~CHAPTER 1~

FROM ZERO TO HERO

Three years ago, Saitama was nothing more than a normal tiger. Like most of his species, he was nimble and quick on his feet. He also possessed a decent amount of strength to compliment such agility. Despte this, Saitama was never one to start fights, and normally avoided conflict if possible. Perhaps this disinterest in combat explained the reason he lived such a financially poor life. Very frequently, his house in the Valley of Peace would be raided and ransacked by large groups of bandits and criminals. Of course, the Furious Five would come to defend the town from said attacks, but to Saitama's dismay, he would almost always fall into the minority group of people that were still stolen from, despite the defenses.

As day after day passed, the Valley of Peace was attacked time and time again. And sure enough, almost each and every time, Saitama's money and belongings would be stolen. Sometimes, he himself would attempt to fight off those who broke into his home, but these attempts normally ended with a sword at his throat and a black eye. Thus, Saitama defaulted to compling to the bandit's demands. Each day, Saitama's patience grew evermore thin, until finally, he snapped, deciding that he had finally been through enough. As he walked through his village to buy some food with the minute amount of money he had left, Saitama began to ponder why he always acted so cowardly when danger arose. Sure, retaliation would result in injuries, but was it really all that bad to get a small bruise to protect his own home? With vengence in his mind, Saitama thought to himself, "Why must I hide behind the protection of so-called warriors when I could just become a warrior myself? I can protect my home AND avoid injuries along the way if I'm good enough!" His eyes suddenly widened as an idea sprang into his head, "That's it! I'll become a- no... I can't." Without the special training and practice that the Furious Five recieved, he could never even come close to matching their skill... right?

Saitama pushed the thought out of his mind as he walked up to a nearby food stand.

"Hey, I'll have one loaf of bread please." He said to the goat merchant.

"Sure thing, that'll be 15 yuan (about $2)" The merchant replied.

"Here." Saitama handed the money over and took the loaf. "Thanks!" he said before walking off.

"Come again!" The merchant hollered cheerfully.

"As if I could afford to come again..." Saitama thought bitterly. About five minuets later, Saitama arrived at his house, walked in, and set the loaf on his table. Suddenly, he heard a bang. He turned to see a muscular wolf with a scarred right eye staring at him menacingly, a tinted-red and barbed dagger in his right hand.

"You.." the wolf grunted, "Hand over all of your money, now."

Any other day, Saitama would have complied. He would have given his money up with no issue and no complaints. Heck, he would have probably thrown in a belonging of his as a plead for the wolf not to come back. But today? No... not today. As if by instinct, Saitama, fueled by anger, rushed the wolf for an attack. Seeing this, the wolf raised his dagger to strike, and thrust forwards at the charging tiger. Saitama countered this by grabbing the wolf's hand wielding the dagger, twisting it downward, and landing a direct strike on the left side of the wolf's head. This caught the bandit off guard, causing him to stumble back and loose his grip on the dagger. Saitama immediately took advantage of this by following up with a strong upwards kick to the wolf's chin. It landed with an oddly satisfying *crack.* With another straightfoward punch to the ribcage, another *crack* was heard. At this point, the wolf fell to the floor, howling in pain.

"All bark no bite huh?" Saitama thought as he took the handle of the wolf's dagger and struck him in the head with it, silencing the wolf's howls and rendering him unconcious. With satisfied look of pride in his eyes Saitama dragged the wolf out of his house and set him in the middle of the street before quietly walking back to his own house, dagger still in hand. As he closed the door and sat on his bed, he still felt the adrenaline from his recent fight, as well as a certain determination and realization he had never had before.

"I don't need skill to win against barbaric opponents, I just need strength! All I need to be a warrior is strength!" He thought to himself. With that, he set for himself a goal that he would work toward, no matter what difficulties they may have lied in his path: Become not just a warrior, but the strongest warrior that the world had ever seen.

The next day, with his nowfound determination and confidence, Saitama began his journey to become the strongest warrior. Each and every single day, he would go through a rigorous exercise routine: One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten kilometer run. During the first couple of days, Saitama's determination was almost extinguished, as his routine seemed both like an impossible task and a fate worse then death. However, he ignored his exaustion and carried on. Three weeks into training, and Saitama had become slightly adjusted to his routine. It still was incredibly exausting and challenging, but not nearly to the extent of how it first was during his starting few days. Three months in, and Saitama could see a noticable increase in his physical bulk, as well as an overall improvement in performance. He had become quicker, more resiliant, and much, much stronger. Saitama's past fear of bandits had vanished, being replaced instead with a hungering vengence. Instead of fleeing, he would now unhesitantly take them on, no matter if they came barehanded or armed to the teeth. Despite his newfound strength and confidence, however, he was occasionally overwhelmed by groups of four or five armed bandits; groups in which he fought solo against every member at once. However, his losses in possesions and currency had drastically decreased. Six months into training, and losing a fight against bandits became seldom for Saitama, which in turn cut his economic and property losses down to miniscule amounts. Saitama had technically become the warrior he wanted to be, yet he refused to let himself stop. He wanted- no, he needed to push himself further.

After one full year of training, Saitama's name was known and feared among various criminal gangs. The number of bandit attacks in the Valley of Peace had slightly, but noticably decreased. The retracted attacks from smaller gangs made way for larger, stronger, and more dangerous groups to have a go at the village, but Saitama stood strong, fighting and proving victorious almost every single time. Reisdents of the village had even begun to give Saitama sums of money as payment for his heroic actions. He had, in a sense, become the village's 'vigilante,' and earned the admiration and respect of numerous citizens. Not everyone, however, was so joyful about this. Surprisingly, it was the Furious Five and their master, Shifu, who looked down with vexation upon Saitama and his undisciplined methods of combat. Each member of the group all had one specific exasperation in regards to the tiger. Mantis disdained his lack of precision, both Viper and Crane were apalled by his lack of grace and borderline barbaric fighting style, Monkey disliked his lack of resourcefulness, and Tigress, well, she didn't hate Saitama, but she was very, very jealous of his strength, such jealousy ultimately amounting to hate. Despite all this "opposition," Saitama continued to defend the village, no matter how much the Five detested him for doing so.

Year two of Saitama's vigilante conquest proved to be a very fruitful time for him, as he had effectively lowered the crime rate in the Valley of Peace by almost 50%. Large criminal groups still intermittently proved to be a challenge to Saitama, but he would rarely suffer any injuries from battle. On top of all this, Saitama's "vigilante revenue" as he called it, had substantially increased. Saitama's reputation with the Furious Five, however, did not show any signs of improvement. They all still despised him, even more so than before, especially since the residents of the village had started to ask him for combat training lessons. To these requests, Saitama always responded with the same thing: "I have no training, all I did was an exercise routiene: 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a ten kilometer run." Eventually, the Five caught wind of this training routine, and attempted to perform it themselves, although they strangely could not find the strength to fully perform the routine daily. Shifu strongly disapproved of this, and scolded his students time and time again that, "Strength alone does not make a good warrior! Do not stoop to the level of that dillusional fool! He would be crushed by any warrior with skill!" Despite Shifu's harsh scoldings, the Five still attemped, but failed, to perform Saitama's training in secret. As time passed, their resentment for Saitama began to recede, and they began to even slightly admire him.

During the third year of Saitama's warrior conquest, he had become objectively invincible. Weapons such as swords, axes, and hammers all proved to be useless against him. That is, if the weapons could even touch Saitama in the first place. Through his training, Saitama had gained inconceivable strength, speed, and endurance. Foes fell to him in a single punch, most of the time before they even knew he was going to attack. Fights between bandits and the Five that used to drag on for ten to fifteen minuets were now over in less than two. Atthis point, Saitama had technically bested the Furious Five at their own job! Speaking of the Five, Saitama became quite familir with fighting along side with, and mostly saving them during battle. Everyone in the village greatly respected Saitama, including the Five, who even began to believe that he might be the Dragon Warrior. But Shifu, as always, refused to believe that someone as "reckless" as Saitama could ever even qualify for being anything close to the legendary Dragon Warrior. Well, in Saitama's eyes, it didn't really matter whether or not he was worthy of being the Dragon Warrior. Heck, he didn't really know or care what the title even meant. To him, all that mattered was that he had acomplished his goal of becomming the strongest warrior the world had ever seen. He, by his own standards, had gone from zero to hero.