Updating my Pit of Voles account for the first time in seven years, woo-

Grim Puncher: Chapter 1/3

Knock knock.

Genos opened the door. "May I help you?"

The dark, hooded figure in the apartment hallway looked down at the note in its skeletal hand, then back up at Genos. "This is apartment 3C, correct?" it asked in an echoing voice.

"Are you here for Sensei?"

"Sensei…?"

"Master Saitama," Genos said.

"Indeed. I have come at last to claim what is mine."

Did Sensei owe him money? Genos raised an eyebrow, but pulled the door wide. "Well, come in, then. You can leave your cloak and scythe on the coat rack."

"I have need of them. I am working."

Definitely a debt collector. Genos mentally ran through the household expenses as he led the being towards the main room. Surely he hadn't forgotten a bill…

"Who is it, Genos?"

"A visitor, Sensei." Genos said. A Mr., ah—"

"Death," the hooded figure intoned. "Merely Death."

Genos left Sensei and their peculiarly-named guest alone in order to go make tea. The presence of someone new in their home was a rare enough event that he felt justified in breaking out the more expensive blend. Just as he was setting their nicest cups on a tray, however, he heard a commotion from outside the kitchen.

"No way," his master squawked. "Like hell I'm going with you!"

"You must. It is the way of things."

"Pah. I'm too busy. And the supermarket sale next Thursday is going to be an extra ten percent off."

"Foolish human, I have personally come to free you from your mortal coil. You have cheated me all these years, but I—"

"Cheated?" Sensei said indignantly. "I worked really hard. A ten-kilometer run every day, and—

"You blasted through three-hundred and sixty thousand kilometers of hard vacuum! You left a crater on the moon! You've fought a meteor, split the sky, and slain giants! No man may perform such deeds and still survive," Death thundered. "You are a thief of your own life, and that life should have been mine a hundred times over!"

"I think you're exagger—Oi, what are you doing with that scythe—?"

"You cannot escape me, not this time—"

There was a metallic clang and a then a whoosh, the kind Genos had come to associate with his master punching things. That was followed by an ugly crunching noise and the sound of the natural order of the Universe snapping in half. Genos darted into the living room just in time to see their visitor's cloak, empty and smoking, fall to the floor.

Sensei was looking down, wide-eyed, at his clenched fist. "I was going to pull my punch. I was just trying make him stop," he said shakily. "But we, we… collided."

"Sensei—"

"Genos, I've gone and done a terrible thing. I've killed Death!"

"He was attacking you," Genos said. "I'm sure his collection agency will understand."

Saitama stared at him for a long, horrified moment, then threw back his head and laughed and laughed and laughed.