The red emergency lights painted the corridor in bloody strokes. For a moment, no one moved. It was a tableau of imminent, fratricidal violence: Hoshina's Radicals, their faces grim and resolved, versus Kikoru's upstart loyalists, their youthful defiance burning bright.
"You are making a grave mistake, Captain," Hoshina said, his voice a low, final warning.
Kikoru's grin widened. "I'm the daughter of the Director General. I live a life of grave mistakes."
With that, she charged.
The corridor erupted into a storm of controlled, high-stakes chaos. This was not a Kaiju battle; this was soldier against soldier, comrade against comrade. It was brutal, intimate, and heartbreaking.
Kikoru, a golden whirlwind, met Hoshina head-on. It was a clash of titans, the prodigy's overwhelming power against the radical's monstrous, newfound speed. Axe met blade, the shriek of exotic metals echoing in the narrow space. Shockwaves from their blows cracked the reinforced walls. This wasn't a spar; it was a duel for the soul of their organization.
The soldiers behind them engaged in their own desperate battles. Reno, his face a mask of fury, found himself facing off against one of Hoshina's lieutenants, a man who had been his squad instructor just weeks before.
"Stand down, Ichikawa!" the lieutenant grunted, parrying Reno's frenetic rifle-butt strikes. "You don't understand what's at stake!"
"I understand that you're trying to kidnap my friend!" Reno roared back, his loyalty to Kafka overriding all protocol.
Kafka was a storm without a center, a non-combatant prize in a war being fought over him. Hoshina's men were trying to secure him, while Kikoru's were desperately trying to shield him. He found himself being pushed and pulled, a pawn in a deadly chess match. The frustration and helplessness were maddening. He was arguably the most powerful person in the room, save for the two dueling demigods, and he couldn't do a thing without revealing his hand and making things a thousand times worse.
As Hoshina and Kikoru battled, their philosophies were on full display. Kikoru was all explosive force, her every swing capable of felling a building, a testament to her belief in absolute, overwhelming power. Hoshina was a ghost, his new bio-enhanced speed allowing him to phase and flicker around her attacks, his scalpel-like blades seeking not a killing blow, but a precise, disabling strike. He wasn't trying to defeat her; he was trying to neutralize her.
He finally saw an opening. As Kikoru committed to a massive overhand swing, Hoshina flowed past her guard, his blade aiming not for her, but for the primary power conduit on her suit's back. A single, perfect cut.
Kikoru's suit sparked and died, the golden glow fizzling out. She stumbled, suddenly burdened by the dead weight of her own armor, her axe feeling like it weighed a ton. She was beaten.
"It is over, Captain," Hoshina said, his blade at her throat. "Power is meaningless without precision."
But just as he spoke, a new, far more sinister sound echoed through the corridor. A wet, tearing sound from the ceiling vents above.
SKREEEEE!
A creature dropped from the ceiling, one of Kaiju No. 9's new infiltration units. A biomechanical horror, half-spider, half-mantis, its eyes glowing with a cold, analytical light.
It had bypassed the entire civil war. While they had been fighting each other, the real enemy had simply walked in through the back door.
The spider-Kaiju ignored the dueling factions. Its multiple, glowing red eyes locked onto its one, true target: Kafka.
It launched itself forward with blinding speed.
Every soldier in the room, their internal squabbles forgotten in the face of the true enemy, opened fire. A storm of energy rounds peppered the creature's hide, but sparked harmlessly off its specially-designed, energy-resistant armor.
Hoshina cursed, abandoning his victory over Kikoru to meet this new threat. He moved to intercept, but the creature was prepared. It secreted a thick, viscous goo from its spinnerets, blanketing the floor. Hoshina, for all his speed, was momentarily caught, his boots sinking into the incredibly adhesive trap.
The Kaiju was on Kafka in an instant, its multiple, spindly limbs wrapping around him, sharp needles extending from their tips. This was a capture unit, designed to paralyze and abduct.
Kafka roared in defiance, a surge of Kaiju strength, raw and uncontrolled, erupting from him. He tore one of the creature's limbs off, but he was ensnared. He was caught.
It was in that moment of absolute desperation, with every hero in the room neutralized, that the most unexpected event of all occurred.
The concrete wall at the far end of the corridor simply ceased to exist. Not an explosion. Not a hole. Just a clean, rectangular doorway of empty space.
And through it, walked Saitama.
He was holding a half-eaten bag of potato chips, and his expression was one of profound, world-weary annoyance.
"Seriously?" he said, his voice echoing in the stunned silence. He looked at the spider-Kaiju mauling his friend. He looked at the two factions of soldiers pointing guns at each other. He looked at Hoshina stuck in the goo, and at Kikoru in her powered-down suit. "I leave you guys alone for five minutes, and you start a food fight and let bugs in the house."
Everyone stared. Saitama. Here. Now. He wasn't supposed to be here. The plan, the battle, the entire war—none of it had accounted for him.
He popped a final chip into his mouth, crumpled the bag, and tossed it perfectly into a distant, unseen trash can.
"Okay," he announced, cracking his knuckles with a sound like rocks grinding together. "Everybody stay still. This is going to get really messy, and I don't want to accidentally hit one of the good guys."
The Godly Action was about to begin. The siege of Tachikawa wasn't a war between soldiers or a hunt for a monster anymore. It was pest control on a biblical scale, and the exterminator was finally, and reluctantly, on the clock.