After their probing fire bounced harmlessly off Saitama, mechanized units tightened the cordon. Saitama didn't budge. He simply waited. For all his dopey look, he understood one thing perfectly:
Monsters are always arrogant.
At least before they actually face him.
Sure enough, barely ten minutes into the encirclement—while loudspeakers blared surrender notices in eighteen languages—a black torrent came thundering from tens of kilometers away. You could only make out a dark shape sprinting straight for them, ripping the formation apart as it hit. He was only about three meters tall, but every stride pumped so much kinetic force that the ground buckled and lifted in corrugations along his path. This wasn't just speed. It was power.
"My name is Logan—the Gray Horseman of His Majesty Apocalypse. I'm here for someone."
He halted, and Saitama finally got a clear look: a "mutant" whose human torso grew from a horse's back.
A centaur—steam snorting from the beast-half's nostrils in gray lightning. His upper body was massive, skin ashen with white streaking, a helm trimmed in gray plumes. Behind the visor was a face Saitama knew.
"Logan…?" Saitama blinked. "Logan, what did you do to yourself?"
Logan ignored him and surveyed the field. His forehooves stamped once.
The earth jumped.
"Now—who's the bald one?"
"Huh?" Saitama blinked again.
"No answer? Which one of you is the dead baldy?!"
Professor X murmured, hollow, "It's over. All of it. Not just Paris—France is finished."
Saitama smiled thinly. "I'll let you try that again. Who are you here for?"
Logan didn't catch the shift in Saitama's mood. He lowered his head, eyes narrowing. "Oh? Bald head… did you see a bald—hmm? Don't tell me you're the bald target His Majesty wants?"
Bang.
Logan flew backward—much faster than he'd come. The mechanized line, already torn open by his charge, lost another quarter of its strength to the blow's aftershock—and only that little because the units were so spread out.
The field commander yelled for a full pullback. What were they looking at? If this was a mutant, then mutants were gods. The man had used no visible "ability"—just a run, just a punch—and yet his body felt like a myth walking.
An alien?
"Hey, what's wrong? You call me a baldy and then clam up?" Saitama's smile cooled as he strode toward Logan.
A black cyclone snapped—and Logan reappeared behind Saitama. His human torso swelled, doubling in size, making him look almost comical.
No one laughed.
Professor X had already felt it: the crushing force coiled in that body.
"Impressive," Logan said, voice bright with excitement. "No wonder His Majesty said only the four of us could bring you in. But it doesn't matter, baldy! I'll break you before I drag you back! Hahahahaha!"
His fists fell like rain.
Saitama whipped around and punched back, every strike clean and compact.
In an instant they'd traded dozens of blows. Saitama's anger shifted to surprise. This guy's power… it was right up there with Boros.
You're kidding. Someone this strong in this world?
Saitama's lips quirked. "Not bad. Not bad at all."
Their fists' wind shear intensified, and buildings that had merely been gutted before now burst into clouds of shrapnel. The fragments didn't fly far; the pressure-walls penned them into a roaring gyre that orbited the two fighters.
One minute in, they'd thrown nearly ten thousand punches. Dust and grit churned like a sandstorm.
"You're strong," Logan admitted, astonished—and delighted. He came from another universe's Wolverine, the mightiest iteration across countless parallels; in his world he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with omega-levels. Summoned here and bound by Apocalypse, he'd been pushed to the very pinnacle of omega power. (Granted, in the film universe, "omega" isn't the same world-ending nonsense you see in some comics.)
And now he'd met his match.
He'd thought only the other three Future Horsemen could go even with him. Yet here was another.
Ecstatic, he laughed louder. "Good! Good! I'm thrilled—absolutely thrilled! To meet an enemy like you! Hahaha! Even if you're a baldy, I'll still call you the strongest! Be proud, bal—"
Boom.
The moment the word "baldy" left his mouth, his human upper body detonated.
(End of Chapter)
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