The academy barracks were a monument to brutalist utility. Grey permacrete walls, rows of identical bunks stacked three high, and the constant, low-grade hum of recycled air that smelled faintly of disinfectant and teenage sweat. Ryosuke's assigned bunk was in the corner, bottom tier. As he approached, a thick silence fell over the section.
He was used to the stares now. They were a different texture here than in the medical wing—less clinical curiosity, more tribal assessment. He was the anomaly, the beautiful freak who'd broken a scanner on his first day.
He stowed his meager kit—standard fatigues, hygiene items, a data-slate preloaded with academy regulations—in the footlocker. As he straightened, a shadow fell across him.
"Tanaka, right?"
The speaker was the burly Nordic recruit from the shuttle. He had a square jaw, close-cropped blond hair, and arms thick with the telltale, corded look of cheap biosculpt. His name tape read VARG.
"Yeah," Ryosuke said, his voice neutral.
"Varg. Of the Asgardian-lineage enclave." He said it like it should mean something. When Ryosuke didn't react, Varg's eyes narrowed. "Heard you gave the scan-techs a show. 'Effectively unlimited sync-potential.'" He snorted. "Sounds like a glitch. Or someone polishing a data-stream for the pretty boy who slept through the apocalypse."
A few other recruits nearby paused, watching. This was the first move in the barracks' unspoken hierarchy.
[Social threat detected. Minimal. Recommended response: Dismissal.]
Ryosuke almost smiled. The System had no patience for posturing. But he remembered the Commandant's warning about being a warhead. He needed to navigate this, not detonate it.
"It was a number on a screen," Ryosuke said, turning to arrange his bunk. "The simulators will give us real ones."
Varg didn't like being dismissed. He stepped closer, invading personal space. "You think you're special because you look like some pre-Shift cartoon? Out here, we fight Kaiju-spawn and demon-bleeds. That pretty face won't stop a teeth-grinder from biting it off."
The insult was childish, but the intent was clear: establish dominance. Ryosuke felt a flash of irritation—not anger, but the mild, profound annoyance of a god bothered by a gnat. His Limitless technique, attuned to his emotions, reacted minutely. The air between him and Varg grew imperceptibly denser, a fraction of a degree cooler.
Varg shivered, confused. He frowned, his biosculpted muscles tensing. "You listening to me, cryo-princess?"
Ryosuke finally turned, meeting Varg's gaze. He didn't activate the Six Eyes fully, but he let a fraction of their unnerving clarity seep into his own. His ice-blue eyes seemed to see straight through the bravado to the insecure kid underneath.
"I hear you," Ryosuke said, his voice dropping into a lazy, dangerous register. "But you're blocking my light. Move."
For a second, Varg held his ground. Then, something in Ryosuke's utterly calm, utterly superior expression broke his nerve. He scowled, muttered something about "weird-eyed freak," and stomped back to his own bunk. The tension in the barracks section eased, conversations resuming in hushed tones. Ryosuke had won without throwing a punch. The message was sent: he wasn't an easy target.
Mildly tolerant, he thought, the phrase from his own self-assessment surfacing. That seems about right.
---
The next morning began at 0500 hours with a thunderous Klaxon and the DI's—Sergeant Kova, the woman with the cybernetic arm—voice screaming through the intercom. "ON YOUR FEET, WORMS! PARADE GROUND IN FIVE! MOVE LIKE YOU WANT TO LIVE!"
The "parade ground" was a vast, synthetic turf field under a colossal, geodesic dome. The ceiling displayed a simulated sky—currently a pre-dawn violet. Around the edges stood massive, sealed hangar doors leading to the real training yards.
Sergeant Kova stood on a raised platform, her cybernetic arm gleaming under the lights. "First lesson! Your body is your primary weapon! Your fancy awakenings are just fancy attachments if the core is weak! We will forge that core in fire and pain! Ten kilometer run! Full kit! NOW!"
Groans were cut short by her roar. Ryosuke fell into line, his body protesting the sudden, brutal exertion. His new physique was resilient, but it lacked muscle memory for this. As they ran, he noticed the differences. Some recruits glowed with internal energy—the pyrokinesis girl's skin shimmered with heat haze. A lanky boy seemed to barely touch the ground, a low-grade super-speed at work. Varg just plowed forward with brute, augmented strength.
Ryosuke ran cleanly, efficiently. He used the Six Eyes not to enhance his speed, but to optimize his form. He saw the micro-tears forming in his own muscles, adjusted his gait to distribute impact. He saw the air resistance patterns and slipped through them. He finished the run in the top third, breathing heavily but controlled, while others collapsed on the turf.
"Not bad, Tanaka," Kova barked as she passed him. "But running is easy. Let's see how you handle something with teeth. Close-quarters combat drills! Pair up!"
They were herded to a matted area. Kova demonstrated basic holds, throws, strikes—a brutal, efficient amalgam of pre-Shift military combatives and techniques gleaned from a dozen martial-arts worlds.
"These drills are about control! About using an opponent's force against them! And about knowing when to stop before you snap a neck! Your partner is your teammate, not a Kaiju! Now, PAIR UP!"
Recruits scrambled. Varg immediately locked eyes with a smaller boy, a predatory grin on his face. Ryosuke found himself facing the quiet pyrokinesis girl. Her name tape read SERA.
They bowed awkwardly. Sera moved first, a tentative lunge. Ryosuke deflected it easily, his movements fluid. He could see every micro-expression on her face, every shift in her balance through the Six Eyes. It was like watching a dance in super-slow motion. He could have ended the match in a second.
But he also saw the fear in her eyes, the tightly controlled flicker of heat in her palms she was desperately suppressing. She was afraid of her own power.
He let the match stretch. He guided her through the movements, using soft redirects instead of hard throws. When she over-extended, he caught her wrist, stabilized her, and gently pushed her back to a ready stance.
"Your center is too high," he said quietly, his voice almost lost in the grunts and slaps from other pairs. "Drop your weight. The power comes from the ground."
Sera blinked, surprised. She nodded, adjusted. Her next move was more stable.
From the edge of the mats, Sergeant Kova watched, her cybernetic eye recording every detail.
After an hour of drills, Kova called a halt. "Enough! You fight like drunken monkeys! But monkeys can learn. Next: applied awakening integration. A controlled demonstration."
She pointed to a reinforced training dummy at the edge of the mats—a humanoid shape of dense polymer.
"Recruit Varg. Step forward. You have Tier-2 muscular enhancement. Show me its practical application in a disabling strike. Target: the dummy's shoulder joint."
Varg grinned, cracking his knuckles. He took a stance, focused, and drove a fist forward. The air whistled. His fist impacted the dummy's shoulder with a sound like a sledgehammer on a tree. The joint deformed, polymer cracking. The dummy rocked back on its stand.
"Sufficient," Kova said, unimpressed. "Recruit Sera. Your file says controlled pyrokinesis. Demonstrate a focused thermal strike. Palm-heel to the chest plate."
Sera paled. She stepped forward, hands trembling. She placed her palm against the dummy's chest, closed her eyes. For a moment, nothing. Then, a faint red glow spread from her hand. The polymer beneath sizzled and melted, dripping in smoking gobbets. The glow began to spread, flickering wildly.
"Rein it in, Recruit!" Kova snapped.
Sera gasped, yanking her hand back. The glow died. She stared at the smoldering, deep crater in the dummy, her face filled with shame and fear.
"Uncontrolled," Kova stated coldly. "In a Jaeger cockpit, that loss of control could fry your own neural interface or cook your co-pilot. You lack discipline." She turned her gaze, which felt like a targeting laser, to Ryosuke. "Recruit Tanaka. You demonstrated a spatial distortion defense. Can you apply it offensively? In a melee context?"
All eyes turned to him. This was the real test. The barracks posturing had been a skirmish. This was a battle.
Ryosuke stepped forward. He studied the dummy. The Commandant had said to prove control. To show he was a tool, not a tornado.
He didn't want to just smash it. He needed to demonstrate precision. Finesse.
He recalled the feel of the Infinity barrier—the absolute control over proximity. The concept of reversed energy. Red versus Blue.
He raised his right hand, palm open, facing the dummy. He didn't move closer. He focused.
[Attempting fine manipulation of Limitless: Convergence.]
[Concept: Blue - Attraction, Negative Distance.]
He didn't vocalize it. He simply willed it.
The air in front of his palm distorted. It wasn't a flashy light show. It was a subtle, terrifying bending of reality—a sudden, intense gravitational pull focused on a single point on the dummy's torso.
There was no sound. No impact.
The reinforced polymer imploded. A section the size of a grapefruit crumpled inwards as if crushed by an invisible fist, dense material twisting and compressing into a super-dense knot. Stresses shot out from the point, creating a spiderweb of cracks across the dummy's chest. It didn't fall over. It just stood there, perfectly still, with a horrifically neat, concave wound punched into its center.
The silence in the dome was absolute. Even Sergeant Kova was still.
Ryosuke lowered his hand. The distortion vanished. He'd used barely a flicker of Cursed Energy, but the effect was surgical, devastating.
"Analysis," Kova said, her voice tight.
"A… a spatial compression event," stammered a technician monitoring from the sidelines. "Localized gravity spike. Estimated force… equivalent to a fifty-ton hydraulic press. Focused to a two-centimeter point. No energy bleed. No collateral distortion."
Kova walked up to the dummy. She ran her organic fingers over the smooth, compressed crater. It was cool to the touch. "You applied a defensive concept as an offensive weapon. With millimeter precision." She looked at Ryosuke. There was no praise in her eyes, only a sharp, calculating respect. "That is Jaeger-level targeting. The kind we use for pinpoint strikes on Kaiju nerve clusters."
She turned to the stunned recruits. "THIS is what integration looks like! Not wild flames or brutish strength! Control! Precision! Your awakening is not a club! It is a scalpel! Remember that!"
As the recruits were dismissed for the mess hall, they gave Ryosuke a wide berth. The looks were different now. Less envy, less disdain. More fear. More awe.
Sera fell into step beside him as they walked. "That was… incredible," she whispered. "And you didn't even touch it."
"It's just physics," Ryosuke said, though it was anything but.
"You helped me. On the mats. Thank you."
He glanced at her. She had sincere eyes. "You have power. You just need to talk to it, not scream at it."
She managed a small smile.
In the mess hall—a cavernous room of echoing noise and the smell of nutrient paste and synthetic protein—Ryosuke collected his tray and found an empty table. A moment later, Sera sat across from him. Then, to his surprise, the lanky speedster boy, whose tag read CHEN, slid in beside her.
"Mind if we…?" Chen asked, eyes wide. "Everyone else is kind of…" He gestured vaguely at the tables where recruits were either avoiding looking at Ryosuke or staring openly.
"Sure," Ryosuke said. He was used to eating alone, but this wasn't unpleasant.
"You're really from before the Shift?" Chen asked, inhaling his food. "Like, you saw the first Jaegers?"
"I… piloted one of the last," Ryosuke said, the memory a ghost of pressure in his skull, the smell of drifting fluid. "It was different. Slower. Louder."
"Whoa," Chen breathed. "And now you've got… whatever that is. It's not like a Quirk or Chakra or Ki. It's… space stuff."
"Something like that."
[Social bonds forming. Acquaintance level established with Recruits Sera and Chen.]
[Note: Interpersonal connections may affect unit cohesion and mission performance.]
The System's note was so clinical it was almost funny. As they ate, Ryosuke learned Sera's pyrokinesis had manifested during a minor demonic incursion in her housing block; she'd incinerated a lesser fiend but also nearly burned down her home. She was terrified of it. Chen's low-tier super-speed was a family trait from a world that had merged with something called the "My Hero" continuum; he was here to make his folks proud.
They were just kids. Scared, gifted kids thrown into a cosmic war.
As they talked, Ryosuke noticed Varg and his small cohort at a far table, shooting dark looks their way. The hierarchy was still forming. Ryosuke had just established himself at the top, not through intimidation, but through a display of such alien competence it created its own gravity.
The afternoon brought classroom instruction: Multiversal Threat Taxonomy. A bored-looking lieutenant used holograms to display bestial Kaiju-spawn, ethereal spectral entities from Demon Slayer bleed-overs, and the cold, biomechanical horrors of Tyranid-genestealer hybrids.
"…and the Star-Eaters," the lieutenant said, the hologram showing a blurry, terrifying silhouette that seemed to drink the light from nearby suns. "Class-Apocalypse entities. They don't just destroy worlds. They consume reality itself. They are why the Federation exists. Dismissed."
The weight of it all settled on the recruits. This wasn't just about piloting giant robots. It was about holding back the end of everything.
The final event of the day was in a smaller, windowless chamber: Neural Interface Primer. Here, they were hooked up to simple, chair-like simulators—not full Jaeger rigs, but basic trainers designed to introduce the feel of a neural handshake.
A gentle, female AI voice guided them. "Please relax. The interface will map your neural pathways. There may be disorientation. Focus on the simple task: moving the virtual hand on the screen."
Ryosuke felt the cool prongs against his temples. A tickle, then a rush of… otherness. His consciousness brushed against the machine-mind of the simulator. It was crude, simple, a binary song of inputs and outputs.
[Neural interface established. Compatibility: 98%.]
[Initiating Synchronization Test…]
On his screen, a simple, robotic hand was displayed. The instruction was to make a fist.
Ryosuke thought about closing his hand.
The virtual hand on the screen snapped into a fist instantly, with such force the graphical knuckles rendered white.
[Synchronization: 31%.]
The AI voice in his ear sounded surprised. "Recruit Tanaka, please attempt the movement with less… intensity. The goal is smooth control."
He relaxed his mental 'grip'. The virtual hand opened, then slowly closed again, fingers curling in perfect unison.
[Synchronization stabilized at 22%. Optimal for basic control.]
"Excellent modulation," the AI said. "Proceed to the tracking exercise."
Across the room, he heard curses and grunts. Chen's virtual hand was a blur, overshooting constantly. Sera's was jerky, trembling with suppressed energy. Varg's moved with brutal, slow force, crushing virtual objects instead of picking them up.
Ryosuke's moved with the effortless, graceful precision of his own flesh and blood. The machine was becoming an extension of his will. It felt… natural. More natural than walking had this morning.
[Conclusion: Neural-Mech Symbiosis Aptitude is exceptional. True Synchronization with a dedicated Jaeger is predicted to exceed 50% within first session.]
As the session ended and the interface disengaged, Ryosuke felt a faint, nostalgic ache. This was what he was meant for. Not the classroom, not the parade ground. The cockpit.
Sergeant Kova was at the door as they filed out. "First day is done. You are all terrible. Some of you are less terrible than others. Tomorrow, we see if you can make that translate to a simulator bigger than your head. Dismissed."
Back in the barracks, in the dimmed lights, Ryosuke lay on his bunk. The day replayed in his mind—the run, the fight, the imploding dummy, the feel of the interface. The System's screens hovered in his vision, a cascade of data on his performance, his energy levels, his sync-rates.
He was exhausted, but a cold, clean fire burned in his chest. He was here. He was learning. He was adapting.
From a nearby bunk, Sera's voice whispered through the dark. "Tanaka?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks again. For today."
"Get some sleep, Sera. Tomorrow we pilot."
He heard her small, hopeful sigh.
Ryosuke closed his eyes, the ghost of a smile on his face. The beautiful, arrogant face that was now his own. The path was clear. Master his body. Master his power. Master the machine.
And then, defend everything.
The hum of the academy was a lullaby. For the first time since awakening, Ryosuke Tanaka slept without dreaming of the past. He dreamed, instead, of a black mech waiting in the void, and twin katanas that sang with a hungry light.