[D9LA] Wooden arguments (Expecting)

[Moto Mitsuki]

A new day, a new training session. Being at a miai was no excuse to slack off on one's duties as a warrior.

Hair tied up in a bun, without makeup, wearing a common training kimono and holding a classic bokken, Mitsuki would be unrecognizable... Was it not for the shield strapped to her other arm. An item that couldn't be any more gaijin, with barely disguised tanned animal hide on its external side, or gaudy, with a red demon head painted on it.

As of now, she was practicing a series of kata that mixed several influences, the wooden blade flowing in the air Rokugan style, the guards making heavy use of the shield.

In-between exercises, she gave quick looks at the other people in the dojo, as she was waiting for someone to show up today.

[Shiba Raizo]

Raizo put in his usual daily appearance, noteworthy for how much he looked like he always did.

Far more at ease in the dojo than in the Great Hall, he selected his practice naginata and started into his forms.

[Moto Mitsuki]

Mitsuki did a small bow of her head in his direction:

"Shiba-san."

She turned the shield in his direction, the painted red demon staring at him directly.

"Are you familiar with the concept of a shield? Maybe the Yodotai make use them? You told me they had 'different weaponry'."

[Shiba Raizo]

"Yodotai?"

He blinked.

"You mean the Yobanjin? Yeah, they use 'em. I think it's a pretty good idea, actually. Sensei would probably spit, and say something about how it slows you down, but from what I've seen, having an arm sliced off also slows you down, so..."

He shrugged, and gave his two-handed weapona bit of a twirl.

"Of course it's hard to use one with a lot of the weaponry we employ, but..."

[Moto Mitsuki]

"If your weapon is one-handed, be it a sword, a spear, a club, whatever, there's basically no advantage to fighting without one. Saying they slow you down is like saying armor slows you down: True in absolute, barely true for good shields and armors, just irrelevant in practice compared to the benefits."

She slammed hard her bokken against her shield. The bokken rebounded. The shield remained unfazed.

"I don't think you'll appreciate being shot at, so I can't show you the archery techniques that should have impressed you, nor have I the training to show you the hand-to-hand techniques that got your approval. However, I can definitely show you how a shield is an asset against almost any weapon. Especially the ones that rely on reach."

[Shiba Raizo]

"Well, I'm game if you are..."

He hit a ready stance.

"I can already see how it shrinks my useful target area, and that's with you holding still..."

[Moto Mitsuki]

Mitsuki smiled, took a strange foreign stance with her shield high up... and just walked straight into the Shiba's range, easily deflecting his naginata. The strong blow however still slowed her down enough that her own strike was but a graze with the tip of her bokken.

"First tip: Shields have made so that arrows drive into them but that melee weapons slip on them. The slight curvature is not there for aesthetic reasons."

[Shiba Raizo]

"Well. There's also one tiny issue here-"

He stepped back, hauled off and smashed at the shield as hard as he could, utterly ignoring the woman behind it in a simple effort to overbalance her by sheer brute force.

"- someone should be peppering one or both of us with arrows."

[Moto Mitsuki]

Mitsuki crouched and slip away, moving back to a distance of half a step away from the Shiba, doing her best to remain at the range where a naginata could only be used as an inconvenient, overweight stick.

"Well, if we ended up in a such a struggle, likely I was part of a cavalry force trying to outflank your archers, and you were part of a lancer force trying to protect them. So right now, the both of us are struggling in a trench, floundering in mud in-between spikes and makeshift traps destined to break cavalry charges and trying our best not to stumble on any. No side has a clear line of shot of us, however we're definitely at the mercy of a lost arrow, from any side.

So the question is: How lucky a man are you Shiba-san?"

[Shiba Raizo]

"Not dead yet..."

He kept doing his best to keep the distance open.

"Of course, the one we thought was the luckiest guy in my unit eventually fell off of a cliff, bounced off of four boulders and drowned in a river, so luck only gets you so far..."