"Geez, if you couldn't even put up a fight then why not do as we said in the first place?" A blonde haired boy said as he sent another kick towards the boy in a fetal position.
Bang!
On a large kid's play ground, a small crowd of about 7 kids stood as 5 of them huddled around 2 who laid in fetal positions as they clutched their lightly bruised arms and heads.
Though it was quite strange, one of the beaten kids towered over the rest as it seemed just one of him was as large as two of the kids.
As the other strange child was oddly indifferent to his beating. Clutching his head as he did not yell in pain nor resistance, and although not very visible, his facial expression hadn't changed from the beginning, when absurd requests were demanded of the two of them by their attackers.
And just a few meters off, sitting alone on the top of a slide was another young child. It seemed he was a strange one as well, he didn't have the light nor the vigor a kid of his age should possess.
In fact he watched the whole scene with a straight face, his expression not changing the slightest as he clearly had no intention of involving himself.
He took a glance upward as he read this message for at least the 100th time since he'd awoken in this park. A message only he could see.
{Yujiro Hanma Template: 0.1%}
It was the first thing he noticed when he'd opened his eyes and was greeted with the confrontation of a few children not too far away from him.
Even in his previous life such a farce would've been something he ignored, not to mention now when he felt his situation was far more important.
He opened and closed his hands as he inspected himself, he felt no different.
Well that was wrong. He was now in the body of a 12 year old so of course he felt different, yet in terms of strength, he didn't feel like there was any rush of power coursing through him.
Of course, he'd only awakened 0.1% but he was in the body of a 12 year old and Yujiro Hanma was an absolute monster, so he felt even 0.1% should be a lot.
He'd originally thought that perhaps since he felt the same he'd always felt, then maybe he might have the same strength he did at the end of his previous life, but he had now way of being sure about that as he could just be feeling comfortable in his new body.
'I'm gonna go home and test some things out. It's too noisy here' Ace thought as he pushed himself down the slide and casually made his way towards the exit.
"Hey hey who the hell is this?" The boy who'd been terrorizing the two kids looked up to see Ace passing by them as they'd been blocking the exit. "Get him too!"
Ace looked over to see 2 of the kids immediately gunning for him.
"Tch." He sucked his teeth in annoyance as he didn't feel like fighting but still took on a stance.
Although he knew it was best for him to be cautious and run away, especially judging from the memories of this body, he wasn't in the best physical state to be going on a 1v5.
But his mindset wouldn't allow him to run from a bunch of runts, especially when they were the ones causing so much trouble for him.
At the sight of the first punch thrown from the kid who'd gotten to him, Ace, who'd originally planned to dodge or tank the hit and quickly attack back suddenly froze.
The moment the chubby boy had thrown his fist, Ace felt everything go slow, really slow.
It was a surreal sight to behold. Even in his surprise it had taken almost 4 seconds for the fist to finally be just a few inches from his face.
But oddly, the fist was instead becoming slower, far slower than when it was first launched.
A smirk took on the face of Ace as he moved himself entirely from the way of the fist.
He took a quick glance at the line of words in the top right corner of his vision as he knew what caused the weird situation just now.
He had no way of truly knowing as this thing was completely unresponsive but he was sure it was his template that he now felt he should've been more specific with was responsible.
He looked at it only to be a bit surprised, it had changed.
{Yujiro Hanma Template: 0.2%}
He hadn't much time to think about it as the boy who'd missed his target immediately began to stumble forward.
A chance which Ace wouldn't miss as he quickly sent a kick which landed square on the nose of the boy, clearly taking great damage as his stumbling body fell forward, face first.
Loud cries could be heard right after as he clutched his face and began rolling about.
Although it seemed as if a lot of time had passed, it'd only been about 5 seconds since the blonde haired kid had ordered Ace's attack.
The quick take down of his friend had been enough to scare the second kid as he'd quickly stopped just a few feet away from Ace who was staring straight at him with an ordinary fighting stance, now bouncing about.
"Punk! Get him!" The blonde hair kid's words fell on deaf ears as the boy stood still, clearly too afraid to approach Ace.
"Move!" The blonde haired kid huffed in annoyance as he pushed his way past his goons and to his frightened subordinate who bowed his head at the sight of him.
"From now on don't hang around us if you're gonna be such a scaredy cat." He spoke words no one else would think to be that big of a deal but clearly wasn't the case as the boy's expression changed to pure devastation.
The blonde haired kid turned to face Ace as his brows slightly frowned. It wasn't as easy to notice before, but now that he was closer he could see that Ace was more than over half a head taller than him.
But such a thing wasn't enough to shake his confidence as an arrogant smile could be seen on his face as he took to his fighter's stance, a southpaw boxing stance.
It was something that made Ace, who could've easily went on the attack when the boy's back was turned to him, slightly tilt his head.
He wasn't expecting any of these kids to actually know how to fight, but the boy's stance obviously indicated otherwise.
There was a bit of a stalemate as neither side moved. Ace continued bouncing in place as he waited for his opponents move, and the blonde haired kid simply stood there eyeing Ace, seemingly also waiting for his move.
It was quickly broken as Ace heard the boy suck his teeth and begin to approach him.
Ace was sure now this kid practiced boxing, he didn't recklessly approach like the first kid who was still crying on the floor, blood now all over his hands and face. He shuffled towards him.
And just when he was within arms length, he saw the kid send a right jab at him.
It happened again, the moment Ace took sight of the fist, time had slowed down, he took notice that it wasn't as slow as before, and it activated later than before as the fist was already quite close from hitting him as opposed to before when it activated the moment the punch was thrown, but it wasn't too much of a difference in comparison.
Instead of waiting for it to be just inches away like he did before, Ace immediately acted right away as he tilted his head left.
He noticed how time immediately resumed the moment he was safe from harm's way and the fist which he underestimated the speed of went flying, missing his head as the fighter in Ace was practically screaming.
Ace never took part in any sort of professional combat, but he had his fair share of fights in his life, not to mention the fighting videos and stories or manhwas he'd read, they changed his mentality and prepared him on how to act in case of a fight, which sadly never happened as he hadn't gotten into so much as an argument since entering high school.
Because of the amount of content he'd viewed, he felt he'd be no different from a professional when the time came.
And he wasn't exactly wrong as currently, his body was crouched under the kid's missed jab and his head was to the right of him.
At this moment, he felt as if he operated on a different time entirely. For practically the fourth time since he found himself in this position, his eyes went over all the weaknesses he spotted on this boy.
A punch to the gut, a hook to the rib, an uppercut square to the chin, even a knee to the balls.
They were options open for Ace and ones his body could smoothly make as he was already in the position for.
The boy was clearly shocked at Ace's dodge to his attack, otherwise he wouldn't have left Ace so much time to spot so many openings.
But Ace didn't make the attack, he was enjoying himself too much to have it end so quickly.
He continued his body movement as he shifted his entire body left and shuffled away from the blond haired kid, who was now staring at his bouncing figure with clear shock and not as much arrogance.
Another stalemate happened as the boy was now too cautious to recklessly attack Ace as he did before.
This lasted for a few seconds before he threw another jab only for Ace to take a simple step back just when he'd thought his fist connected, it was a perfect dodge.
Jab.
Another dodge, it seemed the boy had grown frustrated as he threw a large hook at Ace who simply moved out the way again. But it didn't stop there as the boy threw a flurry of punches.
Cross, cross, jab, cross, uppercut, hook, uppercut, hook, cross, jab, cross, cross.
Though it was all in vain as they were effortlessly dodged.
Ace had just sidestepped another uppercut when he got a glance of the boy's now tired face.
He could tell this kid wasn't the best in the stamina department, his fights probably never lasted long or required much effort.
He could notice the boy was now throwing all his bodyweight into his punches, either too tired or too distracted to focus.
And Ace had guessed right.
The blonde haired kid, or rather Cinco was a genius at his local youth boxing gym.
The 13 year old boy had never suffered so much as a real injury from a fight. He'd been terrorizing his neighborhood more than usual as a result of the budding excitement he had at the news of his first fight this year.
He was as arrogant as they come as no one who knew the boy had thoughts of opposing his cynical actions, 'It's just whims of children' they said. 'Let him indulge, he'll be rich and famous soon so be on his good side.'
Perhaps the only thing that he couldn't find confidence in was his height.
Despite being almost 14 years old, he was as tall as 12 year olds.
So naturally when his arrogant self saw 2 kids near this park who were both over a head taller than him, he'd gotten upset and told them they were to stay with him and his gang of friends for the duration of the day as they went about, and they would be kneeling below his height for its entirety.
The 2 boys of course did not comply and as a result were beaten by Cinco and his lackeys.
He spotted another boy as he was pummeling the 2.
What angered him even more this time was this boy was not only taller than him, but even looked better.
So his sent his goons to attack him, to his surprise though the boy not only resisted but successfully took down one of them and frightened the other.
He didn't feel scared at the sight but instead interested.
And approaching Ace to personally fight him, he didn't think much, he thought he'd crumble like the rest did.
Those who were bigger than him, he was too fast for, and those who were faster than him he overpowered with strength and similar speed.
But to his shock, Ace effortlessly slipped his punch.
You know, his hit had never been dodged before, of course he met a few in the ring who punched faster, but in comparison they were very weak and couldn't nearly dodge as fast they could hit, so he was able to make light work of them as he did the rest.
Now he had finally met competition. But he grew tired as all his punches were dodged.
He felt he should call the rest of his friends to gang up on Ace instead.
BANG!
Just as he had the thought, everything went black and his body went stiff, he had no clue what happened as he hadn't even seen anything.
Ace stared down at Cinco who had collapsed just in front of him, completely knocked out.
He'd grown tired of dodging the boy's lazy punches so the moment he slipped an overhead punch from him, he sent a clean uppercut to his chin, which to his surprise was able to knock him out.
He resisted the urge to give him a few kicks on the ground as he raised his head to meet the eyes of the now horrified group of delinquents.