Chapter 3 is up. Enjoy!

I woke up in my bed with my parents, my kendo sensei, and Yumi at my side.

"Are you okay?" my mom asked. "You know you were very lucky to have that helmet or else you would have been in a coma or worse!"

"I'm fine," I groaned.

"Good going, son! I heard how you won!" My dad exclaimed proudly.

My mom scolded, "Honey! That should be the least of your worries!"

"What time is it?" I rasped.

"About 6:30," the kendo sensei replied.

"Ha! Only thirty minutes," I joked. "That weakling couldn't put me in a coma even if he had an iron bat!"

Yumi, who had kept silent for a long time, finally replied through clenched teeth, "That jerk! I'll teach him a lesson!"

"No need to do that, Yumi. I'm having Shizuma go through disciplinary training for a week." The kendo sensei informed her.

"A week? Wouldn't that be more bad than good?" I asked.

"Bad?!" my mom exclaimed. "For a destructive individual such as him, discipline is necessary!"

"Either way, I'm going to chew him out at school tomorrow!" Yumi stated.

I smiled.

[Yumi really is a great friend, but I got to stop her from doing something as stupid as trying to scold a junior who's two years older than her.]

"Alright, I'm okay now. You can leave. I have homework to do. The English teacher told us to write an essay about our summer."

"Okay, you heard him. He has stuff to do. Shoo!" my mom said as she herded them out of the room. She was being the typical do-anything-for-him-to-make- him-feel-better mom.

After taking a moment to recollect on the days events, I fingered the tender spot near my temple and got up to work on my assignment.

Beep Beep Be-

I got the alarm clock by the third beep and jumped out of bed to wake myself up in the shower.

I had dressed myself and was eating breakfast when the doorbell rang.

[Please don't let it be...]

"Hideki-chan!"

[...her.]

"Hurry or we'll be late for school."

"I'm leaving for school," I told my parents as I picked up my school bag.

"Study well," my parents said as I walked out the gate. I started my journey to school with Yumi prancing around me.

The school day went at a rather slow pace. English was uptight again with the same strict teacher. We had another question-and-answer period during our P.E. and science class. Right before lunch we had the same grandpa talk about his good old days. Lunch came along and that's when the day got complicated.

"Where's Yumi?" I wondered out loud as lunch progressed. "I want my lunch!"

I was fingering the table when Yumi finally stepped back into our classroom. For some reason, she seemed a little shaken.

"Where were you? I was getting hungry, you know."

Suddenly, before Yumi had a chance to answer, a girl ran up to her and asked, "Are you okay?"

Yumi slowly nodded her head.

Out of curiosity I asked, "Why? What happened?"

"Didn't you hear? Shizuma slapped her for scolding him."

After finally registering what I had heard, I felt a sudden rush of blood to my head.

"He what?!"

The classroom suddenly got quiet.

"Where is he," I hissed through gritted teeth.

After a moment of silence, a guy answered, "Second floor, down the hall to the right."

As I rose, the whole freshman class rose with me.

I looked over to see how Yumi was doing. She was seated and close to tears.

[That jerk! I'd like to rip his guts out! What's he doing hitting girls?! But this isn't right. What am I going do? It's not like I can hit a junior.]

But by this time, I was in the hallway. When I turned around to get back in my seat, I saw the excited faces of the whole freshman class. Talk about peer pressure. So I trudged down the stairs. When I got to the doorway, I didn't wait for the culprit to notice me.

"Shizuma!" I shouted. My voice rang with a lot more courage than what I was actually feeling.

"If it isn't the momma's boy!" Shizuma snickered.

An uneasy laugh wavered throughout the classroom as Shizuma walked over to stand a foot of so in front of me. This was when I realized that Shizuma was about 15 cm taller than I was. I was just barely over 165 cm(5'5"), but I could tell he could make it into the 180's(5'11") easily.

Feeling intimidated I yelled, "You weakling! You have to sink so low as to hit a girl? You're no guy, you're just a punk with fists."

A round of oo's and ah's went traveled around the classroom before Shizuma retaliated, "These fists are going to pummel you if you don't apologize right now!"

"Like I'd apologize to a weakling like you!"

"Alright! You asked for it!"

The mob that had just been speculating suddenly formed a tight ring around us. Just on the outside of the circle I saw Yumi pleading for the both of us to stop. When I finally focused back at Shizuma, I saw that he was ready to pounce. I jumped out of the way as he went streaming past me. For five minutes, I just kept evading his attacks. Then, on his next pass, I gave him an extra shove that sent him sprawling. The crowd laughed while Shizuma got angrier. He jumped up and lunged at me again. This time, I had lost some of my footing and was forced to duck. To help regain my balance, I groped for the only object in front of me: Shizuma's pants. Shizuma was now facing the freshman and junior class of Seki High School in his underpants. Beet red with embarrassment, he yanked his pants up in front of the now hysterical group of people.

One of my classmates shouted, "Come on Hideki! Throw a punch!"

"But I don't know how!"

All of a sudden, I heard Yumi's voice over the crowd.

"Hideki!"

"Huh?"

When I turned around, I saw Shizuma's fist coming straight for nose. I didn't have the chance to react.

POW

I skidded across the tiles as the crowd gasped.

I hopped back up and shook my head a couple of times. Thinking that he could get me again, Shizuma charged with his fist poised to strike a second time. This time I was ready. Just as he was about to swing, I ducked and head butted him in the stomach. I had to sit down to ease the dizzy spell that hit me right afterwards. A few seconds later, I looked over to see Shizuma hunched over gasping for air.

The bell rung and nearly all the students had disappeared except some of the girl who had been shaken up a little too much. I was sure that Yumi was one of them. Sure enough, Yumi was kneeled over in the corner staring into space. Her facial expression scared me. It was the kind of face you had when you were guilty of a serious crime.

"Yumi?"

All of a sudden, her eyes snapped into focus.

"Your nose!" She squealed.

At that very moment, I tasted the blood that was trickling down from my nose.

"Uh oh... Yumi, get to class. I'll be right over."

"No! Let me help!"

"Come on, Yumi. Be reasonable. We'll be in a lot more trouble if we both come late for class. Okay? Get to class."

After a brief moment of hesitation, Yumi dashed down the hallway back to class. I headed in the opposite direction to the restrooms. I washed the blood off my face and plugged my nose with some toilet paper. After deciding my appearance didn't show I had been fighting too much, I dashed back to the classroom.

When I stepped in the class the teacher was still not in. With a sigh of relief, I sat down in my chair.

"You sure your okay, Yu..."

[Uh oh!]

Right there, sitting where Yumi should have been, was Amuro-sensei.

"Now, where were we off to?"

As I opened my mouth to reply, the girl at my left stated, "He was fighting with Shizuma-sempai because Shizuma-sempai slapped Yumi."

[Busted]

"Oh really? It seems that you have extra energy to spend. I won't send you to the principal, but your going to have to stay later than the rest of the class to mop the floor. Maybe that should keep you occupied enough to stop you from attacking a fellow student."

"Yes, Amuro-sensei."

Yumi finally came back to her seat. She had been standing in the back as Amuro-sensei had requested. I stared at my feet feeling very embarrassed. I had never done anything so drastic before. Needless to say, the rest of the day lasted an eternity before I could finally go home.

Told you there'd be another fight scene. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe I'll start getting more reviews. See you guys next chapter!