Disclaimer: I do not own One-Punch Man.

Chapter 4: The Hero Whose Backstory Is Too Tragic

In a quiet little café tucked inside of an urban corner, two men sat together on opposite sides of a small booth. Each had a respective beverage sitting on the table in front of them.

The more publicly recognized of the pair tapped his fingers nervously against the smooth surface where his hands rested. He shifted his back against the booth, shuddering at the clammy sensation of hot sweat that slid down his shoulders and pressed into the cold leathery cushion. He was nervous.

Mumen Rider dared himself to glance up from the steaming spot where his coffee cooled to where the other man was currently leering back at him; his glassy eyes raining supreme judgement upon his sorry soul.

In all honesty, the Cyclist of Justice never expected to even get this far in convincing Death Gatling to lend him an ear. From where they left the conference hall, he had been fervently chasing the A-Class soldier all up and down virtually every street in I-City. He had spent the entire evening continuously pleading for him to consider accepting the partnership, and all along the way, the gunman had shown no glimmer of interest – not so much as turning his head a single degree to look over his shoulder at the imploring bicyclist.

After a certain amount of distance had been covered, Mumen Rider had great reason to suspect that they were nearing Death Gatling's home, because the taller man suddenly stopped in his tracks and spun around on his heels, aiming the monstrous barrels of his weapon straight into the biking hero's helmeted head.

Apparently he valued his privacy a great deal.

Every one of Mumen Rider's muscles tensed up and stiffened as he peered down the long hole of the gun's mouth – a mouth he knew could bite down hard on him in as little time as it took for its master to pull the trigger. Sweat was spilling from every pore on his ghost-white face, and in a final bid to win both a chance to talk and live, Mumen Rider's desperation guided him to the ground, where he had thrown himself into a kowtow before the physical manifestation of death.

The more seasoned hero tightened his glare with disgust at the prostration of his would-be partner. For the first time all day, he opened his mouth only to voice a simple command.

"Get lost."

The harrowing tone of his voice promised much blood and pain if the other hero didn't obey.

Mumen's forehead remained pressed into the pavement, and for fear of what would happen if he looked back up at him, he simply clasped his hands tightly together in front of his head, as if in hurried prayer.

"Please…!" He hissed his sincerity through tightly-clenched teeth. "Please just hear me out… A moment, a minute, a splinter of your time…! And…and then if you really mean it, you'll never see me again! I swear!"

Death Gatling kept his murderous eyes fixed on the quivering creature that had now tightened into a tight ball. The hand-held cannon remained trained on him for a while longer, but after a careful moment of examining his pitiful prey, Gatling's glare slightly softened, and he finally lowered his gun.

"Puh… Not like getting rid of you is worth the bullet."

Mumen Rider's eyes shot open from behind his goggles at the ghostly chance that he may yet live to fight (and bike) another day. He cautiously unfurled from his submissive position until he was kneeling on all fours. The terrifying aura that had been bearing down on him so ferociously seemed to dampen a bit when Death Gatling turned his attention away again.

"Dammit," the older man muttered, "Now you've done it… Threatening you made me hungry. What an inconvenience…"

As the veteran started ambling away once more, Mumen Rider fought for the courage to choke out his words in spite of what just happened. With a heavy breath, he rushed to get his point across with one quick sentence.

"L-Let's get some dinner!"

The stoic soldier stopped moving, and the cyclist bit down hard on his lip, praying that the suggestion hadn't come out too awkward.

Death Gatling spared him a mystified glance from over the shoulder, furrowing an eyebrow in question. "Huh?"

"You know…for food." The C-Class hero tried to clarify as he got up to dust himself off.

"I know what dinner means, kid."

Mumen noticeably flinched. "Uhh, I mean, if you're willing…I would feel honored if you'd let me pay. It's the least I can do for making you hungry in the first place, so…" He let the intention hang, hoping that by some chance, the other hero would fill in the loose end of his sentence. No such miracle happened, however, as he merely continued to receive a piercing gaze from the human grim reaper. For that moment, it seemed like the leather-clad ranger was glimpsing into his very soul, purging it for any signs of sin with a Penance Stare. Mumen Rider felt the pressure double, and then redouble again; sensing as though the whole Shinigami Host was fixed on him, clamoring amongst themselves about what his grizzly fate should be for the mortal trespass of his invitation.

Another moment went by, with the sky growing noticeably darker as the sun prepared to bury itself beyond the horizon.

Finally, the withdrawn gunman opened his mouth to speak. "And I suppose you will also use this moment to try and convince me that we should work together…"

The chill in Death Gatling's voice made everything seem darker – heavier even. Mumen winced at the blatant irritation underlying the tone, but replied regardless. "At this point, I sort of just want to express gratitude for you deciding to spare my life…and not kill me…and stuff. Ha..haha…" He rubbed the back of his head, trying to lighten the request with a few sheepish laughs. This did nothing to bring the senior hero any closer to a reality that involved him smiling back.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Gatling sneered harshly. "I recognize an opportunist when I see one."

Mumen Rider shuddered roughly, clenching his fist in an effort to preserve the last ounce of his tenacity. The struggle lasted only until he thought he saw the corner of Gatling's mouth twitch.

"Well don't act so shook up about it, boy. It's a compliment." Gatling looked down on him as if his intention should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "Can't you take a compliment?"

Orange rays of light split the clouds from behind him, and the encroaching darkness that Mumen Rider felt seemed to subside with the final burst of sunset.

Before the shorter guy could respond, Gatling had already turned to walk away again. "A meal in exchange for your life. I suppose the offer seems harmless enough…"

Mumen fought the urge to break out into a huge, relieved grin. While he was at least relatively certain that Gatling wouldn't mow him down whether he made the offer or not, the wiser part of him quickly suggested that he not correct the gun-wielder about the terms of the exchange. At this point, all he needed to be was thankful that every point he invested in his Karma Savings Card had paid off with this new opportunity to address his potential partner properly.

Just as the cyclist started to follow him, the towering man abruptly stopped again and snapped his head back towards his junior to emit a dark, brooding glare.

"But!" The sudden shock Mumen received from the lethal conjunction caused him to reflexively shoot his arms up in the air as if bracing to be held at gunpoint again. Death Gatling's eyes only deepened into a deadly, distrusting squint. "If you so much as even think you can convince me that working with a weakling like you would be to the best to my benefit…" He let the ominous implication of the words hang in the air before closing the gap, "…then your mistake is even more tragic than my entire past. And believe me…that's not so funny."

The licenseless rider gave off a sharp gulp, as well as a quick nod of understanding.

Despite Death Gatling's persisting leer, he still answered, "Good." His eyes turned up for a brief moment before turning back down to stare at the cyclist again. "Now put your arms down – you look like an idiot doing that."

Grunting in surprise, Mumen had completely forgotten that he was still reaching for the sky. Embarrassed, he lowered his limbs to follow the gunman who, he presumed, was leading him to a dining establishment of some kind…

…And now here they were.

Mumen Rider hadn't then realized that he was condemning himself to such a purgatorial hell; ever since they sat down in the hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Death Gatling's suspicious countenance would not let up. His passive, looming judgment made each and every minute feel like an hour.

The cyclist found himself fighting and losing an inner battle; struggling to kickstart a conversation lest the air of silence suffocate him. While it was true that he didn't exactly rehearse an entire 'Come Hither' speech to win the death trooper over, he was firmly adamant (up until now) that everything would work itself out the way it always does. After all, Saitama didn't have to show up and save him from a heart-nippled ocean monster – but he did. How and why should this situation have been any worse?

A sliver of hope broke through the rift as a young waitress came by with their menus, forcing Gatling to break his soul-piercing gaze on him. The girl preparing to serve them looked not a day past eighteen, and upon notice of the visibly armed creature of war, she was the absolute picture of distress. Her light brown eyes were wide and quivering as beads of sweat formed around her face. Her slender legs wobbled uncontrollably with her knees looking as though they could buckle at any moment.

"Uh-umm…sir…?" Her soft, tiny voice chirped. "Y-your w-weapon…"

"Neh?" The dark-haired man cocked his eyebrow. "I can barely hear ya, girly. You're gonna have to speak up."

"Eh, ehm…" The nervous employee did her best to collect herself and try again. "I-It's just that…your gun…it's making the other patrons and workers a little…n-nervous…?"

"Nervous?" Death Gatling turned back to Mumen Rider to give him a brief but distinguished 'you believe this shit?' look before returning his attention to the waitress. "The hell's there to be nervous about? The safety's on and my finger's off the trigger, see?"

"Ah…! Pl-please, Mister Gatling-san, come on…" She pleaded using his name as she bowed her head low, indicating to Mumen that he got into this particular discussion with the staff on more than one occasion. The girl defensively raised the menus up to her face to hide her mouth. Doing her best to avoid eye-contact, she continued, "Y-you know that it's the management's preference for people to conceal their carry if they're going to bring weapons in, so…"

"Concealed carry?!" Death Gatling spat, letting out the closest thing to a laugh that Mumen Rider heard in the brief time he had known him. The veteran motioned to the weapon resting next to him on the booth. It was nearly large enough to occupy the entire space of another person. "Well what's your big idea? You want me to cram this down my pants?"

"Eep! N-no!" The girl's face took on scarlet as she violently shook it. "I-I only meant… We can hold it for you…if you'll permit us…" He gave her a paranoid eye, causing her to lower her head back down. "Please…! For everyone's peace of mind! I promise I'll take good care of it for you… I'll watch over it as if it were my own child!"

The gunman sized up her sincerity, and detecting no lack of it, he rolled his eyes and shrugged wearily. "Fine… Do what you gotta do. I'm not here to argue or anything… But you better not lose her, hear me?"

The worker's eyes let out a grateful twinkle, and the spectating cyclist hero faintly blushed at the charming smile she wore as she uncovered it to place the menus on the table. "Th-thank you sir! Now, if you'll let me…" She held out her hands, waiting patiently for him to hand over the object in question.

Death Gatling gave a gruff sigh, but reluctantly complied, reaching down towards a part of the gun out of view for both Mumen Rider and the waitress. Suddenly they heard something go click as he unbuckled it. Their eyes widened in realized horror that once he pulled the weapon away from himself, it had become apparent that his left arm was nothing but a stump wrapped in a blood-crusted bandage. The other hero didn't know why it took him so long to notice. Perhaps it was because of the obscuring cloak covering the scarred soldier's flank. But evidently, the lead-slinging gizmo was more than just a firearm – it was his arm arm too.

The girl dropped her jaw, all but traumatized by the moral dilemma of basically asking him to forfeit a piece of his own body for everyone's safety. "O-oh my gosh. I am so sorry, I…I'm just…" She was at an utter loss for what to say to justify her awkward position. No matter how many times they did this ritual, this part just never seemed to get easier for her.

The dead-eyed ranger seemed unfazed by their matched surprise as he hoisted the prosthetic limb of mass destruction over the table to dump it in the slack-jawed server's waiting arms.

A smirk of amusement threatened to creep up on the A-Class hero's face as he watched her nearly topple over into their table, fighting against the newly-bestowed weight of his pet machine. She shut her eyes tightly to grit under the strain, no doubt wishing that she had the foresight to get one of the bigger male employees to help her. Her knees were bent inward directly facing each other, and if the chain gun had been a baby bird's feather heavier, Mumen Rider was convinced that the poor drudging creature would have not only fallen on the floor – but through it.

Too scared to even mention it, Mumen Rider tried to put the strange new discovery of his companion's mutilation out of his mind by busying himself. "Umm, Miss, can I help you with that…?" He offered her a concerned arm in support.

The gesture seemed to terrify her for some reason. "Oh no! No, no, no, it's fine, it's quite all right, I promise!" She bobbed her head towards him, smiling at his willingness to assist. She continued trembling uncontrollably while she spoke. "Thanks…hah…anyway! I'll be right back to…ngh!...take your orders..."

He returned her appreciative grin with a polite smile of his own, although he was still uncomfortable at leaving her to struggle with the gargantuan firearm. Everyone in the restaurant winced as it scraped painfully against the tile floor she dragged it across.

She quickly looked back over her shoulder to muster up a huge apologetic wince for Death Gatling, but his attention was already back on Mumen Rider, indicating that he either didn't notice the abrasive noise, or just didn't give half a shit.

"I like that girl. Pretty." Gatling told him with an emotionless expression as she continued her struggle in the area behind him. "A bit of a worrywart, but there's no staying mad at that face…"

"Yeah…" Mumen agreed sheepishly, unsure of how he could compliment a cute girl so casually like that while she was still within earshot.

The justice biker had taken the moment to sip his coffee while his companion leaned in and went on to say, "She reminds me of this one hooker I had when I served in the Battle Beyond the Border. Man oh man…that broad could split a walnut clear down the middle with those thighs of hers."

PFFFT~!

The contents of Mumen Rider's drink went flying out of his mouth in shock. Fortunately he had the good conscience to turn his head so that he didn't give his senior a caffeinated shower.

"Ack! G-Gatling~!?" He sputtered, holding a hand against his throat to ease the obstruction. He was absolutely blindsided by the very idea that a guy, who up to now looked as though the only intimacy he shared was with carnage and gore, had said such a diverting thing. "Why would you…! She might've heard that!"

"Oh, her?" The scarred man jerked a thumb up over his shoulder in her direction before replying. "Ahh, don't worry, she likes it – she's told me before."

Somehow – for some reason – Mumen Rider seriously doubted that.

Still, the Cyclist of Justice felt it was best to change the topic before this one went down paths he'd rather not explore.

"So, umm…quite the meeting today, huh?"

Mumen watched before his very eyes as the man sitting across from him withdrew back into the dark, brooding aspect that everyone recognized him by. With a damning scowl, he coldly replied, "What about it."

The cyclist hero rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, I mean…I've never seen so many of us bunched into one place before! Like, my high school graduation ceremony didn't even have that many people…"

Gatling's eyes narrowed by a deadly millimeter, indicating that he wasn't falling for the red herring.

"Whatever you're scheming, give up. Now. If I told you once, I'll tell you forever that I have no interest in getting familiar with another hero. Especially a pup like you."

The cyclist winced, almost feeling the words stab in combination with how quick the shrewd warrior managed to pinpoint his motivation. "What? I wasn't…! I only meant to—"

He was quickly silenced by a hand risen up to his protests. "With the kind of things I fight on a regular basis, you're liable to get yourself killed, and me right along with you. I've been around long enough to see what happens when a veteran trusts his back to a greenhorn. The only thing for me to do is to defect from the association and go back to being a vigilante where I follow my own principles. Alone is where I always did best anyway. And the best thing for you to do is go home."

"Gatling, please just consider! If things don't work out, you know it'll never be too late for you to walk away. But once you do, there's no guarantee that they'll have you back. I just believe that both of us would feel much better knowing that you were at least open enough to try!"

"Just save it. And don't act so surprised when I'm able to see straight through your act. I can read people's hearts." He slowly turned away, staring into a corner of the room with a corrosive despair eclipsing his visage. "It's a gift… No…I suppose it's a curse. Most people appreciate gifts."

Mumen Rider gave him a concerned frown, doing his best to connect with him through sympathy. "What happened to you?"

The gunman closed his eyes tightly. "…It doesn't matter now. What's done is done, and I can't undo it. A man's past should remain his own, and the likes of you shouldn't go digging around for it."

His listener clasped his hands over the table, giving him a small nod of understanding. "I see. Well…don't worry about it, then. Just as you say, it's none of my business, and I would never want you to share something you're uncomfortable wi—"

A closed fist slammed down on the table, cutting him off and making his heart jump as high as the coffee mug in front of him did.

"Dammit kid, you just don't know when to give up, do you! Is the mystery of my past so damn important to you that it's all you can press me about? Don't you have anything better to do with your youth than to spend it nosing into other people's backgrounds?!"

Mumen Rider's jaw dropped in bewilderment. "B-But I was just saying that I didn't—"

"Well fine then." The lone gunman's compliant words caught him completely off guard. The cyclist gave him a look wondering if he understood, so Death Gatling continued. "If it'll make you stop wondering about it, I'll just tell you. I'd just hate to see someone so full of hope wrap himself up in trying to understand someone not meant to be understood. To fix something not meant to be fixed. So if closure is really that important to you, then here it is…"

Mumen blinked a few times at him, but gave a reluctant, unsure nod motioning him to proceed.

Death Gatling brought his only surviving hand up to his chin to scratch as he peered passively down at the drink in front of him, watching the ripples dance to the edges of the glass.

"I was taken from my family during infancy to join the brigade. I don't remember my mother's face. I'm not originally from I-City you see – or any city for that matter. I was from the outskirts of the country. Do you know what lies beyond Cities A-through-Z, boy?"

Mumen took a moment to reflect on the gigantic supercontinent that roughly 90% of the planet's humans sat on. It's true that he was aware there were places beyond the Cities' jurisdiction, but given that he could barely keep up watch over his own tiny slice of it, he never gave much thought as to what lied beyond the borders. "I've never personally seen it myself…but at the academy, they taught us that the respective regions stretching beyond our civilization are collectively referred to as the Dead Zones."

His senior closed his eyes and nodded the affirmative. "Correct. And each Dead Zone is a wasteland of a different element – a different kind of hell. To the north of our map, that's the Dark Dapple; the frozen tundra where they say the sun never shines. To the south, that's the Moldering Mire. East is the Stormy Sea, and to the west is—"

"The desert." Mumen finished for him with a mellow tone.

"…the Wind-Shorn Shifts… Yes."

"Wow…" Mumen Rider looked to him with newfound adulation. "I've never met anyone who came from beyond the Alphabet. Which Dead Zone are you from?"

The man paused for a moment to look out the window. The last of purple had left the evening sky, and the street lamps came on to guide pedestrians through the night.

"…The Mire."

"Well, what was it like?" Mumen Rider inquired, leaning forward with barely contained curiosity.

Gatling furrowed his eyebrows together on where to begin. "Like…floating in a thousand-mile-wide bowl of boiling toxic soup. For starters, you're never dry. The winters are six months of monsoon, cold as a well-digger's ass, and the summers are six months of no damn rain, but it gets so hot and humid that you can practically feel the flies on you sweat while they lay eggs in your ears."

A small gleam of amusement broke from his eye as the cyclist shuddered at the thought of anything laying eggs anywhere on his body.

"We lived in these rusty old shacks which were built a good twelve-or-so meters above the marshes. It kept us safe from the crocs…but not the mosquitos."

His listener gave an unpleasant look. "Mosquitos?"

"Aye. But these ain't like your average pint-sized pussies you got around here. These're southern mosquitos, each roughly the size of your fuckin' cat, carrying just about every disease known to Man and God. But I digress…"

Mumen Rider was glad he did. It was one thing to fight a monster resembling any supersized pest. An entire species of a bug larger than his fist? No thank you.

"When I was taken away from my family…they taught us how to fire a gun before we could even walk. At age six, our top brass sent us kids to war against invaders from the deeper south, and at age six-and-a-half, I made my first kill. Back then I was no taller than your waist, so I don't even recall how I got high enough to reach the man's throat with my machete. I just…watched it happen. Like a passenger in my own body."

The C-Class hero tightened his grip around the handle of his coffee mug. "Bloody hell…" He squeezed under his breath.

"I'll tell you what was bloody…" Gatling replied. "The dark crimson color of the paint pouring outta' the man's jugular. At least…I told myself it was paint. Helped to cope."

His listener felt the cold numbness of color flushing away from his face. "I think I'm gonna be sick…"

As if apropos to his suffering, Death Gatling picked this instance to open up his menu and glance at what was inside. "Oh if you're gonna get sick over something that small, I should just tell ya how many legs we had to cut off during the campaign. You ever hear the sound of serrated steel grinding against flesh and bone? Hard to eat meat after that. Trench foot is a bitch. The skin was so slimy and rotten that even the maggots seemed to have trouble keeping it down."

He watched the cyclist's pale face take on a sickly shade of green. "Please…no more."

Gatling shrugged callously and continued.

"Anyway, I spent over a decade slogging around in knee-deep mud with the boys, and we fought long and hard for survival every day. And with every kill I made and each piece of innocence I lost, I missed my shithole of a village and the parents whose faces I don't remember. I missed having to worry about the maneaters dragging me into the water at one careless misstep, and the giant mosquitos sucking my face off while I slept. I missed it so much that I survived. I'm a survivor. And I survived because I left. I left my battalion. I left my men. I'm a deserter. The lowest of scum. Why should I get to live when the rest of my men don't? I don't deserve to live, but I'm living…! I should have died along with them! Because then I could say in the very least; a dead piece of trash is better than a living piece of trash!"

It was at this dramatic moment that he finally chose to acknowledge the young waitress, who had been standing at their table for about a minute now. She was in complete shock, trembling from head to toe.

Holding a pen and notepad in her petite and incredibly unsteady hands, she squeaked out "H-have…have you guys had enough time t-to…decide…?"

In a singular lightning-fast motion that frightened the ever-loving shit out of the poor girl, Death Gatling swung himself around to face her dead-on, his face warped into a hysteric frenzy over what he just riled himself up about.

"I'll have a deep dark dish of tragedy, orphaned and exiled from a loving family and left to fester for five fortnights in a barren field of bitter harvest! Make it bleed, but not so much that it's too weak to carry out its endless mission to make others bleed, and let it simmer in the beating sun it cries up to a sick god through, but not long enough for the melanoma to give it the sweet release of death it prays for!"

At this point, the quivering figure of the employee had all but gone limp, hiding as much of her face as humanly possible from behind the tiny paper. "S…so the usual then…?" After receiving a fervent, almost angry nod, she noticeable calmed a bit when she turned towards her other customer. "And you sir?"

The younger man struggled with the only intelligible words that he could find in lieu of the apparent meltdown he just witnessed.

"Umm…I'll have what he's having…?"

The girl gave him a concerned look before nodding and going over the orders. "So that's two extra-large steak sandwiches soaked in every available sauce, medium well on the edges but red in the center, stacked between two sourdough bread buns toasted separately for exactly five minutes each. …And a side of fries."

Death Gatling nodded in his silent, stoic approval, while Mumen Rider fought himself about whether or not he should change his decision now that she thoroughly dissected what it was. After listening to the veteran he was treating a meal to go into visceral detail over gore and amputated limbs, the junior hero certainly wouldn't be ashamed to go vegan for the rest of the night.

Ultimately however, he decided to let it drop, and after the waitress departed again, he turned to address his companion in a serious tone.

"Hey now, you can't put yourself down like that, man. You're an A-Class hero of the Association! Think of all the good that represents!" The emotion in his voice was telling of how the brief backstory had moved him. "I believe that redemption is fair game for everyone. I think that the best of us is capable of the worst actions, and that the worst is capable of the best. So you can't let your past actions define your entire life – because you're not done living it yet!"

The taller man's face darkened in revelation. "Hell…I knew it… I just knew it." He grimaced morbidly.

Mumen blinked with confusion. "Knew what?"

"I've already told you far too much. This is exactly why you and I could never team up. In you, I see too much of how I thought back then. When I was a child…when I was ignorant to how stark the laws of this world truly are. You don't get to make things right. The world we live in wasn't made for the redemption you're preaching about. Even if you were as strong as one of those S-Class heavy hitters, it wouldn't matter how many monsters you stop. Two more of them are already lined up to take each place tomorrow morning. And then three more after that… And then four more after that. Until one day you wake up old and tired, and barely strong enough to peddle around on that bike of yours. But do you think evil will be nice and slow down for you? Do you think it will age with you? Do you think it will care that you do?"

Mumen Rider swallowed hard, but remained otherwise silent. It was clear by the shaking of his shoulders that he was processing every heavy detail Death Gatling was telling him.

The grim hero decided to drive the point home. "See, all that us heroes really have to look forward to is that impending day when either a stronger monster shows up to kill us…or our own mortality does. And then what? You think your adoring fans will remember you? Sure they might miss you – miss the fact that you're not there to protect them anymore, but beyond that, they'll look for someone else to worship up until the day it's that person's turn to take the plunge too. That's the curse we heroes bear. That's our punishment for being strong. The unbroken cycle. The inescapable prophecy of our existence. And today in your prime, the only comfort you'll cling to is assuring to yourself 'I've made a difference,' when no one in a hundred years will even remember it. The world will go on without us, boy."

The Cyclist of Justice bit down on his lip, clenching his fists on the table so hard that the other man could hear the strain of his gloves. "Then…maybe I'm wrong."

The soldier gave him a knowing look. "Have I finally gotten through to you?"

There was a pregnant pause after the question, as if the atmosphere around them had stopped to let reality sink in for the younger hero.

"But…but if I'm wrong…" The biker suddenly snapped his head to look him square in the eye from behind his spectacles. "Then I want to be wrong for the rest of my life!" In the face Death Gatling was staring into, he saw no surrender. It was stolid and stalwart, and absolutely flooded with determination. Mumen continued, raising his voice into almost a shout, "My goal as a hero has never been to immortalize myself in other peoples' memories. Everyone dies, so what's the point in that? My reason for doing what I do is to make a difference in someone's life now! Right now! I don't dwell on the past, and I don't dread the future. I start from present and go from there. One punch at a time."

He watched the grizzled veteran give him a disappointed frown, but didn't let it slow his momentum.

"I didn't become a hero expecting the world to be singing my praises forever. I suck at being a hero! And for C-Classes like me, it can be one of the most thankless jobs in the world. But even so…" He clenched his teeth and uttered his thoughts in a clear voice. "I will fight like hell – each and every single day of my life – until I convince people like you that this world can change! And then after I do that, I'll keep fighting some more!"

A clatter of dishes rang throughout the entire restaurant, causing Mumen to realize that at some point in the argument, he had gotten to his feet, and his voice was easily loud enough for everyone to hear.

He felt incredibly exposed, not knowing whether the other guests were preparing to applaud or throw food at him. After a disconcerting few seconds, however, they each reluctantly returned to their meals, leaving him to slide back into his seat.

"Well oh-my-goodness, kid." Gatling almost cooed with mockery. "Did you hear all the panties drop?"

Mumen gave him a flustered look, but did his best not to let the small comment get to him. "I didn't figure that saying this much would convince you to see things the way I do…" He started. "I'm not in A Class. I'm not even in B Class. I may not be as strong as you – or as experienced as you…but despite everything that happened to you and more…I will never waver in my dedication to help lost people find their way again. In this aspect, my resolve is every bit as strong as it needs to be." He leaned in to boldly emphasize his point. "It might even be as strong as yours."

Death Gatling deepened his glare. "I don't need to have this argument with you, pup. Life will be your educator."

"Fine then." He responded, giving him a cocky smirk. "If that's how it's really gonna be, why don't you stick around long enough prove me wrong. We'll see who life educates first." He leaned in a bit more to taunt with a raised eyebrow. "Or are you afraid that you're the one who'll be proven wrong instead?"

"Tch!" His senior sneered. "That childish antic won't work on me. I can't be goaded into joining anyone or anything." He leaned back in his seat, already missing the comfortable heft of his massive firearm. "…But you know…" His glare softened up a bit. "You really do remind me of myself…at that younger time in my life. And I'll admit I had forgotten how…full of purpose…it felt to be that way."

The cyclist gave him a hopeful look, silently crossing his fingers for the next question. "So…? How about it…partner?"

He received a pair of rolled eyes and a pained groan in response. "What, we gonna be friends now? Get the hell outta' here with this mushy chick-flick bullshit." Gatling picked up the cup of water in front of him and downed it all in one gulp, slamming the glass back down like he had just taken a shot. "Bwaaahh!" He exhaled painfully as if he guzzled liquid fire. "That's some good H2O…"

"Careful now," Mumen remarked facetiously, "too many more glasses of that water, and I'll have to cut you off."

"Cut me off?" The older man seemed appalled at the suggestion. "I've killed people for lesser offenses than that! You want a new collection of holes in your ass?! I'm about to…" He reached down in an absent-minded attempt to pull up his weapon, evidently forgetting about its confiscation. "Ahh shit, my gun. Where the hell did they…" He scowled as he looked around the room for it, and Mumen Rider simply let off a chuckle, realizing how much less intimidating his senior was without it.

That led to another question popping into Mumen's head. Hoping that he could use it to further diffuse the tension in wake of their existential debate, he asked. "By the way, I noticed that you referred to your gun as a 'her' before the waitress took it away." He raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Is there a story there too?"

Gatling's face instantly snapped back into its cold, emotionless default, and the room fell back into the same tense mood as they started with. Mumen felt helpless as all the progress he made seemed to slip away in a single instant. Back to Square One…

"This is where I draw the line." The soldier spoke, his voice low and bitter. "You may have gotten me to choke up a hint of my past…but you're way out of your depth here. For as long as I stay above the ground…" His expression grew dangerously sharp. "I will never defile the memory of the only person I ever loved by talking about…her."

Mumen tilted his head, trying to connect the pieces in his brain. "Her?"

Another fist came pounding into their table, this time with enough force to send Mumen Rider's mug crashing when it came down from its jump.

"Fucking hell kid, the questions just never end with you, huh?! Want me to tell you where her grave is so you can dig that up too?!"

Mumen Rider's hands shot up in surrender. "That's not what I meant! That question was only rhetorical, I swear! Please, you don't have to tell me a thing about her! I'm sorry I asked!"

"Ahh fine, what'll she care, she's dead…"

"E…Eh?" Mumen sat in complete disbelief. For the second time this evening, Gatling's attitude seemed to change faster than Saitama could run for a closing special half-off sale. Was this guy for real? It wasn't an expected complaint, but he seemed to be opening up to him just a little too quickly now. "No, really" He pleaded, doubtful that he would enjoy this story any more than the last one. "Seriously, that's okay, I don't even wanna know—"

"Her name was Feb." The gunman began, his voice once again low and brooding. "She was the only woman in my platoon. The only person in the world who looked at me as a person, not just a weapon or another grunt. And to top that off, she had this ass that wouldn't quit." Mumen Rider scrunched up his nose at this detail from out of nowhere, but quickly dropped the face, silently hoping that the crazed gunner hadn't caught it. "Anyway, I promised her that when the war ended, we would go some place to live normal, quiet lives together, leaving the bloody footprints of our dark past behind us. I promised…" For the first time, the man paused to collect himself. "I promised I would get her through all of this alive… Well one cold December, our unit went under a hail of bullets. A blizzard of lead. Calamity was our Christmas; and gunfire was our gift. It's how I lost Lefty here too, see..."

He gave the phantom limb a few shakes for his one-man audience, who looked away from it, but nodded uneasily.

He continued his account. "Then Feb – bravest damn woman I ever knew – she shielded me from the flying shrapnel. From right behind, I was forced to watch the metal shards break into her body and peel her like an onion. I carried her on my shoulder for two full days despite my own injuries – with her hanging by a thread. Eventually she couldn't hold out, and I was forced to put her down. I remember the smell of iron overthrowing my senses – both from the blood, and from the metal pieces still lodged in her organs. She died in my arms… She died smiling at what she had accomplished in saving my life, which somehow made it seem even more sad and tragic to me…"

He sounded like he wanted to say more, but his words trailed off, and he was left muted by some deeper thought.

Mumen Rider sat silent for a while, not knowing what to say. 'I'm sorry for your loss'? 'Thank you for telling me'? Neither of those things really seemed to carry the weight he wished they would. No matter how he thought about it, there was truly no way he would fully understand the measure of tragedy Gatling had endured without experiencing it firsthand for himself.

"Anyway." Gatling said, again surprising Mumen by reverting immediately back to his casual, neutral composure. "I named the gun February II, after the original model that stole my heart while it was still warm, beating and bleeding."

"I, uhh…see." Mumen replied, unsure of how to react to…whatever sort of new information this was.

Gatling spent a few more minutes lost in memory, but blinked awake when he realized a new predicament.

Turning slowly towards his fellow hero, his voice became low and intent. "You do understand now that I've told you this much about myself…" He leaned across the table to bring his face so close to Mumen Rider that he had him completely eclipsed beneath his shadow. "I have no choice but to drag you to the back alley behind this restaurant and put you down like a sick dog." From this uncomfortable distance, Mumen could see a maddening darkness swirl in the scarred man's eyes as if they were windows to the black void itself. Whether real or imagined, his entire face seemed to melt into a harrowing skull, staring down at him through empty, hungry sockets. "I'll even let you choose which dumpster I leave your crumpled body in. Aren't I generous?"

If Mumen Rider had a tail, it would be tucked between his legs and crushing his balls right now. The psychopath looming in front of him continued making yanderu eyes at him, daring him to take a single breath.

Right as the cyclist felt his lungs about to give out, Gatling's murderous intent dissipated, and his expression became neutral. "Only teasing." His pseudo-victim wheezed reflexively. "But no seriously," the gunman continued, his face becoming dire again, "be sure to keep this shit to yourself. This whole discussion is between you, me, and the grave."

"I…I got it…" The athlete quivered meekly.

"Atta' boy. Now where was I… Ah yeah, and on top of dedicating the gun to her memory, I named each bullet I use after one of the children we were planning to start a family with."

To elaborate, Gatling proudly opened his cloak to reveal an extensive bandolier adorned in brass casings. Mumen's eyes went wide at the number. Even by conservative estimates, there was easily a solid hundred bouncing baby boys and girls on the belt.

"Holy crap…" The justice cyclist stated, overwhelmed by the detail. "All those were going to be children?"

"We had a very active sex life."

Mumen tried to make light of his own discomfort with a forced laugh. "Ahaha ha…t-m-i…"

Gatling hadn't seemed to catch the hint, because the guy just kept right on going. "Truly a romantic gesture I am proud I thought of. Don't you see the poetry in it? The way the gun's job is to shoot bullets out of its barrels the same way a woman's job is to shoot babies out of her vagina?"

PFFFT~

The contents of Mumen's next coffee sip went sailing clear over his shoulder, this time easily covering twice the airtime it had before.

"God, kid…" Gatling scrunched his face up in disgust. "If the coffee tastes that bad, just quit drinking the damn shit."

"Ack…!" Mumen Rider spat, struggling between the two strong impulses of choking to death and laughing to death. "Hahaha! Ahh, aha! I can't, haa, breathe… Someone…haha…call an ambulance…!"

"Eh? The hell are you laughing about, you insensitive bastard?!" Every chuckle coming from the cyclist seemed to agitate the veteran even more. "I just recounted the tragic story of my lover dying in my arms, and you're sitting over there chortling like an asshole. Where's your respect for the dead, huh?!"

"Ahahahaha, ahaha, I'm sorry…I can't…haha, I can't stop…" He wiped a tear from his eye. "The way you said the v-word with such a serious look on your face…! Aahahaha~"

"What the hell kid. All I said was vagina."

"BWAAAHAHA, you said it again!"

"That's what it's called! That is the correct scientific terminology for a lady's cooch! Grow up for God's sake!"

Clearly deciding that uncontrollable laughter was the more appealing option, the Cyclist of Justice continued suffocating. Fighting with futility to contain himself, it took almost an instant for Mumen Rider to forget why he was so scared of him in the first place.

Meanwhile, the waitress serving them had since returned in time to hear the word 'vagina' being used more times in half a minute than she had heard all month. This obviously added to his embarrassment as she set their respective dishes in front of them with a crooked, awkward smile.

"Jesus Christ…" Gatling muttered and shook his head, preparing to take the first bite of his sandwich. "I should've stayed in the war."


The next day was about as typical as most Mondays were in the business district of Z-City.

Pedestrians came and went, and since it was about noon, a great majority of them wore business suits and carried briefcases on the way to and from their lunchbreaks in the massive food court of the center square.

So mundane was the clockwork of their routine life that no one seemed to take notice of a strange man walking down the busy streets, dressed quite differently from the other citizens.

Even though the weather was tepid, he wore a thick, baggy coat with fur trimming on the edges. He kept his hood up, with his eyes concealed behind a rounded pair of red-tinted glasses. His hands were jammed suspiciously in both pockets as he smirked menacingly from beneath the cowl resting on his face.

"Hah…hahaha." He could barely contain his mania as he hurried along the crowded block. "All these idiots look so oblivious… They have no idea what's about to hit 'em…"

He wildly surveyed the surrounding area with hidden, beady eyes, checking for any signs of heroes, police, or even wary civilians. Finding no trouble, he stopped to lean against a wall, sizing up the integrity of the building for weaknesses he could exploit.

"Tch…no good." He frowned. "Not enough people here."

He got up, moved to the next establishment down the block, and repeated the ritual. He thought it was ironic how much faith people put into the places they walked in and out of. Typically, buildings are designed to provide them with a sense of comfort and security, and to shelter them from the harsh elements. But with a little help, a building could also become a living nightmare. A tomb.

He meandered towards the entrance of a large supermarket, taking special note of the glass entryways that the grocery shoppers were passing through. He blended patiently in with the background and silently counted the number of customers he watched coming in and out of the store.

When that number steadily approached fifty people in a single minute, his demented grin returned, invisible to all but himself. "Bingo~" He breathed the word out like a kid who was just about to win a game of Hide-and-Seek. "Thank you so much, Special Sale Day. You've brought me lots of lovely victims."

He stepped carefully out from around the corner and paced evenly towards the entrance, trying to appear as casual as possible. Eventually, he reached the glass doors, which opened automatically and invited the stranger in.

Once inside, his first call to action was weaving out of the security camera's line of sight before examining the interior of the store. He brushed his way past a woman examining a head of cabbage with her young daughter, making his way towards the back.

The spot he was looking for had to be perfect. By that, it had to be a place not too obvious for it to work, but not so vague that it was out of range to do any real damage. He chanted his mantra obsessively through his head as he searched; 'Bold, but not bluster. Not just bombast…but bomb.'

Wandering through the various aisles, he passed by two men who seemed to be in the middle of an argument. Initially intent on focusing on his task and not getting involved, the stranger stormed right by and disappeared around the corner when one of the men spoke up,

"What if I tried to cup the shell on my chest like a bikini? If it's too small to cover my pecs, then can I have a discount?"

The cowled stranger's hooded head slowly re-emerged from behind the shelf, wondering what the hell he just heard.

"Sir, just…listen man," the store clerk replied to the bizarre question. "The special sale on coconuts ended fifteen minutes ago. I'm afraid I can't give you your discount."

The stranger focused his attention on the other man. He grunted nervously when he saw the white cape resting on a costume of vibrant yellow and red.

It was a hero.

He didn't recognize him, and by all visual means, he wasn't overly impressed by the hero's appearance. He had a plain-looking head, for starters, and his posture was lax and slouched.

"Look, just hear me out for a sec," the hero he was watching replied, apparently unwilling to give up on the sale. "What if I wanted to use the husk as a bowling ball? I can't though, right? I can only stick my finger in one of the holes; the other two are plugged. This coconut is clearly defective, so why not just let me pay the discount, and you won't have to throw it away for nothing?"

…And evidently, he was a fucking idiot too.

"They're called pores," the worker informed him, clearly fed up with his bullshit after arguing this case for ten minutes. "And they're meant to be that way. There's nothing wrong with your coconut, so why not just pay the extra three yen and you can go home happy with it."

"AhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHH come ooooooooon~" Saitama's complaint came out almost as a whale noise.

"I'm sorry, sir. Better luck making it next time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have other customers to get to."

The store clerk walked off, leaving the bald hero to dwell on his defeat.

"Keh." The stranger watching the encounter let out a harsh sneer, amused by the pathetic display. He then returned to the task at hand. When he found a sweet spot amongst the section of fruit produce, he checked his visibility for cameras. Seeing only one, he turned his back to it to conceal what he was doing. Then, he leaned over the large stand, took his hands out of his pockets, and unzipped his coat. "This will do nicely…"

He had just gone about tucking an unknown object behind a row of hanging grapevines when suddenly,

"Hey man, what's your scope of knowledge on coconuts?"

"BWAHH!" The sound of Saitama's voice caused the man to bump his head on the upper shelf of the stand, spilling peaches and plums all over the floor. He spun around to regard the hero with a mortified stare. "D-Don't sneak up on people like that!" He spat indignantly.

"Oh," Saitama scratched his cheek thoughtlessly. "Sorry, my bad. I thought you heard me coming."

"I-I was busy." The stranger returned, trying to sound inscrutable.

"Busy doing what?"

"I…" The guy peered out from the corner of his glasses at the device still halfway jutting out from the fruit pile. He leaned against it to shield it from view, making soft attempts at nudging the rest of it behind the stall as he continued…well, stalling. "I was busy…sizing up these two coconuts!"

Before Saitama could react, the older man reached over for two more of the hard fruit resting on the stand.

The caped hero's eyes seemed to brighten up with hope.

When the stranger watched the baldy's mouth stretch into a big stupid smile, he instinctively knew he made a mistake. 'Shit.' he grimaced internally. 'Why did I have to say coconuts…'

"I knew it…" Saitama spoke, taking a determined step forward.

"Kn-knew what…?" The stranger replied, taking an equally determined step backwards.

"That you…" Saitama's face turned serious, and he held up an almost deadly finger to point at him. "…are a man of culture as well!" The man's stiff posture slightly loosened in response to the false scare. "So get this," the costumed man continued. "I was trying to convince this jerky store management guy that my coconut was defective because it's only got one hole I can poke through, but he told me it wasn't. Your thoughts?"

The stranger blinked. "Thoughts on…your coconut?"

"Hell yeah my coconut!" The hero shouted in outrage. "I wanna know if his information is credible or not. He didn't look like a coconut expert to me…"

"Oh. Well…" The stranger tried putting thought into his answer. "I would…argue that…he's wrong?"

Saitama smacked a red gloved fist down on the open palm of his other hand, delighted at the news.

"I knew it! I knew you were a man who understands like I do! So tell me…how do you choose your coconuts?"

The stranger had almost no idea how to respond to a question of such inane meaning. "I…uhh…I weigh them…"

"Yeah?" Saitama nodded intently, seeming to hang on his every word. "And how do you tell which one's good by weighing them?"

"I…I weigh them…" He fidgeted uncomfortably to give a convincing answer. Hopefully this guy was as stupid as he was depending on. "By attaching my pet bird to it and seeing if he can lift it."

Saitama's smile disappeared. "Your bird?"

Bullets of sweat were practically shooting out of the guy's face as he nodded slowly. "Yeah, uhhh, you know, the southern swallows are really good at determining which hard fruits are fresh by…picking them up…and…dropping them."

Saitama put a finger to his chin in deep reflection. "Uh-huh…"

"Yeah, well, unfortunately my swallow flew away from me, so I have to go and uhh…get him now. …Bye!"

The stranger heard Saitama grunt in surprise at his abrupt exit, but he ignored it and powered forward. As long as he could get far enough away before this cheap-ass hero put it all together, his escape would be ensured – and so would the fate of the entire business district.

The strange man paced frantically to the doors, and when he ran through them back into the sunlight of the open world, he felt his victory in splendid view.

"HOLD IT!"

The stranger screeched to a halt and turned back to see Saitama staring him down, looking more serious than the man thought such an idiot could.

The man scowled back at him, giving the bald hero a look of pure hate. All he needed was to see the insight gleaming sharply through the hero's eyes, and he knew that the jig was up. His cover was blown. He must have found what he had hidden in the store.

"Heh." Despite his vulnerable position, the man found himself laughing. "Ha…hahahahaha! So you've managed to work it all out, did you? Impressive, kid. Veeeeery impressive." He put his hands together in slow claps of mocking applause. Saitama remained silent; his stern expression remained unchanged as he continued. "But that wasn't the only one I placed, see. I already set the timer for the other ones too."

Saitama narrowed his eyes. "Other ones?"

"Gaha! Hahaha! Ahhh so you didn't know. I guess you really are as stupid as I pegged you for after all! Yes, boy. I placed bombs in various locations. As we speak, they're all heading to key parts of different cities. And even if you knew where they all were, you'd have less than two hour to even reach one of them! Not that I'd ever let you! I have the remote detonator with me right now!"

For the first time since revealing his true motives, he saw Saitama's eyes widen with startling realization.

The terrorist's already smug grin deepened even more at that. "What. You thought I'd be too dull to conduct my broad vision without taking all the necessary precautions?! Aahahaha! Yes, you may have saved the lives of everyone here, but come tonight, and every news channel from A to Z will be broadcasting to the world that it was I – the Serial Bomber – who caused the single greatest act of domestic terror ever sustained by the public! Geheheheheh! I'll be famous! And man, will the Hero Association ever regret ousting me from the rankings of their shitty little club!"

"Dude, what are you talking about?"

The Bomber's grin disappeared almost instantly, confused at the question.

Saitama regarded him with a blank, bubbly stare, pulling something up to show the terrorist what he was holding in his hand. "I was just running after you to give this back. You dropped it when you bumped your head back there."

In the heart-dropping reveal of what the bald hero held, the Serial Bomber's mouth fell opened so wide that his cowl completely fell from his face, exposing the stenciled pedo-stache of a very horrified middle-aged man.

"MY DETONATOR!" He shouted without thinking, immediately slapping a hand over his mouth in renewed shock.

"Oh? So this is important to you?" Saitama asked in a casual tone.

"Wha? Psh, no…absolutely not. That's just…a decoy. The real detonator is still with me." A bit of a stretch perhaps, but to any terrorist, one last bluff was worth all the aforementioned effort. "I-If you don't believe me…" His grin returned, though noticeably more crooked. "Then why don't you press the button!"

Saitama's face darkened as he lowered the makeshift remote. "Bro. How could you. We bonded over coconut trivia."

At this point, it was clear to the Bomber that the baldy had no intention of falling for the ruse. But that didn't mean that escaping was out of the question.

The man turned his heels and ran out into the street, forcefully knocking an unlucky pedestrian off his moped scooter and mounting the seat.

He twisted back around only to flip Saitama off. "Gahaha, smell ya later, loser!" He taunted from the small vehicle. He revved the engine into full gear and left Caped Baldy in the dust.

As Saitama watched the man speed away, he mournfully stared down at what he held in his little plastic shopping bag. "Man…what a way to spend an extra three lousy yen." He pulled the coconut out of the bag and chucked it high through the air. Then he waited patiently, watching the man continue shrinking into the distance until his ride practically capsized on top of him, indicating that the hard fruit had finally struck its mark.

The Bomber rolled out, hitting the pavement of the street face-first. It didn't matter though – the coconut had knocked him unconscious long before he crashed.


Cold, tired and clammy, the terrorist woke up, greeted by the sight that the world had turned upside down. Or – upon further investigation – he had.

When he realized he was being held out by his ankle at the tip top of Z-City's tallest skyscraper, his first natural inclination was quite straightforward…

Panic. And plenty of it.

He kicked and screamed hysterically, writhing like a worm on a hook while the bald hero dangling him over the entire city was inattentively cleaning out his own ear with his free pinky.

After a few minutes of frantic nonsense, Saitama finally lost his patience and gave the man an angry jostle. " Oi! Stop it already!"

The bomber, battered by the sudden force, did as he was told and hung limp in his outstretched hand.

"Nice view from up here, huh?" Saitama asked.

Serial Bomber gave him a shaken grin from below. "Heh…you won't actually do it, will you. You're just a regular goody-goody hero. I can tell just by how you dress. You've never killed a person before."

"And I'd like that not to change today, if it's alright with you."

"Heh…you got nothin' on me, kid. Rough me up a bit if you want, but I'll heal. The people hit by the bombs…won't."

"Listen man, I really—" Saitama's response was cut off when he realized that the man had somehow slipped out of his grasp and was now busy screaming his way to the ground. Saitama looked back at the hand where he held him to find a black boot dangling in its grip. He sweat-dropped. "…Ah crap."

The Serial Bomber was careening down story after story of the skyscraper, and when he saw the solid land below fast closing in on him, he shut his eyes as hard as he could to brace for the end.

"Oopsie."

He opened his eyes in mute shock to see that by some miracle, Saitama had caught him in his arms, inches from the fatal concrete of the sidewalk.

The bald hero gave him an embarrassed look. "Sorry, lemme try that again."

Before the villain could even protest, they were back up at the needle tip of the same tall building.

"I've always wanted to try this on a bad guy." Saitama mentioned. His giddy smile suddenly morphed into rage, and in a deep, gravelly voice befitting of someone with Stage 3 throat cancer, he bellowed down at the criminal's face. "WHERE ARE THE OTHER BOMBS. WHERE ARE THEY!"

"Jesus, man!" The guy was almost crying now. "If you actually drop me, I swear to god, I'll—"

"SWEAR TO MEEEE!"

"I'll-I'll tell you! I'll tell you! Holy fuck, you're insane! Besides the bomb back at the store, I planted others on three trains heading to different cities!"

Saitama's enraged face remained frozen on him for a bit longer before returning to its cartoonish smile. "Hey, it worked. Cool."

"I-I'll give you the schedule for each destination, just don't drop me again~~~!"

"I don't think so, chum…"

"Eh…?!"

Saitama raised the arm holding him higher until the bomber's inverted face was level with his captor's.

"You're coming with me. It would be bothersome if you made something up while I wasn't here to punish you, right?"

The traumatized criminal swallowed sharply, but gave a single reluctant nod at the B-Class hero's logic.

"Okay, hold on tight…" Before the terrorist could even ask what for, Saitama took a swan dive off the building, making the poor crook relive his acrophobic nightmare for a second time.

The hero put his knee through inches of concrete when he landed on it, and the bomber melted out of his arms like jelly.

"Jeez…" Saitama sighed before proceeding to grab the limp man by his ankle again and drag him haphazardly through the street. "Who the flip monologues about themselves like that to someone they don't even know? Only shallow idiots do that…"

As he continued to parade the crumpled villain through a district of uneasy onlookers, he gave the baddie behind him one last side glance before muttering in disappointment,

"I'll bet you don't even like coconuts…"

A/N: Yeah, so sadly no Tatsumaki action in this one. Sorry. As much as I wanted to work with her now, progression has a natural order. Besides, I like to give other heroes the time of day too. I'm working to build layers on this story by expanding more than a few characters, and hopefully that's paying off. If not, well… :/

And while we're balls deep into it, I'll just admit that since Death Gatling's character is meant to be serious, part of me feels really bad about how I made light of his tragic backgro—you know what? No it doesn't. This is what ONE and/or Murata get for updating their shit so slow. Honestly men. Hurry up and give your characters the exposure they deserve, or dumb writers like me will give them the exposure they don't.

By the way, the Serial Bomber wasn't made up by me. I just tweaked his character a bit. If you don't know, watch the OVA episode "The Sisters Who Have Too Many Things Happening." It's a thing.

'Til next time!