The Life Of Normal-Taro

Chapter 42: Touch

"Master!" Taro shouted before the dojo master's home, which he found accidentally one day.

However, the master was asleep. It was about three in the morning when Taro decided to cause a ruckus out there. Although, in Taro's point of view, it isn't that early since he doesn't really have a normal sense of time.

Taro didn't give into the silence. He shouted even louder. He shouted loud enough for the entire block of houses to get up and shower curses towards him- well, they would've done that if it was like five or something, but they couldn't be concerned enough to wake up.

Upon getting no reply, Taro headed straight into his master's house and rang the bell. Now, he was familiar with multiple appliances like doorbells and stuff. Thankappan was kind enough to teach him about that.

"Okay, listen to me now, Taro. There's a science behind how to use these bells. First, you ring the bell once; this is the warning bell. Why is it a warning bell, you don't ask for some reason? Well, it's a warning for the hell that you're gonna raise with this bell. You hear that noise when I hit this button. Yes, the annoying one. Most of them place such annoying ones in their houses since it plays with the same theory as that of alarms. The more annoying it, the more you don't want to hear that shit. So, the warning bell is for them to run to us and open the damn door. So, you might have understood what I meant by hell, right? That's where I literally destroy the heck out of this bell! Although, in your strength terms, it would be more of a gentle press like this!" Taro was reminded of the time when Thankappan went on a frenzy with the Holy Land's doorbell and got the plankton mad. Even though, he clearly knew that there's a fundamental error in Thankappan's teachings, Taro decided to follow up on that because he liked doing stupid things like this.

Therefore, true to his teachings, he gave out the warning bell first, to which no reply came. He took a deep breath and went on his 'gentle press' routine, which left the people around no choice but to wake up. People from even one kilometer away from Taro's current position gave out some vulgar language, some of which made no sense to him. He did not understand why these people were so keen about his dead parents and human body parts. The translator made no sense this time, so he decided not to care about it and rang the bell until someone came out of the house.

It was the dojo master's wife. "What is it?" She asked.

"Master?"

"Huh?"

"Where's the master?" Taro tried looking inside and asked.

The wife sighed and headed towards his husband who slept peaceful through all this commotion and pushed him out of the bed. "What the! Hey, why did you do that?" The master asked his wife.

She got furious; so furious that veins popped out her head."Hey! How did you even sleep through all this commotion? And someone came searching for you! Seems like it's the so-called prodigy you were talking about. I'm gonna tell you this one time. If one of your students ever dares to barge in like this in fucking three in the morning, I'm not gonna spare you anymore!" She gave out a serious warning, sending chills in the master's spine.

Hearing this, he desperately tried focusing on the main point. "Wait, did you just say Sadanandan's by the door?" He asked, getting up from the floor.

"Seems so." She said as she pushed her husband out of the room and closed the door on him.

"I'm gonna be sleeping on the couch for the next few days, huh?" The dojo master muttered as he headed towards the door.

"Hey, master!" Taro enthusiastically waved his arm as he saw his master.

However, his master couldn't possibly muster up such enthusiasm after just waking up. "Hey! So, what are you doing here at this time of theearly morning?" He asked.

"Well? Aren't we gonna go, master?" Taro excitedly asked.

The master stayed dead silent for a moment, before finally opening his mouth. "The fuck are you talking about?" He looked at Taro in disbelief.

Taro was puzzled before coming into a realization. "I came by a little early, huh?" He gave out a light hearted chuckle. His excitement had done him over this time.

"No shit, Sherlock! You just had to get by the dojo by nine. By the way, how the hell did you find my house? Wait, on second thought, don't answer. Your answer is just gonna weird me out in some way." The dojo master replied. Yet again, Taro gave out a light hearted chuckle. The master sighed. "So, what are you gonna do now?" He asked.

"Well, I'll just go back and swing by at nine then." Taro replied as he turned back from his master and headed out.

However, the master stopped him. "Wait, you idiot! Are you just gonna waste your energy just like that? Get in! I'm not going to be able to sleep anyway." He was worried about what his wife might think about it, but he was more worried about the condition of his pupil.

"Sure." Taro took upon this offer and nonchalantly walked into the house, which slightly pissed the master off.

"Have a seat. Well, let's just see what's on the television, shall we?" After channel surfing for a few minutes, the master decided to watch a live pro-wrestling pay-per-view. [1]

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The next few hours passed like a breeze. When the wife found out that her husband actually brought in the pupil instead of chasing him, she attained a whole new level of fury. However, she didn't show this on her face before a "guest". The dojo master already knew his fate and succumbed to it. After eating the breakfast, which could possibly be the last one in a long time from his wife, Taro and the master finally headed out to the municipal indoor stadium.

"So, this is the place where I'm gonna have my fight, huh?" Taro looked at the not-so-majestic stadium and got fired up for the event.

"Well.... Not really." The master replied.

"What! What do you mean?" Taro asked. He was promised a fight and now his master contradicted his statement.

"Listen, you're not fighting; you're facing different martial artists in a bracket-style tournament." The master replied.

Taro was confused. "What's the difference between the two?" He asked.

"Okay, let me put this in your head right now. You absolutely will NOT land an attack on your opponent." The master spoke, much to Taro's surprise.

"What!"

"Hear me out, okay? All you're gonna be doing throughout this entire tournament is defending like your life depends on it. Nothing else; just defend the heck out." The master proclaimed with a smile on his face.

"Wait, how am I ever going to win the fight then?" He posed his biggest concern.

"Meh, fret not. It's actually a point-to-win tournament. Fighting to find out who's the strongest is a thing in the past. Although, that system was pretty cool compared to this. I feel like it had a feeling of excitement." The master sighed. "Anyway, you just have to tap their body real gently to earn the point. Like keep your defence up all the time and try for a counter touch. Don't worry about all the point scoring, I'll teach you before your fight." He answered.

"Why do you make me do this, master?" Taro asked. He wanted to get down in a fight. Well, he would have been fine with the point system, however now that his master asked him not to give an actual punch but a touch, it genuinely irked him. That would mean he's just doing what the pro-wrestlers were doing with their punches back in that pay-per-view he watched. Although, the flips were real though.

The master sighed. "Okay look. I know that you want to test your strength in a tournament like this, but do you really think it's a good choice? I would've allowed you to give out a punch or kick if you were someone else. However, it's you who we're talking about. I've fought with you multiple times. I've seen you fight without restraint. You really think these people here could manage taking a hit from you?" He asked.

"I was restraining back then though!" Taro thought as he nodded his head silently, as if he agreed with his master's statement.

He continued. "You understand, right? So, the only way I'm allowing you to enter in this tournament is if you promised me that you'll only defend throughout the entirety of this tourney." The master spoke.

"Might as well do it! It might act as a good challenge for me." Taro thought. "I'm in!" He proclaimed as a smile arose in his master's face.

"Then let's show them who's boss!" The master said as they got inside the indoor stadium.

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[1] We're talking about major wrestling pay-per-views here (You know which ones I'm talking here). Well, the live broadcast of those events usually happens in the early morning in India due to obvious time differences. The Japanese or UK ones aren't usually broadcasted live here, so I have no idea about how those work.