Chapter Text
Alright. Today’s villain is not a property destroyer. That’s great.
They did list it as Wolf class, meaning it would probably try to break people instead of infrastructure. Genos was closest to the area, so the instant file was sent to him via the HA’s email system.
The file converts into words that flicker across his left retinal viewer as his right eye focuses on using its targeting system to find the villain. Name and abilities, mostly unknown. All they had was the title “+ FANGIRL,” and “electronic-based, suspected to have once been Kid Emperor’s cousin.”
It doesn’t take much time to find the villain. A teen in a sukeban seifuku skipping around throwing keyboard keys like confetti that cut through anything and anyone they touched wasn’t hard to spot.
Hm. Most transformed civilians did not retain their more human characteristics. The sukeban turns her head towards him. Okay, strike that, there is A Lot of Blood streaming from her mouth for some reason. Yep, definitely evil.
Now here comes the issue: the villain is not at all standard issue. This nightmare fuel schoolgirl has been declared a sort-of threat to humans in their vicinity. Based on speculative genealogy, she also has formidable intelligence. What strategy should he use?
He lands with a harsh clunk. The marble of the pavilion cracks under him. Genos aims his palm incinerators.
The schoolgirl sneers and meets his eyes without a care in the world. It’s jarring, and he hesitates, the word “incinerate” dead in his mouth upon arrival.
“See ya later, Genos.”
The sukeban turns with surprising force and whips something from her pocket into the fountain behind her, then jumps in after it. Genos’ scanners note it to be a smartphone that has been modified into a nail bomb.
The fountain explodes in a rattling FLOOM . Water sprays everywhere, and Genos just manages to turn his back and shield himself to avoid the shrapnel before the explosive went off.
Once it stopped raining 5-yen coins and fountain chunks, he stands and looks at what used to be the fountain. There’s no charring, but there is a scrap of black seifuku hem. Looks like she self-neutralized. Unorthodox, but better for Genos. Honestly, he’s kinda speechless.
His sensors and the document both notified him that all civilians had already evacuated half an hour ago.
Genos turns to head back home. He still has to cook dinner, and if he keeps up his accelerated walking pace of 2.5 kM/5 minutes, he’ll be back soon enough to finish chopping the vegetables for sukiyaki.
He doesn’t notice the cellphone screen bit. It’s nailed to his left shoulderblade’s 3E retracting chiton, and Genos doesn’t notice even as it starts sparking when he passes that udon store his sensei was fond of.
He gets home without a hitch. When he notices the shrapnel wedged into the chink of his armor, Genos pulls it out and tosses it into the designated battle trashbin without a second thought. His secondary optical display notified Genos of the customary minor spike in cortisol and oxytocin when he returned home and saw his sensei again after going out.
“Welcome back.”
His sensei twists from his reclined 175-degree angle in front of the TV to greet Genos. Genos does a minimal “hm” and nods to Saitama-sensei. He does not allow his eyes to linger at that shifted pyjama shirt fabric, the one that crept up his sensei’s ribs and was just damnably short of reaching his pectorals.
From inside the trashbin, the fangirl giggles inside her electronic cocoon. Bullying that so-called “Demon Cyborg” was gonna be really fun.