A step to the side, dodging a left punch. A quick strike to the side. Duck under the return punch from the right. Aim for the other side. Keep the body moving, especially the legs. Dodge the next attack. The opponent, enraged and in pain, left himself open. A leg sweep. A feint to the throat to finish it.
"Winner, Ken."
A dark skinned, bald man with a vertical scar across his left eye announced. I extended a hand to the twenty something year old guy, who took it reluctantly. We stepped aside so others could start their sparring matches.
Derek Martin, a tall, dark skinned, bald man with a scar across his eye, had organized a martial arts gym for himself. Maybe he wanted to completely leave his life as a mercenary behind. I wasn't sure, just as I wasn't sure if that was even his real name. But I was completely satisfied with how things were.
I got my share of sparring matches and technique practice without using my Quirk. Even though I could easily beat Derek with Dark Matter, it wouldn't do me any good. So I was here.
I deflated the egos of twenty something year old kids. Not just civilians; there were also law enforcement officers here, specifically police officers and Self Defense Force personnel. Sometimes it might seem like they were completely useless compared to heroes, but that would be a mistaken conclusion.
There weren't enough heroes to catch absolutely all criminals, to maintain order during emergencies, or even to attack some criminal organizations. The police essentially did the thankless work of restraining villains when no heroes were nearby. Their profession is one of the least popular in modern times. High risk, low pay compared to heroes in agencies, unpopular with a segment of the population.
But that didn't interest me much right now. Let the government deal with it.
I waited for the session to end. Maybe I could have another sparring match. Meanwhile, my thoughts revolved around the past few days and the news. I had finally met that messy haired man again. And he was on the beach with Izuku.
Watching those two actors from a burnt out theater, I put on a trusting face. Yes, yes, yes. I believed that a man who had discovered a Quirk similar to his own in Midoriya had decided to help the boy with his training. That was pure bullshit. But I decided to ignore it. What else was I supposed to do? Spy on Toshinori, who would easily wipe the floor with me, judging by the radiance of his silhouette? And risk all of that for a truth I didn't even need? The main thing was that the man wasn't a danger to Izuku. Everything else didn't matter to me.
Oh, the session was over. I respectfully said goodbye to my trainer. Even though I could beat him using my Quirk, without it, I couldn't. Derek was more experienced and more technically skilled. He would have been physically stronger too, if not for my passive enhancement.
Speaking of passive enhancement, there was a problem with purely physical training. The stronger I became, the longer and harder my exercises needed to be. The only thing I could think of was to expend as much Dark Matter as possible in advance and train while it regenerated.
I couldn't completely exhaust it, physically. The whole issue lay in the very reason for my passive enhancement. Since the moment my Quirk awakened, Dark Matter hasn't just flowed through my body. A small part of it permeates the cells of my body and can no longer be expelled or consciously controlled. The process of manipulating and creating Dark Matter uses up my body's energy, and when it's completely depleted, the passive enhancement process stops, causing a negative reaction in the cells that have already adapted to it.
I considered consciously enhancing the passive enhancement process to be an unnecessary risk. Experimenting on my own body like that wasn't very smart. I didn't even want to think about how much effort I had wasted understanding all of this. Pure trial and error and many types of meditation, some of which were completely useless.
Maybe scientists from research institutions studying Quirks could figure out more with their equipment. But after Haijima's "hospitality," I had a clear, irrational belief in my head. All good, unfamiliar "white coats" were those whose necks were clutched in my Dark Matter covered hands. Before, it was all of them, but after communicating with Melissa and seeing her photos in a lab coat, that belief changed a little. Progress.
I stopped and looked at the crowd of people at the intersection. My usual route to my favorite cafe, where I often ate after training, was blocked by this crowd. I couldn't see what was happening there either. I tried to ask a person at the edge of the crowd what was going on. He said that some villains had tried to escape from heroes but had crashed their car into a truck.
Interesting.
I didn't feel like pushing through the crowd, so I went around the nearest building to the scene. I looked around. It seemed no one was watching. I used "Choice" to make myself invisible and weightless. Then, focusing on my "Gaze," I launched myself upward with "Rejection." It wasn't very convenient, but I didn't want to be seen doing this either. Already on the roof, I watched what was happening.
Several cars were in the middle of the intersection. Two villains could be seen near a car that had crashed into a truck carrying furniture. A man in a mask with two tentacles instead of arms held a frightened, silent woman in one of them and shouted his demands to the three heroes and police officers surrounding him.
Standard demands, really. Clear the road, give them a car, don't follow them. Otherwise, the hostage would meet a swift end. He had already gotten the money, judging by the bags next to his silently standing partner.
And only one stupid thought ran through my head. Why hadn't this tentacle guy gone to work in the porn industry? Judging by the content I had seen on some websites, he would have been quite successful. Or maybe they rejected him because they already had enough "workers" with similar "abilities?"
With these deep thoughts, I watched as the heroes shouted at the man to release the hostage, and he threatened to kill her if his demands weren't met.
This was getting boring. Maybe I should leave? I was hungry.
My gaze caught a blurry silhouette that flashed by quickly and landed with a crash not far from the villains. The villains themselves flinched in fright. The tentacle man tightened his grip on the woman and opened his mouth to say something. A muscular arm knocked him unconscious. His partner, who had started to turn toward the tentacle man, gun in hand, immediately slammed into the side of the truck and fell heavily onto the road.
Next to the woman, who was trying to catch her breath, stood All Might. An ultra muscular blond in a white t-shirt and brown pants with a radiant smile.
My eyes carefully watched everything. I was seeing him in person for the first time. Videos couldn't capture the entire atmosphere surrounding him. His silhouette literally oppressed everyone around him with its power and confidence. I could feel it even from here.
After speaking briefly with the heroes and police, he comforted the woman. Then he crouched and launched himself into the air in a direction not far from me. His gaze brushed over me for a moment, and he flew past.
My body stood on the roof for another five minutes. I couldn't figure out why I felt like I had seen that gaze somewhere recently. I must have just watched too many videos of him. After all, he was the most popular person on the planet.