Psychokinesis was something that came as naturally as moving your fingers or grasping things. Did it really need to be taught? Then again, using chopsticks was something people learned later, even if most remembered it as something they had simply picked up naturally.
Although she found it troublesome, Tatsumaki was nominally Yimi's guardian now, so she had an obligation to teach Yimi how to properly use this extraordinary power.
"You. Lift this pebble first." She tossed a stone into midair.
Naturally, Yimi easily lifted it with psychokinesis.
"Now let's make it harder. Lift ten at once." Tatsumaki threw a few more.
It was only about as difficult as cupping both hands together.
"Good. Now try making them spin, then gather them back together."
That wasn't difficult at all either.
Tatsumaki nodded in satisfaction. As expected of the brat she was looking after. Some of Tatsumaki's talent must have rubbed off on her just from being around her.
She spread her five fingers, aimed at a large rock prepared in advance, and used psychokinesis. "Try this next."
The hard rock flew into the air. Different forces twisted its outer and inner layers from opposite directions, wringing it like a wet rag, yet not a single grain of sand or chip of stone flew loose.
At the same time, Tatsumaki kept it confined to a fixed area and squeezed it like a snowball in her fist, compacting it tightly. When the chaotic yet orderly psychokinesis dispersed, what appeared before Yimi looked like a screw.
Tatsumaki's art style seemed to turn into a simple doodle as she pointed at another large rock. "You try too."
"?"
"Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the achievement [This is attack. This is defense. This is Ashina Genichiro. This is run. This is jump. This is Super Mario], reward: 5% portal energy."
Yimi turned around. Rather than learning these useless things from her, she thought she might as well focus on practicing video games.
...
The strained relationship between Tatsumaki and Fubuki came from Tatsumaki's one-sided desire for control—or at least, that was what Fubuki believed.
It made her reluctant to see her sister, but that didn't mean that just because Yimi was in Tatsumaki's hands, Fubuki could never see the kid again.
"That's how she teaches you? Figures. Someone born with talent like hers probably has no idea how to teach other people."
Taking advantage of Tatsumaki's absence, Fubuki had secretly slipped in and taken Yimi shopping. Now she twirled a strand of hair around her fingertip while Yimi sat opposite her, happily eating ice cream as her short legs swung above the floor.
Fubuki placed a hand on Yimi's head and rubbed it. "You're already strong enough, but you absolutely mustn't use that strength to bully ordinary people, okay?"
In her view, teaching a child holding a gun wasn't about teaching her how to aim and shoot. It was about teaching her never to point the barrel at anyone.
Yimi was actually pretty reassuring in that respect. Despite being so young, she had a good sense of limits. The classmates who had tried to bully her at school had only been beaten black and blue.
"Ordinary people?" The kitty thought she herself was perfectly ordinary.
Fubuki counted on her fingers. "People who don't have psychokinesis, can't turn into cats, aren't unusually strong, and don't have any special abilities. Those are the people heroes are supposed to protect."
Yimi tilted her head. "Then what if... ordinary people bully me?"
Fubuki leaned back in her chair and stared at Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask singing on the shop's screen. "Then they're not ordinary people, they're bad people. It's best to call an adult and let us handle it for you."
She wiped some crumbs from Yimi's face. "Public opinion in this world can be frightening. People won't see that you're fighting back. They'll only see someone different from them using violence against someone who's just like them. But maybe it's too early to tell you this?"
Fubuki wasn't especially wise. If she were, she wouldn't go around waylaying promising newcomers whenever she spotted one. But as someone who had often been bullied as a child because of her psychokinesis, she understood this point all too well.
The kitten nodded as if she half understood.
So when hitting ordinary people, she couldn't let anyone see.
Fubuki kept staring at Yimi until she set down her spoon. "Done eating? Let's go. And remember, you can only have ice cream once a day."
She wanted some too, but maintaining her figure meant controlling her diet.
Yimi scooped up a spoonful, braced one hand on the table, and stretched hard to reach Fubuki's face. "Aunt Fubuki can have some too. I saved... half."
"..."
Ah, maybe she should carry Yimi off again, move somewhere else, and make sure her sister couldn't find them.
After getting her fill of ice cream, Fubuki took Yimi's hand and left the shop.
She twirled her hair around her index finger again, looked off to one side, and brought it up casually. "Come to think of it, Aunt Fubuki's place caught fire last night."
"It caught fire!" Yimi hurriedly grabbed her clothes.
"I'm fine, but all the clothes in my wardrobe burned up. So many designer clothes too."
Fubuki held her forehead and closed her eyes in distress. "Don't worry about it. Aunt Fubuki is just mentioning it casually. I'll have to spend so much money replacing them later. Even though all I need is fabric for long dresses and qipao-style outfits suited to someone who's 167 centimeters tall, with a D-cup bust and a waist of... it still costs that much to buy."
Because she only bought luxury goods and hated cheap things.
Yimi, who had heard every word, nodded seriously and memorized it. She was going to make Aunt Fubuki some clothes too.
Her focused expression gave Fubuki an inexplicable pang of guilt.
"Whoosh—"
But the guilt didn't last long before an anomaly suddenly appearing across the street drew her attention. It wasn't anything especially dramatic. Just a strangely dressed man abruptly appearing out of thin air.
"Oh?"
Across the street, Saitama appeared in the middle of the road wearing the face of the Nameless Swordsman, then hopped in place twice.
Not having to worry about controlling his strength felt strangely novel.
Come to think of it, this road looked really familiar. Wasn't this just reality?
Saitama drew the blade and tried swinging it twice. Maybe his posture was too strange, because he didn't generate any Sword Skills the way King had said he would.
He tried imitating the way King had taught him to open the menu, gripped the controller, sheathed the sword first, and casually pressed a few buttons.
Metal Bat stood in front of Saitama, watching him clutch empty air and flail at empty space in front of himself. "..."
"That thing!" Yimi ran over.
"Don't cross the street by yourself!" Fubuki hurried after her.
Yimi grabbed Saitama's clothes, looked up, and pointed at his controller. "Where did you... buy that?"
It was an ALO-style controller, but with quite a few extra buttons. Of course it caught Yimi's attention.
Saitama raised it a little higher. "This isn't mine, so I can't hand it over."
Though that little boy had said the game was a gift from a little girl, right? And this really was reality, wasn't it?
"Hey, punk. You were pretty cocky just now. How about coming with me for a little talk?" Someone grabbed Saitama's raised hand. Naturally, it was Metal Bat, who thought Saitama had provoked him.
With a child present, Metal Bat couldn't just start swinging.
He yanked hard at Saitama's arm, but accidentally pressed one of the buttons.
Then, under Fubuki and Metal Bat's furious and stunned gazes—and Saitama's own confusion—Saitama's body uncontrollably executed a textbook leg sweep.
Right there in public, he tripped Yimi and dumped her straight onto her butt.
"..."
...
"Here." Saitama handed the device back to King.
King took it and inspected it from both sides. Finding no damage, he asked, puzzled, "You don't want to play for a few more days? Maybe it'll let you feel what it's like to meet an evenly matched opponent again."
Saitama scratched his cheek guiltily. "A lot of moves came out on their own without me controlling them. This kind of thing really isn't for me. I don't want to cause trouble for other people."
King nodded, not suspecting anything. "I see. There should be a feature that lets you recreate your account with a female character, right?"
"Bang!"
The window suddenly flew open, startling King so badly he nearly dropped the device. The King Engine started up with it.
The kitten padded in on all fours, head held high and chest puffed out. Her big eyes narrowed with extreme pride. When she passed Saitama, she deliberately stepped on him with one front paw.
"Oh, the cat from that day. So you two know each other?" Naturally, Saitama had no idea the little girl and the cat were the same person.
"I found... the strongest person in this world." Yimi was smug.
"The strongest?"
"Yeah. Stronger than you." The kitty's quest was complete!
Even though completing this world's quest made even less sense than unlocking achievements.
"You're kidding..." King didn't believe her.
After all, King only had such an absurdly high reputation because he kept happening upon scenes where Saitama killed Dragon-level monsters with one punch and immediately left, so King ended up getting the credit.
"Definitely stronger than you. I even beat him!" Yimi stood on her hind legs and happily clapped her front paws together.
Saitama rubbed his bald head. "Who was it?"
"Mm... forgot." The kitten climbed back down and settled herself.
She had beaten him casually, and then the person who had been sitting there making incomprehensible motions while pawing at the air had disappeared. He wasn't particularly memorable-looking either, so she had no impression of him. She had no idea what made him strong, but the System had verified it, which meant that person's attack power had to be incredibly high.
"Anyway, he's the strongest." Done showing off, Yimi jumped back out the way she'd come and flew away.
"..."
"Saitama-shi, you don't need to take what a child says so seriously."
"I wasn't really paying that much attention." As he said that, Saitama lowered his head and thought for a moment.
Someone stronger than him, huh? He kind of wanted to meet them. Maybe he should go look around and see if he could find them?