The fallout from the Void-Leviathan exercise was immediate and twofold. First, Ryosuke's neural load metrics and the "Nebula Cloak" tactical data were flagged for immediate review by the Federation Advanced Weapons Research Division (AWRD). Second, his name was formally entered into the roster for the Terra Prime Interschool Planetary Championship as the anchor for Jaeger Academy's premier team.
He was no longer just a promising cadet. He was a prototype.
The training intensified beyond all reason. Sergeant Kova, under direct orders from Commandant Idris, designed a regimen that seemed less like preparation and more like ritualized torture. It wasn't about breaking him; it was about forging something unbreakable.
They called it Fractal Training.
The concept was simple and brutal. A training mech—a stripped-down TS-10—would be placed in a holographic arena. The simulation would generate threats, but not sequentially. Simultaneously. A Kaiju-spawn would charge from the front while drone swarms harried from above, energy turrets fired from flanks, and the ground itself would destabilize. The cadet had to process, prioritize, and neutralize all threats within a shrinking time window.
The first time Ryosuke stepped into the Fractal sim, he lasted forty-seven seconds before a simulated railgun round punched through his mech's cockpit.
[Analysis: Cognitive overload. Sensory input exceeded Six Eyes' passive filtering capacity. Reaction time degraded by 300%.]
He emerged from the simulator, his nose bleeding from neural feedback, his temples pounding. Sergeant Kova stood there, arms crossed.
"The universe doesn't attack you one enemy at a time, Tanaka. It comes in waves, in layers, in fractals. You need to see the pattern in the chaos. Again."
He went again. And again. And again.
The key, he realized, wasn't to try and see everything in perfect detail. It was to see the connections. The drone's flight path was linked to the turret's firing solution. The Kaiju's charge would trigger a seismic sensor that would collapse a tower. He began to stop seeing individual threats and started seeing a single, complex organism of violence. His Six Eyes adapted, learning to filter not by importance, but by causal linkage.
On the twelfth attempt, he cleared the first wave. On the thirtieth, he survived for five minutes. His sync-rate in the punishing sim never dropped below 60%.
While Ryosuke was being forged in fire, his fledgling team—Fire-Team Kappa, now unofficially dubbed Team Obsidian by the other cadets—was being welded together around him. They were his mandatory support unit for the championship's team-based rounds.
Their training was different, but no less demanding.
Sera was sent to a specialized Pyrokinetic Calibration Lab, a chamber lined with heat-absorbent black stone. A stern, bald instructor from a world that had merged with the "Fire Force" continuum drilled her not on producing bigger flames, but on precision. She spent hours holding a single candle flame perfectly still in a wind tunnel, then shaping it into a razor-thin wire that could slice through a sheet of titanium. Her control was growing, but the fear was being replaced by a different burden: the weight of expectation.
Chen was assigned to a Jedi Seeker—a Force-sensitive tracker—to hone his super-speed beyond simple velocity. He learned to perceive "traces" in the Force, to anticipate movements microseconds before they happened. He started landing hits on training drones he couldn't even see, his body moving on pure instinct. He was becoming less of a scout and more of a phantom.
Varg, to everyone's surprise, was pulled aside by a visiting Adeptus Mechanicus Magos who had taken an interest in his crude biosculpt. The Magos, a nightmarish figure of rust-red robes and whirring mechadendrites, didn't remove Varg's augments. He refined them. He installed kinetic-dampening servos in the joints, subcutaneous micro-reactors that boosted power output, and a rudimentary pain-suppression cortex. Varg emerged from the week-long procedure quieter, his movements smoother, his brute strength now underpinned by a terrifying, machined efficiency.
Aris, the telekinetic, was partnered with a Psychic from the Warhammer 40k contingent. The lessons were brutal, focusing on fortifying his mind against the "warp's whispers" and converting his broad, weak pushes into piercing, telekinetic lances. He learned to lift not with his muscles, but with his will, focusing force to a point that could puncture plasteel.
They trained apart, but every evening, Ryosuke gathered them in a disused cargo bay they'd claimed as their own. He didn't drill them on tactics. He made them talk.
"Sera. Your best flame today. Describe the feeling," he'd say, leaning against a crate, his ice-blue eyes intent.
"It was… a scalpel," she'd reply, hands moving as if shaping the memory. "Not a wildfire. I could feel the molecular bonds in the target. I could choose which ones to sever."
"Good. That's the level of control you bring. Not destruction. Surgery."
He'd turn to Chen. "Your limit. Not how fast, but how long you can perceive the traces."
Chen would grin, a flash of his old self. "I saw the Magos's mechadendrite twitch before it moved. Felt like I had all the time in the world."
"That's your role. You don't just see the present. You see the immediate future. You're our early-warning system."
He'd look at Varg. "The new servos. Can you modulate the force? A punch that can crack armor or tap a glass without breaking it?"
Varg would flex a hand, the servos whirring softly. "Yes. The machine-spirit in the augments… it listens."
"Then you're not just a hammer. You're a precision impact tool. For breaching, for stunning, for controlled demolition."
Finally, Aris. "Your focus. Can you hold it under psychic pressure? Under the scream of a dying Kaiju?"
Aris, usually so quiet, would meet his gaze. "The Imperial Psyker taught me to build a fortress in my mind. The screams are just wind against the walls."
"Then you're our anchor. You hold the line when everything else is trying to shake us apart."
He was building more than a team. He was building a single, distributed weapon, with himself as the central processor. The System approved.
[Team Cohesion: 67% and rising. Individual specializations are complementing host's command style.]
[Predicted Combat Efficiency Increase in Team Scenarios: 215%.]
One night, after a particularly grueling fractal session that left him with a migraine that felt like a drill in his skull, he didn't go to the cargo bay. He went to the observation deck, staring out at the skeletal remains of the ancient Jaegers, their silhouettes black against the moon.
He heard the soft swish of the door. He didn't need to turn. The presence was a calm, bright signature against the dark.
"You're pushing them hard," Kaelen said, coming to stand beside him. The Jedi had taken to seeking him out, their strange camaraderie born in the void now a fixture.
"The competition won't be gentle," Ryosuke replied, his voice tired.
"It's not the competition I'm worried about." Kaelen leaned on the railing. "I've been accessing some of the declassified reports from the AWRD review. They're not just interested in your tactics, Ryosuke. They're interested in your energy signature. They're running comparisons against cosmic background radiation patterns, against data from pre-Shift archeological digs on dead worlds. They're looking for where you fit in the grand taxonomy of power. And when people start taxonomizing a living weapon, the next step is usually to find its place in the arsenal—or its vulnerabilities."
Ryosuke was silent. He'd expected this.
"Liana Rae can only shield you so far," Kaelen continued. "The Star Fleet faction sees your value. But the political factions… the purists who think we should rely on 'proven' technologies from the core worlds, the fearmongers who see every new awakening as a potential demonic incursion… they're gathering arguments. Your performance in the championship will be your testimony. Make it undeniable."
"And if it is?"
Kaelen looked at him, his expression serious in the moonlight. "Then you'll have a choice. You can become the Corps' brightest star. Or you can accept the offer Liana is going to make you after the competition."
"What offer?"
"A commission in Star Fleet's newly proposed Special Tactics and Reconnaissance (STAR) Corps. A joint unit, drawing the best from every branch. It would get you off this rock and onto the front lines of the multiversal war, with more resources, more freedom… and more eyes on you than you can possibly imagine."
A choice. A gilded path within the machine, or a razor's edge on the frontier.
"Why are you telling me this?" Ryosuke asked.
"Because," Kaelen said, a faint, wry smile touching his lips, "as unnerving as you are, the universe feels… more interesting with you in it. And I'd rather have you as a brother in arms than a specimen in a lab. Even if your soul does feel like a black hole."
He left Ryosuke alone with the ghosts of giants and the weight of the future.
The next day, the final piece of their preparation arrived. For the championship, they wouldn't be using trainer rigs. They would be assigned a real, if outdated, combat Jaeger: a Mark-XI "Rampart-Class" named Steadfast. It was a walking fortress, heavier and slower than modern models, but notoriously durable, with integrated shield generators and shoulder-mounted heavy cannons.
Their first sync with the Steadfast was a revelation. The machine-mind was older, simpler, but solid. It didn't yearn for grace; it stood. Ryosuke's sync settled at a comfortable 68%, the mech's stubborn resilience meshing well with his own unshakable core.
They ran drills as a full team. Sera, in the primary gunner seat, learned to sync her pyrokinetic pulses with the plasma cannons, creating "sunfire rounds" that burned hotter and longer. Chen, on sensors and comms, became the nerve center, his speed-of-thought processing filtering data for everyone. Varg managed power distribution and close-in defense, his augmented strength perfect for operating the mech's massive, hydraulic crushing fists. Aris, on secondary systems and backup, used his telekinesis to stabilize the mech's footing or subtly alter the trajectory of incoming fire.
And Ryosuke piloted. He didn't just move the Steadfast; he breathed with it. His Limitless technique, when channeled through the Jaeger's systems, didn't just create personal barriers. He could project larger, weaker fields—enough to deflect artillery shrapnel or slow a charging beast. He was learning to scale his power through the amplifier of the machine.
After a successful drill where they defeated a simulated Category III Kaiju, they stood in the hangar bay, the Steadfast cooling behind them with metallic ticks and hisses. They were covered in sweat and hydraulic fluid, but they were grinning—even Varg.
Sera looked up at the silent, towering form of their mech. "You know… it feels less like a machine and more like a… a really big, grumpy friend."
Chen laughed. "A friend that can step on cities."
"A friend that stands between cities and what wants to eat them," Aris corrected softly.
Varg grunted, which from him was the equivalent of a heartfelt agreement.
Ryosuke looked at them—Sera with her controlled fire, Chen with his glimpsed futures, Varg with his refined strength, Aris with his unshakable will. They were no longer just cadets assigned to him. They were his unit. His found family in this mad, multiversal war.
The narcissistic part of him, the part that gloried in his own power and beauty, was still there. But it was being slowly, inexorably joined by something deeper. A sense of responsibility. A loyalty that went beyond orders.
He would win this competition. Not just for himself, or for the System's objectives. For them. To give them a future worth fighting for.
As they walked back to the barracks, the sun setting behind the academy spires, Ryosuke's System displayed a final, simple message for the day.
[Team Bond Established: 'Obsidian'. Cohesion: 89%. Status: Battle-Ready.]
[Objective: Terra Prime Championship. Probability of Success (Calculated with team variables): 94.7%.]
The numbers were good. But as he felt the tired, companionable silence of his team around him, he knew the success wouldn't be in the victory alone. It would be in who stood with him when he claimed it.
The fractals of his training were resolving into a clear, unbreakable pattern: he was not a solitary weapon. He was the heart of a storm. And together, they were ready to unleash it.