Thug King

Hajime!

The word still echoed in the dojo as Maruyama's massive form blurred across the tatami. His hands, like twin shovels, shot forward to grab Kenji's lapels. To the judo practitioners watching, this was the end of the fight. Once Maruyama's grip was established, he was an unmovable force of nature. His opponents were thrown, choked, or had their joints torn apart. There was no escape.

The hands were inches away from Kenji's chest.

And then, Kenji did something that broke every rule of grappling, fighting, and physics.

He didn't retreat. He didn't sidestep.

He sank.

His body seemed to lose its skeletal structure, dropping straight down with an unnatural fluidity. He bent his knees and lowered his center of gravity so rapidly that Maruyama's perfectly aimed grab met nothing but empty air, sailing over Kenji's shoulders.

The move was so unexpected, so contrary to any trained response, that a collective gasp swept through the dojo. It was like watching a man teleport two feet downwards.

Maruyama's forward momentum, now un-met, carried him forward, his balance momentarily compromised. It was a fractional error, one that a lesser opponent could never exploit.

But Kenji was not a lesser opponent.

As Maruyama stumbled past, Kenji, still in his low crouch, moved. His right hand, open and relaxed, shot out and gently slapped the back of Maruyama's left knee. It was not a strike; it was a tap. But it was timed perfectly with Maruyama's forward momentum.

The tap buckled the knee. Maruyama, a man who prided himself on his immovable stance, let out a grunt of surprise as his leg gave way. He didn't fall, his monstrous strength and years of training allowing him to catch himself, but his posture was completely broken.

Before he could recover, Kenji was already in motion. He didn't try to grapple. He didn't try to throw. He flowed around to Maruyama's back like smoke, impossibly fast and silent.

In the shadows, Rina Sato's eyes widened. "That's not judo… that's not any style I know. He moves from the void. He's never where you think he is!"

Akari Ishikawa felt a chill run down her spine. "It's not about strength or technique. It's about timing. His timing is perfect. He's not fighting his opponent; he's fighting the space and time around his opponent."

Maruyama roared in frustration and spun around, his powerful arms swinging, trying to catch the phantom that was now behind him.

But Kenji was already gone. He had used Maruyama's own turn to create distance, flowing backwards without a sound. He now stood five feet away, his hands once again hanging loosely at his sides, his expression as placid as a frozen lake.

The entire sequence had taken three seconds. Maruyama had attacked, missed, been destabilized, and was now back at the starting point, having failed to even touch his opponent. He was breathing heavily, more from adrenaline and shock than exertion. Kenji's breathing hadn't changed.

The judo club members stared in disbelief. Their captain, their "Bear," was being toyed with.

"Stand still and fight me!" Maruyama bellowed, his stoic mask cracking with frustration.

"Your style requires you to connect to your opponent," Kenji stated calmly, his voice echoing in the tense silence. "It is a mountain. Powerful, stable, and overwhelming once you are on it. But if the mountain cannot be touched, its power is meaningless."

His words were a direct, devastating critique of Maruyama's entire martial philosophy.

Infuriated, Maruyama charged again. This time, he didn't aim for a simple grab. He lowered his body, intending to tackle Kenji around the waist, to drag him to the ground by any means necessary.

He was a charging bull.

Kenji waited. He watched the mountain coming towards him. He remained still, a single, slender tree in the path of an avalanche. The crowd gasped, certain he would be crushed.

Just as Maruyama was about to make contact, Kenji took a single, short step to the side. At the same time, he extended his right foot, placing it directly in the path of Maruyama's left ankle.

It was a perfectly timed foot sweep, a basic judo move known as De Ashi Barai. But performed by Kenji, it was something else entirely. There was no force behind it. It was pure, flawless timing, using Maruyama's own two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of forward momentum against him.

Maruyama's ankle hit Kenji's foot, and the world turned upside down.

The judo champion, the master of throws, was sent flying. He was lifted off his feet by his own charge, his massive body sailing through the air in a perfect, high arc.

The students shrieked. A throw! The scrawny kid had just thrown "The Bear" Maruyama!

But Kenji wasn't finished. This was not about winning. It was about demonstrating absolute finality.

As Maruyama's body reached the apex of its arc, about to come crashing down onto the tatami mats in a way that would surely injure him, Kenji moved again. He flowed under the airborne giant, his body a blur.

He positioned himself directly beneath Maruyama's falling back. He didn't brace for impact. He didn't try to catch him.

Instead, as Maruyama's body fell, Kenji rose up to meet him. With his back.

He bent his knees and then straightened them, absorbing the entirety of Maruyama's falling weight and momentum onto his own back and shoulders. It was a move of such suicidal insanity, requiring such a terrifying degree of strength and structural integrity, that no one could comprehend it. It was like watching a man try to catch a falling safe.

But the sickening crash they all expected never came.

Kenji's body didn't break. It didn't even tremble. He took the full impact, his feet sinking slightly into the tatami mats from the sheer force. He had caught the falling mountain.

With Maruyama now draped over his back like a grotesque turtle shell, Kenji, in one smooth, powerful motion, straightened up and continued the motion of the throw, guiding Maruyama's descent. He gently rolled the massive judoka off his back and onto the mat.

Maruyama landed on the tatami not with a crash, but with a soft thump. He lay there on his back, the wind knocked out of him, staring up at the ceiling in a state of complete and utter shock. He was completely unharmed, but his spirit, his pride, and his entire understanding of the martial arts had been shattered into a million pieces.

He had been thrown, caught, and placed gently on the ground like a child being put to bed.

The dojo was silent enough to hear a pin drop.

Kenji stood over the fallen giant, looking down with his usual neutral expression.

"The mountain has fallen," he said, his voice quiet, but every single person in the dojo heard it as if he had shouted. "The dispute is resolved."

He then turned, walked calmly to the edge of the mat, picked up his school bag, and headed for the door, leaving behind a dojo full of broken minds and a legend that had just ascended to the level of godhood.

As he passed the doorway, he walked right past Akari and Rina, not even noticing them in the shadows.

Rina was leaning against the wall, her face pale, her knuckles white where she gripped the hilt of her sword. She was trembling. "He… he caught him," she whispered, a manic, terrified glee in her voice. "He used his own body as a cushion… that's not human strength…"

Akari Ishikawa stood frozen, her mind, usually a fortress of cold logic, now a chaotic mess. The foundation of her world had been shaken. This boy, this… thing… was not a variable to be controlled. He was a law of nature unto himself.

And she realized, with a dawning horror and a flicker of something she refused to name, that her plans to control him, to manipulate him, were the plans of a child trying to command a typhoon.