—Oh, look, I found something —said Saitama in his carefree tone, after moving aside a few blackened rocks.
Among the ashes and the smoke still rising, he discovered a metal hatch half-buried in the ground. Without any effort whatsoever, he opened it as if it were nothing more than a piece of tape, revealing a staircase descending into darkness.
—Well, at least you didn't destroy anything important, Genos. —Tatsumaki remarked with a slight smile, floating over to place herself at her husband's side.
With a playful air, she tilted her head slightly while pulling the bespectacled man toward her with her telekinesis — he was still unconscious and soaked from the fright he had suffered.
—Do you think it's worth bringing this soiled fellow along? I don't think he'll be of any use for extracting information… hehe.
—We have to arrest everyone involved, my dear. It would be a nuisance if any of them escaped and caused more trouble. The paperwork irritates me, but at least I want to do my job properly. There's a reason they gave me the promotion, and I don't want it to look like I earned it without doing anything.
Tatsumaki, smiling, simply looked at him with tenderness and gave him a small kiss on the forehead. After that, the four of them headed into the tunnel: Saitama going first with a steady step, Tatsumaki floating at his side and gently holding his shoulder, while Genos carried the jar containing the Mosquito Girl's head and the clone remained suspended like a useless bundle under the green-haired woman's psychic pressure.
As they descended, the air grew colder and the echo of their footsteps resonated through the structure. Saitama paused for a moment, observing the polished metal walls and the supports that seemed designed to withstand an earthquake. He couldn't help but look genuinely impressed.
—The person who built this place did impressive work. If I had a house with this design maybe I wouldn't have to worry so much about my bad luck with them. hehe.
Tatsumaki, floating beside him, didn't take her hand from his shoulder and stroked his head, as if she wanted to console him for his gloomy thought.
—Mosquito Girl, are there any traps around here? —asked Genos while his sensors scanned every corner of the corridor.
—I've never been inside this place… —the head replied, clearly nervous—. They had me forbidden from coming down here because this is where they kept what was important and most dangerous. The professor's assistants used to tell me that this was where "the creation of the perfect human" was kept. They also spoke of an imperfect abomination… something they later improved upon, when they discovered the master and how to finish him off. The rest… I know nothing.
Saitama let out a carefree laugh.
—Sounds interesting. If that scientist studied me so thoroughly, he must have created a very powerful enemy… Maybe someone who will actually give me a decent fight.
—Don't get your hopes up, my dear. If that thing is anything like the bugs from before, it won't be anything exciting. —said Tatsumaki with a smile.
—I know, I know… but maybe it'll be strong. Imposing, with giant muscles, looking impressive! Wouldn't that be fun…?
—I hope so sweetheart, I…
At that moment Genos stopped dead in his tracks. His arm transformed with a mechanical hum, the cannon deploying and aiming toward the dark end of the corridor.
—Sensei, I'm detecting a signal on the other side. It's approaching at high speed.
The corridor lights flickered once. Twice. And then the floor began to tremble.
It arrived before they could see it: a dull roar growing with every step, as if something far too heavy for that corridor was forcing its way through it. The lamps hanging from the ceiling swung back and forth, then exploded one by one as a dark mass tore them from their fixtures without even noticing them.
The creature that emerged from the shadows was difficult to ignore.
It had the body of a beetle taken to the most grotesque extreme imaginable: a mass of muscles that seemed to have been piled one on top of the other without any aesthetic consideration, hard as stone and covered in skin that blended opaque blue with earthy brown, crossed by red veins that pulsed visibly beneath the surface. At the center of its head, a massive horn caught the little light remaining in the corridor and returned it as a dirty glint. Every step it took sank the metal floor several centimeters.
—(It's undeniably fearsome, large and… it has an extraordinarily stupid face. What a shame) —Saitama thought as he watched it approach. He felt mildly disappointed.
The creature swept its gaze over them without stopping, evaluating all three in under a second.
—Which of those three is…!! —it roared with a voice that echoed through the entire corridor—. Fine, I don't need the other two! I'll start with the puny little girl on the right!
It raised its fist. It was the size of an enormous rock, and it launched it toward Tatsumaki with the full momentum of its body behind it.
It didn't get anywhere.
The fist stopped in midair as if it had collided with something invisible. Then the entire arm. Then the rest of the body. The creature hung suspended, struggling against a force it could neither see nor touch, surrounded by a green aura that glowed with a calm that was more threatening than any shout.
Tatsumaki looked up at it from below with a completely flat expression. No fear. No urgency. With the same interest one observes an insect before deciding what to do with it.
—Did you just call me… little girl?
Three words. Low voice. No variation in tone.
The creature stopped struggling. Its sunken eyes in that grotesque face opened as wide as they could go. It swallowed with an audible sound. It was plain to see that its animal instinct was screaming at it with overwhelming intensity that it had just done the most profoundly stupid thing remaining in its existence — it had offended two beings that its small brain had failed to warn it about.
Tatsumaki looked away with annoyance, as if she had already lost interest.
—My dear, finish off this insect. Then we look for the real creature.
—What a shame they only sent a weakling —responded Saitama, adjusting his cap with two fingers.
—NO, NO, WAIT, I AM…!
It was just a movement of his arm, effortless. What remained of the creature embedded itself in the far wall in fist-sized fragments, distributed with the involuntary regularity of something that simply flies in all directions at once. The horn lodged itself in the ceiling. The corridor smelled of hot metal.
Tatsumaki took her husband's arm again with a completely serene smile, as if she had just witnessed something moderately entertaining.
—Let's keep going, my dear. That bug was nothing much. —She paused briefly—. Although maybe you were right. Perhaps you'll find something more interesting further ahead. I'm already looking forward to watching you destroy it.
—Thank you, my dear. I'm very excited about this.
Saitama continued walking down the corridor, with the same calm stride as always, as if what had just occurred had been barely a warm-up.
Because for him, it was.
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—This… this is… IMPOSSIBLE!!
The shout of one of the clones multiplied into a wave of panic that swept through the entire laboratory. The chorus of exclamations and gasps bounced off the cold metal walls; some clones fell to the floor, others stood motionless with vacant stares, unable to process what they had just witnessed.
The original didn't shout. He only had his head bowed, eyes fixed on the floor, while his mind attempted to organize something that refused to fit together.
Ashura Kabuto. His most ambitious work. Improved to the limit of what science and his own ingenuity could offer, designed specifically from the exhaustive study of that man, calibrated to approximate the standard of the perfect human Genus had spent years pursuing. Stabilized in Asura mode, the state no previous subject had survived. All of that, destroyed in a fraction of a second, with the same ease with which one swats something that doesn't deserve attention.
—IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!! —several clones vociferated in unison, as if repeating it could reverse what had happened.
—We reinforced him beyond any previous limit!!
—Asura mode was our masterpiece, we corrected its original flaws!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN!!
—HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?!!!
—SILENCE!!!
Genus's voice thundered through the laboratory with a force that silenced the chaos in one blow. The clones recoiled, seized by something that was not merely authority but the cold fury of someone who has just watched years of work crumble.
Genus ran his palm across his forehead. His glasses slipped and fell to the floor with a metallic clink that resonated in the sudden silence. He didn't pick them up. He took a deep breath, once, and when he spoke again his voice was low and completely different from what it had been a moment before.
—There is nothing more to do here. —The words came slowly, with the weight of someone who has already made a decision they didn't want to make—. They are coming toward us, and all we accomplished was to accelerate this moment. We have no other choice.
He paused. He raised his eyes toward his clones.
—We will activate Project Ragnarök.
The silence that followed was different from the one before. It wasn't the silence of panic but of recognition: everyone understood simultaneously what those words meant. There was no going back. There was no next plan.
Only whatever came after this.
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Tatsumaki:
I was absolutely fed up with these people. I just wanted this to be over so I could go home.
—Well, let's try to be polite. —said my husband with that calm smile of his, standing before a steel door the size of the facade of a small building, set into the rock as if someone had wanted to bury something that was never meant to come out.
—You think being courteous is a good idea, my dear? —I replied, frowning—. They destroyed the ceiling of our apartment this morning and received us in the least courteous way possible. People who want to harm us don't deserve for us to be polite to them. One must be direct with those who wish us harm.
—You're right. —he shrugged with that simplicity of his—. Well, excuse me then.
He extended his hand, closed his fingers around the edge of the door and pulled. The metal yielded with a prolonged groan, the anchor bolts tearing free from the rock one by one, and the door that must have weighed as much as several trucks combined came out of its frame with the same ease with which one opens a stuck drawer. He dropped it to one side without even looking at it. The tunnel floor trembled with the impact.
What lay behind it was not what I had expected.
A man, with the same appearance as the unconscious man we were already carrying, was prostrated on the floor with his forehead almost touching the stone, completely motionless. Around him, others with the same appearance were burning stacks of documents with mechanical movements, piling up the ashes with a meticulousness that had something disturbingly ritual about it. When they finished with one pile they poured themselves something to drink with automatic gestures and lay down where they stood, as if their spring had simply run down.
—What's going on here? And who are you? —my husband asked, genuinely confused.
—I am Dr. Genus, Mr. Saitama. As you already know, I am the leader of this place. —he said without lifting his gaze from the floor—. You destroyed my most powerful creation without the slightest effort. I believed that today, Saturday, would be the day of my great achievement, the moment I finally reached my goal. Two years studying you, analyzing every available piece of data, convinced I had found the origin of your power. It was all useless. I failed to create the perfect human. —he paused for a long moment—. All that remains is to destroy my entire research… and the creator of this mediocre dream. This is the end of the perfect human. This is the end of the gods.
He pulled a pill from his pocket and held it firmly.
The intention was plain to see, and I watched my husband grab him by the shoulders immediately, with a genuine urgency that had nothing to do with combat.
—Wait! Don't say foolish things, your life can have another purpose. I just… ONE MOMENT! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!
Genus blinked.
—That this is my end?
—NO, THE OTHER THING!!
—That I destroyed… that you destroyed my most powerful creation?
—AFTER THAT!!
—That today Saturday was supposed to be the day of the great emergence?
—…
Silence.
I felt my heart sink to my feet.
—Oh, no. —I brought my hand to my mouth—. I'm sorry, sweetheart. You said you had reorganized the calendar after the last monster invasion, and I…
My husband's face went completely blank. He fell to his knees with his hands on his head.
—No… no… NO!! DAMMIIIIIIIT!!! I RUINED IIIIIIT!!
The shout reverberated through the entire laboratory. The clones stopped. Genus lifted his eyes for the first time with an disbelief he made no effort to conceal.
—Sensei… —Genos murmured, bewildered, watching the scene—. I understand. I couldn't even offer a worthy challenge to the strongest man in the world. —he pulled out the pill again with a quiet resignation I didn't like one bit—. My fate was decided from the beginning.
The pill didn't reach his mouth.
I stopped it one centimeter from his lips. I didn't move. I didn't gesture. I did absolutely nothing that could be seen from outside, but that pill stayed suspended in the air as if the space itself had decided no, not here, not in front of me.
In the same instant I sent the pills of the other two clones flying out of their hands and brought their bodies down against the floor with a force calculated for them to understand exactly what was happening without needing to incapacitate them entirely. Some things are punished with pain. Others are punished with the absolute certainty that someone has just decided for you, and that was worse.
I expanded the aura slowly. I wanted them to feel it settle on their shoulders like something physical, to fill every corner of that laboratory until the air stopped moving and the burned ashes went completely still on the ground.
I looked at them.
Not with fury. With something considerably colder, because the fury had left me three seconds earlier and what remained was a decision.
—I will not allow a group of fools to take their own lives in front of my husband. —I said without raising my tone, because I knew perfectly well that that was what made it unbearable to hear—. Not when he can do nothing about the pain he is feeling in this moment.
I looked at my lovely husband for an instant, still consumed by his own personal tragedy over the ruined calendar. Only a second. I felt something in my expression soften without being able to help it, and then I turned back to Genus with the same full intensity as before.
—But if anyone insists on being this foolish… —I cracked my knuckles slowly—. I can help them understand why that is not a good idea.
Genus opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
The clones attempted to step back. They couldn't. I held them exactly where they were with the same ease with which one holds something between two fingers, no visible effort, no need to rise from where I stood.
What followed was not a punishment in the conventional sense. It was a lesson that I made sure was etched with sufficient clarity so that no one in that room would ever again consider that option in front of me or in front of my poor husband. Not even Genos could keep watching entirely, and that already says quite a bit about what I chose to show them. I didn't need to move from where I was at any point. I didn't need to raise my voice or repeat anything. What I did was methodical, precise, and completely silent on my part, while they filled that silence with sounds I'm certain they would have preferred not to make. Three minutes. Enough for them to understand, with a clarity that left no room for doubt, that there were limits that were not to be crossed in front of me.
When I finished, all three were on the floor, breathing, intact in everything that truly mattered for them to continue functioning. The point was never to destroy them. The point was for them to understand.
Not one of them looked at the pill again. Not one mentioned the research. Not one said absolutely anything, and for once that decision was entirely correct on their part.
I smoothed my hair calmly and returned to my husband's side, who was still sunken in his own despair over the ruined calendar, as if I had only stepped out for a moment to fetch something and was already back. I sat beside him and began to console him.
It was the right thing to do. Everything else was already resolved.
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—Don't worry, sweetheart, nothing bad will come of it. That promotion wasn't so great anyway. There will be others, don't worry —Tatsumaki was saying sweetly, consoling her husband, who had remained crestfallen since the day before.
They were riding the elevator up to the top floor. Fubuki was checking her phone, which floated in the air before her, though at the same time she had one arm around Saitama and was stroking his back with her free hand, trying to cheer him up in her own way.
—It's just that on that day they were selling Fubuki's favorite ramen on offer, and your vitamin milk, my dear —Saitama grumbled, with the accumulated frustration of someone who has been mulling over the same thing for hours—. I should have sorted out the calendar beforehand, or wrapped that business up faster. Can't they run promotions more often? Or at least not sell out in half an hour? I didn't know they were that in demand. I even missed the meat and vegetables at half price. I hate my life.
He finished the sentence more deflated than when he'd started it, which made Tatsumaki furrow her brow with genuine concern.
—Don't worry about it, Darling —Fubuki cut in, setting her phone aside with a calm and confident smile—. When you see the new apartment, you'll forget all about that. I promise you it's one of the best.
The elevator doors opened. A long, silent corridor stretched before them, with a single door at the far end over an elegant bright red mat. They walked toward it. Fubuki opened the apartment door as if presenting a spectacle.
Saitama didn't say anything for several seconds. He had no words.
The apartment occupied the entire top floor. It was less a residence and more a modern palace: floor-to-ceiling windows revealing a complete panoramic view of City Z, which from that height looked like a miniature world, distant and orderly beneath their feet. The white marble floor reflected the natural light with an almost uncomfortable clarity. The furniture, finished in glossy black with dark green details, had that elegance that needs no explanation. A spacious living room with curved sofas surrounded a glass table that connected directly to an immense balcony with glass railings. At the other end, an open kitchen with a central island and state-of-the-art appliances perfectly aligned.
Saitama, almost by instinct, went straight to the refrigerator.
He opened it.
His eyes stopped. He blinked once. Then he went completely still with his hand still on the handle and his mouth slightly open, staring at Fubuki's favorite ramen and Tatsumaki's vitamin milk, perfectly arranged on the shelf.
He turned around very slowly, trembling.
—How… did you… with the…?
—Darling —said Fubuki, opening the freezer at the same time to reveal stacks of premium meat perfectly packaged—. Those products I can get delivered. And not only that. —She pointed to the vegetable drawer with calm assurance—. Vegetables of the finest quality. This month we eat like royalty.
Saitama leapt for joy without holding back, lifting Fubuki in his arms and pulling her into a sudden embrace that caught her off guard. She blushed instantly, nearly losing her breath from the unexpectedness of the contact.
—You've made me the happiest man in the world —he said, with a smile that bordered on tears—. I'll make it up to you. Tell me anything you want me to do, my dear.
There was a silence of exactly one second.
Fubuki's eyes opened wide.
What appeared on her face was not exactly the expression of someone who has just received a compliment. It was something closer to that of someone who has just heard exactly the words they had been waiting a long time to hear, processed in real time with an intensity that her cheeks couldn't conceal. It looked as though a drop of blood was threatening to appear from her nose. She breathed in deeply. Then again, more agitated. Her hands found Saitama's face and drew him toward her with a firmness that left little room for interpretation. Her lips were trembling, and when she spoke she was nearly shouting from sheer euphoria.
—Did you just say… anything?!!
Her voice was several tones higher than usual. Her eyes, mere centimeters from his, vibrated with an energy that made even Saitama tense slightly from the closeness.
Tatsumaki opened her mouth to intervene, because the scene was generating a level of jealousy she had no intention of concealing, but she never got the chance to say anything.
A violent tremor shook the entire building.
All three were thrown sideways. The windows showed the City Z skyline tilted, the skyscrapers swaying as if they were about to fall, and then the unmistakable sensation of the building descending, floor by floor, without stopping.
—Damn it, another attack…? —Saitama muttered, frustrated, preparing to head out—. Right, I'll handle what's outside. You two gather the food and then…
He stopped.
An enormous rock tore through the ceiling and embedded itself directly on top of the refrigerator with an impact that shook the floor beneath their feet. The metal gave way, the interior exploded outward, and the ramen, the milk, the premium meat and the finest quality vegetables were buried beneath the rubble with no possibility of recovery.
Fubuki and Tatsumaki looked at each other in dismay.
That was the last straw.
—NOOOOOOO!!! DAMMIIIIIIIT!!!
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—Target destroyed, sir! —announced one of Hammerhead's men, surveying with satisfaction the building reduced to rubble.
The building of wealth and perhaps themselves were in ruins.
—Good! —Hammerhead responded, euphoric—. Risking our lives and stealing these suits was completely worth it.
—Ah… wait, it was the wrong building —said another of his men, baffling the villain—. I'm sorry, boss. His house is actually further ahead.
Hammerhead went quiet for a few seconds, processing what had happened, until suddenly he let out a shout full of energy:
—WELL! ANYONE CAN MAKE A MISTAKE! THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO LEARN FROM IT!
—The important thing is to learn, is it?
The voice arrived from the street, calm and without raising its tone, with the kind of calm that needs no volume to make itself noticed. Everyone turned at the same time.
A police officer. Alone. Standing in the middle of the street with his hands in his pockets, looking at them with an expression that had nothing nervous about it.
Hammerhead evaluated him in a second and reached the obvious conclusion: a lone officer with too much courage or too little judgment, perhaps frightened in his position and concealing it very well. He raised a hand to calm him.
—Officer, don't get upset. And don't worry, don't be alarmed, we don't intend to harm you. We are here to bring justice to ordinary people! You should understand us, after all the police aren't so…
The officer clapped.
Once.
The pressure wave that came from that single clap swept the entire gang away in one blow, sending them flying backward as if they had struck an invisible wall. Several bounced off the asphalt. Not one got up immediately.
Hammerhead blinked from the ground, disoriented, and then the officer removed his cap to shake it off. The bald head caught the light from the street.
Something in Hammerhead's brain clicked.
The air rushed out of his lungs all at once. He recognized him immediately. He stepped back involuntarily, eyes wide open to their limit, because that officer was not simply an ordinary officer. It was Saitama. The same one who filled the internet with videos that people didn't know whether to believe or not: entire creatures annihilated with a single fist, threats that had withstood whole teams of heroes eliminated with just one movement of his fist. The One Punch Police. The most feared and powerful officer in the world.
He had thought he was a fraud trying to bolster the police force's image, but with that simple presence it was the complete opposite. And as if that weren't enough, he wasn't alone.
To his left floated a small figure with green hair waving without any wind, arms crossed and an expression that made the air around her feel heavier than normal. Tornado of Terror. Class S, rank 2. The active heroine with the most documented destruction in the entire Association.
To his right, standing with a completely different calm but equally absolute, Blizzard of Hell. Class A, rank 1. With a smile that had nothing reassuring about it.
Hammerhead's henchmen made no conscious decision. Their bodies simply toppled sideways one by one, trembling, eyes rolling back, unable to sustain the pressure of those three presences simultaneously.
Commissioner Saitama took a step forward. His expression was not that of someone furious. It was something more controlled and therefore more unsettling: that of someone making an active effort not to be.
—You're lucky you didn't hurt any innocent people —he said, in a completely flat voice—. That would have added considerable charges to your sentence. —He paused—. But what you did commit were two very serious crimes. —He raised one finger—. Destruction of private property. —He raised another—. And destroying an entire month's worth of premium high-quality food. —His eyes narrowed just slightly—. That… you will pay for.
—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
The Tōgen gang came to know that day what terror meant in its most direct and personal form. The beating was sufficiently methodical that each one of them, at some point during the process, made the firm decision to change careers as soon as they could walk again.
The Class B villain Hammerhead, who cried like a child the entire time, had to be saved before Officer Saitama finished expressing his frustration on his skull. He survived for three reasons that occurred simultaneously: the uncommon density of his head, the structural resistance of the stolen suit, and the fact that Saitama, somewhere very deep down, had tried to hold back.
Nobody could verify that last point with any certainty given the state the villain was left in.