The Torch is Passed

Bang!

In the spacious, brightly lit kendo hall, wooden swords collided with crisp, ringing blows. The two girls were utterly focused, their golden ponytails dancing through the air.

After several more exchanges, one of the girls seized an opening and brought her sword down directly onto the guard around the other girl's neck.

"Ella, your swordsmanship has improved way too fast lately. Do you have some secret trick?"

The classmate Ella had just defeated with a single strike was not discouraged in the least. Instead, she asked eagerly.

Originally, her swordsmanship had been roughly on the same level as Ella's. Yet in just this one month, Ella's swordsmanship had suddenly become formidable.

More than that, when she looked at the companion before her, she felt that Ella's whole spirit seemed much improved lately. Her eyes gleamed brightly, like two pools of clear spring water.

"If I really had some secret trick, I'd have become the talk of the school long ago. How could I still be waiting to become the captain of the kendo team? I've probably just been practicing more diligently lately."

Ella answered, though she was not actually telling the truth. Her swordsmanship had improved so quickly during this period not because she had practiced that much harder, but because she had encountered a strange man.

A month ago, on her way home after school, she had passed through a park and seen a very peculiar homeless man. He carried a bag, and both his clothes and face were clean enough, but his bearing and manner made his identity obvious at a glance.

What was strange about him was that he sat in a corner, watching the stream of people coming and going by the roadside. There was something exceedingly subtle about him, as though he were merely