The oppressive heat of summer clung to City Z like a shroud. Not the vibrant, energetic heat of bustling life, but a thick, stagnant weight that seemed to drain the very color from the crumbling skyline. Pavement buckled, stray dogs panted in slivers of shade, and the air hung heavy with the scent of ozone, dust, and a lingering, indefinable wrongness.
Inside apartment #302 of a dilapidated complex, Saitama stared blankly at a crumpled supermarket flyer. "Damn it," he muttered, the words barely audible over the weak rattle of his ancient fan. "Half-price king crab legs... ended yesterday." He tossed the flyer onto a low table cluttered with manga and empty instant noodle cups. Defeat etched itself onto his usually impassive features, a loss far more profound than any titanic battle he'd ever faced. This was the real struggle.
His disciple, Genos, sat perfectly postured on the floor nearby, meticulously polishing his metallic forearm. Even his internal cooling systems seemed to be working overtime, venting faint streams of vapor. "Sensei," Genos began, his synthesized voice calm yet laced with an undercurrent of urgency, "multiple anomalous energy readings have been detected converging approximately 1.5 kilometers south-southwest of our current location. The Hero Association has issued a Dragon-level threat alert, potentially escalating."
Saitama scratched his perfectly bald head, his gaze still lamenting the lost crab legs. "Dragon level, huh? That sounds annoying. Is it noisy?"
"The energy signature is... unprecedented," Genos continued, his optical sensors glowing slightly brighter. "It does not conform to any known biological or technological pattern cataloged by the Association or Dr. Kuseno. Preliminary analysis suggests spatial distortion and possible psycho-interference." He paused, turning his piercing gaze towards his master. "Civilians in the affected area are reporting sudden, inexplicable waves of nausea, disorientation, and profound existential dread."
"Existential dread? So, like when you miss a really good sale?" Saitama asked, genuinely curious.
Genos chose, as he often did, to bypass the analogy. "The phenomenon is expanding rapidly, Sensei. S-Class heroes are being mobilized. Tatsumaki is reportedly en route, though complaining vehemently about the heat and the 'low-level pest.'"
Saitama sighed, a gust of air that barely disturbed the dust motes dancing in the single shaft of sunlight piercing the gloom. "Guess I should go check it out. Maybe there's a supermarket near there still open." He stood, pulling on his familiar yellow jumpsuit and red boots with practiced ease. The fabric, miraculously clean despite the state of his apartment, seemed almost to absorb the dim light.
As they stepped outside, the wrongness Saitama had vaguely sensed indoors hit them with the force of a physical blow. The usual cacophony of the abandoned zone – distant sirens, creaking metal, wind whistling through broken windows – was gone. Replaced by a profound, unnatural silence. Not peace, but an absence. Colors seemed muted, desaturated. The oppressive heat felt colder now, carrying a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. People – the few squatters and scavengers who called this area home – weren't screaming or running. They were standing stock-still, faces slack, eyes wide and vacant, staring at nothing. Or perhaps, at everything.
"Sensei, the atmospheric pressure is fluctuating abnormally," Genos reported, his sensors working furiously. "And there's a high-frequency resonance undetectable by standard audio receptors... it appears to be affecting neurological functions directly."
They moved quickly, Saitama's effortless strides covering ground with deceptive speed, Genos's boosters leaving faint scorch marks on the cracked asphalt. The epicenter wasn't hard to find. Reality itself seemed to buckle and fray around a central point in a wide, debris-strewn plaza.
There, hovering silently a few meters above the ground, was the source.
It wasn't a monster in the traditional sense. No bulging muscles, razor claws, or dripping fangs. It was... a hole. A tear in the fabric of existence, roughly humanoid in shape but lacking any distinct features. It was composed of shifting, impossible geometry, edges folding in on themselves in ways that made the eyes water and the brain ache. Deep within its non-form swirled shades of black and violet so profound they seemed to absorb light, creating a pocket of absolute nullity. Whispers emanated from it – not words, but the feeling of words, disjointed concepts of despair, futility, and the utter pointlessness of being. This was the Void Maw.
Around it, several heroes were already engaged, their efforts disturbingly futile. Atomic Samurai's blade, usually capable of dicing opponents into microscopic particles before they even registered the attack, passed through the Void Maw, leaving reality shimmering like heat haze but inflicting no discernible damage. Silver Fang, Bang, attempted to use his flowing martial arts, but his fists met only empty space, the crushing force dissipating into the swirling void without effect.
"Tch! What is this damned thing?!" A high-pitched, irritated voice cut through the eerie silence. Tatsumaki, the Tornado of Terror, floated nearby, her small frame radiating an intense green aura of psychic power. Sweat beaded on her forehead, not just from the heat, but from sheer exertion. She extended her hands, focusing her immense telekinetic might. The ground around the Void Maw cracked and groaned, debris lifting into the air, swirling into a vortex aimed at crushing the anomaly.
"Meaningless," a voice echoed, not from a mouth, but from the very air around the Void Maw. It was a layered chorus of despair, chilling and ancient. "Your struggles. Your power. Your very existence. All temporary ripples on the surface of oblivion. Why resist the inevitable calm of nothingness?"
Tatsumaki's psychic assault slammed into the Void Maw. For a moment, the swirling void seemed to contract, to dim. But then, with a sound like tearing fabric, her power was simply... absorbed. Siphoned away into the infinite emptiness. Tatsumaki gasped, staggering back in the air, clutching her head. "It... it ate my power! It's trying to pull my consciousness apart!"
Genos activated his incinerator cannons. "Target acquired. Maximum output!" Blazing streams of plasma erupted, converging on the Void Maw in an explosion of light and heat that could melt tank armor in seconds. The flames washed over the entity, illuminating its impossible internal geometry.
And then, they too were extinguished, sucked into the void as if they had never been.
"Energy. Matter. Consciousness. All constructs," the chilling voice whispered, seeming to bore directly into their minds. "Flimsy barriers against the truth. The truth is absence. The truth is silence."
The vacant-eyed civilians nearby began to slowly, almost hypnotically, walk towards the Void Maw, drawn by its nihilistic call.
"Sensei!" Genos yelled, deploying energy shields to block the entranced populace, though his voice held a note of analytical fear he rarely displayed. "Physical attacks are ineffective! Energy attacks are absorbed! Psychic assaults are consumed and turned against the user! Its very presence propagates mental collapse! Threat level assessment... insufficient data! This exceeds Dragon! It may be..."
"Okay," Saitama said, stepping forward into the plaza. His expression was utterly blank, perhaps even a little bored. He cracked his knuckles, the sound unnervingly loud in the oppressive silence.
The Void Maw turned its non-gaze towards him. For the first time, a flicker of something akin to curiosity, or perhaps amusement, rippled through its formless shape. "Another ephemeral spark, rushing towards its own extinguishing. You wear defiance like a child wears armor too large. What power do you bring to this altar of futility?"
Saitama ignored the monologue. He took a casual stance, fist cocked back slightly. "You're making people weird, and you're probably the reason I missed the crab leg sale."
Then he punched.
It wasn't a named move. No "Consecutive Normal Punches." Just... a punch. But the force behind it was absolute. The air didn't just compress; it shattered. A shockwave erupted outwards, not as wind, but as pure kinetic violence. The ground beneath Saitama turned to powder. Buildings miles away had their windows blown inwards. Clouds hundreds of miles overhead were instantly dispersed, revealing the cold, black expanse of space.
The punch connected with the center of the Void Maw.
For a heartbeat, there was silence. A silence more profound than before. The heroes watched, breathless, expecting the usual result – instantaneous obliteration.
But something different happened.
The Void Maw rippled. It distorted violently, like black ink dropped into water. Saitama's fist was inside it, yet not touching anything solid. The impossible geometry warped around his glove. The whispers intensified into a deafening roar of overlapping, contradictory concepts – creation, destruction, being, non-being, all screaming at once.
The force of the punch wasn't reflected. It wasn't blocked. It was... processed. Digested by the void. The raw, universe-denting power was being drawn into the swirling nothingness, unraveling at a conceptual level.
"Ah... strength," the voice echoed, sounding strained, yet intrigued. "A crude tool. Powerful, yes. But still... finite. Still bound by the illusion of existence. You strike at form, but I am the absence of form. You exert force, but I am the negation of force."
Saitama pulled his fist back, his expression unchanged. "Huh." That was new. Usually, they just exploded. This one felt... weird. Like punching a ghost made of TV static.
Genos felt a surge of dread unlike any he'd ever known. His sensors screamed warnings he couldn't parse. Sensei's punch... was absorbed? Impossible! The sheer energy calculated should have been enough to destabilize a small star!
Tatsumaki stared, her earlier irritation replaced by wide-eyed disbelief and a dawning, unfamiliar fear. What... what IS that thing? And what the hell is with Baldy? He hit it with THAT much force, and it's still... there?
The Void Maw seemed to stabilize, though its form flickered more erratically. It focused its non-gaze intensely on Saitama. "You are an anomaly. A paradox. Such power should not be. It disrupts the equation. You cling so desperately to the insignificant dream of existence..."
It then attacked.
It didn't lash out physically. It didn't fire energy beams. It expanded its field of negation, focusing it entirely on Saitama.
Saitama felt... strange.
First, the colors around him didn't just mute; they vanished. The world turned into shades of grey, then faded entirely into blackness. Then sound died, not just the eerie silence, but the sound of his own heartbeat, the air in his lungs. Then, the sensation of the ground beneath his feet disappeared. The feeling of his clothes, the slight breeze, the lingering heat – all gone.
It was sensory deprivation taken to an absolute extreme. But it went further.
He felt the concept of space dissolving. There was no up, no down, no near, no far. Just... him. Floating in an infinite, featureless non-place.
Then, the whispers returned, burrowing directly into his mind, no longer concepts of despair, but direct assaults on his identity.
You are Saitama.
What IS Saitama?
A name. A collection of memories.
Fading.
Hero for fun.
What is fun?
Chemical reactions. Electrical impulses.
Ceasing.
Strong.
What is strength?
Resistance against entropy.
Futile.
He felt his memories flickering like a faulty bulb – his training, his apartment, Genos, King, the Hero Association, the monsters, the sales... becoming distant, hazy, unimportant. He felt the very idea of himself thinning, stretching, threatening to dissipate like smoke.
"Let go," the voice urged, intimate and pervasive. "Embrace the peace of un-being. Return to the zero from which all things erroneously sprang. Cease."
For anyone else, even the most powerful psychic or reality warper, this would have been the end. Annihilation not of the body, but of the very concept of self.
But Saitama... was Saitama.
His internal monologue, usually preoccupied with mundane concerns, registered the experience with baffling simplicity. 'Huh? It got quiet. And dark. Like inside a closet. But bigger. And my memories feel... fuzzy? Like after waking up from a nap... Did I forget to buy eggs again?'
The assault continued, peeling away layers of his psyche, trying to find the core and extinguish it. It found... bedrock. An immutable, unshakable foundation of sheer, simple existence. He wasn't resisting with willpower or psychic barriers. He just... was. As undeniable and fundamental as gravity, but without reason or complexity.
He felt a flicker of annoyance. This was boring. And it was keeping him from checking that other supermarket.
The Void Maw recoiled slightly, its non-form flickering violently. "Impossible! Why do you persist?! There is nothing holding you! No grand purpose! No conviction! Only... emptiness! Yet you remain?! WHY?!"
Saitama didn't answer verbally. The blankness in his eyes shifted. It wasn't boredom anymore. It was something else. A stillness. An infinite density contained within his ordinary frame. The faint, almost imperceptible aura that sometimes surrounded him – the one Genos's sensors could never quite quantify – flared, but it wasn't energy as they knew it. It was... something else. Pure, unadulterated is.
He cocked his fist back again. This time, it felt... different. Not heavier, not faster. Just... more.
"Normal Punch."
He threw the punch.
It connected with the Void Maw again.
This time, there was no absorption. No processing.
The punch didn't just carry kinetic force. It carried affirmation. It carried the simple, undeniable truth of Saitama's existence, weaponized. It was the antithesis of the void. Where the Void Maw was negation, the punch was assertion. Where the Maw sought to unmake, the punch imposed reality.
A light erupted from the point of impact. Not heat, not energy, but pure, conceptual white. It wasn't bright; it was absolute. The swirling non-geometry of the Void Maw screamed – a sound that cracked minds and shattered glass miles away. The darkness within it was overwritten. The nothingness was forcibly filled.
"NO! IMPOSSIBLE! REALITY CANNOT--!"
The Void Maw didn't explode. It didn't disintegrate. It retreated. It collapsed in on itself, shrinking rapidly, tearing a violent, screaming rift in the fabric of space-time as it fled. The rift snapped shut, leaving behind a faint, shimmering distortion, like fractured glass hanging in the air, and an echo of its chilling voice:
"The paradox... will be corrected... Other voids... other truths... will converge..."
Silence returned. But this time, it was a natural silence, broken by the distant sounds of the city slowly returning, the panting breaths of the heroes, and the confused murmurs of the civilians waking from their trance. The oppressive psychic weight lifted. Colors slowly bled back into the world.
Genos stared, his processors struggling to comprehend what he had just witnessed. Sensei's punch... it didn't just destroy. It seemed to... negate the negation? The energy signature... it spiked beyond measurable limits, then vanished, leaving behind... residuals I cannot classify. What IS Sensei's power?
Tatsumaki floated down, landing unsteadily. The fear was replaced by grudging respect and utter confusion. "Oi, Baldy! What the hell was that thing? And what did you just do?"
Saitama lowered his fist, looking at his glove. He flexed his fingers. "Dunno. It was weird. Tried to make me disappear, I think. Kinda tickled." He looked around. "Anyway, anyone know if the supermarket two blocks down is still open? I've got a serious crab craving."
He started walking away, leaving the stunned S-Class heroes, the recovering civilians, and the bewildered Genos in his wake. He scratched his head again. That weird, fuzzy feeling from the void attack hadn't completely faded. It felt like... an itch. Deep inside. Somewhere fundamental.
He shrugged. Probably just needed dinner.
But as he walked, the shimmering fracture left by the Void Maw pulsed faintly, resonating with unseen energies. The echo of its final words lingered in the air, unheard by most, but felt as a subtle disharmony in the world's background hum.
Something had been torn. Something had been noticed. And the correction was coming. The foundations of reality had been rattled, and the ripples were starting to spread.