He raised his block, so that even the very tip of her blade wouldn't reach him, and so he was forced to raise his attack, which he did so fluidly, now aiming for her neck. He was too fast, and his blade found its mark. Her neck. She stopped feeling some of her blood trickling down her neck, naturally not enough to do harm, just to make the point. "Thank you", it had been a good fight, though his skill and speed surpassed hers easily.

He bowed. "You're welcome. You cope well, if lacking experience. You have the potential to become a great knife fighter." He then connected his swords together and slid both blades back into the handle, whilst proceeding to a panel in the wall. He had guessed what it was, and he was right. Fortunately, all of the letters on the buttons were raised, so he could read them. Unfortunately, it used a screen, which he couldn't read. He recognised that the glass would likely be the screen, he turned back to Nox. "Could you help a blind man and work this for me?"

She nodded her head slightly to his compliments, indicating her thanks. Standing still had caused a slight wave of blackness to swarm in her vision, but after a few moments of she had cleared it away, she could feel the tenderness where his helmet had impacted. ouch. He walked over to a screen, which she had earlier dismissed. He turned to her and spoke, and she returned "naturally", as she approached in order to work it.

The full implications of his blindness came to her: He had never, through something as trivial as ink, lost himself in the imagination of another. Never seen the fires that blazed in the trees in autumn, nor the renewal of hope that came with every imaginable shade of green in spring, nor an endless blanket of snow that turned even the most ordinary of places into a marvel in itself. Never had he witnessed the slow tug at the side of someone's mouth that spread with light of recognition in their eyes until a smile was formed. Nor had a sky filled with pin pricks of light or the testimony of life against all adversary shown in a single blossom among all hardships every met his eyes . For he was blind. And so the world was a life of shadows, of darkness. She loved the dark herself, but hers had shades, depth, differentiation, his.. his was an empty void.

"Thank you." He wasn't entirely sure what the screen was, but assumed that it could start some sort of training. He hadn't ever used anything more complicated than a straw firgure for training with, so this could be very interesting.

(OOC: sorry for the short post, i couldn't think of anything else to write! and cool post in the one above this one, i like the way you suddenly realise that he really is just a blind man )

(OOC why thank you)

Her eyes skimmed over the screen trying to grasp the basics of what she was dealing with. It seemed to be some sort of controller, allowing the user to personalise their training using various bits of equipment. Intrigued, she explored the possibilities, though not comfortable with computers of any sort, she was able to use the touch screen to look for what she wanted. One category stuck a chime somewhere in her mind – ‘Knives’. Having gone through several options, she made her selection, and waited.

The panel, which she had assumed was the far wall, was now raising joining this room to another. In which there were tracks running all over the floor that allowed a series of dummies, controlled by the main computer, to move. They were moving into place to form a circle, with about a 5m radius. Turning to the warrior she spoke “Up for some throwing practise?”, she inquired. The system seemed to be self explanatory: stand in the middle of the circle, and when indicated throw a dagger at the target. A light was normally used to show which target to hit, and the practise was meant to not only improve your aim but also your awareness.

(OOC: light indicates which target? that could be a problem....)

Shogun watched her flitting through the controls, and it didn't take his mind-seeing abilities to know that she really didn't know what she was doing. But she worked it out, and one wall raised, revealing several moving dummies. He raised an eyebrow behind his helmet at her question. He wasn't fond of throwing weapons, and much preferred it when his opponent knew exactly what they were dealing with. It was only fair. And a lot more interesting. But who knows? Maybe a little practise at throwing could come in useful, if he happened to be facing a long ranged opponent and not have his bow handy.

He went to where all the weapons were on the walls, and picked a set of throwing axes. He was tempted to go for some javelins, but at this range they were rather unnecessary. He stepped up to the circle, chose the furthest away target, and threw. The axe hit the dummy, but it was a little off, and failed to actually hit the drawn target on its chest. A computerised voice came on, "Target missed." Well, no duh. But what Shogun hadn't realised, was that a light been switched on over another dummy. He had assumed that you were just supposeed to hit them as you please, like with archery.

It took her a moment to realise what was wrong. Then it stuck her - he was blind, which caused some problems when the target was indicated with lights. Walking back to the screen she altered some of the settings, so that the intended target now emitted a faint ‘beep’. Her fingers felt the familiar hilts of her throwing daggers at her side. Four on each side, eight in total, on for each dummy - perfect. She watched patiently interested to see how well the warrior coped, but she itched to have go herself. Throwing knives, now there was a field she excelled in, and loved for that matter. To her there was something immensely satisfactory about making a clean kill, without even touching her opponent. The dummies were well placed, at slightly varying distances from the central point they had both the traditionally chest target rings and smaller ones on the neck, her preferred target. Since her thin, light weight daggers, designed to go unnoticed in their pouch could not always insure instant death if the chest was hit. But with the neck, if her aim was true, they didn’t even stand a chance to understand what had happened, let alone call for help.

Nox did something at the screen, which Shogun naturally discounted as unimportant. Beeps. What? Hmm... it seemed to come from the nearest target. Shogun through an axe, this time hitting the target, but only just. The computerised voice sounded again, "Target hit." Seems simple enough. Hit the target that beeps. It took him another few seconds to realise that that must have been what Nox had been doing at the screen, but he didn't have time to think about it as another beep sounded. He took a second to work out which target it was, and threw. That time it was much better, and a fair bit closer to the centre of the target. He continued in this fashion, only missing the target a couple of times, but in general his aim did seem to improve a bit. It occurred to him that thrown weapons were something that he wasn't as well trained in as melee, which was something he would have to address. Beep. Whoosh. Thunk. "Target hit."

He quickly picked up how the training was supposed to work, and began. She watched with a critical eye. He was alright, hitting the target the majority of the time, but not excellent; he simply wasn’t constant. A great knife thrower can hit a single minute point again, and again, irreverent to other factors such as distance, or angle. That was what she was working towards, and in all modesty she would describe herself as a good knife thrower, far beyond the normal, but not quite exceptional yet. Her main fault being distance, at the rough 5m distance now she was fine, close to perfect even, but increase that and her constancy lowered. That was her weakness, and so it was what hse was working on. Once she had warmed up she hoped to increase the distance allowing herself to practise on improving her range. She waited patiently, hoping the warrior would be honourable enough and step down after a reasonable time, so that she didn’t have to butt in. Her hand clenched and unclenched in anticipation, she was ready, eager even.

Eagerness. Anticipation. They were practically spilling forth from the woman. he threw a few more, his aim only improving slightly, and stepped back. "I assume you would like a turn?" It would be interesting to see how well the knife fighter faired in ranged combat. He didn't bother waiting for a response, and hung his axes on the wall. He knew she'd want to, and didn't imagine her to be polite enough to refuse.

She indicated her head slightly in thanks, and stepped into the middle of the circle. Having taken in the rough position of the targets, she knew she wouldn’t need to waste time gauging distance. Her target was the small circle on the neck, its outer ring being barely 5cm in diameter, its inner 3cm, and the dot was 1cm. She let one deep breath out and concentrated, her mind emptied, God I missed this. Beep. She spun to face the target, and as she did so her hand swept past her knife pouch losing a blade into her hand with a well practised motion and drawing it up in front of her. Her arm extended, the wrist flicked, and the knife flew point over hilt, to embedded itself in the target’s neck between the inner and outer ring. Not bad, but she could do better. There had been one motion, which had been good, fluid, without hesitation from the moment her mind registered the beep to the moment when the blade left her hand. Beep. It happened again, her fluid twist and draw of another blade, by the time she was fully facing the intended target the knife had already left her hand. This time, she hit juts between the inner ring and the dot. Better. She was happy to see her period of rest had not blunted her skill, her speed and aim were just what they used to be, well they would be after this practise.

She continued in this manner, acting instantly on the bleep, always hitting within the target, a few times her hits were just within the outer ring but mostly there were either within the inner ring or on the dot. The sole concentration on the motion, its fluidity, occupied her mind, no room was left for thoughts of her surroundings, just the needed motion. This emptiness and focus, she loved, there were a only a few things she preferred to the peace this brought her.

She was good at this. Apparently, long range seemed to suit her better. There seemed to be a target on the neck as well, which she was able to hit every time. When she moved, it was fluid. One movement, without any hesitation until she was done. She must have spent a long time practising this, and seemed to be... at peace. And empty. She evidently didn't like emotions, probably the sort of person that believed them to 'get in the way'. But the focus... every time, he could feel her focus upon the target, and all of herself went into it. Whilst good focus was good, it did mean that if there was more than one opponent she could get lost in focussing on one. But, if it were only one man she were facing, he'd be dead. Very dead.

Beep. Spin. Throw. Beep, and it begun again. The rhythm had always been second nature to her and now it occupied all her thoughts. Beep. Spin. Wait! Her hand had no blade to unfasten as it came up past her pouch – she was out. Drat. Out of habit the motion finished itself and her empty hand ended up facing the target as if to throw. She stood still for a moment residing to the stillness within her, before walking around the circle of dummies and collecting her knives one by one. While pulling of the third she remembered she wasn’t alone and turned to see the warrior watching her. She continued round the circle, collecting all of her knives, before she addressed him. “Care to make it more interesting or do you want to continue with this.” She was satisfied with herself at this range; to was normal to her, and though it clamed her she preferred something more channelling. Either to increase the distance, or something entirely different, she wasn’t quite certain what she wanted yet, and either way it would be his turn next so she stepped outside the circle waiting for his response.

He watched as she finished off her knives. She didn't seem to have kept track of her knive count; always a big mistake. There were far too many situations where you could run out of knives at fatal moments. But she finished the move anyway, and from Shogun's reckoning it would have been a hit. She seemed to only just notice that he was there, and asked if he wanted to make it more 'interesting'. "How would you like a moving target?" He knew that her knives couldn't hurt him, but he wanted to see what it would be like trying to dodge them. Obviously, the distanced would have to be increased to give him a chance, but he wanted to see how she would react to his statement before elaborating further.

A moving target? He wanted her to use him as a target? She swiftly concluded he was either insane, unbelievably arrogant or there was something he wasn’t telling her. If it was the later she presumed it would become evident quickly, if however, it was one of the others then the nice clean room wouldn’t be so clean anymore. She was frozen a moment in thought, her face betraying nothing, as her mind went through the situation repeatedly. From what she had seen so far he either hid his insanity extraordinarily well, or it was one of the other options. Arrogant , yes he was, but is he arrogant enough to risk his life on it? She didn’t know, but presumed, and hoped, that he wasn’t. An outside factor, that was intriguing, and presumable something connected to his power since she had yet to meet a normal person who could be unharmed by a knife. A smile played at the corner of her mouth, whatever happened next would his problem not her. And he had, quite literally, asked for it. “Ready when you are.” She said facing him, waiting to see what he would do. Would he stand there and wait, or start moving from the onset, and then of course there was the trivial matter of how he would responded to her being perfectly happy to using him as a target. She successful suppressed any signs of the chuckle that attempted to overthrow her demeanour.