The silence on the mountain formerly known as the Crown of the Heavens was absolute. The armies below, Midgarian and Orianan alike, stood frozen on the battlefield, their swords half-lowered, staring up at the empty space where a dark fortress and a mountain peak had stood just moments before. The Cultists, their life force and very existence tied to their master, had dissolved into fine black dust that was now being carried away on the wind, leaving behind only their empty armor and weapons, which clattered to the blighted ground. The war, the great and terrible final battle, was over. It hadn't been won in a clash of steel or a storm of magic; it had simply… ended. Abruptly. Silently. Completely.
On the newly expanded and even flatter plateau, Saitama stood alone. The wind whipped at his yellow jumpsuit and white cape, the only spots of color in the vast, grey emptiness. He looked out at the world, at the distant, now-victorious armies, at the far-off green lands of the kingdom he had, once again, saved.
And he felt… nothing.
The brief, desperate hope that this final, ultimate enemy might be the one, that the "conceptual" nature of its being might finally present a real challenge, had evaporated in the space of a single, anticlimactic punch. The result was the same. It was always the same. He was a man who had reached the final page of a book, only to find it was blank.
He sat down, cross-legged, on the smooth, unnaturally clean stone. He picked up a small, perfectly ordinary pebble. He tossed it in the air and caught it. He did it again. And again. The simple, repetitive motion a small anchor in a vast, profound ocean of ennui.
It was some time later that the first figures arrived. Iris and Lyraelle, their faces a mixture of awe, terror, and profound relief. They had ascended the mountain, expecting to find a scene of apocalyptic devastation, or perhaps Saitama locked in a reality-bending struggle. Instead, they found him just… sitting there, playing with a rock, looking like a bored child waiting for his parents to pick him up.
"Saitama…?" Iris ventured, her voice small, almost lost in the wind. "Is it… is it over?"
"Yeah, I think so," Saitama replied without looking at them, still tossing his pebble. "The main bad guy in the spooky chair is gone. And all his glowy magic stuff vanished with him." He paused. "He was really disappointing. A lot of talk. No punch."
Lyraelle glided to stand beside him, her silver eyes looking not at the empty space, but at him. She, a being of near-infinite wisdom and cosmic perspective, was the only one who could even begin to grasp the true nature of the silence that now enveloped him. It was not the silence of peace, but the silence of a finish line with no more races to run.
"You have saved this world, Saitama," she said softly. "You have defeated The Silence. You have ended a war that has raged in the shadows for millennia. You have fulfilled the destiny of the First Hero."
"Was that his destiny?" Saitama asked, catching the pebble. "To get so strong that nothing was fun anymore?" He finally looked up at her, and in his eyes, for the first time, was not boredom, not annoyance, but a deep, genuine, and almost heartbreakingly human, sadness. "Is this it? Is this all there is? Just… winning?"
Before Lyraelle could formulate an answer to a question that had likely stumped gods and philosophers for eons, another presence made itself known.
A soft, almost sarcastic, slow clap echoed from the edge of the plateau.
They all turned. Leaning against a newly-formed rock outcropping, his arms crossed, was a figure in a swirling, dark coat, his face hidden in the deep shadow of his hood. It was Shadow.
He had observed everything, of course. He had seen the pathetic final stand of the Cult. He had witnessed Saitama's anticlimactic, concept-shattering victory. He had felt the profound, existential boredom radiating from the victor. And he had decided that this perfect, somber, philosophically heavy moment was the perfect opportunity for a dramatic entrance.
"A truly… breathtaking performance," Shadow said, his voice a cool, theatrical murmur that dripped with a strange mixture of admiration and mockery. "To extinguish a conceptual entity with a single, physical blow. You have not just saved the world, Tempest. You have, in a way, broken it. You have proven that all its intricate rules, all its grand strategies, all its delicate balances of power… are ultimately meaningless in the face of a fist that can simply say 'no'."
"You," Lyraelle breathed, her serene expression hardening, her hand instinctively going to where a weapon would be, if she used one. "The manipulator. The weaver of lies. You are the one who sent him the letter."
"The 'chuunibyou'," Saitama added, his own voice flat. "What do you want? I already punched the main bad guy. Are you next? Because honestly, I'm not really in the mood." The hope that this guy might be his 'worthy rival' had already been thoroughly, and embarrassingly, disproven.
Shadow chuckled, a low, confident sound. "Me? Fight you? My dear Tempest, why would I do that? We are, in our own strange way, on the same side." He pushed himself off the rock, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. "We are both… bored."
He looked Saitama directly in the eye, or where he imagined his eyes were, and the amusement in his voice was replaced by a strange, almost genuine, intensity. "You are bored because your power has rendered all challenge meaningless. And I… I was bored for the same reason. I had perfected my game, understood all the pieces, predicted every move. My victory was as inevitable, and as hollow, as your own."
He spread his arms wide, a gesture of grand, theatrical revelation. "But you, Saitama… you have changed the game. You are not a piece on the board. You are a chaotic, beautiful, idiotic meteor that has just crashed into the center of it, scattering all the pieces and setting the board on fire."
Saitama just stared at him. "So… you're saying it's my fault that you're bored, but also that I've made things… not boring?"
"Precisely!" Shadow exclaimed, a genuine, almost manic glee in his voice. "This world… this predictable little stage… has been broken by your presence. And in the cracks, new, interesting things can now grow! Stronger things! The fall of The Silence has not brought peace; it has created a power vacuum! From beyond the stars, from between the dimensions, things will come now. Drawn by the echoes of your power, by the scent of a world whose ancient warden is gone!"
He pointed a dramatic, gloved finger at Saitama. "Your boredom is not an ending, Saitama. It is a beginning. Your wish for a worthy opponent… I believe the universe is about to grant it, in spectacular, world-shattering fashion!"
This, finally, seemed to get Saitama's attention. He stood up, the pebble falling from his hand. "For real?" he asked, a tiny, hesitant flicker of his old, hopeful excitement returning. "You're not just making stuff up again to be all… dramatic?"
"I am never just dramatic," Shadow said, a smile in his voice. "I am… insightful." He then turned, his dark coat swirling. "The old war is over. A new, far more interesting, game is about to begin. New players, new rules. And you, Tempest… you are at the very center of it all. Try not to be too bored. It's about to get very, very loud."
And with a final, enigmatic chuckle, he melted into the shadows at the base of the rock, vanishing as if he had never been there, leaving behind a swirl of confused dust and a single, tantalizing promise.
Saitama stood on the empty plateau, the wind whipping his cape. He looked at the world he had saved. It wasn't an ending. It was, apparently, just an intermission. New enemies? Stronger enemies? Coming from… space? And other dimensions?
He looked at his fist. The hollowness he had felt just moments before was still there, but it was now tinged with something else. A faint, distant, but undeniable, glimmer of hope.
Maybe… just maybe… the real fight hadn't even started yet.
He looked at Iris and Lyraelle, who were staring at the spot where Shadow had vanished with expressions of profound confusion and distrust. "Okay," Saitama said, a small, almost imperceptible, but genuine smile touching his lips for the first time that day. "Let's go home."
The battle was over. The victory was hollow. But the promise of a new, perhaps truly challenging, tomorrow had been made. The silence after the end was not an ending after all. It was just the quiet before a new, and almost certainly much stranger, storm.