Disclaimer: I do not own One-Punch Man.

Chapter 9: Return of the Smallest Big Threat

"Sir, good morning! I have the benchmarks you requested last night."

"Yes, morning, you can just leave them at my desk, thank you." The tall man's footsteps quickened as he sped past his subordinate's greeting, barely walking slow enough to mask his desperation to get to the elevator.

"How are you, Executive-samaaaaa~?" This time it was a female staff member calling out to him with a carefree smile.

Recognizing the voice, a shadow of distress fell over the man's face, and his stride instinctively doubled its pace.

The young woman, however, was not so content to be brushed aside as the first guy. And that was exactly what he feared. He had run-ins with her before.

"H-Hey, Executive-sama!" She called out again, electing to nearly parkour right over her desk in an effort to catch him as he neared the elevator.

All but slamming against the closed metal doors, Sekingar shut his eyes and bit his lip hard. 'She's back. Oh God why...'

"Some night last night, huuuuuuh?" The cooing in her voice made him frantically glance around to make sure no one else was close enough to hear her and reach their own conclusions. "I did my hair differently today. D-Did you notice?"

He was almost too embarrassed to look at her long enough to see that she had maybe dyed her hair one tone above its usual golden yellow and maybe shortened the bangs on her bobbin half an inch. Other than that, the twin tails that hung off the back contributed every bit as much as ever making her appear barely out of her teens. Which by no means made the flirty ways she talked to him even more uncomfortable.

Was she cute? Objectively – and she knew it. Was she charming? On and off the clock.

Was she on the verge of getting both herself and especially him in the middle of a huge scandal by attempting to get a little too chummy with a guy practically twice her age and countless levels above her professional station? All signs point to fuck yes.

"Miss Saiko." he addressed her calmly all the while jabbed at the glowing button many times in rapid succession with all his might. "You're an operator over at Branch C. What are you doing at this hour of the morning two cities over?"

"W-well..." She twirled a finger around the tips of one of her twin tails. "Actually I've been waiting here for several hours. F-For you, I mean."

His eyes widened in surprise. "Wait, did you fly all the way out here?!"

"Oh, heavens no, silly! But it's ever so sweet of you to ask!" She giggled. "...In fact I took the overnight train."

The clicking of the button Sekingar kept pressing increased in tempo – as did his heart rate.

"We've had talks like this before." He continued, attempting to hide the rising panic in his voice. "It was not 'some night,' as you conspicuously put it. We both stayed late to attend a panel in which both of us happened to be requested. That's. It."

"R-Really? Are you sure?"

Understanding that he couldn't truly reason with insanity, he turned to focus all his attention on his escape. A crack began forming in the wall to highlight the abuse from his finger. "Come on, come on, come on..." He chanted a menacing prayer under his breath. What sort of karma did he achieve to make an elevator conspire against him in such dire time of need?

Completely oblivious of how desperate her superior was to get away from her, she continued to present her case. "Because...well, there was like this moment where we locked eyes, and we exchanged this...this mutual understanding. Like...an intimate awareness. Our auras just seemed to mesh, you know?"

"Look, from what I saw, all that happened was you asked me a question about the technicalities of your city's registry queue..." He replied with gritted teeth, "...and I answered it. Now. Please return to your post in Branch C… Please."

"But Boss, are you really really really—"

With the sharp ding of a bell, the doors slid open, and trading his own good sense for haste, Sekingar dashed right through without checking what was in front of him first.

Upon entry, there was a loud crash, papers flew everywhere, and many voices were raised.

"OOF! What the hell…?!"

"What is the meaning of this, Sekingar-san?!"

Faster than anyone else, the man in question shot to his feet and threw his fist so hard into the button to close the doors that the panel got bashed in. The doors swung shut, leaving the fixated girl behind. Sekingar heaved a heavy sigh of relief while the rest of the elevator occupants still clamored in an unwitting pile on the floor.

"Cr-crap! My cover sheets…! My briefing notes!"

"Calm yourself, Hebert..." A voice from an unknown source buzzed from under the stack of people.

The bespectacled worker ignored the order, rushing out from the pile to catch what he could of the documents still drifting in the air. He continued scrambling even as the rest of the group straightened themselves off from the floor. "W-wait, these all look the same! Is this one mine? Or maybe this one…? Ah, this one appears to be a glam magazine..."

"G-Give me that!" The article was torn from his hand by a man of intimidating stature who wore an eyepatch under his glasses and a ludicrous amount of gel that gave the peak of his hair a lethal tip.

"I see… So you were that kind of person after all, McCoy..." A haughty woman addressed him from the side with some judgment shaping her voice.

"Wh-what do you mean 'that kind of person'?!..." The older man lashed, feeling somewhat emasculated by her tone.

"This isn't how we wanted to be woken up, Sek..." Michelle Deco accompanied her pointed remark with a stern furrow from her eyebrow. The runic tattoo under her eye seemed to gleam eerily under the fluorescent lights as she gave the taller man a piercing leer.

"Kek." Apparently recovered enough from his earlier turmoil, McCoy's mouth stretched into an irritating smirk. "And just how is it that women these days like to be woken up?"

"That's for you to never find out, creep." She replied in a passive voice without even turning to acknowledge the insufferably smug man behind her.

"Hey now, is that any way for a lady to speak?" McCoy put a hand to his chest, feigning a bleeding heart. "A lady of your...chronological sophistication, I mean."

"Huh?" This time the short-haired woman did turn her head to acknowledge him – with wide eyes wild with murder. "You say an awful lot for someone that only has one eye left to lose."

Sekingar took a moment to readjust his tie, clearing his throat in a meager attempt to regain some composure. The elevator hummed to life, lifting the group of suits away from their current floor.

"Everyone needs to straighten up." Sekingar commanded. "We don't want to be caught like this when we get to the top."

"Why're we being called in so early anyway?" Yamamoto wondered as he scratched at his unshaven whiskers. "I mean, the plan just came under effect today. Has something already go wrong with it?"

"Did you forget to read the memo?" Deco asked him. "If so, you shouldn't have even hopped on this elevator in the first place."

"It's too late to stop." Sekingar stated. "You do know who we're dealing with, right?"

"Well...yes." Yamamoto curtly replied. "Just not personally..."

"Then I hope you enjoyed your day in the sun." His stern senior replied soberly. "Because recess is over."

"See – that's how you know he's rich." McCoy added, still appearing smug for what could only be deduced as 'McCoy reasons'.

"This is Central Headquarters." Hebert reminded him. "All of you are rich."

"But not all of us are philanthropist rich." The taller man embellished.

"It doesn't matter how he got his money." Sekingar spoke up. "All that matters is what he does with it. So when he talks, it's your job to listen."

"I mean, I know none of us would be here without him, but I thought he left the board to its own affairs. Does he still really hold that much weight in this?" Hebert asked as he took off his glasses to wipe them.

"Little brother, he is the weight." McCoy emphasized. "Oh, which reminds me – you'll want to make no mention of his chin."

"I heard a rumor," one of the younger attendants chimed in with a whisper, "that the last guy who stared at it for too long got demoted to Z Branch with those other poor schmucks."

"No," Sekingar casually corrected the story. "He merely had a chair thrown at him."

"Disregard what I just said." McCoy now had a huge smirk wrapped around his jaw. "Deco. You should most definitely compliment that chin. Trust me, he'll love it."

"Breathe another word at me," the woman replied without a hint of compassion, "and the custodian will be mopping your chin off of every surface in this metal box."

"Ara, ara~" The smug man cooed with a grin that only grew wider.

"God this is a slow elevator..." One of the tired businessmen in the back muttered under his breath.

"Stop squabbling, you two." Sekingar reigned them in with his distinctively grave tone. "When we reach our destination, I suggest all of you let me do most of the talking. Sitch should already be there talking to him as we speak. I'm the only other person present who has comparable experience in dealing with his...idiosyncrasies."

"Well, in the slight possibility that he should get the better of you," McCoy suggested with his usual lack of modesty, "best let me know if you have need of my silver tongue."

"Ass-kissery." Deco let slip from under her breath.

McCoy snapped his head towards her, letting his only remaining eye burn quietly with outrage. "...For your enlightenment, my dear, I do not 'kiss' arses – I court them. Like a gentleman."

"Gentlemen shouldn't underestimate the application of silence." Sekingar cautioned. "Yamamoto. You and Hebert should very well understand why we're bringing you along too. Regarding the Caped Baldy." The bewhiskered man and his bespectacled partner both exchanged glances as he continued. "You two were both on call during that sea creature's attack on J-City's evacuation shelter. As such, you were responsible for dispatching that then C-Class in response to a Threat Level Demon."

"With all due respect, sir," Hebert slid his glasses up the bridge of his nose in a stern manner, "is this a reprimand?"

"I'd hardly call it that." Sekingar replied in a sort of half-chuckle. "After all, it was by doing so that we were ultimately able to spare so many casualties that one drizzly day. We're bringing you along as assurance, because one of our core topics will likely revolve around him and the board's decision to place that very same pawn with our queen piece...so to speak."

"The 'board's' decision?" Deco scoffed at the turn of phrase. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Sek."

"But sir!" Yamamoto spoke up next, with panic evident in his posture. "My colleague and I didn't endorse that decision. We don't even have the authority to! We're too aware of his reputation as a fraud and a cheat to ever consider disregarding what that would do to corporate face!"

"You misunderstand." Sekingar spoke in a lower voice. "I know that the decision to place him with the Terrible Tornado was made by the committee...even if it was by such a paper-thin margin of votes. And I myself am still not convinced that it was wrong to do so."

That was something neither clerk expected to hear from their boss's boss's boss. "Sir?"

"You two have been evaluating threats to your city since damn-near the beginning. Therefore it stands to reason that you wouldn't have sent any C-Class to die in a hopeless battle unless you had some tangible evidence to suggest that he wouldn't. Or am I wrong?"

"Well..." Yamamoto thought carefully about how to respond to that credit. "I'd be pretty hard up to call it evidence, per se..."

Sekingar turned and raised a brow over his bionic eye.

Before his partner could say anything to give their leader further reason to doubt their competence, Hebert stepped in to add, "Have you glanced at Saitama's dossier, sir? Prior to his licensing, he scored a perfect hundred on his physical evaluation. Only Blast, Silverfang, and Superalloy Darkshine managed the same. The only reason he was placed in the bottom class at all was because—"

Sekingar raised his hand to silence him. "As I say, it's not me you need to convince. Your breath would be better spent in the conference room. The point is that since you two have the most field experience with the esper's newest friend, we need your inside view to promote an understanding with our special guest. Have I made sense?"

They both gave their chief director a unanimous nod, but said no more. Sekingar made sense indeed, but that by no means was the same as putting them at ease. If anything, it felt more like a disclosure that they were being used as meat shields to hide behind in the instance that any excuse for this outrageous match-up fell short. For now though, they would do their best for their own nerves to ignore that possibility.

A stagnant hush fell on the small space as all agents collectively watched the tiny light next to the elevator door steadily climb the buttons. Yamamoto straightened his tie. Deco glanced at her wristwatch. McCoy ran a hand over his hair to make sure it was in solid shape. The younger members fidgeted in silence while Kyle Hebert pressed his spectacles higher up his nose, causing the light of the ceiling to reflect grimly off the lenses.

At last, the claustrophobic intermission came to a close. When the bell chimed and the doors slid open, they all took a step forward at once, as though they were marching as one body.

The highest floor had a distinctly different feel from the rest of the building. The floor that they had just appeared from looked like any old office space where typical salary men were resigned to rust away behind their cubicles. Up here, each and every surface looked like it was finely cut from marble and glass. A sleek shimmer seemed to reverberate off the lights as the party moved through the hall, their dress shoes echoing while they stepped along.

It smelled...sterile. This was where germs went to die.

After passing a labyrinth of rooms, they spotted a short, familiar figure still pacing to and fro around the double doors that separated them from their destination. He looked as though he was still psyching himself up to go inside.

"Sitch?" Sekingar gave him a puzzled look. "Are you just now arriving? I thought they sent you up here half an hour ago."

"A-ah! It's you, Executives! Thank goodness. Well, you see...I was just..." He scratched his head, trying to come up with the best way to explain that he had purposely loitered in the hallway for thirty whole minutes because he didn't want to go and face their visitor alone.

With bullets of sweat trickling down his face, however, the message was already conveyed. Sekingar just closed his eyes and let out a weary breath. "Tell me you didn't actually keep him waiting for that long..."

"I..." Sitch's shoulders sank into a miserable posture. "Forgive me, gentlemen. I really didn't want to be locked in the lion's den by myself."

Deco pinched the root of her nose in exasperation, though she and the others secretly understood him. "God, Sitch. Now he'll be in a crappy mood for sure."

"W-well I mean...he's been on the phone since I got here." Sitch pointed out. "I could hear his voice booming from the other side of the door. He's already angry, so I uhh, thought it prudent not to interrupt his call."

"Who thought that sending just one officer up to greet him was a brilliant idea anyway?" McCoy voiced indignantly. "Well, let's not tarry any longer. Every second we spend out here makes the situation worse."

"Right." Sekingar agreed. "Let's hurry in while we can still salvage this."

The group nodded to each other in unison before Sekingar grabbed the door handles and pushed them asunder. As the way into the room opened, a burning cinder aroma filled everyone's senses – somehow managing to come across as sweet and spicy at the same time.

"What the hell do you mean 'trust the process'?!" Everyone heard a low echo from the room. "Know something I do trust? Numbers! Maybe you should stop gawking at the temperatures for the weekly forecast, because I think you're getting your wires crossed between those numbers and the ones I'm seeing!"

To the other side of the extravagantly long table in the conference room, a dense pocket of smoke seemed to cling to a defining space surrounding a chair. Occupying it was the very stout shape of a man, features growing more distinct alongside the volume of his crass voice as the staff filled the chamber and shuffled closer.

Teeming with outrage, the man spun in his seat to face the arriving company, eyes glaring menacingly through the fragrant cloud generated from the glowing cigar he was waving between his fingers. As the fog lifted, everyone got a better look at his face, capitalized by the two big tennis balls coming together to compose his chin. His cavernous cleft rode almost all the way up to a thick brown mustache concealing the definite frown beneath. His equally bushy eyebrows bore down in a mad furrow as he continued barking into the small device he held up, which looked even tinier in direct parallel to his massive jaw. Yet aside from the one prominent feature of his face that would undoubtedly be the gossip of the Association for decades to come, the rest of his face looked normal – perhaps some might even say regal.

...The same not quite to be said for his diplomatic approaches.

"I swear, if I so much as even hear the word 'loan' uttered in my midst, I'm going to start decorating these walls with heads! Or my name isn't Arthur monkey-fighting glass bowl mother-scratching Agoni!" He continued to breathe raw fire into the phone, and judging from the way he was mercilessly skull-fucking everyone else in the room with his eyes in the meantime, they each suspected that they were simultaneously receiving the same chewing as the poor soul on the receiving end of the line.

His tone was as one would expect from a veteran entrepreneur who was defending his investment against a bonehead business move. His voice was strong and harsh, yet abrupt and quickly spoken. During all his time onboard as the Hero Association's boogeyman, Agoni was notoriously shrewd, and held all his associates to the same zero-margin, zero-tolerance, zero-bullshit policy for error that he held for himself. It was not uncommon for him to terminate the employment of half a dozen workers in two days – sometimes even the same people two or three more times over for good measure.

...Only to immediately hire them back after it quickly became apparent that yes, operations from offices in branch divisions did in fact require operators.

"Anyways, the next time you ask me to provide a loan..." Agoni's voice sank a whole octave while he pointed accusingly at his phone as if the caller was right in front of him, "I'm going to personally relieve you of every penny you ever have made and ever will make! Your financial troubles will not cease for ten generations! Is that what you want?!"

The voice on the other end of the phone was inaudible to everyone else, but they could've all sworn that they heard sobbing as it went.

"...Then I expect my assistance is no longer required in this matter. Your people made a God-level disaster out of the stats for this month. Follow the steps to employ the appropriate emergency funding to fix it. I don't care if you use your own shares if that's what it takes..." He paused and closed his eyes to take a deep breath and center himself. "...AND DON'T SPEAK TO ME AGAIN UNTIL WE'RE BACK IN THE GREEN!"

With that explosion, he thumbed a button on his cell and hung up with a beep.

With his full attention set on the people present, he noticed that instead of having taken their respective seats around the table, everyone was still standing on the polar opposite side from him, practically smushed together in fear.

Leading by example, Sekingar stood in front as first to speak. "Welcome back to Headquarters, Mr. Agoni. I believe I speak for all of us present when I thank you for the privilege to meet and discuss current and future events with us today." Ignoring the 'for real?' glances he was getting from his colleagues, he cleared his throat and continued, "May I inquire as to whom you were just speaking with? The Accounting Department, perhaps."

"My son." Came the short reply.

"O-oh." It was rare of Sekingar to stutter. That made him stutter. "W-well anyways. We understand that you come with questions and concerns regarding recent deployments in ranks of the Hero Associat—"

"Good God, man." Agoni interrupted. "You must think I'm here to file a complaint to HR for getting my ass felt up. This is an internal logistics meeting. You can drop the script."

Sekingar rubbed the back of his neck. "As you wish, sir..."

"And where have you all been, anyhow? I've been waiting here all morning, just me and the chairs! You treat all your guests like this? You're fired! All of you, fired! Get out!"

The ones in the room that were entirely new to this treatment dropped their jaws, all on the verge of a mass panic attack before an executive stepped in front of them.

"Sir..." Deco closed her eyes to keep anyone from seeing that she was rolling them. It was highly irregular for her to explain this less than at least once every time they collaborated. "...You're firing your Administrative Chairman, two Senior Executives, your Second Chief of Operations, and your Minister Officer of Justice all at the same time?"

"Crap." He corrected himself without missing a beat. "Fair point, Michelle. You're all un-fired. But I'm not happy about it! C'mon, what's everyone waiting for? A formal invitation? Want my secretary to fax you? Sit down."

It took the staff a moment to shake off the near-death experience with unemployment before adjusting themselves and finding their seats.

"Tres bien." The older man nodded. "I have to be at my grandson's soccer game in an hour, so let's get down to brass tacks."

He pulled out a small remote and tweaked a button on it. The table in front of them lit up with digital fashion, producing a screen on the wall that pulled up numerous detailed graphs of data, mostly pronounced with a healthy green color.

"This is a financial summary for the Hero Association dating all the way back to its founding." Pressing down on another button, he aimed the remote at the graphs, letting the vivid red light of the laser pointer guide his audience. "As you can see, for the first couple of years, we're cruising pretty steady. Every so often we hit a capital milestone – sometimes even a couple times over after handling a big threat – those first few months are a little rocky as you can see by the dips, but that's all part of running a brand-new startup with angel investors. I'm a careful guy, see. That's why I always request copies of the company ledgers and stocks at the end of each day to make sure you guys don't blow my investments. With me so far?"

After receiving a silent round of nods, he continued. "And this..." he clicked the remote, and a new set of charts popped up, but with the majority of the green color devolving into a threatening crimson. "...is the data retrieved following yesterday's PR circus." He paused to give everyone a moment to let the abysmal results permeate their skulls. "Do you see how the margins of productivity fall short with the majority of our branch divisions' quotas?" He was met with stark silence. Taking that as a need to dumb the message down even further, he added in a lower voice, "See how short the bars on this graph are compared to the ones we actually need?"

He stopped to take a puff of his cigar. Sekingar seized the moment to explain. "Sir, I can understand your concerns, but there's a perfectly logical explanation for the fluctuations in balances—"

"LOGICAL?" He was again cut short by a word that burst out with a cloud of smoke from the aristocrat's mouth. "Is that what you call a 6% plummet of stocks? Oh well if you say it's 'logical,' then I guess I must have misinterpreted the need for this meeting! So sorry to take up all your valuable time with the rantings of a deranged lunatic!"

"Sir," Sekingar kept his composure. "That wasn't at all my intent to say. I merely meant that our financial planning committee has already anticipated the short-term outcome of potential losses. We're more than equipped to mitigate the loss of the month – plus a small net growth – provided we are given ample time to secure it."

"I'm two steps ahead of you, Sekingar." Agoni revealed. "You're betting on a dark horse. High risk for high reward. But I didn't make my fortune at a casino, son. I play the long game. Throughout history, great businessmen learn at great cost that consistency often trumps potential. Are you willing to stake your gamble against the wealth I've amassed in half a lifetime?"

"It isn't our place to compete with you, Founder." Sitch worked up the nerve to reply, albeit a bit unsteady. "And I can only admire the vigilance you put into all the companies you built. But if it truly is the money that you're worried about—"

"Money?!" Agoni let out a hearty chuckle so abruptly that half of the attendees nearly fell out of their seats. As soon as he finally ran out of breath to laugh, the multi-millionaire recomposed himself. "Listen. Did my wife come to your door for a cup of sugar? Do I seem like money is my problem?"

Everyone gave him a quizzical stare. He let out a hopeless sigh, turning to face the graphs with his hands folded behind his back.

"Before this company was a thing, there were no such things as 'heroes.' Only vigilantes. Y'know… weirdos. Then one of those weirdos happened to save someone...well someone I don't hate so much." He smirked beneath his mustache, remembering the event that inspired him to create an entire new workforce. "I've got my reasons for wanting this company to succeed, gentlemen. But let me assure you that if I was really digging for more money, there'd be easier, faster ways for me to get it than coming here to knock your blockheads together."

This caused some whispering among the others in the room. Even with the Hero Association being active for years, this had to be the first of anyone hearing Agoni expressing a hint of interest for anything not shaped like a dollar sign. If a businessman didn't start a company for profit, then what on earth would justify such a broad investment?

"Sir..." McCoy started carefully. "May I speak?"

Agoni peered over his shoulder to see who it was. "Only if it's to explain where your eye went and what you did to your hair. Dear God, McCoy, what happened to ya? You look like a Bond villain that tripped and fell head-first into hundred-year-old pudding."

The stifling sound of people struggling to contain their laughter briefly filled the space. McCoy's eyebrows twitched, but he did his best to ignore them, shifting his focus to mellowing his superior with sweet honeyed words. "For someone as ambitious and responsive as you, I am certain your reasons for establishing this legacy transcend such simple and base desires as money." His grin deepened, figuring that he had coaxed the older man aptly enough. "Might I inquire...as to the true nature of your motivation?"

Agoni closed his eyes almost knowingly. "Alas, my cycloptic chum, you may not."

"Tch..."

"Oof. Rest in peace, Silver Tongue-kun." Deco whispered with amusement to McCoy, who – while pretending not to notice the remark – returned her with a stealthily under-armed middle finger.

"That said..." Agoni continued, seemingly calm, before abruptly bursting with a vein in his head: "HOW FAR DO YOU LOT EXPECT US TO GET IF YOU BANKRUPT THE ASSOCIATION?! HAHH?!"

"Sir, if I may interject..." A woman's voice called out from across the room.

Agoni turned to see who it was. "Ah, Miss Deco. Always a privilege to have the input of a fellow smoker. Maybe you'll have less luck pissing me off than your fellow colleagues."

Michelle silently weighed a question in her mind, wondering if her membership as a "fellow smoker" blessed her with any hidden perks.

She shrugged her shoulders. Fuck it.

Clutching the box of cigarettes she kept in her jacket, she looked him in the eye with unwavering confidence and coolly asked, "That mean I can smoke in here?"

"Good God no!" Agoni replied without missing a beat, even while still holding a lit cigar between his teeth. "This is a professional work environment!"

"Eh. I shot my shot." She let her hand leave the pocket and proceeded with her original thought. "Truth is we've been planning something like this for a while, and last week's incident gave the officials sitting on the fence about it the push they needed. We established in a conference prior that there is an overwhelming quantity of C-Class heroes compared to those of higher caliber. If you stack the classes side-by-side, individuals with any real merit are exponentially rare. S-Classes are considered to be superhuman, but we have little more than a dozen of them. The power play you saw at the gathering last weekend was to cut unnecessary expenditure by assuming a great many lower-ranking heroes would leave. Half of them were impossibly behind their quotas anyway."

"A culling?" Agoni curled his mustache in thought. "But then how do you justify higher class heroes leaving, hmm?"

"Simply put," she explained, "heroes of higher potential are offered greater incentives that we estimated they wouldn't refuse. And we were largely correct on that front. Among B-Class, only a few dozen individuals left, and we only lost seven in Class A." She let a smirk briefly grace her normally stoic face. "Not a one from Class S."

"Pfff. Yeah, so far." Agoni sneered. "Might I remind you this is just the start of Day One?"

"Yes, but with our assets consolidated into a tighter streamline, we can ensure powerful connections that will spill over into new opportunities for expansion." She finished.

"Heroes were selectively paired with one another to compensate for each others' weaknesses." Another woman in the room added. "Aside from what we believe will be a more systematic approach to handling disaster threats, we also estimate that other assets of revenue will open up. Namely through the marketing industry."

Agoni raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Seriously? That's your angle? You don't think sending Pretty Boy out to flaunt his feathers for adolescent girls brings in enough?"

"While it is true that Amai Mask has certainly proven to be a valuable commodity," Sekingar affirmed, "it also emphasizes the precarious position we'd be in if we lost his support. Furthermore, we saw no harm in having more lines in the water."

"It'll be a cold day in Hell if I allow you to turn this company into more of a clown camp than it is already!" Agoni slammed his palm on the table, causing everyone else in the room to recoil. "This isn't some agency for performers! This is an organization for de-escalation that we're still working to convince the government to use as a full alternative to martial force! Real shit! You think we'll win senators' hearts if we treat national defense like a beauty pageant?!"

"O-of course not, sir!" Sitch tried to placate him. "We're simply taking a more modern approach to security to give the public more comfort."

Agoni shook his head. "No, you're relying on small-time avenues of commerce as an excuse to fail in basic strategic planning! It's because of this that you've become too dependent on Mask's influence, and why my legal team has been scrambling to redefine our appeal to Central Intelligence! If each of you had just followed the S.O.P. and submitted this so-called 'Rule of Two' as a proposal to me first, we might've avoided this mess entirely!"

"And we would like to apologize for the delayed intel, Mr. Agoni." Sekingar stated. "Given the nature of the incident, we wanted to take things by the reins before any press caught wind of an S-Class's involvement in the blackout. You were away on business, and the proposal must have been so impromptu that it was examined and finalized by the board before you had a chance to preview it."

"And yet you went ahead and green-lighted without me." The tycoon pointed out. "Well while I'm up here, are there any other crack ideas you'd all like to run under my chin where I can't see 'em? Perhaps I can save you the trouble and arrange some Paralympic Games for H.A.? Hell, half the people in this room alone must be missing some sort of body part, so eligibility shouldn't be a problem..."

Sekingar's eyes lightly narrowed at the remark – the prosthetic one briefly flashing a faint red. "With respect...sir. You revoked your own privilege to vote at the same time you stated...and I'm quoting here…'democracy is for pussies.'"

Agoni sighed and took another puff of his cigar, taking a moment to compose his thoughts. If everyone in his generation was so anxious to prove themselves right despite all evidence to the contrary, half of the major cities would be spending all their money trying to keep the other half's lights on.

"Bah! You morons are hopeless." He fumed. "You have a blast tossing around phrases like 'I estimate' and 'we believe' like a damn Caesar salad, but the only real numbers I've seen anyone use to back them up are mine right here." He motioned back at the wall where the red numbers of his charts continued to bleed into everyone's eyes. "Well so be it. You're that eager to disregard my advice? Go for broke. Not literally of course, because if you like the way I'm ragging on you now, you'll just love what I have to say later." He clicked his remote from beneath a pair of folded arms, and the stats lighting up the wall faded away, returning the whole room back to its sterile lack of color. "And, well...on the topic of S-Class, anyways… The little girl?"

The rest of his company noticeably tensed up, all dreading this moment since the meeting began.

"Well?" He inquired gruffly, arms still crossed. "You already look like you know what I'm about to ask, so why are you holding me in suspense? Don't you understand that fitting one of the Hero Association's biggest live assets with a B-Lister is like using a nuclear fusion reactor to run a toaster oven?!"

Sekingar attempted to go first. "Well you see—"

"And not just any B-Lister, either!" Agoni continued, throwing his hands in the air. "No no; you just had to go and pick that one. Am I the only one who remembers what a debacle he nearly caused after the J-City incident?! Someone else in S-Class almost dropped down to A! You know, the convicted pillow-biter? Jailbird Breaker or something..."

The others looked at each other. "Umm...Puri-Puri Prisoner, sir…?" A guy with glasses elaborated.

Agoni snapped his head at the person correcting. "Shaddup, how dare you, don't you think I know my own employees?! Who the hell do you think you are?! You're fired!" Agoni gave a frenzied retort before pausing to following up much in a much calmer tone. "Uh...seriously, who actually are you anyway?"

"Er...Kyle Hebert, sir?" He replied, more confused than stressed at the moment about how he was being treated. "I've been heading logistics between cities for over two years now."

"Crap. That sounds important..." Agoni realized. "Very well! You're un-fired again. But consider this a warning, Kyle!"

"Great..." He replied, straightening his glasses to mask his enthusiasm – if indeed there was any at all. "Well then I suppose it wouldn't displease you more if I told you that my partner and I were the ones that dispatched Caped Baldy to assist the other heroes during the Seafolk invasion."

Agoni gave him a hard stare, and judging by how the temperature in the room fell, this had officially become an interrogation. "...Then you've both got some explaining to do, haven't you, Mr. Hebert?" He paused to glance at his wristwatch. "Better make it snappy though. I've got fifteen minutes. Which means you've got less than five."

Hebert and Yamamoto both swallowed and exchanged glances. Seeing what the stress was doing to Yamamoto's already disheveled face, however, Kyle thought it best to head the discussion despite his own nerves. "Regardless of whatever reason people would choose to think, it cannot be disproved that Saitama's arrival saved hundreds of lives. And so...well...at the time, the decisions that my team and I made were still under the impression that preventing civilian casualties was top priority."

"R-Right." Yamamoto added. "I was actually the one that he connected with. Agoni-sama, I mean Mr. Executive...s-sir..." He vaguely cursed his lapse of articulation before picking back up. "A-At the time, I was attempting to reach out to Mumen Rider, but Saitama somehow got ahold of his phone. Following procedure, I tried to dissuade him from going, but he was very insistent! Because of his dubious reputation and his oddly blank slate of accomplishments to go with it, the two of us thought we'd use this as an opportunity to...to sort of gauge his true strength."

"And?" Agoni pushed with a raised eyebrow. "Well what was your verdict on him?! Is he King or Fool?"

Sekingar, Deco, McCoy, Sitch, and the rest of the people in the room that outranked the two workers by at least four paces all leaned in with poignant intent to listen.

"That's..." Hebert and Yamamoto paused only to look at each other again. "...That's a complicated question, sir."


Saitama sneezed while standing in front of his new roommate's kitchen stove, struggling to recapture balance of the pan he was using to fry some eggs.

Oblivious to being the titular topic of heated discussion many cities away, the honorary Caped Baldy of the Hour busily toiled away at preparing an early breakfast, hoping hard that his nasal outburst hadn't woken up his neighbor in the next room. She was mean enough of a cougar while fully alert – he wasn't really stoked to see what kind of a hellcat she'd turn into if her sleep got disrupted.

Holding completely still while facing her bedroom door to make sure no evil glowing eyes of doom were peering out at him, he let the tentative air escape his lungs in the form of a sigh before turning his full attention back to his work before he burnt it… Again.

He had also hoped against hope that Tatsumaki wouldn't notice his quite liberal use of her egg carton. Initially he didn't intend to use so many, but with easily half of them being burned by his lapse of conduct, only a handful actually passed inspection as being anything close to edible.

Funny thing was, under normal circumstances Saitama considered himself to be an okay cook. That was of course at a time he had full control of the kitchen inventory on hand. Turns out little Miss Twisty was a lighter shopper than he was even before Genos came along. But then with her being roughly the size of a preschooler, he sort of understood why. Didn't really change the fact that her pantry only had enough inside to barely scrounge up a light breakfast for two… He would have gone out to the market to restock, but X-City wasn't exactly home-field advantage, and he didn't feel like touring around a brand-new town at 7:00 in the morning.

All that aside though, he didn't remember frying a simple egg to be such a big damn rocket science problem! Was he using too much oil? Too little of it? What was the difference again between an egg being over easy and under easy? Why couldn't it just be easy?

Sticking his tongue out through the side of his mouth to emphasize his extreme caution, he slowly and arduously scraped the spatula beneath the frying mound with the painstaking maneuver of a neurosurgeon. The yoke sizzled in rebellion as he attempted a decisive flip. The flaccid body of the egg slapped back down on the pan hard enough to cause an explosion of hot grease in retaliation.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" his face contorted with wild, anxious eyes as his lengthy exclamation resonated harmoniously with the hiss of angry food. He gripped the handle of the pan tightly with both hands as if holding on for dear life before hoisting the iron off the burner to transfer the final batch onto a waiting plate nearby.

After he set it aside, he cranked the stove off and turned to open the refrigerator, looking to see if there was anything he might have missed that could bring this meal a step closer to a proper breakfast. Apart from some frozen vegetables and a stranded juice carton, the only thing that really stood out was a box from a waffle brand he didn't even know still existed.

He weighed his options for a few seconds, then with a decisive shrug, reached in to retrieve the box. When he closed the door, an abrupt sight appeared from right behind it.

"Gyaaaaaaaaah!" Saitama nearly dropped what he held as he took in the sudden visage of unkempt green hair and droopy eyes of matching color.

Tatsumaki lightly twitched at the outburst, though aside from her eyes squinting into a half-heated glare, it wasn't quite enough to rouse her from her apparent sleep-drunkenness. "Mmm?" She softly croaked while pausing to rub her eyes with her sleeve. "Ugh… It's me, you fucking banshee… Already forgot I live here?" Her usually rapid, pitchy voice was sapped of energy.

"Ah! Mornin' Tatsu-tan!" Saitama gleaned past the insult. "Sorry, didn't hear footsteps. You really prefer floating, huh."

The esper shifted her weary gaze from the offending shine of his bald head to the mangled heap of eggs lying on the counter next to him. "...The hell happened in here…?" She asked in wonder of the splattered kitchen mess.

"Just thought I'd surprise you with breakfast – what with you taking me in and all." He explained with a passive smile, removing his apron while ignoring the damning way she was looking at him.

Even while she raised her inquisitive eyebrows, it was hard for her scruffy appearance to be taken seriously. Strands of curls sprawled from her hair in all directions as she continued to float mere inches off the ground in baggy pajama clothes and fuzzy slippers. Going by the way she looked, no defense of hers was good enough to convince Saitama that she was anywhere near adulthood.

"I, uhh..." he scratched his cheek, wondering if he should really mention. "...see you like octopus." He pointed out the cartoon illustrated design on her p.j.'s, which consisted of an abundance of the mentioned animal in a ridiculously bright shade of green, complete with comically bugged out eyes and circular snouts for what were presumably supposed to be the mouths.

"See you like cats." She returned, pointing at the equally dorky illustration of a wacky feline wearing a tie, as revealed on Saitama's t-shirt when he slipped the apron off.

Apparently, the irony of their angry exchange the other day featuring both animals wasn't lost on either of them, much to their combined discomfort.

"By the way..." Tatsumaki continued, eager to swap subjects. "is it some back-country custom of yours to help yourself to someone else's food?" She asked with a tinge of heat.

He gave her a vacant blink. "I was planning on doing my own shopping eventually. Didn't figure you'd mind if we skipped ceremony just this once. By the way, how do you prefer your eggs? Scrambled or sunny-side?"

She blinked a few times in reluctance to answer, but apparently still too tired to protest, merely shrugged her shoulders. "Scrambled..." She yawned.

"Oh thank God, that's literally all how these turned out..." Saitama's shoulders slumped as he basked in relief.

While the girl hovered over to the kitchen table, he turned towards the toaster oven with intent to use evidently the only waffle left in the box. After popping the pastry in and switching on the machine, he redirected his attention towards the coffee brewer that he had been fighting since nearly an hour ago. For the lack of aesthetic that her house boasted, the kitchen tech was certainly a notch higher than his apartment's. That wasn't a full comfort, however, as it meant that he was forced to learn all the fancy bells and whistles that he wasn't usually acclimated to.

But it was only coffee. Just some ground-up bean tossed into heated water. How badly could someone mess up coffee, right?

At any rate, apart from about a quart of orange juice, there wasn't much around to drink – he made doubly sure that he hadn't overlooked any tea, since that was his usual staple. Between ingredients though, he didn't imagine coffee was that different than tea. Just trade the leaf for a bean…

...Right?

Tatsumaki remained seated at the table, still subdued in her quiet daze as she watched him tweak and tamper with her coffee maker for a few agonizing minutes. When he escalated from button-mashing to straight up smacking the thing upside the head in an effort to start it up, the machine gave a low whirring noise, alerting both heroes.

"Hey! You bust up my shit, you're fucking paying for it." Tatsumaki threatened, her voice briefly roused back to its normal energy from his careless action. "Good luck though. That thing's probably worth more than any B-Class makes in a year..."

"Why all the buttons?" Saitama inquired, seemingly more to himself than to her. "Are they using computers to make coffee now? Technology sure got weird..."

"Ugh, did you seriously miss the big shiny button that says 'Start' on it?"

"All of it looks shiny to me..." He scratched his head without taking his eyes off of the mysterious object.

"Christ, are you colorblind too?! It's the only green button on the machine, you imbecile!"

"Okay, dude. No need to blow a fuse over it..."

He poked said button lightly. With a small beep, the whole thing buzzed and began to rumble. Frankly she was surprised it even managed to work at all after the monkey wrench treatment that bald primate had just given it.

Leaving the strange alien device to work, Saitama turned back to the small cupboard on the opposing side of the counter to survey the contents. "Hey, uhh, while I'm back here, I might as well ask..."

"Ugh, what now..." She asked with every decibel in her voice practically begging not to know.

"Don't you have anything a little more...exciting than this?"

"Exciting." It took her a good moment to realize what he was referring to, but when she got there, she closed her eyes and shrugged. "This may come as a surprise to you Humpty, but some of us actually outgrew pop-tarts before puberty."

"Well, yeah, I mean I totally get wanting a balanced diet and all, but..." He paused only to pull out a few cereal boxes to illustrate his point. "Bran Wheats?" He held the selection out with a troubled look on his face. "True Grains? Lots-of-Oats?" The distaste rode off of his tongue with every name he listed. "These are what you eat every morning? How has your tongue not committed seppuku yet?"

She snapped her head to confront his attack on her brands of choice. "Umm, because I prefer a healthy source of fiber as opposed to diabetes?"

"Oh well mission accomplished, I guess. With this much fiber, it's a wonder you ever leave the can..."

A small flush of embarrassment invaded her face before she forced it back down. "And I suppose you eat nothing but junk all day! Let me guess: instant ramen in the morning, fast food in the evening, and your boyfriend's robo-cock for dessert?"

"I already told you, he's not my…!" He let himself trail off, shaking his head as he turned to push the boxes back on the shelf. "Pff. Whatever, Grandma. Next time we go out, we're getting some real food. Guess it doesn't really matter anyways, since apparently you don't even have any milk to use."

"I don't drink milk." She clarified with stark indifference.

Saitama spattered at this. "For real?! Well what do you use on your cereal then? Water?" He studied her expression carefully for a moment, and when she didn't react, his color drained from his face. "No..." A look of horror was etched into his visage. "Don't tell me..." He was almost too disgusted to finish suggesting the possibility. "...You...you actually go in...dry?"

This phrasing caused the already pinkish flush on her face to double its shade. "Wow, I seriously hope we're still talking about cereal! And who gives a damn about how I eat it anyway?! Milk is for babies!"

"Which drink milk in order to grow!" He added on. "Well this sure explains a lot..."

Tatsumaki's pupils refocused on him, turning dangerous. "Meaning?..."

"Come on, are you really gonna make me say it?" He asked, motioning towards her – more accurately, her diminutive stature, which looked appropriately cartoonish as he did so. "Kids need milk." He leaned forward to capitalize his message. "Or they don't grow."

She held her gaze on him in deadly silence, lower eyelid twitching under the shadow-warped dimensions of her face. "...Because I happen to take pity on the mentally impaired..." she started in a low voice, "I'm going to forget what I just heard. Now..." Steamy vapors seemed to escape her mouth as she seethed every word. "Bring those eggs over here. Before I hack you to pieces and add you to the menu."

"…'Kay." Risking no more of her patience, he promptly followed her instructions and brought the helpings over. After setting the plate down beside her, he slowly and deliberately backed away from the table with his arms carefully outstretched as if trying to placate a hungry velociraptor – much to her ever-growing annoyance.

She continued to watch with scrutiny as he doubled back toward the coffee pot to conclude his business with it. "Ah. Looks like the coffee's ready too." He casually included. The piquant scent of the brew wafted to her nose as the steam rolled out from the dainty mugs that Saitama carefully poured his concoction into.

After he finished emptying the pot, he brought the two cups over to her. Naturally he assumed she wanted one, since hey – she did buy the stuff, after all. The only thing that could've made the process more difficult for him was guessing what blend she preferred. Thankfully, there was only one: French Roast Decaf.

If drinking coffee by itself wasn't enough of an indicator, her preference for flavor sure drove it home. Was there any aspect of this angry impish creature that couldn't be considered bitter?

He set a mug in front of her, backing off to see how she'd approach it.

Her eyes narrowed down at the cup suspiciously, practically squinting at every detail of the swirling blackish liquid. Even the tiny particles of vapor in the steam that danced over it didn't seem safe from her discerning gaze.

Several of the longest minutes in Saitama's life seemed to crawl by while waiting for some sort of interaction between Tatsumaki's lips and the brim of the cup. His eye began to twitch. It reminded him of a documentary he sat through once featuring two snails that seemed to take up all the time they could just trying to decide whether or not it was time to have awkward double-decker snail sex.

At long last and with careful fingers, she lightly wrapped her hands around the ceramic and slowly brought the mug to her face. As he continued to watch, she closed her eyes and gently blew on the surface to cool it. For that one brief moment, all traces of aggression seemed to disappear from her face, replaced by a delicate, tender serenity that Saitama thought was…

Well… He didn't quite know. It just wasn't a side of her he was used to seeing. So he supposed that was refreshing in and of itself.

She must have felt his attention on her, because the peace immediately broke from her face as it turned to scowl at him in such a way that seemed to silently warn him not to try and poison her.

He sighed at the ridiculous notion and shook his head before heading back towards the kitchen to mind his own business.

Free from those dead, beady eyes, she turned back and brought the cup closer to her mouth.

She closed her eyes again, allowing her surroundings to melt away so that she could focus on the flavor.

With the carefully refined disposition of the nationality that the blend was named after, she lightly puckered her lips to allow a few drops of the coffee to grace her palate.

"Hm." A soft rumination escaped her throat.

Saitama peeked over his shoulder while pretending to look busy with the frying pan. For the next few seconds as she processed the taste, her expression was completely unreadable.

"Mmm..." Then her eyes immediately went dark. "-PFFFFFFFFFF!"

Water particles flew across the table as Tatsumaki doubled over in her seat in a vain effort to exorcise the demonic taste infesting her mouth.

Saitama's eyes widened into saucers as he witnessed her horrific coughing spat.

Shit, wait, did he actually poison her?

Without wasting a moment, he rushed to the sink to pour a glass of water. As he hastened towards the distressed esper, he called out to her. "Whoa! Hey! A-Are you alright? Y-You good, partner?" He stammered in panic.

"I ju...wha...you..." The first few words of her speech were hindered by coughs and hacks. In the end however, she did manage to get a few coherent words out. "Coffee… Bitter… Fuck…"

Saitama raised his eyebrows, turning to stare at the cup that she just drank from on the table. With the kind of reaction she had to it, it's a large wonder that she didn't dash the thing to pieces. "O-oh c'mon, Tats… It's not that bad, right…? Hey…? Buddy…?" He knelt down to where she was still stooped over in a cautious attempt to pat her on the shoulder. When her entire back stiffened at his touch and arched up like a witch's cat on Friday the 13th during a sacrificial blood moon, he wisely withdrew his hand before the unspeakable could happen to it.

She snapped her head up to meet him with a visage of unbound fury. Instead of merely disagreeing with him through the diplomacy of speech, however, she took it a step further by motioning her hand at the cup she just drank out of. The entire content of the vessel was emptied into the air, and directed by her glowing finger, she shot the entire mass of liquid straight into the bald bastard's mouth like a guided missile.

"Blagh?!" Saitama, full of what took a mere sip to lay his partner low, assumed the identical posture of Tatsumaki as they both crouched down next to each other. "Coffee! Bitter! Fuck!" He echoed her earlier throes of anguish. In his new desperation, he took the glass of water that he brought over for Tatsumaki and instead washed the whole thing down his own gullet instead. Lord knows the water probably would've melted the wicked hag anyhow. "Crap, the taste is still there!" He complained dismally.

"You suh...sunnuva...b-blgh..." She wisely gave up the insult to refocus all her efforts not to retch. "Wh-wuh-whuuh, what did you lace that coffee with...?!"

"No-nofiiing!" Saitama's reaction to the taste was more like a robot experiencing critical system error. "Whyyyyy-yy yeeuu...feew neet...to froe...whow fing int...mai mouf...!"

"S...serves...you right…!" Every word was a fight to restore her breath.

Eventually though, they both regained their lucidity.

"What in the actual fuck is wrong with yooouuuu?!" Tatsumaki screeched, recovering her normal posture to fly up to Saitama's face, using all given restraint just to keep from attempting to slash his eyes out. "Can't you even put on a proper pot of coffee?! That was the single most vile experience of my whole miserable life! Or at least it places a close second to the moment they threw me with you!"

"Y-Yeah? Well ditto!" Saitama retaliated. "If you don't like it so bitter, why didn't you just add sugar? Better yet, why did you get nothing but decaf like a frickin' terrorist?!"

"Aah! I can still feel grains in my mouth! Did you change out the filter?! Did you even grind up the bean?!" Her reprimands bore down on him ceaselessly. "I can't take it! I-I need to get this shitty taste out of my mouth somehow...!" Her eyes darted around the room desperately for a cure. She spotted a poured glass of orange juice sitting next to her. Without hesitation, she snatched it and guzzled it down while Saitama picked up the carton that was beside it. His jaw fell agape when he found it empty.

"H-Hey! I poured that for me!" He exclaimed as she continued gulping. "That was all the juice we had left!"

"...Pwah!" She released her lips from the cup in a heated exhale. "Fuck that taste! It's still there!"

"Then why did you go and drink the whole thing?!" He threw both hands on his head. "We could've shared it!"

"Shut up!" She snapped back at him, still pale and sickly from nearly choking to death. "In the first place, I paid for the goddamn juice!"

"Well I made breakfast!"

"This?!" She motioned over at the mangled eggs and river of tainted coffee dripping off the table. "You call this breakfast?!"

"You ungrateful brat!"

"You stupid fish-eyed ass-faced baboon! Don't ever go near that coffee brewer again! I'll never be able to wash this filth out of my mouth!"

"Oh I wouldn't worry about that!" He retorted. "Because nothing going into your mouth could possibly be filthier than what comes out of it!"

"WHY YOU—"

Before the two could ignite a second Big Bang with their ensuing clash, they both heard the ding of a bell go off back towards the kitchen area. As they both slowly turned their heads from one another to look, they caught glimpse of the circular upper half of a familiar pastry jutting out the top of the toaster oven.

"Oh hey, cool timing. Be right back." Saitama waltzed over to the steaming pastry, as if forgetting all about their heated altercation. Tatsumaki's jaw dropped, rendered inert for the moment while watching him casually pull out the giant wafer of goodness that she had personally been saving for herself.

Now, in the big brave world, there are certain things that rational people simply understand not to do. You don't fall asleep on Elm Street. You don't go trick-or-treating in Haddonfield. You don't go camping at Crystal Lake...

...and you don't fuck with the Terrible Tornado's waffles.

As he picked said waffle up, Saitama's blissful expression gave way to confusion as he watched a green glow eclipse the crispy shell. No sooner could he lightly gape his mouth in wonder before the coveted treat he had in hand suddenly jerked its way towards Tatsumaki's table by means of an invisible force. However, she underestimated his grip, so instead of telekinetically snatching it from between his fingers as she intended, his whole arm ended up stretching outward towards her as he continued holding it. He didn't budge an inch.

"Wah—Hey! That thing is mine! You had no business making it without my permission! Give it!" Tatsumaki demanded while intensifying her glow, now having her concentration split between wresting the breakfast from Saitama and just keeping it from completely crumbling before it got to the table.

Her partner's fingers remained coiled around its checkered exterior like a steel trap. As he continued staring vacantly, expressionless toward her, it was made as clear as all the times before that he simply wasn't going to stand down. The esper gritted her teeth to bite down on a curse at his entire bloodline for spawning such an unspeakable strain of fucktard. The fact that you couldn't even weaponize a disease of this potency in a secret government lab is the only reason she hadn't decided to blow up Congress for this.

"Don't make me tell you twice, Baldy." She warned in almost a growl.

"Don't wanna." He answered curtly.

"Oh, I think you do." Her eyes went wide at him, and a sadistic smile cracked across her cheeks. "I think you really do."

Not bothering to attempt to lift him again, she instead ripped up the tiled floor from beneath his feet, dragging his unwitting carcass on the severed platform towards her while he still stood perfectly taut holding her prize. He didn't have time to look twice before he was joined in close-quarters by the most fuming green vegetable he had ever seen outside of a cooking pot. Tatsumaki's eyes were blazing with righteous fury and resolve to possess something, but at the moment he couldn't tell whether it was the waffle or his fucking soul.

Both of them vied for control of the sugary prize in some sort of strange dance. Seizing an initiative, Tatsumaki snuck her free hand up to Saitama's face and opened her palm to deliver a static jolt of energy, and even though it packed more power than a shotgun, it nevertheless glanced off of him harmlessly. The reverberation sent her into a spiraling recoil, causing him to lose footing and go down with her, and before either of them knew it, they were both sprawled on the floor. Saitama was practically pinning her as they faced each other with stopped hearts – their hands a few mere fingers away from completely interlocking with each other while the waffle was still held tightly between them.

Their faces were inches apart, and Tatsumaki could all but see the steam escaping out her ears as her internal thermostat exploded with heat. Contrarily, Saitama found himself frozen, as if he were too dazed to move in lieu of the compromising situation.

Before Tatsumaki's humiliation could escalate to the point of watering eyes, she spitefully bit down on her lip and again reached for Saitama's face – this time using his forehead as a propping tool to forcefully shove him off. They both landed on their sides, with the waffle still gluing them together. While Saitama continued to regard her with dead-quiet consternation, it took her an untold while just to get her breathing to slow down. She saw no point in hiding the blush this time – fuck anyone who didn't think she was entitled to that one. Going from a long life of never being touched by any guy since early childhood to having one fall on top of her in near face-sucking range? A girl not having some sort of involuntary response would either have to be gay, unconscious, or dead!

Collecting her bearings, she wiped the scene from her head before it could fully solidify into trauma. God knows she needed no more of that shit. Right now, the only thing she needed was the crown-piece of her meal. "Let go..." Her eyes re-affixed themselves on him with renewed frenzy. "...of my Eggo."

It took him a moment for the glaze to leave his eyes, but when it did, he seemed to readjust like nothing happened. Given what she had just gone through, he was almost tempted to give her what she wanted...

But that wouldn't teach her any manners.

"Gimme my orange juice." He replied casually. "This doesn't have to get any weirder, Eleven."

"You better hope they serve orange juice in Hell..." She hissed venomously. "Because that's where you're headed, you fucking perv."

"Really? That's a shame..." Saitama frowned. Without warning her, he picked himself up, and since they were both still committed to their grip, she got pulled right up with him, still hanging by the fluffy disk. "Seriously?" He sighed, watching her dangle off his arm well above the floor, still scowling at him. At this point in the game however, she looked more childish than anything. "What ever happened to being a gracious host? Are you really gonna be this pigheaded?"

"Pigheaded?!" Her jaw dropped in outrage. Still clinging onto the waffle, she grabbed the collar of his shirt with her other hand and pulled him in so close that he could see the rings around her irises. "Now listen up!" She tugged at his collar forcefully to emphasize his position. "You wanna have a territorial dispute? You may be king under whatever roach-infested rock you call home, but you're a guest here, you ballsy bald bastard! We are not equals. We will never be equals. Not here. Not ever."

Saitama suddenly stiffened up, eyes widening a bit at her in some semblance of shock. Surprisingly, he seemed dazed enough to slacken his grip on the waffle just enough for her to wrest it free and hover safely back from him with it. While empowered by this triumph, Tatsumaki certainly didn't use it as an excuse to stop talking.

"So if you're even evolved enough to think like an animal can, you had better understand your place in this natural hierarchy! We may both be heroes, but you should at least recognize the difference between paragons like me – who are meant to be admired rather than imitated – and B-Classes like you whose only hope is to ride my coattails." He held an unblinking leer on her as she put her hands to her hips and leaned in condescendingly. "I think even an ape like you might realize that no matter how high you can jump, it will never be the same as flying like me. Face facts. In this cutthroat world, there are winners, and there are losers. And as you can see," she wobbled her spoils at him in a sportless manner. "I'm the one with the waffle, bitch. Not you."

She reveled in the pallid shade that shrouded his face in a seemingly dejected manner. It obscured his eyes, but based on the rest of him, she was sure that his spirit was finally waning. "Oho?" She mocked. "What's this? Am I finally getting through that thick, hairless skull of yours?"

"Hey..." The word escaping his lips was so small, she nearly missed it.

"Has the epiphany of your insignificance finally absorbed itself into that half-eaten sponge you call a brain?"

"Hey, brat..."

She rolled her eyes before closing them and continuing. "Oh stop making such an ugly face, you're starting to make me sick. Maybe if you apologize now, I'll be a 'gracious host' and let you lick the crumbs off the table when I'm done. See? I can be nice. Why don't you start by—"

Her eyes sprung open, and she barely even had time to gasp at the speed Saitama had used to close the gap between them, fist clutched and held high over her. His serious features were back with a vengeance. His eyes bore down on her in a sharp, murderous gleam.

The two words to leave his mouth were accompanied by cold steam.

"Don't. Move."

Even with the wide repertoire of extra sensory abilities at her disposal, she was only able to scrape out from under his fist by reading the kanji character for "Death" figuratively etched in his knuckles as they passed by in slow motion.

She flew back from him, not on her own accord, but because she was literally riding the air current propelled by the punch as it missed her. She heard dishes and silverware rattle in their cabinets in response to the savage amount of force used in his attack. The curls of her hair were blown back into a frazzled mess, similar to Genos when he once bore mute witness to the same exact near-death experience.

Harsh as her words might have been, she was totally stunned and stupefied at this overtly violent retaliation. Given his prior history in dealing with her, she appeared to have overslept on the assumption that even he had a threshold for abuse – one that she had unwittingly danced on the edge of.

Staggered, it took her a moment to establish her thoughts into words, fighting even the quiver in her lip as she uttered them. "Wh-what are you…! What the fuck?!" She straightened her floating posture into an aggressive position, preparing to bring the entire roof down over his head the moment he showed signs of moving again. "Have you lost what little of your mind you had, Baldy?!" Her eyes narrowed in cold and complete distrust. "No… This was your plan all along, wasn't it? I knew it. You were only interested in getting chummy with me so that you could try killing me off in some undisclosed location. You were always jealous of me. Since the first time we met. I could sense it. I could feel it. And yet I—"

"Gaah! Why'd you move, you dumb kid?!" Saitama cut her off. "It was on your forehead! I almost had it!"

"Had it…?" She raised an eyebrow. "The hell are you on about?"

"Sh!" He hissed harshly while putting a finger to his lips. "Listen..."

She fell into silence – not because he told her to, but because she had absolutely no idea what to say that could justify this weird tomfuckery.

At first, there was nothing. She looked around the room, and nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, aside from the obvious mess. But then along came a sound. Fading in and out like a wisp on the wind.

It was a distinct, high-pitched buzz.

She raised her eyebrows. "That's what's got your ass in such a clench? It's just a bug, you dumbbell..."

"A gross, winged, biting, itchy, diseased, obnoxious, blood-sucking...devil bug!" Saitama emphasized feverishly. "You're telling me that you have no problem whatsoever knowing it's living here?"

"I'm letting you live here, aren't I?" She sneered. "If anything, I'd take the mosquito. At least they don't go around burgling other people's waffles and poisoning their coffee."

"Noooo, of course not." Saitama remarked sarcastically. "They only drain your fluids and spread sickness as a leading cause of worldwide deaths. Which is soooo much less of an issue than waffles and coffee."

"Are you up to date on your shots?" She inquired.

"Well yeah, but—"

"Then what's all this bitching about?" She exclaimed. "If you don't want it here, then just get rid of it!"

"Fine! Forget you. I'll do it myself." Saitama rotated his arm in a wind-up as if he were getting ready to knock the damn fly into next week with his fist. "Just keep out of the way."

As he walked by to settle the score with his tiny nemesis, Tatsumaki turned to float her way towards the sink and pour herself another glass of water. "Be my guest..." She muttered derisively.

No sooner had she even turned on the faucet before a loud noise erupted from behind her. Shuddering at the sound, she almost, almost didn't want to turn around and look. But she knew it had to be done sooner or later.

Sucking in her teeth, she peered over her shoulder and gasped at what she saw.

Saitama was goggling straight at her like a deer caught in headlights, all while having his entire right arm stuck clear through her wall.

"What happened?! What did you do?!" She demanded. "I had my back turned for TWO! FUCKING! SECONDS!"

"The uhhhh." Saitama paused his explanation to scratch his face using the hand not currently entombed in the building's foundation. "Mosquito landed on the wall."

"And so you punch the wall?! Have a fucking care, you big lumbering fetus! This isn't your property!"

"Look, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay?" Saitama was caught in between the two acts of trying to placate her and figuring out where his target flew off to next.

Trying to be as gentle as he could, he carefully slipped his limb out of the newly-crafted hole, pulling up a cloud of dust as he fully dislodged. Noticing the perturbed esper now quaking with fury in his peripheral vision, a few bullets of sweat rolled down his face as he did his best to appear distracted with his hunt. He took a moment to brush powder from his shoulder while closing his eyes and listening for the tell-tale hum of insect wings.

When the buzzing noise reached a crescendo next to his ear, his eyes shot open, and his entire body disappeared into a blur of swift motion.

Tatsumaki, briefly forgetting about her anger, stared off from the side in astonishment of his blinding speed. The only other person whose movements she couldn't track with her bare eyes had been Flashy Flash. While she was sort of curious about who seemed to be the faster of the two, it wasn't an easy call to make as soon as both candidates left Mach 83.

Every once in a while, small instances of Saitama flickered back into existence, seemingly for him to check and see if he seized his prey. A few times, Tatsumaki even thought she caught glimpses of him slapping and punching himself in the chaos, apparently as a reaction to the mosquito having landed on him and getting in a few licks of its own. Were she not so pissed about the business with the wall, she might have just sat down to continue her breakfast and enjoy the free show.

Nevertheless, she let this rapid dance continue for another minute or so before ultimately deciding not to risk any more collateral damage. "Okay, okay, just stop what you're doing, Baldy." When the whirlwind currently alternating between her kitchen and living room didn't slow down, she burst into a bright green aura. "HEY!" Her scream, aided by her psionic prowess, shook the entire room in a gigantic bellow. Saitama paused in his tracks to look at her. "Are you deaf on top of dumb?" She added ardently. "I said knock it off!"

"What?" He asked. "I almost had it. Why did you stop me?"

"I'm doing you a favor, idiot. Unless you'd rather not stop at paying for just the wall?" She hovered towards him with her arms folded inward, surveying the area for other damages. She was surprised to see that everything else seemed to be left untouched during his rampage, but knowing his simple behavior, she understood that it was only a matter of time before his next bungle. "Jeez. Leave it to a man to complicate an easy problem..."

"Hey Tats, what're you—"

"Shut your hole." She cut him off. "I need it quiet in here."

He gave her a confused look, watching as her eyes slowly slid closed to concentrate. The harsh features of her face gradually melted away into a peaceful calm. The emerald glow that cradled her body lightly expanded, and the curls of her hair gently lifted upwards as she extended her ESP to her surroundings.

Espers were considered odd by definition. The whole "extra sensory perception" thing was exceedingly difficult to put into a perspective understood by regular humans. It was because of such restrictions that Tatsumaki never perceived them as true equals to her. A traditional person was bound by five senses: a tongue, a nose, two eyes, two ears, and a very delicate nervous system. An extraordinary person – an esper – possessed a wondrous sixth sense that pretentious philosophers and spiritualists dubbed "The Mind's Eye." Of course, those with legitimate ideas within the exclusive society of espers considered the proposal of the brain having a hidden eye to be ludicrous. What the Mind's Eye actually was isn't fully understood, even by the best, even to this day. But Tatsumaki didn't need to understand every great mystery. Power was more than enough to fill in the gaps for her.

For this particular demonstration though, she supposed she would allow the concept of a mind's eye a literal interpretation.

From behind her eyelids, the outlines of surrounding objects in the room began to pronounce themselves from the blank slate, similar to chalk using itself on a blackboard. She also saw the familiar circle shape comprising her partner's head as she felt his eyes continue to watch her. Ordinarily she would give some sort of ill thought towards how annoying and creepy his gaze on her was, but if she let any judgment or emotion slide in, it would threaten her focus. Instead, she proceeded to scan the room for the slightest life signature floating around.

In mere seconds, she pinched two of her fingers together, and opened her eyes to break the trance. From the far side of the room, a tiny shape suspended by a green glow came levitating towards her. When it lay hovering just above the palm of her hand, Saitama leaned in closer to see that it was the mosquito she had ensnared, with its thin legs hogtied and locked in place.

The bald hero did a quick double-take between the captured insect and the woman who wore a slightly proud grin on her face.

"Psst..." It promptly vanished and replaced itself with her customarily unapproachable scowl as her partner tried for her attention. "Permission to speak now…?" Saitama whispered sincerely.

"Hmph. Permission denied, but that's never stopped you." She quipped without looking at him.

"What literally just happened? That was way super cool..." For some reason, he still insisted on whispering. "How did you do that?"

"Eh. It's a 'way super cool' person thing." She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and met him with a smug smirk. "...Not that you'd understand."

Still too relieved over the capture of the tiny invader to acknowledge her ribbing, he remarked, "It's awesome how you managed to catch it without even hurting it… Now…" He motioned his hands towards it carefully. "Gently… Calmly..." All at once, he broke out of his whisper and finished plainly with, "wash it down the sink."

She raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him, responding in a distinctly lower tone. "You telling me what to do?"

"C'mon, Tatsu!" He ushered her. "We gotta nip it in the bud before this thing breeds!"

"Still kinda sounds like you're telling me what to do."

"Just-just-just…!" He stammered and rushed over to the sink to crank the faucet on, allowing the water to run. "Here! You don't have to kill it. Just a quick rinse, and the plumbing will do the rest."

Contrary to his advice, Tatsumaki instead patiently glided in the other direction towards the sliding glass door leading to an outside balcony. Saitama, wise to her intentions, dropped his jaw and desperately attempted to dissuade her. "No!" He exclaimed. "Cast it into the water!"

Still cradling the levitating bug in her palm, she used her other pointer finger to effortlessly slide the door open, all without breaking eye contact with her roommate.

"Destroy it!" He shouted dramatically, the picture of intensity painted on his face.

She gave a sinister smirk. "Nope."

Freeing the mosquito from her psionic influence, she gave the insect a quick flick, catapulting it outside. Saitama, for all his speed in rushing over, was helpless to stop the insect from flying off into the light of day.

He did several stupefied double-takes between the esper and where the mosquito escaped, standing mute in the doorway for several seconds before slowly turning towards her with a look of indignation. "...What did you just bring upon this cursed land..."

"Word to the wise, Baldy..." She ran a hand through her hair in triumph as she hovered back towards the kitchen. "Nobody tells me what to do."

"Are you in a rebellious phase or something?"

"Now then..." she ignored the comment and turned to face him, petite hand held out expectantly. "I believe I am owed a service fee for dealing with your pest control problem."

Saitama stared down at her waiting open palm in confusion.

She rolled her eyes. "The waffle, Spit Shine. I know you have it. Fork it over." She motioned by curling her outstretched fingers.

"Oh, right. I think I put it in my pocket for safekeeping..." He patted down his sweatpants for a moment before finally whipping out the griddled item she sought. It seemed to let off an enchanting golden shimmer as he held it up. "Huh. Would you look at that. All that running around with it, and still good as new."

Immediately however, as if on cruel cue, the waffle disintegrated in his hand.

It didn't wilt. It didn't crumble.

It utterly disintegrated.

The two heroes watched, horrified, petrified, all color drained from their faces with jaws hanging hopelessly slack as the powdered dust of the once glorious breakfast frisbee drizzled to the floor between them. Apparently while being in possession of Saitama during his frenzied swatting spree, the delicacy had proven first and foremost that it was indeed delicate. It had not survived the voyage.

"Oh man..." Saitama couldn't bring himself to look his partner in the eyes – nor did he need to in order to fully understand the way they were currently regarding him. "Words cannot even describe..."

"Ohh..." He heard the softest of whimpers escape Tatsumaki's voice. "Ohhhh..." Which seemed to be steadily growing louder.

"Ah. N-now Tatsu, let's just...try to keep our heads here..." He wasn't sure if he thought even trying to appeal to her forgiving nature was worth the breath. "Wait, look, I can totally fix this! I'll fix it, okay? See?" He dropped down on his knees in an ambitious attempt to scoop the ashy remains into his hands and reassemble the molecules back to their original shape. His success was quite limited.

"Ohhhhhh!" The esper's mournful bawling was now escalating into a full-fledged war cry. "OHHHHHHH!" Luminous green flames ignited in each of her palms, and her usually subtle aura exploded into a vicious torrent of electricity. "OHHHHHHH YOU'VE JUST EARNED THE ASS-WHOOPING OF THE CENTURYYY!" Her eyes were windows of pure light with crackling energy spilling out.

Saitama, wisely giving up on his endeavor to restore breakfast, promptly hurdled himself over the living room couch to put as much distance between him and the impending storm as inhumanly possible.

"Oh come on!" He shouted while trying to get away. "Why does violence have to be your answer to every—ack!"

He didn't even make it as far as the neighboring chair before immediately getting body-slammed square in the back by the newly galvanized Torpedo of Terror.


"Bahahaha!" A certain multi-millionaire's hearty laugh bellowed throughout the room. "I've gotta say, you guys had me questioning your sanity a bit toward the beginning, but this is interesting! Too interesting!"

Hebert and Yamamoto, having just finished appealing their ideas about Saitama to the biggest figurehead in the association, were met with surprising laughter.

"I...I don't quite get it, sir..." Yamamoto scratched his whiskers, uncertain of Agoni's reaction. "You're...not angry?"

"Angry?! Ha! Hell, I'm impressed! If what you guys think about this Caped Baldy fellow is true, this could revolutionize everything for us!" The older man took a moment to puff his cigar. "Buuuut on the other hand, this could also have disastrous consequences. Upsetting the entire balance of our infrastructure, our hierarchy...not to mention all our hero evaluations we used to base everyone's rank will probably have to be questioned, overturned, retrofitted. Looootta' paperwork. That sort of thing..."

The two underlings were sweating bullets as they listened to Agoni mull through all of the various worst-case scenarios.

"So I guess I'll just be waiting to see how the chips fall." He paused to stare off to the side as if distracted by some invisible object before checking his wristwatch. The hands on the clock made him raise his eyebrows, and he turned to address the whole assembly with loud fervor. "And I'll expect everyone present to really up their game about keeping me in the loop! I mean it, folks! No shortcuts, no policy changes, no exceptions made without my say-so! Heard?!"

"Heard!" Everyone in the room shouted at once.

"Then get a move-on. Let's give those stats a good spring greening. Dismissed!"

Everyone's chairs scraped back all at once as they rose from their seats and proceeded out the door in a bustling manner.

As the room emptied out, Yamamoto and Hebert were singled out and stopped at the doorway by Agoni, who startled them both with a hand to each shoulder. "One other thing, gentlemen..." the words rode on a river of smoke that drifted between them. Having secured their attention, he let them go and pointed with the cigar between his fingers to drive the message home. "You guys have hands-on experience with that Baldy guy, yes? I want you to suspend all your current activities and head on down to X-City to report to its branch division. I'll have your travel and temporary living arrangements taken care of."

"W-well..." Yamamoto didn't want to appear brassy with his question to the man that signs his paychecks.

"May I ask why...sir?" His partner filled in for him, much to his relief.

Agoni rubbed his bulbous chin, watching black suits continuously drift out the door past him. "Isn't it obvious? I want as many informed eyes on the area as possible. If the rumors about that young man's strength prove to be true, then it'll be on your team to make sure that...agh, what's that psychic brat's name again…?" He tried for a few seconds to remember it before giving up with a shrug. "Just see to it that the floating veggie doesn't give him a reason to quit the Association. And if the rumors about him are wrong, well..." He took another puff of his cigar before finishing. "...Look, just make sure she doesn't chum the walls with his guts, alright? Everyone who's seen her handiwork with monsters knows the clean-up on that kid is a friggin' nightmare."

"Oh, no need to worry about that, Mr. Agoni," Hebert explained. "As I'm sure you are all too aware, the Terrible Tornado has received a stringent psychiatric screening from an acclaimed board of professionals prior to her placement. I can assure you that she, as with the other S-Class heroes, will conduct herself with the integrity and restraint befitting her station."

The reasonable confidence in which he said all this was betrayed only by the glossy doubt that was glazed in the eyes of his partner, who wisely kept his mouth shut.


"Where is he?" Tatsumaki huffed with a battle-frenzied look on her face. Her pajamas were now roughed up and covered in egg smears that she acquired on her merry chase with the egghead she wanted to crush the most. "Where is he?" She repeated obsessively. "Where's that little shit?" She weaved between all of the toppled furniture in efforts to find him. "Where's that fucking cunt?!"

Appropriately, the room now looked pretty much the way any room would after having a tornado touch down in the middle. The gaping hole in the wall that Saitama made earlier now fit right in theme with the smashed dishes, broken table, and numerous splatters on nearly every surface in the living space.

Saitama had since made himself scarce, and now appeared to be hiding somewhere in the vicinity. Tatsumaki would have used her sixth sense to find him the same way she found that mosquito earlier, but now she was way too pissed to even think about concentrating.

"BALDY!" She shouted to the ceiling. "I don't know where you're hiding, but I swear, if you somehow made it into my room, I'm gonna rip your lungs right out through your ass!"

Her ears perked up as they heard a shuffling noise coming from the kitchen area, as if someone had tripped and staggered.

Not permitting any footsteps to give her away, she stealthily hovered closer and took position over the counter top. She opened her palm and threw it downwards, resulting in a thunderous pound that caused a familiar bald figure to spill out of the cabinet he was hiding in.

Saitama shot to his feet, squeezing his eyes shut and holding out a few pieces of paper in front of him. "I surrender! Please take these coupons in exchange for my life!" Stuck in his pose, he steeled himself in preparation for whatever abuse was sure to follow.

After an uncomfortably long silence, he felt the coupons getting roughly snatched from his hands, and then received a hard tap on the nose by something that felt...wooden?

He reluctantly opened his eyes to find the long shaft of a broom floating in front of him, encased in a recognizable green glow.

Bewildered, he turned to see the small woman with her arms rigidly folded over her chest. Without speaking, she nodded her head towards the object she telekinetically presented him with, silently indicating what she expected him to do with it.

Slowly, he reached out and took the sweeper by the handle, and the verdant aura around it disappeared at his touch.

"In case you've never used one," Tatsumaki started in a mocking tone. "the side with the whiskers goes on the floor." She glided closer to her bedroom door before stopping to speak from over her shoulder. "By the time I come out, I'll expect this place to look exactly the way I woke up to it."

Saitama opened his mouth, but before he could even start to protest, she slammed the door after disappearing into the other room.

"Hey, wait a sec! Why am I the only one that has to clean? Didn't you make most of this mess?" He got no response, but that wasn't enough to convince him that she was gone. Small as the apartment was, he knew that she was still well within earshot of his complaints. "Hey! Don't pretend you can't hear me!"

"Ugh, shut up, stupid Bald-head!" came the muffled pitch of her voice from the other side of the door. "Just be thankful that I'm not using you to mop up the floor after all the bullshit you pulled this morning!"

Saitama ran his eyes across the room to survey the devastation caused by their chase. Easily half of what was now lying in pieces on the floor had only recently been pitched at his head. "Seriously, dude!" He raised his voice so that she could hear him. "All this for a damn waffle?"

"Don't act like this doesn't go deeper than that!" She retorted. "This isn't about the damn waffle!"

"Whaaaaaaat?" He responded in disbelief. "Then why did you go Super Saiyan Green on me when I lost it?"

"The waffle is symbolic!" She shouted cryptically.

"Symbolic?! Okay now this is just starting to sound like a bad fanfic. What do you mean 'symbolic'?"

"I mean," he heard something swing open in the other room – presumably her closet. "It's the principle of the thing! By letting you have the waffle, I would be letting you undermine my authority as ruler of this household!"

Saitama just had to blink at that logic. "You for real? Tatsu, before you tried to snatch it from my hand, I was getting ready to cut it in half. One piece for you, and one for me. Same deal with the juice. Haven't you ever heard of sharing?"

He stared at the door while waiting for a response, but all had fallen silent behind it. After waiting for several seconds, he rolled his eyes and sighed before taking the broom and beginning to sweep. A few reps in, and he heard the muffle of a voice from the bedroom.

"Huh? I didn't hear that." He called out as he continued to clean.

"Ugh, I said you're lying!" Accused the voice from behind the door. "It's easy to claim you would've shared it after the fact. You're just trying to get me to feel bad. Well...it's not happening, you got that?! I'm not letting you under my skin!"

Saitama shook his head. Who says that you ever had to be a dad in order to deal with an angsty daughter?

"Tatsumaki," he began slowly. "You live alone. You've never had to make compromises. I get that. 'Til recently, I've been living the same way. But while we're living together...this ain't the way, dude. You have got to close the gap and meet me closer to the middle."

"Middle? Middle of what? You're in my place. I may not hold you to as many rules as I was going to, but I still call the shots! Take it or leave it!"

"I hope you don't really mean that." He replied patiently. "Remember what we talked about? You really wanna end up all alone again?"

"Hmph! Don't get the wrong impression of me! I was cruising along just fine being alone!" She assured him. "People are a liability. And a waste of time. Relying on others is an insult, and a mistake! It makes people soft." From how close the source of her voice has gotten, Saitama could guess that she must just be on the other side of the door, screaming against the wood. "And I will never allow you to change my understanding of that!"

"Huh?" His confusion was palpable in his tone. "Someone ever say something about me wanting to change you? I just wanna have a few moments of peace with you."

"...What?"

"I'm not really that interested in telling other people how to live. I sure know my way isn't perfect. You saw my apartment; you get the gist. And I know living here isn't gonna be perfect either – for either one of us." He bent over to scoop up some shards of glass with a dustpan. "Guess all I'm trying to say is that I don't personally feel like spending every second living together waging an eternal war over every tiny way we affect each other's worlds. That cool with you?" He stopped to pour the debris he collected into the trash bin. When he got no response, he walked out to the living room and started lifting all of the toppled furniture back into their upright positions. "For the record, sorry if you think I messed up breakfast. I thought I was doing you a favor, and I guess it...wasn't. Won't happen again."

He was just getting the last of the coffee and egg splatter off of the walls when he heard the bedroom door open. He turned to see Tatsumaki standing in the doorway wearing her traditional black dress. She regarded him with serious eyes. Not necessarily unfriendly, just...serious.

Her gaze narrowed on him before she turned her sights to scan the whole area for anything out of place. To her surprise, he actually did a pretty nifty job of getting everything back into sorts. ...Not that he deserved the compliment.

Saitama, almost certain he would be met with criticism, waited in silence for her to finish the inspection.

"Hm." For a moment, he thought he caught sight of a small smile on her lips as she looked on with approval. Before he had time to commit the face to memory, however, she snapped back into an emotionless visage. "Clean yourself up." She ordered in a neutral tone. "Get dressed. We're going out soon."

He tilted his head. "Going out?"

"What are you, a parrot? Put some pep in that step, Baldy. We're wasting daylight."

He sighed, turning to head into the bathroom to freshen up. "Sun's barely even up..." He muttered.

"What was that?" She asked without facing him.

He rolled his eyes as he continued walking. "I said it's an honor to bask in your radiant glow, Empress Queen Tatsumaki-sama-chan."

"Hey. Baldy."

His shoulders stiffened up as he stopped halfway through the door.

She held her silence for a moment longer, staring at his back as he stood waiting for her next verbal tirade.

Her eyes softened.

"...sorry..."

"Huh? What?" Saitama turned to look out at her, curiosity painting the simple features of his face. "My bad, that was kinda quiet."

She felt her cheeks warm up. "I-It was nothing…! Nothing, okay? Just...go and do whatever guys do to...get ready...or something."

She stared down hard at the floor, doing whatever she could to avert his gaze.

"Oh. Okay then." He turned to head back inside the bathroom to brush his teeth. "Ah, by the way, you're still holding onto those coupons I gave you, yeah? I think I saw a deal on waffles somewhere on one of them. You know...if you still eat that sort of thing."

"Oh..." She took them out and stared at one of the stubs. Sure enough, it even had her favorite: the exact same brand on sale as the one they had spent the morning fighting over.

Her mouth, slightly open in surprise, slowly closed into a warm smile.

"Oh yeah, almost forgot." The immersion was broken by her partner's voice echoing from the bathroom. She could hear the sink already running. "Can you check to see if they have any discounts on orange juice too? I'm still thirsty, you know."

"Pff." She scoffed at him almost playfully. "Whatever, Grandpa."


Sekingar sat quietly back at his office, mulling over some paperwork on his desk with his mechanical eye. The earlier meeting with his charismatic leader had given him plenty of new things to consider. Now that he officially understood that Agoni was watching their every move, he knew that the Hero Association couldn't afford a lot of trouble.

Enter a familiar face.

"Excuse me, Sekingar-kun, I do hope I'm not interrupting."

The man being addressed shifted his artificial iris upwards to find Amai Mask leaning against the sill of his doorway, hands in pocket. The older man furrowed his brow at the honorific that the actor used to refer to him. It seemed to insinuate that because Amai Mask was on the Hero Rank Evaluation Staff on top of his status as a celebrity that he and Sekingar stood as equals in authority. Which was tragically untrue.

"Mr. Amai." Sekingar droned without enthusiasm. "To what do I owe this fine pleasure?"

Upon hearing the question, the celebrity-hero sauntered into the office space fully, an equally unamused glint reflecting in his golden eyes. "Alas… A certain lack of pleasure on my part, I'm afraid..." He began with a frown.

"Interesting." Sekingar regarded. "I would think a man of your station would have the sensation reserved in excess."

"Please," Amai held up a hand. "Let us try to get through this fleeting moment of our lives without patronizing one another."

The executive's eyes narrowed disapprovingly. "So you're feeling a lack of pleasure..."

"Yes..." He leaned in. "With a certain character that somehow got cast into my show without my knowing."

"Apologies, Mr. Amai, but you'll have to be more blunt with me. I don't understand theatrical shorthand."

The actor closed his eyes in a depressed sigh. "Very well… What I really mean to say is that I have encountered a problem with a certain little girl that my own evaluation staff approved as my sidekick without my expressed permission."

"Ahhh, your partner." Sekingar nodded knowingly. Now it made sense. "And what, may I be bold enough to ask, is your dilemma with the hero we so carefully assigned for you?"

"Well, I am grateful for your boldness in asking." He teased capriciously. "Because..." He slammed both palms down on the desk of the man sitting at it, hard enough to create sizable cracks in it. The fake smile on his face was replaced with malice. Gold was replaced with crimson red in his eyes, and a few veins marred his otherwise porcelain skin. "Where the hell do you people get off thinking I can hold a clean professional image with that thug riding my shadow around everywhere? Well?"

"Oh." Sekingar pointed outwards from clasped hands folded neatly in front of him. "I think I see the problem. Well, I may have a solution. I just have to ask you a few routine questions about your new partner, if that's okay."

The evil in Amai's face disappeared, seemingly placated by this offer. "If it will get her out of my sight, I shall cooperate."

"Good." Sekingar opened a drawer under his desk and pulled out a small notepad to write on. "Firstly," he pushed down on a pen and dabbed the point with his tongue. "has your partner done anything illegal?"

The A-Class hero winced slightly. "No..."

"Has your partner threatened you with violence, blackmail, extortion, defamation, or otherwise?"

"No..."

"Has your partner expressed a mutual interest in ending this partnership?"

"N-Not exactly, but—"

"Is your partner even aware that you're here having this discussion with me?"

"Enough of this!" Amai shouted, having lost patience at the pointless line of questioning. "You know exactly why I believe it's to my benefit not to work with her. I have a reputation to consider! Certainly one of higher maintenance than this bike-runner, or bar brawler, or...ugh, whatever people of her caliber entertain themselves with!"

"Ah, Miss Tanktop Girl." Sekingar called out without changing his dull expression at all. "Please, come in. We were just talking about you."

Amai Mask's voice lodged clear in his throat, forming a lump that he could not even begin to swallow.

"So I couldn't help but overhear..." He recognized the low but feminine voice, and hearing its tone caused a chill to fall over his backside where it came from. "All good things, I trust?"

His neck made an awful creaking sound as he slowly turned his head to regard the person leaning in the doorway with her arms folded and eyes cold.

For what felt like an hour, nobody in the room spoke another word.

"Well..." Sekingar closed his eyes and sighed, completely detached from the situation. "If that was all there was to discuss..." He opened his eyes to regard the senior hero one last time. "...I believe I'll leave this matter for you to settle amongst yourselves."

"Yes, please!" Tanktop Girl waltzed up to lock elbows with her partner. He winced in discomfort at the sheer amount of force she used. She took a moment to smile politely at the man sitting at his desk. "Sorry to take up your time, Executive Dude, sir! My partner's just got a small case of cold feet." She dropped her smile to cast a dangerous leer at the entrapped celebrity from the corner of her eye. "I'm afraid that little girls of my caliber have that effect on high-riding rich boys."

The hero being indirectly mentioned snapped his head to glare away from her.

Sekingar gave her a hollow smile. "Think nothing of it. I appreciate you stopping by to voice your complaints, Mr. Amai."

The celebrity narrowed his glare at the executive, shooting a visible threat at him through his eyes.

"Right then, we'll be off now! Buh-bye!" Tanktop Girl, still locked against her partner, steered the two of them towards the door, waving warmly at Sekingar as she walked Amai Mask out with her.

The chairman extended a tiny wave of his own, holding his lifeless smirk. "Have fun, you two."

As the tangled duo walked into the hallways of HQ, Amai Mask shook free of his imposing teammate, appearing to be disgusted at her touch. "How did you find me here?" He demanded.

"Oh it was really hard work." She shrugged impishly. "Thank goodness there were droves of paparazzi and tweens all tailing you and screaming your name, or I never woulda' managed!" She smirked to see his offended reaction to her sarcasm. "Still, it's pretty lucky I was here to keep you from making such a mistake, huh?"

"Mistake?" He sneered. "You exude quite the confidence for one so small. Well...I don't think terribly of that trait in people, I suppose..."

"So you really meant it." She put her hands on her hips to regard him, seemingly with more disappointment than anger. "You really want nothin' to do with me, huh?"

Unsure of what to say, he pulled away to stare off at the ficus plant decorating the hall.

"What, 'cause of how I dress? How I look? 'Cause I'm a girl?" She probed him for reasons. "C'mon man, help me out here."

"Don't take it personally..." He stated half-heartedly. "I'm certain if it were any other C-Class, my reaction would have been entirely similar."

"So 'cause I'm weak, then." She decided. "That's it, huh."

He snuck a sideways glance at her. "So what if it is?" He challenged bitterly.

She spent a long time staring at him. Studying him. Her lips formed into a curious pout, though her eyes appeared absent of any resentment towards him.

After what seemed like several minutes going by, she finally cracked a smirk.

"C'mon. Let's go." Before he could do or say anything, she again took him by the arm and continued dragging him down the hall.

"Wha! What are you doing? Where are you taking me?" The celebrity demanded to know, disgraced at being manhandled yet again. After several paces without an answer, he pushed again with depleting patience. "Obstinate woman! I asked you a question!"

"And you'll get an answer."

He regarded her with a skeptical eyebrow, silently waiting on some due elaboration.

"If you're really telling the truth..." She added without slowing down her steps. "If me being in C-Class is all that bothers you..." She pushed open the double glass doors of the HQ's entrance, dragging him out with her into daylight. "...then come with me."

As they stepped across the street, a big basketball court came into their view.

"I'm about to show you, right here and now..." Tanktop Girl regarded him with a spirited, toothy grin, and it somehow irritated him how immaculate her ivories actually were. "...That 'C' ain't nothin' but a letter."