Chương 6: The Anatomy of a Miracle

The emergency medical wing of Beacon Academy was one of the few structures whose subterranean foundations had kept it entirely intact. The room was bathed in the low, sterile hum of auxiliary dust generators. Outside the frosted glass windows, the faint sounds of Atlesian relief airships landing on the cracked pavement provided a steady, rhythmic reminder that the world had not ended, even if it felt like it had. Pyrrha Nikos lay motionless on the central cot, her pale face framed by her loose, crimson hair.

A series of medical monitors flickered beside her head, their steady green pulses confirming that her aura was slowly regenerating from absolute zero. Jaune Arc sat on a metal stool by her bedside, his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried in his hands. His posture was completely broken, the sheer exhaustion of the last few hours finally catching up to him.

"She's going to be okay, Jaune," Ruby Rose said softly, leaning against the foot of the bed. Her red cloak was slung over the back of a nearby chair, revealing the heavy bandages wrapped around her forearms.

"The doctors said her soul just went through a really weird shock. But she's stable."

"I shouldn't have let her go up there," Jaune whispered, his voice cracking as he looked up. His eyes were bloodshot.

"I let her push me into that locker. If... if that yellow guy hadn't fallen out of the sky when he did, I would have landed in Vale and... and she would be..."

"Don't do that to yourself, fearless leader," Nora Valkyrie said from the corner of the room. She was sitting cross-legged on a supply crate, uncharacteristically still, her hands resting tightly on her knees.

"We all saw what was happening. Everything was falling apart. The robots, the giant dragon... it wasn't a fight we were supposed to win."

"Nora is right," Lie Ren added, his voice a calm, anchoring weight in the quiet room. He stood near the door, his arms crossed over his chest.

"The tactical situation was entirely outside our capabilities. What occurred on that tower wasn't a failure of our strategy or our strength. It was an anomaly." Yang Xiao Long sat on the edge of an adjacent empty bed, wincing slightly as Weiss Schnee carefully adjusted a heavy stabilization brace around her right shoulder.

"Watch the pressure, Weiss," Yang muttered, her teeth gritted against the pain.

"The doctor said it's just a hairline fracture, but it feels like Adam hit me with a freight train."

"Be glad it's only a fracture, Yang," Weiss replied, her voice sharp but her hands incredibly gentle as she tightened the straps.

"When the ceiling caved in on that warehouse, I thought you two were buried. If the communication grid hadn't glitched out when it did, that monster wouldn't have pulled his forces back."

"It didn't glitch, Weiss," Blake Belladonna said from her seat beneath the window. Her amber eyes were fixed on the floor, her faunus ears twitching at every distant airship engine.

"The network died because the source of the virus, whatever was on top of that tower, was crushed. Everything stopped the second that man hit the ground."

"Saitama," Ruby murmured, the name sounding strange and lightweight on her tongue.

"He told me his name is Saitama. He... he kept asking about a grocery sale. He looked so sad because he missed it. Like... genuinely devastated. More than Cinder was when he punched her."

"That's what I don't get," Yang said, leaning back against the pillow with a frustrated sigh.

"A guy who can swat a mountain-sized Grimm like a fly is worried about cabbage discounts? Is he crazy? Is it a mental block from his Semblance?" A low, collective gasp broke the conversation. On the cot, Pyrrha's eyelids fluttered. A deep, shuddering breath escaped her lips as her green eyes slowly opened, focusing on the white ceiling tiles before drifting to the side.

"Jaune...?" she whispered, her voice barely a breath.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune was on his knees instantly, gripping her right hand between both of his.

"Hey, hey, don't try to move. You're safe. You're in the infirmary." Pyrrha blinked, her mind foggy as the memories of the burning tower rushed back. She remembered the glass arrow. She remembered Cinder's cold eyes.

"The Maiden... the tower... did we... did we lose?"

"No," Ruby said, stepping closer with a bright, tearful smile.

"We won. Well... a bald guy in a cape won for us, but everyone is safe. Cinder is gone." This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Pyrrha looked at Ruby, then at her team, a faint, bewildered expression crossing her beautiful features.

"A... a cape? I remember... a flash of yellow. I thought... I thought I had already passed away."

"You're alive, Pyrrha," Ren said softly, a small, rare smile appearing on his face.

"The nightmare is over."

Two floors up, in a secure briefing room overlooking the ruined courtyard, the atmosphere was significantly less relieved. General James Ironwood stood behind a heavy steel table, his holographic terminal projecting a dozens of red warning metrics. Opposite him sat Saitama, who had pulled a rolling office chair into the center of the room. He was currently leaning back, his hands clasped behind his bald head, spinning slowly from left to right. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

The wheels of the chair groaned under his casual weight.

"Mr. Saitama," Glynda Goodwitch said, her voice tight with an irritation she had been holding back for three hours. She stood by the window, her riding crop tapping against her thigh in a steady, menacing rhythm.

"I must insist that you take this matter seriously. You have disrupted a major geopolitical crisis, destroyed an irreplaceable piece of historical architecture, and neutralized a threat that the entire Atlesian military could not contain. We need answers."

"I am taking it seriously," Saitama said, stopping his spin to look at her with his simple, dot-eyed face.

"But honestly, this chair is really squeaky. Don't you guys have WD-40? It's kind of distracting." Qrow Branwen leaned against the wall near the door, a small chuckle escaping his lips before he caught himself. He took a slow sip from his flask, his sharp eyes never leaving the yellow jumpsuit.

"Cut the guy some slack, Glynda. He's been here for three hours and all we've done is show him graphs. Hey, baldy. Let's try simple questions. Where did you get that strength? Who trained you?" Saitama sighed, dropping his hands into his lap.

"I already told the robot-arm guy over there. I just did a standard conditioning routine. One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run. Every single day. For three years." Ironwood slammed his cybernetic fist onto the table, the metal denting the steel surface.

"Do not lie to us! That is a basic athletic warmup! My elite specialists perform thrice that workload before breakfast, and none of them can displace the troposphere with a backhand! What Dust compound did you ingest? What hidden laboratory created you?" Saitama looked at the dent in the table, then up at Ironwood's furious face. His expression shifted from casual boredom to a slight, pitying frown.

"Look, dude. You can get mad all you want, but that's the truth. At first, it was hell. I thought my limbs were gonna fall off. I didn't even use the air conditioner in the summer to strengthen my mind. And then, after a while... I realized I was bald. And I was strong."

"A semantic lock," Glynda muttered, looking at her scroll.

"Perhaps it's a psychological trigger for his Semblance? A delusion that manifests physical invulnerability?"

"He doesn't have a Semblance, Glynda," Qrow said, his voice dropping its sarcastic edge as he stepped closer to the table. The humor was gone from his eyes.

"I've been watching his breathing since he sat down. When Jimmy slammed the table, his heart rate didn't even register a spike. Not a single beat skipped. You can't fake that kind of calm. He isn't using an Aura because he doesn't need an Aura. His skin is just... like that." Ironwood leaned over the table, his eyes locked onto Saitama's vacant gaze.

"If you are not an enemy, then tell me what you want from our kingdom. Wealth? A position in the Atlas council? We can provide whatever resources you require if you pledge your service to the defense of Remnant." Saitama stared at the general for a long, quiet moment. The simple lines of his face seemed to settle into something heavy. Not angry, but profoundly, deeply tired.

"I don't want your money, and I don't want to be in your council," Saitama said softly, his voice echoing in the sterile room.

"I told you. I'm a hero because it's what I wanted to do. But back home... it got boring. Every monster I met died in one hit. Well, I was hoping maybe things would be different in this weird place. But that fire lady... she was the same. Flashy lights, a lot of screaming, and then nothing." He stood up from the squeaky chair, his white cape rustling against the metal. He walked toward the window, looking down at the students who were helping each other clear the debris in the courtyard below.

"You guys have a lot of problems here," Saitama murmured, his reflection clear in the glass.

"But you've got kids down there who are actually trying to fix it. I'm just looking for a place to stay until I can figure out how to get back to my own apartment. So, if you're gonna keep shouting at me, I'm just gonna leave." Ironwood reached for his revolver, his instincts as a soldier screaming at him to detain the unknown variable. But before his fingers could touch the grip, Qrow reached out, placing a heavy hand over the general's wrist.

"Don't, James," Qrow whispered, his voice dead serious.

"You saw what he did to the dragon. If he decides he wants to walk out that door, this entire tower is coming down with him." Ironwood stared at Qrow, then slowly let his hand drop. He looked back at Saitama, the absolute authority of the General of Atlas entirely powerless against a man who simply wanted to find a grocery store.

"Very well," Ironwood said, his voice stiff.

"For now... your status will be recorded as an independent entity of interest. But we will be watching you, Saitama."

"Yeah, whatever," Saitama said, turning back around with his usual flat smile.

"Hey, by the way... do you guys have cash here, or do I need to find a currency exchange? Because I found a five-hundred bill on the stairs outside and I really want to know if it's enough to buy some rice."