An invisible pall of gloom descended. Two elementary schoolers chasing each other suddenly stopped, their innocent eyes catching sight of the strange man who had turned entirely black and white. Fear slowly crept across their faces...
"Mommy!!" ×2
The two children fled in tears. Saitama's tightly clenched fists trembled slightly, then he let out a long breath. His monochrome appearance returned to normal, and the harmless expression of a truly powerful man settled over his face. "Well, egg over rice again today, I guess~"
Back in A City.
Tatsumaki had just been about to kill the ugly monster with the irritating voice when her delicate brows knitted together. She turned to look into the distance.
"Who's there?"
As a fellow psychic, Tatsumaki immediately sensed that she wasn't alone in the sky. She cast an icy glance to one side.
"Who I am doesn't matter." Josen moved a little closer, unfazed by Tatsumaki's hostile gaze, and pointed at the Crane Monster below, which was trying to join the two halves of its body back together. "The problem isn't over yet. There are still a lot of civilians who need rescuing."
"...Shut up!" Tatsumaki frowned. Seemingly noticing the large number of injured civilians, she stopped bristling and gave a haughty little snort. "I'll deal with that piece of trash down there. Stay out of it!"
The Crane Monster's grating laughter rose from below, like scrap metal grinding together. "Creak, creak, creak! Found you! You're the one who did this, aren't you, you rotten brat? Creak, creak, creak! Watch how I deal with you!!"
Tatsumaki: "..."
Rotten. Little. Brat???
(ꐦಠ ಠ)
"What. Did. You. Say..." The face of a certain petite adult woman darkened. Green light shone around her slender fingers as she pressed her hand downward. "Shut up!!"
An unimaginable torrent of psychic power poured out. Invisible, intangible mental energy solidified into something as hard as the toughest material in the world, covering the entire sky in an instant.
Then it crashed down!
Josen: "..."
This little menace... wasn't she worried about wasting psychic power, throwing it around like that?
"Creak, creak, creak... Huh?"
The sky overhead abruptly went pitch-black. The Crane Monster stopped swinging its wrecking ball at the surrounding buildings, and its metallic, screeching laughter cut short. For the first time, terror appeared on the ugly, humanlike face in the center of its crane arm.
"No-"
The Crane Monster, which had been swaggering about just a second earlier, looked as though it had been shoved into a hydraulic press. Its enormous body, dozens of meters tall, was flattened in an instant. Its huge face became a bloody mass of mangled flesh, spewing black blood as thick as engine oil.
Apparently disgusted by the sight, Tatsumaki frowned. The psychic power spread across the sky shifted from pressing downward to contracting inward. The next moment, the flattened remains of the Crane Monster and all the blood filling the air converged toward the center. Within seconds, they had been compressed into a metal cube that bore no resemblance to its original form.
Josen casually collected the monster's spirit and made it into an SR Monster Card. Watching Tatsumaki clap her hands with a smug little pout, he couldn't help shaking his head.
"I'm going down to rescue people."
Tatsumaki: "Ah..."
The emerald-green psychic girl looked in the direction Josen descended, and the devastation below came into view.
All this time, she had only been responsible for eliminating monsters. Even now, she had joined the Hero Association merely to follow in that man's footsteps.
"Tch, weaklings caught in the crossfire... Fine, I get it. What a pain!"
She grumbled her complaints, her little face turned aside so that her expression was unreadable.
She raised a pale hand, spread her five slender fingers, and gave a casual flick.
Countless injured people were enveloped in transparent energy barriers, floating out through damaged stairwells and windows before gently descending to the ground.
In the middle of the ruins, Josen was rescuing civilians with the same method. Seeing the green glow of psychic power that wasn't his own all around him, he couldn't help chuckling.
She really wasn't bad at heart.
Working together, the two psychics rescued large numbers of civilians from the rubble.
Many of the lucky ones who had escaped injury, though covered in dust and grime, voluntarily joined the rescue efforts.
Rescue teams from the Hero Association and other departments arrived one after another. The operation continued late into the night.
Almost done.
Josen breathed a sigh of relief. After expending so much psychic power, even he felt exhausted despite his constitution.
"You're not half bad, lasting this long."
A textbook example of a haughty, backhanded compliment reached his ears, giving Josen a headache. He looked up to see a certain petite, green-haired woman who seemed to be wearing nothing beneath her dress descending from the sky, wrapped in green light.
Her pretty little face was positively radiant. Clearly, she was in a good mood.
"You make it sound so easy..."
"Tch, it was an easy little job, wasn't it?"
"Yes, yes, of course it was nothing for you, Miss Tatsumaki."
"Hmph..." Tatsumaki gave a little snort, quite pleased with Josen's flattery. "Josen, right? Sitch told me you're a Hero too."
Sitch was an executive of the Hero Association and apparently also Blast's contact.
As a registered Hero making an appearance in A City, Josen wasn't surprised to have been recognized. "That's right. As Heroes go, I suppose I'm a newcomer."
"Hmph, what pointless modesty. The Hero Association was only founded six months ago." Tatsumaki curled her lip, the scant fabric of her dress floating upward. "I'm leaving!"
With that, green psychic light surged around her small body, and she drifted away into the sky.
Josen: Huh?
She changed her tune just like that?
Suddenly, a gleam of gold drifted down from beneath Tatsumaki's feet, materializing into a Fantasy Card in midair.
Josen caught it with psychic power out of habit. Then his pupils shook.
[Fantasy Card: 100% Psychic] [Card type: Ability Card] [Rarity: SSR] [Description: One of humanity's strongest psychic talents, from the Tornado of Terror.] [Effect 1: Natural-born psychic] [Mental psychic affinity: Max. Psychic powers activate faster, recovery is improved, and consumption is reduced by 90%.] [Effect 2: Force Field King] [Construct or control all kinds of psychic force fields at will. Force fields form faster and possess greater strength.] [Effect 3: Psychic Storm] [The power of large-scale psychic techniques is doubled.] [Effect 4: Overload State] [Entrust psychic powers to instinct, unleashing strength beyond their limits.]
Josen: ...
Well, well. Had Tatsumaki dropped her own psychic talent?
Enough said. Little Tatsumaki was the GOAT!
Josen acted decisively. Once Tatsumaki's little green dot had flown far away, he immediately slapped his first SSR into his chest.
An unprecedented surge of joy welled up inside him. Then his psychic power, which had only just undergone a transformation, began boiling once again.
Having experienced this once before, Josen immediately realized what was about to happen. In a flash, he shot into the sky.
"H-hey... They both left?"
A large-nosed man in a black suit reached out imploringly. Watching the azure speck of light disappear into the horizon, his face filled with regret.
"Why is every psychic Hero more headstrong than the last? Looks like I'll have to wait until next time to get in touch with him."
Before you continue