Saitama's fist tore forward with everything he had left.
And hit nothing.
"…Huh?"
The space in front of him was empty.
Noah Vale was gone.
Saitama slowly lowered his arm, blinking as the moment stretched into something strangely quiet. His face was bruised, his body aching in ways he hadn't felt in years.
That last punch had been real.
So was the one coming at him.
Wasn't there still time left?
There wasn't.
Not really.
Objectively, the fight had reached its limit. The moment Noah vanished, the countdown had already run out.
But for them?
It hadn't felt that way.
To Saitama and Noah, there had still been a sliver of time remaining. A fraction of a fraction, enough for one more exchange.
The problem was—
They had pushed too far.
Every punch they threw carried enough force to shatter a planet.
Every movement bent space.
Every collision strained the structure of reality itself.
By the end, their battle wasn't just happening in time.
It was distorting it.
The pressure of their power warped spacetime so severely that the universe itself… adjusted.
Time accelerated.
Not for them.
For everything else.
Because if it hadn't—
The next instant would have forced a choice.
Either Saitama would fall.
Or the universe would.
So the universe chose.
And ended the fight early.
No victor.
No conclusion.
Just survival.
A quiet, invisible intervention written into the fabric of reality itself.
If anyone could claim a win—
It was the universe.
Jupiter, however, wasn't so fortunate.
The massive planet had endured millions of impacts in that microscopic window of time. Its surface had been hammered into a landscape of craters, each one vast enough to swallow continents.
For a moment, it held.
Then it didn't.
The entire planet shuddered.
Cracked.
Collapsed inward before erupting outward in a violent explosion, scattering its mass into the void as a storm of debris and dust.
Saitama barely had time to notice.
A crushing wave of force hit him from behind, launching him into space like a stray bullet. He spun once, twice, then vanished into the darkness beyond.
Back on Earth—
A ripple of warped space snapped back into place.
In an instant, the spectators reappeared outside the Hero Association headquarters in City A.
Voices exploded into confusion.
"Wait, what just happened?"
"Where'd they go?!"
"The fight was just getting started!"
The noise piled up, chaotic and overlapping—
Until one voice cut through it.
"No! No, no, no!!"
Boros dropped to his knees, grief written plainly across his face.
Tears streamed down as he pointed accusingly at Blast.
"That was it! The fight of a lifetime—and you pulled us out right before the end!"
Blast didn't respond immediately.
He stood still, eyes closed, as if listening to something far beyond them.
A few seconds passed.
Then he exhaled.
"…Good. It's still intact."
"What are you talking about?" Child Emperor asked, frowning. "Why bring us back so suddenly?"
Blast opened his eyes, his expression unusually serious.
"Because if we stayed any longer, I don't know what would've happened next."
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
"Their growth wasn't linear. It was exponential. Maybe 0.01 seconds wouldn't have been enough to destroy everything…"
He looked up.
"But Jupiter?"
A brief silence fell.
"…I doubt it's still there."
Shock rippled through the group.
Blast gestured toward a nearby recording device.
"There's footage. Slow it down, and you'll see what they were doing."
He turned away.
"I'm going to check."
And then he was gone.
Moments later, he reappeared in open space.
What remained of Jupiter drifted before him—fragments, debris, a shattered giant slowly dispersing into silence.
Even prepared, the sight made his chest tighten.
Not completely destroyed, he realized after a moment. Gravity will pull some of it back together eventually.
A partial recovery.
Maybe.
Then—
A figure dashed across the drifting debris, moving effortlessly from fragment to fragment before landing in front of him.
Saitama.
Bruised. Scratched.
But alive.
Blast allowed himself a small smile, grabbing his arm.
"Let's get you back."
Back on Earth, Saitama inhaled deeply the moment they arrived.
"Man… breathing's a lot easier down here."
"Sensei—your face!" Genos stared in disbelief. It was the first time he'd ever seen his teacher look even slightly beaten up.
"Hey, baldy," Tatsumaki said, arms crossed. "So who won?"
Saitama scratched his head.
"Not sure. He disappeared before the last hit landed."
He thought about it for a second.
"…Probably him. That last punch? Yeah, I might've been in trouble."
"Oh! I've got something."
Child Emperor perked up, pulling up recorded footage.
"I managed to capture part of the fight. If I slow it down enough, we can at least see some of it."
He shrugged.
"Though the end's missing."
Elsewhere—
In the vast, sterile expanse of the main hub, Noah Vale reappeared mid-strike.
Still throwing his punch.
"Flowing—"
He caught himself just in time.
The force behind that attack could have wiped out everything around him.
With a sharp twist of his body, he redirected the energy upward.
The resulting shockwave blasted through the air like a hurricane, flattening the surrounding area and sending everyone nearby flying.
When the dust settled—
Only Noah remained standing.
He lowered his arm, frowning slightly.
"…What just happened?"
By his sense of timing, the fight shouldn't have ended yet.
There had been more left to do.
More to push.
More to reach.
He let out a quiet breath.
"…Whatever."
After a moment, he shook his head.
"Call it a draw."
Reaching into his gear, he activated a familiar piece of tech.
Pym Particles.
His massive form shrank instantly, collapsing back down to normal human size.
As his body stabilized, he felt the difference.
Even without the amplified state, he was far stronger than before.
Not just slightly.
Significantly.
The fight had changed him.
Noah glanced at the invisible metrics tracking his growth.
They barely mattered anymore.
At this point, they weren't limits.
They were dials.
And if he wanted—
He could turn them as high as he pleased.