The murmurs started small and built with the specific momentum of people who have watched something extraordinary and are now in the process of deciding whether to believe it.
"Those scores are above S-Class benchmarks. By a considerable margin."
"Does a human being like that actually exist?"
"That hairstyle, though—"
"There's no diplomatic way to say it. The man's appearance is—"
"Lord Sitch." A hand went up. Young cadre, buzz cut, glasses that caught the light at an angle suggesting he'd practiced the effect. Confident in the way that people are confident when they've identified what they believe is a gap in the room's reasoning. "I have a concern."
Sitch turned.
"The candidate Saitama is demonstrating abnormal results across every physical metric. I want to suggest—" The cadre's glasses glinted. "—that we consider the possibility of performance enhancement. Banned substances. Or alternatively, that someone has accessed the surveillance system and manipulated the real-time feed."
The murmurs shifted from bewilderment to something more structured.
"That would explain it—"
"The footage is internal network. No external access is supposed to be possible—"
"Supposed to be. What if there's a hacking team?"
The cadre's mouth was doing the thing mouths do when they've said something that's landing well—a controlled effort not to look too pleased about it. He was doing the math that ambitious people in large organizations do: visible contribution, senior attention, clear analytical value demonstrated, path to advancement accelerates—
The communicator hit the workbench.
Not thrown—placed, firmly, with the specific emphasis of someone who has decided that the current conversation needs a different foundation. The sound cut through the room like a crack of wood and the murmuring stopped as completely as if a switch had been found.
Sitch let the silence settle for two full seconds.
"You're questioning the authenticity of the surveillance footage."
"I—yes, Lord Sitch, as a precaution—"
"Then go to the technical department." His voice had the temperature of a clear morning in winter—not hostile, simply cold. "Right now. I'll contact the department head personally and arrange for them to run a full authentication review with you present." He paused. "When you're finished, if the footage is genuine—which it is—come back here and tell me how you'd like to proceed with your theory that someone has a hacking team sophisticated enough to alter real-time Hero Association surveillance in order to make a balding man in briefs look impressive at lateral jumps."
The cadre's face had passed through smug, landed on alarmed, and was now somewhere in the territory of a man watching his own professional calculation collapse on itself in real time.
"Additionally." Sitch turned fully to face him. "The candidate in question is a joint recommendation from five senior heroes. 'Super Cop' Jordan Evans. 'Tornado of Terror.' 'Silver Fang' Bang. 'Atomic Samurai' Kamikaze. The Strongest Man on Earth, King." He paused for effect. "After your authentication review, I can arrange an opportunity for you to present your banned-substance theory directly to this group. As a professional courtesy."
The cadre was sweating. The specific cold sweat of someone who has just understood the full shape of what they've stepped into.
Five S Class of them? The internal voice was audible in his expression. He knows Five of them? How does a man who looks like THAT—
"I'm very sorry, Lord Sitch. I apologize for—"
Sitch had already turned back to the screen. "Get out."
The cadre got out. The door closed behind him with more care than it had been opened with.
The monitoring room remained very quiet for several seconds.
Then someone cleared their throat softly, and the business of watching the assessment resumed, and no one said anything further about surveillance manipulation or banned substances or the candidate's unconventional hairstyle.
On the center panel, Saitama was waiting for the written portion to begin, hands in his pockets, looking at the ceiling with the mild interest of someone at a venue who has finished the main attractions and is reviewing what's left.
Z-City Branch. Early afternoon.
Bang arrived with the purposeful stride of a man who has had an excellent morning and wants to share his enthusiasm with people who will understand it. He came through the lobby with Lanny's staff doing their best to keep pace around him, and spotted Jordan in the corridor before anyone had finished announcing him.
"Jordan!" He covered the remaining distance in four steps and took Jordan's hand in both of his—the grip of a seventy-year-old who had never stopped training and had no intention of starting. "I've been thinking about what you did all morning. I thought I had found my ceiling. I genuinely believed that was where the road ended." His expression had the quality of a man who has discovered a door where he expected a wall. "To find out there's still this much sky ahead—"
"You did the work that made it possible," Jordan said. "I just pointed at it."
"For a martial artist," Bang said, with the gravity of someone stating a principle, "that is not a small thing."
They moved to the lounge, and Jordan walked him through the Potential Guidance's mechanics—the basic principles, the way it interacted with accumulated training rather than replacing it, the ceiling-adjustment function. Bang listened the way serious martial artists listen: completely, cross-referencing against his own internal experience as the explanation progressed.
"Any restrictions?" he asked, when Jordan finished.
"It doesn't work on people with no potential to unlock. Everyone else is generally fine."
From the corner of the room, F-boy materialized briefly—just long enough to hold up a small card that read, in neat lettering: [Ineffective on the potentialless] — then retreated back inside before Jordan could react.
Jordan completed his sentence without acknowledging this. "Martial artists in particular respond well to it."
Bang's cheeks had taken on a slight color—the flush of someone suppressing excitement with imperfect success. "Then I need to call my brother," he said, with the specific energy of a man who has just realized he has one more thing to offer someone he cares about. "I'd like him to come to Z-City for a few days."
Lanny, who had been moving smoothly through the background of the conversation with a tray of tea, stumbled.
A thread of blue psychic energy caught the tipping cup, returned it to the tray, and released it—a reflex, negligible effort. She shot a grateful look at Jordan, composed herself, and offered the tea to Bang.
"Lord Silver Fang. Please."
"Thank you very much, Miss Lanny." He accepted the cup with the genuine courtesy of an old-school martial artist. "You're very capable."
She smiled the smile of a woman who has learned to accept compliments efficiently and moved on.
They stayed for lunch.
The VIP restaurant was comfortable and the food was good, and Jordan and Bang between them had the kind of appetite that serious training at significant power levels produces—the kind that operates in a different register from what restaurant portion sizes typically account for.
The cleaning staff arrived to find the table bearing approximately fifty-three plates, arranged in the configuration of people who had been eating with focus and efficiency rather than ceremony. One of the staff stood looking at this for a long moment before reaching for her communicator.
"Logistics here. Was the person using the VIP restaurant just now—" She checked the booking log. "—'Super Cop' and 'Silver Fang'?"
The response from reception confirmed this.
She looked at the plates.
"Right," she said, and began the process of clearing them with the philosophical acceptance of someone who has stopped being surprised by S-Class heroes and is simply doing her job.
City A. Hero Association Headquarters. Later that afternoon.
The assessment scores were in.
Sitch reviewed them at his desk with a cup of tea that had gone cold while he was thinking, and then reviewed them again.
The physical fitness portion had eliminated roughly eighty percent of examinees before the written test, which was standard. The written examination scores were being processed. The final rankings would be generated.
And then there was Venue No. 6.
Sitch set down the folder and pressed his fingers together.
Three candidates with perfect physical scores, which was unprecedented in the Association's history. Three candidates at levels that, based on every benchmark he had available, placed them in S-Class territory—two of them clearly, one of them in a category that the benchmarks weren't equipped to process accurately.
The recommendation form sat in his inbox. 5 signatures. All of them for the one in the middle.
He thought about the cadre in the monitoring room. The reaction was understandable—when something doesn't fit your model, the first instinct is to question the data rather than the model. Sitch had learned, over years of this work, to question the model first.
His model of what a hero looked like was currently sitting in a chair in Venue No. 6's waiting area, probably yawning, while the assessment staff figured out what column to put him in.
What I need, Sitch thought, is to think about this carefully.
He stood, collected the folder, and went to find a quieter room.
The headache, he suspected, was only getting started.