God of Heroics: Comicman!

Day three.

"Permeation is active," Nighteye said from the wall. "No Comic. Three times gravity. Begin."

Manga threw a right cross at Tōgata's jaw.

His fist passed through Tōgata's head like it wasn't there.

His knuckles met no resistance, no bone, no skin, just empty space where a solid skull should have been. His arm followed through with all the momentum of a gravity-loaded punch and nothing to absorb it, which sent him stumbling forward off balance.

Tōgata was already behind him.

The gut punch landed before Manga could turn. He dropped to one knee, gasping.

"You swung at where I was," Tōgata said, his voice cheerful and unbothered. "But I wasn't there anymore. When Permeation is on, I'm not anywhere until I decide to be."

“That’s such a hax quirk…” Manga wheezed.

Manga got up. Raised his guard.

He threw again. A jab, a cross, a hook. All three went through Tōgata like he was made of nonexistence. Tōgata sank into the floor up to his waist, vanished, and erupted from the ground three meters to Manga's left, fist first.

The blow caught Manga on the side of the head. His bubble flickered with static. The room tilted. Three G dragged him down and he hit the mat face-first.

"Pin-pin."

He got up.

This was the problem. Wrestling was useless here. You can't grab someone who phases through your hands. Striking was useless. You can't hit someone who lets your fist pass through their face. Every tool Manga had built, the grappling, the gravity-enhanced power, the speed, all of it was worthless against a man who could choose not to be physical.

So what was left?

"You're finally having to think." Nighteye said from the wall. "Keep using your brain. You have one for a reason"

Manga watched Tōgata bounce on his toes, grinning, waiting. Permeation was active but not constant. Tōgata had to toggle it. Solid to attack. Intangible to defend. There was a rhythm to it, a pattern of switching, and in the gap between phases, he was real. Touchable. Hittable. Right?

The gap was tiny. A fraction of a second.

But it existed.

Manga stopped attacking. He stood in the center of the gym under three G and watched. Tōgata circled him. Sank into the floor. Manga tracked the spot where he vanished and calculated trajectory, mass, the direction he'd been moving when he went under.

He'd resurface to Manga's right. Behind and to the right, because that's where the angle of attack was best for a gut shot.

Manga turned right and threw a preemptive knee.

Tōgata erupted from the floor and Manga's knee caught him across the ribs before his fist could connect. It wasn't a clean hit. More of a collision, both of them moving into the same space at the same moment.

"Hey!" He rubbed his side. "You read that!"

"It’s not easy!"

“I wasn’t trying to make it easy.” Tōgata smirked.

"Let’s keep going!" Manga said.

They went again. Tōgata varied his patterns now, phasing left, popping up from the wall instead of the floor, dropping through the ceiling and coming down from above. Every variation forced Manga to abandon whatever prediction he'd formed and start over.

But the core remained. Tōgata had to become solid somewhere to hit. In that moment, he was vulnerable. And if Manga could be in the right place when that moment arrived, the fight wasn't impossible.

It was just very, very, very hard.

By the end of the session, Manga had landed four hits out of roughly sixty exchanges. His body was wrecked. His bubble displayed nothing but the exhaustion kanji, characters that looked like they'd been drawn by a shaking hand. Every muscle burned under three G and the pain from accumulated blows was stacking up in ways that Pin-pin couldn't touch.

But four hits.

Against Permeation.

Nighteye made no comment. He simply said: "Tomorrow. We go again."

Hiroshima smelled like smoke.

The alley that Monoma was standing in smelled like smoke because the building at the end of it was on fire and the man who had set it on fire was currently running toward him.

The villain was big. Big enough that his shoulders nearly scraped both walls of the alley. His quirk had something to do with his hands, which were glowing orange and dripping molten liquid that sizzled when it hit the concrete. He was screaming something about his bitch ex-wife.

Mirko landed behind the villain from a three-story drop, her boots cracking the pavement, and kicked him so hard in the lower back that his body bent forward at a scary angle. The villain hit the ground. The glowing hands sputtered. He tried to get up.

Monoma kicked him in the jaw to keep him down.

The villain stayed down.

Mirko landed beside him, barely winded, and looked at the unconscious body. Then at Monoma. Then back at the body.

"You aren’t looking so pathetic anymore."

"I shouldn’t be... You've had me fighting people who want to kill me."

"Best way to learn." She cracked her neck. "Police are two minutes out. Let's go."

They went. Over rooftops, through back alleys, across the skyline of Hiroshima at a pace that would have killed most first-years by the second day. Monoma kept up because the alternative was being left behind, and Mirko did not wait. Even if he begged or accidentally fell down into an alley and crashed on top of a dumpster.

This was the fourth villain in two days. Before that, there had been a mugger, a purse snatcher, and a man with a quirk that let him spit acid who had been terrorizing a convenience store. Mirko handled the heavy lifting. Monoma handled whatever was left, which was usually one or two accomplices, fleeing suspects, or the occasional straggler who thought a blond teenager in a fancy costume wouldn't be a problem.

They were all wrong.

Monoma's body was a canvas of bruises. His knuckles were swollen and raw. He'd taken a hit to the ribs two days ago that still made breathing hurt if he turned too fast. None of it was healed because there was no time to heal. Mirko didn't do recovery days unless she was forced to.

"You learn to fight by fighting," she'd told him on the second morning. "You learn by getting hit and figuring out how to not get hit next time."

Monoma hadn't argued. He'd asked for this. Chosen it. Walked into it with both eyes open. And he was getting better. His feet moved where they needed to. His hands came up before the strike landed instead of after. He could read the first half-second of an attack and know whether to duck or block. Four days ago, he couldn't do any of that.

They stopped on a rooftop overlooking the harbor. Mirko stood at the edge with her ears twitching, scanning for trouble. Monoma sat against an air conditioning unit and drank water, his hands shaking.

"Why'd you pick me?" he asked.

She didn't look at him. "You ask me that again, I’m kicking you."

"Sorry. Just curious."

She turned back to the city. "Now finish your water. We've got another two hours before sunset."

Day four of internships.

Manga stood in the gym under three G, facing Nighteye.

Foresight was active.

This was the inverse of the Permeation fight. Against Tōgata, Manga couldn't land a hit because his opponent wasn't physical. Against Nighteye, he could somewhat land a hit, but his opponent knew every punch before Manga's muscles even fired. Every angle. Every feint. Every shift in weight and balance and intent, all of it visible to Nighteye a full hour in advance.

Manga threw a right hook. Nighteye leaned back two inches. The fist passed his chin.

Manga threw a left jab. Nighteye sidestepped. The fist hit air.

Manga went for a double-leg takedown, dropping his level, shooting for the hips. Nighteye sprawled before Manga's hands reached his legs, his weight dropping down, his arms pushing Manga's head toward the floor. The sprawl was perfect because he'd seen the shot coming before Manga had finished deciding to try it.

"You telegraph everything." Nighteye said from above him, one hand pressing the back of Manga's head toward the mat.

He released the pressure and stepped back.

"These are habits. A wrestler's habits. You commit your entire body to every movement because that's what wrestling rewards. Full commitment. Maximum force. No half-measures." He adjusted his glasses. "Against someone who can see the future, full commitment is a death sentence. Because I see your commitment before you make it, and I am already punishing you for it."

Manga got up. "Then what do I do?"

"You learn to move without deciding first."

Manga stared at him.

"Foresight sees intent. It reads the decisions your body has made. If your shoulder tenses before a hook, I see the hook. If your eyes flick to a target, I see the target." Nighteye raised one finger. "But if you move without forming the intent, if your body acts before your conscious mind commits, the window between my prediction and your action shrinks. You become harder to read. Not impossible. But harder."

"How do I move without deciding to move?"

"Repetition. Drill a movement until it stops being a decision and starts being a reflex. When you throw a jab, you shouldn't be thinking 'I'm going to jab now.' The jab should already be happening by the time your brain registers that you're jabbing. That is the level of internalization required to fight prediction."

This was the lesson Manga hadn't known he needed.

Wrestling taught him to commit. Nighteye was teaching him to commit without announcing it.

They went again. Nighteye called out what Manga was about to do before he did it. "Right hook." Manga threw the hook. Nighteye dodged it. "Left body shot." Manga threw the body shot. Nighteye blocked it. "Takedown attempt." Manga shot in. Nighteye sprawled.

Every call was correct. Every prediction landed. Manga's body was a book and Nighteye was reading every page.

Manga stopped thinking. He let his body move until his attacks stopped being a choice and started being a twitch.

Then he jabbed.

Nighteye didn't call it.

The fist connected with his forearm as he blocked, but the block was late. A fraction of a second. Barely noticeable. But late.

"That’s better. Let’s keep going." Nighteye said.

Somewhere in Tokyo, in a building that smelled like boredom and disappointment, Kamakiri sat on a bench next to Bakugo, both of them in pressed jeans and collared shirts that neither of them had chosen to wear.

Kamakiri's mohawk had been flattened. Not by choice. Best Jeanist had used a comb and other stuff to pin every strand of green hair against Kamakiri's skull that morning, shaping it into something that looked like it belonged on a catalog model instead of a blade-faced delinquent. His cheek-blades kept catching on the collar.

Bakugo's hair was the same swept-back Jeanist style from yesterday. And the day before. Every morning, Jeanist restyled it. Every evening, Bakugo's anger made it explode back to normal. It was a war of attrition that neither side was winning.

"This fucking sucks." Kamakiri said.

"No shit." Bakugo said.

They'd bonded like two prisoners who bonded over hating the same guard. Best Jeanist's lectures about hero presentation, public image, and the importance of appearing approachable had ground both of them down to the same resentful nub.

They'd patrolled together that morning. Jeanist walking ahead, Kamakiri and Bakugo trailing behind like two attack dogs on very stylish leashes. Jeanist had stopped every few blocks to explain why heroes patrolled: not to catch villains, but to be seen. To remind people that someone was watching. That safety wasn't just a concept.

"Think of the streets as a stage," Jeanist had told them. "And the civilians as your audience. They don't need to see you fight. They need to see you stand. That alone is enough."

Kamakiri had muttered something about stages and Bakugo had said something worse. Jeanist had pretended not to hear either of them.

But Kamakiri wasn't stupid. Neither was Bakugo. The lessons were landing even if neither of them would admit it. On the patrol that morning, a group of kids had run up to Jeanist asking for autographs. One of them had looked at Kamakiri's face, flinched, and hidden behind his friend. Kamakiri had noticed. He didn't say anything about it, but he'd stopped glaring at people for the rest of the walk.

Bakugo had scared a separate group of kids with his glare alone. Jeanist had sighed.

"At least I'm not the only one they're scared of." Kamakiri said.

"What the fuck are they scared of?" Bakugo crossed his arms.

"What do you think?"

"Tch, a bunch of shitty extras."

"This still sucks." Kamakiri said.

"Yeah." Bakugo leaned back. 

That was something they agreed on.

Day four, afternoon. Back in the gym.

"No quirks from anyone. Two against one. Three times gravity. Begin."

Manga faced Tōgata and Nighteye at the same time.

It was the worst thing he'd ever experienced.

Tōgata came from the left, Nighteye from the right. Without Permeation, Tōgata was still a threat. Without Foresight, Nighteye was still a veteran pro hero with decades of combat experience. Together, without any quirk assistance at all, they were a wall of skill that closed in from both sides and gave Manga nowhere to go.

He blocked Tōgata's jab and Nighteye's low kick caught his thigh. He turned to counter Nighteye and Tōgata's cross hit him in the ribs. He tried to create distance and they closed it immediately, two bodies moving in sync like they'd practiced this exact scenario a thousand times.

He lasted forty-five seconds before the first knockdown. A sweeping kick from Nighteye took his legs and Tōgata's follow-up put him on the mat.

"Pin-pin."

Up.

They came again. Manga tried to isolate one of them, focusing on Tōgata and using angles to keep Nighteye behind him. It worked for three seconds before Nighteye circled and struck him from the blind side.

"You're managing threats sequentially," Nighteye said, resetting. "One at a time. Two opponents require parallel processing. You must be aware of both at all times, even when engaging only one."

Manga nodded. Tried again. This time he gave ground on purpose, backing toward a wall so they could only approach from the front. It limited their angles. Smart. But it also limited his escape routes, and when Tōgata faked a punch and Nighteye threw a seal at his legs, he had nowhere to dodge.

The seal hit his shin, he dropped face-first, and the pain was blinding.

"Pin-pin."

Up.

The session went for forty minutes. By the end, Manga's PE uniform was torn in three places. His face had a bruise forming along the left side. His ribs ached from Tōgata's body shots and his shins ached from Nighteye's seals and kicks. He'd been knocked down eleven times.

But.

In the final exchange, he'd managed something. Tōgata came in with a straight right and Manga slipped it, not by thinking about slipping it, but because his body had been hit from that angle enough times that it moved before his brain gave permission. The slip turned into a counter hook that caught Tōgata on the jaw, and the force of the hook under three G snapped Tōgata's head sideways.

In the same motion, without pausing, without thinking, Manga's left foot pivoted and his right hand was already throwing toward where Nighteye was. Not where Nighteye had been. Where he was going to be.

Nighteye blocked it. But he blocked it close. Closer than he should have needed to.

"You’re a fast learner." Nighteye said. His yellow eyes studied Manga for a long moment. "Let’s keep this momentum going."

From Nighteye, that was practically a standing ovation.

The park in Fourth Kind's district was a mess. Litter in the grass. Graffiti on the benches. Fallen branches from last week's storm piled against the fence. The playground equipment was coated in a layer of grime that suggested nobody had wiped it down in months.

Fourth Kind stood at the entrance with all four arms crossed and a stack of trash bags at his feet.

Tetsutetsu and Kirishima stood beside him in their hero costumes, vibrating with the energy of two boys who had been learning and getting smacked for three days and were deeply grateful to finally be doing something physical.

"This park serves three hundred families in the surrounding blocks," Fourth Kind said. "Children play here. Mothers bring strollers here. Elderly couples walk here every morning. And right now, it looks like this." He gestured at the mess. "A hero's duty isn't limited to fighting villains. A hero serves the community. Even when that service involves a trash bag and a pair of gloves."

He handed them each a bag and a pair of gloves.

Kirishima snapped the gloves on. "How fast do you want this done?"

Tetsutetsu grinned. "Whoever fills their bag first wins."

"Wins what?"

"Bragging rights."

"DEAL."

They took off in opposite directions like they'd been fired from cannons, grabbing trash with the utmost intensity. Kirishima ripped through the east side of the park, snagging bottles and wrappers and a sneaker that had been jammed into a bush. Tetsutetsu blitzed the west side, picking up branches with his bare hands and snapping them into bag-sized pieces.

Fourth Kind watched this with an expression that could have been annoyance or approval. It was hard to tell with four arms crossed.

The noise attracted attention. A few kids from the nearby apartment complex wandered over, drawn by the sound of two teenagers yelling at each other while picking up garbage at an unreasonable speed.

"What are you doing?" a girl asked, maybe eight years old, watching Tetsutetsu hurl a branch into his bag.

"CLEANING!" Tetsutetsu bellowed, not slowing down. "THIS PARK IS GONNA SPARKLE WHEN WE'RE DONE!"

"Can we help?" a boy behind her asked.

Kirishima appeared from behind a tree, bag half-full, grinning with sharp teeth. "The more the better! Grab a bag!"

Fourth Kind had extra bags. Within ten minutes, six kids were working alongside the two hero interns, picking up trash and stacking branches with the same reckless energy that Tetsutetsu and Kirishima were putting out. The competition had evolved from a two-man race into a team effort. The east side versus the west side. Kids cheering. Kirishima pumped his fist every time his team cleared a section. Tetsutetsu carried a rusted bicycle frame that nobody else could lift, which made three kids scream in delight.

Fourth Kind stood at the center of it all and watched his park get cleaned by a small army of children led by two hero students who had turned garbage collection into the most exciting event of the afternoon.

One of his four hands uncrossed. Then another. He picked up a bag himself.

By the time they finished, the park was spotless. The kids were sweaty and proud. Tetsutetsu and Kirishima were arguing about who had actually won. Fourth Kind didn't say anything about it, but on the walk back to the agency, he rubbed both of their heads.

That was the closest thing to praise they'd received all week.

Day five.

Manga vs Tōgata and Nighteye. Both quirks active.

He couldn't hit Tōgata because Tōgata phased through everything. He couldn't surprise Nighteye because Nighteye saw everything. Together, they were a wall of invincibility that attacked from every angle and punished every mistake.

Under three G, Manga's body was a compressed engine of force and pain. His muscles had been broken down and rebuilt so many times this week that the soreness had become ambient, a baseline state of existence that Pin-pin could clear the fatigue from but never fully erase.

Tōgata sank through the floor. Manga tracked the spot, read the angle, predicted the resurface point, and threw a preemptive kick at the location Tōgata should emerge from.

Tōgata came up two meters to the left of where Manga predicted. He'd learned. He was varying his patterns now, specifically because Manga had been reading them.

The attack still landed. Manga folded.

Nighteye threw a seal from behind while Tōgata engaged from the front. Manga ducked the seal, blocked Tōgata's jab, but Nighteye's follow-up kick took his legs out.

He stopped trying to win. Nobody wins against Permeation and Foresight at the same time. Instead, he focused on lasting. On not getting hit by the same combination twice. On reading Tōgata's resurfacing patterns even as they changed. On making his strikes reflexive enough that Nighteye's predictions arrived a fraction later than they should.

He threw a jab without deciding to throw it. His left hand snapped out because it had been drilled into him over four days of repetition. Nighteye blocked it, but the block was reactive, not preemptive. The gap was closing.

Tōgata emerged from the wall behind him. Manga spun, not because he'd seen it, but because heard him.

His elbow caught Tōgata across the chest just as he landed a blow on Manga.

Tōgata staggered. "WHAT! You felt that?!"

"I can’t really attack and defend against you," Manga said, breathing hard. "I can only hurt you when you hurt me. Oh, I also noticed you rarely phase after coming out of the floor or wall."

They went for another twenty minutes. Manga got knocked down nine more times. But in those twenty minutes, he landed six hits on Tōgata and forced Nighteye to block close three times. Under three G. Against Permeation and Foresight.

When Nighteye called the session, Manga released the gravity and nearly fell over from the sudden lightness. His body hummed. Every nerve was alive. His reflexes felt like they'd been rewritten, the old patterns overwritten by something faster, something that didn't wait for permission.

He threw a practice jab at the air. The speed startled him. His hand snapped out and returned before he consciously registered the movement. Under normal gravity, with three G conditioning, with four days of prediction drilling burned into his nervous system, his body was something different than what it had been on the first day.

Tōgata rubbed the spot on his chest where Manga's elbow had landed. "Sir," he said quietly. "He's going to be great!"

Nighteye adjusted his glasses. "We’ll see."

…

The evening patrol was quiet. Manga walked with Bubble Girl through the commercial district, the same route from Day 2, and the street felt smaller now.

The woman at the bakery who always chatted with her friend at 5 PM was there again, same spot, same paper bags. The delivery truck that used the alley behind the electronics store came at the same time as yesterday. The old man watering his plants was wearing a different shirt.

Manga noticed all of it.

Bubble Girl noticed him noticing. "You’ve picked it up fast."

They turned a corner. A man was sitting on a bench near the park entrance, his jacket pulled tight, his eyes moving too quickly. Manga's gaze stayed on him for two seconds.

"That guy's nervous about something…" Manga said.

Bubble Girl looked. "Could just be waiting for a date."

"His hands are in his pockets but his thumbs are outside. He keeps looking at the convenience store across the street. He looked at it six times since we rounded the corner."

Bubble Girl studied the man for a moment. Then she raised her visor and activated her quirk, releasing a nearly invisible bubble that drifted toward the man and popped near his face. She sniffed the air.

"Elevated cortisol. Adrenaline." She looked at Manga. "Good eye."

She radioed the local precinct. The man turned out to be casing the convenience store for a robbery, his second attempt that month. The police picked him up twenty minutes later.

Bubble Girl patted Manga on the shoulder. "Not bad, intern!"

His bubble drew a tiny detective's magnifying glass as he held his head up with pride.

Majestic's agency occupied the top three floors of an office building in Osaka. The training room took up most of the second floor, a wide open space with padded walls and floating ring-platforms that Majestic used for aerial combat drills.

Setsuna was on a rooftop across the street from a convenience store, watching Majestic handle a villain who had been holding the cashier at knifepoint. Majestic's ring-shaped energy discs floated around the building's perimeter, sealing exits, while he spoke to the villain through the front door.

The situation resolved in four minutes. The villain surrendered. Police moved in. And everything was wrapped up.

On the walk back to the agency, Majestic explained what he'd done and why. How he'd positioned his rings to block escape routes before engaging verbally. How he'd read the villain's posture through the window and determined he was scared, not committed. How that changed the approach from confrontation to conversation.

"The best resolution," he said, "is the one where nobody gets hurt."

Setsuna agreed with it. It wasn’t as fun but still.

They turned into an alley, a shortcut back to the agency, when a shape lunged from behind a dumpster.

A man, wild-eyed, a kitchen knife in his right hand, swinging for Majestic's blindfolded face.

Majestic's ring wasn't fast enough. The attack came from a blind spot, close range, inside the radius of his disc formation.

Setsuna rushed forward.

She caught the man's knife-hand with both of hers, redirected the blade away from Majestic's body, stepped inside his reach, and threw her hip into his center of gravity. The throw took the man off his feet and slammed his back into the concrete. The knife clattered away. She pinned his wrist to the ground with her knee and twisted his arm behind his back.

Majestic stared at the pinned villain, then at Setsuna.

"I apologize," he said. "I should not have let one slip past me."

"It’s cool." She tightened her grip on the man's arm. He screamed. "I can handle one loser with a knife."

She said it casually. Like it was nothing.

Inside her chest, her heart was hammering.

She thought about Manga. About how he trained his body to fight without his quirk. About how he'd won an entire semi-final match with nothing but his fists. About the gravity training and the wrestling and the vocal exercises, all of it built on the same foundation: that the quirk was a tool, not a crutch.

If he could do it, she could do it. She refused to be someone who fell apart the moment her quirk wasn't an option. She refused to be left behind.

To him. To anyone.

Police arrived. The man was taken away. Majestic walked beside her in silence for half a block before speaking.

"Where did you learn that throw?"

"I looked it up online and practiced on a pillow."

He laughed. "You're full of surprises, Tokage-chan."

"Hmph! With who my boyfriend is, I have to be!"

“The sports festival winner, right?” Majestic remembered.

“Yep.” A smile appeared on Setsuna’s face.

That night, every screen in Japan changed.

Manga was in the common area of the Nighteye Agency, water bottle in hand, reviewing his notes from the evening patrol, when the broadcast interrupted.

The chyron: BREAKING — HOSU CITY UNDER ATTACK

Helicopter footage. A city burning. Buildings torn open from the inside, their guts of concrete and steel exposed to the night sky. Smoke columns rising against the dark.

And in the streets, moving through the fire: creatures. Large, humanoid. Exposed muscle. Brain exposed heads. One of them on top of a building, silhouetted against the flames.

Villains.

"... multiple explosions reported... the Hero Killer known as Stain may be involved... heroes engaged across several districts... casualties confirmed..."

Manga set his water bottle down.

Bubble Girl appeared in the doorway, her face pale beneath the blue. Centipeder was behind her, his centipede head tilted toward the screen, mandibles clicking once.

Nighteye came down the stairs. He stopped at the bottom and watched the screen for ten seconds. The orange light of the burning city reflected in his glasses.

"Contact the precinct," he said to Bubble Girl. "Determine if Hosu needs reinforcements from us."

"Yes, sir." She was already moving.

He looked at Manga.

"This is what the world looks like when heroes aren't where they need to be." His voice was quiet. "Remember it."

Manga looked at the screen. The smoke. The creatures. The heroes running through the fire.

Somewhere out there, his classmates were watching this same broadcast. Tetsutetsu at Fourth Kind's agency, steel fists clenched. Kamakiri at Best Jeanist's office, blades twitching. Monoma on a rooftop in Hiroshima, standing next to a woman who was probably already calculating the fastest route to Hosu. Tokage in Osaka, her sharp mind turning the footage into data points and threat assessments.

All of them watching. All of them unable to do anything.

Because they were first-years. Because they didn't have licenses. Because the laws said they were observers, not heroes. Not yet.

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