Kenpai - 剣輩

Chapter 15: Morpho of the Summer

"I suppose now you'll tell me who Yune Shiya is," I crossed my arms.

"My pleasure!" Montei took a fruit out of nowhere and took a bite. "Yune is the oldest girl of the Shiya family. The family leader, Yune's father, is infamous for how overprotective he is towards Yune."

"Here's another thing about Yune only Shiyas are supposed to know," Montei peeked around to make sure we were alone. "Yune was born blind."

"What?" I said, taken aback. "You mean... she can't see? But... how does she fight then?"

"Knew you were gonna ask. She always has a butterfly following her around, and she is able to see through the butterfly's eyes." Montei explained. "Her spirit is also a butterfly, but I don't have enough information on what it actually does."

"...nice of you to omit the only useful information," I facepalmed. "Also, why is Yune being blind considered confidential intel?"

"Because she's betrothed to the eldest son of the Hayashi family of the west, Tenkatsu Hayashi. The Shiya family needs support from the Hayashi family, even though they technically belong to the same family class." Montei replied. "The marriage will hold the two families together - but if the Hayashi family were to find out that Miss Yune is blind-"

"-they would cut connections with the Shiya family," I said. "Therefore, this is a political marriage."

"Precisely. As expected of my clever boss!"

"For some reason, I really hate political marriages." I murmured.

"What was that? Did you need something else?" Montei asked.

"Nothing. Just go chat with that white-haired boy over there." I waved him off towards Kasumi. "He's part of... us."

"Roger that, boss!"

As Montei walked away, I pondered, resting my face on my palm.

"What do you think?" Moye asked.

"I have a feeling this eldest daughter of the Shiya family is very powerful." I replied. "Or should I say, blind people with artificial sight usually have something else to their powers."

"When you know your enemy and know yourself, your chance of winning increases drastically." Moye pointed out. "But if you don't have a way to know your enemy, then you must at least know yourself."

"Right," I said. "Time to go back to training."

After a rendezvous with death, my state of mind underwent a transformation. I understood that the threat of dying will always be above my head, and started training hard to become stronger. Apart from training my sword skills, I also tried leveling my spirit up - however, it seemed like the only way for me to do that efficiently would be to fuse my spirit with more swords.

I also had a quest of my own, apart from saving the world from some bullcrap invasion: get realized bodies for my father and brother. At the moment, they were just sword spirits.

The time finally came for my match against Yune Shiya. When I walked into the circle, I was greeted by a very pretty girl. She wore a straw hat covering her long, blonde hair, tied into a ponytail. A slender body harmonized with a beautiful azure dress; in my old world, she'd be considered the perfect idol - apart from one small flaw: her eyes were white from blindness. Greyish-white.

It wasn't that the eye colour didn't match her beauty; they were dull, emotionless.

"Reiken-kun? Nice to meet you."

"Ah-" My deep thought was interrupted by a sweet voice. Yune greeted me warmly, much unlike her blank eyes. "Um... likewise."

Before we could continue our friendly conversation, the match had already started.

Yune smiled; an ocean-blue butterfly hovered around her shoulders. She didn't do anything, waiting for me to make my first move.

"That butterfly, it's her sight, right?" I asked Moye telepathically.

"Seems like it."

"Ladies first," I said to Yune, unsheathing Hanakanko.

"If you insist." She replied. "Here I come, Reiken-kun!"

She threw her straw hat at me; I dashed sideways, assuming the hat was a weapon.

It was, but not in the way I thought it would be. Yune made a hand sign and the hat transformed into a kaleidoscope of butterflies - and despite being butterflies, they hurt. A lot.

"Ugh." I tried fending a few off, but each butterfly just turned into dust whenever it came in contact, and a new one would emerge from the ashes of the previous. "Never dealt with a swarm."

"Dude, you've killed an army of salamanders." Moye said, unimpressed.

"Yeah, but it's harder to destroy a grain of sand than it is to destroy a smartphone."

"Use your brain. You know you have area-of-effect abilities." Moye hinted.

"Ryuuseigun!" I yelled, thrusting my sword in front of me. Most of the swarm was decimated; a few remained, and more were forming, but I decided to head for Yune - as described by one of my favourite quotes, "capture the lead to capture a group", and Yune herself was the lead in this case.

"Sorahoshi!" I charged, my speed unmatched by the butterflies. I was confident the blow would hit; my refined Sorahoshi could chase its target with incredible accuracy. And certainly, you'd likely know by now that whenever I'm certain of something, it goes south.

I never thought the term "Murphy's Law" would apply to me one day. In a flash, Yune disappeared and reappeared behind me, leaving a trail of butterfly dust.

"Wha-" As soon as I turned around, I saw Yune doing another hand sign. My senses told me that the true danger was lurking behind me, so I swung Hanakanko behind my back.

I was right. The butterfly dust she left were recomposited into magical butterflies. I quickly jumped back and tried to attack Yune again.