Taekwondo

The man looks confused. "You want me to teach you?" He asks.

I just nod and keep looking at him, expectantly. Now he looks confused, and starts thinking, he asks. "So, the reason you were challenging dojos and bad-mouthing taekwondo was for this? To find a master?"

Once again, I just nod, keeping the same look on my face. Hoping he would accept to teach me. He asks. "Why me". Now, this was hard, why, I didn´t really know, after almost a month here and not finding anything I was getting desperate, besides he looks to be perfect, clearly strong, knows dad, and most importantly, seems to be considering my offer.

Shrugging my shoulders, I answer. "To be truthful, it wasn´t exactly for you. If you have not realized, you haven't even told me your name. I just hoped a grandmaster or above would show up, yes stupid, I know, thankfully you were patient enough to talk to me and seemed to know Hayato sensei, otherwise, I don´t really know what would have happened, but hey, at least you were the one to find me, right?"

Now he just looks dumbfounded, not really believing my stupidity, I can´t blame him, really not my smartest plan.

"Sorry about that kid, name´s Mingyu." He says with pride, regretfully I have no clue on who the man is.

"A pleasure, Mingyu sensei, I´m Azuma." I slightly bow, he looks surprised by having me call him sensei. this always worked in anime, hope it wasn´t a lie.

"Hey, hey kid, I haven´t accepted to teach you yet." Still bowing I smirk.

"Yet? Sensei." I try to give one last push. He looks embarrassed by the slip of tongue.

"Yes kid, yet, I will not accept a disciple in the middle of an alleyway, let's go to my place, besides, training the disciple of Hayato Fūrinji himself, HA, I would brag about it to my grave." Nice save old man, nice save.

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Surprise surprise, his house was in the middle of a fucking mountain, what up with grandmasters and their mountains I wonder.

The disciple ceremony was a surprise, it was the first time I´ve ever done it, considering that I never had a formal teacher, my previous ones being my parents, seems they didn´t care or want me to be their actual disciple, even if they did taught me like I was one.

Then came the introductions, it seems sensei is an advanced grandmaster in taekwondo, amazing considering the series only showed three confirmed advanced grandmasters, mom, my half-brother, and his ass of an ex friend, Jenazad was never actually confirmed, some put him on advanced grandmaster others at legendary master, my take is advanced grandmaster or no way in hell Hongō would have been able to kill him.

And now, you guessed it, training! Fuck me.

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Gratefully as Sensei called it my foundation was as solid as they come, so I skipped basic conditioning, and dipped straight to katas and leg strength exercises. The exercises were a breeze, the katas, those were a problem, in jujitsu jumping is quite frowned upon, as you need to have an extremely solid center of gravity, and while in the air, you have no center. What did help me from my jujitsu training was flexibility, you need to have high flexibility to perform the more advanced moves in taekwondo, and flexibility I have to spare.

It took me a while to get used to jumping, taekwondo excels at high and jumping kicks, and that was against my very nature.

Three months took me to get the katas to perfection, I didn´t want to adopt my sensei´s style, I wanted to create my own, and I told him so. What I wanted was a monstrously strong foundation in taekwondo, surprisingly he quickly accepted once I told him my idea.

In this world creating a style based on a preexisting one wasn´t that hard, most of the movements were the same between styles that shared a family, like the Kushinada style for jujitsu, most of the moves were the same ones as other ancient jujitsu styles, what changes is ki application.

So, I could in theory create my own taekwondo style, with my talent in fighting, martial arts, energy manipulation, and understanding, while taking sensei´s katas and applying my idea on the ki application, this seamed doable.

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Months of practicing katas, and at last the foundation for my style was complete, according to sensei, my katas could be considered to be in expert class, even after heavily modifying them and having zero ki in them. He mentioned that I could only be fully considered expert class once the style had ki integrated into it, as, without it I was simply an extremely good at doing taekwondo moves.

What I changed from sensei´s katas were their reliability on balance and position, the two things I wanted out of my style. I wanted to be able to attack without getting into position and to use taekwondo with only one arm to balance.

This part was easy, without even considering my talents, my experience with jujitsu made it that my balance was one of my strongest points and the Fūrinji style, that focuses heavily on battle instinct helped with the position problem.

The ki application, that is what I struggled with, the style I had in mind needs precise, masterfully applicated and compressed Dou ki, which I have close to no experience using. I´m a master at Sei ki, or I would never have gotten that far with Ryūsui Seikūken, but Dou ki, I have no goddamn idea how to use Dou ki like I need to.

I started experimenting on my training, from learning to release Dou ki without notice, to trying to break a small rock that was behind glass, without breaking the glass, by compressing and releasing the ki in a single minute point.

On another note sensei realized who my father was.

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Three months into my training with sensei, he asked me to go meet him at the living room.

Sensei´s house was small, bigger than dad´s, but I believe a medium size bathroom was bigger than dad´s house. The décor different than what I had grown used to in Japan, if anything sensei was narcissistic as hell, his house full of his multiple black belts, trophies or photos of himself with other martial artist, he even had one with dad, in a central position in the living room, quite proud of that one he told me. I really forget that dad is a legendary figure in the martial arts world.

"Azuma come here for a second" Sensei called.

I entered the house, seeing him sited in a sofa I did the same, sitting in the armchair in front of him.

"Yes sensei?" I asked.

"Have you been lying to me Azuma?" He has that look someone has when you have been discovered. What in the actual fuck is he talking about, lying, about what, the only thing I have lied about is... Oh. Well seems the cat is out of the bag.

I sheepishly answer "Well…. There may have been a small lie, but really really small."

He was not amused, if his face had anything to say. "Really, small lie, really? He is definitely not amused.

Now I´m embarrassed, "I may have lied about my relationship with da- I mean Hayato." His eyes narrow and he huffs.

"You need to learn how to lie Azuma, that's not the first time you´ve slipped like that, and trust me when I say, your small slips, your knowledge on the Fūrinji style and its secret techniques, and the fact you are fucking blond, really makes it easy for one to connect the dots." He dryly states, with a ´I dare you to bullshit yourself out of this this one´ face.

"Okay! Hayato is my pops, you happy?" His face gains a smile.

"Actually yes!" What is happening. "God if before I was proud of teaching his student, I´ve been teaching his son, his son, HAHAHAHAHA." As I said before, narcissistic as fuck.

"So, you are not mad?" I ask him before he could praise himself to the high heavens.

"Nah kid, get why you would do that, your father is a legend in the martial arts circle, if news that there is a young son of his, well, your life would be…. let us say difficult is an understatement."

Sigh, the bastard, making me worried for nothing. "Could you keep it a secret sensei? Please?"

"Sure, my little apprentice, but I do wonder who your mom is, care to tell me?"

"Sure, she is Mikumo Kushinada." Silence. Is he trembling? Yes, he is, now he is pale, and it looks like he is about to pass out.

"Huh sensei you okay there?" He looks at me and gulps. Slowing nodding his head, he gets up, walks in front of me and grabs my shoulders.

"Kid, for the love of everything that's holy, do not tell your mom I threatened to kill you okay, please."

Why is he acting like that, I get mom is scary, but aren't you almost the same level?

"Sure, but why?" I´m interested now.

He sighs in relief and sit back down. Looking at me he starts "You see, your dad, while scary, would never kill me, yes he would severely hurt me, but not kill me, while your mom…." He trembles. "Your mom is a monster, you probably don´t know but a couple of years ago, your mommy-" he says with sarcasm. "started a purge, rumors started circulating that Mikumo Kushinada was out there hunting as if from a mission from god. The rumors said that she would appear in a town, searching for something, and most martial artist that was there, as long as they were an expert class, low master, master or advanced grandmaster would be death by the next morning."

He takes a deep breath and continues. "Like a bloodhound always following a scent, the story kept repeating, town after town, city after city, no one knew, what she was searching for, but something was clear, if she appeared where you were, you should run or pray to god she wasn´t looking for you. That was until two years ago, when, out of nowhere she stopped, it seemed that whatever she was hoping to accomplish had succeeded." Another breath.

"That's why." He finishes.

Well, shit.

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A/N: I´m starting to realize why people use these.

Anywho, this chapter is a little longer that the previous ones, I´m quite new to writing so I find trouble in writing too much, but if you prefer chapters around this length or like the others, let me know, comment your thoughts and I´ll see what I can do.

Thanks for reading.

Ciao