Chapter 3: A Good Fight
[Flashback, twenty years ago...]
"Hey, I haven't seen you around here before." A young boy with black hair said to another boy with blond hair on the bench at the park. "Where're you from?"
"Hmm?" The blond-haired boy looked up from his handheld game console, before concentrating on his game again. "K-City. Moved here a few days ago."
"Why're you here at the park playing on your game console? If you wanted to play on your console, you could've just stayed home."
"Well, my parents were unpacking everything at home, so they asked me to go out and familiarize myself with this place while they were busy." The boy said. "I already know the general layout of this place, but when I got back, they were still busy."
"So I just took out my game console and got here." The blond-haired boy said, his eyes still glued to the screen of his game console.
"Huh... well, since you're out here, wanna play soccer with us?" The boy with black hair said, his thumb pointing back at some of his friends that were playing soccer.
"Eh, not really." The blond-haired boy said, still looking at his handheld. "I'm busy right now."
"Well, why not join us once you're done with your game? We need one more person on our team!" The boy with black hair attempted to persuade the blond-haired boy.
"Nah, I'm good." The blond-haired boy said. Not once during that entire conversation did he even part his vision from his game console; save for the beginning when he looked up to glance at him.
"Alright, then. If you feel like joining us later, just say so, alright?" The boy with black hair said, turning around to leave.
...
...
...
A while later, the blond-haired boy was finished with the second-last level of the game he was playing. Occasionally, he'd glance upwards during lighter sections of the gameplay to see the other kids playing soccer in the park. But right now, he couldn't afford to do that very often. The last level was going to be especially demanding since he was playing on the hardest difficulty.
"Ow! What're you-"
"Get outta here! We're gonna have the park all to ourselves today!" For a brief moment, the blond boy looked up to see some older kids with baseball gear walking into the park, trying to scare away the younger kids playing soccer.
"Hey, what for? There's plenty of space in the park, isn't there? We're just using this half of the park anyway!" The blond-haired boy could hear the black-haired boy that talked to him earlier, attempting to reason with the older kids.
"Shut up! You can go play your kiddie soccer elsewhere! If you don't wanna die, that is!" Their leader- he assumed, said. "You think you can take us? There may be less of us, but I can guarantee it won't end pretty!"
"You guys should just leave, it's not worth it." Another voice the boy hadn't heard before said to the boy with black hair. Glancing upwards, it was a boy with red hair, about the same age as the boy with black hair, and himself.
"Come on, Ayato! How come you're on their side?!"
"Shut up! Now leave before we seriously beat you guys up!" The boy in the lead said. "Ayato here's being nice, telling you guys to leave! If not for him being useful to us, we wouldn't have given you guys a warning in the first place!"
"Sigh... Fine, let's go, guys. It's not worth fighting with them over this spot. We'll just come back later."
Though the blond-haired boy felt bad for them, he couldn't do anything to help them right now. He was much too busy with his game. In fact, he was in the final phase right now. After he beat the boss, he'll finally have completed a zero-damage run of the game! Not to mention, this run didn't even go all that well. The RNG just happened to hit all at once in the final level, with him gaining all the items he needed to boost his performance. He'd say this run went swimmingly well!
"Hey, that boy over there! That includes you, got it? Leave!"
Tsk. Was this really happening right now?
"Hey, you hear me?! Don't think you can pretend you can't hear us!" The voices got closer, and the blond-haired boy exhaled a sigh. He was so close to finishing up here!
After a certain point, the boy could feel the shadows of the older kids over him, though he paid them no mind. The final phase was almost complete. He just needed another minute!
"Hey, you deaf or something?" The leader of the group said, directly in front of him.
"I can hear you just fine. Just give me another minute." The blond-haired boy said.
"So you can hear me, you punk! You're in for a world of pain, ignoring us like that!"
"Just leave me be. I only need a single minute- no, just thirty seconds." The blond-haired boy said, still concentrating on his game.
"Screw you and your shitty game, you-" The boy in the lead raised his fist to punch him, but the boy with red hair stepped in the way.
"Hey, what's the big idea, Ayato?!"
"There's no need to hit him, I'll get him to leave."
"Hmph. You sure are getting cocky, aren't you, Ayato?" The leader of the older kids grabbed Ayato by the collar on his shirt. "You think since we let you join us, you can tell us what to do?"
"N-no, Gouzou. I just didn't think you needed to hit him to get him to leave." Ayato said, raising his hands in surrender. "He doesn't look familiar, he probably doesn't know you, is what I'm saying."
"Is that so?" The leader threw Ayato to the ground and stood directly in front of the blond-haired boy.
"Hey, kid, you new around here?"
"If you need to know, yes. My family moved here a few days ago." The boy with blond hair said, still concentrating on his game.
"Well, I'm the boss here. You got that?" The older kid said, thumbing himself. "Since you're new, I'll let you off easy."
"Give me that game console of yours, and I'll let you off."
"You Win! Perfect Score!" The blond-haired boy's console sounded out, and for once, the boy looked up.
"Yeah, no. I'm just gonna go home." The boy said, pocketing his console.
"Not taking my offer, eh?! Take this!" The older boy then punched the blond-haired boy in the face.
"Ow!"
Taking a step back, the older boy rubbed the knuckles on his fist as he looked at the boy with blond hair. Forget bleeding, the hair on his head didn't even look ruffled from that punch.
"...Go away, you're annoying." The boy with blond hair said, continuing to walk away.
"Grr... Do you think I'm letting you off with this?! Beat him up, guys!" The leader of the group of older kids ordered.
"Oraaaah!" "Take this!" "Rocket punch!"
...
...
...
"Mommy..." "It hurts..." "I-I wanna go home..."
Against five older kids, the blond-haired boy didn't even seem like he was in a fight. Despite that, the injured kids around him begged to differ. Their leader was out cold, his face kissing the ground.
The only one standing was the red-haired boy, Ayato. His whole body was trembling, his legs looking like they were on the verge of giving out.
As the blond-haired boy turned to look at him, he fell backward as his legs gave out, a puddle of liquid forming under him.
"Relax, I'm not planning to hurt you. Well, as long as you don't try to attack me." The boy with blond hair said.
From a distance, the group of kids around the blond-haired boy's age looked around a corner, witnessing the entire event.
"Woah... he's so strong!" The black-haired boy who invited him to play soccer with him exclaimed.
"Hey, Hikaru! You wanted to have him play soccer with us earlier, didn't you? If he joined your team, we'd be on the losing side!" Another boy said, poking at Hikaru's sides.
"Is that really important right now? He beat up Gouzou and his group! Alone!" Hikaru said, staring at the blond-haired boy. "I'm gonna follow him! He's MY boss, starting today!"
Walking away, the blond-haired boy suddenly stopped in his tracks, turning to look at the soccer ball left on the ground.
"Ah, the soccer ball! We forgot to take it with us earlier!"
As the boy with blond hair walked towards the soccer ball, he suddenly started juggling the soccer ball.
Playing around with it and doing a few tricks, he then kicked it higher to juggle the ball on his head.
A few seconds later, the boy stepped back and kicked the falling soccer ball into the makeshift goalpost that they made with two bottles filled with sand.
"Woaaaah!" "That's so cool!" "Not even my brother knows how to do that!"
"T-That's amazing! He's great at fighting, and at soccer! Is there anything he can't do?!" Hikaru said, his eyes twinkling with stars as he looked at the blond-haired boy's departing figure.
Unbeknownst to them, the blond-haired boy could hear everything they were saying earlier.
"Anything I can't do, huh..." The boy stopped, looking up into the sky.
"I guess there isn't anything."
[Now...]
"Hey, King! Stop hogging all the items! I'm too weak to fight the boss now!" Saitama said, annoyed that King was hogging all of the power-ups and upgrades, leaving none for him despite playing a co-op game with him.
"It's too bad, I'm faster." That was all King had to say. "I'll beat the boss myself, don't worry."
"Argh... what's the point of even having me here?!" Annoyed at getting absolutely nothing and struggling to even survive in the level while King hogged all the items, Saitama began to question the point of doing co-op mode in the first place. In fact, weren't co-op bosses much harder to account for the fact that there were two players?!
"Well, you wanted to try a co-op game, so I chose this one. Also, this is so you get the hang of the game, so you can get better at it. Skill comes with practice, you know? Currently, I'm training you to learn how to get powerups faster. A single second delay between getting powerups could mean the difference between losing lives or getting a new high score." King said. "Like right now; if you could've moved faster, you would've gotten enough powerups to have been more useful in the coming fight."
"You may as well have let me play the game solo first if you wanted me to 'get the hang of the game'! Also, if you wanted to 'train me', then choose a lower difficulty! Haven't you heard of pacing before?!" Saitama complained, distracting him from the screen for a moment, which was a fatal error.
"Oh shit! I gotta dodge the-" But it was too late. He couldn't maneuver his fighter out of the way in time, so he was out of the game. "Aw, man..."
"It's fine. I can beat the boss myself." King said, indifferent to the fact that Saitama lost his fighter. Hopefully, it would inspire him to try and get better at the game.
"Dammit. Well, I've had my fun. I'm gonna go back home now." Saitama got up, preparing to leave.
"Oh yeah, I been meaning to ask you something. How strong are you, exactly?" King asked, continuing to play the game. "You should be much stronger than when you fought that octopus-clawed monster."
"Hmm? Why?" Saitama asked.
"Just curious. Even if you don't want me to help you out with your hero rank, I was just wondering about your real strength. If you don't want to tell me, then it's fine." King said, starting the boss battle.
"Well, not like I mind. I was mid-training when I fought that clawed monster thing, so maybe... six or seven months after that, I got bald and became much stronger than before." Saitama explained.
"You got bald six or seven months after that fight? You mean your baldness was brought on from training?" King asked.
"Yeah. I trained so hard to the point my hair fell out, and now I'm too strong..." Saitama said, a blank yet downcast expression on his face.
"'Too strong'? Could you describe what you mean, exactly?"
"I don't know how to describe exactly how strong I am right now, I just know I'm strong enough to defeat most if not all the monsters I've faced in one punch," Saitama said, holding up a fist. "That, or all the monsters I've been fighting were incredibly weak. Ancient weapon of something, The final evolution of some thingamajig, last being of whatever, they all end up dead after one punch."
"Huh, that's pretty impressive," King said, bringing the boss to the second phase. "So either they were just boasting about their capability, or you're actually really strong."
"Probably a mix of both. I used to get all excited when they appeared, too. I kept hoping for a good fight, but they almost always end up dead in one punch. There's never really a thrill from fighting monsters anymore." Saitama said, sighing. "Now, I just do whatever. Being a hero was always a hobby for me, anyway. The main thrill was the fight, but even without that, being a hero's still my hobby."
"Hmm, I kinda get it," King said, defeating the boss with practiced ease, setting a new personal record for himself. "It's like me when I played video games when I was younger. It used to be harder, then, when I didn't have any experience with video games, which pulled me into playing them in the first place. But since my skill level improved so much since then, I could beat those games I used to struggle to beat with just two fingers and my eyes closed."
"Now I play video games for either the story or just my amusement. There's no challenge to be obtained from playing the game." King said.
"Yeah, like that!" Saitama said. "It's like when you finally get all the powerups and beat the boss in one hit! It's fun the first few times, but when it's every time, all the time, it gets boring and bland."
"I see..." King said, stretching. "Wanna try fighting me, then?"
"Yeah, sure... Wait, what?"
"I have some time to kill, and I do want to know how strong you are compared to back then. So how about it?" King said, looking at Saitama.
[15 minutes later, a certain canyon...]
"Huh, this place looks pretty beat up," King said, looking at the surroundings. There were cracks here and there, unnatural valleys, strange deformations that were charred into the landscape, and a very, very big valley that cut through the side of a mountain, which extended to the mountains behind them, as well.
"Yeah. Genos and I were sparring here a few weeks ago." Saitama remarked. "He almost burnt my clothes with his fire beam attacks- hey, speaking of, before we spar, no attacks that could burn my clothes, alright?"
"Don't worry, I usually never use those kinds of attacks, anyway," King said. "By the way, I assume that strange valley in the mountain was caused by you, then? I doubt Demon Cyborg had the ability to cause that much damage. I saw that video of him trying to blast the meteor in City Z. If he had enough firepower to do that-" King pointed at the unnatural valley that cut through the mountain, and the other mountain behind it. "-he wouldn't have been struggling with that one small meteor."
"Yep. But that's if I get a little serious." Saitama said. "Genos wanted me to take him seriously, so I did."
"Just 'a little serious'? That's pretty impressive," King said, impressed. "That would actually be enough to place you in the top three S-Class heroes, just a little under Tatsumaki and Blast. No other S-Class hero aside from those two, and maybe Metal Knight are able to do something on that scale while holding back."
"Yeah. You sure about this, though?" Saitama asked, unsure. "I mean, I sparred with Genos that one time, but that was because he wanted to teach me as his master, though I didn't really attack him aside from that one punch." Saitama pointed towards the valley he created.
"Demon Cyborg's your student? That's interesting. Anyway, I can hold my own in a fight, no need to worry about me." King said. "If you're still not convinced, try punching me once." King placed a fist above his chest.
"Err, I'm not too sure about that..."
"Don't worry about it. If I can't even handle a regular punch from you, I'm don't deserve the title of 'The Strongest Man On Earth'." King reassured. "Try a normal punch for starters, and I'll start from there."
"Well, alright then," Saitama said, raising a fist. "I'll try out a normal punch."
Walking towards King, Saitama raised his fist and punched King normally.
It was comical, really. A bland-looking bald guy in a costume was walking towards King, 'The Strongest Man On Earth' and 'Hero Of Heroes' to punch him.
...The result was just downright absurd.
The residual forces from the punch managed to crack the ground and the air pressure created managed to split the sky. The person that faced the brunt of the damage, King, was-
"That's actually a pretty good punch! I'd say you could maybe even take the number two spot from Tatsumaki if you're holding back at only 1% strength earlier."
-completely unscathed.
"Woah, you weren't kidding when you said you could take a punch," Saitama said, obviously surprised. To date, no one had ever been able to shrug off his normal punches. Even that Bo... Ber... Baris? Boras? Boros? Whatever, the leader of the aliens, even he was very obviously affected by his normal punches. A normal punch blew off his arm, and his consecutive normal punches blew his entire body apart.
"Told you. Of all of the S-Class heroes, I can safely say my physical ability is the highest among them." King said. "By the way, if that was considered a normal punch, how's a serious punch?" King asked.
"Well, it depends. One time, I used it against that alien leader dude on the spaceship, when I reflected that Corralling Star Pouring Cannon or whatever he called it." Saitama said, remembering the fight against Boros.
"Oh, that split energy beam in the sky and the clouds parting at the time was caused by you? Well, I already knew that it wasn't Tatsumaki, but I assumed it was Blast that did it, at the time." King said, nodding. "I'm certain you can take Tatsumaki's spot at S-Class Rank 2 if the people at the Heroes Association re-ranked you after knowing how strong you are. I'm not sure how strong Blast is, so I'm not gonna say anything about him."
"And seeing as the moon suddenly got a crater on it sometime before that, can I assume that was caused by you, as well?" King asked to confirm.
"Oh, yeah. He launched me to the moon, so I jumped back." Saitama said.
"Hmm, you say that 'he' launched me to the moon, so I assume you're talking about the alien leader you fought on the spaceship?" King asked. "If he could launch you to the moon, he was quite strong, huh?"
"Yeah, he was pretty strong. He said something about looking for a good fight, as well. So I gave it to him, as best as I could." Saitama said, looking at his fist.
"Hmm... Anyway, I think I have a general idea of how much strength I should use against you, though I'm fine with increasing it to make it enjoyable for you." King said. "I'll use that as a benchmark level of strength, and increase or decrease it according to the fight. I'll start slow, so we don't cause too much damage to the surroundings first." King said, looking around at the state of the canyon they were in. "If it's too much and we get too close to a nearby city during the fight, then we'll need to go elsewhere."
"Okay then. So when do we start?" Saitama asked.
"Any time. How do you want the fight to go, by the way? Anything you want? Like a full-on physical fight, I use some of my powers, freestyle, or..."
"Anything goes. Oh, and King?"
"Yeah?"
"You've gone and gotten my hopes up, for real," Saitama said, a rare serious look on his face. "Don't disappoint me."
King's response was to smile. "Don't worry, I won't."
With that, the fight began.
Saitama appeared in front of King to punch him, but as his fist seemingly made contact with him, it simply passed through the afterimage that was there. From his blind spot, Saitama was hit with enough force to send him straight into a canyon wall, where the impact formed spiderweb-like cracks, with Saitama himself buried a few meters into the canyon wall.
"How's that? Could you feel anything?" When the dust settled, Saitama saw King leisurely walk towards him.
"It's a pretty good hit. It's stronger than the blows from some monsters I've fought before." Saitama said, coming out of the canyon wall, jumping down to the ground below, dusting himself off.
"Well, it's about the same level of strength as your punch earlier. Granted, you were holding back." King said. "How about this one?"
As he said that, a fist struck Saitama squarely in the chest, though this time, he stood his ground, willing himself not to be sent backward. The impact was much greater, as the ground beneath Saitama essentially liquefied.
"Hey, that's actually quite a bit stronger," Saitama said, patting the area where King struck him. "I could feel it a little bit more, and that's quite good, already."
"Well, that blow was about a hundred times stronger than the punch I hit you with earlier. But seeing as you got launched to the moon and back, this much isn't really comparable."
"Let's try this one on for size."
With a burst of speed a lot faster than he expected King to move at, Saitama was caught by surprise when he was launched straight into the air with an uppercut he didn't brace himself for, with King suddenly appearing above him.
"King Style: Prometheus."
As Saitama noticed King's fist moving towards him, there was a strange shockwave emanating from his fist, as the air around it started to catch fire- hey, that might end up burning his clothes! But before he could worry about that, it connected, and to his credit...
It was a really good punch.
Sent down to the ground with an incredible impact that rippled through the ground as though it were liquid and created a crater that was fifty meters deep, Saitama barely got back up before he heard an extremely loud explosion, which sent a second shockwave through the surroundings, even uprooting trees that were on the edge of the canyon. Looking up, King was freefalling down to the ground, the previously blue sky turning a scorched red, before slowly turning back to its original blue hue.
King's punch broke the sound barrier and burnt the atmosphere around it.
As King landed, Saitama got up from the crater, with still no indication that he was hurt in any way.
"Man, you're seriously strong, Saitama," King said. "The power behind that punch was roughly equivalent to a meteor twenty times the size of the one that appeared in City Z some time ago. "
"Not to mention, unlike an actual meteoric impact where the force is transferred through a large area, all of that power was concentrated in one punch, and landed squarely on your solar plexus," King said. "I'd say it's strong enough to instantly kill a Dragon-level threat."
"Despite that, it still looks like nothing happened to you."
"Hey, it's still a pretty good punch. If I had to rate it, I'd say it's within the top 10% of the strongest attacks I've taken since I went bald." Saitama said.
"That's a good number, but still, I thought you'd start feeling something by now. Not to mention, the fact that I hit you with enough force to completely destroy a city, and still only being in the top 10% of attacks you've felt means that you've faced a lot of powerful beings before, some even stronger than your usual Dragon-level threats," King said. "Well, let's kick it up a notch, then."
With that, King disappeared from view again, as he punted Saitama through a few mountains.
Buried deep in the center of a mountain, Saitama saw King getting close to him, and he readied himself to throw a punch. Since King was completely unaffected by his usual normal punch, he'd try putting a bit more effort into his attacks.
King was now within arms reach, Saitama then threw another punch towards King.
King didn't even attempt to block it. As it landed on him, the shockwaves completely shattered the entire mountain they were in, fragmenting the top half of the mountain level that was above them.
"Not bad, it's a lot stronger than your previous punch," King said, completely unaffected. "Try multiplying that by a hundred."
With that, King struck Saitama in the face with his knee, sending him into the nearby forest, the impact uprooting a few acres of trees.
Getting up and shaking the dirt off, Saitama managed to look up in the nick of time, catching King's foot mid-kick.
Unperturbed, King used his other leg to kick Saitama in the temples, making him let go of his foot.
As Saitama got back up, he listened to King's advice, putting more effort into the fight. King seemed like he could take it, so maybe he could even get a little... serious.
Tanking another kick and punching straight towards King's midsection, the punch pushed King back a few hundred meters, as he managed to plant his feet into the ground to stop himself from flying off too far. Jumping back to his original position, King punched Saitama in the chin.
Ignoring it, Saitama launched a flurry of punches towards King, who caught them all and sent punches of his own back to Saitama. Eventually, the winner of the rush was King, who managed to land a blow on Saitama's glabella, which distracted him enough for King to kick Saitama consecutively on the throat, his solar plexus, and his stomach.
Getting knocked out of the forest and into an empty, arid, and rocky desert, Saitama got back up to catch King's flying knee and punched him in the face.
King didn't even flinch and used his other leg to kick Saitama with enough force to send him flying backward at multiple times the speed of sound.
"Hey, this is a pretty good fight!" Saitama thought. "I'm being a little serious right now, and he's still perfectly fine! Heck, he's keeping up!"
"I wonder if I should actually get serious... Nah, not now. I can't tell if King can take that yet. He's definitely stronger than Boros, but a serious punch might end the fight too quickly." Saitama grabbed King's fist after he punched him, and punched him back, though it seemed like he didn't feel a thing. "Still, let's try putting in some more effort until I can get somewhat serious."
As Saitama put more and more effort into the fight, slowly working his way to seriousness, King didn't seem to even be concentrating on the fight, instead, opting to look around at the surroundings, not even looking at him when blocking his punch and kicking him in the face.
Heck, he was so distracted that Saitama managed to catch him by surprise with an uppercut, sending him far off into the distance.
"Well, no time like the present! He's not even fazed right now, he can probably take it!"
"Killer Move: Serious Series..."
"Right, timeout," King said suddenly, making Saitama pause.
"Hey, what gives? I was just about to start getting serious!"
"Yeah, but look behind me."
Craning his neck to look behind him, Saitama then saw why King stopped the fight.
They were only about 250 meters away from the nearest city.
"It seems like that's K-City," King said, squinting his eyes. "If I hadn't recognized the terrain and the nearby highway, we might've ended up crashing directly into the city."
"Damn, did we move that far from our original spot?" Saitama said. "We were near N-City just now, right?"
"Yeah. We moved about... a few thousand kilometers from the canyon we started at. Good thing I recognized the place before we crashed into the city."
"If we backtrack, we can get back to that canyon," Saitama suggested. "We'll just have to limit ourselves to a few hundred kilometers or something."
"No, there's another issue than just us moving around too much."
"Hmm? What is it?"
"We're causing more destruction than we should. As heroes, we're going too far. The aftermath of our fighting is about equivalent to a bunch of Dragon-level threats wreaking as much havoc as they can without anyone to stop it. I mean, we're heroes, right? That..." King pointed behind Saitama. "...doesn't seem like something that should be done by a hero."
As King said that, Saitama turned around, looking at the trail of destruction caused by their fight.
"Well, I get your point, but where do we continue?" Saitama asked. "A bigger, emptier desert?"
"Nah. I'm good." King said. "I have a rough estimate of your power, now. Again, I've never met Blast before, but I'd bet money on you being stronger than him. Seriously; are you sure you don't want me to vouch for your strength? Having an S-Class level hero like you in B-Class seems like a waste to me."
"Eh, I'll just climb up the ranks myself. Getting someone else to vouch for me seems like a cheap way to do it. Also, when you meant you were good..."
"I meant I was done fighting. I killed some time, moved around a little, and I now know how strong you are... roughly, anyway. Did you want to keep going?" King asked.
"Well, kinda," Saitama said, raising his fist. "I've almost never gotten serious in a fight since I lost my hair, and the one time I did, it only took one punch."
"...I just wanted to get serious in a fight again." Saitama said, looking at his fist, downcast.
"...Alright, fine. Follow me." King sighed.
"Wait, really?" Saitama perked up.
"Yeah, I know a place where we can actually cut loose and not damage anything. I didn't think you were this strong, so I didn't think to bring you there originally." King said.
[Some undisclosed location...]
"...So, where are we?" Saitama said, looking around.
"It's a place no one else can enter except me, and those I let in. I usually come here if I need to get away for a while." King said. "But, it's also a great place to fight, if we don't want to disturb anybody."
"...That didn't explain anything."
"It doesn't matter. Anyway, you can fight seriously here. No matter how far we go during our fight, we won't ever exit this space unless we want to. So... shall we?" King said, smiling.
"Yeah!" Saitama said, also smiling.
"Right then, whenever you're ready..." King said, as his blue irises turned golden, and he placed his right hand above where his heart was on his chest.
Saitama cocked his fist, getting into an unorthodox stance. "Ready as I'll ever be!"
"Killer Move: Serious Series..."
"King Engine: Limit Release..."