CHAPTER 9

A/N:

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Now that he was in his group's waiting area, he could only think of one thing.

'Wow, these chumps are pathetic.'

He thought as he watched some of the participants flex their muscles to probably intimidate the participants, while some had nervous looks on their faces. He doubt most of them here would compare to the likes of Kenichi, but he was more interested in their martial arts anyways.

Noticing that some of them were women and that they were in the same dojo due to their similar logos on their gi, he nodded in satisfaction.

'It's nice that more women are learning martial arts. Makes my heart a little lighter since the cases of women being the primary target in Tokyo were rising.'

He saw a news article a few days ago talking about the increase in crime rate, saying that 52% of victims in Japan were women, so he was glad that more women were learning martial arts.

He took a closer look at their attire too since it was a gi that Taekwondo users wear.

'Taekwondo? Nice! I can copy it and keep it for later!'

Looking around some more, he grinned at the fact that there were so many participants that had different martial arts skills based on his observations of their clothing and body builds.

'Judo, Aikido, and Muay Thai? I knew this was a good decision!'

"Alright, listen here!" One of the organizers of the tournament called them at the front, taking all their attention to him.

"We'll be drawing lots to decide the placements, so if everyone could please step forward and take the papers in this box!"

In front of the waiting room was a box that had an opening on top for people to stick their hands into it. Since he didn't want to be the first one, he waited until there was a line before joining in.

Once it was his turn, he stuck his hand into the box and shifted around to make sure that the event was not rigged by checking the top of the box using his hand.

'Doesn't seem to be anything here…'

Grabbing a piece of paper, he showed it to the staff responsible for the placements.

"Number 6… Alright, next!"

Walking back to his spot with the piece of paper, he sat down to calm his mind.

'Number 6, that means that I'm on the third match against Number 7 —"

"So, you're the "Genius" that Sensei talked about, huh?"

Looking up after his thoughts were interrupted, he sees a boy, around 18, looking at him in disappointment.

"You don't look like much. I knew the whole thing was staged. Sensei didn't believe me. I mean, how can an 8-year-old even fight a 17-year-old?"

'… What?'

The boy looks down at the paper that he was holding onto before smirking.

"Number 6, ey? Good. That means that I, Kida Matsumoto, ace of the Daikaiji Dojo will show the whole of Japan the fake "genius"!"

He huffs, taking a look at him one last time before walking away, leaving Gohru speechless. The rest of the participants watched it happen, but they didn't intervene at all.

'… Holy shit, a Chinese Young Master!'

He thought to himself before giggling at his joke.

Was he mad? No. No, of course not. He is 25 mentally. This kind of behavior never could make him want to drag that kid's face to the floor and run it along the floor until it was painted red in color. Of course, not. He was calm. He was mature. He would definitely not do that the moment they stepped into the ring.

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Watching the fights were… boring, to say the least. Since the tournament was using a K.O. only and an out-of-bounds only rule, most participants (He'd only seen two fights) opted to use grabs and throws to get their opponents to go out of bounds, which was boring.

To be fair, they probably aren't like Gohru and Kenichi, who were crazy about sparing for real and were just joining martial arts as a hobby, so he couldn't blame them, but at least make a bracket solely for sparing for "real" instead of this boring crap. Well, at least he got to copy some techniques.

Once it was Gohru's turn to fight that Matsu guy (He forgot about his name immediately), he drank a gulp of water and took a deep breath to control his anger before heading out of the waiting room to the sparring area.

Since the hall was big enough to accommodate 10 fights at once, there were multiple group fights that were happening at the same time. Looking at a distance, he could see Kenichi decimate his opponent with his range and power, soon knocking his opponent to the floormat with a roundhouse to the neck.

'Ohhhh, that's gotta hurt since he's not holding back.'

"Worried that you're gonna fight him?"

Raising his eyebrow at the mockery of a taunt, he glanced at the Matsu guy.

"Don't worry, kid. I'm knocking you out of the brackets, so don't even think about fighting him." He said as he laughed at Gohru, who was already irritated at the guy's taunts.

'Why is he so cocky? I've never fought anyone yet, so he has no data on me. Is he just confident about his fighting abilities or what?'

Frowning at the logic, he decided to go all out in case this guy had some trump card against him since he was acting too confident.

While they were wearing their protective gear, Gohru asked.

"Hey, what kind of martial arts do you use anyways?" It was a simple and innocent question since he was now genuinely curious at the amount of confidence this guy had. The face the guy had upon processing the question was hilarious.

"Huh? You don't know? I use Karate. How do you not know, "Genius"? I'm the ace in Osaka!"

He was now clearly angry. How dare he not recognize him? He was Kida Matsumoto, the ace of Daikaiji Dojo! The genius of Osaka! The holder of 100 wins without any losses!

"Jeez, no need to be so angry. Gosh, kids these days…"

He muttered at the anger the guy was exerting, which intensified since he accidentally said it louder than the wanted it to be.

"That's it! I'll fucking kill—!"

Before he finished his sentence, Gohru walked away shaking his head, making his anger skyrocket.

'I'll show him! How dare he ignore me, Kida Matsumoto!'

"Are you both ready?"

The invigilator asked the two once they stepped foot in their respective squares. With a verbal "Yes" from Gohru and a quick and angry nod from Matsumoto, he raised the flag before shouting at the start of the match.

"Then… Fight!"

With the intention to bully the kid for embarrassing him, Matsumoto had planned to beat the kid up, shutting the kid's mouth with a kick if he tried to surrender since the only way you could surrender in the tournament was to verbally say the surrender (It was by the head organizer), but the moment the invigilator started the fight…

Gohru dashed to Matsumoto with a speed so fast that he could not even see him coming. He could only watch as Gohru took a step forward with his left foot, reeled his right leg back, and rotated his hands and hips to increase his momentum before swinging his reeled leg with force so hard that —

BANG!

A loud bang, the sound of a gun firing could be heard once the leg was swung. The leg connected at his left cheek and sent ripples that shook his entire core. And then pain struck.

His body rag dolled as it flew in the direction of one of the advertisement boards and crashed into it.

CRACK!

The body rests on the now cracked advertisement board unresponsively as the culprit still in his roundhouse stance along with the crowd looked at his opponent with shock in his eyes.

'... Wait what?'

He was confused since that guy's eyes were tracking his kick the whole time. He honestly thought that he would dodge it and counter with something since he was so confident. But he didn't? And got knocked out in one hit?

'Ohhhhh... Right...'

Because of Kenichi's Quirk, he was more durable and stronger, making Gohru required to use more strength in his attacks against him to the point that attacking at 60% power was equivalent to 140% to normal people without strengthening Quirks.

Putting his foot back down, he watched as the staff of the tournament rushed to help the poor guy as he nervously chuckled.

"Er… Oops?"

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