Chapter 3 Junior High School Life: The Parker-Masked Hunter of Otaku Hunters

“Hey, hey. Can you tell me your height and weight?”

The classroom of Year 2, Class 1 was as noisy as ever today.

Whether it was because the class was full of clowns, or because both the boys and girls were talkative, the moment break time started, chatter groups would pop up all over the classroom.

Amidst all that, I was the only one with a math textbook open, starting on the homework that had just been assigned in the last class. But then, three middle school boys and one girl suddenly swarmed my desk, and I looked up with a “Huh?”

One of them was my classmate, Yamamoto-kun. The other three were boys and girls from other classes I wasn’t particularly close with.

Yamamoto-kun, who could be classified as something of a delinquent, said cheerfully.

“We’re making a ranking of the strongest fighters in the second year.”

I couldn’t help but ask.

“Eh? Why?”

Yamamoto-kun looked back at me, bewildered.

“Huh? Because it’s fun, obviously.”

“…Heeh~~”

“So, that’s why, tell me your height and weight. We’ll use that to finalize Kizuki’s rank.”

“Ah. So I’m in this ranking thing too, huh.”

“Well, yeah. ‘Cause you’re huge. And being huge is justice, for the most part. For the most part.”

“I think I was about 183 centimeters and 88 kilograms.”

When I answered honestly, the one girl in the group immediately laughed, “No way. You’re a giant.” The other two boys besides Yamamoto-kun also clutched their stomachs and laughed, “Too big,” “You weigh that much? You don’t look it.”

“I’m so jealous! Is that what you call natural-born talent!?”

Yamamoto-kun said with exaggeration, so I replied with a wry smile.

“Hahaha. Well, it just sort of happened before I knew it.”

A lie. ‘Before I knew it’ was a complete and utter lie. How much effort I had put in to build this body… the only ones who knew the truth were probably my parents and my uncle.

That Yamamoto-kun. Talking so easily about talent—I wanted to curse him.

The reason I grew this much was because I ate that much, moved that much, and slept that much.

In my first life, my height and weight were about the same as the average, but… ‘this time,’ I made my mother cry constantly over the daily food expenses.

In my first life, I was obsessed with anime, manga, video games, and light novels, but ‘this time,’ I didn’t even glance at those things, instead doing karate for five hours on weekdays and ten hours on holidays, without fail.

In my first life, I often stayed up late and I think I was almost always sleep-deprived, but ‘this time,’ I made it a rule to go to bed early and wake up early, securing nearly ten hours of sleep.

Weekdays—I always wake up at five in the morning and do karate until eight.

As soon as school ends, I run home and do more karate.

And then, a little after seven in the evening, I’m in bed and in the world of dreams.

Holidays—I always wake up at five in the morning, and with a break for lunch, I do karate until a little after three in the afternoon.

After that, I spend a short amount of leisure time, do a little studying, and then go to sleep a little after seven in the evening.

It’s been like that ever since I started middle school.

As for studying, the primary duty of a student, I’ve maintained my status as an honor student with the faint memories of my first life and my concentration during class. The break times at school are my homework time.

“A bookworm like you doesn’t need a body like that.”

My position in the class was—the weirdo who does his homework during break time even though he’s in the go-home-early club—and because I always had a textbook or workbook open, I was often teased as a bookworm.

None of my classmates knew about my karate.

If someone who knew what to look for saw my fists, which were mangled from body conditioning by punching trees and rocks, they would probably be able to tell I was a karate practitioner, but so far, no one at school had ever pointed it out.

I never went all out in P.E. class.

I was never targeted by the delinquent boys who wanted to act tough in the midst of puberty.

My middle school years, before I met Noma-san and Aoki-san, were spent in peace and quiet.

“So? What rank am I likely to get?”

“Let’s see. You weigh more than I thought, so I’ll make you eighth.”

“Seriously? You’re giving me a single-digit rank?”

“You’re just too damn big. But don’t get cocky, Kizuki. Everyone from seventh place up can kick your ass.”

“That sounds bad. By the way, who’s in the running?”

“For example, seventh place is Fujii from the karate club. He’s not even 160 centimeters tall, but he took second place in sparring at the city karate tournament.”

“Fujii-kun does work hard. So what about the top three? Who’s the strongest?”

“Heh, you’re eager, aren’t you? You wanna know?”

“Yeah, I really want to know.”

“Alright? Third place is… Sakota from the judo club.”

“I know him. He’s in Class 4, right? The, uh, wide one.”

“He weighs seventy-eight kilos. The judo throws he unleashes with that blessed physique are one-hit kills. He might be hiding the strength to even have a fighting chance against second and first place.”

“So second and first are even stronger than the judo club guy?”

“Second place is Mad Dog Matsukawa.”

“Mad Dog Matsukawa.”

“That guy is nuts. Once he snaps, there’s no stopping him. You know about the incident where Matsukawa punched Kondō from P.E., right?”

“The one where Kondō-sensei got a bloody nose.”

“That’s right. To challenge that muscle-bound Kondō, he’s truly a mad dog. He’s without a doubt the craziest bastard in the second year. Well, Kondō managed to restrain him, but… there’s no doubt he’s second in the rankings.”

As Yamamoto-kun said that with a smug look, his friends standing behind him nodded deeply.

“And then. The glorious first place is. As you know, the absolute yankee, Shimono.”

“Hahaha. Of course.”

“Well, it ended up being the predictable result, but it can’t be helped. The strongest bancho of our middle school—rumor has it he even won a one-on-one fight with a third-year from Minami Junior High. His guts and real-fight experience are on a different level. And he’s got that killer hook he developed from his swimming-trained back muscles.”

“Ahaha! I heard rumors he was strong, but I didn’t know he had a special move.”

“Seriously, be careful not to get on his bad side, alright? No matter how ridiculously huge Kizuki is, if you take Shimono’s killer hook, you’ll die, man.”

“You’re right. That’s true. Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

I smiled, looking Yamamoto-kun straight in the eyes.

In my first life, as a timid anime otaku, I had a hard time with the slightly delinquent Yamamoto-kun, but ‘this time,’ I could talk to him without any stress at all.

Of course.

‘This time,’ I was a world-weary old man who had been knocked around by society for fifteen years.

Ever since I returned to being a first-grader, I’ve led a life far more steeped in karate than the karate club ace, Fujii-kun.

Through a gluttonous diet that made my mother cry and by sacrificing my free time for long hours of sleep, I succeeded in growing even bigger than Sakota from the judo club.

I was more strong-willed than Mad Dog Matsukawa, to the point that I even managed to time leap at the moment of my death.

And I was getting beaten to a pulp on a daily basis not by some absolute yankee like Shimono, but by the Magician of the Underground Fighting World, Yasuchika Homura.

The level of composure I had now was incomparable to my first life.

“We’re planning to post the rankings in the hallway as a surprise next week. Don’t you dare tell the teachers it was us, okay?”

“Got it. But Yamamoto-kun, thanks for eighth place. I feel a little more confident now.”

“O-Oh? …Somehow, getting thanked like that kinda throws me off.”

At that moment, suddenly—now that I think about it—I remembered something.

In my first life, too, there should have been a ‘strange incident during middle school where a mysterious document, the Top 30 Strongest Fighters Ranking, was suddenly posted all over the hallways.’

The hot-blooded boys and the gossip-loving girls should have been extremely excited about it.

At that time, my name wasn’t on the ranking, so I was completely out of the loop, but… this time, would my classmates say something to me? Would they say I was amazing?

To be honest—I was a little excited about that.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Homura-chan. What in the world did you teach that kid?”

“Nothing special, just old-style karate.”

It was 2 PM on a Sunday, not even a month after the ‘Strongest Fighter Ranking Incident.’ I was facing off against a stranger at a classical martial arts class run by an acquaintance of my uncle’s.

The man, who looked to be in his late twenties, was dressed in a hakama-style dōgi.

I, on the other hand, was in a casual outfit of a t-shirt and shorts.

Both of us wore open-fingered gloves on our hands.

“Hah, hah, hah—”

The one panting was the man in the dōgi. I stood in my usual natural stance with my hands down, silently observing the man, whose forehead was beaded with sweat.

“Hah, hah, hah—”

The man and I faced each other from a distance of three meters. The man, who had his hands up around his chin like an MMA fighter, tried to inch closer to me… but he wouldn’t quite commit.

By the wall of the spacious dōjō.

“Not just old-style, it’s Homura-style, isn’t it? Even with the size difference, my Minato-kun is at a loss for how to attack and has reverted to his MMA style.”

“Come to think of it, he used to be an MMA fighter, didn't he?”

A long-haired middle-aged man in a hakama and my uncle, Yasuchika Homura, were leaning against the wall side-by-side. They were probably old friends. Both had their arms crossed and were talking casually.

“He’s a major league veteran in the lightweight division. He’s even fought on a New Year’s Eve TV broadcast, you know?”

“Hmm.”

That was everyone in the large dōjō.

Just me, the man fighting me, my uncle, and my uncle’s friend. Just the four of us.

“How unpleasant. Even in a match between our beloved disciples, the Takeō-ryū Jūjutsu side was understood so little that it was cast aside at the last minute.”

“That’s all he knows. He’s only ever practiced my karate, so he walks like me and uses techniques like mine. Though his speed, power, and sense of distance are still immature.”

“Calling that immature is just being too greedy.”

Right after the long-haired middle-aged man gave a wry smile—the man in the dōgi facing me suddenly shot forward.

A low tackle aimed at sweeping my legs.

So, I pulled one leg far back to turn my body sideways, and at the same time, dropped my hips low and spread my legs into a sumo stance. By the time I was in the stance, I had already thrown a hook punch, landing it on the side of the dōgi-clad man’s face as he crashed into my front leg.

A successful counter.

The man’s head flew to the side, and the rest of his body followed, rolling four meters across the dōjō floor.

“Nice. I can feel the desperate training in that.”

“He himself is having the time of his life. He’s almost always smiling.”

“Haaaah~. So he’s either the fool of the century or the prodigy of the century.”

As the long-haired middle-aged man’s impressed laughter spread, the dōgi-clad man, fearing my follow-up attack, leaped to his feet. But he seemed a bit taken aback when he saw I hadn’t moved.

“Hey, did you teach him the ‘Secret Fist’?”

“Now, I wonder.”

The reason I didn’t move—it was nothing more than wanting to fight more.

This was just a match. Just one practice session before I confronted the violence that raped and murdered Noma-san and Aoki-san. In that case, wouldn’t it be more profitable to savor all of this man’s techniques, all of his experience, all of his potential?

“You can use it on Minato-kun, but don’t kill him, okay?”

I stood in a moderately relaxed, natural stance, carefully observing the man in the dōgi. I was thinking, If I can use the ‘Secret Fist,’ maybe I’ll give it a try.

……………………………….

After a few tens of seconds of a motionless stare-down.

“I give up.”

The man in the dōgi held up his hand as if to say ‘wait a minute’ and surrendered, so I let out a small sigh, disappointed from the bottom of my heart.

At this rate, I didn’t know what the point of coming all the way out to Hakone, Kanagawa for a training visit was.

“Hey, hey, was it Tōgo-kun? Want to try a round with me next? It’s o-kay. I won’t kill ya.”

If the long-haired middle-aged man hadn’t called out to me, I would have been on my way back to Nishifuchū, Tokyo, to practice karate at my uncle’s house right then and there.

“See? He’s smiling happily, isn’t he? My nephew is greedy for strength.”

◆ ◆ ◆

I can’t go on a rampage in Nishifuchū City.

There’s no telling how it might connect to and change the future where ‘at the end of August 2016, Noma-san and Aoki-san are brutally murdered.’

—The incident where Kondō-sensei was punched and got a bloody nose.

—The incident where the strongest fighter ranking was posted.

—The incident where a yankee rode his bike through the school grounds.

—The incident where Nagai-kun, the six-timing bastard, was knocked out by a girl’s slap.

So far, the incidents that happened in my first life have also occurred in my second life. The faces in my elementary and middle school classes are also exactly the same, as far as I can remember, and of course, my homeroom teachers are the same.

The only clear difference is me.

The existence of the person named Kizuki Tōgo is completely different between my first and second lives.

The Kizuki Tōgo of my first life was an ordinary otaku boy, not a karateka, nor did he have a particularly conspicuous physique.

“…S-Sakamoto-san, in one hit…?”

Let alone getting into a fight with a stranger while wearing a large black hoodie pulled down low and hiding his face with a white mask… he had never even considered it, let alone experienced it.

I can’t go on a rampage in Nishifuchū City.

But that’s not the case in the downtown entertainment districts of the city center, where dangerous troubles are a daily occurrence.

“N-Next!! You go next!”

“Fuck you, you go first!”

On a Saturday night, amidst the bustling crowds, I had followed a strange group consisting of three delinquents who had just come out of a major electronics store and one timid-looking otaku young man, and had stumbled upon the scene of an otaku-hunt.

The young otaku had been dragged into a back alley with no people, not even a streetlight.

When the three delinquents threatened him and he was about to take out his wallet, I called out, ‘Hey guys, what are you doing over there? Mugging is a crime, you know?’ and it immediately escalated into a fight. The man with a tattoo on his neck suddenly threw a punch at me—so I immediately countered.

As a result, the tattooed man took a punch to the solar plexus from me and fell into a long, long struggle for breath, and the remaining two delinquents seemed to have remembered a ‘certain rumor.’

“The hoodie-mask guy who hunts otaku-hunters…? …So he really existed…”

“He’s way bigger and stronger than the rumors said! He took out Sakamoto-san in one hit!?”

The hoodie-mask guy who hunts otaku-hunters.

It’s been almost two months since I started walking around the entertainment district on Saturday and Sunday nights in the spring of my third year of middle school, but it seems a rumor has spread among the delinquents in the city center that ‘a man hiding his face with a hood and mask is stopping muggings.’

This activity, which I started to gain fighting experience—tonight’s tattooed man was the ninth.

I was hoping the remaining two would attack me as well, but.

“T-That’s why I said we should stop hunting otaku!”

“That’s bullshit! I was the one who tried to stop you!”

I had no interest in the cowards who ran away, leaving one of their own behind. What a bunch of wimps… I thought, and a small sigh escaped me.

“…………Y-You… that’s a foul… you bastard…”

Suddenly, I heard a groan from below my feet. It seemed the tattooed man, who was clutching his solar plexus and had even vomited a little, had managed to mutter something.

I didn’t torment the tattooed man—but I placed the tip of my sneaker on the nose of the crouching man, making his shoulders jolt.

“What is?”

“…S-Such a huge body… it’s a foul… y-you foul-playing bastard…”

I just let out a deep sigh, “Haaaah—,” and thought.

—Every single one of them says it so easily—

I lifted the tattooed man’s chin with the toe of my sneaker. “Ugu…” Forcing him to look up at me, I tilted my head and asked.

“A foul—but have you, my friend, ever challenged the limits of your own genes?”

Was it my tone of voice and actions that scared him? Did he predict that I was about to beat him to death? The otaku youth who had been saved from the mugging said, “W-Well then, I’ll be going now—,” and left the back alley with a forced smile.

I didn’t even pay attention to the fleeing otaku youth, but just looked down at the tattooed man whose face was distorted with fear, pain, and regret, and smiled with only the corners of my mouth.

“Look closely. I’m doing this like my life depends on it.”