What's more, the second stage of the tournament was held at the Main Stadium of the island. Hundreds of thousands of people were gathering there every year. It was a national holiday…

Siro's eyes were shinning while he was telling us all that stuff. He was very excited. You could see that the guy was really fond of kendo.

He was so engrossed in describing all that stuff that he almost forgot that the only person listening to him was a Gaijin.

Takeshi knew all that stuff already. He looked attentive, but that's just him trying to be polite.

At last, Siro came to his senses and suddenly went silent. He felt awkward because of his excited speech. He shook his head and said:

"But nothing of that concerns you, gaijin. Do not even dream of getting through the preliminaries. No one in that club will be able to do it," he smirked.

"Even you?" I asked.

He froze for a second and then shook his head.

"We'll see... There were nine people in this Dojo during the last year and no one of them managed to win even once. Pathetic."

Takeshi smiled awkwardly.

I asked:

"What do you mean by 'this Dojo'?"

"Oh, that's…" now it was Takeshi explaining stuff:

"Every club represents an official Dojo. It's like… Dojo signs a contract with a school to make a Kendo club that will represent it on the tournament…"

"Something like that," added Siro. "Both the school and the Dojo benefit from that. However, if there are no results out of that cooperation, the contract might be broken. Sometimes it's better without a kendo club at all than with a pathetic one."

Once again, Takeshi nodded his head.

"Our Dojo is named 'Dancing Sakura'. It's very old, almost 400 years old… The club is named the same way… Oh," suddenly, Toma remembered about something and said:

"I need to show you to the master of our Dojo… Latter, I mean, he has a very busy schedule… As for now, let's start with the training."

Yeah… About time.

And right when I thought that…

'Attention! Beginning of the new Ark detected!

Type: Training ark

Genre Score: 0/30

Mission: prepare for the Tournament of Thousand Leaves. You will receive 10P for every level of Kendo mastery.

Time limit: 1 Month before the first stage of the tournament!'

Once Yuji finished speaking in my head, Takeshi said:

"First, we need to see how strong you are… It's very important for the training."

He made a step back.

"Try to do 100 push-ups. And ran three… No, five times around the school. After that, I will measure your pulse and tell you, whether you need to train for some time before taking up the sword or not."

Hundred times… A strange look appeared on my face. I sighed and started taking off my jacket. By the time I had unbuttoned it, Shirogane had already fallen to the floor and did twenty push-ups… He didn't even break a sweat when he was done with that task.

I placed my hand on the ground.

"Wait… You should look forward while doing push-ups," said Toma.

I nodded, lifted my head and felt pressure in my hands. My muscles were shivering. I made one push-up, and the shiver became stronger. By the time I was doing the nine one, my face flushed red with blood. I heard Siro laugh from nearby. Trying to ignore him, I managed to do five more push-ups before falling the ground.

After standing up, I silently looked at Toma.

"Well…" he had a worried look on his face.

"Are you alright? If you are sick right now, we can do it later."

I signed, shook my head and said:

"No, I'm in perfect health."

I felt very awkward.

"See you on the track," said Siro with a gloating smile on his face and walked out. I sat down to rest for some time.

Suddenly…

Bam!

I heard a sound from behind the window. I turned my head to see what it was, but there was nothing there… Strange. Soon, I stood up and walked out to run.

After running one time around the school, I felt very tired. I felt that there was no way I will be able to do it even one more time (five seemed impossible) and so I came back and honestly told Takeshi about my accomplishments.

He patted my shoulder…

The training was about to end. Takeshi had some stuff to do. Shirogane left first, and I followed after him.

Needless to tell, I was in a bad mood while walking through the hallway.

My future was looking pretty hopeless.

There were only thirty days before the tournament. Will I be able to accomplish anything by that time from such a pathetic starting position? My hands still were sore from the push-ups.

I signed and walked down the stairs to the entrance of the building.

Then, I suddenly remembered some stuff, walked around the wall to the right, and found the window of our hall just behind a green bush. I heard a strange sound from that place.

What was it?

I made my way through the bush.

There, I saw small — a child's, maybe? — fingertips on the metallic drip sill. I felt strange. Someone was spying on us? Why would anyone do that?

Either way, there was no new Ark appearing, probably because I still didn't have Detective among my genres, so there was no reason to bother myself with that stuff.

I started walking back to the dormitory.