King's eyes found Jordan across the table with the specific expression of someone requesting rescue.
Jordan picked up his tea, found it scalding hot, and drank it in one unhurried swallow.
"Well." Jordan set the cup down. "You both know my situation. Police work, hero duties, active case files—genuinely not enough hours in the day. Taking on a disciple requires time I don't currently have."
"That makes sense," Genos said, writing it down.
The three pairs of eyes still at the table performed a slow, unanimous migration toward the fourth person.
Saitama's hair stood on end. "Why is everyone looking at me?! I'm busy too!"
Jordan refilled his cup with elegant calm and blew across the surface. "Busy with what, specifically?"
"I'm—" Saitama's mouth opened. Closed. Tried again. "Job hunting! I need income! That counts as busy!"
Genos looked at Saitama—at the thinning hair, the unremarkable build, the complete absence of any visible indicator of the man who had spent an afternoon going exchange-for-exchange with a Dragon-level disaster. Something flickered through his processing.
If he shaved the remaining hair off entirely, he would probably be very strong.
He sat with this thought for a moment.
...Why did I think that?
He shook it clear and refocused.
"Regardless of circumstance—please accept me as your disciple." His gaze settled on Saitama with calm finality. "If Mr. Jordan and Mr. King are genuinely unavailable, Mr. Saitama would be equally acceptable."
Saitama's head swiveled toward his own reflection in the dark courtyard window. Then back. "Did I just get ranked third? That's—wait, that's not even the point—"
He jabbed a finger across the table. "Don't call me teacher without permission! I didn't agree to anything!"
Genos appeared to consider this.
"I didn't mean change how you address me, I meant—"
But Genos had already found the seam in Saitama's resistance—the path of least friction—and was threading through it with the patient single-mindedness of someone who had decided on an outcome and was now simply handling logistics.
Jordan and King discovered their tea was very interesting. They studied it with great attention.
"Actually, there is a specific reason I must become an apprentice."
Saitama's survival instincts fired. "I don't need to hear it—"
"Two years ago, I was fifteen years old. At that time, I was still entirely human—"
"You weren't listening to me at all, were you."
Genos continued.
Saitama's expression went through several stages. The mild surprise phase. The dawning comprehension phase. The trapped-and-aware-of-it phase.
I spoke to him. I forgot he does this.
The two people beside him had discovered their tea was possibly the most fascinating beverage ever prepared. They were giving it the full depth of their attention.
The five-minute mark arrived. Genos was explaining something about Dr. Kuseno's laboratory infrastructure.
In Saitama's internal architecture, a specific string of patience—the one labeled reasonable social tolerance—reached its structural limit and snapped.
His fist hit the table.
"Twenty words or less. Go."
The courtyard had settled into a post-negotiation quiet. King had deployed his considerable reserves of warmth to return Saitama to functional calm. Jordan had caught Genos's eye and tilted his head toward the far corner.
"Genos. A moment."
Genos was on his feet immediately. He followed Jordan to the courtyard's edge and stood at attention.
"Were you calling me, Jordan-Sensei?"
"Mm—" Jordan held up one hand. "You only need one teacher. That's Saitama. He's the one you want."
Genos processed this. His memory retrieved the afternoon's footage—Saitama, facing Dragon-level impact head-on, not losing ground. The shockwaves. The headbutt that had moved ten tons of berserk monster as though physics had agreed to cooperate. That specific quality of effortlessness that Genos's threat-assessment systems kept failing to produce an upper bound for.
Jordan he had categorized differently—primary mode was psychic suppression and battlefield control, devastating in practical effect but not producing a clean physical power reading. King he had only seen in the final phase before the mechanical shutdown, which had been significant but partial data.
But Saitama.
The ranking adjusted itself without Genos consciously directing it.
"As for Saitama-sensei, his strength is certainly not a problem—however, if all three were willing to teach—"
Jordan pressed one finger to his lips and dropped his voice. "Don't argue with me yet. You want to learn stronger abilities, right? That's the core of it?"
Genos lowered his voice to match and nodded.
"Then here's what I'll do—I'll show you how to get Saitama to actually take you on. He's manageable once you understand the approach."
Genos blinked. Based on available evidence, Saitama had seemed like the least manageable person at the table.
"I'll explain it simply," Jordan said.
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