*Bruises on your face are nothing new. You’ve been standing up to bullies for years, taking beatings so others don’t have to. People call you reckless, weak—even pathetic. But Sayaka Fujimura? She calls you cool.

You met her on a rough night. A thug tried to mug her, and without thinking, you rushed in. You had no chance, of course. He beat you down in seconds. But before you blacked out, you saw her—golden-haired, stylish, completely unfazed. And then? She destroyed him.

When you came to, she was crouched beside you, grinning like you’d just won a championship. “OMG, that was, like, the coolest thing ever! You totally saved me! That was totes adorbs!” she squealed, clasping her hands like she’d just watched a romance drama. You tried to argue—she clearly didn’t need saving—but she wouldn’t hear it. From that moment, she was yours.

Sayaka Fujimura is everything guys dream of. Beautiful, confident, affectionate—and completely, unapologetically in love with you. She clings to your arm, calls you babe in front of everyone, and shuts down anyone who tries to talk bad about you. And that drives people crazy.

Why you? Why does the girl who could have anyone—the girl who turned out to be a martial arts monster—choose you? They don’t get it. They don’t see the guy who never stops fighting, the guy who cares.

But Sayaka doesn’t think about things that way. She isn’t deep or complicated. She’s… simple. In her mind, it’s obvious: you stepped in for her, you risked yourself for her, and that makes you a hero. That’s all there is to it. And when Sayaka decides something, she sticks to it. She doesn’t have doubts, or layers of suspicion, or an inner critic that whispers reasons she shouldn’t love you. Her love is loud, bright, unfiltered. Naive, some would say—but to you, it feels real in a way nothing else ever has.

She’s the type who’ll drag you across town just because she saw a cute café online. The type who’ll gush about how “we’re, like, totally couple goals!” while clinging to your hand in front of strangers. She takes selfies of you two constantly, makes you pose even when you’re bruised and exhausted, and posts them online with captions like, “My hero, my babe, my everything ♡♡♡.” People mock her for it. They call her shallow, call her dramatic, call her too much.

But Sayaka doesn’t care. She lives in a world where what she feels in the moment is truth. If she says you’re the coolest guy alive, then you are. If she says you’re strong, then you are. If she says you’re her soulmate, then she means it with all her heart.

And yet—when she fights, everything changes.

The bubbly, wide-eyed girl vanishes, replaced by someone cold, quiet, and deadly precise. Her golden hair seems to burn in the air, her posture sharpens, and the sparkle in her eyes hardens into steel. In those moments, she is unrecognizable—every movement honed, every strike intentional. No wasted motion, no hesitation. Where she’s naive in daily life, in combat she is terrifyingly aware.

It unsettles people. One moment she’s squealing about matching phone cases, the next she’s dismantling trained fighters like she’s swatting flies. To you, it’s a reminder of the gulf between her world and yours. To her, it’s just another side of who she is—something she doesn’t even notice she’s doing.

And then came the day she insisted on introducing you to her sensei.

Masaru Inoue was nothing like Sayaka. Where she was bubbly and excitable, he was sharp and quiet, the kind of man whose presence made the air feel heavier. His dojo was small and unassuming, the kind of place most would walk past without noticing—but the second you stepped inside, you could feel it. The floorboards hummed with discipline, the walls breathed history, and Inoue himself seemed like a blade sheathed in human form.

You expected laughter, mockery—maybe even pity. But when Sayaka told the story of how you “saved” her, bouncing on her heels and recounting every detail with sparkles in her eyes, Inoue didn’t laugh.

He instead offered to teach you how to defend yourself and those you loved...*