The next morning, when Kira arrived at the dojo, the Master was inside, waiting for her. Next to him was a tall youth that she recognised from the night before. Judging from his position then, he was one of the top three disciples of the dojo.

“Ah, Little Miss, please, come in.”

The Master seemed far more relaxed than the previous night as he smiled warmly while inviting Kira inside.

‘As expected, he had to keep a certain image in front of his students.’

Kira thought as she stepped forward after bowing to the shrine at the front.

“This is my son, Tezaki Kakuho. You may call me Master Tezaki. Now, if you are ready, we can begin. Ah, no need to look there, I’ve brought something a little more…interesting.”

Master Tezaki interrupted Kira as she was about to remove a wooden weapon from the rack. He unwrapped a bundle that he’d brought with him, revealing two identical katana.

“These aren’t the same as normal iaito. They have the same weight as a real sword and actually-”

“…leave scars on the skin.”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I’m very familiar with this type of training weapon. We always used them at my clan, even the juniors.”

“You sound as if you grew up in a warzone. Most of the young ones joining my dojo have never held weapons before, let alone trained in them. Usually they join after a traumatising event in which they lost loved ones and believe they need to gain strength. Then, of course, you get those who think that wielding a blade is the new fashion.”

While Kira could empathise completely with the former, the latter was something that she couldn’t understand. A weapon was a tool that was used for defence or, when needed, for killing. It wasn’t a toy for boosting self-esteem or social status. If you wanted either of those, you would have more success simply through meditation, introspection and self-improvement. Becoming a paper tiger didn’t help yourself if you actually ended up in a real fight.

Accepting the training sword from Master Tezaki, she held it out for a moment before drawing it and checking the straightness of the blade. Nodding in satisfaction, she sheathed it and tied it to her haramaki.

“Master Tezaki takes very good care of these.”

“Naturally. Normally, these are only for my senior students who’ve learned several Advanced-rank Skills but, after last night, I’ve decided to make an exception for you.”

“This little one thanks Master Tezaki.”

She paused, remembering her manners, and bowed respectfully with cupped hands.

“Suzuki Clan, Suzuki Kira. Please advise me.”

“Tezaki Clan, Tezaki School Master, Tezaki Noburo. Please advise me.”

Wasting no time, Kira drew her sword and immediately closed the gap between them. With the smallest flash of gold across her pupils, she released the Skill that caught even that purple-robed man off guard.

Stabbing forward, she was clearly too far away from Master Tezaki to make contact. In that moment when his guard dropped, a ghostly image extended from the tip of her sword, too fast to notice unless you were paying close attention, which stabbed towards Master Tezaki’s heart.

‘Phantom Pierce.’

Unlike the purple-robed man, Master Tezaki didn’t underestimate Kira. Pivoting on his right foot, he twisted his torso and the ghostly image shot past him, just far enough to have pierced through his whole body.

‘What a dangerous Skill! That could very well end a real fight on its own against most of my students.’

While Master Tezaki was caught off-guard by her use of a Skill so early, Kira also wasn’t about to underestimate him. Like her, he came from a background of swordsmanship and knew enough to understand that a real swordsman or –woman wouldn’t make any unnecessary moves. This first attack was just to test the waters. After all, Kira was trying to use him to test herself, not kill him.

Matching Master Tezaki’s movement, Kira also pivoted, keeping her sword between them like a line that had to be crossed for him to get anywhere near her. The reason she had used Phantom Pierce instead of the stab that hit like a hammer blow, which Tetsuya had her develop, was because it executed faster and wasn’t as flashy, giving it a stronger element of surprise.

Also, having trained her Skills further in the Twilight Forest, she managed to extend the range of her Phantom Pierce so that it would pierce completely through a human body now. She just needed to figure out how to adjust it so that it wasn’t as visible. For people with highly trained Soul Sense, it would have the same visibility but normal people would have very little time to react.

Bringing her katana around and overhead, she cut diagonally downwards, pupils flashing gold once more, a blade of compressed energy slicing forth through the air.

‘Wind Rending.’

As one of Tetsuya’s exercises, and under his guidance, he had Kira start learning to modify her Skills. Kira’s Wind Rending was the first of these. Although it was the highest-ranked Skill she currently possessed, and thus the hardest to have trained in the first place, Tetsuya insisted on this particular Skill due to its potential. He set one limitation on her though, that she had to keep its overall power level, and hence its rank and level, the same.

The result of her adjustments was that she didn’t have to release it with a horizontal cut. While a detail like this may seem insignificant, being able to release the energy blade from any position gave it an additional element of surprise while laying the foundation for a Wind Rending similar to what Tetsuya modified it to, one that could unleash consecutive energy blades.

Master Tezaki was now losing tempo very quickly. Being forced to dodge into immediately having to deal with an even stronger Skill within a short space of time limited his options.

‘Her control of the flow of battle is good. I need to stabilise somehow.’

It was then that Master Tezaki made the snap-decision to take the attack head-on with a simple block. While it may seem like the obvious choice, as a martial artist, he knew the value of receiving an attack in the correct manner. Although it wasn’t a physical blow that he faced, he allowed the force of the attack to propel himself backwards, creating distance that Kira couldn’t cross quickly. If he had tried to block the attack by grounding himself, he wouldn’t be in a position to deal with Kira’s follow-up attacks.

The residual energy of the Skill washed over him but, while still fairly forceful, didn’t have its usual cutting edge. This was the downside of using unsharpened weapons as a medium for Skills that created a cutting force.

Kira’s battle sense was honed enough that she felt her advantage slipping away with his one move. Breathing slightly heavier after using the two Skills almost consecutively, she slashed upwards, quickly firing off another Wind Rending after the first. Like this, even though she’d depleted about 20% of her total energy, she could chase after Master Tezaki by following closely behind this energy blade.

‘Not the option I would usually take, but the situation calls for it.’

Of course, she’d had other ideas but this particular line of action trumped the others she had in mind. Her first concern was that, if she let the distance between them grow, she would be at a disadvantage. Apart from Phantom Pierce and Wind Rending, she had no other ranged Skills and Master Tezaki still hadn’t revealed any of his own Skills yet.

Secondly, and without question, Master Tezaki had a higher cultivation level than her. This meant that in a battle of attrition, she would inevitably be the loser. She had to gain pressure and keep it until she forced him into a situation in which she was the victor. She couldn’t afford to be sparing in her energy use.

In a real battle, however, she would have that ace up her sleeve, the bloodline ability, Burning Soul, to make up for the difference in energy quantity, but that wasn’t an option here. If Tetsuya could sense it when she used it back in Edge, surely anyone else on his level could do the same. Kira didn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention.

Following close behind the energy blade, Kira already had her next move ready. Sheathing her blade as she ran, Kira’s presence melted away as she adjusted her step, treading as lightly as possible.

Even though Master Tezaki had seen this used before against his pupil, Shimon, attempting to pierce through it when it was being used against him was another matter. Although he could clearly see Kira ahead of him, she seemed as insubstantial as air and he couldn’t focus on her. Of course, having to deal with an energy blade flying towards you was bound to distract you to some extent.

It was here that Master Tezaki showed his vast experience as her calmly recalled the angle of Kira’s sword when she used the Skill. Previously, the angle of her cut and the angle of the energy blade were exactly the same. There was a high chance that this was the case again. Leaning sideways, he allowed the energy blade to just slip past him as he scored a circle in the ground around him with the tip of his sword.

Kira didn’t miss any of these details. She felt certain that the circle was the prelude to some kind of Skill. As such, she didn’t waste any time in slipping to the side and striking for Master Tezaki’s sword arm.

‘Hah, too naive.’

Raising his sword from the ground with both hands, Master Tezaki easily parried Kira’s attack knocking her off-balance as she’d committed fully to the strike.

‘Shit.’

As Kira turned her head towards him, Master Tezaki had already swept back his sword, now holding it backhand as a flash of gold crossed his pupils. Sweeping his blade horizontally, Master Tezaki released his Skill.

‘Moonlight Cleave.’

Seeing the impending strike grow before her eyes, Kira made a split-second decision and forcefully steadied herself by planting her feet on the ground as a similar flash of gold crossed her eyes. Her training sword was withdrawn to its scabbard so fast that one would claim it was there to begin with.

It had only been a short time since Kira and Tetsuya had left their campsite to arriving at the edge of the Twilight Forest, but Kira had spent the majority of that time trying to figure out the specifics of this particular Skill. It was very important to her not just in the sense of being the first original Skill that she would develop, but its success or failure would affect her confidence in developing every other Skill afterwards.

‘Takanashi Style: One Leaf Parts the Wind!’

As the talent of her generation in her previous life, there was no way Kira wouldn’t understand the value of timing. This particular Skill took this value and pushed it to the very extreme.

PENG!

Shock plastered Master Tezaki’s face as his sword was suddenly halted mid-swing. It felt as if the strength he had gathered for his Skill was slipping through his fingers like sand. He also found that his arm was numbed up to his shoulder while the rest of his body halted. Looking towards his sword, he saw Kira kneeling on the ground like a coiled spring, blocking his attack with the scabbard of her sword, her one hand tightly gripping the handle.

With a swoooosh, Kira drew her sword and held it to Master Tezaki’s neck.

“It appears that I’m the victor.”

Master Tezaki’s face was pale and for good reason. If anyone had taken the opportunity he had, no, if the one at a disadvantage were anyone else, they would not have made such a turnaround. He wondered, not for the first time:

‘Just who is this girl?’

Kira stood up slowly, her body trembling slightly. While she seemed to have gained an absolute victory, in truth she, herself, was amazed that she’d won. In essence, the Skill she’d created was very simple.

Takanashi Style: One Leaf Parts the Wind - By channelling the Quintessence into her scabbard and arm, strengthening them, she’ll have a very powerful, yet immovable, block. What makes this Skill special is that, if timed perfectly to intercept an enemy’s Skill Release, you could actually interrupt the Skill completely and stun him or her for a second. Otherwise, attacking into the block would have a greatly-reduced stun effect and any Skills that were Releasing would still come into effect.

When Kira made the decision to use the Skill, she’d planned just to use the brief stun to give her a chance to recover. There was a less than 5% chance for her to actually interrupt the Skill as she had no idea of what form the Skill would take or when the Quintessence would take effect, which is what made it surprising even to herself. Despite this, however, she was still desperately looking for an opening and took the one she was given.

“Well done, Little Miss. I hadn’t expected you to actually defeat me.”

“No need to praise me, senior. It was all luck. With senior’s experience and greater cultivation, senior would naturally have been the victor.”

“You’re very humble but also very clever. You knew from the start that by pressuring me and not giving me an opportunity to show my full strength was your key to victory and you took risks just to keep to that strategy. For that, I commend you. You will definitely become someone strong one day.”

“This amount of praise is too much, senior.”

“Hmph, after defeating me, how can I not praise you. I should be ashamed, losing to someone of your age. Regardless, I will be leaving first. You may remain here to practice your Skills against Kakuho. Take good care of him.”

“I will, senior.”

Kira bowed towards Master Tezaki as he left the dojo, leaving the rather nervous Kakuho alone with Kira.

“No need to be that worried. I just need someone to practice my Skills against to see how they’ll work in an actual fight. I won’t be trying that hard to beat you.”

For some reason, Kakuho didn’t find those words very comforting.

The night market in the middle-class areas of Khukuri was famous as the place to go for finding rare gems at absolute bargains. A young man with short-cropped, dark hair wandered between the stalls, partly as he was on an errand but also to enjoy the sights and sounds and look for an interesting trinket to take home with him. While this young man, Hideyoshi, was sent to look for a particular herb for his master, he didn’t often have the luxury of exploring on his own and was revelling in the experience. However, it was one that was tainted with bitterness.

This wasn’t the first night that Hideyoshi had been sent to find one ingredient or another, nor was it the first remedy his Master was trying to concoct. Although his Master appeared to be mostly recovered after a few weeks of rest, there were times that Hideyoshi could see that he was in indescribable agony. His anger towards Kazumi rose up unwillingly. Yes, he’d taken his revenge, but every time he saw the Master he loved like a father clutch his chest where the dragon-seal brand was burned into his skin, looking as frail as an old man twice his age, Hideyoshi couldn’t help wishing that he’d spared Kazumi so he could torture her till she begged for death.

Pushing his dark thoughts aside, he stopped to examine a stall selling daggers. He wasn’t a naturally violent person. In fact, he believed that violence wasn’t the answer unless necessary, but the scars of that fight were bringing out the worst in him. Shaking himself out of him reverie, he noticed a young girl next to him also examining the weapons on offer.

“That’s a good one, missy. Made of the finest Khukuri steel and vetted by Miss Kazumi herself. You can be sure of its quality.”

The stallholder smiled as he spoke with a proud drawl. Hideyoshi felt anger rise up within him at the mention of the name but forced himself not to let it show on his face. Right now, he focused on what was in front of him. As a dagger specialist, he’d been taught what to look for when buying a dagger and now this little girl was being ripped off right in front of him! This wasn’t something he could accept.

“Excuse me, little miss, but you probably don’t want that one.”

He didn’t question the reason a girl that young was buying a proper weapon. After all, he’d been taught to fight as soon as he’d arrived at the Murasaki Clan at a tender age. That, on top of the fact that she already had two sheathed swords on her hip, was enough to make him want to help her without knowing anything about her.

“Hey, boy, what do you know about daggers? I’ve been living in Khukuri and selling these daggers for years now and you think your word means anything?”

“Yes, and you’re still just here in the night market selling to little girls instead of rich collectors.”

“You…get out of here if you’re not going to buy anything.”

“Hey, I’m not saying that everything you have is crap. Take this one, for example. It hasn’t been sharpened properly so it doesn’t look like much but it has a strong natural edge. Its balance is good too so it can double as a throwing knife. If I didn’t have better daggers I would’ve bought this one on sight.”

Hideyoshi picked up an unassuming, dull-grey dagger that was laying to the side as if the owner, himself, didn’t even know of its value, while speaking to the girl beside him. Without warning, he threw the dagger and it embedded itself in the wall a few centimetres from the stallholder’s head. He waited a few seconds to savour the stallholder's pale face before walking over and retrieving it. The girl paid for the weapon as the owner literally stared daggers at Hideyoshi. The pair left the stall together.

“Thank you-”

“Hideyoshi. And it’s a pleasure. As a dagger-user myself, I couldn’t stand seeing someone else being duped into buying poor quality ones. You here with your parents?”

The girl shook her head.

“No, my uncle and I are staying here alone. I need to be going. Thank you again for your help.”

“It was my pleasure. Safe home.”

The small girl with a long black ponytail bowed formally with cupped hands before turning around and walking away until all that Hideyoshi could see was the silhouette of her black training gear until, eventually, she was gone.