The count was easy to run. Of the twenty-odd senior officials around the table, just under half had voiced support for Makoi's position within the first two minutes of his raising it.
Sitch made note of the faces without making it obvious that he was making note. He had a reasonably complete picture of this particular network already—months of careful internal observation, the fragments that didn't add up to a pattern until you had enough of them, the private gatherings that investigators kept approaching without quite reaching. Makoi as a central figure, possibly the original architect, the specific weight of someone who had been building something for long enough that he no longer bothered being particularly subtle about it.
The content of their meetings remained opaque. The existence and approximate membership of the group: established.
And there they are, Sitch thought, tracking which faces had spoken and which had remained carefully neutral. Good to have the confirmation.
He let his furrowed expression ease, which read to the room as someone who had been persuaded by the weight of consensus. It was not that.
"More than a third of our colleagues have reservations," he said. He paused as if considering this for the first time. "In that case, perhaps we should handle this directly." He reached for his communicator. "I understand that 'Super Cop' and 'Silver Fang'—two of the recommendation's primary signatories—are currently at the Z-City branch. Why don't we bring them into the conversation?"
The atmosphere around the table shifted.
In name, every official present held administrative authority over the Hero Association's professional roster. In practice, the upper tier of that roster—specifically the S-Class—operated according to a different set of practical realities. S-Class heroes were not required to follow directives that conflicted with their own operational judgment. The most famous example of this principle was the Association's #1 ranked hero, Blast, who treated the entire organization's administrative structure as a background condition rather than a governing framework.
The officials who had been nodding along with Makoi's position were now running the mental calculation that officials run when they realize their position is about to be tested in front of the people it concerns.
S-Class heroes controlled ninety-eight percent of the Association's active fan engagement. They were the premise and the foundation. An organization that existed to coordinate their work and couldn't actually coordinate them was, structurally, a building whose load-bearing problem was in the foundation.
Several officials who had spoken were now studying their documents with renewed interest.
Makoi's expression had not changed, but his hands had moved slightly.
Z-City Branch. Control Room.
The waiting was taking longer than it should have.
Saitama was working through the complimentary tea service with the focused attention he brought to food that was unexpectedly good quality. The Hero Association, whatever its other qualities, had decent procurement standards. Genos sat beside him, managing the soda logistics—six-liter bottle, refill cycle calibrated to teacher's consumption rate, the kind of attentiveness that Genos applied to every task regardless of scale.
"How much longer?" Saitama asked, around a small sandwich. "They said results within an hour."
Lanny, present in her capacity as branch head and as the person who had to maintain composure regardless of what was happening at headquarters, gave her most professionally confident response. "Results from all venues have transmitted to City A. They're reviewing and finalizing. It should be—" She checked her internal estimate against what she actually knew. "—soon."
There was some uncertainty in soon.
The staff member at the front workstation turned from her screen. "Minister Lanny. Video call incoming from headquarters. Lord Sitch requests S-Class representatives from the branch."
Lanny's head turned to Jordan, automatic, the look of a professional who has learned which decisions to escalate.
Jordan's eyes had the quality they got when something had confirmed a suspicion. "Take it," he said. "It sounds like there are objections."
Bang, sitting with his tea, showed the specific knowing expression of a man who had signed a document that morning and had already anticipated this sequence of events.
Saitama looked between them. "Jordan. Who's calling? What objections?"
"Nothing complicated." Jordan picked up his remaining snack. "Minor administrative friction."
Saitama accepted this categorization and returned to the complimentary spread. Administrative friction was Jordan's domain. Snacks were more immediately actionable.
The large screen activated.
The City A conference room materialized in split-panel — the long table, the assembled senior officials, two dozen faces oriented toward the camera with varying degrees of composure. Most of the Z-City branch staff, instinctively, sat slightly straighter.
Sitch, occupying the head of the table, managed to project the specific warmth of someone who is genuinely pleased to see the people he's called, rather than someone who has specifically arranged this call to create a particular problem for specific colleagues.
"Super Cop—you've updated your look! Suits you." He included everyone with his gaze. "Silver Fang, good afternoon. Lanny, thank you for facilitating."
The exchange of greetings was brief and correct.
"A large gathering," Jordan observed, scanning the faces around the table. Most he recognized from Association records. One—sitting to Sitch's right, cross-patch over his glasses, the posture of a man who had expected to be managing this conversation rather than participating in it—he filed as the specific problem Sitch had apparently decided needed a public solution. "What's brought everyone together?"
Sitch was precisely the right amount of regretful. "Lord Evans, I want to be transparent with you. Director Makoi and a number of our senior officers have concerns about the Saitama recommendation—specifically whether the S-Class threshold is appropriate given the standard assessment results."
"Hm." Jordan's expression did a very small thing—a slight brightening, the look of someone who has just confirmed a suspicion and found it entertaining. He glanced at Saitama, who was watching the screen with the expression of a man who has just heard his own name in a context he didn't entirely expect.
Jordan gave him a small nod: I've got this.
Saitama returned to his snacks. He had developed a reliable system for this sort of thing.
On the conference room screen, Makoi had recovered from the slight miscalculation of believing that Sitch's call would somehow be less direct than it was. He repositioned smoothly, which was his particular skill. "No, no—'Super Cop,' I want to be clear. I haven't said anything definitive. The S-Class evaluation process carries significant weight, and it's only appropriate that we—"
"Of course." Jordan nodded with the expression of a man who is being very helpful. "Very responsible approach. So—" He turned the question into something that would require an answer. "What specifically does Director Makoi find lacking in the recommendation letter's contents?"
A beat.
Sweat appeared on Makoi's forehead. The cross-patch glasses caught the light. Around the table, the officials who had been nodding along with his position were now occupied with their documents in the specific way of people who have recently reconsidered their public association with an idea.
Makoi looked at the camera. At Jordan's expression, which was patient and attentive and—he was realizing—had the quality of something that had already anticipated where this was going.
"I—" He straightened. Gathered himself. Made the only decision available to a man who has just been asked to repeat his objection in front of the person his objection concerns, with the specific tone of someone who is looking forward to the answer. "I have no objection."