The days passed quickly, and soon it was the day of the Valley tournament, which had everyone very excited. Those competitors who had shown talent would be much stronger today than the previous year and would give better performances.
In the end, half of Sakura Bushido's fighters would participate to gain experience in tournaments and then win in foreign tournaments where Karate was much more significant.
"Well, this will be the first tournament for many, and I know many were waiting for the seniors to participate, but as you know, there is a relevant tournament on the way and we don't hold the title, so to avoid any kind of situation, we won't take risks in this tournament."
Dash paused and said, "But we trust all of you; we believe you can win if you fight with your heart in your hand, and in Sakura Bushido, there is no best or worst, only the most and least experienced."
"Yes, sensei!"
Everyone wanted Dash to fight to win in the male division, but similar to last time, this time the most experienced would not fight.
In Sakura Bushido, they respected the divisions; for them, this tournament was nothing more than a low-level tournament, and it would be abusive for fighters from twenty to twenty-five years old to participate in this tournament.
A tournament like this was not at the caliber of someone like Dash or even someone like Jack from Wasabi Warriors, who was also not participating but was a spectator.
"Any strategy?"
Dash looked at the student who asked this and responded, "Just have fun, kid; enjoy this tournament and learn what you can. If any of you win first place in your respective divisions, you can win a car."
This personal gift from Sakura Bushido was announced in the heat of the moment; even Devon was surprised and nudged Dash, blaming him for not telling him earlier.
"It was something improvised."
"You'll explain it to me later."
Mr. Kim looked at his best students fighting; this was what they always did, and he couldn't explain how they ended up being boyfriends; they were like fire and water at all times.
"All right, you've heard what you wanted to hear, so focus. There are very strong rivals from Dojos different from last year, so you must be attentive to those changes." Mr. Kim, who had personally trained all these students, began to give them advice.
Among the group, Kenny was very nervous, and Antony was even more so since he had never participated in a tournament before. "I hope we get to fight together; I'm going to kick your butt in front of all these people."
"I'll give up before that." Antony murmured upon hearing Kenny's hostility, which had been there since they trained together.
"But we must win this tournament."
"I doubt that; this year's fighters are some of the best in a long time, so we will do little with our tiny combat experience." Antony didn't even know what he was doing among the group of fighters; he even thought he wouldn't make it past the qualifiers.
"Come on, we will win."
Devon looked at these two boys, who seemed to hate each other, and didn't understand how they managed to stay united. When everyone had to head to the exit, those who wouldn't participate or serve as teachers left.
Dash remained seated among the audience, waiting to see the performance of the new students.