Saitama's Hero Name?

"Here they come!" Daredevil's ears suddenly twitched, and he spoke in a low voice.

"Who's coming?" Skye asked, startled.

"The guys who came to cause trouble today." Daredevil had heard movement outside. The thugs he'd been planning to deal with had finally shown up. "Wait here. I'll go take care of them."

Daredevil quickly rushed out of the room, ready to deal with the thugs as fast as possible.

But when he dashed outside, he was stunned to find that the thugs were already sprawled across the ground. Not only had they all been beaten, they'd been piled on top of one another like a human pyramid.

The thugs looked pretty miserable, and they were injured and groaning in pain, but no one had been killed.

At the sight, Daredevil froze. He hadn't expected Saitama to solve the problem without him lifting a finger. But considering the strength Saitama had shown earlier, it was only natural that he could take care of the thugs so quickly. Daredevil felt relieved, too.

It wasn't that Daredevil, as a superhero, refused to kill or hated it when others killed. The truth was, he was relieved simply because Saitama hadn't gone too far.

In Daredevil's eyes, Saitama was far more dangerous than some thugs. If someone that dangerous was full of rage and killed indiscriminately, Daredevil couldn't imagine what he might become.

Now, though, Saitama had held back even against thugs who had come to attack them. That made it clear he wasn't bloodthirsty. At least Daredevil could be sure Saitama wasn't going to become some murderous criminal with a mountain of lives on his hands.

Otherwise, given the strength Saitama had shown in front of Daredevil, there would be nothing Daredevil could do if he became a villain.

All things considered, Saitama's actions were a huge relief to Daredevil.

"You're strong," Daredevil said to Saitama.

"I guess. They were just a bunch of thugs. And they were planning to cause trouble for us, so I had to take care of them first. I don't want them trashing the place where I live. It's already dirty enough after you threw up earlier." Saitama's voice carried a hint of complaint.

Daredevil felt a little awkward. Fortunately, most of his face was covered, so it was hard to tell.

"Can we talk?" Daredevil looked at Saitama.

"Talk? But it's already pretty late. I might play games late, but I'm not planning to stay up all night." Saitama scratched his bald head.

"Play games?"

"Yeah. Skye gave me her old computer, and she bought a bunch of games I've never played. I can finally play as much as I want, so I don't want to waste too much time on irrelevant stuff." Saitama nodded.

Daredevil wasn't sure what to say. He thought this was an important conversation, something they needed to talk about, but Saitama didn't seem to care.

"Actually, I think we should try talking. You said earlier that you were a hero for fun. Could you tell me what you meant?"

"Hmm, being a hero for fun means I wanted to become a hero, so I started training toward that goal," Saitama replied casually.

"And then?"

"Then what?"

"I mean, you started training to become a hero. So now, have you become one? Have you ever thought about changing yourself?"

"Man, you make everything so complicated. Can you just get to the point? I still have games to play!" Saitama looked troubled. Talking to Daredevil felt like a waste of time.

"..." Daredevil studied Saitama carefully, unable to figure out what kind of person he was.

"You're going to keep being a hero, right?" Daredevil asked after a pause.

"I told you, I'm a hero for fun. Of course I'm going to keep being a hero." Saitama was getting impatient. If he hadn't already gotten the games ready, he wouldn't have minded sitting around with nothing to do while Daredevil talked. But now he was eager to get back to them—and this Daredevil seemed kind of boring.

"Good. I hope you remember that." Daredevil gave Saitama a long look, then turned and left.

Saitama watched Daredevil hurry forward, leap onto a rooftop, and disappear after a few bounds. He found it a little baffling. After glancing at the mountain of piled-up thugs, Saitama turned to go back inside. Just then, Skye rushed out, too.

It might have looked like Skye came out only after everything was over, but her speed was perfectly normal. Saitama was just far too fast—nowhere near the speed of an ordinary person.

"Huh? Where is he—what's this? What happened to them?" Skye stared at the pile of thugs in amazement, and thought it looked pretty funny, too.

"They're the thugs that guy was talking about," Saitama said casually.

"Okay, I can tell from the way they look. But was it Daredevil who stacked them all up like this?"

"No, it was me! I took care of all of them."

"You? Well, I guess that's possible. But where's Daredevil?"

"He left."

"Oh."

After meeting Daredevil for the first time, Saitama began running into him regularly.

Daredevil usually operated in Hell's Kitchen, while Saitama and Skye had moved some distance away. But Saitama was a hero for fun, after all. New York wasn't that big, and although crime happened all over the city, Hell's Kitchen had an absurdly high crime rate by comparison.

So Saitama often dropped by Hell's Kitchen for no particular reason. Whenever he came across a mugging, a sexual assault, a robbery, or the like, he always stepped in to stop it. Naturally, when he visited Hell's Kitchen, he also ran into Daredevil, the superhero from the neighborhood.

As a hero for fun, Saitama had stopped plenty of crimes, and gradually he acquired a name of his own. Just as Daredevil had been given his name by others, Saitama naturally earned a nickname, too: Translucent.

That's right. Saitama's nickname was Translucent.

The criminals whose crimes he stopped and the victims he rescued had one thing in common: none of them had seen who intervened. Not a single one.

This was simply because Saitama was so fast. Once he started running, he couldn't stop.

In his old world, he would sometimes encounter powerful monsters, and they would at least make him show himself a little. But these petty thugs and hoodlums couldn't even compare to the weakest monsters. One punch was more than enough. There was no need for him to stop.

Saitama was so fast that if he didn't stop, no one could see him. So the people he rescued, and the people he beat up, gave him the nickname Translucent because they never saw him.

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