The VIP Lounge. Narrative Void.
The room doesn't exist anymore. Not really. The furniture, the walls, the spilled ambrosia—they have become sketches. Pencil lines on a white background.
Saitama stands in the center of the drawing. He is the only thing that retains full color and depth. The bright yellow of his suit is an eyesore against the sudden monochrome of the world.
Standing opposite him is The Author. The entity is fluid, composed of dripping Vantablack ink. He holds a quill the size of a spear.
"You tore my page," The Author repeats. His voice doesn't come from a throat; it comes from everywhere, like a narrator reading into your ear. "This story requires conflict. Struggle. Loss. You provide... none."
Saitama rubs a smudge of soot off his cheek. He looks at the faceless ink man.
"Are you the manager?" Saitama asks. "Your restaurant has terrible service. First, monsters block the door. Then a giant lady crushes my steak. Now the walls are disappearing. I want a refund."
The Author raises the quill.
"Revision One: The Hero Weakens."
He writes in the air. Burning script hangs in the void.
The words flash gold. The reality bends to match the description.
Odin, watching from the sidelines where he has been reduced to a sketch, feels the crushing weight. The All-Father collapses, his sketched knees hitting the sketched floor.
"What... sort of magic is this?" Odin gasps. "Word... magic?"
Saitama stands.
He scratches his butt.
He yawns.
"Man, I'm getting sleepy," Saitama admits. "But that's probably the low blood sugar."
The Author pauses. The quill drips.
"You... ignore the narration?"
"Is someone talking?" Saitama looks around. "I hear mumbles. Speak up, ink-guy."
The Author's form flickers. This is impossible. Characters obey the text. That is the fundamental law of fiction.
"Anomaly," The Author hisses. "Revision Two: The Hero Is Erased."
He slashes the quill sideways. A wave of whiteout—absolute void—rushes toward Saitama. It erases the floor sketched beneath it. It erases the air. It deletes existence to make room for a new draft.
"Genos!" Saitama points. "Watch out for the white stuff. It looks sticky."
"Master!" Genos engages his thrusters, but the whiteout is too fast. It consumes the cyborg's legs.
They don't melt. They simply stop existing. The drawing isn't finished there anymore.
"My legs!" Genos calculates. "Sensors indicate data corruption! I am being formatted!"
Saitama frowns.
"Hey."
He steps in front of the white wave.
He takes a breath.
He blows.
Whoosh.
It isn't a hurricane. It's a puff.
But the force of Saitama's breath hits the conceptual wave of erasure.
The whiteout splatters backward. It hits The Author. The entity screams as his own erasing fluid dissolves his ink arm.
"Stop messing with my roommate," Saitama says. "Repair parts are expensive."
The Meta Breakdown.
Loki, hiding behind a jagged pencil-drawn rock, starts laughing. It's a hysterical, broken sound.
"I see it!" Loki shrieks, tearing at his hair. "I see the strings! We are lines! We are just ink on paper! And HE!" Loki points at Saitama. "He is the eraser!"
The Author regenerates his arm. The ink boils.
"I AM THE NARRATIVE! I DECIDE THE END!"
He plunges the quill into the "ground."
Black spikes erupt. Not physical spikes—plot holes. Jagged, tearing abysses where the story falls apart. The universe begins to glitch. Characters from other timelines bleed in.
A cowboy with a revolver appears and vanishes. A giant mecha flickers in and out.
The continuity is shattering.
"Die!" The Author screams. "Die for the sake of the plot!"
He swings the quill. It transforms into a scythe made of "Climax." The ultimate weapon meant to finish the arc.
Saitama catches the blade.
With two fingers.
The ink splashes.
Saitama looks at his glove.
"Ah!" he yells. "Dammit! This is permanent marker! It won't come out!"
Rage. True, unfiltered rage fills Saitama.
Not at the god. Not at the monster. Not at the abstract concept of narrative causality.
But at the laundry stain.
"You ruin my lunch. You ruin my clothes."
Saitama tightens his grip. The scythe shatters into letters.
"Serious Move," Saitama growls.
The Author backs away. For the first time, the entity feels something. It feels like he is a character in a horror movie, and the monster has just found him in the closet.
"Wait," The Author pleads. "I can rewrite it! I can give you hair! I can give you S-Class Rank 1! I can give you popularity!"
Saitama pulls his fist back.
"I just..."
Serious Punch.
"...want a refund!"
He punches the Ink Man.
He doesn't just hit the entity. He hits the dimension the entity occupies.
He punches the sketch.
The force travels through the drawing.
It ripples the paper.
It tears the page.
RIIIIIIP.
The sound is deafening.
The monochrome world shatters like a stained-glass window struck by a train.
Color floods back in violently.
The Author screams as he is dispersed—not killed, but scattered into a billion typos and discarded drafts. The ink explodes outward, painting the sky of Valhalla black for a split second before raining down as harmless drizzle.
The Aftermath.
The VIP lounge is gone.
They are standing on a floating island of bedrock in the sky.
The gods—Odin, Loki, Ares, Jack—are back in full color. They are lying on the ground, gasping for air, clutching their chests.
The sense of doom is gone.
The crushing pressure of the "story" is lifted.
For the first time ever, they feel... free. Uncertain. Unguided by fate.
Saitama stands at the edge of the floating island.
He looks at his glove. It is stained black.
"Great," he sighs. "Just great. I have to scrub this with baking soda."
Genos drags himself over. His legs have popped back into existence—the rewrite was canceled.
"Master," Genos says, voice full of awe. "You defeated the Conceptual Abstract of Fate. By hitting it. Your strike disrupted the causality field and rebooted the local reality server."
"I hit the guy who threw ink at me," Saitama corrects. "Don't overthink it."
He turns to the gods.
Odin is sitting up. The All-Father looks ten thousand years older. His eye is wide, staring at the empty sky where the "script" used to be.
"It's silent," Odin whispers. "The whispers... the prophecies... they're silent."
Hermes stands up, brushing dust off his suit. He closes his notebook. He takes a pen from his pocket and snaps it in half.
"I believe," Hermes says, looking at Saitama with a mix of terror and gratitude, "that the tournament is officially cancelled."
The Departure.
"Hey."
Saitama taps Odin's shoulder.
Odin flinches violently.
"Since you guys ruined my steak, and the weird ink guy didn't have a wallet..." Saitama holds out a hand. "...can you validate my parking? Or open a portal? I really want to go home. There's a convenience store near my apartment that sells discounted bento boxes at 8 PM."
Odin looks at the hand. The hand that snapped Gungnir. The hand that slapped Zeus. The hand that erased the Author.
He looks at Loki.
Loki nods frantically. "Send him back. Now. Immediately. Yesterday."
Odin stands. He summons his magic—what's left of it.
"Yes," Odin says. His voice is humble. "I will open the Bifrost. Direct line. No stops."
Odin raises both hands. Runes circle the air.
A gateway opens.
Inside, Saitama can see it. Not gold. Not jewels.
He sees grey concrete. A street light. A discarded soda can.
Z-City.
"Beautiful," Saitama whispers. tears well up in his eyes.
"Genos, let's go. We might make the evening rush."
"Yes, Master." Genos picks up the bag of salvaged locker-room snacks.
They walk toward the portal.
Before stepping through, Saitama stops.
He turns back to the assembly of broken, confused, liberated gods.
"Hey," Saitama says.
Every god freezes. What now? Is he going to destroy them? Demand tribute? Become King?
"Next time," Saitama says, pointing at the ruins of Valhalla, "try talking it out. Repairs are expensive."
He waves.
"Bye."
He steps through.
Genos follows, bowing one last time. "Thank you for the training exercise."
Zap.
The portal closes.
Epilogue.
Silence on the floating rock.
The wind howls through the emptiness where the VIP lounge used to be.
Ares stares at the spot where the portal vanished.
"Is he... really gone?"
"He is," Jack the Ripper smiles. He adjusts his monocle. "What a colorful shade of beige he was. The most terrifying color I've ever seen."
Brunhilde lands on the platform. She looks at the gods. The gods look at her.
There is no animosity. Just shared trauma.
"So," Brunhilde says, lighting a cigarette. "Draw?"
Zeus—bandaged, broken, supported by two nurses—hobbles onto the platform. He looks at the sky.
He starts to chuckle. Then laugh. Then roar with laughter.
"We thought we were the peak!" Zeus gasps, clutching his broken ribs. "We thought we were the summit! And we were just ants under a boot!"
He looks at his sons. At his enemies.
"Ragnarok is over," Zeus declares. "Humanity... you win."
"Why?" Odin asks. "Because we fear them?"
"No," Zeus smiles, a wiser, weary smile. "Because I never want to risk THAT guy coming back to defend them."
Z-City. Saitama's Apartment.
Saitama walks in. He kicks off his boots.
"We're home."
"Welcome back, Master." Genos places the bag of snacks on the table. "I have calculated the total time dilation. We were gone for forty minutes."
Saitama turns on the TV.
The news is on. A giant monster is attacking City J.
"Current Threat Level: Demon," the anchor screams.
Saitama sighs. He opens the bag of chips from Buddha's locker.
He sits down.
"Demon level? Too much effort."
He eats a chip.
It is stale.
Saitama freezes.
"Genos."
"Yes, Master?"
"The chip is stale."
"It appears the vacuum seal was compromised during the battle with Beelzebub."
Saitama stares at the TV.
The monster on the screen roars.
Saitama clenches his fist. Crushing the stale chip.
"I'm going to go punch that monster," Saitama says, standing up. "I need to hit something."
"Shall I accompany you, Master?"
"No. Stay here." Saitama puts on his gloves. "And separate the recyclables. If we miss trash day, I'm going to be really upset."
Saitama walks out the door.
The wind blows.
The cape flutters.
One Punch. That's all it ever takes.