The Reaper and the Angel of death (arima kishou fanfic)

II - Fake Quinques

Arima's pov
I hate Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We have "ghoul fighting practice" which means using real quinques to fight simulation ghouls, as well as "quinque training" which is fighting actual people using fake quinques that don't cause any harm but are extremely painful.
Did you think I would have an easy time since I'm the best fighter among the children in my year? Well, no. Sometimes I have to fight three or four people or simulation ghouls all by myself. It's as though the instructors want me to lose every practice fight. And you run 5km for every fight you lose.

With a sigh, I stepped into the fighting room, armed with a fake quinque. Two people entered from the other door - one boy and one girl, both of whom I have never seen before. They were probably from some other year. Only two people against me this time? I should be fine.

I raised my "quinque" and attacked. I had "stabbed" the boy through the heart and "killed" him in no time - whenever our special armour suits came into contact with the fake quinques, we would feel as though we had been hit in that part of the body. When you hit someone's vital organs with enough force, they "died", the armour would stop them from moving until the match was over, that is, until only one person was still "alive".

But the girl proved to be a formidable foe. She took the "dead" boy's quinque and was now fighting me with two "quinques". Why did I never think of taking other people's quinques? The girl and I cut and slashed at each other, but neither of us could land a "killing" blow. We were too evenly matched in skill.

Suddenly, my armour froze me. What? I died? No. The girl has a look of confusion on her face as well - apparently her armour decided to freeze her too. An instructor walked into the fighting room.

"A draw has been declared. You people were taking too long to kill each other off and if we let you continue, the other children won't get a turn to use this room," he said.

Sakurako's pov

Did that instructor just declare a draw? I could have killed that boy if I had just half a minute more. So unfair. Muttering angrily to myself, I dropped the fake quinque, took off the armour and marched out of the room. I wondered where that boy came from. He looked too tall to be 10 like me. Anyway, who he was didn't really matter. What mattered was that, for the first time, I got teamed up with someone else. And, for the first time, I didn't win a fight.

Arima's pov

At lunch in the hall that day, I checked the scoreboards. Each class, which is made up of children born in the same year, has a ranking board. For every lesson you attend, you get a mark which contributes to your daily score out of 100. The daily scores of the past seven days are averaged to get your current rating. The whole thing is ridiculously confusing. I'm always in first place in my class, constantly maintaining a score of at least 95. I glanced at the scoreboard for the 11 year olds. I was still in first place, way ahead of everyone else.
Then, I took a look at the other scoreboards. The girl I fought just now was probably also first in her class, otherwise why would they make her fight me?
In first place for the 10 year olds was a girl called Sakurako Yamaguchi. I squinted at the tiny photo next to her name and noticed the bright purple hair. Maybe that's her.

Sakurako's pov

On Friday, I got another chance to fight that blue-haired boy. Hmm... Looks like the instructors let their curiosity about who would win get the better of them.

"What's your name?" the boy asked me when we were trying to "kill" each other.

I was so shocked that I nearly dropped my "quinque", but managed to recover in the nick of time. People don't talk to each other during quinque practice. But then again, draws had never been declared.

"Sakurako Yamaguchi. Who are you?" I replied.

"Kishou Arima."