Tokyo Ghoul belongs to Sui Ishida.
One Punch Man belongs to ONE.
I own none of them.

| Kafka's New Home |

She was mortally wounded, alone, on a cold metal floor. Her eyes were flickering as her consciousness started to slip away. In her blurry vision, she could see the remnant of the compactor she destroyed earlier. She never thought that Cochlea would be her final resting place.

"Damn that Furuta…" She cursed under her ragged breath. "If not be-cause of him… I… Well… Wh-atever. I thi-nk I'll leave this to that kid."

Perhaps her mission in this unfair world was over. She had surrendered all that she had. She came into this place bringing nothing and left without taking any possession either.

As a naturally born half ghoul, she had a mission to break the boundary between the two species. Between human and ghoul. However, fate was on her enemy's favor and she died, trying.

In the end, she entrusted her struggle to a child she took interest in. This child might took the burden she had left.

King Bileygr was her legacy. Her last hope to open people's eyes.

Soon, a wave of revolution was coming.

Her plan was perfect. She was sure that sooner or later, people's view might change. An ideal world where human and ghoul could live together might come true. She didn't take the role as a hero although maybe one day, people might regard her as one.

Thinking about that unfortunately brought her disgust. In her mind, hero was just an absurd concept ever created by human's mind.

As she drew her last breath, a sad smile adorned her face. She had nothing left except the hatred she felt towards the world.

Soon, her body ran cold and what she saw was a black cube. Her mind was adrift, unable to reach about what kind of thing that was. Then everything faded into a complete darkness. It was her end.

Or, was there something beyond this darkness?

'Where am I?'

Eto gasped and opened her eyes. She felt like she was just sleeping. Though, it felt weird.

She cast her gaze to the surroundings as light stung her vision. She sniffed the air and it was normal, just like the one she inhaled, back in Tokyo. She looked straight and she saw the usual blue sky. She was laying on her back.

When she tilted her head to the sides, she saw grass and some trees. She could feel morning breeze and the raiment she wore. It was the prisoner gown. It was clean. No bloodstain was present.

At first, Eto thought that she was in the afterlife or something along that line. She was dead after all.

However, the view before her totally defied the concept of after-life. She could see modern buildings from afar, which made her frown. She looked behind her to find a bench and some street lamps.

She didn't know where she was, but at least she could tell that it was not Tokyo. She never knew this park. A myriad of question bubbled in her mind.

At that point, it got really weird. Was the heaven a parallel twin of her old world? Was it a dream? For a dream, this was too real.

Some bad thoughts about isekai plot starting to pop up in her head. And as a novelist, Eto or Sen Takatsuki, always regarded isekai as the filthiest garbage of literary world.

As her confusion became more acute, she could feel nothing was wrong with her body. She also could feel her kakuhou sac was okay.

She decided to take a walk along the park which was very quiet. She tried to reason and find out what kind of place she was in.

The moment her bare feet touched the paved road, she heard a very loud alarm sound, coming from the middle of the city.

[WARNING FROM HERO ASSOCIATION… WARNING… WARNING… THREE TIGER LEVEL MONSTERS ARE ATTACKING CITY Y! ALL CITIZENS, EVACUATE TO THE NEARBY SHELTER! ALL AVAILABLE HEROES, PLEASE RESPOND THIS URGENT CALL!]

'WHAT THE HELL!' Eto yelled in her thought. 'Is this Tokyo!? Is this Japan!? Hero Association!? Monsters?! Seriously?!'

The idea of an alarm which announced that a monster appeared in a broad daylight was too preposterous. And the name of the organization was too laughable. She almost screamed due to such bizarreness.

She could not perceive what kind of situation she was in. She thought that probably she was in a very huge studio for taking shot of a colossal movie. However, that couldn't explain how she was laying supine by the lake. Someone or something must have brought her there and healed her.

That illogical thing and questions regarding her situation only drove her to discover what was really happening. As she gritted her teeth in irritation, she trekked her way through the road, leading her towards city street.

Chaos was the first sight which welcomed her the moment she came to the downtown. A literal chaos where people were running from something.

When she looked at the panicked citizens, she found that she was indeed not in Japan anymore. As she walked, she saw nearly all ethnicity in the world. The race diversity was ridiculously high. Even America was not like this. For a moment, her annoyance replaced by an awe.

She eyed every building she caught in her vision and to her surprise, it looked just like in Tokyo or any other metropolis in the world. However, the names and brands on the billboards and any other signs showed the use of multiple language. Were they polyglots?

The most obvious thing, she didn't have any trouble to understand what people said.

As she walked casually, people stared at her. Some of them warned her and even tried to pull her, but she kept going and ignored them.

Speaking of the devil, one of the monsters finally came into her sight. Stood at around three meters high with sharp claws, strong tail, red eyes, greenish scales… It was a typical humanoid-lizard she saw in a kid's TV show. Even now, this kind of lizardman also found its way into isekai novels.

'Perhaps this world is really a damn isekai!' Eto thought in ire. 'Nice. Just like what I expected.'

"Gyahahaha… I was an expert in reptilian, but one day, I got bitten by Tsuchi No Ko and I become like this. Now I'll rampage and prove to the world that I am the king of reptilians!"

The monster closed his monologue as he slammed his fist to the outside of a clothing store, breaking the main door and shattering the glass. People who were still nearby ran and screamed.

'Perfect! Very very perfect! A researcher doing his stuff and bitten by thing which never exists? Turned into a lizard just to fulfill his childish delusion?' Eto mused as her eye twitched.

She didn't expect her arrival in this "afterlife" would be this eventful. So eventful in a bizarre way that her rage would drag her into her monster form. After all, she could unleash her kakuja form if need be. However, she still needed to prove whether the thing before her was real or not. The idea of such a monster was outrageously funny.

"Excuse me mister herpetologist." The petite novelist strode towards the lizard guy and greeted him politely. "Do you know where am I? I'm lost."

"Huh?" The reptilian put a dumbfounded look as he faced the woman. "Little girl! What the hell are you doing here?! You're not afraid of me?! HAH!"

Eto squinted her eyes as stinky breath, mixed with saliva sprayed at her as the lizard yapped. Now she was sure that it was real. It was not a hallucination and she was totally pissed off. Her right eye turned into kakugan as she looked at the lizardman, dead into its eyes.

"EH…?! Hetero-chromatic? I've never seen on– AAARRRGGHHH…!"

Eto's ukaku kagune impaled the lizardman's chest. As crimson liquid gushed out from the wound, people nearby were shocked to see a little girl killed a tiger-level monster with a weird appendage, protruding from her back. The action was jaw-droppingly stunning!

"Oi… Who's she?"

"A hero?"

"And what's that?"

Eto put a satisfied smile as she retracted her ukaku from the lizard and let it vanish. The lizard for a moment grunted in pain before it dropped down, dead with a gaping hole on its chest.

"Another monster...!"

"Impossible…!"

"RUN!"

The crowd who previously was awe-stricken by Eto's ability suddenly freaked out. Her ability was more like a monster than a human. Their human's nature obviously would not allow them to linger around such grotesque and unknown thing, for they feared their safety.

The novelist deemed it as normal and shrugged her shoulders in response.

When she walked away from the scene to continue her wandering, her bare feet stepped on a leaflet. Curious, she took it and read the content. It intrigued her, somewhat.

'So, this Hero Association is... real!?' She mused in exasperation as she stared intensely at the paper. 'I wonder if this thing is something like CCG.'

She folded the paper and slipped it into her dress pocket. She took a last glance at the street and saw some black smokes were puffing into the air from afar.

'Ah… So this place is another world, huh? Maybe this will be fun compared to that world.' Eto left that place as a mischievous smile appeared on her face.

A certain bald guy in a yellow jumpsuit was walking back home from his daily hero activity with a small plastic bag in his left hand. For some reason, instead of a triumphant hero's smile, he was sporting a scowl while muttering something along his lonely walk in that quiet evening.

A very serious matter was really troubling this hero whom nobody knew. This guy named Saitama, had just lost nearly all of his source for sustaining his cheapskate lifestyle.

"Man… This is the worst. My favorite store was destroyed this morning. No more super sale and all my shopping coupons will go to waste." The hero sulked at the ill fate which befell him. "Haaah~ Nothing good comes to me."

"VROOM… I'm Super Custom YO649Z Mk. II! I really love to modify cars so much that I turn like this. VROOM...!"

As the streetlight began to illuminate the place, Saitama only cast a bored stare at the monster before him. It was a car humanoid, with mufflers on its back and a car front for its chest. It looked more wacky than dangerous compared to the monsters he slew earlier that day. Maybe this poor creature just wanted to harass him.

"VROOM…?" The eyes-headlights of the monster glowed as it tilted its head in confusion.

Before the Super Custom thing could utter anything, a screeching sound of clashing metal from around that junkyard echoed. The perpetrator approached as the sound grew louder.

It was another humanoid monster with one crimson glowing eyes on the right of its face, white spikes with red and purple veins protruding from its back. It walked slowly on its two legs as it let the spear-like appendages from behind its shoulders hung loosely, grating the scraps on the ground.

"VROOM… Who the hell are you? Another monster?"

It was the last thing Super Custom YO649Z Mk. II could ask since the other being launched its lance forward, piercing it. The car monster fell to the ground with clanks, buried by metal parts it adored so much.

Meanwhile, the baldy shockingly did not budge from his standing place. He even put a goofy smile to see a monster who brutalized its fellow. His amusement rose a little bit when the murderous monster turned to him.

"You! What are you looking at, baldy!? Aren't you scared?" The monster spoke with an unnerving shrill voice as it pointed its spear towards the hero's dome of a head.

"DON'T CALL ME BALDY!" Saitama frowned as he grabbed the giant spike and pulled it, ripping it completely off the monster.

The monster couldn't react, stunned, and an extremely strong blow followed to punch a hole on its body. The monster checked the wound and it was literally hollowed. It tilted its head to see Saitama and found that his red-gloved fist was smoldering.

"What the hell… GUUUH!" Blood oozed from under the monster's white mask.

Despite the mortal injury it sustained, it refused to die. From inside the wound, lumps of meat flowed out and the monster inflated, its body bloated. The flesh transformed into some bones and muscles in an unimaginable speed as it grew in size, reaching the height of a three-storey building.

"Wow! A monster survived my punch! Cool!" Saitama exclaimed in jubilation as the monster took its final form. "Now it's transforming. Guess this is more fun than that purple guy with antennas!"

The creature morphed into a grotesque giant with single black eye on the center of its face, horns adorned its head like a crown. A row of huge incisors made its grin more prominent despite its carnivorous nature. The spikes on its back grew bigger like some missiles while the white lances turned into two pairs of pillar-sized needles. Its arms elongated as if its claws were ready to tear apart the human before it.

"Khiiiiiiiiii…! Just now, that hurt! I'll really crush you bald–"

The monster could not even complete its threat with its bloodcurdling shriek for the hero delivered his second punch.

"I TOLD YOU TO NOT CALL ME BALD! DAMN IT!"

The impact from the fist blew its body completely, destroying the seemingly unbreakable fiber of steel-like muscle. The shock wave even separated its head from the body.

As the head spun in the air, the remain of the lower torso suddenly disintegrated into some red mist. It just completely collapsed and decomposed into crimson gas, surprising the hero, somewhat.

The head fell with a loud thud at the deeper part of that dumpster. Like the body, it disintegrated into red gas. However, it left a figure of a person, lying unconscious in place of the monster's head.

"Oh! A girl? Was she… eaten by that weird monster?" Saitama immediately came over to have a better look at the fainted lady.

The hero was surprised to find the green-haired girl. Despite her short stature, Saitama could recognize that she was an adult. She was dressed in a purple blouse, a pair of white jeans, and red slippers with her hair styled into a bob-cut. Her relatively brand new blouse weirdly got a large hole on the stomach with some stain of blood.

"Uh… What should I do? Bring her to a police station? I'll be accused for being an assailant. They'll question me for her wrecked and bloody shirt." The hero ruminated some options as he ducked near the woman. "To a hospital? Nah. She seems okay. She doesn't look like injured and I don't wanna get charged for a fake medication. Guess I'll bring her home."

Saitama scooped the girl into his arms and headed to his apartment beyond the part of that city. As he walked, a smile rose on his ever present bland face.

'Well, maybe this time, something nice really comes to me.'

Eto suddenly woke up to a loud ringing of an alarm clock. She blinked several times as her body picked up a familiar sensation of a futon, wrapping her person. She tilted her head to her side and her eyes nearly popped out.

Her memory was still fuzzy, but she could make out a certain outline. The object was a shining dome of a head she would never miss.

Before the half-ghoul could utter anything, the man suddenly woke up and smashed the source of the nuisance. He shut it off completely before she could get a glimpse of what time it was.

"I am Subterranean King! I plan to repopulate the surface, so prepare yourself to be annihilated, surface dwellers!"

As crazy as it sounded, a bold declaration delivered in a high-pitched voice struck her ears. At this point, Eto couldn't comprehend anymore about the situation in that morning. Her confusion skyrocketed when the guy beside her leaped in a motion her eyes nearly failed to track and changed from his blue pajamas into his jumpsuit.

He really was changing in front of her without minding her. Or did he really forget her presence?

Moreover, he was bald. The thought that this person was a pervert crawled in Eto's mind.

She was screwed, hopeless. There was no telling about when and how he would ravage her.

Is this the point to revive in another world? To experience a much illogical and painful challenge?

If she should redo the fight with Furuta and died once again, she would rather pick that option.

And never to come back to live, maybe.

She might be the one who had all Tokyo nearly in her grasp under the shadow of One-eyed King, but the being before her was an unstoppable force who could end her in a blink. She doubted that even CCG and all ghouls combined could face this guy.

With such tremendous power, not even Clown, nor V could lay their hands upon him.

His face was extremely devoid of life, yet his power was catastrophically absurd. She could still feel the haunting pain from that damn ordeal last night, dancing in her guts.

And the guy just stormed out from the balcony as quickly as he tucked his red glove. The faint excitement on his face was the last thing Eto could perceive, shattering her train of thought. Well, at least there was still something which made his face more alive.

Unfortunately, that could never change the predicament she should face.

However, she didn't want to give in. There must be a way out. As she pondered about her options, she took a breath and exhaled it slowly.

The RC cells in her bloodstream lessened the tension. Her mind became clearer. For now, she should analyze the environment around her.

The petite novelist crawled out from the bed and gazed at her surroundings. She was enamored at the sight of books, magazines, cups of noodles and shopping brochures strewn across the room that she didn't hear an explosion from outside.

"How reminiscent of my old working place." Eto stood as she began to explore the interior.

She looked around and found all basic furniture an ordinary salary man would possess. Perhaps the items which interested her the most were the light gray laptop on the desk and the rack of manga near the TV. From this point, she usually could have guessed what kind of person the dweller was.

Nonetheless, her hypothesis ruined when the memory about his insane feat resurfaced. This guy might be not as simple as she thought.

About how simple he was, she would find it out soon for the man had come back from his business. This time, he went in from his apartment's door.

"Oh, you're awake."

Such a simple way to greet her actually pulled her nerve. At first, she really wanted to attack this guy, but she calculated how thin the possibility she could harm him. If she missed, it could be her second death. She still remembered vividly how the man's punch could punctured a hole on her kakuja form. It was horrible.

At last, she decided to play along while hoping that he might not kill her.

"Oh, hi. Sorry. But care to explain why I wear this?"

She spoke as she pulled the sides of the sweatshirt she wore. The piece of clothes was large enough to cover her, but the problem was the logo printed on its front. It was quite offensive, putting woman's precious twin assets as an insignia with the word which made them blatantly literal.

Sen Takatsuki probably was not a feminist, yet this kind of liberal art was unacceptable for her taste. This fact only led her to the conclusion that the baldy was a pervert.

"Well, sorry about that. I only changed your clothes cause yours was busted." The guy spoke as his face showed a slight sign of panic. "If you wanna take it back, it's still near the washing machine."

She tried to look at the guy's eyes. They were extremely simple, just like a pair of dots. That made it even harder to figure out whether he was lying or not.

That was a serious problem. She needed to dig more, especially about in what kind of place she had stranded.

"I see..." The green-haired woman sighed. "Okay. Now, would you like to tell me where am I and who are you?"

"Isn't that obvious? You're in my apartment." The man answered blandly.

Eto slapped her face. "No. I mean the city, district, or any name of this area."

"City Z." The baldy widened his eyes. "Oh! You must be not from around here."

"Yes. I came from a very, very far away place." Eto replied, annoyed.

"Oh, I see… Then how come you got eaten by a monster?" The man inquired curiously.

Eto was staggered. The question struck her like a jolt.

Right after her arrival, she only had a meager chance to explore the world she was in. She managed to secure an immense fund by pick-pocketing a shady guy named Zaimeet, but she hadn't paid more attention to the most basic principle of the world.

She knew that monster was a common sight, but she missed the fact that ghoul had never existed. Either they were really nonexistent or something managed to wipe this race completely from earth – provided that the earth was the same.

In this regard, a kakuja would be regarded as simply a monster. Their difference in their appearance with the native monsters from this world was not distinct, so she assumed that the baldy wouldn't ask her anymore.

"That's… Well. Things just happened like that." Eto surrendered her plan to explain herself.

"Hoh… But what was that monster? I mean, it suddenly turned into some red gas after I punched it. Like... 'whoosh.'" The baldy inquired more.

Eto narrowed her eyes. When she just shut her door for any discussion, he punched it open. She made a mental note that this man could be quite observant despite his dismissive nature.

However, she could just dodge this one easily.

"How should I know? I was… eaten you know." The former Aogiri boss rolled her eyes. "And hey! You haven't answered my other question."

"Oh! My bad… I'm Saitama." The guy answered.

"Sai-tama…?" Eto muttered loud enough that the man got flustered. "Prefecture…?"

"Eh?"

The world just went crazier. First, it was monster. Then the people and the names of the city. And then this guy who could blast her kakuja form with a single blow whose name was after a prefecture – with his weird appearance.

'I'm at loss…'

"Is there something wrong?" Saitama asked to break the silence.

"Oh! Um… Nothing." The ghoul masked her confusion with a smile.

"Okay. Then you are…?"

"Eto." The novelist answered shortly. "Nice to meet you, Saitama-san."

After she discovered that people in this world only had single name, she expelled the name of her irresponsible father. And her pen name didn't meet her taste either, so her given name would work.

"Oh. Nice to meet you too." Saitama put down his boots and entered the room. "So, are you planning to leave, Eto-san?"

The question sounded more like he wanted to kick her out. Eto took another note that Saitama was probably a hermit person. It was a good signal since she shouldn't prolong her stay in this creep's den.

"Well… Not until I can secure a place to stay." Eto sat beside the laptop desk.

"Oh, I see. You can stay here for a while though." Saitama spoke as he tidied up the futon.

"Thanks, but I prefer to go to a hotel. Is there any hotel nearby?"

Saitama scratched his bald head as he plopped down, facing Eto. "Hmm… It's a little bit far. The closest is around three hours walk. Because here, there's no bus or train. Well, it used to, but now there is no more."

Silence. The ghoul tried to grasp the idea but failed in the process.

"Okay. Give me a second." Eto took a glance at the glass door of the balcony. "So tell me, Saitama-san. You said this is City Z."

"Yep."

"But why there's no transport? This isn't a rural area, right?" Eto asked as she felt some irk bubbled up in her mind.

"This area has been abandoned. Mostly because of monsters." The hero spoke the fact nonchalantly.

A breeze came into the room, blowing the curtain gently as the ghoul tried to digest what the man had said. The absurdity of this world had peaked to the point that her harsh days back in Ward 24 paled in comparison.

Eto stood up and waltzed to the balcony. She saw a highway overpass. She stared at it for a moment and darted her gaze below. Fissures and holes marred the street. Some buildings were also ruined. She turned to the neighboring balcony and it looked vacant for a long time.

Everything about that place spoke out an absolute desolation. A remnant of a human civilization which was mostly intact. Still, it was a ghost town.

"Is this all caused by monsters?" Eto tilted her head to Saitama who was standing beside her.

"Yep. Like those ones." The man pointed at some mysterious beings who were marching on the street.

Eto stared at them in bafflement as her enhanced hearing caught what these monsters were blabbering about. She got a piece of information which grew her irritation for how silly it was.

"Tell me, Saitama-san. Is killing monster legal?"

"I think it is. No one's prohibits it. Even I go hunt them down every day." Saitama replied.

"Hmm, I see…"

Without a warning, the ghoul unleashed her ukaku kagune to make a pair of white arms on her back and hurled the monster with RC shards. This sudden transformation only made the hero slightly hang his jaw.

The dwarf devil, the humanoid slug, the kobold and the locust man were killed without getting a chance to offer their resistance. Their face showed the utter shock they suffered before their death by impalement of crimson crystals.

"Eto-san? What's that?" Saitama asked as he pointed at the extra appendages on Eto's back.

"You might say it's my ability. I can manipulate my cancer cell in my body." The novelist came up with a scientifically convincing bluff as her kagune vanished. "Does that scare you, Saitama-san?"

Eto decided to test the water. She was tired already from the ordeal of this world. Suppose that Saitama really bought her lie, she could use it to secure a tie with the overpowered hero.

After all, deception was the key success of survival in Tokyo.

Not to mention that she craved for power. The very guy before her was brimming with power which was masked by his dullness.

"Not at all. I think it's cool." Saitama put a dumb, yet sincere smile.

"Really?" Eto sported an intrigued smile in response.

"Yeah. A human who can manipulate a tumor at will… That's like something out of manga." Saitama remarked by using the closest thing he could think of.

Surprisingly, her scheme worked like a charm. His dumbness might be a hole for her to exploit. However, she probably still needed some time to grasp the full extent of the situation before she could nestle around his weakness.

On top of that, it appeared that the more Eto interacted with Saitama, the more she found him as a unique individual. Like a mysterious character in a novel, he drew her to explore about him in an amusing way.

"Are you serious, Saitama-san?" Eto followed curiously.

"Yeah. I really mean that. Though, don't you think it's dangerous? You said it's a cancer, right?" Saitama asked Eto with a slight concern in his tone.

Eto's train of thought ceased. She fell silent as she felt a queer emotion surged in herself.

This feeling was nothing like his foster father's affection, Noro. It was off and indescribable, but it was pleasant. She didn't want to let herself linger with this kind of thing, but eventually, she succumbed to the pleasure.

The most shocking thing, it came from a man who almost ended her second life. A man she deemed as a dangerously innocent, yet overpowered weirdo.

Suppressing her feeling once again, Eto's logic as a cunning strategist resurfaced. Her game had just been started and she didn't want to draw a losing card.

"Well… As far as I know, I don't feel any discomfort or serious illness. I even find it as something useful since I can use it to defend myself." Eto explained and smiled.

'Sadly, not against you!' The novelist spat in her thoughts.

"Oh, I see." The baldy nodded in understanding. "Then, it's good I guess."

Eto giggled. "You're strange, Saitama-san."

"Oh… Uh. Well. Many people say so." Saitama scratched the back of his head using his gloved hand, producing some squeaks.

A growl suddenly echoed around that balcony. The hero glanced at his belly and cast a cringe of embarrassment.

"Aw… Breakfast." Saitama muttered. "Um, Eto-san, if you would, I can make some miso for us. But I don't think it would be enough, so… Is it okay if I take some of those monsters?"

Eto squinted her eyes in confusion. "Do you mean that you also eat monsters?"

"Well… Some monsters are edible. Sometimes, I ate them." Saitama replied nonchalantly as he perked his head to see which one of Eto's kills looked palatable. "Especially fish monsters. They taste like seafood."

'This is quite unprecedented. Is he also a kakuja?' Eto measured some options as she scrutinized Saitama's offer.

"If you don't like it or... maybe you have some allergy, I can pass and buy some food outside." Saitama added another option.

Eto grinned. "I guess I shouldn't pass this unique experience. I wonder about the taste of monster meat, so I'm on it."

Saitama sported a bland smile in response. "Okay."

Author's Note

This idea is actually has been haunting me since the bygone days of Ghoul Hunter. However, I decided to postpone the release of this stuff since I was still enjoying to write my other fics.

And, yeah. I'm happy because this is my first Saitama fic. :D

So, the question is: why Eto?
Because she's cool for a monster in OPM universe. She's a solid Demon-level, making her as a perfect buster in this world. Correct me if I am wrong. ;-)

Other than that, I want to write this fic because I want to see how her manipulative character clash with the absurdity of OPM-verse. Hope this will develop into a Saitama X Eto.

Let me know what you think and I do hope you like this, Dear Readers. See you in the next story. :D