Disciple
On the last day of March, Tomochika was fully enjoying the lazy days following her graduation from middle school. Having finished lunch, she headed to the dojo.
The Dannoura family’s house was a rather large, Japanese-style construction, and had an archery range and martial arts training room in it. She was currently heading to the martial arts dojo, walking through a passage from the main building. She had been told to go there after lunch by her grandfather. Though the dojo looked like a building with a long history, it had actually been built somewhat recently. Rather than the straw of traditional tatami mats, the floor was made of colorful artificial mats with built-in cushions, the kind used for Judo. Though it might have seemed like an odd choice for a family with traditions stretching back to the Heian era, it had been built this way to cater to students from the general public. Real training in the Dannoura arts took place outside, on the ground with shoes on.
Tomochika arrived at the dojo to find it empty, so she sat down on the matted floor. After a short wait, her grandfather arrived. Michizane Dannoura, Tomochika’s grandfather on her father’s side, was the current head of the Dannoura School. Though he was approaching eighty-eight years old, his body showed no signs of withering. Though his face was of course deeply wrinkled, nothing about the way he carried himself gave the impression of an old man. By the way, despite meeting in the dojo, neither of them wore training outfits. Michizane was wearing a polo shirt and jeans, while Tomochika was wearing a tracksuit.
“I don’t mind, but why here?” Tomochika asked. The Dannoura School accepted any and all students. Teaching others from outside the family would help their art spread, but in the end they had considerable difficulty attracting newcomers. Right now, the dojo was mostly used when others came to challenge the Dannoura School itself.
“We haven’t used this room for a long time, so I felt like we should,” her grandfather replied.
“Does that mean we have a new student?”
“Yes.”
“So, why am I here?”
“Hmm. Where do I begin? I guess it’s not that complicated. In short, the new student is a girl. I was worried she’d be too afraid of me.”
“Ah!”
“The fact you accepted that explanation so easily is somewhat irritating.”
“I mean, the reason none of my friends are willing to visit is because of you, dad, and my brother. Everyone thinks we’re a yakuza family.” The men of the Dannoura family gave a stern impression. Their expressions alone were enough to intimidate most people. “Everyone who sees you always ends up asking how many people you’ve killed.”
“Well...I guess I can’t say I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Wait, seriously?!” That was the first Tomochika had heard of it. That said, she had figured as much, so it wasn’t all that much of a shock.
“It’s not really something that is appropriate to talk about.”
“Okay, I’ll pretend like I never heard that. At any rate, why do we have a student now? I thought we had given up on that.”
The Dannoura School did not keep their teachings a secret, and any of their children who were willing to learn were taught. Fearing their arts would eventually be lost to time, they had begun trying to find ways to preserve them in the modern era. That was why they had begun taking on new students, but the Dannoura School operated on the presumption that one possessed the powerful body of the Dannoura line. Most ordinary people were incapable of adopting their techniques.
“Yes, well, this is a request from an old friend...”
It sounded to Tomochika like this was a bit of a sore spot for him. “But it’s just a normal kid, right? I would have expected you to turn him down.”
“Unfortunately, I owe him some money. I couldn’t really refuse.”
“You owe him money? Are we that poor that we need to borrow money from people?”
The Dannoura house was in the middle of a large city, in an area that ranked very highly in popularity. Having such a large house in such a popular spot would cost a considerable amount for upkeep. The fact that they had managed to maintain it meant they must have had some considerable wealth. Tomochika didn’t really perceive her family as being wealthy, though. She didn’t live a life of luxury at all. The only real difference between her and everyone else was that her house was larger.
“The family is fine, but that doesn’t mean I personally have money.”
“Yeah, since grandma takes care of the money for the house.”
“To keep things simple, I lost a lot on the FX.”
“Are you stupid?!” Tomochika immediately shouted. The FX, or Foreign Exchange, was a way for people to invest in foreign currencies, but for an amateur it was little more than gambling.
“That’s easy for you to say! But that’s exactly why I can’t just use the family’s money to pay off my loans!”
“I’m telling grandma!”
“Please, don’t!” As Tomochika stood up, Michizane desperately tried to stop her. Tomochika finally understood why he had wanted this conversation to happen in the dojo. Her mother and grandmother almost never came here. “The situation is under control! In exchange, he just wants me to teach his granddaughter some self-defense.”
“So why do I have to help when you’re the one who screwed up?” Tomochika asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you! So please, help me!”
“But I don’t really know that much. What do you want me to teach her?” The Dannoura School was broken up into four levels: beginner arts, intermediate arts, advanced arts, and final arts. Tomochika had only learned up to the intermediate arts, and it was hard for her to say she took her training all that seriously.
“The intermediate arts give you a strong grasp of the fundamentals of martial arts, so it should be plenty for you to teach a little self-defense.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, we call this archery, but I’ve barely learned any techniques that use a bow...” Though Tomochika was comfortable enough with a bow, that was no more than ordinary archery. She felt like there was no way the Dannoura School of Archery was just a normal archery school.
“You will learn more once you start learning the final arts, so don’t worry about it.”
“That’s not going to be for a while, though, right?”
“If you started practicing seriously, it probably wouldn’t take that long.”
“Not that I’m all that interested in using a bow.”
“Either way, let’s leave the bow talk for now. You can do it however you like; please just teach her some self-defense.”
“Well...I guess I have no choice...”
Michizane gave Tomochika money in exchange for her participation in practices. That was the main reason she practiced at all. That money came from Michizane’s personal funds, meaning any money he made indirectly benefited her as well. And besides, if her grandfather really needed her help, she couldn’t just ignore him.
“But if he just wants her to learn self-defense, why does it have to be here?”
“This isn’t just for some peace of mind. He wants her to learn something serious and practical.”
“Well...that narrows down her options quite a bit.”
The term “self-defense” encompassed a wide range of things, but the majority gave little more than peace of mind. Giving people a false sense of confidence like that could actually prove dangerous in some situations.
“So when am I supposed to start, and who am I teaching?”
“Have you heard of the Gokurakuten family?”
“Not really. Sounds like a pretty easygoing name, though.”
“I guess ordinary people wouldn’t know much about them. They are one of the richest families in Japan and are even pretty highly ranked in wealth across the entire world. I’m friends with the head of that family.”
“Sounds fishy to me. Why would someone like that be friends with you?” Tomochika asked.
“I worked as a bodyguard for him once.”
“If he’s that rich, why doesn’t he hire bodyguards for his granddaughter?”
“Of course he is doing so, but the girl is a bit of a nuisance herself. She doesn’t like the bodyguards being nearby when she’s walking to her elementary school.”
“So she’s an elementary school student?”
“Her name is Fukura Gokurakuten. In April she will begin her fifth year in elementary school.”
“Is there any specific danger she’s in? What should I be preparing her for?”
“Kidnappers, perverts, random attackers, and assassins. Stuff like that.”
“Uh, I don’t think learning self-defense will really help against an assassin...” If someone was willing to go to any lengths to kill you, there wouldn’t really be a way to defend yourself. There were plenty of methods that would be entirely impossible to protect against, like long-distance sniping, poison gas, or explosives. Attacks like that needed power on a political level to fight against, not just personal skill.
“Of course. You don’t have to make her invincible.”
“Hmm...how hard should I be on her?” What could she do with an eleven-year-old girl? She tried to come up with a rough idea.
“I also made sure he was aware that if we taught his granddaughter, she wouldn’t come out unscathed. It’s okay if she gets injured as long as it’s something she can recover from.”
“I’ll probably need to get a scary person to help at some point, so you might have to join in anyway.”
“That is fine. I just thought it would be best if you led the training.”
Tomochika couldn’t help but agree. Having a scary looking person show up every once in a while would be a lot less stressful than having him teach her constantly.
“But if you want someone scary, Yoshimoto would probably be more useful,” he added.
“So now we’re getting my brother wrapped up in this?”
“He’ll do anything you ask of him, I’m sure. Either way, I’ll leave it to you! She’ll be coming here starting tomorrow!” After saying that, Michizane hastily made his departure. It seemed his intention was to push the problem onto everyone else.
“But what am I supposed to actually teach her?” Tomochika had never taught anyone before, but she’d have to figure it out now that it had been asked of her. She began thinking hard to come up with a plan.
◇ ◇ ◇
The next day, Tomochika headed to the front gate of the Dannoura household at the scheduled time, where she found a young girl with long hair waiting for her. The girl wore a long dress and a backpack and was about a head smaller than Tomochika herself, as was to be expected of an elementary school student. This must have been Fukura Gokurakuten.
“Hello, Master!” the girl greeted her with a cheerful smile.
“Ah...I see why they were worried about kidnapping.” Tomochika found herself taken aback. Fukura was quite possibly the prettiest girl she had ever seen.
“Um?” the girl tilted her head in confusion. Even the slightest movements she made were adorable.
“Oh! Sorry! I was a little bit distracted!”
“That is okay. It happens a lot.” She gave the impression of being somehow detached, possibly due to the slow, calm way in which she spoke.
“It happens a lot?”
“Yes. They say I’m too cute.” There wasn’t an ounce of humility in her voice, but Tomochika could understand why after seeing her. False humility from someone who looked like her would just make her more enemies.
“I’m Tomochika Dannoura. I was asked to teach you self-defense. Is that right?”
“Yes. I am Fukura Gokurakuten. It is nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, nice to meet you! Okay, let’s go to the dojo.” Passing through the front gate, they headed towards the martial arts dojo. It was a bit of a walk, so Tomochika decided to try starting a light conversation. “So, the training we do here is pretty rough. Did they tell you that?”
“Yes. Grandfather told me that I should be prepared to break a few bones.”
“Uh, I don’t think it’ll be that bad...hopefully.” She couldn’t entirely deny the possibility. If things didn’t go well, her student could end up with far worse injuries than a few broken bones. “Are you here because your grandfather sent you?”
“Yes, but I am also interested in learning myself. Things seem rather dangerous these days.”
“Were you not a bit confused when they told you we do archery here?”
“Yes, I was. I thought it was strange to learn archery for self-defense, but it came with my grandfather’s recommendation.”
“Apparently, our founder used a bow as his main weapon, but using a bow these days is kind of difficult, right? We’ve changed things a lot to keep up with the times, to the point where basically anything goes now.”
The founder of the Dannoura School had used a bow because it was the most powerful weapon at the time. Though there were situations where a bow would be useful in modern times, they were pretty limited. As such, the bow techniques of the school were taught fairly late, so Tomochika herself only knew the basics.
“So this is the dojo. Did you bring a change of clothes?” Tomochika asked as they stepped inside.
“Yes. Are my school gym clothes acceptable?”
“Yeah, we don’t have any set uniform here,” Tomochika said, wearing a tracksuit herself. Though that was what she wore while training, she also often wore it while lounging around the house.
“The changing room is in the back, so go ahead and get changed.”
Fukura headed to the room as instructed. The dojo was fully equipped with heating and air conditioning, and the changing rooms had lockers, bathrooms, and showers. It had all seemed like a waste to Tomochika since no one ever used them, but at least now the building was going to get a little use.
After a while, Fukura returned wearing her school gym clothes.
“Uhhh, so once again, I’m Tomochika Dannoura of the Dannoura School. You can call me whatever you like. You called me ‘master’ earlier, right?” The two stood facing each other at the center of the dojo.
“Yes, Master!” Fukura seemed pretty into it, so Tomochika decided to leave it at that.
“Okay. What do you think self-defense means?”
“I looked into it, and I found it is best not to think of defeating dangerous people in combat, but to endeavor to avoid dangerous situations entirely. Things like not walking around at night or in dangerous places. And when you meet a dangerous person, your first action should be to run away.”
“Yeah, that’s right. That’s what it’s all based on. But no matter how careful you are, you can always end up in a dangerous situation where you have to fight. I will try and teach you something useful for situations like that.”
“Okay!”
“The Dannoura School has a lot of different techniques, but I want to narrow those down to three main points for you: readiness, mobility, and throwing projectiles.”
“Excuse me,” Fukura interrupted. “Are you not going to teach me how to break out of someone’s grip, or how to twist someone’s arms to disable them?” It seemed that when Fukura heard “self-defense,” she imagined something like Aikido.
“Nope. Think of it like if they’ve grabbed you, you’ve already lost. Everything I’m going to teach you is to stop them from grabbing you or hitting you in the first place.”
“I see!”
“So, first, readiness. Come on in!” Tomochika called out to the door leading into the main building of the house.
A man in a black suit immediately stepped into the dojo. He was large, muscular, and wore an intimidating expression, having an air of brutal ferocity about him. The man boldly stepped into the center of the room and stood facing Fukura.
“HEY! FOU BOOL! BAB A DO FOIN GA! KA GILL GA!” he roared with a volume that made Tomochika feel like her eardrums would burst.
Fukura’s face immediately filled with terror, her whole body going stiff. She immediately wet herself, making Tomochika feel a little guilty for bringing this on.
“Sorry, Fukura,” Tomochika apologized. “Let’s go and get you changed. Yoshimoto, go grab a cloth and wipe this up.”
The man who had thoroughly terrified Fukura was Yoshimoto Dannoura. He was the eldest son of the Dannoura family, Tomochika’s older brother.
“Tomo...making me do stuff like this to such a little kid is really painful for me...” Despite his aggressive appearance, he immediately deflated.
“Yeah, I thought the first impression would be really important.” Tomochika took Fukura to the shower room, where she lent her some of her old elementary school gym clothes. By the time Fukura had finished changing and they made it back to the dojo, Yoshimoto had finished cleaning everything up.
“So, to start over,” Tomochika began again, “just like you experienced there, girls are normally really weak to people who act violently like that. They’ll panic just from someone shouting at them in a loud voice.”
“Okay...” Though she had calmed down somewhat, Fukura still looked to be on the verge of tears.
“Uh...also, the fact he was shouting total nonsense was another one of our techniques. It makes you want to stop and try to figure out what he was saying, right?” She had wanted Yoshimoto to represent a dangerous person she couldn’t understand. “That’s how we’re going to practice readiness. You’ll get used to stuff like that happening. This scary guy will shout complete nonsense at you all the time, but I promise he’ll never hurt you, so don’t worry.”
If you panicked in the face of a dangerous person, you couldn’t fight or run away. Tomochika had figured it would be best to start by getting used to dealing with violent people first, but it seemed like she had gone a bit overboard.
◇ ◇ ◇
The next afternoon, the Dannoura family’s doorbell rang.
“Man, I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.” Tomochika headed to the front gate, where she found Fukura waiting for her.
“I very much hate losing.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re back.” She had no idea what would happen to her grandfather’s debt if Fukura gave up on the training. Tomochika regretted starting so strongly the day before.
“I have brought many changes of clothes this time!” Fukura declared.
“I don’t think that’s the part you need to work hard on!” Tomochika brought Fukura to the dojo and had her get changed. “Okay, today we’ll work on mobility. That said, we’ll be staying in the dojo, so it’s not going to mean a lot. Okay, why don’t you try running from one wall to the other?”
The dojo was about fifteen meters across, so it was a fairly short distance to run. But that wouldn’t be a problem for now. Tomochika gave a demonstration, running across the room while facing Fukura behind her.
“Huh?”
“You’re going to do backwards running. Run while facing backwards.”
“O-Okay!” Fukura immediately tried to run while facing backwards, but fell after only a few steps. Tomochika rushed to her side and helped her up.
“Falling in here doesn’t hurt much, right? Once you’re used to it, you’re going to go full speed outside.” There were cushions built into the mats of the dojo. Falling here wasn’t a big deal.
“Excuse me, but why are we doing this?” Fukura asked.
“You were surprised when I suddenly started running backwards, right?”
“Yes. Huh? Is that the reason?”
“Yeah. But this is also pretty important. If you force someone to do something they weren’t expecting at all, they’ll hesitate. On top of that, it lets you run away while keeping an eye on the person chasing you. That lets you use throwing weapons against them while you try to escape.”
“I see...”
“Either way, this is the first step in mobility training. You’ll also be learning sideways running and vertical running.”
“Vertical running?” Sideways running made sense, but it seemed Fukura had trouble imagining what vertical running would look like.
“Yeah, like this.” Tomochika ran towards a nearby wall. She then ran up the side of the wall, kicking off of it to grab one of the ceiling beams. “Like that.” Letting go of the beam, she dropped gracefully to the ground.
“Umm...I don’t think I could do that...”
“Don’t worry, it’s just a matter of getting used to it. Once you’re familiar with the method, you’ll be able to do it like it’s nothing. But first, let’s focus on backwards running.”
“Okay!” Though still a bit bewildered, Fukura turned her attention to learning backwards running.
◇ ◇ ◇
A week had passed since Fukura began her training. Tomochika had expected her to quit rather quickly, but she had obstinately refused to give up. The week consisted mostly of practicing backwards running and running through obstacles to build stamina, with a bit of intimidation from Yoshimoto mixed in. She appeared to have grown quite used to Yoshimoto’s yelling, as she no longer seemed afraid of him at all. Tomochika felt like it was time to move on to the next level.
“So today we’re going to start with throwing practice!” As always, the two stood facing each other in the dojo.
“Okay!” Fukura replied energetically. Despite the incident on the first day of training, she had grown to enjoy the practice quite a bit.
“This is what you’ll be throwing,” Tomochika said, bringing out a tub. Inside it was a collection of random objects, such as rocks, coins, television remotes, shuriken, wooden swords, stuffed animals, concrete blocks, scissors, and compasses. “Basically, you want to look at anything you can find lying around that you can pick up easily. Something like a five hundred yen coin that you can carry with you everywhere is perfect. It’s hard, has a bit of weight to it, and most importantly, no one will be suspicious if they see you carrying it.”
“Excuse me, is there much point to throwing a stuffed animal at someone?”
“There is. If you throw it at someone’s face, they’ll reflexively try to dodge, and that will buy you some time. If you toss it to them, they might try and grab it out of the air, and if you throw it at their feet they could slip and fall on it.”
“I see!”
“You might find things like this wooden sword lying around that you’ll want to just hit people with, but you definitely can’t. If you try to hit someone with a weapon you’re not familiar with, you’re just as likely to hurt yourself. As I’ve taught you with everything else, forget about trying to win in close quarters. Even if you get the chance, never try to hit someone that close to you.”
“So basically, no matter what I pick up, just throw it?”
“Yeah. It takes different techniques to throw objects with different shapes and sizes, but first we’re going to train your readiness to throw things at people. So look over there. Those are our targets, Hit-me and Stab-me.” At the edge of the dojo were a man wearing a business suit and a woman who looked to be a housewife on her way home from shopping.
“Huh? Are those...”
“Don’t worry, they’re super realistic but they’re just dummies.” With that, Tomochika grabbed a remote control from the tub and hurled it at the man.
“Gaaaah!” the dummy cried out in pain.
“So, yeah, something like that. They’re super realistic dummies that even breathe.” A cord ran from the dummies’ feet to the outlet in the wall behind them.
“Uhh...I’m supposed to throw things at them?” Fukura asked.
“Yeah. If you can get used to throwing things at them, you should be able to throw things at real people too.”
“But...some of these things could really hurt people if they got hit by them,” Fukura said, pulling a shuriken out of the tub. The long, sticklike shape came to a sharp point, and it had enough weight to it that if thrown properly it would stab rather deep into its target. Depending on where you hit, it could definitely be fatal.
“Yeah, but don’t worry! Anyone bad enough to attack an elementary school student deserves to die!” Tomochika replied instantly.
“What?!”
“If it’s to defend yourself, never hesitate! If you try and go easy on them and end up getting killed or kidnapped, then it was all for nothing. If you’re going to attack someone, do it like you’re trying to kill them. Legally speaking, that would probably be classified as excessive force, but you’re just an elementary school student. Your family is super rich too, so they can probably hire great lawyers and put pressure on the police, so you’ll be fine.”
Disabling someone without injuring them would be the ideal solution, but doing that required an overwhelming difference in ability. If Fukura continued training, she could reach that point someday, but that was a discussion for the future. At this point, Tomochika felt like fighting with the intent to kill was the only option.
“Okay, let’s go ahead and get started, then! We’ll begin from two meters away. Try and hit them in the eyes.”
“Okay!” Fukura walked up to one of the dummies and threw a rock. The rock flew true, striking the dummy right in the eye.
“My eye, my eye!” the expressionless dummy cried out in agony.
“Whoa, you’re good! They’ll scream like that whenever you hit them in the eyes.”
“Excuse me. This is really uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry! Once you get used to it, you won’t feel bad about it at all!”
“O-Okay!”
Tomochika put a strong emphasis on her student getting accustomed to everything.
◇ ◇ ◇
A month had passed since Fukura began her training. Once spring vacation ended and school started again, her sessions had moved to the evening, but that didn’t stop her from coming to the Dannoura household every day.
“Hey Grampa, what happened with that money you owed?”
“I’ve managed to recover somehow. It’s all been paid back now.” Grandfather and granddaughter sat lazily watching TV in the living room.
“I’m glad to hear it, but training is taking up quite a bit of my time now. I seem to remember you said something about paying me back for it...”
“Well, uhh...I’ll give you the entire monthly fee they’re paying, so that should be good, right?”
“Is that really the issue?”
“Er, well, uh. If anything happens, I’ll help you. So you can think about it as if I’m still in your debt.”
“I guess that’s fine.” Recently, Tomochika had started to really enjoy her practices with Fukura. Though she wasn’t of the Dannoura bloodline, Fukura’s physical abilities were fairly decent, but more importantly, she was smart and learned quickly. The way she absorbed everything she was taught made Tomochika want to teach her even more.
“Hey, that’s a local elementary school, right?” her grandfather said. Tomochika looked at the TV, where she saw an aerial view of a school.
“This afternoon, a man with an edged weapon attacked an elementary school in H Prefecture, Seishin City...”
The evening news was telling a story about an intruder entering an elementary school.
“Huh? Wait, that’s not Fukura’s school, is it?” Tomochika looked at the clock. Normally, Fukura would have arrived ages ago. The thought that something might have happened to her had Tomochika suddenly feeling nervous.
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll give Gokurakuten a call.”
“I will too—” As Tomochika pulled out her phone to call Fukura, the doorbell rang. She hurried to the front gate, where she found Fukura standing there like normal. “Thank goodness. I thought something happened at your school.”
“Yes, there was an incident today. That is why I am a little late.”
“Huh? The one with the intruder?”
“Yes. That was my school.”
“Are you okay?!”
“Yes, my practice with the Dannoura School has already paid off!”
While she was in her classroom participating in club activities after school, a man with an edged weapon had walked in. Fukura had thrown five hundred yen coins at his eyes and then hurled desks and chairs at him until he stopped moving. She and her friends and teachers were able to walk away quite calmly and call the police. The man’s intentions were still under investigation, but there was no damage done to the school or its students.
“I thought it would be a good idea to teach you how to throw chairs and desks since you would be spending so much time at school. Looks like it really was a good idea...”
“The man had a survival knife, but compared to a katana, it was not scary at all.”
“I guess that’s true, but still!”
Recently, Fukura hadn’t been bothered by Yoshimoto’s presence at all, so he had started coming at her with swords and model guns.
“After all that, it seems like he will still survive. People are a lot sturdier than I had expected. You really cannot be too careful,” Fukura said with an angelic smile.
Meanwhile, Tomochika had to struggle to suppress the feeling that she had given birth to a monster. Still, in the end, anyone who would attack elementary school students couldn’t be anything but evil, so if the Dannoura School had saved even a single student’s life, that was good enough.
At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself.
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