"I really don't think this is going to work out well," Ojiro said, lowering the training metal sword he was holding. His stance drooped a little along with it.
"I can see that. So swords aren't your thing either," Tsutsumi replied, tossing his own training sword aside without much care. It clattered across the floor and slid a little before stopping.
After Tsutsumi suggested he add weapons to his fighting style, they had gone through almost everything they could lend them. Staff. Baton. Spear. Bow. Daggers. Nunchucks. Throwing weapons. Even weird-looking experimental things that didn't have names yet.
And still, nothing really clicked.
Some of them were usable, but none of them felt natural. They either slowed Ojiro down too much, messed with his balance, or forced him into a fighting rhythm that wasn't his.
Ojiro let out a small sigh. He felt a bit bad. Tsutsumi had been actually helping him seriously, and he still hadn't found anything that worked. It made him feel like he was wasting both their time.
The big problem was simple: he was very used to his usual martial arts style. Hands, feet, tail. Add a weapon on top of that and everything got awkward.
Sometimes his tail bumped into what he was holding. Other times he forgot he even had a tail because he was overthinking the new weapon in his hands.
Tsutsumi didn't look disappointed.
It wasn't surprising. Ojiro had trained like this for years and had already built a full style around his tail. Suddenly telling him to "add a weapon" sounded easy on paper, but actually doing it without breaking his current flow took time. And time wasn't something they had a lot of before the exam.
"Sorry for not meeting your standard," Ojiro said finally, scratching the back of his head with an awkward half-smile.
"It's fine," Tsutsumi said. His tone stayed simple, not bothered. "Just stick with your normal fighting style for now. You can work on adding weapons later."
Ojiro nodded, feeling a little lighter at that. Even if he hadn't found anything yet, at least he wasn't being told to throw away what he already had.
"Alright. Take a break. Then keep polishing what you're already good at," Tsutsumi added, already turning away to check on the next person.
"Tsutsumi-kun!"
A familiar voice called out.
Tsutsumi stopped walking and glanced over his shoulder, watching Midoriya jog toward him with that half-panicked, half-determined look he always had.
Midoriya slowed to a stop in front of him. "Um, hey… I noticed you've been helping everyone with their super moves, so I was wondering if you could maybe… help me too?"
He laughed awkwardly at the end, knowing full well their relationship wasn't exactly friendly. But All Might had told him to listen to Tsutsumi, so he couldn't really back out now.
Tsutsumi just stared at him. "Tell me what you understood from what I told you last time."
Midoriya stiffened a little. "Ah, right. That."
He took a second to think. "You told me to think like myself, not like my hero. I didn't totally get it, so I started breaking it down, and then I thought maybe what you meant was that I should analyze..."
He went straight into full muttering mode. Hands waving. Head lowered. Words coming out like machine-gun fire.
Tsutsumi's expression slowly died inside.
That was not what he meant at all.
What he wanted was for Midoriya to stop trying to cosplay All Might and figure out his own fighting style, and eventually his own hero personality, instead of being just an All Might clone.
Instead, Midoriya somehow turned it into... whatever this is!
Tsutsumi's eyebrow twitched, then he kicked him.
Midoriya stumbled back, shocked out of his muttering. "Eh?!"
"Dumbass. Do you even hear yourself?" Tsutsumi said flatly. "I can speak ten different languages and I still can't understand whatever you're saying."
Midoriya opened and closed his mouth a few times. Now his social awkwardness remembered to show up. "I-I was just trying to-"
"You're still trying to imitate All Might," Tsutsumi cut him off, irritation creeping into his tone. "How did you miss that hint completely?"
If All Might didn't ask him to keep the fact that he also has One for All a secret from Midoriya to avoid harming the greenhead's already low self-esteem, Tsutsumi might have just activated One for All and given Midoriya a beating right here and then.
Midoriya blinked. "I… don't really get what you mean, Tsutsumi-kun. But, um… I figured if my arms keep breaking, then maybe there's a support brace or something that could stop the damage so I can still punch, so-"
Tsutsumi just stared at him for a long second.
His eyelid twitched again.
Then he sighed, long and tired, like a salaryman thinking about overtime.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his Final Attack Ride: Decade card, then paused, deciding not to, since doing so really didn't help anyone.
"Figure it out yourself," Tsutsumi said simply, putting the card away before pulling out his phone.
His thumbs moved.
[TsutsumiRyoko]: @YagiToshinori Come to the training ground and pick up your illegitimate child before I beat him up.
The reply was almost instant.
[YagiToshinori]: ???
Then the chat exploded.
[AizawaShota]: Wait a minute... His what now?
[IshiyamaKen]: @YagiToshinori Is this true?
[YamadaHizashi]: @YagiToshinori Congratulations! Still, why didn't you tell us that you have a kid?
[KayamaNemuri]: My, my~ keeping secrets from coworkers now?
The quiet teacher chat group suddenly turned into a festival.
Tsutsumi, and the one who caused all of this, looked at the messages flooding in, locked his phone, and decided that it was no longer his problem.
He turned toward the exit, paused.
Then casually slid another card out.
Attack Ride: Invisible!
His body faded out right as several teachers rounded the corner. To question him on who All Might's illegitimate child really is.
But the person responsible was already gone, deciding work was officially over for today.
Reappearing in another world, Tsutsumi paused for a second, mostly because of the mirror in front of him.
"…I'm a horse-human hybrid here?" he muttered, tilting his head slightly.
On top of his head were a pair of purple and magenta horse ears. When he looked behind himself, he saw a smooth purple-and-magenta tail swishing lazily.
"This is odd," he said, completely straight-faced.
He pulled out the card that caused the change.
Form Ride: Umamusume.
So, in short, the version of him that originally existed in this world was an Umamusume, and when he replaced that version, this form card was the result. Simple enough.
It was the first time he had dropped into a world where his "default setting" wasn't human, which was new.
He looked back at the mirror.
"…And why am I wearing a girl's outfit?" he asked himself.
White and blue school uniform. Long skirt down to the knees. White stockings. Brown shoes. With his androgynous face and shorter hair with long bangs, he honestly looked like a flat-chested tomboy at best.
Deciding not to switch out of this set of clothes for now, Tsutsumi walked out of the school bathroom he was in, finding himself yet in another school and in the role of another student.
Still, what surprised him wasn't that he was cross-dressing as a girl; what truly surprised him was that this school seemed to have other horse girls too.
"What took you so long, br- I mean, sister," a voice called.
He turned and saw a girl with long light-gray hair almost down to her knees, patches of darker gray hair towards the top of her head, with an ahoge of the same color that is on top of another, almost-white patch of hair. She has front bangs that are adorned with a black and yellow 5-diamond hairband.
She wore the same clothes as he was wearing, and the moment he met eyes with her, pieces of memories from this world version of him came.
The girl standing before him was his twin sister, Oguri Cap. Despite being twins, the two look nothing alike, and, added bonus, he was the weird case, the only male ever born among Umamusume. The "birth defect," as they labeled it.
That alone made this setup feel like one giant warning sign telling him to run.
Before he could even think about leaving, Oguri grabbed his hand and started speed-walking.
"Come on. If we don't hurry, there won't be any food left," she said, completely serious.
Although the lazy part of him wants to just leave this world and look for another one to explore or slack off, another part of him finds this world quite interesting.
This was the first world where he actually had a biological twin sibling. Even if she was only older by five minutes, that still technically made her his older sister.
So Tsutsumi let her drag him into the cafeteria and watch as she ordered everything on the menu and made them extra large, while Tsutsumi only ordered a simple fried rice.
"You should eat more. It'll help with your growth," Oguri said, casually dropping meat and rice into his bowl before going back to attacking her own mountain of food.
"The food here isn't bad," Tsutsumi said. He ate slowly. Nothing like Oguri, who was clearly treating this as a race.
He wasn't sure when, but through his long journeys, he had reached a point where his standard for food was a bit high compared to other people.
Well, it can't be helped. He only has himself to blame for ruining his own taste buds.
"A picky eater, huh? You two really are different," another voice said, and both of them turned toward it.
They saw a shorter girl with light-gray hair, a long red and blue headband resting neatly on top of it. Her ears twitched a little as she looked between the two siblings with mild interest.
"Tamamo," Oguri said, immediately speeding up her eating like she needed to clear half the table just to make space. Then she gestured casually. "This is my sister I told you about."
"Tsutsumi, this is my friend and roommate, Tamamo Cross." Oguri finished the introduction in a simple tone and went right back to focusing on her food like nothing was more important.
Tamamo leaned her elbow on the table slightly, studying him in a not-too-subtle way. "So, how was your first day at Tracen Academy?" she asked, a small smile on her face.
"It's okay," Tsutsumi replied calmly.
It was a complete lie, but he kept his expression steady. His memories were still loading in piece by piece, so calling anything "okay" was just easier than explaining that he currently remembered almost nothing. Yesterday, the day before, even his and Oguri's parents were blank spaces in his head.
"Mm, I see," Tamamo said. She took a bite of her food before continuing, "Anyway, if you're free, you can come with us to watch the New Year fireworks."
Oguri returned with her second serving stacked high enough that the tray slightly bent, like this was completely normal for her.
"New Year…" Tsutsumi murmured.
It didn't really surprise him. Different world, different calendar pace, different many things. He had long since stopped caring about it.
"Sure, I don't mind," he said casually.
Tamamo's smile widened a bit, like she'd expected him to accept. Oguri froze for half a second, then hurried to swallow her food and smile at him, her ears perking slightly.
"Then do you mind if we go a bit early?" Oguri asked. "You know, to look around the New Year festival first, before the fireworks."
There was an obvious hopefulness in her tone. He noticed it, but didn't poke at it. With his memories still incomplete, he didn't exactly trust himself to comment on whatever history they had.
"Sure," he replied simply.
That was apparently enough to make her even happier. She immediately leaned forward and dropped more food into his bowl like it was some kind of natural reflex.
"Here. Eat more so you won't run out of energy while we're out," she said.
He looked at the extra portion for a moment, then just accepted it. Her mood made it hard to refuse anyway.
Time passed, and just as planned, Oguri and Tamamo came to pick him up from his room. The three of them walked to the festival together. The place was lively, but not in an overwhelming way, just stalls, lights, and people moving at their own pace.
They tried a few games, wandered around without much of a plan, and eventually ended up at a spot where the fireworks could be seen clearly.
When the sky finally lit up, Oguri quietly held onto his hand like she didn't plan on letting go anytime soon. She didn't say much, just watched the sky with a small smile.
Tsutsumi, meanwhile, lifted his camera with his free hand and took a picture of the colorful fireworks.