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As the door was pushed open, the wind blew the raindrops into the dojo.
Tokugawa Shigetsugu noticed the silent anger in Lily’s eyes and muttered to himself: Did Kashima mess up?1
Everyone else was also quite surprised to see Lily like this.
“Say, Miss Kagami was it? Did you just return from the Odawara campaign? What did you do to end up looking as such?” The elderly swordsmanship instructor appeared behind Lily, he just so happened to come over to take a look at the afternoon session, only to see the dripping-wet Lily standing at the entrance.
“Instructor Terasou, please don’t say another word for now,” Lily’s head was hanging down and spoke with a gentle yet chilling tone.
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“What?! Kagami Lily, what kind of attitude is that? How can you be so insufferably arrogant after one victorious battle? Is that how you should be speaking to your instructor? Oh, I understand now, no wonder your attendant yesterday was also that disrespectful.” The elder continued to criticize.
“What did you say?” Lily’s black hair scattered as she flipped her head to glare at the instructor.
“Eeek!” The instructor was frightened by the killing intent and instinctively stepped back for a few meters, then he pointed at Lily and stammered, “Y-you better wa-watch your attitude, how can you be this rude! Since you’ve just returned from the campaign, I-I’ll let you off with this today! There’s no next time!”2
The instructor shouted as he got further and further away from the dojo.
Lily ignored him and directly made her way towards Tokugawa after slamming the door close with a loud ‘bang’!
“Hey, Kagami Lily, how can you be this rude. Look, the floor is wet, how are we supposed to explain this to the instructor? Just what do you want?!” One of the Mikawa Three Tigers, the tall and stalwart Tsunemoto Torayasu with slightly tanned skin got in front of Lily and blocked her path.
Tsunemoto Torayasu, ranked 12 in the dojo, was a really powerful man.
However, Lily didn’t remember his name, she only vaguely recalled that he was Tokugawa’s companion.
“Step aside,” Lily’s scattered wet hair almost blocked her eyes from view and her drenched kimono had a deeper shade of red as it stuck to her body, outlining her sexy figure and made it even more prominent.
“What?” Tsunemoto Torayasu was also quite a conceited and headstrong samurai, he frowned upon hearing those two words and immediately got defensive. He grabbed Lily’s collar with his thick arm and warned, “How dare you say that to…”3
Before he was able to finish his words, Lily had already grabbed Tsunemoto’s wrist and collar. She immediately exploded with strength one wouldn’t expect from her curvaceous figure and slender arms.
“Whoosh!” The massive Tsunemoto was lifted off the ground and his body was left at the mercy of gravity.
“Bang!” The entire dojo shook as Lily flung Tsunemoto into the floor with a shoulder throw. A few planks were broken and Tsunemoto’s upper body was buried under that huge hole.
“Whaaaaaat?!” Without a doubt, everyone was shocked.
A surprise attack it may be, but Lily was still a newcomer and ranked fifty. They had only seen her a few times in classes for basic forms and unarmed combat. Yet she was able to overpower Tsunemoto, who secured his position at rank 12 with brute power!
Moreover…
Lily had used too much strength and smashed Tsunemoto through the floor, rendering him completely out cold.
Even Tokugawa felt that Lily was a little too savage: For her to actually knock out Tsunemoto in one hit, just how much strength did she have?
Even he himself wouldn’t necessarily be able to take out Tsunemoto that straightforwardly.
However, that sly b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲ still didn’t bat an eyelid and acted like a nice guy, “Miss Kagami, I heard that you’ve made great achievement at the war of Odawara, I should have come to greet you personally and give you a reception, it’s just that… there are still so many brothers and sisters in the dojo I have to look after, I couldn’t find the time to go and meet you. I do wonder though, what did my good brother Tsunemoto do to make you so angry and knock him out with such a brutal move?”
Lily stopped in front of the 1.9 meters tall Tokugawa, she looked a little small in front of him, but she didn’t show any fear and raised her head to glare at him, “Tokugawa Shigetsugu, you call extorting fellow disciples as looking after them?”4
Soon as she said that, Tokugawa choked on his words. Although Lily didn’t raise her voice, it caused some of the surrounding disciples to raise a cry.
That’s right, although they were half voluntary, who in their right mind would willingly give what little valuable magatama fragments they had to Tokugawa. They were resentful but didn’t dare to voice it out, they could only comfort themselves by making themselves believe that Tokugawa was looking after them. After all, it was quite a humiliating thing to admit that they had been extorted.5
Tokugawa’s complexion became ugly, “Miss Kagami, I have no idea what you’re saying.”
Lily stretched her hand towards a male disciple, who had stopped practicing with his wooden sword midway, and said, “Hand that over.”
“Huh? You mean the wooden sword?” He glanced at the wooden sword in his hands and passed it to Lily. He also had no idea why he listened to Lily’s command at that time.
Lily received the wooden sword and swung it at a vacant space to create a sudden gust—
“Whoosh!”
That gust caused Tokugawa and the other disciples’ clothes to flap.
“Tokugawa Shigetsugu! Not only did you send your underlings to humiliate and bully my sister, you even attempted to poison me with such a despicable method, you shameless degenerate! Rather than reporting this to the higher-ups, today, I’m going to challenge you to a duel! Let’s settle our grudges with the way of the sword!”
Saying that, Lily pulled out the packet in front of everyone.
“What’s inside this packet, you should be clearer than anyone here, Tokugawa! You pretentious b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲!” Lily was usually modest, but now the words that left her mouth were unsparing.
The surrounding disciples started to make noise and whisper to one another.
Tokugawa’s face paled immediately, he definitely wouldn’t be able to worm his way out of this through words, so was taking up the challenge his only choice? That throw from Lily earlier showed everyone just how resolute and daring she was. Moreover, her killing intent and sword aura made him a little uncertain of his odds. Tokugawa was confident that he should be stronger than Lily and felt that he had a higher chance of winning, but despite being so gentle and beautiful, Lily could actually pull her own weight in a fight, so he couldn’t be sure. If he really lost, there was no way he could recover from this!
Tokugawa swallowed his anger and forced a smile, “Hehe, Miss Kagami, I really have no idea what you’re saying. If you think that I have done something, you can go report it to the dojo. What does a tea packet that I’ve never seen before had anything to do with me anyway?”
“Oh? Tokugawa Shigetsugu, if you’ve never seen it before, how would you know that it’s a tea? I’ve only said that it’s a packet.”6
Blood immediately drained from Tokugawa’s face as he mused: Crap! That was careless of me, I accidentally let it slip!
Everyone gradually started to harbor doubt.
“Hmph!” Tokugawa broke out in cold sweat and forced out barely believable lies, “That… was a slip of tongue.7 Anyway, I am completely unrelated to this case. Miss Kagami, you didn’t see it with your own eyes, could it be that your attendant was lying to you?”
“Hmph, I knew you would say that, Tokugawa, that’s why I won’t waste my breath arguing with you. Regardless of who is right or wrong, I am definitely going to challenge you today! Aren’t you giving swordsmanship advice to many disciples here? That means you should have some confidence in your skill no? Or are you telling me that you didn’t dare to face me? Your fame is undeserved!” Lily didn’t bother to quibble with Tokugawa who tried every possible way to talk his way out. Whether he admitted it or not, Lily didn’t care. She didn’t trust the rules and regulations of the dojo nor did she care about bad rumors spreading, all she trusted was the sword in her hands!
“Hahahahahaha!” Tokugawa suddenly laughed, “Miss Kagami, no need to get violent on me. Do I look like a man who would lose his reasons just because of a few words? You are a woman, so I’ll look the other way regarding your rude remarks, but as for the challenge, don’t forget about the rules Miss Kagami, you are ranked around fifty while I am the ranked third, you have no qualification to challenge me with your rank.”
“Then you can be the one to challenge me instead,” Lily replied with a sneer, however.
“Hehe, Miss Kagami, what do you take me for, stupid? I am rank 3, what benefits will I gain to challenge a rank 50’s? Forgive me for being unable to grant your request.”
“I didn’t expect the magnificent Tokugawa Shigetsugu to be so gutless. I bet you’re scared, right? How did your Furinkazan daddy raise such a cowardly son like you? You didn’t even dare to challenge a woman who is so ranked so much lower than you, how do you have the face to continue staying in this dojo like this? Rather than having others make way as you brazenly ride through the Kamakura street, you should be making way for me instead, you cowardly chicken!”
“……” Tokugawa’s little eyes shone with an ominous glint as the urge to kill welled up. Blue veins popped on his forehead and he was so angry that his entire body shuddered, however, he quickly subsided his anger and endured it silently. He would definitely take revenge on Lily with the cruelest possible method, but now wasn’t the time, he couldn’t rely on something as unreliable as having a match with her.
Tokugawa spoke with an extremely unsightly look on his face, “Miss Kagami, watch what you’re saying. You actually dare to sully the name of my father, Lord Shigemori of the Furinkazan, you better be prepared to face the punishment from the dojo. This fight, however, I cannot accept, stop wasting your breath. I have other things to do, excuse me.”
Tokugawa didn’t care to defend himself and tried to leave the hall as soon as possible.
“Shing—!” The metallic sound caused Tokugawa to halt his step.
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Lily tossed the wooden sword back to the male disciple and pointed at Tokugawa’s back with her three feet nine inches blade.
With a blood-laced tone, Lily said, “If you don’t dare to challenge me under the rule of the dojo, then I will challenge you to a duel with real swords in the name of a Genji samurai!”8
Tokugawa’s face immediately darkened and the entire hall became eerily quiet.
“Duel with real swords,” as the name implied, it was a fight to the death with real swords!
In such a duel, it was very common to kill or be killed. Once the duel has been initiated, one couldn’t complain even if they end up dead.
The people of the Land of East viewed the military might in high esteem. As such, duelling with real swords was a tradition of the brave samurai. If they had a valid reason to issue the duel, then the other party could not refuse. Otherwise, they’d be laughed at and be looked down upon. Since everyone was betting their life equally, refusing would mean that they were scared for dear life and even to be thought of as a misfit.
Even if Lord Kamakura was challenged by a vagrant, he wouldn’t be able to refuse if the other party had a valid reason. In the odd chance that Lord Kamakura was killed in the duel, they couldn’t push the blame onto the challenger. On the contrary, he would become respected instead.
And that, in essence, was a duel with real swords.
That was a duel every samurai, even those as tolerant as Tokugawa, couldn’t shirk from, as the consequences would be too heavy.9