(Hero Association HQ – Underground Executive Briefing Room)
In a spacious conference room lit by cold fluorescent lights, the top executives of the Hero Association sat in a solemn meeting. Around the long oval table were Sitch, Jinzuren, Busho, Exma, Sekingar, and several other senior officials. A palpable tension lingered in the air, a reflection of the recent string of disasters the Association had barely managed to contain.
Sitch was the first to speak, flipping through a thick folder of reports with furrowed brows.
"From the meteor incident in Z-City to the Deep Sea invasion in J-City… the threats we've faced lately have escalated to alarming levels."
"That meteor was a Dragon-level disaster," Busho added grimly, crossing his arms. "And it wasn't clear if even with the combined effort of multiple S-Class heroes could we have stopped it. Yet somehow, it was destroyed in a single blow by one man."
"Let's not forget the invasion of the Deep Sea creatures," Exma chimed in. "It was categorized as Demon-level… and it was neutralized within minutes. No mass casualties and no widespread destruction besides a building and some vehicles."
All eyes slowly shifted to one man's name.
"Saitama, now designated as 'One Punch Man'" Sekingar muttered, scrolling through his tablet. "Rank 10 in S-Class, brought in under special recommendation. And so far, he has proven himself… more than worthy."
Jinzuren couldn't help but let a small, knowing smile show. "When I endorsed him for S-Class entry, I knew he was capable. But even I underestimated just how far beyond our scale he was."
Sitch looked up from the report and nodded in his direction. "Credit where it's due, Jinzuren. Your gamble paid off. There was a lot of internal resistance to placing a newcomer directly into S-Class, especially without going through the usual evaluations—but the numbers don't lie."
Sekingar added, "And it's not just the numbers. He's shown excellent response time. Minimal property damage, zero civilian casualties, and he maintains a calm, unshakable presence in the field."
"He didn't even file for a salary increase," Busho muttered, glancing over the paperwork. "That's… rare."
"We've monitored him long enough," Exma said, folding her hands together. "There's no more question. His Rank 10 position is already outdated."
"You're suggesting a promotion?" asked Busho, lifting an eyebrow
"To at least Rank 5," Sitch said, with a rare firmness. "It would place him above Watchdog Man, Pig God, and Metal Bat. And frankly? He's already surpassed them in power, time of response and on overall effectiveness."
Jinzuren leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers. "I support the idea to promote him and I base it mainly on his recent record, it shows the destruction of a Dragon-level threat—the Z-City meteor—without assistance. That alone justifies a major leap in rank. But the fact that he also resolved the Deep Sea King invasion before the majority of the S-Class even got there… well…"
"Two high-level threats neutralized by one man in a span of days," Exma said. "And no evidence of exhaustion, injury, or even hesitation. He's not just strong. He's consistent."
"Some heroes are complaining already," Busho warned. "Especially those who don't like how quickly he rose through the ranks. Especially from you know who…"
"Let them complain, specially that pretty boy, he can kiss my ass if he wants," Sekingar said flatly. "But, we're not here to coddle egos. We're here to protect people. And One Punch Man is the best asset we have right now. Hiding his performance behind red tape or politics would be irresponsible."
Sitch closed the folder and looked around the table. "Then it's settled. We'll draft the proposal to promote Saitama to Rank 5 in S-Class. Jinzuren, you'll oversee the formal notice."
Jinzuren nodded.
"Let's also begin monitoring the reactions of the other S-Class heroes," Sekingar said. "If this causes unrest, we'll need to get ahead of it."
"Understood," Exma replied. "We'll make sure the narrative is focused on his accomplishments, not favoritism."
Sitch sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I never thought we'd have to deal with a power outlier like this. He breaks every metric we've used to measure strength."
"And the most unsettling part?" Jinzuren added, his fingers laced together tightly atop the polished conference table. "We still don't know the full extent of his power. He's never shown signs of reaching his limit."
For a long moment, the room was silent. The atmosphere on it was thick, heavy with the weight of what those implications meant.
The most incredible feats this world had ever seen wasn't even the full power of that man.
Sitch finally broke the stillness, clearing his throat with a sharp cough. He straightened his back and glanced around the table, locking eyes with each executive one by one. "Okay, now that's settled," he began, his voice grave. "It's time I show you something I've been meaning for all of you to see. However—" he raised a hand, palm open "—I need to remind you that everything you're about to witness is strictly classified. This is not to be disclosed to anyone, not even other heroes, under any circumstances. Understood?"
There was a collective pause, then a series of solemn nods. The room became deathly quiet again.
Sitch exhaled through his nose and tapped a sequence on his remote. The lights dimmed slightly as a holographic projector descended silently from the ceiling and cast a large image in the center of the room. The image displayed the gas giant Jupiter, glowing with its swirling storms, the Great Red Spot swirling like a distant hurricane.
Next to it—just barely—was a small black speck. It was almost invisible for the normal eye.
At first, the gathered officials leaned forward with vague curiosity. Exma tilted his head. Busho squinted. Even Jinzuren furrowed his brow.
"What exactly are we looking at?" asked Sekingar, adjusting the tech visor over his right eye. Then he froze. His hand trembled slightly as he brought up his interface, scanning the anomaly.
And then both his eyes widened in horror.
"...What? What did you see?!" Busho demanded, nearly rising from his seat. The others turned sharply toward Sekingar, whose mouth opened slightly, but no words came. It was as if his throat had seized, locked in the grip of pure, unfiltered fear.
Sitch didn't interrupt. He simply watched Sekingar's reaction with calm, almost bitter understanding.
"That was my reaction too," he said quietly. "When the Space Agency handed me this data three days ago."
"What in the hell are we looking at?" muttered Exma. "It's... just a dot. Isn't it?"
Sitch shook his head and gestured toward the image. "Not just a dot." He pressed a button, and the projection zoomed in. The perspective tightened around the black speck until the image resolved into something much clearer.
A massive, obsidian-hued spacecraft.
Its shape was irregular, almost tooth-like, with jagged contours and a sense of movement that seemed alive despite the still image. The surface was covered in shifting plates, like armor that bristled against the vacuum of space. It dwarfed the moons of Jupiter behind it—and yet had been hidden so effectively, nearly camouflaged among the planetary backdrop.
Now, no one was speaking. Sekingar had finally sat down, his arms limp on the table.
Jinzuren's voice broke the silence, barely above a whisper. "That thing is... moving toward us?"
Sitch nodded grimly. "Yes. Based on trajectory data, we estimate its course is directly aligned with Earth. At current speed, it could be here within two months—though that's assuming it continues at a steady pace."
"And if it doesn't?" Busho asked, his voice low, uncertain. He wasn't a man known for feeling fear usually, but even he couldn't hide the unease twisting in his gut.
"If it accelerates," Sitch replied, "we're looking at weeks. Maybe less."
A cold silence gripped the room once more.
Exma leaned forward, resting his elbows on the polished metal of the conference table. His gloved fingers interlocked tightly as his eyes narrowed. "Any communication? Did the Space Agency try hailing them?"
Sitch exhaled slowly. "They did. Several times actually. Across multiple frequencies, both human and synthetic protocols. However, there was no response. Also no signal or pingbacks or signs of identification or even an AI-driven acknowledgment."
"No transponder signal, nothing?" Sekingar asked, frowning. His mechanical eye whirred softly, still locked on the image of the ship.
"Nothing," Sitch confirmed. "It's as if it's either ignoring us… or doesn't even register us as worth acknowledging. And here's the part that should terrify all of us—this vessel didn't enter the Solar System through any of the predicted vectors. It didn't even arrive in the conventional sense. It was just… there. One frame it wasn't in the telescope feed, the next, it hovered beside Jupiter like it had always been there."
Sekingar's fingers twitched. "Cloaking tech that advanced? We're not just talking about invisibility. This would mean tech capable of bypassing quantum relay detection, dark matter displacement, and gravitational echo signatures. That's… far beyond us. Beyond anything even theorized."
"Exactly," Sitch said, looking around the table. "This isn't a vessel built to travel. It's a vessel built to invade. The Space Agency was so disturbed by the anomaly they nearly didn't share it initially until after much analysis they shared it with us, to know our opinion. They even thought it was a glitch initially but after much analysis from experts it was determined that the spaceship is real."
Busho wiped his face with one hand. "Do we have a name for it?"
Sitch hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Unofficially, the Space Agency calls it… The Tooth of God."
The room seemed to grow colder.
"Poetic," Exma muttered. "In the worst possible way."
"And you're showing us this now," Busho said, folding his arms, "because you want to prepare contingency measures."
Sitch turned to look at him directly, then shifted his gaze toward Jinzuren. "Not just that," he said. "This is why I approved your proposal so quickly."
All eyes in the room snapped to the big-nosed man seated near the far end of the table. Jinzuren didn't flinch. He simply exhaled slowly, then slammed a fist onto the table with a dull thud that echoed across the conference room.
"We've spent months debating how to explain Saitama's promotions to the public," he said, his voice calm, but with a sharp edge. "How to frame his victories. How to spin the optics so the hero community wouldn't feel slighted. But all of that… all of that is meaningless now."
He gestured toward the holographic projection still floating in the air—an ominous silhouette of alien metal brushing against the edge of the gas giant.
"If that thing comes here, and it's hostile—and we have no reason to believe otherwise—then the government, the public, the Hero Association itself… no one is going to care about rankings or rules. They'll care about results. About survival."
Jinzuren looked directly at Sitch and nodded. "It makes sense now. Why you were so quick to approve my motion."
Sitch nodded back. "Exactly. If we ascend him, we secure his loyalty. And we'll need that more than ever. Especially considering his recent complaints—his dissatisfaction with how we mishandled the evacuation procedures in Z-City during the meteor crisis."
"Right," Exma muttered. "He was livid and pretty pissed according to Jinzuren's report."
The mentioned nodded on silence.
"And he wasn't wrong," Busho added. "The fact that he, a single individual, prevented an extinction-level event while we struggled just to coordinate an orderly and just evacuation…"
"We need him on our side," Sitch finished. "Now more than ever."
There was a pause—long and oppressive.
"But…" Exma spoke softly, almost hesitantly. "Do you really believe he can handle something like that?"
Sitch didn't answer immediately. Instead, he allowed the question to hang in the air as his gaze lingered on the projected image. The ship, vast and unknowable, drifted in eerie silence beside Jupiter, like a blade hanging above the world.
Then, finally, he smiled. It wasn't a confident smile—but a cautious, calculating one.
"We are sure he hasn't reached his limit yet," he said. "We've reviewed every report. Every witness account. Every piece of footage. The man annihilated a meteor that even the S-Class couldn't scratch. He defeated the Deep Sea King after he had already overwhelmed several top-tier heroes. And he didn't just win—he won effortlessly."
Jinzuren added, "He's gone up five ranks in under a month. And also his public support is climbing fast. The heroes are uneasy, yes—but the results speak for themselves."
"He might just be our best shot," Sitch repeated. "And if there's even a chance that he can stand against something like that, we need to make sure he's ready. And more importantly, that we're ready to stand behind him."
No one spoke for several moments.
Then, slowly, Busho leaned forward, resting his hands on the table.
"Alright. Let's formalize the promotion. Rank 10 to Rank 5. Effective immediately."
Everyone else nodded in unison.
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