Kafka's mind was a maelstrom.
Fight back? Run? Surrender? How do you surrender when you look like a monster?
Kikoru Shinomiya didn't give him time to decide. She was a golden blur, a comet of righteous fury closing the distance in a heartbeat. Her axe, humming with enough power to level a building, scythed through the air, aimed directly at his neck.
SHIIING!
Instinct took over. Kafka's monster form was not just strong; it was brutally, primally efficient. He dropped into a low crouch, the glowing edge of the axe blade passing inches over his head, the displaced air tearing a sharp whoosh past his ear.
He used the momentum of his dodge to drive his fist forward, not at Kikoru, but at the ground beside her. It was a feint, an attempt to throw her off balance and create an opening to escape.
BOOM!
The asphalt shattered, a spiderweb of cracks erupting from the point of impact. The shockwave kicked up a cloud of dust and debris.
Kikoru was unfazed. She landed lightly, spun on her heel, and brought the axe around in a low, sweeping arc aimed at his legs.
"Not bad," she grunted, her voice tight with exertion and excitement. "You're faster than you look."
Kafka leaped backwards, narrowly avoiding the blow. The sheer force of her swing carved a deep, glowing trench in the street.
She's... incredible, Kafka thought, a part of his mind still the starstruck fanboy. Her power, her speed... she's the real deal.
Another part of his mind, the part that was currently a Kaiju, screamed at him. SHE'S TRYING TO KILL YOU!
He couldn't fight her. Not really. He didn't want to hurt her. But he also couldn't let her kill him. It was a frantic, desperate dance of evasion. He dodged, he weaved, he parried with his hardened forearms, each block sending a jarring shock through his entire body.
The Defense Force soldiers held their fire, their training telling them not to shoot when a friendly was engaged in close-quarters combat. Reno Ichikawa watched from behind the truck, his mind unable to reconcile what he was seeing. This new Kaiju... it wasn't rampaging. It was defending itself. It was fighting with a strange, almost human-like restraint.
Kikoru pressed her attack, her frustration growing. Every blow that should have been a killing strike was narrowly avoided. This Kaiju was tough, durable, but it wasn't fighting back with any real intent. It was like a living punching bag.
"FIGHT ME!" she roared, her pride stung. Was she so weak that even a monster wouldn't take her seriously? The memory of the bald man's effortless victory flashed in her mind, pouring fuel on the fire of her insecurity. "STOP DODGING AND FIGHT ME!"
She channeled a massive surge of power into her axe, its golden glow intensifying. This would be it. A full-power, unblockable vertical slash.
As she raised the axe for the final blow, a calm, bored voice drifted over the scene from a nearby rooftop.
"Hey. You guys are making a lot of noise."
Every head, human and Kaiju, snapped upwards.
There, sitting on the edge of a five-story building, were two figures. One was a man in an ill-fitting grey hoodie and a baseball cap, casually swinging his legs. The other was a man in a trench coat and sunglasses, standing as still and silent as a gargoyle.
Saitama and Genos had been on their way to find a place to live (Genos was cross-referencing real estate listings with seismic stability data) when the sounds of the fight had attracted their attention.
Saitama took a bite of a rice ball he'd bought. "I thought we found a quiet neighborhood," he said to Genos, his mouth full.
"It appears we were mistaken, Master," Genos replied. "My sensors indicate a conflict between a female humanoid in a powered exoskeleton and an unidentified biological entity. The entity's energy signature is anomalous, displaying both Kaiju and human-like patterns."
Kikoru stared at them, her axe held aloft. "Who are you?! Identify yourselves! This is a restricted combat zone!"
Saitama ignored her, his eyes fixed on Kafka. "Huh. That monster looks kinda familiar. Is that the guy who stepped on my leeks?"
"The morphological structure is similar, Master," Genos confirmed. "Probability of identity: 87.4%."
Saitama sighed, a plume of rice dust puffing from his lips. "Jeez. This guy has the worst luck."
Down below, Kafka had frozen. That voice. That bored, monotone voice. He knew it. It was the voice of the man who had flattened him with a flick. The man from the video. The glitch in reality. He was here.
This was his chance. His only chance.
While all eyes were on Saitama and Genos, Kafka did the one thing Kikoru didn't expect. He turned and ran.
He launched himself backwards, his powerful legs propelling him over a pile of rubble and into a narrow alleyway.
"GET BACK HERE!" Kikoru screamed, enraged at being ignored and having her prey escape. She turned to pursue, but a voice stopped her.
"I wouldn't do that."
It was the man on the roof. His voice hadn't been raised, but it cut through the air with an undeniable weight.
Kikoru glared up at him. "And who's going to stop me? You?"
Saitama finished his rice ball and wiped his hands on his hoodie. He didn't say anything. He just looked at her. It was a blank, plain, utterly unimpressed look.
And in that simple, empty gaze, Kikoru felt it.
It was the same feeling that had frozen Soshiro Hoshina. The same suffocating sense of cosmic irrelevance. The feeling that she was a child throwing a tantrum in the presence of a silent, unmovable adult. Her rage, her power, her pride... none of it registered. None of it mattered.
Her body locked up. The power in her axe fizzled out. Her legs felt like they were bolted to the ground. It was not a physical paralysis, but a conceptual one. Her very being understood, on a level deeper than thought, that taking another step would be a fundamentally stupid thing to do.
Saitama, satisfied that the noisy girl had stopped, stood up and stretched.
"Alright, let's go, Genos. This fight is boring. The monster isn't even trying."
With that simple, devastatingly dismissive judgment, he and Genos leaped from the roof, disappearing from sight behind the buildings.
The moment they were gone, the pressure lifted. Kikoru stumbled, gasping for air as if she'd been underwater. The soldiers around her looked confused, unsure of what had just happened.
Reno Ichikawa slowly stood up from behind the truck, his mind blown to pieces for the second time that day. He had seen the strange monster save them. And he had seen the even stranger man in the hoodie stop the Defense Force's greatest prodigy with a single, bored look.
Kikoru slammed the butt of her axe into the ground in pure, unadulterated fury, cracking the pavement.
"Who... WAS THAT?!" she screamed at the empty sky.
A few blocks away, in a dark, garbage-strewn alley, a monstrous form shuddered and shrank. Steam poured off its body as it reverted, leaving a naked, gasping Kafka Hibino curled up behind a dumpster.
He was alive. He was human again.
He had escaped.
But the last words he had heard echoed in his head, a judgment more cutting than any blade.
"This fight is boring. The monster isn't even trying."
The man who could punch gods had seen him in his ultimate, monstrous form. And he hadn't been impressed. At all. Kafka didn't know whether to be relieved or deeply, profoundly insulted.