He passed his café just as Alex was lifting the shutters. She looked half-awake, hair still imperfectly gathered. He offered a small, fleeting smile and continued on. City F hovered in that fragile space between silence and noise—shop owners unlocking doors, disciplined joggers cutting through the streets, and engines coughing to life in the distance. A clock mounted on a nearby building read 8:55. Allen adjusted his pace.
The Heroic Federation building stood beside City Hall like a monument to controlled authority—three floors of polished blue glass, immaculate and indifferent, reflecting a city desperate to believe it was protected. Allen paused at the entrance. Not out of fear. Out of habit. He closed his eyes briefly and breathed until his heartbeat settled into that deliberate rhythm only he could maintain. Then he stepped inside.
The lobby was vast and cold, designed to impress rather than welcome.
He handed the previous day’s document to the receptionist. She examined it with rehearsed neutrality, nodded once, and slid a black card toward him—ten digits engraved with sterile precision.
“Keep it on you. It’s your identification. East Wing.”
Allen pocketed it and walked on.
The interview room felt sealed off from the world: a single chair, a wall-mounted speaker, and a camera fixed high above like an unblinking eye.
He sat, crossing one leg casually.
“Allen. Forty-two.”
A faint smile touched his lips.
“I assume you’re already aware of my reflexes, strength, and speed. Asking now feels… ornamental.”
A pause.
He exhaled slowly.
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“Unremarkable. School. Graduation. A few jobs. I own a café. That’s all.”
The silence stretched, faint typing audible somewhere beyond the wall.
A narrow slit opened; a sheet slid out. A pen extended from the chair.
The questions were simple. Yes or no. Obedience. Loyalty. Compliance. He answered almost all of them in under five minutes.
Except the last.
That one demanded thought.
When he finished, he left the paper behind and walked out without a glance.
Behind the wall, a hidden panel shifted open.
The man in yellow fatigues snatched the test.
“That little bastard—”
“What is it, Titan?”
General Titan’s face flushed red as the violet-clad ninja watched impassively.
“He answered everything with drawings. Childish sketches. And the final question? He wrote, ‘I follow my own rules. Not those imposed by a government.’”
The ninja took the paper, scanned it briefly, and then handed it back.
“Not our concern. The higher-ups will evaluate him. And remember—Calibur noticed this one. If you interfere, you won’t survive the consequences.”
Titan swallowed. Officially, Calibur was S-Rank. Unofficially, something beyond. A man who erased Category 5 threats as if clearing debris.
“We’ll see how he handles physical and combat trials.”
“Who’s he fighting?”
“Fortress.”
The blood drained from Titan’s face.
“That’s execution.”
“He has to last ten minutes.”
“He won’t last ten seconds.”
The ninja inserted the paper into the overly old fax machine just because of the existence of cybernetic villains.
“You’re looking at the wrong details.”
And he walked out.
From the observation deck, the monitors showed Allen barely passing the physical trials. To Titan, it confirmed the inevitable—one clean hit from Fortress and the applicant would shatter.
But the ninja saw what Titan couldn’t.
Allen’s breathing remained even. His shoulders loose. His energy was conserved with surgical precision.
Below, a twenty-meter ring rose from the floor.
Inside stood Fortress—well over six and a half feet tall, muscle layered like reinforced concrete, bare torso gleaming under the lights. His eyes held the stillness of a predator before the strike.
Allen stepped into the ring with disarming calm.
“Good morning. I’m Allen. I hope you don’t get hurt.”
Fortress smiled slowly.
Titan braced for carnage. The ninja studied Allen’s stance.
Fortress’s arm turned to stone and descended like a falling pillar.
Allen was no longer there.
He reappeared behind him.
“I dislike fighting,” he said almost politely, evading another devastating swing. “I don’t intend to strike you.”
“Coward.”
Allen blinked, mildly puzzled.
“Coward?”
“Hit me. Your bones will break against my skin.”
Allen sighed and slowly clenched his right fist.
“No hard feelings. It’s ungentlemanly to strike someone considerably weaker.”
Fortress charged.
Allen caught the stone fist in his left hand. The impact didn’t move him.
Then he struck.
One clean blow to the abdomen.
Fortress collapsed instantly, as though the structure holding him upright had been quietly removed.
Allen glanced at his knuckles.
“I may have overdone it.”
Silence swallowed the arena.
Only the ninja noticed it—a microscopic flash of white light flickering across Allen’s knuckles. And with it, an old memory resurfaced.
Then the alarm sounded.
On the monitor, a colossal turtle-like monstrosity advanced through the city, buildings crumbling in its wake.
Allen lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly.
“Another one…? Not even a day.”
Only the ninja stood close enough to hear him.