The next day was Saturday, which also marked the first Quidditch match of the term.
The weather that day was utterly atrocious. Rain fell in sheets, cascading ceaselessly from the sky to the ground.
Streams of water practically converged into rivulets on the floor, and dark clouds stretched all the way to the horizon, making it impossible to tell when the torrential downpour would ever let up.
The castle was pitch black, looking no different from nighttime. Torches blazed all along the corridors, barely managing to dispel the darkness.
Even sitting inside the Great Hall, one could hear the roaring rumble of the rain outside the castle.
For the Hufflepuff players, however, such dreadful weather didn't have much of an impact.
In the Quidditch training grounds that Grindelwald had custom-built for his son's team, they had simulated every kind of extreme weather imaginable.
Both Kyle and Cedric firmly believed in the principle of hellish training.
These two masterminds held that only by training to the brink of death could they forge a powerful team with ironclad willpower and superb skills.
Under these circumstances, adapting to matches in all sorts of extreme weather was absolutely essential.
Therefore, let alone a mere rainstorm, they had even simulated scenarios where hail pelted from the heavens.
Have you ever seen hail the size of Hagrid's fist?
The Hufflepuff players had seen it all.
With the help of gale-force winds, a hailstone that large slamming into an ordinary person meant you could practically call for a professional funeral crew right then and there.
If it weren't for the fact that Kyle had used biological magic to engineer and breed splitting, healing slugs, and had equipped each of them with an amulet capable of blocking three fatal physical blows, they wouldn't have even survived to walk off the pitch.
The only issue now was that the Hufflepuff players had only received their new brooms a single day ago.
Whether they could master this standard broom—which ranked among the absolute best in terms of performance in the modern wizarding world—remained a question mark.
Both Kyle and Cedric had confidence in their teammates.
More importantly, the Gryffindor side had only had their brooms for a few days as well.
Either way, it was just a clash of rookies.
Sitting at the Hufflepuff table, Cedric pumped his fist excitedly. "I dare say, this is going to be the most challenging match Hufflepuff has ever faced!"
Kyle nodded, agreeing with Cedric's sentiment.
The Weasley twins stealing techniques from his Shurikenjutsu wasn't a recent development.
Having practiced stealthily for so long, combined with the innate chemistry between twin brothers, the two of them were now not a single bit inferior to Kyle when it came to Quidditch.
Of course, that was only in a two-on-one scenario.
After all, Kyle possessed a terrifying physical constitution brought about by years of Lightning Release body forging. Even without secretly activating Chakra Enhanced Strength, if either of the twins went up against him individually, they would only end up utterly crushed.
Only by joining forces could they barely hold their own against Kyle.
Beside them, the "Little Iron Girl" was bursting with fighting spirit. "I'll shoot them all down!"
She pumped her small fist, the motion mimicking the swing of a Beater's bat on the Quidditch pitch.
Ever since she witnessed Kyle and Hermione kissing at the Three Broomsticks, the Little Iron Girl had quite tactfully withdrawn from her competition with Hermione.
As everyone knew, a triangle was the most stable shape.
The romance between Kyle and Hermione didn't affect the friendship between the three of them.
The two traitors who had escaped singlehood were also very restrained in front of the sole single dog in their small trio, refraining from shoving public displays of affection down her throat.
The Little Iron Girl naturally felt some regret, but she was very open-minded about it.
There was no need for her to deliberately distance herself from Kyle and Hermione, so she didn't quit the Quidditch team or anything. She continued to fight on the Quidditch pitch as Hufflepuff's Second Beater.
With Hannah's assistance, the pressure on Kyle when dealing with the flawlessly synchronized twins was significantly reduced.
Hearing the Little Iron Girl's words, Kyle extended his fist and bumped it against hers.
"Our advantage is that we're better adapted to fighting in extreme weather than they are," Cedric analyzed seriously. "So we need to make good use of this."
Cedric's analysis made perfect sense.
The Firebolt was incredibly fast, but in a raging rainstorm like this, the faster the speed, the harder it was to control one's flight posture.
Furthermore, after Cedric integrated the Hydra's bloodline, his physical fitness was vastly superior to before, nearly catching up to Kyle's level from a year ago.
On the other hand, Gryffindor's Seeker, Harry, was as skinny as a beanpole.
Before Harry entered Hogwarts, his life at the Dursleys' was merely at the level of getting enough food to stay full.
As for proper nutrition, he could forget about it.
That was a privilege reserved solely for their own son, Dudley Dursley.
Although Harry had been fortunate enough to experience the kitchen reforms implemented by the "Little Dark Lord" after entering Hogwarts—with delicacies from all over the world stuffing him full at every meal—compared to the current Cedric, he was still far too frail.
Unless Harry disguised himself as Cho Chang and used the Sexy Jutsu on Cedric.
For instance, blowing a kiss to Cedric from his broom every now and then.
If that happened, Hufflepuff wouldn't even need to play; Cedric would just lead them in an immediate surrender.
Ahem, just kidding.
Even if Harry disguised himself as Cho Chang, he ultimately wasn't the real Cho Chang.
Cedric wasn't Snape; he wouldn't show any leniency to "Harrie." If anything, he would only strike harder.
Daring to desecrate the image of his goddess—Harrie would literally be asking for death!
Don't be fooled by how Cedric always maintained the appearance of an honest guy and a little gentleman; one had to realize that anyone who could join the "Father's Despair Alliance" and hang around with a Little Dark Lord like Kyle was by no means a saint.
Cedric was an existence known to his little fangirls as the "Cold Lord."
Even if Cedric didn't make a dirty move against a cross-dressing Harry on the pitch, Kyle could guarantee that Harry would definitely be jumped with a sack over his head after the match, dragged into the Forbidden Forest, and subjected to a rigorous round of Aruba-style grinding against every single tree in the forest.
With enough persistence, an iron rod could be ground into a needle.
Given the sheer number of trees in the Forbidden Forest, Kyle believed that Harry would truly be able to become "Harrie."
They say you should pick the low-hanging fruit, but constantly crushing noobs wasn't any fun either.
At the thought of the ultimate showdown about to take place on the Quidditch pitch shortly, Kyle's mood had never been as exhilaratingly pleasant as it was now.
Having finished his breakfast, he stood up from the bench with a sharp snap, his fingers nearly jabbing directly into his own temples. "Honto saikou ni high tte yatsu da!"
Kyle standing up acted like a signal. His six teammates stood up one after another, casting gazes filled with fiercely burning fighting spirit toward the neighboring Gryffindor table.
On the Gryffindor side, led by Oliver Wood, the seven of them refused to be outdone and stood up to meet their eyes.
The atmosphere gradually grew intensely charged.
For a moment, the other students in the Great Hall lowered their voices, leaving only the sound of the rain outside the castle and the crackle of static generated by their clashing glares.
Click!
A sudden shutter sound broke the silence, freezing this iconic historic painting onto the film.
————
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