Chapter 7

I sat with easy relaxation on my couch with a plate of food balance precariously on my lap after a hard day's work and with the knowledge that my next few hours would be engaged with the somewhat carefree process of absorbing media via the medium known as the internet or playing videogames or just reading various stories. I took another bite of my supper (was it chicken, fish, mince, pasta, chops) and switched the channel on the television (was it nature documentaries, comedy, discovery, travel). Next to me my sibling made a comment and I nodded while glancing towards my phone.

In the other lounge my parents were chatting watching their own shows that so often reflected my own particular taste inherited from them. I finished eating my food, last as usual and headed to the kitchen. My duty had always been drying the dishes, although sometimes I would just do them in the morning if I could think up an adequate excuse or had pressing business. Today I didn't feel like skipping on my duty or rather I was scared of skipping on my duty, but I didn't know why I was scared.

I dutifully cleaned the plates and utensils while then placing them back in their place. All the while that I did this, I tried to clear the fog from my mind that prevented me from recalling whatever it was that I didn't recall. I growled inwardly at the futility of my attempts knowing that this recollection shouldn't be able to escape my near ten million intelligence.

"Wait," I said as those word that I generated in my mouth felt inherently wrong. "I don't have ten million intelligence. Intelligence isn't measured like that." My breathing grew shallow as that feeling of disconnection swelled becoming an almost tangible wrongness. I dropped the plate to the floor watching it shattered as the remnants of my old life shattered as well.

"I died," I said with a muted realisation and those two words shattered the sense of calm and peace; shattered my world causing the reality to warp and become mere shadow before it. A door nearby slammed open forcing me to gaze upon it as it released a soundless howling that chilled my bones and struck unfathomable fear into me. I took a step forward powerless against the suction force, my strength amounting to nothing more than a child's against whichever force was compelling me to enter the door.

I tried to turn around and gaze upon that which I knew that I had lost but any feeble resistance that I had felt was reduced to zero under the oppressive might of the door or whatever lay behind the door. I panicked and I screamed but all noise was drowned out by the oppressive silence. Without even the ability to struggle or to delay or to say goodbye I was pulled into the door.

xxx

I woke up with a start clutching my hands and causing the concrete floor to crack with the power contained in my fingertips caused the ground to crack and splinter and shake. I opened my eyes but saw nothing and I raised my hand to wipe away the gunk covering it. I wiped off the gunk letting it drop to the floor where it sizzled and melted the concrete and I realised that I had been crying the equivalent of liquid napalm and the tears wouldn't stop flowing down my cheeks and eroding more and more of the floor carving two pools of magma into the ground.

I opened my mouth to speak only to spray out bile and blood that immediately turned to steam and evaporated into the air, eating into the roof and surroundings. I tried to regain myself only to continue retching clouds of misty red that caused the very air to burn. Somehow, I managed to clamber to my feet but even small motions of my body were needlessly destructive to the poor unresisting warehouse. I had asked Saitama to drop me off at a nearby warehouse far away from human civilisation and it looked like the winner of the fight had kept his word well. An almost instinctive knowledge backed up by my own peering into the future told me that the aftermath would be likely detrimental to my surroundings. Parts of the warehouse around me had already collapsed and judging from the positions of the holes I had probably instinctively protected myself using telekinesis when sleeping.

'Still I seemed to be doing well all in all,' I thought looking at my body. No further injuries adorned my body and I could feel new strength flowing through my limbs causing me to smile as I contemplated my victory before a sob tore through my lips. The napalm started falling from my eyes at a renewed pace like two molten waterfalls and I felt a hot sweat overcome my body discharging superheated steam into the area around me melting steel and concrete. Lastly the beat of my hearts picked up pulsing waves of heat around me that hit like a physical force.

"I died," I repeated the words from my dream as twenty-five years of emotions hit me like a supernova leaving my mind in shambles. "I won't…" I won't what?" See my parents again. See my friends. Gain my qualifications. Finish my DND campaign. Retire. Finally publish that story I had been working on. I died and all my dreams died with me.

Twenty-eight years of blocked sorrow and muted existential dread carved my hearts into pieces and ravaged my mind and I found myself ultimately unable to vocalise my distress even in my head. It was impossible for me to relax and the deep breaths that I tried to take caused havoc as my entire lungs absorbed all the oxygen around me before they exhaled causing jets of superheated air to explode outwards; vaporising the remains of the ceiling and blossoming into the air like a fiery mushroom. If I continued like this I was going to explode and break things and that would be the end for Z-City without Saitama.

Although frankly I couldn't care; I couldn't care; my ability to care was broken currently. Was this a panic attack some weird conscious part of my mind that was easily overrun by my instincts said? Am I having a mental breakdown? I couldn't deal with this; I really couldn't deal with this. I hate worrying and angsting about things but even that would be better than the limbo that I found myself in now. Some small part of my conscious brain told me I needed to leave and I instinctively knew where. My emotions didn't inhibit my intelligence and so I fortunately instinctively knew that there would be few places on earth that I could not go all out.

When I was seven I was already able to hold my breath for over four hours and even after I had lost the The Ultimate Life Form I still had ways in which I could prevent breathing. This had greatly helped me when I travelled between various islands and I had easily spent hours underwater at a time. I wonder how long I could survive now. I stared upwards at the blue of the sky causing by the diffraction of light and jumped. Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesospehere and Thermosphere I had passed them in a few seconds and I took one last deep lungful of air before I passed the Exosphere and into speckled blackness of Outer Space. A platform of psychic energy formed beneath me and I kicked off of it launched myself away further from Earth.

The deadlock between my emotions was slowly breaking down and despair seemed to be winning so I moved further and further away as my emotions surged and roiled within me and my body grew hotter and hotter until even I felt uncomfortable. With a thought I activated Wolf King Mode and felt my cells that had started to burn regenerate instantly and then I activated Tiger King Mode and felt my cells immediately began to resist the heat even as the heat increased.

Some sense of self-preservation prevented me from activating Demon King Mode. While I had finally unlocked it and the vast energy that it gave me did as much, if not more, damage to myself then any opponent I used it on.

Earth was nearly completely out of my sight and so I relaxed and let it all loose, my body bursting into flame as the full weight of my emotions crashed down on me causing me to lock up as I tried to process the weight of my feelings.

That freezing occupied my thoughts and completely prevented me from noticing the massive comet until it hit into me and I found myself in the middle of thousands of tons and ice and rocks in pretty terrible pain.

xxx

Turns out I can hold my breath for a lot longer than I thought I could. It was nearly five days later that I decided to return to the planet and a lot had changed since then. Near the end I was sweating lactic acid as my body went under severe anaerobic exercise and I found my limits. The pain was good to an extent as it distracted my mind allowing me compartmentalise my sorrow. I suppose I could have healed myself using Shun Shun Rika but the empty space that had done me so many favours by allowing me to rage as I pleased had now started to wear on me and my dark thoughts that had proven so overwhelmingly potent were now replaced by a slow poisonous trickle that wore on me.

I let the last of the oxygen in my lungs dissolve into my blood getting my first reprieve from the vacuum for a few hours before I raised my hand and deflected another comet coming towards me. I wasn't up to date on the latest comet collision statistics when it came to asteroids but I am sure that twenty two in five days was astronomically greater than normal, if I can be forgiven the pun. It also reconfirmed my decision to leave the planet swiftly. My overuse of luck had allowed me to not only put up a good fight against Saitama but to break my Gamer's Mind which I had been aiming to do so for a while. Unfortunately this extreme luck came with the downside of getting a rash of bad luck which still hadn't completely faded and likely wouldn't for a while. Out here there could be no other casualties to my horrific luck.

I extended my psychic powers and grasped the asteroid before I altered its course slightly heading towards the blue and green planet that I had lived on for twenty nine years. After a few quick calculations and a minor peek into the future I sat down and went into torpor slowing down my heart beat as I used my powers to accelerate the asteroid. I made minor course corrections as the comet went onwards shedding more and more of itself as it burned through the atmosphere until it was a mere ten feet wide.

Re-entering orbit was one of the most intense experiences I have ever had in my life as air that felt like molten steel obstructed me. Still it wasn't enough to hurt me and so I took a deep breath of the metal air; filling my lungs with the stuff and returning to full consciousness. With one last move I tapped the comet causing it to shatter into little pieces that I hurled into the oceans before I kicked off a foothold myself before I dived into the ocean furthest away from the supercontinent. The oceans in this world were actually surprisingly dangerous; at least comparable to the Abandoned World in some places.

While the Seafolk were extremely small fry for the most part there were things that lurked in the blackness beneath the Twilight Zone that were…challenging. These Lovecraftian horrors were normally worshipped or avoided by the weaker sea dwellers out of fear that a whim would cause them to devour them all. I slid through the water like a knife before I slid a thousand feet down from momentum alone easily entering into the Twilight Zone before I kicked and went deeper as my Life Fibers morphed into the form of a wetsuit.

I wanted to kill something, to vent my frustrations to fight and channel my anger into a task that required no higher order thinking. The water bubbled and boiled away as I dove deeper and deeper until, with no resistance or prior warning, I found myself digging into solid rock and I forcibly stopped myself before I burst through the core and hit the mantle. My mind was really out of it at the moment; the cool clear clarity given to me by Gamer's Mind was no more and I felt myself losing concentration more easily. Gladly I had already spent the long arduous process of training otherwise I may have problems with my current mind-set.

I pulled myself out of the sand and rock using Supreme Awareness of the Natural World spreading my consciousness over miles and miles of ocean as I started swimming through the ocean at tremendous speeds. The ocean boiled around me uncontrollably as I swam and I tried to clamp down on the residual heat but was unable to. That was something that I also needed to work on. While it was okay to let my heat run wild in Tiger King Mode doing the same in Demon King Mode would lead to unspeakable amounts of collateral damage due to the vast amounts of energy given off in the latter form.

I was so lost in thought that a slight vibration was the only warning I got before my ears popped and the entire ocean exploded in a wave of deadly sound. I felt more than saw fish disintegrate around me as my bones thrummed and my skin quivered under the intensity of the audio. Still it would take more than that half-hearted attack to hurt me. While mentally I wasn't at a great place my body had only improved. Without any preamble I shot off in the direction of my attacker.

I was in pitch blackness but there was no way that I could miss the creature. Even the tides seemed to bend around the enormity of this monster. I had run into some pretty massive Mysterious Beings on land but the ocean has always been in a league of its own when it comes to size only. I kicked off the water darting to the side a thousand ton tentacle composed of a mix of rotting conjoined fish impacted the body. I could sense more than see the mix of creatures composed into a fleshy form of eyes and so many teeth.

I mutely registered my surprise at that attack. From what I could sense the main body was still over ten kilometres away from me at this point. To still attack from that distance truly showed just how enormous that creature was. Surprisingly enough 'Good' was the only thing running through my head at that moment. Unless a creature was above an average Dragon at this point I wouldn't even be able to get a warm up. Hopefully this one can take a punch.

Life Fibers extended from the tips of my fingers and I lashed out simultaneously rejecting any attempt to resist my cutting and I was gratified to see the massive tentacle be diced into cubes by that slash. However with barely a pause the chopped flesh seemed to flow back together slowly reforming into the original tentacle. I didn't allow that to happen however and so I swung both my hands sending out ten Life Fibers that cut and shredded the thing into little pieces.

As I did that another being appeared in my senses and I became aware of another limb shaped like a massive bloated whale over a hundred metres long with three mouths joined into one overlarge gaping maw. A glimpse of the future immediately got me moving just in time before a physical wall of sound exploded vaporising the area that I stood previously. I lashed out with one of my Life Fibers stretching it the full distance towards the whale creature wrapping it around the appendage before pulling myself towards the thing.

It turned astonishingly fast aiming towards me with its mouth and I lashed out with a punch at the same time as the shockwave came towards me. The ocean boiled as the two forces met halfway sending an explosion that I dived through infusing my body with Spin and turning myself into a rotating wrecking ball as I dived into the mouth of the beast. The squishy bits inside were literally burned away as I kicked off one of the teeth burning and blasted straight down the throat and through the other end turning cooking the beast alive in a display of whaling that would make the Japanese proud.

The thing slowly reformed behind me but I didn't slow. While I could easily fight the appendages the main body of the creature lay still in front of me by about seven kilometres. I stretched out my senses towards the blackness in front of me looking and trying to get an image of the creature and_

"Submit. Join. Accept. Combine." The psychic command hit me like a truck sparking a massive headache and once more causing me to curse the downsides to my loss of Gamer's Mind. For just an instant I got an image of a massive trio of eyes that stared down at me filled with an emotion I didn't understand.

Immediately I felt a swarm of bodies start to proceed towards me and for the first time in a long time I time gulped in a fear that was as annoying as it was irrational. For fuck's sake I survived re-entry, just why these creatures were freaking the fuck out of me was beyond me. Actually I pretty much guessed the reason immediately.

"Welcome back Thalassophobia. I have not missed you," I said to myself although underwater it likely wouldn't have been heard. In front of me a swarm of creatures straight from the prehistoric abyss known as 'Hells Aquarium' approached. I think the creatures were some type of Mosasaurs although they were even bigger than the beast was rumoured to be coming in at around thirty metres and they spread out before circling me as if testing my awareness. There were about seventy of them and I deliberately released more and more heat to offset the cold sweat that these creatures provoked from me.

One of the Mosasaurs darted towards me just out of my sight and immediately lashed backwards with a Spin infused punch that split the ocean and sent forward a blast of pressure that tore into the creature nearly breaking the thing into two pieces despite its size and bulk.

"Oh yeah, I'm strong," I said to myself reproaching as the rest of the creatures darted towards me in perfect coordination despite the loss of one of their members. I summoned Shun Shun Rika in the form of lances infusing my dislike and fear into the objects forcing them to expand and contract as long as I needed them and in a minute the remaining beasts were dead pierced through and riddled with fatal holes. Yet they still moved sluggishly but certainly as if compelled by an inflexible will.

I allowed myself to drop down to the ocean floor along with the blood and fleshy detritus barely allowing my foot to touch the seabed before I darted forward covering the remaining distance in a couple of seconds. In that short time I blew through school of piranha like fish a wave of writhing eel-like creatures and a trio that looked like a mix of crocodiles and dolphins that moved astonishingly fast.

"What. Creature. Refuse. Fuse." the beast spoke causing me to physically recoil in pain as I got within a hundred metres of it. While I still couldn't see in the darkness Supreme Awareness of the Natural World showed me its basic shape. A head like three massive squid melted together each donating one of a trio of eyes sat upon an upper body that looked to be a mix between a manta ray and a lobster which trailed off into legs consisting of hundreds of wing-like fins. The entire process made it look like a Cthulu-esque angel.

"It-Screams. Witnesses. Second-Life-King." it said causing my blood to run cold. I hated the idea of anybody seeing my past and I was particularly sensitive about that issue at the moment. I really didn't want to dwell on my prior life even after gaining control over my emotions there were still questions that troubled me severely driving a sick spike into my stomach.

"Demon King Mode," I said sharply activating the ability that I had used only once before. This time it wasn't in the desperation of a losing battle but the cold calculation gained by one who had already achieved their goal and wanted to analyse it. Unfortunately for myself; even the act of having used it once barely prepared me for the effect of activating it once more. My cells began to Spin before the floodgates cracked open and a vast unquantifiable deluge of energy welled up inside me. Life Fibers greedily drank in but even the parasite that was destined to devour the world was unable to sup upon all the energy released. I tried to restrain the heat that burst forward from my body but it was like putting my hand on the stove and I was forced to release the heat along with superheated blood that boiled the ocean and turned the waters red.

"_." the thing screamed in agony as it boiled and I was tempted to scream along with it. The difference between the Tiger and the Demon was immensely vast both on the output and the strain that it placed upon me. I was reminded of that scene in My Hero Academia when All Might explained how a body could explode from the strain that his Quirk put on it and I found I could empathise. Thankfully my body healed just as fast as it burnt up but I could feel the damage start to pile up and I decided to end this quickly.

Without even naming my punch I turned the ocean Dragon back into carp dinner. It was only later that I realised that I felt no satisfaction from doing so.

xxx

"Hey you're back, Mister King," Toby said as I walked into my own house. The kid was decked out in cleaning clothes and I wondered for the first time if I had inadvertently created my own Genos. While he had a standing invitation to my home I had hardly expected him to use that invitation for the purpose of coming over and cleaning.

"Toby what the hell," I exclaimed giving him a double take as I processed the new information. "Who hears that I'm going to be away for a week and then decides to clean my house?" Despite my bewilderment I felt my mood lighten at the befuddled look of my ward.

"Apparently I do," Toby said putting down the duster awkwardly. "Is that weird?"

"A little," I said giving him a bemused look. "I mainly told you in case the Association called. By the way how has it been on that front?"

"It's been a bit busy but they have been dealt with," Toby said with some confidence that didn't seem to be misplaced. "I killed three monsters this week." His tone said to praise him but without knowing how strong they were I wouldn't be able to tell if it was an achievement or not.

"What ranking?" I asked watching him freeze.

"One Wolf, one Tiger and one Demon," he said and I could almost visualise him lowering his ears in an expression that showed that he expected disappointment.

"Wolf and Tiger are a given but good job on the Demon," I said as I walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of cherry cola. "Want anything?"

"I could do with some tea," Toby said and I immediately refilled the kettle with my psychokinesis before flicking it on. "Are you okay Mister King?" I stopped at that. No I really wasn't but Toby shouldn't be able to pick this up. I wasn't exactly wearing my emotions on my sleeve.

"No I'm not," I said sharply causing him to flinch before I sighed. "Relax Toby. What gave it away anyway?"

"I sometimes can pick up how people are feeling. Like if they are nervous or scared or something," he said hurrying as if the words couldn't fall out of his mouth fast enough. That was quite interesting and something that I didn't know; maybe it was a werewolf thing. "Do you want to talk about it? They say a problem shared is a problem halved."

"So they do," I said as I sipped my cherry cola. "Unfortunately you'll find that things that people say are often correct but seldom always correct. Sharing a problem helps when you don't know the how to proceed but doesn't help when you know the answer but are unable to accept it."

"But why would you be unable to accept it," Toby asked and I felt a momentary spike of irritation before I calmed down and finished my cherry cola.

"People are very resistant to large changes in their life," I said as I flung the empty can in an arc causing it to bounce off two walls before it ricocheted off the table and into the bin. Even if we understand the best course of action we can't just immediately switch. The key to accepting change is time."

"So what's changed then?" Toby asked. This was unusually nosy for him but as I looked closer I saw the signs. He seemed actually really freaked out in a way that I hadn't seen him for a long time. I suppose this was the first time that he had seen me without Gamer's Mind regulating my emotions.

"Something changed long ago and I'm only feeling the effects of it now," I said before shaking my head reproaching. "Don't worry it's just a bad mood. Everyone has them and they go away eventually."

"If you say so Mister King," Toby said finally laying the topic to rest. "Are we still going to do a slot at the Y-City Banquet this month?"

"Ughh," I said as the image of the yearly even stoked memories. "I remember that. I've already booked so we can't cancel."

"I'm sure that we can cancel if you don't want to…" Toby started looking reluctant and I realised that he was looking forward to this event for some reason. Well there was no need for him to be concerned.

"Remember what I said about people not liking change Toby," I said as I moved forward rustling his hair causing him to squirm and try to push my hand away. "Consistency matters a lot in life and you can't just abandon things because you have a bad day Toby or because you're not in the mood. That's part of being an adult."

"You're being condescending today," Toby said pouting as he 'managed' to remove my hand. "I really hope you get out of your funk soon Mister King."

"Don't worry I will," I said with plenty of confidence in my voice. 'I hope,' I thought with significantly less confidence.

xxx

King

The Gamer

Title – The Penultimate Being

Species - _

Health- Unquantifiable

Mana – Unquantifiable

Level – 10 000+

STR – Exceeds Limit

VIT – Exceeds Limit

DEX – Exceeds Limit

INT – Exceeds Limit

WIS – Exceeds Limit

LUK – Exceeds Limit (7 432 196)

Points -0

Money 5 501 569 452¥

I idly looked at the status screen that had become vastly unhelpful over the last couple weeks. I don't think that The Gamer was designed to take me this far and the thought that I was exceeding the parameters was both terrifying and gratifying at the same time. Beneath that stat block lay a broken string of numbers and letters where once my Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body sat proudly.

I was sitting in an empty dimension just breathing as I tried to enter Demon King Mode once more. The endless energy provided by the Spin coursing through my cells could only be sipped at and never fully guzzled or I would explode. This time the boundless fire beneath my skin was detained beneath my epidermis and the heat from convection was stopped further by a thin layer of pale orange over my skin; Shun Shun Rika had grown in leaps and bounds since the loss of Gamer's Mind.

It was about three hours before I had to start setting up for the Banquet but even that task could barely occupy my mind. I couldn't help ruminate over the pointlessness of it all. My food would be good as it always was. I couldn't remember the last time my food was inadequate. The slow upward improvement due to The Gamer was more than enough to ensure that every plate I prepared was incrementally better than the last. Despite the current problems with The Gamer not one scrap of that skill was lost and with regard to the process of preparing food I was as omnipotent as ever.

The irony that I was probably feeling very much like Saitama in this one aspect was not lost to me, and I wondered just how much my loss of gratification mirrored his own. I am a person who genuinely hates angst. I despise the vicious/pointlessness of being trapped in your head wondering about questions. To my mind questions should be answered or discarded and I hated the idea of wasting precious seconds in my life by pondering over unfathomable questions. Unfortunately there is a difference in knowing what the empirical best action to do is and being able to embrace it.

"," I said and my stand appeared over my shoulder, multiple eyes perusing secret histories ready to project at any moment. Exercise burned off extraneous thoughts and fighting burnt off more than anything else as all worries about the past and future were eliminated by the relentless battle.

My stand conjured up a copy of the strongest opponent I could; myself. I watched with an unusual amount of anticipation as a different King appeared in a flicker of light before solidifying. Even when summoned next to me I had no idea to describe any differences. To be frank if I wasn't myself then I wouldn't be able to tell which one was me.

I immediately leapt forward throwing a punch that was dodged effortlessly even as the ground evaporated from pressure alone. Tendrils of Life Fibers darted towards my position and I could sense their hunger to devour my bioelectricity. A wordless grin crossed my face as I pointed my fingers forward curling my hand into the shape of a gun and allowing the built up heat in my body to explode out of my second and third fingers. Invisible beams of pure heat carved trenches into the landscape evaporating the land as matter was forcibly raised in temperature by tens of thousands of degrees.

Unfortunately none of them landed anywhere near my copy; who simply dodged the blasts an instant before I had even started firing them. Precognition combined with Supreme Awareness of the Natural World was damn annoying to counter at the best of times. I could have tried to counter that with my own precognition but I instead tried to test the limits increasing the beams until it was comparable to something straight out of Dragonball. I tested the limits of the dimension until the entire space was creaking over and over as the world shook to pieces. This was amazing. I had put so much effort into training over my decades and this was the first time in a long time that I felt powerful, able to do anything. Besides one specific case I don't think there's anything else on this rock that can defeat me. I don't think I would even lose to Boros. I smiled as I felt the last vestiges of depression float away from me…

"Can we have a word," my own calm voice said from behind me causing me to jolt backwards in surprise. Sitting behind me relatively unfazed by the carnage was my copy. In disbelief I turned towards who just stared blankly at me before alternating looking at the two of us as if confused who his real master was. I genuinely did not see that coming and I had to stifle a chuckle as I watched my duplicate.

"I have always been a believer in taking the appropriate time for myself," I said getting a mirrored smile. "Is this going to be an evil clone thing where you have to accept the darkness in your heart?"

"Fuck no," my clone reflexively said. "Let's keep this series at least free from that particular cliché."

"Well then are we going to have to fight then," I said with a smile that indicated that this was also preferable only to receive a bemused smile.

"Wait just a moment," my alternate said before without any hesitation whatsoever he reached up to his body and with a motion that was as sudden as it was sickening tore open his body in a shower of gore.

"What," I found myself exclaiming as I leapt back. I couldn't help it. I had seen hundreds of sights that would be called disturbing but somehow none of them were half as shocking as my mirror image tearing itself open. My shock redoubled as I saw exactly what emerged from the carnage.

"Hi myself," the splitting image of my past self before my death said as he dusted himself off from the decidedly non-bloody bits. "It's been a long time." He was dressed in a black jacket and a white facemask with coffins surrounding him.

"Why the Persona reference," I asked trying to wrap my head around just what the hell was going on here.

"Because it's a good series," my double immediately shot back. "If you were in this situation you would do the same. In fact," he gestured to himself. "You just did."

"Yeah I did," I responded still a bit shell-shocked at the situation. "So are you my death?"

"One of them at least," my past self said shaking his head. "You can call me the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"I'm not doing that," I said shaking my head. "So is this actually real or is it just in my mind? And don't you dare quote Harry Potter," I said as I saw my duplicate begin to open his mouth.

"Then don't set me up," my past self said. "Do you remember how works?"

"It scans the target and I believe accesses their little chapter in the great Akashic Records," I said working it out immediately. "So my history included the time before and after the reincarnation." I tilted my head as I looked at the unthreatening person in front of me. I was easily millions of times stronger than my past self to the extent it wouldn't even count as a fight.

"That sounds likely," my alternate said. "So I think you can imagine just how disconcerting it was to see a future depressed version of myself standing here."

'I'm not depressed,' I wanted to say out loud, but something stopped me. While I would gladly lie to anybody else lying to myself just seemed weird. If this never happened again then this would be the only chance to speak for a person who truly understood me. 'Wait a moment.'

"Do you know what happened?" I asked curiously. Despite being in my old body there seemed to be no confusion from Stand King. I would have expected a few more looks of amazement and more than a few 'what the fucks' if I was suddenly in this situation.

"We painted the sidewalk red and you were reincarnated into the body of King from One Punch Man," my past self said talking about the incident as if it was just a random event. "It's been twenty-eight years and you've gotten pretty strong."

"Still not as strong as Saitama though," I said with a rueful grin.

"Nothing worth doing is ever easy," my past self said and the two of us stood in subdued agreement.

"Hey," I said after a while. "What do you think happened to my parents, my brother and my friends?" The question had been bothering me for a while lately. Gamer's Mind was insidious in a way that steered you away from any questions that appeared traumatic. It wasn't mind control as such but urgent questions became less urgent as the mind remained placid when maybe it shouldn't have been.

"It's been twenty-eight years," my past self said, not sugar-coating the response at all. "Parents are probably dead. Brother and friends are old if they aren't dead. They probably saw our corpse, mourned, felt their world end and then life went on as it always does, sans us of course."

"Yeah," I said chuckling. "What a way to end the year. I can only hope that the next was better for them."

"That's the beauty and horror in life," past me said sighing before he took a seat on the ground before lying down on the dusty earth. "Looking forward to the cooking thing you've got."

"No I'm not," I said. "But you know commitments. You're going to ruin your clothes if you lie down like that."

"Yup, commitments are the things that you get over quickly so you can do your thing," past me said. "I was surprised to see that cooking became one of your commitments. Also this clothing is either temporary or imaginary so I don't care what happens to it."

I almost didn't hear his last words as the implications in my past self's words hit me. I didn't like cooking in my past life. When did I start liking it in this life? The preparation and use of ingredients to create culinary masterpieces was something that I could do, but was it something that I wanted to do?

"Yeah," I said as the full implications hit me. "Cooking is one of my commitments. I've never liked it. I just did it to keep my Gourmet Cells fed and it became the logical hobby."

"Then what isn't a commitment?" past me asked not moving from his position. The doppelganger had this annoying disposition like the whole thing didn't affect him.

"Training was fun," I said to myself and…well to me as well. "I like finding ways to use my powers. I also do like fighting; although I prefer fighting monsters to humans."

"Monsters have a lot more interesting motivations," past self said. "It's just that their motivations are incompatible with human society. Humans are complex and it's seldom as black and white when dealing with them; unless they're an absolute asshat of course."

"There's no shortage of absolute asshats in society," I said. "I guess it's because monsters always look like they're having fun despite the situations. They're gloriously malevolent as opposed to humans whose malevolence is too often self-justified. They're self-aware as the villain in the play that is our lives?" I questioned more than answered trying to put my thoughts into words. "There's no moral ambiguity, just two irreconcilable forces."

"You have allowed them to shine for that one beautiful moment before granting them a swift epilogue," past self said. "It's truly a shame that few were able to witness that moment."

"Yeah," I said. "But that's life. Even the greatest of pharaohs were forgotten in time. The ripples of a person's life mostly vanish shortly after death. We live and die and the world goes on."

"Only a person's works are forever," past self said and I started to see what he was driving at the whole time. "When was the last time you wrote something out?"

"Twenty-Eight years," I said thinking back through my life. The past decades felt more like a dream or a vacation then a career or a life. I looked back on those days with fondness but I felt like I had no desire to relive those days of constantly hunting and training.

"Man that's more years than I've even got," my past self said. "So what are you going to name the book? There has to be the word King inserted in there somewhere."

"That's a given," I said. "What would you call it?"

"FucKing Monsters," my past self said and I snorted in laughter. Not at the title but how in sync our reactions were.

"I haven't grown up much these years it seems," I admitted. "Hey," I asked. "Do you think this might be a dying dream? Maybe I'm still just bleeding out on the road or unconscious in the hospital."

"Maybe," past self said. "How would you know in the first place? Maybe we're all living in Plato's cave. The only thing you can do is to use what you're given in the end."

"That's slightly depressing," I said, but it was the good kind; the existential melancholy that informed me that I was alive and time was ticking and to go out and do something.

"And speaking of using what you're given," past me said. "You've still got one more outsider power left haven't you? You gained that at level ten thousand."

"Yes," I admitted easily. "I was planning to only activate it when my luck had returned fully."

"I doubt that there will be much difference in this case," past me said. "I would like to know what it is before I leave."

"Ruining my build," I grumbled with no heat. I hadn't wanted to focus on a new outsider power yet. While luck was one reason my mind-set hadn't recovered fully and I didn't want to start the process while distracted. This conversation though… I couldn't think of a single thing that did it but I felt much more relaxed after this chat. Not happier but that existential dread was more manageable. The least I could do to show my appreciation was to honour that request.

Without hesitation I called up the blue window and looked at the words that I had already seen four times already.

Outsider

Despite your birth here you are fundamentally a creature from outside the current world. By taking this point you are made aware of knowledge from a fundamentally useful power and gain a random power from one of the other universes not chosen. Using this power will damage your body initially as it is native to a different universe.

A click of the button and I felt my body freeze as an incorporeal sensation invaded it. I was familiar with the process and this time I controlled my body's instinctual reactions preventing that innate sense of rejection that always made the process trickier than it needed to be. My confidence was overturned in a moment as the annexing power immediately froze my body. Over ten million vitality, multiple hearts and gourmet cells and yet I was still brought to the edge of death in under a second. The cold clammy claws of the reaper called to me and I forced myself to stay awake. I was still in Demon King Mode and yet the energy was indifferently absorbed by the force.

An agonising few seconds passed before the force withdrew from a few of my hearts allowing my cells on the fringes to recover before it moved towards my head. For a brief second I considered extracting my own brain rather than deal with that thing again but my reluctance faded as the force hit. For an instant I blacked out before I rallied and commanded my Gourmet Cells to heal any damage. Simultaneously I activated Shun Shun Rika infusing it with my will and desire to live and instructing it to keep me alive.

The pain was excruciating and I found myself crying steaming blood from my closed eyes as my brain pulsed in agony. Brain cells burst and I thanked my impossible recovery abilities that prevented me from dying on the spot. Achingly slowly the pain disappeared leaving me on my knees.

"I think I should have waited for my luck to fully recover," I said to my past self.

"I doubt it would have made a difference," my past self said, his voice sounding unusually faint. "Do you know what your new ability is?"

"Just give me a moment," I said attempting to open my eyes and find the name of my new ability. That search for a name was rendered entirely obsolete as I opened my eyes to find a world infused with thousands of lines.

"Ah crap," I said to myself instantly recognizing the power as I shut my eyes tightly. "The only question was 'what version of the power did I get'.

"Did you belong to Shiki or Shiki," I said to myself. "Or were you SHIKI's. The thought was amusing but didn't help the situation and so I allowed myself a few seconds to recover before I opened my eyes again. The lines were back and harsher than ever. These ugly truths scarred their way into the fabric of the world constantly reminding me of the mortality of everything around me.

"Hey," I said to my past self. "Still think that was a good idea?" No words came from him. He wasn't there; if he ever was. I stood alone in the middle of an empty collapsing dimension watching its death. I sighed before I stood up and started looking towards the lines trying to narrow down the specifics of the power and I saw something shocking.

Under my eyes the lines morphed into sentences and the points became full stops. A random stone picked up from the ground proclaimed its end proudly stating that as the dimension decayed it would be eroded by the empty space reducing to energy after which the stone as a being would meet its end. As soon as I saw that the writing flickered instead telling a different story at the moment I chose to remove it from the dimension and I whistled even as I started getting the beginnings of a headache.

On last experiment and I reached into my pocket for a pen that I had used just a few hours ago to write down the last needed ingredients. With two flourishes I had traced one of the ends and I watched in amazement as the stone dissipated into energy; thankfully it didn't explode like a nuclear weapon. I hate the decontamination process.

Whistling to myself I disappeared from the collapsing dimension and back to Earth.

xxx

"How was your vacation," Tatsumaki said as I served her food. "There was a Dragon charging around Y-City when you were out." We were at the Y-City banquet and my little slice of culture was packed as usual.

"That was the stage magician right?" I asked. I was actually slightly upset about missing that one; a magician who had his theatre demolished for some block of towers who decided to burn the city to the ground in revenge. "How strong was he really?"

"He was not that strong," Tatsumaki said as I sat down at her table taking a bit of a break. "He summoned these hordes of rabid bunnies that were even weaker." That could be anything from Wolf to Demon in strength. Tatsumaki didn't have a good grasp of differentiating anything below Dragon.

"I must thank you for that then," I said. "Toby definitely wouldn't have been able to beat him then."

"No problem," she said before she turned to give me a look as she put down her tea. "By the way just why are you wearing sunglasses in winter?"

"I'm doing sightless training," I said half-truthfully lifting my sunglasses up and revealing my closed eyes. Leaving them open for too long would give me a mild headache and could prove very distracting. On the plus side even opening my eyes would help to level them up easily.

Mystic Eyes of Death Perception (LV 13) – Active

Eyes that can see the end of all things in the form of lines that denote loss and points that show epilogues. By tracing the lines inevitable injuries manifest and by piercing the points the person's death is enacted.

It was a weird and brief description of a power that I knew pretty well. Still my particular manifestation seemed to be different as every character that had them previously had their own version. I was pretty sure I couldn't kill concepts for one. I hadn't had the time to perform much experimentation as I had recently been very busy cleaning up Mysterious Beings. While I only had only taken a few days off from my hero duties I still wanted to be seen as more reliable than most of my colleagues who tended to be anything but.

"You know a technique to see without eyes?" Tatsumaki asked instantly interested and I nodded. The shorter esper was astonishingly hard working when it came to her training. I had no doubt that she would use the fact that it was possible as incentive to learn how to do it herself and little doubt that she would succeed. I wouldn't hamper her ability by telling her that it wasn't an esper power.

"Yup," I said before grimacing as I saw somebody I didn't really want to see. Well to be fair I didn't dislike the guy that much, but he was often surrounded by at least one person I hated.

"Oh it's you," Tatsumaki said as she saw the short man in a business suit.

"Sitch," I responded knowing that my companion might have forgotten his name. The Minister Office of Justice was looking calm as per usual and there was a brief look of surprise as he saw Tatsumaki sitting with me. That meant he was here for me. Next to him stood a man I respected as well, the founder of the Hero Association Agoni and a person I respected decidedly less, the chief of the Y-City Hero Association branch.

"King," the man said. "How was your vacation?"

"You leave for five days and suddenly you're indispensable," I replied before offering them a spot at the table. Despite the fact that only Tatsumaki and I sat together the table was enough to sit eight people. "I think my phone still hasn't recovered." I gestured towards Toby giving him the standard gesture that waiters knew meant to come and take the customers order and my ward did so immediately holding up the notepad ready to take orders.

"I will just have water," Sitch said before turning towards his companions.

"A lager please," Agoni said pointing to an item on the menu.

"I won't have anything," the Y-City chief said. The two of us had run-ins before and I had made no pretences as to my thoughts regarding him. He must be really uncomfortable right now.

"So what can I help you with?" I asked as I Toby handed the menus to them.

"It's a bit of a complicated issue," Sitch said.

"The Hero Association has an image problem," Agoni said directly. "Every day Heroes put their lives at risk and yet their sacrifice is ruined by a few bad apples."

"There's more than a few," I said. While I liked him that didn't mean I would sugar-coat my words. "The corruption in the Association is notoriously endemic at this point. It's quite impressive when you think about it just how quickly the rot has set in the last three years. At this point I think that if you tried to cut it all out then you would barely be left with a functioning company." The three of them winced at that; especially the Y-City Chief who was part of the fucking problem in the first place.

"That's unfortunately true," Sitch said remorsefully. "While we have put efforts into curbing the disease the fact remains that the citizens are slowly losing faith in the industry. There are good people in the Association still and nobody was to benefit if the Association was to disappear."

"That's probably true," I admitted. I knew of the future existence of the Neo-Heroes but very little about them. Regardless of the future if the Association were to collapse today there would be countless problems.

"We just need some good publicity to buy some time to enact these measures," Agoni said and I watched the Y-City chief give a dismissive look before I nailed him with a look that was just one second short of stopping his blackened heart. That shut him up pretty fucking fast.

"PR is more of Sweet Mask's thing than mine," I said getting a small sound of condescension from Tats; who really didn't like the A-Class Hero. I was a pretty classic example of an introvert and public appearances wore me out quite quickly. Even the twice that I had showed up on television were more trials than things that I enjoyed doing or was good at.

"Please try," Agoni said with sincerity that I couldn't easily reject. "I don't know if you realise just how much of a myth you are to some people King. If you can just give some of the citizens a reason to believe in Heroes then maybe we can reverse this trend."

"Why aren't you asking me?" Tatsumaki said and I bit my tongue trying to think of a diplomatic way to get them out of this situation. None of the three looked like they wanted to speak up after being faced by Tatsumaki's glare and I decided to intervene.

"Would you even consider it," I said laughing it off. "We both know that you hate that sort of stuff even more than I do. If you're so eager to go on TV or to some sort of PR gathering then I am sure I can try and get that arranged."

"Hmph, no thanks," Tatsumaki said immediately backing down. I could see she saw what I was doing but she was not so unaware that she didn't know how anti-social she was. She was quite a bit worse than me in that regard.

"Have you arranged anything yet?" I asked as I turned back to the men.

"We were planning to ask your permission before we went ahead with it," Sitch said looking more reassured now. "We will ask to coordinate with Sweet Mask about the programme. The two of you have a working relationship I believe."

"We do," I said, before I paused. "Can I ask you to hold out on that for a bit? I've recently started writing my memoirs (recently as in I've just decided to do it and scribbled out a prologue). Maybe that will give some people something to ask me."

"Really," all three of the men said with almost unnerving synchronicity.

"Yeah," I replied. Well technically it was less about me and more about the monsters that I fought. Fights with Blast or Saitama wouldn't feature at all.

"How much longer will it take to get the manuscript out," Agoni said with barely concealed excitement.

"First draft should take a month," I said. "I was thinking of splitting it into three parts. The first book from the age of six to twenty. Second book from the age of twenty when I was in the Abandoned World for a lot of it. Third book from the time I arrived back at the Supercontinent up till the current day."

"Will you really have enough material," Sitch said doubtfully but I had no qualms giving him an affirmative answer to that.

"I have fought and killed easily over ten thousand Mysterious Beings to date," I said casually bragging about my achievements. "That should be enough detail to full ten books."

"Certainly," Agoni said taking a deep swig of his lager before banging it down on the table. "You might want to put the book through Sweet Mask before you publish it. He's rather experienced in those matters."

"It would make it easier on me," I easily admitted. "I will be taking the rest of the month off to finish the first book." I saw some looks of nervousness at that so I decided to throw them a bone. "I have my phone on me. If it proves absolutely necessary that I help then just phone my number and tell me the location and I will sort it out. Please don't abuse it though."

My words were soft spoken but none of the men were under the illusion that I was a pushover. While I gave people a lot of leniency I did have a limit and none of them there were looking forward to finding what it was.

"That's fine," Sitch said. "The Hero Association isn't going to collapse due to the absence of a few members," he said sounding reasonably confident.

"That's great," I said standing up. "Please enjoy the rest of the food. It's on the house." It was a polite gift, the cost of any meal was pocket change compared to the wealth of anybody at this table. "Hey Tats can I ask you something?" I said as I walked out of my designated area before taking a single leap and launching myself to the nearest tall building.

"You just did," Tatsumaki said touching down gracefully a second later. "You hardly need to ask permission in the first place."

"Fine then," I said. "I wanted to ask if you wanted to come along to my vacation."

"Oh," Tatsumaki said with some great surprise. "You're going on vacation to write your book. Which vacation spot have you chosen?"

"It's a little cove in the Abandoned World," I said. "There are beautiful reefs, great fishing and fascinating Mysterious Beings that we can observe or just fight."

"Sounds lovely," Tatsumaki said with an awkward expression. "But are we going to be living in a tent because I've never camped before. I would not like to start." In Tatsumaki speak that basically boiled down to, 'I don't want to look like an idiot attempting something new that I'm not good at.' Even in all the time that I knew her, her pride seemed to get stronger and stronger.

"I've set up a lovely cabin there years ago," I admitted. "Fully stocked and I can simply hunt up any other supplies."

"Look," Tatsumaki said before she paused for a long while. "Never mind let's go. I could use some time away even if it is a little rustic. I'll go pack my swimsuit." With those parting words she flew up and headed off in the direction that I knew from experience led to her house.

"Yeah rustic," I said slowly watching her fly away. I had called in a favour from Metal Knight to have it built. The amenities in this particular hideout would have put some five star hotels to shame. After all I fucking hate camping also.