The world twisted—space itself warping as energy cracked across the sea like lightning. The ocean swelled, a vortex spiraling beneath the titanic form of Antares.
Shadow hurled the object—stone-like, faintly glinting in the sun. It wasn't metal, or magic. It was something more ancient. More human.
Flashback—
Senku held the strange object between tweezers. It glimmered unnaturally in the lab light.
"This is based on your eyes, Saiki. We call it the Medusa."
"Obvious name," Saiki muttered, crossing his arms. "So… turns stuff to stone?"
Senku's grin widened like a kid in a candy store. "Exactly. We synthesized a prototype by combining fragments of a petrification device with psychic-conductive minerals. You just concentrate your psychic focus into it—and BAM."
Chrome leaned over the crab-shaped test dummy. "Alright, time for Crab-kun's final moments."
Saiki sighed, focused his energy—and the crab's shell calcified, cracking audibly as it hardened into gray stone.
Chrome's jaw dropped. "We did it…"
Saiki poked the crab. "...Half a crab."
Senku nodded. "Hey, it's a prototype. But it works."
Back to the present—
The Medusa rock flew through the air like a silent bullet.
Denji revved his chainsaw. "RRRGH—LET ME AT HIM—"
Makima placed a firm hand on his chest. "You'll get caught in it too. Stay."
For once, Denji paused.
The stone struck. Antares turned his massive head with a flicker of amusement and batted it away with one claw.
"A rock?" he laughed, mocking. "You dare—"
But then—his laughter stopped. The tail. Five full meters of his eighty-meter obsidian tail grayed, cracked, and calcified.
His pupils contracted.
Cut to Chrome and Senku, watching from the lab's remote feed.
Chrome's mouth was open. "Well… shit."
Senku's eyes glinted. "It worked. Even against that thing."
Inside the Domain—
A shimmering void engulfed the battlefield. Black stars twinkled across an endless expanse of white nothing.
Gojo stood, calm, ethereal. "Welcome to my Domain, you son of a bitch."
Antares snarled. His form flickered, wings glitching in and out of visibility.
Gojo raised a hand. "Here, you're granted everything… and you cant do anything."
Time distorted. Antares' giant body slowed. His tail hung mid-air. His wings stopped in motion.
An infinite torrent of information and action flooded Antares' mind.
His eyes spun in confusion.
Gojo smirked. "You have no domain, monster. You can't counter—"
CRACK.
A splatter of red. Blood dripped from Gojo's nose. His vision blurred.
"…No."
CRACK.
The domain shattered like glass, fragments of the void dispersing into the real world. Gojo collapsed, falling like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Too strong…" he whispered.
But Jinwoo caught him. Midair. On the back of an obsidian wyvern. Wind whistled around them as Jinwoo turned toward the dragon once more.
Shadow and Saitama surged forward from opposite sides—synchronized without a word.
And above them all—Saiki.
He hovered in the air, glasses removed, his green eyes glowing with unbearable force. The wind itself bent around him.
Psychic pressure exploded outward.
He lifted one finger. "Die, you nuisance."
Antares twisted to strike back.
He couldn't finish the motion.
"Fuc—"
TOO LATE.
The petrification surged—no longer just the tail. Like wildfire, it overtook his wings, his claws, his face.
Stone. Cold, cracked, immutable.
The Monarch of Destruction was frozen mid-roar.
SMASH!!
Saitama's fist connected. At the same time, Shadow struck with a blade forged of nothingness.
The body shattered.
Chunks of obsidian-scale rock fell like meteorites into the sea. Silence followed. Then screams of relief.
They had won.
Makima walked up to the rubble, staring into the water. "Was that… a Halloween? Cosmic devil?"
Shadow—his body still steaming—nodded slowly. "That… that was a real fight."
Saiki floated down, brushing debris off his shoulders. "Almost a normal day."
Later—
Shoko treated the wounded near a makeshift med tent. Salt still clung to the air.
Javier groaned as she popped his shoulder back into place. "I hate this universe…"
Gojo, bandaged and bruised, raised a thumbs-up. "I'm good… mostly."
Kazuma laid flat in the sand, arms out, like a man who'd just crawled out of the underworld.
"That was hell," he muttered.
Nearby, Rudeus turned to Frieren with stars in his eyes. "Teach me that Zoltraak spell?"
Frieren raised an eyebrow. "Trade you for Quagmire and Stone cannon."
He gasped. "Deal!"
The next day—
The beach was trashed. Palm trees scorched. Craters littered the sand like pockmarks. One unlucky beach chair was embedded halfway into a boulder.
Everyone helped clean, begrudgingly.
"IT'S FRIGGIN' HOT!!" Kazuma screamed, covered in sweat. "We fought a cosmic dragon and now I'm doing chores?!"
Denji was buried in sand up to his neck. "Worth it if we get food later."
Subaru, picking up broken wood, muttered, "I preferred dying to this."
Gojo, holding a broom and grinning, said, "Character building."
Ryusui suddenly returned, a coconut in one hand, shirtless and tan.
"Yo!"
Everyone froze.
"You—weren't you dead?!" Saitama asked, blinking.
Silence.
Ryusui shrugged, sipping coconut water. "Nah. I just cruised west on a jet ski once my comms cut out. Had to dodge a flying crab at one point. What'd I miss?"
Everyone stared at him.
He paused. "…What's with all the stone?"
Before anyone could scream again—
A New Realization
Kazuma, who had been clutching his knees and whispering "never again" into the sand, suddenly froze.
"…Wait a second."
Everyone turned.
Kazuma slowly looked at the sky, then to the distant rift—still faintly shimmering above the horizon.
"Holy shit. HOLY SHIT."
He stumbled to his feet, eyes wide. "There were TWO things that fell outta that rift. Right? Right?!"
Everyone's face slowly dropped in horror.
"Are you telling me," he choked, "there's another one like him?!"
Panic set in.
"We have to go to Saiki. Now. NOW."
Subaru, eyes twitching, sighed. "I swear to god if it's another monster—"
They sprinted.
Denji tripped twice on a broken lawn chair but still kept pace.
Then it happened.
As they rounded the bend of the ruined camp—
A voice. Calm. Familiar. Dreadful.
Antares.
"You're all very noisy for victors."
---
End.