The first thing I noticed was the air.
It wasn't the stale, dry air of my apartment this was sharp, almost electric, with the faint tang of ozone, like the world itself had been cracked open recently. My head throbbed as I pushed myself off the concrete, feeling the grainy dust grind into my palms.
And then I heard it.
BOOM!
Not a car crash. Not fireworks. The sound was deeper, heavier, the kind of sound that told you something massive had just been broken. It rolled through the streets, rattling the glass of the storefronts around me. People didn't scream not exactly but their footsteps quickened.
I staggered to my feet, looking around.
It was a city, but not my city. I'd never seen skyscrapers like this before thin, with strange design choices that almost looked like someone had mashed old Japan with futuristic curves. A huge billboard overhead played an ad about "Hero Association recruitment exams," with a grinning man in tights giving a thumbs-up.
Hero Association.
The words hit me like a slap. I'd read them before. Seen them before. And then it clicked, all at once.
This was the world of One Punch Man.
I'd been here before, but only in my mind, flipping through manga pages or scrolling through fan forums. And now I was standing in the middle of it, the roar of monsters and the cheers for heroes all around me.
For a few long seconds, I couldn't breathe.
Not because I was panicking but because my brain was trying to sort through the impossible. I had no powers. No absurdly gifted body. No regeneration, no flight, no laser eyes. All I had were the years I'd spent in my old life reading about martial arts Shaolin styles, Okinawan karate, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Taijiquan, Kenpo, Systema you name it, I'd read about it, studied the theory, memorized the stances in my head. But theory was theory.
Reality? That was going to hit a lot harder.
And then the thought struck me: the timeline.This wasn't the Hero Association I'd seen at its peak. The headquarters looked new, almost still under construction. Which meant…
Ten years before Saitama's rise.
I had a window. Ten years before the world would meet its most ridiculous hero. Ten years before the threat levels exploded into chaos. Ten years before things got really dangerous.
Which meant I had ten years to prepare.
The first week was survival.
I scavenged what little money I could from odd jobs manual labor, delivery work, street sweeping anything that paid cash. My body ached in ways it hadn't in years. But I refused to waste this chance.
Every night, I shadowboxed in the cramped, rented room I'd found above a ramen shop. I repeated the forms I remembered from my books: Wing Chun's chain punches, Muay Thai's teep kicks, karate's reverse punches. My strikes were clumsy at first, my footwork uneven. But repetition was a language I spoke fluently.
By the end of the week, I could feel the difference. The burn in my thighs from horse stance training lasted longer. My punches landed with more snap. But I knew that wasn't enough.
Books and solo training would only carry me so far.If I wanted to survive in this world, I needed masters.
And I knew exactly who they were.
It took me three more weeks to find my first lead.
A poster in the market district caught my eye an upcoming underground martial arts tournament, open to all fighters. The prize wasn't much: a small stack of cash and a chance to spar with "recognized martial arts masters." Most people walked past without a glance. But I saw opportunity.
If I could make it to the finals hell, even just put up a fight I could get noticed. Maybe someone like Bang, the legendary Silver Fang, would hear about me.
I signed my name: Kaizen Arata.
The tournament wasn't glamorous.
It was held in the back of a warehouse, the air heavy with sweat and the stench of instant noodles from a food stand in the corner. The audience was small maybe fifty people, mostly regulars in worn jackets and cheap beer cans in their hands.
My first opponent was a stocky man with a shaved head and cauliflower ears. He came at me like a bulldozer, wild haymakers swinging for my head. I stepped back, kept my guard high, and let him tire himself. When his punches slowed, I slipped inside and hit him with three quick shots to the ribs, finishing with a push kick to his gut. He went down wheezing.
The second fight was harder. My opponent was taller, with sharp eyes and tight Muay Thai clinch control. He nearly cracked my ribs with a knee before I managed to sweep his leg and end it with a straight punch to the jaw.
By the third match, my lungs burned, my knuckles stung, and my legs felt like lead. I lost in the semi-finals to a wiry veteran who fought like he'd been brawling since birth. His timing was impeccable he slipped every punch and punished me with low kicks that left my thigh screaming.
I walked out limping, my pride bruised.
But I'd made it far enough.
Two days later, a man walked into the ramen shop where I worked evenings. He was lean, silver-haired, and carried himself like a man who didn't need to prove anything. His eyes locked on mine, and for a heartbeat, I forgot to breathe.
"Kaizen Arata?" he asked. His voice was calm, steady."Yes," I said.
He sat down, ordered tea, and then spoke without looking at me."I saw you at the tournament. You have no power. No special talent. But you have… persistence."
My chest tightened."Who are you?"
He set his cup down and finally met my eyes."Bang. I run a dojo in Z-City. Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist."
I didn't need to hear more. My pulse was already pounding.
"Come tomorrow morning," he said, standing up. "If you can last a week without quitting, you stay. If not, you leave."
And just like that, he walked out.
That night, I couldn't sleep.I knew this was it the first step toward the path I'd dreamed of. The world outside was dangerous. Monsters, criminals, disaster-level threats… but I'd found a crack in the wall between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
All I had to do was step through it.
Tomorrow, the training would begin.