Chapter 6: Heroes' Last Stand
The hour passed in the electric silence of the control room. On the wall of monitors, the world reacted.
Cities devolved into riots, gridlock, and panicked stampedes. Military jets scrambled only to circle uselessly. Government officials appeared on screens, pale and stuttering, calling for calm but offering no solution. One monitor showed a shaky phone feed of a crowd kneeling in a public square, chanting surrender. Another showed a military unit turning their guns on their own commander.
Do-S watched it all with the detached interest of someone browsing channels. She sipped from a crystal glass she’d found, the liquid inside smelling of sharp, alien berries. Saitama remained on his knees beside her chair, his head bowed, his breathing even. The only sign of life was the occasional, almost imperceptible, tremor that ran through him when she shifted her weight or made a soft, approving sound at some new display of global collapse.
“They’re choosing wrong,” she sighed, not with anger, but with the mild disappointment of a teacher watching a promising student fail a simple test. She pointed a remote, flipping to a feed labeled “S-Class Hero Emergency Band.”
The screen showed a blur of green light and white fabric against a rushing sky. The wind howled around the mic. “—en route, Bang. ETA two minutes. Just stay out of sight until I get there.”
A calm, older voice responded. “Your impulsiveness will get you killed, Tornado. We assess first.”
“I’ll assess his face with my fist. He’s just some bald guy. The monster’s the problem.”
Do-S laughed, a bright, musical sound. “Oh, I like her. She has spirit.” She looked down at Saitama. “You hear that? She thinks you’re ‘just some bald guy.’” She tapped his head with the remote. “Should we show her?”
Before he could answer, the station shuddered.
It wasn’t an explosion. It was a soundless, wave of pure psychic force that slammed down from above. The ceiling of the transmission hall didn’t just break; it vaporized in a perfect circle, the metal and composite peeling back like the skin of a fruit. Cold, storm-choked air rushed in, whipping Do-S’s hair around her face. Dust and debris hung in the air, frozen for a moment before pattering down onto the consoles, which sparked and died.
Two figures descended through the hole, silhouetted against the bruised purple sky.
Tatsumaki, the Tornado of Terror, hovered, her childish dress unmoved by the wind she commanded. Her eyes glowed a venomous green, fixed on Do-S. Beside her, Silver Fang—Bang—landed with a grace that belied his age, his posture relaxed but his knuckles white.
“Game’s over,” Tatsumaki spat, her voice cutting through the howling wind. “Let the puppet go and maybe I won’t turn you inside out.”
Do-S didn’t stand. She took another sip, then placed her glass on the arm of her chair. “You’re interrupting our program,” she said calmly.
Bang’s eyes scanned the room, taking in Saitama kneeling beside the chair, the monitors showing global chaos, the absolute lack of fear in the monster woman’s posture. “Young man,” he said, his voice calm but firm, directed at Saitama. “Step away from her. Her control over you is an illusion. You are stronger than this.”
Saitama did not move. Did not look up.
Tatsumaki snarled. “He’s gone, old man. Talking is useless.” She thrust a hand forward. A crushing dome of green psychic energy materialized around Do-S’s chair, intending to compact it and her into a tiny, bloody cube. The air screamed with the force of it.
Do-S didn’t flinch.
Saitama stood up.
It was not a dramatic spring to his feet. It was a simple, rising motion, like a man getting out of a bath. He stepped in front of the chair, between Tatsumaki and Do-S.
The psychic dome hit him.
It shattered.
Not with an explosion, but with a sound like a million lightbulbs popping all at once. The green energy fizzled into harmless static that sparked against his jumpsuit and died. Tatsumaki’s eyes widened. She intensified the output, her hair lifting, veins standing out on her forehead. Another, thicker wave of force hammered down.
Saitama looked at her. He raised his right fist, almost casually. He didn’t punch the wave. He simply opened his hand and then closed it into a fist again, a gentle squeezing motion.
The overwhelming psychic pressure vanished. Snuffed out. The sudden absence of force sent Tatsumaki reeling back in the air as if she’d been pushing against a door that had suddenly disappeared.
Bang moved. His form was a blur, a lifetime of martial arts mastery compressed into one lethal, flowing strike aimed not at Saitama, but at the space between him and Do-S, to sever the connection.
Saitama’s left hand came up. He caught Bang’s forearm.
There was no impact noise. Just the simple, dreadful sound of a man catching something thrown at him.
Bang’s other fist flew, a technique that could shatter a bunker. Saitama caught that wrist, too.
They stood like that for a second, the ancient master frozen in his attack posture, held immobile by the bald man’s effortless grip. Confusion, then dawning horror, spread across Bang’s weathered face.
“I’m sorry,” Saitama said, his voice soft. “I can’t let you disturb my Goddess.”
He didn’t twist. He didn’t throw. He just… changed his grip, his fingers shifting minutely.
The sound was a wet, fibrous crunch, like someone stepping on a bundle of dry branches. Both of Bang’s forearms snapped, the bones disintegrating under the skin.
Bang didn’t scream. A choked gasp escaped him as his arms went limp, hanging at grotesque angles. He collapsed to his knees, looking up at Saitama in sheer, uncomprehending shock.
Tatsumaki shrieked in rage and unleashed everything. Every console, every piece of jagged debris from the ruined ceiling, every strip of metal—all of it coalesced into a swirling vortex of destruction around her and shot forward, a concentrated tsunami aimed at erasing Saitama from existence.
He took a single step forward and punched the air.
The vortex didn’t scatter. It reversed. It wrapped around Tatsumaki with her own terrifying force and slammed her into the far wall, pinning her there. The breath left her lungs in a pained whoosh. She struggled, her power flaring, but it was like a fly trying to lift a mountain. The more she strained, the tighter the prison of her own wreckage seemed to constrict.
Silence, broken only by Bang’s ragged breathing and the hum of the wind through the shattered roof.
Saitama turned and walked back to kneel beside Do-S’s chair. “The disturbance has been dealt with, Goddess,” he said, his tone back to that flat, serviceable calm.
Do-S finally stood. She smoothed her outfit and walked over to where Bang knelt, cradling his ruined arms. She looked down at him with clinical curiosity.
“The legendary Silver Fang,” she mused. “You look so much older in person.” She then turned her gaze to Tatsumaki, pinned to the wall. “And you. So much noise for such a little thing.”
She walked back to her chair, her heels clicking on the debris-strewn floor. She sat, crossing her legs. “Saitama. Bring them here. Before me.”
He did. He was gentle, in a way. He lifted Bang by the back of his gi and carried him as one might carry a bag of shopping. He pulled Tatsumaki from the wall, the psychic grip dissipating, and set her down, her own power still momentarily stunned out of her. He placed them side-by-side, kneeling on the rough concrete, facing Do-S.
Tatsumaki seethed, but a trickle of blood ran from her hairline. Bang was pale, swallowing back pain, his focus on his breathing.
“You came to stop my broadcast,” Do-S said. “To free my pet.” She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “You failed. Now, you will acknowledge your new reality.” Her eyes landed on Bang. “You told him he was stronger than this. You were wrong. He has found his purpose. You have lost yours.”
She extended her foot. The stiletto heel of her boot was pristine, sharp.
“Kiss it,” she said to Bang, her voice soft.
The old hero stared at the offered heel, then at her face, his own a mask of stoic defiance.
Saitama shifted beside him. Just a slight turn of his head. A silent promise of further, unimaginable pain if he refused.
Bang’s shoulders slumped. The defiance drained, replaced by a weary, hollow defeat. He bent forward, his broken arms hanging uselessly, and pressed his lips to the polished leather of Do-S’s heel.
“Good,” she purred. She shifted her foot, turning the sole toward Tatsumaki. It was dusted with concrete dust and flecks of dried coolant from the ruined floor. “Now you. Clean it.”
Tatsumaki’s face contorted in pure, undiluted hatred. “I’d rather die.”
“You will,” Do-S said, unconcerned. “But first, you’ll watch every city you tried to protect turn to ash. Starting with the one your precious little sister lives in.” She glanced at Saitama. “Where does the rank two hero live, my love?”
“City Z, Goddess,” Saitama recited, his voice empty. “I can be there in six seconds.”
Tatsumaki’s breath hitched. The hatred in her eyes didn’t fade, but a desperate, wounded terror flooded in behind it. She looked from Do-S’s cold smile to Saitama’s impassive face, the living weapon ready to annihilate her entire world on a whim.
A shuddering sob escaped her. She closed her eyes, forcing them shut tight, as if she could block out the reality. Then, slowly, she bowed her head. She didn’t bend her body, but she lowered her face toward the offered sole.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a press of her forehead against the dirty sole, a symbol of utter subjugation. She held it there, trembling.
Do-S let the moment hang, savoring the taste of their broken pride. She looked past them, out through the gaping hole in the station wall, at the vast, terrified world below.
“No one is coming to save you,” she said, to the heroes at her feet, to the billions watching on the dying feeds. “The broadcast is over. Now we begin the collection.” She rested her heel on the back of Bang’s head, not as a violent act, but as a simple, casual claim of ownership. “Saitama. Bring me a map. Let’s decide where to go first.”