From Commonplace Delinquent to Swordsman

My name is Sato Koji. Family name Sato, given is Koji and I'm what most would call a delinquent. I have the unkempt bleached hair that I let reach my almost to my shoulders.

I have blue eyes that are unique around here due to my mother. Apparently she was some prostitute my shithead of a father knocked up after a bender. Once I was old enough my mom split too, leaving me to fend for myself in the trash apartment we had lived in.

Luckily I was somewhat self sufficient already. After all growing up in the area I did, you'd be hard pressed to find someone followin the straight an narrow. I had some tough times like you'd imagaine, and that's how I managed to get my only friend.

A meek, and timid, lazy nice guy named Hajime Nagumo.

It had been a particularly rough stretch and my group leader caught me taking a little off the top for my personal use. Him and the rat that called me out, got the others together and gave me a proper beat down.

I ain't salty about it or nothing, fair is fair. I tried to get ahead and got what was coming to me. It's not like it would stop me from doing it again, just made me not get caught the next time.

Anyways though, after that beat down I was stumbling around trying to find a place to crash. I had long since abandoned that apartment as I was not about to spend what little I did earn in that piece of shit. Which left me with a backpack of clothes, ID and not much else.

So there I was laying on bench in a park, nursing my wounds when I heard a voice call out to me.

"Uh, Sato? Is that you?"

I lifted the arm that was covering my eyes to see Hajime Nagumo standing in front of me with a few bags in his hands. I could smell the aroma of hot food coming from them and my stomach grumbled in hunger.

"Ya, whatchu want Hajime?" I said as dropped my arm back down. I know I had said I was a delinquent, but I didn't rough up on just anyone. If they couldn't fight back or had it as bad or worse than me? It just seemed lower than low to attack them. I went after people with money, or other delinquents. Not people like Hajime.

He didn't say anything, I just heard him walk closer, the crinkling of the plastic bag and then something warm being placed on my chest.

"Huh?" I went to sit up just to get hit by the wave of pain from my beating and grunted as I looked to see what he had gave me. It was a…

"A burger?" I asked.

"Ya. You seemed hungry.. Plus I felt bad after I saw you get beat up. Sorry I was too scared to help." He responded which made me chuckle as I finally sat up.

"No worries. The day I've got someone like you fighting my battles, I might as well just kill myself then and there." I noticed him flick a little at the words and this caused me to scratch the back of my head due to the awkwardness.

"No offense of course. Just gotta be able to take care of myself. I appreciate the burger though." I said while raising the burger as if cheering glasses with him and set upon eating it.

"No, I understand. Uh, do you need a place to stay tonight? I know it's not my business, but there are rumors that you're homeless, and after seeing you in this bench I-…"

I snorted in response while balling up the empty burger wrapper and sent it flying in to the garbage can a few feet away.

"Ya I'm homeless. But that don't mean I want you looking down on me, got it? Sato Koji doesn't need anyone's sympathy." I replied and watched him as he fidgeted.

"So you don't want a place to crash for the night? Maybe a bath?" He said uncertaintly, looking ready to run.

I sniffed myself and nearly bust out laughing, I definitely did reek. Those guys had tossed me against a dumpster, but I hadn't realized the smell had clung to me until now.

"Fine." He looked at me surprised as if he hadn't expected me to agree and then smiled.

"Alright! Follow me."

And from then on I guess we were friends. Most people probably thought I was using Hajime to do my homework in exchange for protection, but actually I was the smarter one between us. Eh, maybe that's not entirely accurate. Hajime just didn't care.

He was very lazy when it came to schoolwork, but that was more to do with the fact that he just knew what he liked and it wasn't school. He was nerdy, reading manga, watching anime all that sort of stuff. I didn't see why people gave him such hard time about it, some of the shows could be cringy with their obsessive tropes. And there were some questionable ones that seemed to be just in the borderline of being porn.

But it was still just fiction. Either way while I did keep the assholes and bullies away from Hajime it was purely because of our friendship that had only gotten stronger in the year since I met him.

That leads us to today, Monday. Some say it's the worse of the week, but personally they seem to all be the same. Hajime hates it because it's the first day of school after the weekend, but I don't really see why that matters.

As soon as we walk into class the reactions are heavily mixed. The female and male groups all seemed to dislike him, whereas I mostly got scared glances with the occasional love struck look from a few of the girls.

I didn't think I was conceited or anything, but I did know that I was fairly attractive. I kept in shape, and the girls really tended to like my blue eyes and bleached hair. But, I didn't really care about all that. What was I going to do with a girlfriend anyways? I was broke, homeless high schooler.

One of our classmates named Daisuke Hiyama, muttered under his breath as Hajime walked by.

"Wow, what a creep. I bet he was up all night playing those porn games." I could tell Hajime heard, and I knew he wouldn't respond. But that didn't mean I couldn't. With a smile crossing my face I stood beside Daisuke's desk and looked down at him.

"Maaaan. I really have to wonder about your intelligence Daisuke. Saying something like that while I'm around." Before he could respond I smacked him hard on the back of the head, he leaned forward cradling it so helped him all the way forward until his head was on the desk.

"Gah!" He groaned, and squirmed trying to get free. I just looked down at him and then around at his friends one last time. Rubbed his face in the desk with one final push and let go.

"See ya around Daisuke." I singsonged as I sat down in the seat behind Hajime. He was already talking to the class "Princess" Shirasaki Kaori.

I felt somewhat bad for him, but it was also funny seeing everyone glare at him just because Shirasaki liked to talk to him.

"Good morning Sato. Not getting Hajime into any trouble are you?" Shirasaki turned to me. She didn't actually dislike, just didn't like the fact that I was a delinquent and hung out with Hajime more than she could. I smiled widely.

"Ohh, I wouldn't dream of it! Me and Hajime are always hanging out though, so I can't promise we wont ever get up to any trouble." Her cheeks puffed slightly and she turned back to Hajime determined to talk his ear off while I just leaned back in my seat softly laughing.

That's when the Shirasaki brigade walked up. I sighed as I saw that Kouki was looking at me while he walked up. He was a good guy? I guess? He was kind of like Shirasaki in that he didn't really understand how the world worked, and couldn't see hidden bad in people.

He saw my bleached hair, unkempt uniform and blunt personality and immediately set about trying to "help" me.

"Sato you really shouldn't be so rough with Hiyama, you could have really hurt him." I just sighed audibly.

"Kouki, I promise if actually wanted to hurt him it wouldn't be with so many witnesses around." I smirked as i eyed Hiyama. He jumped slightly and whirled back around to face forward. Kouki frowned but thankfully he turned his attention to Hajime and Shirasaki.

Now it was Shizuku.

"Sorry about Kouki. I heard what Hiyama said so I know why you did what you did." I waved it off.

"It is what it is. Anyways we sparring this afternoon? You've got that tournament coming up right?" Her expression for my serious and nodded at my question.

"Ya, thanks again. There aren't many our age that can give me good practice." I just nodded at her words. Since Hajime was indirectly friends with this group because of Shiraki, I became mutual acquaintances with Shizuku. She actually seemed to have a brain unlike Kouki, Shirasaki and Ryutarou Sakagami.

She also happened to be a local sword prodigy in Kendo. Unfortunately she was childhood friends with Kouki, so pretty much anytime we sparred or hung out outside of school, Kouki was there. Not that I wanted to be alone with her, he's just a pain.

The last guy was about 5 centimeters taller than me, standing at 190cm. A giant if I said so myself. He wasn't just tall either, he looked like a complete meathead and for the most part he was.

While I was tall and lean, he had a bodybuilder form, but I knew that he didn't really know how to fight or use his size at all.

Everything else was normal until lunch time. Shirasaki had been talking with Hajime again and I just ignored them while I read our textbook. Don't be surprised like I said earlier, I'm the smart one between me and Hajime. You could say that I'm the only reason he's passing.

That doesn't matter though because the next moment there was a glowing sigil that appeared on the floor, and I don't know why but my brain immediately went to Hajime's manga and anime. He had told me about stuff like this before.

Without thinking I jumped out of my chair and grabbed on to him, he wouldn't last long if we all got separated

My worries we're instantly out at ease when the bright light faded and we were suddenly inside a….

"A temple?"