Chapter 1: Do you remember the day we first met?
I'll spare you all the over-explanation of the premise. It should be obvious quickly enough, but the general gist is that this takes place post-canon, in a future where Obanai and Mitsuri are 'reborn' like they talk about in chapter 200.
I hope you enjoy it!
Obanai couldn't see anything. The entirety of his vision was black, and every time he tried to open his eyes, he was met with a stinging pain across his entire face. In his arms, he felt a slight weight.
"Iguro-san...we won?" a feminine voice asked, her voice weak and barely audible.
Obanai's mouth moved of its own volition. "Yeah, we won. Muzan's dead."
The girl hummed in satisfaction. "That's good."
Silence fell for a moment, and Obanai felt his grip tighten on whatever he was holding. When he felt skin, he realized that he must be holding the girl that had just been talking.
"My body doesn't hurt at all...it looks like I might die soon." The girl's voice didn't have any sadness attached to it, just resignation.
"I'm probably going to die soon, too. You're not alone."
Obanai was beginning to become acutely aware of the fact that his body was losing feeling. Just like the girl had said about herself, he couldn't feel pain anymore. Somehow, he knew that injuries were there, but the pain was slowly fading.
Silence fell between them once again, and Obanai felt his body shake, as if he wanted to cry but couldn't.
The girl cleared her throat and spoke again.
"Do you remember the day we first met?"
Obanai woke up in a cold sweat.
"Gravity is one of the foundations on which all of physics is built. When it comes to the grand scale of the universe, it is as present as Newton's second law is within your introductory mechanics course."
Obanai slumped back in his seat, silently lamenting the fact they had a guest lecturer. Physics was a graduation credit and, despite the fact that he doubted he would ever need to calculate the friction on a ball rolling down the hill when working with reptiles, he was still mandated to take the course. It didn't help that the physics department was constantly bringing in guest lecturers to talk about big, complicated topics in an attempt to draw undecided freshmen into becoming a physics major.
"Gravity does a lot of things, could anyone give me some examples?"
Obanai ducked his head a little, moving his pen as if knee-deep in notes despite the fact that he was just doodling. Luckily, university was different from high school, he could avoid answering any questions in any lecture if he so wished.
Someone a few rows down cleared their throat. "It makes things fall?" They had a touch of uneasiness to their tone, as if they weren't sure of their answer or worried it was a trick question.
Obanai didn't look up from his notebook, but he could practically feel the lecturer's smug grin from across the hall. "That's an effect of gravity, sure, but that's not what gravity actually does. Gravity, in its most basic form, pulls things together."
Obanai only looked up from his desk when he heard the tapping of chalk on a blackboard. Quietly, he turned away from the page he'd been non-sensibly scribbling on and wrote the header 'Stupid ass gravity lecture' and prepared to take notes.
Who knows if this is actually going to be on the exam, he thought.
By the time he'd finished doing that, the lecturer already had a basic drawing up on the board depicting a ball labeled 'Earth' with a little stick figure standing on the surface.
"We are going to skip over the math here, as I want to drive home just the concepts first," he started. "Take a look at this rudimentary illustration. As I said earlier, gravity is a force that pulls things together, and we know through Newton's Third Law that every force must have an equal and opposite reaction."
He drew an arrow going from the stick figure towards the center of the ball, and then one going from the center of the ball towards the stick figure.
"This is why things fall. It's the Earth attracting the ball towards the center, which to us on the surface is always down. Still, gravity is more than that. The stick figure is pulling on the Earth just as much as the earth is pulling on him, it's just that the Earth is so unimaginably heavy that the effects are essentially null. In principle, this is pretty simple, but that small distinction is what makes all the difference."
Obanai reached up with his left hand and moved a lock of hair from his vision as he continued to take notes with his right. He would have blown it from his vision if not for the bandages that covered the entire bottom of his face.
He heard someone mumble a few feet away. "Can we just get to the point?"
The lecturer, of course, didn't hear him, and Obanai wasn't sure if he wanted the man to or not. On one hand, he was sure the resulting argument would've been entertaining, but at the same time, he had an inkling that it would've just resulted in the lecture going over its allotted time.
"Gravity has so many things that we know it does. It holds things on the surfaces of planets as they spin, it is the sole reason that orbits exist, and enough gravity can even cause time to warp. Despite knowing all of this, for every single thing that we know gravity does, there's an infinite number of things that we may not know about, which is the reason it is one of the most researched concepts in the entire field of physics."
He erased the drawing of the stick figure on the ball and replaced it with two, smaller circles. "We know about and can observe gravity's effects on massive objects that are really far apart, but how conceptually different is it for two tiny masses that are incredibly close together? What's to say that gravity behaves the same under those conditions?"
Obanai was starting to lose interest. To someone interested in the subject, what the man at the front of the room was discussing may have been one of the most captivating lectures they'd encountered, but Obanai was far from being that person.
"With our current technology, we have no way to isolate gravity as the sole cause of certain effects when things get too small. When I say 'tiny masses' and 'incredibly close together', I mean things on the scale of the inside of an atom's nucleus. The problem is that, in those scenarios, there's everything from an electric force to just a lack of ability to set up a proper experiment standing in the way."
The lecturer stopped talking for a moment. "Now, I can see a few of you yawning in the back, so maybe I should say this to bring in some of you humanities majors."
Obanai paused in the middle of drawing devil horns on the stick figure from the earlier drawing and looked up.
"There's so much that we don't know about gravity that it could be the underlying cause for almost everything everywhere. There's phenomena that we humans believe in that don't have any logical basis, but that belief has to come from somewhere. Things like the idea of 'fate' or 'soulmates'. Who knows, under everything, those two people could just be gravitationally intertwined, fated to eventually be pulled together."
Obanai furrowed his brow, and for the first time that lecure, he wasn't completely bored out of his mind. He was far from engrossed, but that was the first time a guest lecturer had managed to grab his attention.
"Who knows, sometimes that's needed to cause gravitational collapse is a catalyst to close the distance," the man said with a shrug. Then, he donned a shit-eating grin. "That being said, let's get into the math behind it all."
Students around the entire lecture hall collectively groaned under their breath, including Obanai.
The guest lecturer didn't finish talking until four minutes after class was supposed to be over. It wasn't like he had anywhere to be, physics was his last course on Mondays, but Kaburamaru needed to be fed and he'd prefer to not keep the snake waiting. Hastily, he forced his notebook into his bag and slung it over his shoulder, making his way out of the lecture hall on quick feet.
With one earbud in and his eyes locked on the ground in front of him, it was natural that he didn't notice he was on a collision course until it was too late. With a flash of pink hair and the fluttering of pages accompanied by a resounding bang as books struck the ground, Obanai lost his balance and fell to the floor.
Luckily, he hadn't been carrying anything, but the same couldn't be said about the other person involved. "Sorry," he said immediately, turning around. "I wasn't watching where I was going."
"No, it's fine!" a cheery voice responded. "I'm such a klutz, it was probably my fault." The person he'd collided with was a girl who had the most exotic-looking hair he'd ever seen. It was almost all pink, but faded into a lime green as it went down her back, and it was tied into two identical braids.
Obanai didn't respond, instead opting to hurry over to the crash site and begin picking up what had to be seven or eight textbooks. He couldn't help but think, are all of these hers?
Soon enough, though, the mess was cleaned up and the textbooks were neatly aligned in a pile.
"Sorry again," Obanai said, bowing slightly. "I'll be going now, I've got places to be."
Obanai spun on his heel, walking at a moderately quick pace in the opposite direction. He felt bad for running into the girl, of course, he wouldn't have helped clean up the mess otherwise, but he had no intention of sticking around to make awkward small talk.
"Hey, wait up!"
It seemed the universe had different plans for him.
Even without him slowing down to wait for the girl, she quickly fell into step with him. A quick glance to the side caused him legitimate surprise. Sure, he hadn't taken a good look at her in the first place, but he was shocked to see the entire stack of textbooks they'd cleaned up - what had to be at least thirty kilogrammes worth of paper - was now sitting in her arms, stacked from her waist up to her mid-chest.
"Do you...want some help with those?" he asked, a little uneasy.
"Oh this?" she nodded to the stack. "It's fine, I've got it!"
"You're sure?"
"Mhmm!"
Obanai absentmindedly scratched at his chin, making sure to not damage the bandage lest he have to change it again. As they navigated towards the exit of the building, Obanai started to realize more and more that this girl was the overly-extroverted type, which couldn't clash more with his own personality.
This girl, on the other hand, had mentioned a bunny she saw on the way to campus two times in five minutes. She liked to talk, even if Obanai wasn't talking back, and her train of thought was all over the place. The fact that he had learned all this in the span of the five or so minutes it took them to get out of the building was astounding.
Obanai expected to be free of the girl and released back to his beloved solitude once they left the building.
Of course, it seemed like the universe had different plans for him once again.
"Where are you headed?" came the question.
"I - " Obanai bit back a lie. He could tell her that he had to go wherever the opposite of where she needed to go, but then again she hadn't really done anything wrong, so he had no reason to lie to her. "I'm headed back to my dorm, I'm in Sakura hall."
"Oooooh!" she practically cooed. "Alright, lead the way!"
At this point, Obanai wasn't sure if it was actually where she wanted to go, or if she was just intent on following him around. With a sigh, Obanai headed down the steps that led to the sidewalk, the pink and lime-haired girl trailing next to him.
"What major are you?"
"Herpetology," he said, albeit with a little hesitation. Most people thought reptiles were weird, so telling them that he wanted to study them sometimes put them off, but at this point he was beyond caring. He kicked a rock off to the side of the road.
"That sounds so cool! What is it?"
"It's uhh...the study of reptiles."
"So like, snakes and stuff?"
"Yeah," he breathed out. "Snakes and stuff."
"Cool!" she yelped. "I'm majoring in art."
Obanai just hummed in response, turning to cut through the grassy field that sat in the middle of campus.
Eventually, they made it back to his dorm building. Obanai scanned his school ID and held the door open for the girl, who was still carrying the massive pile of textbooks. How are her arms not tired yet? Even as they climbed the three flights of stairs to the floor that Obanai's dorm was on, she barely seemed to be breaking a sweat.
Resigning to the fact that he wasn't going to be getting rid of the girl any time soon, Obanai went and unlocked his door.
"Can I come in?" she said, standing right outside the doorway.
"Uhh...sure." Obanai took his bag off of his shoulder and tossed it onto his bed.
The girl walked inside and finally set the stack of books down on the corner of Obanai's desk with a huff, and the fact that the act caused the desk to rattle only reinforced his confusion at the girl's ability to so easily shrug off the effort.
She cleared her throat. "You're in a single room?"
"Yes," Obanai said. "They usually don't allow pets in the dorms, but I was a special case so they gave me a single." He'd registered Kaburamaru as an emotional support animal, and when the university officials tried to argue with him, he'd had to fight for the right to bring his snake with him to college. It was kind of hard to just say 'this snake is the closest thing I have to family left'.
"Pets?" the girl immediately perked up, eyes snapping around the room frantically, scanning the ground for some sort of dog or cat.
"He's over here." Obanai walked over to his snake's enclosure, carefully reaching in and grabbing the white snake. The second Obanai pulled him from the warmth of the lamp that he'd been heatbathing under, Kaburamaru started to look around, tongue snapping out every couple seconds.
Obanai expected to turn around, show the girl Kaburamaru, and have her be freaked out and run away so that he could finally be alone again.
For the third time since he'd run into the girl in the hall, it seemed the universe had different plans for him.
"Woah!" the girl's eyes went wide and she scurried across the already cramped room and got way closer than Obanai was expecting. Her nose was practically an inch away from Kaburamaru's own. "He's so cute!"
Cute? Obanai thought. He's a snake, how can he be cute?
"His name is Kaburamaru, do you want to hold him?"
The girl gasped. "Can I?"
A sigh. "I wouldn't have offered otherwise."
Obanai taught her how to properly hold the snake without hurting him and she was practically squealing the whole time. Somehow, he found himself smiling. Maybe it was because nobody had actually shown this level of interest in Kaburamaru before, or maybe it was something else, but nevertheless, this girl who he'd been wishing would leave him alone for the last ten minutes was actually making him smile.
"You're so cute, aren't you, Kaburamaru-kun?" she said, holding the snake up in front of her face. She looked away for the briefest of moments. "He is a boy, right?"
"Yes," Obanai breathed out, "He's a boy."
The girl turned back to the snake and repeated herself. "You're so cute, aren't you, Kaburamaru-kun?"
"Be careful, he's grumpy that I took him out of the heat, so he might get squirmy. Try to not drop him," Obanai warmed
"Got it!" she responded snappily.
The girl held Kaburamaru for a while, then eventually handed him back to Obanai, who put him back in the enclosure and threw in a frozen mouse for him to eat.
"I should get going," the girl said. "My roommate might start wondering where I am."
"Where do you live?" Obanai found himself asking.
"I'm in one of the old dorms."
"Old dorms…" Obanai stopped. "That's all the way across campus! Why did you walk all the way here?"
The girl hummed. "I just felt like it! It was fun talking with you and I'm glad I got to meet your snake, so it all ended up alright, didn't it?"
"I guess but…" Obanai paused, eyes catching on his desk. "Do you want me to help carry those heavy books back to your room?"
"I've got it just fine!" she said, picking up the stack with a surprising amount of ease.
She turned to leave, and Obanai started to shut his door. Before he could, however, he heard the girls' voice call. "Wait!"
Obanai cracked the door back open.
"I forgot to even introduce myself!" she said. "I'm Kanroji Mitsuri!"
Obanai looked up and met Kanrojii's eyes. He had a problem of constantly looking down at his feet, and now that he finally actually gave his classmate a good, real look rather than a skidding glance, he realized something.
She was actually stunningly beautiful. She obviously put a good amount of effort into her appearance and it paid off. He couldn't put a finger on exactly what it was that made her so pretty outside of just saying that everything from her eyes to her hair complimented each other.
"It's nice to meet you," he said slowly. "My name is Iguro Obanai."
"Alright, Iguro-kun!" she said, turning. "I'll see you around campus!"
With that, she left, walking down the hallway.
"See you around…" Obanai said fleetingly, watching her walk away for way longer than he should have.
What a weird girl, he thought, shutting the door. Although I'm not sure if that's 'bad' weird.
He dreamt of a castle that disobeyed the laws of physics, a fortress whose entire existence defied reality. Every wall was a collage of random Japanese architecture, from doors to fragments of walls to windows to floorboards. It wasn't just the makeup of the building that was odd. Staircases went upside down and random protrusions from the wall blocked paths. The entire place looked like a massive M. C. Escher painting.
What's more, everything was constantly moving. Some parts and chunks just slightly fluctuated, like the building itself was breathing, while other, random chunks of doors and walls detached themselves from the surroundings and flung themselves in Obanai's direction. Just as one was about to crush him to death, his body moved on its own, diving out of the way at an almost inhuman speed. He felt himself breathe in and out in a very rhythmic pattern, and the majority of his body was undergoing a soft tingling sensation.
Obanai couldn't move his arms or legs of his own volition. That wasn't to say that his body parts didn't move, because they did, but they moved automatically, as if Obanai was watching a movie play out before his very eyes.
Next thing he knew, his body sprung into action, kicking off the floor to duck and weave around the parts of the very building that were attacking him. In his right hand he felt a weight, and when his vision panned down for a moment, he was able to see a wavy, slithering blade. The more Obanai watched, the more he felt like he was watching the action sequence from some TV show in first person.
Then, he saw it. A woman - no, a monster in the form of a woman. A beast with one massive eye and a pupil that read the kanji for the number four. Her hair went from her head to the wall behind her, creeping across the wood like a spider's web. In her lap sat a Biwa.
"I've found her!" he yelled, voice distinctly his own. "Upper Moon Four!"
He felt his body slow to a stop, eyeing down the demonic figure from across a gap. Behind the woman, the facets of the mysterious building moved like clockwork.
Then, to his side another figure passed by him. She moved almost quicker than his eyes could track, sprinting and jumping across the gap, using the pieces of the building itself to jump off of and rest on to close the distance that would normally be impossible for any human to cross.
"I've got to do my best!" a feminine voice screamed as the figure that passed him a moment before kicked off a wall. As she sailed through the air towards the one-eyed monster, Obanai finally got a good look at who it was. As she wheeled around, a long, flexible sword twirled around her like a ribbon, her pink and green hair falling around her shoulders.
Unmistakably Kanroji Mitsuri.
Obanai jerked awake, sitting bolt-upright in his bed. The cheap dorm bed shook under the sudden movement, lightly hitting the wall with a dull thud. He paused, regaining his breath. His heart was beating way faster than it ought to have been, and he could feel sweat dripping down his forehead and lining his palms.
What the hell, he thought, trying to steady his heartbeat and slow his breathing. As soon as he felt confident that his legs wouldn't give out under him, he stood up and walked across his tiny dorm room to his mini-fridge and grabbed out a bottle of water. Carefully returning to the edge of his bed, he opened it and slowly sipped the cold water and waited for his body to catch up with reality.
His eyes drifted to the soft glow of Kaburamaru's lamp inside his enclosure. The snake currently not under it and was sleeping softly in a dark corner of the case.
I wish I could just crank up the air conditioning to sleep soundly. But alas, he was not cold-blooded. Still too shaken to even consider going back to sleep yet, Obanai's thoughts shifted to his dream.
It wasn't the first time he'd had something like that happen. Actually, nightmares like that one were actually part of the reason that he'd been able to get Kaburamaru approved as an emotional support animal. He had a problem with repeating these extremely vivid dreams of him fighting inhuman monsters, or 'demons' as some people in said dreams called them.
The dreams varied each time, but they were scarily consistent with some aspects. The content of the dream skipped around, but it always stayed consistent with itself; sometimes he was a kid watching a snake-like chimera kill and eat somebody, while sometimes he was a swordsman beheading troves of demons. He wasn't sure what was happening each time, but no matter what, he distinctly remembered what happened in them, even after he woke up.
Obanai downed the last of his water and tossed the bottle towards the trash can, not bothering to pick it up when it bounced off of the already overflowing pile in the corner. One thing was itching at his mind.
Why the hell was Kanroji there?
Not a single nightmare had ever had people he recognized in them. Those present were always people he didn't know, and not once had his family or friends been there. Not a single nightmare until this one.
"Damn it, I just met her today and I'm already dreaming about her?" he muttered, throwing the blanket over himself and laying back down. "What kind of fucking creep am I?"
The next time that Obanai ran into Kanroji was about a week later, and it was in one of the places he least expected to see the girl. It wasn't in a lecture that they shared, nor was it in one of the campus's many shared studying areas. No, instead he found her at the recreation center.
Obanai liked to keep to himself, but he wasn't lazy. He exercised regularly to at least stay in shape, even if he lacked even the slightest of interest in joining any of the university's sports teams or clubs. So, when he climbed the staircase to the upper level of the recreation center where the general workout section was, he was surprised to see a small crowd gathered in the center of the room.
Not my problem, he thought, putting in one earbud and making a beeline for the nearest open treadmill. Of course, he wasn't so lucky.
"Iguro-kun!" a distinctively female voice called. The boy froze, slowly looking over his shoulder towards where the crowd had gathered. From the inside of the circle, Kanroji Mitsuri re-racked a bar that had to be holding at least 100 kilogrammes and got up from the bench press station. The crowd cleared as she pushed through, seemingly oblivious to the looks of shock as she passed. Behind her, one of the bystanders walked over to the bar, checking the weighting with a shocked expression.
"I didn't expect to see you here, Iguro-kun!" she said, stopping in front of him. He looked away from the group as it began to disperse, instead focusing his attention on the girl in front of him. The first thing he noticed wasn't the clothes she was wearing, nor was it how her hair was done up in a ponytail (although, he'd be the first to admit that he did note that pretty quickly). No, the first thing he noticed was her arms and legs.
When Kanroji had visited his dorm room the week before, she'd been wearing a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, two pieces of clothing that didn't lend themselves to show off a person's form. Now, however, she was wearing shorts and a workout shirt, so he was able to see her clearly defined muscles and almost complete lack of fat. The size and definition of her biceps at rest surpassed Obanai's own even when he was flexing as much as he could.
"Kanroji-san…" he responded slowly, tearing his eyes away from her body so as to not make it seem like he was staring. "I wasn't expecting to see you here, either."
"How often do you exercise?" she said, walking past him and grabbing a large water bottle that matched the color of her hair.
"I try to go every day." He reached into his pocket as he talked, pausing his music. If their last talk was anything to go by, he had a feeling he wouldn't be free from conversation any time soon.
She hummed. "I don't usually see you! You should've told me, we could've been workout buddies!"
"Sorry," he said. "I usually go earlier, which is why you probably haven't seen me before. I had to feed Kaburamaru today, so it took me a little longer to get here."
"Oh! Kaburamaru is your snake, right?" she said, bouncing a little on her toes. Obanai stopped himself from instinctively looking around to see if anyone was giving him odd looks, considering how loudly Kanroji proclaimed that he had a snake.
"Yes, Kaburamaru is the snake," he sighed.
"Can I come see him sometime?" Kanroji didn't need to give him puppy dog eyes to get him to say yes, but she did anyway.
"If I'm around, sure. Just knock on my door."
"Yes!" she yelled as if she'd just won a level in a video game. She looked like she was going to say something more, but was stopped when her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket, then let out a dramatic gasp.
"I'm going to be late to Kendo practice! Sorry, Iguro-kun, I've gotta go!" Without even waiting for a response from him, she took off, waving to him as she jogged down the stairs. "Say hi to Kaburamaru for me!"
Sure, I'll say hi to my snake who probably can't understand what I'm saying for you, he thought sarcastically, reaching back into his pocket and turning back his music. The more he was around Kanroji, the more he learned about her, it seemed. With a sigh, he pushed her from the back of his mind and headed for the nearest free treadmill.
Obanai stepped off the machine about an hour later, total distance clocking in at just over ten kilometers. He grabbed one of the complimentary towels and wiped away the sweat from his forehead with a sigh, letting his arms drop to his sides. He took a drink from his water bottle and did a slow lap around the upper level of the rec center to cool down.
Just before he headed for the stairs to leave the building, something caught his eye. Right up against the railing where he'd talked with Kanroji, a tall pink and green water bottle sat on the ground.
I could just leave it, part of his mind contemplated. Then, with a sigh, he ignored the voice in the back of his head and walked over, picking up the brightly colored bottle. I can't believe I'm doing this.
"Excuse me," he said, walking up to the main reception desk for the building. "Do you know where the Kendo club practices?"
The person behind the desk didn't even look up from his book. "Room 304."
Obanai nodded and walked away, turning around to head back to the staircase. He only needed to go up one more flight of stairs to get to the third floor, but the thought of even that made his legs wobble.
Why am I even doing this? He asked himself as he started up the staircase.
Luckily, he didn't have to go searching around to find the right room. He peeked through the window for a moment just to check that he had the right place, and sure enough, on the inside he saw at least a few people holding wooden swords.
With a heavy breath in, he pulled on the handle, opened the door, and was met by an almost deafening sound of wood cracking against wood repeatedly. Instinctively, he flinched, stopping in the doorway.
The room was just one big, open space with shiny hardwood floors. About half of the people lined the edges of the room, backed up against the wall as they watched the other half on the floor of the dojo fight.
"Hey, are you new, guy?" a voice said to Obanai's right.
He turned, glancing at the girl who'd been closest to the door. "No, sorry, just here to drop something off."
"Damn," she said, voice dropping to a mutter. "We need more members…"
Obanai's eyes scanned the room and it didn't take very long to find his target. Almost exactly in the middle of the room, he found Kanroji, currently in the middle of a fight.
I guess I'll just watch until she's done, he thought, stepping out of the doorway and leaning up against the wall just inside the room, turning his eyes to watch the goings on.
He was almost immediately blown away by watching Kanroji fight. The wooden sword in her hand seemed like an extension of her arm and she swung it with enough speed and force that his eyes could barely track it. Every time it collided with her opponent's sword, an explosive crack resounded throughout the entire dojo.
It wasn't just the way she used the sword, but also the way that she moved, as well. Watching Kanroji was like watching a professional dancer. She ducked and weaved around her opponent's attacks, seemingly favoring dodging over blocking. Her flexibility was insane, bending over backwards to cause swings to miss or just straight up doing a backflip to dodge a low blow, combining it with an uppercut.
"She's good, right?" the girl who had let Obanai in drew his attention away from the fight. "Kanroji-san's the best in the club, practically one of the only reasons that we ever win tournaments."
"She's insane," Obanai said truthfully, "I mean, I knew she was athletic, but this is crazy."
The girl hummed and nodded in response. "Funnily enough, coaches at other schools hate her because she doesn't use any established sword style. They complain about it being 'disrespectful to thousand year old techniques'. It's kinda funny, actually."
Crack!
An explosion of noise reverberated throughout the room as Kanroji brought up her sword and blocked an attack. Obanai slumped up against the wall behind him. "It doesn't even look like she's using a sword."
"Yeah," the girl said, "Next time you get a chance, ask her to tell you how she came up with the style."
Obanai frowned, although he was sure the girl wouldn't be able to tell through the bandages. She must think we're better friends than we actually are.
"Actually I -"
Obanai was interrupted by the loudest noise so far. Turning his attention back to the fight, Obanai watched as Kanroji's opponent's wooden sword clattered to the ground, seemingly blown out of their hands by the force of Kanroji's attack.
"Mitsuri-san!" Obanai's conversation partner called, "You've got a visitor!"
Kanroji turned and started to jog towards where Obanai was standing. About halfway there, her face lit up and she sped up. "Iguro-kun!"
Obanai straightened his shoulders as she walked over, grip tightening on the bottle in his hand. "You forgot your water bottle in the workout area, so I figured I'd bring it to you."
Kanroji gasped and smiled. "Thanks! I'm parched, so it would've been unfortunate if I had to steal more of Ozaki-chan's water." As she spoke, she reached over and grabbed her overly-colorful bottle from Obanai's hand.
"You and I both know you wouldn't have even asked me if you could have some," the girl Obanai had been talking to, Ozaki, said. Kanroji just replied by smiling at her friend and winking, before tipping her head back and gulping down some water from her bottle.
"So, Iguro-kun," Kanroji said between gulps. "Do you want to join the Kendo club?"
Obanai, who had been waiting for a way to eject himself from the conversation to leave, stopped for a moment, staring Kanroji in the eyes. All he managed was a drawn out "Uhhh…"
Like a predator finding a weak spot in its prey, Kanroji jumped, eyes lighting up. "C'mon, it's loads of fun! Practice is only twice a week!"
"That's not why I wouldn't - "
"Plus, we need more members so we can convince the rec center to give us more room so everybody can practice at once instead of taking turns!" as if to emphasize her point, a whistle resounded throughout the room and the people in the center walked towards the edges, handing off their wooden practice swords to other people as they passed.
I absolutely have no intention of joining this club. Obanai told himself.
Ozaki cleared her throat. "Mitsuri-san, you don't need to pressure him."
My savior, Obanai thought for the briefest of moments.
"It's not pressuring him if he already feels like joining, right?" she turned back to Obanai, "You're totally interested, aren't you?"
I'm not really that interested, he thought. "I - I don't know if I -"
"It'll be really fun!" Kanroji said, "I promise, you'll have lots of fun!" She bounced on the tips of her toes, getting significantly closer than Obanai expected her to, and it wasn't like he could back up because he already had his back up against the wall.
Then, she smiled. A big, happy, pure smile backed up by the most pleading look he'd ever seen, including puppy dog eyes. Obanai felt his heart speed up, and his lips moved before his mind could stop them.
"Fine, I'll join."
If it were possible, Kanroji's face would have lit up even more. She jumped forward with what had to be a screech of victory, and threw her arms around Obanai, enveloping him in a quick hug before breaking away, leaving Obanai stunned silent.
"We're almost done for today, so we can just have you start next time," Kanroji said, turning to Ozaki. "I need to go tell the coach that we've got a new member!" And with that, Kanroji pranced off, a noticeable skip to her step.
After Kanroji left, Ozaki just met Obanai's gaze, smirked, then walked off, leaving Obanai still frozen next to the door.
What did I just get myself into? he thought, trying to force his heart to stop beating so quickly. Of course, it didn't work, and by the time Kanroji came back and asked if he wanted to go to the campus cafeteria to get dinner, all he could do was nod and follow.
And that was how Iguro Obanai joined the Kendo club.
To those of you that are reading this and know about my other fic: yes, the next chapter is in the works. I know that it hasn't been updated in 2 months now, I've just had some writers block regarding it. It should be up soon enough, though, since I've been getting some work on it done. I was able to pump out this first chapter after reading chapter 200 because I was inspired by that scene. Anyways, see you soon!