17 Unnamed

In the morning Carl heard the news that most of the Shinpaku Alliance was in the hospital. Apparently last night Sho had showed up and tried kidnapping Miu to bring her back to Yomi.

When Carl heard the news, he clenched his fists tightly. He'd missed a perfect chance to fight!

"I'm supposed to have a perfect memory, so how did I not remember Sho's attack?" Carl muttered to himself. He had read the manga based on this world years ago, and with the Savant perk he should have had all that knowledge readily available in his mind.

While Carl ate breakfast, he pondered the situation. He delved into his memories to try to understand why he'd been blindsided and missed out on the attack the previous night. That would have been the perfect time to jump in to interrupt the plot and have a good fight against a decent opponent.

"But what happened? It's like I was selectively blind." Carl muttered to himself. "Sure, my memories prior to getting the Savant perk are fuzzy and incomplete, cause the memories degraded in the time before getting the perk. But I really forgot that much about the plot?"

Carl spent some time thinking about it, and realized that he really had forgotten a lot of what happened between the current time and the end of the manga.

"So, I can't really rely on any prior knowledge of this world to give me a leg up. Because I was a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the memories were much more prominent. But I had only read History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi once, and apparently forgot a lot."

Carl's introspection was interrupted when it was time to return to the arena.

When Ryozanpaku was slotted to fight, Carl was again forced to sit on the sidelines of the tournament and watch Kenichi and Miu fight Garyu X, er..Hayato.

Being forced to sit out and simply watch, Carl finally figured out that this tournament was something Hayato allowed and maybe manipulated to teach his granddaughter and her potential suitor Kenichi certain lessons about the realities of the martial arts world, and how their current level just wasn't enough, and how to progress from there.

Carl, frankly, pouted a bit at being left out again. 'Aren't I a disciple too?' He thought.

After some time, Carl stopped pouting and feeling left out and simply watched, entranced, at Hayato's fighting abilities. Even thought he only used 0.0002 percent of his power, he dominated the fight. Hayato was able to split his attention in two, fighting with a different style in each hand. It's like he had two brains, one each in control of each half his body.

Carl focused on the fight, and started pondering his own situation. He realized that aside from seeking out small fry to fight, he had been totally relying on his masters to pull him up to master class. He only did the exercises they said, he never continued on his own when they didn't assign training exercises.

In short, he had been coasting and enjoying watching the story play out in front of him. He decided he really needed to break out of this rut and really push himself.

The match between Kenichi and Miu vs "Garyu X" soon ended. Kenichi and Miu had proved themselves to Hayato and received some instructions via a special skill that Hayato had to ensure that only the recipients could hear.

Garyu X then faked getting a call from Garyu Pink and forfeited to the Ryozanpa disciples before disappearing from the arena by jumping straight up above the arena, then air jumping away.

"Superhuman Master Class abilities." Carl muttered as he watched the Elder fly away. "So cool." He knew Hayato was a Legendary Master, 2 ranks above that of master class, so he was even more overpowered than most masters.

Carl's attention returned to the arena as the next match was announced. The Shinpaku Alliance vs Capoeira Team. Looking around Carl didn't see the Shinpaku Alliance.

"Where are they at?"

The Capoeira Team began performing some music and dance number as an introduction. Carl narrowed his eyes at the display. The Capoeira Team didn't show any emotions as they performed, like they were just going through the motions.

"If Siegfried saw this display he would be mortally offended that they put no heart and soul into their performance." Carl commented to himself, thinking of the musically obsessed Captain of the Shinpaku Alliance. "Wonder how his training trip is going?"

A short time later, Niijima, Ukita, and Kisara showed up at the arena. They were the only uninjured members of the Shinpaku Alliance.

Carl appreciated their rock steady gazes. Even though they were down several members, they didn't plan to give up.

"An opportunity." Carl muttered to himself. "Sensei, since I keep getting sidelined in Ryozanpaku's fights, I'm going to go join them for a round." Carl said to Akisame before he stepped up next to the trio.

"Oh? Aren't you part of Ryozanpaku's team?" Niijima asked when he saw Carl was standing with them.

Carl snorted. "I kept getting sidelined so Kenichi and Miu could show off. I haven't gotten to fight once! So this is a perfect opportunity for me."

Carl could see that Ukita was moved. Kisara just snorted a "whatever." Her tough girl act always amused Carl. He had seen her as playful as a cat before, so he knew her toughness was just a habit. But like a cat she refused to acknowledge those times where her playing impacted on her dignity.

Just as the match was about to begin, Carl heard the sound of anti-air weaponry firing. Looking up, he saw a private airplane fly overhead. Just before it was hit and destroyed, a single person bailed out of the plane.

The figure fell past the missiles that were flying up, and at the last minute he opened his parachute, landing hard and rolling to stand. Opening his arms in a showmans fashion, he sang his introduction.

Carl joined the applause of the audience at the spectacle. Siegfried had joined them just in time for the next match.

After greetings were exchanged the match began. A 5 vs 5 team brawl.

The Capoeira team had four males and one female. Kisara chose her opponent to be the female. Carl headed straight for their Captain. Niijima had a hide and seek battle with a black haired fighter in a turban. Niijima wasn't really strong, but his hide and seek abilities were excellent.

Carl soon lost track of the other members of the Shinpaku alliance and he devoted all his attention to the fight in front of him.

The Capoeira style was not one that Carl had fought against before. It was an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combined elements of dance, acrobatics, and music.

Carl had his hands full with his opponent. The Capoeira captain was very acrobatic, frequently dancing around, spinning away from punches and kicks, and generally using movement to avoid being pinned down.

But as Carl fought him, he gradually got used to the rhythm of the style. He began to see how the style used the shifting movements to distract him and the circular motions to redirect and return the force of attacks against him.

The principles behind the style wasn't unknown to Carl, he was a disciple of Jujutsu that used the enemy's movement and force against them afterall. He was just used to more compact and direct movements and attacks. The roundabout circular attack patterns had only momentarily confused him.

Within a few exchanges, Carl adjusted and soon used a series of kicks to the stomach to weaken his opponent's core and slow him down long enough to lock his movements in some joint locks, and knocked him out.

When Carl was finished, he looked around to see how the rest of the Alliance members were doing.

Kisara was just finishing up her fight, knocking the girl she was fighting out with a series of kicks while Niijima and Siegfried, who were uninjured, and Ukita, who was bruised up, watched. Apparently their opponents had given them even less trouble than Carl's opponent had.

"…sleep." Siegfried said before collapsing where he stood. Apparently cutting his training trip in Tibet short and running to the island, almost getting blown up, and fighting a battle had worn him out.

Carl looked over at the exhausted sleeping man. "Well, he's got good timing, I'll give you that. He waited until after the battle to sleep."

Things started happening quickly after that match.

Sho appeared on the stage to fight Kenichi.

"The battle for Miu's love, begins!" Carl muttered in amusement.

The military of many nations attacked Despair Island, determined to end the underground tournament.

While Kenichi continued fighting with Sho while Miu watched, Carl joined the Shinpaku alliance in seeking out their injured members to protect them while the battle raged.

Shigure Sensei escorted them along the way, and that was when Carl got to see his weapons mistress sensei slice apart a tank with her sword.

"Amazing what Ki can do." Carl whispered, awed at her ability. Shigure Sensei soon left them to make their way to the docks while she moved to attack the enemy. Carl realized that if they stayed in danger on the battlefield, they would just be a bother to his masters, as they would be forced to limit their actions to protect them.

Before they arrived at the docks, their way was blocked by a large man with a strange visor over his eyes.

The man, Fortuna, who was the owner and organizer of the tournament, started going on a crazy rant about how valuable the children who had the potential to become masters were, and that if they were valuable, then they belonged to him.

"Become my children! Fortuna's children!" Fortuna yelled, as if that simple statement was all the convincing they would need.

Carl and the Alliance had no desire to be his children, so they attacked, hoping to subdue him and continue making their way to the docks.

But it turned out that Fortuna was a Master Class combatant, and despite Carl's best efforts, the Alliance members were once more beaten down. They had not completely healed from their previous injuries, and so they couldn't fight like they normally would.

Which left Carl taking a beating all alone for a bit. One disciple class versus master class, the outcome was obvious. Just when Carl thought he couldn't hold on, another combatant showed up, taking the pressure off him.

Hermit made his appearance out of the blue. With reinforcements, the members of the alliance gained a second wind. All of them joined together with Carl and Hermit in fighting Fortuna while Niijima called out some directions to the group on how to attack.

Niijima's strategic mind and keen eye for detail led the group to attack in such a way that it neutralized Fortuna's defenses, and maximized their strength. They attacked as one, all together. The synergy of their attack was enough to defeat Fortuna.

Several disciples defeating a master was definitely a worthy accomplishment.

All that was left was the mopping up operations by the military as they dismantled Fortuna's empire.

As they were leaving Despair Island in the dojo's boat, Carl reflected on what he'd learned at the tournament. He thought about what he'd seen and experienced in the short two days.

Over the past year and a half he had slipped into the mindset of a disciple, one who was completely reliant on his master. He had turned incredibly passive in many ways. He depended on the masters of Ryozanpaku to guide him, teach him, and tell him what to do.

During the tournament, Carl had awoken to the realization that he had completely subsumed himself into the disciple mindset. Seeing Shigure freaking slice a tank apart with a sword had really made him aware of how far he still had to go.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, though, to have the mindset of a disciple. When he was learning from a master, if he didn't have that mindset, that unquestioning trust, his training would be slowed down as he would always be questioning everything his masters told him, instead of just doing it.

But there at the tournament when Carl had seen the abilities shown off by the masters, he had suddenly woken up from his complacent mindset. He'd suddenly remembered, with great clarity, that he was on a jump chain. That he couldn't always rely on his masters in the future.

It had been nice for a while to just sit back and let someone else be in charge for a while. To not have to think about what to do. To not be on guard against enemies because he knew the masters of Ryozanpaku were there to shield him. To let the story go on as it was meant to be.

But he had been fooling himself all along into thinking that the reason he hadn't worked to change any of the story was because he didn't want to interfere. When the truth was, that with his level of power and skills, he really couldn't dictate events or change anything significant.

A few fights here or there, sure. But the overall actions of Yami, Yomi, and the masters of Ryozanpaku? He didn't have the power to do so.

Even his magic rituals to do a sneak attack was near useless for him. Unless he could get something of the target to focus the ritual he was out of luck. And if his target was a Master, Grand Master, or Legendary Master, he didn't have a ghost of a chance at getting the necessary materials to target them. Not as a Disciple class.

In this world, unless he became at least a Master Class Martial Artist, he really had no power to enforce change or deter enemy actions.

And that realization woke him up to the knowledge that he'd been fooling himself all this time. He'd been thinking that a little bit of foreknowledge actually meant he had power.

'Knowledge is only power if you can make use of it. If you can turn that knowledge to meaningful actions. If you can't change anything, knowledge just makes you more aware of your weaknesses.' Carl thought as he determined that he would work harder. 'The answer to your dilemma is training.' Carl paraphrased Akisame Sensei. 'If that doesn't work, it's because you didn't train hard enough. So do even more training in the future.'

And training is what Carl did. He tortured himself with Akisame Sensei's devices that built his base physical abilities. He worked hard to imprint every technique he learned from the various masters into his body, so he could do the moves even in his sleep.

He spent time learning about the human body and medicine so he could actually use his Martial Arts Medicine perk.

He focused on applying his martial skills to every aspect of his life. Walking, drinking tea, eating dinner, even breathing. With the help of his Civilian Skills perk, everything he did was martial arts. So everything became training.

He no longer bothered to schedule meditation time to practice kneading his Ki. He simply learned to do the meditation while doing other things. He played with is Ki while body training, technique training, taking a bath, or even brushing his teeth.

He started learning how to turn training from just something you do, to something you live.

And beyond focusing on the Unarmed aspect of the perk that Carl chose before entering the world, he spent time learning the way of the blade from Shigure Sensei. With an unending supply of metal and alloys from his farm, she taught him everything about blades.

How to make them, how to balance them, how to sharpen and care for them, how to live with them, and finally, how to make them a part of him.

In short, Carl lived martial arts.

One of the results of the DoD tournament was that a few members of Yomi showed up at Kenichi's school. For some reason Kenichi freaked out about it. But that was just Kenichi. He was always high strung.

Carl was happy because he now had new sparring partners around. Ethan and Rachel Stanley were siblings, but they had very different styles. Ethan practiced Kalarippayattu, an Indian martial art, and he was very serious and straight forward in his fighting attitude.

Rachel practiced Lucha Libre, a Mexican wrestling fighting style. She had a few quirks, like being just as focused on providing a "show" for the audience in her matches as she focused on the actual fight.

Boris Ivanov was a very military oriented Russian who practiced Combat Sambo, while Tirawit Kokin was a Muay Boran / Muay Thai practitioner.

After Carl met with the four and had a few sparring matches, one of the Yomi members asked Carl just why he would be stubborn and not join Yomi.

"You want to know why I don't want to join Yomi?" Carl asked as he thought about it for a bit. Should he, shouldn't he unload his reasoning? He went with he should.

"It's cause from what I've seen Yami breeds a bunch of freaking emos! Seriously, your philosophy has the most emo people around who just don't seem to get much enjoyment out of the martial arts!"

"It's like you send all your disciples to a little emo factory downtown where they are molded into sad little kill bots who don't enjoy what they do. I love martial arts. Especially the heart pounding excitement when I'm fighting a strong opponent. When I'm in battle, and winning or losing is a blades edge away, I feel so alive!"

"And then there is the camaraderie and fun when hanging out after a fight. The friends I've made, makes life fun. The superpowers of being able to freaking run around a city shouting "Extreme Parkour!" while bouncing around 5 story buildings like a chaos monkey on crack! I've had so much freaking fun with it!"

"But you guys are different. It's like you guys don't even know how to enjoy the amazing gift you have! You're all so stuck on some philosophy debate and fixated on killing people that you've freaking never learned how to enjoy life!"

"In short, your Emo Organization is the last thing I would consider joining!" Carl concluded.

'They seem suitably shocked at my rant. Time to make my escape.'

"See ya next time!" Carl called out before exiting with haste.

Time started speeding up for Carl now that he was totally focused on training and the occasional trip with Kenichi to fight the battles he just seemed to fall into. While Carl followed along the pace set by the Plot, he didn't mind too much. The battles were good for Kenichi was good for making friends that he could spar with.

Carl really enjoyed their groups run in with the Yomi Weapons Division. With his Hidden Weapons perk Carl always had at least a dagger on him, even though he rarely used it. He could also quickly grab a sword from his Warehouse with a bit of misdirection to hide the existence of his portals.

So running across members of Yomi that specialized in weapons was a delight for Carl, so he could practice his blade skills.

Through the fight, Carl began to really integrate the sword into his Jujutsu base style. Being aware of joints, how they allowed an opponent to move, and using his blade to guide the enemy and use his force against him was actually pretty fun.

The plot continued, and Carl and the Shinpaku Alliance continued having run ins with Yomi. They traveled to Okinawa, hunted Yomi as they tried to steal some data disc. They traveled to the Tidat Kingdom when Miu was kidnapped yet again.

They returned to Japan, and continued to have fights with members of Yomi that seemed to come out of the woodwork. Carl was loving it.

And the conflicts with Yomi and Yami finally reached a climax in a large scale battle where Yami is attempting to launch a missile that will plunge the world into war. Ryozanpaku and the Shinpaku alliance fought against Yami and Yomi, struggling to stop there plan.

Carl was in the thick of battle, subduing as many Yomi combatants as he could. Fighting alongside his friends and sparring partners.

After the battle was over, Carl heard the whole tale. The discover that Miu's father Saiga Furinji hadn't killed his own wife, but was trying to get revenge on the man who did. The culprit was Senzui, who had been masquerading as Saiga the whole time.

Senzui's plan had been to arrange a missile launch that would plunge the world and the different nations into huge war, creating chaos that would allow Yami and the Kuremisago Clan to experience true freedom in the ensuing conflict.

After fighting Saiga, Senzui managed to use the remote activation device to launch the missile, and all hope to prevent war seemed lost. Until Hayato Furinji attached himself to the missile as it launched. Carl and the entire group watched the missile rise into the air with the Elder clinging onto it. When it was a couple hundred feet in the air, the missile exploded prematurely, preventing the outbreak of war.

Everyone was shocked though, thinking that Hayato had died in the explosion. At least until they saw his figure gliding down from above, laughing boisterously. He had escaped the explosion and turned his coat into a makeshift parachute to slow his fall.

Once the culprit for planning and causing so much chaos, Senzui, was subdued and behind bars, things settled down. The members of Yomi and Yami didn't disband, but they stopped working so hard to destroy Ryozanpaku, and just turned into semi-friendly rivals in the Martial Arts that had a slightly different philosophy.

Carl was pleased with how everything turned out, because he could always find a good, clean, fight from a member of Yomi or Yami in the following years wherever he traveled.

After two and a half years of hard training at Ryozanpaku, Carl reached the Expert Class. He continued to train at Ryozanpaku dojo with occasional training and fighting trips, for the entire 10 years he was in the world. He liked the people too much to not hang out with them, even if technically as an Expert he was no longer under tutelage of his masters.

After seven years of training at Ryozanpaku, Carl attained Master Class.

Thanks to the training and attitude Carl's masters at Ryozanpaku instilled in him, his training never stopped. He kept trying to go higher, get stronger, and learn better skills.

In the end, Carl didn't make much of an impact on changing how Kenichi's story would have gone, but Carl wouldn't have it any other way. He made lots of friends, training partners, and experienced a lot.

That was, in Carl's opinion, the beauty of the philosophy of the Life Giving Fist in the world of HSDK. When asked about his opinion on the two philosophies, Carl's response was the following.

"If you love the martial arts and you love fighting, you'll never run out of opponents by following the Life Giving Fist, and you will continue to grow stronger."

"Those who follow the Death Giving Fist have the wrong idea. Yes, killing your opponent would prove that you were better than them at that particular instant, but it doesn't make you stronger. You have gained not one iota of strength by killing your opponent. The struggle to win, the struggle to triumph, that is where you learn to get strong."

"How many times in your life have you been defeated and made your escape from your opponent. You went and trained, you bled, you cried, you pushed yourself beyond human endurance, and you got stronger. Then you went back and defeated your opponent. See? You got stronger through your own effort, not by killing someone."

On the last morning of his ten years in that world, one of Carl's Eternal Rivals found him for another fight.

"Ah, Hideo, my old rival. I wondered where you had got to. Unfortunately, we don't have time for one more fight, I shall be leaving this world in a few minutes." Carl said while pulling out a bottle of Sake. "Come, have a drink with me, for I shall be leaving soon."

"That's why I'm here, I figured I'd give you a farewell."

Carl had at some point in the ten years of challenges become good friends with Hideo and shared his secret of world jumping. Hideo was one of the few that was on the list Carl would come back for if he could.

Strangely enough, Niijima was also on that list. Carl could always use an information gatherer expert in his world jumps.

Hideo poured a cup of Sake, and held it up in the air. "To my Eternal Rival. May you find a larger stage in the world to come."

Carl also raised his glass, then drained it.

The world went dark. His time in the world was over.