Koji ended up fighting four more kids before losing.
For the next month, the battles kept being held and each and every day Koji would step up to it--most of the time, he would win a couple before getting eliminated.
Though, as the weeks went on he started winning more and more--clearly, he was improving quicker than most kids.
On this specific day, Koji reached his personal best for wins in a row.
'Nine... I won nine in a row.'
He could barely hold his sword as he walked off the dueling area, he was absolutely exhausted from all the fighting he had to do.
'Damn, my shoulder...'
Koji's small hand gripped his even smaller shoulder, the numbness of his it became extra apparent as his hand squeezed.
'I really am completely spent.'
His condition was comparable to a virgin girl who had been fucked multiple times by a boyfriend who was over a foot taller than her.
His last fight ended rather quickly due to his exhaustion--his opponent was a girl who looked to be 11, and her technique was mediocre at best.
Though, even with the advantages Koji had in technique and intelligence--his exhaustion made his loss inevitable.
'Is that something I need to work on?'
While most people may focus on developing ways to strike their opponent down, maybe the best route to take was a route that improved ones ability to withstand long fights.
'If I can last longer, then they will get tired eventually--if they are tired, their stance is easier to disrupt.'
'So far, I've learned that predictability is the most important thing to avoid in combat--if you can be predicted even slightly, then you will ultimately lose; though, if this was entirely the case then traditional martial arts techniques would fully rely on this. Except, they don't--your moves being predictable must not be the most important, but the outcome of your moves is what truly matters.'
Of course, Koji was purely speculating this and had no knowledge of whether this was actually true or not--however, he didn't care if this was actually true for why traditional methods exist.
Because, he thought of them, and he felt they were true--deep down, he felt that this was a good way to fight.
Sword fights were really just a game of chess, and in chess one's moves are predictable in the opening--of course, this is why many pro players resort to traditional openings.
However, the direction that the player goes in the midgame and endgame are entirely different from their predictable starting point.
'Alright, I'll train my endurance... Eh, how should I do that?'
'Lets see, a lot of people back on earth would run or jog--some would go to the gym, these are all so boring! Though, hasn't my endurance improved simply from fighting? Maybe, if for the next few fights I try to defend as long as possible to train my endurance and sustainability in the fight, then I could slowly increase it.
I wonder if any breathing techniques would help...'
Except, if he tried to focus on a breathing technique--well, his fights would go somewhat like this:
'Breathe, just breathe...'
Koji's eyes slowly opened as his opponent was revealed to him; this time, his breath was steady, his sword was ready...
Koji was like a cobra waiting to strike.
Though, unbeknownst to the Koji who was focusing on his breathing instead of the fight, his opponent was already striking.
'Eh?'
...
Safe to say, after that match Koji's "jingle bells" never even made it to the bottom of the tree.
'Yeah, so focusing on breathing could go badly--I should practice it outside of fighting so it becomes a sort of involuntary thing.'
After that horrifyingly exaggerated hypothetical developed by Koji, he disregarded that possibility.
'Alright, for now I'll simply focus on defending for as long as I can... The tournament is coming in three months--if I'm going to win it I should try and practice one thing each of the next months.'
'For this month, I'll practice endurance and improve my defensive ability.'
'For next month... Hm, I could try and develop more ways to be unpredictable and try to develop traps that a simple minded kid could easily fall into. Yes, take advantage of their youth!'
'The third month, I guess I should try to apply predictability to the unpredictable; damn, this martial arts shit is getting complicated man.'
Koji was starting to realize just how difficult martial arts really was, there were many factors one had to consider to even begin to develop their skills--truly, it was a magnificently complex art.
There's a reason it was called martial arts; at this point, Koji truly felt that it was a form of art just like painting or making music.
Some related martial arts to dancing, though Koji disagreed.
'Dancing is a sort of sub-art designed for music--martial arts stands on it's own, uninfluenced by the other artforms.'
'If anything, martial arts is like painting.'
Thus, he decided what he would focus on for the next three months before the big upcoming tournament.
...
For the first week, Koji's plan to stay on the defensive didn't work out very well for him; for starters, it was much harder to defend the whole fight than he thought at first--in fact, defending was triple the difficulty of actually trying to take down your opponent.
Not only that, but every time he successfully defended for most of the fight, he would be absolutely exhausted after it--his legs would feel like noodles, his arms as fragile as glass--even his head started to hurt for awhile, which was most likely due to the intense focus he had to direct towards defending for such a long time.
Needless to say, he was having a very hard time his first week.
This didn't change much his second week, as he still struggled with the same issues too; he was still having a hard time defending--he was still feeling incredibly weak after every single fight; to add on to that, he was always sore every day.
Though finally, on his third week he started to notice something different.