King stood over the fallen minotaur and felt something he didn't have a precise word for—a complex weight of gratitude and reflection that settled somewhere in his chest. Without Jordan's precision control of the battlefield, without Saitama holding the charge long enough for him to line up the shot, that breakthrough wouldn't have happened. Not today.
The minotaur twitched.
A low groan rattled up from somewhere in its chest, and its limbs shuddered against the concrete.
King took a sharp step back. "That didn't kill it?!"
He hadn't expected resilience at that level from a Tiger-class. His fist was already clenching again, blue current threading between his knuckles.
"King, hold on."
Jordan descended from above, touching down in a small puff of displaced dust. Saitama jogged up a moment later, hands in his pockets.
King paused with his fist raised. "Jordan—is there actually a use for this thing?"
"It's still alive, so let's bring it back." Jordan studied the semiconscious monster with the expression of someone mentally taking inventory. "I have plans for it."
Saitama tilted his head and gave the minotaur's enormous bicep an experimental pat. The muscle had the density of a truck tire. His face cycled through several thoughts.
"Are you keeping it as backup food? You should at least kill it first—cutting into something alive feels inhumane."
As expected.
Who would eat this.
Jordan pinched the bridge of his nose.
King, with the careful tone of someone consulting an authority, added, "Also, it's a wild mutant of unknown origin. Could be carrying viruses we haven't catalogued. Probably safer not to."
"Oh, you're not going to eat it?" Saitama scratched his head with evident disappointment. Something purple flickered in the air behind him and was gone. "That's a shame. Herbivores tend to have good muscle texture. Chewy."
The purple figure maintained a dignified silence.
Even King looked uncertain. "Biologically speaking, only carnivores develop dentition like that. Those teeth aren't for grass, Saitama."
"But cows eat grass and they're fine."
"Okay, we're done with this topic—" Jordan glanced down. "—Wait, are you waking up?"
The minotaur's eyelids were moving. Its fingers scraped weakly at the pavement.
Jordan stepped forward, calibrated his force to a precise window, and kicked it in the head.
The sound was significant. The minotaur's skull snapped sideways, and it went still again with the particular quality of stillness that suggests an extended absence of consciousness.
King released the current from his hands and stepped off the monster's back. "What do you actually need it for?"
"Not food," Jordan said, to preempt any further culinary discussion. Blue psychic energy spread from his palms and wrapped around the minotaur's bulk. It lifted off the ground with the slow grace of something that didn't know it was supposed to be too heavy. "I have other plans for this one."
"Understood." King nodded. "I'll leave it with you then."
Jordan turned. Saitama was looking at the floating monster with an expression of mild wistfulness.
"And you." Jordan pointed. "There's perfectly good beef in the refrigerator. Stop eyeing monster meat. You'll get diarrhea."
"I never get diarrhea from that kind of thing," Saitama said, to no one in particular.
A purple hand materialized behind him, plucked a card fragment off the ground with brisk efficiency, and vanished.
Saitama spun around.
Nothing.
He turned in a slow circle, scanning rooflines and shadows with the focused attention of a man who has been convinced something is watching him.
"It followed us here too! This ghost is persistent!"
Jordan coughed twice with studied casualness. "Right. I've relocated all the civilians to safe zones, so we should move before anyone recognizes us. Once the fans show up, leaving gets complicated."
"Oh, right." Saitama lowered his guard immediately. "I always forget you're famous. Hey—if I joined that Hero Association eventually, would I end up with that many fans?"
Jordan considered it honestly. "There should be a reasonable chance of—"
"Why do you sound uncertain about that?!"
The minotaur hit the manor's back yard from altitude and raised a satisfying cloud of dust.
By the time it settled, Saitama and King were already visible on the road from downtown M City—today's monster response doubling as their evening run. King's head was soaked through, sweat dripping freely in the afternoon heat. He'd barely exerted himself against the minotaur, but four kilometers of suburban road under a sun that had opinions about it was its own challenge.
Saitama looked better physically, though his sweatpants had been reduced to something that could charitably be called shorts, and he was running barefoot on asphalt without apparent concern.
Jordan stood in the manor doorway and sent two bottles of chilled orange soda in lazy arcs through the air.
King reached up and caught his cleanly. He raised the bottle in a small salute. "Thank you, Jordan-san."
Saitama's eyes lit up. He left the ground slightly to intercept his.
They drank. The heat backed off. The pleasant carbonated silence stretched for a moment.
Saitama wiped his mouth and squinted at the minotaur, which was displacing a meaningful volume of Jordan's lawn. He found a stick somewhere and squatted down to poke it experimentally.
"So what's it actually for?"
Jordan took the last pull from his blueberry juice and smiled with deliberate vagueness. "Special training instructor."
Saitama stopped poking. He looked at the minotaur. He looked at Jordan. He looked around for whatever additional context might be hiding in the immediate environment.
"But aside from being big, it's not that impressive. Put it against a real fight and it'd probably fall apart. Literally."
On the back of his head—the precise region his eyes couldn't cover—F-boy's hand appeared, collected a card fragment from somewhere in the vicinity of Saitama's collar, and withdrew.
Jordan filed away a note: F-boy's reaction time had improved noticeably over the past few days.
"Saitama," King said thoughtfully, "Jordan is probably planning to enhance the monster somehow. Before use."
Jordan pointed at him. "Correct. Exactly right."
King smiled the slightly bashful smile of someone who isn't used to being right. "I just reasoned from what you said earlier."
Saitama's eyebrows went up. "Monsters can get stronger?"
"Of course." Jordan settled against the manor wall, arms crossed. "Mutation potential in monsters is effectively unlimited. There are entire organizations built around studying how to push it further. The methods are just"—he tilted one hand—"crude. Mine goes straight to the source."
He glanced at the minotaur's slowly rising and falling chest.
It wouldn't know what was coming. That was fine. By the time it was useful, it would be considerably more impressive than a Tiger-level disaster that got confused when its targets disappeared.