Disclaimer: I don't own Infinite Stratos in any sense.

Discord: A3dTszc

(See A/N at the top of Chapter 1 for context)

It felt like he was at a zoo, inside one of the animal enclosures. Everyone was staring at him openly. Staring, pointing, and whispering behind his back. It was annoying. And by annoying, he meant that he wanted to personally murder them all with his bare hands for doing it.

Closing his eyes, Ichika tried to blot it all out and focus on more important things. Like some of the new changes to his plan that he still needed to make because of the stupid government and their stupid ultimatum.

"Can we talk for a minute?" Someone asked him.

Ichika opened his eyes and looked up at the person addressing him.

It was Houki.

He had noticed her earlier, but due to the way that she had been avoiding eye contact with him, he had figured that she didn't like him very much for some reason. It had been a long time after all. Something like 6 years since they had last spoken to each other. Both of them had changed a lot in that time, and Ichika wasn't sure if they were still friends anymore.

So why was she speaking to him now?

He stared up at her with his typical blank expression for a few moments, before responding.

"Sure. Lead the way."

Neither of them spoke a word to each other until they were standing on the roof. Since she had been the one to call him up there though, Ichika figured that he should let her be the one to kick things off.

Looking at her, he had no idea what was going through her head. She was refusing to make any eye contact, her face was red, and she looked like she was trying to get whatever she wanted to say out, but couldn't seem to convince herself to.

But it was alright, Ichika supposed. The roof was a quiet place and he didn't have to worry about everyone staring at him up there. He looked up to the sky and closed his eyes. He was a pretty patient guy, and could easily wait for whatever it was that Houki had to say.

"So that was an… interesting introduction you gave back there," Houki began, hesitantly.

Ichika grinned slightly. He had been very proud of that.

"Yeah it was," he shamelessly agreed.

"I didn't think you were the type of person to do something like that."

"Oh, it was just a little bit of fun. This generation could really use a little more sarcasm in their lives."

"Sarcasm, huh? You've changed a lot since I last saw you."

"Yeah, I guess. People do change, after all."

There was a moment of silence after that. They weren't quite used to each other's presence yet, so the conversation was still awkward and stilted.

"So I heard that you became the Kendo Champion," Ichika said. "Welcome to the club. How's it feel?"

"W-where did you hear about that?!"

"It was in the newspaper."

"And why were you reading that newspaper?"

"Uh… I don't know how to really answer that. Because it's the news, I guess? Lots of people do that."

Houki had a nervous and embarrassed expression on her face after that. She probably hadn't meant to ask a stupid question like that. It had probably just... come out before she could stop it.

"So, it's been a while, huh? What have you been up to for the last 6―" Ichika was interrupted by a ringing sound.

It was his phone.

"Huh?"

Ichika pulled out his phone and looked at the caller ID.

"Tch," He clicked his tongue in irritation before very clearly pressing the ignore button and putting his phone away.

It was an annoying person to talk to. But he was also a customer, so Ichika sort of had to.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Houki asked.

"Nah. I'm in the middle of a conversation with a friend. They can wait."

Ichika would call the guy back later and claim his phone had been dead or something.

Houki blushed and started nervously playing with her hair.

"Oh. I see. I guess we are still friends then, aren't we?"

"Of course," Ichika confirmed. "Unless you don't want to be."

"Of course not!" She vehemently denied, before her voice suddenly got much softer. "I just wanted to be sure."

Houki let out a relieved sigh.

Then they were interrupted by the bell. Break time was over and it was time to go back to class.

"Guess we should get back then, huh?" Ichika said.

"Yeah. I guess we should."

"Well it was great seeing you again Houki. I'll talk to you later, yeah?"

"Y-yeah."

Ichika discretely glanced around the classroom.

Ms. Yamada was in the middle of teaching, and all of his classmates were paying attention to her.

He could probably get away with what he was about to do.

Just in case though, he intended to disguise the action as much as he could. His sister was in the room, after all. So he didn't want to do anything that looked too suspicious.

He had kept what he could do a secret from her all this time. And he wasn't about to give it away now, so easily.

Ichika casually picked up his textbook and then in a carefully choreographed motion, placed one hand on his cheek with his elbow propped up on his newly replaced desk, adopted a normal expression that wouldn't look suspicious, and flipped through all the pages in his textbook in less than 5 seconds.

For all anyone else could tell, he had just been a curious student quickly skimming through the textbook to see how many pages it had.

He had been holding up all the pages in a coiled manner, and using his thumb, allowed them to escape his grasp one at a time, with gravity doing most of the work in leafing through them all.

It had looked totally natural, and nobody, not even his sister, saw the action as suspicious.

If someone had really been paying attention however, they would have noticed one particular oddity.

His eyes had been closed throughout the process. That had been the only slightly suspicious part about what he had just done. But since nobody saw that particular detail, Ichika managed to get away with doing what he just had.

Something truly amazing had happened in that moment. Something that bordered on the supernatural. And it was without a doubt, Ichika's greatest secret.

Ichika had a special ability. One that he had accidentally stumbled upon when he was 6 years old. An eye based ability that he could turn on and off at will.

He had no idea why he had it. Nothing concrete anyway. He had some theories… but nothing confirmed.

He knew how he had 'unlocked' it though. If that's even the right word. The sequence of events that had triggered the ability for the first time. But other than that, he was pretty lacking in the information department.

But he certainly had learned how to use them. And with this power he had secretly mastered over the last decade, every last word in the entire textbook had been burned into his brain during those 5 seconds he spent flipping through the pages. The book was now useless to him. Every last piece of useful information that could be gleaned from its pages, had been.

With nothing more to gain, Ichika reached into his mind again and mentally pressed the off switch behind his eyes. The phenomenal power within them dissipated immediately.

Ichika let out a sigh of relief.

Now all that was left was the kickback.

Ichika held back a wince as a splitting migraine went through him a moment later.

It lasted nearly two minutes. Two minutes of sheer agony in which it felt like his skull was being squeezed in a hydraulic press.

But then it was over.

After recovering from the aftershock, Ichika glanced around the room while he mentally reviewed the new information in his head.

His teacher was still teaching, and nobody had noticed what he had just done.

Reaching up with his hand, Ichika surreptitiously wiped the small stream of blood that he felt leaking out of his nose, and the small amount coming out of his eyes.

Needless to say, it was a very practiced motion.

He had been using this ability of his on a daily basis for almost 10 years now. And he had no intentions of stopping any time soon.

His eyes were pretty much the sole reason why he had been able to accomplish so much at such a young age. He could learn almost anything he saw with them, instantly. And since he used them so often, he was very used to managing the painful side effects without anyone else noticing.

Ichika spent the rest of the class ignoring the teacher, since she was just reviewing the information he had just learned.

"May I have a moment?"

Ichika's eyes snapped open as a new voice interrupted his thoughts.

For a moment, he felt a very sharp feeling of rage go through him at the interruption of his thoughts.

Nothing unusual. Just his violent urges commanding him to beat the shit out of whoever it was. He had felt like this thousands of times before. And he was so used to feeling these extreme bouts of rage, that there wasn't even a hint of any of his inner thoughts on his face.

He stared at the person with a bored gaze.

"Hm?"

She looked terribly offended at his lackluster response.

Ichika wanted to punch her square in the face after seeing her expression.

He could already tell that this was one of those prissy princess types, and that this would be an annoying conversation. He even had some idea on what she was going to say next.

"What sort of a response is that?! You should be honoured that I bothered speaking to you in the first place. Don't you think you should behave in a more―"

Ichika didn't hear the rest, as he was now out of earshot.

He had simply walked out of the room. During her spiel, she had closed her eyes in an attempt to strike some sort of condescending pose. Since her eyes had been closed however, Ichika had taken the opportunity to get up and leave since she hadn't been paying attention.

In his experience, it was best to simply not engage with people like that.

She'd probably be absolutely furious with him when she realized he was gone, and as a result, was speaking to thin air, but Ichika had spoken to people like that before. And from his experience with them, there was pretty much nothing he could ever do to make them change their opinions. So it was better to simply not even try.

It was break time anyway. So he didn't want to spend his free time listening to that random lady's bullshit.

He had some phone calls to make anyway.

Businesses didn't just run themselves, after all.

Ichika figured he'd give it one shot.

Whoever's bright idea it had been to get him to live at an all girls school should definitely be fired. Going there was one thing, but actually having to live there...

Especially since he was supposed to have a roommate. Doing the math, this meant that his roommate would be a woman.

But still, he figured he'd give it one single shot. If his roommate ended up being laidback, and a decent person, maybe he'd actually agree with it. If not, he'd walk out of the school. Rules be damned. He'd just commute then. Or get a nearby hotel room to stay at or something.

It's not like he was strapped for cash or anything. And even though it was technically against school rules to do so, he had a team of world class lawyers a phone call away. If he started throwing some weight around, he would get his way.

Room 1025.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

'Huh. Nice place.'

No roommate though.

For a moment, he saw this as a good sign. Maybe someone up top actually had some common sense and had given him his own room after all. That'd be nice.

His hopes dropped like a stone a moment later when he heard a voice coming from the bathroom.

"Is someone out there?"

Ichika's eyes were very powerful tools. They had completely optimized the way his mind operated in everyday situations. So in a single instant, he had managed to deduce a huge amount of information with their abilities. Not only did he recognize the exact tone that the voice was speaking in, allowing him to identify who it was, but he was reasonably sure about how the next few moments would play out.

He had blinked exactly one time upon hearing the voice. In that instant, he had flashed his eye ability. With it, the computation power of his mind had gone up several orders of magnitude.

He had long since mastered the ability of echolocation. The ability to translate the sounds around him into a 3d model of his surroundings. But with the power of his eyes, he could dial this up to an insane degree.

A complete 3d model of the entire interior of the room had been downloaded into his head, including the wireframe structure of the interior of the bathroom, a place he shouldn't be able to even see because of the fact that the door to it was both closed and locked, and he wasn't even facing in that direction.

And he could also see both the current position and state of the occupant.

At least, he could see the 3d geometry. But the colours, and textures couldn't be picked up with this technique. So even though he knew Houki was currently wrapping herself in a towel, and was naked underneath it, he couldn't actually see anything inappropriate with this ability. So he hardly saw it as peeping.

The surface of her skin appeared fuzzy and unfocused with this technique, so he couldn't see any details. It was as if he could see her silhouette, but in 3d. So he could make an educated guess on what she was doing at the moment, but couldn't actually see anything he shouldn't.

All based off the tiny variations in the air currents in the room that his eyes allowed him to see, and his incredibly advanced echolocation ability.

Based on this, and the speed of his friend and apparent roommate Houki, as she approached the bathroom door from the inside, he was able to instantly calculate that he would not be able to leave the room before she left the bathroom.

He probably could do it if he leapt into action and immediately sprinted out the door, but he wouldn't be able to do so silently. Houki would suddenly hear a flurry of rustling, and it would be super suspicious.

Besides, this was his room too. He wasn't going to run out the door. Even if she was careless enough to come out of the bathroom wearing only a towel.

So instead, he'd simply prepare himself for what he knew she would do.

She wasn't a very rational person, all things considered. Logic just didn't seem to get along with her very well. Particularly when she felt vulnerable. So she'd probably fly off the handle and attack him because that's what she always did in situations like these.

But there was a pair of wooden practice swords in front of him. He'd simply pick one of them up and disarm her with it when she inevitably tried to attack him with the other one.

And then just to give her as much privacy as possible, he wouldn't turn in her direction at all. He had no intentions of peeping on her, even though everything that was about to happen was going to be almost entirely her fault.

So with a slightly irritated sigh, Ichika accepted the events that were about to occur, and his eyes began attempting to predict exactly how Houki would attack him.

"Oh hey. You must be my roommate. I look forward to having your company this year. Sorry for meeting you like this but I just got out of the shower."

"My name is Houki Shinonono."

She immediately froze in place, as expected.

Even though Ichika wasn't facing her at all, and was instead looking out the window, he could still tell what she was doing.

There was an annoying, prolonged, awkward silence.

"I-Ichika?"

Ichika, being who he was, decided that he didn't like awkward silences and would try to break it. Maybe give Houki the opportunity to gather at least some of her dignity again.

"Do you make it a habit of meeting other people without any clothes on?" Ichika asked. "Even if I had been a girl, that's pretty weird, isn't it? You should probably turn back around and go change while I still have my back turned."

"W-what the hell are you doing in here?! Get out!"

The confrontational side of him was now riled up and ready to go.

"No thanks," Ichika denied. "This is my room. I think I'll stay here."

"Your room?! This is my room!"

"Well then do the math. Clearly someone up top thought it'd be a good idea to make us roommates."

Houki let out a crazy, furious shout as she leapt towards one of her swords.

Ichika sighed.

Things could just never be easy with her. But at least she was predictable in her irrationality. While he still had the opportunity, Ichika calmly picked up the other sword. Since Houki was leaping in front of him, if he didn't pick one up now, she would block his access to it.

Houki picked up her sword, still in her towel, and charged him head on.

Ichika closed his eyes.

He hadn't seen Houki in a few years now, and so he was not sure about just how much she had improved since then. So he intended to use his special eyes just in case she had somehow surpassed his base level of skill during that time.

It was definitely cheating, using such an overpowered ability on someone wearing nothing but a towel, but he had never lost to Houki before, and didn't intend to start now.

Houki swung at him with her sword, and then time slowed to a halt as Ichika's eyes did their job.

They painted an exact, perfect picture about how to counter Houki's move as minimalistically, and efficiently as possible. All behind his closed eyelids.

If Ichika had used his special ability while his eyelids were open, a very noticeable flash of light would have appeared in his irises. So to hide this light from others, he only used them in public whenever he closed them. That would stop the light from being visible, but would not hinder his vision significantly as he could easily see through his own closed eyelids.

Processing the information given to him by his eyes, he noticed two things. The first was that this was indeed overkill. He could have beaten her without his eyes. But since he was already using them, he continued to do so. The second thing he noticed was that there was a single window, about a millimeter in width, that if he struck it, would cause Houki's sword to bounce right out of her hand.

That was simply how the trajectories worked out. Houki's hand was still slightly slippery from stepping out of the shower. And she hadn't quite grasped the handle of her sword as well as she could have. Which left her vulnerable to a counterattack.

Realistically, almost nobody in the entire world had the precision required to perform such a maneuver. The timing was too precise. The window, too narrow. Like balancing a single sheet of paper on it's edge and having it not tip over.

But Ichika, with the power of his eyes behind him, was definitely able to pull it off.

Houki, however, would probably never grasp just how precise this strike was going to be.

Ichika almost grinned as he took the opening.

It was terrifyingly precise.

Even though it had looked like a completely uncoordinated, random swing, the precision behind it had been otherworldly.

Clack!

And exactly as his eyes had predicted, Houki's sword went flying across the room, out of her reach. Then he placed the tip of his sword on her collarbone.

Houki gasped, and there was an intense moment of silence.

"Still full of openings I see? Nice to see nothing's changed," Ichika said.

"Wha―? How did you―?"

Houki looked back in the direction of where her practice sword had flown in astonishment. Then she looked at her now empty hand in disbelief.

For someone of her skill level to be totally disarmed in one move was a ridiculous notion. But it had happened.

"How the hell did you do that?!"

Ichika had been prepared for the question and answered it immediately.

"Lucky strike."

He knew that Houki absolutely hated it when he gave her that answer. He used to give it to her all the time when they were kids whenever he beat her. And she absolutely hated it because of the fact that he got 'lucky' a lot. In fact, he got a 'lucky' victory in every single match they had ever had together. All 200+ of them.

She had never won against him. Not ever. And Houki had to know by now that his 'lucky strikes' were just bullshit excuses to avoid answering her questions. She'd have to be braindead to not know this by now.

But it didn't matter. Houki hated that answer, Ichika knew it, and that was why he gave it to her now. He was still a little annoyed with her for attacking him, and feeling more than a little vindictive. So a good, solid dig like that was something he just couldn't say no to.

As expected, Houki immediately recognized the infuriatingly familiar response and glared daggers at him for giving it to her yet again. Six years was not long enough for her to have forgotten.

She hadn't liked it one bit.

'Good,' Ichika thought. 'Take that, Houki.'

Despite Houki's glare, she didn't actually reply. She must have known that nothing she could say at the moment would help. She knew that she couldn't win an argument on this matter when Ichika chose to dig in his heels and start to give her the run around. He was stubborn when he wanted to be. And Houki knew this more than anyone.

They had gone through this routine hundreds of times.

Houki's only winning move was to not play. And they both knew it.

"So then," Ichika broke the silence after his attempt to bait Houki into a pointless, though highly entertaining argument had failed.

"So then…?" She repeated, confused.

"Are you planning to get dressed any time soon, or are you seriously just that determined to get me to see you naked?" Ichika asked simply, as if he were inquiring about the weather.

Houki's whole face lit up a brilliant shade of red. It got so bad that it reached her scalp.

"D-don't look! Turn around!"

Ichika pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. A mannerism he had picked up from his sister.

"Fine, whatever. I'm going to take a walk."

Then he left the room.

An awkward silence filled the air.

Houki was thankfully wearing actual clothes this time, so that was a step up from before.

The two of them were sitting down on their respective beds facing each other. Neither had said a word since Ichika had come back.

Eventually, however, Houki had had enough of the silence.

"You requested this room, didn't you?!" she accused.

Ichika was about to object, and attempt to explain to her how baseless that accusation was... but then he remembered that this was Houki. He wouldn't make any headway if he tried to do that. Making an attempt at logically explaining something to her would be pointless.

Instead, in his experience, the only way to win with her was to frustrate the hell out of her until she just gave up. The best way to do that? The tried and true method of digging in his heels, denying everything she said, and then accusing her of doing the very things that she accused him of. Lie to her face openly and blatantly, and derail the conversation as much as humanly possible.

"What are you talking about?" Ichika replied. "This is my room. Clearly, you're the one who requested to be here."

Houki glared at him immediately.

"How could you possibly think that?!" She shouted.

Ichika ignored how hypocritical that response was, and continued on.

"I was here first," Ichika lied overtly.

"What the hell?!" Houki objected. "No you weren't! I was here way before you! You even saw me walk out of the bathroom!"

"I saw you walk into the room after I arrived." Ichika said. "That makes you the intruder no matter how you look at it."

Houki's jaw dropped at the ridiculous claim.

Then she stood up, and adopted an 'I'm gonna skin you alive with my bare hands,' expression.

Her bangs shadowed her face.

Ichika raised an eyebrow as he waited for her next retort.

Houki's fists clenched.

But after a few moments... she didn't say anything more.

'Is she actually learning?' Ichika asked himself.

This was interesting. After the hundreds of arguments they had had in the past, it looked like she was finally learning something. Try to fuck around and piss him off, and Ichika will fuck you up right back harder.

Houki liked to falsely accuse. Actually, she liked to pull a lot of bullshit when she was worked up. And every time she did, without fail, Ichika would run her into the ground. It didn't even matter if she was right, or if she made good points. If she acted in bad faith, Ichika would retaliate.

He'd shut that shit down. Even if Houki was totally right about everything, it wouldn't matter. He'd simply act like a gigantic moron, make a bunch of shit up, drag her down to his level, and then beat her with experience. She fell into it every time. And Ichika would keep doing this whenever Houki went off, all in the hopes that one day, she'd learn to stop pulling her bullshit.

Have an honest, genuine discussion, or get dragged down into a pointless argument that went nowhere. If she didn't want to play by the rules, then she would get buried in a pile of shit.

But Ichika had never expected this long term strategy to actually make any headway. Houki was just too tough a nut to crack. If what he was seeing now was any indication though, then it might finally be working after all these years.

"You still want to keep playing this game?" Ichika asked, a barely noticeable, vicious edge in his tone. "You'll lose again."

Houki looked at him with a conflicted expression on her face.

"Sorry," she finally said.

"Sorry…?" Ichika replied, surprised that Houki had actually said that.

"For accusing you like that," Houki clarified. "I regretted it as soon as I said it. I was just frustrated…"

"Well, alright then," Ichika replied after a moment or two.

"So then what happened?" Houki asked, as if the previous back and forth hadn't happened. "If you didn't request to be here, was it just a coincidence?"

"My guess is that this was my sister's doing," Ichika explained.

"Chifuyu?"

"Yeah. She probably set this whole thing up with good intentions, hoping to set me up with a roommate that was a friend so I wouldn't be stuck with some random girl I had never met before."

"I… guess that makes more sense," Houki reluctantly agreed.

'You see Houki?' Ichika thought. 'Isn't it so much more productive to actually talk about our problems instead of throwing crazy accusations around?'

"Honestly, I don't really mind at all," Ichika said. "Though I'd have preferred if my sister had let me know that in advance."

Ichika really didn't mind. Houki may be annoying to be around whenever she was worked up. But she was also his friend. One of the very few that he had. She was very likely the only person in the whole school, besides his sister anyways, who he wouldn't mind having as a roommate.

And he had to admit that even when Houki was being annoying, Ichika found it incredibly entertaining to see how angry he could make her. It was a hobby. And even putting all that aside, hanging out with her in the times she wasn't worked up, outweighed the times when she was.

"But anyway, do you have a problem with it?" Ichika asked.

"Yes!" she shouted.

Ichika raised an eyebrow.

"Boys and girls do not share rooms with each other! Not after age 7!" Houki explained.

'That is a weirdly specific piece of information,' Ichika thought.

But he saw the point she was making.

"Alright then," Ichika replied. "That is a fair point, I suppose. So I'll tell you what. It's late now, so student services is closed, but they open up again early tomorrow morning. So tomorrow, come with me when I go down there, and we can have this whole thing sorted out before lunch."

If it was such a big problem, then he'd just get a different room. He didn't mind. If his next roommate didn't work out either, then he'd just go back to his original plan and get a place outside the school.

"Do you think we can last one night living together without getting into a fight?" Ichika asked.

"F-fine!"

Houki, looking beyond frustrated, humphed and turned away.

"I thought that you said you didn't like Kendo."

Houki broke the silence.

They were both lying in their respective beds, facing away from each other.

Ichika had his phone in his hand, attention glued to the screen, while Houki had been content with ignoring him until now.

He had said that to her a long time ago. That he didn't like it very much at all.

And it was true. But it was true by technicality. His views on the subject were far more nuanced than a simple yes or no answer to that.

He was surprised by it though. Houki's comment. Clearly she still felt a bit salty that he had defeated her in an instant just as easily as he had when they had both been kids.

"I don't," Ichika replied.

'...Sort of,' he amended in his head.

"And yet you've clearly still kept up with your practice," Houki pointed out, sounding irritated.

"So what?" Ichika asked.

"So… why are you still practicing it if you don't even enjoy it?!"

Oh yeah. She was definitely irritated about that. It probably stung her pride a good bit that somebody who doesn't even like Kendo can absolutely destroy her at it any day of the week. Especially when she spends hours every single day dedicated to improvement.

"That's a very complicated answer that I don't think I can give a short explanation for," Ichika explained. "Basically, I don't like Kendo, but practice battles are amazing."

"What does that mean?" Houki asked. "Those are the same thing!"

"I disagree."

"Why?"

"Kendo has rules."

"So what?"

"Practice battles don't."

"Why does that matter?"

"That's the heart of it, Houki. It's the fundamental reason why I quit in the first place."

"That doesn't make any sense! You even became the national champion! And what about all those times we sparred as kids?! You didn't seem to feel that way then!"

"You're right, " Ichika grinned. "Those spars of ours were amazing."

"Okay. Clearly, I'm missing something here," Houki said.

"I think so too."

"So… what then?" She asked. "You used to like it, but don't anymore?"

"Nah, I never liked it."

"You aren't making any sense, Ichika!"

"I am though, actually. You're just painting a black and white picture for yourself in your head and expecting me to fall into it somehow. The real world isn't that simple."

"Then explain it to me!" She shouted.

"The thing you're missing is the fact that what we did back then, wasn't even Kendo at all."

"What are you talking about? Almost all we ever did was spar."

Ichika sighed.

"Alright," Ichika said. "I'll try and explain then."

"So this is a very subtle, but very important point that I hope I can get you to understand," Ichika began. "What we did back then, most of it wasn't even Kendo. Think back to all of those spars that we had. Do you still remember them?"

"Of course I do," Houki replied.

"That wasn't Kendo," Ichika claimed. "Almost none of it was. Try and imagine what would happen if any of those spars we had, had happened during the middle of a tournament, or an official match."

"Illegal move after illegal move," Ichika continued. "The refs would have been screaming at us. Both of us would have been disqualified so quickly during any of those matches."

"We were just kids back then," Houki pointed out. "And we didn't really know what we were doing."

"I don't believe that," Ichika replied.

"What do you mean?"

"Those fights we had back then… those were some of the best times I ever had."

They were in fact one of the highlights of his childhood. Once he had discovered that he was different, and had weird eye powers, and that he could use those abilities to get stronger, he had found spars like the ones they used to have to be exhilarating.

Even if Houki had never been able to keep up at all. It was still fun. There was a certain degree of entertainment that he could get by immensely holding back and doing incredibly subtle moves to win instead of just flattening her in an instant.

He had learned so much from those battles. Not due to Houki pushing him, but on the contrary, by Houki being so weak in comparison that he could try insane moves right in the middle of the fight and get away with experimenting.

"Those weren't Kendo matches," Ichika explained. "They were practice battles. And while those might sound like the same thing to you, this is the absolute heart of why I stopped practicing Kendo in the first place."

"Kendo comes with a set of rules," Ichika continued. "You can't hold the sword this way. The only way to win is by scoring points this way. You aren't allowed to do this. You aren't allowed to do that. That move is illegal. So is that one."

"It is way too restrictive," Ichika said. "There is no creativity. Innovation is stifled, and you get punished for trying new things. There is one way to fight and you have to stick to it or else."

Perhaps that was an oversimplification, but it was the feeling that he had always run into. With the ridiculously precise combat moves he was capable of pulling off with the power of his eyes behind him, he could do so much more than what Kendo allowed.

So he had quit while he was ahead, and moved on to other things.

"That is, and has always been, my opinion of Kendo in general. Even back when we were kids. And it is why I ultimately quit," Ichika explained. "I did my best to give it a fair shake in order to try and understand why others such as yourself found it so interesting, but I just never came up with anything in the end."

"I only ever became the national champion because I had superior reaction speed to my opponents," Ichika pointed out. "Skill almost never played a part at all."

He had not been able to showcase any of his actual abilities. Not in any real sense, anyways.

And where was the fun in that?

"It was just all so… pointless. I could just never see whatever it was that you saw in the discipline," Ichika concluded. "But with those battles we used to have… we threw out the rules. We invented new strategies, learned a bunch of crazy moves that would never be allowed in an official match, and the point of it was to have fun. To be free."

"So yeah," he said. "I quit Kendo. But I never put down the sword."

"And I knew that I made the right decision when I met a professional fencer from France years later, and promptly had my ass handed to me by the guy. There's a lot more out there than what Kendo offers."

"And that is why I quit. I realized, as I finished that final match in that tournament I won, that true strength comes from acknowledging the fact that not all techniques and sword styles are created equal. Some disciplines stifle growth. And you have to be ready to throw out everything that doesn't work, no matter how attached you are to it, in favour of what does if you want to keep improving. And you have to be willing to listen to the advice and the perspectives of others."

"Practicality should always take precedence over tradition," he said. "Kendo feels like the opposite to me."

"So it isn't for me. But I have no problem with other people practicing it. Like I said, perhaps you can see something that I can't in it. But who knows? Hopefully that makes some kind of sense," Ichika finished.

Houki's eyes were wide, and there were several moments of silence as Ichika continued to stare at the screen on his phone.

"No, no, it does," Houki assured him. "I understand exactly what you're saying. I just never imagined that that was the reason."

Ichika was surprised.

This was Houki right here… understanding a nuanced and subtle point?

Was he even awake right now?

"I've never looked at it that way before," Houki claimed.

"Well, you enjoy Kendo right?" Ichika asked, wanting to see how far he could take a conversation like this with her.

"Of course."

"Is it really Kendo that you enjoy?" Ichika pressed. "Or is it just combat in general?"

Those two things were very different.

"I… I don't know."

"You should give it some thought," Ichika suggested. "The French have some damn good fencers. And there's some pretty cool ways to get an actual Katana to imitate some of their tricks, too. Totally illegal ways of course if you tried any of it in an official match. But they sure come as a surprise against an unsuspecting opponent in the middle of a real fight."

Most of said tricks could probably only be performed by him, however.

His sister could probably pull them off as well, but that was just because Chifuyu was Chifuyu. The rules didn't apply to her and she could do pretty much anything.

"C-can you show me?" Houki eventually asked, hesitantly.

Ichika considered the idea.

Eventually… his curiosity won out. Houki had actually listened to what he had said. Without objecting or cutting him off. And she had understood.

This was unprecedented.

Could she actually learn?

Perhaps he was being unfair to her. But she tended to be extremely rigid in her thought processes, and didn't react well to opposing views. So he had given up on her a long time ago.

But… maybe she was different now.

"You want to have a spar?" Ichika asked.

"No," She said. "I want to have a practice battle."

Ichika grinned. He was always down for a practice battle. A Kendo match? Not so much. She had very carefully chosen her words there. And Ichika definitely approved.

Ichika immediately stood up and turned the lights on.

Then he stared at Houki.

'Different now, indeed,' he thought

"Let's go then," he said.

"Now?" Houki questioned. "I-it's 10 o'clock. We have school tomorrow."

"Excuses," he said. "Come on. We can head up to the roof where the sound won't bother any of our classmates in the rooms around us. Unless you're too tired?"

"O-okay."

Houki had to suppress a giggle as she and Ichika snuck through the hallways of the school like a pair of bandits and finally returned to their room.

She was completely out of breath from the match that the two of them had just had on the school's roof.

But it had been completely worth it.

They had broken curfew by coming back so late, but they had managed to avoid all of the cameras and nobody had noticed.

Upon making it into their room once more she simply could not wipe the genuine smile off of her face.

That match had been magical.

The two of them on top of the school roof battling each other with nothing held back just as they had used to do as kids.

She understood now what Ichika had been saying about all of the rules that Kendo practitioners had to abide by. There was no way any of what they had just done would have been permissible in a real match.

But she didn't care at all.

It had been an amazing experience that she would never forget for the rest of her life.

Just thinking about it made her heart go crazy, and her cheeks warm.

She hadn't stood a chance against him, but it had been the most fun that she had had in years.

She just had one problem left on her mind, now.

How was she going to backtrack?

Earlier, she had said that being roommates with him was going to be a problem. She hadn't really meant it then, but she was probably going to have to convince him that switching rooms wasn't necessary anymore.

AN: I have no beta reader for this story. So there may be errors.