(A/N: Edited chapter)
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"Hah!"
""Hah!!""
"Hah!"
""Hah!!""
"Hah!"
""Hah!!""
"Huff... Alright, that's enough for now kids. Rest for a bit"
""Yes, Sensei!""
'Already?'
Hearing those words, I stopped punching the air and went to sit on a nearby pile of mats, my expression a little disappointed.
My eyes naturally drifted to my peers, who funnily enough, looked out of breath and were sweating like crazy, some already spread out on the many mats around the whole place.
I snorted, not as in laughing at them, but rather as in disbelief at my unreal stamina.
'I sure got some good genes. These brats are already collapsing from exhaustion, while I'm barely starting to warm up...' I raised my palm and stared at it, trying to find anything that might indicate what gave me this level of physical performance.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I sighed and frowned in confusion.
'Just whom could I have inherited this from? None of my parents are good at sports or anything... Nor were any of my ancestors, according to my parents.'
I grabbed my chin, trying to come up with an answer for this perplexing case with the little to no knowledge I had about anything related to biology.
Ultimately, though, I rolled my eyes and simply shrugged.
'Well, so be it. I'm not going to question the only good quality that I have.'
So, after putting an end to the matter with a shake of my head, I stood up and walked toward the center of the room, deciding to stretch my limbs while our teacher finished taking a rest or got done with whatever he was doing.
I got quite a few looks from the kids around once I got to stretch, but I really didn't mind them that much.
Instead, I began losing myself to my thoughts once more. Time seemed to pass faster that way.
A lot has happened since I got enlightened by my father's profound revelation a few months ago.
First of all, I finally discovered what my destined path in this world would be.
And that path was—
-Imaginary sound of drums-
—to become a motherfucking superhero!
I bet you didn't expect it. Yeah, completely unexpected.
Unlike all the other careers and paths I had considered before, this one was by far the easiest and simplest of them all. After all, most of the other options involved either wasting several years of my life learning vast and incredibly diverse types of knowledge, only to use a tiny part of them in the actual job, or employing thinking and calculating abilities worthy of geniuses that I, unfortunately, did not possess.
Being a hero, however, only required me to beat up bad guys and save people! What was simpler than that?!
So what if I'm constantly under the public eye, being observed and judged for any small mistake I may make? As long as I have a huge fortune to enjoy, I won't give a crap about anyone's opinion!
So what if the job of a hero is one where life is constantly at risk? I only need to aim for weak villains, and that won't be a problem anymore!
So what if I have to act like a goody-two-shoes to maintain a good image as a hero? All I need to do is act all serious most of the time, and from time to time quote some lines from the superheroes of the movies in my previous world.
'I can do this all day, with great power comes great responsibility... and uh... I'm inevitable? No, no, that one was from a villain—uh... well, I will come up with something later.'
In summary, the path of a superhero was the perfect one for becoming a rich guy.
HAHAHA!!!
Of course, I wasn't foolish enough to believe that I could actually become rich and popular the instant I became a hero. I wasn't falling for that honey trap that easily.
No, no, my friendo, I knew that riches and fame were reserved only for the top-tier heroes amongst the hundreds that exist nowadays.
So, you might be wondering, how am I planning to become a top-tier hero when all my Quirk does is save me the trouble of buying glasses in the future?
The key to that, pal, is in publicity.
Top-tier heroes didn't only include crazy strong people... No, they also included famous and popular heroes... And that, my friend, was the key for me to become rich.
When you become famous and liked by the masses, you can use your image as a product, and hence, acquire lots of money!
My plan was not to become someone like All Might, who fought with the biggest threats to society.
No, I planned to become a very liked and famous hero, and then sell my image to the media, or whoever offered more, and amass tons and tons of riches.
That was the gist of my master plan.
Of course, there were a few aspects here and there that still lacked some polish, but since there were still many years before I would have to take on the path of a hero, I was not worried.
Time was something I had plenty of.
In the meantime, though, I could make some preparations for when that time comes—and one of the first things I could prepare was...
Strength!
While I wasn't going to be as strong as All Might, who could topple buildings with a sneeze, I was still gonna need a proper level of strength. Otherwise, building a reputation was going to be nearly impossible if I couldn't even beat generic thug A or common Villain B
Becoming at least capable of dealing with guys like that was a must if I wanted this whole plan to work.
Thankfully, I possessed a certain quality that was going to help me do exactly that, and that was also the reason I even considered this plan as something plausible from the beginning.
And that quality was my unusually strong body.
Even if I had a shitty quirk, my strength would supply for that lack of firepower—so long as I developed it properly to its limit, of course.
And since right now I still had years ahead of me before taking on the cape of heroism, there was no better moment than right now to begin developing it. Thus, my main priority became to find a way to begin improving my strength as soon as possible.
Thankfully, it didn't take long for me to find an answer.
After all, what could help me develop my strength while also helping me gain mastery over it?
Exactly, Martial Arts!
And since the only martial art that I knew of was karate (because of Karate Kid), I decided to join the class of someone who claimed to be the best karate teacher in the whole city!
As for how my parents reacted to the whole thing... Both of them were pretty supportive of my new goal.
Though more my father than my mother. She, unlike him, kinda looked at me like saying "Ah, he is at that age...".
But even then, both of them seemed pleased with me learning karate.
I guess learning self-defense at a young age is a good thing, even in this world.
Though my father might have been a bit too excited about it.
The instant I told him, he hugged me while crying like a baby, and with his nose filled with running snot.
He also muttered weird stuff like: "I know you will do it, Suzaku!" or "You will be the biggest hero, I know it!".
I have to say, he's quite the weird old man.
Since then, 2 months have passed since I started learning Karate.
... However, I have yet to see any progress.
I didn't know if it was because I had actually learned something but simply hadn't noticed, or because I had not truly learned anything, as I was too stupid to get the moves inside my thick skull.
The teacher in this place barely allowed us to fight among ourselves, and when he did, I was simply too strong physically for the kids around me to display their movements properly.
Thanks to that, I've been unable to see if I have progressed or not.
However, I've also heard that martial arts take a long time to learn properly, so maybe it's simply a matter of time, and I'm just being impatient.
-Sigh...-
'Let's just hope I'm not untalented, and that's why I haven't been able to feel any change so far...'
Sighing at my uneasy thoughts, I stopped stretching and began looking at my surroundings while I waited for our teacher to resume the lesson.
I had nothing better to do, after all.
Soon, my eyes landed on my martial brothers, kids of about my age, wondering what they were doing.
'Seriously...' Though I lost interest pretty quickly when I saw one of them picking his nose. My eyes deciding to look anywhere else but there at that instant.
"Hmm?"
However, it was at that moment that my eyes caught sight of something strange.
There, on the dojo's big window, was a suspicious-looking old man pressed against the glass, looking at us eerily from outside.
I froze at the strange sight.
The guy had a white bushy beard, greasy white hair—all tied into a really long braid at the back of his head that probably reached his lower back—, some scars across his face, and clothes so worn out and dirty that they made me wonder whether he had been living in the wilderness until now.
All in all, he looked much like the typical image of a beggar you would find on the internet. Though with a bit of a Chinese martial arts master vibe.
Something like a wrecked, old, and beggarly version of Ip Man.
Though, unlike that gentle guy in the movies, this guy's intentions didn't look very pure just from that look on his face.
'What's with this creepy old man? Don't tell me he has some shady plans with the kids here?'
Frowning slightly, I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed him pressed against the window with a face proper of someone with dubious intentions, before musing whether I should call the cops or not.
After all, he was not doing anything bad...Yet.
However, when I remembered my actual age, I sighed and shook my head slightly.
'My parents say that I'm still too young for a phone right now... So maybe I should just tell the teacher. Whatever this guy is planning, if our teacher goes to talk to him, it should dissuade him from continuing with his shady stuff—unless he has some monstrous Quirk, of course. If that's the case, then maybe he will begin rampaging as soon as our teacher confronts him.'
I blinked at that. I surely had a wild imagination.
'Yeah, let's go tell the teacher.'
However, as soon as I was about to head to our teacher's office to tell him, the door opened and he left his office, walking to the center of the place to resume the class.
Seeing I didn't need to go in there, I nodded, pleased, before I prepared to tell him about the suspicious individual at the window.
—Only to stop when I noticed that the old guy had disappeared from there, and was nowhere to be seen.
I must admit, it frightened me a little.
'I didn't just see a ghost... right?'
Hugging my shoulders as I looked around suspiciously, I ultimately shook my tension away with a head shake, and soon began walking back towards the mat where all the kids were, joining the class.
'Hopefully, it was just some old guy wanting to learn karate...'
...
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|An hour later...|
...
"Alright, kids. That concludes today's lesson. Remember to tell your parents to pay this month's fee, as there are still a few who haven't paid... That's about it, you can go now."
As our teacher ended the lesson for today, I heaved a sigh and made my way to the window, looking at the already-colored sky with a raised eyebrow.
'It's pretty late... I wonder if my dad will come to pick me up this time.'
I gave the clock on the wall a glance, and after making sure there was still time before any of my parents would come to pick me up, I went to sit on one of the plastic chairs sitting at the entrance of the dojo, waiting patiently for the moment I could get out of here.
However, bored out of my mind, it wasn't long before my mind began wandering.
At one moment, my eyes went to my hands—the hands of a kid, not of a martial master, with soft skin, and little fingers.
And, as if that sight had caused my two neurons to wake up, soon I had one crazy and incredibly unheard-of idea.
'I can just ask... Can't I?' I squinted at the thought, my eyes wandering as if considering it deeply. 'After all, there's no need to be so reserved when my future as a rich guy is at stake.'
Humming in contemplation, I glanced over at the door of the teacher's office, where the guy had secluded himself yet again.
Then, a smile appeared on my face, and I stood up from the chair, making my way there.
My objective was to ask his opinion about my progress so far and to ask whether it was normal for me to still not see any progress, even after two months of training.
I hadn't asked until now since I assumed I would notice my growth in due time... However, since two months have already passed and I have yet to feel myself getting stronger, I thought that it'd be better to simply ask him and make sure.
It wasn't as if he could refuse to answer me. My parents were paying him to teach me, so of course he had to answer my question.
Yeah, I'm entitled, so what?
My future of swimming in cash is at stake here!
So, taking a deep breath and making a small prayer to God up there, I entered the office and glared across the room, looking for the guy.
However, before I had the chance to raise my voice to call him, his voice as he spoke through the phone reached me, making me glance at him curiously, and notice he was currently standing before his desk, writing some stuff as he held his phone on his shoulder with his head, speaking to someone through it.
"Alright, alright. I will pay you next week, alright? Surely the remaining parents of the little brats will have paid me by then. I have just reminded them to make sure."
I deadpanned a bit. 'Well, that's quite the demeaning way of referring to us... But whatever, it isn't as if I'm any better when talking inside my mind...'
With a shake of my head, I waited patiently for him to finish his talk.
Though, as he spoke to whoever was on the other side, I couldn't help but look at our teacher in a new light.
When we first met, he looked like a nice guy. You know, smiling at all times, speaking respectfully to everyone, and seemingly patient with all of us... Basically a goody-two-shoes.
So, seeing him speak so harshly out of nowhere surprised me.
But well, as an image of the Joker that I saw on Reddit once said, everyone in this false society wears a mask to hide their true nature.
So, being the accepting and comprehensive individual that I am, I shook my head and decided to stop judging him. He probably just had a very rough week.
—That compresiveness only lasted until I heard his next words, though.
"What? Are you really so surprised that this shit worked? But of course it worked! Those kids and their parents don't know shit about karate, so it's obvious that they'll believe the first guy who moves his body a little bit like a Kung fu master does, and think: 'Ah, this guy is good'."
"..."
"Hahaha, like—man, you should have seen them, I almost burst out laughing when I saw the bunch of brats performing a movie stunt so seriously, thinking that it was real karate!"
'This motherfucker...'
Feeling my head get hot due to anger as I heard his words, I clenched my fists and glared at his back with a murderous gaze.
Sure, I said that I had time to spare to prepare for my rise as a hero. However, that didn't mean that I was willing to lose two fucking months of my life doing something completely pointless.
'And yet... This motherfucker came and made me do it...!!'
Gnashing my teeth against each other because of the anger, I scanned his unprotected back and squinted my eyes as a certain yet horrifying idea came to my mind.
Something that I never expected I could have to commit... Not in this new life.
A sin that only a few truly evil villains were willing to do.
'... I'm sorry, everyone, but I must break the unspoken promise.'
Apologizing to every man in the world (except the one in front of me) for the taboo that I was about to commit, I shook my head to clear my mind and slowly and stealthily made my way behind him.
Once I was finally in position, like some sort of monster in a horror movie sneaking behind its victim, I closed my eyes and began steeling my mind for what I was about to do.
'You brought this upon yourself…'
And so, using those words to encourage myself, I pulled my leg back for a moment before finally launching the kick.
One that returned to him the damage that he had caused me by fooling me into taking his classes for two entire months.
-Clang!!!-
"AAAAAAAAHHH—!!!!"
-Thud-
Seeing him fall on his knees, I snorted with a victorious grin on my face. 'I saw Karate Kid, you filthy casual.'
Then, with a sorrowful expression on my face, I turned around and began walking away, snapping my head up to accommodate my hair cooly.
'You took two months from my life... But I took the lives of your descendants... With this, the debt is paid.'
-Slam!-
As those profound words left my mind, I closed the door behind me with force, before my eyes landed on the window, more specifically, on the sunset visible from where I was standing.
-Sigh...-
As my eye sat on the horizon, a single tear escaped my eye, making me sigh and shake my head as I lamented what I had become.
'The wind is cryi—'
"YOU BRAT!!!!"
However, before I could reflect on myself any longer, the door of the office opened again, and the furious figure of my teacher emerged from behind it. His face now looking at me with murderous intentions.
'Shit, he recovered so fast!'
Without a second thought, I put my legs to good use and began running away as fast as I could. All the while, I heard the furious steps of my teacher running after me.
'Why did I not think this more thoroughly?!'
...
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-To be continued-
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(A/N: Everywhere)
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