Page 21 of Outfoxed

“You will not be stabbing as much as you will be slashing, although you will find that your weapon can be used to run unwanted people through with a little effort. Much like you, it is a versatile blade. I’ll admit, part of my choice was pure aesthetics. A fox needs a Japanese blade, and only one blade I know well is good for you.” Batbayar worked a toe beneath one of the wooden practice blades, a katana. With a flick of his foot, he launched the weapon in my direction. I’d had enough poles and wooden tools flung my way over the years I caught it before I comprehended he’d aimed right for my face.

What a bastard.

Catching the wooden sword with my hand rather than my face earned me an applause from the students.

“Despite her lack of formal training, her participation in the basic warmups done every session has honed her reflexes and general physical strength. This is something inherited through hard work. And make no mistake, while Jade has never participated as a student in a traditional fashion, she has worked hard and learned much.”

Well, I’d certainly learned how to dodge intercepting a wooden blade with my face. I examined the weapon, and I recognized it as something similar to a katana, if a katana had been broken down to its base, crafted out of wood, and restrained to be less lethal. “A katana, sir?”

“Yes. I have chosen the katana to be your weapon. It is a blade with enough heft to be a serious contender on the battlefield without being overbearing in your hand. It matches your nature well.”

Of course. Kitsune. The legendary nine-tailed fox of Japanese folklore and myth brought chaos and curses in its wake; I’d listened to Batbayar’s tales of legends when he gave the students a rare chance to catch their breath and recenter themselves before their next exercise.

The stories he’d told made the kitsune seem more of a trickster than anything else, an omen of ill-fortune rather than a benevolent being. I considered the implication.

It would do. While I lacked a single drop of Asian blood, if he believed I needed to be a trickster to survive, I could handle that. I’d need every trick up my sleeve to evade Sandro and the other bounty hunters. I’d need more than a few tricks up my sleeve if I wanted to pull off the greatest stunt of my life: cornering Sandro on neutral ground for a closer look at him without the protective shield of his clothes in place.

I blamed the adrenaline of dodging a sword to the face for my unhealthy interest in a man who viewed me as a paycheck.

Batbayar prowled around me, and when he came full circle, he retrieved another blade, similar to the katana I held but longer and with a sharper curve to the blade. “This is a tachi. It is similar to Jade’s katana, but with a longer reach and originally meant for horseback. Consider it the katana’s older brother. For the purpose of demonstration, it will suffice.”

Without prelude or warning, Batbayar whipped his weapon at my side. I yelped, more from surprise than anything else, and sliced my wooden blade up and to the side to deflect the blow. The blades clacked together, and his bounced away. I hopped out of his reach, and my heart drummed in my chest. Had he struck me, the judogi I wore would’ve offered no protection against the weapon. As a rule, he pulled his blows to prevent breaking bones, but my hand tingled from the force of our weapons colliding.

He meant business, and I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.

“It is worth mentioning that Jade has likely never held a proper sword in her life outside of handing them to me during classes at my request.” Batbayar also stepped back, straightening his posture. “Yet she parried without a single thought about it. It wasn’t muscle memory, although her body will learn that soon enough. So, what just happened there?”

I wanted to know the answer to that question, too.

I wasn’t the only one confused or at a loss, as none of the students said a word.

Batbayar smiled. “You have learned a valuable lesson today, although you don’t realize it yet. None of you know how Jade could, without having touched a sword, deflect an attack such as mine. It is simple. She observed.”

I had what? I stared at the old man, unable to fathom what he was trying to tell us.

Movement out of the corner of my eye captured my attention. One of the students, one of the older boys who’d start attending adult classes soon enough, raised his hand.

“Speak, Kaldin.”

“Because she has watched and listened for so long, she already understood the base concepts you’re trying to teach. She has heard so many times that when attacked, one must parry, so she parried. But, since she hasn’t touched a sword before, how was she able to make the movement properly?”

“She didn’t make the movement properly. She made the movement sufficiently to protect herself, but I would not call her effort handling her sword properly. But in a real battle, sufficiently suffices.”

I took that to mean sufficiently translated to ‘not dead.’ As I’d rather avoid an early case of dead, I agreed with the old man. Anything that kept me from contracting a serious case of dead sufficed. Mother Nature kept me on my toes enough as it was.

“But she got the job done,” Kaldin replied, his brows furrowing. “Isn’t that properly?”

“Jade, I want you to attempt to mimic the same attack I did on you on me. Don’t hold back. Try to hit me as hard as you can. If I fail to defend myself, you will have earned the right to bruise me.”

I almost laughed. In the time I’d worked at the martial arts studio, no one had managed to bruise Batbayar. Not even Mother Nature dared to cross him. I couldn’t tell if the weather feared him or if she liked him and didn’t want to erase such a treasure.

While I wouldn’t hold my breath hoping it would last, I viewed him as a living defiance. I adjusted my grip on the katana’s blade, considered how he’d struck at me, and attempted to mimic his blow.

Only a fool would believe I might land a blow. As expected, Batbayar intercepted my blade, and with a flick of his wrist, he somehow managed to knock the wooden weapon out of my hand. The katana smacked into the wall, and the students dove out of the way. It thumped to the mat.

“That is what should have happened had she done the move properly and been against an equal opponent. Had she failed to disarm me, I would have struggled to maintain my grip on the weapon. She deflected the blow, and she turned aside my blade when I struck at her side, but she failed to find my weakness and take advantage of it. Knowledge is what wins wars. Her grip is weak, uncertain, and easy to overcome. But have heart. Once she learns the way of her sword, it will be very difficult to disarm her.”

I retrieved the katana, mumbled an apology to the poor wooden sword for abusing it, and returned to my place across from Batbayar. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”