Bar "The Broken Shillelagh", 10 p.m

Like every evening, the bar was peaceful. Unlike the bars in A city which tend to be crowded by young people in quest of forgetting the hardships of their daily lives by drinking quite amazing amounts of alcohol and dancing until they can't walk home, The Broken Shillelagh was closer to a café, the type of place you visit to enjoy a drink and a chat with an old friend.

In an odd way, this was more or less what Tatsumaki came here for.

Unlike every evening though, this calm was reinforced due to the usual patrons being replaced by hero association workers and a guard disguised as a waiter on smoking break stationed at the entrance as to avoid any risk of a fangirl compromising the mission.

After shutting the door behind her to keep the cold air of December outside she pulled back the thick hood of her coat, revealing her shoulder length green hair and causing the thin layer of snow that had accumulated on it to fall on the ground. Making her way across the room to find a dark corner to sit in she scanned the few people present. Although they were not actual clients, most of the workers present were friends who took this opportunity to share hot drinks and stories, thus staying true to the bar's atmosphere. She had to admit it was quite nice to enter a public place without being assaulted by crazed fans.

As she sat down and ordered a hot chocolate, the hero took the time to rehearse the conversation that was held at the meeting the day before.

"Now listen closely" Agoni leaned, fists on the table. "Our first objective is obviously to find out whether the man is actually who we think he is, without arising suspicion in the case it isn't him. The problem is the only verified fact we know about him is that he met Senristu no Tatsumaki some 20 years ago, so we'll have to rely on that.

Tatsumaki will go to 'The Broken Shillelagh', a bar where Saitama is frequently seen having a drink with the bartender, and wait for him to arrive. She will then attempt to approach him and if we're lucky he'll remember her. If not, she will try to go back to the laboratory which he freed her from to reactivate his memory. In case something goes wrong, I want Atomic Samurai and Metal Bat close by. This may seem overkill, but Blast is a force to be reckoned with." the heroes around the table nodded quietly, waiting for the next part of the plan.

"Anyway, that's the easy part. Once we have this first verification done, we must-"

Tatsumaki's train of thought was interrupted when a waitress placed a fuming mug in front of her. Her sweet tooth taking over, she sipped the sugary hot beverage with glee

Saitama's apartment, while this is happening

Saitama was standing in his kitchen washing his bloodied gloves, eyes glazed over in thought.

After the departure of his new disciple he was left with many subjects to reflect upon, and now having finished his daily patrolling and sale hunting, it was time for him to sort everything out.

After all this time spent fighting crime with little to no company it sure was nice to have a new partner (and a useful one at that) but he now had to find a way to make a being mostly made out of metal stronger, which was not an easy task, especially when you have no knowledge in robotics whatsoever.

He had been at this for several dozens of minutes when a thought came to his mind. The best way to find out what Genos needed to improve was to simply watch him act. Once the repair process came to an end, Saitama would follow Genos on a day of patrolling in the cities and hopefully witness a few fights to gauge his power, simple as that! But wait… when will the repair be finished?

The drone came in less than 24 hours ago and the young cyborg was in seriously bad shape...

"Welp, he knows the address." The hero thought as he put his gloves to dry and began preparing to go out "Time for a chat".

It was a beautiful night. The streets only lit by the moon and the neons of a few bars spreading their colours on the white snow that covered the pavement were silent, and Saitama enjoyed the cracking beneath his feet as he peacefully made his way to his favourite place in town. But upon approaching the entrance, he noticed something. A man in waiter clothes was smoking a cigarette at the door, looking around. Of course a worker taking a smoking break wasn't a rare sight by any means, but something was off.

In fact, Saitama had known every person who had worked at this bar since he first came here a few decades ago, and the owner Tetsu even asked him for guidance on a new employee more than once, but he had never seen this face before. Deciding he'd ask his friend who the new guy was, Saitama stepped in the bar and was greeted by the warm light and slow jazz that always brought a smile to his face.

Looking around searching for Tetsu, the hero saw a few men quietly chatting, a couple sharing a meal, and a small child savouring a hot beverage, but didn't pay much attention to them even though the last one was quite noticeably looking at him, instead heading towards the counter where he saw the owner washing glasses as usual.

"Hey Tetsu, how are things going?"

The old man raised his head to look at the newcomer, and hastily dried his hands to shake the one that Saitama stretched out as he recognised him.

"Hello there old friend. Everything's alright here, the usual?"

Saitama's smile faded as he saw the tension on his friend's face and the way he occasionally glanced at the door. He leaned closer, talking quietly.

"Is something wrong? A problem with the new guy outside?"

"I don't know. Earlier today some suits came to ask me when you usually came here, and not but a few minutes ago the second strongest hero of the Association arrived. She's looking at you, too... I'm afraid they might be planning something on you. I know you're strong, but you might want to pay attention."

The smile came back to Saitama's face as he winked

"Thanks for looking out for me gramps, but I think I can handle that. So where's that hero you're talking about?"

With a slight movement of the chin, Tetsu pointed towards the small figure still enjoying her mug of hot chocolate at a table. As he looked, Saitama couldn't help but let out a little laugh

"So you're telling me this small girl is the second best they have?"

The bartender's eyes widened in horror at the insult

"She is a very powerful esper! Do you really not know about her? Have you even heard about the hero association?"

The hero just stared, dumbfounded by the sudden reaction

"Should I?"

After a long facepalm at the baffling ignorance of his friend, Tetsu finally answered

"Listen, the Hero Association is an organisation that counts thousands of heroes, and she is the second strongest. They are so important that they pretty much make the law nowadays, and they're usually on the right side, but my opinion is that it's best for you not to mess with them if they're looking for you."

A few seconds passed before saitama replied

"Nonsense. If they want to talk, then we'll talk."

He then set off towards the small girl's table, ignoring the agitated old man in his back.

Same place, while this happened, Tatsumaki's pov

The small esper had been sipping her hot chocolate for more than ten minutes without seeing a hint of a bald man and she was starting to lose her patience, when the door finally opened and her heart skipped a beat... Or a few beats. For before her might have stood the man who saved her life and her sister's all those years ago when they were just children. The man who taught her that she had to be strong enough to rely on no one. The reason she joined the Hero Association and trained until she became the strongest hero that would ever be part of it, until she would find him and make him take his place as the legendary number one hero, Blast.

As his gaze trailed across the room her heart was beating at a thousand miles per hour, until he finally looked at her... And continued without recognising her. She knew that even if this man was Blast the possibility he would not remember her was the most likely, after all she had changed quite a bit in 20 years, but part of her had still hoped he would realise... Her hopes now crushed, she looked at the baldy making his way to the counter and greeting the bartender. She could barely make out what they were saying and only understood half of it but she knew they were talking about heroes. After a few seconds, he looked at her once again and turned to talk once more, but she sneezed so hard she couldn't hear what they said. Before she had the time to recover, she saw Blast walking in her direction and almost passed out before closing her eyes and angrily thinking to herself "Come on Tatsumaki. You're a 28 years old woman. You're the second most powerful hero ever. This guy might not even be him for all you know. You have a mission to fulfil." Smiling confidently, she opened her eyes to the man standing just in front of her.

"Hey, I heard you wanna talk."

Hey everyone! So yeah, finally a fourth chapter to this story! Once again it's too short, so I apologise for that, but I hope you'll like it anyway! There's not much action in this chapter, and I actually wasn't sure whether I should post it like this or take a few more months to make it longer but the need to have feedback and to know if ya'll like the direction I'm taking was too strong!

Please do tell me what you liked and didn't like so I can try and make it better! While writing I had the impression that I segmented it a little too much, do you feel the same?

Anyway, I want to sincerely thanks all of you who fav, subbed and especially reviewed this story. Your words of encouragement really motivated me to write this story even though it was one hell of a mess to make the timeline approximately viable !(I'm still not too sure of when does stuff happens, and I probably won't until I realise what I said violates the laws of time, so that's great)

So yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this story so I don't know when the next chapter will be published but hopefully it'll be before the heat death of the universe! :D