The last time the Hero Association's assessment produced two perfect physical scores in a single sitting had been in its early years, before the S-Class system was formalized. Those two candidates had been processed under simpler procedures—no written examination, no structured tiering, just demonstrated ability and a handshake. They were now S-Class #2 and S-Class #4.
The current system was considerably more elaborate, and the current situation was considerably more complicated.
Sitch looked at the three ID photos arranged on his desk—the candidate documentation pulled from the venue's intake forms.
Saitama: unassuming expression, hair in its distinctive style, the photograph that Lanny had been holding with the careful neutrality of a professional confronting a challenge.
Genos: precise, composed, the clean lines of someone who had been photographed for official documentation before and had a clear idea of what the image should communicate.
Garou: the specific expression of a young man who had been told to look forward and had decided that the camera's opinion was irrelevant.
"My head," Sitch said, to no one, and pressed his fingers to his temples.
The rest of this year's assessment results were unremarkable by comparison. Standard distribution: the majority eliminated during the physical fitness portion, a handful proceeding to written examination, final scores producing five C-Class placements and one B-Class. No A-Class. The machinery of the Hero Association's recruitment process had functioned as intended.
And then Venue No. 6.
Genos was straightforward. Full marks across both portions. S-Class placement pending special advisor approval—the kind of case the system was built for, the outcome that made the whole apparatus feel like it was doing what it claimed to do.
The other two were not straightforward.
Sitch reviewed the final tallies for the fourth time.
Venue 6, Candidate No. 198: Saitama. Physical fitness: 50/50. Written examination: 20/50. Total: 70. Passing threshold.
Venue 6, Candidate No. 1894: Garou. Physical fitness: 50/50. Written examination: 21/50. Total: 71. Passing threshold.
The parallel was difficult to ignore. Both candidates had broken every physical benchmark the Association used. Both had then proceeded to the written examination and answered questions with the distinctive consistency of people who were not attempting to optimize their score.
Sitch pulled the examination paper copies.
Question 1: Why do you want to become a hero?
Saitama: Interest.
Garou: Forced into it.
He had read these before. They landed the same way every time.
Question 2: You encounter Wolf, Tiger, Demon, and Dragon-level threats in succession. Describe your response to each. Comprehensive analysis, clear reasoning, maximum 300 words.
Saitama: No matter what kind of monster, I'll kill it with one punch. If one punch isn't enough, I'll throw another.
Garou: I fucking killed them all.
The written test was fifty points. Saitama had claimed twenty of them. Garou had claimed twenty-one. Both had left identical explanatory trails: the physical portion maxed out, the written portion scored by someone who had apparently treated the questions as a formality and had been correct to do so.
The fundamental problem, Sitch reflected, was that the written examination had been designed to assess judgment and situational reasoning in candidates whose physical capabilities had been verified as adequate. When the physical capabilities were not merely adequate but categorically beyond the assessment's measuring range, the written examination's purpose shifted in a way the rubric didn't account for.
Garou's situation was administratively manageable. His examiner documentation noted that he was the personal disciple of S-Class #4, and Bang had apparently attached his own note: his disciple was to start at the bottom, work through the ranks, and advance by demonstrated performance. C-Class placement to start, promotion schedule to be discussed directly with Silver Fang. Not complicated—unusual, but not complicated.
Saitama's situation was the one giving Sitch a headache.
Because behind Garou there was one S-Class hero.
Behind Saitama there were five.
Sitch was still considering this when the knock came—light, professional, the knock of someone who has been sent to deliver a message and wants to do it cleanly.
"Lord Sitch. The afternoon meeting is beginning. Director Makoi is requesting your attendance."
He looked at the time. Two hours. He'd been sitting with these documents for two hours without noticing.
"I'm on my way."
The senior management meeting room had the quality of rooms designed to communicate institutional weight: long table, good chairs, the arrangement that places everyone in relationship to the center. The assembled department heads and senior officers had been waiting with the practiced patience of people who had learned that Sitch's lateness usually meant something interesting was in progress.
"My apologies, everyone." He took his seat at the head of the table. "Let's begin."
The meeting was efficient in the way that meetings are efficient when the person running them has a clear sense of what needs to be decided and a limited tolerance for tangents. Operations review, marketing allocation, budget distribution—the standard items moved through at pace, decisions logged, actionable items assigned.
The assessment results came last.
"Z-City produced three perfect physical scores." The first speaker was from Operations—a senior officer who had been with the Association long enough to know what precedent meant. "Has anyone verified that the process was sound?"
"Written examination answers from two of the candidates are—" Someone flicked through the photocopies. "Distinctive."
A sound moved around the table. Not quite laughter. Something adjacent to it.
The head of the Assessment Department—blond, composed, the specific expression of someone who has been fielding questions about this all day—brushed his bangs aside and addressed it directly. "The technical department ran joint authentication with the Z-City branch. Staff testimony, video footage, full audit trail. The scores are genuine."
"Then the question is what we do with them," Sitch said. "I imagine everyone has seen the recommendation letter." He let that sit for a moment. "Five S-Class endorsements for the candidate Saitama. The question before us is how to process this."
"The heroes have their recommendations." Makoi's voice arrived with the smoothness of someone who had prepared his position before entering the room. He wore a cross-shaped eye patch over his glasses, which had always struck Sitch as an aesthetic choice that communicated certain things about its owner. His smile was the kind that arrived before the actual message. "The Association's management has its own considerations. A recommendation is not an automatic placement. We have to think about practical implications. Public reception. Institutional consistency." He spread his hands in a gesture of reasonable balance. "I don't think we can simply ignore those factors because a few heroes feel strongly."
A few heroes, Sitch noted internally. Five. Including the two most powerful espers on the planet and a man whose reputation alone can redirect disaster-level threats.
"Lord Makoi raises valid considerations," someone said from the far end of the table.
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