Chapter 6- Ruka –senpai! How could you?! -Ruka

“This game is actually not bad. I get to train, while my real body is resting. What a convenient thing” Yuki thought. Ruka is actually a sword training fanatic. He spends most of his free time training at the school dojo or at the family dojo.

“Ah! It’s already so late!” Yuki exclaimed aloud, looking at the digital time.

Ruka wanted to play the game for three hours but he overshot that time by an hour. Ruka tend to forget the time when it comes to things related to sword training.

“Log out!” Yuki said in a hurry.

Yuki disappeared from the training centre immediately.

“Ehhh??? Where did that guy go?!” a player from the crowd exclaimed.

“Was he a ghost??” another player said in horror, as his face paled.

“Guys don’t be foolish! He probably just log out. Probably….” Another player said with doubt in his voice.

The crowd that was there slowly dispersed, leaving people wondering if the angelic swordsman was a player or a ghost.

Back in the real world….

“Oh no! I’m late!” Ruka exclaimed aloud.

Ruka was late for his daily sword training at the family dojo. Ruka quickly grab his keikogi (kendo uniform) and towel and stuff them into his bag. He agilely jumped over his gaming pod and grab his two wooden swords and ran out of the house.

Ruka was good at parkour. He practises parkour out of interest on the way to the dojo and back from it.

“I guess now is a good time to put it to good use.” Ruka thought as he leaped into the air and landed on the wall of his neighbour’s house. Ruka was going to take this short-cut that bypass 25 minutes of walking by going straight through the houses and sneaking in the dojo through the backyard.

At the pace he was running, he would reach the dojo in 5 minutes, instead of 25 minutes if he were to use the normal route. As he ran along the wall, one of his twin wooden swords at his side unfortunately hit his neighbour’s cat on its head. The ginger cat screeched in surprise. The poor cat was rudely awoken by the knock on its head. Never did it imagined the day where humans would run on top of walls like this rude guy in front of it.

“Sorry Ginger!” Ruka apologised in hurry and run off. If it was in a normal situation where he was not in a hurry, Ruka would have stopped to apologise to the cat properly and maybe play with the cat. However, desperate situations calls for desperate measures. His Uncle was probably fuming mad now. In order not to be later than he already was, Ruka had no choice but to leave the cat angry.

Ruka’s heart was in a turmoil. Ruka is a cat lover, to leave any cat mad at him was heart-breaking to him, much less his favourite cat in the neighbourhood. If his mother was not allergic to them, he would have taken in all the stray cats in the neighbourhood.

“Sorry, Ginger! I promise that I will buy a can of sardines for you on the way back. Please forgive me!” Ruka thought as his eyes became moist as the thought of being hated by that cat.

Reaching the end of the wall, Ruka leaped down from the wall. As he was not cautious of his surroundings once again, he leaped right in front of a group of unsuspecting youths. Wasting no time for chit-chat, Ruka once again leap onto the wall and jumped into the dojo’s backyard.

“Ahh! Its Ruka-senpai!” one of the youths exclaimed. The three boys were rather surprised from Ruka's dramatic entrance and exit.

"Let's follow him! Call the others! We will finally have our matches!" another youth exclaimed gleefully.

In the dojo….

Ruka sneaked into the changing room and quickly changed into his keikogi, the practice attire for kendo. As he was about to sneak into the training hall, the door panel opened.

“Ruka...” A middle aged man said sternly. The man bore a striking similarity to the NPC instructor in initium, the most distinct difference is that this man had short slightly greyish hair.

“Tatsuya-ojisan…” Ruka greeted slowly after recovering from the shock from being caught red-handed.

“Ruka. It’s not like you to be late. I know you started playing games like your older brother, but please remember not to become addicted. A little fun is okay, but control yourself. I hope I will not see a repeat of this. Is that clear, Ruka?” Ruka’s Uncle said with concern. Ruka is usually very punctual for sword training and if he was to be late he would have call to inform his uncle in advance. His uncle was concern for Ruka's safety and was waiting patiently for his arrival for about an hour.

“Yes… Tatsuya-ojisan…” Ruka said as he stared at his feet in shame.

Tatsuya Sakurai led his nephew into the training hall and was surprised to find a group of youths waiting at the entrance.

“Aichi-kun, Niwa-kun, and Hibari-kun! Why..why are you all here?” Ruka exclaimed in surprise.

The three youths look at each other nervously. They nudge each other to tell ruka the reason for their visit but they were slightly nervous due to the presence of his stern looking uncle. They had to get Ruka's uncle to let them borrow Ruka for today, if not their seniors will never have the chance to challenge Ruka again. For the sake of the kendo club, they had to muster up their courage to go through with their plan to make Ruka's uncle force Ruka into accepting this whole box of challenges.

“Vice-captain.... How could you ditch us? We were all looking forward to challenging you at the school dojo before you went home.” Niwa-kun said with fake tears in his eyes, as he handed Ruka a box full of letters of challenges from various members of the kendo club.

Ruka was the new vice-captain of the kendo club. Although he was stronger than the new captain and even the seniors, he declined the role of captain as he felt that he lacked inter-personal skills and leadership that a captain should have. Although he was not very sociable, he won the respect and admiration of his fellow kendo members. Upon the fervent persuasion or rather insistence of the members of the kendo club, Ruka became the vice-captain.

Ruka stared at them in disbelief as he held into the box full of challenges from the various kendo club menbers and some were even from the girl's kendo club. Ruka knew that there might be a few people who might want to challenge him in a match before they left the school, but never did he expect so much people!

Aichi-kun, Hibari-kun and Niwa-kun looked at Ruka's uncle with moist eyes as they pleaded:" Sir, please let our seniors have their matches with Ruka-senpai. It is the last chance they will ever have. Please sir!"

" The same old trick Ruka always use on his brother. I guess Ruka has been teaching them more things than kendo...." Uncle Tatsuya thought to himself as he smile reassuringly at the three boys and said: “Ruka. I guess training is postponed till tomorrow. You should not let down your juniors expectation, go and accept all those challenges. I will allow you to use our dojo for your matches, but please clear up and lock up after you are done. I will be heading home first. ”

“Thank you, Sir.” The three boys bowed as they thanked Ruka’s Uncle with joy. The plan had worked!

The boys smiled to each other mischievously. Aichi-kun took out his phone and sent a message to all kendo club members to come to Ruka’s family dojo.

"but...!" Ruka voiced his disapproval at his uncle, knowing that he did not fell for that little trick. He did not want to be stuck with these challengers for the whole day.

"No buts. Go and face these challengers head on. Boys if he tries to ditch it please let me know. I will make sure he will face a serious punishment." Uncle Tatsuya smiled slyly at Ruka, as he left. This will be the punishment for being late for training.

Seeing that his Uncle has given the ultimate, Ruka has no choice but to compile to the demands of his juniors. “This was going to be a very long day” Ruka thought as he heave a sigh.

Back at home…

“Hikaru! Ruka will be late for dinner today as he is having a match with all the kendo club members. So we will eat dinner without him.” Tatsuya-Ojisan commented.

“Yes.... Tatsuya-Ojisan.” Hikaru replied indifferently, but he was seething underneath in anger.

“All those kendo club members always stealing my precious time with my beloved brother! I will not take this lying down! Wait and see Kendo club members! I will have my revenge! No one gets away with stealing Ruka from me! Muhahahah!” Hikaru thought to himself as he smiled wickedly in secret.

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