Chapter 57: Teaching Moment.
『"In learning you will teach and in teaching you will learn..."』
In a specialized gym facility designed to withstand superhuman punishment, Björn J. Sigurd II was putting Raj through what he enthusiastically called "weight training."
The floor was already cracked in several places from their previous exercises, and Raj was seen with both hands on his knees, breathing hard.
"Your breastplate grants you strength, yes?" Björn said, his Spirit Weapon resting on the ground between them. "That is a fine gift. However, strength alone does not make a warrior mighty." He touched his weapon almost tenderly.
While the ball itself didn’t move, the floor beneath it suddenly fractured outward in a perfect circle, maybe ten feet in diameter.
"I just made Aurvandill here weigh fifty thousand pounds," Björn said casually. "Twenty-five tons, easy right?"
"Please, I eat that for breakfast," Raj said with a smug grin plastered on his face.
"Now imagine," Björn’s grin widened, "I throw this at your face with a bit of my considerable might. Aurvandill approaches you now at mach 10. How do you stop it?"
Raj studied the cracked floor, the immense ball, then looked back at Björn. "I catch it?"
"And that’s where you’re wrong!" Björn threw his head back and laughed. "You die! Crushed like an insect."
Raj winced and Björn continued. "Because momentum my large friend, is weight times velocity. I just maximized the weight variable. So..." He leaned forward. "...try again. How do you actually stop it?"
Raj thought for a moment. It felt like he had been on the other side of this equation with someone else. "I shift its path. Let the force carry past me instead of trying to absorb it."
For a moment, Björn simply stared. Then his mouth split into a delighted grin. "There it is!" He clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make Raj stagger, nearly dislocating it.
"Now you are thinking like a warrior," Björn said. "That is the secret, my large friend! Power is not about being strongest. And sometimes it’s also not about calculations." He gestured to his head.
Then he paused for a moment and stepped closer. "Sometimes, it’s just all about this—" he touched Raj’s fist. "And this—" he pointed at his chest. "When the moment comes, you know."
"I have to admit," Raj said, rubbing his shoulder, "I didn’t peg you for a math kind of guy."
"Ha, ha, ha!" Björn’s laugh could probably be heard in the next building. "The son of Sigurd knows many things!"
He hefted Aurvandill with one hand. "Now come! Let us test your new wisdom and see how you handle fifty tons of weight coming at your handsome face at mach 25!"
"This is going to suck," Raj muttered.
"Indeed!" Björn agreed cheerfully. "But suffering builds character and pain is the greatest teacher, yes?"
"That sounds like what my mom says." Raj’s shoulder sagged.
"Your mother sounds wise! I would like to meet her someday!" The wrecking ball began to swing, and Raj readied himself.
***
Meanwhile, in a private training room designed to handle Dante’s sonic attacks, Dante and Ethan faced each other across an empty space.
"Your shields are good," Dante said, his guitar already in hand. "Really good. But they’re reactive. And you need to start thinking like a Tyrant."
He played a chord, and the sound rippled through the air like a physical wave. The wave hit Ethan’s hastily formed shield and shattered it like glass.
"What—" Ethan’s eyes widened a bit.
"Everything has a frequency," Dante explained, adjusting one of Requiem’s strings. "And my beautiful companion here," he gestured to his spirit weapon, "can adjust to match those frequencies. Which means my attacks adapt to whatever defense you throw up."
"I get it." Ethan’s eyes narrowed with understanding.
"Do you?" Dante asked. "Because the fact that your shield broke means you’re still limiting yourself to frequencies."
"Heat. Cold. Radiation. Sound. Light. Matter. Energy. Thought. Temporal distortions." He counted them off on his fingers. "You need to expand your definition of ’protection’, that’s the whole point."
"Yeah..." Ethan muttered.
"So let’s try that again." Dante lifted Requiem and pointed at him. "You will be overwhelmed by some tough forces out there. Some much more powerful than you can fathom. But as the shield... that shouldn’t matter."
"Hmm," Ethan grunted.
"I know, I know. I’m an arsehole." Dante played another chord, and this time Ethan felt the sound trying to bypass his shield, seeking frequencies his defense wasn’t covering.
"Again," Dante said, already preparing the next attack. "This time, try to remember, it’s all tied to your belief. You can’t stop what you believe you can’t stop."
***
On the other side of the Institute, Amara and Meredith walked away from the garden where they’d finished their sparring session.
Amara’s heart was still racing from the adrenaline rush. Meredith had been relentless. With the ground against her, every step was a potential trap and every moment required absolute focus.
Her calves still trembled from compensating against Meredith’s shifting terrain, and sweat clung coldly to the back of her neck. It had been exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.
As they turned the corner into a wider corridor, Amara stopped short. Sophia sat in the middle of the room, legs crossed in a meditation pose with both eyes closed.
She looked completely calm. Which was a rare sight that made Amara blink in surprise. Her breathing was slow and her posture was perfectly balanced.
Next to her, sat Yelena in an equally still identical meditative position.
The air around them felt charged and Amara watched as Sophia began to rise. Something she had never been able to do before.
She lifted off the ground inch by inch, her crossed legs never uncrossing, her breathing never changing. Up she went, slowly and steadily, until she was suspended a full foot above the floor.
"She looks so different," Amara murmured to herself with a smile.
Beside her, Meredith also looked just as surprised. "I didn’t expect to see that."
Amara turned to face her. "What, Sophia levitating?"
"Yelena meditating." Meredith shook her head slightly. "You know she once told me, and I quote—" Meredith tried to say it exactly as Yelena did. "—Meditating with another person is like asking for back to get stabbed."
Amara looked back at the pair. And for some reason, that made the moment feel even more significant.
They watched in silence for another moment before quietly moving on, not wanting to disturb the meditation.
***
Several miles away from the Sun branch, on the rooftop of a tower building in the surrounding wilderness, Hiro sat with his legs dangling over the edge.
Ishigami had brought them here without explanation, just a quiet "Follow me" and a blur of movement through the forest.
The view was actually quite beautiful in the afternoon light. The sky painted in shades of blue that reminded him why he’d chosen to become an engineer instead of an artist. He could never capture something like this.
Why he had brought them out this far, Hiro had no idea. But the silence was starting to get uncomfortable.
"You’re a Tyrant like the rest of them?" Hiro asked.
"If you say so," Ishigami said as he leaned down and picked up a stone.
Hiro raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean if I say—" He rubbed his face with his hand and sighed.
Once again, an awkward silence returned.
"So..." Hiro said after several excruciating long seconds, making an attempt to fill it again. "...you really can’t laugh anymore?"
"Correct." Ishigami sat beside him, equally still, equally melancholic. "The Joker took my laughter. In exchange, I received mastery over all strings."
"Was it?" Hiro asked. "Worth it, I mean?"
Ishigami was quiet for a long moment. The wind picked up, ruffling his dark hair across his face. He didn’t bother to brush it away.
"I don’t know anymore," he finally said, his voice as flat as ever. "At the time, I was desperate. Dying, actually. Bleeding out in an alley after a fight went wrong."
"Duuude," Hiro said. "It’s always an alley."
"I know right?" Ishigami sighed. "Anyways, that was when I awakened. The Joker appeared not longer after and offered me survival in exchange for something I didn’t think mattered."
He paused, staring out at the horizon. "’Who needs laughter when you can have power?’ I thought. Seemed obvious."
"But?" Hiro prompted gently.
"But it turns out laughter meant more than I realized. The only emotion I am able to process is sadness." His expression didn’t change. "The rest are all gone. Now I just... exist. Fight. Survive. But I don’t enjoy any of it. Can’t enjoy it."
Hiro felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. "That really sucks, man."
"You could say that." Ishigami turned to look at him, dark eyes meeting Hiro’s. "But it makes me very good at what I do. No hesitation. No second-guessing."
"That’s..." Hiro searched for the right word. "Depressing as hell?"
"That’s life," Ishigami agreed.
They sat in silence for another moment. Then Ishigami stood and spoke again. "Tell me a joke."
Hiro blinked. "What?"
"If I am to train you in siphoning kinetic energy and controlling friction better, I would like to hear a few jokes." He placed one arm across his chest and hooked the opposite side of his elbow over it in a cross body stretch.
"That’s possible?" Hiro stood up.
Ishigami stopped stretching, then flung the stone that was still in his hand toward the horizon. "If you don’t want to obliterate your surroundings or anyone you touch while operating at full speed, it will be necessary."
Hiro cracked his neck, bouncing on his feet in anticipation. "Ooh, can I call you sensei?"
"No."
"Yoda?"
"How bout you just tell me a joke instead," Ishigami said.
Hiro stared at him for a moment, then slowly grinned. "Okay." He cleared his throat dramatically.
"Why don’t skeletons fight each other?"
"Why?" Ishigami asked and waited.
"Because they don’t have the guts," Hiro answered.
With that came a moment of silence as breeze swept across the rooftop. Then Ishigami nodded thoughtfully and repeated with a small smile. "They don’t have the guts."
Hiro burst out laughing. "Yeah, this is gonna be weird."
Comments