When the spaceship hovered above the Moon's crater, Child Emperor took out two exquisite metal masks and handed them to King and Garou.
"These are portable life support devices made of nanomaterials, with built-in oxygen circulation systems and radiation barriers. The environment out there is—"
"No need." Garou cut him off, his scarlet eyes glinting with disdain. "Only the weak shackle themselves with gear. A true warrior breathes the void itself."
His gaze flicked pointedly to the small backpack on Child Emperor's shoulders.
"You—!" Heat rushed to Child Emperor's face. The memory of their last confrontation at headquarters—the humiliation of being so easily subdued—flared white-hot in his mind. With a series of sharp clicks, every weapon module on his backpack deployed, barrels humming to life. "Say that again, you neanderthal!"
King's large hand came down, gently but firmly pressing the bristling little genius back. He smoothed the boy's ruffled hair. "Easy. I'll pound him into moon dust for you later."
"Big talk," Garou sneered, already turning toward the airlock. He paused at the hatch, not looking back. "Hey, King. Quit stalling. Move your ass."
King gave a lazy wave. The airlock sealed shut.
Outside, in the silent black, Garou became a dark red comet. He arced through the vacuum in a perfect, brutal trajectory and slammed into the basin of the crater. Lunar dust erupted in a slow-motion wave, towering dozens of meters high.
Inside the observation deck, Child Emperor's lower lip trembled. His eyes grew shiny.
King knelt down to his eye level. "I promise," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, yet absolute. "I'll rearrange his face so even his own reflection runs screaming."
"…Really?"
"Really." King extended a massive pinky finger.
Child Emperor let out a wet, hiccuping laugh and locked his own tiny pinky around it. "I want a global live broadcast! The whole world needs to see that arrogant jerk get schooled by my dad!"
"Deal."
As King stood, he turned his head toward the center of the observation deck.
Tatsumaki floated there, pointedly studying the stark lunar landscape, her back to him. Her emerald curls bobbed with a telltale tension.
"Little Tatsumaki."
"W-what do you want?" She drifted over, chin held high, refusing to meet his gaze. "That guy just… irritates me on principle! Don't get the wrong idea!"
A textbook tsundere. King reached out and pinched her puffed cheek. Then he leaned close, his voice a murmur only for her. Her small body stiffened, then her earlobes flushed a brilliant crimson. The blush spread rapidly across her face before she finally hid it entirely, burying herself against his chest. Only the tips of her burning ears were visible.
"Y-you idiot… D-don't just come back expecting anything… Jackass! Now get lost!" Her muffled grumble was betrayed by the small hands fisting tightly in the fabric of his shirt.
With a final, quiet chuckle, King walked to the airlock.
The outer hatch cycled open. The absolute silence of space greeted him.
Then—THUMM.
THUMM. THUMM-THUMM-THUMM.
The Engine roared to life, a visceral, world-ending rhythm that vibrated through the ship's hull. A golden-red aura erupted from King, a pillar of incandescent power that seemed to push against the very stars.
When the light subsided, the Emperor Armor was clad upon him. It was a masterpiece of flowing gold and crimson, its surfaces alive with the phantom swirl of a five-clawed golden dragon. The dragon cannons mounted on his shoulder pauldrons glowed with gathering, catastrophic energy.
The final faceplate slid shut with a definitive hiss. From behind the visor, twin beams of golden-red light lanced out, scorching parallel furrows across the grey lunar plain.
One hundred meters away, Garou rose from his impact crater. The sinister patterns on his dark red armor pulsed like exposed capillaries. "Took you long enough, old man!"
"Patience is a virtue," King's voice filtered through the armor's external speakers, metallically cool. "Or are you that eager for a one-way trip to the afterlife?"
"Hah!"
Garou didn't move—he simply ceased to be in one place and appeared in another. The lunar surface beneath him detonated. A dark red afterimage, sharp as a claw-mark, tore across the vacuum toward King.
In the observation deck, every S-Class hero tensed. The air grew thick.
Superalloy Darkshine's muscles hardened with an unconscious clang.
"It's starting!" Child Emperor whispered, his small fingers flying over a remote. From the ship's underbelly, a swarm of observation drones erupted, their lenses focusing instantly on the two titans now facing off on the silent, dead rock below.
Just as the killing intent of the Monster Calamity God Slayer Fist was about to etch itself across King's visor—
A new light blossomed in the void.
Cosmic Starburst Fist · First Form—
The Emperor Armor's right fist ignited, not with flame, but with a cold, dense, and terrifying brilliance—the heart of a collapsing star made manifest.
Starfall.
Two forces capable of scarring celestial bodies met. There was no sound in the vacuum, only a silent, expanding hellscape of light and annihilated matter. The lunar plain for kilometers around simply ceased to be, replaced by a shimmering, glassified crater. The shockwave traveled through the moon's very body, a seismic event felt across the entire sphere.
…
In a world far below, dawn crept across City Z.
Hero Association Channel One, the most authoritative broadcast in the world, funded jointly by the Association and the global coalition, was a morning ritual. Its daily disaster bulletins dictated the pace of life for millions.
"Ding-a-ling~~~"
Chiba Reina, personal custodian to the S-Class hero Tatsumaki, swatted her alarm into silence. With Tatsumaki on an overnight mission, a rare, unpunctuated sleep had been hers. She stretched, the silken fabric of her pajamas sliding, her mind still wrapped in the soft fog of a day off.
"Hmm… can't get too lazy, even if she's not here…"
Bare feet met plush carpet. Out of habit more than interest, she picked up the remote and flicked on the living room's massive screen.
A flicker of confusion crossed her face. The usual morning news desk was gone. Instead, the famed anchor Mizuno Ai appeared against a breathtaking, impossible backdrop: the full, silver-gray disc of the Moon, its surface alive with flashes of silent destruction.
"—viewers! This is a special, unprecedented live broadcast!" Mizuno Ai's voice, usually so measured, trembled with raw exhilaration. "Through footage provided by S-Class Hero, Child Emperor, we are bringing you the Moon War, live!"
The feed cut to a dizzying, drone's-eye view. Two streaks of light—one gold-red, one dark crimson—crashed together, separated, and crashed again. Each impact sent concentric rings of dust exploding outward in perfect, slow-motion waves. Vast swaths of the lunar surface didn't just crack; they vanished, as if erased by a god's thumb.
Chiba Reina blinked, her sleep-addled brain processing this as an elaborate trailer for some blockbuster film.
Then the anchor spoke the name.
"—our strongest hero, King!"
"King?!"
The half-full carton of milk slipped from Reina's hand, caught just in time before it hit the floor. All drowsiness evaporated. She scrambled forward, her small hands pressing against the cool screen, her wide eyes reflecting the stellar combat.
"His opponent," co-anchor Fujiwara Shota's passionate baritone boomed, "is the newly classified 'Dragon or Above' threat—the monster, Garou!"
Split-screen images filled the display: King's iconic, stern visage beside Garou's bestial, monstrous form.
"Ahhh! It really is him!" A furious blush heated Reina's cheeks. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Abandoning the milk, she clasped her hands under her chin, her focus absolute. "Go, King! Please, win!"
"The battle has raged for thirty-seven minutes!" Mizuno Ai continued, her pointer highlighting areas on a lunar map. "Observatory data confirms over two hundred new impact craters, each with a diameter exceeding five hundred meters!"
The broadcast shifted to an expert panel. A distinguished astrophysicist, his hair wild and glasses askew, gestured frantically at graphs spiking off the charts.
"The energy being released is of a planetary scale!" he exclaimed, voice cracking with awe and terror. "It is sufficient to induce measurable orbital perturbations! We must understand—the stability we are witnessing is not natural! It is an act of immense control! If not for King's deliberate containment of the collateral force, the tidal consequences for Earth would be catastrophic!"
In her quiet living room, Chiba Reina shivered, the scientist's words sinking in. This wasn't just a fight. It was a duel of gods, broadcast on her morning news. And the fate of her world hung in the silent balance, 384,400 kilometers away.