[Futago Kumori]

Kumori grunts as her attack is similarly deflected by the sakabato and Kojirou himself balancing atop his own blade's pommel, which is certainly an odd position until she looks around herself to see that she's surrounded with similar blades floating everywhere around them in a sphere. But then she turns and gives Kojirou an evil smirk. As she teases him, she starts to raise her greatsword once more, gripping onto the hilt with both hands in order to increase the force she can command from the heavier and larger weapon.

"I'm not sure putting yourself in a smaller area is going to help you as much as you think it will."

With a hard swing, she feints an attack at the legs he's using to keep himself balanced on the sakabato, twisting the wooden sword so that the attack swings at his ankles, followed immediately by a continuation of the circle she'd drawn with the wooden greatsword in order to slash at the sakabato's handle instead, making two spinning slashes with the second aimed a bit lower than the first in order to knock the Hono's own training weapon outside of the sphere of blades, hoping to effectively disarm her training partner for the second time during their spar. Whether it works or not, Kumori feels and looks pretty confident for a woman surrounded by swords, but if she's bothered, she doesn't show it one bit. In fact, she seems to think this enclosed area actually gives her a greater advantage.

[Honō Kojirou]

Oh no… something wasn’t right! Looking as confident as that, she must’ve already seen through his Genjutsu! Wha- that’s not fair, it hasn’t even been a second!!! he panicked, ready to grab his foothold when she didn’t hesitate to swing her large sword further up, threatening to knock him off by his ankles! He managed to lower his feet at that point, but when it came to evasion, he was dependent on foothold for the Wind Step – in this position, he was toast…

Unless… oh should he? Noooooo, she’d get mad… that wooden sword looked pretty beat up, though. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if he- no, Koji, stop. She’d never let you live it down. Ah, he had no choice-

*SINGE!*

By using his arms to propel himself up by his sword, he’d try to avoid his hands from going to bed red and sore – that meant that her large sword would instead clash against his sakabatō, but instead of spinning in the air like usual, Kojirou remained balanced on his sword… that was now heated up beyond what its metal could handle. It’d began burning through the remaining surface of wood that separated it from the metal core of Kumori’s dummy sword, to which Kojirou felt that all hope was lost.

"I-I-I’m sorry… I-I didn’t know what else to do! I was gonna fly in the air, or- or- I- p-please don’t get mad! I swear, I’m not doing this on purpose! Why does this keep happening?!”

He was instantly on his knees, hands clasped together, begging for forgiveness. Wooden or not, that sword looked fancy, and it was likely precious to her. Her sword's metal core was solid, though, compared to his destroyed sakabatō that was slowly leaking off next to him.

[Futago Kumori]

Kumori finds that she wasn't quite able to bring Kojirou completely off-balance with her attacks, and instead, she finds the sakabato burning the wooden practice sword all the way down to its iron core, causing the rest of the wood to weaken further, although the iron core still hits the half-melting sakabato like a club, causing it to break away. Her eyes weren't furrowed in anger, though; instead, her brows were raised in surprise at such a technique that the Hono clan might be able to use. Of course, it was practically useless when using a sword that wasn't completely immune to the intense heat, but the fact that Kojirou could make something so hot that it melts a sword and even causes her own wooden blade to catch flame was particularly impressive to her.

She's a bit confused then when he drops to his knees to beg her for forgiveness, and she confusedly scratches at the back of her head as he seems ready to cry and he was clearly expected some form of enraged reaction from her. She pats the other man on the top of his head, clearly trying to console him and let him know that she wasn't mad at all about her wooden training sword, which is all she can guess he must have been apologizing for.

"It's really okay, Kojirou... I don't really think I'll need this training sword after this, anyway. I've effectively trained well enough that I won't need it anymore. I think I'll be able to use heavier weapons and put much more strength behind each strike now, so you shouldn't worry about it. It served its purpose."

[Honō Kojirou]

Huh… wait, so Kojirou wasn’t in trouble! She was finished using that wooden sword, which meant him breaking it – not even breaking it, but destroying it the way he did with Hien – wasn’t a bad thing… if anything, it was like a rite of passage! He could imagine the wooden sword like a pupae, wherein her real large sword would one day emerge and spread its wings, marveled by those around it!

"I’ve seen you carrying it for… like, months, so I thought it was very important. But uh, good timing!” he jubilated, since it implied that she was getting a new weapon very soon. Kumori had been seen carrying that large log around for months, already – what, had it been a year or two? He’d honestly lost track of time, but he vividly remembered her carrying it around before he even went to Kuwana…

"Wait, if that’s your training sword… and you’re about done training now… does that mean you’re getting a new sword soon? One as big as that one?!” Now, a weapon of that size fully made of metal was going to be a whole new challenge – no longer could he expect to just melt through it, and if it was chakra-conductive, then Kumori too could channel Hien through-

HOW STRONG IS SHE?! SHE COULD PLUCK MY HEAD OFF MY SHOULDERS! I-I gotta ask her one of these days, it's definitely not the same type of training that my parents perform with me.

Oh my god… Hien through such a huge weapon was a juggernaut. He shivered at the thought. "I’m… glad to help out, then! If you wanna train with your new sword too, you can find me again! I’m about to get a new sword, too, so we can see who’s really the greatest swordsman in Kusa!”