Gym

A search on the Internet quickly revealed a note about the winner of a school regional karate championship held a couple of years ago - namely Mashirao Ojiro.

With the name, things went faster, and, as I expected, the guy turned out to come from a family of the same tailed and kung fu-fan comrades, even though he was more talented and "tailed" than the rest.

And his family actually maintained a fairly large gym for training, and here is the address.

That's where I went the next day, after finishing the painful school thing.

In general, I moved into the dojo with a fair amount of skepticism. After all, I still need, first of all, a normal partner for sparring, and not a gym.

I can train myself, at some construction site. Eh. To be honest, while watching this, I found this

Mashirao is one of the most useless characters in all of anime.

I mean, seriously, what does he have? Tail, damn it? Is this his whole quirk? What can he do to them?

I understand that not every super can be compared with the Prospector or the All might, but there must be some kind of reasonable limit.

What will he do if he encounters any opponent with a strong attacking quirk? What is it - what will he do if he comes across a quirkless loser, but with a firearm?

Yes, this is Japan, it's difficult here with firearms, for civilians they are generally prohibited, but criminals have them!

And it's just possible to run into something like this on the street, but the tailed guy is from U.A., the elite of the elite. He runs the risk of meeting criminals like the Reconstructor or Stain every day.

And die.

What's the point in training him if he's so useless in the long run?

God, how wrong I was.

The "dojo" from the outside turned out to be quite a large complex with a bunch of outbuildings. Since I had written to them in advance, a pretty girl with a ponytail was already waiting for me outside the first door. Kindly surprised at my age, she led me through a couple of corridors to a large and clearly fortified hall.

On the way, I even obeyed a boyish impulse and knocked my knuckles on the wall of the hall - it responded with nothing more than a metallic ringing. 

The local owner turned out to be a tall, fair-haired and mustachioed man.

Upon closer examination, this man, who turned out to be none other than Atsushi Ojiro, the father of the future hero, also had a tail - thin, with a tassel, similar to a lion's.

And he himself resembled a lion - just as shaggy and dangerous. At the moment, the tail was bristling slightly irritably, like a "pipe", so to speak. The man was not in a good mood:

- "So, you wrote yesterday and agreed on a trial sparring with Mash?"

I thought it was someone who would be more mature and stronger, and you. - I was scanned from top to bottom skeptically. I calmly looked back, occasionally distracted by the tail.

- "Okay,- Atsushi-sensei grumbled - have you performed somewhere? Do you have a belt? Dan?"

And did you come alone? And if you get injured, who should I answer to then?"

I raised my hands: 

- "I'm an orphan and I only know basic martial arts."

- "Hm…"

- "If it's possible, let you, Ojiro-sensei, see everything for yourself, okay?"

The man snorted:

- "Hmm, well, let's go see what you can do. Do you even have a quirk, kid? "

-" Yeah. This is a SHADOW"- His gaze immediately became much more interested:

-" Yes, I remember you mentioned in the letter... are you in control?" 

- "Absolutely." 

- "Powerful?" 

-"I think so - I said, fascinated by watching the pretzels that Atsushi's tail made in the air. He seemed to convey the slightest shades of mood. - But I won't use it only as a last resort, I want to learn how to fight with pure strength."

The man thought, moving his mustache menacingly. 

Finally, he sighed heavily: 

-"Okay. But if you behave inappropriately, you'll be kicked out immediately and keep in mind. I'm watching you."

I bowed silently.

POV(Atsushi-Sensei)

The same time. Atsushi-sensei made room for sparring, called his son from the other end of the hall, introduced the guys to each other - and gave the go-ahead.

The battle has begun.

He was skeptical.

Now, in order to train on par with Mashirao, it was already necessary to have either a mutation similar in physical parameters, or, indeed, an enhancing quirk.

If this Demi has one, then why hasn't anyone heard of him yet? He didn't win any championships, nor did anyone recommend him to U.A.

And if not well, this is not the first friendly sparring held in search of a normal opponent, which Mashi-chan wins outright.

But what is it. Atsushi himself no longer risks fighting with his son in a full-fledged battle. 

The fight, meanwhile, began sluggishly.

The son showed his characteristic politeness and restraint, allowing the guest to show himself, while the "guest" was cautious Atsushi grimaced.

Yes, in general, there is logic in this, but his time in the dojo is not rubber. Come on, come on, come on! 

It started, and Demi attacked quite energetically, on two levels at once, with a low kick to the knee and immediately with a straight right.

Well, he has a blow, although it's not very well placed technically. There was a sharp block when Mashi-chan answered with the left.

The Albino technique is at least a little there, it's worth admitting. Having jumped back, the guy launched a roundhouse kick, but this predictable, in general, attack was stopped by Mashirao's tail.

And then there was a retaliatory blow with this tail. Not even a Whirlwind Roll or a Dance, but a simple blow that landed on hands positioned in a competent block...

The white-haired boy was carried away from his seat and thrown to the other end of the hall, where he rolled on the floor, ending up stretched out on his back. 

Atsushi chuckled into his thick mustache, not without approval: the guy managed to more or less regroup, and there were no injuries, except for a couple of abrasions. 

Nevertheless, the blow had to be crushing, first of all, for self-esteem - so the master expected that this Demi (what a strange name) would realize the entire gap between himself and Mashirao, and would quickly leave the dojo.

Atsushi was wrong. Still lying on his back, the boy suddenly grinned and sharply slammed both palms on either side of himself - on the floor... causing something like two copies of himself, which literally lifted him to his feet.

A chill ran down the sensei's spine. Crackling his neck and stretching, the guy said: "It's a pleasure to take you down."

And he went on the attack, thus starting the second round. Frowning and trying to understand what the strange phrase meant, Atsushi almost missed the second in which the pattern of the battle changed dramatically. Demi began to hit sharper and more furiously, literally exploded with a series of punches, and at the moment when Mashirao wanted to block the last one with his tail-quirk, he stopped with his whole body, and his shadow unintentionally moved...

This time his son was rising from the floor at the other end of the hall. The onlookers at home, who had paused their training or came running to watch from other buildings, had their eyes on their foreheads. After all, Mashirao Ojiro is preparing to enter U.A., everyone knows that!

And here... Having quickly glanced at Mashi-chan for injuries - and not finding any - Atsushi-sensei grinned with satisfaction.

Pov(Back to Demi)

Oh, crap how everything hurt after the swing! Broken forearms, broken knuckles, bruises on the ribs and thighs, several abrasions and even my palms felt like they were burning with fire! Why is this? 

Anyway, don't give a shit. That's not what's important. 

Forget what I said about that damn tail! Yes, he only has a tail, but WHAT! 

Damn, this is a huge flexible log, not a tail! Indeed, size matters.Not only is the muscle cover of this log as hard as steel - so much so that it can probably protect itself from a bullet without much harm to itself, at most it will get stuck there - it also hits with this log.

Surprisingly, we turned out to be almost ideal sparring partners. And in general, this is an extremely entertaining experience - a battle with an enemy who knows martial arts and has one more arm than you. 

By the way, I liked Mashirao as a person too. Calm, reasonable, and, what is very important, without any star fever. Hardworking as hell. 

And also, unlike me, who treated it as a tool to achieve specific goals, Mashi-kun was really a fan of martial arts, knew a bunch of facts about them and really had a talent for them, which gave a huge head start to my perseverance and determination. 

And he, like me, had been preparing for U.A. since the age of four. I was surprised to discover that this, essentially still a boy, could well understand what it was like for me, and we had many common topics for conversation. 

The fight itself, and the hundreds of routine sparring sessions that followed it in the following days, revealed one very big problem of mine. I don't have enough strength, although I can compensate for this with points from the system, but for now I want to pump them up on my own.

On the battlefield - and I will cause problems even for the best heroes that is, the villains. But they are rarely so polite, and they can attack from behind the scenes, and if I don't react in time, then everything can end in disaster.

Now I was not able to keep up even with the same - trained, but, in fact, ordinary - Mashirao, stupidly simply because he has one more limb.