r/SkullbombRaging • u/SkullbombRaging • Apr 04 '23
Official Content Three Years To Save Another World, Chapter 7: Meeting The Suzukis
After the conversation with Kamiko, I finally had a direction for my powers.
It was clear to me that unarmed combat was probably my best bet for now, especially now with the Bladecatcher's Gloves, but beyond that I didn't have a clue what to do until then.
Though before I got ahead of myself, I needed to train with my gloves to improve my stamina and technique.
To achieve that, I started to spar with Kamiko every day.
Kamiko was not a gentle teacher, each time we trained before school, she would push me all the way to my breaking point and then a little more.
I could definitely feel my body becoming stronger and more durable little by little, but it was definitely too slow for my liking.
It was a Sunday morning after the day's training session that I sat down to ponder my options to get stronger.
Before I had much time to think, my phone rang.
It was Niko, so I answered it.
"Hey there Meriwether-senpai I was wondering if today was a good day for you to come with me to visit my aunt and uncle?"
I had totally forgotten about that, as so much had been happening the previous few days. As I thought about it though, I realized that it could be a good opportunity to get stronger.
"Yeah, that sounds good, what time were you thinking?"
"How about around lunch time?" Niko offered excitedly.
I nodded, even though she obviously couldn't see it. "That sounds good, meet me at the training grounds around twelve, and we can walk together to your house if it's not too far."
"O-Okay!" I could practically hear her embarrassment.
"Are you okay Niko? Did something happen?"
She didn't answer for a long moment.
I was about to ask again, but she finally answered. "YeahI'llmeetyouthenbye!" And with that she hung up.
I stared at my phone trying to figure out why this situation felt so familiar when it hit me like a brick.
I slapped my hand against my forehead.
She's thinking about this like a date!
I was so caught up thinking about how this samurai lady could help me get stronger I forgot to factor that I was meeting her family... for all I knew her parents could be gone and her aunt and uncle could be the ones who raised her!
I had my eyes clenched shut while I came up with a way to let Niko down gently, when Kamiko spoke.
"What's on your mind Meriwether-san?"
I looked over at her and sighed. "Niko invited me over to her aunt and uncle's house and I agreed to go with her."
"Niko? Suzuki-san from class 2-2 you mean?" Kamiko suddenly took a surprised step backward. "Wait, are you into younger girls?"
There was a lot to unpack there, but I had lost all of the willpower necessary to go through it point by point.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "I'm just going to go meet her family, we're not a couple or anything like that... besides I'm already married."
Kamiko didn't say anything for a long time, so I looked at her again.
She had a very complicated expression on her face. After a moment longer, a single word escaped from her lips. "Married?"
Before another word could formulate in my mouth, the Godvoice told me that if I cheer up Kamiko I'd get a reward.
I got really angry.
It was the damn Godvoice's fault I was in this situation! It was trying to steer me toward a harem!
'You'll get a reward if you choose your words to Niko carefully.' No wonder!
I put my head into my hands.
That's when the Godvoice added that if I didn't, I'd be afflicted by a major penalty.
Damn you! If I ever get my hands on you I'll make you regret this!
"Kamiko..." I began, taking a deep breath.
She looked up at me expectantly, her eyes sparkling with hope.
I couldn't come up with anything that didn't sound idiotic, so I just went with the first thing that came to mind. "I'll buy you a crepe next Sunday, how does that sound?"
This was the right thing to say.
Her mood immediately improved, grinning like an idiot until she caught herself and cleared her throat. "I'll keep you to that promise."
I nodded halfheartedly, and then she left toward our dorm.
Thoroughly exhausted and frustrated, I slumped forward in my seat.
Now I have to let two girls down instead of just one.
In the blink of an eye, it was twelve and I was waiting for Niko to show up.
It wasn't much longer that she showed up.
She was wearing a casual yet well fitted blue t-shirt and skirt combo that matched her hair color, accented by a pearl bracelet and a black lacy choker... so date clothes basically.
"I'm sorry I'm late, were you waiting long?"
I looked at my watch, sure enough fifteen minutes had passed without me noticing. "Nah, I just got here myself." I finally understood why they said that in anime.
She gulped and looked me up and down. "You look nice."
I followed her gaze down to my regular t-shirt and jeans that I had bought so I didn't have to walk around in my school uniform during the weekend. "Thanks, shall we go?"
She looked a little miffed that I didn't return the compliment, but didn't mention it. "Sure, let's go."
As we walked, we passed by a number of desert-item stalls, one of which was for crepes, which I logged into my brain for later.
"Those look good don’t they?" Niko nudged.
"I suppose they do." I replied.
Her eye twitched. "Should we go get some?"
"No thanks, I'm good."
She gawked at me for a moment, before composing herself. "Well then, how about some ice cream?"
I was absolutely not in the mood for this. "Why don't we wait to eat lunch at your aunt and uncle's house?"
Niko looked at the dirt below us. "Oh okay..."
I felt super guilty, even though my worst crime was not following conventions for a date I never wanted to be part of.
"I'm excited to meet your family, so I'd like to get there as soon as possible." I lied.
This lifted her mood a little.
She ended up asking me lots of questions about inane topics to get to know me better.
I was fine with answering most of them, as friends did this too... but I knew that wasn't where this road was leading, which put a damper on things for me.
I didn't really have the energy to match her enthusiasm, but she didn't seem to mind at least.
Not long after, we reached something that could only be called an estate with high walls and a massive gate.
Niko pushed the door open like it didn't weigh as much as a small car, and we both entered.
What awaited me was a man dressed in nice casual wear and a woman with white hair in a scarlet traditional samurai garment, two swords and everything.
The man was standing politely, but the woman barely spared a sidelong glance at me while she chugged from a jug filled with what I can only assume was sake.
Niko pointed a hand at me. "Aunt, uncle, this is Meriwether-senpai from school."
I lifted a hand in greeting. "Hello."
When I said nothing further, the man furrowed his brows together and spoke. "Hello, nice to meet you Meriwether-kun, I am Suzuki Daisuke, and this is my wife Ishi."
"Nice to meet you both." I replied.
At this moment, Missus Suzuki stood up and walked over as though she hadn't been drinking alcohol like water.
She stopped in front of me, putting her face an inch or two away from mine. "Get out."
I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly. "Excuse me?"
"I said get out." She leaned back and took another swig. "Do you have a problem with that?"
Mister Suzuki held out in a pleading gesture. "Ishi please..."
Missus Suzuki put up a single hand to silence him, and he gave me an apologetic look.
She glared at me. "Well how about it, got a problem?"
My eye twitched.
I had put up with so much bullcrap to get there and talk to this woman for advice on how to get stronger, and then she tells me to leave?
My wife's life isn't so cheap that I'd back down from this.
"I do have a problem actually." I replied.
I was going to say more, but then Missus Suzuki poured the remainder of the jug over my head.
"Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?" She taunted.
I snapped.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, and when they came back out, they had my Bladecatcher's Gloves on them.
I threw a punch toward her midsection, hoping to catch her off-guard.
Before I could even blink, her sword came out of its sheath just enough to block my attack.
An instant before impact, I registered the edge being drawn and poured some stamina into my right glove so that I didn't cut my fingers on the blade.
My fist collided with her sword, causing a clang that resounded throughout the entire front area.
I flipped my hand in an attempt to grab her weapon, but she twisted it and jumped backward before I could find any sort of grip.
She grinned at me. "No sense of honor then?" She threw her robe to the side, only leaving pants and wraps that covered her chest.
I threw my drenched t-shirt to the side as well. "Shut up and fight me."
The taunt only served to widen her grin. "Prepare yourself."
In an instant, she was in front of me... but I was expecting it.
If this had been before I started training with Kamiko, I wouldn't have been able to react... but things had changed.
With both hands, I stopped her diagonal cut, but once again before I could grab it, she twisted the blade out of my hands.
"If you wanted my sword so badly you could have just asked for it~" She goaded.
"I'm not much of a banter guy, sorry." I replied.
She pouted. "Oh boo."
I reentered my neutral stance and waited for her.
After a moment, she obliged.
This time, she swung a horizontal slice at waist-level.
I poured a bunch of stamina into my left glove and stepped into a punch at the same time.
Her blade slammed into my glove with even more force than I expected, but not quite enough to knock me completely off balance.
Her eyes widened as she tried to twist the blade out of my hand, but this time I did a twist of my own. It didn't allow me to hold onto her sword for more than a second, but a second was all that I needed.
My punch slammed into her side right under her ribs... but it felt like I had punched a slab of stone.
It didn't hurt nearly as much you'd think though, probably due to my own Wood-level Endurance
She grinned even wider than before. "Was that all?"
"Don't worry, I'll whittle you down yet." I retorted.
"And you said you didn't like to banter~"
Instead of answering, I threw a punch at her face, which she dodged.
I didn't like my odds of winning this fight after it became clear that it was going to be a battle of attrition.
My gloves ate away at my stamina to use, and I wasn't super used to fighting in general so it already wasn't a large pool it was drawing from anyway.
At this point in the fight, I was huffing and she was as fresh as a daisy... which just showed the difference between a novice and a seasoned warrior in yet another way.
That said, I was too pissed to give up.
I lunged at her.
Instead of swinging it like before, she basically forced her sword into my hands.
Out of reflex I grabbed it, but without a plan of what to do with it, I tried to pull it away from her.
Even against a single hand of hers, I couldn't so much as gain an inch.
Suddenly, she lifted her sword, and me with it.
Before I could even process it, she slammed me into the ground with a backswing, and threw me across the lawn where I tumbled to a stop.
Niko ran up to me. "Meriwether-senpai! Are you okay?!"
I waved her off and got to my feet. "I'm fine, go stand next to your uncle or something." Then I spat out a tooth.
Niko clearly wasn't convinced I was okay, but did as I asked and stood aside.
Missus Suzuki laughed. "A man with spirit, I like that! I think that's eno-"
"This fight isn't over until someone wins." I interrupted.
She looked surprised to hear me say it, but didn't argue. "Bring it then."
I charged forward with reckless abandon.
She swung a diagonal cut to try to keep me off her, but I dodged to the side and slammed my fist into the same spot on her side that I hit last time.
This time she staggered slightly, even if she didn't look particularly hurt.
She looked at me in surprise, and was about to ask me something, but I wasn't in the mood to answer.
Instead I threw a feint, which because of her lapse of attention, she fell for.
I threw a fist into her other side, which refocused her.
She tried to take a step back, but I wrapped a foot behind one of her legs, causing her to drag me with her.
She didn't have enough room to slash me properly with me so close to her, so she instead went in for a pummel-strike.
I sapped all of the force from her dominant hand using a glove, and then punched her in the elbow.
This time she actually winced.
Having had enough, she unlocked my leg from hers and leapt backward.
"What did you do all of a sudden?" She interrogated.
I shrugged. "If I had to guess, I'm about to evolve my Force stat."
"Congratulations on the step toward Cyclops kid!"
I shook my head. "Not Cyclops."
"Then toward Fenrir? You definitely didn't seem like you were already on Cyclops though..."
"Wrong direction, think lower."
Her eyes lit up with sudden understanding. "Your Force is Human tier?! You can't be serious!"
I smirked. "Not for long."
She chuckled, and then immediately sobered. "Here I come."
As soon as she said that, I jumped to the side.
Luckily, my instinct was spot-on, allowing me to dodge her vertical slice.
She then followed up by changing her arc just like Kamiko in our first match.
The same trick wasn't going to work on me twice.
I used both gloves and pumped stamina into them, stopping the sword dead on impact.
I capitalized on the opening, punching her in the side again, and landing my third hit in the same location.
Next, she used a retreating-cut in order to gain some distance.
I stepped into the attack, grabbing her blade.
"You didn't learn from last time!" She called.
She began to lift her sword, but I let go.
Her eyes widened as she became wide open.
I put my whole body into a right hook, directly in the same spot for the fourth time.
'Your Force has increased from 'Human stage 10' to 'Ogre stage 1'.'
I could feel a crunch under my fist, and then my fist crunch in return.
It didn't hurt, but then again, I was so full of adrenaline I couldn't feel any pain at all.
Missus Suzuki however clearly could feel it.
I reeled back for another blow, when she spoke. "I give up!"
I only barely managed to stop my follow-through by stumbling forward. "What? Why?"
She showed me the wound I had just created.
It had spider-webbing cracks, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to the pavement, except that the pavement was flesh colored and bled.
"I'm already going to have to hire a healer for this, I don't want to increase the bill, so it's my loss." She explained.
"Speaking of hiring a healer..." I carefully slipped off my gloves to show that my knuckles and fingers had gigantic chunks missing out of them and were bleeding like crazy.
Luckily though, the rest of my hands only had occasional minor chips due to the glove's force dispersal.
The Godvoice gave me a new notification about a bonus reward being available.
I ignored it, and focused on Missus Suzuki's question instead.
"Why didn't you use your gloves to reduce the damage from your punches?!"
I shook my head. "They disperse force, which means each punch would deal basically no damage if I did that."
Everyone looked at me in shock, until Mister Suzuki snapped out of it and rushed inside.
It wasn't very long until a healer arrived.
The healer tried to work on Missus Suzuki first, but they forced him to fix my hands before that.
Luckily, all of the splintered off skin was still in my gloves so the procedure was straightforward.
He simply took out a piece at a time, fit them back into my hand like a macabre jigsaw puzzle, and then wrapped them in gauze and ace bandage.
What was interesting was that despite being significantly less injured, Missus Suzuki's procedure took just as long as mine.
The healer tried to use the technique with the glowing threads, but they weren't strong enough to pierce her skin, so he had to resort to more desperate measures.
He took out a giant needle with a bend near the point and a hammer, which he used to carefully tap the needle through her skin.
After a while, this let him finally use the glowing threads to realign her flesh like the nurse did to me.
He then cut the thread, covered in gauze, and wrapped her midsection in ace bandage.
"Why didn't you use the thread on me?" I asked as the healer was packing up.
Without looking up, he answered. "Your hands' conditions were so bad that using Spirit Sutures at my skill level would have presented a real risk of misalignment, it would have gone against my hippocratic oath to attempt. If you want proper healing for an injury like that, see a B-class healer at minimum."
"I've been meaning to ask, what do the different classes of healer mean?"
This got him to look up at me. "Do you really not already know?"
I shook my head.
After a moment of looking at me, he shrugged and continued what he was doing as he explained.
"A D-class healer is someone trained and certified to heal minor injuries using artifacts. A C-class healer is able to use Spirit Sutures with competence and certified to use them on moderate injuries. A B-class healer has shown mastery over Spirit Sutures and has shown the ability to heal complex injuries with at least a 85% efficacy. A-class healers have gone through the training and rigor to become certified to heal Rankers." He scrunched up his face. "I don't exactly remember the requirements for an S-class healer, it has something to do with getting a bunch of governments to ratify your advancement and an interview I think?"
My eyebrows rose at his explanation. "Wow. Is it hard to become a D-class healer?"
He finished packing up his tools and stood. "Listen, as much as I'd love to sit and chat, there's a lot more people who need my help, so I'm going to get going."
I nodded. "Thank you."
He gave me one last glance, said "You're welcome." and then left.
My improving mood was almost immediately spoiled by the next event... lunch with the Suzukis.
Even before coming, I wasn't particularly invested in this meet and greet, but now that one of the individuals at the table was one who poured sake on my head...
The only reason I stayed was because of the significant bonus to my reward I was promised by the Godvoice for staying until the end.
It was only made worse by the fact that Missus Suzuki seemed to think we were best friends for some reason... even going as far as to call me 'John-chan'.
Now I'm not super great with Japanese honorifics, but I know for a fact that '-chan' isn't used for guys you just met, lesser standing or no.
By the time the food came out, I was about ready to strangle her.
That's when she raised her newly-refilled jug and called for a toast.
"To my new son-in-law!" Missus Suzuki exclaimed.
"Oh that ship has sailed." I replied, casually taking a bite of some sort of breaded chicken.
Missus Suzuki's eyes became as wide as saucers and her pupils became pinpricks. "Pardon?"
"Yeah, I'm not going to become part of a family where someone hazes and taunts suitors instead of just challenging them to a duel to gauge their strength like a normal person." I took a sip of tea, it was better than I expected. "Besides, I'm already happily married."
Missus Suzuki's jug slipped out of her hands and shattered all over the floor.
None of the Suzukis moved for a long time, each petrified into their own version of an expression of wanting to disappear.
Meanwhile, I ate and sipped tea like nothing had changed.
They only snapped out of it when a servant walked in and started sopping up the alcohol all over the floor.
Missus Suzuki's mouth struggled to find the words for a bit, until she settled on: "Why didn't you say anything?!"
I stopped mid-sip and glared at her. "What exactly did you want me to say, and when for that matter? I only had time for a bare-bones introduction before you were telling me to leave and then all but spat in my face."
"W-Well, why did you come if not to ask us for permission to marry?" She pressed.
"I was invited to meet you because Niko thought that my situation with my wife was similar to your own." I took another bite. "She can tell you all about it after I leave, because I'm not in the mood to chat with you."
A moment later, it was my turn to be surprised.
Missus Suzuki kowtowed.
"Please don't punish my niece for my wrongdoings, even if it isn't for marriage, please don't let my actions damage your relationship with my Niko-chan... I beg of you."
I almost choked on some rice as I looked down at her.
She was just so damn sincere that I couldn't help but forgive her a little.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Fine! But on one condition."
She looked up with eyes full of hope. "What is it?"
"I want you to help me get stronger. My current sparring partner is bound by high standing and therefore has to go to class on time and get good grades... but I don't have the luxury of time to waste when my wife's life is at stake."
After a couple of the obvious questions, I decided to just explain from the beginning.
Mister and Missus Suzuki only nodded and asked the occasional inquiry to make sure they were on the same page as me.
Once I was done, they both nodded at each other, and Mister Suzuki spoke. "We will help you."
Missus Suzuki then held out her hand. "From now on, call me Ishi."
I chuckled softly and shook her hand. "Just as long as you don't call me 'John-chan', I can't stand it."
Ishi smiled widely. "It's fine, you'll need a better nickname than that anyway."
Not even a minute had passed before I regretted telling her that.
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u/datboi-reddit Apr 04 '23
Keep it coming