Chương 94: Chapter 87: The Expiration Date

Shion Zaiden stood perfectly still, their knuckles white as they gripped the Dust-pendulum. The seasoned Nightmare Hunter had braced their soul for the ultimate plunge. They had prepared to witness the breaking of dimensions, to face eldritch horrors, blood-soaked battlefields, and the apocalyptic trauma of a man who possessed the terrifying strength of a god. Shion slowly opened their eyes, the protective aura around them flaring defensively, ready to repel the darkness.

Smooth, cheerful elevator music drifted through the air. Shion blinked. The oppressive, soul-crushing atmosphere they had anticipated was entirely absent. They slowly lowered their pendulum, their silver hair falling over their shoulder as they stared in sheer, unadulterated bewilderment. They were standing in the middle of a brightly lit, perfectly mundane Mistralian supermarket. The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead, casting a sterile, white glow across the linoleum floor.

Row upon row of perfectly stacked instant noodles, discounted vegetables, and canned goods lined the pristine aisles. There was no fire. There was no blood. There was absolutely zero trauma to be found in any direction.

"It says it's valid until noon!" a loud, incredibly annoyed voice echoed from the front of the store.

"It is exactly noon!" Shion slowly turned their head, their mind struggling to process the impossible lack of cosmic horror. Standing at checkout lane number three was Saitama. He was no longer wearing his sharp black suit. Within the confines of his own mindscape, he had reverted to his casual, everyday yellow hero suit with the white cape and red gloves. He was leaning aggressively over the conveyor belt, slamming a brightly colored piece of paper down on the counter with a heavy, rhythmic smack.

Standing directly opposite to him was the Nightmare Grimm. That creature had manifested into a humanoid shape, constructed entirely of writhing, thorny red roots. Yet, instead of presenting itself as a terrifying demon of the abyss, that monster was wearing a little green cashier's apron, a nametag, and was monotonously tapping a digital register made of woven thorns.

"I apologize, sir," the Nightmare cashier droned, its voice completely devoid of emotion, sounding like an automated recording.

"The system indicates that the coupon for eighty-percent off the premium Wagyu beef expired at 11: 59 AM. It is currently 12: 00 PM. I am going to have to charge you full price." Saitama's face darkened. A shadow fell over his eyes, leaving them as glowing, intense white dots. A prominent, throbbing pulse of pure frustration beat against his bald forehead. His jaw clenched so hard the air around him seemed to vibrate.

"The clock on your wall is fast!" Saitama argued furiously, pointing an accusing red glove at a cheap plastic clock hanging above the aisle.

"My watch says 11: 59 and forty seconds! You still have to accept it! I ran across three districts for this sale!"

"Store policy is absolute, sir," that creature replied, completely unfazed by the terrifying aura of the bald man.

"I can put the beef back if you cannot afford it." Shion Zaiden stood frozen next to a towering display of discounted toilet paper. What... What is this? The elite Hunter, trained in the mystic arts of the mind, stared blankly at the invincible warrior throwing an absolute tantrum over a piece of meat. This makes no sense. A mortal vessel holding this magnitude of physical power should be fractured by the psychological weight of it. His mind should be a labyrinth of complex trauma. But this...

Shion thought, their mind reeling. This isn't a defense mechanism. He truly, genuinely has nothing darker in his soul than a missed grocery sale.

"Put it back?!" Saitama whispered, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly register.

"Do you know what I had to go through today? I spilled potato chip grease on my only good suit. And now... you're trying to take away my hotpot?!" Saitama pulled his fist back. He didn't channel Aura. He didn't use magic. He was simply, profoundly annoyed by this inconvenience.

"I'd like to speak to your manager!" Saitama yelled. He threw a normal, frustrated punch directly at the Nightmare cashier. He's using physical force in a psychic realm? Shion thought wildly. That's impossible, magic doesn't work like-- The kinetic force of the strike was so impossibly dense that it completely bypassed the conceptual rules of magic. The sheer air pressure generated from his fist struck that creature's core. That monster didn't even have time to shriek.

It instantly vaporized, its thorny red roots exploding into a cloud of harmless, gray ash that scattered across the conveyor belt. But the force of the punch didn't stop there. The shockwave hit the conceptual boundaries of the dreamscape itself. The supermarket violently trembled. The fluorescent lights shattered. The linoleum floor cracked like a fragile glass mirror, and with a deafening, reality-breaking boom, the entire dimension violently imploded into white light.

Inside the dim, red-lit cabin of the Argus Limited, Saitama and Shion snapped awake simultaneously. Shion collapsed backward against the velvet seats, gasping for air, their chest heaving violently. They clutched their head, staring at Saitama in absolute, unadulterated terror. The Hunter's mind was reeling, trying to comprehend the sheer absurdity of a mortal man physically punching a psychic dimension to death with zero magical effort. Saitama casually rolled his shoulders, letting out a long, satisfied yawn.

He scratched his shiny bald head, completely unfazed. He glanced across the aisle, noticing Roman's pristine bowler hat resting safely in the sleeping thief's lap.

"Done napping, cue-ball?" Shion flinched, whipping their head around. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Standing in the center aisle, resting Harbinger effortlessly over his shoulder, was Qrow Branwen. The grizzled Huntsman took a slow, calm swig from his silver flask. He looked at Saitama's waking form with mild amusement, having grown entirely accustomed to the bald anomaly's reality-breaking existence.

"Yeah, I'm up," Saitama grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked down at the dark, oily stains ruining the lapels of his white trench coat and let out a heavy sigh.

"I had a terrible dream of supermarket."

"Wait... the others!" Shion suddenly gasped, their momentary shock replaced by absolute panic. Shion scrambled to their feet, looking down the aisle. The situation was catastrophic. Oscar Pine and Neopolitan were still slumped in their seats, completely unresponsive. But the thick, thorny roots wrapped around their heads were no longer creeping. They were thrashing violently, pulsing with a sickly, frantic red light.

"What's wrong with them?" Qrow demanded, his casual demeanor vanishing instantly as he gripped his scythe.

"Did the kids fail?"

"No, they succeeded!" Shion explained frantically, rushing over to examine the violently squirming roots on Oscar's neck.

"They destroyed the Nightmares from the inside! But without me there to guide them out, the dreamscapes have triggered a failsafe! They are trapped in the collapsing voids of their own minds!" Shion backed away, raising the Dust-pendulum with trembling hands.

"These remaining roots in the waking world... they are acting on that monster's final, suicidal instinct! The hive-mind is trying to crush their hosts' brains before they can wake up!"

"So wake them up!" Qrow barked.

"Cut the vines!"

"We can't just cut them!" Shion yelled over the rattling of the train.

"To safely extract them without shattering their souls, the psychic link and the physical link must be severed at the exact same microsecond! I can cast the unlocking spell to open the doors to their minds, but I don't have the physical strength to rip these massive roots off both of them simultaneously!"

"I'll do it," Saitama said flatly. Shion froze.

"You? But the precision required--" Saitama didn't wait for permission. He stepped casually into the aisle. He walked right past Qrow and stood squarely between Neopolitan's seat and Oscar's seat. He raised his red-gloved hands, hovering his fingers mere millimeters away from the thickest, thrashing roots attached to their temples. He didn't look tense. He looked like a gardener preparing to pull a stubborn weed.

"Whenever you're ready," Saitama said, his voice entirely devoid of stress. Shion swallowed hard, looking at the unwavering, deadpan face of the invincible hero. The Hunter nodded, closing their eyes and gripping the Dust-pendulum with both hands. The crystal at the end of the golden chain flared with a blinding, brilliant emerald light. Shion began to chant, a rapid, melodic incantation that resonated through the heavy air of the cabin.

The emerald light pulsed, tuning itself precisely to the frequencies of Oscar and Neo's Auras.

"Syncing... syncing..." Shion breathed, the magical strain evident on their face.

"Now!"

Deep within the collapsing void of Oscar Pine's mind, absolute despair had taken hold. The shattered clocktower had entirely dissolved into nothingness. Oscar, Weiss, Blake, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, and the spectral form of Ozpin were huddled together in a rapidly shrinking pocket of reality. The suffocating blackness of the abyss was pressing in on all sides, a crushing, physical weight that caused their Auras to flicker and die.

"It's too heavy!" Nora screamed, her knees buckling as she tried to hold the darkness back with her hammer.

"We're going to be buried in here!" Weiss cried out, her gravity glyphs shattering like fragile glass under the pressure of the collapsing mindscape. They closed their eyes, bracing for the inevitable end. Suddenly, a deafening, reality-breaking RUMBLE echoed from the heavens of the void. The suffocating darkness violently shuddered and stopped moving entirely. The students gasped, looking up.

To their absolute horror and bewilderment, the fabric of the pitch-black sky literally tore open like a piece of wet tissue paper. Blinding, fluorescent light from the real-world train cabin spilled into the dark void, illuminating the falling ash. Then, a colossal, continent-sized, deadpan bald head peered through the tear in the sky, looking down at them like bugs in a jar.

"Hey," the booming, mundane voice of giant Saitama echoed like thunder across the psychic realm.

"Are you guys done napping? We're almost at the station." Before any of the students could even process the cosmic, mind-shattering absurdity of what they were witnessing, a gargantuan red-gloved hand reached down from the torn sky. It completely bypassed the students, pinched the invisible, thrashing tether of the Nightmare failsafe, and casually yanked.

Simultaneously, within the fiery collapse of Neopolitan's mind, Ruby, Yang, Jaune, and Neo were fighting a losing battle. The burning Atlesian airship had been swallowed by the dark. Jaune's golden shield was spider-webbing with massive cracks, groaning under the immense pressure of the collapsing subconscious. Ruby held Neo tightly, the thief's eyes wide with terror as the void closed in to crush them.

"This is bad!" Jaune said in panic.

"We have to get out now! Or we'll--" Before Jaune finished his sentence, the sky ripped open. The deafening sound of tearing fabric halted the collapse. Jaune, Yang, Ruby, and Neo looked up, their jaws dropping.

"SAITAMA?" Ruby, Yang and Jaune said in unison. Peering through the jagged tear in the fabric of the nightmare was the colossal face of Saitama.

"Hey, blonde boy," the giant bald man's voice boomed, entirely devoid of urgency.

"Tell me if this grease stain is permanent." A massive red glove descended from the heavens. It pinched the core fabric of the collapsing void and pulled upward with unstoppable, god-like force.

In the real world, the timing was flawless. The exact microsecond Shion Zaiden's unlocking spell hit its peak, Saitama's hands moved. He pinched the thickest clusters of the Nightmare roots on both Oscar and Neo's heads and casually yanked them backward. SHRRRRIP! The roots were torn entirely free from their hosts, cleanly severing the psychic and physical links. Saitama held the massive, squirming red vines in the air for exactly one second before casually squeezing his fists.

The Alpha-Nightmares crumbled instantly into harmless gray ash that trickled down to the carpeted floor. Because the primary anchors had been eradicated, the remaining hive-mind shattered completely. All across the cabin, the lesser roots clinging to the walls, the windows, and the civilians rapidly withered, turning gray and crumbling to dust. Instantly, a chorus of gasps filled the train car. Team RWBY, Team JNPR, Oscar, and Neo all snapped awake simultaneously.

They lurched forward in their seats, panting heavily, their eyes wide as they drew in desperate lungfuls of the cool, waking-world air.

"Gah!" A second later, Maria Calavera jerked awake with a loud snort. The elderly woman immediately began swinging her wooden cane wildly at the empty air before aggressively adjusting her cybernetic goggles.

"What in the name of the Brothers was that?! Which one of you unwashed delinquents turned off the lights?!" Further down the aisle, Dee and Dudley scrambled up from the floor, thoroughly confused.

"I got 'em! I got 'em!" Dudley yelled, raising his fists in a sloppy boxing stance before looking around frantically.

"Wait... where's the Sphinx?! Dudley, where's my mace?!"

"Shut up, Dee, my head is spinning..." Dudley groaned, clutching his helmet. The remaining train passengers stirred, rubbing their eyes in a collective daze as murmurs filled the cabin.

"Are we alive?"

"What happened to the train?"

"Did we crash?" The emergency sirens finally cut out. The dim, terrifying red lighting flickered off, replaced by the warm, standard yellow lights of the Argus Limited. Ruby leaned back against her seat, her chest heaving as she looked around. She saw her team, alive and breathing. She saw Jaune helping Oscar sit up, and Pyrrha offering the farm boy a reassuring smile. Then, Ruby looked across the aisle. Neo was sitting perfectly still, her breathing ragged.

The master thief looked down at her gloved hands, slowly realizing that the suffocating, endless loop of her grief was truly gone. Neo raised her head. She looked at Ruby, then shifted her gaze to Yang. There was no smirk. There was no mockery. Neo simply offered the two sisters a small, slow, genuine nod of respect. A silent truce forged in the fires of the abyss. Ruby returned the nod, a soft, relieved smile breaking across her face.

Shion Zaiden remained on their knees in the aisle, the Dust-pendulum dangling loosely from their fingers. The elite Hunter stared at the gray ash falling from Saitama's red gloves. What is he? Shion's mind echoed, a profound, almost terrifying reverence washing over them. He doesn't possess magic. He doesn't possess Aura. Yet, his mere physical existence is so dense, so absolute, that the universe itself bends to accommodate his apathy. He didn't dispel the nightmare...

he simply refused to participate in its rules. Qrow just smirked, putting his flask away and giving Saitama an approving nod. Saitama ignored the profound character development, the magical awe, and the emotional reunions happening all around him. He looked down at the massive, oily grease stains on his pristine white trench coat, his shoulders slumping in absolute defeat. He turned his flat, deadpan face toward the blonde knight sitting nearby.

"Seriously," Saitama asked, his voice echoing with profound tragedy.

"Who's paying for my dry-cleaning?"