I've always been weak.
Not in the athletic sense, but in the mental sense, I am very weak.
To say that I'm a scaredy-cat would be a bit easier to describe.
Relationships are the scariest thing in the world to me, and I hate myself the most.
And I hate myself more than anything else in the world.

I want to be a man every day, but recently I've gotten used to being mistaken for a woman by people I don't know.
I think it's a bad habit to get used to.
I am not a manly person, but there is someone I admire.
Asahina Kyousuke, our classmate and ace of the kendo club from the first year.
The first time I saw Asahina was in junior high school.

Unable to refuse the enthusiastic invitation to join the club when I entered junior high school, I joined the kendo club despite being a beginner.
Even now, I still feel the same way, but I hate and want to fix my cowardice.
I believed at the time that taking up some sport, some martial art, would give me a little more confidence in myself.
You can see the results at .......

It's not a strong team, but the junior high school kendo club was a weak school with only one girl who had started in elementary school and had experience with it.
The content of the training was such that even I, who lacked stamina, could barely keep up with the team, and because the number of players was small, I was allowed to participate in the first official match in the fall of my first year.
As the vice-captain of the team competition, I fought against Asahina, who had beaten the third-year students in the individual competition division in the morning, in the first round, which was my first match.
I hadn't been paying close attention to the individual matches, and it wasn't until the seniors consoled me that I realized Asahina was the winner.
Between the experienced winner of the individual division and me, a novice, who was competing in my first official match, the result was as clear as daylight, and within ten seconds of the match starting, I lost by two runs.
I remember thinking vaguely that this must be what they call "lightning speed".
The next thing I knew, I was bowing and leaving the game field, taking my mask off next to my seniors and bowing next to my seniors, who also had finished the game before I knew it.
The result was a disastrous loss.
My school lost its first game without even taking a single point from the opposing school.
We didn't have time to feel disappointed because the next game was about to start, so we hurriedly packed up our protective gear, but then some of the alternates on Asahina's team said, "We didn't play against them at all.


We weren't a match for them at all," said one of the alternates on Asahina's team. If this is the case, isn't it more meaningful to play an elementary school game?


For the first time in my life, those words made me so angry that my mind went blank.
Even the senior who was silent next to me was biting his lip in frustration.
But I couldn't say anything.
I'm angry, but the scaredy-cat personality inside me stops me and I can't even argue with him.
My inability to talk to people encourages me to cry myself to sleep.
Feeling unworthy of myself, I looked down.


'You want to play a game with an elementary school kid? Then why don't you just drop out of the club and go to a nearby dojo for that?


At the words from a place I hadn't expected, I, as well as the seniors, looked up and opened their mouths with a pout.
Or rather, for some reason, the alternates were very surprised as well.
The person who said what he or she was thinking wasn't angry, just looked at the alternate with a strange look on his or her face and looked straight at the alternate.

It takes a lot of courage to tell someone honestly what you're thinking.
I don't know about normal people, but at least in my case it does.
I'm sure Asahina didn't think anything of it, but I thought it was cool that he looked me in the eye and said what he was thinking when he was in danger of being hated by that person.

Since then, I've admired Asahina, whom I sometimes saw at the games, even though we didn't even go to the same school.
They say that people have two reactions to someone who has something they don't.
Jealousy and admiration.
In my case, it was the latter.
I want to be able to speak as clearly as Asahina.
I want to be a man, like Asahina.
It's presumptuous of me to admire Asahina, but I still couldn't get rid of this feeling.

Holding onto that kind of admiration hasn't cured my flaws, and before I knew it, we were in the same high school class and in the same club.
Since Asahina competed in national tournaments, I thought he was going to a strong kendo school, so I was really surprised when I found him at the same high school.
Rumor has it that he didn't want to go to a strong school because it was too far from home.
Thank you so much for recommending this high school to me, my homeroom teacher in middle school.
I had no idea what the teacher was talking about with his math, but he was the only one who had the best skills in choosing a high school.

Regardless, I admire Asahina-kun.
I don't know if it's a good idea to step on people's land mines every time you talk to him with that natural personality, but it's not something I can do, so it's a good thing.


When I came to this world with such Asahina-kun, I felt that the distance between him and this world seemed to have opened up even more.
I'm afraid of every battle, and despite the fact that I'm a knight, what I do is no different than a rearguard position.
It could be that Sato-kun and Asahina-kun were too strong against the demons that came out, but I hadn't stood in front of the demons except for the first battle in the Cantinen Labyrinth.
No, I didn't try to stand.
Although I say that I want to fix my weakness, I haven't learned anything from that time in junior high school after all, and I haven't changed at all.
Even though I've come to this world, I've been too easy on myself, and all I've done is ask Sato and Asahina to protect me.

That's probably why I was put in this predicament.


''Tsukasa-kun! Tsukasa, stay where you are! The wound is open!


I am the only one who can barely stand up.
Sato was seriously injured and unconscious, but he was trying to stand up to protect us.
Mr. Ueno, who is desperately trying to stop it, also has injuries on his leg that can hardly be called light, and he can't escape.
The shield I had been equipped with had shattered into pieces earlier.
And now we are surrounded by monsters that have been mimicking trees.