The invasion of Midgar was not being defeated; it was being rendered utterly, comprehensively, irrelevant. Saitama's "cleanup" of the city had transitioned from a high-speed emergency response into something resembling a methodical, if somewhat surreal, city-wide spring cleaning. He moved from district to district, not with frantic urgency, but with the steady, unhurried pace of a sanitation worker on his morning route.
In the Merchant's District, he dismantled a squad of Berserkers by using two of their own as makeshift clubs, a technique that was both highly effective and deeply confusing for everyone involved. In the Artisan's Quarter, he "disarmed" another group by weaving their star-fire swords into a large, intricate, and surprisingly beautiful sculpture that he then left in the center of a plaza. He was no longer just fighting; he was improvising, finding new and increasingly bizarre ways to express his overwhelming power without actually breaking anything important. It was, for him, a game. A way to fight the boredom.
High above, the crimson tear in the sky pulsed with what could only be described as cosmic frustration. It had poured its elite, world-ending warriors into this reality, only to see them used as impromptu sporting equipment and abstract art installations. The Star-Eater, the vast, ancient intelligence behind the invasion, was receiving a constant stream of baffling, contradictory data: "Incursion force met with an entity of Absolute Physical Immunity. Standard 'Overwhelming Force' tactics… ineffective. Standard 'Terrifying Presence' tactics… also ineffective. Subject appears to perceive our Legion of Endless Despair as a 'mildly challenging interpretive dance troupe.' Further analysis required."
The final confrontation occurred at the source of the dimensional rift itself. After "tidying up" the last of the ground forces, Saitama, figuring the problem was probably coming from the big, angry-looking red hole in the sky, simply leaped. He shot upwards like a golden cannonball, piercing the clouds, the wind of his passage a clean, clear sonic boom that momentarily silenced the entire city.
He arrived before the crimson tear, a swirling, chaotic vortex of raw, bleeding reality hovering thousands of feet above the capital. It pulsed with malevolent energy, and from its depths, he could feel the cold, vast, and deeply annoyed gaze of the Star-Eater itself.
**
"Hey, it's you," Saitama said, floating effortlessly in the air. "The big, invisible space-jellyfish. Yeah, your first guy was way too loud. And these new guys you sent… really bad at respecting personal space. And they messed up a bunch of food stalls. 0 out of 10. Bad invasion. Would not recommend."
**
Saitama just felt a faint tingle, like a leg falling asleep. "Corrected? Look, buddy, the only thing that needs correcting here is your attitude. You can't just tear holes in other people's sky. It's rude. It probably messes with the weather, and my laundry was almost dry."
He looked at the massive, swirling portal. He looked at the vast, cosmic entity staring back at him from across the dimensional divide. And he came to a simple, logical conclusion. The tear was a problem. It was letting all the noisy, messy guys in. It was, in essence, a leaky faucet. And he knew exactly how to fix a leaky faucet.
He didn't punch the tear. Punching it might make it bigger, which sounded messy.
He didn't try to unravel it with a "Serious Water Gun." That seemed too complicated.
He did something far simpler.
He reached out with both hands and… took hold of it. His fingers gripped the edges of the reality-bleeding wound, his hands sinking into the raw, chaotic energy as if it were mere cloth.
The Star-Eater let out a silent, psychic shriek of pure, unadulterated shock. It was touching the tear! It was touching a fundamental wound in the fabric of space-time with its bare hands! This was not possible!
"Okay," Saitama grunted, getting a good grip. "Gotta pull… hard."
And then, he simply… pulled the two sides of the rift together.
The effect was not an explosion. It was the sound of a zipper being pulled shut on a cosmic scale. A great, final, schhhhhhlink, as the two bleeding edges of reality were forced back together. The raw energy of the portal, its conduit severed, sputtered and died. The crimson tear in the sky sealed itself, stitching the heavens back into a seamless, peaceful blue. The last of the Berserkers, half-way through the portal, were sliced cleanly in two, their upper halves vanishing back into their own dimension.
Saitama floated alone in the silent, now-empty sky, dusting off his hands. "There," he said with satisfaction. "All patched up. No more drafts."
He then simply let himself fall, a lazy, unconcerned descent, landing softly in the main plaza of the now completely-safe, completely victorious, and completely, utterly, shell-shocked Royal Capital of Midgar.
He had not just defeated an army. He had not just defeated a god. He had, in essence, told a cosmic horror to get off his lawn, and then fixed the hole in the fence it had made on its way in.
In the Royal Archives…
While Saitama was mending the sky, Shadow and Alpha were performing their own, quieter form of "house cleaning." They moved through the secret vault with silent efficiency, their eyes scanning the ancient, forbidden texts.
"The Rosetta Chronicle," Alpha whispered, lifting a heavy, rune-etched stone tablet. "It details the precise geneaology of the hero's bloodline… and its hidden branches. Diablos… the original entity… was not a demon. She was one of Aethel's own kin, corrupted by The Silence. Her 'bloodline' is not a curse, but a twisted reflection of the hero's own." This was a truth the Church, and the kingdom, had suppressed for centuries.
Shadow nodded, his own gaze fixed on a different text: the 'Codex of the Abyssal Pact.' It was a book bound in what looked like human skin, its pages filled with the mad scrawlings of the 'True Enemy's' first mortal prophet. It didn't just detail history; it contained prophecies. Predictions.
"Here," Shadow murmured, his gloved finger tracing a line of text that seemed to writhe with a faint, dark light. "A prophecy… of an 'Absolute Power'. A 'God of the Fist' who would one day arrive from 'beyond the stars'…" He stopped, his mind reeling. Could it be…?
"…and it says," he continued, his voice a low, disbelieving whisper, "that this being is not the world's salvation, but its 'Great Filter.' A final, ultimate test. A being whose purpose is to destroy any world that has grown… 'stagnant.' 'Boring'."
He looked up from the book, the implications of what he had just read crashing down upon him with the force of a Serious Punch. Saitama wasn't a hero. He wasn't a villain. He wasn't even a distraction.
He was, according to this ancient, terrifying prophecy, the universe's ultimate cleanup crew, a cosmic janitor sent to wipe the slate clean when a reality had outlived its purpose, lost its thrill, its struggle, its story.
And Sid, as Shadow, had spent the last several months… actively trying to bore him. He had taken a world filled with chaos, with villains, with interesting plot twists, and had, with Saitama's unwitting help, made it… peaceful. Stable. Boring.
In his quest to be the protagonist of the story, he had accidentally created the very conditions for that story to be cancelled.
"Oh," Sid breathed, the cool, confident persona of Shadow shattering for a second time. The horrifying, cosmic irony of it all was too much. "This… this is not good."
The true threat was not some ancient evil or a cosmic jellyfish. The true, world-ending threat… was Saitama running out of things to do. And Sid had just helped him finish the last page of the book.