Everything happened faster than he was able to process. Before he saw her swing her blade, he felt the power behind her block rattle his bones. Involuntarily, his guard opened up, his sword lifting into the air and stretching the muscles in his armpits painfully from the extension in his arms he did not expect to make. That alone was almost enough to make him lose his grip.
Something blurred in his periphery. The tension on his sword and hands relinquished, only for something hard to strike his cheek with welting force. Shiu stumbled back a step, his focus fogging. He was still dizzy when her hand closed around his throat, asphyxiating him. It was at this point he dropped his sword.
His hands began to scrabble up, pathetically, to try to create a wedge between his Adam’s apple and the hand that was crushing it, but then, oddly, the ground was no longer beneath his feet. He had no time to wonder how it was that he was suddenly hovering, because in the next moment, the earth was rushing up to him and a pain shot through his spine, lingering on his tailbone and searing his throat.
Shiu gasped when she released her hold of him. His body was desperate to get oxygen back. He panted, heavily, trying to wrest control over his body. Adrenaline fired his nerves to move, even before he was in a lucid state again. The muscles in his back and shoulders stirred to roll him back onto his feet. He stopped at once when his vision cleared, and in it, he saw a blade pointed right at his eye.
Shiu froze. The proximity intensified the buzzing in his head. His eyes were wide open, because he felt if he blinked, it would cleave his eyelid in half.
Shiu could take a beating. Time and time again, he had bruised, and he had bled. He did not enjoy it. There was no mix of pleasure in it, because unlike his kin, it was never to any benefit for his power. He had learned to endure it though. He had learned that the pain that came with it was just another sensation, one that he was stronger for knowing so well. There were very few things that could have sobered him up in that moment, but this.
This. This kicked a self-preservation instinct he had wantonly been ready to let go of into overdrive.
If he broke a bone, he could set it. If she cut a gash into his flesh, he could be sewn back together. An eye was different though. An eye was not so easily mended, and he imagined the pain of that exposed, watery tissue being skewered through would be unlike anything he had experienced before.
Right then, one emotion gripped him that he had not truly felt in a long time: fear.
It was not one he was allowed to feel. Vulnerability and cowardice went hand in hand. Someone who was afraid had no worth. While others performed feats and made changes, they hid in corners and let others do work for them. There was no place for a coward in Kuronmeru society.
And yet, as he laid strewn on his back, her weapon a hair’s breadth from taking out his eye, he felt it, and it showed in how he stilled his breath and dared not move a muscle. One single thing had reduced him to being no more than a prey animal. All of his violent rage had been pushed down, suppressed under the wide-eyed stare of a young boy in fear.
Impossibly, he managed to have one additional concern. On top of crippling his visual acuity, if she chose to follow through with exactly what she was threatening, he would have to live the rest of his days looking like some thuggish pirate, just like Inei.
It was only when she pulled her blade back that Shiu felt he could breathe again. At first, it was shallow breaths, taken in through the gap of his parted lips and slack jaw. Then, it became a normal rhythm, in and out of his nose, but one that he had to think way too hard about. A metallic taste spread over his tongue. At some point, he must’ve bitten the inside of his cheek, because when he probed the right side of his mouth with his tongue, it was coated in blood, and the tissue inside felt tender.
Shiu began to lift himself off of the ground. The back of his haori was damp from where the frost must’ve melted beneath his warm body, and likely there were blades of grass and flecks of mud dirtying it. He frowned, not only displeased by the state of his dress, but also from the words she’d said in her little speech, which he had just begun processing.
She claimed that it was their family name alone that lent to their feelings of superiority, but that wasn’t true. It was the culture, that any Kuronmeru who had topped the social ladder had done so through grit and testing themselves. That, and no one else was blessed with the same purity that was the black blood in their veins. A blessing that both he, and she, had been deprived of. Minami Sora, as she stood before him, had worked herself to the point that she was at right now, a jounin befitted to lead and train a squad of genin under her command. He had no doubt that this was a rank she had earned in her own right. She had trained her body and it showed, both in the tone of her muscles and in her abilities. In his head, however, it was simply a fact that if she had been born a Kuronmeru and had put in all the same work that she had in this lifetime, that would be a more powerful version of her, and one of better character, than the woman who stood before him now.
She wanted his respect, but it was something he would never give to her. Rather, it was something he
could never give to her. Admission of her superiority was the same as admission of his own inferiority. A clanless woman was not permitted for him to give his dignity.
This was the other reason he had not wanted to be put on the same squad as Enyo. So long as he, or anyone from his clan, was around, operating on the same team, his back would be up against the wall. Everything that happened here, his parents would know about. There would be no room for errors. Enyo had a habit of running his mouth, even when he should know what could or would bring about their father’s ire. Whether it would be intentional or not, Shiu felt sure that his twin would let slip something that would jeopardize him. Something such as bowing to a clanless woman.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He had to do something, anything that would let him walk away from this with a better outcome than Enyo, and ideally did not disable him in the process. It was clear to him now that Enyo and Inei had hit a nerve with this woman, and now she was hellbent to take it out on him.
Shiu grabbed his katana and stood to face her, wordlessly. He could still taste the filth of blood in his mouth, and a frustration roiled in his gut. In straightforward techniques, she would best him every time. That was the difference in their experience. If he managed to surprise her though, he might be able to get something out of it. Given that, he formulated a half-baked plan, one that was far more reckless than he even knew.
He stepped forward, twisting his wrists so as to raise the blade of his katana and bring it down on her overhead. He did not expect his swing to go unchallenged. By bringing his blade down, Shiu was trying to provoke a horizontal block from her. Instead of thinking he could overpower her by just pressing down harder on their swords, he would simply steel his wrists to control the direction of his own blade, which he wanted to point straight upward as he stepped closer into her guard. If he managed to get close enough to her, Shiu would try to release the grip of his katana with his left hand and instead reach to grab ahold of Sora’s own blade, not knowing just
how sharp Samidare truly was. Whether he was able to actually grab ahold of her sword or not, he would then turn his own blade so as to fall or be tossed aside harmlessly. Flexing his right wrist, he would then trip the mechanism that unsheathed the blade of his fumei ha, then thrust straight towards whatever body part was in front of him, preferably the abdomen.
This was all, of course, dependent on his ability to get close to her, and that she countered with nothing that would too seriously disrupt his flow of attack.
