CHAPTER 30

A/N:

Thanks for joining Pa tre on, Nathan, and Soulsmsher.

A bit of some unfortunate news, exams are coming. And coupled with assignments and the need to study, I'll be on hiatus for a while until 7 March.

Sorry about this ;(

P.S. I totally forgot to post a chapter, so sorry.

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Sitting down at the hotel bed, Gohru sighs as he looked at the tournament bracket. It was only the two of them in the room while the rest of the boys were in their separate rooms.

"Who the fuck is this guy?"

He stares at the name that he was going against tomorrow. He had forgotten to watch the fight after his, so he regretted not being able to make any strategies to counter, but oh well.

Ryeom Jiwoo, a Korean who placed number 10 in the rankings. Looking at his bio, he's 24 (23 in international age since they count age since the start of pregnancy) and has won over 200 tournaments, mostly national, in the past 7 years. Impressive.

"Look here, he's a student in Korea's famous Hero college."

Toga said as she opened up the bio website that every participant had to write, and saw that he was a 4th year in the Hero course of Korea University.

Looking at his bio further, he noted his Quirk and his way of fighting.

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Quirk: Taegeuk (Yin and Yang) He can harness the energies to create weapons that are the principles of Taegeuk. He cannot use both weapons simultaneously and needs focus and concentration to utilize his Quirk.

He can also increase his strength and speed by flowing the energies of Taegeuk into his body, thus improving his physical parameters by at least 30% minimum.

Yin: Black Korean Short Sword with a tiger symbol at the hilt and handle.

Yang: White-ish Yellow Bong (Bo) Staff with a black dragon symbol that runs across the staff

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A bo staff user! He had always wanted to learn how to use a bo staff and had planned on going to China to learn from the Shaolin Monks that were still present in this era, but a professional to-be-Hero with an amazing Quirk?

Eye of the Lord's gonna eat good tomorrow.

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Wearing the same thing as yesterday, he made sure to drain a few cups of blood last night before sleeping to clench Toga's thirst whenever she needs to.

His match was the second of many today, a total of 4 matches. Kenichi's was the last one today, so he could relax while watching it.

He was also interested in the match between him and Miruko since he'd seen some of her fights on HeroTube (For the fight only, yes, only the fight scenes) as she has quite an interesting Quirk that increases her leg power and flexibility due to her Quirk, Rabbit.

... But there was one thing that he disliked about her, along with modern Heroes. They don't implement any martial arts that suit them at all. Like look at All Might, he's a guy that uses the "Punch, then Punch" philosophy, like where are the kicks? Where are the holds and grabs?

Hell, he'd never seen her do any Taekwondo or Muay Thai, martial arts that use solely legs and just opted to use her original moves. Sure, they're useful, but shouldn't she diversify her kit?

And long-ranged Heroes, stop functioning when they're not using their Quirks. It's like they only exist to use Quirks and just that, how did they even qualify as Heroes when they just stand there when their Quirks weren't suitable in a fight?

Ugh, he ranted long enough mentally, it's time to focus against this Korean fighter.

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He was now in the arena, stretching his body to avoid any sprains and damages when performing Renewal since it does a toll on your body the longer you use them.

The technical team had a problem with the cameras, so they were told to just wait for a while as they went to immediately fix it.

Ryeom Jiwoo was doing the same thing, stretching his legs and arms. But as they did their stretches in silence, he broke it with a question.

"Hey, want to ask? You korean? You name sound Korean."

He said in broken English, to which Gohru answered him back.

"Nope, Japanese. Sorry."

"Ah, it OK."

"No problem, I get that a lot."

And then awkward silence ensues.

'Damn, this is awkward.'

"No hard feelings, OK? Whoever wins is the better one, yeah?"

He takes a second to comprehend his English sentence before nodding with a grin.

"Yes, no problem. Best man wins."

And Gohru returned the grin before standing up, finishing his warm-up. Walking towards the man on the floor, he reached out to him, to which Ryeom grabbed it before pulling.

Walking back to their corners, they waited for a few more seconds until the announcer starts announcing the start of their match.

"Apologies, there was a slight technical error, but we're OK now!"

The crowd cheers as he fakes a cough to silence them.

"NOW, on the left side, we have Participant 83, Jin Gohru, who's only 12 years old, truly a genius in martial arts!"

"AND on the right side, we have Participant 291, Ryeom Jiwoo, the strongest under-30 champion in Korea!"

"I don't think I need to explain the rules anymore, so let the match BEGIN!"

DING DING DING~

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The moment the match started, Ryeom immediately activated his Quirk as with a shine of white light, a long staff with a dragon design appeared on his arms.

'Damn, that looks so fucking cool!'

With a spin and a twirl, he rests the staff behind his body before crouching and getting into a crouched stance, his left arm extended outwards while his right was holding the staff.

In response to that, he gets into Renewal Taekwondo's Basic Stance.

Renewal Taekwondo: Basic Stance.

Ryeom was the one who started the battle with a dash with his weapon, and as Gohru went into a more defensive position to get more knowledge of staff combat, Ryeom strikes.

THRUST!

He trusted his staff at Gohru's neck, but with Eye of the Mind, Gohru predicted that attack as he used his left arm to redirect the thrust to the side with as minimal energy as he could.

VOOM!

But then suddenly, with a jerk in a direction, the thrust turned into a swing, dodging Gohru's attempt to redirect. Immediately, Gohru ducked underneath the swing.

WHOOSH!

The hit did not land as Gohru tried to counter with a low right kick to the shin, but with a mastery of the staff, Ryeom pivoted his weight and swung downwards to Gohru's back of the head.

BANG!

With incredible reaction time, Gohru rolled out of the way of the staff as it slams into the ground, leaving a crack in the tile of the floor.

'Jesus, this guy's control is amazing!'

While getting up from the roll, Ryeom pounced and started thrusting his staff again, but something was different. His eyes were shining golden as with a deep breath, he started to thrust his staff with the speed of a bullet.

THRUST THRUST THRUST THRUST THRUST!

This must be his Quirk's physical enhancement! His moves were much faster as Gohru dodged each of the thrusts that targeted his neck, jaw, heart, solar plexus, and left eye successfully.

And with a horizontal swing that made a furious sound as it scrapped the air, they backed off to their original positions, their guards still up.

'Holy shit, this guy is really good with that staff!'

He thought as the Eye of the Lord absorbed as much as it could, sucking Ryeom's experience and techniques like a man drinking in a desert, information flowing in his mind at rapid speeds during the confrontation.

'I can't really get him into my range since he has a longer reach. I'll have to force him into it.'

And with that, he changed his stance to a more aggressive karate one before leaping at Ryeom.

As expected from someone with experience, he straight away swung his staff at his head using an overhead, using his advantage of reach to try and stop his advance, but with grit teeth, he tilts his head to avoid the head attack and raises his left arm to tank.

POW!

It hurt, but it still was nothing much as he pulled his right arm back, Ryeom now in his range.

"Kyokushin Karate!"

He mutters as he breathes as much air as he could before slamming his fist into Ryeom's solar plexus.

FOOM

'What?!'

Noticing what Gohru was planning, as soon as he slammed the staff into Gohru's shoulder, he let go and backed up, the staff fading away in golden motes as the attack misses.

WHOOSH! BANG!

The punch missed its target as the wind pressure from the punch sent a wave of air to the audience stand. But thankfully, there was an invisible forcefield between the main stage and the stands that withstood the attack.

The punch would have won him at least a chance to do something, but with it missing, Gohru decided to go on the defensive again, getting into a stance meant to redirect attacks and dodge attacks as energy-efficient as possible.

But his eyes widened when a black light shone, revealing Ryeom with a dark ominous short sword. With a sharp edge.

Uh oh.

Ryeom dashed at him, the short sword at his side as he swung it diagonally upwards to the left. Gohru dodged the attack, but then another swing came, this time it was overhead. And another one, and another one.

Since the weapon had a shorter reach, that meant that the attacks were much faster and more frequent. Not only that, it was sharp too from the sounds of slicing wind told him.

He had to somehow overwhelm him since disarming him would do nothing.

So with an intake of fresh air, he activated Gear Second.

PPPSHHHHHH!!!

Now successfully activating the enhancement, he disappeared from Ryeom's sight. Ryeom's eyes widened at the disappearance but retaliated with his enhancement.

With glowing eyes that shone black, he too disappeared from the crowd's point of view.

WHISH WHISH WHISH WHISH WHISH!

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM!

Cursing at choosing a universe that was twice as strong, he tossed that thought deep inside his mind before dodging another slash.

'Seriously? He's matching my speed? What the fuck?'

After a few seconds of dodging and trying to outspeed the Korean fighter, he notices something. A heavy pant. Looking at the fighter, he sees that he was panting slightly, remembering Ryeom's Quirk's description.

'Needs concentration and focus! I can do something about this...'

But he was hesitant. Kenichi showed it off already, and he already warned him not to use it much after his fight. He did not want the likes of Villains to learn Soru since they, somewhat normal people were even able to learn it.

'Eh, fuck it. I'll deal with it when the time comes.'

So with a deep breath, he looked at Ryeon and grinned before he vanished from Ryeom's sight. In his enhanced mode. That surprised him as his concentration faltered for a brief moment and made him lose the enhancement for just a split second.

But that split second was all that he needed as his face got punched.

BANG!

Kyokushin Karate: Fist of the Black Turtle.

Ryeom skidded back from the force of the punch as he instantly recovered and throw a thrust at the approaching Gohru, but again he vanished before he felt a pain in his leg.

Looking behind him, he sees Gohru's left foot digging into the calf of his right foot. Suddenly he felt a shockwave exert from Gohru's kick, sending him flying into the air.

Kyokushin Karate: Kick of the Red Phoenix.

Ryeom centres himself back before landing on the floor and blocked a jab aimed at his face with the blunt side of the short sword. He sees another punch come at him, and he blocks it again. A roundhouse kick, and blocks it.

But as he starts blocking the punches, the speed of them increased, making him overwhelmed as his guard lowered from being able to block them to nill, making him suffer some blows.

Kyokushin Karate: Dance of the White Tiger.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

In between the attack, Gohru weaved a few Renewal techniques as well.

Renewal Taekwondo: Arang

Renewal Taekwondo: Baekdu x2

Renewal Taekwondo: Baek Rok

Renewal Taekwondo: Ground Drawer

Eventually, he finishes the combo with an ordinary side kick to the chest, making Ryeom take a few steps back staggered. Gohru was about to continue with a kicking stance but pauses when he sees Ryeom standing still.

Ryeom takes a second to let go of his energy weapon before falling backwards but gets caught by Gohru who saves him from another concussion before placing him gently on the ground.

Standing up, he exhales slowly to relax as the crowd cheers at exciting the first match.

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