Chapter 482: Battle

There was never any necessary connection between a hero father and a good son.

However, if a father achieved particularly high achievements in a certain field, he would more or less have some subtle influence on his children, and outsiders would also be full of expectations for the children, hoping they could inherit their father's mantle.

Yagyu Kota grew up in such eyes and expectations. Since he was a child, besides normal schooling, he had no leisure time; it was all practicing sword skills.

Fortunately, he was indeed very interested in Kendo, so he didn't resist practicing Kendo. Moreover, his own talent was quite high, so his progress far exceeded ordinary people, and he had the name of a Kendo genius when he was very young.

However, no matter what level his sword skills reached, in his mind, his father's image was always invincible.

The father and son sparred countless times, and every ending was a failure. However, what made him proud was that in a few sparring matches, he forced out his father's trump card move—Mutōdori.

As the most famous trump card move of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryū, the principle was actually not complicated. To parse it in five words, it was "empty-handed taking of a naked blade."

However, this style extremely tested one's own eyesight and reaction speed. A slight carelessness meant directly sending one's body to the opponent's sword tip.

Therefore, although the principle was simple, wanting to use it well was difficult. And the only one who could do it without fail was his father, this Kendo master.

Besides the other three Kendo masters, his father rarely used this. The reason was also very simple: besides Kendo masters of the same level, it was very difficult for anyone to force a Kendo master with a sword to use a life-risking move like empty-handed taking of a naked blade.

Yagyu Kota had done it once, but that was when his father didn't use his full strength, and the time wasn't that far from now.

When he was at Luo Quan's age, he didn't have the ability to compete with his father, and when sparring, it was basically a one-sided beating.

Looking at this girl in front of him, Yagyu Kota couldn't help but sigh: "If you can force Father to use Mutōdori without reservation, then I'm afraid I'm not your opponent."

"I'm not that powerful." Luo Quan hurriedly waved her hand and explained: "It was just that when I sparred with old master Yagyu, his bamboo sword happened to have a crack. I seized the opportunity to break the bamboo sword, which forced him to use his trump card. If he had changed to a good bamboo sword, I'm afraid I wouldn't have reached that level."

"And we are only having a real combat for filming. We don't need to distinguish between high and low. It's enough to make the filmed fighting scenes look good. Uncle, you can try to make the actions more flashy."

"If you put it that way, then I understand." As the head of the Nara Youth Kendo Hall, Yagyu Kota never showed children ancient Kendo. These killing techniques were almost useless in modern times, and learning them would instead cause trouble.

What he showed the children was the improved and deleted Yagyu Shinkage-ryū sword skills, which focused more on ornamentation.

This kind of "old trade" was very simple for him, but since it was a real combat, it couldn't just be a flashy show; true and false moves interspersed could look better.

After the agreement was reached, the crew immediately began to place the camera positions, and the stones on the bamboo forest clearing were also cleaned up.

The sword tip of the prop sword was specially treated, using rubber, mainly because he was afraid of hurting the other party during the fight.

In fact, the prop sword itself was very light, and it wouldn't matter even if it hit the body. However, since Yagyu Kota's opponent was the "world's most beautiful," nothing else mattered, but if her face was hurt, that would be a big problem. So all hidden dangers had to be eliminated in advance.

The preparation work took half an hour. Luo Quan and Yagyu Kota both changed into black and gray samurai robes, while Luo Quan wore a bright red "haori" (jacket).

Compared to the original work, the collar of this haori was much higher, and she also wore a sports chest wrap inside, which served as a bottoming. In short, it was to wrap it tightly to avoid too much movement.

For the final fighting scene in the movie, Luo Quan decided to film it in two parts.

One part was the actions that appeared in the original movie, such as "back-sheathing sword," "heart-one-side," "double-headed dragon flash," etc. These nodes guided the conversion of the upper and lower winds of the entire battle and the winning move, belonging to memory points.

And the other part was the real combat session that was about to be carried out.

No matter what the two looked like when fighting, all segments would become material for this fighting scene. Luo Quan would edit it in post-production and intersperse it into the entire fighting scene.

The preparation session ended, and the two stood in the center of the bamboo forest clearing.

Yagyu Kota held the sword in his right hand, the sword tip pointing toward the ground, with a relaxed smile on his face.

While Luo Quan's expression was quite complex—partly the urgency of wanting to rescue Miss Kaoru, and partly the entanglement of whether to break the vow of non-killing.

Just with her expression, Luo Quan rendered the atmosphere tense.

Under the gesture of the assistant director, the prop master above their heads threw down a bamboo leaf.

This tiny change broke the impending calm. Luo Quan moved first, drawing her sword at a flying speed and attacking Yagyu Kota.

From the moment the filming started, although Yagyu Kota knew this was filming, the vigilance of a swordsman made him unable to control himself from putting in twelve points of spirit when facing Luo Quan.

This was an intuition common to martial arts practitioners. He felt a very large threat from Luo Quan, far exceeding all the opponents he had encountered in Kendo competitions before. If it weren't for the photographers standing behind Luo Quan, he would even think this was a real encounter with real swords and guns!

The prop sword had no lethality, but the muscle memory of hundreds or thousands of sparring matches made him subconsciously swing his sword to counterattack.

The two swords slashed together in the air. Yagyu Kota felt a huge force that didn't look like it should belong to a girl, which made his eyebrows wrinkle slightly.

Yagyu Shinkage-ryū wasn't the fierce style of the Shintō Munen-ryū that slashed people and swords together. Hard-hitting wasn't the style of Yagyu sword skills.

After this sword, Yagyu Kota raised his arm and used a clever force to shake Luo Quan's sword away, then his figure retreated two steps quite lightly.

On the surface, it looked like Luo Quan had the upper hand in the sword clash, and Yagyu Kota was forced to retreat to avoid the sharp edge.

However, Luo Quan didn't naively think she had occupied the upper hand so simply. Yagyu Shinkage-ryū sword skills were famous for specializing in defensive counterattacks. If she really went up like a "greenhorn," it would be strange if she wasn't beaten to a pulp!

But this was filming, not a life-and-death battle. If she retreated, the emotions she had just accumulated would suddenly break.

So she still rushed up, but kept an eye out, seemingly trying her best to swing the sword, but actually only using 30% of her strength.

It was also fortunate that Luo Quan kept this 70% strength, so she didn't suffer a crushing defeat after Yagyu Kota used "Swallow Flying."

Yagyu family's counterattack sword skills were truly unique in Japanese Kendo. The sword Luo Quan slashed was blocked by Yagyu Kota with lightning speed at the highest point, and then he sank his shoulder and slashed down with a sword.

If this were a real sword, as long as Luo Quan dodged a bit slowly, this sword would probably have slashed her arm off directly.

Unfortunately, Luo Quan had been prepared, and this sword just slashed the air.

"Good opportunity!" Luo Quan watched Yagyu Kota's sword brush past her, directly twisting her body and slashing horizontally.

"Good opportunity!" In Yagyu Kota's heart, it was actually the same thought.

Only to see his wrist turn flexibly, the long sword he swung turned a big circle around his waist, directly making a 360-degree turn, readjusting the direction and slashing toward Luo Quan.

This defense, which could be called watertight, made Luo Quan's two attacks useless, and Yagyu Kota's attack and defense conversion were almost intertwined. While defending, the attack also followed immediately.

This long sword, which turned a circle around his waist, after blocking Luo Quan's slash, turned twice on his hand like a long needle attracted by a magnet. After flipping his wrist to hold it, it went straight for Luo Quan's center.

If it were any ordinary sword skill, this exquisite move would basically have taken down the opponent.

Unfortunately, what Yagyu Kota encountered was the even more exquisite Hokushin Ittō-ryū. This was the sword skill that Yagyu Enzai called "art." Every slash was accurate to the millimeter, achieving the greatest effect with the smallest cost.

This straight-stabbing sword was actually blocked by Luo Quan with the tip of her long sword.

The elastic rubber sword tip caused the two to bounce apart instantly after a brief contact and struggle. Yagyu Kota showed an surprised look.

Was this a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse, or was Luo Quan's sword skill really exquisite to this degree?

Hitting sword tip with sword tip—even at the extremely slow speed of a performance, he wouldn't necessarily succeed once in ten times.

If this wasn't luck, then Luo Quan's sword skill was a bit terrifying.

Looking at her expression, it seemed there was no surprise, as if it should have been so.

Thoughts turning, Yagyu Kota didn't continue to immerse himself in the gains and losses of the move just now after confirming it.

In fact, he didn't have time to regret that sword just now.

After Luo Quan recovered, she took a deep breath and rushed over again.

The momentum this time was completely different from just now!

"Hokushin Ittō-ryū Secret Technique: Falling Leaves!"

Luo Quan certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to shout the move name to remind the opponent; she just recited the name of the move in her heart.

Rushing in front of Yagyu Kota, the long sword in her hand slashed toward Yagyu Kota from all directions like a storm. Both the speed and frequency had reached a dazzling degree.

In just a few seconds, Luo Quan had completed seventeen consecutive slashes without interruption, forcing Yagyu Kota back ten steps!

However, Yagyu Shinkage-ryū was worthy of being the strongest defensive sword skill. Under such a fierce wave of slashes, although Yagyu Kota had been retreating, he still didn't let Luo Quan's slashes break through his defensive net.

However, such high-intensity defense was extremely exhausting to the mind and energy. Being watertight was indeed powerful, but the difficulty was much higher than the difficulty of launching an attack, and it was also a big test for physical strength.

What was fatal was that after Luo Quan completed seventeen consecutive slashes, she didn't mean to stop.

Although her face was a bit flushed, she still relied on the bit of oxygen she had just inhaled to continue launching attacks.

Eighteen consecutive slashes!

Twenty consecutive slashes!

Twenty-four consecutive slashes!

Twenty-eight consecutive slashes!

Thirty-six consecutive slashes!

"Damn it!" Yagyu Kota really couldn't hold on. Comparing defense with this kind of physical monster was completely asking for humiliation.

His wrists and shoulders had begun to ache. If he continued, maybe the sword would fly out of his hand in the next moment.

But even at such a desperate moment, he didn't despair.

Finding life in desperation was the biggest characteristic of Yagyu Shinkage-ryū!

"Floating Boat!" Yagyu Kota blocked this sword at the end and didn't make any more parrying moves, but directly threw the sword at Luo Quan.

Such a "rolling meat" strike really caught Luo Quan off guard. The thirty-six consecutive slashes were broken by this sword, and her stomach was almost hit.

After dodging dangerously, Luo Quan also retreated while panting heavily.

This series of "sword rain" caused huge defense for Yagyu Kota, but how much was her consumption?

Slashing thirty-six swords in one breath, even with her physical strength that surpassed ordinary people, she was a bit unable to bear it.

Unfortunately, her sword skills weren't as powerful as her fist skills. Yagyu Kota could barely resist by relying on his own sword skills that were good at defense, but absolutely no one could take thirty-six of her punches head-on.

Fighting to this point, both of them had consumed a lot of physical strength, and the control of power inevitably appeared to decline.

Although Yagyu Kota had no sword, Yagyu Shinkage-ryū still had a move called "Mutōdori," which was best at dealing with this situation.

Luo Quan had suffered from this move before and knew that when facing a swordsman of the Yagyu family, even if the opponent had no sword, she couldn't have the slightest paralysis.

In other words, the battle between the two reached the point of seeing the truth only at this time.

However, considering that continuing to fight might lead to unexpected situations, Luo Quan waved her hand to terminate the battle, and the assistant director immediately shouted "cut."

The battle ended, and Yagyu Kota finally breathed a long sigh of relief, thinking to himself, "How dangerous, almost suffered a defeat in front of so many people."

"There is a Chinese saying: 'The waves behind the Yangtze River push the waves in front.' Today, I have truly seen it." While wiping sweat with a towel, Yagyu Kota walked over and didn't spare his praise.

"Uncle Yagyu is too complimentary. Your defense has no flaws; I really had no chance at all." Everyone lifted the sedan chair, and Luo Quan also started "commercial mutual blowing."

"By the way, I have never seen this sword skill of yours before. Is it a sword skill from China?" Yagyu Kota asked curiously.

Luo Quan shook her head: "No, this is the sword skill taught to me by Master Chiba Shūsaku, called Hokushin Ittō-ryū."

"Hokushin Ittō-ryū?" Yagyu Kota thought for a while and recalled that this was a long-lost sword skill.

He only knew the name before, but now he finally saw the real thing.

"It is indeed an exquisite sword skill!" Yagyu Kota praised sincerely.

Luo Quan chuckled: "Thank you for the praise." ===== CHAPTER 483 =====