The flash had come and gone in less than a single second.
In the living room, Saitama's hand paused mid-reach toward the large snack bowl on the low table. He squinted toward the dark hallway leading to the bathroom, his brow furrowed in mild confusion.
"Genos," Saitama said slowly. "Did you see that?"
Genos immediately set down his steaming teacup.
The cyborg's electronic irises contracted with a subtle, high-pitched mechanical whir as his internal energy scanning module came online. A bright golden light flared behind his artificial eyes. It was a spotlight-beam gaze that swept methodically and ruthlessly through every wall, every dark corner, and every room in the small apartment building. He scanned floor by floor, pipe by pipe, running through the entire spectrum of available frequencies.
Is this what they call eyes shining brightly? Saitama wondered, watching the intense light show.
Genos completed a full structural sweep. Nothing unusual registered on his internal sensors.
He powered the scanning module down, the golden light fading back to normal, and answered without hesitation. "I didn't see anything, Teacher."
He paused for a second, clearly dissatisfied with his own negative report, then offered his best logical reconstruction of the event. "It is highly possible that a light bulb in one of the nearby units was failing. A sudden power surge right before burnout can produce a brief, intense flash. It would be too fast for my standard visual recording software to capture accurately."
Another incident the Ultra-High-Speed Camera Recording Module failed to document, Genos thought grimly to himself, mentally updating his priority list. Teacher's perceptive range continues to wildly exceed my highest-grade instruments. I need to contact Dr. Kuseno immediately about thoroughly upgrading my entire sensory perception suite. At this rate, I won't even be able to track Teacher's casual movements properly.
"...Probably," Saitama finally said. He stared down the empty hallway for another long moment, then just waved a dismissive hand and sank deeper into his floor cushion. "Never mind. It's nothing."
"Yes!" Genos nodded sharply, then glanced upward as though suddenly remembering something incredibly important. "In that case, Teacher, please allow me to conduct a thorough, invasive inspection of the entire apartment building's electrical system tomorrow morning."
Saitama's eye twitched violently.
"That's... really not necessary, Genos," Saitama said, holding up a hand. "It's way too much trouble."
"Not at all, Teacher." Genos straightened his metallic spine, his voice dropping an octave into its deep, responsible-disciple register. "As an advanced cyborg, my body includes a specialized transmission module capable of directly interfacing with civilian infrastructure. An electrical audit presents no difficulty to me whatsoever. Furthermore, since this potential hazard directly concerns the safety of your personal residence, we absolutely cannot afford to be careless."
Saitama wiped a tired hand down his face. "...Okay. Fine."
What a mistake, Saitama thought miserably. I should have known better than to say anything out loud.
Meanwhile, in the small bathroom, Jordan Evans was paying exactly zero attention to the ridiculous conversation filtering through the thin wall.
Not that it really mattered. Given exactly how fast Saitama's passive senses were sharpening these days, F-boy's little spiritual light shows would become completely impossible to hide before too long anyway. The real, pressing question was how he was eventually going to introduce his invisible Stand to a man whose primary reaction to most supernatural phenomena was just mild confusion and a request for dinner.
Jordan turned the newly acquired card over in his fingers, studying it under the harsh bathroom light. It had a thick purple border. The artwork featured the exact same smug, bald face grinning up at him. It had the exact same dead-fish eyes that Saitama always wore.
He felt a sudden flash of inspiration strike him like a bolt from heaven.
I've got it.
"Hairline Care Specialist," Jordan whispered to the empty room.
A massive pulse of profound, offended energy traveled backward across the Stand link connecting them.
Don't, F-boy projected, his mental voice flat.
"No, listen," Jordan argued under his breath, highly amused. "It perfectly captures the whole theme."
I said don't.
Jordan was still smiling to himself when he finally read through the purple card's full, extensive effect list.
[Fantasy Card: Limiter Break ACT5]Type: Special Card Rarity: SR Formed from the fusion of unknown fragments. A conceptual power that was originally invisible.
Effect 1 — Restriction Removed: Designate any object to completely break through one of its inherent racial growth limits. Effect 2 — Controllable Breakthrough: Choose a specific, targeted attribute of any thing to permanently break through its racial growth limitations. Effect 3 — Limit Deployment: Designate any object and randomly gain a completely new, extraordinary ability. Effect 4 — Limitless Evolution: Gain ten units of Evolutionary Power. Choose one existing extraordinary ability for a transcendent evolution. This will result in either a completely new ability or a massive qualitative upgrade. This power can be used continuously until the ten units are exhausted.
Purple light. SR rarity. Jordan chuckled. The "Hairline Care Specialist" jokes had apparently contributed just enough conceptual weight and emotional resonance to push the card over the final threshold.
Jordan turned the card over once more, watching the bathroom light catch the glittering purple border.
Upgrades were always good. They were undeniably, unambiguously good things to have. But every single ACT card he spent was one fewer remaining from Saitama's massive, involuntary gift of energy. The graduation present was slowly but surely running out.
He let out a quiet, dramatic breath. Life is so tough. Even a handsome, superpowered young man has his tragic laments.
The key difference from the previous ACT4 card was incredibly stark, though. Limitless Evolution's stored Evolutionary Power had jumped straight from one single unit to ten. It was a tenfold increase, blunt, massive, and merciless. Having carefully used the previous, weaker version of the card, Jordan knew exactly how rare and valuable that kind of power was.
He was still standing there, carefully weighing the massive implications of the upgrade, when the card simply disappeared right out of his hand.
A massive, spectral purple hand had reached directly through the void without any ceremony, neatly plucked the glittering SR card straight from his fingers, and immediately retreated back into the ether. F-boy's voice settled heavily into his consciousness with all the welcoming warmth of a cold marble floor.
No. Mine. Leave.
"What the hell?!" Jordan hissed loudly.
He stared down at his completely empty palm in disbelief.
The fluorescent bathroom light hummed quietly above him. Somewhere out in the living room, Saitama was probably reaching for another handful of snacks.
Jordan exhaled a long breath through his nose. He smoothed his surprised expression back into something neutral. He accepted, with the quiet dignity of a man who had finally learned when he could not win an argument with his own soul, that this particular battle was officially over.
The sky above the open countryside was a deep, vivid, impossible shade of blue. It was the kind of sky that looked painted on.
Large, cotton-white clouds drifted overhead in slow, majestic formations. They were completely unhurried, their massive shadows rolling across the green plain below in long, peaceful waves. Beneath them, a small, isolated farm sat quiet and still under the baking midday heat. It was a very modest spread. A beat-up old pickup truck was parked on the loose gravel driveway, a wooden coop fence was in desperate need of mending, and neat rows of something green and leafy stretched far out toward the distant tree line.
Two-legged chickens wandered aimlessly around the dusty yard.
They moved exactly like small ostriches, pecking at the dry dirt with total, unbothered self-possession. They ignored the sweltering heat, and they ignored everything else around them. They were the kind of fat, comfortable animals that had never been given a single reason to hurry in their entire lives.
A short, stocky farmer dressed in a faded plaid shirt and stained overalls had been manually loading cut weeds into the back of his truck bed for the better part of three hours. He finally stopped working. He took off his wide straw hat, using it to fan his sweating face. He pulled a crumpled, half-crushed cigarette from his chest pocket and lit it, tilting his weathered face up toward the beautiful sky while his metal lighter snapped shut with a sharp click.
A sudden, roaring whooshing sound tore through the quiet air.
It was high up. Something was moving fast. Very, very fast.
The farmer squinted upward, shielding his eyes from the sun. A bright streak of white light arced violently down through the perfect blue sky, trailing a faint, smoking contrail behind it. It slammed directly into the open plain just a few hundred meters away with a deafening crack. The sound rolled across the flat ground like heavy, distant thunder.
A massive impact plume of dirt and pulverized rock rose slowly into the air, distorting in the intense heat shimmer.
"Whoa!" The cigarette dropped straight from his bottom lip. He scrambled forward in a panic, stomped the cherry out on pure instinct, and stared wide-eyed at the rising cloud of dust. "What in the world was that? A meteorite? A UFO?!"
He was already moving before he had even finished the terrified thought. It took him exactly three frantic steps to reach the open truck door. The ignition clicked on, the heavy engine turned over with a roar, and he cranked the steering wheel hard toward the open plain. He floored the gas pedal.
"Let's go check it out!"
The empty space directly in front of the speeding truck suddenly folded in on itself.
There was absolutely no warning. There was no magical buildup or warning light. The very air simply bent inward, creating a bizarre geometric distortion as reality sharply creased at the edges. And then, a small, pitch-black hole tore open right in the middle of the dirt road. It was absolute darkness eating a perfect, unnatural circle out of the sunny afternoon.
The farmer's heavy boot hit the brake pedal so hard the truck's seatbelt violently locked across his chest, bruising his ribs. The heavy truck slid sideways, spraying loose gravel everywhere, and finally screeched to a halt exactly two meters short of the anomaly.
A figure casually stepped through the black hole.
He was tall. He had broad shoulders, and both of his hands were casually shoved deep into his pockets. The black hole instantly collapsed behind him the exact second he cleared the threshold. The sudden, violent spatial rebound sent a massive gust of displaced wind rushing across the yard. It rustled the tall weeds violently and sent one of the fat, two-legged chickens skittering sideways across the dirt in a panic.
Jordan Evans rolled his neck once, hearing the joints pop, and took in the new landscape.
So, he thought, taking a deep breath. This is it.
Open sky above him. Flat, green plains stretching all the way to the horizon in every single direction. The air tasted fundamentally different here. It was cleaner, but highly charged with something faint and intensely electric. The gravity felt perfectly standard. The temperature was warm, bordering on hot. The grass was the exact right shade of green, and the clouds were behaving completely normally.
Everything looked exactly like what the magical Senzu Bean had promised it would.
He started to turn his head, mildly curious about the massive dust plume still rising in the distance.
"Hey! HEY!"
Jordan turned back around.
The stocky farmer had already scrambled out of the cab of his truck. He had also, at some point between slamming on the brakes and throwing open the door, reached behind the driver's seat and produced a very large, very real hunting rifle. He was currently leveling the long barrel directly at Jordan's chest. He had the remarkably steady aim of a man who had definitely done this kind of thing before, but he also had the wide, terrified eyes of a man who had absolutely not been prepared for any of this today.
"Who the hell are you, kid?!" the farmer screamed, his finger hovering over the trigger. "Was that you?! Were you the one that just... that thing in the sky?!"