Loki understands that a magician with a weak body is just a victim waiting to happen. To make his "Grand Stage" real, he must first build the foundation: a body that can endure the strain and a mind that can deceive the world.
Ten months.
To a normal person, ten months was a long time. To a student athlete, it was a season. But to Loki Hargreaves, ten months was the pre-production phase of the greatest show on Earth.
If he was going to walk into UA High—the bastion of "Plus Ultra" and raw, physical power—with a quirk everyone labeled as a "sensory hallucination," he couldn't just be good. He had to be undeniable. He had to be so convincing that reality itself didn't have the courage to disagree with him.
The morning sun over Musutafu was a harsh spotlight, and Loki Hargreaves was its only performer.
While the rest of the world was still dreaming of heroes, Loki was already three miles into his morning run. His lungs burned, a sharp, searing heat that reminded him of his own mortality. This was the "Practicality" he lived by. A Quirk was a tool, but the body was the engine. If his engine stalled, the "Grand Stage" would collapse before the first act.
"Posture, Loki," he hissed to himself, his breath coming in ragged hitches. "A director never looks tired."
He pushed himself harder. He wasn't training for the flashy strength of a powerhouse like All Might. He was training for Efficiency. Every muscle in his body needed to be lean, fast, and capable of explosive movement. If he was going to use The Jester's Snap to "disappear," he had to be fast enough to actually move out of the line of sight in that single, stolen second of memory.
After the run came the grueling hours in a small, private gym his father had helped him set up in their garage. Arthur Hargreaves couldn't give his son a "God-Tier" quirk, but he could provide the weights, the protein, and the encouragement.
Loki worked on his agility and core. He spent hours on a balance beam, dodging swinging tennis balls while trying to keep a deck of cards perfectly fanned in his hand. If he dropped a card, he started over.
"The hand is quicker than the eye," he muttered, "but the mind must be quicker than both."
He studied Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Aikido—martial arts that relied on an opponent's momentum.
He moved into calisthenics—pull-ups, dips, and high-intensity interval training. He needed the stamina to hold a massive illusion under the pressure of a battlefield. Most illusionists failed because they forgot to breathe. Loki practiced holding his breath while maintaining a complex green-mana image of a roaring lion. When his lungs screamed for air, the lion would flicker.
Not good enough, he thought, sweat dripping onto the concrete. If the lion flickers, the lie dies. If the lie dies, I die.
Rank 1: The Sleightist
By the fifth month of his ten-month countdown, Loki began to categorize his abilities. He called this stage The Sleightist. These were his "Close-Up" tricks—the foundational spells of misdirection.
This was his most dangerous tool. It wasn't time travel; it was a sensory "glitch." By snapping his fingers with a specific frequency of mana, he could force the human brain to "reboot" for exactly one second.
He trained this on his father.
"Dad, try to catch me," Loki said, standing in the center of the kitchen.
Arthur reached out, his large hand closing in on Loki's shoulder.
Snap.
Arthur blinked. For a fraction of a heartbeat, his mind went blank—a "memory skip." When he "reconnected" to reality, Loki was standing three feet to the left, leaning against the counter with a smirk.
"I... I missed? or Did you teleport?" Arthur asked, confused.
"No," Loki replied, adjusting his cuffs. "You just forgot that I moved."
This was Loki's "Practical Weapon." He didn't like the idea of being defenseless. He bought hundreds of decks of gold-rimmed playing cards.
He discovered that if he infused the card with mana at the moment of the Snap, he could convince the air around the card that it wasn't paper—it was high-frequency steel.
He spent afternoons at a local junkyard.
Flick.
Snap.
A card soared through the air, humming with a vibrant green edge. It sliced through a rusted car door like a hot knife through butter before dissolving into harmless mist.
Efficiency, he thought. I can carry a hundred 'swords' in my breast pocket, and the police will just think I'm a magician.
This was the most subtle of his powers. It wasn't invisibility; it was Insignificance.
This wasn't invisibility. Invisibility was flashy; it invited people to look for you. The Veneer was the opposite. It was a "Passive Lie." It convinced people that Loki was simply too unimportant to notice.
He practiced this in the busiest districts of Tokyo. He would walk into high-end hotels or restricted areas, not by sneaking, but by acting like he belonged there so intensely that the human brain dismissed him.
"It's the Invisibility of Importance," he explained to Lyra. "People see what they expect to see. If I act like a rich boy who is too bored to be noticed, the guards' eyes will simply slide off me."
He tested it by walking right past a security desk at a private gala. The guards looked at him, saw his expensive suit and his nonchalant expression, and subconsciously decided he wasn't a threat. He walked in, took a single grape from the buffet, and walked out.
This was his trap-setter. By projecting his mana, he could "throw" his voice or the sound of his footsteps.
In the abandoned construction sites where he trained, he would create the sound of a heavy metal pipe falling behind a target. When the "target" (usually a stray cat or a motion sensor he'd set up) turned toward the sound, Loki would strike from the opposite side.
"Misdirection is the art of making the enemy look at the wrong hand," he wrote in his journal.
The Mental Toll
The training wasn't just physical. The "Weight of the Lie" took a toll on Loki's psyche. To make others believe his illusions, he had to believe them himself.
He began to stay in character 24/7. He became the nonchalant, self-centered guy the world expected him to be. At school, he treated everyone with a polite, cold distance. He wasn't being mean; he was insulating his stage.
"If I let them become 'real' to me," he reasoned, "then I become 'real' to them. And a 'real' hero can be hurt. An 'Illusion' cannot."
Only at night, when he was alone with his mother's diary, did the mask slip. He read her words about the "Heart of a Sovereign" and felt the weight of her expectations. He wasn't doing this for ego. He was doing this to prove that a "Useless Quirk" could dictate the terms of reality.
In the tenth month, Loki's body had transformed. He was lean, with the corded muscle of a fencer. His snaps were as loud and precise as a metronome.
He stood in front of a row of reinforced concrete blocks in the junkyard.
Snap.
Ten cards flew. Card-Sharp's Razor activated.
Ten concrete blocks were sliced into perfect halves.
Snap.
He used Phantom Echo to create the sound of an explosion to his right. He simulated a robot turning toward it.
Snap.
The Jester's Snap. He moved in the "blink" of the simulated eye, appearing behind the "robot" and placing a card against its neck He was ready.
Dinner: The Night Before
The house was quiet. Arthur had cooked a massive steak dinner—fuel for the exam.
"You've worked harder than anyone I've ever seen, Loki," his father said, his voice thick with emotion. "Whatever happens tomorrow... you're already a hero to us."
Lyra handed him a small gift. It was a gold-plated monocle on a chain. "For the Grand Illusionist," she chirped. "So you can see the truth even when you're lying."
Loki took the monocle. He felt the weight of it. It wasn't the Monocle of Truthful Lies yet—that would come later, when his quirk evolved—but for now, it was a symbol.
"Thank you, Lyra. Dad." Loki stood up, the green mana flickering in his eyes for a brief moment. "Tomorrow, the faculty of UA will watch a performance they will never forget. I'm not just going to pass. I'm going to own the stage."
He went to his room and laid out his outfit for the exam. Not a tracksuit. Not a costume. A crisp, white shirt, black trousers, and his emerald-green tie.
"Dress for the job you want," he smirked at his reflection.
The stage was set. The lights were dimmed. Tomorrow, the curtain would rise on the Grand Illusionist.
[End of Chapter 2]