[Sora Minami]

Nothing Ikana said surprised Sora, but there was an undercurrent to the girl’s words that had her… curious. It was obvious from the way she handled her wakizashi she had spent a good deal of time and energy practicing with it, even if there were the slight hitches and awkward shifts of someone who hadn’t been given formal tutelage. The body adapted to things quickly, even swinging a (much heavier than it appeared) hunk of sharpened metal about, but that didn’t mean one could just pick up a sword and learn how to fight with it completely unaided. Everything was like that, truthfully. Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Taijutsu, Bukijutsu, it didn’t matter. You could only go so far on your own.

"Your file said as much, skill wise, but...” Not in those terms, they had couched it in vague phrases like "average ability in multiple areas” and "subject shows no discernible aptitude for any one branch of Jutsu,” but they amounted to the same thing. Sora had read those terms hundreds, perhaps thousands of times on student evals when she had been an instructor, had wondered how so many of her colleagues could so callously toss children to the side simply because they hadn’t figured out what they were good at by the time they were twelve. Hell, she hadn’t even gotten truly skilled at Kenjutsu until well into her time as a Chuunin, and that had been more out of sheer, desperate necessity than anything else. War tended to do that.

"...Do you honestly expect me to believe that load of horseshit, Ikana?” Sora said, lips twitching into a half-frown as she shook her head, looking at the girl. She had been in her shoes before. Understood that way of thinking, the joy of finally believing yourself to be truly good at something and the fear of having that belief shattered, crushed and ruined by those who had hurt you. She got it. Really. That didn’t make what she was about to say any less necessary.

"I might not be great at much else, but I know Kenjutsu. You’re good for someone your age. Especially someone who got the bare bones instruction at the Academy. Give yourself a little credit.” A mostly self-taught orphan girl who had four confirmed kills during her tour in the navy? One who had no specialization but was competent enough at everything to earn a promotion to Chuunin if someone hadn’t decided to string her up on some idiotic charge of treason? The girl might not be a genius, but she wasn’t unexceptional either. Not by a long shot.

"And as for my questions for you…” Sora paused, wondering for a moment if she ought to drop the proverbial hammer- her file had been very thorough, without any of the redactions normally placed on highly sensitive matters pertaining to the village’s Jinchuuriki (or former Jinchuuriki, as it were), but that didn’t mean there weren’t gaps. Things left unexplained, things left unsaid, as if everyone already knew. Or didn’t care enough to bother stating them. No, not yet.

"They can wait.” She said, gesturing towards the girl’s wakzashi as she stepped back, a light smile playing across her face. "You still haven’t answered my first question: do you want me to show you how to do the Iaigiri properly?”

[Miyamoto Ikana]

In truth, Ikana was a little bit more than surprised when she was called out. Told that if there was anything that her new teacher knew, it was Kenjutsu. That Ikana seemed too skilled at a surface glance to just be deemed "okay”. Taking a deep breath, she found herself waiting for a moment. She finds herself thinking back to the blade. The one she held. Just about two feet in length. She’d not yet adorned or used a Katana for herself, as she’d grown accustomed to the shorter blade. Though, she was sure the differences between the two weapons were slight. Ikana found herself looking to the floor. Before then drawing the blade again, and staring at her reflection within it.

"...I would.” She did want to learn how to do the technique properly and fully. She knew that the Shinobi that struck first was usually the victor. To be able to draw and sheath her blade within an instant’s notice was something she sought. Slowly, she began to channel chakra. As it funneled and channeled down the length of her blade. It began to glow and vibrate with a blue sheen as it’s length began to extend. As a master of Kenjutsu, Sora would be able to tell instantly of course that this was the Saberu no Jutsu. An advanced chakra technique used by the Samurai or ninja well versed in Kenjutsu.

"This is about the farthest extent my swordsmanship goes. I’ve been working on honing my instincts. My speed. My reaction time. So I can lash out in a single instant.” Ikana found herself mastering this technique’s principles years ago. With it, it allowed for her to slash through stone and chip iron. She’d become well accustomed to the sword. However, in her mind, she was far from any level of comfortable mastery. However, with that exposed? "It isn’t good enough.” She finds herself looking at the sharpness of her sword. She remembered how hard it was.

To retrain her chakra control after her circulatory system was destroyed by the extraction process. She felt like she was going to die at the time. To an extent, she wished she did.

"You can’t look at the level that I’m at now, and tell me this is impressive. It can’t be. Because if someone like me could do it. Anyone could.”

[Sora Minami]

"Yes, I can, Ikana.” Sora said, lips pressed in a thin line as the girl, again, cut herself down. She had read the girl’s file. All of her file. She knew about the Sanbi’s extraction, about her abandonment by Kunio (or was it her of him?), about the trial and service and suicide attempt. She knew all of it… and had still come. Had come to her first. Before the little clan bastard with a horrible reputation and attitude. That had to mean something.

"I told you, I know Kenjutsu. And most Genin don’t have the chakra capacity or control to perform that Jutsu, especially not after… not after what they took from you.” She couldn’t say it out loud. Couldn’t risk someone over hearing that particular secret- but Ikana would understand. She didn’t know how painful it had been, losing the Sanbi, having it ripped from her chakra coils without so much as a word, but she could imagine, and that, perhaps, was enough. "So we’re going to stop with the self-deprecating comments and listen when your Sensei tells you you're good at something for someone your age, in your circumstance, with your resources. Got it?”

Sora didn’t bother leaving the girl room to argue; her face took on that same stern stare she’d perfected in the Academy, lips tight and gaze unbending as she stared down at the young genin, drawing to her full height just to impress on her that she was not in charge. There was a lot to be said for being able to loom. She let the girl go after a moment, when she got the agreement she wanted (and Ikana needed, even if she didn’t realize it) then reached out, gripping the brunette’s sword hand in her free. Gently, though, so as not to worry her.

"Now, sheath your sword and take your stance, as if you’re about to draw. I need to check your grip.”

[Miyamoto Ikana]

Honestly. If Ikana knew the level of what Kirigakure knew about her? She’d be lost for words. Not only because of how much they knew, but also from how little they did to stop anything. Maybe they figured she’d snap herself out of it, or if not, it wouldn’t be their problem anymore. When Sora revealed however that she knew what they took from her? That made her pause. Her chakra no longer funneled into her blade as the whirring vibration faded into nothingness. She slowly finds herself flipping her blade into a reverse grip, pointing it towards herself.

"I came from nothing. Had nothing. The only thing I have left to lose is my life. I don’t have any dignity. Or pride. Or respect for myself. You said you understand. Then you get it. That someone who’s life was worthless was given something. Given something so precious and told that by having it. You were worth something…” Ikana was now visually distraught. Her gaze fell towards the floor as she digested the word of Minami Sora. She felt a sense of dread filling her. Before she slowly looks defeated. It made her slowly sheath her blade. As she was approached.

She couldn’t even die properly. She kept on moving and struggling and getting by, and she didn’t know why. What her purpose was anymore. Because her purpose was expended. They left her directionless and without a purpose to fill that gap. They took that thing away, and with it, she lived with that idea for her entire life. She might live with that knowledge for the rest of her days. When looked at sternly, given the idea that she wasn’t in control, that she didn’t have a choice? For some reason, that was more comforting. As her hand drops down to her sheath. Her right hand supports the scabbard as her left hand wraps firmly along the handguard of her sword.

Her grip was focused along the thumb, pinkie, and ring finger. However, Ikana in those moments found herself thinking deeply. A hand grasped her, gently, and with it, the fourteen year old flinched. Because of how odd and foreign it was to be touched. Sora reawakened something in Ikana. A sense of negativity that she’d been able to repress for a good period of time. It was stronger. Far stronger in her now. Something that threatened to devour her. "...I’m confused…”

[Sora Minami]

The pain in Ikana’s voice was enough to make Sora pause. Not the depth of it, not the aching crackle of helplessness that ripped through the girl’s throat, no, none of that phased her. It was the familiarity, the similitude of it all that stopped the Jounin in her tracks, mind hurtling back to a sad, dark day in the rain when her family, her home, her life was destroyed by a band vicious men who had run away from Kirigakure in an effort to escape the coming war. Yes, she knew what that kind of pain was like, and felt it every day her mother, father, Sensei, friends, team, and students weren’t alive. It could break a person, holding that kind of pain inside.

"I understand, Ikana.” Sora said, looking the girl in the eyes as she went to one knee, free hand still holding the girl’s left; but this time, there was no sternness in her gaze. She didn’t need that now. Instead, Sora let the pain shine through- the haunted, searing hate that had guttered everything in her soul until only a husk remained, until she was nothing but a killing machine with barely a thread of joy or hope left in her… and yet.

"I can’t tell you why it happened. What the point was. If there even was one. But I know this, you…” She paused, struggling to find the words, fingers tensing around the girl’s hand as she corrected the slight misalignments in her grip; down a hair here, loosen the first one, tighten the pinky, floating feeling in the thumb until the exact moment you intended to draw. The basic of Iaijutsu, yes, but something few ever tried to master. Few ever bothered to learn again, once they thought they understood them. Use no speed to achieve speed. Thought to achieve no thought. Moon in the water, moon in the sky.

And then, in a flash of inspiration, she knew what to say.

"You are worth more than what you can do. For me. For other people. For the village. We all are.” That was the key, the first step in her solution to the problem that was Shinobi. Something so simple, so basic. And yet. And yet...

"Try it now.” She said, stepping around the girl as she spoke, hand still resting gently on Ikana’s, her other coming around to touch her right elbow, correcting the angle, shifting her down, lead foot slightly forward, back foot slightly to the side but coiled, ready to step into the draw and explode with all the power her small frame could put into it. "Remember. Exhale as you strike, in the same moment, your blade and arm as one, as the moon in the water reflects the moon in the sky.”

Then she stepped back, and waited.

[Miyamoto Ikana]

Corruption was an intoxicating thing. Mental illness was a consuming thing. As Ikana found herself spoken to, about how Sora didn’t know why, or the how of it, there was something spoken. That she was worth more than what she could do. That was something that sounded anathema to her. After all, there were very few people that really cared about her as a person before her skills. Or at least, that was the case in Ikana’s thoughts. Perhaps that was her cynical thinking, looking to defend her from harmful emotional thoughts and ideas that she didn’t want to wrestle with. A simple justification on why she felt abandoned was because "she wasn’t good enough”. That made the solution simple. To get better.

Otherwise, she’d need to wrestle with the idea that she was left behind, abandoned, and left to suffer because she was a terrible person and deserved it. If she had to admit that, she might have hurled herself off the cliffs and into the rocks or sea. Or killed herself violently. Made her seek death more than anything else. So, she remained quiet for a second. As she was adjusted. Leaning forward, she didn’t resist the shifts in her movement and posture as Sora adjusted her. She was used to discomfort. Before she lashed outwards with her blade. As she did, she exhaled in the lash out, before swiftly adjusting the blade along the opening of her scabbard, and letting it slide inwards.

Sora said something indeed powerful. Saying she was worth more than her capability and performance. As the wind blew, and Ikana’s hair blew in the breeze, she found herself locked in her stance. Her back turned to the woman before her as she asked them a simple question. "...Then what am I worth?” Ikana struggled with that answer more often than not, and even if Sora told her the most wonderful answer, her mind would take it with skepticism. Because she’d told herself a narrative for so long. Oddly enough, Ikana didn’t seem conflicted as much anymore, as she settled on those words. Slowly, she reaches into her jacket pocket, taking out a notebook.

Slowly, she turns and offers it out to Sora. For her to read the few pages she’d written. To see if perhaps those words really defined how Ikana felt. Its title? How A Shinobi Should Die .

[Sora Minami]

Sora watched Ikana’s Iaigiri without comment, following the arc of her blade as she stepped, twisted, and cut all in the span of a breath, her arms uncoiling like a loaded spring. A better cut than before, more fluid and without the soft dip near the end, when she should have followed through, but not perfection. There were things she needed to work on, things she needed to practice, a state of mind she had to grasp before the swordplay became second nature to her, became instinct. But for now?

For now it was enough.

"I can’t answer that question for you, Ikana.” Sora said as the girl turned towards her, at once steadier and far, far more vulnerable than before. But she needed to see it, that vulnerability. Expose it, even. Because deep inside, a wound festered. And she could not, would not heal until it was acknowledged… until it was dealt with. "It’s something you have to realize for yourself. But…”

The Jounin paused when Ikana reached into her jacket and took out a small notebook stuffed into one of the side pockets. Wordlessly, the girl handed it to her, to read, and Sora did- carefully, at first, then slower, with genuine interest and, yes, concern. Concern because this… contemplative reflection was far more in depth than a fourteen year old girl should have been able to produce, but also far, far more cynical. Skeptical. Even, at times, angry. Vengeful. And sad. So very, very sad.

"You write beautifully.” She said once she was done, closing the notebook with a quiet reverence that few would have given the simple collection of paper and ink. Few would have cared to even read it, as Sora did. Fewer still would have understood. But she did. She saw. She heard. She felt. And she knew, intrinsically, what the book was about.

"I can tell you this, Ikana. One hint, to point you in the right direction.” Sora began, handing the girl back her notebook with care. "What is it that makes a sword strong?”

[Miyamoto Ikana]

If it was a question only she could answer, it made things difficult. Far more difficult than she could have imagined. The words that she shared, it was difficult for her to digest, but she felt as if the words she wrote on paper spoke far more than she could in person. Until the words came. That she wrote beautifully. She found herself taking the notebook back, and with it, she tucked it into her jacket. She would have normally left it home, but in quiet times of reflection and personal training, she often wrote in it. Before she was asked what made a strong sword. The right direction. Before she was being asked a philosophical question. Or perhaps a trick question.

What made a sword strong? The quality of the steel. Whetstones. Experience. Blood. The resolve? Until eventually, she found herself looking at her sword as she drew it forth again. Until she came to the conclusion. "It’s wielder.” She found herself responding. "A sword is just another tool at the end of the day. Even a great sword is nothing if held in the hands of an amateur.” With the word sounded, she found herself questioning if she got the answer right. However, in the event she didn’t? She remained silent to listen to the answer in full. Maybe there was some wisdom or insight that she didn’t see.

She knew she’d be spending quite a bit of time training her Iaijutsu. However, she felt as if she had far more to grow as a person before anything else. It was clear there was still a great amount of negativity and unresolved feelings in her heart and mind. She’d done well to suppress them for the time being, to help maintain her sanity. However, it became clear that they burdened her more heavily than she could have ever imagined. However, at least in this instance, there was someone that understood more intimately, and someone she could talk about the subject with more deeply than she could have done with most others. Whether or not she trusted Sora fully or not yet, that wasn’t certain. After all, she was dubious, and her trust was difficult to give fully. However…

She trusted her more than she’d done most other adults. That was a start. Wasn’t it?

[Sora Minami]

Sora chuckled as the girl chewed on the hint, working through it in her head as if the answer would present itself to her with just a few minutes of quiet reasoning. Still, Ikana’s answer, when at last she spoke it, surprised her- not because it was right, but because it was honest. A straightforward reply, no extra crap added onto it. Just what she thought, plain and simple.

"A good answer.” She replied, leaving the words to hang and, with them, the impression that there was, indeed, more to her hint than what Ikana had gleaned. It would be up to the brunette to mine that truth out of herself, though- to understand what made a sword strong and, in so doing, see what made her strong as well. What made her worth it, even if no one else thought so.

"Now come on.” Sora said, left hand resting against Samidare’s hilt as she jerked her head over towards the front gate. "I’ll buy you lunch. Mizumen, right?” There was a place nearby that served it. Probably. And even if there wasn’t, she’d still get her some. It just… might require a bit more walking.

[Miyamoto Ikana]

There was a reflective period where an answer came back. That it was a good answer, though it did leave her to realize that it wasn't the right one. She found herself lost in thought as her eyes lingered down to the floor again. Up until she was offered something. To get lunch with Sora. Her head raised and she looked confused for a second, on why it was she was being offered her favorite food. "Hai." She found herself more than a little shocked by the feeling. Mainly because she couldn't remember the last time anyone had bought her a meal, if ever. So with that said?

She moved forward so that the pinkette might follow her on the road to enlightenment. This sort of relationship felt a lot different than any one Ikana could say she'd really had before in the past. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. While she was still dubious and taking into consideration everything that had been said and done today? She felt at least Sora seemed like a genuine person. Taking the liberty to eat with her, she might have found the younger girl savored every bite of her food as if it was to be her last. She took her time, and she made sure there was nothing left in the bowl. She was silently graceful in her own kind of way. Like a still and reflective pool that lay tranquil.

With the prospect of rippling waters underneath the surface. Thus would begin a hopefully long and touching relationship between a sensei and their student. As Ikana continued to travel the road to enlightenment on the path of the sword. Though that was for later. For now? 

The snap of a pair of chopsticks followed by the word, "Itadakimasu."