The Salle, Thursday After Classes

[bitchprince]

It had been quite a while since the last time Arthur had faced off with Zack, and if he were perfectly honest, he was in fact curious to see how much the boy had improved. Aside from his other concerns where Zack came into the picture; it was also a shallow excuse to check up on his state of mind.

Arthur came into the salle with his newly-recovered favourite sword in hand, earlier than he'd settled with Zack. After the whole mess with Jacob, he could use a few drills with it to get some of his aggression out, so...

There would be a blond knight on the mat, going through his forms with ruthless efficiency.

[[ primarily for the puppy, but open to all in general for salle use or Arthur abuse ]]

Comments

[bitchprince]

Arthur halted his swing. Partly because of the hands on his arm, partly because he wasn't actually planning on cleaving anyone in half today, either.

So he stopped. And then tried to pull smoothly out of Zack's grasp in order to fall back.

[puppy_fair]

Zack was going to let him, ducking low and fast in order to collect his own sword before putting some more distance between them, still.

"That was a good swing," he offered. Because, in the face of a disarm-or-die scenario, there was a very good chance that on the field, he wouldn't have been nearly lucky enough to be able to share this fact.

[bitchprince]

"Next time, use your elbow," Arthur said, disregarding the compliment. Zack had gotten too close to taking him out as it was - he wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than victory to start with. "Or something similar. Using your sword like that leaves you open for a faster opponent to make use of your lack of defense."

He gave his sword the customary swing, and settled back into stance. Again.

[puppy_fair]

Zack tilted his head a little, absorbing that tidbit of information. Elbow. Good. Okay. He could do that.

Angeal would have told him the same, he imagined.

He gave a short, quick nod, shifting into stance as well. This time, his own guard was up notably more than usual. Nobody was going to show up out of the blue to bail him out if he got cocky, anymore. He had to get this, or what good was he as a SOLDIER?

[bitchprince]

If Arthur were the kind to be completely honest, he would've pointed out that Zack was good enough by now that he'd have been proud to let him join the ranks of his knights, but that was too benevolent a thing for him to admit.

He had other business, regardless.

This time, he was the one who attacked first, striking up then down, unwilling to let it turn into a battle of strength by picking up frequency of slashes rather than letting them linger.

[puppy_fair]

Zack's eyebrows were furrowed in concentration now, and he put all of his focus into not getting hit. He had no doubt that Arthur could throw more attacks, and faster, but he was also slowly twigging on to the fact that, provided he didn't end up on his behind again, he could go on almost indefinitely. SOLDIER were made to not tire out.

He blocked, grinned, and blocked again. If he had his way now, this would turn into a match to see how long they could keep going, as opposed to a spar to see who would end up on their behind first.

[bitchprince]

Considering that Arthur's primary motivation had been to get Zack's attention off the weekend and onto more important measures, he had technically already won. So to speak.

Just not, you know, in any way he was completely content with.

He was starting to feel some minor wear and tear, but that was normal. Knowing Zack, he'd wind up making a mistake at some point, which meant Arthur just had to hope that would happen before his arms gave out.

Again, knowing Zack, that was probable.

High one towards Zack's upper arm. Low slash towards the thigh.

[puppy_fair]

Upper arm, blocked. And then Zack was circling around with his sword to smash Arthur's second swing out of the way with as much power as he could muster.

From there, he would lift his leg, throwing the bottom of his foot forward toward Arthur's gut.

Once again, he wanted that distance. He had the reach, here, and while he doubted that Arthur was ever going to let him keep it, any moments where he could sneak it in were all the better for him.