Chapter SEVEN: King's Road to Enlightenment

King walked to the final master, the place he was supposed to go to calm his constantly beating King Engine. The place where he may finally quell his never ending bloodlust for battle. There was only one problem with his journey.

He wasn't a bloodthirsty warrior. He wasn't even a real hero! Everyone he went to just assumed he was too advanced for their school, and sent him to the next training ground. He started with Bang, hoping he may confide in his true weakness, but he too thought he was merely being humble. It was insane how much they exaggerated his legend.

Finding the final training ground, a run down shack covered in dust and cobwebs, King entered.

"Uh, hello?" King called. "Is this the, uh… Final Training Ground?"

King made his way into the shack. It was dark inside, so he grabbed his phone and turned on the flashlight. He yelled in shock, then stumbled backward and fell on his rear end when he saw a mummified corpse, stuck in a meditative position.

"I've seen this kinda thing in anime and manga!" King said to no one in particular. "You meditate forever until you reach nirvana or something! I can't believe this guy actually did this!"

King got up and left in a hurry. He was done with it, trying to actually become strong. It wasn't worth becoming a mummy!

King was walking back home when he felt himself getting thirsty. He grabbed his water bottle, then saw that it was empty. He could hear a waterfall somewhere, and decided to follow the sound to get a drink.

King started to pant as he climbed the path, his heart beat rising with each step. He soon found the waterfall, then went to get a drink. He went to the edge of the water pool and knelt down, cupping some water and calmly drinking it.

King looked up, finding a young man, a teenager, sitting in the waterfall, letting the water hit him violently. He recognized him; it was Garou, the Hero Hunter, and he was staring right at him!

The two merely stared at each other as King stood up. Garou could hear the King Engine half an hour ago, wondering if he'd come to fight him, to bring him in to the Hero Association. Surely King could have snuck up on him, but he doubted the man dubbed the 'King of Heroes' would do something so underhanded.

King let out a heavy breath. His engine still roared. Garou didn't understand why he came here. Or how he even knew where this place was. He expected a fight, and didn't expect to win against him; he remembered how that baldy spoke so highly about him, which meant he was at his level, if not beyond. Garou, unfortunately for him, had reverted back to his default level of power, before he first started evolving, back when he was barely a Dragon level threat. He stood no chance against King.

King then turned around, exposing himself to attack. Garou could see his body twitching as he walked; just because he turned his back, didn't mean he was lowering his guard.

Why was he leaving? Garou recalled the way King had told everyone to stop attacking him after his power was lost. He'd told them that a child, Tareo, the little brat, was watching, and demanded they stop. He thought he'd only stopped them because he didn't want to expose a child to unnecessary violence, but perhaps he was wrong.

King walked away from the Hero Hunter, his heart racing in fear. Saitama wasn't here to protect him, so he could only walk away in silence and hope for the best. As he walked away, he thought to himself, 'Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me.'

King thanked the heavens for his weird luck. Normally nothing good came from it, but this time, like with Atomic Samurai earlier, it served him well. His heart slowed down to normal as he walked further away. As he walked, he saw someone walking towards him. As they neared each other, he was shocked to see it was Bang.

They stopped when they reached each other.

"King?" Bang said, surprised he was here. He was carrying a duffel bag with him, filled to the brim with supplies. "I thought I heard the King Engine! What are you doing here?"

"The dojos I went to eventually led me here," King replied. "It took all day, but I finally made it to the final training ground."

"Already?!" Bang asked, shocked at King's sudden mastery of every martial art that was on the path to the final training ground. "I must say, I am impressed! And terrified! No wonder Saitama likes spending so much time with you! You're both unbelievably amazing!"

"Yeah," King said. "Saitama is amazing. But why are you here?"

"I'm looking for Garou," he replied truthfully. "There is a secret training ground that has been in my family for generations around here. I took Garou there when he was fifteen, and I'm hoping he retreated there. It takes a while to find, especially with my fuzzy memory."

"You mean the waterfall?" King asked, pointing to where he just came from. "You're right, he's there. He's meditating underneath the waterfall."

"You even found my family's old secret training ground! I'm not surprised!" Bang's voice then changed from jovial to solemn. "That's why your King Engine was roaring earlier, wasn't it? Tell me, is he… alive?"

"He is," King replied. "He didn't attack me, so that's definitely an improvement compared to last time."

"That's good. I won't lie; I was afraid you may have killed him, or at least hurt him."

"Why would I do that?" King asked honestly.

"After all the people he's hurt, I know you must feel justice must be done. But I remember the way you stood up for him when he was freed from his corruption. I suppose you know that he is just an angry, confused child."

"We all do stupid things when we're kids, especially when it involves our parents," King told him. "I remember going into dungeon after dungeon when I was twelve, staying up all weekend just because I wanted to get to a higher level. My parents were not happy about it, said it was dangerous. I once fought a dragon for four days straight until I finally landed a killing blow; they grounded me for a month and told me no more dungeon crawling. Not that that stopped me."

"Slaying a dragon at only twelve years old!" Bang said with a smile. "Can't say I'm surprised. Thank you for this talk, my friend. It was very enlightening." He pat King on the shoulder and left to find Garou. He was proud, not to mention extremely honored, to be able to call King not only a colleague, but a friend.

As Bang left, he could King talking to himself. "I've had a long day. Maybe Saitama will fight me again; assuming he's not still mad about the whole moon thing."

Bang turned around, shocked to hear King talking about sparring with Saitama as a way of relaxing. He was also shocked to what he said about the moon; he really did cause the crater on the moon? And during a sparring match with Saitama? Wow. Just… Wow.

As Bang made his way to the secret training ground, he thought of King's words. He referred to him as Garou's parent, and he supposed he was right. He'd first met Garou's parents when he signed him up for lessons after he barged into his dojo, and he wasn't a fan of them. They didn't even realize he'd been gone for a week, and only agreed to let him train under him when he told them it was free; they said they were glad to have him out of the house, especially his mother. He could never understand a parent thinking that way, especially a mother.

Bang never had children. He was a punk when be was Garou's age, worse even, so he never thought about it then. In fact, in order to avoid the possibility of being burdened by kids, he'd had a vasectomy. He came to regret that decision years later. He tried to have it reversed, but the procedure was a failure. Even with the medical technology they had today, they could do nothing.

Even his brother Bomb didn't have any children, though his reason was because of an injury Bang gave him when he first left their family's dojo, a vicious sneak attack. That was just one of many things he could never forgive himself for.

Their bloodline would end with them.

He always hoped someone would come forward, say they were his child from his punk years, before his procedure, or a grandchild of said child. But no one came forward. He even hired a detective to look into it, but they never found anybody.

It hurt to see other people his age with children and grandchildren. He focused too much on his his own selfish interests when he was younger, and regretted never settling down. His students were the closest thing he'd ever had to children, and Garou was the one he was no doubt closest to. A son.

Bang arrived at the waterfall, finding Garou meditating at the bottom, just like King said.

"Took you long enough to find me, you old fart!" Garou said with a smile.

Bang smiled in return.