After a day of rest, Shunshi's legs had fully recovered from being crushed like twigs. As such, he was quick to make his way to Saitama's apartment in order to get back on track with his daily training regiment.
As he excitedly ran through the streets of the abandoned section of Z-City, Shunshi could see his Master's apartment complex come into view. However, he halted his joyful jog towards the building when he saw his Sensei and Senpai walking down from the second floor's steps. Saitama was turning a map over in his hands, confusion covering his bland face, as Genos stood patiently by his side.
Ecstatic to see them, Shunshi quickly ran up to his teacher and fellow student.
Once he reached them, he gave a formal bow while happily exclaiming, "Hello, Saitama-Sensei! Hello, Genos-Senpai! It's good to see you guys again. Where are you two going?"
The bald Hero was wearing another blank expression as he turned his map over again and again in his hands and responded without looking up, "Hey, Shunshi. Me and Genos are heading over to the dojo of that old guy... I think his name's Bank or Silver Spoon."
Utterly confused by this answer, Shunshi cocked an eyebrow, tilted his head, and asked, "Huh?... Wait a second... So, you're gonna go see a guy who's keeping silver spoons at a bank... that's also a dojo?"
Saitama quickly realized how confusing his explanation must have been. As he looked up into the sky and scratched his head, Saitama struggled to remember the real name of the old guy so he could give a proper explanation.
Understanding how horribly confused everyone was, Genos calmly explained the situation, "Master and I were invited to visit the dojo of the S-Class Hero, Silver Fang, otherwise known as Bang in his civilian life. He informed us that he has something of interest he wishes to show us. He had also brought us to his dojo two days ago. We played games of memory and reflexes with him in exchange for some free meat." The black-haired Hero's pupils dilated in shock when he heard Genos mention Silver Fang.
Lunging forward in excitement, Shunshi shouted at Genos with pure joy in his voice, "Silver Fang?! Seriously?! He's, like, my favorite Hero in the entire Hero Association!"
When he heard his student's praise of the old man, Saitama grew somewhat disappointed as he sulked slightly. This prompted Genos to give Shunshi a bit of a stink-eye.
Realizing how he'd made his Master upset, Shunshi started sweating nervously as he clamored out an apology, "I- I, uh- I meant- I meant, uh, he was my favorite Hero until I met you, Master!"
Saitama quickly got over this as he let out an unconcerned sigh and straightened his posture.
Waving his hand at Shunshi, Saitama dismissed the issue, "Whatever, it's fine. Let's just go to the old guy's place already." Smiling at his Sensei's grit, Shunshi readjusted his backpack and started marching behind Saitama.
"Master. Bang only invited you and me to visit him. Would we not be putting him out if Shunshi were to come with us as well?" Genos calmly asked.
Silently gasping, Shunshi could feel an emotion very close to horror spread through his body when he heard Genos' question. He was so distraught that he almost worked up the willpower to argue Genos' viewpoint. However, his respect for his Sensei and Senpai kept him from opening his mouth.
Saitama mauled over Genos' concerns for a few seconds, but he eventually just shrugged and insisted, "I'm sure the old man won't mind. Let's just get going already. He says he's got something cool, and I've got nothing better to do today. I wanna hurry up and see what it is."
Happy that his dream of properly meeting Silver Fang was coming true, Shunshi let out a palpable sigh of relief.
At the same time, Genos put up no further resistance as he nodded to Saitama and replied, "Yes, Sensei."
With their superhuman physiologies, the three of Heroes made it to the mountain, which Silver Fang's dojo rested atop in less than an hour. Even the absurdly long flight of stairs leading to the dojo itself posed no problem for them, as they simply lept it in one bound. Admittedly though, Shunshi needed two jumps to make it the whole way.
Saitama, as his students landed behind him, lightly knocked on the dojo's door. As if he'd been waiting anxiously, Bang answered the door almost instantly.
The elderly hero was smiling pleasantly as he greeted the young men at his door, "Hello again, Saitama, Genos. Please come in. I think you'll really like what I have to show you."
Saitama let off a small smile in anticipation and took off his shoes and socks before he walked in. Genos repeated Saitama's actions, excluding any smile, and entered as well. However, Shunshi was frozen in place at the sight of his martial arts idol, Silver Fang, standing right in front of him. Unlike the last time he'd seen Bang, Shunshi was able to keep himself composed enough to not smile like a giddy idiot.
Noticing the new person who had arrived with Saitama and Genos, Bang politely asked him, "Hello there. Who might you be, young man?"
After frantically scrambling to piece his thoughts together, Shunshi bowed to the elderly Hero in front of him and answered his question in an overly serious tone, "I, um... I'm Saitama-Sensei's second student, as well as the new A-Class Hero, Shunshi!... I know I wasn't invited here today, but I hope you don't mind that I came along as well, Silver Fang, sir!"
Bang put his hand on his chin as if he were trying to remember something before politely stating, "Hmm, Shunshi... I don't believe I recognize that name. If you're still going by your civilian name as opposed to a Hero name, then you really must be quite new to the Association." Confused and saddened that Silver Fang didn't remember him, Shunshi was frozen in place for a moment. Quickly, however, Shunshi realized why his Hero didn't know who he was.
Reaching behind himself to dig into his backpack, Shunshi frantically explained, "Um, uh... We've actually met each other once before. Maybe this will help you recognize me... I don't blame you if you don't remember. It was only for a moment, and my costume keeps me completely covered up." Having found what he was searching for, Shunshi pulled the intimidating helmet of his Hero armor out and showed it to Bang.
Once he gave the helmet a quick look, Bang's memory was jogged.
"Oh, yes. I believe I remember now. You were the one who aided Genos in his attempt at slowing down the meteorite... and if my memory serves me correctly... You spent a large amount of that time glaring at me?" Bang commented pleasantly.
As soon as he heard Silver Fang's accusation, Shunshi dropped his helmet against the ground and pleaded, "I promise I wasn't glaring at you, sir! I know my costume is kinda scary and all, but it was just that it was my first time seeing you in person, and I'm a huge fan of yours! I'm so sorry, sir! I didn't mean to offend you!"
The old man eased Shunshi's worries by waving his hand at the exasperated youth and calmly explaining, "It's alright, I understand. Please come in. And if you don't mind, may I ask what rank you started at and if it's changed at all since then?"
Having crouched down to pick up and stuff his helmet back into his backpack, Shunshi answered the last of Bang's questions more casually, "Oh... um, I started out as number 13 in A-Class, and now... I think I'm number 7- No, wait! I got promoted to number 6 a couple of days ago."
Satisfied with this answer, Silver fang smiled excitedly at the young man in front of him and said, "Thank you, and please come in. I hope you'll be impressed by what I have to show you. Oh, also, I'm fine with just being called Bang."
Unable to contain his excitement at entering the dojo, Shunshi quickly walked past the S-Class Hero and told him, "Oh, of course, Bang, sir. And whatever it is you have planned, I'm sure it'll blow us all away."
As Shunshi began to take his shoes off, Silver Fang was sneaking a glance at the A-Class and thinking, "This is excellent! This boy practically idolizes me already, and he was able to become a highly ranked Hero right off the bat. Not to mention his progress at climbing through the ranks of A-Class so quickly. That's nothing to laugh at. Also, if he has a connection to Saitama, he must have a few hidden intricacies that aren't obvious from just looking at him."
A few minutes later, Saitama, Genos, and Shunshi had gotten settled down on the floor of the dojo. Bang positioned himself in front of the three younger Heroes while a man in his late teens or early twenties sat behind the old man. This boy had puffy orange hair and a standard karate gi with a white belt. All of a sudden, Bang started performing an advanced kata of Fist of Flowing Water Crushing Rock. As Bang continued with this advanced kata, what looked like glowing streams of water started flowing out of the S-Class' fingertips.
After finishing this demonstration, Bang turned to face his guests and politely asked them, "That was the Fist of Flowing Water Crushing Rock. Do any of you want to give it a try? The three of you are strong, and you seem like quick learners. I'm sure you'd get the hang of it in no time. Whattaya say?"
Saitama had a somewhat disappointed look on his face, while Genos seemed to be wholly disinterested. Shunshi, however, looked utterly awestruck at this demonstration of the martial prowess of Silver Fang. On top of it all, the elderly Hero was willing to offer up his knowledge to the three of them. It took everything Shunshi had not to blackout from excitement.
After a second of silence, Saitama responded to Bang in a disappointed tone of voice, "Is this really the cool thing you wanted to show us? A sales pitch for your dojo? Thanks, but I'll pass. Genos, Shunshi, you guys try it out."
Shunshi was a little shocked to hear his Master's dismissal of Silver Fang's offer, but his excitement over Saitama-Sensei giving him permission to train here heavily outweighed his other emotions.
Having become ecstatic at this chance, Shunshi stood up and exclaimed happily to his Master, accidentally cutting Genos off just as he was about to start talking, "Of course, Saitama-Sensei! I'd love to combine your strength training with Silver Fang-Sensei's martial arts teachings!"
A broad smile formed under Bang's bushy mustache when he saw such eagerness from a fellow Hero to learn of Fist of Flowing Water Crushing Rock. However, the orange-haired individual seemed more than just a little nervous by this answer. Regardless, Bang and his orange-haired student then turned their attention over to Genos for his response.
The golden-haired cyborg was forcing back his frustration at being cut off and calmly addressed the room, "I am afraid I will pass this up as well. What I seek to learn is not the art of self-defense, but total destructive power." This answer, understandably, took away a bit of the smile that had formed on the face of the elderly martial arts master.
Intrigued by his junior's answer to this request, Genos turned to Shunshi and asked a question with a small twinge of hope behind it, "Tell me something, Shunshi. Your destructive powers seem to be growing at a steady rate with the training that Master has you doing now. Why would you have an interest in learning this martial art? Do you plan to eventually abandon Saitama-Sensei as your master in favor of Silver Fang?"
Shunshi became genuinely offended at his Senpai's questions, so he took in a deep breath and started to passive-aggressively explain his reasoning, "Well, Senpai, martial arts play a huge role in my fighting style. Without it, I'd probably have died long before I ever had the good fortune of meeting you and Sensei. I do plan to devote a decent amount of time to learning from master Silver Fang, but my main loyalty will always lie with Mater Saitama... Also, if I may say so, I think you should reconsider Silver Fang-Sensei's offer."
Genos seemed a little puzzled by this response, so he asked, "Why is that?"
Shunshi seemed a bit nervous to answer, but he quickly steeled his nerves and explained, "To be frank with you, with how often you get torn apart in a fight, you desperately need to learn some self-defense! At least the basics. I watched the video of your fight with that fish monster. I honestly think if you'd been just a little fluent in martial arts, then you could've killed that thing before it had a chance to spit out that acid."
Shusnhi's face was visibly pouring with sweat as he shook with fear at having raised his voice to his senior in such a manner. Unfortunately, this was a fear that may not have been unfounded. For you see, Genos seemed genuinely angered with Shunshi's criticism.
As the yellow-eyed cyborg clenched his robotic fist in hostility, he asked his junior, "You get injured just as often, if not more than I do! What makes you think your criticism has a leg to stand on?!"
Saitama had lost interest in this exchange up until now but came out of his daydreaming when he noticed steam had begun rising from Genos' shoulders. A small amount of concern started to form in Saitama's mind that Genos might wreck the old man's dojo,
What the heck? What did Shunshi say to piss off Genos so much? Should I step in...? Nah, I'll let them talk it out. If things turn violent, I'll put a stop to it before anything sueable happens, Saitama thought.
Having gathered the courage needed to speak his mind, Shunshi abandoned his sense of self-preservation and shouted at Genos at the top of his lungs, "The reason I get hurt so much is because I'm a weakling! But you're incredible and could do wonders with martial arts if you used them! You'd definitely get better results than I ever could!" Genos actually shrunk back at this outburst of admiration and assertiveness from Shunshi.
As the shock began to settle in more, the cyborg started to ponder his junior's words seriously. After an awkward moment of silence, both Genos and Shunshi had calmed down.
Once Genos came out of his thoughts, he spoke to Shunshi with slightly more respect than before, "I... will need time to think over what you have told me, Shunshi. If it is possible for me to do so, then perhaps I will take up martial arts training in the future. If that is not viable, then I shall ask Dr. Stench to program martial art techniques into my combat reflexes."
Realizing that Genos was no longer chomping at the bit to tear him apart, Shunshi let out the breath he'd been holding in for the last minute.
Bang had been stunned silent throughout that entire exchange but was still happy that he'd expanded his dojo's roster, even if it was just by one.
Getting up and placing his hand on Shunshi's shoulder, Bang addressed him in a pleasant tone of voice, "Well, I'm glad that bit of drama was all sorted out... If I may ask, when do you think you'll want to start your lessons? Tomorrow perhaps?"
Having spent enough time around Silver Fang to not fanboy over him, Shunshi began to think. His tight schedule of Hero work and training caused the young man some pause. He wanted to make sure he gave his personal Hero's question the proper response.
After spending a full minute putting his thoughts together, Shunshi replied in as respectful and studious of a tone as he could, "Well, I have to prioritize Saitama-Sensei's lessons first. And I try to get in two or three hours of heroics a day... Unfortunately, I think I'll only have enough time to come in for two days a week for three-hour lessons or less... I'm so sorry. Will that work for you, Silver Fang-Sensei...?"
Bang gained a stoic look on his face while the orange-haired student behind him exclaimed angrily, "Do you guys think that this school is a joke?! Do you think you can make it here with only two short lessons a week!? As Bang-Sensei's top disciple, I, Charanko, should beat you down fo-"
Bang cut off his top student by sternly exclaiming, "Charanko, enough!" Startled by his master's words, Charanko put his hands at his side and looked to the ground.
Looking Shunshi in his eyes, Bang spoke to him in a surprisingly content yet stern tone, "That schedule is fine by me, but your shortened lessons will have to be twice as hard as that of my normal curriculum. And I told you that you don't need to call me Silver Fang. Calling me Bang is just fine."
Standing up to take a more serious and respectful posture, Shunshi happily corrected himself, "Yes, sir, Bang-Sensei!"
As he watched Shunshi show Bang similar levels of respect as he would towards him, Saitama thought to himself in amusement, Heheheh. Maybe now I'll get a bit of a break from him every once in a while.
Before Bang and Shunshi could discuss the details of his training schedule any further, one of the Hero Association's agents threw open the dojo's front doors.
While on his knees and trying to catch his breath, the agent shouted, "Mr. Silver Fang! I was sent by the Association! An emergency summons has been issued to all S-Class Heroes! Please come to City-A's Association Headquarters, now!"
Quickly noticing the blond cyborg in the room, the agent exclaimed in a relieved tone, "Hey wait, you're out here as well, Mr. Genos? Thank goodness! Perfect timing, since all S-Class Heroes have been summoned. Please come too."
After being told this, Genos asked the agent, "Is this a threat level of Dragon?"
At the same time, Shunshi felt his stomach drop as he thought to himself, They... They're bringing together all the S-Class Heroes? I don't know if I should feel excited that I get to meet them all or terrified that an evil of this magnitude exists... Thank God Saitama-Sensei is here. He should be able to handle whatever this is... Right?
Silver Fang let out a sigh of worry and frustration before ordering his orange-haired student, "Charanko, look after the dojo."
Raising his fists in determination, Charanko responded, "Be careful, Master."
Turning around to look at Saitama as he got off the floor, Genos asked him, "If they are gathering all the S-Class Heroes, then they may need your assistance as well, Sensei. Will you come with us?"
Saitama's normally emotionless face grew far more serious as he replied in an almost inspirational tone, "I will! Nothing better to do. Shunshi, you gonna tag along too?"
Genos and Saitama turned to look at Shunshi for an answer but were surprised to see that he had taken his shirt off and was holding his armor's torso. This earned earning him shocked and confused looks from everyone.
As he started to put his armor on, oblivious to the odd looks he was getting, Shunshi answered his Master's question, "Of course I'll come along! Thank you, Saitama-Sensei!" No one spoke a word in response to this. Instead, they all turned around and allowed Shunshi to get changed without prying eyes.
However, Saitama did take this time to ponder to himself, Why am I such a magnet for weirdos?
About an hour or so later, this small group of Heroes had arrived at A-City via Hero Association limos. They had been dropped off at a large, black, rectangular building that served as this city's Hero Association headquarters.
As they walked inside, Shunshi looked up at the building like a child would look at Christmas presents and thought to himself, All of the S-Class Heroes are gonna be here...? I don't know if my heart's ready for this.
Making their way up to what was nearly the top floor, this group of an old man, a blonde cyborg, an individual dressed in dark body armor, and a bald man in an unassuming yellow Hero outfit met the first of the other S-Class Heroes who had been called. He was a gentleman dressed as a samurai and looked to be just a few years short of being middle-aged. As this samurai chewed on a piece of long grass, he looked over at the group walking down the hallway.
Very quickly, he smirked and spoke happily, "Aaahh. Hey there, Silver Fang."
Seeming just as happy to see this man, Bang responded in kind, "Atomic Samurai. It's been too long."
Continuing this conversation, Atomic Samurai commented, "I figured you'd be here today. And this must be the cyborg named Genos and... Hang on. I don't recognize these other two."
Gesturing his hand towards Saitama and Shunshi, who was already standing at attention, Silver Fang explained, "This is the B-Class Hero, Saitama, and the A-Class Hero, Shunshi. Saitama's great talents will surely place him atop S-Class one day, so we asked him to come. And Shunshi has shown some promise of his own. Just today, he agreed to practice at my dojo semi-frequently, and I suspect that he may rise into the ranks of S-Class one day as well if he keeps up his training, that is."
Shunshi didn't know how to respond to such high praise from one of his two idols. His all concealing armor made it look as if he was just standing firm, but he was actually blushing with excitement, smiling like an idiot, and desperately holding back tears of joy.
While his student was busy standing like a tree, Saitama smiled and offered his hand to Atomic Samurai, "Oh, hey there, middle-aged Hero dude. Nice to meet you."
Not even a second passed after Saitama had finished his greeting before Atomic Samurai slapped away his hand and smugly told him, "No hand-shake for you. I only acknowledge the strong, but someday, once you've climbed up to S-Class, I'll greet you properly."
Walking past Saitama and lightly knocking on Shunshi's helmet, the Samurai continued to speak, "The same goes for you. But, considering your rank and the fact that you got Silver Fang helping you, I'd say you've got a much shorter climb to get there than our chrome-domed friend here."
Turning back around to walk away, Atomic Samurai explained one last thing to Saitama, "Also, I'm not middle-aged yet. I'm only thirty-seven."
Feeling a bizarre mixture of glee and anger, Shunshi gritted his teeth and clenched his armored fists as he frantically thought, I can't believe a weakling like me is getting such praise from the S-Class heroes- No, wait! How dare he disregard Saitama-Sensei like that! I should kick that jerk's grass-chewing teeth in...! But he's Atomic Samurai! I can't hate one of the S-Class Heroes! God, what should I do?!
As his Hero-obsessed student was having an internal panic attack, Saitama thought to himself, Thirty-seven isn't middle-aged? I had no idea... Wait. Crome-domed?!
Just as Saitama finished his thought and Shunshi had begun to calm down, an aggressive female voice echoed through the room, "Hey. Who brought these low-class nobodies along?" Turning their heads to see who was addressing them, Saitama and Shunshi saw what looked like a little girl with green hair. She was wearing a black dress that showed off her legs to the point that if she were to move too quickly, you'd be able to see a lot more.
Gasping in shock, Shunshi thought to himself as he struggled to take a breath, Oh my God! It's Tornado of Terror! She's rank- Wait, was she talking about Master and me just now?
Continuing with her tantrum, Tornado addressed Bang as he simply walked past her, "Don't you think mingling with the less-thans is beneath us?!"
Now addressing the A and B-Class Heroes, "Even if you were invited, you should have been polite and declined. Hmmph! The nerve. The two of you are probably just here to get close to us S-Class Heroes," pointing her finger at them, she finished her speech with, "You peons disgust me. Get lost!"
With complete bewilderment taking him over, Saitama pointed his finger at this kid and asked Genos, "What's with the attitude from... this sassy lost child?"
Having walked further down the hallway, Genos turned around to answer his teacher, "That is Tornado, ranked as number two in S-Class. She- Master, where did Shunshi go?"
As Tornado began to snap at the bald Hero for calling her a child, Saitama looked behind himself and asked, "What do you mean? He's right... here?" Looking around the hall for a second, Saitama came to realize that his armored student had, in fact, disappeared.
Saitama quickly turned back over to stare at Tornado.
A blatant look of accusation covered his face as he asked her with a hint of hostility in his voice, "Hey, brat. Did you do something to Shunshi?"
Green psychic aura began to resonate off of Tornado as she furiously responded, "Brat?! Who do you think you're calling a brat!? You should follow that armored loser's example and run off too!"
After hearing this, Saitama completely calmed down, stopped paying attention to the child, and told Genos, "Oh. I guess Shunshi just ran off for some reason."
Having no visible reaction to this, Genos explained to Saitama, "The S-Class meeting is about to begin, Master. I suppose we will have to inform him of what we learn here afterward."
Shrugging at this, Saitama replied nonchalantly, "Guess so. He's an adult, so he can take of himself wherever he is."
Walking down the hallway, Saitama made his way to the meeting room, causing Tornado to shout at him in frustration, "Hey! Don't ignore me!"
Meanwhile, just outside of A-City's Association headquarters, Shunshi was trying to catch his breath from running down over two dozen flights of stairs, as he thought, That... That didn't just happen... Why were they so rude? Heroes are supposed to be humble guardians of the people. S-Class Heroes should be the best examples of that. I... I want to meet them, but I can't risk all of the S-Class Heroes being that way... I just can't!
Wanting to clear his head, Shunshi decided the best thing to do was to take a walk. After pacing around the streets surrounding the Headquarters for over a minute, he noticed a man who was wearing something akin to a knight's suit of armor and carrying a sword. The knight was sitting on a park bench and politely trying to get a college girl and her grade school brother to leave him alone.
Overcome with Hero-worship once again, Shunshi approached the scene.
As he gave a small bow, Shunshi spoke in a disarming tone, "Um, hello there. You're Atomic Samurai's disciple, Iaian, right?"
Taken off guard by the sudden arrival of a man dressed in terrifying black armor, Iaian flinched before calming down and responding, "Yes... That's an interesting getup you have there. Who are you? A fellow Hero, perhaps?"
With an annoyed look behind his helmet, Shunshi thought, What'a ya mean interesting look? We're both wearing suits of armor!
Despite this, he answered pleasantly, "Yes, sir! My name is Shunshi, and I'm currently ranked as number 6 in A-Class. It's a pleasure to meet you."
In a test of the number two A-Class' moral fiber, Shunshi stuck out his hand for a shake. To both his surprise and gratitude, Iaian stood up and returned the gesture.
"I suppose it's nice to meet you as well... Were you that Hero who tried to stop that big fish monster by bitting its legs?"
Despite the bluntness of Iaian's question, Shunshi took no offense and replied casually, "Yeah. That was me, sir. Pretty dumb, I know... So, are you here with Atomic-?"
Before he could finish his question, the college girl, while holding her brother by his wrist, stepped up to the two heroes and snapped at Shunshi, "Hey! We were having a conversation here before you rudely interrupted us!" Despite the angry tone of her voice, one could easily tell by her shivering that this girl was horrified by the appearance of Shunshi's armor.
Oblivious to the girl's blatant fear, Shunshi took a step back while giving her a more formal bow than he had given Iaian, surprising her.
"Oh, I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you and your brother, Ms," he politely apologized.
Pulling on his sister's sleeve, the young boy ecstatically asked her, "Hey, wait! Can he be in it too? He looks really cool!"
Perplexed by this, Shunshi knelt down and asked the boy, "What do you mean, 'Can I be in it?' What exactly is it?"
Looking down at his fellow Hero, Iaian explained what was going on, "They've been bothering me to take a photo with them for some time now. But that's not the kind of thing I like to do."
Standing up and folding his arms behind his back, Shunshi spoke to Iaian with a tone of innocent sincerity, "Oh, come on. There's no harm in giving people a Hero they can talk to every once in a while."
Once she heard Shunshi's idea, the college girl quickly chimed in, "Yeah, exactly," and eagerly looked at Iaian as he mussed over this idea.
Eventually, Iaian compromised, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt this one time, but I don't intend to make a habit out of this. Now let's make this quick."
Blushing with happiness, the young woman took out her phone, handed it to Shunshi, and dismissively told him, "Take the picture for us," before rushing over to Iaian's side and nearly clutching to him.
Noticing that her brother had yet to get in frame for the picture, she barked at him, "Hey! Get over here, Conner! It's time for our picture with Iaian."
Looking over at Shunshi as he took off his gauntlets in order to operate the camera phone, the boy pointed to him and complained, "But I want him in the picture! He looks so cool."
The college girl gritted her teeth at her brother's sudden admiration for this frightening-looking Hero, while Iaian had already started to lose his patients with the girl. Realizing that everything was already about to fall apart, Shunshi quickly started thinking of a way to make everyone happy.
Without any warning, Shunshi took off his helmet, shook loos his long black hair, and handed the piece of armor to Conner.
"Here. Just hold this, and I can be in the picture in spirit that way," Shunshi said with a pleasant smile.
The awe-struck kid looked back and forth between the face of the cool-looking Hero and the frighteningly designed helmet in his tiny hands. Soon though, the boy smiled widely and rushed over to his sister's side, who'd started blushing more violently once Shunshi had taken off his helmet. Instead of simply holding the piece of armor in his hands, Conner surprised everyone by putting on the helmet that was far too big for his small head, causing it to come to a resting tilt.
His sister just rolled her eyes at this, but as Shunshi took the picture, he couldn't help but smile and think to himself, Oh my God, that's so cute!
After quickly taking several more pictures, Shunshi went to hand the girl her phone back, which she nervously accepted from him. As they exchanged the cellphone, the Hero's hands accidentally brushed against the girl's, increasing the intensity of her blush.
Despite his sister's newfound appreciation for this hero, Conner gave Shunshi a disappointed look as he tried to get the helmet to stay on straight.
He looks cooler with his helmet on... Oh, maybe he'll let me keep it! the kid hoped.
Seemingly exhausted from this ordeal, Iaian walked up from behind the college girl to talk to Shunshi, telling him in a monotone voice, "I suppose that wasn't so bad."
Smiling at this, Shunshi walked around the girl and excitedly stuck out his fist as he asked, "See? It's nice to help people smile every now and again, right?"
Initially confused by this, Iaian quickly softened up and gave off a small chuckle. Instead of returning the gesture, he grabbed Shunshi's closed hand and shook it.
As Iaian shook his hand, Shunshi thought to himself in a melancholic tone, No fist-bump? Oh well, I guess it's baby steps with this guy.
A moment or two later, just as these four were about to go their separate ways, an explosion aimed at the Hero Association Headquarters caught the attention of everyone in a mile-wide radius. Looking into the sky, Iaian and Shunshi saw a group of monsters flying in the air and shooting fireballs at the Hero Association's massive building.
Turning around to drop to his knee, Shunshi put his hand on Conner's shoulder and told him, "Sorry, buddy. Looks like I'm gonna need my helmet back to deal wi-."
Before Shunshi could finish his sentence, Iaian cut him off by shouting in a mixture of complete shock and horror, "SHUNSHI! Get up and look at this!"
After fumbling to get up and turn around, Shunshi looked into the sky again and saw an aircraft the size of a small city. The monsters that had been in the air only seconds earlier were now falling to the ground as corpses due to an even larger flying monster, having cut them to pieces. This new monster had the appearance of a pile of poop-brown flesh that had taken the shape of a nearly seventeen-foot tall man, with gargoyle-like wings and five Human-like heads growing out of one another on its shoulders.
Not knowing what else to do, Shunshi got one of his Light Balls ready to try and throw at this gargantuan ship. Unfortunately, before he had a chance to throw it, a series of glowing lights came from the bottom of the vessel, followed up with massive bullet shells barreling towards the city below. Finally, there was an atomizing explosion that leveled almost all of A-City, except for the Hero Association Headquarters, due to the dense materials used to construct the building.
Their ears were ringing so loudly that they were worried they might have gone permanently def. For a few seconds, they couldn't see anything but bright light. A few more moments passed before Shunshi and Iaian were able to slowly climb out of the rubble, ashes, and dirt. A combination of their superhuman physiology and their armor allowed them to survive this explosion with no real external injuries but possibly a few internal ones.
Having recovered more quickly than Iaian, Shunshi walked over to him and helped shake him back to his senses.
"Hey, you still with me, Iaian?" Shunshi asked as his hands rested on his fellow Hero's shoulders. It took him a few more seconds, but Iaian eventually managed to stand up and reclaim his senses. Once he got a good look at all of the destruction and death around him, Iaian's face went from injured confusion to a horrible scowl.
Drawing his sword, Iaian began walking and snapped at a mortified Shunshi, "Put your gear on! We're going to find and put an end to the ones responsible for this!"
Shunshi had been stuck in shocked disbelief up until that point, only able to keep moving due to the immediate concern for Iaian's health. These words, however, snapped the young man to his senses. He began to look around to see if he could spot his helmet. After only a second or two of searching, Shunsi lucked out and saw a shimmering light coming off of something metal in the rubble near him.
Walking over to the gleam, Shunshi found his helmet and picked it up. Due to it being stuck upside down in the rubble, Shunshi naturally had to turn it right-side up to put it on. Once he did this, a small pile of ash poured out of the helmet.
Freezing in place, Shunshi realized who those ashes used to be. He remembered how, just a moment ago, Conner, this child, put on this helmet out of his innocent sense of admiration for Heroes.
Never would Shunshi have ever expected in his wildest nightmares that an innocent kid would have died, been reduced to dust in the wind, wearing his armor, a suit that he'd made hoping it would help him protect the people of the world. Feeling as if he couldn't do anything else, Shunshi stood there and began to cry. He cried for the loss of this child, his older sister, and all the other countless lives that had come to a sudden, merciless end. Lives that he felt as if he'd failed to save.
Having fallen to his knees, Shunshi spent about a dozen seconds crying. That is until he saw an injured man in the distance that Iaian was making his way towards.
The man was desperately trying to push a sheet of metal off of a hole in the ground. Having shoved it aside enough, the man reached in and pulled out a child, his young son, from the pit, hugging him tightly as soon as he did.
Wiping his tears away, Shunshi stood up and screamed at himself, What the Hell is wrong with you, Shunshi!? You're a Hero! Start acting like it! You should be looking for survivors to save or the ones responsible for this to bring to justice!
Having refortified his grit, Shunshi shook out and put on his helmet, hearing the screams of that man's son just as his armor slid back into place. Turning back to look at them, the young Hero saw the flying monster that had shown up with the city-destroying air-craft standing above the father and son, ready to kill them.
Before it could attack the civilians, Iaian rushed to their aid and attacked the monster with a couple of inhumanly fast and precise sword swings. These moves cut off the monster's fingers and put a deep cut down its torso.
Feeling confident that he could handle the creature from here, Iaian quickly ordered the father, "Get your son out of here, right now!" The father took Iaian's advice and promptly ran with his child to safety.
As he watched these two get away to safety, Iaian allowed a smile to form on his face. However, this brief moment of joy may have been the swordsman's undoing. Within that split second, the monster, despite its injuries, appeared behind Iaian and was about to crush his head between its massive hands. Within the nanoseconds where the monster's hands came together to crush Iaian's head like a bionic press, a few of Shunshi's Light Balls hit this creature in its back. The resulting explosions blew away large chunks of the creature's flesh and stunned it long enough for Iaian to get away unscathed. However, he had instinctively ducked and moved so quickly that his helmet had slipped off of his head.
Knowing that this monster was connected to the ship that had just destroyed the city, Iaian was about to scold the beast as he prepared another attack but stopped when Shunshi suddenly exploded out of the creature's torso.
What had actually happened was that Shunshi had moved faster than Iaian could follow and jumped at the creature like a missile with his claws as the head. Spinning himself as he closed in, Shunshi put a hole in the monster's torso that was the size of his body. In the few seconds that his body was still in the air, the black-armored Hero flipped around to land on his feet and next to Iaian.
As the creature was stumbling around from the initial shock of this attack, Iaian wasted no time and took this opportunity to slash at it vertically, nearly splitting its entire torso into two pieces. These two high-ranking A-Class Heroes felt confident for a brief moment that they'd won. Unfortunately, this was short-lived, as the ordinarily lethal injuries they'd just inflicted on this monster were already beginning to heal.
While its torso was reconnecting, the monster's heads began talking to each other, each head starting a new sentence as they went on, "More survivors." "Their attacks are strong." "We will heal." "Are they the surviving military forces?" "Does not matter." "We will kill." "That is good."
Both Heroes took an offensive stance in preparation for the coming fight.
As they did, Shunshi, trembling with fury, glared at this monster and shouted at it in a vicious war cry that even startled Iaian, "YOU BASTARD! Was blowing up a city not enough for you!? You gotta go around and slaughter more people!? Well, if you think I'll let you and that ship of yours hurt anyone else... THEN YOU MUST BE THE STUPIDEST FUCKING EXCUSE FOR A LIVING CREATURE IN THIS WHOLE GOD DAMN UNIVERSE!" As he roared this, Shunshi's normally small field of white flames grew to nearly ten times its usual size, surprising Iaian even further.
The black-armored Hero attempted to rush this monster and claw at it again, but, all of a sudden, the creature's arm took the form of a sword and swung at Shunshi's torso. He just barely saw the attack coming and jumped backward at the last moment. This resulted in his armor's chest-piece getting cut open and leaving a large, semi-deep cut in his pectorals.
Stunned by the suddenly sped-up movements of this monster, Shunshi asked himself in a combination of annoyance and rage, When the Hell did this thing start moving so fast?! Fuck!
Not waiting any longer for the Heroes to come to it, the strange monster instantly closed the distance between itself and Shunshi.
As it got its bladed arm ready for another swing, it spoke emotionlessly to the shocked Hero, "We will kill you." "That is good." Just as the monster was about to cut Shunshi in half, Iaian slashed at it two more times, hitting its legs and nearly taking them off in the process.
Despite the monster's attack getting stopped short, Shunshi still got hit by a considerable amount of wind force. Shaking off the pain, Shunshi took an offensive stance once more, focused his kie into the tips of his claws, and formed small light balls on each of them. Letting out all of his frustration, the dark-clad Hero sprung forward and unleashed the longest flurry of precise jabs that he'd yet performed. Each of his clawed strikes dug into the monster's flesh, while the light balls caused small explosions with each attack.
As explosions poured out from his fingers, Shunshi passionately shouted the name of his improvised technique at the top of his lungs, "EXPLOSIVE LIGHT FLURRY!"
After having witnessed this new Hero dish out over fifty exploding attacks in just a couple of seconds, Iaian was stunned. Half of the torso of the monster they'd been fighting had been reduced to nothing, and it looked like there was only going to be less of it as time went on.
While looking at this awe-inspiring display of speed, technique, and power, Iaian saw what looked like several small, red marbles floating towards what remained of the monster. Having been distracted by this peculiar sight, the knight-like Hero didn't notice that the now hammer-shaped arm of the monster seemed to be acting on its own accord as it got ready to take a swing at him.
Despite having almost worn himself out with his last assault, Shunshi saw the monster preparing its attack, as well as the fact that Iaian seemed to be distracted. Pulling out reserves of strength he never knew he had, Shunshi rushed over to Iaian. He moved faster than even he himself knew he could and tackled him. This just served to confuse the higher-ranked Hero. That is until the hammer arm finished its swing, caused a trail of intense wind force to race past them, and destroyed anything in its path.
As he gasped for breath, Shunshi stood back up with Iaian while weakly telling him, "... Be careful... You saw what it did to my chest earlier... All of its attacks are lethal..."
Nodding to this, Iaian focused his attention back over to the monster, which had already begun regenerating once more.
"My apologies. I made the mistake of assuming it was already dead and almost lost my life to that attack. I was distracted by the sight of marbles floating over to the remains of the monster," said Iaian.
Wincing in pain for whatever reason, Shunshi lifted his arm up to Iaian and asked him, "Do you mean one of these?" Glancing over at Shunshi's hand, Iaian saw one of the red marbles he'd noticed a second ago, held between Shunshi's claws.
Turning to look at him fully, Iaian asked Shunshi in genuine confusion, "Where did you get one of those? Did you-?"
Stopping himself mid-sentence, Iaian couldn't bring himself to keep talking at the gruesome sight before him. The wind-force strike from earlier had torn off Shunshi's cape along with his armor's back. If that hadn't been enough, the majority of the flesh that used to make up the young man's back was now gone. There were just enough clumps of muscle left to hold his spine and shoulder plates in place, as well as prevent his organs from falling out.
Obliviously trying to ignore the undeniable amount of pain he must be in, Shunshi smiled underneath his helmet and slowly answered Iaian's question, "When I was... going crazy back there... I found this inside of the... that freak's... body."
Overcome with guilt, Iaian asked Shunshi a series of questions as he began to panic, "What the Hell?! How are you still...? Did you get those injuries when you tackled me!?"
Forcing himself to let out a bloody laugh, Shunshi responded dismissively, "Don't worry about me... Just stay focused... My powers... heal me... I'll be fine... probably."
Looking a little bit relieved, Iaian asked Shunshi another question, "Do you mean you can heal like Zombie Man?"
As he slouched over in pain, Shunshi, speaking in as pleasant of a tone as he could, explained, "... No... It's not like I... could grow back a lost arm... or something... I just heal much faster... than a normal person..."
As he began to get an understanding of the limits of Shunshi's healing powers, Iaian looked even more guilt-ridden than earlier, as he asked one last question, "Then... Are you going to d-"
Cutting him off mid-sentence, Shunshi frantically shouted at Iaian as blood poured from his mouth, "Behind you!"
In a blur of movement, the fully healed monster appeared behind Iaian and said, "Such a weak and frail species." "Easily killed." "Let us finish this one." "Then, we kill the others that ran from us." "That is good."
In less than a split second, the monster lifted its hammer arm into the air, causing Iaian to think to himself as he shrank back in fear, "It's already healed?! Can't anything kill this thing?!"
Before the monster could kill him, what seemed like a blade of air cut the monster clean in half horizontally.
Looking past the pile of flesh, Iaian saw Atomic Samurai with his sword drawn, causing the young swordsman to blurt out, "Master!"
At first, he smirked at his top student, but when he saw the horrible condition that the newbie from before was in, Atomic Samurai's eyes widened as he exclaimed, "Holy shit, Iaian! Is he still alive? What happened to him? Hey, Bang! Your new student's in critical condition!"
In a tone of concern and fear, Iaian shouted at his S-Class master, "Master, swords have no effect on this strange creature! Forget about me! You take Shunshi to a hospital and run while I distract it!"
Just as the young warrior said this, the body parts of the monster floated into the air, reformed its body, and tried to rush at Atomic Samurai in an all-out attack. Fortunately, in what looked like only one swing of his katana, the samurai reduced the monster into multiple pieces of cubbed flesh on the ground.
Looking back to Iaian, Atomic snapped at him, "Do you doubt your master's ability with the sword? Get it together! You can still fight, so set that guy somewhere safe, and if this thing is still standing when you're done, then come back to back me up!"
Visibly sweating as he looked back and forth between his teacher and Shunshi, Iaian shouted back in response, "Yes, Master!"
He then rushed to the now barely coherent Shunshi, turned to face away from him, crouched down, and told him, "Shunshi, get on my back! I'm going to get you to safety! My Master, Atomic Samurai, is here to deal with the monster!"
Hearing this, Shunshi wobbled as he weakly asked, "... S-Class... are here...?"
Wanting to get him to safety as fast as possible, Iaian shouted impatiently, "Yes! Now get-!"
Before another word could be spoken, Shunshi lost consciousness and fell face-first onto Iaian's back. This surprised the knightly Hero for a split second, but he quickly got over it and started running as fast as he could toward's their Headquarters' disaster shelter.
After only running for a few seconds, Bang seemingly appeared from nowhere and approached Iaian and Shunshi. Having incredible respect for this elderly Hero, Iaian came to a stop to hear if he had anything to tell him. Without saying a word, Bang looked at the near-death state that Shunshi was in. At this horror show, Bang was almost overcome with rage.
Lowering his head, Silver Fang spoke to the unconscious youth, "I know our sessions hadn't formally started yet, but, as your teacher, I should have kept a closer watch over you. I'm sorry... Iaian, please continue on your way to safety with Shunshi."
Just as Bang was about to walk away, Shunshi's arm came to life and presented the marble that he found to Silver Fang.
Looking at this in a mixture of surprise and confusion, Bang recomposed himself and asked, "What is this?"
Shunshi tried to speak up, but he was far too weak, so Iaian took over the explanation, "When we were fighting that monster over there, Shunshi said that he found that marble inside of the creature."
Looking a little more confused than anything else, Bang decided to take it and say, "If this belongs to the monster, then perhaps it could come in handy." Nodding his head to the two of them, Silver Fang gripped the marble in his hand and continued on his way as Iaian started running even faster than before.
As Bang walked closer to where Atomic Samurai was fighting, he pondered to himself, I dread thinking of how Saitama and Genos will feel about this... Especially Saitama.
By now, the monster had reformed once again. This time, however, instead of having multiple heads, it only had one large head with five rows of eyes running down its face and five sets of teeth in its mouth that were pressed tightly against one another. Also of note was how it increased its already impressive height of nearly seventeen feet tall to a staggering forty-three feet.
Laughing gleefully as the last pieces of its body clung back onto itself, the monster looked down and addressed Atomic Samurai with a more coherent speech pattern, "Good. Seems a life form on this planet can fight. Excellent! I invite you to try withstanding our invasion."
Looking more pissed off than intimidated as a vein popped on his forehead, Atomic Samurai glared up at this monster and angrily asked, "Planet, huh? So you guys are from outer space, then? And you got friends in that floaty-toy of a ship above us. Yeah, that's gotta be it. I doubt you have the strength or the power to cause this much destruction to the city by yourself."
As Atomic Samurai took up a fighting stance, Silver Fang and a muscular teenager with a pompadour haircut, a tight-fitting red shirt, and a metal baseball bat walked up to his side.
"Considering the number of lives that were lost here, and after seeing what that thing did to my future pupil, you can count Metal Bat and myself in on this fight, Atomic," Bang exclaimed.
Having gotten a good look at the monster that had a hand in so much destruction, as well as being directly responsible for nearly killing Shunshi, Bang shifted the marble his student claimed belonged around in his hand. His frustration only intensifying, Silver Fang crushed the marble with the superhuman strength in his fingers. As soon as he did this, one of the sets of eyes that were on this monster's face, one set of its teeth, and two feet of its height turned to dust. The amount of pain the alien monster felt even forced it to take a knee.
Atomic Samurai and Metal Bat both flinched in surprise at this, with the younger one asking in annoyance, "The Hell?! What happened to this bastard?! I haven't even cracked his skull open yet!"
Before anyone could give Metal Bat an answer to his question, the voice of Puri-Puri-Prisoner came out of nowhere and shouted with seething rage, "For all the beautiful men you killed, I claim vengeance!"
Looking behind itself, the alien saw the convict superhero run at it from behind, majestically jump into the air, and enter what he called Angel Mode. This caused his muscles to enlarge to the point of ripping his clothes off. This time, however, there was something different about the mode. Instead of the usual white wings that would appear off of his back when he would enter this state, a set of black wings emerged in their place.
Thinking back to his encounter with the Deep Sea King, Puri-Puri-Prisoner reminded himself, Like he said. Every attack must be delivered with the intent... to kill!
As he fell towards the space monster, the Prisoner roared passionately, "Dark Angel... RUSH!"
The naked man then unleashed a flurry of bare-knuckle attacks on the monster, each blow having even more power behind them than Shunshi's Explosive Light Flurry, putting a new hole in the creature with each strike from his fists.
As the alien monster was putting itself back together, Silver Fang got everyone in the group's attention by shouting to them, "Listen up! My part-time student gave me a marble he found inside of this creature when he was fighting it alongside Iaian. In my anger, I crushed the marble, and that's what caused that creature to convulse in pain as it did. Because of how it seems to be regenerating, I'm guessing these marbles must be what its life force is connected to, not its actual body."
Hearing this, Atomic Samurai grinned and smugly asked, "Is that so? Well, now that we know its weakness, this should be a cakewalk. I just gotta keep cutting till I find them."
Metal Bat then chose to chime in as well in a surprisingly analytical tone of voice, "So... based on the number of eyes left one that bastard's ugly mug, we've only got to find four more of 'em. No problem!"
Each of these fearsome S-Class Heroes took up fighting stances, surrounding the beast from outer space as it healed once more. As soon as it was fully reformed, they pounced on it, each of them tearing into its massive body in search of the marbles that could put an end to it for good.
As all of this was happening, Genos, along with Tornado, a ten-year-old boy(the S-Class Hero called Child Emperor), an incredibly large and muscular black man wearing nothing but a speedo(the S-Class Hero called Super Alloy Darkshine), and an intimidating blond-haired man with three scars running down the left side of his face(the S-Class Hero called King), were all standing on top of the Hero Association's Headquarters. Each of them arrived there after climbing out of a hole in the building that was twice the size of a man. They seemed to be in the middle of an argument over how they should try to attack the alien spaceship when Genos lifted his arm up.
As heat began to emanate out of his incinerators, Genos made an offer to the Tornado, "I do not know how effective I could be, but allow me to assist with your assault on the ship by attacking from the ground with my incinerator blasts."
As opposed to the look of appreciation one might expect, Tornado gave Genos a death-glare and shouted at him, "MAYBE YOU DIDN'T HEAR ME! I SAID I'LL HANDEL IT! Okay!?"
Looking utterly flabbergasted and annoyed, Genos straightened his posture and gave Tornado a very puzzled look.
Before anything could come of this, though, the man in the speedo approached Genos and warned him, "Whoa. Take it easy there, Genos. I know how you feel, but if you piss her off, she will kill you!"
The pint-sized woman then flew off with her physic powers, picking up gargantuan pieces of rubble from the ground as she went, hurling each one up at the city-sized spaceship.
Walking over to the edge of the roof, Genos calmly thought to himself, Very well. There is no need to team up with others anyway. Master has already successfully boarded the enemy ship. Whether this is the prophecy or not-. However, Genos cut himself off mid-thought when his gaze shifted to the ground where the four S-Class Heroes were fighting the space monster. However, with how this fight seemed to be going so heavily in the Heroes' favor, it was less of a battle and more of a brutalization.
Putting one of his mechanical hands to his chin, Genos continued to watch the fight unfold as he asked himself, Should I provide aid to hasten the extermination of that monster...? I suppose that would be unnecessary. I will instead turn on my scanners to search the surrounding area for any other invaders that may have descended from the spacecraft.
Lighting up, a multitude of different scanners began going through Genos' yellow eyes as he looked all over the ruined landscape that used to be City-A. After surveying around for a bit, Genos noticed a person running to the other side of the HQ, with someone else on their back. Enhancing his telescopic vision, Genos managed to get a better look at these two, making them out to be the A-Class Heroes Iaian and Shunshi, the latter of whom was visibly in critical condition. Seeing how brutally injured his junior was, Genos' eyebrows raised in surprise.
Deciding that this warranted further investigation, Genos jumped off of the roof, prompting some confused looks from the other S-Class Heroes around him. He quickly hit the ground hard enough to knock some medium-sized debris into the air. This was due to the distance he'd fallen as well as his dense metal body.
Quickly catching up to Iaian, Genos slowed down a bit so he could run at the same pace as the swordsman and asked in a near-emotionless tone, "I am the newest S-Class Hero, Genos. The man you are carrying studies with the same Master that I do, where he is my junior. What happened to him?"
Initially surprised by this intimidating cyborg's sudden appearance, Iaian took a moment to recover from the shock.
Eventually, he answered Genos' question in a shame-filled tone of voice, "Uh, hello... Well, Shunshi got these injuries when we were fighting the monster on the other side of the building. He... Well, he pushed me out of the way of an attack that could've killed me. I'm sorry that I wasn't more vigilant, but I assure you that I'll-."
Before he could say anything else, Genos ran off in the opposite direction, pushing the limits of how fast his robotic body would let him run. This caused him to build up smoldering heat inside of his mechanical frame as he ran.
Back at the beat down between the Heroes and the regenerating alien, the four of them were in a box formation around the monster when it tried to hit Atomic Samurai by stretching its arm out at him at a lethal speed. But, just as the samurai was about to counterattack, Bang slid in between his friend and the alien's attack. He deflected the blow with a block, causing the monster's arm to pierce a good dozen feet or so into the ground next to the sword wielder. Before the space alien had a chance to pull its arm free, Metal Bat rushed behind it and took a swing at the back of its left leg, severing the limb from the knee down and causing the monster to fall onto its back. As it grew its leg back, got on its knee, and tried to stand back up, Atomic Samurai swiftly cut it into so many pieces that they were small enough to start mixing with the dirt and debris on the ground.
Just as the Heroes began to look for the marbles that sustained this thing, the pieces of the monster's flesh floated into the air and began to spin around each other as if they'd suddenly got stuck inside of an invisible cyclone. As the pieces span around each other, they began to cling to one another in order to heal. Just as the pieces started to resemble the alien's body vaguely, Atomic Samurai hit the largest clump of flesh with an inhumanly precise, lightning-fast cut from his sword. This caused a fourth of the flesh bits to turn to dust as one of the marbles, having been split in half, fell from the dust.
Quickly pulling together the remaining pieces of itself, the space monster reformed all that it could of its body, except for one clump that formed into a head with wings.
Turning its two surviving sets of eyes to look at its separated, flying head, the monster gave it an order, "Hurry. Go up to the ship and order a bombardment."
Grinning like a psychopath, the head responded, "That is good!" The head quickly took off into the air and tried to make its way to the spaceship, but before it could get very far, Metal Bat jumped into the air in front of it and smashed it with his bat.
"Where the fuck do ya think yer goin!?" The young Hero yelled as he hit the head with his baseball bat. The blow was so hard that it crushed and tore apart the head's flesh and knocked it back towards the ground, specifically, in the direction of Puri Puri Prisoner. As the clump of tissue that used to be a head reached him, Prisoner swiftly punched into it, grabbing a marble as he did.
Not noticing that its marble had been taken, the head attempted to reform. Before it could, Puri Puri popped the marble that he grabbed into his mouth and crushed it with his powerful jaws before spitting out the shards, reducing the head to dust in the process.
Furious at the loss of yet another one of its heads, the alien monster bellowed out in fury while forming tentacles on its body and wildly flailing them at the Heroes in a desperate attempt to kill them all. However, each of the fighters easily smashed, cut, grabbed, and deflected any of the limbs that got near them.
Smirking with confidence as he expertly cut apart another tentacle that got near him, Atomic Samurai thought to himself, At this rate, this freak will be nothing but a bad memory in no time at all.
As he attempted to move closer to the monster, to get another shot at one of its marbles, Atomic stopped when he noticed a massive cloud of dust and debris moving closer and closer towards them at an incredible speed. All four of the Heroes, as well as the monster, had taken notice of this dust cloud moving towards them. The Heroes assumed it was some sort of invisible weapon from the spaceship. In contrast, the alien thought it was a fast-moving vehicle that was just out of view and coming to either rescue or provide reinforcements for the soldiers that it was fighting against.
As the source of the dust cloud came into view, everyone in the fight could see that it was the S-Class' newbie, Genos, who was causing the upheaval of debris with his superhuman running speed. When Genos got close enough for them all to see him in more detail, they were all more than a little taken off guard by his current appearance.
Genos had a furious lust for blood in his eyes, centered on the monster they were fighting. Due to having pushed his body to run so fast for so long, all of his visible mechanical body parts had become red-hot with so much steam rising off of him that he could be mistaken for a small volcano. Lastly, because of the scorching temperature of his body, all of his clothing had begun to catch fire. All of this combined caused everyone who was looking at the young cyborg to mistake him for a demon initially.
When he got close enough, Genos slammed his arms together in front of himself and unfolded all of the guns in his arms that he used against Saitama during their sparring match. Each of them letting their survival instincts take over, Silver Fang, Atomic Samurai, Metal Bat, and Puri-Puri Prisoner jumped out of the way to ensure the cyborg only hit its target, the alien. In an instant, the red-hot color of Genos' metal body seemed to drain out through his arms and into his guns.
As flames started to erupt from his cannon, Genos gritted his teeth and viciously growled through them, "Incinerate!"
Meanwhile, Iaian had finally made it to the opposite side of the Hero Association's headquarters with the dying Shunshi on his back.
He saw a large opened door, guarded by armored trucks, letting survivors into the building. As he got close to the door, he flinched and almost fell over at the sound of a massive explosion going off. He didn't let this get to him, though, as his attention was more focused on seeking medical care for the man who saved his life.
As Iaian went through the door, he rushed past a small set of survivors being led in by some of the Hero Association's staff members.
The majority of the civilians who were hiding out there instantly recognized the number 2 A-Class Hero when he walked in. However, significantly fewer of these people, even those who may have been his fan, realized the bloody mess on his back was A-Class' Shunshi.
The disaster survivors crowded around Iaian and began to frantically pester him for answers about the alien invasion, but, being far more concerned with getting Shunshi help, Iaian furiously shouted at the civilians, "Get out of my way, now!" All of the people who gathered around Iaian recoiled in shock and went back to cowering in the corners of the rescue room as soon as he yelled at them.
After finding the rescue room's medical center, the knight-themed Hero rushed up to the doctors, who were scrambling to care for all of the other injured and potentially dying civilians that the spaceship brought about with its initial attack. Iaian handed Shunshi over to the doctors and helped them lay his ally face-down on a medical cot.
Despite the doctors' horror at the gravity of this man's injuries, Iaian began to explain what had happened, "He was injured while we were fighting off the ground forces of the invasion. He told me that he heals quicker than a normal person, but I'm unsure if that ability will be able to save him without proper medical attention."
Growing a grim expression on her face, the doctor took a quick look over Shunshi's back. Some sections of it were visibly healing, while other parts of it were making no progress and just continued to bleed at an exorbitant rate. Not sure if her new patient was still alive, she examined his wrist and found a frantic pulse. Taking the young Hero's arm and connecting him to a mobile heart-rate monitor, the look of despair on the doctor's face visibly grew as she saw that his resting heart rate had skyrocketed up to two-hundred bpm.
Looking back at Iaian, the doctor explained the situation to him in a very morbid tone, "In all honesty, this man should be dead. If what you say about his powers are true, then it would seem like it's the only thing that's kept him alive so far. And it's not just the injuries themselves that are putting his life at risk. His heart is beating so frantically that he should be suffering from a new heart attack every second. I'll see what we can do, but our resources are being spread very thin right now, so I'd truthfully say that his chances are likely less than one percent."
Unsure of how to respond to this, Iaian simply stood there and stared at the ground for a moment. That is until he remembered Atomic Samurai's order to return. As such, he drew his sword, examined the blade for a moment, looked at Shunshi one last time, and started to walk back outside. However, he found himself stopped when a bruised and bloodied little girl who was crying her eyes out grabbed his arm.
The child, not even waiting for Iaian to ask what she wanted, blubbered out, "Mmm... my... My mommy and daddy... Where are they? Did you find them anywhere?! Can you go find them...?! I'm scared... I don't wanna be alone..."
Initially taken off guard by this child's plight, Iaian sheathed his sword, knelt down, and placed his hand on her shoulder while telling her, "I swear on my life that I'll do everything in my power to find your parents." Just wanting to have heard that her parents were okay, the little girl began to cry even more violently. This left Iaian more than just a little heartbroken.
Unsure of how long he had been unconscious, Shunshi started to open his eyes as he heard the sound of a child crying. Only able to get his eyelids to open partially, Shunshi weakly shifted his gaze over to Iaian, trying to comfort the source of the crying, a young girl. As he slipped back and forth between consciousness, Shunshi could hear her asking about where her parents were.
Hearing this child's wails of agony made Shunshi think about Conner, then the boy's sister, and finally, all of the other countless people who must have perished to the alien invasion. Furious at his inability to do anything about this or any other major disaster he had encountered since meeting his Sensei, all logic left Shunshi's brain as he began to scream internally.
Suddenly, much to the horror of Iaian and the doctor presiding over him, Shunshi's heart rate quickly rose even higher to a bpm of two-hundred-fifty. Before anyone could take any measures to try and regulate his heart rate, white flames erupted from Shunshi's body even more fiercely than when he was attacking the space monster. The intensity of the fire pushed back everyone standing too close to the dying man, searing some of their clothes in the process. At the same time, Iaian picked up the little girl and rushed her as far as he could from the half-dead, human inferno.
Without warning, Shunshi began to scream, in what sounded like, a mixture of fury and agonizing pain, as all of the flesh that was on his back started regrowing itself. All the while, the flames burned and melted away anything that was within range of their heat. This included the very cot the young man was on, the heart-rate monitor, and even what was left of his armor. As the flames continued to explode off of him, Shunshi's shoulder-length hair was getting flung wildly about in all directions and looked as if it were beginning to turn white.
Back at the massacre of the regenerating alien, Genos, who looked as if he'd slightly melted himself from the intense heat he released during his initial attack, was propelling himself through the air, past the other Heroes, and towards the monster. The young cyborg had an expression of sheer malice on his artificial face.
As soon as he got close enough to it, Genos shouted, "Machine Gun Blow!" Unleashing his signature melee combo. However, this time he kept his hands open as opposed to closed knuckles. As he tore into the flesh of the alien, his reasoning for keeping his hands open became apparent when one of them came back out of the spaceman's flesh with a marble in their clutch.
Holding the small jewel above his head, Genos impatiently asked the other Heroes, "Tell me! Is this one of the marbles that you told me about!?"
Always quick to please handsome men, Puri-Puri Prisoner answered him, "That's it, sweet Genos!"
Within the instant he got the confirmation he needed, Genos crushed the marble in his metal hand until it was reduced to sand. This resulted in another large portion of the evil creature turning dust. Unfortunately, as soon as he did this, the right arm of the giant alien suddenly stretched out at and tore off the hand Genos had used to crush the marble.
As Genos used his jets to send himself flying backward out of self-preservation, Bang and Metal Bat rushed forward to act as reinforcements. However, as soon as they passed Genos, the monster's other arm shot forward. It hit Bang in his chest with such power that it sent him flying through several ruined pillars and left him embedded in the remains of a building a quarter of a mile away.
In order to force away Metal Bat, the alien swung at him with the arm he used to wound Genos, but the teenage Hero countered the attack with a swing from his namesake weapon. When the arm and the baseball bat collided, the exchange caused an explosion of air pressure that tore up the space occupied by the creature's arm and knocked Metal Bat to the ground.
All of the Heroes that were still standing regrouped as the alien grew back to its full size, increased the muscle mass of its arms, and proclaimed in a tone of arrogance and hatred, "I suppose my mistake was to try and divide my attention on both defense and offense. If I just focus everything on offense, then I can make quick work of-!" Still furious with this monster, Genos cut it off with a fire blast to its head that reduced it to dust. However, it grew back just as quickly as it was destroyed, serving only to piss the monster off.
Meanwhile, back in the rescue shelter, at this point, Shunshi's flames had burned up so much of his surroundings that he was on his knees, still screaming, in the center of a scorched pit.
After a few more moments of shouting, the young Hero stopped producing flames, and he looked as if he'd finally calmed down. However, his body seemed to have changed in a few noticeable ways. His hair went back from white to black. The gaping wound on his back was fully healed, but it was replaced by one large burn mark that was shaped like a silhouette of his injuries. Next, the rather impressive fit and muscular physique that Shunshi had worked to gain over the past three years was gone, and in its place, he now had a thin and sickly body, to the point that his eyes were sunken in, and he could barely stand up without having to slouch over. Even then, he was still violently shaking due to the amount of effort he had to put into the act of standing.
Once he'd taken a second to make sure that his new acquaintance was done exploding, Iaian handed the little girl off to some staff and edged up to Shunshi.
As he tried to avoid looking down, Iaian asked, "Uh, are you alright...? Done making fire? I hope so. All those flames could've put the rescue shelter at ri-." Iaian stopped speaking when Shunshi lifted his head up to look at him. The sunken-in appearance of Shunshi's eyes, combined with his new, burned, and almost skeletal appearance, caused the swordsman to trip over his words due to both being disturbed and fearful that younger Hero might blame him for his injuries.
Smiling softly, Shunshi weakly spoke to Iaian in a raspy voice, "I'm okay... I don't know why I made all that fire just now, sorry... Did I hurt you or anybody?"
More than just a little taken off guard by the sharp contrast between Shunshi's ghoulish appearance and soft-hearted words, Iaian had to take a second to compose himself.
"Um, no. You didn't hurt anyone," the heroic knight answered as he cocked an eyebrow. Pleased to hear this, Shunshi began to shamble towards the door that led back out to the destroyed city.
Panicked by this, Iaian grabbed the weakened Shunshi by his shoulder and yelled at him, "Where do you think you're going in your condition?!"
After wincing in pain from Iaian's grip, the sickly Hero rasped out, "Once I really get going, I'll get my second wind in me. There are probably still people out there who need help," grinning coyly, he continued, "And I wanna see the S-Class Heroes in action!"
Iaian gave Shunshi a disapproving and dumbfounded look while trying to explain, "But... You wanna go help people? Well, you aren't gonna be any good to anyone in the condition you're in!"
Shrugging at this with little to no concern, he replied, "I can still walk and give people directions... And I'm not missing an opportunity to watch Master Silver Fang in action."
Growing more and more frustrated with his savior's persistence, Iaian rubbed his brow, let out a sigh, and exclaimed, "Fine! But you have to stay with me the whole time! Also... We need to get some clothes on you before we go."
Confused by this, Shunshi looked at his body and realized for the first time that he was, in fact, buck-naked in the middle of a public room. This turned the young man's pale face as red as his burned back.
A few moments later, a hesitant Iaian and Shunshi, who was now wearing a closed-up hospital gown, were walking back to where they remembered fighting the alien monster. However, their pace was slowed to a traipse by Shunshi's condition.
As they walked, Iaian grew annoyed by the snail's pace they moved at and told Shunshi in a passive-aggressive tone, "You know, we'd go a lot faster if you'd just let me carry you..."
Thinking back to the night that Genos carried him home, the younger Hero dismissed the offer with a semi-polite, "I'm good, thanks," before switching to a whisper and continuing to himself, "Never again."
While they continued trudging along, Iaian grumbled to himself in frustration while Shunshi continued to hobble forward, neither of them speaking another word to the other. The samurai's disciple could've used physical force to either throw the black-haired skeleton over his shoulder or just make him go back to the shelter. However, Iaian couldn't shake the sense of duty that told him how much he owed Shunshi for saving him. Through some strange mental gymnastics, he figured that escorting the madman back into a war zone was the best way to repay him. As he processed the options in his mind, Iaian found himself gripping his left arm whenever the pangs of duty hit him.
Occasionally, the two would see massive chunks of rubble covered in green energy being flung through the air, aimed towards the spacecraft. Without having to say a word to each other, both heroes understood what was causing this, as they simultaneously thought, That must be the Tornado Of Terror.
Dozens of yards away, at the fight against the alien, the creature transformed its right arm into a sword and lept at Atomic Samurai to try and impale the Human on its limb, but the expert swordsman cut the arm-blade into pieces before it could hit him. However, as the Heroes had come to expect, the arm grew back instantly and attempted another swipe at the samurai of justice. As such, Atomic had to cut it apart once again. The alien monster and the sword-wielding Hero repeated this a few more times until the creature pulled its arm back. Within the same motion, it grew almost a dozen spear-like protrusions and tried to impale the Atomic Samurai with them. At first, it seemed like this was going to potentially overwhelm the Hero, but the attack was stopped when one of Genos' fire blasts hit the invader's side, burning off a large chunk of its torso and stunning it for a moment. This gave Atomic Samurai the time he needed to jump back and gain some distance.
After its arm regrew, the monster thought to itself, "I can't believe it! In just a little under an hour, these worms destroyed the marbles that took me thousands of years to grow! I haven't even gotten a chance to call for a bombardment strike in the middle of all this chaos! Not to mention that fire-spewing one is making this more difficult than it needs to be! If he weren't here, then victory would be mine by now!"
As soon as the otherworldly creature was done thinking, everyone in the fight heard the sound of an old man's voice exclaim, "Ah! Oh, that's better. The stiffness in my shoulders is gone."
The alien and a couple of the Heroes turned to look in the direction of the voice and saw Silver Fang windmilling with his arm as he simultaneously rubbed that arm's shoulder. The old man was now shirtless, showing off the elder's incredible physique, as well as the numerous scars lining his arms and shoulders.
Finishing his self-massage, the old martial arts master looked up at the monster and calmly said, "Guess I must be a little rusty."
Unable to believe that anyone aside from his master could survive one of his strikes, the alien menace exclaimed in denial, "NO! How can you still be alive!?"
The creature couldn't ponder this for long, as it got hit in the back of its head by another fire blast, which was soon followed up by Atomic Samurai's declaration, "You should remember to keep your eyes on the people you're fighting. ATOMIC SLASH!" In an instant, countless sword swings seemed to come out of nowhere, reducing the alien's body into finely cut cubes.
Before the cubes of meat could even hit the ground, though, they floated into the air, turned to dust, and began chasing each other like a wild and violent storm.
"INSOLENCE! SUCH COMPLETE INSOLENCE!" The space monster's voice could be heard cursing.
Bang started moving towards the center of this dust storm, but before he got very far, Genos rocketed past the old man and beat him to his target, the last marble. Gripping this bead of life in his remaining hand, Genos glared at the jewel furiously as the alien tried to form around it.
"You should not have harmed my fellow student, especially with a wound so grievous that he may not survive," the young cyborg explained with a disturbingly calm fury.
Unconcerned with what its opponent was saying, the alien roared out, "NNNOOOOOOO!" Before the cyborg crushed its last tether to the land of the living.
Calmly walking up to the young man, Bang, in an almost parental tone, quietly asked Genos, "Looks like we had the same idea... So, I'm guessing by your outburst that you saw what this abomination did to your friend?"
Letting the leftover marble dust fall to the ground, the yellow-eyed Cyborg responded to this question with a correction, "It would be a gross overstatement to call us friends. We are simply fellow students of the same Sensei. As his Senpai, it is my duty to make sure that no major harm befalls him."
Looking at Genos with hidden disapproval, Bang analytically pondered, One only acts with anger such as what you displayed when they lose a family member or close friend... I suppose I'd be overstepping my boundaries with him if I tried to counsel him about his personal relationships. I'll leave it to the young man to figure out his own emotions.
Just as he finished thinking, a raspy but strangely chipper voice called out, "Awww maaaan! Did we miss the whole thing? I wanted to watch you in action, Silver Fang-Sensei!" Genos, Atomic Samurai, Metal Bat, Puri-Puri Prisoner, and Bang looked in the direction that the voice came from and saw Iaian slowly walking towards them with a seemingly half-dead man in a hospital gown at his side.
Seeing that the fight was over, Iaian let out a relieved sigh and snapped at Shunshi, "Well, it's a good thing that it's already done! You know we would've just gotten in the way, Shunshi!"
Hearing Shunshi's name being used to address this hospital patient, Genos instantly rocketed over to Iaian and Shunshi, stopping only a foot from them as an extremely concerned expression plastered the machine man's artificial face.
Addressing Iaian first, Genos frantically asked him, "Did you say that this man standing next to you is Shunshi?!"
Iaian, once again frightened by Genos, leaned back and answered hesitantly, "Uh, y- yes?"
Looking a bit angrier now, Genos snapped at Iaian, "What is the matter with you!? Why would you bring him here if he is in this bad of a condition?! I should rip your arm off for such stupidity!"
Gaining a bit more courage when he remembered that Atomic Samurai was nearby, Iaian defended himself by defiantly exclaiming, "Hey, cool it! I didn't do it by choice! He refused to sit still, so I figured it'd be better if I accompanied him, as opposed to letting him head out here on his own."
Turning his attention to Shunshi, Genos began to scan his junior's wounds while yelling, "You complete fool! You seem ready to die from a strong gust of wind in this state, yet you came out here anyway?!" Frowning a bit, Shunshi had to take a moment to reply, as he was equally surprised by the sight of Genos' own battle damage.
Eventually, Shunshi managed a simple smirk as he replied, "Sorry, Genos-Senpai. But I didn't have anything better to do after I finished heal- OUCH!"
Genos interrupted his junior when he grabbed a clump of Shunshi's long hair in order to gain control of the direction his head faced. As Genos shifted where Shunshi was looking, it became evident to the older disciple of Saitama that his younger Senpai was trying to get better readings for his scanners on Shunshi's newly bony face.
While twisting Shunshi's head to the right so he could examine one of his sunken in eye sockets, Genos noticed the burn marks at the top of Shunshi's spine and let go of his head as a result.
Rubbing his strained scalp and neck, Shunshi complained to Genos, "Ouch. Come on, Senpai! You don't just do that to someone recovering from-."
Cutting him off once more, Genos gave Shunshi a bizarre order, "Turn around and let me see your back. From what I can tell, I need to properly scan the injuries that are there as well."
Understandably baffled by this demand, Shunshi tilted his head and asked, "Come again?"
Simultaneously, Iaian thought to himself, Geez. Dealing with these two is so weird. I just might take Genos up on his offer of mutilation if it meant I got to slip away from them.
Intensifying his glare a bit, Genos explained to Shunshi, "I severely overheated earlier, and now my scanners are not working properly. They cannot scan through your clothing in their current state. Now, do as I asked."
Rolling his eyes and sighing, Shunshi turned around to face Iaian and asked, "Iaian, could you cut this thing so that Genos can see where I got hurt?" If the swordsman had been drinking water, he would have spat it out at that.
Hysterically, Iaian asked Shunshi, "You can't seriously be doing what he's asking, can you?! And why do you want me to cut it!? Just slide it down over your shoulders and let it rest on your waist."
Looking at the ground, Shunshi explained in embarrassment, "Look, when Genos gets like this, except for Sensei, you either do what he asks, or he eventually makes you do what he wants. And with how I tied up this thing, I can't just take it off that way. All I can do with it on my own is take it all off and then tie it around my waist. In case you forgot, I already showed the world what I got, and I'd rather I didn't have to do that again. So can you just do this favor for me?"
While watching this whole debacle unfold, Bang muttered to himself in shock, "This is... more than a little odd. Is that really Shunshi?"
Nudging the old man in his side, Atomic Samurai somewhat jokingly asked, "Is that twig all that's left of your new student? You'd need about ten armies of guys like that to equal even one of my students."
Resting his bat on his shoulder, Metal Bat decided to chime in as well, "Well, this is getting weird. I'm gonna see if I can get Tornado to throw me up to that spaceship or something. I wanna crack some more alien skulls." The teenage Hero then strutted off.
Not wanting to see this either, Puri-Puri Prisoner pointed in the opposite direction and explained, "Gross. I like my boys on the thinner side and all, but that's a little too much even for me. I'm going to go see if I can find some other Heroes to coordinate with." The convict Hero then made his leave as well.
Hesitantly, Iaian slowly used his sword to carefully cut down Shunshi's hospital gown, with Shunshi reminding him, "All you gotta do is make it so he can see my injuries. Don't go any farther than that."
Iaian simply grumbled back at him, "You don't have to tell me twice. I'm not exactly in a hurry to see your family jewels again... So, is this guy your older brother or some other relative? Is that why you're doing what he says?"
Initially confused by this question, the skeleton man eventually answered the swordsman, "Uh, no. We're just close friends... And I've actually got a year on the guy."
While he continued to carefully cut the fabric covering Shunshi's back, Iaian internally shouted, They're not family, yet Shunshi is okay with taking his clothes off around Genos?! What a couple of freaks!
Once the massive burn was exposed, the x-rays of Genos' scanners got to work, examining the reddened flesh that patched up Shunshi's back.
As he worked, Genos also asked his junior something that had been bugging him, "So, Shunshi. I saw your injuries while you were unconscious, and I believed that your death was certain. Explain to me exactly how you healed."
Having to think about this for a second, Shunshi gathered his thoughts, looked into the sky, and answered Genos truthfully, "Well, I was lying down somewhere... The Hero Association's rescue center, I think... Anyway, everything from my point of view was totally black. I actually did think I was dead for a bit there. I woke up a bit when I heard a kid crying. Then I started thinking about all of the people who were murdered today... and how I wasn't able to do anything to save anyone, before or after the city'd been destroyed... I got overwhelmed with how desperately I wanted to stay alive to save everyone and kill the aliens that hurt them. Then, all of a sudden, every inch of my body started spewing out more fire than it ever had before. But what was really weird about this fire was that... uh, well, it actually felt like it was burning me everywhere that I'd been hurt today... I guess that's why I got this big mark on my back and why I'm so thin."
After sending his limited medical report to Doctor Stench and blinking to turn off his scanner, Genos began to contemplate something as he told Shunshi, "Interesting... All right, I am done. Once Sensei reunites with us, I will need to bring you to Dr. Stench's laboratory for further examinations."
Groaning in frustration, Shunshi grumbled back at Genos, "Whatever. I want to get some pants first, though... By the way, where is Sensei?"
Iaian, deeply confused by this conversation, looked at Silver Fang, who was only a few feet away, and thought, Did he go blind too? His sensei is right there.
Pointing upwards, Genos told Shunshi in a casual tone, "He is currently up on the spaceship, dealing with the treat."
Nodding his head, the walking skeleton replied, "Oh, that makes sense. Heh, those assholes are screwed."
Hearing what sounded like the mad gibberings of asylum patients, Iaian thought to himself in an annoyed and defeated tone, Okay, so they're not blind, just crazy... I'm gonna go speak with Master Atomic. I need his help in trying to find that girl's parents.
A little less than a half-hour had passed, the students of Saitama had moved away from the combat zone and were sitting next to the Hero Association HQ. Due to their beaten and tired bodies preventing them from taking further action in stopping the invasion, they passed their time by sitting on what was left of the building's front steps and watching the S-Class Heroes that were still present as they fought.
By this point, through means he couldn't fathom, Genos noticed that some of Shunshi's muscles had slowly grown back. Not so much that his skeletal appearance was utterly gone, but at least enough for him to be able to walk on his own without the risk of collapsing in on himself. As Genos was baffled by his junior's body slowly growing back, Shunshi was watching Metal Bat trying to chase down Tornado of Terror.
She was flying around and hurling masses of debris at the spaceship with her psychic powers and either ignoring Metal Bat or genuinely not noticing him at all.
As he watched this almost amusing display between two S-Class Heroes unfold, Shunshi smirked and made an attempt to joke around with Genos, "Man, would you look at all the S-Class Heroes? I wish I had an autograph book or something. Ha, heheheh..."
Even from merely glancing at his allies' facial expressions as he spoke, Genos could see Shunshi trying to hide some sort of sadness behind his smile but chose to say nothing.
Deciding to respond to the joke, Genos commented, "You may not have my autograph unless Sensei approves first."
Shunshi hadn't expected the blond cyborg to engage with him and was initially confused. However, the immediate dismissal left Shunshi feeling put out.
Pouting, he responded, "What...? But I... Fine, whatever. I didn't want your autograph anyway."
His expression unchanging, Genos asked back, "Why not? I am also an S-Class Hero. Do you not have some sense of admiration for those of my rank?"
Surprised by the continued conversation, Shunshi did his best to explain, "Well, yeah, but I've been researching and following the exploits of the guys in the Hero Association for the past three years. I only learned you existed a little while ago. Don't get me wrong. I think you're awesome, Senpai. But I don't look up to you the same way I do with the other Heroes or Sensei. I mean, we joined the Hero Association at the same time, so it just doesn't feel the same."
Almost seeming as if he were genuinely curious now, Genos posited, "And what about once I reach Master's goal for me? When I enter the top ten of S-Class? Would that not be sufficient enough an achievement to warrant you viewing me in the same light as the other Heroes?"
At this point, Shunshi was almost amused by Genos' line of questions.
Is Genos-Senpai... actually looking for my approval on something? Shunshi wondered.
Managing a small smile, Shunshi replied, "Sure. I'll honor the occasion by asking you for your autograph."
"You will still need Sensei's approval first," Genos was quick to bring up.
"Uh, right... Got it, Senpai," Shunshi remarked with a baffled smirk.
After a few more minutes of sitting in awkward silence, the two students quickly rose to their feet when they heard what sounded like a series of explosions coming from the spaceship. Looking up at the craft, Genos and Shunshi saw a bombardment of building-sized cannon shells hurtling towards all of the Heroes that were still attacking the vessel. All but one of the Heroes that saw this were stunned with panic. Tornado of Terror, being the only one left unphased, focused her telekinesis and grabbed every one of the shells, throwing them back at the ship and destroying all of its guns in the process.
Astounded by this, Genos turned to Shunshi and exclaimed, "What a display of raw power! It is nothing compared to Master's abilities, but it is still rather impressive."
Smirking at the rise that Tornado of Terror got out of Genos, Shunshi rested his head on his hand and casually replied, "Yeah, that's about what I'd expect from an S-Class Hero. For someone who's as highly ranked as Ms. Tornado, this was nothin'."
Hearing his ally's high assumptions of the S-Class' capabilities, Genos started to feel a mixture of confusion and a sense of self-loathing for not being able to live up to his junior's expectations. Not sure of what he should say to this, Genos went back to sitting in silence, having no clue how he should communicate his feelings.
Another half an hour or so passed. The ship had been tilted onto its side, supposedly by Tornado, and started crashing to the ground.
Due to already being so close to the Hero Association's building, Genos and Shunshi quickly but calmly made their way inside with plenty of time to spare before the crash-down. With the other Heroes arriving just a minute after them. Quick to grab the large metal doors leading into the rescue shelter, Puri-Puri-Prisoner, Tanktop Master, and Super Alloy Darkshine closed them just in time to avoid a title wave of debris that would have hit everyone otherwise.
In no time at all, the debris that blocked the exit to the rescue shelter got cleared out by the Heroes so that they could head back out and search the crash site.
When the S-Class Heroes split up for the recognizance, Shunshi convinced Genos to let him search the wreckage around the ship as well. That is after he had put on some new clothes and had grown back the faintest amount of his muscle tone.
While slowly making his way around the remains of the alien spaceship, Shunshi stumbled upon Super Alloy Darkshine, with a sturdy-looking chain wrapped around his impressively large shoulder. The shiny Hero was digging through and effortlessly tossing aside impossibly huge slabs of space metal with his bare hands.
Noticing the almost skeletal person walking towards him, Alloy put up his fists and shouted at him, "Hold it! Who are you, and what do you think you're doing?!"
At this point, the young Hero had become too tired to be intimidated or to let his admiration for the Hero influence his response, "I'm an A-Class Hero, sir. I'm just trying to help with the search."
Putting his fists down, the S-Class asked Shunshi in a surprised tone, "Oh, really? I don't really pay attention to any Heroes below S-Class unless they got good muscle on them. You gotta be careful, walking around, looking so creepy."
Nodding his head in agreement, Shunshi replied in a strangely calm voice, "Yeah, I get what you... Hey, what's that noise?"
Not sure of what the skeleton guy was talking about, Super Alloy listened to his surroundings for a moment until he heard some muffled cries from beneath the rubble.
Quickly digging apart the ground, Super Alloy Darkshine found almost a dozen of the invading aliens huddled and pressed together, their attempt to hide having been foiled.
Scowling at the aliens, Alloy took the chain off of his shoulder and snapped at them, "Alright! If you freaks can understand what I'm sayin', then get over here and sit your asses down with your backs to each other!"
Sweating with fear at the goliath who found them, the aliens, without speaking a word, walked over to him and did as he ordered them to do.
Using the chain, Darkshine quickly tied all the other worlders together and asked Shunshi, "You said you're a Hero, right? Look, I know that you don't have any real muscle on you, but do you mind keepin' an eye on them? I'm gonna go get the other Heroes so we can all interrogate these guys together." Letting himself plop down on a hunk of spaceship hull, Shunshi gave the S-Class Hero a thumbs up, combined with a reassuring smirk. Nodding at this, Super Alloy Darkshine made his way past Shunshi and towards where he believed the other Heroes would most likely be.
Just as the more intimidating Hero walked out of earshot, the aliens began to whisper and panic to each other, sharing their concerns about how some guy named Boros was defeated and as to whether or not they'd be allowed to live.
Feeling a bit of pity for these aliens, Shunshi yelled over to them with nothing but honesty in his voice, "Hey. You guys don't need to worry about us killing you. We're Heroes. We're known for being really nice, and you guys already got your butts kicked something fierce. You're pretty much harmless at this point. So, don't worry. We just need to ask you all some questions."
Overcome with confusion, as well as some small amount of relief, the band of surviving aliens gave Shunshi funny looks until one of them weekly responded, "Um... Thanks for that, guy... I guess..."
After a few more minutes had passed, another one of the aliens shouted to Shunshi, "Hey! Hero guy! Look, someone's coming!"
Turning his head to look behind himself, Shunshi was excited to see who they were talking about. The top-ranked A-Class Hero, Sweet Mask.
Jumping to his feet, Shunshi quickly started to make his way towards the idol Hero, excitedly telling him, "Hey there, Sweet Mask, sir. You probably don't recognize me right now, but it's me- Aagh!"
Having no interest in what this supposed Hero that Darkshine said was watching the aliens had to say, Sweet Mask harshly pushed his fragile-looking body out of his way and to the ground. Once he got close enough to the aliens, Sweet Mask struck at each of them with karate chops moving at superhuman speed, reducing them all to green blood and clumps of flesh.
Shocked by his sudden actions, Darkshine shouted, "Sweet Mask! Why did you do that?!" At the same time, Genos rushed over to check on Shunshi, finding that, due to his junior's frail body, he'd cracked his forearm and a few of his ribs.
Whipping away some of the blood that had splashed onto his face, Sweet Mask answered Super Alloy Darkshine's question with raw blood lust, "They did not deserve to live. They were evil. I was simply administering justice as quickly as possible."
Barely holding back his desire to attack him, Genos asked Sweet Mask his own question, "What purpose did lashing out at my ally serve to you?"
Snapping his head in Genos' direction, a vein formed on Sweet Mask's face as he gave his answer, "He failed to contribute in stopping this invasion in any meaningful way. The fact that such a failure tried to approach me as if he were my ally is an insult to justice itself. You should understand that, Genos... Although, after your failure against the Deep Sea King and your failure today, I'm beginning to question your actual ability to uphold justice."
Having quickly reached the end of his fuse with this man, Genos, despite his damaged state, began to consider attacking the A-Class idol. However, before he could put much thought into this, Shunshi grabbed Genos's wrist with his good arm. Looking down at his junior, Genos was convinced not to pick a fight when he saw Shunshi shake his head as a warning to stand down. Letting out a sigh of frustration, Genos instead helped Shunshi to his feet, letting him rest his good arm on his metal shoulder.
Deciding that they no longer had time to wait for their Master, Genos began to walk away to take his junior to see Dr. Stench. As if on queue, when they turned to face away from the other Heroes, the cyborg was stopped cold by the sight of tears suddenly and silently streaming down Shunshi's face.
After they'd taken a few steps, Bang quickly approached the two disciples. Once he was close enough, he noticed Shunshi trying to hide his sorrow from everyone around him.
"Are... you two alright?" He asked with genuine concern.
Only half-listening to the old man, Genos replied, "I'll be repaired soon." However, despite the question being framed for both of them, Bang was only looking at Shunshi.
Using his fractured arm, Shunshi rubbed away the tears on his face. Unfortunately, when pushed too hard against his face, Shunshi strained his injury, resulting in more tears streaming down his face.
Despite this, Shunshi let out a good-natured chuckle and answered his second teacher's question with a positive voice, "I guess I wound up hurting myself more than I thought. I just started crying out of nowhere. Weird, right?"
Saying nothing out loud, Bang stroked his mustache and thought grimly, Based on what I've gathered about his personality, Shunshi seems to idolize Heroes in general to some extent. He may not be willing to admit it when one of his idols does something that lets him down, regardless of how much sorrow it may cause him. I should-.
All of a sudden, a very loud series of smashing could be heard coming from the ship, which ended with Saitama casually punching a hole out of the spacecraft.
Despite his cape being in tatters and his clothes being guffed up, Saitama seemed somewhat pleased as he said, "Oh, I finally got out. Cool."
Recognizing this silly-looking bald man from the S-Class meeting, Tornado flew over to him and asked, "Hey! How did a B-Class like you get on that ship? Shouldn't you be dead or something?"
Rushing over to his Master as fast as he could while taking care not to harm Shunshi, Genos shouted to Saitama, "Master! There you are! Shunshi needs your assistance!"
When he saw his cyborg student, Saitama was somewhat surprised by Genos' beaten-up condition but was also confused by the skeleton man that was resting against him.
Folding his arms, Saitama blurted out, "Geez, Genos. Why do you look all melty? Well, whatever. If Shunshi needs help, then show me where he is... And who's that bony guy you're carrying?!"
Gesturing for Saitama to start carrying Shunshi, Genos bluntly answered his teacher, "This is Shunshi, Master. I would like you to aid me in escorting him to Dr. Stench's lab for medical care. I will explain all of the details of how he ended up like this on the way there."
Stunned by the news that this walking corpse was Shunshi, Saitama reeled back and exclaimed in disbelief, "THAT'S SHUNSHI?! Okay, give 'em here. Let's get going! Show the way." Taking Shunshi in his arms bridal-style, Saitama started to follow Genos as he ran as fast as his damaged body would allow him to.
As all this went on, Shunshi grunted in pain from his fractured bones getting jostled around. At the same time, he was also trying to ignore the humiliation of being carried once again.
While they were running, Shunshi overheard Tornado of Terror yelling at them about how Saitama got in her way before throwing a cacophony of insults at him about being bald. When Shunshi looked to see if either of his Senpai or Master were paying attention to the small Hero's foul mouth, he saw that they were preoccupied with talking about how Saitama had fought the strongest opponent of his life while on that ship.
As Shunshi continued to listen to Tornado of Terror hurl insults at his Master, he felt a swirl of anger, sadness, and confusion as he whispered to the number 2 S-Class Hero, "Please... Please stop talking."
