A life with the Author

'This is way too easy.' I deadpaned as I slammed my opponents body onto the mat. He was laying on his stomach and I immediately got on top of him from his back.

My arms tightly wrapped around his waist and my hands grabbed his wrist, seeking a wrist control.

Though I don't really need to do such a thing.

[Skill :-

Wrestling : Master]

My opponent struggled underneath me. The people around us were cheering for the guy and that seemed to give him the final boost to his strength.

Like a cornered animal giving it's last and final struggle, he pushed himself up from the ground. I was on top of him, putting unnecessary weight on him without doing anything else.

A classic way to let your opponent tire himself with nothing but the help of gravity,

He struggled for a while and managed to get himself up and by extension, me as well. 

I was still having the wrist control so without much difficult I pulled his arm and make him have a tough time doing what he wants while I was doing minimal movement.

He struggled, his body swayed under me. Left to right, left to right, left to right.

Unknowingly, I had gotten used to the rhythm and also adjusted my movement accordingly. He goes left to righ, left to right and then extreme left.

!!!

It could be said that I was caught off guard-ish. I saw it coming but I didn't do anything to fight against it.

He rolled around and using all his momentum and I was on the ground and he was on top of me now.

He twirled his hand and get out of my grasps before he grabbed my wirst and took over wrist control. He adjusted himself on top of me and whenever I tried to roll out he would move around in circle to make my effort futile.

'I am in trouble!!' is what I would've liked to think but no. 

Technique was important. Advantages like these were important.

But once you reached a certain level of power, you could just power through those disadvantages and techniques. 

So I just grabbed my opponent's shirt, around his core and simply stood up.

Yes.

It was as easy as that.

Like standing up with a large pillow. 

My opponent was above my head as I raised him up in the air with one hand. He flail around helpless in the air.

All his life he had trained to fight on the ground. Using his body weight and his core strength to put his opponent down.

He was an expert on the gourd, yet when he was in the air like this, he was reduced to nothing but a worm. Struggling meaninglessly.

Truly demoralizing.

No matter how much you train, no matter how much you sharpen your skills and develop your techniques, there will always be a threshold of strength you would never be able to overcome if you are ordinary.

There will always be monsters like me, who would demolish your pretty techniques and tricks with sheer strength.

Absolute power over anything else.

Martial arts was only really useful against someone on similar strength and size as you.

"What a monster."

"Who would be able to compete against that?"

"Isn't this too strong?"

I heard words of astonishment around me. I looked around and saw many men in different clothes and attires.

But one thing they all shared in common was that they were fighters/martial artist. They just happen to practice different disciplines.

I brought my opponent down on the mat and with a thud, he laid tiredly on the ground while groaning in pain.

"This is meaningless." I muttered while I walked away from the mat. The many people who were watching us made way as I went to my locker and changed my shoes and clothes.

The place where I am at was the city indoor stadium. It was a place where different martial arts and sports were taught daily.

You see, apart from Karate which was popular in Japan, all the other martial arts were not very well known or popular. Therefore, they didn't have their own gym or training centre.

So they all shared this indoor stadium for training and coaching. It was like a gigantic gym where different martial arts are practiced.

Though it may sound bad, it was actually quite good as there was some kind of rivalry amongst the different disciplines. So they compete with each other and would often hold spars among different martial arts.

It was the closest thing you would get to an MMA here in Japan.

This was the place where I had sharpen my skills and learned the different martial arts that I knew now. From Muay Thai to wrestling, I learned them all here.

I learned all these different styles from back to back and was able to quickly learn them with my talent and potential.

But around a year ago I had stopped visiting it regularly because of one reason.

I was too strong.

Not in an 'all round' sense but more on a purely physical sense. Due to that, I could no longer develop my skills anymore.

In a sense, my high stats were a curse.

After all, how would you be able to learn if you are too strong? If I were wrestling with someone with similar strength I would have to learn different techniques and become more proficient with wrestling to beat him.

But if you are strong, you didn't need to learn anything new, you just had to put more strength and you would win.

Muay Thai too. What's the point of improving your kicks when you could just add more strength to bring your opponents down.

And If I must mention it, holding back my strength did not help at all.

You don't learn by holding back.

So I had really no need to come to this stadium to improve my skills. It was impossible with my high stats now.

That was also why my skills had stayed stagnant over the years without much development compared to my stats.

'If only I could find someone as strong as me.' I sighed helplessly, while I walked towards the exit of the stadium with my bag.

The others at the stadium bid me farewell and waving at them I left.

I spent the walk back home trying to think up new ways I could improve myself and get stronger.

If I can't improve my current skills right now, shall I learn different things? Quantity over quality?

Is there another world championship I could enter? After all my Karate improved exponentially with just fighting strong opponents and better Karate users.

Or should I try to develop another special skills by myself? I managed to develop the sun breathing on my own afterall so should I try to learn other supernatural skills?

I could think of a couple martial arts from anime which I could try to replicate : Renewal Taekwondo (GOH), Water Stream Smashing Rock Fist (OPM) etc.

With these thoughts buzzing on my mind, I reached my house after nearly an hour of light jogging.

I was using my sun breathing constantly so I didn't feela thing. My sun breathing might be different than the original one since I coul almost keep using it constantly.

I remembered Tanjiro had to train hard to achieve constant breathing but it was very simple for me.

So likely my breathing is a variation of the original or maybe it's still too basic for me to have a tough time constantly using it.

Reaching my house, I opened the door and when I went inside I was greeted by the sight of Sumire wearing an apron and cooking while she was humming a sweet song.

I approached her immediately and before I reached her, she said, "Good morning honey.'

"Good morning indeed." I siad and looked over at her shoulder to see what did she was preparing.

She stopped stirring and turned around to look at me. Her eyes were aware and focused while she silently waits for something. 

Something I didn't know.

After a while and seeing me not doing anything, she turned around again.

She was acting strange.

In fact she had been acting strange since Marin came to our home on Saturday.

That was two days ago. 

She was not really doing anything in particular but I could feel a change in her behaviour.

My mother was someone who would act more on her feelings around me than with her thoughts, but in the past two days she had not been acting that way towards me.

She seemed guarded. Somehow she was putting up this invisible barrier between us.

And whatever I did to her, she seemed to observe it with great interest. 

I could somehow guess why she was acting this way. The most likely possible thing was that she finally realised how she truly felt towards me and tried to distance herself to stop feeling more.

That was the conclusion I came upon.

Now she was guarded around me. Minding how we interact and the shift of her feeling towards me.

But that didn't stop me from continuing 'Operation : MM'.

So I boldly hugged her from behind and leaned closer to her neck.

"What are you making?" I asked.

She answered plainly and this time she was not flustered like she always was when I am this close to her.

I couldn't find the blush on her ear.

{Operation: MM is not going too well huh.} the author asked in my head. His voice contained amusement and a teasing tone.

'Of course you immediately pop up when I am failing at something.'

{Of course. Who else is gonna laugh at your failures.} he actually laughed after saying that.

I ignored him and focused on Sumire instead.

She was putting up walls again. I was sure she finally realised what was happening to her and she must be conflicted right now.

Her, loving her own son. 

Her flesh and blood.

It was wrong on so many levels and she didn't have the excuse of reincarnting like me.

It was just that. She loves her son as a woman.

Deciding to not probe too much, I left her to her own thoughts.

I went to the bathroom and cleaned myself up and got ready for school.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------