The air in the royal kitchen, heavy with the ghosts of a thousand feasts and the savory aroma of simmering stock, now hung with the weight of a quiet, world-altering ultimatum. Saitama stared at the cloaked figure before him, the boy who called himself Shadow, and for the first time, he was faced with an opponent he truly could not punch. He was facing an idea. A terrible, flawlessly logical, and deeply, personally, painful idea.
"Leave?" Saitama repeated, the word sounding hollow in the vast, empty kitchen. "You want me to just… go away? And that's gonna save the world?"
"It is the only way," Sid said, his voice the calm, certain tone of a master strategist laying out his final, unavoidable move. He could see the conflict, the confusion, in the hero's eyes, and he pressed his advantage, not with power, but with cold, irrefutable logic. "Think of it, Tempest. What happens if another cosmic entity arrives? A new 'Star-Eater,' a new 'Berserker Legion'? You will defeat them. Easily. Effortlessly. Another 'boring' Tuesday for you. Another step towards this world's final cancellation for the rest of us."
He gestured vaguely. "But if you are not here… then we must struggle. Midgar and Oriana, united, will have to fight with everything they have. Princess Iris and her 'heroes of the light' will have a true, desperate war to wage. And in the darkness," a hint of his persona returned, a faint, cool smile in his voice, "other powers will rise to meet the challenge. It will be a world of chaos, of intrigue, of constant, desperate, beautiful struggle. A world… that is interesting. A world that is allowed to survive."
Saitama was silent. He looked down at his own hands, the source of all his power and all his problems. The irony was a physical, bitter taste in his mouth. His entire, singular, driving purpose, the core of his being since the day he'd fought that crab monster, was to be a hero. To save people. And now, he was being told that the ultimate, most heroic act he could perform… was to abandon the very people he had sworn to protect. To save the world, he had to let it suffer.
"And where am I supposed to go?" Saitama asked, his voice low, filled with a profound, weary sadness. "Back to my own world? I don't even know how. Just… fly off into space and hope for the best?"
This was the part Sid hadn't quite figured out. "That… is a logistical challenge, I admit," he said, for once, being completely honest. He hadn't expected the conversation to get this far. "But there are… possibilities. Ancient gateways. Dimensional echoes. The technology from the Benefactor's labs, the energy from your own being… with study…"
"So you want me to be a lab rat," Saitama said, his voice flat. "So you can figure out how to kick me out of your story."
Sid didn't deny it. "I want to give this world a fighting chance. You, here, are not a chance. You are a conclusion. An ending. And our ending… has been deemed unsatisfactory."
Saitama stood up from the prep table, the quiet weight of his presence making the very air seem to buckle. He walked to a window, looking out at the palace gardens, at the peaceful, thriving city he had, in his own strange way, come to care about. He saw a group of children playing, wearing little, crookedly-made yellow capes. He saw the knights of the Vanguard drilling in the courtyard, their movements sharper, stronger, inspired by his impossible example. He saw the simple, boring, peaceful world he had created.
And he knew, with a certainty that was heavier than any mountain he had ever punched, that Shadow was right.
His presence here was a paradox. As long as he stood guard, no true threat could ever manifest. But his guard was so absolute, so perfect, that it was suffocating the world's very right to exist, to struggle, to write its own story. He was a perfect shield that was so strong, it was causing the house it protected to be condemned for demolition.
"What about them?" Saitama asked, his voice rough. "The princesses. The knights. Kaelan. Lyraelle. Gregor, and the others. If I leave… this 'interesting' world you want to make… it's going to hurt them. People will die."
"Yes," Sid admitted, his voice quiet, devoid of all theatricality. "They will. People die in stories, Tempest. That is what gives the struggle meaning. That is what makes the victory, if it comes, precious. It is a price this world must pay to continue existing at all."
Saitama clenched his fists. The sheer, cold-blooded logic of it was maddening. He was being outmaneuvered not by power, but by a form of cosmic, utilitarian philosophy he couldn't punch. For the first time, he felt a flicker of genuine anger towards this boy, this shadow. An anger born not of annoyance, but of the profound injustice of the choice he was being forced to make.
But what could he do? Stay? And in doing so, doom the entire world to a quiet, boring, inevitable erasure? Or leave? And condemn the people he had saved to a future of pain, struggle, and uncertain victory, all so their "story" would be entertaining enough for some cosmic spectator?
It was a hero's choice. The ultimate, most impossible choice of all. A choice with no right answer. A choice where either path led to a kind of loss.
He turned from the window, his face set, his eyes holding a new, strange, and terrible kind of resolve. It was not the cold fury of Oakhaven. It was not the happy glee of the Regenerator fight. It was… the quiet, weary resolve of a man who has finally accepted the true, awful, and profoundly lonely nature of his own strength.
"Okay," Saitama said, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. "You win."
Sid felt a surge of triumph, so powerful, so absolute, it almost made him gasp. He had done it. He had convinced a god to exile himself, with nothing but words. This was his true "I AM ATOMIC" moment. The ultimate act of being an Eminence in Shadow.
"I'll leave," Saitama continued, his gaze distant, unfocused. "But not yet. Not like this." He looked at Sid. "These people… they believe in me. The kids in the little yellow capes. They think I'm a hero. If I just… disappear… you'll get your 'interesting' world, but their hope dies with me. It'll just be… fear. And that's not a good story. Even I know that."
A new plan, a final act of his own, was forming in his mind. An act that was, in its own way, as selfless, and as foolish, and as profoundly heroic, as any he had ever committed.
"If I'm gonna leave," Saitama said, a new, hard light in his eyes, "I'm not just gonna vanish. I'm gonna give this world one last thing. Something to remember. Something to fight for." He paused, a strange, sad smile on his face. "If you need a new villain to make things interesting… then I'll be the villain."
Sid stared, his mind, for the second time, completely, utterly, blanking. What?
"I'll give them a real monster," Saitama declared, his voice growing stronger, imbued with a terrible, self-sacrificial purpose. "A 'Great Filter' of my own. I'll become the threat. The ultimate final boss. I'll give them a reason to unite, to fight, to get stronger. I'll give them a real, honest-to-god, desperate struggle for their own survival."
He was proposing to become the very thing he had just defeated. To become the villain of the story, in order to save it.
"And you," he said, his gaze fixing on Sid with an intensity that made the Eminence in Shadow feel, for the first time, a flicker of genuine, primal fear. "You get to be the hero. You and your garden of sneaky ninjas. You're the ones who will have to rise up, to rally the world, to confront me in a final, glorious, epic battle. You get to be the 'Eminence in Shadow' who saves the world from the 'Mad Tempest'."
It was the ultimate, most insane, and most heroic act of seppuku imaginable. He was offering to sacrifice not his life, but his very identity, his reputation, his reason for being, to give the world, and the chuunibyou who had cornered him, the one thing they both so desperately needed: a good, meaningful story.
Sid just stared, his mind shattered by the sheer, magnificent, idiotic nobility of it. He had come here to manipulate a pawn. He had ended up in a negotiation with a living myth who was now offering to co-author his own heroic downfall for the greater good.
"You would… you would do that?" Sid whispered, his own grand, shadowy plans seeming suddenly small, petty, and childish in the face of such absolute, selfless heroism.
Saitama just shrugged, a single, final, weary gesture. "Yeah, well," he said, the sad smile still on his lips. "It's what heroes do, right? The boring, complicated, no-good-options stuff." He looked at Sid, his gaze a quiet, unspoken challenge.
"The only question is… are you ready to play your part?"