Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 9
It's been a long time since I've duelled. (What's that you say? Fencing? No. I never 'fenced'. Fencing is an abomination before the Lord of Blades and All Things Awesome. It is a game of tag played with bendy wires by pinheads who wouldn't know a parry from a beat if you gave them a map. These numbskulls think that 'stick out your arm and charge!' is the best way to use a blade, yet have someone managed to convince the
entire freakin' world and the Olympic committee that the noble and gentlemanly martial art of the Western sword should be debased into a bunch of off-balance, roll-footed, floppy-armed, poor-mannered, scruffy-looking nerf h—)
Ahem. Where was I?
Ah, yes. It's been a long time since I duelled. I still loved it. You know how I knew I loved it? Because I was freakin' amazing at it.
Phil the shadow-monster-slash-demon-thing had granted us the 'desire of our hearts'. Apparently, Mr. 'I have memorized every single panel of every single page of every single issue of Naruto there ever was and can quote page and panel on when every jutsu was ever used' Valerian had wanted to be able to use jutsu, so he got lots of chakra (I mean, not
lots lots, not demon-in-my-tummy levels of lots, but still lots) and the knowledge of every jutsu there ever was in Naruto. Mr. 'give me spreadsheets or give me death!' Oli had gotten reality-warping powers the full extent of which we were still learning.
Me? Apparently I was a little more scattered than the others. The two of them were pure of heart, their game-world-relevant desires focused on a single thing and their gifts equivalently mighty. I had gotten some theoretical knowledge about seals and sealing theory and
juuuust enough in the way of examples that I was able to build something that worked. Not as completely badass a gift as either of theirs, but I was sure I'd be able to leverage it into
unfettered cosmic power something effective given a little time. The reason for the reduced badass quotient? My gift was divided in two. Sealing, and swords.
"Ti!" I cried, engaging in quarte against my notional opponent. "Ta!" I disengaged, shifting to sixte. "Ooo...ayyyy...LA!" Each syllable brought a change of line, a change of tempo, shifting from one guard to the next, drawing my opponent's parry and getting ahead of it, gaining time until finally their blade was completely out of position and my thrust went home!
"Ha! Take that, Ravenhurst!" I cried, stepping back en guarde and flicking the imaginary blood off my blade with casual ease. Oh no! An attack from the side!
Spinning to my left I shifted into parry prime to deflect the cowardly thrust of the six-fingered man and moulineted a neat slice across the eyes—no power behind the blow from that position, but no power needed when all you want to do is make someone bleed a little. The motions were flawless, my speed and precision greater than I'd ever earned through natural talent or actual effort. As fast and as precise as my Maestro's were in the halls of memory...the halls that I suspect Phil had plundered to forge this gift.
"Ah, Count Rugen, is it?" I sneered. "Truly sir, is such a low and cowardly strike the only way thou canst win? Ha! Have at thee!" I lunged, aiming low and then disengaging with flawless ease, the imagined sound of steel on steel in my ears as I effortlessly parried away his panicked defense. "You killed my first roommate's third cousin! Prepare to die! Ha!"
I drove him across the packed earth of Konoha Training Field #7 with ease, toying with him, beating his desperate thrusts aside and casually flickering my point around his every parry. Finally, the play grew tiresome and I thr—
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
I stumbled, blood rushing to my face in preemptive humiliation as I turned. At the edge of the field, maybe thirty feet from where my imagined battle had led me, Mitarashi Anko leaned against the bole of a young oak, her hands still in a clap of mockery. Her light brown eyes caught mine and for a moment I felt like I was drowning.
She pushed herself upright with a twitch of her shoulder and began to undulate out onto the field, walking a slowly-tightening spiral around me. She walked it the way a duellist walks La Destreza—balanced, feet always in contact with the ground to allow for motion in any direction, facing me but body turned slightly away to reduce her target profile.
"An unusual technique," she said, her voice feline and amused. "What do you call it?"
"That was, uh...bit of a mix, actually," I said, trying to back away without making it obvious that I was backing away. "Mostly French and Italian smallsword, with a little bit of Spanish rapier thrown in." The moment the words were out of my mouth I saw the spark in her eyes, heard what I'd said, and hurried to interrupt before she could finish drawing breath. "And please don't ask me why I use such a 'small sword'. Smallsword is a specific weapon, and that sort of joke is beneath you."
"It probably will be, yes," she said. "Wasn't nice, draining all my chakra out in public like that. Very embarrassing."
I swallowed nervously. I'd come out here to be alone; after spending weeks in an overinflated closet with Val and Oli I was definitely wanting some time to stretch out without needing to worry about bumping anyone else, to take a deep breath without being reminded of the absence of showers. This training field was the farthest point from any human being that I'd been able to find here in Konoha. I had had an ANBU dogging my steps when I got here but that worthy was very conspicuously absent right now and Anko was getting steadily closer.
"Look, Mitarashi, everything I know about you says that you're a kickass ninja and an amazing person." That was stretching a lot; I didn't actually know much about her. "Can't we just be friends? Let bygones be bygones?"
"What's the matter, cutie?" she asked. "Not interested?" She smoothed her hands down her body and smirked at me, all without missing a step on that disconcerting spiral.
"You're...not my type?" I tried. "No offense? I mean, you're lovely, don't get me wrong, but I've always been more into redheads."
"Henge," she said. Between one step and the next her blue-black hair lightened to fiery crimson. I gulped. "Hm...too short, yes?" Her hair lengthened, tumbling out in a sunset wave that didn't stop until it reached the small of her back. "Oh, my, you
do like it long, don't you?"
"I am really not comfortable with this," I said, backing towards the path that led back to the city. "Look, seriously. You are creeping me out right now." I shifted my posture as I moved, turning into a duellist's stance with my sword held low and in front. Casual grip, not an outright threat, but she read the intention more easily than I could read 'Good Dog, Carl'. Her smile was the amused and smug one that you wear when a toddler shakes his fist at you. Good. I wanted her to be smirking at my right hand, the hand with the sword. My left was busy palming the blast ring out of my pocket and slipping it on.
"Dear boy—"
"Not a boy!" I yelped. "Seriously, old enough to be your father, easily!"
"
Dear boy," she said again, "you embarrassed me in public. Do you know what ninja do to civilians who embarrass them in public?"
"Laugh with them in good-natured amusement?"
She snorted. "Try again." Her pace was accelerating; she seemed to stutter between steps, like a visual echo that left her farther ahead than my eye expected her to be. She had cut me off from the exit and I was now forced to back farther onto the grass.
I abandoned any pretense of casualness, shifting into an upright destreza stance, blade held up in the right hand, point in line with her eyes. My left hand was open in front of my chest, ready to block or catch. I wore no arming gauntlet, so blocking a blade wasn't actually an option, but that was the position that my magically-enhanced training expected. I kept my palm down instead of out, concealing the blast ring for a last-minute surprise. My awareness expanded, distractions falling away as I readied myself to fight for real. Carranza's Great Circle drew itself in my mind's eye, the two of us on the diameter. When she stepped to my left, I matched her with a step to my right, keeping her always directly across from me.
"Look, Mitarashi," I said. (step right) "I'm very sorry" (step right) "about embarrassing" (step left to match a reverse) "you. Let me" (step right, then step long right to match changed tempo) "make it up to you. I'm a" (step left) "sealmaster, and I have a lot of unique seals, seals that no one else in the world knows." (pausing, good) "I'm happy to make some for you...just think, useful things for when you're on a mission, stuff that you could sell for mucho dinero—I mean, for a lot of money. That would be good, right? Put us square again?"
"Sounds good," she said brightly. "I'll never turn down free seals."
And then she conjured a dagger from nowhere and blurred towards me. I shrieked in fear, my arm leaping forward in a desperate stop thrust that I knew wouldn't be nearly fast eno—
o-o-o-o
I blinked and the world was suddenly different. The field was gone. Anko was gone. My sword was gone. My clothes were gone.
Blink.
My
clothes were gone?!
I was standing in the middle of the Konoha market wearing nothing but a purple loincloth that barely preserved my modesty and a coat of green paint that covered me from head to toe. Across my chest was scrawled, in large red kanji that were a little tricky to read upside-down, the words "I AM VERY SORRY FOR BEING MEAN TO MITARASHI ANKO."
I'm sure it wasn't literally every person in Konoha standing around giggling, but it was a lot of them. Little kids all the way up to grandmothers, in a ring about twenty feet away. Jiraiya right in front of me, fighting to restrain his snickers. All that was missing was my fourth-grade English teacher's voice saying 'All right, Earl, start your book report' and this would literally have been my most-recurring nightmare.
Well, okay, not the words across the chest, but the rest of it. Oh, and not Jiraiya either. Those parts were new, but I was pretty sure they would feature prominently in the future.
"She got you good," Jiraiya said, losing the battle to look solemn and sympathetic and only barely managing not to break out into gales of laughter. "That should have gotten rid of it, though. Here." He held out a robe which I quickly shrugged into and belted tight.
"What just happened?"
"You've been standing here for twenty minutes," Jiraiya said, grinning. "She got you in a genjutsu loop, and you kept doing this." He flinched, right arm thrusting forward as he shrieked in what I was sure was exaggerated terror. He dropped back into a destreza stance and stood still, calm and relaxed for a slow three count...and then flinched, right arm thrusting forward as he shrieked in what I was sure was exaggerated terror.
I glowered at him, the glower intensifying to a glare when he finally lost it and started laughing.
"Oh, Anko," I muttered. "It is
on."
Author's Note: Back in mid-to-late 2017,
@Velorien and I were talking about our experience with martial arts. He's a black belt, so he knows whereof he speaks. I've dabbled in several different unarmed styles so I've got a pool of knowledge a hundred yards wide and an inch deep. What I do know, however, is swords. I spent ten years studying classical fencing and historical swordsmanship at the
Martinez Academy of Arms in New York City. If you are ever in the city with an evening to kill, stop by the salle and watch; if you've ever seen anything like it then you are in a very small club indeed. Maestro de Armas Ramon Martinez and Maestra de Armas Jeannette Acosta-Martinez are both expert martial artists and skilled scholars. Just as one example, they have reconstructed Spanish rapier fencing from manuals 400 years old, using a wide grounding in the history and arts of the time to provide background and context. Among the weapons they teach are: foil, épée, saber, smallsword, and rapier. Most of those come in at least three flavors (French, Italian, and Spanish), and occasionally the Maestro and Maestra are willing to break out the daggers. Maestro mentioned learning sword-and-cloak style from
his Maître, although I never had the opportunity to learn it in turn.
Hang on, got a bit far afield there. Where was I? Ah, right. So,
@Velorien and I are talking and our conversation goes something like this:
Me: Yeah, I loved duelling. I can't stand Olympic fencing, though. It's awful—no skill, no technique, just flailing around jabbing at each other. Awful. They're always off balance, they slide around, their tips are pointing somewhere off to the side instead of at their opponent, and they're way too close—they often have to pull their arm
back in order to be able to poke the other person.
Velorien: You mean 'stab', right?
Me: No.
Velorien: Hm. 'Olympic athlete' and 'no skill' aren't things I usually associate with one another.
Me: Go on YouTube and google for 'Olympic fencing'. Watch 30 seconds of it and tell me what you think.
[30-ish seconds go by]
Velorien: Oh my god. I had to turn it off.
Me: See?!
Probably explains why I find viewpoints here so alien so much of the time.
