The following six months... I would like to say they flew by unnoticed. But that wasn't quite the case. Simply being loaded to the maximum every single day, I lost track of time very quickly — and was therefore quite surprised when, at one of our regular meetings, Fubuki brought a small cake, jokingly calling the day our anniversary. Exactly six months had passed since we had formed our alliance...
During that time I had come to understand that joining forces with Fubuki had been the right decision. Of course, her arrogant and self-satisfied personality made things difficult sometimes, but that was simply part of who she was. On top of everything else, the psychic techniques she taught me were genuinely quite useful — and knowing the principles behind how they worked allowed me to meaningfully strengthen my martial arts as well.
We started with the simple — one might say foundational — matter of resistance to esper power. Fubuki explained to me exactly how her abilities and other espers' techniques worked, how to sense them, how to read complex attacks in advance, and of course how to counter them most effectively.
Then we moved on to working with inner energy. Hellish Blizzard knew how to apply a technique she simply called "enhancement." And as the name suggests, by applying it she could temporarily strengthen the organic parts of a person's body, raising their physical characteristics such as speed, durability, resistance, and various others. This same technique could also be used to make a person's body more flexible.
For me, learning esper techniques was far harder than any martial art — and yet, by this point I had mastered "enhancement" quite well and could apply it to myself.
Telepathy — remote communication — no matter how much Fubuki tried to teach it to me, simply wouldn't come, so we put that aside for the time being.
"Recovery," on the other hand, was going much better. The technique, whose core purpose was accelerating the body's regeneration, came to me fairly easily. Of course, regrowing a lost limb was beyond either of us. But closing a less severe wound, or mending a crack in a bone — that was doable. A very useful technique that could be applied both to oneself and to other people when the need arose.
Right now, having mastered these skills to one degree or another, my esper mentor and I were engaged in their deeper study and practice.
As for Fubuki herself, she had not been standing still either. Both in terms of raw power — which had grown considerably over the time of our alliance — and in terms of hero rankings. After moving to A-Class, we had climbed quickly. At present I held third place and she held fifth respectively. Ahead of me were only Handsome Kamen and the most active hero in terms of hero work — the top student of Atomic Samurai. Between me and Fubuki, and just behind her, were the rest of the strongest swordsman's students and the former occupants of the top ten.
That said, all these hero rankings meant little to me personally. My progress in growing stronger was of far greater interest. In the Simulation, I was already defeating base Asura with relative ease and could feel that winning against the Berserk form was just one small step away. The question was whether that step could be taken within the virtual world, or whether something more real was needed...
Having finished the rather delicious cake Fubuki had brought and washed it down with juice bought at the nearest store, we were already thinking about heading out to the vacant lot where we usually practiced all the esper techniques — when suddenly our hero phones both began ringing simultaneously. At the same moment, the ground beneath our feet gave an almost imperceptible tremor.
Exchanging a glance with the girl — who broke eye contact almost immediately and fixed her gaze somewhere in the distance — I switched to speaker, already understanding that something serious likely awaited us...
"Garou and Hellish Blizzard on the line."
"Heroes!" — the female operator's voice was at the very limit of agitation. "A monster has appeared in City A! Approximately twenty kilometers northwest of Association headquarters! Threat level... at minimum Demon, but assessment is already indicating Dragon! Two A-Class heroes were dispatched but contact has been lost. No S-Class heroes are nearby. On top of that, we're having communication problems between cities! The monster is creating interference! You two can come to headquarters and join the A-Class hero group being assembled for the city's defense..."
"Or go there ourselves and deal with it." — cutting off the rapidly talking girl, I exchanged another glance with Fubuki and, waiting for her nod, confirmed. "We're moving out — send us the exact coordinates. As for your A-Class hero group..." — leaping high into the air and spotting a bright flash and billowing smoke in the distance, I shook my head. "Have them handle civilian evacuation — judging by what I'm seeing, it's needed..."
Finishing the call with the operator and landing on the ground, I looked at Fubuki waiting for me.
"If it's Dragon level..."
"I know." — barely visibly wincing, the girl nodded. "I have nothing to offer in a fight against it right now. I'll help with the aftermath and get people out... Garou..."
"Hm?" — already preparing to scoop her up and head toward the sent coordinates, I raised a questioning eyebrow.
"I can feel the power coming from that direction." — Fubuki pointed a finger in the direction I was about to head. "The monster isn't an esper, but it's definitely manipulating some monstrously enormous energy... be careful."
"Thanks, I will." — smiling at such a sudden surge of concern for my wellbeing, I went ahead with what I had originally planned — and before long was running toward the destination with the girl in my arms.
And the closer we got to the epicenter of the walking catastrophe, the more I felt what Fubuki had noticed earlier. The monster truly promised to be powerful. Here was the chance to test myself against a real Dragon!
Judging by what I could see, now that we were close to the target location, the creature possessed some form of long-range attacks. This part of the city had been destroyed almost entirely. Small craters surrounded by completely leveled and demolished buildings and other infrastructure were clear evidence of the monster's extremely destructive temperament. Having dropped Fubuki off at the still-intact Association headquarters so she could join the other heroes in evacuating civilians, I surged forward again — and before long I saw it: a naked purple humanoid with two rounded antennae on a bald head. Its size was quite human-scale, no taller than a couple of meters at the crown. But the destructive force it was demonstrating truly commanded respect.
Seemingly unaware of my presence, the purple monster unhurriedly rose into the air — first a few dozen meters, then several hundred — after which four bright energy spheres appeared around it and, with a wave of its hand, went flying toward the still-untouched part of the city...
Perfectly understanding that each of those balls, upon impact, would demolish at least a city block, I pushed off the ground hard and shot to intercept them. Of course, my speed wasn't nearly enough to catch all four projectiles flying at that velocity and along completely different trajectories. But I only needed two of them — the ones closest to each other... barely making it but making it nonetheless, I used Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist and redirecting one sphere with my hand and the second with my foot, caused them to change trajectory and collide with each other. At the moment of impact, everything around was flooded with blinding light and engulfed by a wave of destructive energy. The discharge was so powerful that even detonating in midair, hundreds of meters above the ground, it managed to shatter the windows of an enormous number of buildings below. Terrifying to imagine how much destruction those projectiles would have caused had they reached the ground...
Falling back down and keeping a careful eye on the figure of the slowly landing monster, I suddenly realized I recognized it from the canon. Vaccine Man — or simply Vaccine. One of the very first, if not the first, monster to appear in the manga and anime. Saitama had "fought" him back then, naturally defeating the creature with a single punch. Well — either my appearance here had somehow altered the storyline, or I had simply arrived a little before the bald hero...
"Who are you?!" — not waiting for me to fully descend to the ground, the monster contemptuously narrowed its eyes and turned its head in my direction. It seemed to have grown somewhat larger than before. Could it change its size?...
"Can't you see for yourself?" — landing in the middle of the completely devastated neighborhood, I began walking unhurriedly toward my opponent, loosening my arms. Since there was simply nothing left to destroy in the immediate vicinity, this place was the perfect "arena" for a fight. If anyone hadn't been evacuated from here in time, they were obviously already dead. Which meant my current task was to prevent this walking catastrophe from advancing any further into the city. "I'm a hero who came to beat you up. Isn't that obvious?"
"Is that all?" — the creature's face twisted again. "I was born from humanity's constant pollution of the environment! I am the Vaccine against you! The Earth is a single living organism! And you humans are the disease-carrying microbes killing it with your very existence! The will of the Earth gave birth to me so that I could annihilate humanity and your treacherous civilization! But you think you can defeat me? Simply because you call yourself a hero?! Is that why you dare to stand against me, an apostle of the Earth itself?!" — the creature's voice rose to a shout. "Then I truly must wipe humanity from the face of the earth! Don't stand in my way!!!"
In the next instant, a new energy sphere flew from its open mouth. Far larger than the previous ones. Then another, and another...
And all of them were aimed at me alone. There was no longer any point in protecting the desolate surroundings. So I didn't bother wasting energy deflecting the monster's attacks upward or trying to disperse them. Instead, I zigzagged straight toward him, only slightly redirecting the energy spheres to the side — or simply dodging them entirely.
Numerous explosions and flashes filled the space behind me, leveling everything that hadn't already been leveled.
The shockwave washed over me, but I weathered it easily. And having gotten close enough — just five meters away — I came to an abrupt stop, pulling back my right hand for a strike, fingers spread and half-bent like the claws of a beast.
Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist — your time has come!