Gary
Obscured by trees and ringed by walls, the Bayushi estate presented a perfectly proper, yet perfectly archetypical Scorpion manor. The trees cast the grounds into permanent shade and the gardens were modest for lack of proper light. 

The house proper consisted of several comfortable sets of apartments meant for the use of any Bayushi. Up to a dozen samurai could be comfortably, if closely, housed together. Like Kyuden Bayushi itself walls could be repositioned as necessary to give the residents the privacy they needed or open up the floor plan for easier meetings. 

Today Kaori was sitting outside in the shaded rock garden, enjoying the cool breeze as the trees filtered the dust from the air. Her swords were laid out before her on a cloth and she was doing maintenance, her fingers moving with the unthinking surety of countless hours. 

Her servant sat to one side, waiting with the patience of stone. 

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Theresa
This was new territory for Kotori. Not just visiting the Bayushi Estate—she has been ensconced in the Shosuro Palace since her arrival, as it made overseeing the bathhouse easier—but also this business of potentially having a friend. Multiple friends, even.

Bayushi Kaori was an enigma to her. Sure, Kotori had heard the rumors of the assassin's exploits and viciousness, but she'd not yet witnessed anything of the kind, at least not yet. And so, those rumors stayed rumors in her mind. Really though, Kotori wanted to get to know the other woman better. There was plenty to admire about her 'cousin'; she was beautiful, poised, intelligent, and extremely capable. 

The first step would be learning to be more capable, and so Kotori hurried through the garden as far as her attire would allow. She smiled when she saw Kaori, slowing her steps and taking a few breaths.

"Good morning, Bayushi-san!"

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Gary
The fingers of her hand twitched at the sudden voice, but only Kotori was light of foot enough to approach so quietly, and naive enough to not make some sound to announce her approach to the deadly Scorpion. She closed her eyes, cleared her thoughts, and set down the brush before turning to face her cousin. "Kotori-san, don't you look lovely? Welcome to my morning. Do you want refreshment? Tea or a snack? Or do you have something for me?"

Her eyes flicked to the smaller woman's hands, no letters or missives, *No arrest warrants*, she hated how her body sagged a little with relief when she didn't see a dozen ashigaru behind her cousin. 

Tori rose, prepared to leave them to their schemes or fetch snacks or otherwise be of service.
Theresa
"You are much too kind, Bayushi-san. I hope to conduct myself half so gracefully as you."

Something about the nicety made her blush and her heart thump. Maybe it was that gorgeous women did not often pay her such compliments. She bit her lower lip to restrain her smile.

Slender, empty hands were raised and fingers wiggled. "I brought only my tessen. Anything more seemed... Superfluous for such a novice as myself." 

She even smiled at Tori, nodding her head politely. 
"I am very excited to be under your tutelage, Bayushi-san. Thank you for taking time to teach me." And now, she bowed, very deeply, her sincerity almost palpable.

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Gary
"Oh do you prefer the tessen?" Kaori's head tilted slightly even as she settled back down to clear up her swords. "That can be worked with. I can do terrible things with a good fan. There's a couple of vendors in the city who sell such things." 

She rose and carried the swords over to a rack at the edge of the garden. "I will begin with the very most basic, useful application of a fan, so you may begin to be dangerous before we start the advanced techniques. Tori, fetch some trainers. Now you say you have no experience with violence right?"

She snapped her own fan open and closed, a plain thing with a simple clan mon painted on it.
Theresa
"I... Do not know *What* I prefer, to be honest." She gave a sheepish smile, rubbing her forearm absently like a guilty child. "I was not allowed to learn any martial arts. My guardian was an unyielding man, on that front."

She stepped closer to Kaori, producing from her obi a menhari gata, holding it out towards her new sensei, held cradled in her palms. "Rokugo-san gifted these to me, so that I might protect myself. But other than perhaps clipping someone on the head, I don't know the first thing about how to use it."

"You make everything look so effortless." A sincere, admiring smile crossed her face as she watched Kaori toy with her fan. "I know that it surely has taken countless hours of practice, but isn't that the height of skill, to make things look easy?"

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Gary
"Whacking someone with the iron fan is fun, but not something you should make a habit of," Kaori said, brandishing her own fan like a baton. "You are a little thing, barely more than a child. With all your strength and the right angle you *Might* Break my wrist if you caught me over-reaching, but such things take excellent timing and no small amount of luck. It's good for swatting away a groping hand, but in your case it is better to play the victim and draw them in."

She held up her own fan, a simple wooden thing, and twisted. The joint broke, paper tore. Now she held a shard in either hand. "Observe! A harmless fan one may carry before the Son of Heaven. Yet now it is two daggers. *This* Is what I will teach you. Bayushi Yuto, Kami bless him, has probably never considered such a thing in all his life."

Tori reappeared bearing a bundle in one hand and several training knives in the other. Kaori pointed at the cloth-wrapped bundle, the servant bowed and presented it, and with a sharp movement Kaori slammed both shards of wood cleanly through. 

"Either of those blows would be mortal if a shugenja was not present," She said as Tori held up what appeared to be a heavy pillow for Kotori to inspect. "And that is what I will teach you! The blade requires very little strength to be fatal, if you are swift and sure. But it is difficult to put a knife in the right spot. So let this be your first lesson: you must *Never* Let them see your knife. Endure any abuse, any discomfort, any indignity. Let your strike be swift, and do not cease to attack until the threat is destroyed. Do you understand?"

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Theresa
Kotori remained silent as their first lesson began. 

A small part of her hated to see the fan destroyed for the purposes of demonstration, but it did not seem to affect Kaori in the slightest. The other woman had a very business-like approach to this whole thing, explaining clearly and concisely and without the philosophical puzzles that many bushi seemed to espouse. *The sword is a reflection of one's soul* And *The blade must move like water* And the like. Perhaps all of that was true for proper duels, but if one was resorting to fashioning a weapon out of a fan, there seemed more pressing concerns than the potentially aqueous state of a katana. 

One hand flew to her mouth as Kaori struck lightning quick, jabbing the ruined fan pieces into the pillow like it was nothing at all. When Tori presented the pillow, she reached out and touched the impromptu daggers carefully, feeling the indentations puckered around the wooden slats. 

"How fearsome." She spoke with appropriately hesitant admiration, looking back up at Kaori again.

"Never let them see your knife." The instruction was repeated, and she nodded. Her expression had seldom ever been so serious and focused.

"Where are the most effective spots? As you said, I am not strong, and I would imagine I would only get one chance to, er, deploy my weapon if necessary. The eyes? The throat?" 

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Gary
"In time you will practice targeting important areas," Kaori flicked her hair in a businesslike way and took one of the training daggers from Tori. "I will teach you the places to cut, to stab, to twist and strike. But that's advanced, and that's the art of *Murder* Which I will not teach irreverently." 

She acknowledged the informal nature of the lesson with a smirk. 

"No, today you learn what is commonly thought of as self-defense. Your goal is not to kill whomever attacks you, or even to score a telling blow necessarily. Your *Only* Goal is to break contact, to get away, to flee, to buy yourself time for one of my talents to arrive, or if all else fails, to mark your assailant so I may identify him and avenge him later. And to this end you use a dagger in each hand. Like this, see? Both down. Your reach is not enough to be worth extending by holding the blade forward. You will be seized. When that happens, draw your daggers in either hand and commence to stabbing." 

She demonstrated a furious onslaught into the air. "Have you ever seen one of those filthy little house cats fighting? How they swipe as fast as they can with their claws out? This is what you imitate, this is the Way of the Little Cat. Both daggers down, alternating swipes, attack whatever is closest and easiest. You will tear a determined attacker to ribbons if they allow you." 

Passing two trainers to her tiny cousin she added, "Don't try it now, but for the full effect, the Way of the Little Cat requires you to shriek with as much energy as the cats. You want attention, you want help, you want *Me*." 

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Theresa
"I do not wish to learn those particular skills, if I do not have to. As you said, I need to be able to defend myself. Real fighting is better left to those with the skills for it."

Small hands were lifted in mimicry of Kaori's attacking posture, nodding again as the slightly taller woman instructed. It was a wholly unfamiliar stance to her.

"The Way of the Little Cat." Again the musician repeated the words, and she nodded. When she accepted the training daggers, she tested the weight of them; she turned them to hold them as Kaori has demonstrated, taking a few uncertain swipes at the air. 

*The Scorpion strikes
Silently. The smallest of 
Them are most deadly.*

A poet Kotori was not, but the few lines that sprang to mind almost unbidden were already rearranging themselves into notes and chords. Kaori was an inspiring woman in many ways.

"I suppose footwork is inconsequential for this, unless it is to aid in my retreat?...Sensei?" A little grin flashed across her face.

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Gary
"Ideally you stand like this," Kaori demonstrated a bladed stance. "This is most stable. Someone attempting to seize you usually tries to push you back or pull you towards them. Here you have enough stability. But in truth you'll be shoved either direction. Stance is less important than stepping without tripping over your feet. We'll get to that later." 

She considered the tiny Bayushi critically before saying, "Wait, your sleeves are in the way." 

From her obi she produced two cords. "I use these to bind my sleeves when I anticipate combat. While I can fight nearly as well without them, this gives me added protection from glancing attacks. Let me see your forearms."
Theresa
"This position is a bit like some dances." She commended and stepped into the indicated position, bouncing just a tiny bit on the balls of her feet to test her own balance. The practice weapons were raised as well, again trying to get a feel for such an unfamiliar movement. When addressed however, she immediately stopped and straightened up; with demure obedience, she held her arms out to the sides to let Kaori do as she will. 

Her forearms were slender and pale, free of scars and with only a fading bruise on the left. Clearly neither the hands nor arms of a warrior.

"I thought about wearing a hakama, but I thought this made more sense, since this is what I normally wear." She gestured at the still somewhat provocative; sure, it provided more mobility than a 'proper' kimono, but it was still a far cry from highly mobile. 

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Gary
"It will do," Kaori wrapped the sleeve around the slender forearm before she began a complex series of knots, forming the cord into a pattern not unlike a fishing net that bound the sleeve down from wrist to elbow. "There is a saying among the ashigaru to train as you fight, and it is not a bad concept for informal lessons." 

She gave the knot a little tug to make it secure before she moved to the other side. "This *Is* An art form, known as shibari. It was derived from hojojutsu, a binding technique the Lion and Crane practice on wounded or otherwise incapacitated or incapable rivals." 

She indicated the ways the ropes linked. "When done correctly one may be restrained without ever having to suffer a knot and thus be officially captured and dishonored. It became an art form when a son of Kakita was inspired by the patterns."

She tied off the second knot and nodded. "There! Now you can move freely. When you first start learning the The Way of the Little Cat you will often strike your own hands at first, till you learn the rhythm. Expect it. Now, stance again, and do twenty repetions of the strikes."

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Theresa
The webs that appeared on her arms were strangely hypnotic. "It's rather pretty in its own way, isn't it?" She glanced up as Kaori continued the wrapping and twisting. When the first arm was finished, Kotori flexed her fingers and turned her arm this way and that.

"And all done with but a single knot? How fascinating! I wonder why a son of Kakita developed it into an art." Only a person who had no idea of the *Other* Aspects for which shibari could be used would say such a thing with a straight face.

Once 'released', Kotori stepped forward, trying to imitate and incorporate everything Kaori had taught her thus far. She planted her feet firmly, lifted her arms. Her initial strikes were hesitant; by the fifth they became more assured; by the tenth, a rhythm had been found; but by sixteen, she'd begun to grow weary, and the strikes had become sloppy. By twenty, she was flushed and her breathing slightly labored. A droplet of sweat trickled down from her temple.

"Goodness, that is so much harder than it looks!" 

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Gary
"And that is why we train as we do," Kaori nodded briskly. "Any one of those strikes can end your enemy, with twenty of them your odds of survival increase accordingly. The weapon in hand is not always a knife. It can be a shard of teapot, a tool, a paint brush, whatever comes to hand. The *Will* Is what you must train. The will to act, the aggression to see it through."

She began to unbind her cousin's sleeves. 

"That is the first lesson, it will not be the last! But I can see you all hot now. That is good, but we should clean up. I'm going to go down to the bath house. Will you be joining me?"

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Theresa
Kotori felt a flush of proud of accomplishment. It was a small step, but it was still a step. The practice tools were handed back to their owner, and she shook the fatigue from her arms. 

"Thank you gratefully for this first lesson, sensei." She smiled up at her slightly taller cousin and bowed. "You were already a greatly esteemed in my eyes, but even this small amount of practice has taught me just how much more you deserve."

Already, her mind was swimming with ideas of a gift to give Kaori as a show of thanks. She had one in mind, but finding the right artisan would be the task. Her smiled brightened all the more as she saw it take shape in her thoughts. 

"I would be delighted to join you at the bath house. I've had the staff start to stock better brands of sake and strains of tea. I would love your opinion on the selections, some time." 

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Gary
"We can make a nice little party of it," Kaori flicked her finger and her servant scurried off to grab fresh clothing for both her mistress and Kotori. Picking up and slinging her swords the taller Scorpion tilted her head invitingly. "Let us go, Tori will meet us there."

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