For a full minute, the world was a still-life painting of shock.
No one moved. No one spoke. The only sound was the distant crackle of fires and the soft, mournful sigh of the wind as it ghosted through the skeletons of buildings.
Then, reality came crashing back in.
On the ground, Rookie Officer Daisuke was still on his knees. He wasn't looking at the sky where the monster used to be. His gaze was fixed on the tiny, distant figure in the yellow jumpsuit. His mind was a frantic, looping mess of broken logic.
We were dead. I felt it. The world was ending. And then... and then a bald man in a costume... he... he punched the end of the world.
The thought was so absurd, so utterly insane, that a hysterical giggle escaped his lips. It sounded alien in the dead silence.
Nearby, Soshiro Hoshina stood as still as a statue, his mind, for the first time in his life, completely blank. His tactical brain had blue-screened. It had encountered a variable for which there was no data, no precedent, no possible explanation.
I didn't see it, he thought, a cold dread seeping into his bones. I am the fastest man in the Third Division. My eyes can track a bullet. I can perceive motion in microseconds. But I did not see him move.
He replayed the moment in his mind's eye. The man was on the roof. Then, a flicker. Then, the Kaiju was gone. There was no in-between. It wasn't speed. Speed implied movement through space. This was... a deletion. An edit in the fabric of reality.
His knuckles, wrapped around the hilts of his blades, were stark white. He felt an overwhelming, nauseating wave of... irrelevance. His blades, his speed, his entire life's dedication to the art of combat felt like a child playing with sticks in the shadow of a mountain. No, not a mountain. A supernova.
CRASH.
The sound of something heavy hitting the ground broke the spell.
Kikoru Shinomiya had fallen from the sky. Her suit's power had finally given out, and she had dropped the last twenty feet, landing in a crumpled heap. She was unharmed, protected by the suit's impact gel, but she didn't get up. She just lay there, on her side, staring at the empty space where the 10.0 Kaiju had been.
Her mind, usually a whirlwind of confidence and battle lust, was a silent, desolate wasteland.
My axe... my ultimate attack... it did nothing. Captain Ashiro's cannon... the pride of the Defense Force... it did nothing. We threw everything we had at it. The sum total of humanity's strength. And it wasn't enough.
And he... he just...
She remembered the lazy posture. The bored expression she had barely glimpsed. The casual, dismissive swing.
He hadn't been fighting. He had been tidying up.
The prodigy of the Japan Defense Force, the girl who had never known true failure, curled into a ball amidst the rubble and began to quietly, uncontrollably, weep.
High above, Mina Ashiro was frozen, her hand still gripping the controls of her smoking cannon. Bakko, her white tiger, was whining softly, its head low, its ears flat. The animal could sense it. A power that wasn't just physical, but primordial. A power that broke the rules of the natural order.
Her tactical mind tried to rationalize, to categorize.
Unknown asset? New type of Numbered Weapon? Secret government project?
Every logical explanation fell apart. No weapon moved like that. No human had that kind of power. It was an OCP—an Out of Context Problem. A god had descended onto their chessboard and swiped all the pieces off the board with a lazy flick of its wrist.
Her voice, when she finally spoke into the comms, was hoarse, stripped of its usual authority.
"Command... Command, did you see that? Confirm visual..."
The reply was a cascade of panicked, overlapping voices.
"WE SAW IT, CAPTAIN! WE SAW IT! WE DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
"ALL SCANNERS ARE MALFUNCTIONING! I'M GETTING GIBBERISH READINGS!"
"The energy signature from the target... it's gone. But there's a new signature... no, it's not a signature... it's just... a hole. A blank spot in the data where something should be."
"It's the reading, sir," one operator said, his voice trembling with awe and terror. "The one from the rooftop. It's the same one we got from the initial impact point where the Cataclysm-Kaiju vanished."
A heavy silence fell over the command channel. They all understood. The impossible reading wasn't a glitch. It wasn't an error.
It was the signature of the man in the cape.
On the rooftop, Saitama stretched his arms and yawned. "Well, that's that. Now, where were we?"
"Locating a supermarket, Master," Genos replied instantly, already cross-referencing a downloaded map of the city with visible landmarks. "Based on the localized destruction, I surmise that the nearest operational commercial district is approximately 12.7 kilometers to the north-east. However, I must advise against it. My sensors are detecting multiple armed individuals converging on our position. They appear to be the same faction that was fighting the monster."
Saitama looked over the edge of the roof. He could see the little white-uniformed figures beginning to move, cautiously forming a perimeter around their building.
"Oh. Are they gonna thank us?" he asked, a rare flicker of hope in his voice. Maybe being a hero in this world came with better perks. Gift cards, maybe.
"Unlikely, Master," Genos stated. "In situations involving the sudden appearance of an unknown entity with overwhelming power, the standard human response is fear, followed by attempts to contain or neutralize the perceived threat. Their posture is hostile."
Saitama sighed. It was the same everywhere, then. "Fine. Let's just go. I really want to see if they have kombu here. I'm running low."
"As you wish."
Genos's back panels opened, and blue light began to glow from his boosters.
But before they could leave, a single, sharp voice cut through the air, amplified by a suit's external speakers.
"HALT! YOU ARE IN A RESTRICTED MILITARY ZONE! IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!"
Saitama and Genos looked down. A lone figure was approaching, blades held at the ready. Soshiro Hoshina. He had recovered his composure, his fear replaced by a soldier's unwavering duty. He was walking toward a god, but he was walking all the same.
Genos's arm immediately transformed, a sleek, black cannon humming to life, aimed directly at Hoshina.
"Master, he is armed and displaying aggression. Threat level: Gnat. Shall I eliminate him?"
"Whoa, hold on," Saitama said, putting a hand on Genos's arm. "Don't just vaporize the guy. He's probably just doing his job."
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down. "Hey! We're just leaving! No need to get all worked up!"
Hoshina stopped, his eyes narrowed, analyzing. The blond cyborg's weapon hummed with an energy that made the hairs on his neck stand up. The bald one, however... his stance was open, his voice casual. There was no killing intent. No aura. Nothing. It was that nothingness that was the most terrifying thing of all.
"You are to remain where you are until a superior officer arrives!" Hoshina commanded, his voice steady despite the frantic pounding of his heart. "Your actions, while beneficial, are unsanctioned. You are an unknown variable and must be processed!"
Saitama blinked. "Processed? What are we, cheese? Look, we don't want any trouble."
He turned to Genos. "Let's just jump. It'll be faster."
"Understood."
"I SAID HALT!" Hoshina yelled, and then he did something suicidally brave. He dashed forward, launching himself up the side of the building, his feet finding impossible holds in the ruined facade.
Genos's cannon whined, charging up. "Master, he is closing the distance. He is surprisingly fast for a primitive."
"I got it, I got it," Saitama said, stepping to the edge of the roof just as Hoshina vaulted over the top, landing in a perfect combat crouch.
For a moment, the two men stood face to face. The Blade Master of the Defense Force and the bored hero from another world. Hoshina felt like he was staring into a deep, empty well.
Saitama just gave him a simple, plain look. "Look, pal. I'm not in the mood for this. We're leaving. Okay?"
He said it simply. A statement of fact. Not a threat.
But Hoshina felt it. An absolute, undeniable pressure that locked his muscles and froze the air in his lungs. It wasn't an aura or a power he could sense. It was the sheer, suffocating certainty of the words. It was like gravity had decided to speak, and it had said, "I am leaving." You didn't argue with gravity.
His training, his discipline, his very soul screamed at him to attack, to contain the anomaly. But his instincts, the primal part of his brain dedicated to one thing and one thing only—survival—screamed louder.
DO. NOT. MOVE.
Saitama, seeing the man had frozen up, just shrugged. "Alright, Genos. Let's bounce."
He put a hand on Genos's shoulder. He bent his knees slightly.
And with a gentle thump that barely disturbed the dust on the rooftop, they were gone.
Not a blur. Not a streak of light. They just vanished from sight, leaving a faint whisper of displaced air behind.
Hoshina stood there, alone on the rooftop, his blades half-drawn. He slowly lowered his arms, a single drop of cold sweat tracing a path down his temple. He had been ready to die. He had faced down a 10.0 Kaiju without flinching.
But that... that was different.
He had just looked into the face of absolute, incomprehensible power.
And it had looked... bored.