"…Hey!"
Metal Bat cracked his neck with a sharp snap and, taking on a bold delinquent stance, began striding toward Sweet Mask.
His glare was full of irritation as he shouted, "Don't act all high and mighty here! I don't care if you're some idol or whatever, I'll still beat you up!"
Sweet Mask, however, stood his ground, calm and poised, his voice steady as he replied, "Do you want to know why I've never accepted promotion to S-Class? It's to stop weak and foolish people like you from reaching that rank. That is why I have remained at the very top of A-Class."
The tension between them grew thick, neither willing to back down. Then, without warning, a long, cylindrical capsule pod descended from the sky, streaking down until it struck the ground with a loud metallic impact.
The sudden landing drew the attention of everyone present. Their eyes turned toward the pod as a mechanical hiss escaped from it. The capsule slowly opened, revealing a humanoid robot with slender antennae sprouting from its head.
"…Metal Knight?" Sweet Mask was the first to recognize it. "Weren't you supposed to attend the emergency meeting with the others? Why are you only arriving now?" His tone was sharp, his dissatisfaction at Metal Knight's absence clear.
Metal Knight ignored the remark. Instead, the robot's head tilted upward, its gaze fixed on the massive spaceship hovering high above.
"So that's the true identity of the unknown spacecraft… remarkable." His voice carried an almost reverent admiration, even though he was speaking through a remote control.
"Metal Knight… what are you doing here? The battle's already over." Genos stepped forward, his expression guarded. Earlier, during a pause in the fighting, another S-Class hero, Drive Knight, had privately warned him that Metal Knight was not to be trusted and should be avoided. This was Genos' first direct encounter with the man, but Drive Knight's warning was still fresh in his mind, making him watch Metal Knight's every move with suspicion.
"I'm here to recover the UFO," Metal Knight said, his tone matter-of-fact. "For the sake of peace, we require stronger weapons."
"Wait. The owner of the ship is still here. If you want to take it, you should at least ask for his permission," Shinji interjected, gesturing toward Boros, who stood quietly beside him.
Metal Knight turned his attention to the pair, his sensors scanning them. "Kamui… and… an enemy?"
The realization struck him at once. Boros clearly wasn't human, and combined with Shinji's statement about the ship's owner, it was obvious that this towering, one-eyed warrior was the enemy commander from this incident.
"What? You actually spared the enemy?!" Sweet Mask's eyes widened.
He had been so focused on Metal Bat and the others that he only now realized Boros, stripped of his Meteor Burst form, was still alive. This was the same form he had seen under the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and in his eyes, the presence of any evil, especially its leader, was intolerable.
For Sweet Mask, whose moral code allowed no compromise, this was unthinkable. No evil deserved to live, no matter the circumstances. He turned sharply to Shinji, anger sharpening his tone. "Kamui! What is the meaning of this? Why didn't you kill him?"
Shinji's reply was calm, almost deliberate. "I didn't just refrain from killing him, but I also saved his life when he was moments from death."
"Why?!" Sweet Mask's voice rose, his frustration twisting his expression into something wild and threatening.
Shinji's tone was calm as he spoke. "Because he can also become a hero. He can also uphold justice. Restoring the damage to City A isn't beyond his reach."
Sweet Mask ignored his words completely. "An enemy is an enemy! Evil is evil!"
In that moment, disappointment settled over him. He recalled watching Shinji battle Boros to protect all of humanity and how he had realized his own limitations. It was then that he had resolved to push Shinji into becoming the "perfect hero." Yet, the man before him was not the righteous figure he had envisioned. Shinji had spared someone he deemed evil.
"Alright then…"
Shinji decided to stop reasoning with him. He knew Sweet Mask carried a monster gene. The image he showed to the public was a façade, hiding his true form, one that was monstrously disfigured. Monsters did not think like humans, and Sweet Mask's nature had gradually twisted his perception of justice into something rigid and unyielding. That kind of mind could not understand the human heart.
Reasoning was useless. Instead, Shinji said, "In my view, there is no absolute justice or absolute evil. If you insist on clinging to such rigid beliefs, then I will show you… that justice itself can also become evil."
Small black spheres began forming in Shinji's hands, slowly rising into the air as his body lifted from the ground.
"Boros, move your ship elsewhere," Shinji ordered.
"Understood…" Boros replied, and without another word, he used the power sphere to teleport the ship to a desolate region far from City A.
Watching the black spheres drift upward, Child Emperor felt a sudden unease. "What's he doing?"
The next instant, the spheres erupted with an immense gravitational force. The ground fractured beneath them, and countless stones of all sizes were torn free, spiraling toward the dark orbs.
"Is he insane? Is he attacking us?!" Metal Bat shouted.
"No. He's doing… something else. Just, head for the HQ building, now." Bang's voice was urgent, and before the debris could lift him, he dashed away.
The others followed quickly, using their abilities to escape the pull. In this world, anyone who could become an S-Class hero already possessed superhuman physical prowess. Even C-Class heroes were at least on par with elite athletes.
However, Atomic Samurai was weaker than the other S-Class heroes. His strength faltered against the crushing pull, and his body began to lift into the air. Genos grabbed him by the leg, yanking him back to solid footing, and helped him make it to the HQ.
Once inside, the building's reinforced structure withstood the violent pull outside.
Above them, a dozen colossal meteoric spheres had formed, Shinji's Chibaku Tensei. The original Meteoric Disaster Star technique produced two spheres of only 250 and 516 meters in diameter, but now, wielding the combined might of the Six Paths and Kaguya, Shinji had created meteors over a kilometer wide each.
Sweet Mask stared, stunned. "What is he trying to do? What's the point of these meteors?!"
"Probably to make someone face reality…" Genos replied, his tone steady. He already understood Shinji's intent.
Under Shinji's control, the massive meteors shifted position, hovering ominously.
Horizon Meteor.
One by one, the enormous spheres began their descent, plummeting toward the Hero Association HQ.