That said, the first person Aiden got to know was Yagami Tsukihime.
After the first King of Fighters tournament came to an end, although the Kyokugenryu dojo didn't even make it into the top three, they did appear on the big stage and outright defeated the Art of Fighting team, genuinely making a name for themselves.
After all, in the eyes of the audience, any dojo that could participate in the tournament was already top-tier, one in ten thousand, no exaggeration at all.
Most spectators didn't really understand the subtleties of what was happening in the ring. Techniques were a blur to them, and who won or lost didn't matter nearly as much to them as it did to the fighters themselves.
Take the match where Aiden took on three opponents alone and defeated the Fatal Fury team, for example. The audience didn't think the three members of Fatal Fury were weak at all. On the contrary, seeing Joe Higashi throw punches that whipped up tornadoes attracted a lot of attention.
As a result, once the tournament ended, Joe Higashi became famous, and people nearly wore down the threshold of his dojo trying to become his disciples.
But in the Fatal Fury team, only Joe Higashi actually ran a dojo, and his requirements for taking students were extremely strict, not just anyone could get in.
The Kyokugenryu dojo was completely different. They had almost no requirements for taking disciples. As long as you showed up to ask to become a student, you were accepted, and the tuition fees were shockingly low.
It was only later that Aiden realized the Kyokugenryu dojo was like Tongtian Jiaozhu from mythology, adhering to the philosophy of teaching everyone without discrimination and accepting disciples in great numbers.
However, the more people who came to apprentice, the more likely problems were to appear…
Right across from the Kyokugenryu dojo was the Todo-ryu dojo, and the two had never gotten along.
In this King of Fighters tournament, Rugal only invited the three members of the Art of Fighting team to participate. As for Todo-ryu…
Well, it seemed Rugal had never even heard of them and didn't think of them at all.
But Kyokugenryu and Todo-ryu already had old grudges. Inviting only Kyokugenryu and not Todo-ryu made many people think Todo-ryu's martial arts were inferior, which further worsened the relationship between the two dojos.
As Kyokugenryu's reputation grew louder and louder, things eventually reached a point where the Todo-ryu dojo could barely recruit any new students.
And once Kyokugenryu had more disciples, their behavior became increasingly arrogant. They would frequently provoke people from Todo-ryu, leading to constant friction and several outright fights.
Martial artists having fiery tempers was normal. As long as no one died, the authorities usually turned a blind eye. After all, after the King of Fighters tournament, the status of fighters had risen by more than one level, and the Tokyo police weren't keen on provoking them.
The gap between ordinary people and fighters was simply too large.
However, since Kyokugenryu didn't achieve a good ranking in this tournament, Ryo Sakazaki and the others didn't stay at the dojo for long before heading out to train, leaving the dojo in the care of Yuri Sakazaki.
Yuri Sakazaki was still an innocent, lively girl, and managing a dojo was honestly a bit too much for her. When she really couldn't keep up, she would go to the Shiranui-ryu dojo to ask Mai Shiranui and King for help, and both of them were quite willing.
Speaking of which, since the Women Fighters Team took third place in this tournament, Shiranui-ryu finally made a name for itself, and even more people came to apprentice there than at the Kyokugenryu dojo.
However, for certain reasons, Mai Shiranui only accepted female disciples. As a result, even after more than two months, the number of students at the Shiranui-ryu dojo hadn't broken a hundred. So Mai wasn't as busy as one might imagine, and whenever she had free time, she would go with King to help out at the Kyokugenryu dojo.
When Mai and King went to Kyokugenryu, they only helped manage the disciples and guide training. They didn't interfere with anything else.
As for whatever small schemes the disciples cooked up in private, neither they nor Yuri Sakazaki knew anything about it.
As the Kyokugenryu dojo grew larger and larger, its conflicts with the Todo-ryu dojo across the street also intensified.
Finally, one day, Todo-ryu's acting head, Todo Kasumi, could no longer stand seeing her disciples constantly being bullied, and she actually went over in person to issue a challenge.
Kasumi was about the same age as Yuri, but she was also a naturally gifted fighter. In one-on-three situations, she fought seven or eight matches and somehow ended up with a mixed record of wins and losses, gaining quite a bit of fame in the process.
Then the real trouble began…
News spread that Todo Kasumi had challenged the Women Fighters Team and ended with mixed results. This caught the interest of two women who had just arrived in Tokyo. Soon after, one of the girls came looking for Kasumi by name, demanding a challenge.
Just like in the King of Fighters tournament, they fought three consecutive matches.
Unexpectedly, after all three matches ended, Todo Kasumi suffered three straight defeats. And the girl who defeated her three times in a row was Yagami Tsukihime, who had come to Tokyo together with Iori Yagami…
Yet even after defeating Todo Kasumi, Yagami Tsukihime wasn't satisfied and immediately issued a challenge to Yuri Sakazaki.
To be honest, even though Yuri was just a young girl, she had a temper. Seeing that Todo Kasumi had already been defeated by Yagami Tsukihime, she immediately chose to accept the challenge.
Then she lost.
And she lost badly.
Yagami Tsukihime defeated her in fewer than ten moves.
Seeing Yuri's defeat, Mai Shiranui and King naturally couldn't just stand by and do nothing.
After that, they also lost. They did better, though, and didn't lose quite as badly. Mai Shiranui held out for thirty-seven moves, and King even managed a counterattack, but she was defeated after the forty-fifth move.
It had to be said that Yagami Tsukihime, who possessed the bloodline of the Three Sacred Treasures, was on a completely different level compared to Mai and the others.
Her mastery of the Blue Flames, which was no weaker than her brother Iori Yagami's, was flawless, and the family-inherited Maiden Masher was downright brutal.
At the same time, she had also learned her brother's arrogant personality. After defeating Mai and the others, she even mocked them verbally, saying things like how this level of strength could actually get third place in the King of Fighters tournament, and that if this was all they had, then the first-place winner Aiden was probably nothing special either.
Mocking Mai and the others was one thing, but belittling Aiden was unacceptable. A woman protects her own man, so they immediately issued another challenge to Yagami Tsukihime.
The result was another crushing defeat, and this time it was even worse. Yagami Tsukihime, with her astonishing talent, had already figured out all of their techniques.
Even King, who had the richest combat experience among the three, only lasted twenty moves this time before being defeated by Yagami Tsukihime's Maiden Masher.
However, in this world, fighters rarely lose their will to fight after being defeated. So over the next period of time, Mai and the other two trained harder than ever. Every time they felt their strength had improved, they would challenge Yagami Tsukihime again.
Todo Kasumi did the same, joining them in challenging Yagami Tsukihime.
Although they were defeated miserably every time, after several joint challenges, Mai and the others grew familiar with Todo Kasumi. United by a common enemy, they unexpectedly formed a deep friendship.
But friendship was friendship. They still couldn't beat Yagami Tsukihime. They were improving, but Yagami Tsukihime was improving as well.
This was probably why the Three Sacred Treasures families had stood firm for thousands of years, their inherited bloodlines gave them a starting point far higher than that of ordinary fighters.