“Don’t worry, Sado-san. The fact that you could learn the Ryugo Style from a single demonstration is a testament to your ability.”
Murayama Ken addressed him with -san as well.
He did not look down on the man for his age, or for being Tatsuki’s classmate.
On the contrary, he was extremely polite.
He had no intention of making trouble over the fact that Lucas had learned his school’s techniques.
The reason was simple.
The physical aptitude and talent the man had displayed were genuinely terrifying.
Besides, even if he wanted to make an issue of it, an accusation of stealing techniques would get him laughed out of the room by his peers.
With talent like that, the man would learn even faster somewhere else just by watching a match.
And Murayama was no fool.
He was not about to make an enemy of a person like this.
“The main reason I asked for you today is the upcoming Karate Tournament.”
A sharp glint flashed in his eyes as he said it.
Hearing that much, Tatsuki and Fukuda both understood at once what their master was planning.
The Ryugo Style carried a considerable reputation in the karate world, but it had always hovered around the top five in the tournament.
Its best result was second place.
Murayama had originally intended to send Fukuda.
But according to the information he had gathered, the other dojos had experts of their own this year.
Fukuda was already very strong.
Securing the championship would still be difficult.
As for Tatsuki, she was a promising talent, but not yet ready for a competition at that level.
He had already given up on contending for the title this time.
Then Lucas walked in, and hope came back with him.
Murayama laid out the specifics of the tournament and his own thinking.
“I have no intention of asking you to join our dojo. But I would like to invite you to represent the Ryugo Style in this tournament. I will provide compensation equal to the prize money.”
The figure he named shocked both Tatsuki and Fukuda.
This tournament was the highest-level competition in the discipline, held once every two years, with a championship prize of ten million yen.
Matching that out of the dojo’s own pocket was no small sum. This story is hosted at g.com.
But once they thought it through, they relaxed.
If the man competed and won, what the Ryugo Style stood to gain was worth far more than the payout.
“Since the master extends such an invitation, I accept.”
Lucas agreed with almost no hesitation.
A tournament like that gathered every school in one place.
For him it was an enormous source of material.
He would not have to run around from dojo to dojo.
One competition, and he could pick up all of it.
And there was the money on top.
He was under no financial pressure, but there was no reason to turn down money being handed to him.
As for whether he could actually win, there was no suspense at all.
With his physical aptitude, the other dojos simply were not opponents.
Unless they could track down Ginjō Kūgo and get him to enter.
“Thank you very much, Sado-san. From this point on, the Tatsuoka Dojo is fully open to you. Use any of our facilities as you like.”
Murayama smiled the moment he heard that straightforward answer.
In his mind, the championship was already in hand.
Fukuda and Tatsuki smiled as well.
Both were dojo members, and naturally they wanted to see the place take first.
Fukuda in particular felt no jealousy whatsoever.
His heart and mind were entirely on martial arts, and that was precisely why he had surpassed his own master at this age.
In his view, the dojo taking first was a good thing.
Who actually competed did not matter to him at all.
After some pleasantries, Murayama invited Lucas to a meal.
The tournament was a week away.
Normally, changing an entrant at such short notice would be basically impossible.
But the Tatsuoka Dojo had taken third place in the previous tournament, and by the rules, the top three dojos entered the main tournament directly.
So the dojo could still swap its entrant, with a week left before the official competition.
After the meal, everyone went their separate ways.
Lucas left with Tatsuki.
Murayama had meant to send a car to take him home, but Lucas declined.
He was not going home next.
He was going to train.
He had the techniques now, so it was time to properly start working them.
He would spend the week learning a little more, then see whether he could combine all of it with his own circumstances and work out a fighting style genuinely suited to him.
The reason he was walking with Tatsuki was simply that the road to his training spot outside the city overlapped with the road to her house.
“Sado, how on earth did you get this strong? You watched it once, you can already use it properly, and on top of that you’re improving it.”
Tatsuki could not hold the question in.
There was no helping it.
The man was simply too far outside the normal range.
She finally understood how the others at the dojo felt when they looked at her.
Before he appeared, she was the most gifted person at the Tatsuoka Dojo, the one the master valued most.
But set against him, the gap was terrifying.
He had surpassed her years of hard work in less than a day.
For a moment, the disparity was more than she could take in.
The question left Lucas a little stuck.
He could hardly say that he had unlocked his limiter.
“I don’t know. I was just born this way.”
He could only put it all down to talent.
“That’s fair. Nothing but talent explains it. But your talent really is the same as your body. Both of them are at monster level.”
Tatsuki nodded.
Apart from talent, there was genuinely nothing else that accounted for any of it.
The two of them talked the whole way, and soon enough they reached her house.
“Well, I’m home. Oh, right, Sado. There was actually something I wanted to ask you back at the dojo.”
“When you have some free time, could I spar with you?”