Ninety-Ninth Hand

The sea breeze suddenly stopped.

The Guanyin statue's right hand brought its five fingers together, fingertips pointing down, and dropped without warning. There was no opening stance, no gathering of power, no sound of air splitting—the hand was too large. As it fell, the entire rocky platform was swallowed by its shadow. Saitama's yellow T-shirt turned dark yellow in the shade, and his bald head was the only thing still reflecting light.

The hand blade struck squarely on top of his head.

The tremor reached the soles of his feet half a beat later—first his knees felt an upward force, then his eardrums, and finally the seabirds blasted from the cracks in the distant reefs. With Saitama's feet as the center, the volcanic rock split into the first ring of spiderweb cracks. Gravel broke loose from the edges and bounced off his shoes.

Saitama reached up and touched the top of his head. It did not hurt; there was just dust. He brushed it off and looked up at the giant palm hanging over him. Guanyin's hand still hovered in midair, its fingers together, frozen in the pose of its downward chop. That one had hit quite a bit harder than the ball-grabbing game on the spaceship.

Netero did not give him time to look up. The second palm swept in horizontally. Guanyin's left hand cut in from the side, fingers slightly spread, and the force of the palm flipped the hem of Saitama's T-shirt all the way up to his chest. The shirt blocked his vision, and as he reached up to pull it back down, the third palm had already landed on his back.

The rocky platform trembled. Not like an earthquake, but like a hammer striking an anvil—high-frequency, brief, relentless. Netero pressed his hands together, his knuckles whitening with effort. Guanyin's palms descended from four directions at once, then eight, then sixteen. Every palm struck precisely where Saitama stood. The overlapping gusts formed a low-pressure zone over the rocky platform, sweeping gravel and volcanic ash into a spiral around him.

He stood at the center of the vortex. His clothes snapped in the wind, but his feet did not shift in the slightest. He counted—four palms, eight palms, sixteen palms. When he reached sixteen, he gave up. There were too many, and he could not be bothered. Guanyin's palms struck from every angle: some chopped down from above, some swept in from the side, some stabbed diagonally from behind. He felt like he was standing at the supermarket egg display with people crowding in from all directions. The last time eggs went on sale, there had been an old lady in front of him carrying three cartons, an old man behind him pushing a cart, and someone cutting in from the side aisle. Guanyin's palms were arranged the same way now, just without the shopping cart.

Twenty-four hands.

At last, Netero's breathing showed a trace of disorder—not from exhaustion, but because he had pushed his Nen to its limit. Guanyin's palm strikes were no longer separate movements but combinations: while two hands feinted to the left, a third cut in from the right; four hands struck the head in succession to hold the body in place; eight hands swept upward from below to attack the legs and torso. He had observed Saitama's stance—this man had not shifted his center of gravity since the first palm. So he concentrated all the force of his palms on one point.

Saitama's heel lightly scraped against the rock.

He had not been pushed back. His foot was just a little itchy from standing too long. He changed his stance, shifting his weight from his left foot to his right. The moment that foot lifted, the rock beneath it crumbled. It did not crack; it shattered into powder, kicking up a cloud of pale dust. He looked down at it. "The ground isn't very sturdy." He moved his foot half a palm-width to the side, avoiding the loose rubble, and settled back into place.

Netero saw that foot lift.

Then it came back down. He was still standing in the same spot, merely supporting his weight with the other foot. Netero's hands did not stop, and Guanyin's palm strikes did not stop either.

Thirty-six hands descended at once.

The rocky platform completely shattered. The once-flat volcanic rock had been pulverized by the palms into ruins, and the bottom of the crater kept sinking around Saitama's footprints. Beans hid behind the largest reef boulder, the pages on his clipboard shredded by the palm winds until only the last few remained. He was calculating data that had never appeared in the Hunter Association's records: if the Chairman exhausted all his Nen and still could not make Saitama move even one step, what category of file should this battle's causal assessment fall under?

The thirty-six hands finished striking. Netero stopped to catch his breath. All of Guanyin's palms hovered in the air, no longer attacking. As the dust slowly cleared, Saitama stood in the very center of the crater. The corners of his yellow T-shirt had curled up slightly, and he pressed them down with one hand. A paper-thin layer of dust covered his bald head.

"Thirty-six hands. You still haven't moved." Netero wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The next wave will be forty-eight."

Saitama did not answer. He was looking at the Guanyin statue—those suspended palms had changed position. They were no longer spread out in a fan. They were beginning to line up in a straight line.

All forty-eight palms crashed down from the same direction.

It was no longer a surrounding assault, but a barrage. One palm after another, one palm layered atop another, all striking the same spot on Saitama's chest. Guanyin's attack pattern had completely changed—if the scattered attacks before had been raindrops, this concentrated barrage was now a water jet. Netero had trained beneath mountain waterfalls in his youth, throwing ten thousand straight punches every day. Dripping water could pierce stone. Later, he incorporated that principle into the 100-Type Guanyin: when all palm force was concentrated on the same impact point, even granite could be chiseled through.

Saitama's T-shirt was pressed into a dent by the palm force, then sprang back into shape. Pressed down, sprang back. Pressed down, sprang back. His body did not move at all, but his shirt repeatedly deformed—discount pure cotton, washed three times, still plenty elastic. The last time the supermarket had a buy-one-get-one deal on T-shirts, he wore one and gave the other to Genos. Genos had said pure cotton was breathable and absorbent, suitable for summer.

The forty-eight palms finished striking, and Netero stopped to catch his breath. Saitama looked down at his chest—the spot that had been repeatedly bombarded had developed a thin layer of pilling. He rubbed it with his fingers, but it would not come off. He rubbed it again. Still nothing.

"My shirt is pilling. Discount stuff really doesn't last."

Netero stared at that little clump of fuzz. He was silent for a long time—long enough for the sea breeze to return from beyond the reefs, gently stirring the sleeves of his robe. Then he steadied his breathing again, separated his clasped hands, and formed the seal once more.

Sixty-four hands.

No more groups. No more holding back. The hand blade of First Hand, the horizontal chop of Second Hand, the crushing press of Third Hand—he crammed every technique into the same wave of attacks. As hand blades chopped down from above, straight punches struck from the side; as piercing hands swept upward from below, elbow strikes crashed in from behind. Sixty-four palms blasted down from all directions at once, every one of them landing solidly on Saitama. The rocky platform trembled, the sea churned, and the bloodthirsty butterflies on distant Glasses Island all stopped flying at once, their wings suspended in midair.

Saitama did not give him the chance to continue up to ninety-nine. He raised a hand and held up one finger. "Wait a second."

Netero's clasped hands froze in midair. All of Guanyin's palms halted in the air without descending. The man opposite him, who had taken over a hundred palms without moving an inch, was using his finger to indicate a number.

"Your Guanyin—can you bring down all ninety-nine hands at once? Don't do them in batches. Finish it in one go."

"...Why?"

"The hot pot's about to boil."

Netero looked down at his clasped hands, then up at the bald man across from him, who was stretching his neck. The hot pot was about to boil. To this man, the 100-Type Guanyin he had devoted his entire life to was merely the waiting time before a hot pot meal.

He suddenly laughed. At first it was a low, muffled chuckle that slipped from deep in his throat, then he threw back his head and laughed aloud. The laughter echoed across the empty reef beach, shaking loose stones from the edge of the crater. He laughed until tears came out, streaming down his wrinkles, impossible to tell whether they were tears of laughter or something else.

"Good! All at once—Ninety-Ninth Hand!"

All ninety-nine hands opened. They blotted out the sky, every palm aimed at where Saitama stood. The air was squeezed thin by Nen pressure, and the waves on the sea's surface were pressed into a straight line. Beans poked half his head out from behind the reef, then immediately ducked back.

Saitama raised his head and looked at those palms. There was no fear, no excitement. He merely narrowed his eyes slightly—so the wind would not blow dust into them in a moment. He raised a hand and tugged the collar of his T-shirt higher. Ninety-nine hands falling at once should make more wind than the forty-eight from before. With his collar pulled up, the dust could not get in. Then he thought about it and added, "Once you're done, we eat. There's sesame paste at the condiment station. I forgot the place of origin you recommended."