I arrived in City Z at three in the morning. The rain was still falling. I reached my building, which even at night looks terrifying. I climbed the stairs silently, step by step, and when I reached the door to my apartment, I took a deep breath before entering. I opened the door slowly so as not to wake anyone, but I didn't. Marci was still awake, watching all the news reports about the accident, and as soon as she heard the door open, she turned sharply. Her look, a mixture of surprise, relief, and sadness, was enough to understand everything. Before I could say anything, she ran over to me and hugged me so tightly it almost took my breath away. "Sorry for scaring you like that," I murmured, picking up the bag. "But look, I brought ramen and green tea." Hearing this, she pulled away and looked at me with a serious face. "And I also brought some fried meat." —She just lowers her head and gives a small smile, then quickly grabs the bag and heads to the kitchen to make the ramen, make the tea, and serve the meat. As I went to my room to change, the rain pounding against the window filled the apartment. For the first time all day… I felt at peace.
I walk out of my room in a thin T-shirt and loose pants and sit on the couch. "How good... finally at peace." I take a deep breath, enjoying the silence. I turn and look at the small table set with instant ramen served on plates, green tea in ceramic cups, and meat on small plates. "Wow, this girl is fast." I get up and kneel on the zabuton to eat, clasping my hands together. "Prove…" Before I can finish, Marci easily pulls me by my shirt and drags me to the bathroom. "What's wrong?" She points to my hands and then to the bathroom. "It's okay." I get up and walk into the bathroom, closing the door. Marci kneels on the zabuton to give thanks and begin eating. I walk out of the bathroom and shake my hands dry, then kneel again and, giving thanks, begin to eat. She chuckles, a quiet laugh, knowing full well she looked like a mother caring for her child. I look at her and put my plate back on the table. "You weren't like that with Mirana; you need to stop caring for me so much; after all, I'm the one who brought you here… you should be my responsibility, not the other way around." She just looks at me seriously, grabs a notebook, writes quickly, and hands it to me. "Then grow up." Ouch, that really hurt. The rain had stopped, and the plates were half empty, and suddenly she lowered her head. "I lost someone again today." I lower my arm, and my right hand grabs my left arm out of anger and guilt. "You're right, I'm not strong yet, not even as strong as anyone in Class A." I close my eyes, waiting for… something. A gesture, a pat, a simple consolation, but nothing. I raise my head and see Marci watching TV, still eating dinner. "Hey! I get sentimental, and you don't even care!". She quickly turns her head, looking annoyed, and goes back to staring at the television without saying anything. I sigh and slump down on the table."You're definitely... impossible."
Finishing dinner, Marci and I collect the dishes and take them to the kitchen to wash and clean everything. "Hey, you're right, sometimes I can be a bit..."
"Doushite ano hi asonda umi no nioi wa."
I stop arranging the dishes and look toward the window. "This is the second night we've heard songs out of nowhere..." And I didn't tell Marci, but those songs sounded familiar; Still, I prefer not to think about it too much.
"ano hoshi akari wo umi no hirosa wo"
Marci dries herself and writes on a piece of paper, and I go over to read it: "She has a beautiful voice." I look at her and smile. "Yes, she has a soothing voice." With a calm smile, I go back to collecting the dishes. "Let's finish cleaning and rest; honestly, I'm exhausted from everything that happened today." And just like that, we finish tidying the kitchen and each of us heads to our rooms. Outside, the voice continues for a few seconds longer, floating in the air and who knows how much longer, but honestly, listening to it relaxed you so much that it puts you to sleep right away.
The sun was barely peeking through the city's broken buildings, filtering through the apartment's curtains, and the first to rise at six in the morning is Marci, who starts cleaning the apartment and serving breakfast. The door opens, and I step out excitedly. "Good morning, dear sister! You look very pretty today," I said, stretching, with a small smile. Marci stopped sweeping for a second and just smiled as she continued sweeping. I walked calmly and remembered myself standing in the column that separates the living room from the kitchen. "Tell me what you made for breakfast today." Suddenly, I was at the table and saw that it was just two green teas with two fried fish and four pieces of bread; well, at least we didn't die of hunger. She sat down across from me, and we gave thanks and started eating breakfast. "I saw they opened a convenience store two blocks from here," I said, biting into a piece of bread. "I'll go check it out. Do you want me to buy you something?" She shakes her head. Finishing breakfast, we put away and wash the utensils we used. After two hours, I come out changed, wearing thin pants and a red sweatshirt with a hood. I leave my room and look at Marci. "I'll be early, I'll go check out the new store." And with my arm, I wave goodbye to Marci and head straight to the new store. I walk down the stairs of the building and out onto the street. The morning air is fresh, but the silence of the city still weighs heavily. Even so, I smile. "A new day... and this time, without giant monsters, please."I sigh as I walk toward the new convenience store.
The new convenience store was spacious... well, not that much, actually. In fact, it was smaller than I imagined, but it had good lighting, so I'd approve.
A simple, clean apartment. Perfect. I walk in and walk through the aisles, looking at all the new things: the candy aisle, the cleaning aisle, the kitchen aisle... and one with adult stuff that, for sanity reasons, I'd rather ignore. I return to the candy aisle and start looking for something I could eat, but I find strange candies: rice cakes, pistachio crackers, fish sticks (why do those exist?), and jam cookies. These at least look good, so I take out two, one for me and one for Marci, and calmly go to the register to pay. "These two, please... oh, and those bouquets too." The cashier calmly takes the flowers and puts them next to the cookies. "Okay, that'll be 886 yen, please." I start searching in my wallet to make the final payment, but before I can take out a coin, I hear a female voice next to me. "I'll pay this time." I close my eyes and sigh. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was, and she turned slowly, as if trying to convince me I was wrong, and looked at her, in front of me, with her typical air of elegance and confidence; there she was. "What are you doing here... Fubuki?" I asked, trying to sound calm, although inside I was thinking: Why the hell does she always find me, even in the most random places in the world?
For those who have read the manga, you'll know who Fubuki is, but for those who haven't, I'll give you a... brief description. Well, maybe not that brief. Fubuki, also known as "Blizzard of Hell," is a heroine of the Hero Association; by the way, she's Class-B, Rank 1, an esper with psychic powers, and also the leader of the "Blizzard Group." And how could I describe her appearance? Let's see... I know, a beautiful young woman with a curvy, slender body. She has dark green hair styled in a bob and light green eyes. For the fans a woman too sexy and pretty, I also thought the same ... until I met her, since I saved her on that occasion from a kaijin called "Feline Terror", she does not stop looking for me every week to join her group and so much is the thing that she even knows where I live and worse still, she knows what I am like, I thought I would disgust or repel her but no, instead, I lowered my head and instead of getting sentimental I got a little furious, she did not care because she still wanted me to join her group, her sighs to relax, but it does not matter, later she will meet Saitama and when that happens ... I will get rid of her, by the way, today she was dressed in her long white fur coat over her dark green dress with black boots up to her thighs and wearing several necklaces.
I look down and see that Fubuki had the flowers I asked for at the store. She looks at them and then looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "I never thought I'd see you buying flowers. Tell me, have you found a girlfriend yet?" I lower my head, smiling. "Yeah, and she's rarely your sister." And out of nowhere she gets angry and yells at me. "NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN!" Her yell made me flinch... metaphorically, of course. "Okay, okay, sorry for what I said." Fubuki turns her head indignantly. "Anyway, I came to train you." How weird, why does she come all the way here just to say that? Wait, she said train, that was weird. "Hey, since when do you care about training me?" With a proud smile she looks at me again. "Why shouldn't my subordinate be a weak guy?" "He's really still doing the same thing; as I recall, I've rejected him like six times in all these weeks." He let out a bored sigh and looked at her seriously. "Fine, train me." She smiled. "Fine, follow me."
As we walked, one of the Blizzard group's subordinates, Eyelashes, cautiously approached Fubuki. "Miss Fubuki, are you sure you want to recruit him? Just look at him..." Fubuki and Eyelashes turn back while I invited the other subordinates, not realizing that I only ended up with one cookie. Fubuki turns back and sighs. "We need strong recruits; besides, according to Piko, he has no background, no information on his parents." Eyelashes widens her eyes in surprise. "So he's like..." "A ghost?" Fubuki becomes serious. "If you put it like that, maybe you're right." Eyelashes asks her a question, stuttering because it's a bit of an odd question. "And that's about his 'sister'..." "Do you really know her?" Fubuki becomes a little serious. "Not at all. If he really knew her, he'd be dead already." Everyone knows that making fun of my sister is not a good idea." Her voice sounded so cold that even the air seemed to stop. When we reached an alley under a bridge, I didn't understand what was happening, so I turned to look at Fubuki. "Hey, and what is my entre-" Before I could finish my sentence, a huge shadow covered the entrance to the alley. A guy almost two and a half meters tall, pure muscle mass, appeared with his arms crossed and with a look of disappointment, he focused on me. "Listen, J," Fubuki said with a confident smile, "I introduce you to the newest member of the Blizzard Group: Extreme Giant. If you defeat him, you join my team. If you lose, you'll prove to me that you're weak." I looked at her with a mixture of resignation and annoyance. "Are those really my options?" She crossed her arms, proud. "That's right." With my raised hand, I asked for a third option. "Then I want a third," I said with a half smile. "If I win, you stop trying to recruit me." Fubuki widens her eyes in surprise, then smiles defiantly. "Deal."
Extreme Giant looked up at Fubuki and spoke respectfully, though he couldn't help his haughty tone. "Miss Fubuki, you said you'd bring me someone strong... I only see a weakling here." Fubuki sighed, crossing his arms."If so, then defeat him quickly so we can leave." The guy looked at me again, still smiling confidently, and closing his eyes to speak."Hey, don't take it personally, I just knocked you out..." Before finishing his sentence, he stopped because I wasn't paying attention to him, and it's true, I get bored with those people who are too much blah blah blah, so I'd rather finish my jam cookie, since luckily there was one left over. Extreme Giant didn't take it well, so he got into a fighting stance."OK, DWARF, ATTACK!" I was scared by the scream he gave and looked at him."What, has the fight already started? ok" I finish eating the last jam cookie and throw the wrapper into the air, Extreme Giant sees the wrapper slowly fall and took advantage of that moment. I jumped with a quick spin and kicked the wrapper. The impact was so precise that the paper slammed into his face. "Hey, asshole, that's dirty play." By the time I managed to break the wrapper in two and pay attention to the fight again, I was already jumping over him. I grabbed his black suit with both hands, swung down hard and dragged him to the ground with a thud, but he reacted quickly. He grabbed my shirt and started pulling with all his might. "Hey, hey, no, no, no." I had to quickly raise my elbows so the shirt wouldn't ride up any further and so the two of us started to struggle. "Okay, I've got you." And taking my hands off my shirt and spinning inside it, then holding it like a rope, I got into a good position to start spinning the giant who was still holding the shirt; each time the speed increased until it created a small tornado. While he reigns for victory, I hear a stretch; the shirt was beginning to stretch. "HEY, DROP, DROP!" Increasing his speed, the giant flies and collides with the base of a pillar, shattering it on impact. The giant opened his eyes, dizzy, but just at that moment I was already going with speed to hit him directly in the face and just at that moment a giant kaijin comes down from the bridge, making everything around him tremble.