Sector Gamma was a monument to modern paranoia. The central data and power node for the entire region, it was a squat, windowless fortress of reinforced concrete and steel, surrounded by a kill-zone of electrified fences and automated sentry guns—all of which were now cold, dark, and silent.
Genos landed first, a whisper of hydraulics in the dead quiet. A moment later, a faint thump announced Saitama's arrival. Kafka, his human lungs burning from a series of continent-sized leaps, landed last, stumbling and gasping for air.
"Master, my scans confirm it," Genos said, his blue optics piercing the darkness. "The central power conduit has been severed, and the core data servers are being consumed. I detect a single, large Kaiju life form approximately 200 meters below us."
"So we just need to go down there and punch it, right?" Saitama asked, already bored. "Let's find the front door."
"There is no 'front door'," Kafka wheezed, finally catching his breath. He pointed at the massive, thirty-foot-thick blast door that served as the main entrance. "This facility is designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike. It's completely sealed."
Saitama walked over to the blast door. He gave it a thoughtful look. Then he knocked.
knock-knock.
The sound was soft. But the reinforced titanium-steel alloy of the door vibrated, and a perfect, fist-sized circle of metal simply... fell out, clattering onto the concrete with a loud CLANG.
Saitama peered through the hole into the dark interior. "Hello? Anybody home?"
Kafka and Genos just stared at the hole, then at the half-inch-thick piece of "impenetrable" metal on the ground.
"Your 'knock' appears to have created a localized molecular disintegration," Genos noted, already scanning the material composition of the cutout. "Fascinating."
"The door's too thick," Saitama grumbled. "Let's just make our own." He pulled back his fist.
"Master, wait!" Genos cautioned. "A punch of sufficient force to breach the primary wall could destabilize the entire substructure, potentially causing a catastrophic reactor meltdown."
"Ugh, fine," Saitama said, letting his hand drop. He looked around. "So, how do we get in?"
Before anyone could answer, the ground beneath their feet began to writhe. The concrete floor bulged upwards as if something massive were trying to push its way through.
"It's coming up," Kafka said, taking a defensive stance. "It must have sensed us."
The floor ruptured. A massive, horrifying creature burst through, showering them with rock and dirt. It was Kaiju No. 9's creation: the phase-burrower. A monstrous, worm-like beast covered in shifting, chitinous plates that seemed to shimmer and flicker in and out of focus. Its maw was a swirling vortex of energy, and dangling from its jaws were shredded bundles of fiber-optic cables—the guts of the city's information network.
It let out a low, guttural roar, a sound that seemed to warp the very air around it. This was the bug in the machine.
"Okay," Saitama said, his expression completely flat. "He looks punchable."
He took a step forward, but Genos moved to intercept him.
"Master, allow me," the cyborg said, his arms transforming, glowing with energy. "This creature's phasing ability presents a unique tactical problem. Your kinetic force may be ineffective if it enters a non-corporeal state at the moment of impact. It is a problem best solved with sustained, area-of-effect energy saturation. My incineration cannons are optimal for this."
It was a sound, logical, and well-reasoned tactical assessment. It was also completely wrong, but it was born from a disciple's desperate need to be useful to a god who needed nothing.
Saitama just shrugged. "Okay. Go for it. But make it quick. I think I feel a draft coming from that hole I made in the door."
Genos turned to face the phasing worm, his body radiating power. "I will be swift, Master."
The battle began. Genos became a whirlwind of fire and steel. He unleashed torrents of energy, attempting to lock the creature in its solid state. The phase-burrower, however, was a master of its element. It flickered in and out of reality, Genos's powerful blasts passing harmlessly through it one moment, then sparking off its chitinous hide the next.
It was a frustrating, high-stakes battle of timing and prediction. The corridor was filled with the roar of Genos's cannons and the screech of the reality-bending Kaiju.
Kafka and Saitama watched from the sidelines.
"He's good," Kafka admitted, awestruck by the sheer destructive power and tactical brilliance Genos displayed. "But the monster... it's like it's designed to be the perfect counter for him."
"Genos is thinking too much," Saitama said simply. He had seen this before. His disciple's greatest strength—his analytical mind—was also his greatest weakness. He was trying to solve the problem, to find the logical solution. But the Kaiju wasn't playing by the rules of logic.
The phase-burrower, sensing an opening as Genos recalibrated his energy frequency, lunged forward. It moved with impossible speed, its body becoming a flickering ghost. It passed straight through Genos's defensive energy shield.
"Master!" Genos yelled, caught by surprise, as the creature's semi-corporeal head solidified inside his defensive perimeter.
Its energy-drenched maw opened wide, ready to bite down and consume the cyborg's power core.
But it never got the chance.
WHACK.
The sound was flat, percussive, and profoundly ordinary. It was the sound of someone swatting a fly.
Saitama, who had seemingly been standing still a moment ago, was now beside Genos. He had one hand on the cyborg's shoulder, pulling him back. And his other hand, held open, had just smacked the top of the Kaiju's head.
The phase-burrower froze. Its reality-bending abilities ceased. All the flickering, all the energy, all the shimmering instability... just stopped. It became a solid, very confused-looking monster.
Saitama's slap hadn't been an energy attack or a kinetic blow in the traditional sense. He had, with the casual arrogance of a bored god, reached into the mess of quantum uncertainty and slapped the creature's wave-function back into a single, stable, and very punchable state.
"Stop messing around and just hit it," Saitama said to the Kaiju, as if admonishing a child.
He then pulled his fist back.
Normal Punch.
The punch connected with the now-solid head of the Kaiju. This time, there was a sound. It was the sound of a sixty-ton monster being turned into a biological cannonball.
The phase-burrower's entire body was launched backwards with incomprehensible force. It shot back down the hole it had created, a screaming blur of monster. It continued down, smashing through hundreds of meters of solid bedrock in a fraction of a second, until it was finally, mercifully, atomized by the friction and pressure deep within the Earth's mantle.
A long, deep, perfectly smooth tunnel, glowing faintly with residual heat, now extended from their feet to the planet's core.
Saitama blew on his knuckles. "See? Simple."
He looked over at his disciple. Genos was staring at the perfectly smooth tunnel, then back at his master, his optical sensors whirring as they tried, and failed, to process the event. He had brought a supercomputer to a fistfight, and his master had just solved a quantum mechanics problem with a slap.
Genos bowed deeply. "My apologies, Master," he said, his voice full of a new, profound humility. "My logic was... flawed. I have much to learn."
Saitama just patted him on the back. "Don't worry about it. You're trying too hard."
He then looked at the gaping hole in the floor. "Alright. One pest down. Now, how are we going to fix the toaster?" The glitch in the machine was gone, but the city was still broken. Their work wasn't done yet.