I Was Possessed By An Unknown Manga

Chapter 223: Nagi (Calmness)

This was already the second time today that I was fighting Fuma Kotaro, Senior Fuma’s father.

In the first fight, there were many eyes around us, and I was too flustered to fight properly, but this time was different.

“Heup!”

I stomped my foot powerfully and used Oikaze to close the distance in an instant.

A cloud of dust rose in the wake of my movement, but it wasn’t enough to disrupt Fuma Kotaro’s senses, and he easily blocked my attack.

Using Gwansu (Piercing Hand), I unleashed Hayate’s First Form: Kamaitachi.

My outstretched palm was surrounded by a sharp layer of qi, allowing it to be used like a sword.

Fuma Kotaro responded with the same Kamaitachi and swiftly kicked his right leg upward.

Pak!

As a result, a thin line was drawn on my otherwise unbreakable body, which could withstand most attacks without injury.

“What the—”

As I staggered back in surprise, Fuma Kotaro smirked and said to me.

“You didn’t think you could only channel qi into your hands, did you?”

Saying that, Fuma Kotaro clicked his right foot and began launching kicks at an invisible speed.

“Ugh!”

While I mainly used the Shuto (Hand Blade), his main weapon was the Zokuto (Foot Blade).

And, of course, the reach of legs was longer than that of arms.

Quickly pushed on the defensive, I reinforced my defense by wrapping my body with even more qi than usual to prevent any further bleeding.

Seeing that Zokuto was no longer effective, he stopped his attack and asked me.

“Are you perhaps born with an exceptionally tough body?”

I lowered the cross guard I had in front of my face and replied.

“They say the nature of my qi is Indestructibility.”

“I see.”

Nodding as if understanding, Fuma Kotaro said something frightening with a calm expression.

“In that case, I don’t need to hold back anymore.”

“What?”

Before I could ask what he meant, Fuma Kotaro rushed at me.

“Well, try to block this if you can.”

A fierce whirlwind began to swirl around both of his forearms.

I recognized this technique.

Hayate’s sixth form: Tsujikaze (Whirlwind).

It’s a technique that uses a whirlwind wrapping around the arms like gauntlets to strike the opponent.

But it was slightly different from the version I knew.

Normally, both arms’ whirlwinds should rotate in the same direction, but they were spinning in opposite directions, creating massive turbulence.

It looked like a drill or blender, so I hurriedly used my counter technique, Tatsumaki (Whirlwind).

“Too late.”

But Fuma Kotaro, smirking as if mocking me, landed a powerful punch on my abdomen before I could react.

Boom!

“Gahh!!”

My vision spun wildly.

Literally, my body spun like a windmill and was sent flying backward.

An intense nausea hit me, and the shock and pain that even my qi couldn’t fully block turned my mind blank.

If it hadn’t been the sandpit of a playground, I would have surely suffered a severe head injury from that blow, and the thought snapped me back to my senses. ???o?B??

Even when fighting Ivan, who was called the world’s strongest, I had never felt pain this intense.

It felt like my internal organs were twisting.

“Haah, haah, haah, haah.”

Sitting down on the sandpit with one hand on the ground, gasping for breath, I saw Fuma Kotaro slowly walking toward me as he spoke.

“Kim Yu-seong, you are certainly strong right now. But you’ve learned too many things half-heartedly, making you weaker than if you’d learned nothing at all.”

I realized what he meant.

I had indeed dug many shallow wells up to this point.

The deepest well I had dug was Hayate, but I had only been practicing it for about three months.

In contrast, Fuma Kotaro had polished his Hayate skills for at least several decades.

“What’s the point of learning a bunch of things if you can’t do any of them properly?”

“……”

It felt like I had been hit hard on the back of my head.

No one had ever said something like this to me before.

“Then, what should I do?”

His answer to my question was simple.

“Empty your mind.”

“…?”

When I looked at him with puzzled eyes, Fuma Kotaro lightly tapped his chest with his fist.

“Miyamoto Musashi, the founder of Niten Ichi-ryu, said in ‘The Book of Five Rings’ that the ultimate level of all fighting techniques is ‘Ku’ (Emptiness).”

This was similar to what Confucius called ‘a serene mirror-like state’ or what Mencius referred to as ‘an immovable heart’. It was a state of mind where one wouldn’t be shaken under any circumstance and could discover the optimal path to victory.

“As I worked to integrate Hayate and Jinrai, I naturally reached this state and named this profound technique Nagi.”

The word Nagi (?) refers to a state where the wind completely stops.

In other words, calmness.

It was ironic that the final destination of a martial art based on imitating the wind would be stillness.

“Too many cooks spoil the broth, and knowing too much can sometimes be a poison. What you need now is to rid yourself of the unnecessary.”

“Honestly, it’s hard to grasp right away. It’s too abstract.”

“Even I, who practiced only Hayate all my life, had to start over after 30 years to reach this realization. Naturally, it will be hard for a mere high school student like you to understand. So don’t try to grasp it; feel it with your body. Everything has the wind within it, and the ‘Nagi’ I speak of begins with feeling the flow of the wind.”

Honestly, it sounded like pie in the sky, but I had a rough idea of what he was trying to say.

The fight just now.

Fuma Kotaro had read my every move from start to finish, despite my full commitment.

It was as if he could predict the future.

Indeed, with such a technique, no matter how strong Ivan was, he would have been powerless against it.

‘Empty my mind, huh.’

It was clear that this wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded.

“Well, if you’ve rested enough, get up.”

“What? I thought it was over?”

When I instinctively raised my head, wondering what he meant, Fuma Kotaro kindly corrected my misunderstanding.

“We’re just getting started. What nonsense are you talking about?”

“……”

That day, instead of understanding how to empty my mind, I learned the true meaning of being beaten like a dog on a summer day.

---

The next day.

“Yu-seong, what happened after we parted ways yesterday?!”

As soon as I arrived at school, Satoru was startled and asked.

It was because my face was swollen in several places, and I had bandages on the cuts.

“Something happened.”

I couldn’t exactly say that I got beaten up by a senior’s father, so I brushed it off and thought back to last night’s conversation with the President.

‘Who… who did this to Yu-seong’s handsome face?!’

‘Tell me now! I’ll go and protest immediately!’

‘It was Fuma Kotaro.’

‘Is he the same person I know from the Seven Powers?’

‘Yes, the same person.’

‘I’ll just put him on the blacklist for now.’

Luckily, after I explained the circumstances, the President understood and said she’d ask Senior Fuma about it instead.

To my parents, I said I got the injuries sparring with a known athlete at the gym under the coach’s request.

Because I had often come home injured like this in the past.

Anyway, since I kept my mouth shut, Satoru couldn’t get any information out of me, and the same went for Rika and the other kids who later came into the class.

Judging by the way Rika looked at me, she seemed to think my injuries were from fighting Fuma Kotaro on the streets last night.

Well, there was no need to correct her misunderstanding. It was half true, anyway.

Since midterms had just ended, the teachers didn’t push too hard during class, so the morning lessons went smoothly.

I was planning to have lunch with the other kids as usual, but an unexpected visitor prevented me from doing so.

“Kim Yu-seong, could you spare a moment?”

“Senior Fuma?”

Senior Fuma, who was practically a stranger to me at school, suddenly came to our class.

Naturally, the class was in an uproar, and Satoru was especially upset.

“Argh! Kim Yu-seong, you sly dog! Not satisfied with Nao-chan and the President, now you’ve set your sights on Senior Fuma, the last of the school’s Three Beauties?!”

…What the heck is he talking about?

“Kyaa! It’s her!”

“Why is Senior Fuma with someone like Kim Yu-seong?!”

Voices of other students echoed from all around.

As expected of Senior Fuma, one of the school’s famous ‘Three Beauties’ according to Satoru, she had a large fanbase among the second-year students despite barely interacting with them.

I asked Senior Fuma, who was standing at the back door of the classroom.

“Is this going to take long?”

Senior Fuma thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Probably just 10 minutes.”

“Alright then, I’ll be back soon. Start eating without me.”

After apologizing to the training camp group I was supposed to eat with, I followed Senior Fuma to the school rooftop.