He went down with a grunt of surprise that might have been the most genuine sound I’d heard him make all day. I was on him before he hit the grass, scrambling for top position, trying to convert the dirty move into something that looked like a victory condition.

Hiro rolled. I followed. We ended up in a tangle of limbs that neither of us could convert into anything decisive, grappling across the field like we had personal grudges against the concept of standing combat.

He got an arm under my chin. I postured up before he could sink the choke. I tried to pass his guard. He retained with hip movement that suggested he’d done this a few thousand times. He swept me with a technique I’d never seen. I bridged out of the pin before he could consolidate.

Somewhere in the exchange I caught him with an elbow that split his lip. Somewhere in the same exchange he caught me with a headbutt that might have been accidental and definitely made my nose start bleeding.

We separated by mutual unspoken agreement. Both breathing in ragged gasps. Both covered in grass stains and sweat and the evidence of having given more than either of us had planned to give.

I sat up. My everything hurt. The specific kind of hurt that came from pushing past limits and discovering that limits pushed back.

Hiro sat up across from me, maybe ten feet away, blood running down his chin from the split lip. His hair was completely destroyed. His training gear looked like something a stray dog had used as a chew toy. His dark eyes found mine across the space between us.

Neither of us said anything for a long moment.

"Draw," he finally offered.

I wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that I’d landed more clean shots, that my damage output had exceeded his, that in a fight to unconsciousness the accumulation would have favored me eventually.

But I knew it wasn’t true. In a real fight, with stakes, with consequences, with the need to finish things before backup arrived or civilians got hurt or any of the thousand other pressures that actual combat included, Hiro would have beaten me. His technique would have found the opening eventually. His experience would have read my patterns before I finished developing them.

I was faster. I was maybe slightly stronger. I had raw physical gifts that exceeded what any registered mid-tier telekinetic should have possessed.

And none of it mattered against someone who actually knew how to fight.

"Draw," I agreed.

Hiro nodded. Something in his expression shifted. Not softening, exactly. More like recalibration. Like he was filing away information that didn’t fit his previous model of who I was.

"Your speed is legitimate," he said. "Not Aspect-assisted, or if it is, not in any way I could detect. Just raw physical capability that shouldn’t be possible for someone your size."

"Thanks. Your technique is legitimate too. All those hours your coaches put in really paid off."

He ignored the dig. "You fight like you’re still learning. Like every exchange is teaching you something you didn’t know before. That’s either going to make you very dangerous eventually or get you killed before you figure out the lesson."

"Bold words from the guy who just got elbowed in the face by someone who’s still learning."

Hiro touched his lip. Looked at the blood on his fingers. "Fair."

We sat there in the failing light, bleeding and exhausted and apparently having reached some kind of understanding that neither of us had expected to find.

"Same time tomorrow?" The question came out before I’d decided to ask it.

Hiro’s eyebrows rose. "You want to do this again."

"I want to do it until I can beat you. Then I want to keep doing it until you can beat me again. Then I want to keep doing it until neither of us can predict who wins anymore."

He considered that. Really considered it, with the kind of serious attention he usually reserved for costume design and brand aesthetics.

"The philosophical differences still exist."

"Sure. I still think you’re a pretty boy who values image over effectiveness. You still think I’m a manipulative asshole who treats people as resources. None of that changes because we punched each other for half an hour."

"Then why?"

Because the System wanted me to establish dominance over you and convert you into a Rivalry Gauge progression target.

"Because you’re good," I said instead. "And I need to be better than good. I need to be the best. And the only way to get there is to find people who can beat me and learn from losing to them until I can’t lose anymore."

Hiro stared at me for a long moment. Something shifted in his expression again. Still not warm. Still not friendly. But less hostile than it had been an hour ago.

"Same time tomorrow," he agreed.

"Bring bandages. Your lip looks like it’s going to swell."

"Bring ice. Your nose looks like it’s going to need it."

We helped each other up. It wasn’t companionable. It wasn’t the start of a beautiful friendship. It was two guys who’d beaten the hell out of each other acknowledging that they’d gotten something valuable from the experience and wanted to get more.

Hiro turned toward the tree line that led back to the main campus. Paused.

"Your instincts aren’t wrong," he said, without looking back. "In the training fight. The kiss. If Ortega’s attack had landed, you’d be in medical right now. What you did stopped her from firing again. That’s effective."

I waited for the but.

"But effective isn’t the only thing that matters. A Hero who’s effective but not trustworthy damages the profession worse than a Hero who loses fights. The civilians watching that footage don’t see tactical genius. They see a guy who kisses people in combat situations. That’s the frame they apply to everything else you do afterward."

He walked away through the trees. The golden light caught him as he moved, and for a moment he looked like what he was pretending to be. A hero in the making. Someone who belonged on posters and in press conferences and at the front of parades.

I watched him go and thought about what it meant that I couldn’t beat him. What it meant that raw stats weren’t enough. What it meant that the System had given me all these gifts and none of them included the thousands of hours of training that actual competence required.

The quest notification pulsed in my peripheral vision. Still incomplete. Dominance not established. Rivalry Gauge not unlocked.

But something had started. Something that might be more useful than whatever the System had been planning.

I had a training partner now. Someone who would show up to an abandoned field and punch me until I learned to punch back better. Someone who wouldn’t hold back out of friendship or attraction or whatever complicated dynamics governed my relationships with everyone else in the cohort.

Hiro Sato hated what I represented. He thought I was a corruption of everything heroism should be. He would push me harder than anyone who actually liked me ever could.

That was worth more than eight hundred Scumbag Points.