The void was vast, cold, and unsettlingly silent, save for the Master's booming, yet momentarily faltering, voice. Swirling nebulae of impossible colors painted the non-existent sky, and distant, dying stars pulsed like fading heartbeats. The throne of solidified nightmares upon which the Master sat seemed to draw in the surrounding darkness, a focal point of cosmic dread. Shadow Garden, Saitama, and Genos stood on a floating, obsidian platform that had materialized beneath their feet, the only solid ground in this disorienting, otherworldly arena.
Shadow, despite the oppressive aura and the sheer, mind-boggling scale of their new surroundings, felt a surge of adrenaline, a familiar, almost comforting, thrill. This was it. The ultimate confrontation. The final boss. The culmination of all his (mostly imaginary, but now terrifyingly real) shadowy machinations. He clutched the Night Shard, its cold energy a familiar anchor in this sea of unreality.
The Master's sanctum, Cid thought, his chuuni heart pounding. A pocket dimension, a tear in the fabric of existence! Perfect! The dramatic tension is off the charts! Now, for my carefully prepared, devastatingly cool, and utterly cryptic pronouncements before I unleash the power of the Night Shard and—
"So, this is your crib, huh?" Saitama interrupted, looking around with mild curiosity. "Pretty spacious. Kinda dark, though. You ever think about getting some, like, fairy lights? Or maybe a lava lamp? Lava lamps are pretty chill." Mr. Fluffles, still perched on his head, twitched its nose, seemingly unfazed by the interdimensional void.
The Master, who had been about to launch into what was undoubtedly a very long, very evil, and very self-congratulatory monologue, paused. The swirling shadows around his throne seemed to… flicker. A sound like a thousand rusty gears grinding together echoed from within his depths – perhaps the cosmic equivalent of a frustrated sigh.
"Fairy… lights?" the Master's voice boomed, the earlier confidence now tinged with a distinct note of… bewilderment. "You stand before Xar'Voth, the Weaver of Despair, the Unmaker of Realities, He Who Whispers in the Cracks Between Worlds, and you are concerned with… decorative illumination?"
"Well, yeah," Saitama said, shrugging. "It's just, y'know, a bit gloomy. Hard to see if you drop your keys. Or, like, a really good sandwich."
Alpha, standing beside Shadow, had to physically restrain herself from facepalming. Beta was scribbling furiously, her expression a mixture of scholarly fascination and sheer, unadulterated despair for the sanctity of narrative structure. Epsilon just looked like she wanted to find a very small, very quiet corner of the void and cry.
Shadow, however, saw an opening. Or rather, he forced himself to see an opening. He's unsettling the Master! His sheer, unthinking banality is throwing the ultimate evil off its game! This is… unconventional, but perhaps… exploitable!
"Your attempts at intimidation are as hollow as this void you inhabit, Xar'Voth!" Shadow declared, his voice ringing out with as much Eminence-like authority as he could muster while simultaneously trying not to laugh at Saitama's interior decorating advice for a cosmic horror. "Your reign of carefully woven despair is about to unravel!"
Xar'Voth turned its immense, shadowy gaze towards Shadow. The temperature in the void seemed to drop several degrees. "Ah, the little shadow-player. The one who fancies himself a master of puppets, while being a mere marionette dancing on strings he cannot even perceive." A deep, rumbling chuckle echoed through the void. "You have been… mildly amusing, little Eminence. Your delusions of grandeur, your carefully crafted persona… a fleeting distraction in the grand tapestry of my design."
"My designs are my own!" Shadow retorted, a genuine spark of defiance in his voice. (Internally, Cid was preening. He acknowledged my persona! He called me an Eminence! Yes! Even if he called it a delusion, he still SAID IT!) "And they will be your undoing!"
He raised the Night Shard, its cold light flaring in the oppressive darkness. "This fragment of your stolen power, Xar'Voth! We will use it to sever your connection to the worlds you seek to corrupt! To banish you back to the oblivion from whence you crawled!" This was it! His moment! The dramatic unveiling of his master plan!
Xar'Voth let out another booming, contemptuous laugh. "That trinket? A mere splinter. You think to challenge the storm with a broken twig, little shadow? Your arrogance is almost… endearing." Shadows began to writhe around its throne, coalescing into monstrous, vaguely tentacled forms, their eyes burning with malevolent, crimson light. "But the time for games is over. Now, you will all witness the true meaning of despair. You will all become threads in my final, glorious tapestry of—"
"Hey, quick question," Saitama interrupted again, raising his hand politely. "Before you guys start your big, evil monologue and a flashy light show, can someone tell me where the bathroom is? All that spicy relish is… uh… starting to make a comeback. And this void doesn't look like it has great plumbing."
Silence.
A profound, universe-shattering, crickets-chirping-in-the-vacuum-of-space kind of silence.
Xar'Voth, the Weaver of Despair, the Unmaker of Realities, He Who Whispers in the Cracks Between Worlds, whose monologue was about to reach a crescendo of cosmic terror, just… stopped. The writhing, tentacled shadow-monsters around its throne seemed to droop slightly, their crimson eyes blinking in confusion.
Shadow, his Night Shard still raised, his dramatic pronouncement stillborn, felt a single, solitary tear of pure, unadulterated frustration escape from beneath his hood and trace a path down his cheek. He needs the bathroom. The ultimate evil mastermind is about to unleash cosmic armageddon, and Saitama needs to use the interdimensional toilet. My life… my entire carefully crafted existence… is a punchline written by a bored god with a scatological sense of humor.
Alpha actually stumbled. Beta dropped her pen, and this time, she didn't even bother to pick it up. Epsilon just buried her face in her hands. Genos, ever loyal, discreetly produced a small, high-tech, and presumably very absorbent, towel from a hidden compartment in his arm.
Xar'Voth, after a silence that seemed to stretch for an eternity, finally spoke. Its voice, which had been booming with cosmic menace, was now… flat. Devoid of all emotion. Almost… tired.
"There… is no… bathroom… in the Nexus of All Realities, you… you… bald imbecile!"
"Oh," Saitama said, looking genuinely disappointed. "That's… inconvenient. You guys really need to work on your amenities. Bad for tourism, y'know." He then brightened. "Hey, maybe one of those tentacle-monster guys knows a good spot? They look like they've been around."
The tentacle-monster guys, to their credit, just looked even more confused, their crimson eyes darting nervously between Saitama and their very, very annoyed Master.
Shadow, seeing his meticulously planned, dramatic gambit with the Night Shard completely and utterly derailed by Saitama's urgent bodily functions, decided to take a different approach. If he couldn't have drama, perhaps he could have… a swift, unexpected attack while the ultimate evil was distracted by plumbing inquiries.
"Now, Alpha!" Shadow hissed, abandoning his monologue entirely. "Disruption Protocol! Target the throne!"
Alpha, recovering her composure with admirable speed, nodded curtly. She, Beta, and Epsilon, acting on pre-arranged signals (developed for just such an occasion, though they hadn't anticipated this particular catalyst), unleashed a coordinated barrage of their most potent, concentrated attacks. Alpha's blade became a silver comet, imbued with her purest shadow energy. Beta launched a volley of reality-warping arcane missiles. Epsilon hurled spheres of corrosive, destabilizing slime.
Their attacks, honed by countless battles and fueled by a desperate hope, lanced across the void, aimed directly at Xar'Voth's throne of nightmares.
Xar'Voth, caught mid-rant about the lack of interdimensional restroom facilities, barely had time to react. It raised a shadowy hand, a shield of pure darkness flickering into existence just moments before the attacks hit.
BOOM!
A massive explosion of light and shadow rocked the void. The obsidian platform beneath their feet trembled. The swirling nebulae seemed to recoil.
When the smoke cleared, Xar'Voth was still on its throne. The shield of darkness had held, but it was cracked, fractured. And the Master itself… it looked… annoyed. Genuinely, royally, apocalyptically annoyed.
"Insolent gnats!" Xar'Voth roared, its voice now laced with genuine fury. "You dare to interrupt my… my discourse on appropriate interdimensional sanitation protocols with your pathetic fireworks?! You will SUFFER for this indignity!"
The shadows around its throne erupted with renewed ferocity. The tentacled monsters, now looking decidedly less confused and significantly more murderous, surged forward. The very fabric of the void seemed to twist and writhe under Xar'Voth's rage.
This was it. The real final battle. No more monologues. No more interruptions (hopefully). Just pure, unadulterated, cosmic conflict.
Shadow Garden met the charge with grim determination. This was their last stand. Their chance to strike a blow against the ultimate evil, even if their primary offensive weapon was currently more concerned with finding a cosmic commode.
Shadow himself engaged the largest of the tentacled shadow-beasts, his ebony blade a blur, the Night Shard in his other hand pulsing with a desperate, almost sentient, energy. He could feel the Master's power, raw and overwhelming, pressing in on him, trying to crush his will. But he held firm, his own (mostly self-generated, but now surprisingly potent) shadow aura pushing back.
Alpha, Beta, and Epsilon fought like cornered lionesses, their attacks coordinated, their movements precise, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Seraphina, who had been brought along more for her intel than her combat prowess in this particular confrontation, found herself surprisingly effective, her Night Blade skills, honed by years of service to a lesser darkness, now turned against a greater one.
But Xar'Voth was too powerful. Its shadow-constructs were endless, regenerating almost instantly. Its direct attacks, blasts of pure, unmaking energy, forced Shadow Garden back, step by agonizing step.
Shadow, parrying a blow that would have shattered a mountain, saw Alpha stumble, a tendril of darkness coiling around her leg. He saw Beta's arcane shields crack under a sustained assault. He saw Epsilon's slime form flicker, struggling to maintain its integrity.
They were losing.
Is this it? Cid thought, a wave of genuine despair, not the theatrical kind, washing over him. Is this how the story ends? Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate, futile struggle in an empty void, while the hero who could save us all is preoccupied with…
He risked a glance at Saitama.
Saitama was no longer looking for a bathroom.
He was standing very still, his usual bored expression replaced by something… different. Something thoughtful. Something almost… sad.
He was watching Shadow Garden fight. He was watching them struggle, bleed, and slowly be overwhelmed. He was watching these people, these strange, dramatic, and surprisingly endearing individuals who had inexplicably become his… companions? Friends? He wasn't sure what to call them. But they were his people, in this weird, messed-up dimension.
And they were losing. Badly.
Xar'Voth, sensing victory, let out a booming, triumphant laugh. "Yes! Despair! Struggle! This is the music I crave! Your futile resistance only sweetens my inevitable triumph! Soon, all of you, all of your worlds, all of existence, will be but silent notes in my grand, eternal symphony of—"
Saitama cleared his throat.
It wasn't a loud sound. Not compared to Xar'Voth's cosmic booming. But in the sudden, expectant silence that followed, it was deafening.
Xar'Voth paused, its triumphant laughter dying in its (presumably) shadowy throat. It turned its immense gaze towards Saitama, a flicker of something akin to… apprehension… in its cosmic, all-seeing eyes.
Saitama looked at Xar'Voth. He looked at his struggling, battered friends. He looked at his own fists.
Then, he spoke. His voice was quiet. Devoid of anger. Devoid of bravado. Just… a simple, almost tired, statement.
"Hey."
Xar'Voth waited. The universe waited.
"You're being really loud," Saitama said. "And you're hurting my friends."
He took a step forward.
"And honestly," he continued, his voice gaining a subtle, almost imperceptible, yet undeniably terrifying, edge, "this whole 'destroying all of existence' thing? It's kinda… played out, y'know? And really, really inconvenient for people who just want to find a decent sale on groceries."
He took another step.
The shadows around Xar'Voth seemed to recoil. The tentacled monsters whimpered. The very fabric of the void seemed to tremble, not from Xar'Voth's power, but from the sheer, unadulterated, and utterly bored menace emanating from the bald man in the cheap hero costume.
"So," Saitama said, raising a fist. A single, unremarkable, yet somehow infinitely potent, fist. "How about we just… skip to the part where I punch you really hard, and then we can all go home? I'm kinda craving a cheeseburger. And maybe some of that relish, if there's any left."
Xar'Voth, the Weaver of Despair, the Unmaker of Realities, He Who Whispers in the Cracks Between Worlds, stared at the fist. And in that moment, for the first time in its eternal, malevolent existence, it understood the true meaning of fear. Not the fear it inflicted, but the fear of absolute, unthinking, and utterly final… oblivion.
The final punchline of the universe was about to be delivered. And it was going to be a knockout.