The search began on a Saturday morning with a cup of tea, the laptop open on the kitchen table, and a surprisingly large number of mediocre results.
There were more dojos in the area than he expected. The problem was that most were focused on a single discipline, usually karate or judo, with websites that looked like they hadn't been updated since the early 2000s and institutional photos where everyone smiled with a stiffness that inspired little confidence.
He discarded them one by one with the meticulousness of someone who knew exactly what he was looking for.
He wasn't looking for the most famous or the cheapest. He was looking for flexibility. A place that wasn't married to a single combat philosophy, where there was room to learn more than one style and, preferably, where someone with actual criteria could help him determine what combination made the most sense for his specific situation.
Because his specific situation was, to put it mildly, unusual.
Small body. A quirk that required mobility and distance management. The need to be functional in real combat in less than three years. He was not the standard martial arts student profile.
He kept searching.
The answer appeared on the third page of results, in a list that some amateur blogger had compiled with more enthusiasm than rigor. A line at the end, almost like a footnote: "Seiryuu Dojo, Hanamachi Street 14. Multiple disciplines. Individual classes available with surcharge."
No photo. No website. Just an address and a phone number.
Individual classes available with surcharge.
That was exactly what he needed. An instructor who would evaluate him as an individual instead of putting him in a group class where everyone learned the same thing regardless of their characteristics.
He wrote down the address, closed the laptop, and went to get his jacket.
Seiryuu Dojo was on a side street that required three wrong turns and a question to an elderly man walking his dog to find.
From the outside, it wasn't impressive. Gray façade, dark wooden door with the name in discreet characters, a window on the first floor with the blinds half lowered. If not for the small sign next to the door, it would have looked like a converted warehouse.
Mineta read the sign.
Wing Chun. Muay Thai. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Judo. Shotokan Karate. Krav Maga.
Good. This is more promising than it looks from the outside.
He pushed the door open.
The inside smelled of wood, old sweat, and something that might have been incense or just the particular scent that accumulates in places where people have exerted themselves physically for years. The floor was tatami in the central area and dark wood along the edges. Heavy bags on one side, wall bars on the back wall, several mirrors that made the space look larger than it was.
At that hour, the dojo was quiet. Two people: a teenager around fifteen practicing kata in a corner with the concentration of someone who had been doing it for years, and a man sitting behind a wooden counter at the back who looked up when Mineta entered.
The man was around forty-five. Solid build, not excessively muscular but with the particular density of someone who had trained all his life. Black hair with gray at the temples, angular face, neutral expression. The expression of someone waiting to see what the person who just walked in wanted before deciding what to think of them.
His eyes went down to Mineta.
Then went back up.
Then went down again, as if he needed to confirm what he had seen the first time.
Here it comes, Mineta thought with resignation.
"Can I help you?" the man said, in a perfectly neutral tone that didn't fully hide the implicit question: are you sure you're in the right place?
"Yes." Mineta walked up to the counter calmly, aware that the surface reached approximately his chest, which was not exactly a position of authority. "I saw that you offer individual classes with surcharge. I'm interested in that option."
The man studied him for a second.
"Individual classes are for students with specific needs. They are not basic beginner classes." A pause. "How old are you?"
"Twelve."
"Previous experience in any discipline?"
"None formal." No detours, no exaggeration. "I've been doing basic physical training on my own for a month, but in martial arts I'm a complete beginner."
The man raised an eyebrow slightly. He had clearly expected something different.
"The surcharge for individual instruction is 200 yen per month on top of the standard fee. The assigned instructor performs an initial evaluation before designing the plan." Another pause. "The evaluation is not simple. It's not to see if you can do flips. It's to see how you think, how you move, how you react. Some students find it frustrating."
"Understood." Mineta took out his wallet. "When can we start?"
The evaluation was scheduled for the following Wednesday, in the afternoon, when the dojo was quieter.
The assigned instructor was not the owner. He was someone completely different who appeared punctually at 4 PM with a bottle of water and an expression Mineta could only describe as clinically observant.
His name was Hayashi Kenji. 41 years old. Experience in four disciplines, had competed at an amateur level in two of them, had been an instructor at Seiryuu for eight years. Reputation for being demanding but effective.
Hayashi looked at him the same way the owner had, with that up-and-down visual sweep Mineta was already learning to anticipate. But unlike the owner, his expression showed no doubt or surprise. It was pure evaluation, cold and systematic, like a mechanic looking at an engine before deciding what it needed.
"Mineta Minoru," he said, reading the name on the paper. "Twelve years old. No prior experience. One month of independent physical training." He looked up. "Why martial arts?"
Mineta had prepared the answer.
"I need to learn how to fight effectively. Not for competition. For real situations." A calculated pause. "And I want to learn something that works with my body type, not something designed for someone twice my size."
Hayashi looked at him for a moment.
"Most boys your age who come here want to learn because they saw something on TV or because someone is bothering them at school."
"I'm not."
"And what are those real situations you mentioned?"
"The world has quirks. Villains too." Simple. Direct. "I want to be a hero. For that, I need to know how to fight for real."
It wasn't a lie. It was a very reduced version of the full truth, omitting the reincarnation and future knowledge part, which would have made the conversation considerably more complicated.
Hayashi nodded slowly, as if the answer was acceptable, if not particularly original.
"The evaluation lasts approximately one hour. I'm going to ask you to do several things. Some physical, some not. Don't try to impress me. Try to be exactly as good as you are, no more and no less. Understood?"
"Understood."
The first part was physical.
Laps around the dojo at different speeds, push-ups to failure, squats, balance exercises that turned out to be harder than they looked. Hayashi observed everything with an attention that wasn't exactly intimidating, but that made Mineta very aware of every movement. He wrote things down on a notepad. He shared no observations.
The second part was more interesting.
Hayashi threw a medium-sized foam ball at him from about three meters away without warning. Mineta caught it by instinct.
"Good." Hayashi retrieved the ball. "Now with your back turned."
He turned around. The ball came. He caught it again, less cleanly than the first time.
"Are you aware of what you just did?" Hayashi asked.
"I heard it coming."
"Not just that. You turned slightly to the right before it arrived, which means you processed the trajectory before you had visual information." A pause. "Do you train spatial perception in any way?"
Mineta considered how much to say.
"I'm working on something related to my quirk that involves being aware of objects I'm not directly looking at. It's recent. I don't know if it's related."
Hayashi wrote something down.
The third part was the strangest: hypothetical situations. Someone bigger than you blocks your path. You have three seconds. What do you do? You're in a closed space with two people. You can't exit the way you entered. What do you evaluate first? There were no obvious correct answers. It was a test of how he thought under pressure, whether he tended toward panic or analysis.
Mineta answered calmly, thinking out loud, not pretending to have all the answers but articulating his reasoning clearly.
At the end of the hour, Hayashi closed the notepad and remained silent for a moment that stretched just long enough to be slightly uncomfortable.
"You have a very poor physical base," he finally said. "Which is expected. But you respond well to movement, process space in an unusual way for someone without training, and think before reacting instead of reacting and thinking afterward. That last part is rarer than you think."
"And martial arts?"
Hayashi tapped two fingers on the notepad, thoughtful.
"Wing Chun for hand work and close-range distance management. Your small body is an advantage in that style, not a problem." A pause. "Muay Thai for elbows, knees, and clinch work. It complements Wing Chun without contradicting it." Another pause. "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for the ground. If someone your size ends up on the ground without knowing what to do, the fight ends badly. With BJJ, the ground can be your territory."
Mineta processed the three names.
It was exactly what he expected to hear. Not because he had planned it, but because the logic of his situation led to that conclusion almost naturally.
"When do we start?"
Hayashi looked at him with something that might have been the beginning of a smile, though it was hard to confirm.
"Monday."
That night, back home, Mineta opened the notebook and added a new section.
Seiryuu Dojo. Instructor: Hayashi Kenji. Disciplines: Wing Chun, Muay Thai, BJJ.
Below, he wrote something else, in smaller letters:
He looked at me like I was a joke when I walked in. By the end of the evaluation, he wasn't looking at me like that anymore.
Good. That's how it starts.
He closed the notebook, turned off the light, and for the first time since waking up in that body, slept without his brain overthinking the problems ahead.
Tomorrow was Sunday. Rest day, according to his planned routine.
Monday something new would begin.
End of Episode 3.