The dust began to settle over the Crimson Tower district, or what was left of it. The silence, once broken only by the crackle of distant fires, was now punctuated by the soft sounds of the Seven Shades regrouping, their expressions a mixture of relief, lingering shock, and utter bewilderment directed squarely at Saitama.
Shadow stood amidst the debris, his torn cloak lending him an air of rugged, battle-worn mystique – or so Cid hoped. Internally, he was still reeling from the sheer, unadulterated anti-climax of Puddles's demise. His meticulously planned dramatic confrontation, his chance to unveil a new, devastating technique, all casually swatted aside like an annoying fly.
This Saitama… Cid mused, a grudging, almost fearful respect beginning to bloom amidst his frustration. He's not just strong. He's… an anomaly. A living, breathing plot hole in the fabric of any sensible narrative. How am I supposed to be an Eminence in Shadow when the universe keeps throwing sentient reset buttons at my carefully crafted scenarios?
Alpha approached him, her silver hair dusted with grime, but her composure largely restored. "Lord Shadow, are you injured?" Her golden eyes held a genuine concern that, for a fleeting moment, Cid almost found… touching. Almost.
"Merely a… calculated expenditure of endurance," Shadow replied, his voice regaining its smooth, baritone confidence. He subtly adjusted his stance to minimize the throbbing pain in his back. "The jester's chaotic energies were… deceptively potent. A test, to gauge the true nature of the forces now bleeding into our world." Yes, a test! I allowed myself to be hit to gather data! Perfect! So cool! So strategic!
Beta was already scribbling furiously in her notepad, her eyes darting between Shadow and Saitama. "Lord Shadow's resilience is truly remarkable! To withstand such a direct assault from an entity capable of warping reality itself! And then, the unforeseen intervention of the individual known as Saitama… a being whose power defies all known metrics! This will require a supplementary volume to the Chronicles!"
Saitama, meanwhile, had wandered over to where Puddles had… ceased to be. He poked the spot with his toe. "Huh. No loot drops. Not even, like, a funny nose or something. Lame." He then turned to Genos. "So, Genos, any luck with that map? Or finding someone who knows where a supermarket is? My stomach's starting to think my throat's been cut."
Genos, ever the dutiful disciple, was running diagnostics on the area. "Sensei, the localized reality distortions caused by the entity 'Puddles' have completely stabilized. However, the initial interdimensional breach we traversed remains… faintly active. And I am detecting residual energy signatures similar to the crystalline entities from before, scattered throughout the city. The situation is far from resolved."
"More monsters?" Saitama's ears perked up slightly. "Are they strong?"
"Their individual power levels appear moderate, akin to Demon-level threats by our world's classification," Genos reported. "However, their numbers could be significant."
This was the opening Shadow needed. He couldn't let Saitama just wander off looking for groceries when there was still so much potential for drama and eminence.
"The echoes of chaos still resonate," Shadow declared, stepping forward, his torn cloak adding to his dramatic flair. "The jester was but a symptom, a herald of the instability. Other… opportunists… will seek to exploit the weakened barriers between worlds." He gestured grandly towards the wider city. "Midgar is now a focal point. A battleground."
Okay, Cid, bring him into the fold. Make him an unwitting pawn in Shadow Garden's grand schemes. His sheer, idiotic power can be… useful. "Saitama. Your… unique talents… could prove invaluable in purging these lesser incursions. Consider it… a temporary alliance. A convergence of purpose in the face of a shared threat."
Saitama looked at Shadow, then at his own fist, then back at Shadow. "So, you want me to punch more stuff for you guys? Will there be food afterwards?"
Shadow paused. Food? He's motivated by food? This… this is almost too easy. Or perhaps, profoundly insulting. "Sustenance… can be arranged," he conceded, trying to maintain his air of detached authority. "The gratitude of a saved city often manifests in… generous provisions." And if not, Gamma can probably whip up something. She's terrible at it, but it's technically food.
Delta, who had been vibrating with suppressed energy, finally bounded forward, her tail wagging furiously. "Baldy strong! Delta wants to fight with Baldy! We smash bad guys together!" She looked at Saitama with wide, adoring eyes, completely oblivious to the profound weirdness of the situation.
Saitama just blinked at her. "Uh, sure. As long as they don't interrupt my shopping too much."
It was at this moment, as this bizarre, tentative alliance was being forged, that the first "godly scene" unfolded, one that would forever etch itself into the collective memory of Shadow Garden.
A faint tremor ran through the ground. It wasn't an earthquake, more like a deep, resonant hum. Then, from the direction of the Royal Palace, a pillar of dark, corrupted energy erupted into the sky, far larger and more menacing than any of the residual signatures Genos had detected. It pulsed with a malevolent light, and a wave of palpable dread washed over the district.
"What now?!" Epsilon exclaimed, her slime armor rippling with alarm. "That energy… it feels like the Cult of Diablos, but… amplified! Twisted!"
"The Cult dares to make a move now, amidst this chaos?" Alpha's hand went to her sword. "Fools. Or perhaps they see an opportunity."
Shadow's eyes narrowed beneath his hood. The Cult? Here? Now? Interesting. Are they trying to harness the dimensional instability? Or is this a separate plot entirely? More threads for me to manipulate!
Before Shadow could deliver a suitably cryptic pronouncement, the pillar of dark energy pulsed violently, and a monstrous figure began to coalesce within it. It was vaguely humanoid, but easily fifty feet tall, wreathed in shadow and crackling with crimson lightning. Its roar was a physical force, shattering windows in the few buildings still standing.
"A high-tier demonic summoning!" Gamma yelped, nearly tripping over her own feet as she backed away. "Its power level is… it's off the charts for a standard Cult summoning! This is… this is something new!"
The summoned demon, wreathed in shadow and lightning, spotted the group in the ruined Crimson Tower district. It raised a colossal, clawed hand, dark energy gathering around it, preparing to unleash a devastating attack. The Shades braced themselves, ready to defend or, if necessary, to provide a glorious sacrifice for their Lord Shadow (who would, of course, then avenge them dramatically).
Saitama, however, just sighed. It was a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of infinite boredom and a deeply unsatisfied craving for crab legs.
"Another big one," he muttered. "They just keep coming, don't they?"
He then did something that made every member of Shadow Garden, including Shadow himself, stop breathing.
He jumped.
It wasn't a magically augmented leap. It wasn't a superhuman bound amplified by visible energy. He just… bent his knees slightly and pushed off the ground.
And he flew.
Not gracefully. Not with any sort of technique. He just shot upwards, a yellow-and-red blur, leaving a small crater where his feet had been. He ascended with impossible speed, rocketing towards the fifty-foot-tall demon that was still gathering its attack.
The demon, clearly not expecting a bald man in a jumpsuit to come flying at its face, paused its attack, its shadowy features contorting in what might have been surprise.
Saitama reached the demon's eye level in less than a second.
"Consecutive Normal Punches."
A flurry of fists, so fast they were invisible, rained down on the demon's massive head. Each punch, though individually "normal" by Saitama's standards, carried the force of a tactical nuke. The fifty-foot demon, a being of immense dark power that would have required the combined might of several Shades to even slow down, simply… came apart.
Its head exploded in a shower of shadow and gore. Its torso disintegrated. Its limbs were scattered like confetti. The entire, terrifying entity was reduced to rapidly dissipating black smoke and falling debris in under three seconds. The pillar of dark energy that had summoned it sputtered and died, as if its connection had been violently severed.
Saitama hung in the air for a moment, looking at the dissipating smoke. Then, with a slight, almost imperceptible push of his feet against… nothing… he changed direction and landed back in the ruined district with a soft thud, kicking up a small puff of dust.
He dusted off his hands. "Okay. That one was a bit tougher. Took a few more hits."
Silence.
Absolute, stunned, world-breaking silence.
Alpha's jaw was slack. Beta's pen had snapped in half. Epsilon's slime armor was completely still, as if she'd forgotten how to control it. Gamma was sitting on the ground again, her eyes wide and vacant. Delta's tail was ramrod straight, her ears perked so high they looked like they might fly off. Zeta and Eta, who usually maintained an air of cool detachment, were staring with undisguised disbelief.
Even Cid Kagenou, beneath his hood, felt his carefully constructed composure crack. He… he JUMPED?! Like… like a normal jump, but to THAT height?! And then he just… hovered?! And then… Consecutive Normal Punches?! Against THAT?! That was a Class-A, potentially S-Class threat from the Cult! And he just… disassembled it! Mid-air! Without breaking a sweat!
The laws of physics, as Cid understood them (which, admittedly, were already pretty flexible in this world), had just been taken out behind the woodshed and brutally violated. This wasn't just overwhelming power. This was… casual godhood. The ability to defy gravity, to deliver blows of incomprehensible force with such nonchalance… it was terrifying. It was awe-inspiring. It was… completely and utterly ruining his carefully crafted image as the sole overwhelmingly powerful entity.
"S-Sensei…" Genos began, a hint of reverence in his voice that bordered on worship. "Your ability to achieve unaided flight through sheer leg strength is… truly beyond comprehension."
Saitama just shrugged. "It's just jumping. Gotta jump high to hit the tall ones. Saves time."
"But… but the sustained aerial presence!" Beta stammered, finally finding her voice. "The mid-air directional change! There was no visible propulsion! No magical signature! How—?"
"I dunno," Saitama said, scratching his bald head. "Just kinda… pushed?"
This simple, utterly baffling explanation was perhaps more shocking than the feat itself. It implied a level of intuitive, instinctual control over forces that others spent lifetimes, or wielded powerful artifacts, to barely comprehend.
Shadow cleared his throat, a dry, rasping sound. He needed to regain control of the narrative, of the scene. "A… decisive, if somewhat… unorthodox, display." Unorthodox?! He just rewrote the rules of engagement for aerial combat by PUNCHING THE AIR! "It seems the… 'Hero for Fun'… possesses more hidden depths than initially perceived." Hidden depths?! He's as deep as a puddle, but that puddle contains the entire freaking ocean!
Before anyone could process this further, another "godly scene" was about to unfold, this one even more subtle, yet perhaps even more profoundly shocking to the magically attuned members of Shadow Garden.
A faint tremor shook the ground again, but this time, it was followed by a piercing, high-frequency whine. Several blocks away, a section of the city began to glow with an intense, sickly green light. Arcane symbols, vast and complex, started etching themselves into the sky above it.
"Another one?" Epsilon groaned. "What is it this time?"
"That energy…" Alpha said, her eyes narrowed in concentration. "It's not demonic. It's… a catastrophic arcane overload. A runaway ritual, perhaps? If it detonates, it could level several city blocks!"
Shadow's gaze fixed on the glowing area. An arcane detonation? This could be the Cult's doing, a trap, or just another consequence of the dimensional instability. Regardless, a perfect opportunity for me to step in and heroically—
Saitama squinted at the glowing district. "Huh. That green light is kinda bright. Giving me a headache."
He then did something that defied all logic, all understanding of arcane principles, all known laws of magic.
He looked at it.
Just… looked. With his usual, bored expression.
And the sickly green glow… diminished.
The vast, complex arcane symbols flickering in the sky wavered, then began to unravel, as if their intricate patterns were being erased by an invisible hand. The high-frequency whine faltered, then died down. The palpable sense of impending arcane detonation simply… faded away. Within seconds, the ominous green glow was gone, leaving behind only the normal, chaotic cityscape.
Silence. Again. But this time, it was a silence filled not just with shock, but with a dawning, terrifying understanding for the magic-users present.
Alpha's hand, which had been reaching for her sword, froze mid-motion. Her golden eyes were wide, fixed on Saitama with an expression of utter disbelief. "The… the ritual… it just… stopped."
Beta's new pen clattered to the ground. She wasn't even trying to write anymore. She was just staring.
Gamma, who understood arcane theory better than most, felt a cold dread creep up her spine. "That… that shouldn't be possible. A runaway ritual of that magnitude… it would require an immense counter-spell, a precise nullification field… or…" Her voice trailed off.
Even Shadow, who prided himself on his (mostly theoretical) understanding of arcane arts, felt a chill. What… what did he just DO?! He didn't cast a spell. He didn't use an artifact. He just… LOOKED at it?! Did his… boredom… somehow nullify a city-destroying magical catastrophe?! Is his apathy a weapon?! This is… this is beyond anything I could have ever conceived!
Saitama blinked. "Oh, good. The bright light stopped. My headache's going away." He looked around at the stunned faces of Shadow Garden. "What? Did I miss something?"
Genos, ever the analyst, offered a tentative explanation, though even he sounded perplexed. "Sensei, it is possible that your sheer presence, your… unique biological and energetic signature… passively interfered with the unstable arcane energies, causing the ritual to destabilize and dissipate harmlessly. Your existence itself may act as a fundamental nullification field against certain phenomena."
"So… I'm like, a walking bug spray for magic?" Saitama asked, looking vaguely pleased. "Cool. Less flashy lights to worry about."
The implications of this were staggering. If Saitama could nullify powerful magic just by being near it and looking bored, then the entire foundation of Shadow Garden's power, the very nature of their world, was fundamentally challenged. Their blades of shadow, their arcane arts, their carefully honed techniques… what good were they against someone who could simply unmake magic with a glance?
Shadow felt a tremor of something he hadn't felt since… well, since he was just Cid Kagenou, a powerless chuunibyou dreaming of greatness. It was a feeling akin to… genuine, unadulterated awe. And, perhaps, a tiny sliver of existential dread for his own carefully constructed persona.
The Eminence in Shadow thrived on mystery, on manipulating unseen forces. But how could he manipulate a force that operated on a level so absurdly, so casually, beyond comprehension? A force that didn't even seem to realize how powerful it was?
The day was far from over. The city was still in chaos. But for the members of Shadow Garden, the world had just tilted on its axis. They had witnessed power that broke not just bodies, but the very rules of their reality. And it all came from a bald man in a cheap hero costume who was still primarily concerned about finding a decent meal. The thrill was no longer just about cool fights; it was about the terrifying, hilarious, and utterly unpredictable nature of the universe itself.