2:08 PM

"What the hell is that?!" Touma shouted as he and Stiyl ran down a deserted sidewalk. He of course was referring to the black hole sucking everything in.

"Dammit," Stiyl cursed. "We're too late! Abicus has already used Oswald's Saws again! Has the bastard gone mad?!"

Suddenly, Stiyl felt himself slide across the ground as his robes flapped. Touma looked down at his feet and saw the same thing happened to him. Before he could rationalize what happened, the two were violently jerked into the air at high speed. Their bodies slowly twirled as they flew over the street.

"Stiyl!" Touma shouted. After twirling few times, Stiyl shifted his body weight so that he moved closer to Kamijou. He strained his arm to grab his left hand. He turned his head back around and after waiting a few seconds grabbed a street light that looked like it would get picked off the ground at any second.

"And so the fangirls rejoiced," Stiyl snarkily said looking at noone in particular.

"Don't make it weird."

Suddenly, the two and the surrounding area were outlined in a green light.

"...What?" Touma whispered as he and Stiyl slowly descended towards the ground.

"It would appear someone's feeling generous."

"An esper maybe?"

"Who knows?"

Touma gawked at the undiscriminating black hole as it made dinner plans with the environment of Academy City. He thought back to what Tsuchimikado told him earlier regarding Oswald's Saws. They were capable of creating dimensional rifts using magic. The black hole was caused by using the saws too soon after its initial use. The portals themselves were made from magic so destroying them would be easy.

But before he acted, Touma first considered a few things.

The first is that he can't destroy the effects produced by magic. For example, if someone were to pick up and throw a dumpster using wind magic, the Imagine Breaker would be able to destroy the twister but not stop the dumpster. But was the black hole the result of magic or derived from magic itself? Additionally, his Imagine Breaker had limitations on what it could eliminate all at once. It could not completely destroy a continuous beam of magic and an expanding black hole may have qualified.

The second was that two versions of himself were killed in a similar incident. He considered the possibility that one or neither of the late Kamijous had Imagine Breaker since they were alternate versions of him, but the worse case scenario was that both of them did and both of them failed to destroy the black hole. Knowing himself, he deduced that he would at the very least attempt to stop it on the off chance that it was magic based. But the fact that they both died meant that they both tried and both failed. And Imagine Breaker only covered everything from the wrist up. This could also mean that either something prevented him from touching the black hole with his right hand, like being turned around at the last second by some debris, or that the black hole wasn't magic based.

Kamijou had no way of knowing which of those scenarios was correct nor did he have enough time to sort through all the possibilities. So he was only faced with one option.

(There's no way around this.)

"Stiyl, let got of me!"

"Are you lame in the head?!"

"Listen! That black hole was created using magic! My right hand destroys magic! Put two and two together!"

"You don't even know if it's magic or science based! You could be throwing your life away!"

"Don't act like you give a shit now of all times!"

Touma touched his body with his right arm which dispelled the effects of the psychokinesis. Stiyl increased his grip on Touma's arm as it quickly flew up and dangled in the air.

"She would never forgive me if you perished needlessly!"

"I don't give a fuck what Index thinks right now! Let me go or I'll punch you in the fucking face and you can join me in hell!"

"Tch!"

After he thought about it for a second, Stiyl entertained the possibility that Kamijou might be right.

(I couldn't call myself a member of Necessarius if I didn't commit to doing some dirty work now and then.)

With that fleeting thought, he lets go of Touma's had. He smiles as he is pulled further away from the red haired magician.

"If you die, I'll make sure you rot in hell!"

"Thank you!"

Stiyl watched the courageous or stupid young man get further and further away from him. He whispered something to himself when Touma's body faced forward just in case he read his lips.

"God speed, Kamijou."

Then Touma hit a garbage can head on and flipped and lost some altitude.

(...We're so screwed…)

Touma screamed as he twirled horizontally across the street at high speed. As his body straightened, it appears whoever was holding down Academy City lost a bit of her grip as various cars and city fragments flew past and alongside him. Touma kicked off a red sports car and ducked under a motor bike only to crash face first into a the wall of a small building of sorts. His right hand accidentally touched it and in an instant it turned to ruins and magnetically flew towards the black hole. As Touma was pulled diagonally towards the center of another building, he saw a man wearing a green helmet wedged between a bicycle and the brick wall.

"Ahhhhh!"

"Oh justice!"

"Oof!"

The two grunted as Touma crashed into the man. He again touched the wall by accident. Then he put his right hand on the man's shoulder as an apologetic gesture…

"Sorry!"

...and dispelled the effects of the psychokinesis which catapulted them across the street faster than any bike has gone before.

"Oh fuUYUK!"

Touma was yanked by the gravitational pull. His lower body dangled in mid air as he grabbed the cyclist by the shoulders. They screamed as the cyclist is forced to peddle faster and harder than ever before while the bike was dragged across the ground at high speed. The cyclist swerved around debris until he noticed that he is slowly rising up.

Touma looked up and saw an enormous black ball sucking in cars, trees, buildings, clouds and even the Academy City blimp was only a few miles away from him. At the speed they traveled, they would reach it in seconds.

Then something else caught his attention.

Several meters in the distance a woman holding a small child floated towards the black mass. And the field of psychic energy didn't hold them. It was clear the esper responsible was weakened by the strain of fighting against a black hole. Whatever the case, saving them became a priority. Touma knew he couldn't guarantee that his plan would work so the ideal thing to do would be to save them before they get sucked in. But he couldn't afford to waste time either since the psychokinesis was failing as well.

Touma's heart raced. They weren't guaranteed to fly right towards them or even reach them before they reached the black hole.

Coincidentally, a very large man in a prisoner's uniform was hunched over in a way that created an impromptu ramp. And he was lined up perfectly with the speeding bike.

Touma groaned as he pulled his lower body to the bike ascending bike.

"Listen, sir!" Touma shouted as he curls his legs and forced an immense strain on his core. "Don't worry about me! Save those girls!"

"What?!"

While he tightened his grip on the cyclists' shoulders, Touma carefully balanced his left foot on the center of the his back and his right foot on the edge of his seat. He took full advantage of the friction his basketball sneakers could create to create a comfortably balanced position that he could control. The bike moved down a bit due to the redistribution of weight. Touma squinted for a few seconds as he timed the distance between them and the large man.

"I'm sorry if this is too much to ask but you have to! Forget about me! I'll be fine!"

The cyclist soared into the air as the larger prisoner makes a joyful moan. Before he rolled of the large man's body, the same time, Touma kicked off the bike as hard as he could. A second too soon and they risked floating back up either due to the excess force that might have ricocheted them off the ground or because the pull of the black hole would have sucked them in regardless. A second too late and the two would have went right above the prisoner and into the black hole, missing the girls entirely.

He put his right arm on his back while he flew past debris.

Touma hit the back of an electronic billboard with a thud only he heard. The billboard sat atop a twelve story building. He placed his left forearm in front of his face to act as a cushion. However, he slammed into it hard which hurt his knees and elbow in the process. But he succeeded in that Imagine Breaker didn't cancel the effect of the billboard. If it did, he ran risk of being stuck behind it as it flew towards the black hole.

He groaned in pain and was forced and paralyzed by the shock of hitting the billboard. It felt like thousands of tiny needles drilled into his joints. To make matters worse, the stab wound from earlier began to throb. He clenched his teeth to cope with the pain. After a moment, he found the will to forces himself towards the edge of the billboard.

(I can't afford to think about what if.)

With every fiber of strength he could muster in his diminishing state, he dragged his body across the side of the billboard using his left hand as support. He slowly but surely approached its edge.

(I can't afford to think about failure! I have to act now even if it means throwing everything away!)

He thought he heard someone calling him an idiot. A handful of people who would call him that if they saw what he did. He did not know if he was hallucinating from the pain or not but he did not let that distract him.

His path was clear. It was time for this protagonist to take center stage.

Touma soared through the air at high speed as soon as his upper body reached the edge of the billboard. At first it appeared that his body would twirl again but he managed to position himself so that his stomach is parallel to the ground before that happened.

Everything seemed blurry as he went past some trees and garbage bots. After some seconds air friction made his skin boil. Tears fell out of his eyes due to a lack of moisture. His left eye shut and the vision in his right grew blurry. Even after it started to burn, he forced it to stay open and took advantage of each blink. It was as if the environment, the elements, logic, that strange voice that called him an idiot, every blazing pore in his body and even Academy City itself were telling him "Don't do it."

However, he forced his right arm in front of him.

That was not something that could be decided for him. And if you thought you could talk Touma Kamijou out of making a decision after he made up his mind…

Well... let's just say that was an illusion that can easily be shattered.

The black vortex was not that far. There was no turning back.

Suddenly…

"Kid, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

Touma couldn't open his left eye but he recognized that voice.

"Captain Baldy?! What are you doing up here?!"

"That's my line dumbass! I saw to make your way off that billboard! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"Listen-"

"Girls are never a good reason to commit suicide!"

"Shut the fuck up and listen! My right hand! It cancels magic! That's how I broke the sword! That's how I beat Abicus! And that's how I'm going to destroy that black hole!"

"?!"

"But...I'm not sure if my right hand even can stop it or if that black hole really is magic. Even so, I have to tryyyyyyy!"

Touma gagged and coughed. Spit flew out of the side of his mouth and onto his cheek before it slid off. Saitama stared at him in astonishment. This otherwise normal boy , on the verge of death was willing to sacrifice his life on the off chance that he might save everybody and didn't have a second doubt about it.

Perhaps it was his immense strength that alienated him from humanity. That prevented him from experiencing emotional depth. But a long time ago, there was once a man who truly believed that his safety, his peace of mind, and his life were all but small sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. For a brighter tomorrow. For a tomorrow.

Saitama knew that man very well and he thought he would have gotten along just fine with this boy in spite of their contrasting views. But in the end, they would both fight for the same causes. And in the end…

(We just do what we can to pitch in. This is what a true hero looks like.)

A smile formed on the corner of Saitama's cheek. He could not experience the feelings the young boy besides him is but that didn't matter. He understood his motives because there was in the exact same place he was. More or less...

"Kid...I'm sorry, Touma. If all you needed was some help, all you had to do was ask."

"?"

Saitama wrapped his right arm around Touma's waist and brought him closer to his side so that their sides touched.

"The hell are you doing?!"

He cocked his left arm arm back.

They were only a few meters away from the black hole.

"Serious Series…" Saitama said with a serious expression on his face.

Abicus noticed something speeding towards the black hole of of the corner of his eye. He figured it was a person but could not discern if it was one or more. All he could make out was a figure flying like a western super hero towards the massive orb of destruction.

He squinted his eyes. It did not take him long to realize what it was.

Normally, he wouldn't have paid it a second thought. Who could beat the might of a black hole after all? But then he noticed something. They didn't have the expressions of people fearing for their lives. In fact, it didn't look like they were stolen from where they were standing. They looked determined.

But why? Who the hell would stare down unknown terror with any hint of optimism?

Then he pieced it together. The black hole was of magical origin.

One hand destroyed all of his spells. One hand could easily destroy him.

His thoughts went blank. All he could do was stare.

"THREE QUARTERS SERIOUS PUUUUUNNNNNNNCHA!"

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The figure disappeared into the orb. Abicus floated, bewildered. A certain sound reached his ears.

Two fists. One that was worthy of the gods. And one that exceeded the gods.

The tattered remains of a beautiful city began to rain on the pavement.