Two minutes ago.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The endless sounds of destruction aggressively echoed high into the sky.
Two distinct figures sat quietly on the very edge of a high-rise rooftop overlooking the chaos.
Click.
Light casually pulled out a thick cigar.
He lit the tip with a quick flick of his lighter and took a slow, deep drag.
He looked down at the handful of people violently fighting in the street not far away.
Turning his head, he asked the man beside him with genuine curiosity.
"Aren't you going to go down there?"
"You are a hero, after all."
A man with a shiny, perfectly bald head sat comfortably side-by-side with him.
The man hung his head downcast and spoke with a profoundly listless tone.
"It's really boring."
"I can't even stop my fist before the fight is already over."
Light took another puff of his cigar and slowly exhaled a thick cloud of smoke into the cool night air.
The faint scent of the burning tobacco pleasantly stimulated his senses.
A knowing, highly cynical smile gently raised the corner of his mouth.
"That might be the case usually."
"Just ignore the giant one who isn't wearing any pants."
"The green one looks a little weak right now, but the angrier he gets, the exponentially stronger his physical power becomes."
The bald hero currently sitting beside him had been summoned from the period right after he had absolutely obliterated the spiky-haired alien warlord at the end of his first season.
At this specific time, the slight, lingering enthusiasm for battle in his heart could be very quickly extinguished.
"And there are literal gods in this universe," Light added smoothly.
Hearing this, the bald man looked up at Light in genuine surprise.
"Really?"
"Of course it's true," Light assured him.
"I'm just worried you won't even have the desire to throw a punch when you finally see them."
"Yosh," the bald man nodded.
"This world looks much more interesting than my previous one."
The bald hero eagerly got up and stood securely on the concrete ledge.
A rare expression of true anticipation appeared on his usually blank face as he looked down at the raging battlefield.
He whispered quietly without bothering to look back.
"I'm leaving."
As soon as the words fell from his lips, he casually jumped straight down from the rooftop.
His sudden, dramatic plunge caused the panicked people in the surrounding buildings below to exclaim in pure shock.
"I bought a whole bunch of new game consoles, you know, for a hero who is just doing this for fun," Light called out loudly after him.
"I'll be back soon," the bald hero answered.
He swaggered gracefully through the air and lazily raised his hand in a simple wave.
Seeing such an incredibly unremarkable, laid-back appearance, Light simply shook his head.
To put it mildly, it was the absolute first time he had ever witnessed an epic entrance with such a remarkably low profile.
Light smiled and tapped his earpiece to communicate directly with the Skynet AI, Alice.
"Alice, I need you to completely invade all the network equipment around Times Square."
"I want you to present the most enthusiastic, blood-pumping theme song to our hero who is just doing this for fun."
He paused for a moment, looking up at the dark blue sky, and spoke calmly.
"Tell Kaneki that he doesn't need to play hide-and-seek with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents anymore."
"Let Saitama's grand appearance serve as the true beginning of absolutely everything."
...
[Please play it in a loop: The Hero!! Set Fire to the Furious Fist Watch it, and it will be more immersive.]
...
[Three! Two! One! Killshot!]
[Participate! Sure to win! The supreme and the strongest!!]
BOOM!!
Accompanied by the sudden, violently loud music echoing across the city, the devastating fist thrown by the Abomination aggressively tore through the air.
However, the massive strike completely hit empty space.
A visible ring of compressed air violently exploded outward from the sheer force of the missed swing.
Where was the girl?
All the terrified spectators sitting safely in front of their televisions were absolutely dumbfounded.
The helpless child had suddenly disappeared completely out of thin air.
The deafening cheers that quickly followed confirmed the obvious truth.
She must have been miraculously rescued at the very last millisecond.
[What the hell is going on, encounter setbacks? I'm overwhelming!]
The hacked network devices and massive digital billboards all over Times Square were still blasting the heavy metal music at maximum volume.
"ROAR!"
"Who is it?"
"And where the hell did this damn noise come from?"
The Abomination, deeply furious at being robbed of his prey right out of his hand, roared loudly into the night.
The sudden, blaring music made him incredibly irritable and thoroughly disoriented.
"This should be my background music."
A startlingly calm voice suddenly sounded from directly behind him.
The Abomination aggressively turned his head to look.
The brave news cameraman hovering in the mid-air helicopter immediately zoomed the lens in tightly on the source of the voice.
[One strike! It's over! Streak winning streak!]
[Shout out loud!! Always win undefeated!! Crush everything!!]
The figure who appeared vividly in front of everyone's eyes was wearing a full-body, bright yellow suit.
He sported a pristine white cape and had absolutely no eyebrows on his shiny head.
He was a completely ordinary, perhaps even slightly sluggish-looking bald man.
He was currently holding the terrified little girl safely in his arms.
Some of the dedicated fans who were currently watching the live television broadcast felt their eyes widen in absolute disbelief.
Their eyeballs looked as if they were about to literally fly right out of their sockets.
This was especially true for the famous comic critic, Edward Vance.
Edward's brilliant brain suddenly felt exactly like a useless bowl of paste.
His limbs turned entirely ice-cold with pure shock.
The frantic words trying to escape his mouth rapidly rose to his throat, only to be forcefully swallowed down again.
The words ascended once more, but he simply couldn't articulate anything he desperately wanted to shout.
Spider-Man, Peter Parker, stared blankly at the strange man standing amidst the rubble at the scene.
Those incredibly familiar, dead-fish eyes were unmistakable.
That iconic white cape, those familiar clothes, and those bright red gloves were etched perfectly into his memory.
Wasn't this literally Saitama from the hit manga "One Punch Man"?!?
Peter stood absolutely silly on the spot, his mind racing.
Was this just an incredibly dedicated cosplayer?
No, he immediately thought of the mysterious, white-haired teenager who was strongly suspected to be Ken Kaneki from the church incident.
Could it actually be true??
Thinking deeply of this terrifying possibility, Peter's bruised face flushed with pure, unadulterated excitement.
His exhausted hands and feet suddenly felt remarkably sharp and responsive.
A thick thread of webbing immediately popped out from his wrist shooter to violently pull Iron Man out from under the Abomination's heavy foot.
"Mr. Stark, we can be saved!!"
"Kid, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Shit, who the hell managed to hack into J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
Tony Stark completely ignored what Peter had just excitedly said to him.
The loud, blaring heavy metal music echoing directly inside his armored helmet kept him incredibly bewildered.
He frantically called out to J.A.R.V.I.S., but the connection was severely intermittent and glitchy.
As his most brilliant and proud piece of work, the highly advanced artificial intelligence had actually been hacked by an external invasion.
To Tony, this digital breach was significantly more shocking than his own physical weakness against the Abomination.
"Boy, are you supposed to be a superhero?"
The Abomination confidently walked right in front of Saitama with massive, thudding strides.
He spoke with a twisted, sadistic sense of interest.
"Look around you, because this is exactly what happens when you try to play the hero."
[Power! Get power! Until close to your limit.]
"Quickly turn off this incredibly annoying music, or I will violently blow your head off with a single punch," the Abomination threatened.
He absolutely hated being annoyed by the loud music blasting from all directions.
He somehow always felt as if the lyrics were deliberately aimed directly at mocking him.
What kind of ridiculous songs sang about one-hit kills and winning streaks?
Saitama casually spread his hands apart.
He spoke with a deeply helpless, bored expression.
"I didn't play this music."
"There are also a lot of heroes out there, but I am just a hero for fun."
"And they should probably be a little different from the rest of them."
The profoundly slacker-like Saitama still spoke with the distinct, unbothered attitude of someone coasting through life.
Even his tone of voice remained completely indifferent to the towering threat standing before him.
[Hero, whether it's praising my voice or cheering me, none of these are needed.]
[Holding up the Iron Fist who is blessed by God, I desperately immersed myself in a dash.]
"Enough!"
"I will kill you right now, along with your ridiculous little hobby!!"
The Abomination roared furiously, his massive body looming like a jagged hill.
The terrifying, deafening sound resounded fiercely across the sky and the trembling earth.
It temporarily managed to completely cover the blaring music of the surrounding audience.
His beast-like body surface immediately began to bulge aggressively.
Thick, dense muscles violently stacked up together exactly like impenetrable layers of solid rock.
Crack!
In the very next instant, the solid ground directly beneath the Abomination's heavy feet cracked in a perfectly straight line.
Dense, cobweb-like fissures aggressively bloomed outward across the asphalt.
He took two massive strides forward.
Both of his gargantuan fists aggressively merged together into one incredibly huge, devastating hammerhead.
He violently smashed the combined fists straight down toward Saitama's shiny, light-reflecting head.
[Hero, I don't know when I will taste the taste of defeat, but before that, let's fight hero!]
"Run away!"
Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards, yelled desperately immediately upon seeing this lethal strike descending.
Susan Storm tightly closed her eyes in pure horror.
They could already perfectly predict the bloody, tragic mess of what would inevitably happen next.
However, Saitama's plain complexion remained perfectly light and breezy.
He calmly looked up at the massive, crushing fists that were getting closer and closer to his face.
The sheer kinetic force of the descending fists violently stirred up the wind pressure, aggressively blowing away all the lingering dust in the air.
A deafening, thunder-like sonic boom erupted directly in his ears.
Even so, Saitama simply looked as if he were being gently blown by a refreshing spring breeze.
The ultimate slacker felt completely light and incredibly relaxed.
In fact, the devastating fists descending toward him appeared to move slower and slower in Saitama's eyes, until they practically seemed to stop moving entirely.
He casually pulled his red-gloved fist back and slammed it forcefully directly toward the beast's exposed abdomen.
The strike traveled a distance of two meters, blasting straight into the air significantly faster than a bolt of lightning.
BOOM!!
The entire sky was violently shocked by the impact.
A deafening, apocalyptic roar of thunder completely resounded through the torn heavens.
[Lonely hero!!]
All the dedicated fans sitting safely in front of their televisions watched in the horrified gazes of the uninitiated masses.
Their flushed faces were completely full of pure, unadulterated excitement.
They let out incredibly crazy, hysterical shouts of pure joy.
"Saitama!!!"
_______________________________
Word count: 1911
Comment below on what you think so far.
If anyone of you is interested in reading some advanced chapters, you can check out my p@ tr*on.
p@tr*on.co m/Rai_jin
Thanks for reading guys!