"Now remember Shirou. You must maintain a proper stance and proper distance at all times."
Even as February slid into January's place and the shrouds of snow covering Fuyuki turned to slowly-melting heaps of slush the sunset remained persistently early. It shone through the rear windows of the Dojo, silhouetting two figures in the orange glow as they faced each other. Shirou's grip on the wooden
shinai was sure enough but his legs couldn't seem to decide how to arrange themselves as he shifted. He remained light - too light - practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, adjusting his stance by degrees every second.
"Too close, and you cannot defend yourself. Too far and you cannot attack. Ready Shirou?"
He nodded, youthful face taut with concentration as she barked the starting order. "Begin!"
The instant the words had left her lips she stepped forwards and immediately her charge skipped back, retreating too quickly in his eagerness. "Too far! How will you approach me now?" Immediately Arturia halted, settling back into stance and stepping back once more. "Again, once you get it right three movements in a row then we can get dinner."
For the last three weeks the goal had been more and more repetitions of two movements in a row, and before that it had been single successful motions. Once Shirou mastered three she would move to five, and so on it would go. She had almost expected him to give up in frustration after she hadn't even let him touch a practice weapon for the first two months of training but once again she had underestimated his persistence. Even now, three months after letting him hold a sword they still hadn't done more than practice forms and footwork, the slow slog of learning the barest basics of the craft and honing them to precision.
Shirou trotted back over and set his own stance again, weapon at the ready, but that nervous energy hadn't left him and as Arturia stepped forwards again, he was too eager to get out of the way, far more steps back than even his slightly shorter legs should have needed to stay properly distanced. Sighing, she lowered the sword and stepped back again.
"Is this really it?"
To say Shirou had never complained at the slow grind of her instruction would be a lie but as he had improved and she had become able to truly praise those little steps of progress those complaints had become less frequent.
"I mean come on! Even Kendo club let me spar after a few weeks, but you've still got Shirou-chan doing footwork after five months?"
No, the bored tones were from the onlooker in the room, Taiga lounged on the sidelines atop a pair of pilfered pillows.
"The Kendo club had opponents of a similar skill level. Shirou is not nearly far enough along in his instru-"
"Yeah yeah, 'I'm too strong to spar against him', 'you're too strong to spar against him', rushing into advanced instruction without mastering the basics is blah bla-!"
"U-um… Fuji-nee…"
"Gah!"
Taiga shrank back as she looked up to see the swordswoman had fully turned to face her, emerald eyes narrowed in a withering glare. "Jeeze sorry! I'm just saying that maybe you should find someone he can spar with! Take on another student! That or just send him to Kendo Club already…"
Arturia took a breath, then turned back to Shirou. "The sooner you stop disrupting the lesson, the sooner we can all have dinner Tora-chan." She ignored the strangled protest that came in response to the nickname as set herself into stance again. "Ready Shirou?"
"Begin!"
Perhaps the momentary interlude had been enough to let him calm himself or perhaps the thought of food was motivation for him as well, but either way Shirou seemed to have found his place again, and he matched her first quick step, quickly skipping backwards to just inside the acceptable distance.
"One!"
The acknowledgement was still leaving her lips as she slid into the next step, a longer stride simulating a lunge, albeit a slightly abbreviated one to account for his shorter legs. Two quick steps this time, backing away at an angle both to keep safe distance and evade the thrust she could have delivered with such a motion. "Two!"
For a split second he relaxed, and then she saw panic enter his eyes as he remembered that the exercise was no longer finished at the second count. Arturia rose as she took the third and final step and in his haste this time Shirou slipped on the hardwood, landing with a thump on the floor as she stood over him.
Silently she set the training sword's tip against the floor next to him, both palms on the pommel before she reached one hand down to help him up. "Again?"
She nodded as she hauled him up. "Again Shirou, remember, outside of training you do not relax your guard until the fight is over." For a long moment silence reigned following that statement, prompting a puzzled look until Arturia cleared her throat. "And the other rule you have forgotten."
She stepped quickly and Shirou jumped back again, raising empty hands before he realized his mistake. She slid her toes under the fallen
shinai and flicked it upwards into her free hand. "Never let go of your weapon."
She flipped it over and handed it back, handle first before nodding with satisfaction. "Back to the lines. Let's do it again."
=======
"I was thinking on what you said earlier."
"Hm?" Taiga looked up from her bowl, chopsticks still stuck in her mouth before she set them down to cock her head at Arturia, "what do you mean?"
"During practice, in the dojo," Taiga paled a little, "E-eh? You're not still hung up on that are you Ria-sa-..." Her protest fell quiet as Arturia raised a placating hand.
"No, not that. You spoke of bringing on other students. Do you really believe there would be interest in such teachings? Your nation has its own masters and its own styles with their own pride. Would people really consent to being taught by a foreigner?"
"Of course! Even if its not Kendo the way you fought me was so cool! I'd sign up in a heartbeat!"
"Would you have done so before I defeated you?
Taiga's mouth opened, one finger raised declaratively as she prepared a rebuttal only for her words to die in her throat. "Well… No…"
"I don't get it."
Both of them looked at Shirou, who was nibbling the end of one of his chopsticks in thought. "If Fuji-nee only wanted to learn after you beat her, why can't you just challenge someone to the same sort of fight and then do the same thing?"
There was a pregnant pause around the dinner table as they looked at him, then at each other, long enough that Shirou began to shrink back a little. "U-um did I say something bad?"
"...I could
totally ask Fukushima-sensei if she would accept a challenge…"
"You are
not telling me that you're seriously considering his idea."
"Why not? Shirou-chan has good ideas!"
"But… I mean…" Arturia's eyes darted back and forth between her son's eager gaze and Taiga's slightly-too-innocent smile and realized she'd been outmaneuvered. She sighed. "I presume you have some sort of plan at least?"
=======
As it turned out, Taiga did in fact have a plan, one that would have been excellent if it hadn't been built on a foundation of lies. Between being disqualified from tournaments thanks to the Tiger strap she refused to remove from her
Shinai and her fascination with Arturia's lessons for Shirou - even if she hadn't possessed the patience to participate herself while they were still learning basics - Taiga had been neglecting her school's Kendo club, attending only when it wouldn't get in the way of time spent with the Einzbern household.
Worse still, during the time she
had been attending her perpetual inability to keep her mouth shut had kept her talking about her duels with Arturia. Distracting the other club members during lessons and causing their sensei no end of headaches as she had to deal with the fact that her star pupil had clearly become smitten with the skills of another.
Taiga's plan as she'd presented it to Arturia was simple. An exhibition match, Western Swordsmanship versus Kendo. If Arturia won, she could probably gather enough interest to start teaching her own style to a few students. What she had failed to mention were the one-sided rivalry she had inadvertently instilled in her Sensei and the rumors floating about her club that Arturia would take over if Fukushima was defeated. Such rumors were patently ridiculous of course, but it didn't help that some of the more impressionable students had believed them anyways, and that many of them were genuinely interested in seeing this mysterious swordswoman fight.
"So you're the one who's been trying to steal away my students?"
Which was how Arturia ended up standing opposite a fuming Kendo teacher with nearly two dozen high-schoolers plus Shirou and Taiga watching from the sidelines.
The Homurahara Kendo clubroom was eerily quiet, the air filled with tension. The students were too well trained in respect to cheer or shout as the two duelists squared off but they watched with eager eyes.
"Begin!"
For a long minute they stood there, letting the cry echo in the silence, the air growing thick as they stared each other down. Arturia hadn't planned to move first, but as the seconds stretched on, she could see that her opponent clearly wasn't planning to attack any time soon.
So she chose to make the first move herself and
lunged.
Two steps forwards, then a rapid jab, testing Fukushima's speed. She expected to see the strike turned and the Sensei did not disappoint, swatting the training sword to one side and counterattacking with a vertical slash, forcing Arturia to take a step back as she brought her blade back to deflect the blow. The woman was no Servant but while she lacked raw strength her speed was impressive for an aging mortal and her technique was excellent, trading Taiga's overeager youthful enthusiasm for carefully honed caution and precision.
Arturia's eyes narrowed.
For a moment she considered opening her dragon's heart to let just a trickle of mana infuse her. To gain that additional edge against her opponent and finish this quickly. It had been apparent from the moment she'd stepped into the building that this entire venture had been incredibly ill-conceived and the only reason she hadn't simply left was because it would be an insult to her host to back down from the challenge now that it had been issued, not to mention a stain on her own honor as a knight.
Even if she was a failure of a King, she still had that honor…
Fukishima sensei took the initiative this time, attacking with simple straight slashes, the blade a blur as she hounded Arturia with a steady assault, stepping forwards with each motion. Horizontal at head height causing Arturia to duck to evade, then looping around into a diagonal downwards slash.
She's herding me Arturia realized quickly, trying to force her to either break contact or allow herself to be pushed into a position where she could no longer dodge. The third strike came, another Horizontal at shoulder height, but Arturia's sword was there again, catching it and deflecting it upwards.
That won't work.
Fukushima turned the deflection, looping around again into another lightning-fast vertical strike but this time Arturia was going on the offensive, forcing her opponent to abort the attack to halt a vicious two-handed blow. Their
shinai locked for a moment before she tried to step back but Arturia would have none of it, holding the two of them together. In speed they were close enough for Fukushima to be dangerous but in strength the King of Knights was the superior fighter and it showed.
She bore down on the blade, then twisted, similar to the trick she'd used to disarm Taiga in their very first duel. However against the more attentive master of the craft the twist and pull only loosened her grip, tugging the sword only half out of her hands and making it awkward to hold. Immediately she tried to choke up on the hilt again while Arturia was recovering from the follow through of her move but now Arturia let her power trickle forth, just for an instant.
Mana Burst.
She had the other woman's measure and knew she could have won in a prolonged bout even if through nothing more than attrition but that would only end with anger. She needed to shock the woman, make her listen, if only for a moment.
A moment would be all she would need.
Faster than a human could move, Arturia's swing came back, catching the guard of Fukushima's weapon in the moment she tried to regain her grip, in the instants between release and grasp, where the sword hung in mid-air with no hold on it to speak of.
The
shinai took flight from it's wielder, blurring through the air to smack against the far wall and clatter to the ground.
Arturia stood straighter, pointing her weapon at Fukushima as she ignored the shocked murmurs of the students. "Please listen to me."
And the teacher listened.
=======
In the end it came down to profuse and somewhat embarrassed apologies on both sides with some glaring at Taiga from both parties.
"In truth, I never had any intention of 'stealing' your students, and I was not aware that Taiga had been neglecting your tutelage. I have been training my son Shirou in Western swordplay but it is slow going, and it is difficult for us to spar with the differences in both age and skill." While she could teach the basics easily enough, the experience of actual combat was a place where she found it difficult to hold back enough for a near-complete novice to really learn from her. "Taiga suggested I open a dojo of my own, but to do so would be… Difficult given my financial situation."
They lived comfortably enough on a clerk's wage but it was a narrow margin, and the extra time she would need to take to operate her own school on top of her current responsibilities was simply nowhere to be found. As it turned out, Homurahara's budget did provide for clubs to pay an 'assistant' so that outside instructors could be brought in should no professional exist amongst the staff or students but Arturia was forced to decline. While she had no doubt she could learn the forms of Kendo in short order, so much time spent in battle had left her with finely honed instincts. To keep to those forms would be to limit herself.
"I appreciate the thought, but I must decline the offer."
"Hmm…"
By now the majority of the students had begun to disperse again, some disappointed that the duel had ended after only a single bout before the adults got to talking. The sun was beginning to dip lower and lower on the horizon and Shirou was yawning widely, his head lolling onto Taiga's shoulder every few minutes before he would jerk back to wakefulness.
Arturia cocked her head at the teacher with a curious expression. "You have an idea."
"Tell me Miss Einzbern, by your name you are European yes? Your Japanese is excellent but what is your native tongue?"
The grail had instilled her with modern understanding of language, but after nearly a year of speaking nothing but Japanese and the changes between what she had once spoken and what was now Britain's first language it took a moment for her to form the words. "
English."
Fukushima smiled broadly. "Miss Einzbern, have you ever considered teaching?"
=End Chapter Three=
Thanks to
@TheBleachDoctor once again for briefly aiding me in proofreading this chapter. I have been assured that - if nothing else - he found it delightfully fluffy.
If any of you can spot any errors or inconsistencies then I will do my best to correct them.
Tis' embarassing...."
