66. Sparring Session
「Katsumi」
I take everything back, whatever kami or system is responsible for my reincarnation was looking out for me. I mean they also played a cruel joke with me while they were at it, making me a guy again in such a fantastic world, but I’ll have the final say on that one! I’m gonna be a girl anyway, you’ll see. I will get that restricted hunter’s gear and turn myself into a girl!!!
This is a world with full on gay marriage and it’s being treated as something fairly normal and has been around for a while?
Girls marrying each other!?
~*☆ This is paradise! ☆*~
… a demon infested paradise.
Whatever!
We’re going to ignore that part for the time being, same as the cruel joke of making me a man in such a world. If I ever get my hands on that stupid kami responsible I’ll make them pay!
I’m basically half a fox-spirit myself now, so you better watch out! Once Aunt Ouha has trained me properly you better not cross my path stupid cruel kami! I won’t let you escape unscathed. A thousand fox curses on you!
I’ll go full Tamamo no Mae on your ass!
Wait, would she be real in this world? Could I become like her understudy… hmmm… probably should ask Ouha about that one.
But yeah this word is something else.
The convention itself though… was embarrassing. It should’ve been my thing, but then I just felt like a creep who wasn’t supposed to be there—the half-girl thingy among the actual ones. And even when I wasn’t successfully making myself miserable I ran into the other problem.
None of my favorite books or series exist in this world!
Cruel wretched universe!
And I had no clue about the ones that do. It was so humiliating, this was supposed to be my field of expertise! Years spent in dark solitude, for nothing.
Ugh. I couldn’t even be a real fan… girl(?)… fan-something about my things!
But gotta look on the bright side—it also means I got a whole new world of girl-love to explore. That’s a good thing. And for that, my haul of mangas I acquired thanks to the girls’ guidance is an ideal start.
Some are a bit crazy tho.
One is about this high school boy who is super into the beautiful ice queen of his junior high school, but she wants to go to this all-girls senior high. So he cooks up this plan where he starts crossdressing and uses his big sister’s name to register so he can attend the same school as his crush.
But right after the opening ceremony the ice queen pulls him aside and confronts him, telling him she knows his secret, that he’d surely get in a lot of trouble if people knew. She tells him if he doesn’t do everything she says, she’ll tell the principal that he’s a boy.
And then she proceeds to demand that he has to pretend to be her obedient girlfriend or she’ll out him to everyone. And she’s like always saying ‘my girlfriend would do this’ and ‘my girlfriend wouldn’t do that’ constantly correcting his behavior while dangling the threat of exposure over him.
You don't notice it at first, but she slowly starts softening her persona, no longer being the ice queen and then she just drops a bunch of hormone pills on his desk and is like if you don’t wanna get found out you better start taking these—which he does!!!
And it goes on in that vein and eventually reaches the point where the former ice queen proposes the only sure way to avoid getting expelled is for the protagonist to change his family documents and he freaking goes along with it! So he becomes legally a girl and then the two like profess their love for each other and marry after graduation!
Complete insanity!
Another one felt like a subtle dig coming from Mayumi. It’s about these two high school boys who crossdress and they accidentally meet, but don’t know the other is crossdressing and they just keep assuming the other is a girl. They totally crush on another and go on many dates as ‘girls’. And both agonize about how horrible they are for deceiving the girl they like, that they themselves are just disgusting crossdressing boys and that’s just not right and the other would surely hate them if she knew.
It goes on forever like this where both keep tormenting themselves over how horrible they are until eventually it comes out that they’re both boys, because one starts suspecting something—which yeah, they go to the same school and have seen each other as boys, even if they hardly interacted. It was bound to happen eventually.
You’d think this is where we get a BL ending, but no! They both go, well I fell for the girl version of you, so they both start the doing the hormones thing and start living as girls??? So it turns into Girl-Love but for real after all.
What is this world, where stuff like that gets printed and serialized!?
None of this was mentioned in setting of the original light novel! Though to be fair to Tarō he had a rather singular focus. He needed to be the lone hero with a harem, no time for being a shut-in obsessed with girl-love, or weird crossdressing mangas.
Anyway I wrote Miori—I’m not calling her—and she invited me over to her place. It feels wrong because she thinks I’m a girl and not a weird half-thing in training, but it’s no use. A real girl wouldn’t hesitate, so I who is trying to live as girl am not going to either. So on my next free day I’ll visit her.
It’s always weird being around Miori. Part of me tends to scream that I should be more assertive, that I should fight more, that I should tell her to get lost and then I just stand there and fall into her affection like an idiot.
To be fair, what girl—in training or otherwise—could withstand the tall captivating beauty, who is a master at her craft, flirting and showering her with attention?
Like, come on! I’m only human!
No judging me allowed!
It feels really nice, okay!?
She kissed me thinking I was another girl.
Crashed my brain—complete short circuited it.
And that like, means something!
My first kiss and it was by a girl-loving beauty.
I get this strange excited and overwhelmed feeling when I’m around her, as if I’m like electrically charged or something. And I want her to keep noticing me and I want her to keep putting me so super obviously above others.
Ugh, that sounds awful if I put it like that. But yes, I want to see her again and I want her to teach me. I’d be an idiot to pass up such a windfall as getting personally trained by a B-rank demon-hunter! I need all the training I can get, if I want to make A-rank and get the restricted hunter’s gear. And I need that now more than ever. Things are getting dire.
Certain things need to be gone like yesterday.
But honestly the more that I think about it the more I’m super nervous about the Miori thing, because this woman who’s totally out of my league has invited me over to her place and it’s all confusing because everything is out of order. First she kisses me, then she gives me her number and then pressures me to go on a date with her that didn’t feel that much like a date besides at the very end with us strolling along the river.
That was totally romantic. ♡⋆ ˚｡⋆
Wuah! My face is getting all hot.
Enough!
────୨ৎ────
Miori’s place sits a bit secluded, a big property for this city, hidden behind a high wall. I expected something very traditional like the Kojou residence, but this is more the hyper sleek, hyper modern type of architecture full of hard angles and this really smooth concrete. I guess the vast garden with the enormous trees and the perfect arrangement of rocks, bushes and flowers adds the necessary dash of old nobility. Hides the main building from the outside too.
It isn’t what I expected.
The buzzer sounds and past the gate I come face to face with a grim looking dude who tells me to wait. Hearing the metal door close shut behind me has me on edge. What am I doing here?
I tried to dress for the occasion. A long dark blue skirt and a white top with a high neckline and super short sleeves. It’s the best I have. My girl clothes wardrobe despite the recent additions isn’t exactly big.
For a minute or two I nervously play with the strap of my hand bag, ignoring the guard or whatever he’s supposed to be, before I spy Miori dressed as immaculate as ever in suit pants and a well tailored blouse coming up the drive way. The long strands of her silky black hair swing with the sway of her steps. A tall beauty through and through. A goddess walking among mortals.
She gives a super dismissive wave towards Mr. Grim-Expression and he ducks away with a bow, leaving me and her at the gate.
Her gaze washes over me, clearly taking in the sight.
Sharp half-draped eyes that narrow with a joy as her former cold expression gets eaten by a smile.
“I’m so happy you could make it Katsumi. I almost feared your brother might show.”
My brother!?
Oh, she means guy-me.
“Uh, w-why would he come? You invited me after all.”
A flash of excitement in her eyes.
“So he’s gone, yes? You kicked him out?”
“He… uh, he pays the rent, so…”
Miori's hands suddenly grasp mine.
So soft.
Slender delicate fingers.
Heat rushes to my cheeks. Isn’t this a bit too intimate!?
Her breathtaking face is hovering close.
“A lady such as you surely is able to provide for herself. It would be only right for your development. Men such as him are best gotten rid off. Dead weight. Trust me.”
Hey! Rude! That’s still me!
“Easier said than done.” I mumble, my eyes darting away, “Can we talk about something else?”
Having to talk about myself in the third person is weird. I like that she thinks of me as an actual girl and stuff but this is just so weird.
Miori doesn’t say anything.
She hasn’t let go of my hands.
I get that it’s okay for girls to hold hands, but like this?
Both at the same time while standing face to face?
It’s this a bit too romantic?
If a gust of wind were to pick up and blow a bunch of flower pedals around us it would be the perfect panel. ♡ Like the absolute cliché, us standing alone at the gate surrounded by greenery, removed from the world beyond in our own little bubble. Warm hands holding mine. We’d only have to stare longingly into each other’s eyes and then our faces would inch closer and closer on their own and another gust of pedals would swirl around us and we would…
A low sultry whisper comes from slightly above me, “So cute…”
My eyes dart back up. “W-w-what?”
I catch Miori biting her lower lip before she says, “Someone is blushing.”
I pull my hands away, “Y-yes, b-b-because you were all silent and kept holding my hands like that!”
My protest seems to amuse her.
Before I can explain further, she links arms with me.
“I’ll introduce you to my father. You haven’t eaten, Katsumi, have you?”
Introduce me… to her father!?
The way she said it—it doesn’t carry that kind of meaning, right?
No, we aren’t dating and also to her I’m another girl.
Wait! Two girls can get married in this world and Miori clearly isn’t… well let’s say her interest extends to her own gender as well.
So that means… best behaviorKatsumi!
No, no, no, wait, I… we haven’t talked about any of this and again we aren’t dating like that. I’m only here so we can spar and train.
This is nothing. I’m reading too much into the situation. She just likes toying with me.
Miori drags me towards the angular mansion.
Past the bows of two servants I get swallowed by the entrance and immediately crushed by the realization that these people know the emperor personally! Not only am I woefully underdressed, what am I even doing here, getting grilled about my imaginary twin brother and teased about blushing!?
The moment my shoes are off Miori pulls me deeper inside chin held high and impervious towards the staff yet seemly unable to hide her schoolgirl-like glee underneath. What’s going on?
One corridor follows the next.
Not sure how they accomplish it but the minimal decoration of the inside still conveys the heavy weight of someone far above your average citizen. These people here are rich and have been so for generations.
Yes I know so is my new family but that had a very fantasy fairytale-like quality when I first woke up as my new self. Because the Kojou villa is this very traditional old building that probably has looked the same for the past two centuries, if not longer. Back then I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if one day the shogun had arrived to ask for my father and me to join him in battle.
So I guess in that sense it was otherworldly and really got you in the mood for this whole reincarnation thing.
We seem to have reached our destination.
A spacious room with a lot of natural light filtering through the high windows, with a prominent low table in the center.
So that’s where the more traditional flair comes in.
Miori gestures for me to sit down and places herself right beside me.
Isn’t this too close?
Her fragrance envelopes me, familiar notes and as she tells the staff beside me, “Please inform father,” her breath ghosts my skin.
We have a huge table and she clings to me like a lost puppy? A lost puppy with a very dignified and exemplary way of holding herself, but def clingy lost puppy vibes.
Again I get that girls get to be a bit more intimate with one another but this? This is definitely something different, right?
Miori is, according to all available evidence, like my other friends when it comes to her orientation. She wouldn’t be running around kissing girls late at night out of the blue otherwise. But is girl-me—meaning am I that way too? A girl in training liking other girls…
WAIT!
WOULDN’T THAT MAKE ME LESBIAN!?
Yeah, no that can’t be right.
Definitely not.
Let’s just say I wouldn’t be opposed to Miori kissing me again… and we’ll leave it at that. And I… I want to go on a date with Hikari and I want to hold her close and kiss her and I want-
『 !!! Critical Failure !!! 』
『 ! Major Emotional Damage ! 』
No! No! No!
Absolutely can’t go there!
I’m not a girl in that sense yet.
And there is no pretending and ‘living as if’ with that thing still around.
Can’t be thinking in that direction!
Like ever!
It’s too cruel.
Miori’s beautiful hands coming into my field of view pull me back from the dark abyss.
She places a tea cup in front of me and fills it.
“There is no need to be so tense Katsumi.” Her lips curl with a sheepish smile.
“Sorry I wasn’t prepared on meeting your father.”
“It’s only right, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“Don’t worry, how could anyone not be enamored by a delicate flower such as the young lady Kojou? You’ll do fine.”
‘Delicate flower’? What the hell is happening? What level of flattery is this? And since when am I delicate? Fine, I get it I’m nowhere near Mayumi’s or Haruki’s strength, and look kinda meek and waifish but come on! I’m not that hopeless.
Moving her cup to her lips and leaning back she adds, “If you were only to stop engaging with those beneath you, but alas.”
I glower at her.
“They’re my friends.”
“I’m sure you think that, but you too will learn that they’re only holding you back. I only wish to spare you the hardship.”
“Miori,” I hiss, “Stop.”
Sharp narrow eyes on me while she takes a sip.
“Do you like me?” I probe.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“If you actually do, then you should like, respect me, and that means respecting my friends. Because they’re my friends. I chose them. So stop being so mean to them and saying stuff like that they’re beneath me.”
“But it’s true.”
“How can you say that? I like my friends. They’re really great, you know? You would see that too if you weren’t so stuck up.”
Her answer is nothing more than a cold look.
My gaze falls and with a quiet voice that carries a resolute tone nonetheless I insist, “If you say something demeaning about my friends again I’ll leave. And I’m not gonna talk to you ever again. I mean it. Don’t say stuff like that. It’s hurtful.”
There is flicker in her eyes and her face loses its coldness.
Not that she answers, but it appears that I've reached her.
A polite smile makes it onto her face. Not sure if it’s fake or not.
We remain like that without words, quietly sipping our tea until a man enters from the far end the room. With that the spell is broken.
The new arrival is tall, wearing a simple Samua hiding what appears to be a very sinewy yet trained physique. His face is narrow, sporting a trimmed beard and shoulder length hair that has been pulled back.
He appears unhurried and casual but commands the rooms all the same. Miori and I show our respect.
“Father.”
“Lord Kodoku.”
My heart seems to determined to leap out of my chest for a minute, so the short exchange that follows complete passes me by, but thankfully my input wasn’t necessary apparently. Meeting someone’s father… I do hope my appearance as a woman is up to muster.
What if he sees right through me!?
Is he going to throw me out?
What am I thinking? I make a totally convincing girl. People were thinking I was a girl even when I was actively trying to live up to that stupid ideal of masculinity, so whatever, I have this in the bag.
A very warm and deep voice makes it over to me—Miori’s father is addressing me!
“Young lady Kojou, from what my daughter has told me you are a huntress too?”
“Yes sir, for almost half a year now. I still have a long road ahead of me. Lord Kodoku, your daughter was gracious enough to offer to teach me.”
He gives a very paternal smile.
“I see. My daughter tutored many of her peers back in her school days. I’m certain those skills will transfer well. You’re in capable hands.”
Moiri becomes inexplicably animated, “It isn’t like that father. Yes the young lady Kojou has exceptional talent and she doesn’t sully our craft, fighting with a pure conviction and I do want to train her, but she is a friend.” Her hand reaches for my mine. “Katsumi is my friend.”
Glances get exchanged between the two, heavy with meaning. Not that I have the slightest clue what they’re conveying but stuff is definitely being said without words.
“She’s an extraordinary woman.” Miori continues, “Of both strength and grace. A true flower of late bloom, from an honorable if crude house. She’s the third son of Lord Kojou.”
『 we interrupt this program for an internal emotional breakdown 』
…son
SON
※ S O N ※
…
NO! No, no, no, she isn’t supposed—no, Miori—she thinks—NO! She is…
This can’t be true, from all the people she is the one who sees me as a girl! No strange background that would call me being a girl into question.
Without the【MSCD3000】at hand, she is the one granting me a safe-haven. Where I don't have to second guess myself. Someone who only sees a girl, not something else. Somewhere where I'm not tied to something so awful as being a son.
I don’t want to be anyone’s son!
I hate it!
I HATE IT!
Keep that stuff as far away from me as possible! Don’t even wanna touch it—least of getting tied to it!
No, I reject it!
FUCK THIS!
Miori…