Disclaimer: I do not own One-Punch Man.

Chapter 3: Heroes Try

Once the executives slammed down the proverbial gavel to adjourn the meeting, the majority of the gathered heroes stood up, and the chatter picked up with redoubled vigor. Still a few of them remained seated, presumably either frozen with shock at their new pairing or just trying to process their next move. Others immediately stormed out of the hall without even bothering to collect their assignments stacked at the door. Under the persuasion that they hadn't forgotten why they were there in the first place, everyone else deemed it safe to assume that they were giving the association their unspoken resignation.

Still with his two companions, Saitama gave the arena a few passive sweeps of his eye, and after spotting what he was searching for, his eyebrows raised at the unexpected sight that the newest addition to his unlucky life hadn't been one of the ones that had bolted.

High up in the rafters, the small definitive shape of a girl drifted above the rest of the crowd. From the distance he couldn't read her expression, but he noted that her frame was no longer encased in the aura of vibrant green that he saw around her at the beginning of the meeting. Rather, she appeared more…grey. In the bald hero's unsophisticated mind, that either meant that she was experiencing a loss of spirit…or a wicked spot of indigestion.

But for all the physical limitations Saitama had crushed, tragically none of them gave him wings of any kind, and unless he wanted her first impression of him as her new partner to involve leaping up at her from out of nowhere and forcibly dragging her down to Earth by her ankles, he had no real means of approaching her. All he could really do was wait for her to come down on her own.

Saitama broke away from her when he felt a hand land on his shoulder.

"So you pulled the winning ticket, eh?"

Saitama turned to see who was talking. He was met with Mumen Rider flashing him one of his signature reassuring smiles that won him the hearts of so many loyal fans. As far as Saitama was concerned, the Cyclist of Justice stood out as one of the most distinguished heroes in the association, rankings be damned. He embodied a lesson that most people had now forgotten, even though Saitama thought it was one of the most basic understandings since he learned it as a child. You don't need to win every fight in glorious one-sided fashion or leap tall buildings in a single bound to be called 'hero.' If that was really all there was to it, people would have no less reason to fear heroes than the monsters they fight.

Being a hero, as Mumen Rider understood it, was a principle – not a power. And that principle was upheld with every cat he shook from a tree, every old lady he escorted across a street, and every bully he stood up to – even if that sometimes meant getting knocked down so that someone else didn't have to. His confrontation with the Deep Sea thing – however one-sided – taught Saitama everything he would ever need to know about him. He loved the people he protected, and he didn't do it for the fame, money, obligation, or even because he "felt like it" the way Saitama did. They weren't fans to him; they were his friends. And at this point, Saitama wouldn't be surprised if he could recall most of them by name. How he envied that superpower.

Saitama gave him a stare. "Winning ticket?" He deadpanned, awed by his friend's optimism. "I don't think this is the kind of lottery I'm into."

His statement was returned with a few reassuring pats. "Come on now, don't go feeling sorry for yourself, I hear lots of awesome things about Miss Tatsumaki."

"Miss Tatsumaki?" Saitama spat, his face running sour. "Are you for real? How do you get off calling her that when I have yet to hear so much as a single 'Mister Baldy-sama' out of you?"

The Rider sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Us little guys, we still owe the big kahunas at least some respect. And you heard Sekingar, it might not be a bad idea to kiss the ring once or twice…"

"I get mutual respect and all," Saitama followed, "but if your approach is to call them gushy stuff like that, you my friend are deep-throating that ring."

While the response invoked a hearty chuckle out of the cyclist hero, Saitama felt yet another hand fall on his opposite shoulder, though this one felt much colder and had a tighter grip.

When Saitama turned once again to see who Guest Number 2 was, he found Genos clinging to his cape in some sort of effort to show his support. …Or maybe it was condolence? He couldn't really tell, but either way, his friend's face was morbidly dark with eyes sunken behind a pitch-black shadow.

"It would be no trouble." Genos uttered after a beat of uncomfortable silence, giving his role model one of the most forced, unnatural winks fathomable. How he managed not to break half his face off by doing it was beyond anyone.

Saitama blinked back at him. "Huh?"

"Helping you" Wink "would be no trouble." Wink Wink "It is not unheard of for people to go missing, even if the bodies themselves are never recovered."

"Wait…are you suggesting what it sounds like you're suggesting?" Saitama asked in a voice leaking a small amount of the disbelief he felt.

"I do not recall providing any sort of suggestion," Genos continued casually, "but should you require my assistance with anything…" The metal hand on his shoulder squeezed even tighter, "Anything…" His tone tinged with poison, "perhaps now is the time to briefly shut your left or right eye if either of them itch. People would understand; it is the allergy season, after all."

"Yeah…" Saitama replied awkwardly, "Spring sucks, but I'm still not signaling a wink to let you think it's okay to murder my partner."

Genos raised a hand to his mouth in some sort of overdramatic attempt to feign surprise, which was weird when coupled with the fact that his face remained dead of any kind of emotion. "Master! What an unprecedented thing to say, even as a joke." The next thing the cyborg said sounded more passive and automatous – like he was reciting it directly from a script. "All human life is sacred. My prerogative as a hero is to protect and serve, and God as my witness, it is most emphatically not aimed at the abrupt not to mention mysterious termination of other heroes, especially those of the bratty green-haired variety. Therefore, to hear you suggest otherwise…I am utterly beside myself."

Saitama's expression remained unmoved and unconvinced by his small speech. "You are… You really are."

While the small circle continued to chat, none of them took notice of a huge muscular man in a striped prison uniform sauntering past, dragging off an unfortunate black knight by his ankles. In a show of unwillingness to go, said knight had his clawed gauntlets dug into the floor, but all he could do was leave behind a long trail of scratches in the marble as he went. With the sumptuous booty of a gorgeous male on the line, all resistance was futile before the alpha jailbird they call Puri-Puri Prisoner, as Darkness Blade happened to be the latest in line to learn.

"I don't know anything about your partner either, Mumen." Saitama mentioned. "His name sounds cool though. A little edgy for my tastes, maybe. He around?"

In acknowledgement of his question, the bicyclist flattened a hand above his eyes as he peered around the crowd. On his mission to spot his new compadre, he saw that several other heroes were already a step ahead – shaking hands, taking bows, swapping info, and occasionally shooting off the 'I-Already-Can't-Stand-Your-Guts' glare at each other.

One particularly amusing sight was the exchange of willful auras between Tanktop Master and Pink Hornet. They were leaned in maliciously towards one another with their hands pressed against their hips, and when he noticed the low growls and the visible line of electricity violently jutting from one pair of eyes into the other, all Mumen Rider wanted to do was stay far away from whatever explosion their chemistry was sure to bring. Tanktop might be the top dog of his gang, but Hornet got her name for a reason too – she could sting. And with a title like "The Shopping Street of Techniques," she was in every way the perfect counter to all of the manly habits that her new partner adhered to. An ensuing Clash of the Titans right there for sure.

There were other notable glimpses too. Since both heroes were in the same class and thus fated to split, Spring Mustachio and Golden Ball were clinging together in a sorrowful good-bye hug, almost weeping as they did so. Metal Bat was sizing Pandaman up with a dirty, thuggish look, and Pandaman – who quite lived up to his reputation in the black and white animal costume – was returning his aggressive advance with a stoic, soul-piercing gaze of his own. Narcisstoic and Mohican were taking turns dissing each other's hair, while Atomic Samurai's star pupil Iaian was taking desperate measures just to keep his new acquaintance, Horse-Bone, from eating his.

Mumen Rider continued to count heads in the room, stopping short only when his gaze landed on a person toting a weapon so imposing that it could only fit the name he had heard announced as his partner.

"Yo!" He called out with a bright sunny smile, waving sincerely at the tall figure looming next to the door. "Death Gatling! That's you, isn't it? Over here!" Saitama and Genos both peered where the inviting gesture was directed toward.

The man he was calling to seemed indeed to live up to his name in just about as many aspects as the name itself had letters. The long, colorless cloak draped around his body was absolutely shredded from years of gratuitous violence, and hidden beneath that, he wore an assortment of hard leathers which was even harder to see beneath all the girthy belt buckles wrapped around his torso. In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he didn't just wear belts on his undercoat – he wore them as his undercoat.

The tool he came to class with was long enough for him to lean on – a modified firearm with eight rotary cannons, each barrel nearly the size of a rocket launcher. The monster machine that he carried around was adorned with wire barbing around the lock cylinder, and the main body was crudely lined with scars, indicating that the weapon had more than once doubled as a shield to block attacks.

But the gun wasn't the only thing about him with large scratches on it. The lone gunman's face had a huge, perfectly cross-shaped gash covering the entire left side, running from his chin to his eye, and stretching clear across the bridge of his nose to touch the other cheek. His hair, blacker than night, was long and unkempt, drifting lightly like feathers; yet like everything else about the man, each strand seemed sharp enough to cut and pierce on its own.

Besides the way he was mummified in more belts than a chuunibyou's online avatar, the other thing that creeped Saitama out the most about him was his expression: he had the meanest resting bitchface he had ever seen, and this was coming from a history of living with Genos. His brow was born down into a deep scowl that seemed just as permanent as his facial injuries. The pupils of his eyes were light and clear as crystal, and really, he didn't need bullets when he could just drill a bloody hole right through someone with a look like that.

At first glance, Genos and Saitama were already developing their own theories for Death Gatling's unyielding glower. Genos, ever the expert at heart, could sense that the man had undergone a long series of traumas and tragedies, just as he had deduced about Sweet Mask the day he watched him "execute" the alien stragglers they captured after the attack. Everyone experiences grief in their own way, and when grief exceeds your capacity to hold it in, that's when it bursts out, and suddenly everyone else knows that it's just as real as you do. It gives you a new shape. For Genos, it took away his skin and gave him metal. For Sweet Mask, it gave him two-color vision; black and white. To him, people were either ugly or beautiful – evil or fair. And for Death Gatling…grief must have meant dressing like a menace, speaking softly, and carrying a big-ass gun.

Saitama had a slightly different theory. Upon thorough scrutiny of Death Gatling's character with a Super Serious Stare (he looked at him for ten seconds without blinking), he carefully calculated (he guessed) that the reason the man appeared so troubled was because he was haunted by the vengeful spirits of however many cows had been sacrificed to accessorize his costume. Saitama could relate to a lesser degree. When he was younger, he smashed a spider and afterwards had a lingering paranoia that all the little guy's fellow spider-folk would come after him for the murder of their ilk. Many following nights had gone unslept.

Death Gatling was standing at the side of the doorway, and when he turned to see that it was an enthusiastic Mumen Rider ushering him, he let out a "Tch" sound that was barely audible, and after effortlessly slinging his massive signature weapon over his shoulder, he turned his back to the three and made his exit.

Mumen Rider lowered his waving arm with some discouragement when he noticed that the higher-class hero hadn't even given the stack of assignments a small side glance before pushing his way through the glass doors.

Realizing the stress of both their positions, Mumen Rider hastened to the door after him, calling out to Saitama and Genos from behind. "Ahaha! Looks like I got a shy one, I'm sure that's all it is! You two should focus on finding your partners too! Let's meet up later, okay?!"

He didn't stop and wait for a response, instead ripping two copies of the assignment from the table as he blew past and out the door too.

His remaining two colleagues were left behind to stare blankly at the blazed trail that the cyclist had all but set on fire.

"Wow. He really can run at the speed of justice." Saitama blinked.

"Should we really leave him like that?" Genos asked. "I know that they are both heroes, but even so…what if Gatling seriously tries to kill him?"

His bald mentor let out an exasperated sigh, but smiled in spite of it. "I wouldn't worry too much about that biking guy. He's got enough integrity to charm the bullets from flying anywhere near him."

"Sensei," Genos smiled back at him, "does that mean you earnestly believe that Mumen Rider will find a way to convince Death Gatling to unbuckle all of the belts shielding his heart and open it up to reveal a truer, softer side of himself that he had secretly been hoping to share with the world all this time?"

Saitama raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, for starters: you watch too much Dizzni. For second starters: you watch too much anime. And for finishers, unless you're being proverbial about the belt thing - and I seriously hope you are - there's no way Mumen Rider is breaking all the way through that goth party sitting on Gat's chest."

Genos's smile dimmed. "I see."

"What about your partner?" Saitama casually shifted the topic.

"Ah!" Genos realized. "About that. We were so busy talking that I missed my pairing. Did you happen to catch it, Master?"

Saitama put a thoughtful finger to his chin. "Mmmm… Springboard Chicken."

Genos blinked in awe. "I see! I have the opportunity to fight crime alongside the third most consumed meat in the world. I must remember to chronicle the experience in my personal journal as well as in the reviews."

"Wait, I don't think that sounds right…" Saitama ignored the disappointed look on the cyborg's face as he continued to guess. "Slapping Sling…? No that can't be it either."

Realizing how his idol was with names, Genos decided to politely dismiss him. "I…It is all right, Master. I am certain I will find out soon enough."

Saitama persisted on the thought for a few more seconds, but eventually, it was pushed out by a brand-new thought that had just caught up with him. "Wait, chicken's only the third most consumed meat?! I thought the reason everyone says something 'tastes like chicken' was because it was the most universal experience…"

Genos stayed on topic. "In truth, I am far more concerned about you, Master."

"Oh, me? Why focus on me?"

"Master, surely you understand the gravity of your own situation!" Genos was almost shouting. "The Hero Association has placed you with—"

"Me."

On cue, the two turned their heads towards the direction of the new voice. In a vacant clearing away from where other heroes were lining up to grab their copies and leave in pairs or small groups, a small but prominent ball of green ire wrapped in a flowy black dress descended from above and landed neatly a few paces from them. Not showing much discouragement from the outcome of last night, the Tornado of Terror had her hands pressed firmly into her waist, and looked as fierce as ever.

…That was, until they took notice of what was patching up her forehead, right where a certain baldy had earlier One-Poked it.

"Ooh, I like your accessory." Saitama smiled and pointed to the two small band-aids overlapping in a cross between her eyes. "You like MLP too? I figured I had you pegged for the unicorn type…"

Tatsumaki broke from her tough stare when she realized she forgot to remove the pink and purple bandages before leaving for the meeting. Not even thinking twice, she tore the cute and colorful My Lovely Pegasus patch from her face in one swift motion. Immediately after, her eyes went wide and watery, and she turned away from the two to fight off screaming from the sudden onset of pain. She did an okay job, but not good enough to prevent a tiny high-pitched squeal from slipping past her puckered mouth.

Before things could get any weirder, she spun back around and retook her dominant pose with her arms still pressed into her same as before, though to a small degree of amusement from Saitama, she now had a puffy red X shape imprinted between her eyes, one of which was still twitching.

"Hmph!" She huffed. "What are you getting at? That show is for kids! It just…just happened to be the only thing I had around to use. Stop drawing your own conclusions."

"Do you live with younger children then?" Saitama inquired, choosing to humor the girl's attempt to put up a mature act.

"Children… That's…" Tatsumaki seemed to tense up at this word for a moment. "…That's none of your business!" After yelling this into his face, she shifted her glare to another face; one that was glaring right back at her with matched force. "And what are you scowling at, Demon Side-bitch?"

Genos abruptly snapped his head away, but his face remained completely unchanged while he directed the same glare at some other unknown object.

"So how are we going to plan this?" Saitama asked, taking some of the heat off Genos. "Because if you wanna stay with me, you'll have to ask your parents if it's okay first."

"Ask…parents…" Tatsumaki's eyes widened with even more outrage at the suggestion. "Stay…with you?!"

Even as she was fuming out of her ears, Saitama continued. "Well, I guess I could stay with you, but again, that would be up to your family. Also, I'd like there to be a Super-Mart store somewhere nearby, because the bodegas tend to have crappy produce."

"Shut up already!" Tatsumaki retorted. "I live by myself! I'm twenty-eight years old, asshole!"

"Now, now…" The caped hero gave her a calming gesture with his hands that did nothing to placate the minikin titan. "It's all right, you don't have to lie about your age to impress us; we'll still be your friends. We'll be her friends, won't we Genos?"

He looked to his composite companion for reassurance. A small growl of disapproval was all he got in reply from him.

"Friends?!" Her voice raised even more, but when she noticed that it was turning heads of other heroes and staff members towards her, she stiffened up and made efforts to compose herself. Flying up to Saitama, she grabbed him by the front zipper of his suit, violently pulling him closer to whisper. "For calling us 'friends', you have a pretty fucking funny way of showing it. Look at these bags under my eyes. Does it look like I got a goodnight sleep thanks to you?"

Saitama tilted his head to get a better look at her features. Even when she crackled with crazy psionic powers, her eyes still didn't appear as green from a distance as they did up close to him now. And when he saw that she wasn't exaggerating about the dark circles hanging under them, the only effort he made to defend himself was by saying, "Well you seemed to sleep a whole lot better after I gave you that fl—MMPH."

His speech was cut off by a small hand that she cupped over his mouth, bringing the pointer finger of her other hand up to her lips. "Shh!" She hissed sharply.

But the angry whirring of charging energy drew her attention away to face Genos, whose rage had for the moment overthrown his fear of her. "How dare you put your hands on Sensei like that!" He snarled. The two golden pupils of his eyes had now turned into targeting cross-hairs, both of which were focused on the sweetly-placed X rash that had yet to leave Tatsumaki's brow.

She broke away from the yellow suit and drifted closer to her other target. "Don't you ever get tired of me lobbing you up and down the street?"

The glowing lights on the cyborg's palms only deepened their red and grew brighter to show that he still wasn't backing down. No one disrespected his teacher. No one.

"Because let me give you some free advice…" Her hand ignited with viridian fire, causing a few nearby heroes to stagger away. "I don't care what new pet partner they assigned you. It's gonna take more than some jobber-fodder from Class B to keep me from improving your worth by converting you into paperclips."

"Are you certain?" Genos retaliated. "Because I suspect that a hero from B-Class surprised you not too long ago; in his pajamas no less."

Tatsumaki kept her aggressive posture up, but her eyes shifted around to see other heroes watching the ensuing showdown. Her scowl deepened when she caught wind of some whispering questions as to what he meant, while staff members of the association seemed on the fence as to whether or not they should try to step in and intervene.

"You understand, don't you?" She turned back to face Genos, who was selective enough with his words to make it clear only to her that he would drag her name through the mud by blowing last night wide open. Since the staff hadn't released her identity in congress, he was reminding her that she still had something to lose. "We are standing on hallow ground. You cannot do anything here. But me…I can do everything to you." His glare deepened. "Would you like me to show you what I mean?"

The cyborg and esper exchanged poker faces, never going so far as to bat an eye at one another. In truth, Genos didn't want to expose her encounter with them to the other heroes, because if he did, he knew that would mean exposing his master as well. She could fall into line, but there was also a greater chance that she could call his bluff and rip him to Legos before he even got another word out – in which case he would learn in the hardest way imaginable that her pride ultimately outweighed her job.

The tension in the air grew thick, and in the heat of the moment, Tatsumaki seemed to forget that Saitama was still standing right behind her, instead concentrating on her new prey. Genos grimaced when he saw her green glow amplify into a great shine, and for that instant, he prepared to rejoin his family in the great hereafter.

Tatsumaki threw her arm out at him, intent on folding him like one of the makeshift chairs they sat on during the meeting. But just as Genos started feeling the immense pressure tightening around him, the esper gasped in shock.

A red glove had caught her around the wrist, cancelling out her focus instantaneously.

Tatsumaki froze up from the contact. On any other day in her life, if someone so much as accidentally brushed against her in passing, it was only because she allowed them to. Having been said, no one ever touched her; least of all in such a forceful way.

She peered out at the baldy from the corner of her eye, and if looks could kill, her cold death stare might just have been the only thing in the universe that could eradicate Saitama. But that did nothing to ease his grip.

"Let." Her tone seemed casual, but its undertones were what made it truly horrifying. "Go."

"You need to stop and think for a second." Saitama replied firmly, but kept his voice low enough for only her to hear. "Think about where you are. Think about who can see you right now. If you attack Genos, then it's over for you. No more being a professional hero. It might even lead you to juvie."

"Bullshit." She snapped at him. "What would they even be without me? With Blast missing, I stand at the top. They need me."

"They don't need someone they can't control." He responded. "It's like being back in class. You may be the star pupil, but you'll never outshine the teacher. Don't make this any worse for us than it already has to be."

Tatsumaki bit her teeth down into a fanged grit. "I said…let….GO!"

On the final word, she sent out a powerful shockwave in his direction. It was meant to throw Saitama a good distance from her, but she underestimated one thing: his tenacity. A person with common sense would have let go of her arm on reflex, but he still held her quite firmly. And with nothing to stop the insane centrifugal force, she had no choice but to go along for the ride with him as he flew.

The two shot across the massive meeting area, and fortunately the other heroes were sensible enough to give them a wide berth. Tatsumaki barely had time to process that they were heading straight into a reinforced marble wall. Ordinarily she could call on her power to form a kinetic shell around her body and ward off injury, but things were happening too fast and sudden for her to react properly. All she could do is shut her eyes tight and brace for a painful impact.

A thunderous noise rang out as they collided with the wall.

After the crash…silence. She felt no pain. How could she not be hurt? Had she died on impact? Was she now nothing more than a shattered stain decorating the building? Was the highlight of tomorrow's news going to be announcing her close-casket funeral?

Shaken, the esper slowly reopened one eye.

She found herself in an even more compromised situation, leaning up against something firm, yellow, and…warm?

She grunted in surprise when she realized what happened…and whose chest she was resting on. Luckily for her, Saitama had taken the split second they were flying to alter his trajectory and place himself between her and their destination. The wall they were pressed against had sustained extensive damage with large cracks spanning all directions away from them like a spider's web.

"Had your bout?"

She tilted her head up to stare at his face. He didn't appear to be hurt, or even angry with her. In fact…he didn't appear to be…really anything. At the range she was looking, all the stupid simplicities of his expression seemed to have vanished, replaced with a defined jawline, and deadly angular eyes.

After taking a few seconds to breathe in all the new details, she opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by someone else.

"Sensei!"

They saw two people rushing towards them. Besides Genos, who was obvious as always, the taller man next to him had a mean red glow emanating from his mechanical eye. Sekingar was furious.

"I have seen enough." He proclaimed in a scalding voice. "One more outburst like that, and I will expel all of you without a moment's hesitation. I don't care if you're a C-Class, S-Class, or a God-Level Disaster Threat. I will not have you stirring up trouble for this association, especially when you have the audacity to do so while I'm standing right here." He snapped his head to face Genos, who was still standing beside to him. "Am I clear, Demon Cyborg?"

Genos propped himself up straight like a soldier being issued. "Yessir!"

Slowly, the older man turned his head back to give the esper his thousand-degree stare. "And am I crystal clear with you…Senritsu no Tatsumaki."

The girl gave a big swallow, but her mouth and throat had both run dry. She had officially had all and everything she could take.

Breaking away from Saitama, she broke the sound barrier as her green trail blasted straight past everyone still in the room, nearly deafening the majority, shattering the glass-pane doors, and destroying the table next to it which caused paper copies to scatter all over the wind.

Taking a few moments to recompose, the three men left behind stared at the destroyed exit and trail of destruction leading up to it. As if there was any room for doubt now, the Tornado of Terror had thoroughly fulfilled her namesake.

"Damn that woman…" Sekingar uttered under his breath with disdain. As if she didn't bring enough complications to the board, being one of the prime catalysts that caused the drastic reformation of the entire team structure. Less than sixty seconds with her new assignment, and already there would be more paperwork.

He rejoined reality when he realized that a third of the assembly was still present, and all staring silently at him. "What are you all still loitering around here for?" He spoke loudly so that they could all hear. "This room is closed, and there's nothing more to see. Collect what you need and go home!"

With his command having moderate effect, the gawkers gradually turned to depart through the large gaping hole which up until just recently had a door attached to it.

He took notice of Saitama approaching him from behind as he dusted off his cape. "Mad sorry about the mess." The bald hero spoke, though his voice didn't really contain any sympathy.

Sekingar wanted to say something along the lines of 'Why are you the one apologizing when you were going to be the one stuck with her?' but realizing that the Caped Baldy shared equal responsibility in why this assembly was even necessary, the seasoned executive simply opted to remain silent.

Saitama searched for a way to diffuse the tension between him and arguably the most powerful individual – political-wise, anyway – standing in the room with him. He caught one of the papers still drifting in the air as it came down towards him. "Sooooo it didn't look like she left with her homework." Saitama spoke as he stared at the one in his hands.

Sternly, Sekingar crossed his arms and shut his eyes. "It would appear that she did not."

"If one hero decides not to participate," Saitama continued, "what happens to their partner, even if they're willing to?"

"In the case of a non-mutual disbandment," the chairman answered, "the remaining hero will simply be joined to the party of my committee's next choice. We will not castigate heroes that still remain loyal to our regulations."

Saitama gave a light smile. "Oh good, that's a relief, I really appreciate not being castrated."

"Sensei, I believe he said castigate." Genos tried correcting.

Saitama spared him a side glance. "Same thing, really."

The cyborg opened his mouth to respond, immediately closing it when he realized that his master wasn't entirely wrong.

"If you wish to register with another group," Sekingar continued, "this is your best opportunity. No one will fault you for wanting nothing to do with the Tornado of Terror."

"Well, about that…" Saitama rubbed the back of his neck.

"Hm?" The older man waited on elaboration.

"I can't really discuss what exactly happened between me and her…but she's…well, she's having a really bad weekend. Yeah I'll admit she's a brat…but it doesn't really seem right to punish her so much just because she came in a crappy mood today."

"The decision was hers to lash out." Sekingar applied pragmatically. "And the decision was hers to storm out of the building while made aware of the consequences not to accept the terms of this agreement."

"Well, yeah, I totally get it." Saitama attempted to reason. "But that could've been anything, you know? In a fit of emotion, she might have forgotten, or maybe she just needs time to cool."

The tall man blinked at him. "Remarkable… You're actually defending her after she just put you through that wall right there? What kind of hero behaves this way?"

Saitama shrugged at him. "Same kind of hero that does it for fun, I guess?"

Sekingar deepened his stare at him, and after a quick assessment, he smirked for the first time since he introduced himself. "I see." But it didn't last more than a second before his grin dropped and his face became serious again. "All heroes have a 72-hour grace period before the mandate locks in. Enough time for everyone to make basic arrangements for the new change. That's exactly how much time you have to convince Tatsumaki to play nice. But if you cannot do that, ultimately you will have to let her go. No one can be exempt from the penalty of insubordination – not even our best assets."

Saitama knelt down to pick up a second copy of the appointed task. When he got back up, he casually looked square into the chairman's eye and said, "Heroes have to try."

Sekingar's eyes narrowed back at him. "But do they always have to succeed?"

"Well, I'm not that ambitious." The bald hero confessed, absent-mindedly scratching his cheek. "I don't measure the value of my actions by their success; I never have. I measure them by giving a damn enough to do them."

Sekingar let a small singular chuckle escape. For the first time with in his long career, it appeared he had finally found someone that he had utterly no idea of how to judge. The executive's talent for reading people and their potential didn't come from his fancy eye; it was a trait he was born with and that his experience enhanced even more. And listening to this hero argue his resolve to help a woman that – frankly – didn't entirely deserve to be helped, all the while showing so little resolve in his unreadable expression…the duality was nothing less than a bizarre thing to witness.

"Caped Baldy was it?" The appointed leader asked.

"Ugh…I'd really just prefer people to call me Saitama." He answered with some discomfort.

"Oh, I see." Sekingar's expression morphed before the hero's eyes into an icy leer. "So you don't accept the name that I personally selected for you."

"Uh?" A bead of sweat broke out on Saitama's head.

A miasma of unpleasant malaise seemed to creep out of the man as he went further into detail. "I pour my heart and soul into constructing each individual name that our heroes get. For your particular moniker, I spent three straight hours painstakingly crafting a title that would be fashionably brief while also fully capturing the integrity of your image in the minds of everyone that hears it." He emptily turned away from the bald hero, as if he could no longer bear to even look at him. "I see now that I should have instead been using that time to help my six-year old daughter practice for her national spelling bee." His face darkened. "She cried a great deal in front of me when she failed to spell her first word in front of thirty-six hundred people. I believe the word was 'Depression'…"

Saitama's eyes widened, realizing just how hard he had jammed his own foot in his mouth. After all this time, it seems there was still one foe he had yet to defeat: his own tongue. Going into full panic mode, he fought hard for an excuse to salvage their exchange. "Whaaat, psh nooo, that's not, pssh nooooo. It's not that it's a…bad name, it's just maybe, well, it's a little, umm…on the nose?"

Sekingar's scowl deepened for a moment, and Saitama thought he might be thrown out of the business right then and there. Then the chairman's coldness and grief seemed to magically disappear all at once.

"Just kidding."

Saitama sweat-dropped at the man's sardonic humor. "Huh?"

"The idea for your name came from Sneck. I don't even have a daughter." He explained bluntly. "His other alternative was to make your hero name 'Disrespectful Bubble-blowing Baldy Bastard,' but the selection team decided that one would have been too long."

"PFF!"

Speechless and slack-jawed, Saitama turned his face to see Genos standing off to the side. The cyborg's eyes looked as serious as ever, but he had a hand strategically placed over his mouth to stifle his reaction.

Saitama collapsed into exasperation. "…I'm out of here."

As he turned to walk away, he heard Sekingar's voice loom from behind him. "I take it you know where Tornado lives, then?"

The hero froze in his tracks. Crap.

"I must admit, I would be surprised if she shared that detail with you – she is a very private person. In fact, she would not even disclose her whereabouts with the staff, so her location doesn't exist in the Hero Association's database on any computer of any building…in any branch division we own." He paused for effect, letting the morbid facts sink into Saitama's skull. "…Anyway, good luck to you."

By the time the heroes had turned back around to face him, Sekingar was already walking away.

"Shit…" Saitama's eyes stretched wide open, frozen in blood-shot panic. His teeth were crushed together in an airtight grit. "Shit shit shit shit shiiiiiit."

"Master, you know that I do not enjoy offering you discouragement," Genos remarked in the middle of his mentor's breakdown, "but perhaps it really is best to cut her loose after all. She would only hold you back, and I detect no fluctuations in her behavioral patterns that indicate she is willing to improve her attitude within a convenient timeframe."

The bald hobbyist was rubbing his head madly as he wracked his brain for ideas. "There has to be some way…some person that knows some thing about where that kid lives…!" At this point, Saitama was more talking to himself than his mechanical companion.

"Don't worry." The sultry, milky voice of a complete stranger called to them from out of nowhere. "There is."

The two turned to see a tall woman standing before them in a black dress similar to Tatsumaki's, except this one was draped in a coat of arctic fur. She sported a French-style bob, the color of which was one shade shy of being completely black. The collar of her fair-skinned neck was adorned with extravagant finery, but the most extravagant thing about this lady was her smile.

"Who's this?" Saitama whispered carefully to Genos, who returned with a clueless shrug.

The woman's bold grin faltered into a pout, somewhat put off by the fact that they didn't recognize her. But in the interest of maintaining solid first impressions, she let it slide and introduced herself with a renewed look of confidence.

"My official name is Jigoku no Fubuki – the Blizzard of Hell. But you can do the courtesy of addressing me as Miss Fubuki."

'Oh great,' Saitama's mind seeped out, 'Another 'Miss This-or-That'…'

She held her arm out, presenting the back of her hand to the two male heroes, who exchanged uncertain glances with each other. Her eyes shimmered, Saitama noticed, with the same mischievous green as the little girl that had earlier dashed out. And somehow, this new woman seemed to notice that he noticed. And that wasn't entirely settling.

Fubuki's grin stretched wide with vanity.

"And the pleasure of making my acquaintance is all yours."


She was back where the flake that snowballed into this downright terrible day first fell: her quiet four-room apartment.

If there was anything abundantly girly about Tatsumaki, not a lot of its quality had shown through the appearance of her home – even in her bedroom. There were no fancy flower pots or frilly pink drapes. No novel posters of male pop celebrity icons – especially not the same copy of Sweet Mask that she was almost certain every one-in-two girls had pressed on their walls or ceilings. God no.

Tatsumaki may have been in the so-called "prime of her life," but despite her pride which was often interpreted as arrogance, her living situation reflected a different aspect of hers that no one else would ever see…

Modesty.

The walls in her apartment were colorless in general. A lot of whites and greys – as if to say that "a lot" offered tons of variety for colors that weren't even technically colors. The walls in her room were mainly occupied by mirrors and the occasional clock. Her place wasn't messy at all, but it certainly helped that she didn't have a lot of stuff to make a mess with. The only part that had filled up was her hanging closet, where she had a diversified selection of clothes, including a black dress, a black dress, another black dress, a few more black dresses, her night pajamas, and oh! A black dress.

Holy shit, she was modest.

The first thing she did when she got back an hour ago was kick off her shoes and plunge face-first into the fluffy green pillow of her queen-sized bed. She was abundantly tired, but she was also too upset to remedy that and catch up with her lost sleep. Since last night, she had been confronted and humiliated – both publicly and privately – soaked in sewage, humiliated some more…and flicked.

She didn't need the help of her fatigue to be in a bad mood, either. Even while she had her head buried in the pillowcase, the vivid flash of faces swept through the recesses of her mind. She saw Genos aiming his pulse rays at her while looking just as mean as she did. She saw Sekingar glaring coldly down at her with his arms crossed like an indignant father.

And of course, there was the centerpiece of her displeasure:

Him.

She grimaced from under the pillow as she felt a pang of frustration hit her heart. She tried to wipe his stupid face from her mind, but it always bounced back the same way he did when she threw half his neighborhood at him. And each time he came back, his face got closer.

And closer.

And closer.

Until it was right in front of her. Then she again saw how he looked back at the conference area, with his hardened expression, his symmetrically chiseled jawline, and those serious, dangerous eyes.

Who was he?

Who the hell was he?

And who the hell did he think he was?

Giving a small growl, she shook the vision from her head and flipped over on her back, staring up at the object resting over her.

Probably the only picture she had hung in the building was above her bed where she now looked. It was a requisite group shot of her with the other S-Class champs of the Hero Association. Even so, the photo was rather dated; it may have been taken a year or two back, and a few newbies like Drive Knight and Demon Cyborg had not yet entered the scene. Against her wishes, the administration didn't want her floating in the picture, and since the heroes were arranged in rows from tallest in back to shortest in front, guess who had the centerstage spotlight. There she stood by herself arms crossed, looking none too happy – especially when she saw the photo afterwards and noticed Silver Fang hunched behind her, holding two fingers up at the back of her head to give her bunny ears. The old creep.

Still, of every S-Class hero that she was forced to interact with, Bang was possibly the one she hated the least. She didn't care much for the pissing contests he had with Atomic Samurai, but looking closer, it was more of Samurai making up one-sided competitions, and Silver Fang just seemed to tolerate it more than anything else.

Being the only female S-Class wasn't easy, but she had some respect for the old martial artist, because out of all the guys, he seemed to be the mildest in character. Supposedly King was mild too, but it was really his face she had a problem with. Anyone who looked like even more of an asshole than she did was probably…well, an asshole.

Between Tanktop's over-competitiveness with literally anyone else, Darkshine's refusal to properly clothe himself, Prisoner being a convicted man-molesting felon, and Pig God being more 'pig' than 'god' in general, she didn't exactly have the century's biggest grab-bag of friends. Being the highest rank just didn't help things like that.

And after today, she was sure nothing will.

She stormed out. She didn't take the assignment. And she didn't just forget to either. Fuck the 'Rule of Two.' Fuck the association. Fuck Sekingar.

She knew their ideas were stupid, but never like this. If she was fully aware of the depths of their depravity by forcing her to work with other heroes that could only be considered liabilities, then she would have left the association that much sooner. She tried the hero life, and now it seemed that the hero life was done with her. Good riddance.

She flopped over on her side to mildly glare at the bookshelf leaning against the far wall. It had maybe twenty books on it at most, and each of them had probably been read five times, minimum. She could try cracking one open to get her mind away from other things, but there was nothing that any of those pages could say to her that they hadn't told her before. And even though books could talk to her, it's not like she could talk back. She may have been anti-social, but you couldn't quite substitute another person. She tried.

Her mind quickly carried her to darker places. A future without the association – a future without being a professional hero.

What would she do? What could she do?

Flipping burgers at a fast-food restaurant? Even with her powers, the monotony of that lifestyle would kill her.

Working in an office cubicle getting yelled at by a manager every day? She would kill him.

Volunteer at a soup kitchen? Even if she were that generous with her time, she would still starve to death while everyone around her prospered with full bellies. Bills needed to be paid.

Suddenly, she felt the chill strike her. She had nothing. No aspirations. No ambitions. No future.

Tatsumaki was independent, but being a crime-fighter was all she had ever known. It was all that she was good for. On a business resume, she barely even existed.

"Tch…it's all his fault." She muttered bitterly under breath. "If he hadn't gotten in the way…"

-Knock- -Knock- -Knock-

Her eyes shot alive, and every curly strand of her hair perked up when she heard a pounding sound coming from the main room. Her door. Someone was there.

She blasted upright from her cushioned mattress, but from the air, she wouldn't budge. Who could it be? Who had found her? How?

She wracked her brain for people that knew her location, and the only one that she could think of was…

"Sister…?" She blinked pensively. What would she be doing here? Even if she wasn't so busy running that glorified country club of hers, she didn't even like her…

…Did she?

Tatsumaki put her finger to her chin, debating her next move. She wasn't a company entertainer, especially when she was in low spirits like this. Even if it was her sister, what would she say to her?

On the other hand, a visit from her could be exactly what Tatsumaki needed. They never talked much anyway, and maybe she would be willing to sit down and discuss a plan with her.

Maybe they were closer than the Tornado thought.

A small cheerful smile threatened to creep up on her face for the first time all day, and she zoomed out of her bedroom across the living room to the front door.

She gave a deep breath, and with a flick of her wrist, she telekinetically turned the knob and pulled the door ajar.

"Fubuki," she tried hiding the excitement in her voice, "this is quite a first, you've never visited me bef—"

Instead of who she thought it was, an all too familiar bald figure stood just on the other side of the entrance, giving a single wave motion of his hand. "Yo."

=SLAM=

The sheer force of her shutting him out shook the whole house and caused cracks to appear around the attached wall. She threw her back against door, white as a sheet, eyes bugging out in horror.

'Oh…my god.' She cuffed both hands over her mouth to quiet her rapid breathing. 'Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god HOW.'

She slid down the surface into a paralyzed sitting position, trying to figure out how he – of all people – knew her address.

Did he follow her? No. She was too fast, and even if he did, she would have sensed him.

Did the association tell him? They couldn't have! She made it perfectly transparent that if they asked her for personal information like that again she would rip out every building they owned by their foundations and give the association a permanent relocation – in space. After she already did it to Sitch's car, they knew she wasn't joking.

Did the baldy tell anyone else where she was? Who else knew? Who could have told him? The only person in the world that should know where to find her was—

"No…" Her eyes popped out wider than they should have been anatomically allowed to. "She didn't… That frosty bi—!"

"Uhh, hi?" A muffled sound carried over from the other side of the door. "Yeah, me again. I'm still out here, you know."

She puffed her cheeks up indignantly. Evidently the universe wasn't through plucking her wings off just yet. But at this point, what more did it really have to take from her?

With one final push, Tatsumaki redoubled her resolve to open the door, even with every physical and mental fiber of her being screaming at her not to.

Thanks to the new damage to the hinges, the door now groaned pitifully as she slowly peeled it asunder.

"What the hell are you doing here? How did you find this place?" She glared daggers at him, hoping that her powers actually made at least one cut with them.

"Look, I know you're still kinda raw about what happened, but we need to talk." Saitama paused to rub the back of his neck. "I need to talk."

"The only 'talking' you'll be doing is with the fish at the bottom of the Mariana Trench if you don't get the fuck off my doorstep."

"But I just got here."

"That's not my problem!"

"Will you just hear me out for like half a minute here?"

"Well okay."

"Really?!"

"NO. LEAVE."

Saitama sighed in defeat. He knew she would be breathing fire at him, but not this much heat so quickly.

"All right, then…" His posture sagged dismally. "Sorry for interrupting your…whatever you were doing in there."

She looked away from him, holding up a dismissive hand. "Just…go."

"I'll go…" Saitama nodded his head solemnly. He turned away from her door, and it appeared that the esper was about to finally have her first victory today. But then he looked back at her from over the shoulder, and she knew it wasn't over. "Hey, are there any good lake or beach areas around here?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Why ask such a stupid question?"

"I dunno." He shrugged, and she heard him rustling with something in front of him that was out of her view. "I guess I was just hoping to find a decent spot to watch the sun go down while I eat these imported Premium-Choice lime-flavored Turkish delights by myself…"

Not one second after the long string of words left his mouth, Tatsumaki's began to water, and a noisy gurgle began to stir from her direction.

As quick as she could, she threw a hand over her belly to silence the sound. 'Shh!' She mentally commanded it. 'No! Bad tummy. Don't sell out your mistress.' She tried to maintain a cool demeanor and ignore the assortment of candy he was holding, but she knew that he could already see the bullets of sweat appearing on her face.

Saitama gave her a small smirk. "What was that?"

"What was what." She immediately countered.

Another gurgle escaped her stomach, even louder than the first one. She shut her eyes in submission and glared meekly down at the offender. '…Traitor.' She cursed the organ. This was what she got for skipping breakfast.

Huffing sharply, she redirected all her scorn to her new visitor.

"Five minutes." She spoke plainly. "That's all you get. Then you're gone. Capiche?"

Saitama's face broke into a wide smile. "Yeah!" He replied enthusiastically. "Cat peach!"

Tatsumaki rolled her eyes at his misappropriation. "Then get in."

She turned to float back inside, hearing him gently close the battered door behind him as she retreated into the living room.

A new angry thought was buzzing around her head.

Fubuki… She was going to rip that fancy fur coat of hers to shreds.

She suspected her involvement before, but now there could be no coincidence that this caped nobody just happens to show up at her door carrying her one true weakness in a container that took a small fortune just to have shipped from its own country. It had to have been her.

If she wasn't sure that her little sister hated her before, she was positive about it now.

She peered out from the corner of her eye as she watched her guest slip off his boots and shuffle over the carpet behind her.

Just because his bait worked didn't mean she had to like that it did. She never let another human see the inside of her living space, least of all a guy. But the saving grace was that since she didn't spend on much, there wasn't much she needed to hide. Besides, he'd be out in a moment. Of that she'd make sure.

They approached the middle of the room, and she turned to face him head-on. Neither of them bothered sitting down.

"So spill. What's so damn important you'd go through the trouble to find me."

Before answering, he set the bag of sweets on a small side table nearby; an offering to placate a little green goddess.

"First, I want to say that I didn't come here to fight." He made his intentions clear. "I never wanted this fight to begin with."

She crossed her arms. "It's what you brought."

"Actually," he corrected her, "you did."

Her jaw dropped. "M-Me? I'm going to lose my job thanks to you!"

"Tatumaki, when you—"

"Tatsumaki!" She corrected vehemently.

"…Tatsumaki. When you and that thing you were chasing ripped the whole side of my building off, I still tried to offer you food. Not be your opponent. All you needed to do was accept a little bit of criticism."

"You called me a child!" She retorted. "You butted in! It was the Demon Cyborg I was chewing out, but you, a B-Class, had to mettle in matters that had little concern with you."

"You busted up my place," he clarified, keeping a calm, even tone, "yelled at my roommate, tossed me out into the street, and tried to bully me into quitting my job as a hero." She opened her mouth to interject, but ultimately froze, looking away in a pout. Saitama continued. "This whole thing could have gone a different direction, but you chose this one. Case closed."

"Hmph!" She turned her back to him, giving off her coldest shoulder. She was so used to having her powers scare away any potential arguments from other people, actually being pushed back was something she wasn't quite accustomed to. After a pause, without even turning back to face him, she asked "So you came here to gloat, huh? I was wrong, you were right – that it?"

He shook his head. "I'm only telling you what you somehow seem to be the last person to figure out. But like I said, I'm not here to fight. I'm here to offer you a truce."

"Well you're doing a hell of a job." She returned harshly.

He blinked at her and scratched his cheek for a minute, but continued once more. "This doesn't have to be the end, you know. You had a choice then, and you have one now. In three days, this Rule of Two thing is going down, and most of us have already hopped on the bandwagon. You don't have to be the one that stays behind."

"Hmph…" She remained facing away from him, glaring at an invisible object in the corner. After a moment of silence, she responded. "Ever since I joined up, I've been on my own. And I was fine with that. But the reason is because I've always been the one that stays behind. I just had to get used to it. Ever since I was small, when Bla—" A shock jolted her face, and she caught up with what she was saying. "On second thought, no…never mind. Hey, are you leaving or what?"

"Almost…" He reassured her. "But I have to ask you… The way you're living right now… Does it make you happy?"

He was met with silence.

"Because if it doesn't, and you continue focusing on being alone…then you'll probably be that way for the rest of your life. I didn't have to come, but I'm here now. You can either suck up a month or two with me, or you can go your own way while I go mine. It doesn't really matter to me, but I wasn't sure if it might to you."

Tatsumaki flashed back to what had been plaguing her mind prior to his unexpected intrusion. 'What would I do? What could I do? Only thing I'm good for…'

Her lip quivered softly while she mulled it over, but when she heard a distinct crunching sound, she spun around to see him haphazardly eating another candy.

"H-Hey! Paws off!" She yelled.

He held his hands up in casual surrender and set the bag back down.

"Tch…why did you come here to tell me all this anyway?" She asked sternly, readjusting her arms into their folded position. "Look, I'm not that full of myself; I'll admit some of the things I did…" She started. "That's why you're making absolutely no sense by being here. You should be staying as far away from me as you can! That's what anyone else would be doing…"

"Sorry to inform you," he replied curtly, "you're not talking to anyone else. Just me." He turned away from her and headed to the door. "You can keep the stuff I brought over. Even if I never see you again, I can at least be satisfied with this last impression, if not much else…"

Tatsumaki remained silent as she watched him put his boots back on and open the door, letting a stream of light shine in. Then he turned to glance at her from over his shoulder.

"This will be my last intrusion." He told her. "But if I do see you again…it'll be because you know where I live too."

She grunted in surprise, and to her own astonishment, she felt a soft flutter run through her chest. It wasn't like the sharp pangs of frustration she felt when she was sulking on her bed. This felt…less familiar.

"Why did you come here?" At the moment, this was the only thing she could think to ask. With a weaker voice, she added "Why go this far?"

He glanced back at her one last time before turning to step all the way out. "The candies will tell you why."

She heard a loud whooshing sound, like a massive gust of wind had swept by. She flew up to the doorway to look at where he left.

He was already gone.

"That was cryptic…" She shook off her daze, regaining her regular composure. "Hmph…oddball." She muttered, feeling the smallest amount of heat tinging her cheek.

She turned back around to inspect the sweets he left behind, and when she reached inside for one, her fingers brushed against something thin and smooth.

Realizing it was paper, she pulled it out of the bag, assuming that the idiot had just left the receipt inside. But when she examined it, she didn't see any numbers. Instead, it was neatly folded – apparently a note of some kind.

She opened it and the first thing she noticed was that it was a printed copy of the assignment that she had opted not to collect before she bolted out the door. The title at the top of the neatly-formatted sheet said, 'Partner Evaluation: Week 1.' She turned the sheet over to find a very crudely-drawn picture of a round-headed guy wearing a caped costume next to a smaller crudely-drawn picture of a girl with cartoonish hair curling inward that she could only surmise to be hers. She cringed at the art. It looked like the rough draft for One badly designed web-comic.

She also noticed a small message beneath the work. Pulling the paper closer, she narrowed her emerald green eyes to read the lettering.

His handwriting was one tier above being chicken-scratch, so her initial start on it was rocky. But her eyes widened with discovery when she at last deciphered the words scrawled at the bottom of the page:

Heroes try.

-S