Gwen crouched low on the edge of a building, her white-hooded costume blending with the soft overcast sky.
Below, the bald man in the cheap hoodie strolled casually down the cracked sidewalk, plastic grocery bag swinging lazily in one hand.
He wasn't in a hurry. No real direction. Just walking.
Like he didn't just casually one-punch a villain the size of a truck and walk away without even blinking.
Gwen frowned. "What are you?" she whispered to herself, leaning forward.
"You know, for someone who's not interested," came a voice from behind, "you're very interested."
Gwen jolted, nearly slipping off the ledge.
Cindy Moon, aka Silk, plopped down beside her with a steaming takeout box, chopsticks already working overtime. "You tailing him, or stalking him? There's a fine line, Ghost-Girl."
Gwen groaned, pulling her hood lower. "I'm just... observing."
"Sure. Observing the shiny bald head you've been following for three blocks. Classic symptoms of 'Spider-crush,'" Cindy teased, slurping a noodle with a dramatic wink.
"I don't have a crush," Gwen muttered, crossing her arms. "He's just weird. He punched out Rhino like it was nothing. Not even a grunt. Just bop, nap time. And we had the same conversation just a minute ago."
"Maybe he's a new hero," Cindy said through a mouthful of rice. "Or like, one of those multiverse imports. Weirdo shows up, messes up physics, leaves. Very on-brand."
"He didn't look like anything. Just some... guy." Gwen paused. "And I swear, he was surprised he could read the signs. Like, shocked he understood English."
Cindy blinked, mid-chopstick. "Okay, that's actually weird. Who gets surprised by reading English in New York? What was he speaking before, IKEA instructions?"
Down below, Saitama paused to peer into a pet shop window, staring blankly at a very enthusiastic golden retriever wagging its tail.
He stared. The dog stared back. A long moment passed.
Cindy squinted. "Think he likes dogs?"
"Think he is a dog," Gwen muttered. "Wandering around like he lost his leash."
Cindy stifled a laugh. "Okay, that's mean. Funny. But mean."
They both watched as Saitama reached into his pocket, pulled out a sale flyer, frowned, and then walked the wrong direction. Gwen sighed. "He's lost."
"No GPS, no sense of direction. Tragic." Cindy tilted her box toward Gwen. "Wanna share? Got dumplings."
"I'm on surveillance."
"Surveillance is better with dumplings."
Gwen rolled her eyes, but took one anyway.
As Saitama rounded a corner and wandered into a small alley, both girls darted silently after him across rooftops, webs trailing behind like white threads.
They moved with practiced ease, Gwen with her dancer's grace, Cindy with a little more bounce and mischief.
"Y'know," Cindy said mid-swing, "if this guy turns out to be some ultra-alien doomsday egghead, I am blaming you."
"I'll take it," Gwen said, eyes still locked on their target.
...
The alley was empty when they dropped down, except for a few overturned trash bins and the lingering scent of burnt hotdogs. No sign of the bald guy.
"...Okay. Where did he go?" Gwen muttered, scanning the narrow path.
Cindy sniffed the air. "I smell soy sauce. And sadness."
Gwen gave her a look. "That's... very specific."
"It's the vibe," Cindy said with a shrug, then hopped up on a dumpster to peek over a tall fence. "Nothing on this side. You think he teleported? Or maybe he phased through a wall?"
"He seemed more like the 'I forgot why I came here and wandered into a laundromat' type."
Just as Gwen said it, a door behind them creaked open.
The girls whipped around. Saitama casually stepped out, now holding a single sock and a tiny laundry card in his hand. He paused when he saw them.
The three of them stared at each other.
Gwen tensed. Cindy froze mid-chew with a dumpling she'd sneakily popped from her sleeve pocket.
"...Yo," Saitama said, blinking. Then he walked right past them.
Gwen and Cindy stood frozen, watching him stroll out of the alley like they were the weird ones.
Cindy was the first to break. "Okay. Gwen. Babe. I am officially spooked. That man just walked out of a wall."
"It was a door," Gwen corrected, still staring. "I think. Maybe."
"Are we sure he's human? Like, on a scale of 1 to Galactus, where are we placing this guy?"
"Unknown. Possibly 'mildly confused cosmic being who doesn't know how laundromats work.'"
Saitama had turned the corner again. They zipped up the wall in sync and resumed their rooftop crawl, more curious now than ever.
They followed him through a food market where he debated between two brands of instant noodles for five whole minutes.
Cindy leaned so far over the edge of the roof trying to see, she almost dropped her takeout.
Then he passed a street magician doing coin tricks.
He stopped.
Watched.
Clapped once.
And dropped an actual gold coin in the guy's hat before walking off like it was nothing.
Cindy slowly turned toward Gwen, eyes wide. "Where. Did. He get that coin?"
"No clue," Gwen whispered.
"Who carries gold coins?" she hissed. "Was he in Pirates of the Caribbean last week or something?"
"I think we're being dragged into a very weird side quest."
The sky was starting to dim a little, dusk settling over the old part of the city. Lights flickered on in old lamp posts, casting the sidewalk in a warm, broken glow.
Saitama, meanwhile, had stopped in front of a claw machine through a store window. He leaned close, watching a plush crab stuck between the prize chute and the glass.
He gently tapped the window with one finger.
The crab fell.
The machine beeped and dropped the prize.
Cindy gawked. "Okay, that was magic. That was straight-up Bald Gandalf sorcery."
"I think I'm gonna go insane," Gwen mumbled.
"You're gonna fall for him first," Cindy added with a sly grin.
"I'm gonna throw you off this roof."
"Love is dangerous, Gwen."
Gwen sighed and rubbed her temples. "We need to figure out who or what he is."
Cindy slurped the last of her drink, then nodded seriously. "Agreed. Let's stalk him until we're emotionally compromised."
"...Please stop talking."
...
The rooftops blurred beneath their feet as Gwen and Cindy moved in tandem, graceful, casual, completely obvious to anyone who might be looking.
Thankfully, Saitama remained blissfully unaware, continuing his absolutely uneventful yet mysteriously captivating stroll through the neglected city blocks.
Gwen squinted. "He's... stopping again. Is that a stray cat?"
Cindy leaned forward, nearly horizontal over a vent pipe. "Yup. And it's got a fish in its mouth."
They watched Saitama crouch down. The cat hissed.
He blinked.
The cat blinked.
Then, somehow, it dropped the fish at his feet like he was some kind of urban jungle emperor. Saitama looked mildly pleased and patted the cat once before walking on.
"...He just made peace with a feral city cat," Gwen muttered.
"With a fish tribute," Cindy added. "The cat offered him dinner."
They both stared.
"We might be witnessing the rise of the new king of New York," Gwen said flatly.
"Nah," Cindy replied, smirking. "He's too bald for politics."
"Tell that to Lex Luthor."
"Touché. But wait, that guy is from DC comi-"
They tailed him through a narrow alley where some guy was yelling into a payphone about alien spores turning his garden gnomes into communists.
Saitama politely stepped around him without blinking, as if this was just Tuesday. The duo had to duck behind a rusted AC unit to keep from laughing out loud.
"I swear, this whole area is like a glitchy open world map," Gwen whispered.
Cindy nodded solemnly. "NPCs are bugged. Our quest marker's broken. And this dude's the only thing that actually functions."
"I don't get it. No background signal. No tracker. He's not even pinging any of my usual metahuman alerts."
Cindy leaned back, chomping the last of a jerky stick. "Maybe he's off the grid. Like, ultra off the grid. Quantum off the grid."
"You just like saying words."
"Yup."
Down below, Saitama stopped again. This time, at a corner store's vending machine. He pulled out a coin, inserted it, pressed the wrong button, and got seaweed chips.
He stared at the package like he just lost a game of rock-paper-scissors against fate.
Then he shrugged, opened the bag, and started eating anyway.
Gwen tilted her head. "I'm not sure if he's the dumbest genius or the smartest idiot I've ever seen."
"He's both. He's... a paradox snack man."
She tapped her fingers on the edge of the ledge. "Still no weird energy readings. No dimensional ripples. But his place wasn't here yesterday, and it sure as hell didn't get built overnight."
Cindy tilted her head thoughtfully. "What if he didn't get brought here?"
"...What?"
"What if this part of here got brought to him? Like, reverse isekai. Dimension drift style."
"That's... honestly kind of terrifying."
"Right? Guy wakes up to the same wallpaper, same slippers, same coffee brand, but the city outside his window? Boom. Bonus round."
"He doesn't even seem bothered."
"He probably thinks it's Tuesday."
The two sat in silence for a moment as Saitama wandered toward a bench, plopped down like a tired mall grandpa, and slowly continued eating his seaweed chips like he had nowhere better to be for the next decade.
Cindy broke the silence. "...Okay, I kind of want to talk to him now."
Gwen blinked. "What?"
"Weird energy or not, I have to know what his deal is. I mean, come on, wouldn't you?"
"I am following him around rooftops like a third grader with a crush."
"So admit it."
"Never."
"Say you like the shiny-headed enigma."
"I will throw you into a parallel universe."
Cindy grinned wide. "Sounds like a yes to me. Insomniac spiderman please~"
...
The sun was lazily slipping past the horizon, casting orange streaks across the rundown windows and cracked pavement of what should've been a normal New York district, but absolutely wasn't.
Gwen and Cindy crouched low on another rooftop, this one partially collapsed in the back, overtaken by vines that shouldn't have survived the winter.
From their vantage point, they could still see Saitama sitting on a bench below, now watching pigeons fight over a discarded hot dog like he was at an opera.
He leaned back, chip bag in his lap, expression unchanged.
"You ever get the feeling," Gwen said, "that we're not tailing a man... but like... a weirdly chill cosmic anomaly?"
Cindy tossed a pebble off the roof edge. "Yup. And I'm pretty sure he's watching a secret bird martial arts tournament right now."
Below, one pigeon did a spinning kick. The hot dog was launched. Another pigeon caught it midair. Saitama nodded slowly, as if approving the choreography.
"Okay," Gwen muttered, "that's two things today I'm never gonna be able to explain in therapy."
"And it's only six o'clock."
The city creaked around them. Not loudly, not obviously, but subtly wrong. Buildings had names in languages they couldn't identify.
Streetlights flickered like they were blinking in Morse code. At one corner, a vending machine hummed a lullaby that sounded suspiciously like the Tetris theme, but played backwards.
"Did that lamppost just bow to him?" Cindy whispered.
Gwen blinked. "...It did."
Saitama scratched his cheek, oblivious.
Then came the squirrels.
At first it was one. Then four. Then nine. They assembled on a power line, in a line formation, tiny hands over their chests like soldiers in attention.
One dropped down a string tied with a tiny acorn necklace.
Saitama took it.
Put it on.
"Okay, no," Gwen whispered, pulling her hood further down. "No. I've fought sentient virus clones, alternate-universe Venoms, and once a symbiote-possessed toaster, and this? This is the weirdest thing I've seen all year."
"Don't even lie, you love this."
"I do love this."
Cindy narrowed her eyes, scanning the area again. "Still no danger. No anomalies. Just squirrels performing a coronation ceremony for a bald guy who eats seaweed chips."
Then, across the street, a dumpster shook violently. They both immediately went alert, finally, something threatening.
The lid flew off with a clang.
Out climbed...
A full-grown, three-legged raccoon wearing aviator goggles and what looked like a belt of firecrackers.
It hissed like a war cry.
Saitama looked over. Slowly.
The raccoon froze. Its ears drooped. It turned, leapt back into the dumpster, and slammed the lid shut behind it.
"...I have no idea what dimension this is anymore," Gwen muttered.
Cindy crossed her arms. "I'm starting to think he's not the anomaly. We are."
And that was when the ground shook.
Just a little. Just enough to set the pigeons scattering and the squirrels scampering. Gwen and Cindy instantly dropped into defensive crouches.
Across the road, a manhole cover burst upward in a spray of steam and shattered concrete. A figure launched out of it, hulking, armored, roaring.
Rhino. Again.
Covered in green sewer slime, looking like a rejected Mario boss, and furious.
"THERE YOU ARE, EGGHEAD!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs, pointing at Saitama. "YOU'RE DEAD"
Saitama stood.
Rhino charged.
Gwen and Cindy gasped in unison, about to leap down, but....
WHAM.
One punch.
Same as before.
Rhino flew backward like a meteor, cratering into the side of a decayed parking structure. He slid down with a groan and a squelch of slime.
Saitama dusted his hands, looked mildly annoyed about the chips being slightly crumpled, then sat back down.
Silence.
Cindy slowly sat beside Gwen on the rooftop. "You know what?"
Gwen blinked.
"I think I am in love."
"...please take things seriously...."