Disclaimer: I do not own One Punch Man. I only own my OC and my story plots.
Hemp
Chapter 3:
White
I stood in front of a door, hand poised just a few centimetres from the hard wood and about to knock. I hesitated, putting down my hand as I took another glance at the cake box I am holding.
'Should I? Well, I did want to do it but... would it come off as creepy?'
...
It started with eggs.
...I'm not kidding. It literally started with eggs.
Some random person who was late for something ran into me while I was out for grocery shopping. The reason I failed to dodge him was because I was busy zoning out. It was one of those days where my mind just decided to wander off to La-La-land without my consent. I normally wouldn't have tuned out my surroundings but I just couldn't help it at that time. Anyway, my grocery bag was flung to the side due to the momentum when I landed on the pavement backside first, mind you, it hurt a lot.
I was fully prepared to see the eggs cracked all over the sidewalk, along with several other ingredients on the ground and I would have to go back to the supermarket to buy it again when I noticed a pair of familiar red boots in front of me. I looked up, squinting a little when a bright light pierced my retinas, the afternoon sun was shining right behind him then, creating a halo around his figure, my grocery bag clutched in his hand.
...Of all possible scenarios that we could have met face-to-face, that was definitely not it.
I sighed.
When I saw the remaining half of the eggs in my fridge earlier this morning, I recalled the event that transpired a couple days ago, so I decided to bake an egg sponge cake for him. I have a feeling he hadn't had these kind of food for quite some time.
I checked to make sure my shoulder-length black hair is all combed back into a neat ponytail, bangs non-messy and smoothed down my clothes. 'I should look presentable...' I looked up at the door determinedly. 'Alright, just knock on the door, give it to him and then go home.'
I gulped, steeling my nerves and raised a hand to rap three constructive times on the door. I waited, heart pounding within my chest.
I heard a set of faint footsteps coming closer, the door was unlocked and it creaked open. He poked his head out, blinking questioningly when he saw me.
"Hello, I'm Rina. ...I still had some eggs left from the other day, so I made a sponge cake... I hope you'll like it." I held up the cake box to him with both hands.
"Oh... thanks." The door opened further and he took it.
"How may I address you sir...?" My heart thumped.
"Ah, I'm Saitama."
"Saitama-san, it's a pleasure to know you. Have a nice day." I bowed slightly and left. Rounding a corner of the corridor, I held a hand over where my heart is, feeling it fluttering like a hummingbird. 'That... was a little nerve-wracking.'
Making my way back home, a smile unconsciously tugged at my lips. 'Saitama, huh.'
I finally managed to get his name.
I sat in front of my laptop, my hand propping up my head as I scrolled through the websites, looking through jobs that are currently available. I huffed.
It's getting quite hard to find a job these days... there's a lot of unemployed civilians yet so little jobs available. No wonder so many physically-able people went to have a shot as a hero.
My fingers rubbed furious circles over my eye. Not to mention the amount of buildings and places that were destroyed during a Monster attack left many people such as myself jobless, again.
On the other hand, the number of people the construction sites are hiring is astounding. With so many property and buildings destroyed, many manpower are needed to help fix up the cities quickly and efficiently. But the job requirements need people with good physical strength and at least some basic studies of construction to be a worker, which I have neither.
Technologies are very advanced here, a job which used to require over at least several people to operate now only needed one person to man it, drastically reducing the amount of people that needed to be hired. Few more years down the road I wouldn't be surprised if several types of jobs were replaced by computerised technology. The world would truly be overrun by computers one of these years.
Although technology truly did help a lot in many aspects and made things so much more easily accessible than before, but where there are advantages, there will always be disadvantages. The downside to increase in usage of technologies, like cyborgs, robots, camera surveillance and more, was that if some genius hacker managed to get control over all of these it would be very easy to locate anyone's whereabouts. When they're eating, when their sleeping, going to the supermarket or even going to the bathroom. Privacy? What is that?
I sighed, shutting down my laptop. 'No luck. All the jobs available require specifications which I do not have.'
I'm no hero. I'm not necessarily kind and I don't go out of my way to help anyone. My physical capability is probably that of an average human since I'm not the sporty-type. While I'm not the kind who are interested in sports, I know their advantages, so I took up some exercises to at least be able to run, which there will come a time I'll have the need to, from the mysterious beings. I'm not that cocky enough to think I could just use my psychic powers to scare away any and all Monsters that decided to appear.
I stood up and headed for a change of clothes. 'I don't really feel like cooking tonight... I'll just eat out then.'
I slurped up the noodles silently in the corner, keeping a low profile so as not to draw any attention to myself. It was probably not my best idea to eat out this late at night.
"You have to pay for what you've eaten." The cook frowned disapprovingly. He's an elderly man in his seventies and definitely no fighter, at least, not anymore and not against these three hooligans.
"Huh? And what you're gonna do about it, old man?" The towering man with bad blue hair dye and piercings laughed mockingly. I supposed he's the leader of his clique, as his two friends joined in on the mocking. One is a blonde with a Mohawk while the other is a brown shaggy-haired man.
"I'm quite tight on money right now, so how about giving me some spare change?" The blonde grinned maliciously, holding out a hand, fingers curling in and out in a give-me gesture.
Violet lights were floating about them, although the colour itself is pretty, the meaning to it was not. I've seen these lights dancing around bullies picking on the weaker ones.
My finger twitched. 'Should I...?'
My ears picked up the sound of a bicycle pedalling closer and closer, and a person hollering. "Hold it!"
I only chanced a glance when everyone's attention was focused on him. '...C class, rank one, Mumen Rider... was it?' I turned my attention back to my food. 'His helmet look kinda like a watermelon... His lights are white too.' I paused, blinking. 'Wait, white?' I swerved my entire head in his direction.
He got off his bicycle, pushing down the kickstand with his foot, rounding to the front and got into a fighting stance. "The bicyclist of justice, Mumen Rider, is here!"
I gave him a once over, lanky but somewhat muscular build... if it's one against one, he would probably have a better chance but... it's three against one. 'This wouldn't end well.'
I eyed the lights around him, if I hadn't known any better, I would say it looked like stars shining in the night sky. I wonder what it stands for, being helpful or... a sense of justice?
The blue haired man looked down at the hero as of he's nothing but a bug under his nose. But I know he's just putting up a front, one or two of their lights, are already indigo, plus, some red are mixed in it as well. They are angry and embarrassed that they were caught red-handed picking on an elderly and forcing money out of him. "You want to help him?
Mumen Rider did not reply, continuing to glare silently. The chef was looking between them with concern within his eyes, worry for the safety of the hero.
'Well, I could use some practice... Three seconds of exposure to that should do the trick.' I smirked inwardly, switching every single one of the trio's lights into indigo. They froze up in fear, arrogant smirks wiped off of their faces immediately and they paled a few shades.
The hero tensed a little as well, glancing behind him to see if there was a Monster eliciting such a reaction from them, seeing nothing behind, he turned back to them warily, almost doing a double-take when he only saw blinking outlines of where those three once stood. They've already ran away, screaming.
I could practically see a question mark appearing atop of his head. The tension in the air seems to have dissipate with their absence.
"Thank you, Mumen Rider." The elderly man smiled serenely, his shoulders relaxing as relief washed over him. "How about a bowl of ramen? It's on the house."
"Eh? Ah, it's alright, I was just on patrol." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, looking into the direction of where those three had ran off to. Turning back to the chef, he bowed slightly. "I gotta go now. Please take care."
He smiled, the corners around his eyes crinkling. "Drop by anytime."
Mumen Rider smiled appreciatively. "Next time then!"
As he rode away, I quietly got up and paid for my food. "Thank you for the food. It was delicious."
"Come again!" The chef called out as I left the small pushcart eatery, making my way back home deep in thought.
'The switch and reaction I got was a lot faster than before. Perhaps the practices made on the mysterious beings around my area had helped after all.' My lips twitched in amusement, heading into the abandoned part of city Z.
Over the years, I had observed that by switching all the lights into indigo, it meant inflicting absolute fear, while affecting only a few lights meant mild fear. There are a few stages to determine how scared a person can reach. The first stage, most would be frozen to the spot, their pupils dilating. Symptoms for the second stage is increase in breath-intake, most likely the starting of an adrenaline rush. Third stage, trembling. The fourth stage is where interesting things starts to happen, the "victims" per say, will start to hallucinate. That will usually only happen if I continue to keep them in a state of absolute fear for over ten seconds.
As far as my test and results went, my power's potency has been gradually increasing these past few years, now, I only need about six seconds or so to reduce a person or any weaker mysterious beings into a trembling mess. I hadn't met any strong monsters to test out my abilities on yet, but I could predict that it wouldn't work as well on them.
My steps faltered when I noticed a familiar black and white cat grooming itself in front of me. 'I know that pattern.'
I clicked my tongue and made a few cooing sounds to signal my presence. The furry creature turned it's beautiful round eyes in my direction and I smiled almost giddily. Slowly and carefully making my way towards it, I squatted down, meowing for it to come closer as I held my hand out. With exceptional grace, the feline uncurled from it's sitting position, padding silently towards me and rubbing itself against my legs. I patted it, relishing in the soft, silky fur and scratched under it's chin. "You've gotten plump. Been eating well?"
The cat purred, nuzzling it's head into my shins. I patted it for a little while more before I had to say goodbye and continued on my way. Not even five minutes later, I spotted a weird pile of metal and... flesh on the side of the road, a few stray tyres here and there.
'Saitama must have took it out.' I mused, recognising the lack of struggle in the area and the way the body exploded outwards from one compact force, spilling the inwards everywhere. With practiced ease, I sidestepped all the gunk and went home.
Author's note:
I'm on a roll~ Hahaha! School holidays are here so I have more free time to think and write. OwO 23 Favourites and 34 Follows! Wow, thank you so much for all the support! I hope you guys enjoyed it! Till next time! Cheers! X3
~kirakira_bluemoon
