"Morning, Genos."
Jordan waved from the sofa without looking up from the newspaper.
"Good morning, Jordan-san!" Genos bowed with the precision he brought to all greetings, set the bags down on the living room table with careful attention to bag-to-surface ratio, and turned toward the bathroom. Saitama was visible through the door, brushing his teeth with the focused energy of a man who had decided that oral hygiene required his full attention, foam accumulated to a considerable volume. "Good morning, Saitama-sensei!"
"Good thing you're — gurgle — you're back, Gen — cough cough cough—"
The consequence of attempting speech while in active gargling configuration was immediate and comprehensive. Saitama folded in half at the bathroom doorway, the coughing productive of further coughing, the cycle self-sustaining.
Genos moved.
His thrusters activated at enough power to close the distance in approximately one second, bringing him behind Saitama with his steel hand already positioned to deliver a firm, careful series of pats to the back — the force calibrated in the specific way that you calibrate force when you have the physical power to demolish buildings and the person in front of you is having a minor coughing incident.
The coughing resolved.
Saitama straightened, hand on the doorframe, breathing normally again. "...I survived."
Jordan set down the newspaper and covered his face with one hand.
The things that kill this man. He thought about the monsters that hadn't.
Genos, satisfied that the crisis was fully resolved, stepped back and brightened. "Teacher, Jordan-san — I brought breakfast from W City on the way back. Please eat it while it's warm!"
The food hit the table and the smell reached Saitama approximately one second later. His entire demeanor reorganized around it — the lingering dramatics of the bathroom incident evaporated, replaced by the focused attention of a man who has identified something of primary interest. He crossed the living room in a motion that was technically walking but covered the distance with the efficiency of something faster, picked up a seaweed rice ball, and bit into it.
Chewed.
His eyes, which normally maintained their characteristic flatness, did something different.
"...It's good."
"We couldn't eat all of this ourselves," Jordan said, pulling a cushion over with a small psychic nudge and settling it into position. He patted it. "Genos — sit down. Eat with us."
"Yeah," Saitama said, not looking up from the rice ball. "Eat with us."
Genos blinked. The housekeeping sequence he'd been moving toward — apron, kitchen, cleanup — aborted. He stood still for a moment, processing the invitation with the expression of someone who has been offered something outside the established categories, then nodded and sat.
"...Yes. Thank you."
The three of them ate in the small apartment in the particular comfortable quiet of people who have gotten used to each other's company, the morning light coming through the window at the angle it only comes at this hour, Genos's component-replacement-fresh chassis catching it at various points and turning it into small reflected patches on the wall.
"W City," Saitama said eventually, through rice ball number three. "That's far. You had a rough night."
"Not at all. The doctor's work was very efficient." Genos had, after a pause, actually picked up one of the rice balls and was holding it with the careful attention he brought to unfamiliar activities. "I stopped at a market near the facility on the way back. The food there has a specific quality." A rare, brief smile. "I used my power core's temperature to keep it warm during the travel."
Jordan ate his rice ball and considered this — the image of Genos sprinting back from W City at superhuman speed, bags in both hands, using his own heat systems as a delivery container. The dedication was, objectively, excessive. It was also completely in character.
"It has a floral fragrance," Jordan said. "That's what W City's known for."
Saitama swallowed a mouthful. "You really went the extra mile, Genos."
"I'm glad you like it."
After the last rice ball had been accounted for, Genos moved toward the kitchen with the purposeful bearing of someone approaching an established responsibility. Jordan caught him with a word before he reached the doorway.
"Genos."
The housekeeping sequence aborted again. Genos turned, standing with the attentive posture of a student who has been given a cue. "Jordan-san."
"Your strength — it runs on both the hardware upgrades Dr. Kuseno provides and your accumulated combat database. Right?"
Genos considered this with the thoroughness he applied to questions that touched on his own construction. "That's accurate, as a general statement. Personal factors play a role — judgment, adaptation — but the foundation is hardware capability and the techniques I've built through experience."
"So if someone recorded the fist techniques of top martial artists," Jordan said, "and loaded them into your combat database — that would enhance your fighting ability."
"...Theoretically, yes." Genos's brow furrowed slightly, the specific frown of someone testing a proposition against their understanding of themselves. "Dr. Kuseno focuses primarily on hardware. The combat skills are my own development — accumulated through actual combat encounters."
"Which means," Jordan said, in the tone of someone leading somewhere, "fighting stronger opponents is still your main method of improvement."
"Correct."
Jordan turned to Saitama and put a hand on his shoulder.
Saitama, who had been drinking tea with the peaceful expression of a man whose morning had resolved into a comfortable equilibrium, inhaled tea the wrong way.
He recovered, wiped his mouth, and looked at Jordan with an expression that was doing something complicated. "...What?"
"Have friendly exchanges with your disciple. Actual sparring, not just observation."
"I've got no problem with sparring." Saitama set down the tea with the mild wariness of someone who suspects a larger point is coming. "But — and I mentioned this when we talked about Genos before — I don't really have techniques to teach. It's just." He spread his hands. "Punch. Kick. Basic movements. I'm not running a school of anything."
He said it with the earnest simplicity of someone stating a fact rather than being modest.
Jordan's eye twitched faintly. He nodded.
Genos had been listening to this exchange with the focused attention he gave to all information from Saitama. Now he straightened.
"Sensei," he said carefully, "are you saying that practicing fundamental movements until they become instinctive — without relying on complex feints or elaborate technique — is sometimes more effective than formal martial arts systems?"
Saitama blinked. "...I didn't say—"
"I see!" Genos had produced a notebook and pen from somewhere. The pen was moving. "That's a profound principle. I'll record this immediately."
Jordan looked at Genos writing down a philosophy that Saitama had specifically not stated, in response to Saitama explaining that he didn't have philosophy to offer. He pressed two fingers to his forehead.
Saitama stared at the notebook. "...When did I say any of that?"
"Never mind," Jordan said, before this particular interpretation could become more firmly established in Genos's permanent record. He tapped the table. "We have some time this morning. I'll take you both somewhere. There might be techniques that would be useful for Genos to observe." He paused. "And before you ask—" he looked at Saitama "—yes, obviously you're coming. You're not sending your disciple alone."
"I was going to ask."
"I know."
Saitama scratched his head. A brief flash of purple light crossed the back of his scalp — fleeting, the kind of thing you could mistake for a trick of the morning light if you were inclined to. "Fine."
Three poles past the sun's midpoint.
The mountain path wound upward through stands of old pine and carefully placed stone steps, the kind of path that had been walked by enough feet over enough years that it had settled into the mountain the way permanent things settle. On either side, the undergrowth was well-maintained without being manicured — tended by someone who understood the difference between a path that served its purpose and a garden that served its appearance.
Three figures climbed in single file.
On the left: 1.95 meters, dark hair, the kind of physical build that drew second looks even in civilian clothes — proportions that spoke to something beyond ordinary training, easy in its own skin, moving up the mountain path with the unhurried stride of someone who had been to harder places.
In the middle: shorter by roughly twenty centimeters, shoulders that had developed the particular drop of someone who has been walking mountain steps long enough that the novelty has concluded. His clothes had taken on the mild dishevelment of someone who was physically fine but preferred a horizontal surface.
On the right: the gold of unkempt hair above a face that would have been remarkable in any context, the neck and below carrying the metallic sheen that meant almost no original biological material remained — the precise, engineered lines of Genos, chassis bearing the minor battle-marks from yesterday's training that hadn't been prioritized during the overnight work, both eyes tracking the path and the surroundings with the clear, calibrated attention of sensors operating at full specification.
The mountain, as mountains do, continued upward without comment.
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