To Hone a Blade

"Gyaa!"

The thud of metal colliding sounds through the dojo in a fast and brutal rhythm, accompanied by blades softly humming as they slice through the air. An outsider would see a girl slashing at a training dummy. Yet, the way her body moves to block and evade unseen attacks makes it seem as if she's engaged in a fight for her life. Who then could bring about such a ferocious symphony?

A flurry of sabers of all different sizes fly towards and past Takako, though not due to a lack of aim on their part. Even as she ducks, rolls, and sidesteps the blades, they correct their and relentlessly continue to home in on her location. Her celerity allows her to continue evading them with ease, but the effort expended would eventually catch up with her and leave the girl slow enough for the blades to catch up as well. So, she ceases her attempts to avoid them and instead completely focuses on moving forward — after all, that was her real goal.

At the other end of the room sits a woman who looks much like a younger version of Takako. She calmly pours herself a cup of tea with a look of amusement etched into her features as she watches Takao. Anyone else might become frustrated and annoyed with how unconcerned she appears to be while sweat rolls down their brow, but Takako can only feel an immense envy-tinted admiration. She needed to do better; this needed to be as effortless for her as it was for Granny Himeko. The goal of this exercise is deceptively simple: all she needs to do is make her way through the sea of blades and make physical contact with the diminutive supervisor, but even as old as she is, her grandmother is a formidable opponent. It wasn't too long ago that at this point the exercise would have concluded with her decisive victory, but that was then and this is now.

Just as it seems that Takako's sprint will come to a painful halt as she's shredded into ribbons by the swarm closing in on her, she twists as blades of her own protrude from her limbs and spinal column to make contact with them in place of her vulnerable flesh. Although the armory spawned by her grandmother is fearsome, her constructs are relatively frail and this fact is only made more apparent when they are forced to contend with Takako's. A low but piercing hum is let out as their blades collide and the flying sabers explode into mere metal shards that rain down upon the swordswoman like small falling stars. Yet, despite the impressiveness of the display, the destroyed sabers are quickly replaced. This much was expected and was the reason why she hadn't dedicated much effort to attempting to fight her way through. As proud as she was of her martial abilities, she had long recognized the futility of attempting to use superior force to secure victory in past attempts. Neither was focusing too much on evasion or fully committing to making a mad dash toward Himeko's position effective means of advancement. Therefore, this attempt placed efficiency above all else. No movements would be wasted; everything would receive its proper response.

With her goal only a dozen feet away, her self-refinement combined with this strategy was paying off. In a few short moments, she would enjoy a cup of tea for herself in celebration. However, just when she could practically taste it on her lips, a much larger blade than anything that had been previously used to impede her progress manifests itself between Himeko and herself. Its full weight comes down in a slash, but rather than backing down, Takako throws herself at the gargantuan katana and opts to move through it. Narrowly avoiding being caught by its edge, Her body slides across the flat of the blade and leaves it cut into bits behind her. Yet, nothing but the wall greets her on the other side. Both Himeko and the tea have seemingly vanished into thin air and before Takako can properly process what's happened, pain erupts in her side with a loud crack.

She whips around to see her grandmother sitting atop another large blade. In place of the carefree calmness is a light, playful smile as she watches her granddaughter's brow furrow in understanding. It was assumed by Takako that her grandmother would not move, but never stated. All she had done up until now only served to prove that she was ready for a real battle against her grandmother.

Takako pants heavily her uniform dripping with sweat. Despite being made to withstand her aggression, the training dummy shows the evidence of the training sessions. She had been so lost in her thoughts that her blunted blades had developed an edge and left the dummy hacked to pieces by her assault. Were her natural expression not already so dour, the dejection she feels at the sight would make one believe it was a person she'd accidentally whittled into abstract art.

"Not enough."

She turns from the scene and moves to pull another training dummy out of storage, but she finds a curious obstacle in her path: a fox sits in the doorway, glaring at her as it wakes up from a nap. She attempts to ignore it and move past, but the fox quickly stands to its feet and bares its teeth at Takako.

"Tch. Where did you learn to regard your master with such insolence?"

The fox seems to turn up its snout and sneer at her as if to let Takako know that it was offended by the idiocy of the question. Who else but her could teach it to act in such a way? It does eventually strut out of the way but also nudges and yips at Takako, urging her to follow. It was clear that it had no intention of letting the girl run herself ragged training all day when they had much better things to do. Namely, enjoying lunch. Takako shakes her head and trails behind the fox. As eager as she was to improve, there was no reason she couldn't spare a moment for a meal.

Granny Himeko wasn't going anywhere just yet, after all.