The whisper from the sealed hangar haunted him.
It was a sub-aural hum, a vibration in the marrow of his bones that the sterile academy air couldn't mask. For three days, through grueling endurance runs, advanced simulator drills on moving platforms, and tactical lectures on Warhammer 40k Tyranid swarm patterns, the pull remained—a psychic north needle stuck on a forbidden pole.
His performance was flawless, which only deepened the scrutiny. During a high-G centrifuge test designed to simulate Jaeger maneuvering stress, while other recruits groaned or blacked out, Ryosuke simply sat, his Infinity barrier subconsciously stabilizing the fluid in his inner ears. The medics recorded a "biologically implausible" stress tolerance.
Sergeant Kova's critiques grew sharper, her praise more sparse. She was sanding down his edges, and he understood why. A weapon too sharp cuts its wielder.
[Progress Summary: Physical aptitudes at peak human parameters. Neural synchronization baseline stabilized at 45% with generic interfaces. Limitless fine-control exercises show 300% improvement.]
[Note: Growth rate is attracting institutional attention. Agent Silas observed training session 4-C from remote feed.]
The System's reports were his only constant. It cared not for politics, only for the cold ascent of numbers.
On the fourth day, the curriculum shifted: Awakening Integration & Synergistic Theory. The instructor was not a soldier, but a Federation scientist, Dr. Aris Thorne—a slender man with eyes magnified behind thick glasses, his lab coat adorned with pins from a dozen universes (a lightsaber, a Straw Hat, an Ultramarines icon).
"Power is not unique," Dr. Thorne began, his voice a dry rustle of data. "What is unique is context. A plasma bolt and a Kamehameha wave both release concentrated photons. The Force and a Jinchuriki's Chakra both manipulate life energy. Your awakenings are new dialects in an old, cosmic language."
He brought up holograms. A Star Wars Jedi Knight, her Force Push amplified through her mech's repulsor arrays, creating a tidal wave of force. A Marine from the One Piece contingent, his Armament Haki hardening his mech's fists to invulnerable black steel for a split-second punch.
"The principle is Sympathetic Resonance," Thorne explained. "Your internal energy—whatever you call it—vibrates. The Jaeger's power core, its neural framework, also vibrates. When these frequencies are brought into harmony through synchronization, they don't just add together. They multiply."
Ryosuke listened, the Six Eyes analyzing the energy patterns in the holograms. He could see the resonant frequencies, the points of harmonic convergence. It was like watching the intricate inner workings of a cosmic clock.
"Your first integration exercise will be simple," Thorne said. "Pair with a standard neural stimulator and attempt to channel a minuscule, non-destructive aspect of your power through it. The goal is not effect, but feedback. To feel the circuit complete."
They were led to individual isolation booths. Inside was a chair and a simple device: a dull metal sphere on a pedestal, connected to a neural crown.
"Sit. Connect. The sphere is a resonant receiver. Attempt to make it… glow. Or hum. Or vibrate. Anything."
Ryosuke sat. The crown descended. He connected to the sphere's simple machine-mind. It felt like holding a dead lightbulb.
He considered his powers. The Infinity barrier was defensive, intractable. Blue's attraction or Red's repulsion were too violent. But there was a foundational layer to it all—the raw, neutral Cursed Energy itself. The fuel.
He closed his eyes. Instead of shaping it, he simply let a trickle flow from his core, down the neural link, into the sphere. He imagined it not as an attack, but as a breath.
The sphere in front of him remained inert.
Then, through the Six Eyes' perception of energy, he saw it. His Cursed Energy was entering the device, but it wasn't resonating. It was… rejecting the medium. The sphere's fundamental frequency was incompatible. It was like trying to power an AC device with DC current.
He needed a translator. A converter.
Unconsciously, he reached for the concept behind his power—not the energy, but the underlying principle of limitless potential, of spatial dominion. He imprinted that abstract, primordial concept onto the trickle of energy.
The sphere didn't glow.
It vanished.
Not exploded. Not disintegrated. One moment it was there, a foot in front of him. The next, it was gone. The pedestal was empty. The neural link reported a catastrophic loss of signal.
A calm alarm sounded. The booth door hissed open. Dr. Thorne stood there, his magnified eyes wide, his data-slate trembling. "What… what did you do?"
"I tried to resonate," Ryosuke said, genuinely perplexed. "It didn't work. So I tried to… share the concept instead of the energy."
"The concept?" Thorne rushed to the pedestal, running scanners over it. "No debris. No energy residue. No spatial tear signature. It's as if it was… conceptually deleted from this coordinate set." He looked at Ryosuke with a mixture of terror and ravenous curiosity. "Your power doesn't play by the rules of sympathetic resonance. It seems to rewrite the rules of the stage. This is… this is primordial-tier interaction. The kind we see with relics, not people."
The incident was logged, classified, and Ryosuke was told not to discuss it. But the rumor, as rumors do, slithered through the academy's vents. Tanaka didn't make the sphere glow. He made it cease to exist.
The looks changed again. The awe was now tinged with a primal fear. Even Varg avoided his gaze.
That night, the pull from the sealed hangar was a physical ache.
He found himself walking the empty, polished corridors long after curfew, his footsteps silent. He wasn't breaking rules; he was just… pulled. The security drones ignored him—a green clearance code from an unknown source blinking on their scans momentarily, courtesy of a silent flicker from his System.
[Override: Temporary clearance granted for proximity assessment. Source: Legacy Signature Handshake.]
He stood before the immense hangar doors. The humming was a song now, a deep, basso melody of ancient metal and slumbering fury. He placed a palm on the cold alloy.
KNOW ME.
The voice was not sound. It was a direct synaptic imprint, vast and lonely.
[Direct Neural Interrogative Received. Source: Designation: KURORIN CORE (Dormant).]
[Query: Identity?]
Ryosuke thought back, pouring his will into the mental channel. Ryosuke Tanaka. Pilot.
A wave of data, old beyond measure, washed over him. Not images, but sensations. The taste of void-cold metal. The song of blades cutting through dimensional fabric. The weariness of an entity that had slept through the death of universes.
[Assessment: Bloodline echo confirmed. Synchronization potential: 1000%. Current physical vessel insufficient. Await maturation. Await… the call to war.]
Then, as quickly as it came, the connection severed. The hangar was just a door again. The humming faded to a faint, persistent buzz.
But something had changed. His System screen had a new, pulsing line.
[Legacy Mech Bond Initiated: Kurokaze (Sealed).]
[Current Sync: 0.1% (Passive Resonance Only).]
[Unlock Conditions: Victory in Planetary Interschool Competition. Physical augmentation to Tier-4 durability. Synchronization with a Mortal-class Jaeger exceeding 80%.]
[Warning: Premature full bond may result in host consciousness dissolution.]
He had a mech. Not a machine. A partner. And it was waiting for him to become strong enough to wield it.
---
The next morning, the academy buzz was about something else: the announcement of the Terra Prime Interschool Preliminary Rounds. In three months, the academy would select its top twenty cadets to compete in the planetary championship. The prize for the winning team: choice of next-generation Jaeger assignment and a recommendation for the Federation's multiversal exchange program.
It was the path. The first official step toward the growth-type mech the System had foretold.
Training intensified into a brutal crucible. Squad drills were replaced by free-for-all war games in the holographic arenas. All awakenings were now authorized for offensive use.
In one such session, Ryosuke's squad—Kappa—was pitted against two others in a ruined cityscape simulation. The objective: capture and hold a central broadcast tower.
Chen zipped ahead as scout. "Two squads converging! Alpha squad has a guy with earth manipulation! Beta has an energy-shielder!"
"New plan," Ryosuke said, his mind calculating vectors through the Six Eyes. "Sera, on my mark, you superheat the air above the tower's plaza. Create a thermal updraft. Aris, you use your telekinesis on the dust and debris. Make a localized storm. Chen, you harass the shielder, keep him distracted."
"What are you going to do?" Sera asked.
"I'm going to use your storm."
They moved. Sera, her control improving daily, focused. The air over the plaza shimmered, then roared with convecting heat. Aris, straining, lifted chunks of rubble and swirled them into the rising column.
From the opposing squads' perspective, a sudden, blinding dust devil erupted around the tower, howling with contained heat.
Ryosuke stood at the edge of the maelstrom. He focused his Limitless. Not as a barrier, but as a lens. He bent the swirling light, the refracting dust, the shimmering heat.
To the outside, the storm seemed to solidify into a whirling wall of impossible, fractal geometry—a kaleidoscopic maze that hurt to look at.
[Limitless Application: Mirage Fortress. A defensive illusion via spatial/refractive manipulation.]
The enemy squads, confused, fired into the storm. Their shots went wild, bent by the distorted space. They tried to charge in, but became disoriented, stumbling in circles.
Kappa team walked through the calm eye of the storm Ryosuke had created and captured the tower unopposed.
Sergeant Kova's review was terse. "Unconventional. Effective. Exploits environmental factors and enemy psychology. Tanaka, you're not just using your power. You're using the battlefield. That is command-grade thinking."
But the victory tasted faintly of ash. He was using his friends as components in a machine of his own design. He saw the strain on Aris's face, the flicker of doubt in Sera's eyes when she looked at the terrifying storm she'd helped create. He was leading, but was he connecting?
The answer came from an unexpected source. After the match, as they were hydrating, Varg approached. Not with his usual bluster, but with a stiff, awkward tension.
"Tanaka."
Ryosuke looked up. "Varg."
"That trick with the light. Could you…" He scowled, struggling with the words. "Could you do something like that to mask a charge? My enhancement is good for a straight-line rush, but I get lit up on the approach."
It was a tactical question. An admission of a weakness. A request for help from the strongest.
Ryosuke studied him. The bluster was armor for a simple, brutal honesty. Varg wanted to be useful. To be a better weapon.
"Maybe," Ryosuke said. "It would depend on your sync with the effect. Your energy is brute force. My spatial manipulation is precise. Getting them to harmonize… it would take practice."
Varg nodded once, a sharp jerk of his chin. "I have time." He turned and walked away.
It was a start.
That evening, Agent Silas found him again, this time in the cadet lounge. He didn't sit.
"The preliminary competition lists are being drawn up," Silas said quietly, pretending to examine a bulletin about Naruto-sector tree-walking techniques. "Your name is on it. Commandant Idris insisted. There are… voices on the selection committee who argue you're an unknown variable. That pitting you against other Federation-affiliated schools is a risk. That you might do something that can't be explained."
"And the other voices?" Ryosuke asked, sipping a bland nutrient shake.
"The other voices wonder what you'll do when you're truly challenged. They want to see the shape of your limit." Silas's eyes met his. "The hangar you've been… visiting. The one with the old things. There's a file on it. Classification: Enochian Black. It's not just a storage unit. It's a vault. And your biometric signature triggered a layer-7 alert when you touched the door."
Ryosuke's blood went cold, but his expression remained lazily neutral. "I was curious."
"Curiosity is a luxury you may not be able to afford," Silas said. "Those machines… they're not tools. They're legacies. Some say they're alive. Some say they're curses. Winning that competition might grant you access to a next-generation Jaeger. But it might also bring you to the attention of those who hold the keys to the vaults. Choose your path carefully, Recruit. Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed."
He melted back into the crowd of cadets.
Ryosuke sat alone, the chatter of the lounge fading to a distant hum. The path was forking. The academy was the proving ground. The competition was the gate. And beyond it lay two futures: one as a prized pilot of a modern Federation mech, the other as the pilot of something ancient, black, and singing in his blood.
His System flashed, its blue text decisive in his vision.
[Primary Objective Updated: Win Terra Prime Interschool Preliminary. Access to Growth-Type Mech is critical for progression.]
[Secondary Objective: Increase host durability to Tier-4. Commence intensive physical conditioning.]
[Note: Legacy Mech 'Kurokaze' represents an exponential power increase but carries commensurate risk. Recommendation: Secure standard Mech first to develop necessary piloting foundation.]
The machine-logic was sound. But as he left the lounge, the phantom sensation of twin katana hilts fit perfectly in his hands, and the mournful, hungry whisper of the Kurorin Core echoed in the silent places of his mind.
He had a goal. He had a team, however fledgling. And he had a secret waiting in a vault.
The climb continued, but the summit was no longer just a rank or a badge. It was a black door, and the thing behind it knew his name.