The first time I ever met a Black girl was when I was in kindergarten. Her name was Aiko Brown. She was bilingual, and liked to mix both our language and hers for fun. She was the only one who wanted to speak both Librish and Higanese at the same time. Most of the Librish-speaking Uesto kids only spoke to other Uesto kids. Us Higanese-speaking ‘Sterners only ever spoke to each other. Everybody thought Aiko spoke weird, but I liked her.

There was this one time I asked what her name meant in Librish, and I swear to Kami-sama, that day, I've never seen that girl smile so big. She touched her tongue to the big gap between her two front teeth, and cheerfully chirped her Librish-translated name: “I’m Love Child, da yo!”

Mrs. Jackson tripped on something and dropped all her papers onto the ground. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?!” She said, after picking up all her papers, which was awhile.

“That's my namae. Librish de,” Aiko replied, with that innocent, matter-of-factly way kids talk when they say something inappropriate without realizing it.

Mrs. Jackson adjusted her glasses and looked off, chuckling. “Ah. Right. Sou ne.”

The next time I shared a class with Aiko was in high school. I'd moved further east into Higashima, so the school we went to was way less diverse. When I first saw her, I could barely recognize her, even though she was one of the only Black girls in the school. In kindergarten, she loved wearing overalls, with mismatched, funky-colored stockings. In high school, we all had to wear uniforms. But that’s not the only reason it took so long for me to realize she was the same fun-loving girl I knew when we were six years old.

Her wacky curls had all been flat-ironed out. I think she was also wearing some kind of makeup that made her skin a little bit lighter. Her huge, gap-toothed smile was gone, too. For the first couple of days, I thought I just hadn’t noticed it because we didn’t speak for a little while, but when we worked together on a group project, that’s the first time we got into a real conversation. And that’s when I saw her teeth, and noticed that the gap was legit gone.

“Wait, what happened to your gap?!” I asked her.

She separated her dark brown lip on top from her pink lip on the bottom, exposing her straight, white, picturesque teeth. “I got it removed with surgery. Thought it looked weird.”

“...Oh.” That’s all I could really say. I thought her gap was actually really cute, but I felt like if I said that, it’d make her feel bad.

“Why do you ask?” Aiko asked.

“Ehhh. I guess between your hair, your teeth, and your uniform, I barely recognized you.”

She opened up her laptop and unlocked it. “Well…People change, y’know.” Then I noticed her thick Moon accent was a lot less prominent, too.

Is it racist that I thought about Aiko the first time I had to fight a black woman?

Okay, look, it’s not like I mistook her for Aiko or anything–It’s just that this girl’s crazy, but carefully-crafted curls reminded me of what Aiko’s hair used to look like. Other than that, they didn’t look alike at all.

…Onto something a little less difficult to explain: Taro, my former best friend from before I moved east, had suddenly popped back into my life, just as I was starting to wonder how I was gonna make friends in Buji-cho. The only reason I was there was just because there was an opening for overnight shifts at the Sakamoto’s on Tori street. It paid 300 maru/hour more than my last position.

Before I met Taro again, I really didn’t have much going for me. I was just working, and going home to watch a Metafight if one was on, some Metafighting videos if one wasn’t, then go to bed. Rinse, repeat. Kami-sama knows I hated it. But it was better than being dead. That’s what I used to tell myself at least. Looking back, I feel like I must have been kind of insane or something to really think that living such a pointless life was okay. I’ve heard of people who lived like me back then and eventually killed themselves. Maybe in the back of my head, I’d decided that the only two options were to kill myself now, or keep doing little jobs here and there and die later, having at least done a little something for society. I figured that’s what Grandpa would’ve wanted.

I bet he was rolling in his grave the whole time I lived that life.

When I got home from work that morning after my reunion with Taro, I put on the new episode of Meta-banashi on my TV, then grabbed Grandpa’s katana off the wall mount. I think it was the first time I’d touched it since he died. As I slowly took it out of the scabbard, tiny wisps of his residual Metaki came out. It had been so long since I’d last felt his presence. Like a cat starved of affection, his energy quietly purred and started circling my hands. I put the scabbard onto my bed and gripped the handle with both hands, feeling the Metaki work its way through my body, bringing out my own. Carefully, I raised the sword, preparing for a shomen-uchi swing.

This episode of Meta-banashi featured Soshintsu Taiga, talking about the “dying” art of Metaswordsmanship. The host, Mashu Tekker, was trying his best to maintain the positive vibe his show usually has, but Taiga-sensei was not having it.

“There still are plenty of Metaswordsmen out there, y’know,” Tekker-san insisted.

Taiga-sensei crossed his arms and scoffed. “Name five.”

“Yoniku Kotsuji, first and foremost-”

“Kotsuji is not a Metaswordsman. He’s a Metaki specialist.”

“But he has a sword! That’s good enough, right?”

“[BLEEP], no. It’s guys like him who piss me off the most. A real Metaswordsman uses his sword and only his sword in fights. Fighters like Kotsuji, who use all those gimmicks and techniques are basically saying they don’t trust in their blade. And because of that, his blade doesn’t trust in him. He’s always mashing together all these fancy little ‘combos’ to win.”

Taiga-sensei mockingly bent his arms, curled his fingers and put his hands together to mock the gestures Yoniku Kotsuji does to execute his other non-sword attacks. “His sword is just another tool to him.”

Takker-san tilted his head to the side in confusion. “...Isn’t that what a sword is?”

“No! It’s a weapon, for [BLEEP]’s sake!”

With a deep breath in through my nose, I brought my katana down, slicing the air in front of me.

“Okay, so what about Takako Hatoya?” Tekker-san asked.

Taiga-sensei roared out a bitter fake laugh. “When’s the last time that bitch did anything with her katana, other than to [BLEEP]ing block an attack? That thing on her hip is practically decoration!”

At hearing those last two words, I took another swing, accidentally putting a bit more Metaki in it than I should’ve. A glowing blueish-white flash flung off the blade and sliced my TV in half, and left a cut in the ceiling.

I froze, staring at the mess I’d just made for a second. I took a deep breath. I then got out my phone and decided to call my manager, Kobeni-san.

“Mm…moshi-moshi?”

“Hi! Umm…Kobeni-san? Do you know how the staffing will be today?”

“Huh?”

“Like…Is there room on the schedule for an extra…guy?”

“You mean you wanna work overtime?”

“Hai.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Come in tomorrow at 5 PM. Clock out same time as always, though.”

“ARrGATOhGoZAIMAS!” My voice cracks as I smush the syllables all together to thank her and bow, even though there was no real point in it. It's not like she could see me.

I looked up and around my room and sighed. Cool, I thought. A new thing to worry about.

I put my sword back in its scabbard and lay down on my bed. I had work in a few hours, so I needed to get some sleep.

Work was the same as always. Most of the day, I was just standing at the register, and occasionally when the store was empty, I'd do a couple of rounds wiping off tables and counters, moving around the roller grill items and before I knew it, it was nighttime again. Right around midnight, Taro came over again.

“REI?!” He screamed at me.

“TARO?!” I blurted back in confusion.

“I thought you were gonna quit your job and become a Metafighter!”

“I can’t just quit my job! I have an apartment and stuff I need to pay for!”

“Can’t you just live in a dojo?!”

“Yeah, but I’d still have to apply and stuff…”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

“‘Cuz!” I sighed, realizing how embarrassing it’d be to admit this: “I was doing some warmups with my sword and broke my TV.” I looked down at the counter and lowered my voice. “...And part of the ceiling.”

Taro chuckled. “Well, shit. That’s kinda cool.”

“How is it cool that I basically destroyed my room?”

“It’s a badass way to introduce yourself at a dojo interview!”

“It’ll sound more like I can’t control my Metaki.”

Taro stroked his chin for a second, then snapped his fingers. “Just say you did it on purpose!”

I tilted my head and scrunched up my face, trying to think about how a sensei might react to hearing of an aspiring Metaswordsman who purposely destroyed his bedroom as a way to train.

“...I don’t know about that,” I told Taro.

Taro laced his fingers together, pointing his index fingers up like a gun, pressing the skinny makeshift barrel to his lips. This, with his furrowed eyebrows and twitching nose, was his classic “harebrain” pose. He’d always take this form whenever he came up with some crazy plan after running out of normal ideas.

“How about this: I can apply to a couple of dojos for you while you work!”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Sure! It sounds like you have your hands full, and plus…” Taro chuckled for some reason. “It seems like you’re gonna need help selling yourself as a Metafighter.”

“Selling myself?”

“Well, yeah! Nobody’s just a Metaswordsman anymore. You’re gonna need something to stand out. Something marketable.”

“I don’t need marketing just to get into a dojo! That’s for big-name pros and stuff.”

“Okay, what I mean is…You need to show a dojo that you’re serious about Metafighting. I bet a lot of dojos won’t just take in a 21-year-old who didn’t go to a Metafighting high school or college, or win any major amateur events, or even practiced Metafighting in his free time in years.”

Taro’s words felt like they were ripping the skin off my face, so much so that I couldn’t even feel it anymore. “Oh. I guess you’re right.”

“They’re prob’ly gonna think you’re one of those bozos who think that Metafighting is just a cool way to work out and get bitches.” Taro pierced my heart with that one. I actually had to clutch at my chest from hearing that. He had just described me as all the douchebags in the Metakendo club at my high school.

As I heaved in a raspy breath, I suddenly remembered the time I’d tried out for the Metakendo club. They rejected me because I couldn’t pass their test (being able to hold my own against all of the team members at once for ten minutes). I was yanking in several sandy puffs of air, kneeling on the ground, and covered in stinging red lash marks left by the barrage of dampened Metaki, courtesy of a half-dozen bamboo shinai-wielding douchebags. I declared that I’d surpass them all someday. But here I was, out of high school for three whole years and I’d only just reached their level.

“How-” I coughed hard, half-expecting to hack up some blood. “How can you be so sure..?”

“‘Cuz that’s what every new Metafighter who starts out with no past is like nowadays.” Taro explains. “It’s okay, though, because I know how to convince people that you’re not like other bozos!”

“How do you know so much about applying for dojos, anyway?” I asked.

“I’ve been debating powerscaling online for years, man!” Taro exclaimed. He spread his arms to the side, gesturing at himself like the Metafighter in a battle royale that nobody wants to take on. “I’ve mastered the art of hyping up Metafighters that suck ass!”

I sighed. “If you say so. You can apply for some dojos for me if you want. I guess.”

Taro pumped his fists in the air. “Hell yeah! You won’t regret it!”

What I was doing was definitely stupid, but I figured that Taro wouldn’t do anything that’d really damage me. He was right that he probably knew more about applying to dojos than me. I would’ve known more if I kept trying, but Grandpa would always tell me that I wasn’t strong enough to apply for a dojo. I always figured I’d have time to ask him how to apply when I got strong enough to. Then I stopped trying to get strong enough.

I had all this on my mind as I gave Taro all the information he’d need to make a dojo application for me. In retrospect, maybe I should’ve been thinking a bit more about how I was literally giving my home address, email address, phone number, and social security number to someone I haven’t considered a friend in years…

It was only the afternoon after next that I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. I was thinking maybe it’d be Taro, so I answered it.

“Moshi-moshi?” That’s weird. Taro would usually interrupt the second moshi with whatever he was gotta say. “Nakano Rei-desu,” I added, suspecting that it probably isn’t him.

“Konnichiwa, Nakano-san!” greeted a sassy voice, coated heavily with the carefree accent of a Black woman from Liberty Moon. “I understand that you’ve recently sent in an application to the Tenka Dojo?”

“H-hai! I chirped, hoping that I won’t need to cover for some crazy lie Taro told.

“Well, then, how about you come down today for a light spar with one of the students?”

“Oh! Ummm…Yeah, I think I can…”

“Are you free today?”

“Yeah! ‘Till this evening, at least.”

“Perfect! Today just happens to be a day where everybody’s here, and so we’re all really excited to meet some potential newbies, y’know?”

“Ahh, c-cool! I’ll start heading there now, then!”

“I’ll let the sensei know. See you soon, Nakano-san!”

Well, that was fast, I thought to myself as I hung up. Maybe that powerscaling stuff really was useful. I never got into it myself, because to me, powerscaling was just a bunch of arguing about which Metafighter was stronger. I never would’ve thought it’d be useful for real.

One shower and a change into my gi later, I finally realized I didn’t know what dojo I was actually going to. I called the number back.

“Moshi-moshi?” It was a guy’s voice this time.

“Hi, Nakano Rei-desu. What is the address to the dojo again..?”

“6251 Araki Road,” I think that was a northern Higashima accent. If I’m being completely honest, his voice put me a little bit more at ease.

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“Thanks. I’m heading out now.”

“Be sure to bring your A-game. We’re really excited for fresh meat,” the guy on the other line said.

“Sounds delicious! I’ll see you there soon!” I said as I bowed and hung up. After a second, I realized that he wasn’t speaking so literally.

The Tenka Dojo was a roughly 15-minute drive from my apartment. Sitting at the end of a strip mall consisting of five other businesses, I probably wouldn’t have immediately expected that the place was actually open, given the fact that there were no cars in the parking spaces in front of the dojo, combined with the tinted windows that permanently make it look like the lights are out. There was nothing on the signage that actually designated what kind of dojo it was, either. The only sign was the big plain one atop the awning displaying the four red Kanji symbols that spell the dojo’s name: 天下道場. No furigana, no romaji.

I pulled into the parking lot and parked in the space right outside the door. After turning off the ignition, I had to take a deep breath. I could feel my body shaking, but I couldn’t tell exactly which parts were shaking. I took a deeper breath, held it, and the shaking started to calm down when I exhaled. I grabbed my katana out of the passenger seat and gripped it tightly. Grandpa’s Metaki seeped into my fingers, giving me the strength to open the door and step out of my humble little dark blue sedan.

When I opened the door to the dojo, a thin, brisk woosh of Metaki greeted me. So this is the first dojo I ever sparred in, I thought to myself, imagining that I'm narrating a My Metahistory video. When I first got in there, I was hit with a fwooooosh! So much energy! The pressure inside was amazing.

I expected to see a more intense version of what I saw when I first tried out for the Metakendo club: a bunch of dudes, all taller and more muscular than me, glaring at me with swords in hand, ready to use them on the next thing in sight: me.

Instead what I saw was a chubby blonde girl curled up on the floor, asleep, and the only Higanese guy standing beside her with his hands on his hips. From the soft, playful smile on his face, it looked like he was waiting patiently for her to wake up, but the tapping of his foot made it look like that patience had its limits. Both of them had surprisingly large auras around them. In the back right corner, a Black guy with dreadlocks was meditating, floating ever so slightly off the ground while his hair slowly floated up and down around his head. On the other side of the room, a guy with light brown skin and peach hair was reading a large textbook. There was a kitchen area too, and that's where I saw the Black girl who'd later be my first opponent, gobbling down what I first thought was a stack of pancakes, but was actually a little tower of grilled chicken breasts. She was the first one to notice me coming in.

“Ah! You must be Nakano-san! Hi!”

“Hai! I’m Rei Nakano! I would be honored to make this place my first dojo!” I bowed as I introduced myself.

The Higanese guy looked up at me and smirked. “This’ll be your first dojo?” He turned and shot a look at the Black girl. His crop cut swished with the turning of his head. I didn’t see what expression was on his face when he looked at her, but when he looked back at me, he was smiling even bigger than before. He then started to approach me, and something about the gleam in his eye, the brightness of his toothy smile, and the casual bolstering of his aura as he walked had me feeling a bit nervous. His aura calmed down as soon as he stopped directly in front of me and stuck out his hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Zen’ichiro Okagami. My friends call me Zenny.” As Zenny-san introduced himself, I realized that he was the guy with the relaxing voice on the phone.

I took his hand to shake it. “Yoroshiku!”

The White girl stirred awake and looked at me with one eye as she rubbed the other. “New guy..?” She asked with a yawn.

“Yep!” Zenny said. “This is Nakano Rei-kun!”

“Hi, Nakano Rei-kun. I’m Aurora White,” she said with a little wave.

“Oh, an’ I’m Rosa Thompson,” The Black girl chimed in before chewing up and swallowing her last piece of chicken. “I’m the strongest one here.”

Zenny-san whipped around and pointed at Thompson-san. “You shut yo’ lyin’ lips up!” His Librish pronunciation clearly needed some work.

Thompson-san got up and strolled over to the minifridge, and bent over to reach for the next course of her already huge meal. “Ryan Rips? I don’t know that nigga,” she jabbed, making fun of his accent.

“You know what I said!!” Zenny-san screamed.

Thompson-san took out a water bottle from the mini fridge. “You’re either talkin’ ‘bout me shuttin’ Ryan Rips up, who is a nigga I do not know…” She took a big gulp of the water. “Or you’re saying I should shut my lying lips up. But these lips ain’t lyin’.” She stuck out her plump lips and pointed at them, making a duck-like face.

“Don’t listen to her,” Zenny-san told me. His accent came out again, but I wasn’t gonna grill him about it. “I’m the real saikō here,” he whispered in Higanese as loud as he could. (「俺は本物最高だ」)

Thompson-san laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, you saikō alright. Saikō baka!” she jabbed at Zenny-san in Librish.

“Can you guys quiet down?” Asked the peach-haired fellow trying to study.

“Can’t you see that we got a new student?!” Thompson-san asked, exasperatedly. “He’s ‘bouta be one of us, so we gotta show ‘im some hospitality and personality!”

“Get him in a gi, then,” he responds, not once looking up from his book. “That’ll show him some hospitality.”

“He got his gi on!”

For the first time, he looked up across the dojo at me. With a sigh, which he tried to cover up with the clapping shut of his book, he stood up. “I’m gonna go get changed,” he said, before curtly leaving through a door in the back, next to the guy with the dreads meditating.

“The charmin’ fella’s name is Carlos Kahlon,” Thompson-san explained.

She then walked over to the guy with the dreads meditating, made a fist, and lowered it a few inches from his face. Rapping on the empty air in front of him, it actually made a little knocking sound.

The Black guy with dreads opened his eyes, and that's when I noticed that they were all white, without even a hint of pupils. As he broke his meditation, his hair dropped to his shoulders.

“What?” He asked, not trying to make eye contact at all.

“Come say hi to the new student.” Thompson-san ordered.

“We recruited him already?”

Thompson-san shot me an apologetic glance. “I mean–no, but he's prolly gon’ be. Sensei do be lettin’ anybody in.”

“He barely let you in,” he responded flatly.

“Nigga, he barely let you in! Now get yo’ ass up and introduce yo' self.” Thompson-san then held out her open hand to help him up, but the guy sitting down decided to just float up, still in his cross-legged position, then when he was high enough in the air, he dropped his feet to the ground to stand up.

The guy with the dreads squinted slightly and pointed his blank eyes in my direction. “Where is he?” He asked. “I don't sense any Metaki. Besides Aurora and Zenny’s. And mine.” He smirked.

“Shut yo’ ass up.” Thompson-san grabbed his arm and started dragging him to the front of the dojo to where I was standing, just watching this room full of unsupervised students and wondering where the hell the teacher was.

Thompson-san grabbed both of the guy's shoulders and wafted a hand in front of him with an ironic flourish. “Rei, this is my cousin, Malcolm Thompson. Malcolm, this is Rei Nakano.”

“N-ni-nice to meet you.” I didn't mean to sound awkward, but the guy's dense aura was really making me nervous. On top of that, there was something about those pure, white eyes of his. Those eyes both drilled into me and seemed trained onto something far, far away at the same time.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Malcolm-san responded. He either didn’t notice that I was nervous, or didn’t care.

Just then, Kahlon-san came back into the room, pushing in an old man on a wheelchair with him. I didn’t mean to, but I accidentally made an awkward squawking sound in surprise when I noticed he didn’t have any limbs. He had an eyepatch, too.

“So you wish to train here at Tenka Dojo?” The one-eyed, limbless oldster asked. He looked unimpressed by my faded blue gi, which had the first Kanji symbol of my family name (中, Naka) etched over my heart.

“Hai! I shouted, bowing as low as I could without bending my knees. “It would be an honor to train under you in the Tenka Dojo…ehhh…” I scrunched my face up and started to sweat, and not just because I hadn’t bowed this low in a long time. I tried to remember what the name of the Sensei was, but my mind was blank. I had no idea.

“Tenji-sensei,” Kahlon-san did the loud sarcastic whisper at me from over his master’s shoulder.

“Hmm?” Tenji-sensei looked up at Carlos, misunderstanding why he just heard his name.

“Tenji-sensei!” I shouted. My voice cracked a little.

When I slowly arose to meet the man’s gaze, I realized he was staring at me the whole time. With a gaze of one good eye and a nasty, slashed scar in the stead of the other, it was hard to make out his actual expression at first. The good eye was missing an eyebrow and his eyelash drooped almost sleepily. I figured he’d look confused, not…whatever this was. Was he annoyed? Bored? Tired? Am I just that unimpressive? I thought. The jagged scar on the other side of his face slanted inward and down into the center, giving him a look of permanent fury. I started to sweat again.

“...Okay,” Tenji-sensei muttered. “Tell me your name.”

“N-Na-Nakano Rei-desu!”

“What’s your Metaryoku?”

I fumbled my sword off my shoulder and presented it to Tenji-sensei.

“Metaswordsman-desu!”

“Metaswordsman?” Sensei repeated with a tilt of his head and a nostalgic smirk. “You sure you’re not a ’Metaki specialist?’”

“Positive!” I clutched the sword to my chest. “I trust in my sword and only my sword!”

Tenji-sensei’s illegible smirk spread up to Carlos, who then looked over at Zenny-san, who covered his mouth and looked at Rosa-san. She was the only one who looked back at me with a smile of legitimate respect.

“Well. That's interesting. I haven't met a serious Metaswordsman in a long time.” Tenji-sensei said, having wiped his smirk off his face before I could figure out why it was even there. “You met everybody else yet?”

“Hai!” I pointed at the warm-skinned man who helped push Sensei into the room. “That's Kahlon-san.” Then I pointed at the one still standing over the…slightly overweight White girl. “That's Zenny-san.”

Zenny-san formed a gun with his hand and rested his chin between his thumb and index finger. “Call me Zenny-senpai, actually,” he said, flashing me a smile with perfect teeth.

“No!” Rosa objected. “Call that nigga Zenny-kun! Kuuuuuuun!”

“That’s Rosa-san,” I said to Sensei, not letting myself get roped into that argument. I pointed over to Malcolm-san. “And that’s…Ma-Mal-Malcolm-san.” His name was a bit difficult for me to pronounce. “Oh! And White-san,” I said, pointing at the blonde girl on the floor.

“Ii-ne.” Sensei’s deep, gravelly voice made everything sound like a grumble. “So which one do you want to spar with?”

My eyes darted to each one of the students once more. Then I closed them, remembering something Grandpa told me: “Don’t trust in your eyes when Metafighting. Trust in your instincts, your Metaki, and your blade.”

The first time he said this was when I was really young. He was showing me VHS tapes of his old fights. This time, he was showing me a fight against a tall, scrawny, shirtless unarmed man who approached him with his back slouched forward and his arms hanging limply at his side. With The Look on his face and no guard up at all, he was practically asking for Grandpa to strike first.

In the video, Grandpa held his katana in front of him, hesitating to attack.

“I should have just struck,” Grandpa says. I swung my head at him as he paused the video with the remote. “Right here. This moment. I could feel his Metaki building within him, but I didn’t see him preparing any kind of attack.”

“Why didn’t you strike?” I asked him.

“I didn’t want to hurt an unarmed man!” he said with a cynical laugh at himself. “But a metamartial artist who dares to step into the ring is always armed. You just can’t always see what they're armed with.”

Grandpa played the video again, and the younger version of him decided finally to strike, swinging his sword down on his opponent with an apologetic expression on his face. The opponent’s arms moved like lightning, catching the blade in his hands just before it hit his face. Then he opened his mouth and shot a massive Metaki blast at Grandpa, blowing him completely out of the ring.

“...And that’s why you don’t trust your eyes when Metafighting. Trust in your instincts, your Metaki, and your blade,” Grandpa explained as the camera zoomed in on his past self, with the huge “RING OUT” text flashing at the bottom of the screen.

With my eyes closed, I could easily recognize who’s Metaki was whose. Everybody’s energy was so unique to them. Tenji-sensei’s Metaki was small, but constant, like the little flame from a miniature torch. It wasn’t hard to tell that he had an incredible amount of energy, but he was conserving it. Kahlon-san’s energy was kept tightly wrapped in a thin layer around his body. It was a technique some Metafighters used to help learn to keep strict control of their aura. A technique that I think White-san needed. Her aura was rising and dispersing all around the room like steam, almost making the air around her a little thicker. Above her stood Zenny-san, whose aura seemed to naturally pour out from him in a way that reminded me of Freddy Fenghuang’s freshly-transformed third form energy.

Grandpa took me and Taro to the fight where he showed off his third form. That was one of the best times the three of us ever had. It was also one of the last.

Malcolm-san’s energy was a bit abnormal. It was a solid box. It was dense, too. Dense enough that my sword and Metaki were almost definitely not going to pierce it. If I wanted to look somewhat competent, I decided it was best to not spar with him. Then I noticed that there was something missing about all the energy in the room.

I opened my eyes and looked at Rosa. “I don’t feel your energy at all, Rosa-san.”

Rosa-san was doing something on her phone when I spoke. She looked at me, put it away, smacked her lips and put on a half-smile. “That’s cuz…I can’t use aura.”

“Huh??? I thought you were the strongest one here!”

“I am,” she said with a toothy smile.

“But you can’t even use aura! How do you charge your Metaki, then?! Is there some kind of technique where-”

“I don’t.”

“You can’t charge your Metaki?!”

“Nope.”

“Wouldn’t that just make you…a normal martial artist?”

“Nope!” She said with a giggle.

I tilted my head in confusion. “Why not..?”

“‘Cuz I’m too strong for normal martial arts.”

“Even still, you have to be able to use Metaki!”

“Then how’m I the strongest one here?” She asked, with what I think was sarcastic exasperation.

“I…I don’t know!”

“It’s cuz I’m just too strong for my own good. That’s why they got me trainin’ here.”

“That can’t be right. No matter how strong you are, a normal martial artist can’t compete with a metamartial artist!” Just then, my choice for who to spar with seemed clear. “I think I can even prove it!” I said with a few breaths to charge up my Metaki.

I unsheathed my katana and pointed it at Rosa-san. I’d always wanted to do that when challenging an opponent. “Spar with me!” I shouted, trying to put on a dramatic and commanding voice to go with my slowly swelling Metaki.

I thought the worst thing she could say was no. And maybe it still is, but there are ways to reject a person that go far beyond a simple word, and Rosa-san used one such way by giggling at my proposal. Actually, it wasn’t really a giggle. It was more like…a snigger.

“Dame da ne,” Rosa put her palm up at me. “Don’t challenge me,” she instructed.

“Th-that’s how I know you’re not a Metafighter!” That’s all I could say that’d help talk off the blow to my ego. “A-a h-honmono Metafighter would never back down to a challenge!”

“I’m not backin’ down from a challenge. I’m tellin’ you to take your challenge back.”

“Uhh…I don’t think I can do that…”

Rosa-san then strolled onto the mat, swaying her awfully wide hips as she did so. She walked up incredibly close to me, showing me how much taller she was than me by just standing up straight and looking down at me.

“I guess we fightin’ then,” she said in a low voice.

I gulped. “I guess we are.”

Everybody started to clear the mat. Rosa-san pulled off her hoodie and tossed it toward the kitchenette. Underneath, she was wearing a black sports bra, but I hardly even noticed. What caught my eye first were her rippling muscles, which were much bigger and more toned than mine or anyone’s I’d ever sparred with. When her hoodie hit the wooden kitchenette floor, it made a haunting ”crack!” sound. Rosa-san gasped and smacked her hands over her mouth.

“Fuck!” She cursed. “That was my phone.”

“Um…Do you wanna…get it?” I asked, with my sword still out, wondering whether I should put it away.

“Nahhh,” Rosa-san replied, squatting down into an unusual fighting stance. She held her right arm next to her leg and made a fist. She held her left arm up behind her, keeping her hand open. “Like I said…We fightin’ now. Wanna go by ‘first-on-ass’ rules?”

At that moment, I realized that I was just about to get into the same problem as Grandpa did, all those years ago. I was trusting too much in my eyes. My instincts were telling me that danger was coming, in some way or another, but I couldn’t see how. I couldn’t feel where the danger was coming from with my Metaki either, so maybe this situation was actually worse. But I knew I had to strike. I tossed the scabbard off the mat, closed my eyes (just in case I was about to actually hurt a normal person), and swung my sword at her.

I probably should’ve kept my eyes open, because when I cut through nothing but air, I suddenly felt the impact of a tennis shoe’s rubber sole on my face for a split second, before feeling something big, soft, and flat being pressed rather violently against the back of my head. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was already on the floor.

“Damn,” was all I could say.

White-san was the first one to come to my side to inspect the wound on my face. I couldn’t see it yet, but I definitely didn’t need a mirror to know one was there.

“You okay, Rei-kun?” White-san asked.

I turned to one of the mirrors on the wall and looked at my face. My left eye was bruised. I could feel it swelling. My nose was bleeding. I could feel it throbbing. “Well, I’m alive,” I replied.

White-san turned to Rosa. “Don’t you think that was a bit much?! You should’ve at least finished explaining your Metaryoku to him.”

Rosa shrugged and walked back over to the kitchenette. “I told him not to challenge me,” she said nonchalantly.

“Screw that!” Zenny-senpai shouted. “You’re being too rough on my kouhai!”

“He ain’t yo’ damn kouhai! Plus, I think I was goin’ real easy on ‘im! I coulda dragged the fight on and humiliated his ass. Instead, I was quick, and gave him the appropriately-sized slice of humble pie.”

“Nice job, Rosa,” told Tenji-sensei in a louder, much more teacherly voice. “You’ve done an excellent job of teaching Rei-kun his first lesson as a metamartial artist:” He paused to look down at me. “KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN, DUMBASS!!!”

I stood up and bowed to Tenji-sensei. A couple drops of blood fell from my nose onto the floor. “Thank you for the lesson, Tenji-sensei! Please wish me good fortune in my search for a dojo to-”

“Are you deaf?! I just said you finished your first lesson!”

“Huh?”

“You in, nigga!” Rosa chimed.

“Oh. Heh heh.” I laughed nervously, looking around me. This was the most upside-down dojo Taro could’ve ever picked. And now, I was a student there. I always thought that being accepted into my first dojo would be the kind of moment where I jump into the air for joy and time would freeze like in an anime, but the pain in my nose and the strange circumstances made it difficult to focus only on the joy.