224 The Harmless-Ryu

In no time at all, two days went by.

It was evident that the areal trials were necessary, as the Men's Team's matches bedazzled the audience. Furthermore, the quality of the school teams that were named as seeded teams reassured some of the newer audiences. 

They originally suspected that there might be corruption involved in the formation of these seeded teams, but the performance of these 12 teams showed them the caliber expected of seeded teams. 

Moreover, within the top four contenders determined the day before, three of them were seeded teams. The only school team that was not a seeded team had only advanced through pure luck as they did not compete against any other seeded teams along the way. Otherwise, the audience guessed that if luck was on the side of any of the other seeded teams, the top four positions would be filled by seeded teams entirely. 

The top four schools in the Men's Team category were Tokyo's Sakura Kyu High School, Osaka's Gyokutoku High School, Hiroshima Prefecture's Meiki High School, and Kumamoto Prefecture's Geien High School. Among them, Sakura Kyu High School's popularity was the highest, while Gyokutoku High School and Meiki High School were more favored as the ultimate champion.

Many netizens had analyzed this in detail, even revealing some background information that have been scoured through. 

Gyokutoku High School of Osaka Prefecture was a seeded team even in last year's Jade Dragon Flag Competition. The team's Taishou last year was very skilled but he had taken the Fukushou position instead this year. The current Taishou will be a newcomer called Tomoya Saito. 

A lot of people were very curious about Tomoya Saito. With a little investigation, one would figure out that Tomoya Saito was a member of the Saito family who practiced the renowned Shinto Munen-Ryu. This astonished many. 

As for the Taishou from Meiki High School, Mizuki Sugawara was a member of the Sugawara family. The Sugawara family was historically renowned for being founded by the First Swordmaster Yasuaki Sugawara. This was why the audience was betting on Gyokutoku High School and Meiki High School to win.

Of course, many in the audience knew that Kimura Kazuki was the successor of the Yagyu Flying Sword Style. However, there was one cause for concern.

Audiences who watched Sakura Kyu High School compete for the first time were first doubtful of their Kendo Association's calibre. However, after two days of competition, the audience grew accustomed to this scenario. This was why Sakura Kyu High School was so popular. Their popularity was due to Kimura Kazuki. It was no wonder that during the opening ceremony, the people of Tokyo were all cheering for Kimura Kazuki. Have they lost hope on the other members of Sakura Kyu High School's Kendo team?

However, in the eyes of many, this was ultimately a team event… Team events were not an assessment of an individual's capabilities but the strength and cohesion of a team.

Most people acknowledged Kimura Kazuki's capabilities, but they did not feel the same about Sakura Kyu High School's team strength. If this was an Individual event, then Kimura Kazuki's popularity would beat Tomoya Saito and Mizuki Sugawara flat.

However, a team event was, after all, a five person match… The fact that Sakura Kyu High School could place in the top four teams by continuously relying on Kimura Kazuki was already a miracle to many. It was literally impossible for them to clinch the championship title in the men's team event. After this explanation, most of the audience understood the strength of Gyokutoku and Meiki High School's teams.

Nonetheless, they still had to wait until the last day to know who would win ultimately. 

Today was the Women's Team event. Even though the audience were discussing the men's teams, they were anticipating the matches of the women's teams too. Ever since the Jade Dragon Flag National Competition had begun, people had begun predicting the men's team champion and naturally the women's team champion as well. Some had even edited video clips on their predictions.

Not many people were excited about the Women's Team event. Fukuoka Budo Gym was still jam-packed anyway because many were here to watch young girls sweat it out.

The spectator value of the Men's Team event was naturally higher. However, many had started to take the Women's Team event more seriously after watching analytic posts and videos on the teams online. 

Among the contestants, Kanagawa Prefecture's Unka High School's Yayoi Momoi was most popular. This was because this young lady was very pretty, and her sword style had been described by commentators as flamboyant. Yayoi Momoi was known in Kanagawa as the :Sword Princess". After she led her school team to win Kanagawa Prefecture's qualifiers, the title became stuck with her permanently. 

Yayoi Momoi was the successor of Kyoshin Meichi-Ryu. This sword style focused on form, grace in posture and elegance.

It could be said that watching Yayoi Momoi compete was like watching an art performance. 

The other popular contestant with a commanding presence was Katsuki Sugawara. 

The reason Akijou High School's Katsuki Sugawara's popularity was comparable to Yayoi Momoi, apart from them being on par in beauty, was that her strength was shocking despite her petite frame of 1.5 meter tall. How could one imagine the sight of a 1.5 meter tall young lady bringing her opponent to their knees with a high swinging sword? 

The impact of such a scene was very explosive on video. Therefore, just like Yayoi Momoi, Katsuki Sugawara held the title of "Pocket-Sized Queen". She was also called "Queen Lolita" by others. 

Kimura Kazuki was unaware of all these because he had no interest in gossip. However, one of these two ladies would face Harunaka eventually, so he had watched their videos and analysed them with Harunaka yesterday. He did not join the Jade Dragon Flag Competition for the title of champion, but to fulfill Furuhashi Sakurakyu's wishes to help Harunaka win.

At this very moment, Kimura Kazuki was seated in the audience, and on his left were Chiba Shiori and Kumoko. On his right was Ikioi Ito, Mizuki Sugawara, and Tomoya Saito.

"Big— Ahem. Don't worry, Kimura-kun. Furuhashi-san can definitely defeat these silly-looking fools. I think highly of Furuhashi-san!"

"Did you eat sh*t today? Why are you being so boastful?" Mizuki Sugawara, who was sitting beside Ikioi Ito, rebutted immediately upon hearing his comment. "How is it possible that my sister would lose? Do you know how strong she is? Even Shinto-Ryu was no match for my sister."

It was known that footwork was the basis of the Shinto-Ryu style. Among the major families, Shinto-Ryu was also nicknamed the "Harmless-Ryu". This was because Shinto-Ryu's style was formed mainly of dodging techniques. No matter how fast a sword was drawn, there was no possibility of touching a Sugawara. In a Kendo competition, if it was impossible to strike one's opponent, naturally it would be impossible for one to defeat one's opponent as well. Hence, a Shinto-Ryu practitioner would just have to make one strike to defeat his opponent. 

This was the reason Ikioi Ito called Mizuki Sugawara, "Miss Weirdo". During the Asahi Kendo Competition, Ikioi Ito was unable to touch even a single hair of Mizuki Sugawara. Flustered and exasperated, he had called him "Miss Weirdo" in the midst of the match. The nickname ended up accompanying Mizuki Sugawara until this day, this was why Mizuki Sugawara wanted exact his revenge on Ikioi Ito so badly.

Furthermore, regarding what Ikioi Ito said to Kimura Kazuki about almost defeating Mizuki Sugawara with First Stage Sword Power, that was obviously nonsense.