Garou held his head and said nothing.
This was wisdom, not cowardice. He had learned, through accumulated experience, that whatever was on the tip of his tongue right now would cost him another demonstration. And besides — somewhere beneath the specific indignity of being publicly headpatted by an octogenarian at hydraulic-press force — he could feel something he didn't have a clean word for.
More durable, was the closest he could get. Every time the old man's fist came down, there was less of whatever distance used to exist between the impact and his recovery.
Was this the actual point? It was either inspired pedagogy or the most aggravating thing that had ever happened to him, and he genuinely couldn't tell which.
Jordan watched from the doorway, the corner of his eye twitching slightly.
He had strengthened Bang. He had arranged the training camp. He had structured the conditions that led, with a kind of narrative inevitability, to Garou receiving the most loving and methodical beatings of his life in an environment that would not allow him to leave.
He had, in other words, given this disaster of a disciple a home.
Even someone who genuinely wants to become the world's strongest evil can be redirected, Jordan reflected, if the person redirecting him cares enough to keep showing up with a fist. One fewer source of chaos in the world. The math was favorable.
He arranged his expression into something appropriate and welcomed them inside.
The martial arts hall was quiet in the mid-morning, light filtering through the high windows onto the polished floor. Jordan produced a tea set from nothing — antique clay, the kind Bang appreciated — and set water to boil while the old man settled into a seat with the unhurried ease of someone entirely comfortable wherever he happened to be.
Garou received Bang's look, absorbed its contents, and took himself outside without being told. Through the hall's wide archway, Jordan could see him in the outer training area, working horse stance under a weight plate that sat balanced on his head with the specific patience of a man choosing his battles.
Tea first. Purpose second.
"...You want Garou to spar with the trainees?"
Bang nodded, lifting his cup with both hands. "Exactly."
Jordan glanced from the old man's calm expression to the figure outside — currently a picture of sullen compliance, weight plate and all. The claws were retracted. The violence that lived in Garou's bone structure like an architectural feature had not been removed; it had merely been given a landlord.
What the hell are you looking at, said Garou's posture, directed at nothing in particular.
Jordan set down his cup and thought it through.
"It's not entirely impossible," he said.
Bang smiled, reading the hesitation accurately. "My unworthy disciple has rough edges, but the foundation is exceptional. He's been fighting monsters daily — practical experience that most trainees simply don't have." He paused. "Under proper supervision, that experience becomes useful pressure. It would temper his temperament as much as theirs."
Jordan turned this over. The image that came back to him was less about the training methodology and more about the animal being domesticated by being given a job.
"So the wolf trains the wolves," he said.
Bang's expression shifted into something that was technically a smile but carried the particular warmth of a man who had just heard his plan described more aptly than he'd managed himself. "You could say that."
Outside, the subject of this conversation maintained horse stance with the focused displeasure of someone who knew, at a cellular level, that they were being discussed.
"He does have a strong foundation," Jordan acknowledged. "Strong enough that an ordinary trainee might not last more than a few exchanges. We'd need to adjust for that." He considered. "I can layer a suppression field on him. Keep his output inside a useful range."
He didn't raise his hand or make a visible gesture. There was no particular theatrics in applying the adjustment.
Outside, Garou's weight plate became substantially heavier.
The effect was immediate: his stance buckled slightly at the knees, his shoulders dropped against a load that had no physical explanation, and his breathing — already controlled — went ragged at the edges. Not crushed. Working. The difference between a training load and a consequence.
"What—" He braced, jaw set. "Who—"
Bang observed with the quiet satisfaction of a craftsman whose work was behaving correctly. "I'll leave that to you, Jordan."
You again, Garou thought, in the direction of the hall. Obviously.
When Bang relayed the decision, Garou's face did everything available faces can do to express opposition without technically constituting a refusal. The Iron Fist arrived before he finished deciding on a response.
"...Fine." He rolled his neck. "I got it."
The weight in his limbs was bone-deep and specific — not a blunt reduction of strength but something that sat in the fluid of his joints and made every movement feel like pushing through resistance. Heavy and thick, like his blood had been replaced with something more reluctant to move.
He tested it: a punch, a pivot, two quick strikes at nothing. Found the ceiling. Filed it.
Then he adjusted.
The adaptation was not slow. Where other trainees needed days to stop fighting the gravity suppression and start using the space inside it, Garou needed the length of time it took to complete a short sequence of movements. He found the compression's logic, located the maximum output available within it, and settled there as though he'd always operated under these conditions.
Jordan watched through the archway without expression. The Kabuto Yakushi comparison came to mind — the Naruto character who could function with full clinical precision despite nerve signals in disorder, because the body's architecture was deep enough that surface disruption couldn't reach it. Different mechanism. Same quality.
Some people were simply built for this.
In the dormitory wing, Genos sat upright in meditation, eyes closed, the hum of his internal systems a constant background frequency. He had no muscle memory to build, no movement patterns to drill into tissue through repetition — his chip handled retention, and his algorithms handled optimization. What Bang had prescribed was different: stillness as its own discipline, the kind of spiritual consolidation that let technique exceed what hardware alone could specify.
Genos.
Jordan's voice arrived directly, clear and unhurried, through the Mind Network.
Genos opened his eyes immediately. "I understand, Jordan." He was already standing, already moving toward the door.
The martial arts training ground filled steadily as Genos rounded up the trainees. They arrived in the usual arrangement — some still carrying the residual energy of morning drills, others with the careful focus of people who had learned that unexpected assemblies usually involved something instructive.
"Everyone's here," Genos reported, coming to stand at Jordan's right. His gaze moved to Garou, paused precisely long enough to constitute a professional assessment, and moved on.
Garou felt the attention land and looked up sharply from his stretching. Their eyes met across the training ground with the specific, mutual recognition of two people who remembered the outcome of their last encounter and had different feelings about it.
Defeated opponent, Genos thought, with the clean certainty of a filed result.
I'll pull that tin can apart one day, Garou thought, with the forward-looking confidence of someone who kept a list.
Neither said anything. The air between them did the talking.
At the edge of the gathered trainees, three familiar faces registered Garou's presence in sequence. Iaian's expression settled into something neutral and evaluative. Bushidrill's jaw tightened with the specific tension of a man who had been on the losing side of that fight and had not stopped thinking about it since. Okamaitachi took one look at Garou — his build, his bone structure, the particular geometry of how he carried himself under suppression — and arrived at a completely different conclusion from everyone else in the room.
Incredible, Okamaitachi thought, with the sincerity of a man whose priorities were fully coherent to himself. Both of them. Same training ground. How is anyone supposed to focus—
"Stop it," Bushidrill said, without turning his head, because he had been standing next to Okamaitachi long enough to read the silence accurately.
Iaian looked away at a fixed point on the far wall.
Jordan stepped forward.
"Thank you for assembling, Genos." He nodded once, then turned to address the group. "Most of you already know Master Silver Fang's disciple by reputation. For those who need a formal introduction: this is the Hero Association's C-Class hero, Water Wolf Warrior." He gestured toward Garou, who received the introduction with approximately the expression of someone being described at a job fair. "He'll be serving as your sparring partner for the next several days. I expect you to learn something from him."
Applause broke out — genuine, curious, running the full range from the politely appreciative to the enthusiastic. A dozen pairs of eyes settled on the C-Class hero with the quiet intensity of trainees who had been told this was useful and intended to find out exactly how.
Garou stood in the suppression field, heavy-limbed and sharp-eyed, and said nothing.
The wolves were ready.