The battle between Aomori and Tatsumaki naturally could not take place within the Hero Association Headquarters; no matter how high-spec the combat arena, it would never survive the aftershocks of their clash.
Consequently, they headed to a desolate, uninhabited area. Fubuki was left behind at the Hero Association Headquarters, discarded like an afterthought.
"Alright, this should do," Aomori said, leading Tatsumaki to a gravel-strewn desert.
"Let's get one thing straight: I won't go easy on you just because you're the Chairman. Get ready to be thrashed," Tatsumaki declared, looking down at Aomori from her flight height.
"Heh, bring it on," Aomori replied, beckoning her with a finger.
After a brief standoff, Tatsumaki made the first move. With a light flick of her hand, a violent gale began to howl.
The gravel and boulders on the ground levitated around her. As she pointed a finger toward Aomori, the debris coalesced into a mass, surging toward him like a localized sandstorm.
However, just as the storm was about to collide with Aomori, it stopped eerily in its tracks, forming a solid wall of sand before him.
"You didn't think a trick like that would take me down, did you? I am the Chairman of the Hero Association, after all." Aomori snapped his fingers, and the sand wall crumbled, collapsing back to the earth.
"Hoho, your esper powers have improved quite a bit. No wonder you had the confidence to challenge me. But you're still too green!" The psychic energy within Tatsumaki erupted. A powerful wave of telekinesis acted directly upon Aomori.
Despite Aomori being prepared to resist, the sudden explosion of force caught him. He was manipulated by Tatsumaki, forced through a series of erratic mid-air maneuvers before being slammed headfirst into the ground.
Then, a chunk of earth the size of a football field was ripped from the ground. Aomori was trapped within the soil like an insect preserved in amber, unable to move.
"Give up. You're no match for me," Tatsumaki sneered, intensifying the psychic pressure on the earth and Aomori.
Without those flashy abilities, a Tatsumaki specialized purely in telekinesis is much stronger than I imagined.
Aomori, who had been feeling a bit overconfident, immediately regained his humility: In the One Punch Man world, my strength is still far from enough.
He recognized he wasn't Tatsumaki's match, but he wasn't going to surrender that easily. At the very least, he had to make her uncomfortable for a while.
A glint flashed in Aomori's eyes as he thought: Activate 100% Princess Carry!
Suddenly, Tatsumaki felt her body fly toward Aomori of its own accord. An intense, uncontrollable urge to pull him into her arms washed over her.
"What on earth is happening?!"
Before she could process it, Aomori's body erupted with staggering energy, shattering the earthen prison into fragments. Then, cloaked in a brilliant violet light, he lunged forward and pulled Tatsumaki into a tight embrace.
"You… you… you… what are you doing?!" Tatsumaki's face flushed a deep crimson as she stared at Aomori's face, which was now inches from her own. Her voice stammered uncontrollably.
"I caught you." Aomori flashed a triumphant smile. "I'm no match for you at long range, but at close quarters, I'm in my element. This battle is my victory."
"In your dreams! Don't think you've won just because you're... holding me! I'll tear your arms right off!" Tatsumaki pushed aside her embarrassment; to her, victory was paramount.
Just as she attempted to use her telekinesis to fling Aomori away, she felt a sudden squeeze on her rear. She jolted as if struck by lightning, heat rushing straight to her head.
"Hmm, looks plain enough, but it's quite bouncy to the touch. I guess seeing isn't always believing; practice really is the sole criterion for testing truth."
Looking at Aomori's deadpan expression, Tatsumaki's anger boiled over. She screamed, "You… you… you dare touch me there?! I'll kill you!"
At this point, even Blast himself wouldn't have been able to stop her. She went into full berserk mode.
Driven by the surging psychic energy, Tatsumaki and Aomori became like a malfunctioning jet engine. One moment, they were tracing a dense star chart across the sky; the next, they crashed into the earth, tunneling through the ground with a complexity that would make a mole feel inadequate.
Under such intense impact, even Aomori's full-power telekinetic shield began to waver. Fortunately, he had applied hundreds of reinforced seals to his arms, preventing Tatsumaki from shaking him off.
After ravaging nearly half the desert, they suddenly smashed through a thick metal wall, entering a mysterious underground base.
Finally, we're in. Aomori smiled slightly. He hadn't chosen this battleground at random. With a high-spec combatant like Tatsumaki available, he wanted to investigate the base he had encountered long ago, the one suspected to belong to "The Organization."
In particular, there was a "big treasure" there that Aomori had been eyeing for a long time.
Due to their chaotic intrusion, the entire base lit up with red emergency lights and sirens.
"Warning! Warning! Intruders detected in the base. All high-level combat sequences, assemble! Eradicate the intruders!"
Faced with these two uninvited guests, the base immediately opted for elimination.
Meanwhile, in the central command hub, two humanoid robots watched the screens. Tatsumaki and Aomori were treating the base's security system as if it didn't exist. These robots possessed the highest level of authorization in the base; they were the most advanced AI units in the Organization, with cognitive abilities far surpassing those of ordinary humans.
"Have the identities of the two individuals been confirmed?" asked one of the robots, a massive, muscular humanoid.
"Yes. One is the recently famous Chairman of the Hero Association, Aomori. The other is the S-Class hero, Tatsumaki. Both are renowned figures, listed as S+ threats in the Organization's archives," replied the other robot, which carried a broadsword on its back.
"Hmm? Why would such high-profile figures suddenly show up here? Have we been discovered?"
"No. According to the surveillance footage, they were engaged in a fierce battle nearby for unknown reasons and accidentally crashed into the base."
"...That is a bit too much of a coincidence."
"Data analysis suggests the probability of a direct strike against us is only 2.1%. That possibility is essentially ruled out."
"So we were hit by a low-probability event? As humans would say, that is incredibly rotten luck."
"The current issue is how to handle them. Based on a simulation of their combat performance, the probability of defeating them with our combined forces is only 14.7%. Conversely, there is a 73.2% chance of our total annihilation."
"The success rate is that low?" The muscular robot sounded displeased. "What if we call in the two nearby bases?"
"It increases to 38.2%."
"Still less than fifty percent? As frustrating as it is, we have no choice but to abandon this place," the muscular robot decided. "I propose executing the C1 Evacuation Plan: wipe all data and detonate the base. Leave no trace behind."
"Concurred!"
While the two robots were deliberating, Aomori was attempting to pacify Tatsumaki.
"To think such a massive, mysterious base exists underground... something feels very wrong here. Let's call a temporary truce."
Having flown around with Aomori for so long, Tatsumaki had actually regained her composure, but she couldn't shake him off like a piece of sticky gum. To save face, she had simply kept going.
Now that a graceful exit had been offered, Tatsumaki huffed and stopped mid-air within the base. She turned to Aomori, gritting her teeth. "Let go of me first!"
"Promise me first that we'll have a truce. This fight counts as a draw, okay?"
Tatsumaki took a deep breath. "Fine, I promise. Now let go of your filthy hands!"
"Right, immediately." Aomori cautiously undid the seals on his arms. The moment he released her, he immediately put distance between them.
To his surprise, Tatsumaki didn't attack. She hovered in the air, glaring at Aomori, her face transitioning between red and pale.
Noticing Aomori's surprised look, she huffed and lifted her chin. "I, Tatsumaki, always keep my word. I'm not despicable, shameless, and vulgar like you."
"Ahem, you misunderstand. That was just a combat strategy. To deal with you, one must use every means possible, otherwise, I'm no match for you," Aomori said, half-truthfully.
Hearing this, Tatsumaki's expression softened slightly. She turned away, looking at the robots swarming from the corridors to surround them, and let out a mocking laugh.
"Tell your boss to come out. Are you sending these toys to play with a child?"
The robots didn't respond. Instead, they raised their arms simultaneously, firing a dense barrage of thermal rays at Tatsumaki and Aomori.
An attack of this level couldn't even scratch their shields, but it made Tatsumaki grin.
"Perfect. It's clear none of you are good things. All of you can go back to being scrap metal!" Tatsumaki vented all the frustration Aomori had caused her onto the unfortunate robots.
With every gesture, a swarm of robots was torn into flying spare parts.
Seeing Tatsumaki having such a good time, Aomori left her to it. He activated his Mind's Eye, locating two units that looked different from the mass-produced drones, the likely leaders.
He didn't rush over immediately. Instead, he pulled a Laptop out of his system inventory.
Aomori had come prepared; he had brought Akihiko Kayaba along before coming here with Tatsumaki. He had been coveting the Machine God Organization's data for a long time.
After finding a data port and connecting, Aomori instructed Kayaba to get to work. He summoned Absol to guard the Laptop while he headed toward the coordinates of the two unique robots.
After breaking through dozens of bulkheads, Aomori finally stood before them, blocking their escape route.
"Sorry, this road is closed."
The robots were shocked. They hadn't expected him to navigate the labyrinthine base so quickly.
"Who are you? Why have you broken into our facility and engaged in wholesale slaughter? We are the private property of the Doctor. If you destroy us, you will be held liable for immense damages," the muscular robot blustered, trying to seize the moral high ground.
"My apologies," Aomori replied politely. "I suspect you lack a production permit and are uncertified 'Three-No' products. I'm impounding everything as evidence. As for this 'Doctor' you mentioned, we'll be investigating him too."
"You are not a law enforcement officer. You have no right to do this," the sword-wielding robot pointed out.
"Oh? It seems you recognize me."
"The famous Chairman of the Hero Association. I had heard of you, and I only just identified you."
"Since you know who I am, why not surrender? Everyone knows I am the incarnation of justice; I never wrong an innocent. If there truly is no issue, I will naturally let you go later," Aomori said, his logic airtight.
The two robots fell silent.
Internally, they discussed over their private channel.
"What do we do? He's too sharp; we can't fool him."
"The base is set to self-destruct in two minutes. If we delay further, we'll be caught in the blast."
"Then we have no choice. Our probability of defeating him together is 45.9%, nearly fifty percent. It's worth the risk. Battle!"
"Concurred!"
Suddenly, the two robots lunged in unison. One raised a massive fist to smash Aomori, while the other drew the broadsword from its back, thrusting forward with lightning speed.
"Mega Punch!"
"Overclocked Piercing Blade!"
Then, a blinding flash erupted, followed by a violent tremor shaking the corridor.
Aomori emerged from the dust, a robot's head gripped in each hand.
"Impossible... the win rate was nearly fifty percent... why were we one-shotted?"
"Seriously? You actually believe computer data can simulate my behavior patterns and techniques?" Aomori smiled disdainfully. "Humans aren't things that can be summarized so easily."
He received no reply. Their central systems had been destroyed, and they were completely offline.
"The guys who once made me flee for my life are now just small-time mooks. It really makes one sentimental," Aomori sighed as he hoisted the wreckage of the two robots.
With these, it wouldn't be hard for Child Emperor to replicate similar units. In the future, the battlefield might just turn into a war of robots versus robots.
Thanks to Akihiko Kayaba's efforts, the base was saved from self-destruction. He even managed to recover a portion of the deleted data, which he would later research with Child Emperor.
The remaining fodder robots were wiped out by Tatsumaki, which significantly improved her mood.
When she saw Aomori reappear before her unscathed, she huffed. "Is everything here finished? How boring. Not a single decent opponent. I'm going back!"
Without waiting for a reply, she smashed through the ceiling of the base and flew out.
As if remembering something, she flew back down and asked Aomori, "Back then, what trick did you use on me? Why did I... lose control of my body?"
"Oh, that? It was hypnosis. I can briefly control someone's thoughts," Aomori said nonchalantly.
"Hypnosis?" Tatsumaki immediately thought of several R-rated scenarios and pointed a finger at Aomori, shouting, "Despicable! Shameless! Vulgar! You are never allowed to use that move on me again, and don't you dare use it on Fubuki, do you hear me?!"
"Oh, I'll try my best."
Tatsumaki gave him one last fierce glare before flying off again.
Upon arriving home, Tatsumaki immediately headed to the bathroom.
As the water washed over her, she touched a certain curve on her backside, her face flushing slightly. "To think he dared to touch me there... next time, I'm definitely going to show him!"
"Achoo!" Aomori sneezed but didn't pay it any mind. His gaze remained fixed on a specific spot.
Before him sat a black box.