It had been three weeks since Saitama had defeated the monster calling himself Vaccine Man and saved the little girl. He had brought her to the hospital where he had to fill out what felt like miles of paperwork, he even stuck around to speak with a social worker about the incident. Normally he wouldn't bother but the fact that his string was entangled with the girl's so close to the frayed edges of her old life meant that he felt an obligation to help her out, even if he still wasn't sure why the strings were so tangled together. Perhaps it was because of the sight of his string being more involved with another's that he told the social worker and the authorities that he could be contacted pertaining to the girl's case, who he had learned was named Yuuki. Saitama wasn't even sure if he was properly able to take care of himself as a fully functional adult, after all most others probably did not decide to become a hero after a complete bullshit fight with a giant crab man, but then again most people weren't Saitama.
He could feel the beginnings of a frown on his usually apathetic face as he thought about the intervening weeks between his rescue of Yuuki and now, he had fought and beaten two monsters, one of which had accidentally taken out quite a portion of City B when it had gone down. Now he was just waiting for a call from the social worker assigned to Yuuki's case, having been informed by her that he should expect a call within a few days' time. Wondering what had possessed him to make such a move in his life for quite possibly the seventh time today, Saitama picked up his watering can from the sink and walked with it out onto his balcony, ignoring the news as it played a report in the background on the killer mosquitos that were ravaging the area.
I wonder, he mused to himself as he began watering his cactus plant. I wonder what it would be like to have someone else around. From the way things are looking that little girl may end up living with me for a while. He cut a quick glance towards the open door to his apartment, trying to mentally calculate how or if he could support another human being, he honestly wasn't sure if he could even support a cat at this moment in time. He had no real job to speak of, just a half assed dream and massive amounts of unrecognized talent. Then again, they might just decide I am unfit to watch a kid, hell they may even decide that I am unfit to watch myself… His train of thought came to an abrupt end when he lifted one hand over the other and swatted at a mosquito that had landed there. He lifted a hand and watched with a detached sort of awe as the mosquito flew up, buzzing annoyingly near him. Narrowing his eyes slightly he clapped his hands together, only to see the mosquito once again escaping his grasp. The little flying annoyance then had the audacity to land on the side of his face. He hit it with enough force to send a shockwave out, a basic guarantee to take out any enemy he had encountered so far, but still the damned mosquito managed to fly away from him.
Gently he set his watering can to the side and leapt after the mosquito, determined now to kill the little pest more than he had been before. He leapt into action, grabbing a spray can of bug repellant and taking off in the direction that the little bug had flown off in. He ran, spraying at the bug the entire time, his features thrown into sharper relief then they usually were. Determination in every line of his body, simply to eliminate a tiny blood sucking demon bug. "Get back here you demonic little asshole! This is not over yet!" he shouted, still chasing the mosquito down with the spray can. "Woah," he pulled up short, looking between the spray can in his hand and the massive swarm that he had just noticed was above the area he was in. "What the hell?" he muttered, "I don't think this will cut it." He looked again at the spray can in his hand, trying to figure out if he could take out an entire swarm of the little pests.
"You there," Saitama gave the man the stupidest look he thought he had ever given anyone before, drawn from his thoughts about the bug spray by the strange metal man before him. "Evacuate the area, that swarm is sentient and will attack once it notices you." Saitama continued to stare blankly at the metal man, attempting to make sense of the whole ridiculous situation. He was half aware of the shocked "Seriously?" he questioned the man before him with. A sudden noise from the swarm above them drew the attention of the two towards the sky.
"Woah," Saitama muttered, both at the sound and at the intense scowl that dawned on the man standing before him. "That sounds dangerous, maybe we should get outa…" He was interrupted by a shuddering boom and thousands of the pesky little mosquitos raining down on the two like some form of unholy rain cloud had decided to dump everything it had on them. "Woah," Saitama said again and immediately regretted it because of the mosquitos that decided to fly into his mouth. "Oh god," he choked out, trying to clear the mosquitoes out of his mouth by spitting repeatedly, and loudly, so he missed the hissing mechanical noise that probably would have tipped him off to the impending explosion. As it was the heat that would have been scorching to anyone else merely felt pleasantly warm to him. Ah, it even left behind a nice breeze too, he mused, a small smile playing at his lips as he looked around, noticing the explosion had taken out all the mosquitoes, even the ones that had crawled in his mouth were gone.
"She spoke so I assumed she possessed human level intelligence," the voice of the robo-man broke Saitama from his awe of the comforting breeze brushing past him. "But she was just a pest." A glance over at the robo-man showed that the palm of his remaining arm was glowing and emitting a faint smoke. So that's where the explosion came from, he mused. "Mosquitoes burn easy enough, and yet she still sent them up against me. I confirmed before going into this fight that there were no other life forms within 500 meters of this point, meaning I do not need to hold back." Saitama tilted his head to the side and wondered if he counted as a living being, or if he was too strong to show up on the robo-man's sensors. Wait, he has a string on his finger, do robots have soulmates? "Oh no!" it seemed realization had dawned on the robo-man that Saitama had been well within the 500 meter radius he had set for himself. "That man got caught in the blast!" Saitama felt bad about not immediately reassuring the robo-man that he was alright.
"Whew, thanks," he took a slight step forwards, emerging from a patch of smoke that had probably blocked him from immediate view, "You were amazing, what was that?" The robo-man looked shocked to say the least. "I mean talk about a bug zapper." Saitama forced a laugh, trying to get the awkward silence between them to lift.
It didn't work very well as they were interrupted by the most god awful laughter that Saitama had ever had the misfortune of being subjected to. "Fools!" Saitama looked up at the monstrous mosquito woman that flew above them. "I had no need for those ones anymore. After all…" she trailed off and Saitama watched as she moved to hover behind the robo-man, watched as the monster raised a hand and casually sliced the robo-man nearly in two. "Look at how strong I am now." She had a quite ugly smirk on her face now, looking down her nose at the broken robo-man. What followed that move on the monster's part Saitama could not honestly tell, because he stopped paying attention when the robo-man's string once more caught his attention.
It was bright, but with some frayed edges, though those looked older, more than a couple years at least. There was a tangle in his string, looking much like the one that Saitama's had with Yuuki's. Maybe the robo-man had a similar story? He mused to himself, watching as the fight went on. The robo-man was looking more and more helpless as the fight wore on, missing more and more of his parts. Just as it looked like the robo-man would give up Saitama lifted his hand and smacked the mosquito woman away, smearing her across a building with a rather disgusting spray of gore.
"Damn mosquitoes," he said decisively, brushing his hands against each other to knock any dirt off of them. He turned away from the scene, figuring the robo-man would probably be fine, he looked aware enough to call someone at least. He was halfway across the street when he was called back with a loud shout of "Wait!" stopped him in his tracks. He turned back, looking at the outstretched hand of the robo-man.
"I am a lone cyborg fighting for Justice! My name is Genos!" this Genos character seemed very intense, throwing Saitama off balance. "Tell me your name!"
"Saitama," he said blankly, still taken off guard by the intensity of this other man.
"Take me as your disciple!"
"Uhh…sure?" Saitama lifted his left hand to rub at his head, and that's when he noticed it. Bright and vibrant and tying one person to another. His string connected to this Genos person, not in a tangle, but the other end stretching and tied to the ringer of the broken cyborg laying on the ground before him. He operated in shock, having truly believed that he would never find his soulmate, especially not in such a way, Saitama was barely aware that he agreed to something the man had said. He was barely aware of anything really until he got home and realized he was naked and had missed a call from Yuuki's social worker, though thankfully the missed call had only come in a couple minutes ago.
