7 He's dead

"Oioioi, what is this? What are you planning on doing to her?"

Seeing Tatsumaki tied on that table, Boom couldn't believe his eyes. Based on what he had heard, she was an unstoppable force that couldn't be stopped. And that opinion was strengthened even more when he met her again, earlier today.

But now, that thought was shattered. It might have that she was caught off guard somehow. No, she DID get caught off guard. Boom was sure of it.

The man in front of her was surely the boss of this place. He had that aura on him. And Boom could also tell that he was extremely strong. So strong even, that he knew he had little chance of beating this man. Still nothing compared to Tatsumaki, though.

"You must be the one called Otento, right?" Boom asked.

"Indeed I am... And who might you be?" Otento was a bit taken aback about the newcomer knowing his name, but didn't show it on his face in the slightest.

"I'm Boom. And I'm here to, umm... escort Tatsumaki home. So let her go, would you?"

"I'm afraid I cannot do that. And I also cannot let you leave this place either." The man answered calmly as he reached out with his hand.

Suddenly, Boom widened his eyes and immediately leaped to the side. Looking at his previous position, the even stone floor was replaced by a small crater, caused by a sudden increase in gravity.

"Hooh?" Otento smirked. His eyes glowed green with his hand extended forward, causing another crater to appear, but once again Boom managed to evade it. 'He is fast...'

"Oooh no. That trick won't work on me again. I've seen it being used enough times already." Boom shook his head.

The increase in gravity came extremely fast but not instantaneously. So he would also be able to just feel when the gravity starts increasing and evade before the pushing force reaches its full power.

In addition to that, each of Otento's attacks started with some kind of physical movement, usually with one of his hands. And however small it was, Boom was able to notice it and predict the timing of the esper's attacks, even though he could never be fully sure of what kind of attack would be coming his way.

Instead of just waiting his opponent to attack him and then dodging, Boom decided to go on the offensive. And knowing the danger his current opponent posed, he decided to go all out from the start.

'Awakening Breath'

Then, with maximum speed, he pounced at the floating psychic and managed to reach within striking range. He used a full power punch aimed straight at the face. However, before it could connect, a sphere-shaped psychic barrier from in an instant and blocked the attack without much trouble.

It seemed his current opponent had much greater reflexes too, compared to his previous encounters today. "What in the-!?"

During the little time Boom was falling back to the ground, Otento managed to land a gravity attack on him, making him land hard on the ground.

"Ugh!"

"I'm sorry. I thought you told me that these kind of attacks won't work on you again." Otento smirked, looking down to him from his higher spot. 'He became even faster...' He was internally surprised, however.

In response, Boom gritted his teeth. His muscles bulged in his lowered position before he jumped to the side with full power, managing to escape the area of increased gravity.

"Hah! See? It didn't work!" He smiled proudly, but still never letting his guard down, despite how he may have appeared.

"I see, very well then." Otento said with a calm tone and started to exert his powers again.

Boom stayed vigilant, and hearing noises from his right side, he glanced and saw a large part of the huge wall crumbling, revealing a huge pile of concrete rubble. Boom had a bad feeling about this.

"I had this stock prepared in case of emergencies." The esper stated.

Then said rubble started glowing green and flew through newly made hole toward him at great speeds.

'Water Stream Encampment'

Boom created a small area where his fists destroyed all the incoming projectiles that entered it, no matter from which direction. As time went on, the rubble turned into smaller and smaller pieces, Otento keeping control of them all, resulting in even more frequent attacks and all of them faster. As a result, even though the attacks were individually weaker than previously, it became harder to block it all.

Otento was exerting a decent amount of power and veins started showing on his forehead, while Boom was hard at work blocking everything and sweating like a pig.

Soon everything came to a stop as both fighters were panting. Boom saw this as an opportunity and once again pounced at the esper with a full power punch, hoping he was too tired to put a proper defense.

Unfortunately, a barrier managed to block his attack once again. This time, after realizing he couldn't penetrate the defense, he kicked into the sphere to get back to the ground quickly enough to avoid getting hit by Otento's attack while falling again.

Once Boom landed, he immediately attacked again at the exact same spot as the previous time, resulting small cracks to appear.

'Okay, nice! Progress.' Boom thought.

The esper's eyes glowed as he predicted where Boom was going to land next. When the landing happened, his whole body was enveloped in psychic power that tried to crush him.

"Ngh!" Boom struggled and tried to get free from the hold.

He had been forced to a battle of strength by his opponent. Both Boom and Otento used their full force to struggle against each other.

Both parties were basically staying in place. Boom couldn't break free and the esper wasn't able to crush him.

"I never could have imagined a brat like you without powers would be so strong, I give you my praise. I didn't want to use this yet, since I have only recently discovered and have yet to fully master it, but you give me no choice." Otento said with a strained face.

While Boom was still struggling to get way form the bind, it abruptly stopped, giving him freedom. He wanted to use this to his advantage right away and attack, but before he could do anything, his whole body started writhing in pain all of a sudden.

It felt like the very core of his being was getting twisted, and he felt unimaginable pain from his insides. He tried to think of a way to get out of this situation but couldn't think of any. All he could do is grit his teeth and try to struggle through it.

'I can't lose! I have to save Tatsumaki!'

Boom fell to his knees, his veins bulged all over his body, some of them popping open, and his eyes were bloodshot. He gritted his teeth as he refused to die. Soon, his whole body momentarily glowed bright blue, then dimmed back down and his eyes turned white. He fell to the ground motionless, in a pool of his own blood.

"*Huff* *Wheeze* *Huff*" Otento had used up every last inch of his strength and was unable to float, let alone move, anymore. As such, he decided to lay on the ground to gather back his strength while panting hard.

'Seems like he finally died. I can sense no life in him anymore. I can't believe it took all my strength to beat him, even with that final technique. He had a strong willpower to be able to resist it to such an extent. Well, I'm glad it's now over.'

Otento's relief didn't last long, however, as he felt a surge of power from his side. Glancing there, he found the source of it laying on top of the metal table.

"I-Impossible! You shouldn't be awake yet, let alone use any of your powers! I made sure of that!" Otento yelled in distress.

The bindings over Tatsumaki bent open as she began floating through the air and watched her surroundings. She could see that the whole hall was full of cracks and craters from a battle, her gaze finally landing on the motionless body of Boom.

'Boom, he's dead? ...What was he doing here...' Her gaze was almost sad, but then turned to one of anger. 'What are you doing here!? How did you even manage to get here?!' She thought while gritting her teeth, full of frustration.

She was very angry at the moment. Angry at Otento for killing an innocent person, but most of all, she was angry at herself. She could have dealt with Otento and his minions before the young martial artist even got here, had she not been so careless and gotten caught in such a stupid and simple trap. This was a complete failure on her part.

***

<<< Earlier today >>>

The place where Tatsumaki had been led to turned out to be a small mountain. She didn't want to bother with finding out some secret entrance, so she just grabbed about half of the mountain with her power and ripped it off. She then found an entrance in the form of a large hole and went in.

The tunnel ended up eventually leading her to a room of rock. There had been 2 people sitting by an empty table, drinking tea while waiting for her. One was a curvaceous woman with long, straight, purple hair while the other one was a muscular man with a brown crew-cut.

"Welcome, Tatsumaki. We've been expecting you." The man said.

Once Tatsumaki got into the room, said man lifted rock walls to seal the two exits of the room with his psychokinetic power. Tatsumaki let it happen since it only made it harder for them to escape.

"I'm only going to ask this one time so answer it. Where's Otento?" Tatsumaki asked with an irritated expression.

"Sure, we'll tell you about the boss' whereabouts. But before that, how about we play a little game?" The purple haired woman smiled.

Tatsumaki responded with a friendly smile of her own, which caused a silent moment with a calm atmosphere.

That moment ended quickly, however, as the two weaker espers were flung to the wall on the right before even realizing what had happened. The man was unable to keep his consciousness, while the woman was coughing blood, barely staying awake.

Tatsumaki became confused, hoverer, as she could feel her eyelids becoming very heavy as she became really drowsy. She knew this wasn't due to her exhausting herself. But what could it be then? She didn't sense any psychic powers being used.

The purple haired woman then smirked as she pointed to a tiny hole in the top corner of the room.

"Invisible poison gas, no taste, no smell. All you need is a little whiff and you go to dreamland. Seems like it really does work, even on you!" The woman's eyes gained a crazy and excited look before she eventually lost her consciousness too.

'Damnit! I got caught in such a stupid trap, by such stupid people, in such a stupid place? You've got to be kidding me!' She cursed as she finally fell to sleep.

***

<<< Present >>>

"Tch!" Tatsumaki turned to glare at Otento, who was trying to lift himself up without success, and asked him, "What happened here?"

But the man wasn't currently listening. "I used months to prepare for this. I kept track of anyone who was connected to her in any way. In the end, I even managed to capture her. But then he came, that damn Boom! My information network should have known it all, yet that brat was a complete unknown. He shouldn't have held a strong enough connection with Tatsumaki to follow her all the way here. In addition, he was so strong. How could such a strong individual go unnoticed from me. It doesn't make any sense...' Otento muttered to himself in lament, not paying attention to his surroundings.

"AAAAHH" He then screamed in agony as his left arm was quickly twisted to an unrecognizable state.

"Answer my question." She left no room for any blabbering.

He tried to remember her question, as he had not payed attention at the time. He knew what it entailed if she had to repeat her question.

Fortunately for him, he remembered and decided to answer truthfully. He had nothing to gain by lying. All his plans were already ruined anyway. "...That man managed to breach our base all the way in here so I had no choice but to finish... him off... by... myself." Otento's words slowed down and his eyes widened, almost popping them out of their sockets, as he looked past Tatsumaki. "H-how is that possible?!"

Not knowing what got him so perplexed, she locked Otento in place just in case, and looked behind her. "Wha?" It was now her turn to be baffled. What she saw, was Boom standing in place, covered in blood and in an unconscious state.

Neither esper had been able to sense him moving and could only notice him by eye sight. That was because he had no presence in him, as if he was still dead. Could it be he was never dead in the first place?

Tatsumaki was quick to envelop him in her power to feel his current state. He had both internal and external bleeding all over his body and had already lost way too much blood. With all things considered, he should already be dead.

She started strengthening and healing his organs as fast as possible. While doing that, she could hear him muttering something and tried to hear what he was saying.

"...I ...ve ha... ...r, I ...ve to save ...er, I have to save her, I have to save her..." Boom was repeating the same words over and over again, as if clinging on to those very words to postpone succumbing to his eventual death.

Tatsumaki grimaced, and quietly finished healing him. She then picked him up along with Otento, left the secret base, and flew away in the direction of the nearest city.