Nigiri sushi

"The second round's dish is—nigiri sushi."

Menchi folded her arms, her tone cold.

The applicants exchanged glances. Leorio scratched his head and asked, "What's sushi?" Most looked utterly lost. Only a few, including Hanzo, Hisoka, and Kurapika, showed signs of recognition.

"If you don't know, figure it out. I'm only here to eat."

Menchi waved a hand, and the doors to the kitchen area opened. Rice, raw fish slices, vinegar, and all sorts of utensils had been laid out inside.

"Time limit: thirty minutes. Make it and serve it to me. If I think it tastes good, you pass. If not, you're out."

The applicants surged toward the kitchen.

Everyone stared blankly at the ingredients in front of them. Uncooked rice, raw fish slices, a bottle of vinegar. No instructions whatsoever. Someone served Menchi uncooked rice and raw fish directly, and she hurled them away, plate and all. Someone else cooked the rice and shaped it into balls but left off the fish. They were eliminated too.

Buhara sat at the judges' table, rubbing his round belly and yawning. He had just eaten seventy whole roast pigs, and now all he wanted was a nap. Menchi stood beside the cooking area with her arms folded, her expression growing darker by the minute.

Hanzo stood at his workstation, folded his arms, and snorted. "I happen to know this one. I saw it on a mission in Japan—raw fish on vinegared rice. Couldn't be simpler."

Every applicant nearby pricked up their ears.

Hanzo began demonstrating: cook the rice, mix in vinegar, shape it into small oval mounds, and top them with raw fish. His movements weren't particularly practiced, but every step was correct.

Hisoka leaned against a corner wall, watching with interest as he twirled a playing card between his fingers.

Menchi stared at Hanzo's back, the smile slowly vanishing from her face.

"Couldn't be simpler..." she murmured. "Those are the words I hate most."

Saitama stood at his workstation, looking at the ingredients before him. Uncooked rice, raw fish slices, a bottle of vinegar.

He was just about to start when something occurred to him.

That huge pig was still sitting beside the grill. He had eaten half of it earlier, but plenty of meat remained.

He walked over to the grill and tore off a large chunk of the leftover roast pork. It was still warm, its fat glistening faintly on the surface. He tore it into thick, palm-sized slices, more than twice the size of the raw fish slices.

"The raw fish is just one thin slice. Putting that on rice definitely won't fill anyone up. This exam never intended to let anyone eat their fill in the first place."

He returned to his workstation and started cooking rice. He added too much water, so it came out a little soft, but he could just about mold it. He shaped the rice into an oval and held it on his palm, where it fit neatly over the center. Then he laid a slice of roast pork on top and pressed it down, making sure the meat completely covered the rice. The edges of the pork extended a little beyond the rice, and fat seeped into it.

"It's all for the judges anyway. More meat is better than less."

Not far away, Tonpa sneaked a glance at Saitama's plate. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he quickly lowered his head to keep shaping his own rice.

Saitama lifted the plate to inspect it—the pork was slightly crooked, one side of the rice had been pressed a little flat, the vinegar bottle remained unopened, and the fat from the roast pork had given the rice an oily sheen.

He made two in total. They weren't even the same size. One leaned slightly to the left, and half the rice beneath the other had been squashed flat, but both had plenty of meat.

He picked one up and took a bite. He chewed, then chewed some more. The rice was soft but didn't taste scorched. The roast pork skin had a smoky chewiness, the fat melted between his teeth, and the lean meat's fibers still held their juices. The pork fat seeped into the rice, lending a little flavor to what had been plain, tasteless white rice.

"Not bad. Passing grade. This would make a filling lunch."

He finished the one in his hand, picked up the second, and bit off half of that too.

Once he finished chewing, he glanced at the judges' table. Buhara was rubbing his belly and yawning, while Menchi stared at some applicant's plate with her brows furrowed tightly enough to crush a fly. Things looked like a mess over there too.

"Forget it. They're busy anyway. And the judges probably aren't hungry."

He stuffed the remaining half into his mouth. Bits of pork sushi fell between his fingers. The plate was empty, with only a small puddle of grease that had seeped from the roast pork. He wiped his hands on the hem of his shirt, leaving greasy marks on his yellow T-shirt.

Judging began. Menchi went to Hanzo first, stared at his sushi for a long time, then picked one up and took a bite. She chewed twice and spat it out.

"Fail."

Hanzo froze. "What? I made it perfectly—"

"Poor knife work. Wrong ratio of vinegar to rice. Fish sliced too thick. And you had the nerve to call this 'couldn't be simpler'?"

Hanzo opened his mouth, but not a word came out.

Menchi didn't look at him again. One after another, everyone was eliminated. Even Hisoka's elegantly arranged plate of sushi went straight into the trash without a glance. Hisoka's smile faded for an instant, and the playing card in his hand stopped moving. Then he smiled again and slipped the card into his pocket.

Menchi reached Saitama's workstation and glanced down at the empty plate. It was empty, with nothing but a little puddle of grease.

"Where's your sushi?"

"I ate it."

"...What?"

"Made two. Ate both."

A vein bulged on Menchi's forehead. "This is an exam, not a cafeteria."

"I was hungry."

Menchi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Zero points. Fail."

Just as she finished speaking, Buhara rose from the judges' table. His belly was so big that his chair slid half a meter backward when he stood. He lumbered over to Saitama's workstation, looked at the grease on the empty plate, then at the greasy patch on Saitama's shirt hem. Then he picked up half a piece of pork sushi from the plate—it had slipped between Saitama's fingers while he was eating and landed on the edge without him noticing.

Buhara stuffed the half piece into his mouth and chewed.

"Delicious."

Menchi turned around, her eyes wide. "What are you doing? That fell onto the plate—"

"It has meat." Buhara licked the grease from his fingers. "He put roast pork in his sushi. I only had breakfast before coming here, and I've only eaten seventy pigs since then. I'm starving."

"That's not the point! This isn't nigiri sushi at all! This is—"

"Delicious." Buhara licked his fingers again, his tone utterly certain. "Much more substantial than those dozens of rice balls with nothing but raw fish on them. At least this guy didn't skimp on the meat."

The entire place fell silent for five seconds. Hanzo stood holding his rice bowl, his mouth open, forgetting to stir in the vinegar. The lopsided rice mound in Leorio's hand fell onto the table. Gon's eyes shone, while Killua frowned. No more veins bulged on Menchi's face. She merely closed her eyes and turned back around. "Against the rules is against the rules. I'm the examiner. Zero points."

Buhara scratched his belly and returned to the judges' table, his chair sliding another half meter. "But it really was delicious."

Menchi ignored him.

The last applicant slammed the table and shouted, "This isn't fair!"

Menchi's gaze turned cold. The chopsticks in her hand shot out and embedded themselves in the table in front of the applicant, their ends still humming and trembling. She displayed the One-Star Hunter license on her chest. "Anyone who has a problem with that can leave right now."

The entire place instantly fell silent.

Menchi slapped her chopsticks down on the table, her voice icy. "Everyone fails. No one passes the second round."

An uproar erupted.

The applicants crowded around the judges' table, furious, but no one dared get physical again. Laughter rang out overhead. Chairman Netero hung upside down from a tree branch, wearing wooden clogs and a yukata, as though he had just stepped out of a hot spring.

"Menchi, judging them like that really is a little too strict."

"Chairman—"

Netero landed and patted her shoulder, his touch as gentle as if she were his granddaughter. "How about this? Give them an extra test. Demonstrate it yourself, so the applicants can accept the result without complaint."

Menchi thought for a moment. "Fine. But I'm changing the task."

She pointed toward a distant canyon. A vast abyss, with a raging river at the bottom and sheer rock walls on either side. A few bird nests dotted the cliffs.

"There are Grape Spider nests down in the canyon, with eggs inside. Get an egg, cook it, and satisfy me. That's all."

She turned and jumped down first. Her green ponytail traced an arc in the wind as she landed lightly on an outcrop in the cliff, then looked up at the applicants above.

"Come on down."

The applicants rushed to the edge of the cliff and peered over. Some gasped, while others took a step back.

Saitama peered into the canyon, then looked at the T-shirt he had just wiped clean.

"My clothes will get dirty."