CHAPTER 8
A/N:
Well, Happy New Year! To celebrate it, I'm releasing two chapters today as a present :)
Usually, I only publish 3 chapters per week (Ahem! If you join my Pa**eon you get 5 per week, shameless plug-in), but I'll post 5 this week because it's New Year week. WOOO!!!
Alright, that's all for now. Time to get back to the chapter.
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Two Days before the Tournament…
FWUSH!
The sound of a punch being swung could be heard in the park's quieter zones.
PAH!
"G-Guh!" Gohru grunts for a moment at the pain before backing off from a front kick aimed at the chin. Waiting until he rushed in, Gohru raised his fist before redirecting a roundhouse to fly above his head before slamming his fist into Kenichi's chest, causing him to gasp in pain.
'UGH! Him and his fucking LOW KICKS!'
Stepping back a few more steps, he exits Kenichi's range before raising his hand at the advancing Kenichi who was also sweating buckets at their Nth spar.
"S-Stop for a minute!" Kenichi abruptly stops in place as the two fell to the ground, panting in exhaustion. Their shirts were drenched in sweat due to the number of spars they had done.
"I didn't think… I'd use… my precious Friday sparing for 4 hours straight, you bastard!" He huffs tiredly at the laying boy who retorted with a snort.
"Grow… up… You low-kick abuser! Needs to get nerfed…" Gohru said with difficulty as Kenichi laughed at the remark before coughing and tossing Kenichi a water bottle filled with water.
He grabs it with ease before drenching himself with it to cool down after taking a few sips of water. Agreeing that it was a good idea, Gohru corks the cap of his water bottle open before drenching himself, feeling the immediate cooling on his skin.
As they were cooling down, a woman was jogging by the road before shamelessly ogling the two's hunky chiseled bodies that many shut-ins would kill to have before reluctantly continuing her run. The two ignored the looks at the woman since this was the 4th one this session.
'Thirsty ass MILFs'
After a moment of relaxing, they proceeded to do their stretches to warm down since it was already 6 in the evening and Kenichi had a curfew.
"Hey, what do you think that they're gonna do your Quirk?" Gohru asked the 17-year-old, which the boy hummed in thought before answering.
"I guess they'd let me keep it on. I mean, who'd provide Quirk Suppressive Gear to a decently sized event?" He sarcastically said as Gohru nodded at the logic.
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Hirose Kenichi! Quirk: Emotion Strengthening! His Quirk passively increases his strength by a percentage based on his emotions! Currently, his Quirk reacts to anger and concentration, giving him a 30% boost while sadness depletes his strength by 30%!
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"But still, that's a broken Quirk. I don't get why you'd not want to even be a Hero."
"Too much work, honestly. I rather train to be an MMA champion. No laws, no Villain bullshit, just you and him in a ring fighting it out to be the winner. That's my style." The battle junkie explained while getting up with a grunt, no doubt sore from the amount of damage Gohru had done to him prior. At least they had a day to rest before the tournament.
Even if he sounds like a crazy person that wants to only fight all day, he was actually one of the smartest students in Tokyo, to satisfy his parents. He was even planning to get a master's degree in Engineering before starting his journey as an MMA fighter, which Gohru cursed the Gods for.
'Unbalanced! That's just not fair, man!'
While shedding an imaginary tear for his fellow shut-in Japs, they fist bumped, wishing each other good luck for the tournament before leaving the park.
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The Night before the Tournament…
He had decided to not train today's full set, but to train visually. Visualization.
Slowly but with purpose, he started performing Karate and Taekwondo moves and stances. With each move, he remembered the range of the attack, the purpose, the options the enemy must counter it, the available moves to combo into it, and the disadvantages of the move.
With each attack, there will always be a disadvantage. For example, a boxer's hook. The disadvantage of the move is that if the hook misses, the boxer's body is wide open from the head to the body. It's the same with other martial arts. There will be a disadvantage to each move.
The only way to not be countered is to decide and analyze the safest option to perform. That was why learning Mind of the Eye was his top priority other than Renewal Taekwondo. With it, he would be able to analyze what move he could perform that would give him the least disadvantage.
'That skill along with Instincts is just broken. Honestly, I should have asked for Mind of the Eye instead of my current Quirk, but the past is in the past.'
After that, he started to shadow box. Picking Kenichi as the shadow, he started to fight his imaginary friend. Each blow dealt by Kenichi would be analyzed heavily. What did he do wrong here? What should he have done here instead? The reason why he chose Kenichi was because he was the only person that he had a good imitation of.
After two hours of training his mind, he walks back to the orphanage to get his 8 hours of sleep before the tournament since it was being held on Sunday at 12 p.m.
'8 hours of sleep. How long had I not slept for more than 5 hours one shot?'
He chuckled at that thought. He had surely worked hard in the few years, and tomorrow would show him and the whole world his dedication and hard work.
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Arriving at the hall was mind-blowing since the number of people blew his mind.
"That's a lot of people, nii-chan."
"Yeah, no kidding." He responded to the boy as they walked toward the hall together.
'I didn't think that the martial arts scene was this active.'
Back in his original world, martial arts were not as active as this world, only having a few tournaments in a year in his hometown that didn't garner the attention of many. Here, there were about 1,000 people in the seats with several students from all over Japan coming to fight in the tournament.
Apparently, after his viral debut, multiple dojos from all over Japan sought the small dojo and asked them to sign them into the tournament, making Gohru's dojo change the venue from their normal-sized dojo that could only fit 70 people to a hall that the government lent to accommodate the increased number of participants and spectators.
'This tournament basically became a mini version of the World's Martial Arts Tournament, and it was all because of me.'
After signing in and leading the boy to Kenichi's parents (They are amazing and they volunteered to watch Kodao), he walked to the Under-18 section of the tournament. There were 8 groups, each having 16 people fighting it out in a knock-out tournament to be the winner of the group to advance to the quarterfinals.
Noticing Kenichi, Gohru was about to greet him when he noticed the state of his friend. He was smiling. Not the gentle smile that he always saw, but a bloodthirsty smile that made him shiver in his spine. And those eyes. They were burning with excitement and concentration, causing the others to shift awkwardly around him in fear.
'I guess he's not going to hold back today. Shit.'
"Oi, calm down. You're scaring the rest." His head snapped in his direction before grinning.
"I can't help it, students all over Japan, and the instructors say that there are some stronger than me and you? This makes my blood boil SO MUCH." He starts cackling in which Gohru's reply was a resigned sigh.
'Where was the calm onii-san figure that I saw when we met? I got jebaited hard.'
After realizing that they were in a different group, Gohru in C while he was in E, they fist bumped before walking their separate ways to their respective groups without saying good luck, preparing for their eventual rematch in the quarterfinals.
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