An hour later, Jackson Heights arrived.
Mr. Hall opened the door and smiled at Hawk, who was already standing there. "See you tomorrow, Hawk."
"See you tomorrow, Mr. Hall."
Hawk returned the farewell politely. After getting off the bus, he walked toward a nearby five-story old apartment building with faded orange walls.
The building belonged to the New York City Housing Authority. Hawk lived on the fifth floor, and although the space was small, it had one advantage.
He could easily reach the rooftop through the fire escape outside his window.
Soon after getting home, Hawk put his bag on the table. He took out a plastic bag with clean clothes, grabbed two hangers, opened the window, and climbed the fire escape to the rooftop.
After hanging up his clothes, he walked to the railing. He rested his hands on it and looked up at the planes that passed overhead, either landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport or taking off from it.
He enjoyed the wind while counting planes. It was one of the few hobbies he used to relax.
Recently, he had added another one. Watching the stars.
Night fell.
Leaning against the ventilation shaft and sitting on the rooftop, Hawk enjoyed the summer evening breeze. He looked up at the sky that appeared after nightfall.
The sky was vast, filled with scattered stars. Maybe it was just his imagination.
For the past half year, as he kept up his daily ten thousand punches, Hawk felt a kind of connection forming with the stars above. Tonight, that feeling was even stronger.
The constellations that had been blurry to the naked eye last night were now unusually clear.
Pegasus. Draco. Cygnus. Andromeda. Phoenix.
Scorpius.
The forty-eight constellations that symbolized the forty-eight Bronze Saint Seiya now filled Hawk's vision.
It seemed that tonight, the entire Universe would shine for him.
Just after midnight, on the rooftop of the apartment building, Hawk was throwing punches. There was no punching bag and no technique to speak of, only his body standing in place. His eyes were half closed as he struck the empty air again and again.
He was not chasing speed this time, as if he had fallen into a sudden moment of understanding. Before tonight, every punch carried a strange feeling in his chest. Tonight, that feeling was far stronger.
Hawk felt as if he had stepped into something that was endless darkness from every angle. Yet with each punch, a small spark of light bloomed within that darkness. The light appeared, vanished, and returned with the next strike.
If he had looked up, he would have seen something even stranger. Hanging in the night sky, the Pegasus Constellation, Draco Constellation, Cygnus Constellation, Phoenix Constellation, and Scorpius Constellation that formed the forty-eight Bronze Constellations were responding to him. With every punch he threw, they flickered in reply.
It was not a single constellation answering him, but all of them. All forty-eight Bronze Constellations reacted to Hawk's fists. One punch, then another, and another.
This time he punched slowly, yet somehow also very fast. He always pulled his fist fully back before throwing the next one, but the afterimage of the first punch had not faded before the second appeared. Soon there was a third, a fourth, a fifth, until the air was filled with overlapping shadows of his fists.
Suddenly, a dull boom sounded inside Hawk's mind. It was faint, yet it rang like a massive bell. A small flame appeared with that sound.
As the flame rose, the stars reflected into an endless inner space began to ripple. The ripples spread and quietly tore open the thick black curtain of darkness. What began as a small tremor expanded at once, like the first great explosion of the Universe, and the stars scattered across the darkness shattered apart.
Inside Hawk's body, an invisible wall collapsed under that overwhelming force. A power that had slept for countless ages woke up in an instant. His eyes snapped open.
Deep within his gaze, the flame no longer flashed and faded. This time, it burned without stopping. His blood roared through his body, and every tiny cell shook as if thousands of stars were swelling at once.
Under that violent expansion, his bones shattered and reformed again and again. The force was terrifying, yet it rebuilt him in the blink of an eye. A sharp hum rang by his ears, and his vision blurred.
He saw the particles that made up his flesh spinning, burning, collapsing, and erupting like the birth of the Universe. He saw his blood flowing under his skin like a boiling river of stars. He even saw his beating heart, each pulse echoing like the first eternal rhythm of creation, sending invisible waves through endless space.
In the next moment, clarity struck him. Hawk clenched his right fist, ground his heel into the rooftop, and dragged his foot like a plow, shattering the concrete beneath it. His center of gravity pulled back as his body withdrew.
He pulled back, then threw the punch. A low roar burst out, not from his throat, but from something far deeper. "Burn, my Cosmo!!"
The air around him spread outward like rippling water. The space around him cracked like glass. Even the flow of time seemed to tear apart under that single strike.
For an instant, air, space, and time all froze. Then the air screamed as it was torn open. Space groaned as it was crushed.
Time itself collapsed under the blow, only to be replaced at once by a new timeline. Across the street, the glass walls of the nearby apartment building exploded under the shockwave, shattering with deafening noise.
Parked cars along the road looked as if an invisible hand had slammed down on them from above. Windows burst apart, and alarms screamed one after another. Sirens and panicked voices followed.
At Kamar-Taj, a sorcerer turned toward the sudden sound made by the Sorcerer Supreme. The Ancient One lowered his gaze to the relic hanging at his neck, the Eye of Agamotto. Forming a seal with both hands, he activated it, and a dim green light spilled from the mysterious gem.
In the Marvel Universe, this gem was known by a common name. The Time Stone, which allowed its user to reach any point in time, whether past or future. It governed known and unknown timelines alike, and to hold it was to hold time itself.
"This is?" "The future has changed?"
The Ancient One formed another seal, closed the Eye of Agamotto, and vanished from where he stood. His expression was calm, but his eyes carried weight.
A mechanical voice rang inside Hawk's mind. "Ding! Congratulations, you have activated Cosmo Training!" "Ding! Accompanying you for one thousand days has been my honor. System will now disengage. I look forward to our next meeting." "Finally, the Cosmo Training method is a method of battle, a method of holy war. Grow in battle, and rise in battle." "Goodbye."
One thousand days ago, System had quietly come online. One thousand days later, it quietly went offline. It came without sound and left without sound.
By now, the sky was fully bright. Voices rose from below in chaos, full of shock and anger. Glass, cars, and curses filled the morning air.
Standing on the rooftop, Hawk slowly opened his eyes. He looked toward the Manhattan skyline and saw aRift tear of deep blue light cutting across the sky. He froze in place.
"Did I just punch a hole in the sky?"
Hawk stared at Skies over Manhattan as it was torn into a Rift, exposing an endless black sky, and froze in place. The sight was far beyond anything he expected, and his breathing slowed as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
Over Skies over Manhattan, deep blue light shot straight upward, striking again and again into the broken gap in the sky, as if a section of space itself had been forced open. The opened area looked as though an invisible hand had ripped it apart, its edges flashing with blue light and making sharp crackling sounds.
Hawk lowered his gaze to his right hand without thinking. For a brief moment, he wondered if he had done this himself.