Two more figures hurried across the street to Makoto's side: the Akizuki sisters, inseparable from him as always.
"Makoto, what is he..."
Marina stared at the crab monster towering over three meters tall. In the Naruto world, something like this wouldn't have fazed her much. But this was the real world.
Airi eyed the thing up and down, its upper half a massive crustacean grafted onto a pair of human legs clad in nothing but white boxer shorts, and made no effort to hide her disgust.
"Gross. Kill it."
The crab monster dropped to its knees with a thunderous crack, kowtowing frantically before Makoto, voice drenched in panic.
"Mercy! Please, mercy, Lord Nishikado! I'm an honest guy, I swear! I just ate too many crabs and somehow turned into this! I've never hurt anyone!"
Never hurt anyone? More like you haven't had the chance yet.
Makoto kept the thought to himself. This thing's track record in the original story was anything but innocent.
The moment it mentioned eating too many crabs, he'd already placed it: the Crablante from One Punch Man, the monster single-handedly responsible for pushing Saitama past his limiter.
So this mashup world has One Punch Man baked in too. Lovely.
"Let's go," Makoto said.
The crab monster froze mid-kowtow, a flicker of hope igniting in its beady eyes.
"Huh? You're not going to kill it?" Airi blinked, surprised. In her experience, her man was never the merciful type.
"I'm in a good mood today. Don't feel like killing." Makoto offered a thin smile.
Monsters from the One Punch Man world ran the full spectrum. Some genuinely weren't malicious. Crablante was not one of them. Before ever encountering Saitama, he'd already taken lives.
But it was the same logic as when Makoto first arrived in the Naruto world and didn't bother going after Hiruzen Sarutobi and the village elders. Their internal power struggles had nothing to do with him.
Besides, Genta Kojima and Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya, the two brats this thing had been terrorizing, were people who'd annoyed the hell out of him in his past life.
Watching them get roughed up by Crablante was, if anything, mildly entertaining.
Since Makoto had spoken, no one pressed the issue.
He glanced down at the monster still kneeling on the pavement. "Before I change my mind..."
"Thank you, my lord! Thank you!"
Before he could finish, Crablante slammed its forehead against the ground a few more times, scrambled upright, and bolted, limbs flailing in a graceless retreat.
"Not just the strength. The speed's inhuman too," Makoto observed, watching it disappear.
"Nishikado-sama, what was that thing?" Ai Hayasaka stared at him, hoping for answers.
"This side of the world is about to get chaotic too." He didn't answer directly, just smiled, a trace of anticipation slipping through.
Honestly? He was a little excited. Yesterday's rampage had been satisfying, sure, but it was common knowledge that playing a game with cheat codes only stayed fun for so long. The novelty wore off fast.
Now the real world was heating up. What this world would become next was something Makoto genuinely looked forward to.
"'This side of the world'?" Hayasaka exchanged a glance with Kaguya Shinomiya, confusion mirrored in both their eyes.
What did that mean?
"Let's move."
Makoto turned to leave with the girls in tow.
He'd barely taken a step when something tugged at the hem of his pants.
He looked down. Kokoro Katsura gazed up at him, face scrunched, eyes brimming with tears.
"Oh my god, she's adorable!" Marina's eyes lit up.
Even Airi, perpetually hard to impress, gave a small nod of approval.
"Mister... I'm scared..." the girl whimpered.
The crab monster had left a deep scar on her psyche. She couldn't bear the thought of going home alone.
Even Kaguya, ice queen that she was, felt a pang of sympathy.
"So, what do you want to do then?" Makoto studied the girl's face, already forming a guess about her identity.
"Your school uniform... it's the same as my sister's. Can you take me to find her?"
Her parents were overseas, and her sister had left for school that morning. Going back to an empty house while that creature was still out there was unthinkable.
Once Crablante was sure it had put enough distance between itself and Makoto, the groveling facade vanished instantly.
A massive claw smashed through the wall of a nearby department store, and it strolled inside like it owned the place. Straight to the seafood section.
The oversized pincers scooped up heaps of fish and shrimp, cramming everything into its mouth.
"Ha ha ha! So this is what power feels like? Incredible!"
Crablante gorged itself, shouting between mouthfuls, completely ignoring the shriek of the store's alarm system.
This was no ordinary shop. The Ginza Department Store, one of the finest in the country. The kind of place it couldn't have afforded to set foot in before.
"This is the life!" It talked to itself between bites. "After this, I'll head over to Okubo Park and find some women to have fun with!"
It considered itself blessed by fate. Sure, it looked like a crab from the waist up, but the lower half was still human. Everything still worked down there.
Best of both worlds, really.
But while Crablante wallowed in its newfound power...
"Megure... no, Officer Sato, I'm at the Ginza Department Store. There's another one of those superhumans here, causing havoc. Get the tactical team over here now."
Shinichi Kudo crouched behind a display, sending video to Miwako Sato while whispering his report.
At the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Miwako Sato, the newly appointed Inspector of Division One following Megure's departure, went pale the instant the footage came through.
She alerted the entire department.
Within moments, dozens of police cruisers tore through the streets toward Ginza, sirens wailing.
For once, the response time was impressively fast.
By the time Sato arrived with her team, Shinichi was already waiting at the entrance.
"Kudo, where is it?"
Shinichi pointed.
A gaping hole in the wall, nearly five meters high, rubble scattered everywhere.
"It punched through with its claws," he said grimly.
Everyone present swallowed hard. Compared to the apocalyptic power Makoto had displayed yesterday, this was nothing.
But that was a meaningless comparison.
It was like saying Krillin looked weak next to his godlike teammates. Fair enough. But drop him into the Infinity Castle, and you'd be singing a different tune.
"Ma'am... is our firepower even going to cut it?" A tactical officer swallowed, voice shaking.
After yesterday's events, command had rushed new equipment to the mobile unit. But staring at that five-meter breach in the wall, the Barrett rifles in their hands offered no comfort whatsoever.
Then a massive silhouette emerged from the hole.
Seeing Crablante in person was infinitely worse than on video. Sato and her officers felt their breath catch.
"Huh? Police showed up that fast?" Crablante raised what passed for an eyebrow.
"Open fire! Fire!"
Against a normal hostage-taker, Sato might have sent in a negotiator. But after Division One had been nearly wiped out by Makoto, after witnessing last night's cataclysmic battle firsthand, she harbored zero illusions about dealing with superhumans. The order came without hesitation.
The tactical officers opened up with their Barretts immediately.
Crablante's mouth curled into a sneer.
Can't beat Nishikado, but I can sure as hell handle you lot.
Those legs, deceptively ordinary save for their thickness, blurred into motion. A nimble sidestep, almost comically crab-like, and every round sailed past.
By the time they adjusted, its enormous frame had already filled their entire field of vision.
One after another, officers were reduced to crimson pulp.
Sato and Shinichi went white.
Once again, they were forced to confront the brutal truth: against beings with supernatural power, ordinary humans were nothing. Helpless. Insignificant.
Then Crablante's eyes landed on Sato. It licked its lips, hungry in an entirely different way.
"Oh ho. Looks like I don't need Okubo Park after all."
Sato understood that look instantly. She'd always been known as the beauty of Division One, and the creature's intentions were written across its grotesque face.
She drew her sidearm and fired as it closed in.
Crablante didn't even bother dodging. One pincer swatted the bullets aside like mosquitoes.
"Hee hee. Relax, I'll show you a good time you've never experienced before. Though if I accidentally break you... well, don't blame me. Ha ha ha!"
Its monstrous transformation had enhanced everything, including that.
As those blood-soaked pincers reached for her, Sato's face drained of all color. Despair swallowed her whole.
Then a deafening impact split the air.
Her eyes snapped open. A figure had descended like divine wrath, driving a kick straight into Crablante's left claw.
The same claw that had shrugged off rifle rounds shattered on impact.
"GAAAH!" Crablante shrieked, clutching its ruined arm. "Who the hell are you?!"
The figure landed cleanly, and Sato finally saw her face.
Ran Mouri.
"Hidden Leaf, Team Nishikado. Ran Mouri." She settled into a fighting stance, the same open-palm guard that Might Guy and Rock Lee used, voice calm and razor-sharp.
"Ran, you took forever!" Shinichi exhaled in relief, unable to hold back his complaining.
He hadn't just called Sato. He'd also contacted his childhood friend.
Ran rolled her eyes without turning around. "Maybe consider how far away I live."
Ten minutes later.
Another wave of sirens. Forensic technicians in white coats stepped out of their vehicles and loaded Crablante's remains onto a transport.
Was it also chosen by the Reincarnation Game? Ran wondered silently.
"Ran!"
Kogoro Mouri came sprinting up, having rushed over the moment he heard the news, and pulled his daughter into a tight embrace.
For all his flaws, his love for Ran had never been in question, even if he spent most of his time making her life harder.
He wasn't in uniform anymore. After witnessing Makoto's terrifying power firsthand yesterday, and after his daughter and wife had both talked him down, he'd resigned from the police force.
He was going to open a detective agency, just like in the original story.
The funding came courtesy of Eri Kisaki.
"Dad, I'm fine..."
Before Ran could finish, a hand gently pulled Kogoro away. Eri had arrived too.
"You two are overreacting. That thing was nothing compared to Ran. She's strong enough to be a monster herself," Shinichi offered, strolling over with his hands in his pockets.
Three pairs of eyes locked onto him with murderous intensity.
Ran was furious because he'd just called her a monster.
Kogoro and Eri were furious because this kid had dragged their daughter into danger.
Shinichi scratched his head, genuinely baffled about what he'd said wrong.
"Ran, we're leaving!" Eri seized her daughter's arm and turned to go.
Back in the Naruto world, she'd thought Shinichi and Makoto were equally worthless. But now, comparing the two? Makoto won by a mile.
"Please wait, Ms. Kisaki, we still have some questions..." Sato hurried forward.
"Get lost."
Eri's voice could have frozen steel. The last time she'd come to the police with a warning, they'd laughed in her face. Now that Makoto had proved them wrong, they wanted her help?
Shinichi stared at the pools of blood still glistening on the pavement.
"Damn you, Nishikado," he muttered. "If it weren't for him, none of these people would've died."
Ran, who'd been following her mother, stopped dead.
She turned slowly, expression blank with disbelief.
"What does any of this have to do with my teacher?"
On the outskirts of Tokyo, before the gates of Totsuki Academy, nestled among its seven mountain ranges.
Thousands of students milled about outside, the start of classes rapidly approaching, yet the gates remained firmly shut with no sign of opening.
Totsuki's Director, Senzaemon Nakiri, stood guard at the entrance alongside Shuchiin Academy's headmaster, Adolphe. Behind them, ten students of unmistakable bearing stood in a perfect row.
Tomoya Aki couldn't help muttering under his breath. "What's the deal? After everything that happened yesterday, we still have to come to school?"
He'd spent the entire night in his element as an online personality, posting reviews and commentary on every new game release. It was the one thing he was genuinely good at.
But with Makoto's stunt dominating every feed, nobody cared about game reviews right now. Even if GTA 6 had dropped, it wouldn't have gotten much traction.
The other students buzzed with speculation.
Alice Nakiri turned to her ever-present shadow, Ryo Kurokiba. "Hey, Ryo, why won't Grandpa let us in?"
Kurokiba looked half-asleep, scratching his head. "No idea. Something about welcoming someone important this morning. I'd just woken up, didn't catch the details."
Alice blinked, glancing at her grandfather and the full lineup of the Totsuki Elite Ten standing behind him.
For Grandpa to roll out this kind of reception, it had to be someone on the level of the Prime Minister.
Though... hadn't the Prime Minister died yesterday?
Before she could finish the thought, a chorus of gasps erupted from the crowd behind her.
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Every 40 Powerstones = 1 Bonus Chapter