The Preliminaries (III)
As for the Elite Guard members themselves—
From their vantage point, Suzuka stated, “Hmm. It seems that this year, there’s quite a few students from the junior high division. Can’t help but notice a wonderful splattering of third-year colors.”
“Well, I would say that that is a given considering that the okatana does have a preference for younger girls,” Maya replied. She made another once-over before adding, “Those who fight on this stage will be the Toji of the next generation.”
Suzuka scoffed, “Rather high-handed of you considering that you personally brought an end to the previous generation by winning this very tournament twice in a row.”
“Hah.” Maya crossed her arms. “I don’t think I’m that conceited. Of course, I’m sure our peers are doing well.” Maya turned to look behind her where Yume stood in the shadows, playing with a small ball. “If anything… I wish Yume could have properly experienced this for herself…”
Suzuka was about to comment but both she and Maya returned her attention to the front where the referee raised her voice. “We will go ahead and begin the first match. Noa Hiiragi of Heijou Institute and Kaguya Nakamura of Osafune Girls’ Academy, please step forward."
The two girls did as instructed as they stood behind their designated starting lines.
“Bow.”
The two girls did as instructed.
“Now, both sides, take your stances.”
The two girls drew their swords; Kaguya entered a seigan stance while Noa settled for in-no-kamae.
As she viewed their forms, Maya couldn’t stop her eyebrow from twitching as she laid her eyes on the okatana in Noa’s grip. Kogarasumaru...?
“Heh, it’s a duel between your kouhai and my kouhai.” Being a former student of Osafune herself, Suzuka couldn’t help but cheer for her own junior. Maya simply rolled her eyes disinterestedly.
““Utsushi.””
The two girls manifested their duplicates and with the referee’s acknowledgement, the match began with her declaration, “Begin!”
From her view up in the stands, Suzuran muttered under her breath, leaning forward in her seat with unabated excitement. “A traditional style? I wonder if it’s Shintō-ryū!” As she continued watching, Noa proceeded to immediately accelerate, catching Kaguya off-guard; she had essentially no time to react to properly defend herself and as such, was cleanly bisected. “Whoa, jin’i! And she’s extremely fast too!” —Faster than me. My current limit is a Fourth Layer Shift and yet…
Jin’i—.
Carrying the definition of “swift movement”, jin’i is the most basic offensive technique used by Toji and serves as one of three pillars of Toji fighting abilities. Via their okatana, the user channels and opens a temporary gate to the Netherworld to maneuver at high speeds. Essentially, they are momentarily entering a different plane of time as the Netherworld is composed of multiple layers and the deeper one goes, the faster time flows. As such, the deeper one dives, the higher their maximum speed; with there currently being seven known layers of the Netherworld, a Toji can realistically achieve up to what is known as ‘Seventh Layer Shift’.
Student Toji can normally delve as deep as the Fifth Layer but such deep shifting is in the territory of upperclassmen—the sixth- and seventh-years. However, Noa Hiiragi has managed to achieve a Fifth Layer Shift despite only being a third-year, a testament to her incredible natural talent. With her utsushi utterly destroyed, Kaguya collapsed on the spot.
“That’s enough!” the referee called. “The winner is Noa Hiiragi!” Dispelling her own utsushi, Noa returned back to her starting line and obeyed the referee’s instructions (as when the match began, she was asked to bow). Almost immediately after, she swiveled around and returned to her position in the stands as if she did not have time to care for her downed opponent. Kaguya herself was returned to the stands and Suzuran continued watching until the referee announced, “The third match shall be between Suzuran Arisugawa of Osafune Girls’ Academy and Sayuki Asahina of Renpu Girls’ School.”
“Eh!?” Suzuran yelped.
“Do your best, Suzu.”
“Come forward!”
“Uh… Right.”
If anything, Suzuran expected to be called much later, however, now that she has been named, she has no choice but to come forward. She descended to the arena and stood behind her designated side of the sparring circle.
“Bow.”
Like with Noa’s match, both Suzuran and Sayuki bent forward.
“Now, both sides, take your stances.”
Again, following procedures, both girls drew their swords and entered a seigan stance.
““Utsushi.””
No sooner had the two girls called upon their mirages did the referee yell, “Begin!”
From the standard seigan, Sayuki changed her stance. Onken? Then this should be Ittō-ryū? As Suzuran brooded over which specific Ittō-ryū branch her opponent uses, she immediately defended herself when Sayuki phased straight into her face and delivered a sharp falling cut followed with a diagonal return slash which Suzuran also shut out. No way, Jin’i already!? At the very least, this girl seems to employ a jin’i of the same level as Suzuran—a Fourth Layer Shift; she used jin’i herself to skirt around the sparring circle as she and her opponent continuously clashed blades.
Watching this exchange, Honami couldn’t help but exclaim, “Suzu!”
The other girls, meanwhile, voiced various concerns such as “That was close!” and “Sheesh, she makes me so nervous.”
Suzuran and Sayuki proceeded to enter a high-speed duel as they kept using jin’i—one used it to get away while the other used it to catch up. Their swords made quick clashing sounds at an exceedingly high tempo; they’ve already crossed swords at least sixty times in less than thirty seconds. I’m not hitting her... Why? Sayuki complained in her mind as she continuously cut at Suzuran.
Ugh, what are you doing!? Pay attention…! Suzuran yelled at herself as at some point, she had forgotten that she was fighting a tournament and was simply crossing swords with her opponent for the sake of crossing swords. She truly loved swordfighting but she loved the elation of victory more; she had to stamp down on her desires to have fun and focus on winning. Her senses kicked into overdrive as she meticulously searched for an opening when Sayuki made a minor mistake in slightly overextending her blade. Suzuran stepped in and drove a rising cut with the spine of her blade into Sayuki’s hand. This powerful jolt shocked Sayuki’s wrists, causing her to ever so slightly loosen her grip on her sword.
Suzuran did not miss out on the opportunity as on the third exchange after, she smashed Sayuki’s blade hard enough for it to come flying out of her hands. Having lost her grip on her okatana, Sayuki’s utsushi dissipated on its own.
“That’s enough!” the referee called. “The winner is Suzuran Arisugawa!”
“Oho,” Suzuka breathed. “She’s quite talented. Suzuran Arisugawa… I do believe she is my successor as student council president.”
“I’d say she’s pretty mediocre,” Maya stated.
“Well, of course she would be,” Suzuka replied, rolling her eyes. “You’re using yourself as the comparison.”
As for Honami and the other Osafune girls, they all let out huge sighs of relief. “Haah... That was really close…”
“Really, why does she always have to win like that…?”
“It’s bad for our health—”
The group stopped when the winner herself appeared in the stands. “Suzu, you have to stop winning like that!”
“Ahaha, sorry, Honami,” Suzuran apologized, squirming beneath her intense glare. “She was really fun to cross swords with…”
“That’s not an excuse…” Honami was about to continue when she heard her name being called. “Ugh, I’ll chew you out later.”
“Ahaha, good luck, Honami.” Suzuran waved away her friend as she sat down to catch her breath. She watched Honami’s match and while she didn’t win in a single stroke, she also didn’t spend longer than a minute to snatch a victory. Upon returning to the stands, Honami began to lecture Suzuran who listened halfway as her attention was split between her friend and the matches in front of her; Honami understood this and disengaged after a few minutes as she knew her friend would simply keep doing what she’s doing. The two girls paid even closer attention to the ninth match which had Noa Hiiragi fight for a second time; her opponent was one of the Ayanokouji representatives and like Kaguya, she was defeated in yet another single-stroke match. She’s really good…
“Suzu… She’s too strong… Are we sure she is just a year older than us?”
“Well, she’s wearing fourth-year colors so—”
“She’s terrifying!” one of their friends lamented.