A Day living on the straight and marrow

The worst part about being part of an organisation? The waiting for orders.

Junichi groaned in boredom, his arm covering his face as he lay on his couch, set along one wall of his small apartment.

‘Such a pain.’ he thought, moving his arm so he could open his eyes and stare at the ceiling. His thoughts drifted, his impulse to action chafing like a horse at the bit. After the action he got in Tokyo, minor as it was, being benched and back home was agonising to say the least.

He had work tomorrow, at least, but it was a pedestrian job working at a convenience store, barely enough to pay the rent, and he was hanging on by a thread as is. He was technically a villain, after all, even if he was basically just a grunt. Hell, even sidekicks were more memorable than the role he played for Legion.

‘It’s important, though!’ he justified to himself as he laid there on the couch. ‘I can’t just go out by myself, hell, what would I even do? Attack random heroes like a villain? Yeah, quick trip to jail’ he scoffed, a look of disdain passing over his face for a moment. No, Legion was a place he could work towards a better world, even if it was by ugly means. As a part of the organisation, he could help ensure that tragedies caused by neglectful heroes wouldn’t get swept under the rug in favour of grandstanding and popularity!

It didn’t help the boredom, though.

The next day, Junichi lazily slouched behind a convenience store counter, wearing a brightly coloured work uniform. The piercings in his ears were gone, as he doubted he’d have been hired with them in and he couldn’t push his luck. Whenever a customer would come to the counter, he would politely greet them, his voice and words formulaic and utterly disinterested. He would tally their purchases, and other such drab things, then, again formulaic and disinterested, thank them for their patronage as they left.

Throughout the day, his eyes were glued on the small T.V. In one corner of the store, quietly reciting a news channel. Every now and then, news about some Hero or Villain would pop up, and that was what Junichi lived for.

Watching them preen themselves like birds fluffing their feathers to reporters, claiming ‘great victories’, and promising ‘safer streets’. It lit a fire within him, and that fire propelled him. As he watched a particularly boastful interview from some while ago, he even felt his hackles rise for a moment, straightening his posture, before relaxing back down into his lean. ‘Arrogant…’ was all he could think as he watched.

The interview ended, and the news reporter moved on to the next story. A pro hero was attacked in the street while accompanied by some students; Gentle Way Hero, Ippon. Junichi smouldered at the sight of the attack, showing a ruined truck, and reporting briefly on the condition of the driver. “Injured, but alive”, they said. ‘Yeah, of course they’d ignore the guy who crashed his truck. Didn’t they say earlier that Ippon only suffered some broken ribs? What a fucking shitshow.’ Junichi fumed to himself, as he watched the rest of the segment. Always another reminder.

After that, the news went to some more mundane information. Some economic changes or something, Junichi didn’t really care for it, so he zoned it out. The rest of his shift was uneventful, and he was glad it was done with. He’d made it through another day.

Absentmindedly replacing his piercings in his ears as he walked home, he thought about the rest of his evening. He could watch some television later, but before that, he should find time to practise, while there was still light.

‘Yeah’, he thought to himself, ‘I’ll go down to the park, practise by myself. Just simple exercises to keep me on my toes, maybe do some laps and callisthenics. Maybe work on my pain tolerance.’

He shivered slightly, despite not being particularly cold. Pain tolerance meant quirk practice. ‘It’s necessary! I did really well in Tokyo, and if I can push past this stumbling block I’ll be able to prove myself further. I’ll be able to really help change things!’ He told himself mentally, clenching his fist in determination, a small flicker of a smile forming on his lips for just a moment.

After arriving at the park where he always would practise of a night, Junichi first began with stretches. It was vital to be properly warmed up when exercising, and that goes especially for Junichi. He grimaced to himself as he remembered an incident a small few years ago, where he had dislocated his own shoulder due to a miscalculation while using his quirk. Even slight shifts in his skeletal system could cause unforeseen damage; his quirk only allowed him very limited alteration of a bone structure already affected by it, so one mistake and he could cripple himself for life.

After stretches and warm ups came proper exercise. ‘First,’ Junichi thought, ‘we’ll do some jumping jacks. Then we’ll follow with some push ups, and then a run.’ It was routine. A routine he’d followed ever since he set himself down on the path he currently walked.

Junichi exercised until he’d pushed himself just far enough and then a little bit more: breathing hard from exertion, he braced himself against his knees and brought a bottle of water to his mouth. Sweet, refreshing liquid sustenance, ever so important. While he rested, his thoughts were clear. A simple clarity, a moment of respite. But there was still more to be done tonight.

Without a partner, training martial arts is only so useful, but Junichi kept it up anyways. Simple kata he could go through to keep his reflex and form. First, unarmed. Karate was his choice, mostly because it was easy for him to pick it up when he was younger. The focus on striking also felt like a good fit, as he could grow out protrusions of bone to enhance his strokes and utilise their force in a deadly manner. Something like Judo or Aikido wouldn’t suit him well.

After unarmed practice came armed practice. Wielding nothing but a simple wooden practice sword, Junichi began to slip into Kendo forms. Strike after strike he practised, swing after swing. Given that, in a combat situation, his quirk would be leaving him with many protrusions, knowing how to wield a sword was also important, to have a grasp of leverage and reach beyond his own hands. He could manipulate that, to some extent, but without knowing his basics, his quirk wasn’t powerful enough to get him anywhere in the world of Heroes and Villains.

By the time he was done with his routine, it was dark. Wiping sweat off his brow with one hand, Junichi sat down on the grass, and breathed deep and steadily to center himself. ‘Alright. Now the worst part.’ he muttered as he rolled up both of his sleeves, revealing the small nubs of bone dotted along his left arm. He ran his hand over them for a moment, thinking, delaying… but he forced the moment to pass. He dropped his left arm, and held up his right. Then, taking a sharp breath in preparation, he forced a spike of bone to pierce his flesh, pushing out from just below his wrist on the outside of his forearm. Despite his best efforts, he hissed out that breath he’d taken in pain, but he continued on until the spike of bone grew to the length of about a meter. Blood dripped, slowly, but it looked gorier than it was.

Junichi flexed his hand and wrist to grab onto the spike, and took a few perfunctory swings with it. Each time, pain spiked up his arm, but it wasn’t as bad as the initial push to create it. Good. Carefully, he reached to the base of the spike of bone, where it stuck out of his skin, with his left hand. The worst part of the entire ordeal, and thus, the most important.

A swift wrench, and a sickening snap, causing Junichi to grit his teeth and hold back the tears, as they’d always want to spill, if only for a moment. He pulled, and the bone spike slid free of his arm, and he dropped it to the ground. ‘Breathe in, and breathe out. Steady yourself against the pain.’ he instructed himself as a mantra, as he reached over to the stuff he’d brought with him, and retrieved a cloth, so he could dab at the fresh wound, wiping away blood so he could take a look.

‘Yep, I’m getting better at this.’ Junichi admired his work. The wound where he’d protruded his own bone through his skin, which one might expect to be a gaping hole, was a series of small punctures. They bled, but would heal up easily, and could be staunched just as easily. Part of the process Junichi had come to learn was this very delicate construction. When first creating new bone tissue, he would have to use very fine needles of bone in a repetitive structure to pierce outwards. This allowed him to break it off easily himself, when needed, but also prevented massive wounds being left behind. If he just wholesale manifested bones as full spikes from the beginning, it would be much harder, almost completely impossible, to fully remove them. Of course, in combat, it introduced a serious weakness in his quirk, something he had to compensate for, but he could balance it out with a sturdier initial structure, at the cost of more pain and damage to his body.

Of course, the simplest option was to use the bone already protruded on his left arm as a starting point, but that was the most predictable and limited use of his power: it also didn’t help his goal of training his pain tolerance. ‘Onto the next one.’ Junichi steeled himself mentally, and pushed forward.

He sat there for an hour before he was satisfied with his progress. He took care of his injuries, gathered his stuff, and started on his way home. ‘I should eat something. Maybe I could go to that curry place… Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.’ he pondered to himself as he made his way through the dark streets.

New orders would come soon. Until then? He could only live, day by day, and wait.