Momochi-senpai was the first to come over and greet me, more like startling me while refining my swordsmanship, I don't know what went wrong with her mind that made her crept on me like that, all I felt was a presence suddenly appearing behind me and my reaction was to point the edge of my sword out of instinct at her neck .
She almost cried as I did this and seeing that it was here, I hurriedly let down my guard, my nerves were a bit tensed due to the strange things that kept on happening today, so I couldn't help but be on high alert .
" Sorry for the startle, good morning Momochi-senpai .
Luckily she didn't seem to hold what happened just now against me and she nodded her head and directly bowed her head and apologized, saying :
You were so engrossed in training just now, sorry to crept on you all of a sudden like this, it's just, you seemed a bit detached, so the vice captain asked me to come and check on you, since she was quite busy with dealing with the vice captain responsibilities .
I shifted my gaze at her words and looked at the far distance and saw that Tokiko was indeed stealing glances at me from time to time, but I also noted that she was burdened once more by the responsibility of guiding the other Kuromas in their training especially now that we were in the last day we have for training .
All members were okay with knowing that today's session was the last one before the upcoming mission, but it wasn't the last day, there are still two days before the weekend, so knowing that we are calling the training off after today and there was still time was a more or less shocking to me .
But I then heard the reason behind it and was a bit baffled of what to think about this, tomorrow's session will be a strategical meeting when the captain will be discussing the target and the strategy he devised to deal with it .
He will assign roles and such, but the next day will be actually a day off and we were free to do what we wanted and even the school board approved to give us all Strikers a day off, but the captain did still suggested that we still don't waste that day off and use it in training, but even with that advice, he still gave a bit of a leeway to those who wanted to have fun instead .
So even though I understood that resting could indeed be a good thing, I too like him believed that it was a privilege to those who have the qualifications to enjoy it, but the guys in front of me seemed to be completely clueless about this, at least most of their small talks among themselves suggested this, but there were some that still came and asked the captain to guide them in training .
One of those guys were Momochi-senpai and a few others, what made me confused a little or more accurate to say conflicated about it, was due to my my current self being able to understand the logic behind doing this, but my my past life self, seemed to have completely frowning at the need of it .
That was the base of the conflict I was having, but I wasn't engrossed in mind just now thinking about this, noticing that I was beginning to become conflicated, I directly dropped the subject without an ounce of hesitation, my mind was just filled with all kinds of thoughts to be dwelling on that .
After the captain told us to begin training, I choose a secluded area and decided that for this training session, I will need to use every second of it trying to hone my swordsmanship and get more and more familiar with my fighting experience, I will once again try to stimulate the experience I recalled in my vision, my mock battle with Moroha Haimura showed me how much I was beginning to be swayed away from my strengths due to my fully dependence on dark arts and Prana .
It wasn't wrong to depend on my other strengths, but it was a problem of depending on them to much to the point of ignoring my other strengths, those strengths of mine stem from my ability to recall the experience I had in my past life, so leaving them without polishing might lead them to rust or worse lost, even though the latter was quite impossible before, but with the incidents that kept happening to me today, I was really beginning to believe that I might be stripped away from all my strengths .
So if something like this were to happen, I wanted to still have a way out by drilling the sword skills of mine into my mind, trying to make my swordsmanship become like a natural instinct to mine like before .
While training like that, I also noted something that was what really caught my attention fully to the point I was no longer attached to reality, I was feeling a faint murmur coming from the sword, every thrust, every slash seemed to make this murmur louder and louder, my heart was pounding out of excitement, I was beginning to sense that I was more and more close to recall the sword in my hand name, but then Momochi-senpai happened to crept on me and awakening me from my weird state .
Then I was now looking at the tired Tokiko who was guiding other Kuromas and wasn't able to steal glances at me as often as before, but just my luck I believe, the moment I looked at Tokiko, I heard a voice from beside me that had me almost turn around and curse, that voice was saying :
Tokikoshi wasn't the only one that was trying to reach you, y'know, I had called out your name for a few times now, I almost used Herculean Strength to snap you out of this weird state .
At some point, it seemed that the secluded area, I had chosen for myself was suddenly being swarmed by people and mostly just girls, the voice that said such a blatant and ridiculous statement of using Herculean Strength to wake me up came from none other than the airheaded blonde foreign girl, that I was beginning to suspect that she was a spy, even though Regina had told me that might not be the case, Sophia .
This girl will kill me with her blatantly one day, I looked at her and saw that she had the most natural expression on her face, her Prana was on and she was looking at me as if she didn't say an absurd thing just now .
What stopped me from going berserk at her with Momochi-senpai kept nodding at her words, indicating that she was indeed telling the truth and the girl herself suddenly holding my hand and with a soft tone of voice and quite a concerned tone, she said :
Are you alright ? .
I nodded my head at her and said :
" I was just engrossed with my training, so I become a bit detached, sorry if I was a bother .
The two girls at my words, directly shook their heads and said in a weird unison :
Don't worry it wasn't a bother . ×2
The two looked at each other as they finished saying this and the one to take the initiative to speak was none other than Sophia, she said :
In fact seeing you so engrossed like this, fueld my motivations in training even more and I increased the intensity of how I was training, look at the results yourself .
I saw she posing in triumphed posture and showing her muscles, but behind her I saw the casualties of the guys who were laying on the floor and understood that I might have been the one to make them suffer like that at the hands of this gorilla like girl .
Seeing their unfortunate state, I showed an apologetic face at them, but instead of appreciating my gesture, they all stared daggers at me, I was about to get informed about might have had happened from her, but as if not even leaving me a chance to do so, she said smugly :
I used Herculean Strength that you taught me and had the most intensive training session in quite a while .
" Did you mention that you were taught that Light Art to any of them by chance ? .
Just to make sure that the guess I had on mind wasn't me just being wrongly accusing her, I didn't waited for much to get the answer, she directly said :
I did, it was the first thing I said to all of the people around at that time, I told them that I was taught this new light art from my boyfriend .
As I heard her saying the first part, I just kept massaging my forehead to relive the sudden headache that I was now feeling and thinking to myself that the chances of me getting along with my own teammates after this seemed to have been destroyed beyond repair as well .
But as I heard the second part about her boasting about the identity of who taught her this technique, I almost collapsed to the ground, unable to support myself no more, she seeing me like this hurriedly tried to support me, but I had already disappeared from my original position and didn't allow her to do so, looking at how carefree she looked, I was beginning to wonder if she wasn't here to spy, but to break my spirit or something .
Every time the girl in front of me utter a word, my whole mind seemed to have an emergency alert appear suddenly in it, then a powerful headache was soon to follow, a powerful headache enough to make me clutch my head in pain, if not for the fact that I subsided this aching through the the use of Heal, looking at her acting as if nothing happened at all, only made me sigh at my luck and began thinking that she at least didn't name me as her supposedly boyfriend .
Discarding of all those useless thoughts of mine, I couldn't help but exclaim, saying :
" So you are now able to use Herculean Strength more masterfully .
She nodded her head enthusiastically and said :
What is there to say, I'm quite the genius and I also had a great teacher to guide me .
Hearing praises coming from that girl's mouth, didn't feel good at all, it wasn't because I hate hearing it coming from her or anything like that, but the problem was with how loud her voice was, she yelled the whole sentence out .
If the guys from before were just glaring, some of them were now fuming with anger and gritting their teeth at me, but one of those guys seemed to notice my weird stare towards them and without any warning, he started to slap the guy next to him out of frustration perhaps, then a bickering began to take place and all the guys began to beat one another, the captain didn't interfere as his interference wasn't needed .
The bickering wasn't at that level that someone needed to interfere and solve it, but the captain still gave me the glare, me who literally haven't done anything at all, the instigator of this whole thing was still standing in front of me raising her chin up and boasting about how she was a genius still .
I really wanted to give her a piece of my mind but after thinking about it more thoroughly, I came to the conclusion that it might not be worth it in the end, I shook my head at the glaring captain and said to her :
" Yes, yes, you are indeed a genius, I don't expect someone to be able to get the hang of this Light Art this quickly, amazing .
I showered her with compliments, so she can go away already, but I really should have think these words through before I spouted them, the girl actually blushed and said with a straight face :
Then how about we go on a date the day before going on the mission then .
I curse my own mind for not expecting that response even after this many times of already dealing with that girl, she once again brought that date up, seeing that she didn't seem to let go of this, I directly gave an excuse for refusing to accept going on a date with her, I said :
" Sorry, Sophia-senpai, I had planned to enjoy that day off with my mom, maybe some other time .
She looked at me a bit surprised and said :
Is your mom living around here, don't tell me, you got a permission to go and visit her ? .
Seeing her reaction, I understood that she had no clue about what happened yesterday other than me and the captain quarreling, seeing her reaction and hearing her question, I said :
" Well, my mom as of lately had indeed started to live around here, she live in the...., she live around yes .
This time I didn't let that piece of information slip out of my tongue, I simply told her that my mom indeed live around here and that's all, but after she heard that, I saw a smile appearing on her face and I already had a bad premonition about this in my heart, the girl who had a wide grin on her face suddenly said :
Oh, would it be a bother if I were to accompany you then, I'm really excited to meet her .
" I will ask her opinion on this, but don't raise your expectations, my mom hadn't seen me for a long time, so we might end up being the ones to bother you .
Don't worry about me, I will be completely fine .
Who was worrying about you, I'm more worrying about my mom and myself, I was already at risk of losing a few brain cells dealing with that girl, for some reason, I felt that if my mother were to meet her, the two might actually be able to bond with each other and become quite close, but just the thought of this happening, had me almost short of breath .
Seeing that there was no point in saying more to dissuade her, I nodded at her and said that I will message her later to tell her how it went .
She luckily accepted my response and I saw that she suddenly looked at the girl that I had forgotten all about her being here, saying :
Harukashi, didn't you have something to discuss with Ryuushi, why are you standing there then ? .
Momochi then said in a stuttering manner :
I came here to check on Ryuu-san, I will be leaving you two then .
The girl said this and had a weird expression on her face, but just as she was about to retreat, I called her out and said :
" Momochi-senpai, could you lend me a helping hand in training .