The Dragonblade [On Hold]

Chapter 3: Brain Fart

The next day, Shigeru woke up to the sound of the rooster crowing, as usual. He jumped out of bed and walked over to the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He shrugged and walked back to the sleeping area, nudging Hitoshi awake. Hitoshi woke up with a yawn that nearly dislocated his jaw, then turned on his side, away from Shigeru and muttered, "I don't wanna get up..."

"Hey, wake up, it's already 6:30," Shigeru said, nudging him harder. When Hitoshi refused to get up, Shigeru sighed, then jabbed Hitoshi in the stomach, lightly. Hitoshi jerked upward and yelped softly.

"Alright, alright, I'll get up! Just don't hurt me!" Hitoshi scrambled out of bed and ran over to the changing area. Shigeru smiled to himself. He had never failed to wake up Hitoshi like that. He heard his other classmates start to wake up.

"Hey, Shigeru!" Exclaimed Hayato. "You ready for the Yipon test today?"

(A/N: Yipon is Thai for the word Japanese. I didn't want to have to create a whole new language. :P)

Shigeru's smile faded. "Crap," he muttered to himself. "Yep, totally," Shigeru replied to Hayato, but internally he was smacking himself. How could he have forgotten about the language arts test, of all things?

He ran over to the changing room just as Hitoshi walked out. "Hitoshi, did you remember that there was a Yipon test today?"

Hitoshi's jaw dropped open. "Oh shoot, I completely forgot!" His eyes flew to the clock on the wall of the dorms. "We have 20 minutes before breakfast. Get changed and meet me in the mess hall as soon as you can. Yipon doesn't start until 7:30, we might have a chance to pass the test."

Shigeru ran through the doors to the changing area and grabbed his clothes three and a half minutes later, he ran out of the door, grabbing his book bag off of his bed.

When he got to the mess hall, he saw Hitoshi and Kameko sitting at their usual table in the back. He rushed over, getting yelled at by the teacher on duty, this time the archery instructor Mayumi Minabuchi. "Shigeru Matsumoto! You know the rules, no running in the mess hall," she called at his retreating back.

He sat down at the table at his usual spot, in between Kameko and Hitoshi. The former of these two was admonishing the other for forgetting that they had a test.

"We've known that this test was coming for a while. Why didn't you study for it?" Kameko asked, raising an eyebrow at Hitoshi.

"Don't yell at me, I'm not the only one that didn't remember, Shigeru forgot about it too," whined Hitoshi, pointing a finger at Shigeru, who was just getting his language book out of his bag.

"You too Shigeru?" Kameko sighed. "You're usually on top of things, especially schoolwork. What happened?"

As Shigeru and Hitoshi opened their mouths to explain, she interrupted them. "And don't give me that excuse about needing extra weapons practice. I do as much as you two, and I remembered about the test." Shamefaced, the two of them closed their mouths.

As they ate their breakfast, Shigeru and Hitoshi both studied, while Kameko gave each of them the stink eye but didn't say anything. This was a relief because the few other times they had forgotten about tests, she had lectured them about it. Her silence gave them a chance to actually study without being bothered, so they both accepted the gift without question.

After breakfast was over, all of the sixth-year students all reluctantly made their way to the language classroom, occupied by everyone's least favorite teacher, Professor Fuyuko Kurogane.

Every school has that one teacher that seems to hate their job and has made it their life's goal to make their student's lives miserable, at least for that class. Professor Kurogame was that teacher. She was mean, old woman that seemed to find a kind of pleasure in seeing her students suffer and fail.

As everyone filed into the classroom, greeted by the usual smell of boiled cabbage and cooking sherry. It was widely known that Professor Kurogame had a taste for alcohol, but only one student had had the courage to ask why she preferred cooking sherry over regular alcohol. That student had ended up in the hospital wing for three weeks and, to this day, walked with a limp.

Everyone sat down at their seats and pulled out their pens. This was done without the usual chatter of students talking to each other. The last student to speak out of turn in that class had fainted after running around the track in the back for three hours straight.

"As you all know," Professor Kurogame cackled, "You have a test today. You all will have the entire period to complete the test. Any talking, passing notes, or communicating in any way, will be considered as cheating, and will be punished accordingly." The entire class shivered at these words. "You may begin as soon as you receive the test."

She stood up and started to pass out the test. The sounds of pens scratching on paper soon filled the room.

As Shigeru and the rest of the class had known, the test was extremely difficult. As he looked down at his half-finished test, he started to feel a sense of panic. This was one of the biggest tests of the year, and he wasn't even close to knowing all of the content, much less finishing the test. He looked over at Hitoshi, who was two seats over, who was scratching his head ad he looked up towards the ceiling, obviously thinking about a question.

He looked around the classroom, looking for anything that would tell him anything about the test. He scanned the walls and-

-looked into the eyes of Mitsu Kudara.

Mitsu Kudara was the most popular student in the academy. Almost everyone wanted to be like her or be friends with her. Almost all of the boys in the academy, which was about half of the student body, had a crush on her. Almost everyone, that is. Shigeru and a small handful of boys alone seemed to be able to resist her charm. Hitoshi, however, was not a part of this group.

Mitsu was staring at Shigeru, and he looked behind him, half expecting to see one of his other classmates staring back at her. But there was no one behind him. He sat on the side of the classroom, next to the wall. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow at her.

She blushed and looked back down at her test. Smiling slightly to himself, Shigeru turned back to his test.

After the period was over, the trio met up with each other in the corridor outside of the classroom. Already, a steady buzz of chatter was building up between the students.

"Damn, that test was brutal," groaned Hitoshi, running his hands through his hair, "I barely knew half of the stuff on the damn thing. And it was a major test too. My grade's gonna drop like a rock off a cliff."

"Same," grunted Shigeru, bending down to tie his shoelace.

"Well, it wouldn't have been as bad if you two had stopped over obsessing about training and actually studied," Kameko scolded them with mock severity.

"We know!" The two boys chorused. Shigeru straightened up. "You've made your point Kameko. We'll study next time."

"That's what you said last time," she replied. "Remember the history test last month? Or the tactics test two years ago?"

"You still remember that?" Hitoshi asked, a look of confusion on his face.

"Of course I do, someone has to be the responsible one, right?" Kameko teased.

Still bickering lightheartedly, the trio made their way into the mess hall for lunch.

Later that night, Shigeru lay awake in bed when he was hit yet again by what he had heard in history class the previous day. He sighed frowned to himself, then sighed. Maybe taking a walk outside would help. After all, it helped yesterday.

Coming to a decision, he got out of bed and made his way over to the door. He stopped halfway out the door, looking back on his sleeping classmates like he had the previous day. Then he was gone, and the door closed silently behind him.