The PE uniforms were cool.
They filed out of the locker rooms and onto the PE grounds under a nice clear blue sky.
Vlad King was already waiting.
He stood at the center of the field like he’d been looking forward to this all morning. Arms crossed, legs spread, chin up. His hero costume's blood-ejecting gauntlets caught a sliver of sunlight. Two prominent lower canines showed when he spoke.
"Listen up." His voice was deep and loud enough. "Today I find out what all of you are made of. Not what your files say. Not what your entrance exam scores tell me. I want to see it with my own eyes." He swept his gaze across all twenty of them. "You're going to take eight physical tests. Same ones schools have used for years. The difference is you're going to use your quirks." He paused. "Unrestricted."
A ripple moved through the group. Some students straightened. Others shifted their weight.
"In middle school, they chained you down. No quirks during physical tests. No quirks during PE. You've spent your whole lives hearing what you can't do." He cracked his neck. "Today, I want to see what happens when I take those chains off."
He held up a softball. He tossed the ball up and caught it. "Now. Who's ready to show me what Plus Ultra means?"
Tetsutetsu's hand shot up first. Then Kamakiri's. Then most of the class.
Manga put both fists in the air.
Test One: 50-Meter Dash.
Two lanes. A robot timer at the finish line. Students paired up and run side by side.
The first pair was Kaibara and Kodai. Kaibara's Gyrate quirk turned his legs into drills of rotation from the knee down, chewing up the ground as he sprinted. 5.41 seconds. Kodai ran without using her quirk at all, finishing at 7.60, her face entirely neutral about the result.
Kendo and Shiozaki went next. Kendo ran with perfect form, clocking a respectable 5.88. Shiozaki extended her vines behind her and used them as a springing launch from the starting line, sailing forward in a burst before her momentum died and she had to finish on foot. 5.52.
Pony Tsunotori blew the doors off. She detached two horns from her head, balanced on them like skis, and rocketed forward. One of the horns clipped the lane divider and she wobbled for half a second before correcting herself in a flurry of English that nobody in the class understood. 3.79 seconds.
"Holy shit," someone behind Manga said.
Shishida transformed into his Beast form the moment the timer beeped, dropping to all fours and loping across the fifty meters like a freight train made of fur and teeth. The ground shook under him. 3.92 seconds.
Tetsutetsu went full steel and sprinted through the course like a chrome cannonball. Every footstep left a dent in the track. 6.10.
Monoma ran beside Awase and turned in a 6.80 without using anyone's quirk. He didn't look bothered.
Then it was Manga's turn. He was paired with Rin, who crouched at the starting line with scales already rippling across his forearms.
"No hard feelings," Manga said.
Rin glanced at him. Nodded once.
The timer beeped.
"Byuun."
The word left his mouth and the world blurred.
The onomatopoeia spat out of his bubble and he stepped on it like a launchpad, compressed air screaming as it hurled him forward in a single violent streak of speed. The lane markers were smears of white in his peripheral vision. The wind peeled back against his speech bubble hard enough to warp its edges. The robot timer at the end rushed toward him like a wall.
He crossed the finish line before the echo of his voice reached the class.
2.89 seconds.
The timer's mechanical voice read the number twice, as if confirming it for itself.
Rin crossed at 5.62, scales glinting, and looked at the empty lane beside him with something between respect and disbelief.
Manga turned around and walked back to the group. His speech bubble displayed a large, satisfied star.
"That was fast as hell man, nice." Awase said, pulling up something on his phone.
"No phones during class," Vlad King said. But even he wrote something down in his notebook before moving on.
Test Two: Grip Strength.
Handheld devices distributed. Squeeze as hard as you can.
Tetsutetsu went first because he was already vibrating with the need to crush something. Steel form, full activation. His fingers closed around the device and the thing let out a sound it probably wasn't designed to make, a metallic groan that made Komori cover her ears. The display climbed past 400, past 500, and settled at 562 kg.
He held the device up like a trophy. "BEAT THAT!"
Shishida transformed and squeezed. The Beast's hand engulfed the device entirely, claws dimpling the casing. 538 kg. He pushed his glasses up his nose after reverting to human form, looking mildly pleased.
Kendo enlarged one hand and gripped. The device looked like a toy in her palm. 410 kg. She flexed her wrist after and shook it out, wincing slightly.
Manga picked up his device.
Nobi-nobi.
He whispered it, barely a breath. Didn't even open his mouth all the way. The word settled into his muscles like a key turning in a lock. The invisible governors his body kept on its own strength, the limiters that kept tendons from tearing and joints from overextending, loosened. Not gone. Just... given slack.
His grip closed.
The numbers climbed. Past 200. Past 300. Past 400.
His forearm trembled. His fingers whitened. The device's casing groaned.
“PLUS ULTRA!!!” Manga roared.
478 kg.
He let go. The nobi-nobi faded like breath off a mirror, and his hand ached like hell. Well, when you actually go past your 100% it would definitely feel like that… BUT HE DOESN’T REGRET IT!
Third place. Behind Tetsutetsu and Shishida. Ahead of Kendo by nearly seventy kilos.
"Oi!" Tetsutetsu pointed at him, grinning wide enough to show every sharp tooth. "That was YOUR hand? No quirk? Just raw grip?"
A little flexing-arm emoji appeared in Manga's bubble. "Heh, I am the man who will surpass God."
"You're built different, man! Let's arm-wrestle later!"
"You'll lose."
"LIKE HELL I WILL!"
Test Three: Standing Long Jump.
A sandbox laid out with measurement markers. Jump as far as you can. Quirks permitted.
Several students cleared the sandbox outright. Shishida's Beast leap sailed over it with meters to spare. Tsuburaba solidified a platform of air mid-jump and used it as a stepping stone to double his distance. Pony launched herself on her horns and had to be told she'd gone too far and needed to come back.
Manga said "Fuwa-fuwa" as he jumped and floated over the entire sandbox in a gentle arc, landing on the grass past the final marker like the first man on the moon.
Cleared.
He looked back at the sandbox. A question mark appeared in his bubble, like he was confused about why it was so small.
Kamakiri cleared it by stabbing his arm-blades into the ground behind him and using them like pole vaults, launching himself in a way that was half athletics and half stabbing the earth for leverage. He landed in a heap, rolled, came up with dirt on his face, and immediately started yelling about how that counted.
It counted.
Test Four: Repeated Side Steps.
Three lines, side-to-side, as many reps as possible.
This was the test where quirks helped less than people expected. Side-stepping was about agility and coordination, not raw power, and half the quirks in the class were built for hitting things or surviving things rather than shuffling laterally at speed.
Manga did well. His body was compact and his training had given him a solid base, so he racked up a strong count. But he didn't top it.
Kaibara did. His Gyrate quirk let him rotate his core at the hips, and his lower body moved between the lines with a fluidity that was unfair, each side-step blending into the next without the pause that slowed everyone else down. His count was absurd.
"You look like a washing machine," Kamakiri told him.
"A washing machine that beat your score by forty."
"Shut up. Who’d want to top score in that crap anyway."
Monoma, who had quietly touched Kaibara's shoulder before the test, used a copied Gyrate to post the second-highest score. He handed the result to Vlad King with a polite nod.
Several people noticed. Everybody accused him of cheating. Vlad King shouted at them to shut up. He used his quirk fairly just like everyone else.
Test Five: Ball Throw.
The moment Vlad King pulled out the softball, the field got quiet.
Shiozaki cradled the ball in a nest of vines and whipped it forward like a sling, the vines unwinding in a sequence that stacked momentum on top of momentum. The ball sailed. 312 meters. She folded her hands and bowed her head in quiet satisfaction.
Tetsutetsu, in full steel form, wound up like a pitcher and threw the ball with every ounce of his chrome-plated arm. 198 meters. He stared at the number on the device for a long time, clearly feeling that the ball had betrayed him.
"Throwing isn't about strength," Honenuki told him, in the gentle tone of someone delivering a truth to a child. "It's about technique."
"I HAVE TECHNIQUE!"
"You threw it into the ground first."
Kendo enlarged her hand to its maximum size, cradled the ball in a palm the size of a trash can lid, and smacked it. The sheer surface area of her hand plus her throwing mechanics put it at 287 meters.
Tokage Setsuna stepped up to the circle with a grin that was all teeth and no apology.
She tossed the ball into the air, split her right arm off at the shoulder, caught the ball with the detached hand, and launched the arm forward like a guided missile. The hand carried the ball across the sky, flying under her remote control, gaining altitude and distance long after a normal throw would have peaked.
The class watched it go.
And go.
And go.
897 meters.
The number hung on the device screen like a dare. Setsuna's arm floated back to her and reattached with a wet pop, and she flexed her fingers to make sure everything reconnected properly.
"Early bird gets the worm," she said, and winked at Manga.
A few students clapped.
Manga stepped into the throwing circle.
The field was very quiet now.
He held the ball in his right hand and looked at it. Felt its weight.
Setsuna had set the bar at 897.
Most people would think about force right now. Bigger explosion. Harder throw. More power. That was the obvious play, and Manga had nothing against obvious when obvious worked. He could Dokkaan this ball into the next prefecture and his throat would hate him for the rest of the day.
Or.
He looked at the sky. Looked at the ball. A little lightbulb appeared in his speech bubble.
He placed the ball on the ground in front of him. Stepped back. And spoke.
"Kaa-kaa."
The onomatopoeia left his mouth soft and easy, barely a whisper of effort, and the dark letters formed in the air above the ball. They twisted, stretched, folded into themselves, and then they weren't letters anymore.
Words in the shape of a crow sat on the grass next to the softball.
It was jet-black and the size of a real crow, with ink-dark feathers that had the faintest shimmer of kanji visible in their texture. Its eyes were bright and sharp and it tilted its head at the ball the way a real crow would tilt its head at something shiny.
The class stared.
"...Is that a bird?" Tsuburaba said.
The crow hopped forward, clamped the softball in its talons, spread its wings, and took off.
It flew straight up. Fast. Faster than a real crow had any right to fly, because it wasn't a real crow. It was the sound of a crow given form and intent, and the only thing in its tiny onomatopoeia brain was the instruction Manga had given it: go.
The class watched it shrink against the sky. A black dot carrying an orange ball, climbing, climbing, angling away from the field, getting smaller and smaller until it was barely visible.
Then it was gone.
Everyone looked at the device in Vlad King's hand.
The number was still climbing.
It climbed for a while.
2,103 meters.
Nobody spoke.
Vlad King stared at the device. He tapped it once with his thumb, as though checking whether it was broken. Then he looked at Manga.
Manga laughed in good fun. “Looks like early bird really does take the worm.”
Tokage balled her fist in frustration. “This time!” She would concede.
"Not quite, but close enough I’d say." Vlad King chuckled.
A Dokkaan would have gotten a bigger number, sure, but it would have cost him his voice for the rest of the day. The crow cost him almost nothing.
"He didn't even throw it," Awase said, staring at the sky where the crow had disappeared. "He just... made a bird, bro."
"Pretty clever I’d have to say," Kendo said slowly.
Tokage sighed. "I used my whole arm and he beat me with words in the shape of a crow. That's just messed up."
"Kaa-kaa," Manga formed a flying crow in his bubble.
"Don't you 'kaa-kaa' me!"
Monoma stepped into the circle next.
He hadn't touched Manga since the handshake at the entrance exam. He wondered if he still had access to his quirk.
Now Monoma held the ball in one hand and spoke.
"Zudon."
The onomatopoeia formed in the air, smaller than Manga's, rougher at the edges, the proportions slightly off the way a cover version of a song is always slightly off from the original. But it worked. The letters struck the ball and launched it forward with a deep, percussive thud that echoed off the PE building.
623 meters.
"Nice one, Monoma-kun!" Manga said, not upset at all. A thumbs up emoji appeared in his bubble.
"You have an excellent quirk, my friend." Monoma felt a little ashamed.
"You have an excellent brain to think of using my quirk!"
"His vocabulary isn't as deep as yours," Kendo observed from the sideline, arms crossed. "But a Zudon from anyone is still a Zudon, I guess."
"Aren't you upset?" Kamakiri asked Manga, jerking a thumb at Monoma. "He literally stole your quirk."
"Why would I be mad? Who wouldn’t want to emulate the man who’s going to surpass God?"
Many people looked at him as if he was insane.
Test Six: Distance Run.
Long laps. No finish line. Keep going until you can't.
This was an endurance test. No amount of raw power helped you if your lungs gave out and your legs turned to jelly.
Shishida dropped out of Beast form after twelve laps, the transformation burning through his stamina faster than running alone would have. Tetsutetsu's steel form lasted longer, but the weight of it eventually ground him down, and he deactivated at lap six, running the rest on pure willpower and iron-diet conditioning before folding at eight.
Kendo lasted eight laps. Shiozaki lasted fifteen, her vines carried her across the track.
Kaibara lasted eight.
Monoma copied Manga's quirk again and whispered a "Pin-pin" at lap eight when he thought nobody was watching. His stride steadied. His breathing evened. He made it to seventeen laps before the copy expired and his body remembered it was supposed to be exhausted. He sat down on the track with his legs straight out in front of him and his composure entirely intact, as though he had chosen to stop rather than been forced to.
Manga ran.
And ran.
And kept running.
At lap ten, the fatigue hit. His legs burned. His lungs ached. The honest, brutal weight of physical exertion that no quirk could fully erase.
He fell behind the pack. Took a breath. And between one stride and the next, so quietly that the word barely existed outside his own mouth:
"Pin-pin."
The stamina flooded back in like a tide filling a dry harbor. His muscles stopped screaming. His breathing steadied. His stride lengthened. He passed two students who had been ahead of him without accelerating, simply by not slowing down while they did.
He did it again at lap eighteen. And again at twenty-three.
Nobody could see why he wasn't stopping. His body should have quit long ago. He wasn't the biggest, wasn't the most physically gifted, didn't have a mutation that enhanced his cardiovascular system. He was a short kid with a speech bubble for a head who just kept running like the concept of exhaustion was something that happened to other people.
Vlad King called it at lap twenty-seven.
Manga stopped. Bent over. Put his hands on his knees. The sweat was real. The pain in his legs was real. Pin-pin didn't erase the wear on his body, only the fatigue, and twenty-seven laps of a PE track was twenty-seven laps regardless.
But he'd topped it.
The class was sitting on the grass watching him when he walked back. Some looked tired themselves. Some looked like they were reevaluating something.
Pony, still catching her breath from her own run, said something in English that sounded complimentary and slightly rude. Or maybe that was just how English sounded to him.
Test Seven: Seated Toe-Touch.
Sit on the ground, legs straight, reach for your toes. Flexibility measurement.
Manga wasn't naturally flexible. He was small and muscular and his hamstrings had the give of bridge cable.
He reached. His fingers stopped short of his toes by a solid margin. Respectable for a normal student. Not first place.
He held the stretch. His muscles screamed. He let them scream for a while, held it there until the strain peaked, and then respectfully lost. Tokage taking the win for this test for sure. As a girl who can split her body into pieces, flexibility isn’t really something that bothers her.
“Having trouble, Bubble Boy?” Tokage smirked at him.
“Flexibility isn’t my strong suit!” Manga replied.
“I can tell you look stiffer than a board!” Tokage laughed.
An image of a wooden board and a stiff Manga appeared in his bubble, causing others to laugh.
Test Eight: Sit-Ups.
Same principle. Same trick. He ground out sit-ups until his abdominal wall was on fire, then let pin-pin reset the gas tank and kept going. And going. And going.
A few students were watching openly now. Kendo had her chin in her hand. Tokage was counting out loud, though whether she was helping or mocking was unclear from her tone.
Monoma, who had already finished his own set with a respectable count boosted by one last copied pin-pin, sat cross-legged on the grass nearby.
Manga's count climbed past every other student in the class before Vlad King told him to stop.
He stopped. Lay on his back for five seconds, staring at the sky. Then sat up.
A tiny fireworks display went off inside his speech bubble.
Results.
Vlad King stood in front of the class with his notebook open and his expression unreadable. Twenty students in PE uniforms, some still breathing hard, some already recovered, all waiting.
"I'm not going to show you the full rankings." He closed the notebook. "That's for me and the faculty. What I am going to tell you is this."
He looked across the group. Took his time.
"You're strong. All of you. Some of you are raw power. Some of you are versatility. Some of you are clever enough to make a weak quirk look like a strong one." His gaze paused on Monoma for a fraction of a second. "I'm not disappointed. Not in a single one of you."
He tucked the notebook under his arm.
"That said." His eyes found Manga. "Fukidashi."
Manga straightened.
"First overall. And it wasn't close."
A murmur went through the class. Not surprise, exactly. More like confirmation of something they'd all felt building since the 50-meter dash and hadn't wanted to say out loud.
Manga's speech bubble displayed a crown emoji for exactly one second before he replaced it with a thumbs-up.
"Don't let it go to your head," Vlad King said.
"Sensei. It went to my head the day I got my quirk."
Vlad King stared at him. Then he exhaled through his nose, with amusement.
"Alright. Change back into your uniforms. Normal classes after this."
Manga raised his water bottle to soothe his throat. He did use his quirk quite a bit. Vlad King turned and walked toward the faculty building.
The class broke apart slowly. Groups formed. Conversations started.
Tetsutetsu appeared at Manga's shoulder immediately. "Bro. Two thousand meters. With a BIRD. TWO THOUSAND METERS WITH A BIRD."
"Two thousand one hundred and three," Manga corrected.
"That's insane! I put everything I had into my throw and a crow you made with your mouth beat me by like, almost two KILOMETERS!"
"You gotta learn how to throw, man."
"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?"
"It means there’s more to throwing than strength, bro." Manga patted him on the back. The steel was warm from the sun. "You'll get your moment."
Tetsutetsu's indignation fizzled. He scratched the back of his neck, looked away, and muttered something that might have been "thanks" if you listened generously.
Kamakiri fell in on Manga's other side. "Yo. How the hell did you run that many laps? I watched you. You should've been dead at fifteen."
"Clean living."
"Bullshit."
"Cardio."
"Even more bullshit."
A laughing emoji cycled through Manga's bubble. Kamakiri punched his shoulder, not gently, and Manga didn't flinch.
Monoma waited until the crowd thinned before approaching. He fell into step beside Manga with his hands in his pockets, his expression composed, the faintest trace of something thoughtful in his eyes.
"I want to apologize if I offended you," he said.
"You don’t have to apologize man. I really don’t mind you copying my quirk. It’s an awesome quirk.”
"Do you really not mind?" He glanced at Manga.
The speech bubble displayed three dots, cycling. Like a loading screen. Then it cleared.
"It’s cool, man." A thumbs up emoji popped up in his speech bubble.
Monoma held his gaze for a moment. Then he smirked. "Well. I suppose I'll have to study up if I intend to borrow from you again."
"Don’t forget to work on yourself as well. In fact, why don’t you join me to check out the gym after school today?!” Manga swung his arm around Monoma’s shoulder, not caring about his quirk conditions. “Your arms are looking a little squishy to me.” Manga poked Monoma’s arm and it sunk in.
“Uh… I think I have plans?”
“Not anymore! Anyone else wanna check the gym after school today?”
“You know I gotta see what U.A.’s gym looks like!” Tetsutetsu smashed his fist into his palm.
“My local gym probably has nothing compared to U.A.” Kamakiri came over. “It’ll be a bloodbath!”
“This isn’t a boys only hangout is it?” Kendo smiled.
“Of course not! Anyone can come to make their bodies look Plus Ultra!” A bunch of people emojis popped up in Manga’s speech bubble.
“Good. Because don’t think I’ll accept second place for long, Fukidashi-kun!” Tokage promised.
More people eventually heard of their plans and by the time everyone was heading back into the locker rooms, 90% of Class 1-B was going to workout in the gym after school.
Inside the locker room, the noise was good. The sound of twenty kids who had spent a morning pushing themselves to their limits and come out the other side knowing each other a little better for it. Tetsutetsu was arguing with Awase about whether steel or welding would win in a fight. Kamakiri was complaining about the side-step test to anyone who would listen. Kaibara was quietly putting on his blazer, looking satisfied. Rin was doing stretches in the corner. Honenuki was telling Tsuburaba something about the ball throw that involved a lot of hand gestures.
Shishida, back in human form with his glasses perched neatly on his nose, stopped beside Manga on his way out. He was a big guy.
"Congratulations on first place," he said. His voice was low, polite. "Your quirk's applications are extraordinary. I'm incredibly interested in seeing your training regimen after school today."
"Haha, Class 1-B is about to be lit!" A firework popped off inside his speech bubble.
Shishida blinked. "Quite the fascinating anatomy."
"Thanks, man. My mom would say otherwise. Can you imagine having a kid that can create whatever he’s thinking with his head? I was a nightmare." He laughed.
A small, genuine smile formed on his face. "I think we'll get along quite well, Fukidashi-san."
He left. Manga finished changing, straightened his tie, checked his reflection in the small mirror by the door, and walked out into the hallway of U.A. High School as the first-ranked student of Class 1-B's Quirk Apprehension Test.
Manga tucked his water bottle into his bag and headed for the classroom, because normal lessons were after this and the man who would surpass God did not skip class.
…
U.A.'s gym was everything a hero school's gym should be.
The weight room alone was the size of Manga's entire middle school gymnasium. Racks of barbells and dumbbells lined the walls in ascending order, the heaviest ones bolted to reinforced platforms because a student with a strength quirk could hurl a hundred-kilo dumbbell through drywall without thinking about it. Cable machines, squat racks, bench stations, pull-up bars mounted at three different heights to account for the height range between giants and shorties. Mirrors along one wall. Padded flooring that could absorb impact drops. The air smelled like rubber and iron and the faintest trace of whatever industrial cleaner the school used to keep the place from smelling like sweat and hormones.
Manga walked in first and stopped.
A little sparkle emoji cycled through his speech bubble.
"This is insane," Tetsutetsu said behind him, already making a beeline for the squat rack. "They have competition plates! They have CALIBRATED competition plates!"
"Dibs on the bench," Kamakiri said, already stripping off his blazer.
"There's like twelve benches, you don't need to call dibs," Awase said.
"I called it first regardless, unless you wanna fight about it."
They trickled in over the next ten minutes. Kendo arrived with Kodai and Yanagi. Tokage came in already changed into workout clothes, a sports bra and compression shorts that made Kaibara, Tsuburaba, and Kuroiro go very quiet for a moment before pretending they hadn't noticed. Shiozaki entered last, looked around at the weights, and began stretching near the far wall.
Shishida appeared in a plain white t-shirt that was already tight across his shoulders. He walked directly to the dumbbell rack, picked up a pair of forties, and started doing curls with ease.
Monoma lingered near the entrance. He'd changed out of his uniform into workout clothes. He looked at the squat rack where Tetsutetsu was already loading plates and then at his own arms and seemed to arrive at some private conclusion.
Eighteen out of twenty. Manga counted heads. Only Bondo and Shoda had bailed, and Shoda had said something about needing to call his parents.
"Alright!" Manga clapped his hands. The sound echoed off the mirrored wall. "Before everyone gets started."
He walked to the center of the room. Found an open space between the bench area and the squat racks. Took a breath.
"PIN-PIN."
The word came out big. Full voice, full projection, and the onomatopoeia that formed in the air above him was massive. The letters hung over the gym like a banner, each kanji the size of a person's torso, glowing faintly with that vitality warmth that Pin-pin always carried. The effect pulsed outward.
It hit everyone in the room at once.
Tetsutetsu, mid-squat, blinked. "Whoa. I feel like I just woke up from the best nap of my life."
"What the hell?" Kamakiri looked at his hands, then at the floating letters. "I'm not tired anymore. I was dead ten seconds ago."
"That's Pin-pin," Manga said. "Stamina restoration. Doesn't fix injuries, doesn't heal, but if you're fatigued, it's gone. It'll stay active as long as the word's up there."
The class stared at the floating kanji. Kendo reached up and touched the edge of one of the letters. Her finger tapped it, it was solid.
"That's how you ran twenty-seven laps," she said.
Manga shrugged. A mischievous smiling emoji popped up in his bubble.
"Now for round two." He took another breath.
"BARI-BARI."
The second word exploded into existence beside the first. Crackling at the edges, each stroke of the kanji buzzing with the visual equivalent of a live wire. Where Pin-pin was warm, Bari-bari was electric. It hit the room and every person in it felt the difference instantly.
Tokage, who had been doing bodyweight lunges, suddenly found her muscles snapping into each rep like they'd been waiting for permission to actually try. "Okay, what is THIS one?"
"Peak performance," Manga said. "Everything you've got, firing on all cylinders. Your body operates at maximum output while it's active."
Tetsutetsu loaded another twenty kilos onto his squat bar. Sank into the rep. Came up smooth. Looked at the bar like it had lied to him about its weight.
"BRO." He turned around. "How long does this last?!"
"As long as I keep them up. I'll hold them for the session."
"You're telling me we can all train at peak output with no fatigue buildup?"
"Your muscles still take damage from the load. That's the whole point of training, you break the fibers and they rebuild stronger. Pin-pin just means you won't gas out before you've actually pushed yourself. Bari-bari means every rep is your best rep."
"This is badass, Fukidashi."
"Thank you!"
The gym came alive.
It wasn't just training after that. It was eighteen people realizing they could push harder than they'd ever pushed before without hitting the wall that always stopped them. Tetsutetsu squatted weight that made the rack creak. Shishida worked through a dumbbell circuit in his regular form. Kamakiri, who turned out to be deceptively strong for his lean frame, was repping pull-ups with Rin counting beside him. Kendo and Tokage ended up on adjacent bench stations, neither one willing to stop before the other did.
Monoma was on the cables, doing something with a lat pulldown that looked correct in form if modest in weight. He kept glancing at the Bari-bari kanji overhead with something between fascination and envy.
Honenuki was doing leg presses and chatting with Tsuburaba about foot positioning. Pony was using a resistance band around her ankles and doing lateral walks, her hooves clacking on the padded floor with each step. Komori was on a yoga mat doing core work, her mushroom-bob bouncing with each crunch, occasionally glancing up at the floating kanji with wide hidden eyes.
Kuroiro had found a corner to do push-ups in. The corner happened to be near Komori's yoga mat.
Kaibara was at the squat rack next to Tetsutetsu, rotating his core between reps with Gyrate to loosen his hips, and the two of them fell into a rhythm of loading and unloading plates for each other without needing to discuss it.
Shiozaki did not touch a single weight. She spent the entire session stretching, extending her vines to their maximum length, and then slowly pulling them back in. Over and over. The vines grew a little longer each time.
By the time Manga let the words fade an hour and a half later, the gym was full of people who had completely emptied themselves. Bodies draped over benches. Foreheads on knees. Towels over faces.
"Ow," Kamakiri said, from the floor.
"That was..." Tetsutetsu was sitting against the squat rack with his eyes closed. "...the best workout of my life."
"We should do this every day," Kendo said, wiping her face with her forearm.
"I'm down if everyone else is," Manga said.
Nobody audibly objected.
The walk back to the locker rooms was slow and full of the kind of boneless, satisfied silence that came after good, hard work. The sun was low. The campus was mostly empty, the other departments long gone for the day.