Breaking the Barrier (Saitama x Tatsumaki)

Despair

I'm gonna be fully honest right now.

I kinda forgot to release the chapter last night, and that's why it's coming out late. Like, I finished it in the morning, but you know when you're taking a test and you finish it, but you still have time so you reserve some time so you can check over your answers? That's what I was trying to do.

And I failed.

So, yeehaw, chapter here.

~~~~~

There's too much going on right now. So many people, so many things going around, so many rocks and pieces of debris I'm flinging. But I can't really feel it. I feel like I'm in an out-of-body experience, like I've disassociated from my body. It feels like there's something else controlling my body, but my mind's still fully aware.

It's like I'm in the zone.

I'm pretty sure blood flowing out of me at a steady rate is pretty unnatural. Unfortunately, none of the S-Class has some of that weird healing magic, other than whatever the hell Zombieman has under his sleeve. That's the only unnatural thing happening to me right now, having to use my power to quite literally slow down my blood flow from splattering out of me.

Even having to deal with this gigantic fusion of Psykos and the Monster King doesn't feel too abnormal, though it's definitely one of the toughest enemies I've faced so far. Probably second place. Maybe third. Not sure at this point, but I know it's not the toughest enemy I've faced.

That title belongs to that alien. Boros. When I faced him, there was an emotion I didn't think I'd ever feel again. Whether it was because I would have forced my emotions to shut off, whether I would push any source of it away, or whether I thought I was too strong to feel something that threatening again, I didn't think I'd feel it.

Terror. That emotion that I felt then was terror.

But it wasn't despair. I know it wasn't despair.

There's an unusually large range of emotions that humans feel, that dogs feel, that cats feel (maybe, cats are heartless bastards sometimes), that any animal feels. There are tons of words to express certain types of emotions too, specific types.

Happy. A simple word. But it can be expanded. Joyful, ecstatic, elated.

And there are negative emotions that can be expressed just the same. Sadness, fear, and anger are some of the most basic ones. They too can be expanded upon into other things. Hatred, sorrow, misery, horror, rage, malice, malevolent, any sort of negative emotion can probably be expressed.

And I think for fear, there are many unique ones, that could be thought of as related more to fear, as well as related more to sadness. Yet, they are used in both situations.

Despair is one of them. Despair's kinda the absence of hope. Despair's also the state of absolute misery, in a way. It has a very specific definition, but its meaning can be bent ever so slightly when it needs to bend.

God, I sound like a pretentious English teacher who really wants to convey how "Oh, language is so amazing, you should utilize it all!" as if normal words don't get the message across just the same when an individual's interpretations of words are different, you goddamn troglodyte.

Terror, on the other hand, is the fear of losing hope. Fear, of course, being that worry that something is going to go wrong. At least, that's how I've always seen it.

When I fought Boros. That? That wasn't despair. Because I knew there was hope. There was terror. That fear, that, at the last moment, the hope I had was going to be snuffed out, like embers crushed under a winter boot.