Author's Note:

Hey everyone. I'm glad that lots of you are eager to see more of the story I have set up, but sadly I have to announce that I am discontinuing this fic.

Truthfully, I haven't mapped out all three years of Saitama's training and though I have key events in mind, they sadly would only make up a fraction of all the days I would have to cover and truthfully I would have to resorted to filler in skipping days such as with Saitama learning real-life events and concepts.

It's hard in my mind to skip any single day of Saitama's training, since I wanted to convey how strenuous that kind of work for three years would feel for the young boy.

But at the same time, I don't want to bore and confuse the reader with large amounts of days of filler via Saitama just reading as much about our real world as I could learn and reflect on as I kept thinking about the next day to write as one example.

I was planning to have real-world events and quotes that Saitama picks up his daily readings tie into some important events Saitama faces during the actual events of MHA, but honestly I feel it better to have Saitama's impact on said important events be recontextualized through a different form of interaction and involvement that Saitama experiences during his first year at UA and perhaps right before the start of the anime/manga's events.

Another reason I'm discontinuing this fic is that although I like the idea of Saitama becoming familiar with some of the characters in the MHAverse before the start of Deku's UA years, truthfully I'd prefer that Saitama be unknown to the students, teachers, and heroes of that universe until Saitama is about to enter UA.

To me, it would sell a bigger impact and shock between those characters towards this cartoonishly-designed lackadaisical dude if they've never witnessed such a figure in the making until they enter the mess that is UA.

And if I want those characters to be unknown to Saitama and his powers, that means I'd have to add more filler to the three years as I cut out any interaction between those younger characters and little Saitama.

Not to mention that I haven't read the Vigilantes story taking place before MHA, so I'd feel upset if I skipped those characters since I know people would be eager to have Saitama meet those characters though I'm not planning on focusing on those characters.

And frankly, though it's interesting to read how Saitama maintains his will in spite of his hellish challenge and learn about where he got the challenge from, I've found it better to keep Saitama's training ambiguous since a few cuts to Saitama's exercise in the One Punch Man story was all we needed to realize how batshit insane and unique Saitama's mind is compared to most people. I didn't really need to go through all days of the training to convey Saitama's somewhat lunacy, but at the same time I'd go nuts if I skipped any single day.

And as I said, the events I did have planned within the three years are now being cancelled in favor of surprising all the MHA characters with the arrival of the OP Saitama right as he's about to enter UA without any awareness in their younger years that such a godly force would be among them, or that such a laidback guy like Saitama would be dead-set on entering UA without any reconsideration in spite of how much of a joke his attitude and appearance would convey. It'd be more surreal for those characters to see Saitama be unenthusiastic one minute and then unparalleled in ability and power the next minute, without them having a prior sense of buildup to either side of Saitama by seeing the boy in their younger years.

I am planning on having Saitama involved in the events of MHA, but I'm planning on rebooting the story to be just before Saitama would face the application test and results for UA with his OP status already finalized years before rather than starting before he'd enter middle school. I wouldn't change how Saitama got his super-suit, or deviate from the amount of power Saitama received during his training. In that way, focusing on every single day and event within the three years of training felt a bit arbitrary to me since I could easily convey those transformative years of Saitama's life in clear dialogue during interactions without having to flash back to those complete years of transformation.

I have a bad habit of starting stories with a whole bunch of ideas in mind without solidifying a lot of them and thus realizing how impractical and ineffective they'd actually be, or how nonsensical the story would feel. It's not necessarily that I don't have a beginning, middle, and end, it's that the journey is more important than the ending and I don't want to just lead to the ending. I want the ending to feel special without feeling the urge to get to there, and that urge is something that's been controlling me while thinking about this story.

I do want to put Saitama into MHA, but I can't progress if I don't plan out all important details and thinking about all the consequences of every single piece of writing, whether it affects the plot, the pacing, the feelings of the characters, and the feelings of the readers.

I felt it necessary initially to convey Saitama's journey before MHA starts, but in One Punch Man we didn't need to see the full three years to understand Saitama's mindset and incredible determination that rewarded him with the feats of a god. So I'm carrying that attitude now by skipping now to right before Saitama is prepared to complete his test and application for UA.

The events in this fic will not be carried over to my new fic focusing on Saitama right as he's about to face UA, but nevertheless I will look back on this fic as a key example of how important planning every single detail of my complete story is before I type a single chapter.

I'm sorry for any letdown I cause, and I plan to ensure proper typing time when devoting myself to my "Saitama in MHA" fic without letting the urge to complete and release any section of my story ASAP control me.

My sincerest apologies, but I do plan to rework my writing so that I can do this for the same reason Saitama is a hero: for fun.