Chapter 4:  Welcome to Owari

“Paru, wake up!”

The short ponytail girl shakes me as she wakes me up. With enough sleep small things will heal pretty easily, I’ve been sleeping since yesterday afternoon.

“Urm…”

I make a noise as I yawn and stretch. Currently, I’m borrowing some clothes while the uniform is being washed. For some reason, it feels a tiny bit weird.

Looking at the girl, I realize she has a somewhat nervous look on her face. Takahashi Minami, in my mind, I’m calling her Takamina. She quickly inspects me and nods to herself a few times. Hastily grabbing my hand, she starts dragging me somewhere.

Truthfully, I’m questioning where she gets that strength from, but looking at how Habu and Mongoose are, this might be normal. Seeing as that I’m still kind of lost on where I am, I just go along.

“Well Paru, Yui-sama wants to see how you fight.”

We stop at a large dirt field. I see Yui-san, Rena-san, and another girl with somewhat short black hair/ Yui-san gives a mysterious smile. Rena-san has a poker face. The other girl waves happily towards Takamina.

“Paru, this is Maeda Atsuko.”

“Atsuko, this is Paru.”

Atsuko PoV

Minami introduces an interesting girl with somewhat squinty, not exactly reptilian, eyes. She has this complicated expression on her face. This is the girl that Yui-sama decided to save, I wonder how she is. Even though I’m actually directly serving under Yui-sama’s little sister, I do support her unlike many of the other vassals and people.

Based on what I heard, Yui-sama wants to see her combat capability. Somehow, getting healed in one day is kind of exaggerated, but seeing as that this Paru-kun seems fine, I guess it is fine. It makes me wonder if [-san] would be correct due to the fact that there’s no respect, [-chan] would be too awkward, and no honorifics would be rude, thus [-kun] even though it’s more of a boy thing.

“Paru, I want to see you fight.”

Her expression is a mixture of many emotions. Normal girls that aren’t born in a warrior family would obviously be surprised. Though I don’t know her backgrounds, I doubt that she’s from some kind of warrior family. It’s just instinct, so it’s not all that accurate.

“Um… I’m not sure about anything other than hand to hand combat.”

Surprise, somehow, I can’t say she seems like the type of person that has a strong physique. Minami is a bit small, but I’m not exactly a spear master, so I don’t know much about that type of thing. Actually, none of the girls I’m acquainted with in Owari really have that big of a build.

Yui-sama is smiling. “Rena, how about you go ahead, go easy on her though.”

Rena-san seems to be a swordswoman though. She’s from our neighbor Mino, but seems to be trusted by Yui-sama. Despite looking pale and frail, she’s quite capable of combat. Now that I think about it, I don’t know how their performance in hand to hand is at all.

She doesn’t seem to be all that happy though. As a person with a sense of pride, if it wasn’t Yui-sama’s order, then it would be the same as saying that Paru-kun and her were on the same level. People do say that Yui-sama’s senses are a bit off. It’s more or less her interests in the less liked topics that made up part of her nickname as the ‘Fool of Owari’.

“If you say so…”

“Um… A light sparring match?”

Rena-san reluctantly agrees, leaving Paru-kun confused. Seeing the directions given, it was kind of too vague. She probably has no idea how things work. She got the basic idea, so it’s fine.

Yui-sama nods. She points to a ring that was drawn some time earlier. It’s actually just a large circle drawn in the dirt, but it’s good enough. Paru-kun wraps a small black cloth around her right hand, most likely to prevent her hand from getting hurt. Rena-san steps into the ring first.

After both are in the ring, Yui-sama claps her hands twice. Does she view this as a game, a source of entertainment? I’m guessing yes, no matter who wins, it doesn’t really do anything because it’s only to determine Paru-kun’s ability. The only person that would actually take damage is Rena-san, in the case that she loses.

Both of them seem to be hesitating to start the match. After a bit, Rena-san attacks first. She attempts to grab Paru-kun’s arm and immobilize her. Paru-kun dodges and punches from a position that is a bit hard to block. Rena-san barely dodges and there’s a slight lag before she could regain her balance.

Just an extra note, truthfully, if I was to say everything I’m thinking out loud, ‘Paru-kun’ would be a bother to say even though it’s one syllable more. Ok, I guess Paru is fine if Minami is casual with her. Did I give up too quickly? Well, it’s not like she can read my mind anyways.

Paru punches from multiple angles in succession. Rena-san dodges all of them as she observes the situation. Most of the punches are only like one millimeter away from hitting, but as a trained specialist, or something like that, Rena-san won’t be hit so easily.

It’s great that Paru borrowed more boyish clothes because it would hurt to see good clothes go to waste in a fight. A girl in proper female clothes will not be able to fight without destroying or ripping the cloth.

Both of them took little damage, their genres are a bit different. Their breaths aren’t exactly worn out, but it looks a bit tiring. Not that I would actually be tired from this much, but Rena-san in my mind is not someone that seems to have lots of stamina from first glance and Paru seems like a normal person. And with all this, Yui-sama is just quietly observing what she set up.

Minami is watching with me, I wish that I was working with her under Yui-sama instead of being apart.

“Minami~ If Rena-san wins, spend your next day off with me~”

“Eh… Then if Paru wins, you have to listen to my jokes.”

I’m nearly one-hundred percent sure that Rena-san will win. Not that I’m looking down on Paru, but she doesn’t seem to be as good as Rena-san. I probably only have to wait a few minutes more for this to end. Even though I feel a bit mean saying this, Minami fails at jokes, so if I was stuck listening to them all day, that would be boring.

Finally, Rena grabs Paru and flips her over, pinning her to the ground. She seems to be making sure that she doesn’t break Paru’s arm though. It’s some type of martial arts.

Unconsciously, I smirk. Minami has a losing look on her face. “We’re going to go shopping!!”

Takamina PoV

I lost the casual bet that we set up even though there was a 50-50. Last time I lost as well, whenever I’m stuck accompanying Atsuko, I’m stuck carrying all of her stuff. It’s my fault that I got the male role in the relationship that can’t be called a relationship though.

Rena-san won. Yui-sama smiles and walks over. Really, I wonder what will happen next. It’s obvious that she took a liking to Paru though. Normally, she’ll just make people work up the ranks. If the person happens to be strong, they might not need to do the lower jobs even if they still don’t have a high rank.

Rena and I are somewhat closer to Yui-sama than the other vassals. The main reason is because a lot of them tend to be useless idiots that don’t do anything but complain and say how great her father was and how bad she is. Yui-sama is just less stuck to the old ways of thinking.

If my intuition serves me correctly, I’ll probably be working with Paru or talking with her in the future. Then again, I might be wrong seeing how my luck . Yeah… Who knows…