Atomic Samurai was looking at the restored training ground with the expression of someone who has accepted a new fact and is filing it correctly.
It took about thirty seconds before he arrived at a different expression: the expression of someone who has noticed a discrepancy and is now working backward through recent events.
He looked at Bang.
"Silver Fang." His voice was low, unhurried, the tone of a man keeping something controlled. "We've sparred before. You weren't this strong."
Bang's eyes squinted at the corners. The smile that came with it was the smile of someone who is about to confirm a suspicion and is entirely comfortable with having been found out.
"I've had a few rounds with Jordan lately."
Atomic Samurai looked at the kind-looking old man beside him—the white hair, the serene bearing, the face of someone who has been doing gentle exercises in a park somewhere—and felt the pieces assemble with the specific click of something obvious in retrospect.
Of course he was enhanced first. Of course. Look at how familiar they are with each other. Of course Bang had access to Jordan's technique before I did. Of course the person I just spent two minutes being outmatched by has been operating with a modified power ceiling and didn't mention it.
His gaze carried, just briefly, the quality of resentment.
"If you'd told me," he said, with great composure, "I would have moderated my expectations accordingly."
Bang laughed. It was a genuinely delighted laugh—the laugh of an eighty-year-old man who has rediscovered the pleasure of boyish things.
"You didn't ask."
"You."
The word arrived at a register that communicated, without any of the specific vocabulary, that Atomic Samurai had opinions about the situation and was maintaining the dignity of his position while having them.
Atomic Samurai accepted the teacup Iaian extended and took a measured sip.
His hands were trembling slightly. Not from injury—the evening's sparring had left no structural damage worth noting. Just the accumulated memory of impact, distributed across the grip, informing him that his sword had caught more force than it was designed to field. The blade in question had developed an opinion about its future, communicated through a network of hairline fractures.
There's always something.
Behind him, just beyond his line of sight, his three disciples were having a quiet moment.
Iaian was the most controlled. He was also clearly the most affected. "Master has really worked hard today," he said, in the voice of someone who has recalibrated their understanding of what working hard looks like.
"He really has," Bushidrill agreed.
Okamaitachi was nodding, slowly, storing an experience for future reference.
"I can still handle it," Atomic Samurai said, without turning around.
The barbecue had mostly concluded. The crowd was in the post-meal phase—drinks, conversations, the comfortable dispersal of people who have spent an evening together doing something worth doing.
Jordan located King across the lawn and arrived at the edge of his conversation with Saitama.
"King. Quick thing. Come with me."
King, who had the practiced neutrality of someone who doesn't ask unnecessary questions, followed Jordan toward the nearest facilities building without comment.
The golden light that came through the bathroom window a few minutes later was brief, total, and inexplicable if you hadn't been paying attention to the general pattern of Jordan's evenings.
When King walked back out, he moved differently. Not dramatically—he wasn't the type—but the quality of his presence had acquired something additional. The biomagnetic field that had always attended him, which anyone with sufficient sensitivity could detect as a constant low-level hum, had deepened in both pitch and volume.
Super King, Jordan noted internally, with satisfaction.
The biomagnetic field had, it turned out, done an excellent job of shielding the entire process from everyone on the lawn thirty meters away. The enhancement completed cleanly and invisibly, which was exactly the point.
Currently, Jordan thought, surveying the assembled S-Class instructors, everyone in this group has cleared their limiter except two.
Genos: the biological substrate required for Potential Guidance didn't yet have enough of a foothold in his largely mechanical body. That situation had a projected resolution date tied to Dr. Kuseno's Regenerative Cradle work.
Saitama: Jordan walked over and clapped him firmly on the shoulder with his full intent behind it.
Saitama jolted. His expression traveled from neutral to confused without passing through any intermediate states.
"Ow. Jordan, what—"
The Potential Guiding Technique entered Saitama's body and vanished. Not absorbed, not rejected—vanished, with the effect of a stone dropped into a depth that doesn't register the disturbance at its surface. No reaction. No detectable change. The technique simply had nothing to act on.
Right, Jordan remembered. This is the one who has been clearing his own limiter continuously since before I arrived. His potential isn't suppressed—it's being expressed constantly, on a schedule that has nothing to do with external intervention.
He stood there for a moment.
"Ow," Saitama said again, more conversationally.
Jordan's expression moved through speechless and arrived at something that was almost fond.
At least there are two of us now, he thought. I'm no longer a category of one.
The post-barbecue testing session had moved to the outer edge of the training ground, where Dr. Kuseno's evaluation equipment was positioned.
Mumen Rider stood before the test wall in his standard battle suit. Visually: unchanged. The mimicry function of the vibranium nanosuit embedded within had maintained perfect surface consistency with his original equipment. The material was different. The structural properties were different in ways that would require laboratory analysis to fully map.
He breathed out. Set his feet.
The suit responded.
Ten propulsion nozzles activated simultaneously—two at each foot, two at each palm, two at his back—controlled plasma jets oriented for maximum forward momentum. The heat bloom pressed into the ground behind him as he accelerated into the strike.
"—Justice Boxing!"
The white light that enveloped his fist was barely perceptible. The physics of what happened to the alloy wall was not.
The sound traveled across the training ground and arrived at the audience before they'd fully processed what they'd seen. A thirty-centimeter alloy plate—the same material used in high-security vault construction, the kind that professional cutting equipment needed hours to breach—was dented. Not cracked. Not scratched. Dented, a clean concave impression from a single punch.
Atomic Samurai had been designated the evaluator. He narrowed his eyes at the wall, took his time, and said: "Demon-level. That force output clears the threshold." He turned to Bang. "Your read?"
"Agreed," Bang said. "I wouldn't have said a single suit of armor could push someone past the biological ceiling. Apparently that was a gap in my understanding." He paused. "Technology is worth taking seriously."
"It's external," Atomic Samurai said, which was true. He considered the wall. "For someone working from their own body, it changes nothing." He looked, without elaborating, at the three figures behind him. "For someone starting from a different baseline, the gap it closes is meaningful." A pause. "Iai. Drill. Okamaitachi. If either of you falls behind someone in a standard suit, that will be a problem worth not having."
The three of them exchanged a look.
Yes, the look said. Understood.
Mumen Rider was still looking at his hand.
He'd pulled it from the impact zone, and the vibranium layer had done something he hadn't fully expected: the portion that had deformed against the wall's edge cascaded blue particle effects across its surface and reseated itself, pristine, in under a second. Self-repairing. As if the strike had not occurred.
"Okay," he said quietly, turning his fist over.
The knuckles: unhurt. The suit: undamaged. The wall: an object lesson.
"Is this actually something I can do?"
"The suit amplified the force," Jordan said, from behind him. "It didn't generate it. The strike was yours." A beat. "And technology is one of the things that moves humanity forward. A tool used well is still skill."
Mumen Rider looked at his fist once more. Closed it, slowly, with the air of someone arriving at a decision.
"Understood."
Jordan gave his shoulder a brief acknowledgment, then turned to the spherical drone hovering at the testing area's edge—compact, smooth, optics oriented toward him with the attentiveness of an active connection.
"Doctor. Data?"
The drone's projection port activated. Dr. Kuseno's face materialized in pale blue light, the image crisp despite the distance.
"All core parameters received and logged," the doctor said, with the satisfaction of someone whose afternoon produced good numbers. "The prototype—I've been calling it the Zero internally—has exceeded every performance benchmark from the design phase. Field-ready. Remaining work is module customization for individual users and establishing the path to production capacity."
"Good work, Doctor."
"Not at all. Ring me when the next phase starts."
The holographic image closed. The drone dipped once in what was clearly a nod, descended into its purpose-built carry case, and shut down with a small, clean click.
Jordan looked at Mumen Rider.
"Wristwatch."
The rider pressed the small device at his wrist. The mimicry function released, and this time the blue particle cascade was fully visible—a wave traveling from extremity to center as the material assembled into its true configuration. Structured. Armored. The kind of suit that announced its capabilities rather than concealing them.
On the left chest, rendered in golden lightning-bolt strokes: the letter J.
Jordan studied it for a moment.
"Every production unit gets that mark," he said. "Whatever modules come later, whatever upgrades the suit goes through—the J stays. That's the condition before anything ships."