I'll be almost five in a couple months.

Life's been good, the threat that is Hitogami still exists, but I'm no longer working myself into an early grave because of it, nor worrying about my own existence. I have fully come to make this life my own, and enjoy what life gives you.

Training with father on the yard during mornings, practicing with Roxy in the afternoons, ending with some night lessons, and I have a pretty full day. I can even take days off when things become too much, if I choose to.

Swing. Clash. We intersected 'blades.' well, I say that but there practice blades. Made of metal though, so they still hurt.

Strike. "Ow," I'm struck on the shoulder.

"That's six deaths, four more and we'll call it a day," Paul voiced.

And yet here I am sword fighting with my pops during my weekend. What happened to giving me a day off? Nobody likes a pushy man you know. You're so clingy. How did I get stuck in this situation?

I then remember a scene of me showing off to Roxy, my improvements on reinforcement magic, and how I'll be surpassing swordsmen soon. Paul was within earshot unfortunately, and disagreed. And I'm not one known for backing down.

Clash. Clash. We struck swords once more again, and again, once from the left, another from the right.

It's heavy. Alright, time to up the difficulty.

"Trace on," I cast reinforcement. A green glimmering effect washes over my body, as the spell and toki interact. The reinforcement technique I developed has come along the way, rather than the Fate version I was going for, I got something closer along the lines of a forcefield, similar to that of Rwby.

It can only last around five minutes for now, but that's more than enough.

The glow dissipates, but its effects linger.

Oh yeah, I have Toki now. Have absolutely no idea how.

One day I just got hit by Paul over the shoulder, I swung my stick in frustration, and in a moment of frustration, my vision went white, and I let out a powerful thrust.

Then 'that,' feeling came, similar to my reinforcement, but different.

It is an instinctual thing. So I have very little control over it, except for activating it. But it's a nice defense buff, so I'm not gonna say no to it now that I acquired it.

Paul smirked at my invocation.

RIght, there is another problem with my use of reinforcement. My control hasn't gone to the level where I can do it silently, aka through Toki, so it's very obvious when I raise my defenses.

And Paul raises the difficulty accordingly.

There's also one other, slightly insignificant issue, barely putting notice, but…

Paul is very competitive.

That or he's showing off, either way these spars get considerably more difficult.

His body starts zooming about, and his hits get heavier. Prelude to real sword fighting I suppose.

Don't know if he's trying to strengthen my Toki skill or what not, but I need to give my body a little boost here and there to keep up.

Still get trounced unfortunately.

Clash. Our swords collide, he hits my blade and my hand is forced upwards. I make some distance stepping backwards, reinforcing the step to get as much distance as possible.

Swoosh. Seconds later a swing comes at me, and I dodge. Can't afford to clash blades, I'll lose my balance, and 'die.'

Swing. Dodge. Swing. Dodge. Swing. Dodge. He's literally running circles around me. I can only see his figure for a moment, before I almost lose sight of it.

Clash. Dammit, we crossed blades. My sword arm is swung to the left, he comes from the right. He swings horizontally. I try to step off, only to get hit at the leg. I hobbled of into a retreat, and-

Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike. Break.

I didn't see the swings, but I sure felt them.

Four strikes land on my body as well as three glows, as well as what sounds like glass breaking. That is the sound of my reinforcement spell shattering.

I've been mercilessly beaten. Once in the head, two over the heart, and one in the stomach. My body shimmering green under the last strike, means the spell is over, as well as my stamina.

"My win again Rudy. I think you're lasting longer," he complimented? With a shit eating smirk on his face.

Please let me hit you.

"God dammit. Maybe if I-no that wouldn't work, sigh, couldn't you take it easy on me?" I asked

"I am taking it easy on you,"

"Right, that's why you were running circles around me?"

"That's why you were casting magic?"

"...I'm just leveling the playing field," I contended.

"He~, Rudy's so serious," he throws his arm over my shoulder. "Don't worry there's always next time,"

That's true.

"But I doubt it," his grin returned.

Honesty just explode!

Manipulating my use of mana, I freeze the moisture over Paul's back, and condense it, making an ice cube. Before letting it fall down his shirt.

"Eeep," he yelled a feminine scream.

How cute. Now bye.

I release myself from his grip, and dashed my way to Roxy.

/

"My muscles are sore," I groaned in an open field.

I've been banned from using healing magic in general in fear that I would relapse, I can perform it on others, just not myself. If it's necessary, Zenith will do it for me, but I can't spam it like the past, and she only does it for grave injuries.

Now if only I could win during that time.

"Sure you don't want me to heal you?" Roxy asked.

"Yep, have to build up a pain tolerance somehow," That and after my sickness fiasco, I have to take into account that magic isn't just an extra ingredient, but something imperative to the human body. Unnecessary healing might do more harm than good. The endorphins alone…

I was lucky my body didn't go through withdrawals. It's just a theory, but not worth finding out.

I am now messing around with Roxy(read: playing), one of life's few pleasures, along with a few other things such as helping Lilia out , helping out villagers, with grape stomping.

It is surprisingly fun.

Oh! And of course god-damned magic!

Have I ever told you how amazing magic is?

You're a wizard Rudy!

It's the best, and so comes my favorite weekend activity before I was so rudely interrupted earlier.

Magic practice, not study, practice, a.k.a: Let's see if we can make that fictional technique real.

After recovering from a mana exhaustion fever, my control has been skyrocketing. Earth, water, fire, wind, I can control the elements with ease. Well… within reason, I'm not summoning a typhoon anytime soon.

Wait a minute…

"Earth," I stomped the ground. Rock burst from the ground.

"Water," I whipped my hands out, and water whips flow out.

"Fire," I turned them into fist and thrust to the sides, fire balls going in those directions.

"Wind," I performed a jumping roundhouse kick, and let the winds spin and carry me on the way down.

"I'm the avatar…"

"What are you doing Rudy?" A sweet voice called out to me 10 meters above my head.

"Studying?" Playing.

"Is that so," says a floating Roxy, with her hands at the side.

Yep, she's working on some flight magic we developed. It took me a while to remember the concepts of lift, and drag, but we've developed an early draft for flight magic.

Well we say that, but it's basically just gliding, lift-offs, and floating. We're basically just jumping really high at this point.

There is one other problem though.

I can see them.

She's wearing a skirt, I can totally see underneath, I don't know how I'll breach the topic, but I gotta tell her about it before she leaves and starts flashing the rest of the continent.

Alright, time for a magical experiment to revive a weeaboos dream, a.k.a: Rasengan!

Why?

Because it's the goddamn rasengan. If you are reborn in a magical universe, and you're not trying to recreate the rasengan, you surely aren't living!

I mean… come on… rasengan. If you come from the real world, and then find yourself in a world of fantasy, well why not fulfill a fantasy?

"Trace on," taking out my hand I imagine the winds swirling around, and then start, "Wind blast," I need some momentum to get it going and, then;

"Rasengan!"

"Nice wind blast," Roxy complimented. As she floated back to the ground.

Thank god she's not in the air anymore. Do you have any idea how distracting you are?

Ignoring flashing sensei, my control has really gone up and beyond what is normal.

The time before my sickness I was training every day, but was unable to see the results as whatever process my body was going through while exhausted, left me unable to see the results. I was always working with half a tank.

Thanks to it though, my dream to perform a rasengan is still a possibility.

At the moment it's just advanced air compression. I've essentially made an air cannon, the low tech ones that thow t-shirts.

Hurray, I can now start my dream of lifting skirts in another world! As if!

"Well, at least it's visible now, so that's something,"

The fact that I can see it means that I am gathering quite a bit of mana into that wind, so that's a plus. It's not the pure concentration of mana I want it to be, but I'll get there.

"Wouldn't that just make it easier for your enemies to judge,"

Oy, shut up sensei! Who told you to bring logic into this. I glared at my teacher.

"...can't you let me have one victory. Trust me, it will be great once I figured out all the kinks,"

"Speaking of fixing kinks. Good job on the reinforcement, it's come a long way," She praised. "Although, what ever happened to that other spell? Analysis, I believe, I felt that one had potential,"

"Ah, I still practice it, just not around sensei,"

She gave me a quizzical look. "You're not sneaking in extra training are you,"

"Don't look at me like that. I'm sure you would have noticed if I was pushing myself to my limits,"

"That's true. Wait, so you have made progress,"

"Kind of, here," I reach out for her hand. "May I?"

She gives me her hand understanding my intent.

I put a finger on her palm releasing my energy into it. "Sensei's a mage so she can feel it right, my energy going through your hand. I can see sensei closely, her bones, her muscles. For example… here,"

I trace my finger up to her shoulder, and push a bit.

I say see, but it's more like echo location, or maybe it's an x-ray? Regardless, I've gotten quite good at seeing someone's insides.

Sounds more gruesome than it is. It is completely safe, not dark magic, nope not at all. Definitely falls under healing. Probably.

"Mmh," a moan escaped her lips.

"Your muscles are a bit in a knot under the armpits. You've been pushing yourself flying sensei," I say with closed eyes, concentrating on the feel of my mana.

"I-I see," she says. "This will be very useful for healing-wait a minute! How exactly have you been training this magic? You haven't practiced it around me,"

Ah, oops?

She gave me a cold look, and I could feel the atmosphere literally cooling. I noticed her staff glowing as well.

Scary! I'm innocent, stop that.

"Like I said… if I were doing something like working myself to the bone you would know,"

"But you weren't telling me you were still practicing it," she reiterated.

"..."

"I'll tell your mom,"

"...massages…" I confess.

"...who?" she questioned.

"Lilia…"

"You're still at it," she puts a hand on her forehead as she shakes her head in disbelief. "I thought you'd have given up. Didn't she say, and I quote, 'Master Rudeus should pursue woman closer his age,'"

"She said I would be happier pursuing someone my age, not that I should pursue someone else. Besides, it's strictly medical. It's for medical reasons."

"Yes, yes. I remember, you showed me once. Didn't know you were still at it,"

"Well, you can't argue with the results. Besides, I'm not the only one that's having romance troubles am I,"

"What do you mean?" She questioned.

"You know what I mean. I've been wanting to ask for a while, but who's the kid that's been stalking you lately,"

That's right, lately sensei has had a hoodie wearing kid following her around.

In fact…

"I can see them off in the distance right now,"

Right now, I can very easily see the kid in the distance. Well at least I don't have to worry about them being a peeping tom if they're that far away.

Probably.

"So, who is it?"

"I don't know,"

"You haven't asked?"

"Everytime I go to them they start running away,"

"And, we both know you can catch them if you want to," not difficult. Sensei that has flight magic

Hop magic?

And can easily break this distance..

"What do you want me to do, kidnap them, and ask them?" she retorted. "If he has something to say he'll say it,"

"Whatever," I ignored it before continuing to my earlier task.

"Rasengan, Rasengan, Rasenga…" repeated attempts at building that spiraling ball. Rather than a spherical ball of doom, it's more of a silvery wisp that blasts wind.

"...rasengan…"

Hmm, sensei's also giving it a shot.

"Harder than it looks right?" I told her.

"Indeed, I still don't see the application for this. A conventional wind blast uses up less energy, and stronger attack,"

"Just trust me on this,"

"I trust that you are too stubborn to change your mind now." she says, before continuing..

I'll have you eating your words soon enough sensei. Well, at least I have her here, two heads are better than one.

Wait a minute… two heads?

"Hmm, why not?" I say to myself. "Hey sensei, come here,"

I then explain the process of how to build the rasengan, and start discussing how to go about it.

"So, all I have to do is put in my magical energy,"

"Yep," I answered. She has more magical energy than me, so she's gonna be the tank, and I'm gonna be the driver, and 'steer,' this wheel.

"Alright… if you say so, let's go…"

"..."

"..."

Breath in, breath out, try to get in synch with each other as much as possible, and

""Rasengan,"" we yell out simultaneously.

Roxy's energies flowed in, while I concentrated on giving it form.

Whoosh. It explodes on us. The wind explosion blows us back, knocking us to the ground.

"Well… success?" she questioned.

It definitely had more oomph,

"Yeah… probably," I turned to look at my sensei for a moment. "Ha ha ha…" Before bursting into a fit of laughter.

Can't say what's particularly funny, I just felt like laughing at this moment.

"...ha ha…" a small chuckle comes from Roxy as well.

Success? I suppose..

/

That was yesterday.

As fun as a method would be to spam the rasengan together. I still have to find time to practice it alone.

It's not like she's always going to be around, so I have to see what I can do by myself.

"Rasengan," I threw a whispery wind to a tree by my lonesome. It scabs some of the wood's surface, but overall the tree is just fine.

Still have to keep it a secret though. My family is still paranoid about me overworking myself.

.

Technically this might count as pushing myself a bit, buuuuut… come on… rasengan!

I gotta hit while the iron is hot! Having a little better feel of what the Rasengan is supposed to be after partnering up with Roxy, I'm doing some private practice out in the forest.

As long as you don't stray too deep into it you don't need to worry about any monsters, and I have plenty of privacy. So everything is good, no soul around, and can practice in peace.

"Gasp,"

Is what i would like to say.

"He's here…"

I didn't notice him because he was hiding behind a tree in the distance.

But I see him now.

"Well, this is new. I wonder what he wants."

Roxy's little stalker, fanboy? Usually sticks to just following Roxy. This is a change of pace. When she and I split off, he usually follows her before going home, or wherever it is he does.

This is the first time he's followed me.

"So this is what it feels like to be famous," I say to myself. "How long are you just going to stand there though?"

"Rasengan," I chant. The winds gather, and silvery specks appear within the ball, giving it an appearance, if only barely. A hollow oppaloid shape takes shape.

Pop. It breaks. Like a bubble.

It's hard to concentrate, when I know I have an audience.

"You know what, screw it, let's have some fun~"

Well, since he's gonna screw around with me, I'll screw with him back.

That sounds weird… glad I didn't voice that.

/

"Hey there, fancy running into you here," I pop right next to them.

"Eep!" he yelled?

Oy, that was a pretty feminine scream. Are you a girl?

I take a look at our little are wearing a coat, shorts, and a plain white shirt. They're around my height, so they have to be around my age 4-6, seven if they're short, but yeah, they could be a girl. It's the standard that girls of this era wear skirts, but it wouldn't be odd for one to wear shorts.

Whoosh. She dashed away from me. Probably a she.

Now, now, you didn't think it would be that easy. Operation cat and mouse is a go!

I jumped, and used some wind magic to carry me over the trees, and over her head, and land in front of her once more.

"Hello again, how are you doing? Have you met my twin brother, he's about yay high-"

"Eee!" she makes another scream, and starts dashing away from me again..

Okay once more.

"Wow, we really gotta stop meeting like this," I say from in front of her again.

Kudos to her, this time she just ran past me without screaming this time.

Okay… once more.

"Alright, I get there's being shy, but-" she runs off again.

Oy! At Least listen to me! My witty banter means nothing if you don't banter back. We do speak the same language, don't we?

We continue our little game of tag for a bit. Ironically, if she had built the courage to run past me, rather than away from me, we'd probably be out of this forest by now, but because of that, we've been running in circles.

Well, she's been.

"Hah… hah…" she's breathing hard leaning against a tree, her hands pressed against it.

"You're done. Alright, let's talk I just-" I reach my hand towards her while I was talking, and grab her collar, before having my hand slap away.

She/he is trembling a bit.

"Alright, fanboy, mind telling me why you've been following me and Roxy for so long? You're her admirer? Or are you just 'admiring,' her?" My voice rising in annoyance.

"..." They don't want to talk.

"Why have you been following sensei? What are your intentions?"

"..."

"Alright you pervert, how many upskirt shots have you had, answer me before I really start getting frustrated," I lift them up by the collar to emphasize my point.

They kick their legs in mid-air.

Don't underestimate this kid's physique, you're light as a feather.

"...I… ed… alk to…" she mumbled something. I couldn't make it out.

"Well speak up, I can't hear you!" I brought them down to the ground..

"...I just wanted to talk to her…" she said.

"And you're following me, because…"

"I was hoping you could introduce me to her,"

Ah, so I'm the wingman. So male? Yuri?

I let go. Since I'm not dealing with a pervert, I guess I don't have to be so aggressive.

"Hmm, fine I guess. I suppose I don't mind, but you gotta show me your face," I cross my hands in contemplation.

"No!" They yell out.

Really?! You want me to play wingman, and you're not going to show me your face?!

"Ok, you're really starting to piss me off, when you ask for favors, the least you could do is show someone your face," I reach for them, only for them to step away.

"What's the big deal you're going to have to show your face eventually," I reach for her once more, and tug angrily at her hood.

Revealing the view of a young girl.

I stare at her intently, lost in her features for a moment… Specifically her hair.

She is…

She looked at me, and then noticed me looking at the top of head with a focused stare.

With tears in her eyes. "I-I-I'm sorry for bothering you!," she puts her hands on top of her hair as she runs past me.

During my bewilderment she escapes my grasp easily. Except for the coat that's still in my hand.

"I promise to stay away from you from now on!"

I think about taking chase, but I'm not sure if I should or not at the moment.

Dumbfounded at her visage; young, approximate five years old, elven features, and…

Green hair. I am not sure what to do.

"That was Slyphy," I muttered.

It looks like I just met one of the main heroines, and proceeded to bully her.

That leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

…

"She left her coat."

Getting over my bewilderment, I finally noticed I still have her coat in my hands.

"I think I played enough for one day…"

…

Calling it a day, I make my way home.

I could use a warm bath.