From the day he was born, Reiji has never had a problem with girls to some extent. Reasons being he never needed to. Girls would be the ones to approach him, this experience where he has to be the one to speak to one is new territory to him.
How should I start the conversation? What should I say after? What will I do if she chase me away?
This questions are filling up Reiji's mind like a room flooded with water.
He turns to Hachimaru, who already separated the two girls and has left him with the one who has a serious expression on her face.
The upside however is that the girl seems like a traditional girl. The fact she is wearing a kimono in broad daylight when she looks to be around his age if not higher is a green flag to him.
Reiji notice her kimono perfectly compliment her jet black Hima cut and starlight eyes. Her gaze shift from Hachimaru to Reiji, who is standing right in front of her.
"Um…H…hello." Reiji's eyes moving left and right.
"Goodbye." The girl says. Her expression unreadable.
"Wh…what?" Reiji baffled at what he just heard his eyes are staring blank at the girl.
"Am joking." She giggles to add, "Hello to you to." Waving her hand with a cheeky smile.
Reiji's jaw hangs open. Deciding weather he should be happy that no one was present to see the embarrassment he just felt or he should feel relief the girl was just joking.
"Oh, that's it. I thought…" He pause. "Anyways who are you?"
"Me?" The girl pointing herself. "I don't know. You tell me."
"How w-would I know?"
"Because you came to me."
"T-thats not why…"
The girl interrupts him.
"Then why?" The girl glaring at him intently.
"Be…I"
The girl silently laughs looking upon Reiji's puzzled stare.
"Am joking. Haha. You came to learn from me right? Never thought word would spread so fast."
'Could this be a joke to?' Reiji thinks to himself.
After all this girl has been teasing him over and over. Even so, there is a possibility this can not be a joke. She might know something he really needs and if it is one, he will walk away and find another way to complete the deal with Hachimaru.
"To be honest I want to host it next year, but circumstances you know. So what style do you wish to learn?"
'It's not a joke.' Reiji's heart jumps with excitement. Putting the joy aside he ponders what he should say next.
'Teach me your favorite style. No!' Internally shaking his head. 'The one that will fit me. No! The best one to use when protecting a friend.'
In that final thought a memory of his second goal since joining the academy. Defeat the spies who has entered his home. Though he could not analyse properly how strong Nero really is, Reiji understand he probably isn't on his level yet. For him is like staring at a path that gets narrow and narrow as he moves on.
And in order to widen that path he has to blow it away, so that his friend can crush the thing standing in the middle of that path.
He exhales- scratching his head to say.
"The strongest one you can do."
"Oh! Are you sure you can handle it?"
"Yes."
"Then run to that tree and come back in three seconds."
'Three seconds?' He wonders. 'The tree isn't far, but to run back and forth to it in under three seconds is something else. Can I do it?'
He turns his body towards the tree, ready to sprint. Looking upon it twice he estimate it might be 50 meters from where he is to where the tree is. Coincidentally Pretro is stand under the tree next to the one Reiji's targeting lost in thought.
Time flies and Reiji returns to the girl breathless. He looks up, seeing a smile all over the girls face.
'D…did I take l…longer than three seconds?'
"Pfft…hahahahah. I was joking with you! Never thought someone as stupid as you exist in these world." The girl continues to laugh.
Even if he wants to go home immediately and bury, Reiji can not do that.
'From this day on I never wanna approach a girl ever.' Reiji says to himself.
"Let's begin. I don't know if ya know this, however there are about seven ninja hand signs that…"
Reiji interject her no longer breathless.
"I know all that. Just teach me your strongest style "
"Oh! What's with the impatiens in you all over a sudden."
Reiji stares at her.
"Well I'll focus on the three most important ones in order for you to learn my style. Rin, Hei and Restu hand sign."
"Rei allows one to circulate Sei throughout their body while Hei makes it possible to use that same Sei to cloak one with it in order to receive less damage or have more power in their punches. Then there's Restu, you understand it, but applying it is another thing . There are two things you should know about Restu."
"One is your affinity which will be important to know if you want to use my ability. So find out your affinity on your own. Two is using external Sei around you to its fullest. Let me give you a warning before hand. It will be a tiresome process even if you master it. Haha."
"How am I suppose to know the first one?"
"Are you deaf or you can't hear." Annoyance leaks from her tone.
"What?" Reiji ask.
"As I said you will find that on your own."
"Then how am I suppose to learn your ability?!"
"I don't know. Hahahaha! Am joking I will show you how it's done instead. That's the reason why I am passing this style to you."
Reiji clenches his hand tight like he is holding a stone that refuses to crush.
The girl raises her hand parallel to the ground, stretching her index finger to the tree Reiji ran to, while her other fingers are clenched like a fist.
She stands up from the bench, closes her eyes and for some reason wind is deflecting around her. Reiji notice her slow controlled breaths like a tortoise walking to the finish line . Her index finger flicker a blue light over and over until one larger one grazers past her right eye with a zepp sound.
She opens her eyes - joyfulness written all over her face.
"This is my strongest style."
[NINJA ART: RAITONINGUGAN]
A hundred, a hundred thousand, a hundred million does it matter? An immense amount of string like blue light condenses, before shooting from the girls index finger similar to a long blue sword, and it punches a whole in tree.
After this blast, a thunder sound is heard all around the park. Pretro on the other hand is blown away from the tree his standing under.
Every men, women and child jolt in unison including Reiji himself. For the first time in a while has Reiji seen someone use lightning of this caliber.
"Oh, you don't look surprised." The girl's smile disappear. "Just for that when you come to my event, you better show me that you've learned this ability of mine and that it's capable of destroying not just destroying a tree."
The girl turns to her side, spotting six men all in blue with a long sleeved military vest that has a badge on it's top left of a dog's open mouth.
"Yuzu, time to go!" She yells as she waves her hand towards her friend Yuzu.
"Really! I thought you stopped girl." Yuzu immediately runs in the opposite direction of the six men leaving Hachimaru baffled.
"Goodbye boy. Names Kisha by the way." She smiles following after her friend.
As if the park disappeared he can not hear the voices of confused people and the yelling coming from the six men telling Kisha and Yuzu to stop. All he knows is that it is somewhat quite.
Only thing he can feel is his trembling body, the edges of his lips elongating to his ears and the fact that he will not stop replying what Kisha just did.
A week passed.
Reiji has been trying to learn what Kisha told him, unfortunately it has not been going as planned.
At first he wanted to know how he can know his affinity. He asked the teachers at the academy, however they all looked at him with cold gazes. He then decided to read about what is an affinity in books - for some reason there were no information about it even in libraries. Reiji also sent a letter to his father and brother which has not been replied.
The second thing he decided to do is using external Sei, even that ended unsuccessful since he had no clue what Kisha meant by external Sei.
So in all these disappointments the only choice he had was to learn everything Hachimaru told him about how he can use Sei and do the exact same routine Pretro does to get stronger.
Months flew by.
Reiji trained every morning, went to the academy, hanged out with Hachimaru and Pretro including two more people he met. When it was time to go home he went to the park shadow boxing Nero till he reached his limit.
He would get home after that, find the food already prepared by Hina and he would stuff himself, before going to bed and repeating the same routine over and over.
The only time his routine was disturbed - was when the 140 day learning began.
During this period, Reiji learned that ninjas date back about 5000 years ago. When all the states were one. Yet the pact broke apart and the states were divided into 5 States.
What followed after this separation is what is called the DARK ERA where war raged on for more than 4000 years - until 20 years ago when the current Shogun of the Shinwa State forced a stop with his incredible power and for that reason he has been declared as the third strongest Shogun in all the history of ninjas.
What intrigued him even more was the fact that there are giant monsters the size of a mountain roaming the earth. Knowing that, he now understands why that monster died to Ion's poison, it was simply because it was not fully developed. To put in comparison, the monster they saw in the Forest of Truth was about as tall as 750 meters in height and a fully developed one is about 8 849 meters.
Another thing he found quite fun to know was that the men from the park with dog batches are actually the second protectors of the Sora City. They are called the Sora Police and their headquarters is next to the Shogun Castle.
The days of learning and the 10 day exams finally came to an end. The teachers told all the learners the result will be revealed after the Promotion Exam.
Now only a month is left until the Promotion Exam.
Kazuki has returned to his sword swinging training.
"Now that you failed you want to train to take out your stress. Hahahaha." Shiru says leaning on the steel railing of his balcony.
Kazuki continues to swing his sword (ignoring Shiru) vertically over and over. Switching his stance in a blink of an eye to slash horizontally before going back to normal.
"Don't you ignore me! My face has been confirmed to be irreparable! You better stop what you're doing and cou…"
He notice in a distance that Koruto is approaching closer to them, holding something on his shoulder that looks to be heavy.
Standing in front of Kazuki he drops a black plastic bag on to the ground.
"Kazuki, show me how strong you have become." Koruto says.
TBC.
NEXT CHAPTER: PRELUDE 23