Sid's visit was like a stone dropped into the placid, stagnant pond of Saitama's existence. The ripples it created were subtle at first, but they spread, disrupting the quiet surface of his boredom with a new, dangerous, and almost heretical, idea.
A world without a real, challenging villain… must be the most boring world of all.
The thought burrowed into Saitama's mind and took root. It was the unspoken truth of his entire life, the core of his existential crisis, now voiced by someone else, by a weirdly dressed, dramatic teenager who seemed to understand him better than anyone. He had saved the world, defeated every monster, ended every conflict. And in doing so, he had become the architect of his own profound, unending ennui.
He went through the motions of his "peaceful" life in the palace. He ate the gourmet meals (they tasted bland). He slept in his cloud-like bed (he tossed and turned). He attended his "Grandmaster" training sessions with the Royal Vanguard, but his heart wasn't in it. His effortless victories against the adoring knights no longer felt even mildly amusing; they just felt… pathetic.
"Is something troubling you, Champion Saitama?" Lyraelle asked him one afternoon, finding him staring blankly at his now-completed, and profoundly unfulfilling, noodle-packet replica of the Royal Palace. "You seem… distant."
"I'm just thinking," Saitama replied, his voice flat. He looked at her, his expression unusually serious. "Hey, Angel Lady. Is it a hero's job to… just wait? To wait for a bad guy to show up, punch him, and then… go back to waiting?"
Lyraelle considered the question, her ancient eyes holding a deep wisdom. "A hero's primary duty is to protect, Saitama. In times of peace, the act of being ready, of standing as a shield, is itself a form of heroism."
"But it's boring," Saitama said, the word a simple, profound truth. "What's the point of a shield if there are no arrows? You're just a heavy, useless piece of metal." He sighed, a sound that seemed to rattle the very windows of the suite. "This peace… it's gonna kill me."
The idea planted by Sid began to sprout, twisting into a strange, compelling, and utterly insane, plan. Sid's words echoed in his mind: 'If the world didn't have a good villain… one might have to be… created.'
Saitama wasn't a planner. He didn't do schemes. But his logic, in its own unique way, was flawless.
Premise 1: The world is too peaceful and boring.
Premise 2: A hero needs a strong villain to fight, to have a purpose, to make things not-boring.
Premise 3: There are no more strong villains.
Conclusion: He needed to make a strong villain.
But how? He couldn't just… give one of the Royal Knights super-powers. They were all too nice. He couldn't release a monster from some ancient prison; he'd probably just end up punching it immediately out of habit. He needed a villain who was smart, who was strong, who understood the game. A villain who could create an interesting story.
And then, his thoughts drifted back to the one person he'd met who seemed to live for that kind of thing. The weird, dramatic chess guy. Sid. 'Shadow.'
Sid hadn't just understood his boredom; he had seemed to revel in the very idea of a grand, epic narrative. He was the only person who had ever made boredom sound like a tactical problem to be solved.
A new, even stranger idea began to form. Saitama didn't just need a villain. He needed a partner. A co-conspirator. Someone to play the part of the ultimate bad guy, while he played the part of the ultimate hero. They could… stage it. A grand, epic, world-shaking fake rivalry, designed for the sole purpose of alleviating their shared, cosmic boredom.
The idea was so absurd, so profoundly chuunibyou, that it could only have sprung from the mind of someone who had just spent an afternoon with Sid Kagenou.
His first challenge was getting out of the palace. He was a celebrated hero, a national treasure, but he was also a flight risk on a continental scale. Sir Kaelan and the Royal Guard, in their well-intentioned, terrified way, monitored his every move.
Saitama's solution was, as always, direct and shockingly simple.
"Hey, Kaelan," he said one morning, finding his liaison meticulously inspecting the structural integrity of the royal pudding supply. "I'm going out for a walk."
Kaelan immediately paled. "A walk, sir? A walk where? For how long? The King's protocol for 'unscheduled ambulations' is very clear, it requires a full escort, a pre-approved route, and at least three different kinds of emergency snack rations—"
"Yeah, I'm not doing that," Saitama said calmly. "I'm just going for a walk. To… clear my head. You can either let me walk out the front door, or I can walk out through that wall." He pointed at a nearby, very solid, and very expensive-looking, marble wall. "Your choice. The door seems less messy."
Kaelan looked at the wall. He looked at Saitama's calm, unblinking, and utterly serious face. He thought of the paperwork involved in explaining a new, hero-shaped hole in the Royal dining hall. He made the only sane choice. "The… the door it is, sir," he stammered. "Enjoy your… your walk."
Saitama walked out of the Royal Palace, unescorted, for the first time since he had been "grounded." No one dared to stop him. The quiet, almost dangerous, new resolve in his posture was more intimidating than any of his previous destructive feats.
He walked through the streets of Midgar. He was, of course, instantly recognized. But the usual adoring crowds kept their distance. The hero, their smiling, benevolent Tempest, looked… different. The goofy indifference was gone. Replaced by a cold, quiet purpose. There was a weight to his steps they hadn't felt before. They whispered, they pointed, but they did not approach.
He didn't know where Sid Kagenou lived. He didn't have his address, his phone number, or his social media handle. He just had a name, and a vague, instinctual sense of the direction the boy's "shadowy" energy had disappeared.
So he just walked. And he called.
"Hey! Sid! Chess guy!" he shouted, his voice echoing through a busy marketplace, causing a flock of pigeons and several startled merchants to scatter. "I wanna talk! About the… you know… 'making things interesting' thing!"
In his hidden base, Sid froze. He was in the middle of a very cool, very dramatic briefing with his Seven Shadows, outlining their next, subtle move against a newly discovered Cult remnant.
And then he heard it. A voice, booming across the city, amplified not by magic, but by sheer, lung-shattering power, a voice he now knew with a chilling, Pavlovian certainty. It was calling his name. His real name. In public.
"Did… did anyone else hear that?" Delta asked, her wolf ears twitching.
Alpha's eyes widened in horror. "Lord Shadow… that was…"
Sid felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. He's calling for me. Out loud. In the middle of the city. Like a lost dog. All his carefully crafted anonymity, his persona as the forgettable "Sid," the very foundation of his power as "Shadow"… was in danger of being shattered. Not by an enemy, not by a rival. But by his own, ludicrously powerful, socially unaware, potential new partner-in-crime.
"The meeting is adjourned," Sid hissed, his voice strained. He turned and practically sprinted from the room, his long coat flapping in a way that was far more panicked than dramatic. He had to stop Saitama. He had to intercept him before he single-handedly dismantled his entire secret identity out of sheer, well-intentioned, idiotic directness.
He found Saitama in the main plaza, looking around expectantly.
"There you are!" Saitama said, beaming, as Sid, trying to look as unassuming and non-supervillain-like as possible, approached him through the parting, whispering crowds. "Took you long enough. I was about to start yelling louder."
"What… what are you doing?" Sid hissed, grabbing Saitama's arm and trying to pull him into a less conspicuous alleyway, a feat which was like trying to tow a continent with a piece of string. Saitama, of course, didn't budge.
"I was looking for you," Saitama explained happily. "I thought about your idea. The whole 'the world is too boring, we need a new bad guy' thing. And… you're right! So, I've got a counter-proposal for you."
Sid stared at him, his mind a maelstrom of panic and horrified curiosity. "…A counter-proposal?"
Saitama leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial whisper that was still loud enough to be heard by half the plaza. "Yeah. See, you're good at all the sneaky, plan-y, monologue-y stuff. The evil laugh, the cool costume. All the villain things." He paused. "And I'm really good at punching. The hero stuff."
He held out a hand, a gesture of alliance.
"So," Saitama declared, a brilliant, insane, and world-altering grin on his face. "Let's team up. You and me. We can be the ultimate rivals. The ultimate hero-villain combo. We'll give this world the most epic, most interesting, most ridiculously over-the-top story it has ever seen." He winked. "It'll be fun."
Sid Kagenou, the boy who dreamed of being the Eminence in Shadow, who lived for drama and narrative, just stared at the outstretched hand of the man who had just offered to make him the co-protagonist (and antagonist) in the greatest, most absurd story ever told.
His first thought was: This is insane. This is madness. It will never work.
His second, much louder, much more honest thought was: Oh, yes. Yes, it will. This was it. The ultimate performance. Not just a puppet master, but a lead actor, in a play co-written by a god.
He took Saitama's hand. "An interesting… proposal," he said, his own, cool, confident, Shadow-smile returning. "Tell me more."
The quiet was over. The game had just changed. The hero and the shadow, the fist and the mind, were about to become the most unlikely, and the most terrifying, creative partnership in the history of the universe. The world wasn't just going to be interesting. It was about to become a work of chaotic, epic, and profoundly weird, art.