Hiruma "The Chessmaster" Niou

Narrator: "The strongest men aren't always the ones who are the most visible. There are powerful men everywhere however, most can't see it because they are hidden. One such individual comes to mind and he's been watching the whole tournament..."

Name: Hiruma Niou

Epithet: The Chessmaster

Age: 58

Height: 160 cm

Weight: 70 kg

Appearance: A short man with a stocky build, with his surprisingly thick muscles for his age and build giving him a very solid appearance. From afar he looks old for his age, but from up closer it can be seen that what appear to be wrinkles from far away are actually a mass of small scars covering his entire body, along a few larger ones, most notably one on the right side of his skull that cuts into his hairline, right above a deep gash in his ear. He is always clean-shaven but his hair is a perpetual mess, probably because he always messily cuts it himself just to keep it short.

Personality: A stern man who rarely smiles, with a rough attitude and very little patience for idiots or blowhards. However, under his hard exterior burns a deep passion for combat, challenge and self-improvement in all their forms. He can't help himself but correct idiots on their mistakes and educate overconfident fools about their flaws. It is this combination of strictness and passion that make him such an excellent teacher, though his harsh methods that train fighters mentally more than physically have scared off plenty of prospective students anyway. He also has a fondness for board games and gambling, particularly enjoying riichi mahjong. He also often issues challenges or wagers to his students, or anyone who feels up to them for that matter.

Backstory: Niou was born a genius. At school he excelled, and yet in spite of the bright future ahead of him his spirit withered. The respect of his peers, a good job, success, money - none of these things meant anything to him. However, he was obsessed with one thing - power. In his teens, he spent a lot of time thinking about this dichotomy in his life - how, in spite of his success and skill, could it be that he was still unhappy? This got him to ponder about the nature of power, what it means to possess it, and how it should be used. The conclusion he eventually reached was that for him, power was not success, money or influence - all those can grant immense power, but they are all dependent on something external, be it peers, superiors or even something as ephemeral as the economy or society. No, for him power was something internal, something to be cultivated purely by dint of one's own abilities - in essence, the ability to live as one pleases independently of any opposition or support.

And so, he left school at the age of 16 and set out into the world on his own, supporting himself by wagering money on mahjong matches while indulging in his true passion during the day, that being combat sports. But even this world turned out to be too small for him - the rules of the various sports were annoying restrictions to him, so he tried to fill that void by practicing multiple martial arts at once, and even getting involved in street fights, frequently getting seriously injured in the process.

Eventually, his insane tenacity spread through his connections with the Yakuza through underground mahjong circles, and reached the ears of Wakayama Teiljo, a young entrepeneur who had inherited a once successful consultancy agency from his father along with a Kengan association membership, but was failing on both the business and Kengan front. Seeing Niou put his life at risk for seemingly inane ends inspired him, so he decided to make Niou his fighter and gamble everything he had left to challenge corporations in Kengan matches.

While off to a rocky start due to his small frame and inexperience in real fights at this level, Niou quickly adapted to his new enviroment thanks to his unorthodox approach to combat. Rather than fighting 'strength vs strength' or 'skill vs skill' or even 'martial art vs martial art' he took fights as 'human vs human'. Through a combination of trickery and deep strategy born from both analysis and manipulation of his opponents' mental state he quicly rose in the ranks - losing twelve times in the first six months of his career, and only three more times afterwards.

Over the following years Niou would become one of the top fighters in the association, becoming infamous for finishing fights in a single blow, often after sustaining heavy injuries throughout the rest of the match, and even being known to fight and win with a broken arm. However, the insane rate at which he challenged opponents eventually took its toll on him, robbing his already weak body of even more of its strength. After a career of eight years, amassing a record number of wins (though not nearly the highest win rate) he suddenly announced his retirement as a fighter, and left for the Inside. For even the limited rules of the Kengan matches eventually started to tire him, so he went looking for truly lawless life on the edge.

After two years of having effectively disappeared in the Inside he emerged, bearing many new scars, among which the large one on the side of his head, but also carrying a new calibre of strength and ferocity inside him. After this, he never returned to regular fighting - with his reputation and skill and Teiljo's business experience they restarted the consultancy firm as a consultancy for the world of underground fighting, servicing the Kengan association, other associations like Purgatory and even Yakuza and assassins, training their people. The rest of his time he spent traveling all over the world, a habit he had during his days as a Kengan fighter but one that he redoubled now that he had more freedom, learning techniques and inheriting nearly extinct styles from all over the world. His goal now is to find a young fighter with the potential to surpass him, and to train them to bring out that potential.

Fighting Style: Niou practices no set style, emphasizing even in his teachings that every person should fight pragmatically, focusing on their own strengths. For him his intellect and razor-sharp insight are his strongest points, so he utilizes a wide array of techniques he's picked up from all over the world. He combines this with his insight to predict his opponent's moves and even manipulate them to move how he wants to get an opening to destroy his opponent as efficiently as possible. Because of his extremely keen fighting sense and wide array of techniques he has also been called 'The strongest man in the world reincarnated in the wrong body', and he has often defeated opponents that were far stronger than him.

Techniques: Niou knows hundreds of techniques from all over the world, but in practical combat he uses only a small portion of them. This improves his reaction time, but it also means that his limitless number of options to counter enemy attacks depends on how well he's read his opponent, since he selects which moves he'll keep in his working memory based on that. In other words, if he makes a mistake in reading his opponent he'll slow down significantly as he has to adapt his strategy on the fly. It is for this reason that he tends to focus on his core skillset and fight aggressively when up against opponents he knows little about, to force them to show their hand early so he can prepare a proper strategy. Listed below are some of his most important core techniques - mostly techniques that are flexible for him, restrict the flexibility of others or finishing moves he can use once he's maneuvered his opponent where he wants them to be.

Sunkei: A common technique in Karate and Chinese Kenpo that is more commonly known as the one-inch punch. However, its true essence is a formless technique, as it involves the control of various joints in the body to accelerate a punch in stages to maximize its power with minimal effort. Niou has mastered this technique, allowing him to compensate for his small stature by enabling him to throw heavy punches from nearly any position. However, this technique is not omnipotent - if the movement of joints is restricted the resulting punch will naturally be less powerful (optimally it uses 20 joints for a full punch or 17 for the one-inch punch version). Moreover, the more joints are used the more restrictive the stance of the user is, forcing the user to trade flexibility for power or vice-versa. But the force created is deadly - even with his small build a punch utilizing all 20 or 17 joints has the power to kill, let alone knock someone out.

Udonde: The user takes a stance that looks very open, but is actually completely flawless, allowing the user to repel any and all attacks, even from multiple attackers at once. The trick is that the user needs to maintain a perfectly straight central line of balance to pull this off, which means that the seemingly casual walk the user does towards their opponent is actually one of the few movements they can actually make without disturbing this central line - because of this it is often called the 'Emperor Walk'. While it has almost no weaknesses defensively, it is highly reliant on the maintenance of its central balance line, meaning that the user has extremely limited options to counterattack without momentarily dropping their stance, making them vulnerable to attack. Furthermore, because it relies on counters the most effective way to counteract it is to simply assume a strong defensive stance of your own and wait for your opponent to break the stalemate. Other than that anything that can disrupt the user's balance will also effectively break the technique, as long as those moves can't get countered themselves.

Bone-crushing knuckle: A hybrid technique created by Niou himself that utilizes concepts from Chinese striking arts, modern medicine and Fa Jin. To use it, Niou forms a fist with the knuckles of his index and middle fingers extended, and performs a quick, whip-like strike to one of the target's bones, usually thinner and weaker bones like the ribs, the clavicles, the jaw and various joint bones. While he can use this technique whenever, it is most effective when combined with Udonde, since it is specifically designed to not require the user to move their line of balance to use it. However, this also means that the striking power of the technique is not high in and of itself - if it misses its target it would deal little damage at best or injure the user's hand at worst.

Kou (Tiger King): A vicious counter that combines striking and grappling into a fluid sequence. It is a formless counter intended to work against punches - once the opponent strikes, the user avoids the attack and jumps on the opponent similar to a flying armbar. However, instead of initiating an armbar the user hooks one leg behind the opponent's head, pulling them down while performing a knee strike to their chin, amplifying its power. Afterwards they'll be in position to break their opponent's arm, and the combination of the heavy hit to the chin and a broken arm is almost always enough to finish the fight in one go. The most effective way to counter this technique is not to get caught by it in the first place - once the user's leg is in place it is nearly impossible (though not entirely) to avoid the knee strike.

Armbone choke: When up against a particularly skilled opponent Niou will often attempt to bait out a hold or lock by focusing on striking techniques. He'll then attempt to escape this hold by dislocating his elbow, sometimes also his shoulder. Afterwards, he'll pretend to be in a bad position and wait for an opening to initiate the choke, where he uses his own dislocated (or broken if he failed to escape the hold) arm to choke his opponent. Because his arm is dislocated/broken he can assume a position for the choke that's much harder to escape from, and since the choking arm is useless to begin with attacking it will not be able to loosen the hold. If he's dislocated his own joints he'll be able to reset them afterwards, though it'll still have injured him.

Grapple reversal: Using principles from Aiki combined with the strong sense of balance he obtained by training for Udonde he turns an attempt to initiate most throws, holds and grapples against its user, setting them up for a counterattack by throwing them off-balance instead. This technique only works against grappling techniques and has no effect on attempts to throw or move him with raw strength, nor does it prevent some standing holds and chokes (in those cases he'll usually have enough joints free to counterattack with Sunkei instead). Originally he developed this technique to prevent Kou from being used against him.

Shaori: An extremely advanced skill from Chinese Kenpo that involves the user moving along with the opponent's strike to drastically reduce its impact. However, this technique is not compatible with Niou's build, so it is not nearly as effective as it could be - he can only reduce the damage he takes, at best, not negate it. However, being a formless technique he can use it in almost any situation, and in a pinch it can help him survive knockout blows. Usage of this technique is necessary for him because of the numerous injuries he's sustained throughout his career, which make it dangerous for him to take powerful hits head-on like he did in his younger days.

Real fighting: A host of dirty techniques that are usually deadly or permanently debilitating - eye pokes, chopping off ears, ripping attacks to the throat, attacks to the groin, brutal attacks to the ribs - all things he learned during his time in the Inside. He will only use these techniques in real, truly ruleless fights, and even then only against opponents who come at him in earnest. The one exception is the nose stab, where he shoves his index and middle finger deep into his opponent's nose, which is very painful and looks ugly, but the injuries from it aren't that severe - he often uses this for discipline or against weak fighers that underestimate him in order to teach them some