I Thought I Was Dead After Getting Stabbed While Protecting a Girl From a Random Attacker, but a Goddess Gave Me a Special Reward and Brought Me Back to Life in My Original Body—Now, All These Girls Are Coming on to Me!? - Chapter 5: Being Trained by My Spartan Childhood Friend

Chapter 5: Being Trained by My Spartan Childhood Friend

After enjoying a conversation with Yuna, I finished dinner and checked my phone. I noticed a notification in the group chat with the three of us.

When I looked at the screen, the best news possible greeted me.

KOTOKOTO: Ryu! Big news!

Kanade: All three of us are in the same class. Yay.

ryu: Seriously? That’s awesome!

KOTOKOTO: Now we won’t have to leave you alone when you come to school!

Kanade: I planned to hang out with you even if we were in different classes.

KOTOKOTO: I told you, no cutting in line! I felt the same way!

I wondered if these two realized how embarrassing the things they were saying were. Kanade probably said it deliberately without holding back, but Makoto was definitely the type to get carried away and feel embarrassed later.

KOTOKOTO: But thinking about spending school life with you, Ryu, makes me super excited!

Kanade: Me too. Going to school together, attending classes together, eating lunch together, and going home together. It sounds so fun.

ryu: Same here. I was worried for a bit since I couldn’t attend the entrance ceremony, but now I’m more excited than anxious.

Kanade: When do you think you’ll be back?

ryu: It’s hard to say, but I heard I’ll have a checkup this weekend, and if there’s no issue, I might get discharged.

KOTOKOTO: Just a little longer then! Let us know when it’s set! We’ll come pick you up to celebrate your discharge!

ryu: Got it. I’ll let you know then.

After that, I lay in bed and enjoyed chatting with the three of us until lights-out. Before I knew it, the anxiety I felt about school life until yesterday had completely vanished.

“I’m here!”

“Long time no see, Yuna.”

The next day, as promised, Yuna arrived at the hospital during the first visiting hour of the afternoon.

The last time we met was a year ago at my middle school graduation, I think. Back then, her trademark was her black hair tied back in a ponytail, but now she wore it down casually.

Her silky hair fluttered with her movements, and it looked very beautiful.

“Seeing you with your hair down feels fresh, Yuna. It’s pretty and suits you.”

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

Yuna turned her face away from me as she said that. Her ears were slightly red. Growing up in a male-dominated household must have made her unaccustomed to compliments, and that hadn’t changed.

“T-Today, I’m going all out! Be ready!”

“It’s just rehab…”

“Be ready!!”

“Y-Yes…”

Calling Yuna might have been a mistake.

Let me tell you a bit about this woman, Yuna Yamamoto.

She was the only daughter of a well-known kendo dojo in our hometown and grew up in a strict household. Her father was a renowned swordsman, and her mother was an Olympic fencer—a true thoroughbred.

Yuna inherited both of their talents and was already a regular at national tournaments by middle school.

Her mother and my biological mother were high school classmates, which led to our families being close since we were in kindergarten. After my mother passed away and before my father remarried, the Yamamoto family felt like a second family to me.

Naturally, Yuna and I got along well back then, but our bond deepened after I started playing baseball.

I’m pretty disciplined when it comes to baseball, if I do say so myself. I genuinely love baseball and will probably dedicate my life to it. Yuna, too, devoted herself to kendo with the same passion.

That shared wavelength probably brought us closer.

Though our paths were different, we respected each other as athletes, and our bond naturally grew stronger over time.

It was obvious how someone as serious as her, strict with herself and others, would approach my rehabilitation.

“Good! Now do ten more sets of that!”

“Yuna-san, could I please take a break?”

“You’ve gotten soft since I last saw you, haven’t you?”

“I’m an injured person, you know? And it was a pretty serious injury.”

“Oh… I thought you could handle it as a sign of my trust. Let’s show some kindness and take a break.”

“You’re too flustered.”

That was how it went. She was insanely spartan, but since I, the target, kept up without complaint, the trainer just gave a wry smile.

That said, Yuna was an athlete herself. She knew my limits and stayed within them, which was probably why the trainer let her be.

I pretended not to hear that “Oh.”

We sat on a bench by the rehab area to rest. While I was working on rehab, Yuna had bought sports drinks from a nearby vending machine. Her thoughtfulness in moments like this was one of her good qualities.

She handed me a bottle and spoke up.

“So… is the wound that bad?”

“It was pretty deep, apparently. But the bleeding was worse, they said.”

“That bad?”

“Well… my heart stopped once, I heard.”

“What…?! That’s…”

“Don’t make that face. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Yeah… you’re right.”

I knew she was the type to worry about this, and I called her to help her vent, not to make her bottle it up.

“You’ll be able to return, right?”

“That’s fine. If I do rehab properly, the doctor even said I could come back with more muscle than before.”

“Good! That’s great! I never got to see your games in middle school, so I was planning to cheer you on from the stands in high school!”

“Same goes for me. Let me know when you have a match.”

“Got it. I’ll dedicate my victory to you then.”

“Am I a heroine?”

Despite the time apart, my back-and-forth with Yuna felt comfortable.

We’d kept in touch frequently over the past year, so it didn’t feel too much like a reunion.

“I don’t know much about it, but is our baseball team strong?”

“Before I came here, I looked it up. Their best result was second place in the prefectural tournament. Recently, they’ve been featured in magazines as a rising team.”

“Interesting… So your generation will be the one to reach Koshien for the first time, then?”

“That’d be nice.”

“How about you? How’s your form?”

“Not bad. Last year, I lost to a senior in the semifinals, so this year, I’m aiming to win.”

Honestly, I thought no high schooler could beat Yuna, so I was shocked to hear someone in her generation was that strong.

“By the way, the senior I lost to is from the same dojo.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

Yuna’s family dojo was a legendary place. Most of its students excelled in various fields, so that senior must have been incredible.

“But I got my revenge in a private rematch later.”

Her competitive streak was as strong as ever.

“Alright, shall we get back to it?”

“Yeah, let’s up the intensity a bit.”

“I hate to say it, but at that level, it’s basically physical training, not rehab…”

Here we go—time to get serious again!

“I’ll head out for today.”

“Come back anytime. Training feels more intense with you around.”

“Heh, really? Then I’ll stop by again between practices.”

With that, Yuna left the hospital with flair.

Even the way she walked away was cool—what was up with her? Truly the “Prince,” I guess.

Talking with her fired me up.

Training with Yuna made high school baseball feel more real, and it motivated me to work harder.

“So your generation will reach Koshien for the first time, then?”

Yuna’s words echoed in my mind.

Koshien, huh.

As a baseball player, I’d be lying if I said I never thought about it. I’d imagined myself shining at Koshien more than once or twice in my vague future dreams.

But hearing it from her made it feel like a concrete goal.

I couldn’t show a pathetic side if Yuna came to watch my games.

I hadn’t even started school or joined the team yet, but for now, I’d focus on training hard.

At the same time I was firming my resolve in my hospital room, a conversation unfolded at the nurse’s station among three people.

“The kid doing rehab, Ryu Minase—he’s blasting through the rehab menu at an insane pace. Is he okay?”

“I heard he plays baseball, so I thought he was rushing to get back…”

“What?”

“I saw his wound the other day, and it was almost completely healed.”

“What? Wasn’t his wound pretty deep?”

“Yeah, it didn’t hit any organs, but it damaged some blood vessels.”

“And it’s nearly healed in a week? Is that possible?”

“He does a crazy amount of training every day and seems fine the next day, so it doesn’t feel like overwork.”

“Is that what they call a God-given talent?”

“Maybe kids like him become pro baseball players someday.”

“Should we get his autograph now?”

“Stop it, that’s embarrassing for a student.”

If I had heard this conversation, I’d have died of embarrassment.

As for me, I was sneezing nonstop in my hospital room at that moment—or so they say.