The Boys

Pero stepped through the spatial rift shimmering with rainbow light.

The sight before him was no longer the Country of Roran with its skies full of yellow sand.

Images of countless worlds swept past him like shattered glass.

There was a scene of Captain America facing off against Iron Man.

The famous scene of Batman holding a kryptonite spear and saying that line to Superman.

A scene of the slick-haired guy standing in the sky and entering a Garganta.

He saw some rather familiar scenes among them.

"Could it be that I'm not traveling through an anime crossover, but through all kinds of movies and TV shows?"

The sensation was novel yet fleeting for him.

The next moment, all the bizarre sights faded away.

The feeling of solid ground beneath his feet returned, and Pero found himself in unfamiliar surroundings.

The air carried a familiar yet unfamiliar smell, a mixture of food, exhaust, and garbage.

In his ears was the noisy roar of a modern city, something he had not heard in decades.

He was standing in a narrow, dark alley, with towering buildings on either side.

"This is..."

Just as Pero was wondering what sort of world he had arrived in, a sharp clatter came from beneath his feet.

He stopped and looked down.

Beside a can he had accidentally kicked lay a rain-soaked, somewhat tattered poster.

Printed on it was a blond, blue-eyed man wearing a Stars and Stripes cape and a sunny smile.

Pero thought that face looked somewhat familiar.

The man on the poster held out a finger, pointing straight at whoever was looking at it, with a bold slogan beside him.

"You are the real hero."

Pero looked at the poster, undisguised disdain appearing on his face.

He remembered the countless memes and mocking videos he had seen online in his previous life.

He raised his foot and stomped hard on that face, whose smile looked worse than crying.

After a slight pause, Pero shot into the sky, silently hovering ten thousand meters above the ground as he looked down over the concrete jungle.

Below him was a metropolis that looked somewhat like New York's Times Square in his previous life.

Giant electronic screens hung on the outer walls of every high-rise, playing all sorts of dazzling advertisements on a loop.

At the very center of those buildings, an entirely black, ninety-nine-story tower soaring into the clouds stood out in particular.

On its outer wall hung a silver-white, hollow triangular logo, along with a clearly legible name-Vought International.

"Holy shit..." Looking at that iconic building, Pero finally confirmed his suspicion.

"So after all that, I've ended up in the world of The Boys."

He had lived for decades in the ancient world of Hokage, a world filled with chakra and ninjutsu.

Suddenly returning to a modern city like this actually left him feeling both familiar and unfamiliar for a moment.

It was like an old Taoist priest who had spent years in seclusion deep in the mountains.

Suddenly coming down the mountain and being dazzled by the glittering world before him.

For once, a faint ripple actually stirred in his heart.

Pero lowered his head and scanned the city below with his super-vision.

Advertisements, posters, and merchandise for the Seven were everywhere. That blond man's smiling face was practically inescapable.

In his previous life, he had never watched this show closely.

To him, the show was full of clumsy imitations of DC Comics and attempts to ride its coattails, relying solely on gore and violence to grab attention.

He had only picked up a little of the plot back in college, listening to his roommate, who watched it every day, enthusiastically recommend it with spit flying while loudly complaining about it.

His gaze lingered for an extra second on the only blond, white-clad female face on the Seven's poster.

"Oh, I remember this one." Pero rubbed his chin.

"Seems she was some Nazi hag over a hundred years old, a super-powered butcher who terrified people during World War II... What was her name again? Storm?"

"Wait, if she's already in the Seven, then the current timeline..."

Pero activated his super-hearing and super-vision, focusing his attention on the enormous square below, which rivaled New York's Times Square in his previous life.

The square's largest electronic screen was broadcasting a highly rated talk show live.

On-screen, Homelander and the blond woman named Storm sat side by side on a couch, being interviewed by the host.

The two exchanged flirtatious looks in front of the camera, with even a few subtle instances of physical contact.

"?"

Watching this, Pero immediately activated his super-brain, reaching into what had long been forgotten in the deepest recesses of his memory.

From those scattered fragments about the show, he retrieved this scene.

"So it's this part of the plot." Pero nodded.

"Storm has just joined the Seven and stepped in to help Homelander resolve his approval-rating crisis. Their relationship is heating up fast, and they're about to hook up."

"So the plot is halfway through season two?"

Just as he was analyzing the current timeline, the sounds of a fierce fight suddenly reached his ears.

Pero flew toward the source of the noise.

Several kilometers away, Pero stopped above a desolate suburban plain and looked down.

"?"

On the ground, an abandoned garage was billowing thick smoke, clearly having just suffered an explosion.

Not far from the garage, a chaotic fight was unfolding.

"What kind of catfight is this?" Looking at the scene below, Pero felt his worldview being shaken.

"Do the superhumans in this world all fight so..."

He focused his gaze and finally got a clear look at the people there.

A blond girl in casual clothes, dazzling light flashing as she swung her hands-this ought to be Starlight.

A dark-haired woman in sexy armor, with a hint of DC's Wonder Woman about her-this ought to be Maeve.

"Knockoff." Pero's brow furrowed involuntarily as he looked at the woman.

Then he turned his gaze to the other person taking part in the group beating.

A petite Asian girl whose attacks were unusually vicious, with something feral about her-her name should be Kimi... ko?

The three were working together, pinning Storm firmly to the ground and stomping on her hard.

There was no technique whatsoever to their attacks.

It was nothing but the most primitive punching, kicking, hair-pulling...

Uncontrolled flashes of energy occasionally burst from Starlight's hands, blasting little craters in the ground.

Kimiko, meanwhile, was like a beast, biting with her teeth and clawing with her nails.

It looked rather like bullying among delinquent girls.

Although Storm was powerful, could fly, and could unleash lightning, she actually could not break free for the moment under the three women's frenzied assault.

She could only let out furious roars, the occasional bolts of lightning driving back a woman beside her but failing to inflict any effective damage.

Outside the fray, several men holding various weapons were watching nervously.

Pero watched the scene below, which looked like someone had caught a cheating partner in the act.

"This is such an eyesore. How did I miss this part back then?"

Pero's face took on the expression of an old man on the subway squinting at his phone, before his eyes shifted to those of an eager gossip.

"I love watching women fight."