The Salle - Wednesday, 5/13 - before classes

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

Fiona had her yo yo and she was practicing.

Most of the tricks used a combination of sleeping, fingerwork, and controlled wristflicks to accomplish them. She wondered if some of them had any tactical use, but decided that with her life as it was, there was no telling what could be considered useful. Thankfully, she took to the yo yo with the same speed that Eliot had taken to a laptop and she found the whole thing relatively easy. Now, however, she had to learn precision, mostly with her cutting edge: she had to control exactly where she wanted it to be placed, which parts of the strings and what she wanted it to cut. It went well enough that within a few minutes, she was practicing bonking the dummies in the head with the steel end to see how fast she could manage it accurately.

...no reason, obviously.

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[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

Kenshin came in while she was practicing; if this was really the only place he could have his sword, he would be spending a lot of time here. The movements caught his eye; he had seen things like that, in the hands of ninja, and some of the more esoteric fighters who had been drawn to the bloodshed in Kyoto.

He settled back against the wall to watch for a while; he had no real intention of training in here himself, where anyone could see.

He just wanted his sword.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

The kid from the shuttle. Well, it was nice to see a familiar face, or as familiar as they'd get at the moment.

She switched as he entered, from hitting to wrapping and slice off a dummy's arm as he settled on the ground. Once the piece plunked on the ground, Fiona turned to face the new boy.

"Was that a gift?"

She meant the sword.

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"In the sense that it was given to me, yes," he replied. "That's not too bad," he added, nodding towards the dummy.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She looked at it as well.

"I'm getting better," she said, though she was sort of proud of her progress. Eliot was a genius at the violin; he could do some incredible things with his music. She wanted to be the same way when it came to fighting. She had to be. She had to be the best to do her part so that they survived.

If they survived apart.

"You just seem to enjoy having it with you. I haven't seen you practice with it."

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"I don't make a habit of training where others can see my techniques," he replied. "It could be fatal."

If an enemy didn't come up with an effective counter-attack, Shishou would cross time and space to kill him.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"Then how do you practice? The squirrels see just about everything, at least that's how it seems from the broadcast..."

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"I haven't been able to since I got here," he said with a scowl. "...Though I guess it'd be okay to practice the basics..." Those forms that were common to every school of kenjutsu.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"Probably best that you do," she said.

"A lack of practice makes even the best skills lose their edge."

She watched him for a moment before turning around.

"I wanted a sword," she admitted to him quietly, "but my Uncle Aaron told me this suited me better."

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

He tipped his head, contemplated her for a moment.

"Show me," he said. "Take a sword, and show me."

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She looked at him for a minute before slipping the yo yo away and looking around for a practice sword. She found one, picking it up and wincing as she realized how badly it was balanced. It was nothing like Uncle Aaron's silver rapier. That had been an instrument, as he'd called the pieces of his little collection.

She let her wrist adjust to the weight before walking back, rolling her shoulders before standing in front of a dummy. Her stance was low, her balance good; she had the movement of a fighter even if it was obvious she was still adjusting.

She looked at the dummy, thought of her uncle and that day at the back of Ringos, and focused very hard on Not Cutting.

Then she struck, the practice sword bouncing off and jarring her hand a little. The movement spoke to natural talent, unnatural speed, uncanny instincts... but absolutely no training.

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"That's enough," he said after a minute. "Put that away; I think your uncle was right. You could be good with a sword, but you have more talent with the other."

He was good enough to be able to tell, even if he wasn't a master.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"But I'd kill every time," she said as she looked at the sword.

"If I give the string no edge, it can be cut and my weapon is gone. If I do, it'll slice right through a sword. Or a person. This at least is a little more fair."

She'd feel a little less like a murderer.

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"Reinforce the string with the right materials, and it won't so easily be cut," he pointed out. "You at least have the option not to kill that way. The sword," he continued, quoting what Shishou had told him. "Is a deadly weapon. The art of the sword is the art of killing; this is nothing more or less than the truth, no matter how you look at it."

It was a truth he had realised and embraced in his own life, in the last year.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She plucked a hair from her head and walked over to the dummy. One end in either hand, she willed an edge to it and pushed it against the middle.

...the top half slid right off.

"For me, everything is a deadly weapon."

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

His eyes went O_O.

"A-are you some kind of--- of witch?!"

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She looked back at him, saw his face

And a giggle popped out of her.

However, as far as she knew, witches were some sort of religious choice so she shook her head.

Still sort of smirking.

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

The giggle made him scowl darkly.

"A sorcerer then?" he asked. "A demon?" People called him a demon, for his red hair and deadly skill, but that didn't mean there weren't real demons out there.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She was trying not to smirk. Trying not to smirk. Trying so hard not to smirk. He was reminding her of Eliot and that made her chest hurt a little, but in a good way.

"It's complicated."

The daughter of a fallen angel, anyway.

Her eyes went flat and a little hard.

"I'm not evil."

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"I didn't say you were," he pointed out, returning her flat look.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"You're the one who mentioned demons," she pointed out. And while she had little to no context for most of her family, she knew enough to know that people generally considered demons to be evil.

She knew her mother's family did.

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"I was just asking. And not all demons are evil, anyway."

Cultural differences ahoy.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"That we can agree on," she said, settling a little. The rage that had been starting to bubble at the edges died down.

"It's complicated," she repeated.

Then she pulled out the yo yo.

"It's just cotton string," she pointed out to him, "and anything thin enough to act as a string won't stand up to a sword."

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"I've seen weapons like that go up against a sword before, and win," he replied. "You can't have the same kind of approach with it as you would a sword. You need to be sneakier."

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

That was constructive.

"Oh?"

But even as she spoke, she thought of the little sapphire necklace sitting in her bag, right next to the rose. The two symbols she'd brought with her: her mother's family, full of empty promises, and her father's, fraught with outright dangers.

"No, you're right. That's how I won last time. By being sneaky."

Or rather, by having Eliot be sneaky and picking up on his hint.

Note to anyone who'd threaten Fiona's life? Necklaces and close proximity are a no no.

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

"So work on that," he adivsed. "Don't focus on direct attacks, focus on mobility, and stealth. Even if a sword can cut the string, if you can redirect the angle of the string, it won't matter."

In Kenshin's universe, she would be able to redirect the angle of the yo-yo mid-toss. It was that kind of universe.