19

O(I)O(I)

It was a bright sunny day in City G. While Feather was being held hostage in some storehouse and Stinger was near the ocean facing more hideous sea monsters who risked their lives rising up from the depths, Saitama and Genos were walking down the corner with the young elf. In order to hide that she was an elf they gave her a purple sunhat.

They were only walking with her until they found Fubuki. Saitama hoped they found her fast; this elf had a big appetite. If a strip mall or a dinner had food that smelled good she would salivate and then run in to eat something.

"She should slow down," Saitama said reproachful of the elf's actions. "She's going to bump into someone."

"She's just young-ish, Master Saitama," Genos said bluntly. "When I was young I too would run gaily trying to find a place to explore. Now, if I run without thinking I could really hurt someone. My bucolic sprawled village would have been perfect to run in my current body in, but it is a painful reminder of the sorrow the cyborg has—"

"Genos!" Saitama squeezed the silver sheen metallic shoulder of Genos. Now he was quiet. "What did I say you should do the next time you have a long story about events of your past."

"Say it as a haiku. Would you like me to tell you one right now, Master Saitama?"

Saitama really didn't want to hear it, but who was he to criticize someone trying to try their hardest at something, even something as inane as haiku's.

Before he could hear anything-god-bless-they heard the elf whispering something to herself. Saitama spun around just in time to see that elf make a dash through an alley.

"Genos." He said.

"Yes, Master?"

"How do you feel about jumping over a building?"

At the other side of the alley the elf ran out. She didn't make it six seconds out before Saitama and Genos leaped over the building and landed with as much impact as a kid jumping off a playground slide.

Saitama and Genos followed the overly exuberant elf down the street. She was running very fast and not slowing down even with how many people walked her way.

Finally, she stopped.

She seemed to be very excited about an unknown location not too long ago, but the place she took them to was an ordinary supermarket. But then, who would be stepping out of that market but Fubuki wearing a pink sundress with a pearl necklace, holding her grocery bags like trash bags.

The elf girl sauntered up to her. She was only eleven steps away when Genos clutched his robotic hand on her petite shoulder.

"How did you find out this was Fubuki? Master Saitama doesn't have any pictures of her."

The elf wriggled her right ear. "I could hear her say his name."

Fubuki rotated her neck to the left, her cheeks blushing red from embarrassment.

"Saitama, fancy running into you here? You weren't in your apartment for two days, Genos didn't know where you went, King didn't know, Silverfang couldn't give me an answer, so where did you go?"

Her face was beet-red while she was speaking. She had all the signs of a young girl with a crush on him; made the elf a little giddy.

"I don't know...some world like this one but with swords magically flying into people's hands and giant snakes...or eels. Just lots of things from mythology and other pure fantasies."

Genos and the elf didn't know why Fubuki's red face into into a scowl with bulging eyes, but it seemed to be directed towards Saitama.

"I'm still angry with you—don't think leaving changes that. Do you know why?"

"I don't yyooouuu...Fubuki, why are you so mad at me?"

Hearing that question irked her. She felt what her sister felt all the time.

"You remember that whole Psycho's business where when my sister asked who I was to you you called me an 'acquaintance'?" Although Saitama's face was nonchalant, his nose looked like an arrow-tip and his eyes looked like ants with wrinkles.

"Yeah."

Fubuki stared intensely for twelve uncomfortable seconds before speaking.

"Not long ago I asked you if I was your friend now. What did you say?"

He didn't know when this took place so he couldn't say. What he knew was what he said or didn't say mired Fubuki in sorrow, so his next words needed to be thoughtful.

"I think I said 'are you?'. "

"I'm sorry," words that were so forthright-still weren't enough to really express an apology. "Your more than an acquaintance to me now, and as for calling for one before...sometimes what I say is suchlike its encouraging or curt. I will expound myself on what I say from here on out, and with any luck I won't make you feel bad ever again."

He extended his right hand after removing his red glove.

"Friends from here on out."

His hand was firmly shaken; by a transparent hand of a nine or ten year old. What just happened startled even the nihilistic hero so much his mouth was agape. Before him were the two ghost girls, and he was standing in a grove of trees, so dark he could only see the moon-white just like the moon in his world.

"We are happy to hear you apologize but I don't think you meant it for us." Eilho the redhead said before snickering.

"Why am I back here? I only returned home thirty-two minutes ago, and yes I know that from looking at a clock in the streets."

"This is all just speculation on our part," the ghost adjacent to Eilho, Sauve, said. "But I think someone or something is bringing you here to fight against the threats in our world."

"What threats?" he asked.

She floated off the ground before pointing her finger right through Saitama's shoulder.

"Them."

Saitama swerved his head around. He glimpsed off into the distance where a beacon of flames were burning and weapons far longer and sharper than any pike were jiggling in the arms of whoever or whatever army was marching.

The moonlight cascaded over that army for a second for Saitama to see what they were: goblins. Goblins in fancy armor. Goblins with muscles bigger than Popeye's. Goblin's with grimoires and wands. Even goblins riding other creatures.

It wasn't just goblins or creatures on the ground he saw.

Flying above like planes looming before bombing were the silhouette's of long-tailed, two-armed, four-winged hairy creatures.

Aback but unafraid, Saitama lightly jogged ahead, then slid down the hill to the ground like a clown in a small car going up and down a ramp. He meet them on the path. He was outnumbered one hundred-to-one. However, being outnumbered against this pygmy threat was like being a cat with hundreds of red dots pointing around you. They crept closer with salacious looks on their hideous faces.

Lopping towards him as a fray of blood thirsty monsters, and they were all punched in the face but not by Saitama's fist; if they were hit by him and not a mysterious man with chalky white skin, red eyes with gold irises and black sclera's wearing a thin press golden trimmed V-line from his neck to his pelvis with black flaps...they would be nothing but a puddle of blood and viscera.

While the goblins were sprawled with their backs on the ground and rubbing the sore spots they were hit, the chalky figure turned around fixating his crimson eyes on him.

"Hello. It is I, that bloodsucker from the cave who watched you kill all of his kin. I should be petrified, trembling at the very sight of you...all I feel is new impetus for my life as a vampire knowing there's someone I can one day drain of their blood until their shriveled up. That day will come...a fortnight...a season...your mortal lifespan. All I know is it isn't today."

A sword magically appeared in his hand; how ironic it was to Saitama. The blade was thick, the length of a short-sword but was glinting more like a swashbuckler. The pommel was wrapped with a fabric so black it blended seamlessly with the night and a red tally on the left side of its midsection.

He thrust his sword as high as his arm could extend like a civil war general, roared "Launch the Miannve!"

Saitama stood stolidly, arms to his side unamused when dozens of goblins unsheathed their very own individual bronze horns. They blew one powerful mouthful of air into the mouthpiece and released a fog of what this world would call "miasma".

The miasma was vacuumed before being sucked into the mouth of the vampire. He still seemed to have the miasma in his mouth, making chewing gestures while what was inside wriggled around.

Saitama was nonchalant, unmoving. He didn't even twitch a muscle when the vampire spewed the purple miasma out of his mouth. It whooshed on the left before veering right, covering the hero from his plastic yellow suit to his bulgy mob eyes.

He didn't feel a thing, not even an itch inside his nostrils.

He just did what any white collar worker did if something like this happened on his or her day off—swatted his hand trying to get it out of his face.

It worked, the clouds dissipated but where he was—in a forest with goblins and a vampire—now he was somewhere else. He was in a green florescent temple with small statues on pedestals, scimitar's pinned to the ceiling with long rods, and tiled bathroom floor 140-centimeter cubes.

The statues were cast using green stones. Both looked like furry creatures on a comic book cover, only their chests were covered by their left paws.

One had the face of a cat and the other was human; banged hair feminine face.

Being in a place like this just screamed MAZE. Saitama wasn't going to race around this place—he had enough of that when he accidentally stumbled into the Monster Association hideout.

He squatted down, joined his palms together so one was on top of the other, with his limitless energy he couldn't find excitement with anymore, he jumped so hard the floor beneath him ruptured and he soared through the ceiling like a rocket.

He saw lots of bright colorful lights he wouldn't see in the sky or on any walls, but the best light he saw was the suns' ray when he egressed out to the overworld.

He was in some part of this world with frigid air, mist, and mountains only one hundred yards away. The first thing he did—observing this majestic view more astounding than City's A ski trip resort—was turn away from it and start moving South.

O(I)O(I)

Flecks of ceiling descended down in a room all dark with a painted green paint in the corner just to give its tenebrosity a little light.

There was a young dark skin girl with gray stone claws where her fingers should be, a blue tail with white dots pressed down while she was sprawled on a bench, blue eyes and disheveled white hair.

Before these flecks came down she spent most of her time wiggling her claws. The moment that first fleck fell on her nose, she of course almost sneezed, but after that she stopped being a sprawled prisoner and soared to the ceiling.

The wall felt cold on her claws, but her cold blooded heart was feeling fuzzy for the first time in her year trapped here. She took action in escaping.