16 An Unexpected Master (1/2)

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”That's enough Kouzuki!”

”Enough? You make it sound like I was the one who did something wrong sensei” his gaze left Tomoyo and now landed on Miyamoto who shuddered.

”No you didn't” he sighed. ”Looks like I need to tell you a few things later. I'll first need to clear a few things up first”

”What do you mean?”

”Kouzuki-kun, I talked to Shiroyuki Jirou-sama earlier and know about the duel between you and Shiroyuki-san. I believe that you are aware that she does not have any peers even remotely close to her level of skills correct?”

”Correct” he calmed his expression and listened.

”But she lost to you, someone who is even the same age as her. She finally found someone in her generation that she can compare herself with. Jirou-sama had informed me that Shiroyuki-san here had trained non-stop ever since she was defeated by you and wanted to catch up to you. She wants to see if her efforts had any progress but you simply dismissed her without as much as an explanation so how could she just accept it as simply as that?”

”(comparing herself to me? Then why did her version in the future beat up the version f me who didn't know swordplay?)” he felt a little skeptic about Miyamoto's explanation but if he took his consideration of the robot girl from his previous life out of the question, it would make sense.

”You did nothing wrong but her crying made you look like the bad person. I understand why you're angry but please understand that Shiroyuki-san here is not very good with words so you need to be a little patient with her. It may take a while but I do believe that if both of you work together well, you'll be able to answer the department head and Jirou-sama's expectations”

Kazuya understood what he was trying to say. His enmity with the other version of Tomoyo has affected his patience when dealing with her. She isn't to blame for what happened and maybe learning to understand her a little may shed some light into why she did what she did to him.

”Is what Miyamoto-sensei said the truth? Did you practice hard over the weekend?” he turned towards Tomoyo whose tears had stopped flowing.

*nod*

”I can see that It's still not enough for me to even think about accepting a spar request from you” he didn't change his opinion despite Miyamoto's interjection.

”Kouzu—” Kazuya raised his hand to stop him before he could call out.

He made sure that Tomoyo was still looking at him before he held the bamboo sword with both hands and assumed a normal kendo stance. He then raised his arms slowly before swiftly swinging it down. It was as if the air had been visible and cut down by a single swing.

”I'll consider sparring with you using one hand if you can at least achieve that swing”

Tomoyo tried it immediately but knew that it was far from what she saw and felt. She tried it multiple times before turning towards Kazuya who seemed to have been dissatisfied with the sword he used and moved on to picking another.

”(Looks like I'll just have to focus on training my body until I get myself one I can use)” he thought as he put everything back. He felt a tug on his sleeve and found Tomoyo trying to copy his swing. ”(Is she asking for tips?)”

”…” she stared at him after doing a couple more.

”From this point onward, I will allow you to show me your best try at swinging your sword once a day. If it meets my standards then I will spar with you but if it doesn't then you will have to wait for another day. Do you understand?”

*nod*

”Then I will count those swings as your try for today. I suggest you do 50 swings to practice and then 50 sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups and then 50 swings again. Try to feel the difference between when you swing the second time and maybe you'll figure it out”

*nod* she affirmed before leaving him be and doing what she was told.

Kazuya walked towards Miyamoto who was waving at him and they left the club together. It was only at after they had gone that the deathly silence in the dojo turned into clamor after everything that had just happened.

”So what did you want to tell me before sensei?”

”Well… I still haven't decided whether to talk to you about this or not but this was the part I wanted to talk about but left out intentionally earlier. But since the incident with Shiroyuki-san happened then I might as well tell you about it since you probably don't have anyone that will tell you about it”

”What is it? Now you have me all curious”

”Kouzuki-kun, do you know what is the most unreasonable, undecipherable, unpredictable, illogical thing this world is?”

”Love?”

”Hey how old are you? That's quite deep but that's not what I mean this time”

”humans?”

”Close but not quite” Miyamoto felt a little perplexed since Kazuya hadn't given an answer that wrong but just not the answer he was looking for to prove his point.

”Then what is it?”

”It's women. Didn't you just experience it for yourself? You did nothing wrong yet you turned out to be the bad guy”

”Hmm…”

”With a person of your talent, background and charisma, you'll be constantly dealing with them not too long in the future so I believe you should learn about them and how to deal with them”

And there began the first class of Miyamoto Shinichi's 29 years of understanding the mysteries of women. Kazuya was skeptical about it at first, he had technically lived longer than this teacher of his if he counted the years that he had no recollection of but after listening to what he had to say, it was as if he couldn't stop nodding in agreement.

He may have lived longer but most of it was spent focusing on his own goals. Kazuya came to believe that he could have avoided his tragic fate if he had understood women more and paid more attention to them. Combining what he learned from Miyamoto to the memories of his first life gave him a lot of insight, but it gave him a side effect of subconsciously forming a fear towards women.

The already good impression that Miyamoto had in Kazuya's mind immediately soared. If someone asked him what he thought of Miyamoto, then Kazuya without any hesitation would call him a 'master' when it came to what men needed to understand about women. His own inexperience made him put Miyamoto up into a high horse. What Miyamoto did not know was that he had gained the utmost respect of a prideful and special existence that almost no person could accomplish even if they tried.

”Let's stop for today. It's almost time for everyone to go home”

”Thank you, Miyamoto-sensei, you have no idea how much you've helped me with your lecture”