“And maybe if there’s something higher than the girl who hung over the stars and existence itself, maybe… if there is someone or something much higher dictating what that girl does and thinks... maybe her soul can still be saved.”

Shirogane looked at me at the same time that I looked at him, both of us held gazes and slightly confused feelings.

“Because even in the darkest of hearts, despite being an incomprehensible soul for the girl who understands everything… ─The beautiful pink-haired girl paused briefly before continuing reading with an intonation that contrasted… and perhaps for the better, with the powerful energy emitted by what she was reading─. There is still pity for a spirit that seeks rest... and another one that desperately beg for forgiveness.”

In silence, my friend, the storyteller, and I looked at each other with a complicated expression, wanting to say something to break the ice, however…

“Tomoe… I know you wrote this, but… uh…”

The tanned-skinned girl looked at Monica with some curiosity when she heard her own name.

“Don’t you like it?”

Shirogane and I shook our heads in denial almost at the same time, despite the conversation that began to develop between the two of them, we agreed, almost as if we had used telepathy, to leave this to Monica.

“On the contrary, in fact... it’s a pretty good piece of writing, with great literary value and everything, but...”

“But?”

I never thought that criticizing someone else’s handwriting, especially a close friend’s, would be so… uncomfortable.

“It’s too depressing.”

“Oh… is it really so… depressing?”

Finally, and unable to bear it, we supported Monica in unison.

“Definitely!”

A couple of minutes later our history teacher made his appearance so we tried to put the Tomoe-related bitter pill behind us. The rest of the day passed without incidents, at least until it was time to leave.

***

Monica, Sugita, Hanazawa and I left class together and started walking through the halls, this was a very unusual foursome, but I guess this kind of thing happens, ever since Shirogane helped me get out of the social outcast zone... and ever since I’m dating the school star.

“I can’t believe Shimada did that, it’s so embarrassing!” Said Monica while laughing

“Right!? If it weren’t for the huge love I feel for him, I don't know what I would have done!”

“Guys seem to like to do that kind of stuff you know? Once Danny...”

Since Sugita and I were a little ahead and talking to each other, we didn’t pay much attention to what the girls were saying until we started hearing our names being mentioned regularly, that’s when we realized they were talking bullshit about us.

“Hey, you two...”

Right at that moment, the handsome boy was interrupted by something that caught our attention; a specific door in the hallways that for some reason was open. Glancing inside, we saw a boy from our class who had left the classroom before us.

Tetsuo, Shinsato Tetsuo, the only boy from our class who attends the kendo club was in the middle of a practice. Taking advantage of the occasion, we stayed near the door watching him as he faced a boy from another class.

In the end, our partner was the winner, even so, both shook hands without any kind of resentment as they separated to approach where their things were to wipe off their sweat.

“Hey Tetsuo.”

As always, Sugita was the first to approach and start a conversation; I may have improved my communication skills and learned a bit to socialize from my instructor, Shirogane, but this guy was way too high in our class hierarchy, even above Shirogane himself, I’m honestly glad he’s not one of those guys who uses his popularity and charisma to mess with others.

“Oh hello, what an unusual group huh.”

Still wiping the sweat from his brow, the guy in clothes that club participants wear specifically in their practices greeted us kindly, as if he wanted to make us feel welcome in what could be considered ‘his area.’

“Don’t say that, you know I love all of you equally! Right?”

“You speak as if you were our older brother, Shimada” Monica sounded a little disgusted by the way he spoke, obviously she was faking it.

“What about me, Sugita?” Said Hanazawa with a grumpy voice, getting into the conversation with a heavy stomp.

Despite it being Shinsato who was working his ass off in training, I could feel Sugita’s face starting to sweat… well, I guess he asked for it.

“Anyway!” Using his conversational fluency, the prince of the class used his abilities selfishly for once “I can see you put a lot of effort here... and from what I could see a moment ago, it’s not in vain.”

“Thanks for the compliment… but I still have a long way to go…” He smiled. “And I’m not saying that to be modest, I’m confident in my abilities, but I still have a long way to go if I want to be good enough to participate in the prefectural kendo tournament.

Monica and Sugita next to me whistled out of amazement.

“From the prefecture, huh…? You’re aiming high.”

“Yes... I know it may sound crazy, but I’m really passionate about it.”

“That’s great” Monica chimed in this time.

“Thank you.”

“You know what? Your motivation prompted me to think about something to help you.

For some strange reason, I felt that what Monica was going to say next was going to be the start of another one of her silly games.

“Help me?”

“Yup! See this weakling here?” My girlfriend said, grabbing me by the arm.

I feel that at this point any suspicion that arises in me about Monica is an irrefutable fact.

“He may not be as weak as he seems. Why don’t you try helping him with his practice, Danny?”

She got me to a point where she knows I’m unable to refuse, honestly sometimes I wish she wasn’t so intrusive when she does this kind of thing… but I guess I just have to go along with it.

Letting out a breath, I spoke.

“Well... yes, of course, if you agree” I said, looking at Shinsato.

“So, it was that... well, if you don’t mind helping me, I accept anything that can help, but... Do you know anything about kendo?

“I’ve held a bamboo wood sword a couple of times, but let’s just say I’m more literate in martial arts, so if it’s okay with you, I can use my bare hands instead of a sword.

“A-are you sure?" A blow with a bamboo sword won’t kill you yeah, but is not that it hurts little...”

“Don’t worry, I’ll manage.” Dropping my bag next to his, I positioned myself in front of him.

“Aren’t you underestimating me…?”

“Don’t be silly Shinsato, my Danny is not like that!” Monica said with a rather cheerful mood.

I just looked at him in silence while trying to ignore the embarrassing fact about Monica referring to me as her property, thing that, I’m going to admit, didn't bother me in the slightest.

“Without appropriate protection and without a sword... I don’t know if you’ve never received one of these blows or if you simply want me to whip you, in either case, you’re already on this, don’t even think about backing down.”

“Sure.”

… There is only one person for whom I would not mind being whipped… and that is definitely not you, I assure.

We both got into position, ready to engage.

The others moved to the side and… apparently, we drew stares from everyone else in the club…I had to put that out of my mind before it started to affect me, because if I think too much about it, in an instant I won’t be able to do anything out of shame.

“Here I go, Wakahisa.”

“Come, Shinsato!”

Shinsato moved quickly towards me, raising his bamboo sword and preparing to swing it in my direction.

And then…

My world began to move in slow motion, not because Monica has manipulated it... in fact, that has nothing to do with it here, it’s something much older than that.

With probably impeccable dexterity, I dodged the sword that came at me in a clean, solid downward slash, only moving my body enough so the blade didn’t touch me, almost as if I had absolute control over every cell in my body so that it moved only the strictly necessary distance, at the exact moment.

Immediately afterwards, even without withdrawing his sword, I pushed my fist towards Shinsato’s arm, who perplexed, saw me unable to react fast enough.

A precise blow to his right arm was enough to make him open his hand and drop the weapon, almost as if I was using acupuncture. A hit with enough force in a specific place is enough to do something like that.

The sound of the wooden bamboo sword hitting the ground was quickly swallowed up by the profuse silence of all those in the kendo club who watched our confrontation.

Having snapped out of my moment of focus, my body cooled down unlike my face which felt, in fact, quite warm.

Taking a simple look around me, I realized that they all had more or less the same expression; one of not being able to believe what they were seeing, of course, except for Monica, who knew this side of me better than anyone.

“Uh… Danny… what was that?” Started Sugita with a puzzled face, getting closer.

At this point, I figured I couldn’t just say something like ‘I just got lucky’ or some other generic excuse like that.

“Wakahisa…”

It was now Shinsato, somewhat perplexed, who pronounced my last name with a certain intonation that I hadn’t heard in years.

“ ‘Wakahisa... the child prodigy.’ It’s you?”

“I guess you could call me that a few years ago.”

And that was how my ordinary high school life would take an unexpected turn.

***

A few years ago, my life was somewhat complicated; I was not a very welcome kid in my elementary school. Children, sometimes, tend to be a bit cruel when they have to spend time with someone who is not the same as them. My case? My name was foreign, I was certainly different from the others regarding that.

There was one boy in particular who loved to mess with me, many times even proceeding to use force against me, taking advantage of the fact that he was bigger and stronger than me. Obviously, since the status quo of a classroom is paramount, no one wanted to risk their necks getting in the way to defend me; I don’t blame them, we were all children, children are like that.

Luckily, my parents never found out about this, I never told them as I thought it might bring unnecessary inconvenience to both the school staff and the status quo in our classroom. However, I didn’t want it to stay that way, I don’t think calling it ‘revenge’ was the right thing to do... but definitely the me back then wanted to stop being bothered.

My own solution to the problem was to suggest to my parents, unaware of my school situation, to enroll me in an institution that would teach me martial arts. They were a little surprised at the time, but they agreed to my request without much problem, that’s when something strange turned on inside of me, like a switch that I didn’t know I had within me, turning something on for the first time.

Moving faster than everyone else, leaving the other guys behind, every single thing I was taught was absorbed into my mind practically instantly, every technique, move. Whatever they taught me would be easily mastered by me in a day or two, just the strictly necessary so that any technique that they taught me was burned in my muscle memory at breakneck speed.

My sensei probably saw that flame in me, he wanted to test that potential making me to face the best guys at the institution. His perplexed face was kind of funny when he saw me beat his best student... of course, that made me the best student of the children’s level.

As I continued to improve my technique, I got in trouble at school, the cause? The boy who was teasing me panicked when I didn’t submit to him anymore, simply by grabbing his arms with more force than he thought I could reach. That day I realized that the kid was really a loser and he messed with me because I never defended myself.

Unfortunately for me, the boy was the son of the principal of the school… and although it might sound strange for elementary school children, he planned a way where he pretended that I used my knowledge of martial arts to beat him up or something, to tell the truth. I never had the details.

In the end, my parents had problems with the principal and I ended up changing schools, luckily, in that new school there were no children who would mess with me, I went from being the object of disgust in the classroom, to being a child that nobody paid attention to.

Fortunately for me, my parents never bought the story that I beat up the annoying kid, thanks to that, I wasn’t scolded too much, not too much, because they scolded me for never telling them about the abuse.

***

“M-my poor Danny went through so much…”

“It’s not that bad” I outlined a somewhat mocking smile. “It’s not something that haunts me, I have nothing to regret, since I didn’t use my abilities to kick the boy’s ass or something, I just had bad luck.

“You are so…”

Monica jumped on me like gum on our way home with such force that for a moment I thought I might lose my balance.

“But… Are you sure of what you did? I mean… telling everyone in our class about ‘The Wunderkind’.”

“That? Well... I would have preferred to keep it a secret, but I messed up with Shinsato, I had no choice but to tell it.

“ ‘The Wunderkind’ huh… I really didn’t think you were that famous…”

“Don’t mention it.”

***

A few hours before...

“Are you THAT Wakahisa?!”

“I-I can’t believe it!”

Boys and girls alike jumped towards me while I tried to hide the shame that melted inside me.

“After having overwhelmingly surpassed the prefectural champion, the unstoppable Wakahisa pronounces himself against the elders at his 11. With no opponents his age who can even touch him, a lot of thought went into the decision to pit him against people much older than him. The boy in question seems to agree.”

“Shinsato…” I said, starting to get my face warm.

“Undoubtedly, the child prodigy has his title well deserved, having defeated nothing more and nothing less than an important black belt at his 11”

“Shinsato!” I exclaimed, my face presumably red. “D-don’t read so engrossed about someone that is clearly listening to you, okay?”

“Ah, s-sorry, Wakahisa. But… why did you disappear when you were apparently on top?”

“That…” I sighed. You may be mistaking my way of thinking, I... let’s say I didn’t enjoy being the focus of half the country’s attention, the only thing that interested me was facing someone who would be able to put a good fight... sadly, I ran out of people.”

“You… ran out of people?” Sugita asked.

“Yes, I realized that none of those black belts was going to be able to beat me when I had already defeated a couple... what came after that? I came here with a different appearance and demeanor, of course.”

“What do you mean?” This time it was Shinsato again.

“It’s true! In the photo I see here, you have brown hair.” Said Monica

I nodded before speaking.

“My mother told me much later, at the time I didn’t understand it, but when I stepped on the spotlight she began to dye my hair that color. I never understood why she did it, but when it was all over and I wanted to go back to a quiet life at school, she explained to me that she did it so that I could have it again by just recovering my natural hair color.

“Why don’t I have that fundamental piece of information?!” Monica exclaimed next to me, quite alarmed.

“You never asked.”

“What kind of answer is that!?”

“Anyway, I let my hair grow long enough to cover my left eye, luckily, puberty changed me at that time and I tried to pretend that my physical fitness was nil, I just wasn’t interested in attracting attention... but in the end everything came to light.”

“This is… way too surreal.”

Clearly, everyone was quite in awe of having a celebrity studying with them.

***

“Seriously… hiding from your girlfriend the fact that you dyed your hair…”

“Again, you never asked and I never had anything that motivated me to say ‘hey, you know I used to dye my hair when I was a kid because I was a martial superstar?’”

“But… any opportunity is good to know more about my favorite person…”

The cute way she said it made me blush, I still can’t constantly be prepared for such sudden attacks.

“To make it up to me… ufufufu… you know… I want to try something new once we get home!”

“Anything new? Why do I feel that whatever it is involves me being a thousandth in size of what I am now?”

“I won’t let you down, I’ll make sure you enjoy every moment of it too!”

“I will in no way question that.”