Okay, if my memory doesn't fail me, the giant that also appeared in the first episode of One Punch Man is going to appear in D-City, so if I stand here for a while, it'll show up.
Thought the man—no, the soul—currently inhabiting the body of Saitama, as he stood on the rooftop of a random apartment complex in C-City. The city below buzzed with energy: cars crawled along the roads, salarymen hustled between crosswalks, a couple kids chased each other toward a convenience store. The ordinary, unremarkable hum of a world that didn't know it was on the brink of being stomped into rubble.
And he just stood there, cape fluttering gently behind him in the breeze, yellow jumpsuit clinging to his now outrageously muscular frame, arms folded in a very "this is fine" posture.
But it wasn't fine.
What the hell am I even doing?
He glanced down at his gloved hand, flexed it.
This wasn't cosplay. This wasn't a lucid dream after binging anime at 3 a.m. with chips and soda on the desk. It was real life now, all of it. The concrete beneath his feet. The faint scent of fried food wafting up from a nearby alley. The chill in the air. The weight of the cape tugging at his shoulders.
This body was his now. Or at least, it acted like it. Moved like it and responded like it.
He'd punched a Dragon-level monster into soup and didn't even feel winded.
And yet, the nagging dread in his gut hadn't gone away.
Whose life did I just hijack?
He looked out across the skyline. Glass towers. Rooftop gardens. Power lines. Ordinary things, in an extraordinary world.
He hadn't just landed in the One Punch Man universe. He'd landed in Saitama. The real one. The man. The myth. The bald god.
Only now… he was the god or more like pretending to be him.
And that thought terrified him more than any monster.
Is the original Saitama dead? Did I overwrite him? Am I just… squatting in his soul like some parasite?
He rubbed his temples.
No answers. No guidebook. Just woke up bald, hungry, and way too jacked to function.
At first, it had been euphoric. Power. Fame potential. He had laughed when he one-punched Vaccine Man into meat paste. It was exhilarating, like being in a movie you already knew the script to.
But now that things had calmed down, the adrenaline faded and reality settled in like dust after a demolition.
He didn't know how to survive here.
He had no job. No income. No government ID—at least, none he could confidently use. The apartment was a glorified box with no elevator and a pile of unpaid bills he didn't dare open. The fridge had exactly one bottle of soy sauce, two moldy eggs, and a jar of pickled radish that might have predated dinosaurs.
How did this man survive like this?!
He'd found a couple crumpled bills in the drawer and maybe some coins in the couch cushions, but otherwise, he was broke. Like, college-student-eating-rice-and-instant-coffee broke.
And worst of all, Saitama—the real one—had apparently just vibed through all of it.
Dude saved the world, and his reward was living off leftover takoyaki and the occasional thank-you fish from some grandma? What the actual hell.
If he wanted to live here—really live—he needed money. A job. Something. Hero work might help eventually, but that wouldn't pay now. And freelancing monster hunting wasn't exactly an HR-approved gig.
He sighed, long and deep, and rubbed his bald head with both hands.
I reincarnated as one of the most powerful beings in fiction, and I'm still poor. That's some cosmic irony right there.
He sat on the edge of the rooftop, legs dangling, and stared out toward the horizon. D-City was far, but not too far. If he remembered the episode correctly, the giant—Marugori, right?—was going to obliterate the place within the hour.
That meant he had time to think.
But of course, that's when the earth shook.
Not the kind of tremor you shrug off. Not a subtle rumble. This was a full-blown quake. A deep, pulsing boom that echoed like thunder across the skyline.
Birds scattered from nearby rooftops. Car alarms wailed. Somewhere, a dog barked once before falling silent.
He stood.
Far in the distance, beyond a haze of heat and pollution, something moved.
A shape. A massive shape. And a head, bald and pale, rising over the city like a nightmare moon. Shoulders wide enough to crush office buildings with a shrug.
And perched on that shoulder… was a tiny figure in a lab coat.
"YES! YES! DESTROY IT ALL, BROTHER! CLEANSE THIS PATHETIC WORLD!"
The voice carried on the wind—shrill, manic, bubbling with unhinged Glee while another voice more profund and louder spoke.
"I AM THE STRONGEST MAN!! THE STRONGEST MAN!!"
Marugori had arrived.
The giant took a step, and a shockwave followed, toppling cars and sending cracks rippling down the roads.
Okay, he thought, adjusting his gloves and rolling his neck with a crack.
Guess break time's over.
He launched himself forward.
---
"What do you think, brother? Doesn't it feel great to be so strong?" yelled Fukegao, the maniacal scientist perched proudly on the left shoulder of the towering monster.
Once a respected, albeit eccentric, academic in biochemical engineering, Fukegao's fall from grace had been as dramatic as his ambitions. After testing early prototypes of his gigantism serum on homeless volunteers—and some unwilling participants—he was labeled a madman, arrested under charges of homicide and illegal experimentation. But the law couldn't hold him for long. He vanished, stole his research from the university's labs he had worked for, and resurfaced with a "final version" of his serum.
And now his little brother, a failed boxer whose only claim to fame was a nose-breaking punch during a high school tournament, was Marugori, the strongest man alive… and 270 meters tall.
Now, they have already destroyed several parts of C-city and were now coming to D-City to do the same. Therefore his disaster level was now Dragon.
"I AM THE STRONGEST!!" Marugori roared, his voice like a subwoofer exploding across city blocks.
But another voice answered—calm, relaxed, and far too close.
"Yeah, how's it feel being the strongest?"
The giant blinked and slowly turned his head. Standing casually on his right shoulder was a bald man in a yellow jumpsuit and white cape, arms crossed, like this was all just some minor inconvenience.
"What?! Who are you?! Brother, there's someone on your shoulder!" Fukegao shrieked.
"Okay, buddy, party's over. Now order your brother—or whatever he is now—to stop, or I'll make him stop." Saitama said, annoyed but still calm.
"That guy! On your shoulder! Kill him!"
Oh boy, thought the fan inside Saitama's body. Here it comes.
Marugori, not the brightest tool in any shed, immediately brought his giant palm down on his left shoulder—where his brother was.
There was a meaty, wet crunch followed by silence.
Then, slowly, the giant lifted his hand and stared at the bloody smear in his palm.
What remained of Fukegao was unrecognizable—just red pulp and what looked like a piece of his lab coat dangling off a chunk of cartilage. His bat-shaped tattoo was still vaguely visible on one arm.
"BROTHEEEERRRRRRRRRRR!!" Marugori's scream echoed across the entire city, shattering glass across several buildings, sending birds and terrified civilians fleeing in every direction.
Saitama—still on the opposite shoulder—winced and rubbed his ears.
"God, that's loud. Also… wow. He really ended up like a crushed mosquito."
He wrinkled his nose at the smell.
"Boy, that's nasty. I think I saw his liver roll off your thumb."
That didn't help.
"YOU!! I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE, BUT IT'S YOUR FAULT MY BROTHER IS DEAD!" Marugori screamed, eyes bulging with rage and fresh tears.
"Umm, technically it was you, because, well, you crushed him with your giant Hulk hand, but sure—whatever lets you sleep at night, I guess."
Before he could finish, a hand the size of a semi-truck swiped toward him, but Saitama leapt back, flipping off the giant's shoulder like a gymnast landing a perfect vault.
The hand crashed into the side of a building instead, leveling several floors.
"Okay, guess we're doing this the hard way," Saitama muttered, stretching his arms. "I was hoping to keep the body count low today, but whatever."
Marugori roared and charged, each footstep cracking the earth like a meteor strike. Entire streets cracked apart from the shockwaves. Cars flew, buildings shook, and people screamed in the distance.
Saitama stood calmly in the street, arms at his sides.
God, I hope I don't mess this up. This guy's huge. I need to aim this just right or I'll flatten three blocks with him.
He waited until the last second, then jumped.
Not away—forward, like a bullet.
He aimed for the chest. Mid-air, his body moved on pure instinct—this wasn't anime anymore, it was muscle memory. His fist cocked back.
"One Punch."
The moment his fist connected, there was no resistance.
Just an immediate, visceral BOOM, as if the air around them detonated.
Marugori's chest exploded inward in a grotesque blossom of muscle, bone, and liquefied organs. His massive body twisted in the air, already going limp—but Saitama wasn't done. He spun around behind the falling body, placed both palms on the giant's back, and pushed.
Not with full power. Just enough to push the body away from the buildings with people on them.
The force redirected Marugori's titanic corpse mid-fall, causing it to land in the already-evacuated outskirts of D-City, smashing into a desolate parking structure and collapsing in a plume of dust, debris, and pulverized concrete.
Saitama landed gently moments later, not a scratch on him.
He stared at the massive crater, wind blowing dust past his feet. Bits of brain matter and shattered teeth were embedded in the nearby asphalt.
He sighed.
"That… was disgusting."
He looked down at his glove. It was soaked in blood and something greenish.
"How did the real Saitama not throw up after every fight? That was gross."
He shook his hand like trying to fling off the goo, then glanced around. The few news drones still in the air zoomed in on him, hovering.
Right. Here the Asocciation have cameras, I hope they don't make me pay for the damages, I mean I reduced them as much as I could, not my fault the dude was a giant.
He wiped his glove on his cape, let out a exasperated sigh, and turned away from the crater, muttering:
"Guess I gotta do laundry now."
And with that, he walked away like nothing had happened. But internally his mind was on turmoil.
It's strange, when I first faced Vaccine Man, I had fear of fighting him which later dissipated once I punched him but now I didn't had any fear while facing Marugori and the crazy scientist who I don't remember his name.
He hummed as he walked.
Maybe I am slowly getting accustomed to the apathy of this body? If that's the case I don't know what to think, on one hand I don't wanna become as fiend or uninterested on life as Saitama had become, but on the other, I don't wanna fell fear everytime I face a monster, or otherwise I could paralyze and people could die.
He unconciously grinned.
Ha, I am even starting to think as a hero now, that's curious, especiallly when on my other life, I cared about nobody except me.
He thought silently as he increased his pace to nearly subsonic speeds to arrive more quickly to his new home.