God of Heroics: Comicman!

Two weeks was nothing and everything at the same time.

The morning gravity sessions continued. Twenty bodies in the gym at 6 AM, Zusshiri overhead, the room heavy with twice-normal gravity and the sound of teenagers suffering in productive ways. The newcomers caught up faster than Manga expected. By the end of the first week, Awase could do a full set of push-ups under 2x without his arms shaking. By the middle of the second week, Pony was doing lateral walks on her hooves under gravity that should have had her face-down on the mats.

The original crew had adapted further. Tetsutetsu was squatting numbers that made the rack creak. Shishida's regular-form strength under 2x was approaching what some students could do under normal gravity in Beast form. Kendo's enlarged fists moved through the heavy air like she'd been born in it.

But the group training was only half the picture.

Everyone had something they were doing on their own. At home, behind closed doors, in private gyms and empty parks after school. Secret weapons being forged for the festival that their classmates wouldn't see until it mattered.

Manga had three.

…

The first was gravity.

In the gym, with the class, it was 2x. At home, alone in his room with the door locked and his parents downstairs watching TV, it was 2.5x.

"Zusshiri."

The kanji formed above his bedroom and the world pressed down. Not doubled. Two and a half times normal gravity. The difference between 2x and 2.5x didn't sound like much, but it felt like strapping a second person to your back while the first one was still there.

He did push-ups. Slow, grinding, his arms shaking from the first rep. Sit-ups that felt like each one was pulling his spine into the floor. Squats where his knees screamed and his vision tunneled. Twenty minutes. Every night. Then he'd release the Zusshiri and lie on his floor and stare at the ceiling while his body tried to remember what normal gravity felt like.

The second was vocal training.

He sat at his desk with the software running on his monitor, headphones on, and practiced. Breathing exercises. Diaphragm work. Resonance drills. Projecting from his core instead of his throat. Finding the balance between volume and strain, because the Sports Festival would require him to use his quirk at full output for sustained periods, and if his voice gave out halfway through, it was over.

He ran scales. He ran tongue twisters. He whispered words at minimal volume and checked whether the onomatopoeia still formed. They did, smaller and weaker, but they formed. Good. That meant he could whisper a Pin-pin to himself without anyone noticing. It meant he had options even when his throat was burning.

The third was wrestling.

This one was new. He'd found a local wrestling dojo three train stops from his house and signed up for a two-week intensive. The instructor, a retired pro hero who'd specialized in grappling villains, had looked at Manga's speech bubble head and his compact frame and said "you'll do fine, kid, you've got a low center of gravity."

He was right. Manga took to wrestling like a fish in water. Maximum effort and all grit. The throws came naturally to someone his height because his hips were already below most opponents'. The takedowns played to his strength-to-weight ratio, which, after months of gravity training, was absurd. And the ground control gave him something he'd been missing: a close-combat option that didn't require his voice.

If someone got inside his range and his throat was raw, he needed hands that could fight. Wrestling gave him that.

By the end of the two weeks, he could shoot a double-leg takedown on the instructor's assistant (a man twice his size) and pin him in under four seconds.

The morning of the festival, the sky was clear and the air tasted like fireworks.

The U.A. campus was transformed. Crowds streamed through the gates in rivers of noise and color. Families, hero fans, media crews with shoulder-mounted cameras, food vendors hawking festival snacks from wheeled carts. Fireworks cracked overhead in broad daylight, bursts of red and gold against the blue, because U.A. didn't do anything small.

Pro heroes were everywhere. Some for security, posted at intervals along the perimeter with the studied casualness of people who were very much on duty. Some as audience members, recognizable faces in civilian clothes or half-costumes, here to watch the next generation and decide if any of them were worth investing in.

The stands were already filling. Hundreds of thousands watching live. Millions more on every screen in Japan.

And everyone, everyone, was talking about Class 1-A.

"The class that survived the villain attack!"

"I heard one of them fought alongside All Might!"

"Which one is the kid with the explosion?"

"Is it true that All Might teaches them personally?"

Class 1-B heard it all on the walk from the locker rooms to the waiting area. Every conversation in the hallway. Every snippet from the crowd filtering through the walls. Class 1-A, Class 1-A, Class 1-A.

Nobody was talking about 1-B.

In the waiting room, twenty students in PE uniforms sat, stood, paced, and tried to not be nervous.

No costumes. PE uniforms only, to keep the playing field even. Manga missed his cobalt blue jacket. But the uniform would do.

"I'm going to crush the events," Tetsutetsu declared, shadowboxing in the corner. "Whatever they throw at us, I'm punching through it."

"You say that about everything," Kamakiri said from his seat, legs crossed, blades retracted.

"Like you say you’ll slice everything to bits?!"

“I will…” Kamakiri’s defense was weak.

"I'll outperform everyone." Kaibara said quietly. "Watch me."

"Big talk from the washing machine," Kamakiri shot back.

"A washing machine that'll spin you into the ground."

"I don't care what event it is," Rin said. "I'm showing every agency in that stadium what I can do."

"Same," Awase cracked his knuckles. "Time to show them what Weld is all about."

"I'm going to scout the competition," Honenuki said from behind his hands, which were pressed together in front of his face. "First event is recon. Second event is showtime."

Monoma sat in the corner with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Thinking. Planning.

Shiozaki had her hands folded in prayer. Kuroiro was leaning against the darkest wall in the room, looking appropriately dramatic. Komori was fidgeting with the hem of her PE shirt. Kodai sat perfectly still. Yanagi's hands dangled at her sides. Bondo hummed something to himself that vibrated the bench he was sitting on.

Pony was bouncing on her hooves. Tsuburaba was cracking his knuckles. Shoda was jotting something on a tiny notebook.

"Hey, Fukidashi."

Tokage's voice cut through the room's noise. She was standing near the door, arms crossed, green eyes sharp.

"I'm beating you today."

Tokage had that confidence.

"You can try," Manga said. A little flame emoji appeared in his bubble.

"I'm not trying. I'm doing it." She held his gaze. "Remember our bet?"

"I remember."

"Good. Don't forget it when I'm standing above you on the podium."

A few people whistled. Kamakiri muttered "damn" under his breath. Tetsutetsu looked between the two of them like he was watching a tennis match.

Manga's bubble displayed a grin. "I'll be looking forward to it, Tokage."

Nobody else challenged him directly. They were confident in how far they'd come, two weeks of gravity training and their own secret training had made all of them stronger, but confident enough to say "I'll beat Fukidashi Manga" out loud? In front of everyone? Nobody wanted to jinx themselves.

However, the events were random. The challenges unknown. Manga's quirk was versatile beyond belief, but was there a scenario that didn't favor him? It was certainly possible. And everyone was thinking it. Even Manga himself.

Kendo stood up.

She walked to the front of the room. Enlarged her fists once to clap and grab everyone’s attention before she let them shrink back.

"Alright." Her voice carried the way a class president's should. "Listen up."

Nineteen faces turned.

"I know what you're all thinking. I can see it. Class 1-A got the spotlight. They survived a villain attack. The crowd's here for them. The media's here for them. The pros in the stands are looking at them first."

She paused.

"Good. Let them look. Let every camera point at 1-A. Let every commentator talk about them. Because when we walk out there and show them what Class 1-B can do, they won't be able to look away."

Her voice rose.

"We've trained every morning for weeks. We've pushed ourselves under gravity that would put normal students on the floor. We've done rescue training, battle trials, and individual work that nobody in this school knows about. We are not the backup class. We are not the other hero students. We are Class 1-B, and today, Japan is going to learn our names."

She looked across the room.

"So forget about 1-A. Forget about the cameras. Forget about everything except the person standing next to you and the training you've put in. Go out there, give it everything, and when it's over, make sure nobody in that stadium can say they don't know who we are."

Silence.

Then Tetsutetsu slammed both fists together so hard the room shook. "PLUS ULTRA!"

“PLUS ULTRA!!!”

The room erupted. Fists in the air. Voices overlapping. Kamakiri was grinning with his blades clashing together. Monoma was the loudest with his cheers about defeating Class 1-A. Shishida clapped politely with a grin on his face. Pony stomped her hooves. Bondo's face-holes glowed.

Manga leaped from his seat while clapping. His bubble displayed a single word:

President!

She caught it. Smiled. Then turned to the door.

"Let's go, Class 1-B."

The tunnel opened into the stadium and the world screamed.

The roar hit them like a physical force. Hundreds of thousands of voices merging into a wall of sound that vibrated in the chest and rang in the ears. The stadium was an ocean of faces, banners, flashing phone screens, and colored lights. The sky above was crossed with firework trails and camera drones. Present Mic's voice boomed from speakers the size of cars.

"AND HERE THEY ARE, FOLKS! THE HERO COURSE, CLASS 1-B!!"

The applause was huge but it wasn't the applause 1-A had gotten. Every student in 1-B heard the difference. The volume was a notch lower. The screams a touch less frantic. The crowd was excited, but they weren't excited for them specifically.

They were the other class.

"Lot of people…" Shoda said quietly, his face pale.

"Can everyone even see us from up there?" Komori whispered, shrinking behind Shishida.

"Stand up straight," Kendo murmured. "They're watching."

"I think I'm going to throw up," Tsuburaba said.

"If you throw up on me, I'm cutting you." Kamakiri threatened

Manga walked at the front of the group. His speech bubble was bright and steady, displaying a sun emoji that radiated calm. He looked up at the stands, at the ocean of faces, at the cameras, at the pro heroes in the VIP sections.

Then he looked across the field at Class 1-A, already assembled. Strong class. No doubt about it.

But so was his.

"Now, now, listen up!" Midnight cracked her whip against the stage and the stadium focused. She stood at the center podium in her hero costume, which several students from the general department were staring at with expressions that ranged from admiration to confusion.

"Wait, did you say eighteen-plus only hero?" someone from Class 1-C called out. "Even though this is a high school? Is that really okay?"

"Silence! My appearance here is perfectly fine!" Midnight cleared her throat. "Now then. For the player representative, we have the student who placed first in this year's heroics entrance examination: Fukidashi Manga of Class 1-B!"

A murmur rippled through the stadium.

"First in the entrance exam? That little guy?"

"He's from 1-B, not 1-A?"

"What's his quirk?"

"What's wrong with his head?"

From across the field, Manga felt a specific pair of eyes burning into him. He glanced over. Bakugo Katsuki, the kid who'd placed second in the entrance exam, was glaring at him.

Manga walked to the podium. He was one of the shortest people on the field by a visible margin and the podium mic was set for someone a foot taller. He adjusted it downward without embarrassment.

The stadium waited.

"My name is Fukidashi Manga." His voice carried across the speakers, clear and steady. "Class 1-B. And I am the man who will surpass God."

The stadium went very, very quiet.

Then, slowly, a wave of reactions rolled through the crowd like weather. Confused murmuring. A few laughs. Several gasps. Somewhere in the stands, a man in a priest's collar put his head in his hands.

Manga continued before the noise could swallow him.

"I'm looking forward to seeing every student here give it their absolute best today. Every class, every course, every department. This is U.A.'s Sports Festival, and the whole world is watching." He paused. "So let's show them what Plus Ultra really means! Let's show them what U.A. produces from its students! PLUS ULTRA!"

“PLUS ULTRA!” The crowd shouted back

He stepped back from the mic.

The applause that followed was mixed. Some people clapped hard. Some people sat in stunned silence. Some people were already posting clips of the "surpass God" line on social media.

In the 1-B section, reactions varied.

"That went... better than I thought it would?" Kendo said, her face partially hidden behind her hand.

"He actually pulled it off," Tokage admitted, arms crossed, a grudging smile on her face.

"I'm praying for him," Shiozaki whispered, hands folded.

"When is she NOT praying for him," Kamakiri muttered.

Tetsutetsu was clapping so hard his palms were denting each other. "THAT'S MY BRO!"

"Thank you, Fukidashi!" Midnight retook the mic. "Now then! Let me introduce the first event of the Sports Festival!"

The screen behind her lit up. A graphic spun and resolved into text.

OBSTACLE RACE

"A race between all first-year classes! The course makes a nearly four-kilometer ring around this stadium! You're free to use your quirks however you like, as long as you remain within the course! The top forty-two finishers advance to the second round!"

The starting gate appeared at the mouth of a narrow corridor. All eleven classes funneled toward it. Hundreds of students pressed together in a mass of bodies, PE uniforms, and nervous energy, all aimed at a gap barely wide enough for ten people side by side.

Class 1-B found their positions. Manga was near the middle of the pack, Tetsutetsu and Kamakiri flanking him. Kendo was a few rows back with Tokage. Monoma had positioned himself near the outer edge.

The starting light changed colors.

Red.

Yellow.

"STAAAAAAAAAART!"

Green.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!