She came for me as soon as the master called us to start. I heard quick feet fast approaching and she let out a fearsome yell before her wooden sword came down.

If it weren't for the yell, I would have had a tough time judging how close she was just by estimating the intensity of the sound of her steps when she was right in front of me based on how heavy her footsteps might be for a person of her size. It was a lot of information to take in and calculate but it's what I had been trained to do and it was starting to come instinctively.

Her attack was aggressive and confident. She hit harder than I would have expected from a girl like her and I imagined she must have had a lot of respect at the dojo for being so forward. Rather than dodging, parrying, or countering the initial attack, I took the full force of it head on. I held her there until she realized I wasn't going to budge and backed off.

"What's wrong, cold feet?" she gibed. "I get it, duels are tough. Not everyone is cut out for it. You know, maybe if you took that blindfold off, you'd have a better time with it."

What looked like my inability to do anything but block the attack was actually me taking in a wealth of information. From the single encounter, I learned more about her than some people would take an entire match to figure out. Through the connection of our bokken, I tested her strength, balance, stance and agility.

The strength of the first blow gave me a sense of her average attack power. I estimated how many of those hits I could take like that and determined that the match would be long over before she ever wore me out. My own blade was much too large for me to properly control but Zoro insisted that I train with it anyways. Compared to the a sword three quarters of my height and three times as wide as a katana, thus wooden bokken felt like I was waving around a stick. Considering that and Zoro's cannon-like strikes, I could play with Cassandra all day if I had to.

But it would take much less time than that. I was much more quick on my feet than her and if the strength was an issue, I could probably win just by my speed.

Clashing swords with her was so much different than training with Zoro and I was absolutely fascinated. I felt a hunger to touch blades with more and more people and discover all types of style and movement. I wonder what it would feel like to go up against myself?

I was already feeling bored with Cassandra because I felt she had nothing else to offer me. She stood there hurling insults and I decided to finish off this ordeal quickly and move on with my life.

"Come on, give me your best shot. I'll even give you a free hit because you look so scared," she sneered.

I charged at her and delivered a hard blow right to the stomach. She didn't even have time to get into an appropriate stance so it knocked her right over.

My point.

She stood up slowly with a blazing fire in her eyes. While she kept her composure, she was obviously pissed.

"What the hell was that?" she spit.

"Take your positions," Koshiro called.

As soon as we were allowed to start, I wasted no time in knocking her down again. Dodging her blow from the right, I passed by her. With a tight pivot, I turned around and delivered a square hit to the back. She lost her balance and fell forwards.

My point.

She screamed out in frustration and could picture her pompous expression was replaced with a nasty snarl. Her breathing was heavy and uncontrolled and I could tell she was losing her nerve.

"Get up. We still have three more rounds to go," I snapped at her.

"Shut up!" she yelled. "I'll make you regret this."

"You deserve everything coming for you," I warned.

I felt angry and violent. Her and girls like her had hurt me with their words, contempt, and influence. With this weapon in my hands, I finally had a way to fight back.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Things are finally starting to heat up! If you like this story, I've written a few more featuring my OC so check those out on my profile :)