The corridor became a pressure cooker of impossible choices.
Kafka had less than a second to act. The two obsidian Kaiju were on him, their bladed limbs not slashing, but reaching, their intent to capture sickeningly clear. Hoshina was already moving to intercept, a blur of silver, but he wouldn't be fast enough to stop them both. And Saitama... Saitama was just standing there, an unmoving, unreadable variable in a fatal equation.
No choice, Kafka thought, a wave of cold, desperate resignation washing over him. If they take me, it's all over. Kaiju No. 9 gets its specimen. Humanity loses.
His secret no longer mattered. His dream of being a human soldier was a luxury he couldn't afford.
He didn't need to transform fully. He just needed a fraction of the power. He braced himself, letting a surge of Kaiju energy flood his right arm. The sleeve of his uniform tore as the limb expanded, muscles twisting into a hardened, greyish-blue mass.
He threw a punch.
It wasn't a human punch. It had weight. It had monstrous, alien power. He met the lunge of the first Kaiju head-on.
KRAK-BOOOM!
The sound was a wet, explosive crunch. Kafka's fist, powered by the barest minimum of his Kaiju strength, smashed through the creature's obsidian carapace and into its core. The Kaiju disintegrated on impact, its upper torso erupting in a shower of black ichor and shattered armor.
It was a brutally effective, shockingly powerful blow.
And it happened right in front of Vice-Captain Soshiro Hoshina.
Hoshina froze mid-stride, his impossibly fast charge coming to an abrupt halt. His eyes, capable of perceiving the world in slow motion, had seen it all with perfect, horrifying clarity. He saw the transformation. He saw the inhuman power. He saw his strange, impossible cadet become a monster for one explosive, undeniable second.
His suspicions were confirmed. His obsession was justified. His lab rat had just revealed its true colors.
But there was no time to process it. The second Kaiju was still there. It screeched, enraged by the death of its partner, and swung its scythe-like arm at Kafka's exposed back. Kafka, his own arm still smoking and reverting back to human form, couldn't react in time.
The blade never landed.
Saitama, who had been watching the entire exchange with the quiet interest of a man watching a nature documentary, finally decided the show was over.
He moved.
He didn't do anything flashy. He simply appeared between Kafka and the descending blade.
He didn't block it with his hand. He didn't catch it. He didn't even look at it.
He just... let it hit him.
TING.
The sound was small, metallic, and utterly ridiculous. Like a child flicking a spoon against a steel pot.
The Kaiju's blade, an appendage of hardened, biologically forged metal capable of slicing through tank armor, struck the back of Saitama's head.
And it shattered.
The blade exploded into a hundred tiny, harmless fragments, the force of its own failed attack traveling back up the creature's arm and causing its entire limb to buckle and break.
The Kaiju stared at its own broken arm, then at the back of the bald man's head, its primitive, tactical mind utterly incapable of processing what had just happened.
Saitama slowly turned his head, a single, tiny scratch, like one from a mildly annoyed cat, visible on his scalp. He looked at the cowering, broken monster. He then looked at Kafka's terrified face.
He had promised the Leek Guy he'd help him out. And a monster trying to stab his acquaintance in the back was, he decided, annoying.
"Hey," Saitama said to the Kaiju. "That's rude."
He delivered a single, open-palmed slap to the creature's face.
Normal Slap.
The godly action was not a spectacle of light and fury. It was a quiet, intimate moment of total, absolute annihilation.
There was no explosion. No shockwave. The Kaiju didn't fly down the corridor.
It just turned to dust.
The same fine, grey particles that had once been the Cataclysm-Kaiju Daigo now drifted silently to the floor, all that remained of the second assassin. The air in the corridor was suddenly thick with the quiet, terrifying finality of Saitama's power.
Three beings were left in the corridor, shrouded in the motes of a dead monster.
Kafka stared at Saitama, his heart a frantic drum of terror and a strange, overwhelming sense of relief.
Saitama just looked at the small scratch on his head in the reflection of a nearby metal panel. "Huh. That one actually touched me. Guess I need to moisturize." He seemed genuinely more concerned about his scalp care than the two monsters he had just erased.
And Soshiro Hoshina stood there, his mind finally, and completely, broken.
He had just witnessed it all. A cadet transforming and displaying A-level Kaiju strength. The bald anomaly taking a blow that should have split his skull in half and shattering the weapon with his head. And then, a slap that unmade a living being.
His tactical meltdown after the first encounter was an intellectual crisis. This was a spiritual one. He was a man who had dedicated his life to the art of the blade, to the holy trinity of speed, power, and technique.
And he had just seen a man defeat an enemy... with his scalp.
The very foundations of his reality, his identity, and his ambition crumbled into dust, just like the Kaiju. His obsession had led him to this truth, and the truth was an insane, comical, soul-shattering joke.
Saitama looked over at Hoshina, who was standing perfectly still, his priceless blades held loosely in his hands, his eyes wide and completely vacant. "Hey, sword guy. You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Hoshina didn't respond. He didn't seem to be breathing. He was locked in a state of pure, catatonic shock.
The brutal, godly action had just created an unintended consequence. It hadn't just defeated the enemy. It had defeated the very soul of one of humanity's greatest warriors, leaving a void where his purpose used to be. The Blade Master was broken. And the path was now clear for a new, desperate, and far more dangerous obsession to take its place.