Jin gripped his blunted katanas, now attached to his backside, and shook them around a bit to make sure they were secure before letting go. Jin had changed into a pair of joggers and black crackling boots as well as having put a black Alice belt around his waist from which the katanas clung onto for dear life.
"Let's both pass," Hinoda said with conviction seeping into her typical tone as she turned to Nakamura who looked up with a determined face.
The pair of middle school classmates stood with a crowd at the towering gates of the mock city, everyone switching from either their previous outfits into more athletic wear. Nakamura was the only one with any exterior equipment, as he had filled out the proper forms with the US administration.
A commotion to their 6 o'clock interrupted their shared moment, with Hinoda fully turning to face the ruckus, and Nakamura only contorting his upper body to look behind him. It was the blue-haired boy from orientation who had interrupted the presentation, scolding the same green haired boy he had during the demonstration. They had caught most of the other's attention on the other side of the crowd. Nakamura's eyes shot up quickly as he heard a familiar booming voice.
"Right, let's start! Get moving! There are no countdowns in real battles, run, run, run listeners! You're wasting Airtime here!" Present Mike's booming voice shot down with boundless energy to the candidates at the gate, sending them running.
At the front of the pack, Nakamura somehow managed to keep pace with the blue-haired boy's jet booster calves with the pair shooting off down the main street. As they pushed each other for who would come out on top, it was obvious the blue-haired boy would win their little race and Jin bit the bullet, detouring into a side street on his left. At the first four-way intersection, 60 meters from the main road he came upon a 1-point bot.
Jin came to a stop at the crosswalk whilst the 1 point sat at the center 3 meters in front. With a deep breath, he drew his blunted katanas and activated his quirk. Jin felt the unstoppable rushing rapids of time that destroyed all who stood against it wane in an instant to a strong current, then to a lazily flowing river before time had frozen in place like a peaceful glacier within an instant. With time's end and a single, fluid action Jin had sliced through the bot's weak spots and had taken a new stance before time had resumed. The time spent in the time stop state was 4 seconds, he had 26 left.
Standing in the previous automaton's place he felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck and knew what was upon him. A set of four 2-point bots surrounded him from each street that fed into the intersection in an ambush. He watched with extreme focus as the bots approached and the second before contact like Moses parting the Red Sea, Jin forced time's endless flow to stop for him and with another well-practiced and well-worn motion eliminated all 4 robots, the whole action taking 2 seconds off his well of time which now sat at 24 seconds.
With that, the bots exploded into ash, and with more work to be done, Jin set off and dived deeper into the mock city. The first few bots he fought on this rampage ate a few seconds each bringing him below 20 seconds of timestop left. The next round of automatons he fought even deeper into the city and gave him a run for his money as his quirk drained his physical energy and left him with a handful of seconds left until he entered a small park with a level 3 bot.
The fenced park was a 30 meters by 30 meters asphalt square with a large sandpit with a jungle gym covering a little less than half of the park to Jin's far right. Standing in the entrance between the fence, he breathed heavily with his 5 seconds of timestop left facing down the bot. He reasoned it would eat up too much time if he got close in timestop, and so he moved from his even squared posture to more of a sprinter's stance before letting out a sigh and charging at a bot. The instant Jin's foot moved forward, the 3-pointer launched a barrage of missiles showering Jin and kicking up a large cloud of asphalt and ash. Seconds later, his spirit unbent and broken, Jin emerged from the fog with unimpeded speed. He yelled screams of pain and anger from the stinging burns that went from the base of his left ear to halfway up his left cheek. The moment the distance between the man and the machine was less than a meter, time stopped and turned into an oxbow of sorts. Jin Slashed off every appendage of the bot, and finished the job with a pair of katanas skewering the automaton's head. The actions had taken 8 seconds. As time resumed Jin retrieved his katanas from the husk of the robot.
For a few moments he stood defiantly on the bot before he gradually fell off backward from the automaton, hitting the ground with a groan and a clang. He slowly rolled over and got onto his hands and knees. Shortly after he gave out 4 out of rhythm labored breaths a pool of blood jumped from his mouth with a cough and pooled on the ground in front of him. He felt dizzy but pushed himself up and waddled forward, swaying side to side with every step. He continued like this out of the park and down a nearby small street before he crashed onto the side of a building after his knees buckled under the exhaustion and pain.
"Damn it!" Jin yelled in a hoarse voice as he punched the wall giving him enough adrenaline to get him up and moving for a few moments before his knees gave out and he fell back onto the building. He closed his eyes trying not to try, and punched the wall again, sending him into a vicious cycle as he pushed down the street until as he attempted to cross an intersection he fell flat on his face. He tried his hardest to push himself off the ground but the best he could do was his hands and a foot. He groaned and grimaced in frustration with every attempt to stand before he was sent back onto his face by the earth quaking beneath him. Pulling his head up he saw a towering bot that had emerged from the earth rampaging towards him.
Jin surged with an immeasurable amount of adrenaline allowing him to clumsily stand. He stared forward, katanas drawn, frozen not in fear or time, but in mind. As the monstrous automaton approached, the ground rumbling louder and louder each second he couldn't decide. Eventually, however, he snickered and gave in, turning to run.
He had taken so long that his slower-than-normal sprint's ability to deliver him to safety was questionable at best, meaning as well as having to navigate the narrow streets of a dense Japanese city, he had to deal with debris flying towards him constantly. The debris that was flung in front of him by the robot had made him detour slowly and surely to the main road, and before long he found himself sprinting down it. As Jin turned onto the main road he spotted 2 people on the road ahead, the green-haired boy from the gate standing indecisively and Hinoda squatted down in front of a fence of rubble.
"Uki!" Jin screamed at the top of his lungs as the adrenaline that now flowed through his veins pushed him forward even faster. The moment he passed over a breakwater of rubble he witnessed a true act of heroism, as the boy soared into the air and with one punch smashed the robot's head into bits. He stopped running and watched the display as Hinoda pulled a brown-haired girl out from the rubble. He let out a sigh of relief with a few unstable trots backward as he watched the boy fall. It was only about halfway down he realized something needed to be done and watched the boy as closely as he could, and as the boy was about 8 feet in the air his time slowed to an end as Jin jumped off a piece of rubble to grab him from the sky, laying him down as time resumed, the whole motion eating 4 seconds. Almost immediately as he stepped away from the boy he vomited a not unremarkable pool of blood and fell to his hands and knees, his lifeline of adrenaline cut off.
"Are you ok?!" Hinoda yelled the concern in her voice enveloping the air around Jin as a sense of comfort and familiarity covered him and Hinoda ran to his side. She grabbed his right arm and pulled him up, and together they began shuffling towards the exit.
"You gotta stop overdoing it," Hinoda whispered to Jin with relief, cutting through her voice, before looking behind and asking "Are you two ok!". Jin let out a stupid smile like a man reading his childhood comic for the first time in years.
"Yeah, we're fine!' The brown-haired girl yelled back with exhaustion lining her strained voice. As she looked over the boy
Before Hinoda could respond her eye was caught by a grandma, maybe a third of her height waddling past with a purpose. She stopped for a moment and she felt Jin give one tug before he stopped in his tracks as well. The two's heads were in sync as they watched her walk past. The pair of middle school friends looked at each other and shrugged before continuing on.
"You two stop, I'll get to him in due time!" the grandma yelled in a crotchety old voice before continuing to the green-haired boy. The two looked at each other again for a moment and the two gave out a little chuckle.