The Locker Room of Gods. Sector: Greek-Nordic Border.
The room is vast, filled with lockers towering fifty feet high to accommodate giants. The air is stale, smelling of divine sweat and liniment oil. Benches made of solidified cloud float at knee height.
Buddha drifts toward locker #444. He spins the combination lock with his mind.
Click. Click. Click.
"So," Buddha says, floating cross-legged. "You flip a building because of chips?"
Saitama stands with his hands in his pockets. He looks at the massive rows of metal doors. "It wasn't just chips. It was the principle. Plus, I missed the meat sale. I'm on a losing streak today."
Genos scans the room. His upgraded eye—glowing Asgardian green—whirs and clicks.
"Master, I detect ambient noise. Low frequency. Constant. It sounds like... insect wings."
Saitama ignores him. He watches the locker door creak open.
Inside, it is paradise.
Bags of chips. Pretzels. Boxes of Pocky. Bottles of cola. The junk food of the mortal realm, hoarded by the one god who regularly sneaks out of heaven.
"Jackpot," Saitama whispers. His eyes gain a sparkle usually reserved for supermarket flyers.
He reaches for a bag of "Seaweed Delight."
BZZZZZT.
A sound cuts through the air. It isn't loud. It is deep. It vibrates the fillings in teeth. It rattles the marrow in bones.
The locker door—solid adamantine steel—splits in half diagonally.
The cut is perfect. Clean. No heat, no jagged edges. Just molecular separation.
The top half of the locker slides off.
The bag of "Seaweed Delight" slides with it.
The bag splits. Chips rain down onto the dirty floor of the locker room.
Saitama's hand is frozen in mid-air, grasping at nothing.
He watches a single green-dusted chip hit the floor and crumble.
The sparkle in his eyes dies.
The dead-fish look returns. But underneath it, there is a shadow.
"Genos," Saitama says quietly.
"Yes, Master?"
"Who..." Saitama's voice doesn't vibrate. It swallows sound. "...who did that?"
The Shadows.
From the darkest corner of the room, footsteps emerge. They are heavy, dragging slightly. A figure steps into the fluorescent light.
Pale skin. Eyes like sunken pits of despair. A priestly robe that looks like it was woven from funerals. He holds a staff topped with a grotesque skull.
Beelzebub. Lord of the Flies.
He does not smile. He does not frown. He looks at Saitama with the intense scientific curiosity of a biologist dissecting a frog.
"Interesting," Beelzebub murmurs. The flies buzzing around him grow louder. "My vibration cut the door. It cut the air. It cut the distance. But when it reached your hand... the vibration stopped."
Beelzebub raises his staff. The skull rattles.
"Flesh should liquefy. Bone should shatter. You are solid. Too solid."
Buddha stops chewing his gum. His face goes serious. He drops to his feet, shielding Saitama—though he knows it's unnecessary.
"Beel," Buddha says, voice low. "Don't do this. He's not a lab rat. And you really, really don't want to interrupt his lunch."
Beelzebub ignores Buddha. He walks forward. His presence turns the lockers grey. Rust spreads instantly where his shadow touches.
"I want to know," Beelzebub whispers. "Is there something in this universe that can destroy me?"
He flicks his wrist.
Sorath Vau.
An invisible blade of pressurized sound launches. It aims for Saitama's neck.
Genos leaps. "Incineration Cannon!"
He fires a blast of fire to intercept.
The invisible blade cuts the fire in half. The flame separates, unable to bridge the gap. The attack continues.
Saitama doesn't dodge.
He brings his hand up to scratch his neck.
PING.
The vibration blade hits his collarbone.
It sounds like a tuning fork hitting a diamond.
Saitama's yellow suit tears. A flap of fabric falls off, revealing his pale skin. There isn't even a red mark.
Saitama looks at his suit. He sees the tear.
"Do you know how hard it is to sew this material?" Saitama asks. "The needle keeps breaking."
Beelzebub's eyes widen. "Magnificent."
He taps his staff on the ground.
"More. Show me more."
He slams his hand onto the staff's skull.
Gates of Hell.
The floor turns black. Skeletal hands reach up, constructed from condensed sonic waves. They grab Genos, crushing his legs. They grab Buddha's ankles.
Beelzebub thrusts his empty hand forward.
Palmyra: The Devil's Right Hand.
A massive, spiraling drill of offensive vibration forms around his arm. It spins with enough frequency to disrupt atomic bonds. He charges.
"KILL ME!" Beelzebub screams. "OR BE ERASED!"
Saitama looks at the oncoming drill.
He looks at the spilled chips.
He looks at his torn suit.
"You guys..." Saitama makes a fist. "...are way too emo."
Saitama winds up.
He doesn't punch the god. That would kill him.
He punches the drill.
Normal Punch.
Fist meets vibration.
Usually, vibration disperses impact. That is physics.
But Saitama ignores physics.
His fist hits the spiraling energy and stops it. He physically halts the vibration of sound waves. He punches the concept of frequency until it decides to be quiet.
CRACK-BOOM.
The Devil's Right Hand shatters like glass.
Beelzebub's arm snaps backward. The staff of Apomyius flies from his grip, spinning across the room and impaling itself in a locker.
The shockwave clears the skeletal hands instantly.
Beelzebub skids back, his boots leaving trails of fire on the ground. He hits the wall. He coughs, spitting black bile.
"It... stopped?" Beelzebub stares at his trembling hand. "You neutralized resonance... with a punch?"
"It was annoying," Saitama says. He picks up a bag of "Pretzel Rods" that survived the chaos. He checks the seal. "That noise is giving me a headache."
Beelzebub starts to laugh. A hollow, broken sound. He stands up, clutching his broken arm. The pain... it is delicious. It is real.
"You are it," Beelzebub pants. "You are the monster. The one who stands outside logic. Satan couldn't do it. Hades couldn't do it. But you..."
Dark tattoos on Beelzebub's body begin to glow. The Curse of Satan—the spell that prevents him from dying, the curse that forces him to survive—is reacting. It senses a threat that could actually bypass its protection.
The curse panics.
It takes over Beelzebub's body.
Massive black wings burst from his back. His eyes turn completely black.
The air in the locker room grows heavy, crushing. Gravity multiplies by fifty. The lockers crumble into cubes of scrap metal.
"MASTER!" Genos struggles to stand under the weight. "Energy signature rising to infinite levels! This is a suicide technique! He intends to implode this dimension!"
Beelzebub forms a sphere of darkness between his hands. It is small, the size of a marble. But it sucks in the light. It eats the sound.
Chaos: The Void That Eats God.
"Eat this," Beelzebub whispers.
He expands the sphere.
It grows. Instantly. A dome of absolute negation swallowing the locker room.
Everything inside disappears. The benches. The floor. The ceiling.
It is an eraser for reality.
Buddha eyes widen. "Shit." He raises his staff to create a shield, but he knows—this attack eats shields.
The sphere engulfs Saitama.
Inside the void, there is no air. No light. Just ripping, tearing forces tearing at every atom.
Saitama stands in the dark.
His cape flutters violently.
He looks around.
"I can't see the pretzels," Saitama says.
The tearing force hits his skin. It tickles. Like a really rough wool sweater.
"Turn the lights back on!" Saitama yells.
The void does not listen.
Saitama frowns.
"Fine."
He takes a deep breath.
He places his palms together.
Like a sumo wrestler preparing for a bout. Or a man applauding a bad joke.
Serious Series: Serious Clap.
He slams his hands together.
CLAP.
It isn't a sound. It is a wave of pressure so absolute that it creates a new physics event.
The shockwave travels outward from his hands.
It hits the darkness of Chaos.
It pushes the darkness. It bullies the darkness. It tells the void to get out of the way.
The black sphere bulges, distorts, and then pops.
Like a soap bubble.
The locker room returns to reality.
The force of the clap continues. It hits the back wall, blowing a hole through the entire structure of the arena complex, revealing the starry sky outside.
Clouds thousands of miles away split in half. The atmosphere of the entire divine realm is pushed back, creating a visible ring of displacement in the sky.
Beelzebub is stripped of his dark wings. His clothes are shredded. He stands there, naked from the waist up, hair blown back, staring.
His ultimate technique. The taboo magic.
Clapped away.
"You..." Beelzebub falls to his knees.
Tears stream down his face. Not of sadness. Of frustration.
"Why won't it work?" Beelzebub sobs. "Why can't I die? Even against a monster like you... why am I still here?"
Saitama walks over. He is holding the bag of pretzels.
He looks down at the weeping Lord of the Flies.
Saitama sighs. He reaches into the bag.
He pulls out a pretzel rod.
He holds it out to Beelzebub.
"Here," Saitama says.
Beelzebub stares at the snack. "What... is this?"
"You're cranky," Saitama says. "People get cranky when their blood sugar is low. You act like this Gen Z kid I know who hunts monsters. Always gloomy."
Beelzebub looks at the pretzel. He looks at Saitama's face. There is no judgment. No pity. Just a guy offering a snack because he thinks you need one.
"I wanted... death," Beelzebub whispers.
"Dying is easy," Saitama says, crunching on his own pretzel. "Paying rent is hard. Getting up on Mondays is hard. If you wanna die so bad, just live until you die naturally. It takes longer, which makes it more annoying. That's real torture."
Saitama drops the pretzel into Beelzebub's hand.
"Come on, Ear-Guy," Saitama says to Buddha. "Let's find somewhere to eat this before another weirdo shows up."
Saitama and Buddha walk away through the hole in the wall.
Genos limps after them, recording the data. Target 'Beelzebub' neutralized via high-velocity applause and sodium administration.
Beelzebub sits alone in the ruins. He takes a bite of the pretzel.
It is dry. Salty.
He chews.
For the first time in centuries, the flies stop buzzing in his head.
"Annoying," Beelzebub whispers, echoing the bald man.
He takes another bite.
Human Observation Deck.
Jack the Ripper adjusts his monocle. He sips tea.
"Oh my," the killer whispers. "Did you see his color?"
"Color?" Hlokk, his Valkyrie companion, asks.
"The Fly Lord," Jack smiles, showing jagged teeth. "He was the color of Midnight Blue—pure suffering. But when the bald gentleman clapped... for a second... I saw it."
Jack leans forward.
"He turned Beige. The color of... mundane Tuesday."
The Depths of Tartarus.
A chain rattles.
A titan shifts.
But deeper than the titans, in a place forbidden even to gods, a seal begins to crack.
Not because of magic.
But because the structural integrity of the dimension has been compromised by too many Serious Moves.
A massive hand, comprised of star-stuff and ancient hatred, presses against the veil.
Gaia. The Primordial Mother.
She feels the pain of the earth. She feels the unnatural heavy weight of the bald one.
"He is too heavy," the earth whispers. "He must be removed."
Hallway.
"Hey Genos," Saitama asks, chewing. "Did we just fight a ghost? That guy was super pale."
"Negative, Master. That was Beelzebub. A deity associated with pestilence and decay."
"Huh." Saitama swallows. "Hope he washes his hands before he eats that pretzel."
Genos pauses. He looks at his arm.
"Master. My scanners indicate a fluctuation in the fabric of reality. The 'Clap' seems to have drawn attention."
"From who?"
"Everyone."
Outside, in the sky above Valhalla, the stars begin to move.
Not orbit. Move.
They rearrange themselves.
They spell out a message in the constellations of the divine realm.
LEAVE.
Saitama looks up at the sky. He squints reading the giant starry letters.
"L-E-A-V-E," Saitama reads slowly. "Leave?"
He crunches a pretzel loud enough to echo.
"No," Saitama says. "I haven't found the beef yet."
He turns to Buddha.
"Which way to the VIP lounge? I bet the rich gods hide the good steaks there."
Buddha laughs, slapping his knee. "You're picking a fight with the Universe now, Balday."
"I'm not picking a fight," Saitama says, shaking crumbs from his cape. "I'm picking a destination. If the universe gets in the way..."
He looks at his fist.
"...I'll punch a shortcut."