Saitama stood at the edge of the canyon, staring down into the darkness where the giant mechanical worm had vanished.
He held a rock in his hand. A small pebble.
He tossed it in.
He waited.
Three seconds later, a plume of lava erupted from the hole, shooting a thousand feet into the air before splashing back down.
"Too deep," Saitama muttered.
He looked at his hands. They were shaking. Not from fear, and definitely not from effort. They were shaking from the sheer, excruciating frustration of stopping. It was like driving a car at Mach 10 and slamming the brakes because a squirrel ran onto the road.
The engine wanted to roar. The car wanted to fly. But he had to park it.
"Is this what stress is?" he asked the canyon. "Because it feels like indigestion."
He turned around. The eggs he'd dropped were cooked on the asphalt by the heat of his entry. A perfect, sidewalk-fried scramble.
"And now I have no breakfast."
He sighed, crouching down to check his shoe laces. He felt heavier. Usually, punching solved everything. Monster shows up? Punch. Meteor falls? Punch. Alien invasion? Big punch. It was simple. Clean.
But today, punching would have killed his friend.
"Man," Saitama whispered. "Being a hero is getting complicated."
He bent his knees and jumped. Not a supersonic launch—he was careful about the shockwave now. He just hopped, clearing the horizon in a gentle arc back toward City Z.
The medical bay on the S.S. Discount looked like the inside of a supercomputer. Dr. Kuseno had set up a mobile lab that put standard hospitals to shame.
Fubuki lay in a regeneration pod, floating in blue gel. Her face was pale, her breathing shallow. The three claw marks across her chest were glowing with a faint, violet light that refused to fade.
Genos stood by the console, cables connecting his head to the diagnostic unit. "Dr. Kuseno, the toxicity is resisting the bio-foam. It appears to be conceptual damage, not just biological."
Dr. Kuseno adjusted his thick glasses, his mushroom-shaped hair bobbing. "It is similar to the radiation from the Monster King, Orochi. Or perhaps... older. It attacks the spirit as much as the flesh. We can heal the tissue, but the scar... the scar will remain on her energy signature."
Fubuki's eyes fluttered open. The liquid drained from the pod, and the glass hissed open. She sat up, clutching a towel to her chest, shivering.
"I'm awake," she said, her voice raspy. She looked at the bandages wrapping her torso. "Did we win?"
Genos unplugged himself. "Sensei pursued the target. The target escaped underground. Sensei chose not to pursue to avoid seismic destabilization."
Fubuki closed her eyes. "He stopped."
"Yes."
"Because of me."
"Because of the city," Genos corrected, though his logic processors suggested Fubuki was a 94% factor in the decision.
Fubuki swung her legs over the edge of the pod. "I hate this. I hate being the liability."
She tried to stand, but her knees buckled.
A hand caught her.
It wasn't a metal claw. It was a warm, human hand, clad in a red glove that smelled faintly of burnt ozone.
"Easy," Saitama said.
He was there. He looked tired. Not the 'I stayed up reading manga' tired. The 'I had a really long Tuesday' tired.
"You dropped the eggs," Fubuki muttered, leaning against him.
"Yeah. Sorry. Street was hot, they cooked instantly. I tried to scoop some up but it was gritty." He helped her to a chair.
Fubuki looked at his arm. The sleeve of his new grey shirt was torn where Watchdog Man had bitten him.
"He bit you," she touched the spot. "Did it hurt?"
"Pinched a little," Saitama shrugged. "Dog has strong jaws. He ruined the shirt you bought."
"We can buy another one."
"With whose money? I spent mine on the safe."
Silence stretched between them. It wasn't awkward. It was heavy with the things they weren't saying. Saitama had pulled a punch. Fubuki had nearly died. The rules of their game were changing.
"He said 'found you'," Fubuki whispered, shivering again despite the warm air. "The voice. It wasn't the Watchdog Man. It was the thing that spoke to Homeless Emperor. The thing Psykos saw."
"God," Saitama said the name casually, like discussing a bad neighbor. "He seems pushy."
"Saitama, you don't understand. If he can possess an S-Class hero... if he can take over Watchdog Man..." she looked up, terror in her green eyes. "Who's next? King? Flashy Flash? Tatsumaki?"
The thought hung in the air like a blade.
"If he takes Tatsumaki," Fubuki whispered, "we're all dead. She's the only psychic strong enough to resist him, but she's also... unstable. If he finds a crack in her mind..."
"Then I'll punch the crack shut," Saitama said.
He picked up an apple from a fruit basket Dr. Kuseno had left. He polished it on his chest.
"Listen, Fubuki. I don't know about gods or dimensions or mind control. It's too much reading." He handed her the apple. "But I know that if you worry about getting hit, you flinch. And if you flinch, you get hit harder."
He looked her in the eye.
"Don't flinch."
Fubuki took the apple. She looked at the bite Watchdog Man had left on his arm—a mark that would have severed a normal human's limb, barely a bruise on him.
"Okay," she said, taking a shaky breath. "I won't flinch."
High above City A, on a floating plinth of rock in the stratosphere, Tatsumaki hovered.
She hadn't moved for three hours. Her eyes were closed. Her green aura was tight, coiled around her like armor.
She felt it. The disturbance. The violet scar on her sister's soul.
He touched her, Tatsumaki thought. The rage was a cold, sharp thing in her chest. That cosmic parasite touched my sister.
She opened her eyes. They glowed so bright they outshone the moon.
"He thinks he can hunt us?"
She raised a hand. Clouds across the entire hemisphere swirled, forming a massive spiraling eye around the moon.
"I'm not the prey," she hissed to the vacuum of space. "I'm the storm."
Deep underground, the Centisenny bored through the magma mantle, carrying its passenger to safety.
Inside the hollow cavity of the machine-worm, Watchdog Man sat. The costume was shedding. Fur fell away to reveal something shifting underneath—not human skin, but galaxy-patterned flesh.
The machine arrived at its destination: a vast subterranean cavern, lit by bioluminescent fungi and the glow of ancient tech.
This was the Monster Association's deepest secret, rebuilt by the Neo Hero defectors.
Figures waited in the shadows.
One was Psykos, her glasses reflecting the map of the surface world.
One was the Cybernetician, plugging wires into his own skull.
And in the center, sitting on a throne made of fused monster bones, was a figure wrapped in bandages, radiating a toxic, overpowering malice.
Garou.
Wait. No.
It looked like Garou. It moved like him. But the real Garou was eating steak on the S.S. Discount.
This was something else. A shell. A shedding.
"The husk is prepared," Psykos bowed. "We salvaged the bio-matter Garou left behind when his God-Slayer form shattered. It is empty. Hungry."
Watchdog Man stepped out of the worm. He walked up to the husk.
Watchdog Man reached out and placed his paw on the husk's chest. Violet energy flowed from the dog suit into the empty monster shell.
The husk's eyes snapped open. They weren't yellow. They were voids.
The God-Slayer Husk stood up. It cracked its neck. The sound echoed like a gunshot in a canyon.
It looked at its hands, forming the posture of the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist. But the water was black. And the rocks were screaming.
"Hunt," the Husk rasped.
Back on the S.S. Discount, Zombieman burst onto the bridge.
"We have a problem," he announced to the room. King jumped, spilling his juice.
"Is it monsters?" King asked. "Please tell me it's just taxes."
"Worse," Zombieman said. "It's the Hero Association."
He pointed to the screen.
BREAKING NEWS:
HERO ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES "THE FINAL DRAFT"
MANDATORY CONSCRIPTION FOR ALL LICENSED HEROES
FAILURE TO REPORT WILL RESULT IN DESIGNATION AS "VILLAIN"
"They're scared," Zombieman said. "The Watchdog Man incident, the riots... they think they're losing control. So they're turning the S-Class into a military unit. Under direct command of the UN Security Council."
"Conscription?" Fubuki limped onto the bridge, still wearing her hospital gown. "They can't do that. We're independent contractors."
"They just changed the laws," Zombieman tossed a legal brief onto the console. "Emergency Powers Act. S-Class heroes are now considered 'Strategic Weapons of Mass Destruction.' They want to own us."
"They want to own Saitama," Genos corrected, his eyes narrowing.
"Exactly," Zombieman nodded. "And they've sent an enforcement squad to bring us in."
He pointed out the window.
Hovering off the bow of the S.S. Discount were three Metal Knight carrier ships. And standing on top of the lead ship was the man they had sent to collect them.
He shone like a star. His muscles were polished perfection. His face was etched with a new, terrifying resolve.
Superalloy Darkshine.
But he wasn't smiling. He wore a collar around his neck. A glowing blue limiter collar, courtesy of the new laws.
"Attention, Final Fortress Team," Darkshine's voice boomed over the speakers, sounding heartbroken but determined. "Please surrender. I... I don't want to hurt anyone. But the shining muscles of the law are absolute."
Saitama walked onto the bridge, rubbing his stomach.
"Is that shiny guy trying to arrest us?"
"Yes, Sensei," Genos said, charging his core. "Shall I vaporize his ship?"
"Nah," Saitama waved a hand. "I handled the robots. I handled the giant worm. You guys deal with the bureaucracy."
He turned to Fubuki.
"You're the boss of the group, right? Go talk to him."
Fubuki touched the bandages on her chest. She looked at Darkshine—her friend, now her jailer.
She remembered Saitama's words. Don't flinch.
She tightened her hospital gown like a battle robe.
"Open the airlock," Fubuki commanded, her voice turning to steel. "I'm going to negotiate."
"And if negotiations fail?" Zombieman asked, hand on his gun.
Fubuki smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Then we show them why you don't corner a blizzard."