Zero Hand

The dust from Ninety-Ninth Hand had yet to settle.

Netero stood at the edge of the crater, most of the veins in his arms no longer bulging. All of Guanyin's hands had returned to their fan formation, each trembling slightly—not from damage, but from the recoil of ninety-nine consecutive strikes. He was breathing hard, but his palms remained pressed together.

Saitama stood in the middle of the crater floor. His yellow T-shirt was undamaged, though the collar sat a little crooked. Guanyin's strikes had driven the rock several meters down, and his feet rested on the one small patch that had not shattered. He straightened his collar and looked up at Netero. "Done?"

Netero stared at Saitama. The man stood at the bottom of a crater Netero himself had blasted several meters deep, feet unmoved, clothes untouched. All he had done was straighten his collar. Netero suddenly remembered his youth, throwing punches at a waterfall deep in the mountains. Back then, he had thrown ten thousand punches a day, from sunrise to sunset. When he lowered his fists and the waterfall's spray struck his face, he had thought he had reached the end of the martial path. Later, he descended the mountain and fought the masters of every school. He defeated them all and thought he had reached its peak. Later still, he mastered 100-Type Guanyin. Its ninety-nine hands blotted out the sky, and he thought he had reached the limit. Now he had poured a lifetime of strength into Ninety-Ninth Hand, and the man at the bottom of the crater was straightening his collar and asking if he was done. Netero chuckled. It was neither bitter nor self-mocking. It was the relief of finally finding an answer after an entire century.

"Not yet." He rolled his yukata sleeves up another turn, exposing thin, sturdy forearms. Behind him, 100-Type Guanyin slowly drew its hands in, shrinking from ninety-nine to two, clasped before its chest. "No one has ever seen Guanyin's final form in my lifetime. It's not that I never had a chance to use it. No one was worthy. (Meruem was worthy, but the timeline is wrong.) The man standing before me now is more worthy than anyone."

Saitama smoothed the elastic of his T-shirt collar back into place. "What's it called?"

"Zero Hand." Netero was no longer announcing an attack. He spoke calmly. "The final form of 100-Type Guanyin. It drains all my Nen, compresses it into a beam of light, and fires it from Guanyin's throat. Everyone it hits meets the same end. No exceptions."

Saitama glanced at Guanyin. Its hands were held differently now. For Ninety-Ninth Hand, they had spread into a fan; for Zero Hand, its two arms curved before its body, as though protecting something—or gathering something. Its mouth hung slightly open. There was no light in its throat yet, but the air around it had already begun flowing that way. It was not wind. The light was drawing in the air before it made a sound.

Netero suddenly remembered the first time he had mastered Zero Hand. That day, at his mountain dojo, he had thrown his final strike at empty air. Guanyin appeared behind him and fired golden light from its mouth. Half the dojo was sheared away, its wood chips and roof tiles burning to ash in midair. He had knelt in the wreckage and laughed at the sky.

But now he knelt not from laughter. The recoil of Ninety-Ninth Hand had driven his knees into cracks in the rock. He dug his fingers into the stone, pushed himself up, and stood straight again. Dozens of seconds had passed. This bald man's sense of time was different from Meruem's. He was not calculating the openings between attacks or considering the angle and rhythm of the next strike. He was looking at the Guanyin statue. Just looking, with the same expression someone might wear while staring at fluorescent lights in a supermarket.

"Ready?" Saitama suddenly met his eyes, then looked back at Guanyin's mouth. He was still waiting for that legendary light.

Netero did not answer. He slowly raised his arms and pressed his palms together above his head, interlacing his fingers into a single fist. He had practiced this motion countless times, down to the precise curve of each knuckle. The angle of Guanyin's throat depended on how his fingers interlocked; a deviation of one degree would send the beam astray. He had spent ten years eliminating that last degree of error. Now, at last, he no longer needed to worry about missing. The man before him would not dodge.

"Zero Hand."

The Guanyin statue vanished from behind Netero. An instant later, it appeared behind Saitama. It was no phantom, no translucent outline. It was solid—denser, heavier, and more imposing than ever before. Its feet sank into the rock, and the whole island tilted half an inch toward it. Its enormous mouth opened, golden light gathering in its throat. The air was sucked away. Sound vanished. Waves on the sea flattened into a straight line. Bloodthirsty Butterfly's wings hung motionless in the air, and even falling stones seemed to forget to drop.

Only the golden light pulsed above the rocky platform, like a miniature sun.

The light arrived first. The sound followed.

The entire island turned a blinding white. Light reflected off the sea, forcing even the examinees on Glasses Island to raise their hands over their eyes. Beans hugged his clipboard and curled up behind a reef. Eyes shut, he silently counted how long the beam lasted. It had been firing for quite some time. Zero Hand's output showed no sign of weakening, but the chairman's total Nen could not sustain a blast of this magnitude. Ten seconds was the limit.

The beam went out abruptly. It did not fade; it simply vanished, as though someone had pulled the plug. A round crater had appeared in the rocky platform, its edges melted by the heat into glassy slag. Steam still rose from it. Netero knelt beside the crater, arms hanging at his sides, the clothes over his chest soaked with sweat. Zero Hand had drained all his Nen. 100-Type Guanyin had disappeared completely.

The crater was empty.

"Picked something up while I was at it." The voice came from directly behind him.

Saitama stood less than two steps behind him. His yellow T-shirt was undamaged, and his collar was still straight. He looked down at his palm. A Bloodthirsty Butterfly perched on his index finger, the red markings on its wings slowly deepening from grayish white to dark crimson. Its legs were still shaking. Just before Zero Hand fired, the butterfly had fallen from above his head. He had reached out to catch it and stepped aside while he was at it. "It was right over my head. Your light was too bright. I was afraid it'd get burned." The butterfly fluttered its wings on his fingertip and flew away.

Netero did not turn around. He stayed on his knees, staring down at his trembling hands. After a long while, he spoke, his voice so faint it seemed to drift from somewhere far away. "...I couldn't even make you fight me seriously."

Saitama thought about it. Walking around the beam to catch a butterfly probably did not count as fighting. He had just picked something up. "That move was pretty bright. You could use it next time the power goes out."

Netero fell silent for a moment, then gave a brief chuckle through his nose. It was neither bitter nor self-mocking. In more than a hundred years of life, this was the first time anyone had assessed Zero Hand as useful during a power outage. He pressed his palms together and bowed his head slightly toward Saitama. This time, he was not gathering strength or reciting a prayer. It was something closer to thanks.

"You didn't even activate your Nen, yet I feel as though you saw through everything about me," he said. "You weren't even fighting. You just stood there and waited for me to finish."

"How did you make that light?"

"...By compressing Nen to its limit and firing it through Guanyin's throat."

"Generators are too noisy. Guanyin's quiet. Guanyin's better." Saitama pushed two plates of meat over to Netero and kept the third for himself.

The broth in the copper pot had been boiling for a long time.

Saitama sat cross-legged beside the pot and slid the entire first plate of premium wagyu beef into it. The slices quickly changed color in the boiling broth, their fat melting as the aroma rode the sea breeze toward Bloodthirsty Butterfly, still circling overhead. Beans sat nearby. The gusts from Guanyin's hands had torn all but the last few pages from his clipboard, and he was writing one final note. Netero sat opposite Saitama, his yukata draped over his shoulders, holding a bowl of sesame sauce.

"So my 100-Type Guanyin ranks below a generator when you need it."

Saitama considered that. "Generators are too noisy. Guanyin's quiet. Guanyin's better."

Netero set down his bowl of sesame sauce. "Saitama. May I ask you something?"

"Mm."

"You never struck back once, from start to finish. You never attacked me on your own, either. I could tell you had the ability, but you chose not to."

Saitama dipped a slice of wagyu in sesame sauce, put it in his mouth, and chewed twice. "Because you treated me to hot pot."

Netero froze. "That's it?"

"And the cumin and salt. You said the seasonings were free."

Netero was silent for a moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed until tears ran down his wrinkles—whether they were tears of laughter or something else, it was hard to tell. "To you, my 100-Type Guanyin is worth the seasonings at a free hot-pot dinner."

"The wagyu's free too," Saitama corrected him.

In front of the television.

Genos sat cross-legged beside the coffee table. The pot held discounted pork slices he had bought at the supermarket that afternoon, along with napa cabbage, tofu, and enoki mushrooms. Sesame sauce and minced garlic sat with the condiments. He had turned the gas burner down to its lowest setting, and the broth bubbled gently. On the screen, Chairman Netero was laughing so hard he was in tears. His teacher said, "The wagyu's free too."

Genos picked up a slice of pork and dipped it in sesame sauce. His teacher had ranked Chairman Netero's Zero Hand below a generator. The chairman's 100-Type Guanyin was worth the seasonings at a free hot-pot dinner. He pulled up the battle recording in his database and began analyzing it frame by frame. His teacher had made a split-second decision to save a butterfly. Its wingspan was approximately four centimeters. Less than half a second before Zero Hand fired, his teacher had opened and closed his fingers around it, and the butterfly's wing veins were intact when he rescued it. Zero Hand fired in a fixed direction. If his teacher had stood directly in front of Guanyin's mouth during that half-second, Zero Hand's impact would not have dispersed. It would have reflected straight back into Guanyin itself.

He put the slice of pork in his mouth. This meant that during the next power outage, Chairman Netero could not position Guanyin directly opposite his teacher.

The hot pot's steam seemed to drift out of the screen and mingle with the smell of pork from his own pot. His teacher and the chairman had wagyu; he had discounted pork. But he had bought it that afternoon, and it was fresh. He got up to fetch a bottle of soy sauce and poured some into his dipping bowl. The pork slices rolled in the broth. He picked one up and ate it. Use Guanyin during the next power outage. He would remember that.