Chapter for your faces to enjoy. This comes in a little late for y'all on FF 'cuz I need sleep. Sorry about that.

Mandatory Disclaimer: Tupac isn't dead, so you best believe I don't own either of these series.

8/11/20XX - Morning

Contrary to the belief of pretty much everyone who knows who I am, I didn't spend every waking moment slacking off at home. In all actuality, I was quite the busy body.

Every day, no matter heat, rain, sleet, or snow; if I had any sort of free time, I would leave the sanctuary of my home to do something that would help in my investigations. Be it work that actually pertained to said investigations, or working a part time job to build up my skills and earn yen to pay for any equipment I would need inside the Inverse — airsoft bullets certainly don't buy themselves, after all — I was always out doing… well, something. As Hiratsuka-sensei likes to say every time a learning opportunity presents itself to her, just so she could sound all wise and sagely, "a day wasted on doing nothing, could've been a day spent improving yourself", which on all counts except originality and eloquent phrasing, was a perfectly fine motivational saying. Not the best, but most certainly not the worst thing I've ever heard come out someone's mouth.

Speaking of doing something to improve myself, I was currently on my way out my house to do something that would do just that, but as I strode over to the door, I found myself being stopped dead in my tracks by a certain mother of mine. Oh, and when I say that, I mean it very literally as she was currently standing in front of the front door.

Now, normally, I wouldn't think too much of such a sight as she was almost always going out the aforementioned door to go and be a corporate slave, but today, instead of looking at the door, she was facing away from it and directly at me. I can't help but blink at her like a confused owl as she stood there in front of me, a victorious smirk spread across her lips… for some reason.

"Um, Kaa-san... ?" I called out to her with a good amount of trepidation in my voice as what I was looking at clearly didn't bode all too well for me. Woman, could you please stop staring at me like you just won some difficult battle and you won me as a prize? It's starting to worry me. "Aren't you supposed to be at work by now? What are you still doing here?"

To be blunt with things, I knew I was screwed the moment she angled her head down so that glare replaced the lenses of her glasses completely. "Yes, you're correct about that, but have you not heard the news, Hachiman?" Mother asked me whilst pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose with her index finger. "Some drunken idiot crashed their car right into the front doors of my workplace last night. Now, it's impossible for anyone to get in or out of the building without stepping on broken glass and debris. So, instead of having us try and work around it, the bosses decided that it was best to just call everyone off for the time it takes to have everything cleaned up." She suddenly pumped her fist up into the air excitedly. "I even get paid for all the time off!"

In response to her entire explanation, I blinked and simply stared at her for a few seconds, before then shutting my eyes entirely and breathing in deeply through my nostrils at the display my mother was putting on, which done by literally any other girl, would've been a sight so endearing that I would've run up to her, threw my arms around her and called her the second coming of Komachi. Unfortunately, however, the entirety of that had been acted out by a woman in her mid-forties, who was also my mother, so the appeal of it was completely sucked out.

That was the case for me, at the very least. I'm sure my father would have an opinion different to mine, considering he probably hasn't had that side of her directed towards him in a long while, but I just wasn't feeling it. To be fair to my mother though, she didn't look her age one bit. Really, if I had just met her and also wasn't related to her, I would've taken her for a woman who was much younger than she really was. If she and Komachi were just so happening to be standing next to one another, I would've thought them to be sisters rather than mother and daughter.

"Alright… So, what exactly are you doing standing in front of the front door like that?" Knowing that there was no way I was going to be able to avoid the question and also be able to leave out through the door she was standing in front of, I bite the bullet and get it over with. "Shouldn't you be in bed relaxing or something?" I mean, if you feel so overworked that you're happy about a man getting into an accident that could've killed him, isn't that something you should be thinking about doing? Is this the fate I too will go down if I allow myself to become a corporate slave?

"Oh, most definitely," My mother admitted with a sort of cadence that only a younger girl could pull off, "but how would I be able to spend quality time with my son if I did something like that?" The moment I heard her that last part leave her mouth, my lips immediately pressed themselves together into a straight line. "Hah? Why do you look so unhappy about the fact, Hachiman? Does the thought of being with your mother displease you that much?"

My mother was a strange creature, to say the least. Her emotions had a dynamic quality to them: always shifting from one moment to another. One moment she could be acting extremely serious, stern and scary, and at other times, she could act more like Komachi. It really always depended on the context of the situation at hand.

Not to imply that my mother was bipolar, of course. Every emotional shift could easily be described more as tactical decision, which I honestly don't know if I prefer considering what I just described was a prime candidate for the title of "emotional manipulator", and no child ever wants their mother referred to in such a way when said mother never did anything actually bad with that manipulation.

"…No, but I already had stuff planned for today," I answered her honestly, seeing no reason to lie to her just yet. Surely, if she hears that her son is actually going out into the world and being productive instead of wasting away at home, she'll definitely let me go without too much problem.

"I'll just come with you then!" Was the response I got from my mother. No dice, huh? Dammit. "Surely you can add your mother to whatever you're planning on doing today, without any problem, right?" I was about to voice my obviously dissenting opinion as an answer but was stopped when my mother suddenly cut me off. "Unless, of course, you're trying to hide something from me?"

Ah, so this is what's happening, right now? Are you seriously trying to extort information out of your son? I have so many things to say about that, which I most definitely would've said to you out loud if you weren't one-half of the two people who provide me with food, water, and a bed to sleep in at night. Damn, the sensible part of me. Why you gotta make me not bite the hand that fed me?

It was safe to say that I caved in quite quickly after that. As someone who also interrogated people remorselessly, I knew it was better to save time and pain, and just take a plea bargain than it was to try and weasel my way out of things. Besides, it's not like what I'm about to do is something out of the ordinary for people my age.

[…Sleep Soundly…]

One would think that after spending all of yesterday healing Sagami yesterday, my reason for going out today would be to see if my actions bore fruit or not (and probably do something about the fact that most people probably still thought we were boyfriend/girlfriend). Unfortunately, however, you'd be dead wrong about that. I've been part of the SSDA and healing people for so long that I've learned, especially at this point, to just trust the process and let things—

"Ah, Hachiman, would you mind if I asked you something?" Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by my mother, who had spent most of the train ride to our destination sitting to my left in silence. Oi, woman, let me monologue in peace! You're already interrupting my investigation preparation time, now you're seeking to take away this away from me too?! Be grateful that I haven't already done that thing I know you hate as revenge! You totally deserve it at this point!

"I don't see why not," I replied, doing my best to keep my aggravation with this overall situation out of my voice. My eyes momentarily glancing over in her direction before going back to their original task of looking ahead and focusing on nothing.

"Well, you agreed to bring me along for whatever you're doing, but you never explained to me what exactly that is. You even made me go through the trouble of getting clothes I could move around well in and a bag to carry them all in."

"Oh." Is all I could think to say back to her for a second. "The gym I like going to: I was originally planning on going there to work out some time later in the week and a classmate of mine texted me a couple days ago, saying that there was something she wanted to show me and told me to go to said gym, so I thought that I might as well kill two birds with one stone today." I looked back over at my mother. "Well, three now, considering you insisted on coming along."

One might think that what I just said was a bold-faced lie and that I was only saying what I just said as a cover story, but it turned out that was actually the case. A couple days ago, it turns out that during the texting typhoon that hit my cell phone after Sagami that photo of her and me, I got a message from a number I didn't recognize. It turns out that number belonged to the other loner of Sobu High, one Kawasaki Saki, who reached out to me and asked if I could meet up with her, stating that she wanted me to come to her gym so she could show me something.

Seeing that she, Kawasaki, was an expert at martial arts (something that I only managed to remember because she used said fact to warn me against ever harming a hair on her little brother Taishi's insect head one time), my mind immediately suspected that it was something to do with that and decided it was something that I should, at the very least, check out as I never had any sort of formal training when it came to melee combat.

"Ah, a classmate reached out to you?" Oi, kaa-san, why did you have to put so much emphasis on the word 'you' when referring to me? You legitimately just grilled me for facts about my 'girlfriend' two days ago! How is it so mind boggling to you that I now just so happen to more people willing to interact with me now than I used to as a kid? "Ah~! My baby boy is finally getting people to like him!" Oi, not so loud! People are beginning to stare! "So, what's his name? I don't want to make it seem like you never brought him up at home—"

"—He? Who said anything about a 'he'? The person I'm meeting is a girl."

For the longest time, my mother didn't say anything in response to my interruption. Me having returned my eyes to back out in front of me, I assumed that her silence was a sign that she didn't have any more questions to ask. I was very, very wrong to assume that.

"HAAAAAAAAAAH?!"

Ow. My ears… I think you might've just caused me to go deaf.

8/11/20XX - Noon

The gym. Back when I was younger, I never understood the use of it and just assumed that the only people who actually took time out of their day to go there were show offs who wanted to display to the uncaring world how physically fit they were.

Now that I've actually spent time in one, I could say for sure that I knew that to not be the entire case. Sure, there were people here who did idiotic stuff like that, but those people were few and far between. The rest of the people at gyms were simply people who wanted to get into/stay in shape and didn't want to burn hundreds of dollars at once to get pricey equipment, which in turn took up space in their homes that a lot of people didn't have. As a man who too liked to stay economically responsible whilst working to achieve my goals and not filling my living space with needless things, I could understand and respect such reasoning.

The one I went to was filled with those sort of people, I found, as it lied right next to the Chiba City's downtown and most of its regular members came from that area. All their homes were most likely built inside of apartment buildings rather than suburban neighborhoods, meaning that they all had a lot less living space, which in turn meant that there was no room for things like exercise equipment. So, that lesson about the people in gyms got through to me much easier than most.

Speaking of that lesson, the gym that I learned it in just so happened to be the same one that Kawasaki went to, which was an odd thing to learn as I've been to that gym a lot over the past couple years and I've somehow managed to never bump into her once. I would've thought my life had suddenly turned into some sort of light novel, as that's the only place an information reveal that convenient could ever happen, but before I could make a witty, mental joke about how the author must be incompetent since only an unthinking idiot would try and establish a certain place to be one that the main character went to for years beforehand and then reveal that another character also went to the same place often as well, but then I realized that it was entirely possible for me and her to have gone on different schedules and that was the reason we've never seen one another.

Now that I thought about it, it actually made a lot of sense that she went to my gym. It was on the lower end of cost in terms of membership cost per month at ¥1000 a month, which would help considering, the last I checked, she was rather strapped for cash and was in the area around Sobu, where I assumed the Kawasaki family house was located in. So, her going to that gym made a lot of sense. Really, me going to that same gym made a lot less sense considering my house was on the other side of the city and it took me a fair amount of time to get there.

Well, either way, to summarize my current situation, Kawasaki and I went to the same gym and she was currently asking me to come meet her there so she could show me something - something most likely meaning: "something to have to do with martial arts" - and I had decided it a good idea to bring my mother along. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was absolutely no way that this was going to end well for me at the end of the day, but hey, free knowledge, and I was never one to turn down free anything.

[…Sleep Soundly…]

"Oi, Hikigaya, why'd you bring your mother?" One Kawasaki Saki asked me that as she placed both of her hands on her hips, something I wished that she wouldn't do for many reasons. First off, it meant that she was mad at me and I didn't want that if she was going to, in fact, be doing something martial arts related. I always thought myself to be someone who could withstand a good deal of punishment thanks to my time in the Inverse, where taking a hit was a common, everyday practice, but I didn't know if I could take being pummeled relentlessly by a black belt. "You do know that I'm going to be teaching you things about fighting, right? Is she really going to want to see her son get beat up over and over again?"

"I'm sure she's going to be perfectly fine with it," I reply blandly as I to try to keep my attention where it needs to be and away from any region lower than her neck, which leads me to the second reason I didn't want her resting her palms on her hips: her clothing. One might think that as a karate black belt who wanted to teach me the very same art, she'd try to keep the mood as consistent as a learning experience as possible and wore some sort of training gi or something, but that person would be incredibly wrong, unfortunately. She just wore what any young woman would wear when they went to the gym and within that previous statement, lay my problem.

See, no one in the world would ever call Kawasaki Saki unattractive. Mainly because they were sure that if they did so, they'd get their heads ripped off, but also because saying so would be largely untrue. Sure, she looked like a total delinquent with her blatant, habitual breaking of dress code and overall cold, aggressive behavior most of the time, but that never took away from her overall beauty in my opinion. She was an incredibly attractive girl through and through, and so, seeing her in nothing but a plain black, tight-fitting tank top that only covered down to her upper stomach area and a pair of similarly colored leggings that just seemed to hug every curve of the delinquent-looking girl's long legs.

As a young man who held a young man's hormones within in his body, I had to admit that such a sight was one so glorious that I wouldn't mind looking at for the rest of my life, but any such thoughts were quickly dashed from my brain every time I reminded myself that the woman that was causing such feelings inside of me was going to be the same one I was going to get into somewhat restricted, hand-to-hand combat with and that very quickly killed my excitement of getting into such close contact with her. My name was not another word for the blackness that night wrought upon the world and I did not enjoy getting damage dealt to my body, last I checked, so getting beat up was not something I was looking forward to at all.

"I'm pretty sure that she's still too busy being shocked by the fact that her loner son knows someone of the opposite sex well enough to allow them to beat him up over and over again," I added on whilst looking back over my right shoulder at my mother, who was currently standing a few feet behind me weeping silently, occasionally muttering something to herself under her breath. She said it all way too low for me to hear fully, but I could fish the phrases '…my baby boy…', '…growing up so fast…', '…first a girlfriend and now this…' out of her incoherent mumblings. "So, everything should be fine as long as none of my bones end up broken."

"Hah? What's with how you said that last part? You make it sound like I was actually going to try and break your arms or something…" Kawasaki trailed off as her arms went from her hips to crossed right under her bust, causing a chain reaction of the flesh that I most definitely looked away from. Yeah, most definitely. "Just what kind of girl do you think I am?"

I simply blink and say nothing in response to that question, already recognizing it to be a loaded one that I probably wasn't going to win no matter what I said. Ha! You think you're going to trick me into falling for such an obvious trip? My corporate slave dad might not have been around to teach me a lot of things because of work, but he did teach me about things women did that I should look out for and this was most definitely one of them! You're going to have to try a lot harder than that!

Eventually, after receiving no word out of me for a good ten seconds, the eldest of the Kawasaki children let out a sigh and angled her head down towards the floor. "Whatever…" She grumbled that under her breath before then suddenly turning so that I was looking at her back. Looking at me from over her shoulder, she continued to speak and for some reason, maybe it was what I knew was coming next for me and much like going down the big curve of a roller coaster, I naturally felt the cold grip of fear, it caused a shiver to travel down the length of my spine, "C'mon, we need to go and get started. I was only able to get the ring for an hour, so we should try and make the most of it."

With that, Kawasaki began to walk away from me and my still muttering mother, and we soon followed after her – me having to drag my mother along with me by hand as I did so.

As I followed her and tried my best to keep my eyes focused on the tie in her hair, which kept her hair in a rather neatly-made bun where her ponytail should be, and not have them migrate anywhere lower than that, I found myself being impressed by Kawasaki's sense of professionality. Even now, she was focusing on making the most of what she's acquired.

Such a frugal girl— Wait. Did she just say 'ring'?

[…Sleep Soundly…]

As someone who cared very little about sports in general, unless they were featured in an anime/manga I was a fan of, it should be no surprise that I knew very little about the combat sport of mixed martial arts, or MMA, as it's apparently called by its fans. It was a niche sport that was directly marketed to a certain kind of person - a kind of person who liked sports - which wasn't me in the slightest. So, of course, I didn't pay any attention to it.

Despite my disinterest towards MMA, however, that didn't keep me from recognizing what the structure that Kawasaki was currently leading me into was and the connection it had to the combat sport.

The Pentagon: the eight-sided ring in which all MMA fights took place in. All eight, black chain-link made sides being built tall enough so that there was no possible way anyone inside it was leaving the ring. It was a rather intimidating figure to look at, I had to admit. Especially when Kawasaki Saki, all decked out with gloves and a head guard was staring at you from inside of it,

"C'mon, step inside," said bluish-haired girl commanded with a wave of her hand, gloved hands being on her hips once more, but for some reason, it didn't bother me as much this time. "It's not going to bite, y'know?"

It was then when I glanced over at my mother, who was standing next to the ring looking at me with an expression on her face that was practically screaming that this was a bad idea, that I realized this was a very bad idea.

Well, actually, I realized that when my sparring partner handed me the head guard and gloves, but who the hell cared about semantics like that when I was about to get beat up?

Why was so I afraid when I've faced so many shadows in the past? Well, that was a fairly simple question to answer. In the Inverse, I had boosted strength, speed, and agility. The same, however, could not be said about real world me. I sure as hell wasn't a slouch outside the Inverse when it came to athletics, don't get me wrong, but nothing like how I was in there. Also, I couldn't just summon a persona to magic away all the damage done to me in this plane of existence and I was about to walk into a ring with a girl who apparently has a black belt in karate. So, that's what I was so scared about.

Taking a step into the ring like I was told, I found myself doing so just in time to see my partner cracking her fingers and neck, causing audible pops to ring out into the air, all of which sent shivers down my spine.

Yep. This was most certainly a bad idea on my part. Well, hopefully, she won't go too hard on me…

Sigh. I'm going to die here, aren't I?

From the very dawn of our species, the human race has done everything in their power to avoid having pain being inflicted upon themselves. Be it a large gash in the side that had blood pouring out of it profusely, or something as tiny as a chronic ache in one's hip, we, as a collective, had the tendency of going above and beyond when it came to making it so that we didn't have to deal with such annoyances.

What? A bleeding gash in the side was hardly something that one could refer to as an 'annoyance'? Ha! Of course it was! Name me one person in the world who wouldn't be annoyed by having a part of them get slashed open and I'll gladly correct my previous statement.

Anyways, going back to the point I was trying to prove, the human race didn't like pain. Why? Well, because it hurt and no matter what, being hurt was always rather uncomfortable. One didn't need to do any sort of deep soul searching to figure that much out.

So, if the everyday human being did everything in their power to avoid feeling pain, what did me agreeing to Kawasaki's training say about me? Was my chuunibyou self correct in thinking that I had transcended humanity and become a superior being meant to be both feared and revered by the rest of society?

Nah, probably not. It probably just meant that I was an unthinking idiot who saw training being offered for free and took it without seeking out any information. Yeah, I'd put my money on that being the case over the one I'd stated prior. It just made a lot more sense, logically speaking. Also, it was a lot less cringe-inducing.

My biggest supporting evidence for my claim? The fact that I was looking up at a plain white ceiling and still couldn't place which one was the original told me as much.

"Hey, are you alright?" Suddenly, my view was taken up completely by the light violet eyes of the person who had caused the lack of stability within my vision. "You've been lying there for a good two minutes now… Do you need me to get someone or something?"

This not even being close to the first time being knocked for such a loop, I knew that my current, head-trauma based disorientation wasn't anything to be too worried about. What I was experiencing right now probably wasn't even severe enough to be ruled a light concussion by a medical professional… Probably. I mean, hopefully.

How did I even manage to get myself hurt like this? Surprisingly enough, the answer to this question was also very simple. After showing Kawasaki what exactly I knew about fighting hand-to-hand, which was pretty much limited to stuff I've learned from martial arts magazines I've picked up from time to time, I found that while I knew about the basics just fine, the way I put all that information to use was sloppy at best. Apparently, my form was so egregiously bad that she, and I quote, 'cringed a bit internally and began to question just how I managed to get as far as I have with such atrocious fundamentals'.

Now, I would've explained that I wasn't much of a close-quarters type of guy to begin with, and that I've always leant more towards using my gun than my own strength, and even when I did indulge in it from time to time, I'd whip out my baton and use that, not my bare fists – sure, I was known, mainly by Puppet, to throw a knee in there every once in awhile, but that was only ever to create openings for myself to either shoot or bash with aforementioned baton – but my mother was literally a few feet away looking in at us, out on the outside of the ring, so that was out of question.

Instead, I told Kawasaki that I had very little use for the art in my everyday life and left it at that, hoping she caught my drift, which, given the nod she sent back to me in return, I assumed that to be the case.

That then led to the only tolerable part of my fellow loner's training and that was teaching me how to actually throw strikes, which in turn led to the two of us being in extremely close proximity to one another as she got strangely hands-on when it came to guiding my form along — not that I minded, of course, something that I said as both a man and a student.

What happened next was what caused me to end up on my back, looking up at the ceiling.

After having me practice throwing some standard punches: jabs, straights, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts right at the end; Kawasaki eventually deemed that I was ready to move onto the next stage of our training and the thing I had been dreading ever since I stepped into this eight-sided, chain-link coffin: actual, real-time sparring.

Probably sensing my trepidation with doing so, the teenage smoker assured me that she'd go relatively easy on me and that nothing too hard would be thrown my way.

As it turns out, Kawasaki's definition of 'going easy on someone' was different from my own.

To make a long and painful story short – though it really only lasted a second, so it was a much more painful a tale than anything else – I had attempted a total of five or so attacks on Kawasaki's person and all of five them had failed in connecting, or even grazing her for that matter, but what I had succeeded in doing was applying pressure on her and closing the distance in between the both of us.

Seeing that, I had gotten it in my mind that I should attempt a right hook at her head as I was in range for it and all. The moment my arm reared up to attack, Kawasaki was already in motion and it was at that moment I knew, I screwed up royally.

In a motion that was as fluid and fast as a river, my fellow loner very easily weaved underneath my swing and then proceeded to hit me with a clean, right jab to the left temple, which knocked me to the ground faster than any shadow could've. I'm sort of happy that it did, though. It, at the very least, kept me from having to deal with anymore of her attacks. So, thank you for this small mercy that you've bestowed upon me, woman with a sledgehammer for arms. I really appreciate it. Well, I will fully when the world finally stops spinning.

"Hup!" Suddenly, I felt something grip me by my shoulders and force me up to a sitting position, which really didn't help my dizziness at all, but I wasn't really in the condition to complain about anything. "Come on, let's get you up, Hachiman."

Seeing that there were only two people in the world who would ever call me by my given name, I took a wild guess and assumed it that it was my mother who was currently peeling me off the ground and asking the person who put me on there in the first place for some time for me to recuperate, "Kawasaki-san, I think it's best for you two to take a break—"

"—No, I'm fine," I told my mother as I put the knuckle side of my glove to the mat and push myself up to my feet, speaking with as flat and even as tone I could manage to help sell the thought of me being fine, which I really wasn't, by the way. My right temple no longer hurt, but I was still dazed a tiny bit. "I was just seeing double there for a second. The only reason I didn't get up was because I didn't want to get up while the Pentagon we're in had sixteen sides to it."

"Um… You sure you're still not a little out of it, Hikigaya?" Kawasaki was the one to ask that question. Immediately after that, the delinquent-looking girl repositioned herself so that she was standing in front of me and slightly to the left. I'm sure if I had looked up at her then, I would see her with her hands on her hips. "You do know that there are only five sides to a Pentagon, right? How would two of those equal sixteen—?"

"—Yep, he's fine!" This time it was my mother who cut someone off, but unlike me, she spoke as if she was embarrassed by something. "Hachiman has never been the most brightest child when it comes to mathematics." Oi, woman, I'm not that bad at math! I, at the very least, managed to keep from the very bottom of the rankings! Stop laughing as if you're talking about bad something that's sullied our bloodline! "Anyways, seriously, Hachiman, are you sure you're alright? You don't need us to go get someone to take a look at you?"

Sigh. Could you really not do this right now, mom? I get that your motherly instincts make it so that you can't help how you're acting and that your strangely inherent son-con tendencies don't help at all (I mean, why else would an overworked salary woman like my mother take something as rare as a unscheduled day off and use it to spend time with her son?), but I'm not a child who would cry whenever he got a scraped knee anymore, y'know? Sheesh, so embarrassing…

"I'm fine, kaa-san…" I mutter under my breath as I finish going through with the whole forcing myself up to my feet process, scratching at my suddenly warm cheek and turning my eyes to look in literally any direction that lead to me not having to look at anyone as I did so.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but before any words could leave my mouth I was stopped by the sudden sound of girlish giggling coming from where I remembered Kawasaki had been standing.

Blinking in my confusion, I turned to look in the direction where the noise had come from and found myself staring at probably the most serious and collected woman I've ever met in my life (except maybe barring Yukinoshita whenever she wasn't near anything related to cats or Pan-san the Panda) trying to hide the fact that she was giggling like a madman by hiding her mouth with her arm.

Oi, Kawasaki-san… Are you alright? What exactly about that interaction with my mother did you find so funny? You trying to pick a fight with me or something? If so, please wait until we're both back inside the Inverse, then I'll be more than glad to fight you.

"Ah… I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" Kawasaki was eventually able to say, through her giggling. "It's just that… I never thought that I'd see a face like that on you of all people…"

"Oi, I could very well say the same about you, couldn't I?" I shot back flatly, being very much insulted by the disrespect this woman has shown towards my mother's doting of me. The only person that gets to do so is me and me only. Remember that. "Anyways, can we please get back to the training?" I would've shoved my hands into my pockets after I said that, but unfortunately, my hands were currently impeded by the fact the sparring gloves, so I just placed them on my hips. "I thought you said that you only had a limited time with this ring."

"Yeah, yeah, I get you…" she replied, an amused smile still splayed across her features. "Before that, let's talk about what you did wrong there…"

[…Sleep Soundly…]

"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" My mother asked me as I continued to bury the side of my face into the mat, rubbing me in between my shoulders with my hands as she did so.

"I regret coming here so much…" I muttered into aforementioned mat in response. Yes, Kawasaki had put me on the mat once again. This time, however, I at least hadn't gone down in one hit. Me lying on the ground this time was a result of multiple hits stacking up onto each other over a long period of time, which was a much more honorable a defeat than my first.

"Do you need us to go get someone now, Hikigaya?" It was the very person who put me on the mat who asked me that and once again, I responded by pushing myself up off the mat with the knuckles of my gloves and shaking my head.

"I'm alright," I stated as I shifted from my arms and knees to a sitting down, frowning as my sweat-soaked hair completely blanketed the top portion of my face. "Just… I'm starting to think that it's best we stop here."

"You think?" Suddenly, an amused smile popped onto her features as she spoke next, "I'm actually surprised that you made it through all of that." She knelt down so that her eyes were level with mine. "Especially after that first knock you took."

"Yeah, yeah, you hit like a goddamn truck, so don't put that on me," I retorted bitterly as I rubbed my left bicep with my opposing hand, which was aching as if it was in fact run over by a truck.

"HACHIMAN, LANGUAGE!" My mother exclaimed as she slapped me right in the spot she had just finished rubbing. Ow, woman, what the hell?! When'd you turn into Job?! I really don't need two people in my life complaining about my word choices. "You should never speak that way to a lady!"

"I resent that, master," The persona in question stated flatly. "Also, I must agree with your mother. Please watch your language when referring to our lord."

Sigh. Why does everybody in my life seek to change who I am? Why can't they just be satisfied with who I am?

"Ah, it's alright, Hikigaya-san," Kawasaki told my mother, her voice suddenly turning extremely sheepish for some reason. Wait, did you actually take offense to me saying that? Seriously? You've talked to Yukinoshita before and never acted this way. "I don't mind him saying that at all—"

"—Oi, could you stop making it sound like I was trying to insult her there," I cut her off whilst standing myself up. Looking over towards my mother, I crossed my arms over my chest and continued speaking as to elaborate on what I just said, "I'll have you know that I meant what I said to be complementary."

"Huh?" That noise came from where Kawasaki was standing, but I ignored it so I could go on.

"I felt as though the amount of force she put in her punches was an indicator to how seriously she takes training me." The words that were coming out my mouth were being said half because I thought them to be the truth and half because I didn't want to hear my mother do what all mothers did when they felt their child insulted someone and affirm that what I did was a problem, despite Kawasaki herself saying that it wasn't a problem and then have me apologize for it. "Seeing as such dedication is something that I don't see in some, professional teachers these days, I can't help but admire her." I closed my and smirked to myself as I finished my point. "So, in my eyes, me saying that she hit like a truck was really the highest compliment I could give her."

Silence ensued after I finished speaking. Wondering what was going on with the two females around me, I opened my eyes and was immediately met with the sight of my mother staring off to my left with a look of awe.

Blinking and curious as to what she was looking at, I follow my mother's gaze and found Kawasaki staring at me with wide, deer in the headlights-like eyes. Red being prominent on her cheeks.

What? Why are you staring at me like that? Are you the kind of person who can't take a compliment—?

"—I am thou, thou art I…"

Wait, a social link? Now? What the hell is with this timing, Monroe? Are you trying to say something?!

Chapter End.