executives or V.I.P.s beyond mission briefs. It stems from all the time the executives took advantage of their position to give him meaningless and frustrating jobs. Things like escort missions, bodyguard work, cleaning up their messes in the form of killing or even capturing monsters they kept as illegal pets. And there was this one time where Saitama was tricked into attending the birthday party of the bratty kid of some fat rich asshole.
Even worse than taking jobs from them was the fact that should anything go wrong for any reason he would end up getting blamed for it. Saitama could admit he’s not the most careful or security conscious guy (hard to be that when literally nothing can hurt him) but even when the situation was truly out of his hands, even when the issue stems from their stupidity he always ends up getting reprimanded. It was annoying as all hell and he wasn’t about to sit through another stupid training seminar and so he ran to ensure nothing happens to the woman.
Metal Knight’s directions proved accurate enough as within moments Saitama came upon the sight of two heroes. Unfortunately they were already being defeated by a rhino monster who now had a woman in its arms.
The monster saw his approach and grinned “One-Punch Man, finally, a challenge worthy of-URGH!?”
Whatever he was about to say was cut off as Saitama introduced fist to gut. The result of this impromptu introduction was a massive hole where the Rhino monster’s chest used to be. As the stunned monster coughed up blood with a look of disbelief on its face he managed to gurgle out a single word before collapsing.
“O-One Hundred.”
“Hmm?”
Saitama had no idea what that was about and he didn’t really care. All that mattered was that the two heroes he passed by were alive if not battered and the V.I.P. lady was.
“That was quite an entrance you made.”
Well she was actually quite alright aside from looking a bit ruffled though even the extent of that was surprisingly minimal.
“You the V.I.P. lady?”
The woman whom he helped to her feet brushed the wrinkles from her clothes and introduced herself “Solaria Nova, Director of Operations for the Hero Association.”
“…” all she received in turn was a blank faced look.
Unfazed by this she continued “I’m your boss.”
“I thought that was Sitch.”
“I’m his boss and therefore yours as well.”
“Huh…okay” he shrugged.
The woman tilted her head as she observed him “you are a strange one, do you mind if I call you Saitama?”
“Nope” he preferred it if her were being honest “anyways, I’m here to take you back to HQ.”
“Not yet” she stopped him.
“Why not?”
“What happened to Metal Bat?”
“The centipede tossed him somewhere.”
“And do you believe such a thing would be able to incapacitate him?”
Saitama mentally sighed at her not making his job simple but she did bring up a good point. He’s known Metal Bat for over a year now and the teen was tough. He’s seen him take hits that would down most people and get up stronger than before. Plus with his attitude Saitama could imagine him returning for another go at the centipede stronger and more pissed off than before.
“No” he answered truthfully.
“So then, where is he and why isn’t he here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw where he was thrown off Elder Centipede, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Find him and make sure he is alright.”
“Metal bat can take care of himself.”
“This whole incident started when two disaster level Tiger monsters tried to kidnap me. After they were defeated two disaster level Demon monsters came as reinforcements and after they died a disaster level Dragon appeared” as she continued to speak her expression turned more severe until she was outright glaring at the S-Class hero “it may not have occurred to you Saitama but the monsters have formed an organization to rival the Hero Association. Presently we know nothing about them so it is possible that they have members that rival the strength of or are stronger than Elder Centipede and deployed them in response to the appearance of three S-Class heroes.”
Saitama found himself in a bit of a bad spot here. He wasn’t one to listen to long spiels however with this woman he couldn’t help but listen attentively. It could be because she was his boss’s boss as she claimed or it could be that her strict attitude and demeanor reminded him of his mother whom was the only person he could never disobey. In any case when she ordered him he felt the urge to comply without argument.
In fact his instincts were actively telling him not to argue with the scary older lady.
Seeing the conflict in his expression caused her own to soften a bit “I will be fine Saitama” she pulled out a communicator and continued “reinforcements are on their way, Metal Knight is nearby and even then the monsters want me alive to be used as a hostage.”
With such confidence and authority Saitama only lingered for a moment longer before acquiescing to her demand.
“Alright” he stepped back and leapt away to find the missing S-Class hero.
‘Why can’t this be simple?’
Sometimes Saitama wished he stuck to being a hero as a hobby. Even if he got paid with more money than he knew what to do with and the Hero Association gave him a lot of freedom he wouldn’t be beholden to a chain of command and could get the job done however he wanted no matter who was involved.
“Hm?” he found Metal Bat and…a little girl?
He landed just beside them shocking the little girl “y-you’re One-Punch Man!”
“Yo” Saitama greeted before his eyes panned around the area.
‘Looks like he was fighting something.’
The fact that he couldn’t find the body of whomever or whatever he fought was a bit surprising.
“Hey are you even listening!?”
“Hm?” Saitama realized that the little was both screaming at him and beating her fist against his chest “what’s up?”
“I said my brother needs to go to a hospital!” she angrily yelled.
‘Brother?’
Now that he’s looking this girl does bare a passing resemblance to Metal Bat plus he might have remembered the hero mentioning a sister ever so often.
What did he call her again?
‘Ten-co, Zen-oh…’
“Ah, you’re ‘Renko’”
“It’s Zenko!” she pronounced this with a kick to his shin but that only resulted in her hurting herself “ow!”
“You okay?”
“No! I hurt my foot on your stupid shin!”
“Sorry?” that was all he could offer, feeling awkwardness at the current situation.
Saitama was bad enough dealing with people but kids were a whole different altogether.
“Whatever” Zenko pouted with that same scowl on her face “are you going to help my brother or not?”
“Sure” in the antics he almost forgot the reason he came here in the first place and started to pick the unconscious hero up and put him over his shoulder.
“Hey careful” the concerned sister admonished “and don’t forget this” she picked up her brother’s signature weapon.
Saitama just about reached for the bat when the ground started to rumble, freaking out the girl.
“W-what’s happening!?”
At first Saitama looked a bit surprised before the sudden re-reemergence of what has now come to be an annoying pest caused him to slump in annoyance, incidentally dropping the unconscious Metal Bat on the ground like a sack of potatoes.
“Hey!”
Ignoring the girl’s exclamation he could only stare up at the overgrown insect with a sense of annoyance.
“You again?”
Elder Centipede was once again whole but even more than that his carapace actually looked better, tougher than before. And as if hearing the Hero the monster turned in his direction, ignoring Metal Knight’s renewed missile bombardment upon its person. There was immense fury in its eyes as it prepared its next move only to be interrupted by the sound of another whose voice carried to Saitama’s ears.
“Elder Centipede, I have the hostage, cover my escape!”
Immediately Saitama’s zeroed in on a bird monster carrying Solaria.
“Shit!”
Somehow even from this distance she managed to catch his eye and yell out a few words that reached his ear.
“Don’t worry about me, save them!”
And he understood in that moment who she was talking about, Zenko, Metal Bat and the two heroes who were still down there in that mess. His gaze shifted to Elder Centipede who as if also hearing the woman grinned maliciously, his massive body poised to strike. He only had a second to ready himself before Elder Centipede struck.
CENTIPEDE TIDAL WAVE RAMPAGE!
Similar to what he did when Metal Bat struck him in the face but in a much more destructive fashion, Elder Centipede began to literally rampage through the city. There was no specific target in mind, he was just using his body to cause as much destruction as possible at as large of a scale as possible.
And so it was that City S was destroyed in the monster attack but thankfully there wasn’t a single human casualty due to the efforts of Once-Punch Man and the Hero Associations prior evacuation efforts. Unfortunately the monster responsible for the city’s destruction, Elder Centipede, managed to escape via tunneling.
Metal Knight pursued him by attaching itself to the monster’s carapace and hasn’t been heard from since.
~O~
“After that I tried following it through the tunnels but didn’t get far enough before the whole thing collapsed on top of me” Saitama further explained with a profound look of annoyance.
“No wonder you look so dirty and here I thought you were in some great battle.”
Saitama’s eyebrow twitched at the reminder “the next time I see that thing I’m gonna make sure there’s nothing left for it to regenerate from.”
‘Elder Centipede just sealed his faith. Though whether he dies like in the story is up in the air.’
Tomoro can say that canon is now officially out the window as of today. So many things have changed from what he vaguely remembered and wrote down that it was honestly pointless to try and keep track anymore. The story itself is now just a reference material for information about individuals of importance rather than a guide for events to come.
Case in point, they were almost out of City B and never encountered Garou.
It wasn’t as if they missed him either Tomoro could sense the young man. He could even tell the exact moment when Garou noticed them and chose to keep himself hidden rather than take a shot at Saitama. Part of the reason why he insisted on being told the story in as clear a way as possible was because Garou was a witness and something clearly happened to have the young man take the cautious approach instead of charging at him like he did with King in the story.
‘I guess anyone would think twice about taking on the guy who laid Elder Centipede flat twice.’
And if memory serves right Garou had also just suffered his first overwhelming loss against Watchdog Man. Tomoro is pretty sure that this will further change things but he wasn’t particularly worried about it.
“Oh!”
“What?”
“I just remembered, we should probably move out of the apartment.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it turns out the Monster Association was in the abandoned part of City Z the entire time.”
It took a while for Saitama to comprehend but when he did “Eehh? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I don’t that place is going to survive a battle between S-Class heroes and Dragon level monsters so we should clear out of there.”
“No shit!” Saitama exclaimed the both of them picking up speed “why didn’t you say that sooner.”
“It slipped my mind”
“How does something as important as losing all our stuff ‘slip your mind’?”
“Hey give me a break, a lot of stuff’s been happening.”
“Tch, excuses.”
Now he was just milking it.
“Your dumb ass selective memory loss must have rubbed off on me”
As the two began to bicker while moving at speeds impossible for most instruments to pick up Tomoro couldn’t help but smile. He was no longer worried about the now uncertain future. In fact he was looking forward to whatever may come in the next few days and beyond.
~To Be Continued~
Unfortunately I’m going to have to postpone the next chapter for about a week at least.
Comments
I had to reupload because I couldn't edit the original for some reason. This one has a different ending.
Andres Montemayor
Isn’t this same as chap released before?
