11 Alive and Farewell

Seeing that his final punch had worked and the monster wasn't moving anymore, Boom felt the last of his strength leave his body and fell to the ground.

He was huffing and puffing while trying his best to stay conscious. He wasn't bleeding anywhere, even from the small hole in his shoulder. However, his skin was deathly pale, full of cold sweat, and he was feeling pain all over.

'T-this is bad! I'll die if I don't stay awake. But I can't get this poison out either. I need to endure!' Boom thought and gritted his teeth. It was all he knew to do in his current situation. He couldn't move or even shout for help. No sound came out of his mouth.

After a while of suffering on the ground, he started to suddenly feel an astounding amount of pain in his heart. It felt like the organ was expanding enough to break his lungs and ribcage, and at the same time someone was squeezing it so hard it was shrinking and threatening to pop open.

The pain was so intense that the pain everywhere else didn't matter anymore. In fact, the pain seemed to lessen everywhere else, as if all of it was moving towards the heart, accumulating endlessly.

Soon the pain was so great that Boom was about to give up, but just as quickly as the pain in his heart arrived, it stopped. And from the sudden lack of pain, all of his accumulated exhaustion hit him like a hammer, making him finally lose consciousness.

***

<<< Earlier the same day >>>

Tatsumaki was incredibly bored. She had nothing to do and had already been lying and wasting her time on the sofa for about an hour. Her TV was on, displaying the disaster channel, only acting as a source of background noise at this point. Two strawed milk bottles that read 'Make-Ya-Tall Milk' on them were empty and standing on a table in the middle of the room.

*...when a mysterious being with great size appeared out of the blue in Z-city.*

"Hm?"

The greenette's ears perked upon hearing that last sentence and she turned gaze on the TV screen. The channel was showing a picture of an empty street with purple humanoid monster standing there, reaching the height of a few meters based on the apartment buildings in the background.

"Haah, finally! I already thought I'd have nothing to do today." She exclaimed while rubbing her eyes to fully wake herself up.

After quickly changing from her pajama and fluffy flippers to her usual black one-piece dress and low heels, she flew out of the window, closed it behind her, and started speeding towards Z-city.

***

<<< Meanwhile >>>

*Cough* *Cough*

The young blue haired woman had been enjoying a cup of coffee in a nearby café while controlling her meat puppet and observing the fight between Boom and her subject, Orochi, when suddenly the human martial artist had just up and disappeared from her view. Next thing she knew, he had landed on top of her puppet and destroyed it in an instant, startling her and making her almost choke on the coffee in her mouth.

'He's fast! And even stronger than I anticipated. I need to hurry...' She hurriedly left the café to get to the scene of the fight, fearing that Orochi wouldn't make it without her help. She honestly preferred to not take the risk of being seen taking a part in this incident that she had instigated, but it was worth it if she could assure Orochi's survival.

However, as she was observing the battle with her psychic sense, before she had even gotten outside the shop, she could feel both combatants stop moving after an exchange.

'Is it over already?!' She questioned in panic, exited the building and took off to the sky. She hated this feeling of uncertainty.

It only took her a second to fly there and see the scene with her own eyes.

She witnessed both fighters lying on the ground. Orochi was on his back with half of his face gone, while Boom was on his stomach, seemingly unconscious.

"Orochi!" Psykos rushed over to her precious subject to look for signs of life, and fortunately for her, she found it. However, it was very weak and needed to be tended right away.

She picked Orochi up and was about to leave before she glanced at Boom. She surrounded him with her psychic power and tried to crush him to death. Surprisingly though, she wasn't able to. Veins started to show on her forehead as she started to exert more strength but immediately stopped trying and turned her head to look into the distance.

"Shoot!" She left the location at her maximum speed, not looking back.

Right as she left, a certain greenette arrived on the scene. And upon arrival she was quick to discover Boom lying on the ground.

'This guy again?' He seemed a little pale, and had a hole with the thickness of a pencil on his shoulder, but otherwise he seemed to be just sleeping without a single worry.

"I seem to be late for the party..." She looked at the surroundings of the street, and there had clearly been a fight.

She saw a corpse of a monster resembling a pile of mangled flesh, but it didn't seem to belong to the monster she had seen on TV earlier. There was also a small pool of monster blood next to the sleeping martial artist, but it had a different shade of blue compared to the pile of flesh. She guessed it was from the monster she had come here for.

But where had the monster gone? She couldn't see or feel any traces of where it had disappeared to. It seemed like she came here for nothing.

She turned to Boom again and started waking him up. Seeing as simple shaking didn't work, she started slapping his cheeks with some force.

"Ngh." He groggily opened his eyes halfway and saw glimpses Tatsumaki, resulting in a stupid grin on his face. "Ahh, how nice of you to be here. How about a kiss, honey?" He started making kissing motions with his lips.

Perhaps a little grossed out by this, the greenette's veins started popping in both her forehead and her now clenched fist. She then slammed that fist on Boom's face, making a small dent on the pavement under him, and finally waking him up fully.

"Hm?" He moved his eyes around, finding his dream esper in front of him. "Eh? It wasn't a dream? You're really here?" He questioned with a slight blush of embarrassment on his face, not minding the trickle of blood running from his nose caused by the previous punch.

"What happened here?" Tatsumaki asked.

"Hmm. Last thing I remember, I fought a purple monster, got poisoned and... yeah, that's it." He then had a flash of realization. "Did you heal me again? Wow, thank you! ...Maybe you're my guardian angel."

"I didn't heal you. And stop talking nonsense, you stupid monkey! I came here to deal with a monster, not you. Where did the monster you fought, go?" She didn't seem to be impressed by Boom's shenanigans, and he got the message.

"What are you talking about? I already beat the monster. See? It's right..." He searched around with his eyes but couldn't find the monster anywhere. "Mm, where is it?"

Tatsumaki pinched between her eyes. "It clearly beat you and left, idiot. This is what happens when you try to play hero while being too weak. You may have been lucky the last time, and this time, and maybe even the next time, but someday your luck will run out. And when it does, you're dead." She warned with a low, even threatening voice.

"Haha... I guess you're right..." Boom chuckled weakly, suddenly feeling pretty down.

Noticing the sudden awkwardness Tatsumaki decided to end things at that. "...Well, seeing that there's nothing for me to do here, I'll take my leave."

Boom watched the greenette's silhouette quickly fade into the distance, still lying on the ground as he didn't seem to be able to move a muscle.

"Guess I'll take a short nap..." He descended into sweet dream land.

Not long after, a familiar white haired old man was walking with hands behind his crunched back walked on the scene. And upon seeing Boom, he approached concernedly and checked his pulse.

He found it and sighed in relief.

***

Back at the dojo, Boom opened his eyes and found himself from his own bed in the middle of the night, baffled.

"Eh? How did I end up here? Ugh!"

His thoughts were interrupted by a terrible stomach ache, forcing him to rush to the bathroom. Thanking his lucky stars upon finding it unoccupied, he entered and closed the door behind him. Soon a loud sound could be heard from within. So loud, in fact, that a certain old man in another room opened his eyes for a moment in surprise, before trying to get back asleep again with an awkward expression.

While doing his business, Boom started thinking about his encounter with the purple monster.

'I got cocky... What a disgrace. And I call myself a martial artist...'

He was clearly stronger than the monster, in both physique and skill. That still didn't mean his opponent had been weak. No, it was actually easily the strongest monster he had ever faced before.

On top of that, it was unpredictable with its change in forms. This had resulted in Boom being surprised, causing a tiny lag in his reaction speed which the two monsters had utilized to full effect.

There was one more thing he had noticed. As he had recently gotten physically stronger at a stupidly fast rate, he had needed to rely less and less on his martial arts. Boom didn't like it. He didn't mind the added physical strength, but wanted to ultimately reach his desired strength thanks to his skill in martial arts. After all, if he ever inherited the dojo, brute strength didn't matter, only his skills did.

Being all released and ready, he left the bathroom and returned to bed. A bit more sleep wouldn't hurt anyone.

***

<<< The next morning >>>

"Morning, grandpa."

"Hello, Boom."

"So uh, thanks for picking me up yesterday. I'm just guessing it was you."

"Yes, it was me... Your shoulder seems to be healed somehow. Just yesterday, it had a hole going through it." Bang pointed out.

"Yeah, lately my body has been going through some weird changes."

The old master gave a look, asking him to elaborate.

"As you know, recently my physical strength has gone through the roof at a stupidly fast rate. That happened every time I fought life and death battles to a close call. Actually, by common logic, I should have died all those times. But what happened instead, was that I healed faster than should be humanly possible and gained strength that should only be possible to obtain with years of training."

He then looked down in concern. "Even though my newly gained strength is welcomed, I've played with the thought that maybe... maybe I'm actually becoming a monster. I mean think about it, isn't that how monsterization generally work, getting new strength out of nowhere. Sure, I look human, but maybe I could be some kind of shapeshifter and just haven't realized it yet. Even this new sight I've told you about. Maybe it isn't a human ability. Maybe that's how all monsters see things. Maybe it's only a matter of time before I start attacking people and-"

Boom's concerned ramblings were interrupted when he felt his master's palm land on his shoulder. He looked in front of himself to see the calm smile of an old man.

"Boom, calm down. Where is that happy-go-lucky boy I know of? You are no monster, that much I can tell."

The young man calmed his breath and shook his head. "You're right. Haha, sorry about that..." He chuckled awkwardly. After that he started silently thinking for a moment, then lifted his head to resolutely look at Bang in the eyes.

"I. Will go train in the mountains. I need to get my mind in check, and I want to commit all of my time to martial arts from now on."

"...I see. This is fairly sudden... And for how long do you plan on going." Bang pondered while caressing his mighty mustache.

"I'll be there until I fully become a 'Master of Wastelessness'."

Bang stared in surprise, but quickly regained his usual calm demeanor. "Oh, that... But I presume that would take quite a long time, maybe even years, even counting in your newly found use for your eyes." Naturally, he had heard of this particular term from his student before.

"Yes, I'm aware, and fully committed."

"Hmm..." The old master scratched his head with a thoughtful expression.

***

A week had passed since Boom said he wanted to leave the city. He wanted to gain Bang's permission first since he would've otherwise felt pretty guilty about leaving for so long. Bang seemed to be understanding enough, so he eventually got it with a little persuasion.

The main reason he was only leaving now, was because he had written a letter to his one and only beloved. After all, they wouldn't bump into each other in quite a while, and he wanted to inform her of that.

He was aware that the concern might not have been mutual, but he thought it was a nice and sincere gesture to do.

The problem was that he didn't know where to send the card. So he had spent almost an entire week trying to figure out where Tatsumaki lived, and even then he had been lucky and bumped into her little sister.

She had seemed a little reluctant on disclosing the greenette's address, but it was nothing some skillful begging on the floor couldn't help with.

And now, having managed to deliver his letter to the right address, Boom left the dojo without much formalities, a small bag over his shoulder, containing nothing but some change of clothes.

When he descended the stairs, he was met with an unfamiliar, grumpy-looking, silver haired, adolescent kid who seemed to be on his way to the dojo. He seemed to pretty tired already even though he was trying to hide it. When Boom asked if he wanted any help, the kid just scoffed and told him he didn't need any help.

Boom didn't mind much about such things though, and just wished him good luck and continued leaving. The kid seemed to have some spunk in him so he trusted the youngster would make it to the top of the mountain.

What neither of these two knew, was that their fates were intertwined.

***

When Tatsumaki got home, she picked up her mail and found a peculiar letter that seemed to be hand made. It wasn't in an envelope, just a paper folded in two, a single piece of transparent tape keeping it closed, and on it was a drawing of a red heart, 'T+B' written inside it.

Frankly, it resembled the work of a six-year-old kid. And upon opening it and seeing the contents, she cringed.

[Hey, beautiful! I sent you this letter to inform you that I'll be going away for training for some time. It could be for a year, or maybe even more, but when I come back, I'll finally be strong enough, believe it! Or that's the plan, at least. Until our paths meet again.

With endless love, Boom.

Ps. I kissed the bottom right corned of this letter. Now you can kiss me indirectly anytime you want to remember me!]

Once Tatsumaki had finished reading the last part, she crumpled the paper and threw into trash can in anger.