One Punch Man: Neutral Grounds

Chapter 15

They actually fell asleep holding each other several minutes later. As much as the others were silently cheering with joy, they still remained quiet. Zenchu was on alert in case Mitsumi woke up. He mildly rested and counted out the minutes. The minutes soon turned to hours. When it was thirty minutes past dawn, he heard the bedroom door open to reveal Mitsumi slowly walking out.

"Lady Mitsumi? Is everything okay?" he asked and rose up to stand. He still had to stoop a bit, but he didn't care.

"He still sleeps. I want him to sleep. I seemed to wake up just as dawn came. I...I didn't change!" she whispered and let him hug her with relief. "But...I still feel like...like I'm off..."

"Likely the sleep schedule. We need to keep you awake as much as possible through the day. Normally, this side of you would 'sleep'. We need to break that cycle. What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I was thinking of a small walk outside. It would help build up an appetite," she smiled. Zenchu nodded and knew that Genos was busy helping Tacki and Kamiko with extending the rooms out even more. He quickly helped Mitsumi change without any other thought. He always helped her and didn't care what she looked like. This was his younger sister and he was only protecting her.

She was dressed in a one piece gown of dark green with pale gold fringe that just went down past her knees and left her arms bare. There was a slight plunging neckline, but it wasn't overly flattering. She didn't have much for jewelry, but she did keep a set of gold studs that she wore on occasion. These were now worn, and she had a feeling that other jewelry items would soon be purchased. Her hair was soon brushed and coiled up in a few loops to be set in place with her crystal hair pins. She opted to not have her hair in the Bao Bao style for now.

"Lady Mitsumi! I shall monitor your walk and inform you when breakfast is ready," Inichi chuckled. "I am so glad that you got your first kiss!"

"Hush!" she blushed hard to get him chuckling. "He still sleeps, you know."

"I am aware. And I will wake him if anything goes wrong," Inichi vowed.

"If you insist," she sighed. "Anyways, let me take my walk. There was a small pond with a bench just outside. I will go there."

"I'll be with her," Zenchu nodded. "There will be some shadows. Not much, but enough for me to work with."

"Very well," Inichi nodded. She now moved to walk outside with Zenchu right at her heels. As much as the others would want to help, they opted to follow in silent stealth. Mitsumi made it to the bench and seemed to frown on what to do. She blinked at a blue bubble that had a book in it for her. That had her smile and chuckle to herself. Sitting down on the bench, she was able to take up the book to start reading silently. Zenchu was quick to move off slightly to guard with the others. He was glad he was there.

"I haven't been in this part of City Z before. It looks kinda...run down, eh?" a tall, muscular man with blue eyes and black hair tied back in a ponytail mused. He wore a navy blue Chinese-style martial arts uniform with white linings, long sleeves and star-shaped buttons going down the front. White shoes graced his feet for now from all the travel. "Glad I healed up! They even got my teeth fixed, too, thankfully. Now I just need to find something to do. Why did I come here, anyways? Usually I'm in other cities...oh! That's right! I want to practice being a hero! See if I still got it, so there should be some monsters around in these abandoned cities. So, I'll just look around and..."

The man paused and set his keen blue eyes on Mitsumi reading silently on the bench. Wow! Who is that?! I haven't seen her before... Before she knew it, he was sitting down next to her with a small smile on his face. "Oh. Hello."