Chapter 5: Submission Broadcast
The journey from the Obsidian Throne Room was not a journey in any conventional sense. One moment they were surrounded by pulsing black stone and the hum of pending doom, the next they stood amid a different kind of power. The air here was sharper, drier, laced with the tang of ozone and the low thrum of massive generators.
The Global Broadcast Station’s main transmission hall was a cathedral of bad news. Tiered consoles formed a semi-circle around a central, raised dais where a single, sleek chair faced a wall of dormant monitors. The ceiling soared away into darkness, strung with dormant track lights. Everything was polished black metal and matte grey composite, cold and impersonal. But on the dais, the main camera’s red light was already glowing, a single, Cyclopean eye waiting to be fed.
Do-S walked a slow circle around the dais, her boots clicking on the metal grating. Saitama stood where she had left him, near the entrance, still as a post. He watched her.
“This is where they tell everyone what to fear,” she said, her voice echoing in the vast space. “Today, we’re changing the channel.”
She stopped and looked at him, a slow smile spreading. “Come here.”
He walked to her, his steps even, his face blank.
“Not like that.” She pointed to the floor at her feet. “On your hands and knees. This is a performance. Image is everything.”
Without a word, Saitama lowered himself. The metal was cool and slightly gritty under his palms. He kept his head down, looking at the scuffed toes of her boots.
“Better.” She stepped closer, then, with a graceful pivot, she sat down on his back, settling her weight just above his shoulders. He didn’t buckle, didn’t even sway. He was a plinth. A stone. She crossed her legs, arranging the folds of her outfit. “Now, forward. Toward the camera. Slowly. Let them see.”
He began to crawl. The movement was awkward, unnatural for a body that could move at the speed of light. Each forward shift of his hands, each drag of his knees, was deliberate, submissive. The only sound was the soft scuffing of his clothing and the gentle creak of leather as she adjusted her seat on him.
She leaned forward, her voice a whisper in his ear that carried in the silent hall. “When the light goes green, you will speak. You will say exactly what I tell you to say. You will not flinch. You will not blink. You are my voice. Understood?”
“Yes, Goddess.”
They reached the edge of the dais. The camera loomed, its lens a dark pupil reflecting their distorted image back at them: a beautiful woman riding a bald, ordinary man as if he were a beast of burden. Do-S loved the image. She reached out a hand and flicked a switch on the console beside the chair.
A low power surge whined through the room. The wall of monitors flickered to life, each one showing a different feed: news networks, government channels, stock tickers, sports broadcasts. All of them dissolved into static for a split second before resolving on the same image—the feed from the dais camera.
The green ‘ON AIR’ light illuminated below the lens.
Do-S took a deep, satisfied breath. She nudged Saitama’s side with her heel. “Now.”
Saitama lifted his head. He looked directly into the camera. His expression was empty, but his eyes held a terrifying calm. When he spoke, his voice was his own, flat and dry, but the words were hers, threaded through with a new, chilling certainty.
“People of Earth,” he began. The words bounced off the walls, transmitted to a billion screens. “Your governments have failed you. Your heroes have failed you. Your definitions of strength are children’s stories.”
On the monitors, scrolling text and panicked cutaways showed anchors frozen in terror, social media feeds exploding.
“There is a new order. Its architect is my Goddess.” He said the title with a reverence that made it sound like the only truth in the universe. “You have one hour to signal your unconditional surrender. Broadcast your submission from every capital, every city hall. Disband your militaries. Order your so-called heroes to stand down.”
He paused, the silence more menacing than the words. Do-S ran a hand over his head, a possessive gesture.
“If you do not,” Saitama continued, his tone shifting to something almost conversational, “I will be sent to your population centers. One per hour. Starting with the largest. There will be no negotiation. There will be no warning strike.”
The sheer mundanity of the threat, delivered in that bored, grocery-list voice, was what made it so profoundly horrifying. It wasn’t a rant. It was a weather report.
“The choice is simple. Serve a new Goddess, or be removed.”
The green light went red. The broadcast cut, the monitors snapping back to chaotic, screaming feeds showing the very message they had just transmitted.
Do-S let out a breathy laugh. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.” She slid off his back. He remained on all fours. She walked around to face him, cupping his chin in her hand, forcing his gaze up. “You were magnificent. My beautiful, devastating tool.”
A flicker of something—gratitude, warmth—passed behind his eyes. It was the barest hint of color in a blank canvas.
“Such a good voice for me,” she crooned, tracing his lips with her thumb. “You deserve a reward. Don’t you think?”
“I live to serve you, Goddess.”
“I know.” She stepped back, gesturing to the floor around her feet. “This area. It’s dirty. From your crawling. From their fear vibrating through the air. Clean it.”
Saitama looked at the stretch of metal grating before her boots. He saw no dirt.
He didn’t need to.
He lowered his face. He pressed his lips to the cool, textured metal. He kissed it. He turned his head slightly, kissed it again, an inch to the left. He began to methodically, reverently, kiss the floor in a widening circle around where she stood. Each kiss was soft, deliberate. An act of devotion.
Do-S watched, her arms crossed, a slow smile playing on her lips. This was better than breaking cities. This was ownership, pure and intimate. The most powerful being on the planet, reduced to kissing dust because she told him to.
He finished, returning to his hands and knees, looking up at her.
She smiled down at him. “Good.” The word was a drug, and he inhaled it. “Now, we wait. They have an hour.” She turned and walked toward the viewing window that overlooked the city, a sprawling panic of light and movement below. “I wonder what they’ll choose.”
Saitama crawled forward to kneel just behind her, a silent shadow. He didn’t wonder. He already knew. He was ready.