"Hmph, just a glorified alien warlord…"
Tatsumaki raised her chin arrogantly. Even if she had been the one to beat Boros, she wouldn't have felt this satisfied.
"We finally won…"
Child Emperor collapsed to the ground, his body drained of strength as he reflected on all that had transpired. He couldn't even summon the energy to speak properly.
Of everyone present, only Tatsumaki, Fubuki, and maybe Genos had truly believed Kizaru could win.
The rest had been holding their breath in dread, never expecting a newly minted S-Class hero to defeat a galactic conqueror who had crossed countless star systems.
"Incredible…"
Zombieman muttered in awe.
None of them had even managed to take down the alien's two subordinates—Kizaru had practically saved the Earth single-handedly.
At first, Zombieman had just thought of Kizaru as some side character who'd caught Tatsumaki's attention. But in the end, the entire victory had come down to him.
"I've recorded all of the alien commander's data. Anyone who needs it can come to me later."
Drive Knight, now back in humanoid form, spoke with apparent calm.
But inside, he was deeply shaken.
Researchers had long debated the question of humanity's upper limit—how powerful could a human, or a hero, truly be?
Once upon a time, Blast was seen as that upper bound. Then Tatsumaki appeared, smashing mountains and reshaping landscapes with her psychic power, overturning countless theories.
Yet even monsters like Tatsumaki and Blast still existed on the same plane as other S-Class heroes.
Not because they weren't strong—but because humanity's ceiling was the S-Class tier. That idea had become something of a scientific law—even Drive Knight had once believed it.
But now, an impossible man had appeared.
Swift Flash—a being who surpassed the very definition of an S-Class hero.
According to Drive Knight's data, Kizaru's final strike against Boros released an energy output that was several levels above Terrible Tornado's maximum.
While the heroes on the ground were cheering, Kizaru had already gotten to work—securing the Dark Matter Thieves' spaceship for himself.
Though he found the design a bit ugly.
Still, in terms of technological sophistication and raw power, it was the most advanced thing he had ever seen.
He figured he could pass it off as the Pluton—one of the Ancient Weapons—in the One Piece world without breaking a sweat. It would be a shame to waste it.
"Gotcha!"
After taking out a few clueless space pirates, Kizaru, riding the momentum of having defeated the galactic overlord Boros, quickly seized control of the entire spaceship.
Next, he had it delivered to Ai Haibara's world, where Boros took over and handled the rest of the space pirates.
That part, however, nearly broke Ai Haibara.
She could still manage to stash one Boros in her research lab—even if the other researchers discovered him, it wouldn't be a big deal. Everyone had signed non-disclosure agreements, after all.
But when she looked up and saw a spaceship over ten kilometers long hovering above her facility, her mental state nearly shattered on the spot. She even grabbed a scalpel, ready to go all-out on Kizaru.
Thankfully, the space pirates on board quickly activated the ship's cloaking system.
After that, Boros and his crew, under Haibara's very firm request, took the entire ship and hid deep in the Pacific Ocean.
Even so, the damage was done. The appearance of such a ship terrified governments all over the planet. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill UFO sighting—it was a colossal spacecraft, witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people.
A spaceship over ten kilometers long clearly wasn't built by humans.
With such massive scale and obvious military design—captured in countless photos—it was undeniably a weaponized vessel with terrifying attack capabilities.
Luckily, the ship's sheer size worked in their favor. Even though it was hovering over Haibara's research facility, no one could conclusively determine it had anything to do with the lab.
Still, the incident brought major trouble to Haibara. She had to suspend all ongoing research just to deal with the swarm of "curious visitors" the event attracted. And all of this… because Kizaru acted on a whim.
At the time, Kizaru still had no idea just how badly he had messed things up for her. Riding high after subduing Boros and taking over the massive spacecraft, he landed cheerfully back on the ground.
"Yo, you guys still haven't taken care of this thing?"
He gave a casual glance at the still-burning Groribas. The slime monster was visibly smaller than before—at this rate, it would probably take quite a while to finish incinerating him.
"M-Monster!"
Seeing Kizaru, Groribas let out a shriek. Its body, already flattened into a splatter under Tatsumaki's psychic grip, trembled and tried to squirm away—unfortunately, it was still stuck under her control and only ended up flattening itself further.
For a flaming slime monster to be calling Kizaru a monster… the irony was kind of hilarious.
"…Huh. Tough little bastard, isn't he."
Kizaru casually fired a laser beam to help finish it off. But even after the beam tore straight through Gloribas, it only shrank a bit more. At this rate, the thing could probably survive a dozen more shots.
Already scared out of his mind, Gloribas involuntarily trembled again at Kizaru's comment, recalling that nightmarish journey.
He was one of the top three elite fighters of the Dark Matter Thieves. But when they had first set out, there were more than just three elites.
Over the course of the twenty-year voyage, countless unfortunate souls had been accidentally killed during Lord Boros's "training." The only ones to make it to Earth were Groribas and Melzargard—because they were the most durable.
As for Geryuganshoop, he only survived because Boros couldn't derive any enjoyment from fighting him. Telekinetic users were too fragile to pose any threat to a real powerhouse.
Especially when Boros himself was far stronger than Geryuganshoop. Against Boros, Geryuganshoop didn't even have room to struggle.
So it made perfect sense that even someone like Groribas would be scared stiff after seeing Kizaru—the warrior from the prophecy who had defeated even Lord Boros.
"Based on current data," Drive Knight spoke up, "we need to maintain this level of flame for another twenty-eight hours to ensure complete elimination of the alien."
Even though his hero ranking was much higher than Kizaru's, Drive Knight seemed almost nervous in his presence—after all, Kizaru had defeated the alien commander.
"I'll need a moment. At most, my fuel reserves can keep this going for another thirty minutes," Genos added, frowning. He had already dialed down the output of his incineration cannon to a low-energy setting—otherwise, he wouldn't have lasted even this long.
"Don't worry. The Hero Association HQ has extra fuel reserves. I've already notified them to deliver it," Child Emperor chimed in.
Looking at him, it was hard to believe this grade-schooler was also an S-Class hero who helped save the world.
"Good work! I knew you'd beat that alien for sure!"
Tatsumaki floated over lazily and gave Kizaru a pat on the shoulder, a casual gesture of encouragement.
In return, Kizaru unceremoniously pulled her into a hug and planted a kiss on her cheek—prompting a high-pitched scream from her as she darted off toward Fubuki like her life depended on it.
Several S-Class heroes who happened to be walking by witnessed the scene—and nearly popped their eyeballs out in shock.
Especially Bang, who had quite a bit of history dealing with Tatsumaki. His expression twisted into something indescribable as he poked Atomic Samurai beside him.
"Did I… imagine that just now?"
It was hard to blame Bang for questioning his own eyes. That screaming "little girl" was Tatsumaki, the #2 S-Class hero—Terrible Tornado!
Everyone knew she had something going on with Kizaru, but this kind of "something" was… definitely not what they had in mind.
"Maybe we all imagined it,"
Atomic Samurai quipped, though with his Atom Slash precision, "bad eyesight" wasn't really a possibility.
Still, Tatsumaki in a romantic situation? Now that was unexpected.
"Such a shame… I was hoping to get to know that handsome man myself…"
A-Class Rank 3 hero Okama Blade looked genuinely regretful. With his perfect combo of looks, strength, and style, Kizaru was dangerously appealing—even this sword-obsessed flamboyant martial artist had developed a little crush.
"No, I think it's for the best. If a man that strong actually liked you, that would've been the real tragedy."
Samurai Drill, Okama Blade's junior and fellow disciple of Atomic Samurai, didn't hold back his sarcasm.
He, Iaian, and Okama Blade made up the trio of disciples—currently A-Class Rank 2, 3, and 4 respectively.
"Speed-o'-Sound Sonic is so strong! I hope one day I can be just like him!" Iaian, clad in Western-style knight armor, gripped his sword tightly, eyes burning with passion as he stared at Kizaru.
He'd made up his mind—once he finally defeated his master, he'd set his sights on challenging Sonic next!
Atomic Samurai, watching his disciples with a slightly deadpan look, didn't say anything—he simply adjusted the brim of his hat.
He'd heard the Swift Flash's training camp was effective. He'd have to ask around and find out what the program involved.
Then multiply it by ten.
Let those little punks experience a true master's love.
Not long ago, they'd always gush after battles about how strong and cool their master was. Now? They were fangirling over someone else!
"Shame that alien spaceship got away," Zombie Man remarked.
"But I doubt they've got the guts to come back after this."
He was in a good mood. For a crisis of that scale, the casualties had been surprisingly low.
He'd expected A-City to be a graveyard, but according to the latest report from HQ, most evacuation shelters had remained intact.
There were still casualties, of course—but compared to the literal end of the world, this counted as a miracle.
To the heroes on the ground, it looked like the alien ship had used some kind of space-jumping tech to flee.
No one suspected the truth—that the massive ship had been seized by Kizaru and sent to another world entirely.
"HQ's here…"
Tanktop Master, whose clothing had been shredded in battle, gave the heads-up. He'd tried hard to keep his tank top intact, but as a close-quarters fighter, it was impossible to come out of that fight looking pristine like Kizaru, who didn't even have a speck of dust on him.
The heroes turned toward the direction of the Hero Association headquarters and saw Madame Perus emerging from underground with a group of staff and executives.
"We can't thank you enough. It's because of your brave efforts that Earth has been saved. On behalf of the Hero Association—and all of humanity—please accept our deepest gratitude…"
Madame Perus kept her posture low, especially toward Kizaru, almost to the point of being too deferential.
Since Drive Knight had captured data from Kizaru's battle with Boros, the underground Hero Association stronghold had also gotten a glimpse of what he was capable of.
Even if they couldn't compare themselves to Kizaru directly like Drive Knight could, the raw combat numbers were so far beyond any other S-Class hero that even the dumbest executive could see the gap.
Madame Perus silently thanked the heavens that their plan to steal the training camp's secrets hadn't been set in motion yet.
Until they found some kind of weakness in Kizaru, they couldn't afford to make a single wrong move.
Still, the stronger he was, the better—because that meant if they could get leverage on him, the Hero Association would be theirs to control.
"Heh…"
Kizaru chuckled softly.
No matter the world, people in power were the same—they never changed. Earth's destruction had only just been averted, and already they were plotting their next shady move.
Too bad for them—Kizaru's sensitivity to hostility made it easy to sniff out even the most well-hidden ill will.
Especially from someone like Madame Perus, who stood this close to him while harboring ill intent—she might as well have opened her mind and invited him to take a peek.
"All your contributions have been recorded,"
Madame Perus continued, oblivious to her own misstep.
"Once we've tallied everything, we'll update the rankings and distribute hero compensation accordingly…"
While she babbled, the Hero Association staff had already begun gathering the alien corpses left behind—perfect materials for research. A few of the top-ranking warriors had even managed to overpower S-Class heroes during the invasion.
°°°
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