Kenji sighed, scratching the bandage that now covered the wound left by the humanoid. He winced at the stinging sensation.

  "You shouldn't scratch it if it hurts" Airi, beside him, commented, still looking at him with concern.

  "It's okay...it's just a little uncomfortable. It was a painful fall," Kenji tried to reassure her, surprised that he hadn't become nervous despite being alone with her. "Thank you for taking the trouble to come see me, even though you're missing class now," he added, feeling a little guilty.

  "It's okay. I'm relieved that at least nothing worse happened to you." The girl smiled, a blush spreading across her face. Then she heard a distant bell, signaling the start of the last recess of the day.

  "You should go with the others. I didn't get a chance to explain, and they're probably worried." Airi fidgeted with her fingers. Kenji nodded, thanking her again for helping him get to the infirmary. "Let me know if anything happens," the girl said, waving goodbye and heading towards the classroom.

  As soon as Airi left, Kenji let out a tired sigh. Lying to his friends was something he wasn't used to (much less to Airi), but he still thought it was for the best. Would anyone believe him if he said he'd been chased by a ghost?

  No. That thing wasn't a ghost. As far as he remembered, he'd felt contact with the being when it caused the wound that was now bandaged. If there had been physical contact, then that thing wasn't a specter.

  But then what? It hadn't seemed to make much noise during the chase, and the growl it let out wasn't like any animal or anything similar he'd ever heard.

  Kenji could only wait to be discharged so he could go back to his classroom for his last class.

  “So you ran into a fifth grader?” Hanae asked as soon as she entered the classroom, remembering what Airi had said.

  “You should learn how to skid” Tsubasa said with a mocking smile. The bandaged boy just grumbled.

  “At least I ran into him, and didn’t send bodyguards with five years of weightlifting to scare him,” Kenji replied with his arms crossed, earning a round of applause from everyone listening.

  “You have a point” Tsubasa mused, deciding to try and salvage some dignity.

  As soon as the millionaire said that, Sunako returned to the classroom. After greeting Kenji and asking about his health, the professor resumed teaching the last subject of the day...

  ...Which, it should be noted, once again left half the class half asleep.

  Karinome's Streets (4:10 PM)

  "Man, I'm starving... Professor Sunako really spent the whole class explaining history and geography all mixed up..." Daichi remarked while stretching. The whole group was walking through the streets to go eat at the Norokio café, a well-advertised café run by a kind elderly couple (and master bakers).

  "What are you going to say, you were asleep the whole hour?" Kenji said, confused, looking at the lazy boy as he put his headphones in his ears.

  “Actually, we all were” Tsubasa clarified, sighing at having fallen asleep in class for the first time in his life. He glanced at Airi and Hanae, who seemed to be wearing crowns and flowers with a sign that read ‘Perfect Attention'. He really didn’t understand how they were always so diligent and attentive to the teacher’s words.

  They arrived at the “Norokio’s Afternoon” café in no time, and one by one they began to enter. However, the same buzzing sound from before echoed in Kenji’s ears again, but when he turned to look for the source, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just cars passing by and trees swaying in the wind. For some reason, under his bandage, the wound stung again, more intensely than before…

  “Everything alright, Kenji?” Airi’s voice pulled him from his reverie.

  “Y-Yes, I’m coming” the boy replied, dazed, not wasting any more time before entering the café.

  The afternoon began to slip by as the group chatted and joked around the café. The kindly elderly Norokio smiled at the group's antics, while other customers went about their business.

  "So... you're saying the pineapple and tomato pizza is good?" Airi asked, puzzled by Hanae's earlier statement. Hanae simply nodded and smiled proudly.

  "Of course! Who wouldn't like it?" she asked innocently. Instantly, everyone in the café (even those uninvolved in the group's previous conversation) raised their hands. "Hey, don't leave me alone!" Hanae shouted exasperatedly, causing a bead of sweat to trickle down everyone's necks.

  Just another everyday conversation...

  “I hope Captain Nero defeats Sir Kuburo. Tsukinabi deserves to be avenged” Airi said, holding her drink.

  “I hope Yui wasn’t watching that last night… she’s been staying up late watching episodes of that show lately” Kenji sighed.

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  “Huh? What happened to Yui?” Daichi took out his headphones, hoping to join the conversation after the mention of Kenji’s sister.

  “Here we go again…” Tsubasa frowned, while both girls in the group gave the boy sympathetically pleading looks, and the boy with the headphones felt that familiar “protective older brother” look that Arata always gave him when Daichi showed interest in Yui.

  Luckily, no one was hurt during their time at the café. Soon, the sun began to set, and a warm sunset bathed the entire city of Karinome. The group began to say their goodbyes, considering getting together again on Saturday afternoon because of the weekend.

  A limousine arrived to pick up Tsubasa, who waved goodbye to the group. Hanae's father picked her and Daichi up, as his mother was still giving a lecture. Only Airi and Kenji remained.

  "Shall I walk you home?" Arata asked, putting his hand in his pockets while waiting for Hoshikawa's reply.

  "Please..." she responded gently, nodding and taking hold of the bottom of her dress.

  Airi lived a few blocks from Kenji, and they usually crossed paths in the morning on their way to school, walking together before meeting up with the rest of the group. As they walked, they chatted about the day's events. Aside from the numerous tasks Sunako and Hunigaki had left for next week, or Hanae's disappointment at the criticism of her food choices, the conversation turned to Kenji's injury…

  "I think he's already recovering…" the young man said, scratching his bandage, earning a gentle smile from the blonde girl.

  "Be careful next time, try to avoid the older students. They're too stubborn," Airi remarked, receiving a nod of agreement from the boy.

  Soon the pair arrived at Airi's house, where she said a cordial goodbye to Kenji. It's worth noting that the girl hesitated for a second before turning the doorknob, entering her house and leaving the disheveled boy on the doorstep.

  Setting off for home (it was 6:32 PM), the young man prepared to return. Taking the shortest route and noticing how the stars were beginning to appear, Kenji sighed.

  "Man... I'm really happy to have met you all..." He started walking with his hands behind his head, looking at the starry night sky. "What was that thing today?" he wondered, feeling a slight itch again under his bandage...

  Without the young man expecting it, the same sensation he had felt twice that day reappeared, a gripping, uncomfortable feeling. The wound under the bandage itched more intensely, disconcerting the boy and putting him on alert. At that moment, a nearby trash can fell, producing a metallic sound against the asphalt.

  "H...Hello? Is anyone there?" Kenji stepped back a little, looking in the direction where the noise had come from. Before he could even think about what to do if something answered the question, a strange tear appeared in the alley wall, from which emerged a humanoid figure, its face covered only by a zipper that resembled a mouth…

  “You…” The boy stammered in disbelief, recognizing the same figure he had seen at school. He took another step back. “W…What do you want now?”

  Without responding with anything more than a growl, the being leaped toward him, swinging its arm aggressively. Kenji barely managed to raise his arm defensively, only to receive the attack on the same spot where the previous blow had landed.

  The bandages tore to shreds as they fell to the ground, revealing the wound inflicted by the same being that morning. The being got back up, smelling the dried blood emanating from the teenager's wound.

  “Ack!” Kenji tensed at the cold that struck the exposed wound, quickly bringing his hand to his arm, noticing how a little blood still stained his palm. Then I noticed the being preparing to launch another attack. –“Wait, no--!”–

  Before either the young man or the being could process what had happened, something unprecedented occurred. From Kenji's wound, a strange trail of energy erupted, traveling up his arm to the palm of his hand, accumulating and forming a strange shape…

  CLINK!

  The metallic clang startled Kenji. Looking up, the young man saw that he now held a large sword in his hand, made of dark metal with a gleaming hilt, which was the cause of the being's blocked attack. Taking advantage of the figure's surprise (though not surpassing his own), the boy forcefully repelled the being, taking a closer look at his new weapon.

  “How did I get this?” The teenager stared in bewilderment at the sword blade, seeing his own reflection in it. Turning his attention back to his enemy, the being had recovered from the initial shock and was already preparing to attack again. The young man used everything he had learned in his ‘Samurai Combat +’ games to guide himself in how to grip his new weapon. “Alright… Get ready, you idiot!”

  Kenji charged at the figure, swinging the sword sharply, slicing through the air. The being swiftly dodged the attack, leaping to the other side of the street with bizarre precision. Trying to pull the weapon out of the asphalt, the boy noticed the figure launch itself forward with a kick. With adrenaline serving as an extra boost of strength, the young man managed to free the sword from the stone, swinging it through his chest and delivering a sharp cut to the being's leg, splitting it. Black liquid spurted from the severed end of the limb, covering the cold pavement. The inhuman being groaned in pain, trying to steady itself on just one leg. Even so, Kenji swung his sword once more, this time severing an arm from the creature, spilling more dark liquid onto the ground.

  "Who's lying on the ground now, you piece of shit!" the teenager declared with a half-confident smile, as he tried to swing his sword to finish off the figure. The creature attempted to move (a difficult task with only half its limbs), only managing to scratch Kenji's shoulder. Gritting his teeth against the sharp pain, the young man delivered a downward slash to the creature's neck, cleaving it in two as soon as his sword hit the ground (cracking it, as a bonus).

  Silence. Only the boy's ragged breathing could be heard, still in shock and trying to break free from the adrenaline of the moment. Had he really managed to defeat the monster? Had he, a perfectly ordinary 15-year-old boy, managed to match those RPG protagonists with incredible weapons or anime characters with hundreds of battles and techniques?

  A sudden flash of light snapped Kenji out of his reverie. He quickly noticed that the dark sword he had just used was gone. Without much thought, he felt a strong gust of wind in front of him. Looking ahead, he saw no trace of the creature he had just defeated, only the black 'blood' marks on the asphalt. Determined to get home before his family worried, the young man turned around (placing the pieces of bandage around the wound on his shoulder) and ran all the way home.

  "So... a young human wielding spiritual energy?" Unbeknownst to Kenji, a figure, unrecognizable in the darkness of the night (except for its distinctly male voice), watched him from atop a building, holding the remains of the being in its hands. "That's not something very common these days..."

  And that's chapter 2! To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm very good at describing a fight scene (I'll try to improve in the future). It's worth mentioning that this is my first fanfic published on Royal Road, so I'm still somewhat new to this.

  I hope you enjoyed it. What do you think of the story? See you next time!

  What is that power Kenji awakened? Who is that mysterious hooded figure? We'll find out soon!