Chương 99: Chapter 92: The Burden of the Suit

The commercial district of Vale was a bustling, vibrant artery of the city, lined with towering glass storefronts, holographic billboards, and cafes overflowing with the mid-day lunch crowd. The skies were clear, the reconstruction of the city moving at a steady, optimistic pace. Walking straight down the center of the main promenade was a figure that commanded absolute, undivided attention.

He wore a blindingly bright yellow jumpsuit, a crisp white cape that fluttered dramatically in the gentle breeze, and signature red rubber boots and gloves. His face was entirely obscured by a standard white medical mask and a pair of oversized, cheap black sunglasses. Beneath the heroic facade, Darwin was sweating so profusely that his yellow spandex was beginning to stick uncomfortably to his spine.

"Oh gods, they're looking at me. Everyone is looking at me," Darwin whimpered in a tiny, high-pitched voice, clutching a brown paper grocery bag to his chest as if it were a blast shield. His knees knocked together with every agonizing step.

"I can't do this. I'm just a data entry clerk. I have a weak heart!"

"Keep your head up, Darwin! Shoulders back!" hissed Toby, walking a step ahead of him with his hands raised to gently push back the encroaching crowd of awestruck civilians.

"Please, citizens, give the Hero some space!" Lyra, the spotted leopard Faunus, called out with a bright, professional smile, her tail flicking nervously behind her.

"His immune system is still recovering from the super-flu! No flash photography, please!"

"We love you, Master Saitama!" a group of teenagers shrieked from the sidewalk, waving handmade signs. Darwin flinched, offering a weak, trembling thumbs-up that only caused the crowd to scream louder in excitement. Marcus and Chloe flanked him on the right and left, their eyes darting rapidly across the rooftops and alleyways, treating the grocery run with the hyper-vigilant intensity of a presidential escort. It was a miracle they had even made it this far.

The sheer absurdity of their current mission traced back to a highly stressful meeting just three days prior.

Three days ago, in the Beacon Academy Headmaster's Office... Headmistress Glynda Goodwitch sat behind her massive mahogany desk. She had her glasses removed, the bridge of her nose pinched tightly between her thumb and forefinger as a migraine of apocalyptic proportions hammered against her skull. Standing at strict attention in front of her were Toby, Marcus, Chloe, and Lyra.

"Let me ensure I am perfectly understanding the situation," Glynda said, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet, terrifyingly calm register.

"Darwin has successfully maintained the illusion within the academy walls. The staff believes him to be recovering. But the Vale Council and the public are growing suspicious of his perpetual quarantine."

"Yes, Headmistress," Toby answered, swallowing hard.

"The paparazzi drones have been hovering near the outer walls. And... frankly, the other students are getting jealous. They keep asking why we get to be his exclusive escorts to the cafeteria." Glynda sighed heavily.

"Bringing that terrified civilian outside the academy gates is an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen. If a stiff breeze knocks his hat off, or if he is asked to speak, the entire world will realize our greatest deterrent is currently on another continent."

"We anticipated the risks, ma'am," Marcus said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Which is why we commissioned a specialized operational asset." Chloe stepped forward, unzipping a heavy black garment bag she had slung over her shoulder.

"TA-DAAA!" With a dramatic flourish, she pulled out a meticulously tailored, exact replica of Saitama's yellow suit and white cape. Glynda's left eye began to twitch violently.

"We found a refined tailor in Patch," Lyra explained quickly, her ears flattening against her head.

"We told him it was for a high-end 'Saitama Fan Club' cosplay. It matches his biometric measurements perfectly." Glynda stared at the yellow spandex. She looked at the four First-Year students, utterly overwhelmed by the sheer, unfiltered absurdity her life had become. She was the acting Headmistress of the most prestigious academy in Vale, and she was currently reviewing cosplay garments for a janitor.

"We propose a weekly grocery run," Toby suggested eagerly.

"At least one in a week!"

"Darwin wears the suit, the medical mask, and the sunglasses," Chloe continued.

"We escort him to the commercial district, buy some vegetables, and walk back. It shows the public he is still active, still in Vale, and still invincible. We promise we will handle the civilians." Glynda was silent for a long, agonizing minute. The red notification light on her terminal blinked steadily, another inquiry from the Council regarding the Hero of Vale. She let out a heavy, shuddering sigh of pure defeat.

"By the gods..." Glynda muttered, waving a dismissive hand.

"I hope you know what you're doing..."

Back on present day, at Vale Commercial District...

"I don't want to be here," Darwin mumbled through his medical mask, his red boots squeaking slightly on the pavement.

"What if there's a robbery? What if a monster attacks? They're going to expect me to punch it into orbit, Toby! I can't even open a jar of pickles without running it under hot water first!"

"Relax," Chloe assured him in a hushed whisper, keeping a smile plastered on her face for the crowd.

"We're in the safest district in Vale. Statistically, the chances of a violent crime occurring right now are practically zero. Just keep acting like Saitama."

"How do I act like a god?!" Darwin cried quietly.

"Just look bored!" Marcus hissed.

"Look completely and utterly unimpressed by everything around you!" Darwin tried his best, slouching his shoulders and letting his hidden eyes droop, though his heart was beating at two hundred beats per minute. BOOOOOOM! The explosive sound of shattering glass and detonating Dust violently interrupted the peaceful afternoon. Directly across the street, the reinforced front windows of a high-end Dust boutique blew outward in a shower of jagged shards and orange flames.

The civilians on the promenade shrieked in absolute terror, dropping their coffees and scattering in every direction.

"Nobody move! Everybody on the ground!" a harsh, gritty voice roared through the smoke. Bursting out of the ruined boutique were six heavily armed, hulking thieves. They wore tactical armor and gas masks, hauling massive, glowing crates of raw Fire and Lightning Dust. Darwin completely froze. His soul practically left his body, floating away into the sky as he stared at the terrifying criminals. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Lyra yelled, drawing her weapons, a pair of sleek, Dust-infused bladed claws that extended from her gauntlets.

"Protect the VIP!" Toby shouted, drawing his heavy broadsword and deploying a hard-light shield from his bracer. The thieves spotted the yellow suit amidst the fleeing crowd. Their eyes widened behind their masks.

"It's him! It's the bald freak!" one of the grunts yelled in panic.

"Don't let him punch us! Suppressing fire!" the leader of the thieves, a massive, scarred brute wielding a colossal, gravity-infused war hammer, bellowed. The grunts raised their assault rifles, opening fire.

"Get down!" Marcus shouted, tackling the frozen Darwin to the pavement just as a hail of bullets chewed through the air where the "hero's" head had been. Marcus rolled seamlessly, leveling his twin repeating rifles and laying down a heavy barrage of returning fire that forced the thieves to duck behind a flipped hover-car. Chloe blurred into action, her Semblance granting her brief bursts of blinding speed.

She darted across the street, her twin sickles flashing in the sunlight as she disarmed two of the grunts before sweeping their legs out from under them. Lyra vaulted over Toby's shield, her leopard traits giving her incredible agility. She bounced off a lamppost, landing directly in the center of the remaining grunts. Her bladed claws sparked against their armor, slashing their rifles to pieces in a flurry of precise, feral strikes.

"I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" Darwin wailed from the pavement, still clutching his grocery bag for dear life.

"Just stay down, Darwin! We've got this!" Toby yelled, blocking a heavy spray of Dust rounds with his shield and advancing to support his teammates. The four First-Years fought with incredible synchronization, their training at Beacon shining through. In mere moments, five of the six thieves were incapacitated, groaning on the pavement. But the leader, the hulking brute with the gravity hammer, realized his crew was beaten. His eyes locked onto the yellow-suited man cowering near a trash can.

If he could take down the Hero of Vale, his reputation in the underworld would be legendary.

"I'LL CRUSH YOU!" the boss roared. He triggered the Gravity Dust in his hammer, propelling himself through the air with terrifying speed, completely bypassing the four students. He was descending like a meteor, aiming directly for Darwin.

"NOOO!" Chloe screamed, too far away to intercept. Darwin looked up. He saw the massive hammer descending toward his face. Pure, unadulterated survival instinct overrode his paralysis. He scrambled to his feet to run, but his panicked movements were entirely uncoordinated. His red rubber boot stepped directly onto a squashed, slippery tomato that had fallen out of his grocery bag during the gunfire.

"Waaah!" Darwin yelped as his legs flew out from under him. He fell violently backward. As he flailed his arms to catch his balance, the heavy paper grocery bag in his right hand, which happened to contain three large, incredibly dense, un-opened cans of Mistralian baked beans, swung upward in a frantic, wild arc. The brute leader descended, fully expecting his hammer to crush the hero. Instead, the hero slipped entirely underneath the swing.

And the heavy, rapidly swinging bag of canned beans connected squarely, perfectly, and with maximum centrifugal force, directly against the brute's exposed jaw. WHAM! The heavy, metallic thud echoed across the street. The brute's eyes instantly rolled into the back of his head. His forward momentum, combined with the brutal uppercut of the canned beans, caused him to violently flip mid-air.

He flew over Darwin's falling body and crashed headfirst into a solid brick wall, crumpling to the ground, entirely unconscious. Silence descended over the commercial district. The smoke cleared. Darwin lay on his back on the pavement, his chest heaving, his medical mask askew, the torn grocery bag spilling a few bruised vegetables across his pristine white cape. Toby, Marcus, Chloe, and Lyra stood frozen, their weapons lowered, their jaws practically hitting the asphalt.

Slowly, the civilians who had taken cover peeked out from behind the cafes and hover-cars. They looked at the defeated gang. They looked at the unconscious, hulking leader. And then they looked at the man in the yellow suit, who was casually lying on his back.

"He... he didn't even use his fists," a civilian whispered in absolute, breathless awe.

"He slipped on purpose!" another yelled, pointing at the squashed tomato.

"He used an evasive slip to dodge a gravity hammer, and knocked him out with his groceries!"

"He defeated him without even looking!"

"THE CASUAL STRIKE!" The crowd erupted into thunderous, deafening applause. Cheers and whistles filled the air.

"HERO! HERO!"

"MASTER SAITAMA IS SO COOL!" Darwin scrambled into a sitting position, pushing his sunglasses back up his nose. He looked at the cheering crowd, then at the unconscious brute, and then at the can of baked beans rolling innocently on the street. Why is this happening to me?! Darwin thought, tears of absolute terror and relief welling behind his shades. The crowd, overcome with excitement and adoration, began to surge forward, abandoning all pretenses of personal space.

"Master Saitama! Can you sign my Scroll?!"

"Let me carry your groceries!" Toby, Marcus, Chloe and Lyra began to panic seeing the situation.

"They're swarming!" Marcus yelled, snapping out of his shock.

"Formation! We need to move!" Toby grabbed Darwin by the arm, hauling the trembling body-double to his feet.

"Run! Toward the airship pads!"

"My beans!" Darwin cried out tragically as Lyra dragged him away. The five of them broke into a dead, comical sprint down the promenade, hauling the surviving groceries while a massive, cheering mob of excited fans chased them through the streets of Vale.

The living room of Saphron and Terra's home was a haven of domestic warmth. The fireplace crackled softly, casting a comfortable, orange glow over the gathered group. Team RWBY, Team JNPR, Qrow, and Oscar were scattered across the sofas and armchairs, their bodies heavy with exhaustion after the long day of rejections and revelations. Near the kitchen archway, Saphron was gently rocking baby Adrian, while Terra wiped down the counters. The group has done making a plan for tomorrow's airship heist.

In the center of the room, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, Saitama and Neopolitan were completely fixated on the large, flat-screen television. Neo, still maintaining her mundane disguise, was lazily chewing on a cracker, while Saitama held a bowl of popcorn in his lap. Suddenly, the cheerful jingle of a local sitcom was cut off by a sharp, dramatic news sting.

"We interrupt this broadcast for breaking international news." The polished voice of Lisa Lavender echoed from the television, her face appearing alongside a large, bold graphic reading: HERO OF VALE IS BACK IN ACTION.

"What???" Every Huntsman and Huntress in the room instantly froze. Qrow choked on the sip of liquor he had just taken, violently coughing into his sleeve. Ruby and Jaune snapped their heads toward the screen, their eyes wide with panic.

"Following a brief period of quiet recovery, the Hero of Vale made a spectacular public appearance this afternoon," Lisa reported with professional excitement.

"During a routine grocery run, the Hero effortlessly thwarted a high-level Dust heist in the commercial district. We have amateur footage from a bystander." The screen cut to shaky, vertical Scroll footage. It showed a figure in a bright yellow suit, white cape, and dark sunglasses. The figure slipped on a tomato, fell backward, and violently clocked a charging, hammer-wielding brute in the jaw with a bag of groceries, sending the villain flying into a wall.

"Oh my gosh!" Saphron gasped, leaning over the back of the sofa with wide eyes.

"Did you see that?! He didn't even use his hands! He used his groceries!"

"That is incredible," Terra agreed, shaking her head in awe.

"He makes it look like an absolute accident. The sheer combat awareness required to execute a perfect slip and counter-strike with a paper bag... the man is a genius." Sitting on the floor, Neo let out a silent, breathless snort. Her shoulders began to shake violently as she covered her mouth, utterly failing to contain her mute, hysterical laughter at the sheer, profound absurdity of the body-double's accidental triumph. The Huntsmen, however, were sweating bullets.

"Oh, thank the gods," Weiss whispered under her breath, leaning closer to Blake.

"Is he incredibly lucky, or incredibly unlucky?"

"Both," Blake muttered back, her ears twitching.

"But bless that poor man."

"At least with this on the news, Salem and the rest of the world will be absolutely convinced he's still in Vale," Qrow murmured to Oscar, wiping his mouth.

"It buys us a massive amount of time." Saitama, completely oblivious to the geopolitical crisis he had just dodged, shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and scrutinized the footage on the screen.

"Hmm," Saitama mumbled loudly, his voice cutting through the quiet chatter.

"That suit is a bit tight around the shoulders. The fabric doesn't breathe well. Honestly, I feel really bad for Darwin having to deal with that all day..." The entire room went dead silent. Qrow, Oscar, Team RWBY and JNPR, the whole group widened their eyes toward Saitama. Saphron and Terra blinked, looking away from the television to stare at the bald man in the black suit and bowler hat.

"Darwin?" Saphron asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"Isn't that... your name? Why would you feel bad for yourself?" Saitama froze, the popcorn halfway to his mouth. He blinked his dotted eyes, realizing he had just completely outed his own alias.

"Uh..." Ruby and Jaune moved with the speed of highly-trained, panic-driven Huntsmen. They dove cleanly over the back of the sofa, flying through the air and landing squarely on either side of Saitama. Ruby's hand slapped forcefully over Saitama's mouth, while Jaune wrapped an arm around his shoulders, laughing with a loud, hysterical, bordering-on-manic intensity.

"DARLING!" Ruby shrieked, her voice cracking up three octaves.

"He said Darling! Because... because the Hero of Vale is... everyone's darling! Right, Jaune?!"

"Exactly!" Jaune yelled, sweating profusely as he forcefully patted Saitama's shoulder.

"He feels bad for our Darling hero! Because the suit looks itchy! He's just very empathetic!" Saitama let out a muffled, highly annoyed grunt against Ruby's palm, his dotted eyes glaring at the two teenagers currently dog-piling him on the living room floor. Saphron and Terra exchanged a slow, incredibly bewildered glance. They looked at the sweating, laughing teenagers, and the bizarre man in the bowler hat.

"Right..." Terra said slowly, deciding it was best not to pry into the deeply weird minds of Huntsmen and Huntresses.

"Well. It's getting late. We should probably start setting up the air mattresses." As Saphron and Terra walked out of the room, the entire group let out a collective, synchronized groan of absolute, soul-crushing relief, completely exhausted by the endless burden of keeping the world's strongest, most oblivious secret.