Chapter 43: "Ki-ng Me Already"
Haruki Fujimoto sat in his room in the particular way you sat when lying down felt like surrender and standing up was far too ambitious. His body was still steaming from what he had privately named the Seijūrō Amahara School of Educational Suffering, and he was fairly certain he had discovered several new muscles that day purely because every single one of them was screaming.
Warm light spilled from his desk lamp, flickering faintly as though even it was reconsidering its life choices.
Haruki sighed.
He wasn't supposed to be here.
Not here as in his bedroom, but here in the larger, cosmic, why am I training to dodge punches that can break trees? sort of way. He had joined Red Dawn because Ren was his friend. That was it.
Haruki had never had many friends. Hana had looked so proud when he started training seriously, and even his parents had noticed the difference. His father had patted him on the shoulder the night before and said something about him finally carrying himself with confidence, which was a little strange considering Haruki had limped through the front door looking like somebody had folded him incorrectly.
But now everything was becoming real. Not exciting-secret-world real. Not maybe someday I'll learn Ki real.
Reiji Takamura standing beneath a streetlamp in a white suit and looking at him like he had personally betrayed childhood itself real.
Reiji.
Haruki hadn't thought about that name in years, but the instant he saw the glasses and that familiar face, everything had come rushing back.
The vending machine.
The badges.
The promise they had made after seeing Airi.
We'll both become strong.
Except Haruki had eventually forgotten.
Reiji hadn't.
Haruki shifted onto his side and immediately regretted it when his shoulder popped.
Training at Ryūseikan had been brutal. He had nearly run away three times that day, and the only reason he hadn't succeeded was because Seijūrō seemed to possess a supernatural ability to detect cowardice from across the compound and retrieve escaping students before they reached freedom.
Then there was Airi.
She didn't look frightening when she smiled. She looked like the sort of girl who would rescue kittens, prepare tea, and patiently help somebody with homework.
Then she moved.
And suddenly you remembered she had been raised in a dojo populated by human natural disasters.
More importantly, though, she talked to Haruki as though he wasn't hopeless. As though struggling didn't make his efforts ridiculous.
And now Reiji wanted to fight him.
Haruki wasn't as frightened of getting hit as he would have been before meeting Ren. Between Red Dawn and Ryūseikan, physical pain had stopped being some impossible wall in his mind. Bruises healed. Muscles recovered. Even the medicinal barrel eventually stopped feeling like it was personally boiling away his hopes and dreams.
What frightened him was a much worse question.
What if Reiji was right?
What if Haruki really had abandoned their promise while Reiji kept training?
What if he was the one who had failed?
Not only Reiji.
Himself.
Haruki looked down at his trembling hands.
They weren't shaking from fear.
Mostly.
They were exhausted from training and from clinging to a path that hadn't even been his until recently.
"I don't want to fight Reiji," he muttered to the empty room. "But I can't keep running either."
His eyes shifted toward the small box on his desk. Inside were a few things from childhood, including the silly cat badge Reiji had once given him and other little memories Haruki had never found a reason to throw away.
Maybe there had been a reason after all.
He slowly stood, his legs wobbling beneath him while his joints groaned like an old ship.
It was time to stop worrying about everything he wasn't.
Time to find out what he could become.
Even if tomorrow involved getting punched in the face and spending another afternoon being medically marinated by Seijūrō.
Ryōhei
Tōma's legs felt like noodles left too long in boiling water. Kenta's shirt was soaked with sweat, and his expression suggested that at least half of the moisture might actually have been tears.
Ryōhei, however, looked as though he had won the lottery.
Admittedly, it was the sort of lottery where the prize was a repaired arm and a resistance harness apparently designed by someone who hated shoulders, but he was happy anyway.
The three of them trudged down the sidewalk like survivors of a training camp organized by a physician who had mistaken the human body for an engineering project.
"I mean…" Tōma muttered between breaths, "is this really what training is supposed to be like?"
"No," Kenta groaned, clutching his ribs. "This has moved beyond training. I'm fairly sure there are international agreements against some of the things Seijūrō did to us today."
"Guys," Ryōhei said cheerfully, swinging his recovering arm carefully, "we survived. And look—I can move this properly again!"
He flexed.
A small crack came from somewhere near his shoulder.
Ryōhei froze.
"Okay. Maybe not that properly yet."
Tōma stared at him.
"I'm happy your arm is getting better, but I seriously don't know if I can keep doing this. I came because Red Dawn was doing it, and because I wanted to improve, but what if I'm just not built for this?"
Kenta groaned.
"Oh, great. Now you're having an existential crisis? Can we schedule this after dinner?"
"You're one to talk," Tōma snapped. "You practically cried when that medicine started burning."
"It felt like he was cooking me alive!"
"He was not cooking you."
"I was in a heated barrel!"
Ryōhei chuckled. "All right, both of you, enough. Look, I get it. I'm not naturally ridiculous like Shōgo. I'm not Ren. But we chose this. We joined Red Dawn, and now we've walked into Ryūseikan knowing exactly what the place does to people."
Tōma frowned. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean? That we just suffer quietly while Seijūrō turns us into experiments?"
Ryōhei stopped walking and looked at both of them seriously.
"It means if we want to become like the fighters in Battle Crown, we actually have to earn it. Those characters don't get ridiculous techniques because they did ten push-ups and believed in themselves."
Kenta stared.
"They also aren't real."
"Not the point."
Then Ryōhei turned toward Tōma.
"And you want Reina to notice you, right?"
Tōma immediately looked away. "I'm just being supportive."
"Sure."
"I am."
Ryōhei stared at him.
Tōma's ears reddened.
"Anyway," Ryōhei continued, "you may not have Shōgo's talent, but you've got heart. So use it. Don't quit just because something hurts. Show her you're someone who keeps standing when things get difficult."
Tōma sighed.
Then laughed.
"You're such a jerk, Ryōhei."
"And you're hopeless around Reina, so it balances out."
Kenta shook his head.
"I cannot believe I'm stuck with you two."
But he was smiling.
Because somehow, underneath all the pain, absurd martial arts, and questionable herbal medicine, they were still doing this together.
That made tomorrow seem a little less terrifying.
Even if Seijūrō tried to boil them again.
Shōgo
Shōgo's house didn't look like the sort of place that should produce somebody like Shōgo Kitsukawa.
It was a comfortable suburban two-story home with a small lawn, a doghouse, and enough garden decorations to make the backyard look suspiciously peaceful.
Then you walked around the side of the house.
That was where Shōgo trained.
That was where his gym lived.
And, according to everyone who knew him, that was where most of his common sense went to die.
The backyard training area looked like somebody had crossed a small dojo with an old-school weight room. Heavy dumbbells sat against one wall. Chains hung from a reinforced pull-up frame. A punching bag had been repaired with so much tape that the tape itself probably had structural importance.
His father had built most of it years ago. He had been a delinquent himself before eventually becoming a respectable government employee, although enough of the old fighter remained in him that nobody selling things door-to-door ever stayed long.
Shōgo's mother had a similar history.
Neither of them seemed particularly concerned by their son's love of fighting.
When he came home bruised, his mother gave him an ice pack.
His father asked whether his form had improved.
"Good combinations today?" his father had asked earlier.
"Could've been better," Shōgo replied through a swollen cheek.
Tonight, though, something was different.
Shōgo sat up from the bench, sweat running down his bare back as he caught his breath after another set.
It wasn't the weight that bothered him.
It was something inside him.
A faint pulsing sensation moved through his muscles, deeper than the ordinary burn of exercise.
"Ki…" he muttered.
He clenched one fist.
The sensation answered.
Shōgo became very still.
Then he smiled.
His body had always been stronger than the others. He had built himself around raw physical power for years, constantly pushing harder simply because the idea of having a limit offended him.
Now something was changing.
Awakening.
His senses sharpened slightly. His muscles felt strangely alive, as if the effort of everything he had done at Ryūseikan had finally pushed something inside him past a threshold.
"Heh."
His grin widened.
"Took long enough."
The first sign of Ki awakening.
This was only the beginning.
Pain didn't scare Shōgo.
Pain was information.
Pain told you exactly where you needed to become stronger.
He stepped toward the old heavy bag and punched.
BANG.
The chain snapped.
The bag flew into the fence.
Shōgo stared.
"…Oops."
His father opened the sliding door and looked outside.
"That's the third one this month."
"Charge it to my allowance."
"You don't have an allowance."
Shōgo considered that.
"…Then I didn't do it."
His father snorted and went back inside.
Shōgo looked down at his fist.
"All right, Ren."
He smiled.
"You're not going to be the only monster in this group."
The real training was only beginning.
And Shōgo couldn't wait.
Hermes
Kazuki Saejima stepped into the vast marble entrance hall of his family home and was immediately greeted by enough luxury to make rich people question whether perhaps someone had gone a little too far.
The chandelier glittered above him. Staff members bowed politely. The air carried the scent of expensive wood and even more expensive decisions.
A maid handed him a towel.
"Welcome home, Master Kazuki."
Hermes sighed, wiped the sweat from his face, and adjusted his scarf.
"Thanks. Tell the chef I need a recovery meal. Triple protein."
He paused.
"Actually, quadruple. I trained with Genzō today."
"Understood, sir."
The staff dispersed.
Kazuki headed upstairs and entered his room, which looked considerably less like a teenager's bedroom and considerably more like a private research center.
Multiple displays covered one wall. Some contained financial information. Others held engineering designs and research notes. Weapon prototypes sat beside computer equipment, while several recent documents had been given names like:
KI-COMPATIBLE PROJECT: PHASE ONE
Kazuki dropped into his chair and leaned back.
His parents weren't home.
No surprise there.
During most of the week, they were travelling for work, attending meetings, acquiring companies, and appearing at the sort of events where everybody wore clothing worth more than a car.
They would return for the weekend.
They rarely missed the weekend.
Kazuki usually didn't mind.
His parents gave him enormous freedom. As long as he succeeded academically and demonstrated that whatever new project he wanted to fund had some logic behind it, they rarely told him no.
But occasionally, nights like this felt different.
His bones hurt from training.
For once, what he was doing had nothing to do with grades, profits, or showing that he was smarter than somebody else.
And some small part of him wished one of his parents would simply ask:
Are you okay?
Kazuki immediately pushed the thought away.
Sentimentality could wait.
The first time he had truly felt weak had been when Shōgo defeated him.
All of Kazuki's planning, tricks, and dirty tactics had meant very little when confronted with somebody who simply kept coming forward and hitting harder.
He had hated it.
He had also admired it.
The second time had been Ren.
Ren had appeared practically out of nowhere, changed the entire structure of the local gangs, revealed that supernatural powers were real, and somehow convinced half a collection of violent teenagers that following him into danger was a sensible life choice.
Now Ren was learning from Ryūseikan.
He had magic.
He had Fivefold Ascension.
He had Vhalor.
And the gap between the possible and the impossible had effectively disappeared.
Kazuki cracked his knuckles.
"If Ki and magic are real," he muttered, "then ordinary equipment eventually stops being enough."
He turned toward one of his screens.
"If the people around me are going to become superhuman, my equipment needs to keep up."
He opened a secure connection to his father.
"Yes, Kazuki?" came the response, smooth and distracted.
"I have a business proposal."
That got his attention.
"I'm listening."
"I want budget clearance to begin research into equipment designed for Ki users and supernatural combat. Protective equipment, weapons, materials, whatever turns out to be viable. I'll need specialists."
There was a brief silence.
"This related to that extracurricular organization of yours?"
"Yes."
"And you believe this is necessary?"
Kazuki looked toward the plans covering his monitors.
"Yes."
Another pause.
"Send me the proposal. If the numbers make sense, you'll have the funding."
The call ended.
Kazuki leaned back and smiled.
Step one:
Secure funding.
Step two:
Find people who actually understood supernatural materials and weapons.
Maybe someone at Ryūseikan.
Maybe another craftsman operating inside the hidden world.
Step three:
Combine money, engineering, and enough obsessive research to make sure he was never helpless simply because somebody else could punch harder.
Kazuki looked at the Fivefold Ascension notes displayed on one screen.
"If Ren has Vhalor…"
His smile widened.
"…then I'll build something of my own."
Because talent might be something you were born with.
But power?
Power could also be engineered.