"Where in heaven's name am I?"
The young man's voice was hoarse as it escaped his throat. He squatted in the middle of a concrete graveyard—what was once a city center, now reduced to scorched rubble and blood-soaked streets.
Darren's green hair clung to his forehead, damp with sweat and ash. Around him, shattered glass glinted under the flickering fires. The building he had been in—no, the building the original Darren had worked in—was gone. Nothing remained but bent steel beams and broken bodies.
And silence.
Suffocating silence.
His eyes widened in horror. Limbs. Blood. Burned-out cars. Human remains.
"What the hell happened here?" he muttered, his voice trembling as he staggered to his feet. His clothes were torn and soaked in blood—some his, most not.
Then it hit him.
A migraine of cosmic proportions.
A tsunami of memories surged through his mind. Emotions not his own. Lives not his own. Faces, moments, routines. Family. Friends. Coworkers. The life of the man whose body he now inhabited poured into him like cold water over open wounds.
He gasped as the flood ebbed, clutching his head, eyes wide.
He remembered everything.
The man whose life he had inherited wasn't a fighter. He was a factory worker. He had a little brother. A mother who worked nights. A small, crumbling apartment. He was a nobody.
And now… everyone he loved was dead.
"I transmigrated…" Darren whispered, shaking. "Into One Punch Man?"
Yes. He recognized the world. But this was no comedy. No gag show.
This was the future, where everything had changed.
And not for the better.
In this timeline, the Hero Association had evolved into something darker. Heroes weren't deployed out of duty anymore. They were bought. Cities bid for their protection like luxury services.
Rich cities had top-tier heroes. The poor?
The poor were left to rot.
No one came for this city. No one ever would.
They thought poverty was protection. That villains wouldn't waste time on them.
Not until today.
Darren's hands clenched into fists.
And then… a voice.
"Tch. Still breathing?"
Darren turned toward the sound. His blood turned to ice.
From the smoke emerged a creature—a towering humanoid monster, muscles bulging, claws gleaming like obsidian scythes. His skin was dark gray, leathery, covered in spikes and red etchings. His face twisted in a grin of casual cruelty.
Claw Man.
The butcher of the poor zones. The monster who turned slums into slaughterhouses.
"Guess you're the last one," Claw Man mused. He sniffed the air like a predator. "Kinda pathetic. Maybe I should let you run. Give you a head start."
Darren stood frozen. Not out of fear.
But rage. Rage so deep it burned his chest like magma.
He remembered their faces now. His little brother with the cracked glasses. His mother's tired smile. His coworkers who bought him lunch when he couldn't afford it.
All gone.
Because of this thing.
Darren's muscles tensed. His eyes narrowed. He didn't think. He didn't plan.
He moved.
BOOM!
The earth cracked as he launched forward with impossible speed.
Claw Man's grin faltered just before Darren's fist collided with his gut, sending the hulking beast flying like a cannonball through a row of ruined buildings. Concrete exploded outward. A thunderous echo followed.
Darren stood, chest heaving. The ground beneath him still vibrated.
A beat.
Then rubble shifted—and Claw Man rose, grinning wide.
"You've got some spark, huh?" he chuckled, blood dripping from his lip. "That's more fun."
He lunged.
Claws whistled through the air.
SLASH!
Darren ducked. The claw missed his throat by inches and tore through a steel support beam behind him like paper.
CRACK!
Darren countered with a punch to Claw Man's jaw—but the beast twisted mid-blow, slashing across Darren's shoulder.
Blood sprayed.
Darren stumbled back, pain flaring, but his eyes didn't leave the monster. His heart was thundering, but not in fear.
In determination.
They clashed again. Fist to claw. Flesh to bone. Darren's strength cracked concrete. Claw Man's slashes shredded steel.
The battlefield shifted as their brawl spilled into the streets. Abandoned vehicles were flung aside. Buildings crumbled under their blows.
Claw Man laughed as he fought. "This is what I LIVE for!"
Darren didn't respond. He was too focused.
Focused on breaking the monster who killed his world.
Claw Man swung low—Darren dodged, rolled, and countered with an upward punch that snapped the villain's head back.
He followed with a flurry of brutal body blows—left, right, right, uppercut! Bones cracked. Blood splattered. Claw Man reeled, but roared and retaliated.
SLASH!
A claw ripped through Darren's side. He gasped, dropped to one knee.
"You're slowing down," Claw Man taunted, licking his claws. "You're strong—but you're not a fighter. You're just angry."
Darren looked up.
"You're right."
Claw Man blinked.
"But I don't need technique. I just need one hit to put you down."
And then—he vanished.
A blur of green and red lightning forward with explosive speed.
Before Claw Man could react—Darren's fist slammed into his chest with such force it caused a shockwave. The street beneath them collapsed into a crater. The air shuddered. Glass from distant buildings shattered.
Claw Man's body bent backward, eyes wide, jaw slack.
BOOOOOM!
He flew—miles into the sky—then crashed into the city outskirts, carving a trench through the ground as he skidded to a stop.
Silence.
Then: a distant thud. The body settling.
Darren stood in the rubble, chest heaving, side bleeding, fists still clenched.
He didn't cheer. He didn't smile.
He just dropped to his knees, staring at the broken city around him.
"I couldn't save them."
But he was still here.
And this world—his new world—would learn that it had more than just heroes for sale. It had Darren. He would hunt down the very heroes who failed to protect his city. The Hero Association was going to pay.