Ever since the relocation of humanity from the old world into the supercontinent, there have been three main tasks the new government has been trying to fulfill ever since its establishment. The growth, the maintenance, and the protection of humanity.
And one of these tasks has been delegated into the role of the Minister of Defense, perhaps one of the most important tasks, the protection of humanity.
The protection of humanity entailed many things. Ensuring the safety of Cities and its infrastructure was defended from external threats, this was his main responsibility among many other things.
Among many other things including but not limited to the oversight of the military forces, citing the military budget to the minister of finance, and making sure the army dealt with any immediate human or nonhuman threats to the state. Let's just say that the last one has been a real pain recently. Despite all the resources and willing volunteers the ever vigilant soldiers of the government never seemed like enough in the face of the newest, or rather an old resurgent threat to humanity.
Mysterious Beings, or a simple term: Monsters.
They were a phenomenon that had been occurring since long before humans forged civilizations. Creatures being birthed from nature with destructive or murderous intent towards mankind, or humans having transformed through some biological means.
Even though they've always existed their kind appearing was often a rarity, but sometimes a dangerous one. One that existed in large quantities in the old world, one of the reasons they left, but not so much here in the new world.
For the most part during his tenure as Defense Minister monsters were always at the back of his mind as a near non-existent but still prevalent issue. Years might pass where occasionally a strange creature would appear and provide the local populace of a City with annoyance.
But other times... it would cause a terrible catastrophe! Hulking behemoths possessing incredible powers, intelligent or not, would wreak havoc among a City and cause the death of countless lives, as what had recently happened in City B.
Then something fully unexpected happened. Another mysterious being appeared at the same, and also by change possessing immense power. But this one acted in a much different manner from his fellow mysterious being.
Black Sperm was particularly different from the rest of mysterious beings he'd encountered or heard of, and this was exclusively due to his lack of explicitly stated hatred of humanity, and invaluable assistance provided in the dispatching of the monster, evacuating civilians from building wreckage and post battle City reconstruction.
It was utterly unthinkable that one of the many beings who often proclaimed themselves enemies would help humanity.
Yet according to eyewitnesses it had indeed happened, and Black Sperm became the beloved hero of City B.
Showered with praise with saving lives, defeating a monster where the military couldn't, and even receiving unbelievable gifts from an eccentric wealthy man in the form of what Steel believed to be a dangerous combination for any single individual to have. Perhaps even more dangerous was the fact that Black Sperm was not even a single individual himself.
A mansion, money, and a large company. All now belonging to a single mysterious being of an unknown nature and intent.
Only within the span of a few days a no name creature had risen to fame and fortune through the ingenious use of his powers for the sake of helping humans in a short span of time.
It was a potentially dangerous enemy, taking into consideration all the factors.
However it may not need to be that way necessarily, so long as Black Sperm behaved according to the laws Steel saw no reason not to cooperate. The Minister of Defense was not incapable of seeing the many benefits of having a strong ally in the wake of further threats in the future.
With Black Sperm having acquired the respect and support of the City B it wasn't like he could do anything to get rid of him anyway. The government lacked the moral high ground and effective material means to remove him in any capacity.
So with the Prime Minister and government being forced to react to the situation, they could only respond positively and formally recognize the reality that had already occurred on the ground.
Then as a means to gauge the situation and salvage it for their benefit, Steel was simply ordered to try to ensure good relations with it- with him, Black Sperm. Then to simply observe his current behaviors and see if he can make use of the beings unique abilities.
It was a tough situation to be in. But the Minister of Defense dealt with it as best he could.
He had just given Black, as Black Sperm requested what he referred to him as, a standard issue military emergency contact phone, meant to allow easy contact between Black and himself.
It could be used anywhere in the world and have perfect reception due to being connected to a satellite used primarily for military communications.
And now that his own orders had been fulfilled, there was something else Steel wanted to do here. If he was to properly analyze Black he would need to have a more in depth discussion with him, maybe in the form of a formal meeting, or dinner? To get to know him better, and for other strategic purposes, obviously.
"I heard that Veil gave you quite the assortment of gifts… including his mansion." He said simply.
"Yeah, it's a lot larger than I really need. But it's pretty nice to have a lot of open space."
"Oh I'm sure. Since we'll be working together would you mind me making a small visit? It would make informal conversation related to matters other than government business a tad easier."
He nodded. "Sounds good to me."
It was simple enough getting the meeting, but what sort of person would Black display himself as during his little visit? That was the main question here.
Spermatozoon Mansion… Steel found it a bit egotistical, but compared to some buildings and monuments many eccentric rich people made, it didn't seem particularly out of place. Putting aside the fact that Black being a mysterious being.
He was led in by the owner himself. Black didn't walk or talk much differently than most people Steel knew, he didn't gloat at his most recent accomplishments, nor did he monologue to him about some great plan that he was powerless to stop. He put on a clear visage of a seemingly simple person, that otherwise was only different due to his powers and looks. It was convincing, but Steel knew better then to take things at face value.
Inside the building was just as fancy as he expected. Though most of it was likely leftovers from the previous owner Veil.
Then someone walked up to him, a little girl. Steel was caught off guard.
"Hey mister?" She looked up at him, almost expectantly.
Huh? Why was a child here? A hostage?!
"Hello there." He said, not wanting to cause a scene. "What's your name?"
"Tatsumaki."
"Nice to meet you Tatsumaki. Did you want to speak to me?"
"Black- Dad said you would save my sister."
What was this?
"Of course. What's her name?"
A trap for something?
"Fubuki."
But what?
"Fubuki." He repeated. "Don't worry Tatsumaki, I'll bring her back for you."
Really Steel had no idea how difficult the task would be, or how he had been roped into doing this at all, though he guessed Black would explain to give him context.
...
Black Sperm filled him in on the missing information a little later. It altered Steel's perspective on him quite a bit.
"You say her parents sold her off?"
"Yeah." He sighed. "Don't know the specifics, but it sounded to me like some random group of scientists with money was experimenting around. I don't wanna trouble you too much, but would you mind helping out for a favor?"
An appeal to his humanity?
"Not including monster hunting, think of it more as a personal thing."
Most likely. But if it was true then he would listen.
"A favor for a favor... very well. I will see what I can find. Though I decline to consider accepting it, it's my job to investigate potential threats like this." Steel didn't take the bait.
"I was thinking of doing it myself… but I thought you might have an easier time, especially with me searching cities. I don't really wanna cause a panic."
"Understandable. Was there anything else?"
"... uh… no that's pretty much it. I'm still trying to figure out how to do taxes... actually there is something else you can help with."
Steel sighed.
…
With little else to do when he got back to his post Steel went and searched up the sisters' names in the civilian database. It was then an intriguing piece of info came up, one that confirmed Black's story. Fubuki was still living with her parents, but Tatsumaki wasn't, in fact she was nowhere to be seen according to them.
"A missing persons case..." But it was a little over a few years ago, long before Black had just made his appearance a few days ago. So his story could be believed then, as unfortunate as it was.
However that also meant the other thing Black said was true, Tatsumaki was sold off to an illegal research group, by her parents nonetheless. A sickening prospect.
As much as Steel pained to admit it, Tatsumaki certainly looked happy under Black's care. And taking into consideration that her original parents were unable to protect her it only made sense to place Fubuki in a safer environment, ergo Black Sperm.
If it was a facade Black was putting on, it would certainly be a convincing one.
Either way, Steel knew what he had to do.
Okay I've made a lot of good progress so far. Got myself a company, house, and a loose contract with the government.
Finishing up rebuilding parts or City B only took a total of a week, after that I decided to re-merge most all my split off cells back into me after that, mainly to stay intact and keep up to date with a majority of my cells memories.
Though I left a few thousand scattered around the City for observational and PR purposes, most of them doing misc community and volunteer work to boost my rep.
Mmm, yes, now I know construction, and partial medical knowledge due to constant evacuations. With an unfortunately high amount of trial and error, varying degrees of success saving lives. But that should get better still as I continue to work on it. What else do I have for memories?
Searching- searching- a whole lot of stuff, ugh this is giving me a headache, anything particular interesting?
No? So my 'me's' just focused on the few important tasks I gave them and not much else? Well I guess that's alright, I keep expecting them to do something different or split from my directions for some reason. Feels surreal to have so many of myself exist at once and be on the same page.
Wait I see an interesting memory, myself experimenting with logistics runner cells to keep other cells up to date with the surrounding area, and happenings by spreading memories around. Nice! Glad I came up with that, it should be useful if I ever spread out my reach into multiple cities.
Talk about having eyes everywhere.
What to do now.
Let me check my todo list of future problems.
The Organization. Just a bunch of battle robots. I think I'll classify them among the many misc evil organizations that aren't an immediate threat to humanity. Question is what relationship do they have to Drive Knight or Bofoi? No clue, I'll look into it of they come up, for now I'll play it by ear.
Psykos, she goes insane after vision of the future. I think something related to her developing a future sight power or something.
Does my presence change the vision? Should I prevent her being able to see it at all? Would she still go insane if I did in fact change things? And would she become better or worse somehow because of this?
Solution here would obviously be to kidnap her as a child or toddler and to preemptively prevent her from becoming crazy, however... that might cause a massive dip in my reputation if people find out I'm kidnapping children.
Although I guess I technically might be able to get away with it if I do it discreetly enough, I was rich and rich people could do practically anything around here. Including those guys that bought Tatsumaki.
Speaking of money, perhaps an economic solution was more preferable besides simply buying Psykos? Kidnapping shouldn't be my go-to solution despite how simple it was to do, I was 'technically' a hero now so underhanded methods should be low in use.
I might have to be more subtle. Or maybe I could just make a special school for espers and cross my fingers that Psykos decides to go. If I wanna take more of an off hands approach.
No clue what her personality was besides being Fubuki's friend so it's a toss up. If all else fails I can go do an advertisement for something like- "Oh Congrats completely random family! You're daughter won the chance to go to a special private school for free!".
She wasn't really individually proficient as Tats was in her powers anyway, and I guess she wouldn't really be a big deal if she actually went crazy and started the MA again. I'd find and destroy it pretty fast anyway.
Or throw money at Bofoi to deal with it.
What else did she have?
She was friends with Fubuki, that was something to take note of, do I recreate the friendship and send Fubuki off to the school too?
She might appreciate it having a similar powered friend. Hard to say if that would help other then giving her an attachment to who was currently a non-factor.
Psykos was also pretty hot too- wait no fuck she's Fubuki's age so about five, disgusting, repulsive, ERASE ERASE ERASE THAT THOUGHT.
Wait now that I mentioned it... most of the potential waifu material this world I had in this place would as of now be unborn, babies or children…
...
Guess I'll have to abstain... again... I've already managed to do so even in my old life... ha... ha...
Talk about skipping dating and marrying a girl to children… oh well. At least Tatsumaki is easy.
Well nothing more to think about there. Nothing that was important anyway. I'll deal with Psykos when she's older, ahem.
Next actual problem.
Orochi. At least I was supposedly near his strength in the future. His monster king form was Intrinsically linked to Psykos. Does the guy become a strong monster if left alone? Should I see if I can convert him?
Is it worth it otherwise leaving him alive due to a potential violent personality? Any non-violent solutions to fixing that? Observation, then potential imprisonment for him seemed like the best option.
Meh, I'll just make him a person of interest, no need to complicate things. He shouldn't be anything more than a potential strong monster if anything. Even if he's a liability.
Maybe I could have Bofoi make some computer system to analyze and gauge the likelihood of people becoming monsters and have a program to get them therapists, would that help? I couldn't just track every person and watch for bad behavior could I?
What was the total human population on the planet again? And how many cells did the original Black Sperm have?
I'll save that idea for later.
Garou. Another problem child. Will my existence change his outlook? If he stays the same can I actually beat him without Saitama? Probably if I force Genus into maximum food production mode I could maybe fight his final forms. Not sure how much grinding I'd need to do, might take up a lot of time...
I guess I could always just send a cell to hang out around him and scare off the bullies to make his childhood better- wait would that make him sympathetic to monsters more so… ?
Eh, I'll give him the same explanation I gave Tats, something like "I'm a good monster, the rest are bad, kill them to make me proud." or something like that.
Not too difficult of a problem to solve really, could always uh, do the same thing as I thought of like Psykos and use a fancy private school thing to put him under my radar.
Suspicious acting Neo-Heroes. Byproduct of HA. No need to worry because I don't intend to make the same mistakes.
My own organization might still be corrupt though, just in a different way... if my duplicates use my money on their own.
Would they?
Nothing that important or what I wouldn't do myself so far, my cells knew better since they were all still me, consistency and loyalty were pretty important values to me, they'd alert me if some important expense came up and take care of it as needed. I still had a few reports to me every now and then for misc things.
Mostly company and City things. Trying to keep myself contained in City B, don't want to split up and scare people that don't know me, not enough rep yet beyond the area yet to know if the public wouldn't freak out at my presence.
Also had a few thousand cells hang out around my current main two properties. Sperm Mansion and the newly established Spermatozoon Association Building. For observation, protection, and to deal with the near never ending reporters that came to question me.
Thankfully I could distract each individual one with a cell, easily eliminating that problem.
Next is the biggest problem and most concerning right away.
Alien invader Boros destroying a city. Do I build an entire city out of the same material Bofoi constructed the HA building with? Well the City's inhabitants might not survive a bombing even if the city stays standing... and I'm not sure if I have the tech for a forcefield.
Uh….. oh! A telescope watching space, keep track of its location if possible, keep Tats closely nearby once the future seeing grandma dies- Shibi something I forgot her name, yeah, a good plan. Who can fight Boros? Tats? Hard to say, maybe not due to the energy beams, too risky even if she's OP.
Saitama? Gold Sperm? Only Saitama was safe here, but I don't know if I'll mess up his motivation by monster hunting thus blipping One Punch Man out of existence. Also don't wanna rely on any non factors yet either, so I might be fucked there.
Hmm... can I stop the bombing, mess up the ship from the inside, then negotiate a battle to take place later? Boros seems like he might be a patient type having journeyed to earth for a decade and a little more, but... er, that's still kinda risky.
I'll need to create multiple backup plans here for Boros, and figure out another plan to deal with Cities being destroyed in an instant, since that seems to be a problem around here.
I mean, the City I'm in currently is fated to be destroyed by that one Titan looking guy and his scientist brother... could recruit them to prevent it though. Have they been born yet?
Next problem EVEN WORSE.
GOD. How powerful? Can I have Blast deal with him? Probably my only solution, can I remove Saitama's limiter without him having the same motivation to do so, especially if my presence changes his personality accidentally? Really tricky, I'll have to weigh the possibilities of expanding my protective reach into other cities in a way that still promotes heroism, instead of corporate protection, if I end up utilizing my company that way.
It was a similar situation to Boros, but I had less info to work with, and a worse enemy match up. Blast can probably handle it maybe... but it's a gamble if he shows up at all. I mean I think he will? Didn't see him in the research facility, but I definitely know he's out there cube collecting to fight against mister G's presence, I think.
Most important issue I need to handle right away.
Cells. Really need to go find Genus and give him money to speed up his projects, if applicable. You know what I should really go find him right now and get that out of the way, I really want a GS bodyguard.
Well… I could but I don't really want to do it myself. Since I'm occupied with hanging out with Tats, and also the newest addition to my team.
Fubuki was here now, playing with her older sister and crashing a couple toy cars into each other like the adorable child she was. And I really didn't want to miss this precious moment, so I was just sitting here on the couch.
Yeah, it didn't take long to get her back at all. Just got Steel to deal with it, avoiding me having to travel without a good rep, then barely a fay later I got a new child and their parents are in prison. So everything was fine and dandy right now in my new esper family, Tatsumaki was also pretty happy, and thankful to Steel. Bonus points for him, and me.
Steel seemed pretty cool about it. The guy didn't question my benevolent abduction of Fubuki too much thankfully, supposedly "understanding the plight of siblings split up needing to be reunited."
What a weirdly specific thing to say. Wonder what the backstory was.
*Ring *Ring
Oh a call... must be Steel again... Hnnng, I'll pawn it off on one of my cells, surely my other self will understand my plight of not wanting to move, at all. Conservation of my valuable family time.
Split.
"Phone." I said to the new cell.
"Lazy." He mumbled. "You're worse than me, and you're me! What difference does you or me picking up the phone make?"
"Yeah, exactly, you know the drill." I brushed off his concerns.
While he answered the call I continued observing the young psychic sisters engaging in sisterly bonding. Very cute, I crawled down off my position from the couch to watch closer, Fubuki was now engaged in the very important task of stacking lettered blocks together, with her sister guiding her to make words.
"Boss, we got another uh, situation. Monster, a large one, I think it's a dragon."
Already?! Immediately knowing what needed to be done, I split off half of my current stock off me. Two Hundred and Fifty Billion, was that enough? No clue, but I knew some help would show up... all Cities were still around(or rebuilt), at least until canon starts, so I wasn't too worried there, besides saving civilians.
"Two orders. You guys go deal with that call, and also as a side mission collect Genus too if you can right away, I'm gonna hold the fort here."
"Sounds good to me." My cell responded, before running off.
Fubuki looked back and forth at the three different cells, then the other two groups that merged into one that just left, metaphorically it seemed like her head was spinning. Why was-
Oh yeah she hadn't witnessed splitting yet, how do I explain that to a five year old? Hmm...
Tatsumaki on the other hand was just smiling happily, already familiar with my powers, and even waving goodbye to the other me's that left.
Good girl.
Oh yeah Fubuki didn't really look or behave like a five year old at all, more like a toddler, two to three-ish physically. It was a little odd but not too concerning, I just presumed it to be an esper aging thing.
Like in canon when Fubuki got taller but Tats didn't at all, I guessed that their psychic power strength altered the rate of aging to be slower. That made the most sense to me.
Something to consider. Maybe I'll probe Genus for his knowledge on esper biology if he has any.
Doubt it.
Hold I just reminded myself of something. Webcomic memory, there was another group of psychics Tatsumaki was gonna fight sometime, maybe off screen during the Neo Heroes arc.
Didn't see them though since that part wasn't covered, only heard something about Eleven espers making esper child soldiers, and that Tats knew the leader? It was a vague memory, but when reading I found it something notable to remember.
Was that who the facility was owned by? I should scout around that place again. Reason I haven't been splitting too much though was that assigning cells to too many tasks at once weakens me overall, so better to focus on a few select things with main groups. Deal with problems slowly, carefully, but with detailed efficiency.
Or as much my attention span was willing to let me.
Reminds me again... I need to get Tats more comfortable using her powers to fight baddies. So far these last few days a few cells I've been using as maids/caretakers have alerted me to Tats levitating objects in plain sight for convenience, so she was comfortable now but not trying to do too much else with them beyond that.
Need to get her more comfortable and up to speed in the full scope of her powers. And to get her out of that shell of hers, but without making her personality volatile through bad advice like Blast did.
As much as 'look out for yourself, try not to rely on others' was good advice Tatsumaki really fucking went ballistic with following and misinterpreting it. Since I think Blast probably meant it in a: 'You should probably use your powers to defend yourself" sort of way and not 'view everyone as lesser lifeforms undeserving of your attention, except your sister'. It was kinda funny though in a way, since she and Saitama were the only ones that were completely reliable in winning fights. Garou notwithstanding.
Not sure what her social life was like, if she had one at all, but given the personality and behaviors she showed in the three forms of OPM media, it seemed like she had none at all. With Fubuki most likely being her only form of human contact. Yeah that was pretty sad.
Gonna fix that of course. Shouldn't be too hard with a ten year old. I'll just have to be a good role model…. or find someone to delegate this issue to, that is if my own personality isn't enough.
Also her body looks kinda flimsy, like any ten year old girl would, which makes sense but it concerned me because can she even do much without powers? Even of it took like a few Dragon+ mysterious beings to do it, me and future Tats still had to deal with Boros, which might kill both of us.
Mostly because I'm not sure if she can focus on a fight and dealing with the main boss there, plus all the minions. How much was that in total? Three dragons of varying power and hundreds of wolfs, tigers, and demons? What a nightmare, but maybe I was just underestimating her… hopefully. Don't like planning with a clearly unkown variables though.
I got her to fly me through guilt tripping and my forced movement, so that should work with the rest of her powers shouldn't it? Bribery feels like what the facility tried, and failed. But thay was probably because they were a research lab.
Tricky.
I'll start working on ideas to help Tats after playtime, that's more important for her mentally. Then maybe after I'll give her the choice of private and home schooling. Can't forget about basic education.
Most likely going to do home school, possibly tutors. Not sure who to trust yet, also I'm a mysterious being, so parent teacher conferences might be awkward. Yeah, home sounded better.
I just make tutors out of my cells.
Maybe, despite me being able to acquire memories fast I still needed sheer time to memorize things right. Though, if I'm gonna learn all these new things at once in rapid succession I'm gonna need to organize it better. Gonna split more cells off to learn how to teach now.
Can I homeschool Tatsumaki a bachelors degree?
A little later I made my decision of what sort of schedule and training Tatsumaki should have. After taking into consideration the threat that is Boros, Psykos(potentially) and God, and that Saitama isn't guaranteed to become powerful, I decided that I need to get Tatsumaki mentally and physically prepared to solve all my problems.
My two god level threat problems.
To solve these I would do two things!
One would be to make Tatsumaki train at Bangs dojo, and learn his fighting style.
My reasoning was simple. It was there Tatsumaki could mingle with other dojo students, possibly make friends, in a safe controlled environment and where she had a disciplined, heroic, wise, and importantly human role model to look up to. I also liked the idea of Tatsumaki being able to use hand to hand combat in synergy with her powers, an invaluable tool. Also to learn how to respect other human beings.
Two was to put Tatsumaki through Saitama's regiment, and give her the proper motivation that would allow her to break her limiter. It was a plan that I was quite frankly very proud of thinking up.
Of course I would have to modify the regiment a bit at first, but I think I came up with a reasonable way to be able to get Tatsumaki physically prepared, and with the proper mental motivation for it to have at least some effect. Should tone it down to 20 so she doesn't die on me, and maybe every other day.
Having knowledge of how Saitama did it helped too. Although I wasn't very keen on putting Tatsumaki through constant near death experiences, I knew my favorite esper would need all the help she can get to usurp Saitama's role as the strongest hero and defeat God. So in the end she would be thankful. Though if she was in a tight spot I'll see about convincing her to use her powers more, when in danger.
Not sure if she would forgive me if she went bald though. However if she did, Genus or Kuseno can take care of that, surely.
I guess if I'd have to do it myself then I could grind to try and reach one hundred trillion for the 18 years of filler. I could do that, but cell grinding for more powerful forms felt like an endless task I had no clue would be reliable until I was already fighting the final boss. With the fights having such high stakes that was too big a risk for my liking. Thus, One Punch Tatsumaki.
Also I needed to get new abilities from Genus' experimenting on me to somehow counteract Boros' own. So who the hell knows if I'll ever be on par with the actually strong guys, despite being in the top 10 myself, I had no confidence.
Now for the first part of easing her into these things, I'll have to first use a combination of honesty, sweet words, and persuasion.
Okay. Here we go!
"Hey Tatsumaki, can I speak to you for a moment."
Playtime was over, Fubuki had been tired out and had just been put to bed, and Tatsumaki still had some few hours of daylight. It was just us then, as of now we were simply laying on the couch.
Tatsumaki looked at me in response, awaiting further words.
"It is your destiny to save the world!" I proclaimed to her.
"Huh?"