Choosing a fine sunny day for my final journey to one of the two strongest dojos, I took the train to the appropriate city and, after exiting its limits and passing through a forest, soon arrived at my destination. To my surprise, there were almost no people either around the main building or inside. The front door was open, however, so I walked with interest through the spacious main hall and into the smaller one beyond. Usually in every dojo this was where the most experienced students trained — but right now there was exactly one person here: a young athletic-looking girl with very short black hair and a tanned body. She wore nothing but tight black shorts and a sports top.
Noticing my arrival, she stopped beating the heavy bag with everything she had and, leaning her back against it, attached herself to a water bottle.
"I'm sorry, but we're closed today." — finishing her drink, she gave me a slightly apologetic smile.
"Is that so? That's a shame." — sighing, I had almost turned to leave, hoping to at least make it to Bomb's place before the day was out. "May I ask which day I could find Master Suiryu here?"
"I'm afraid no day will do anymore." — visibly darkening, the girl shook her head and jumped to her feet. "Grandfather passed away a week ago."
"Oh, my condolences." — immediately feeling awkward, I scratched the back of my head. "Strange that I hadn't heard about it. Your grandfather was a renowned martial arts master and one of the strongest people in the world..."
"He was also terribly stubborn about many things." — smiling, my interlocutor stepped closer and shook her head. "So he strictly forbade my brother and me from spreading word about his declining health, and even more so from holding an elaborate funeral... did you have some business with him? Judging by what I see..." — running a careful look over me, the girl narrowed her eyes slightly. "You're an experienced fighter. I can offer you a little consolation — grandfather hadn't been taking new students for a long time anyway."
"My name is Garou, by the way — I'm from Master Bang's dojo, the master of Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist." — remembering that I still hadn't introduced myself, I quickly corrected the oversight. "With all due respect to the late Master Suiryu, I already have a teacher. Actually, I simply wanted to arrange a sparring session with someone who uses the legendary Void Fist style."
"Oh, that's fine." — carelessly closing her eyes, my interlocutor pointed a finger at her own face. "I'm Suiko — my grandfather's strongest student and a master of the Void Fist. And I don't mind beating someone up at all, since the opportunity has presented itself. The distraction will do me good."
"In that case..." — inwardly glad that today's visit hadn't been wasted after all, I spread my hands and looked around the empty hall. "We can—"
"Get in your stance!" — not letting me finish, Suiko pulled her right hand back while thrusting her left forward, simultaneously planting her foot hard against the floor for a burst. "Begin!"
In that same instant, the girl came flying straight at me. Her fists were enveloped in an incredibly powerful aura, and I immediately understood — she clearly hadn't been lying about her title of "master"...
Nevertheless, however powerful Suiko's strike was, I deflected it to the side fairly easily using my own style. Then, stepping forward and slightly to the side, I delivered my own left hook, sending the girl into the air and stripping the solid ground from beneath her feet... which didn't stop her in the slightest from abruptly spinning mid-air and immediately sweeping her leg in a way that forced me to leap sharply backward just to dodge in time.
For a brief moment, Suiko and I simply froze in place, assessing each other's strength and skill after that initial exchange. Then, without a word, we charged forward simultaneously. There was simply no time to think about what was happening. Our attacks rained down on one another in a truly endless stream, and in such an intense fight there was nothing to rely on but instinct and the mastery honed through years of training.
Suiko was without doubt the strongest martial arts fighter I had encountered in the past month, and that was precisely why I went at her attacks with such fervor — deflecting every one and attempting a counterattack, only to run into a new barrage each time. From the front, from the side, from above, and even from below. With her hands, her feet, but never with her torso. Sometimes the way any ordinary person would move, and sometimes in a way that genuinely left me stunned — the way her body suddenly began moving exactly thus and not otherwise... half a minute into the terrifyingly intense battle, after what must have been several hundred mutual strikes, I finally understood.
The strength of the Void Fist style lay not only in maximizing the destructive power of attacks while maintaining a constant rate of striking, but in something that could be roughly described as "shifting the center of gravity." And this shift was nearly instantaneous and barely visible from the outside — which was why it was so difficult to predict what exactly my opponent would do next, and how effective any of my strikes would prove. Throwing a Void Fist master off balance seemed simply impossible.
Hm... the fundamentals of this style I grasped fairly quickly, but as for its core hidden feature — I had to admit that not even a genius like me could learn it in a single fight... in that case, the only thing left was to end the battle on the right note...
Deflecting another of my opponent's strikes, I suddenly planted my foot hard against the floor and immediately applied her own style with my free hand.
"?!!!"
Stunned by this turn, the girl instinctively blocked my lunge with considerable effort, losing her own rhythm and surrendering the initiative she had held throughout virtually the entire fight. Taking advantage of this, I brought down a barrage of strikes on her with both hands at once. Of course, without the ability to shift my own center of gravity, I couldn't execute the technique to its full extent — but right now that wasn't necessary. A moment later I was already spinning around myself like a small tornado, creating a vortex of direct physical blows and the energy surrounding my body. And then, when Suiko finally managed to break the distance between us with a backward leap, I suddenly stopped. All the energy within me — already primed to burst outward — was held suspended, but only for an instant.
Because I had already pressed my palms together before me, and in one incredibly fast burst found myself several meters behind my opponent. When I separated my hands and exhaled heavily, the sound of a body hitting the floor came from behind.
"H-how... no, what did you do?" — barely breathing and hardly able to move, Suiko nonetheless turned her head toward me.
"Do you want the simple version or the complex one?" — giving a grunt, I took a couple of steps and leaned my back against the nearest wall. "Your Void Fist allows you to accumulate energy within yourself — as you go, and in proportion to how prolonged a striking sequence you employ. My Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist, meanwhile, allows me to deflect and redirect any attack or energy. By combining these styles, I was able to accumulate more energy around and within myself than I ever had before — while not allowing that force to tear my body apart. When even that technique reached its limit, I channeled all of that energy into a single movement. As you can see, all I needed to do was walk past you for you to be defeated. Had I struck you — or even touched you — what would be lying there is your corpse... assuming anything of it remained at all..."
For a few seconds, complete silence settled over the dojo. Then, as the weight of what I had said sank in, Suiko's eyes began to widen.
"Garou... are you even human?!"
"For better or worse — and that depends on how you look at it — yes, I am one hundred percent human." — smiling, I walked unhurriedly to the girl lying on the floor and extended my hand. "Even though I managed to copy much of your style, even a single use of that hybrid technique completely exhausted me. On top of that, I still haven't understood exactly how you were shifting your center of gravity. It's not simply redirecting energy and concentrating it at the right points — there's something else there... Suiko, you mentioned that Master Suiryu didn't take students. But what about you? Would you like to become a teacher for one extremely promising young man?"
Barely managing to get to her feet even with my help, the girl thought for a couple of seconds — and then smiled slyly.
"I believe you said your teacher was Master Bang? He's the rank three hero in the Hero Association, isn't he?"
"That's correct." — I gave a careful nod.
"Then it's a deal!" — closing her eyes again, Suiko pointed at her own face. "I'll do my best to teach you everything I know about my style. And in return, you'll ask your teacher to put in a word for my admission into S-Class heroes!"
"It won't be hard for the old man to arrange something like that — but only if he's confident in your abilities." — not wanting to make promises I couldn't keep, I cooled her enthusiasm slightly. "You're without question strong, but you're not quite at S-Class level yet." — here I was being somewhat dishonest, since Suiko could have dismantled the weakest heroes on that list with relative ease — but even so, reaching the middle of the rankings was still a very long way off for her.
"Then I'll catch up while I'm teaching you." — Suiko brushed aside my warning without a care. "So, is it a deal?"
"It's a deal, my new teacher." — nodding in agreement, I gripped her hand a little firmer and finally let go. "Now then, to start, I suggest we talk about the training schedule — I'm working as a hero right now, so..."
From that day on, in addition to my regular hero work and visits to my home dojo, I began training together with Suiko. The Void Fist itself, even under relaxed conditions, I mastered fairly quickly — but a full integration of the styles was still a very long way off. For the most part, the problem was the same as always. Progressing in martial arts without a suitably strong opponent was quite difficult. And yet, after some time — as if having heard my prayers — fate smiled on me again. Just a day or two before I would have given up and headed off to try my luck at Bomb's dojo without even finishing my work on the Void Fist, a monster appeared in my path that, at first glance, seemed unremarkable. A giant mutant mantis, with scythe-like forelegs and extremely durable spiked armor.
Making its first appearance on the Association's radar, it was immediately assigned a Demon threat level. Having climbed high in the B-Class rankings over the past few months, I received the alert about the creature's appearance and immediately set off for the relevant location. The monster hadn't particularly sparked my interest. And having first allowed it to go all-out in order to show me all of its abilities, I was already planning to finish it off in a single strike — when suddenly something clicked in my mind.
Wait a moment... a mutant mantis, fairly powerful by the standards of this world, capable of entirely human speech and screaming something about being nearly the pinnacle of evolution... no, he said something different... that's right! He called himself a fighter of the House of Evolution!
And while at first I hadn't paid it any attention — already tired of listening to the clichéd villain speeches of all these monsters — now I remembered. The House of Evolution had appeared in the canon too. An organization consisting of one brilliant scientist and a bunch of his creations. Among which were both simply very powerful individuals and pure fan service in the form of the bare-bottomed Miss Mosquito Girl. Which meant... this mantis shouldn't be killed — it needed to be thoroughly interrogated. It seemed the time for real hero work had finally arrived!