A Blade's Lustre [Julen]

A blade wasn’t something to underestimate.

Though perhaps not possessing the same ease of use as a firearm, it was still a weapon designed for the express purpose of doing harm. It was designed to pierce, to cut, to slice, to rend, to bleed… It was designed to debilitate and kill, and when sufficiently sharpened, could do so without trouble. Even in the hands of someone unskilled, it could achieve this with enough force applied in the right direction. And in the hands of someone proficient in the art of the blade, well… That was what made the difference between a knife being a tool and a weapon.

The man before Tetsuko was certainly wielding it as the latter. The soldier’s stance was firm, leaned forward with his foam weapon extended forth to manage the distance. His feet were no more than a shoulder’s width apart, an optimal position to put his weight into his strikes, or quickly dodge an incoming attack. At present, the man was strafing Tetsuko, she was doing the same in her more upright and traditional stance, wielding her practice tanto. Her body was kept side on, one hand rested against her side while the other held her tanto out in front, poised and ready.

Like serpents they coiled around the small, circular sparring ring, waiting for the other to finally strike…

It was the soldier who lunged forward first, thrusting his knife’s tip for Tetsuko’s neck. Her tanto raised with a flash, deflecting his blade as she quickly counter-slashed at his torso, the soldier deftly dodging and continuing a brief dance of blades as they tried to cut one another, foam weapons clashing and slashing as they pieced together one another's styles, at the same time looking for a vulnerable point to make their move, until finally, Tetsuko saw her opening.

As the man flicked his wrist downward, aiming a debilitating cut at Tetsuko’s arm, she reacted with unusual agility, retracting her arm pulling it back to throw her upper body into a rapid momentum, shifting the tanto knife in her hand into an ice-pick grip as she pivoted on her own feet, her stance rotating her body as she quickly thrust the blade at the side of the solider’s neck. He raised his knife to block as he stepped back, managing to avoid the tanto, but only for another moment as Tetsuko quickly twisted her wrist around to hit the man’s wrist with her foam blade. A blow that, in real combat, would leave his hand useless and knife dropped.

“Well, not bad at all, missy. That’s your win.”

The older soldier would say with a contented look. Tetsuko and the soldier would shake hands and thank one another for the sparring match, one of many that the Shindou girl had had in the past few days. She’d made the most of the special military camp when it came to advancing her own combat ability, as although almost all of the armed forces there surpassed her in hand-to-hand combat, she found more than a few worthy foes in the art of knife-fighting, not terribly different from swords.

Tetsuko would step outside the sparring circle, snatching up a water bottle to refresh herself before her next bout. Nowadays, she was willing to take up just about anyone who was interested in a friendly spar, given how populated the military camp could be. It wasn’t as though Tetsuko was the kind to pick a fight, she simply appreciated the practical experience that sparring gave, as well as the natural thrill that facing many opponents provided. The Shindou girl would seat herself near the sparring rings, wondering if any who’d seen that little bout might be interested in testing themselves against Tetsuko, perhaps even with fewer restrictions, given how… Limited much of the military could be.

After all, they didn’t usually have any Quirks to use, so Tetsuko hadn’t had much chance to test her own. Regardless, Tetsuko would look forward to whatever next spar came her way, like a traveling ronin seeking out the thrill of their next duel, to test their strength and hone their edge, as any good swordsman should strive to do!