The final blow aims directly toward her throat.
A speck of silver light indicates the long slash of the blade before it can cut. One incredibly minute movement and the slash hits hair, an uneven strand of bleached-out colored hair that flies into the sand, joining the sight of dust whirled up in the equinox of the hot sun.
Her body flexes again, black boots stained with dirt. With the dust kicking up, it's an insane but regular wonder her protege is not covered in it like an animal in a mud hole.
She sees that white now, out of the corner of her eye, in a small white flash of his jacket, with the sword arm outstretched, before she bows under the next stab and whirls away.
Temperance is self-inflicted curse energy. It lines up her gut, burrows down a tingle in her muscles, and it moves her microscopically precisely. It doesn't make her invincible. It never made her strong in the ridiculous degrading system of the clans.
Temperance is state of mind.
It isn't very flashy. Not the display of a giant amount of energy ready to tear into bones and flesh, rip the skin off a curse apart, or eviscerate them in a line-up.
People underestimate control.
Raw power needs to be tempered just like the sword Yuta is using to try and slash her with. Steel folded and heated in flames again and again to cool it off. To give it the right edge.
A single drop of sweat seeps into her collar as she retreats. His eyes always are hooded in grey, but it doesn't mean he doesn't follow the motion of retreat.
Retreat doesn't mean defeat.
There've been less than a handful of teachers before in Yuta Okkotsu's life, in the short amount of time that he has been a sorcerer, but prodigies don't need more than a single push.
He's been pushed enough in his life, judging by the amount of pain in any report she skimmed through.
The midday sun is blinding now in her back. In a regular fast-paced fight, it doesn't mean anything. Right now she takes what she can get.
Mizumi's feet kick up more dirt in a cascade as she pulls back from the assault, and then, she focuses Temperance on her fingers as they clamp around the tip of the sword and slash long cuts into her fingers.
The weapon doesn't bend under the tiny shock. But it starts to vibrate, a low hum that thrums in their skeletons as the trajectory of the next attack doesn't even get close to her body.
Temperance is peaceful. It is not meant to work through weapons or cut. Just meant to stop it. Therefore, it doesn't do for a great offensive action.
If you don't know where to put it.
Yuta Okkotsu is a pit of energy himself, pooling over limitless for even the weakest eye, and trying to affect or disturb him in any more than distraction would be a waste of time.
The blood from her fingers sprays past his white sleeve, and washes into the sand, as they both balance with the strange whir of her precision. The bloody sand kicks right up toward his shin the next moment as he moves in a very tactical way to avoid another touch, but gets caught by her boot hitting his leg before she retreats again. This time, Temperance tries to restrain his muscles, but he easily bursts out of it, a reflex almost, that makes her curl her hands to fists.
His eyes spin around the weird sparring field they've claimed, stones muddling the edges, and narrow in his deadpan face, and for a second she fears the worst.
"Don't try to kill me," she reminds him. "I'm not here to die."
Now his eyes are almost accusing in their deep sleep-deprived sockets. "Rika's not here. You won't."
The reassurance is only short-lived when they start to dance again, a slash against a ducking bow, a foot blocked, another broken attempt of paralysis.
Much too quick, and yet not fast enough.
The single drip of sweat turns into a battered bucket full. This time, her flat palm flashes right past his defense and taps his carotid, a quivering vein standing out on his neck, and works past his neck muscles and vertebrae. With a long stuttering breath, he falters, almost falls, before he fully aims at the right of her eye, one long piercing slash and it'll be gone.
But with the next shift of Yuta's body, she realizes something else. Her balance has been disrupted. Her foot catches on a small stone. She leaps backward struggling with hot blood running down her hand, too late.
This time, the katana rests directly over her heart.
"That was close." Yuta has what Mizumi calls lovingly, an unhinged smile. It lifts only the tips of his lips in a quirk, and even genuine, his pallid sleep-deprived face gives it the touch of a ghost.
"No, it wasn't," Mizumi compliments. Temperance evens her breath in the pitch of battle, but it still comes too ragged to be calm as she looks over at him now. "You took less time than the last session to figure me out."
She doesn't say: If it had been close, a lovely grey claw would have pummeled me into the dust. It makes no sense to have an argument with him about his capabilities or potential.
"If you focus," he explains. He pushes the sword away very fast, sheathing it. "You can see where you move. It's fairly easy now. Your cursed energy is very slow."
"Easy does never mean useless. The more precise you are, the less you need to worry about mistakes." She dusts off his white-clad shoulder with a pat of the non-bloody hand. "Very good work. But promise you don't cut my hair again."
For a second, he stares at the messy long cut of strands that are pink, blueish faded, and lavender. Bleached hair dried out by the hot hemisphere. His hair looks downright healthy in contrast, although she worries that he'll get a sunburn beneath the black sometimes.
"Promise."
"Kindness begets you, Yuta."
Then they just walk off the improvised sparring field toward the town, leaving nothing but blood and footprints behind.
The first time they practice this sparring session, it's a lot more tense and less concentrated. The training brings familiarity, familiarity makes everything smooth.
He's been around town for less than a week, and they have spoken less than ten words since his arrival. It's not his fault. He's nothing if not quietly complying. Neither she nor Miguel sharing her space are the same. Not to each other, at least.
It's less hostility and more unwillingness. Being ordered around lies in neither of their interest, but they barely have a choice.
"You must be happy being closer to home," she attempts conversation despite the thorn in her throat as she reads the text right before her again and again.
Didn't think we would remember you, did you, Mizumi? It mocks her in Kanji formally informing her. These two are here to stay in the intermittent. That she's supposed to be of assistance. And then there's that request about training.
Didn't think you could hide forever, did you, Mizumi? Mourned long enough.
"Not like I had a choice," he answers. Miguel's a giant on the other side of her table, but a nonthreatening entity. Or else she would run.
"Ah." She reaches the less formal section of the papers and is greeted with a not completely unfamiliar message by one Gojo, too jovial for the stiff rest of the instruction. "You had a run-in. Well. I am glad you are alive."
"Yes. Really?" He makes no motion to stand up when she scurries off the table, legs scrambling, a hectic action of hands pulling fists.
"I am glad about every life. Can I ask you a question?"
"You're already."
"The word is also you were with one Suguru Geto before he was killed."
Something about the name hits a nerve. One second Miguel itches at his space and for one second he is much more threat than before. "What of it?"
"Nothing." Lies. Disgustingly easy to fake disinterest. "I was simply curious. But perhaps we let the dead rest, shall we?"
She ends their conversation with a low soft nod and moves away.
Yuta has very minimal baggage, despite the weapon and his clothes. She wonders if intermittent means he will wander a lot, and whatever else this responsibility of housing two strangers brings. Before he can actually carry his bags inside, she takes one of them and slowly sets it down between them.
"I hope you are comfortable," she offers when he starts to introduce himself. "You can call me Mizumi if you want to. That's enough."
If that is her first or last name, she lets everyone guess. She knows of course who he is from the stream of papers that haunts her. But she tries to not let it show. He's a child in contrast to her, one that has been thrown into this mess in the span of too short months.
The reports describe him as impressive. He is all but that, a sunken skeleton of a child with too deep bags under his eyes that stem from more than any jetlag and the palest skin she's ever seen. Almost as translucent as a ghost.
"Thank you, Mizumi. Is this your house?"
"It is not. I don't live anywhere long enough for that procedure." It sounds harsher than intended judging by his chin reacting to her bite with a low tilt.
"I am tasked with delegating your downtime and training," she continues, softer now, hands gripping the loose line of her black pants, feeling the flower print stitched into the linen. "If that is fine with you, I would like to start in the morning, so we can both prepare accordingly."
He has no reason to dispute that, and so she leaves the two strangers to their own devices as she tries to find a good spot outside the town for this.
Miguel is the first figure on the small sandy field behind the high grass tips and spruce trees, leaning in a bit of dripping shade. He has been on the receiving end of mentoring the last few weeks, after they return from some trip that has been, as far as his words are to be believed "useless" so far. She doesn't ask what kind of power or curse they're looking for. Anything to disturb her peace is one question too much. They do not task her to ask. She doesn't have to.
She throws up a hand and gets a greeting in a wave. Then she starts to warm up, trying to remember how it's done.
Yuta appears only a brief moment later. Punctual, she notes, as the low cold of the early morning lies grey and blue over them and some animals snicker in the distance.
"Judging by the partial praise of one Satoru Gojo," she starts and rounds him up, even if he's taller, he is still mostly a twig, as both the other man and her are much more bulk built over the years. It shows in her biceps and shoulders, scar riddles in contrast to his own with the veins showing out in a hammering motion. "And some others, I suspect we don't have much to do in terms of your strength. So I'll leave that to the course of nature. How long have you had martial training?"
"Not too long," he starts, and while he speaks about that, something defensive creeps up through his back straightening. "But I trained with someone incredible."
"I prefer it that way. I'll say it as it is," she sighs. "I am neither a great sorcerer nor a great teacher. But I can get you to learn a trick or two. If you are fine with me not using any sort of weapon. And not teaching you anything lethal. Do we have an agreement?"
She isn't used to any other way than all the western civilizations clashing in her formalities since she left Japan over a decade ago, and so she just stretches her hand out.
He shakes it with more force than his cold fingers would let her suspect.
They start easy, with more physical warm-ups, and then, she simply tries to make him focus his cursed energy on the katana he drags around.
For a long stricken breath, as the bulk of the cursed energy flies through her fingers, she is scared. Scared of dying, maybe, or simply just the primordial fear of something giant and big easy to swallow her. She's a rabbit. He'll break her neck.
Then she forces her own energy out, and her cursed technique steels her intestines and soothes her brain.
He pulls back as if she has burned him as she forces it back with a gritted bit of teeth. Her fingers tap the katana, then palm strike his sternum in a fixture of fast painful hits. He doesn't try, and it is her first lesson.
Don't trust me, boy, I am made to do this, and I need you to be very safe and very strong.
"Impressive," she compliments. "But here is my first trick. Don't hesitate now."
It was a mistake to do that, and she learns that the next moment. The fight swings in an unforeseen direction.
More gentle lessons, her bloody body aches that night. He learns too fast.
Weird to think she calls this house almost home when more than one soul returns to it. It almost makes her happy, as does the scent of food in the kitchen space someone left behind for them. She inhales deeply before the letters and papers on the table put her right down in her mood, sour it, and Yuta notices too, by the way, he sorts through the words and picks them up.
She leaves that to him and gets herself a first aid kit. The kitchen table suddenly feels way too cramped, the light bulb flickers, and everything is a stringent harsh scent from the pots.
"Can they not leave us alone for one week? Is that for you? Please don't."
He puts the paper down in an insult of soft letters and words shuffling. "You're a sorcerer too. Why are you mad about this?"
The chair's too loud as she shrieks it over the floor to sit down. "I'm not waiting for some clan to call me like a dog Yuta, and you shouldn't be either."
"This is not- That's not what this is about."
She rather stare at the dilapidated open gash than his eyes. They're like graves, especially when they're nothing but silent disavowment, piecing together every time her mouth runs in an unhappy notion about people. She doesn't for people that mean something to him, idols like dying stars in a night sky.
Moving the finger, the gash parts even more. The way the skin parts invite something to slip inside and feast. A slash of dark tissue and dried blood. It's nothing serious.
"Just a paper cut," she promises, him, herself, who knows. Perhaps to the lingering shadow all around them, albeit more relaxed than ever. Rika has the capacity to ruin her before she can do anything. Worse than a cut from a Katana.
There's the problem. Cursed techniques help to hold bodies together. They don't help to keep someone sane.
Quite the opposite.
"Just- I don't want to see you die when they ask you for something unreasonable. You're far from fully trained."
"I'm not going to die." Even in the warm orange summer lights, blue veins creep through the white in his skin when he slowly helps her to unravel the bandage. "Neither are you."
With a gentle tap on one of his knuckles, Mizumi takes the bandage and wraps her arm inside it, as if it was big enough to hide more than her palm. "You shouldn't be the one making that promise to me, Yuta Okkotsu. It's the other way around."
