Ronald
*Oh come and see, come and see, the heads of grain have matured and bow low with fruit~* 

An ashigaru gave her a weird look, and Rin stopped singing immediately, covering her mouth. The man looked at her for a moment, then shrugged and went on with his turn. *That was embarrassing...* But she couldn't help it, she always sang under her breath when she was nervous: everything was just *So large* Here! The buildings on the road could have been warehouses of their own in her village, there were more people than at the last ten festivals combined... Even people were larger than normal, she was pretty sure she had seen a girl twice her size passing by. Luckily, Miho-neesan was here! She was always so busy, but she had already helped her a lot, fixing her hakama, giving her a lots of tips and just a couple threats: but that was not all, she had even found her a mentor! Matsu Hotaru, a *Real* Veteran who even served as the Taisa's yojimbo. Miho had recommended her to behave, but there was no need; she wasn't afraid of sweating a bit, and always ready to learn. What could go wrong?

Finally at the door of the embassy's dojo, she smoothed her ponytail,made a few superstitious gestures, and finally put her hand on the door. "Uhh, I, I'm coming in!"

The door seemed too tall and yet too narrow as Rin made her way in. She was a young lass, as short as she was burly, and with a mop of reddish hair styled in a messy ponytail. Mounted on a neck that seemed too large for its burden, stood a freckled round face, embedded with clear auburn eyes without one shred of guile or malice. She looked around excitedly, searching for her senpai, but in doing so she lost sight of her feet and nearly tripped over the doorframe, stumbling for a few paces before regaining her balance. *Oops- hopefully no one saw that...* Catching her bearings, she clicked her heels in a martial salute and exclaimed, a bit too loud to be proper: "My name is Matsu Rin, Third Company recruit! Mi- Ikoma-sama sent me to you to further my training, Matsu-sama! Thank you for taking the time to teach me!" She bowed- inelegantly, but at least she didn't lack enthusiasm.

||
Anne
Hotaru had been waiting for the girl and oberved her entire entrance with quiet stoicism. The exuberance the girl expressed reminded her of Michiru, though her own sister was not so clumsy. 

Hotaru returned the girls bow, though she kept hers shallower than the child's. Their's was to be a relationship of student and teacher afterall. "You already know my name but I will introduce myself nonetheless. I am Matsu Hotaru. Nikutai of the Second Legion's first company and yojimbo to our Taisa, Akodo-sama." It was a formal introduction but Hotaru hoped even as young as the girl was, that she would understand what the words meant. She was trusted by their Lord and she had distinguished herself enough for the honor of serving amongst the Legion's best. 

"Tell me, Matsu-san, do you think you are ready for summer?" Hotaru had mulled over for a long time how she might start her relationship with Matsu Rin. She had settled on figuring out how overconfident the girl was.
Ronald
Her eyes shone brightly at her introduction: the only other soldier she had ever seen were her mother and her sensei, but they had both retired long ago, it was hard to imagine them in the thick of the fight. But Hotaru, Hotaru looked like the hero of a play, large, full of scars, fighting side by side with a Taisa! Though the yojimbo usually had tragic fates in plays- well, hopefully this wouldn't be the case.

However, at Hotaru's question she froze. It almost looked like she was thinking deeply on the query she had given her, but truly, she was just trying to understanding what she meant. "Uh, well, I don't know how the weather in Ryoko Owari, but it can get pretty hot in my hometown, I'll just put a straw hat on and-" But finally, the hamster that powered her brain caught up with the question and she stopped, blushing at her incomprehension. "A-Apologies, Matsu-sama. I... I am certainly not a soldier yet, but I have trained hard in preparation of that moment. I... Will do my best?" She didn't know the right answer here. It felt arrogant to just say yes, but on the other hand she didn't want her to think she was a little kid. She was the herald of her village, by the ancestors, she had to show some pride! *Damn, she's really tall... Will I also grow more when I'm a real soldier? Maybe they have some special foods or something...*

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Anne
*Weather... Do her best. Kami, was I ever this nieve?* Hotaru questioned. 

"Well then, let me rephrase my question Matsu-san. Do you think your best will be enough for you to survive the summer?" She wanted a yes or no out of the girl. She didnt want ambivalent platitudes.
Ronald
She hesitated as the Matsu continued pressing her in a corner. What was she supposed to say? Yes? No? The first meant appearing overconfident, just another recruit that didn't know what she was about to face (and she *Really* Didn't, but all young soldiers are convinced they do). On the other hand saying no meant to present herself as weak, running towards her doom like a calf to the slaughterhouse. 

But finally she took her decision as she always did, impulsively. They were both Matsu. Their great matriarch had showed the confidence to refuse a marriage with Lord Akodo, and faced Fu Leng without a hint of fear. If her sensei did not respect her abilities, she would at least approve her resolve. Hopefully.
"Yes, Matsu-sama." She uttered with all the confidence she managed to muster. She half expected to get rapped with a dry reed now, as her sensei used to do when she said something she didn't like.

||
Anne
Hotaru had to hold back the sigh of disappointment. The girl either was nievly confident as her discussion with Miho had indicated, or she was repeating what she thought Hotaru wanted to hear. 

"Then I suppose we will have to test your confidence Matsu-san." Hotaru intoned, her face giving no indication of approval or disapproval to Rin's answer. "Draw your blade. The rules of engagement are no mortal or crippling wounds. We fight to first blood."

From her waist, Hotaru drew the length of her katana free from it's saya. The samurai-ko gripped the blade with both hands in a relaxed, ready position, standing and waiting for Rin to draw her blade. Even after it was drawn though.. Hotaru just stood there, watching Rin calculatingly. She wanted to see how the girl would act with no further prompting. Wanted to get a feel for how she fought and wanted to show the girl that she could not touch her. 

|| gonna be utilizing every dot of that defense 5 and kenjutsu 5 to basically just defend for the time being. Emphasis there too in unarmored defense.
Ronald
*Eh?* 
She thought she had heard wrong. She hadn't been offered a bokken, and the Matsu was holding the handle of her Katana... Were they using real blades?! That felt dangerous, so dangerous. What if she accidentally overdid it and seriously wounded her new sensei? What if she was the one getting crippled and her career was stumped by an early injury? However, after a moment these thoughts were banished from her mind. She wasn't sure she could even hit her, not to speak about overdoing it, and it was cowardly to just back off at the risk of injury. Wasn't she to be a warrior? Would she act like this also in front of the Unicorn cavalry or the daidoji infantry?

"...*Hai,* Matsu-sama." Rin took out her blade slowly, assuming a stance that seemed more fit to a nodachi than a katana. With a weapon in hand, her inherent clumsiness seemed to disappear as if by a spell: she wasn't good at a lot of things, educated conversation, scholarly subjects, basic math, but this? This she could do.

For a few moments she shifted her feet, a focused expression on her soft face, and then, suddenly, she planted her feet on the ground and just pounced at her opponent, blade held high. It looked like a beginner's mistake, a wide open guard, but this was the Matsu berserker style: blocking was useless, a simple delaying of the inevitable blow that would kill you. If you wanted to win, you had to attack, constantly attack, powerfully attack, and counter your enemy's blows with harder and faster blows. The muscles on her shoulders rippled as she swung at the Matsu's midsection, low enough where she was confident she would have trouble blocking at her size.

||
Anne
Hotaru intercepted Rin's blow with the side of her blade, the sching of metal clashing ringing in the dojo.

Hotaru could feel the strength of the blow even as she worked to leverage the angle of the girl's katana down away from her middriff. There was no doubt based on her movements where the girl trained. Hotaru could work with that. 

By the time Rin had brought the blade back up, Hotaru had already skipped away, circling around to the girl's side in a movement that seemed to flow seemlessly from the block. Hotaru left the opportunity for an attack empty, though Rin would doubtlessly know one could have been made as she needed to turn now to face the older woman again.
Ronald
It's not like Rin expected to finish this in one hit: of course, the yojimbo would be much tougher than that. But she didn't expect to be dealt with in the time of a single strike. Her face paled as Hotaru circled around her, and her neck felt cold as if preparing for the kiss of steel, but Hotaru left the opportunity go wasted, and Rin simply continued in her momentum forward. For a split second, she didn't move. Now she got what the Matsu had meant to her with this exchange: she was not ready, not to face her, and definitely not for war. How foolish she must have looked to her, a child that merely carried a daisho. At least her tanned complexion could hide her burning cheeks.

But Rin wasn't one to be disheartened. Through her constant failures, slips of etiquette, painful trainings and other challenges of life, her reserves of optimism and remained plentiful, and after the moment of shame and shock she retuned to her usual self. So what if she wasn't ready? It just meant she had to keep learning! This was merely the start of her journey, she should try to enjoy it!

As she turned around to face Hotaru, there was an air of happiness about her. At the end of it all, Rin liked training and fighting, and if she could not beat the Matsu, she could at least try to impress her. Every technique, every lesson she had learnt she would use it today, to show her sensei that she was worth her time.

This time, she didn't go in face first. Of course, she advanced brazenly as a true berserker, but now she was adopting a smarter approach. Her opponent appeared to be a counter swordsman, so she should not give her the chance to use this skill against her. Instead she slashed the air with swift and evasive strike, teetering close to Hotaru's blade, but never striking it as she searched gaps in her her iron defense. In particular, she aimed for the arms and the hands: no matter how good, it was always a possibly for a swordsman to be struck in those exposed parts.

||
Anne
*Good*. Hotaru thought. *The girl had turned her brain on. *

The freeze was concerning though. Rin could not freeze every time she made a mistake or was surprised, an enemy would use that to cut her down. But Hotaru knew one could move past them if they had the will. The capacity to adapt and move on despite losses was what separated children from true samurai. It was the greatest lesson one could be taught and it was hard to teach outside of real combat. That was part of what had motivated Hotaru to start their relationship with live steel. If nothing else, she trusted herself to be able to avoid a severe injury and she knew her blades well enough to avoid giving the girl anything that would require stitches.

Hotaru let Rin lead the dance. It was good to watch her feints and she was proving a competent enough fighter that Hotaru was not left bored, actually having to pay some attention to avoid Rin's blade dancing too close to her hands and arms. Hotaru would entertain this course of action for a good 30-60 seconds before deciding she didn't feel like tempting a hand injury today and decided to end things.

The next sweep that came in from her right, Hotaru stepped into the swing, ensuring that Rin could not dance back her blade in an easy feint and, that their blades would clash. Hotaru met Rin's swing with one of her own in a burst of power the samurai-ko had not yet shown. The elder Matsu was perhaps not as inherently strong as Rin, but she hoped the sudden change of pace would shock the girl enough so that Hotaru's swing decidedly knocked Rin's grip wide. 

As blades clattered, Hotaru dropped her left hand from her katana's tsuka and, in a practiced draw, pulled her wakizashi free of its saya in a reverse grip. The blade was brought up, coming to slash across the exposed length of Rin's sword arm from shoulder to elbow, the area pulled across her body from Hotaru's heavy blow. 

The blade sliced through the fabric of her kimono and drew forth a long red line as blood readily pooled to the surface and now stained the length of Hotaru's wakizashi. It would sting and burn in the way cuts do And it would bleed, but Hotaru had kept her distance enough that the slice would not exceed more than a centimeter at its deepest. It would certainly ache for the next week though as it healed, a reminder, Hotaru hoped, of her mortality. 

Hotaru would step back after a beat long enough for the pain to register. She would sheath her katana and pull a clean rag from her hakama pocket to wipe the blood off her wakizashi before sheathing it. If Rin had enough wherewithal to notice, the tsuba of Hotaru's wakizashi unusually differed from that of her katana. 

"Don't drip blood on the floor." Where Hotaru's first words and she would offer a the cloth she had used to wipe her blade. It was the woman's own blood on it afterall.
Ronald
Except for the spare, painful bout with her cantankerous old sensei, Rin was only used to sparring with people around her age, dojo partners or her younger brother, so she had grown used with usually having the strength advantage. It was a surprise, thus, when her blade was met by an arm as strong as hers, but also supported by a bigger frame and a better understanding of leverage. Her first instinct was to try and muscle through it, putting her surprisingly considerable weight into the swing, but she realised only too late this had been the same mistake she had done at the start of their bout. But it was too late: now Hotaru was showing another ace up her sleeve, and her their small bout was about to end.

A line of fire flared across her arm and instinctual tears appeared in Rin's eyes, but she managed to not make a sound, batting her eyelids rapidly to dry her eyes. All Matsu were accustomed to pain, and even her indulgent parents had not allowed her children to grow up scared of harm.

"A-ah, hai, Matsu-sama." Rin awkwardly sheathed her sword with a hand while the other pressed on the wound carefully, not minding the already dirty cloth. She was... Unsure how she felt about this. Sure, it was not pleasant, and slightly humiliating to some level, but she also felt like she had learnt a lot. She had her first duel with an active bushi, her first lesson... Her first battle wound.

"Um, I'm sorry, Matsu-sama." She began, still unsure of how she should talk to the stoic woman, but her expression was thoughtful, in one of her rare moments of self-reflection. "Would it be possible for me to have this wound stitched with horse hair or something? It's something we do in the countryside sometimes... To make sure a wound will turn in a scar. I would like to keep this one as reminder." Reminder of what? She was not sure yet. She had been in Ryoko Owari just a handful of hours, but she felt like these days would be something worth immortalising on her body.

||
Anne
"If you want to bother someone about it, I'm not about to stop you but, I do not think it is so deep that it *Requires* Sewing closed. Hold till it stops bleeding, wash it out with clean water , pad a clean clothe over it and the have someone help you bandage it tightly. The deepest flesh will have weakly mended with the next day, by the end of the week there will be no more threat of it opening and you can leave the edges to scab. It will probably take another weak from there. Just change the bandage daily and keep it tight." Hotaru was no doctor but, with the number of scars on her body she had tended enough slices to know how they would heal. "It will scar regardless of what you do."

"Come" She indicated, moving to leave the dojo. "And hold the cloth tight. I will not be responsible for blood staining the tatami." Katsuhiro would have words for her. 

"While we walk to my quarters for a bandage, you will tell me what you have learnt today." 
Hotaru strode ahead of the girl, expecting her to keep up.
Ronald
"A-ah, alright, Matsu-sama. Coming..." She stopped for a second to try and rub out with her feet those few drops of blood that had fell over, but the only result was spreading it wider on the tatami. She winced, and hurried to follow the Matsu before someone noticed the damage. *I'll clean that later...*

She had to walk at almost twice the pace of her sensei to match her stride, all while holding the cloth thigh enough to whiten the flesh around her arm. Her brows furrowed in thought: this time, she would give her a good answer.

"Hmm, well, first that I should not only rely on my strength, then that I should fight smart, and... That I'm not ready." A bit of sadness slipped into her words, as she lowered her eyes. She wasn't arrogant, she had no problem admitting her flaws or that she had a long way to go, but this was what she was supposed to be good at. The only thing where she was good at.

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Anne
Hotaru nodded her head along as Rin followed along. "Good. You're not stupid. Your strength is an asset to be used but not relied upon. You are not unskilled though. What you lack, Matsu Rin, is experience and the instinct that hones. Every summer I greet fresh faces to the legion. By the end I do not see many of them again. What do you think kills them?" Hotaru asked, her attention still forward on moving them throughout the embassy grounds.
Ronald
A large smile appeared on Rin's face before she could suppress it; it wasn't the first time she had been complimented for her strength or skill, but it wasn't often someone called her smart! Well... She hadn't said smart, only not stupid. But good enough.

*Uhhh, inexperience...? No, you idiot, how could they have experience if they're new recruits?* She went back to their duel, hoping to find answers there. Hotaru outclassed her in all spheres, but she couldn't possibly demand she matched in skill a veteran warrior... Could she?

And then, finally, it clicked. What had "Killed" Her during the first exchange was "-overconfidence."

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Anne
"Not a bad answer. Not even an incorrect one either. I would agree that overconfidence kills it's fare share of people, young and old. In this particular instance though, I am thinking of hesitancy. There is more leeway with overconfidence to survive your mistakes, whereas hesitation almost always kills you." Hotaru explained her thinking as she led the girl down the hall to her personal room. Her tone was measured, and probably not too far off the tone her instructors would have taken while lecturing. 

"When I blocked your first blow, you did not expect it and you hesitated. Had you been my enemy your head would have been on the floor before the end of your next breath." Hotaru would walk Rin through an example now so that the girl could understand what she meant. "Whereas the blow to your arm, even had I truly meant it, is more a more readily survivable situation." 

Hotaru slid open the door to her room. It was no where near as grand as others that surely existed within the compound, and was perhaps closer in furnishing to Rin's own than Miho's or any of the truely important people's, but it was Hotaru's home here in the city. The futon was currently neatly folded away. There was a small table in one corner of the room with a few zabuton around it and a desk rested by one wall with a woven mat beneath it, ink and paper resting atop alongside a small stack of letters. A stand in the corner next to a small table with an empty daisho rack, bore her armor.

"Sit and hold your thoughts a moment" Hotaru gestured to the table with the zabuton, without really giving Rin a chance to respond to her earlier statments. "But do not rest your arm on the table yet." Hotaru would keep moving about the room without looking to see if Rin followed the instructions, heading towards a cupboard where she would retrieve a few wide cloths and a medical kit that seemed to roll up. 

Hotaru would set two thick cloths over the table, their purpose clearly she shield the furniture from any dropped blood. "You may rest your arm now. Keep holding the pressure until i tell you to stop." 

"I will hear your thoughts on hesistation now." The elder Matsu declared, the younger caught solidly under her watchful gaze now.
Ronald
She was already about to put her arm down when she orders her not to, so she cringes and stays awkwardly still until she provides her the cloths. "Thank you, Matsu-sama..." She mumbles.

It's quite funny, hesitating on a question about hesitation, but Rin couldn't help it: she wasn't good at theoretical questions, she had almost failed her gempukku when she had to list all her ancestors from memory. But the bushi was demanding an answer *Now*, so she would just have to answer with her gut. "...My sensei used to say that hesitation is a thousand deaths." She began a bit meekly. "And I fully agree. I do. However, I am not,t-the smartest. Sometimes I make a plan and it's not that good, so then I need a moment to make a new one... I am aware it is not an excuse, though." Her cheeks were burning as she spoke. Hotaru must have been making a terrible opinion of her, stupid and hesitant like the cows they had at home.

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Anne
"You dont have to be book-smart to be war-smart, but I have found it is something one grows into if they live long enough. I do not disagree with your sensei's words but I would distill how hesitation kills a samurai into two main categories. Either one freezes, as you did today, giving the enemy an opening they can all too easily exploit or, one fails in their duty, hesitating in the act to kill. An alive enemy is one that will continue to seek your death. Do you understand?" Hotaru asked.
Ronald
The smile died on her face. First part she understood well, but the second...

She knew she would have to take a life, someday, but she had never seriously thought about it, only limiting it to her imagination. It was not like it was an immoral thing, it was her duty as a bushi and the way she could protect her loved ones. But she remembered that deer they had hunted, years ago. The animal was trapped by a net, wheezing, and begging them with their beady eyes. Would the enemy look at her in the same way, when she would send them to Meido? But she couldn't tell Hotaru about the deer. She probably wouldn't understand, or despise her.

"...I do, Matsu-sama." She answered meekly, lowering her eyes.

||
Anne
Hotaru held the girl in her gaze for a long silent moment. The girl's reaction to her words had not entirely surprised her, nevertheless, it did not sit well with her. A soldier that would not kill would be a liability, but Hotaru understood that reaping life was not easy business, even if she was used to it.

"I was lucky in many ways during my first summer with the legion. I was serving alongside a number of my siblings, but it was our duty that year to march south. My first taste of war was against Akuma-no-Oni's forces at Cherry Blossom Snow. I did not have to kill proper men that year but the enemy was fearsome and in truth, I hope to never have to face such a force again. I do not envy the Crab their duty on the wall." Hotaru began, her tone solemn as she recounted the events, her gaze shifting off the girl as the memories came to the forefront of her mind.

"Most of the conflict in general is a blur, but I remember my fear quite clearly. My eldest brother, Goro, watched me fall. My brothers had kept me close for most of the fighting, but war is chaotic and it is easy to be separated in the confusion. I froze once I realized we had been separated. The scar you see on my face has a sister along my side." Hotaru absentmindedly traced over her kimono where it lay along the right of her stomach.

"I have the fortunes and the kami to thank for my life. And my brother. One of the last clear memories I have from that day, was the sound of his roar as he charged towards the monsters that had felled me. I still do not think I have ever heard a cry so full of rage and anguish since" She recounted. 

Hotaru brought her gaze back to level with Rin's. "I tell you this because you will not find a single warrior within any army of man across the entirety of Rokugan, that has not slipped and faltered at least once in their career. No samurai leaves their gempukku, forged into the man or woman they will be in decades to come. Instead, you are hammered into shape by your experience, but you must be open to that change."

"If you do not have the will to be forged into a killer, then there is little I can do for you Matsu Rin-san. But, if within you there is any spark of flame that burns enraged at the thought of harm coming to your family, friends, or the hemin under your protection, then there is hope that I can make a bushi of you yet."

|| its taken me an hour to write this i think XD
Ronald
She recovered immediately as Hotaru started narrating of Cherry Blossom Snow. She had always loved stories, of war, of love, of adventure, but she had consumed all the tales the modest library of her family and the folks of the village had to offer, so it was rare she could hear a new one. She stared at the Matsu with sparkling eyes when she started speaking of monsters and brotherly bonds, but finally, in the end, she understood what her sensei was trying to do: it was not an entertaining story, it was a lesson.

She had to stop herself from looking away. Anger? She was not good at anger. Her brothers, her fellow students at the dojo, seemed to have bottomless reserves of fury, but she didn't wish ill upon anyone: why would she? Nobody had done anything to her. But then she thought about the scenario the Matsu had put in front of her: the people in her life, getting harmed. Her mother, so caring, and her father, so wise. Sakata, Ichibei, Haruna, who all looked up to their big sister. Sensei and her tough love, her dojo partners. The old heimin that always saved the leftover plums of the harvest for her. Imagining them hurt, threatened, mistreated, made her feel something in her stomach, an octopus that clenched its tentacles around her organs and spread burning ink within her. Anger. Yes, if any of them was harmed... She didn't know what she would be capable of doing.

"I understand, Matsu-sama. I think I have that will." For once, there was no certainty in her words. It was hard to stare at the Matsu in the eyes, but she refused to look away, not this time.

||
Anne
"Good." Hotaru would just nod, reaching her hand across the table to pull now at the girls arm, pulling back the cloth Rin held over her cut arm to assess how the bleeding was slowing. Apparently content with what she saw, she would brush Rin's free hand to the side, taking the bloodied cloth and folding it, to wipe what little remained around the wound with a cleaner patch that would soak it. 

"How did you find your years at the academy? I think I shall find it interesting to hear of the experience from someone not directly of my blood." Hotaru asked her question as she dropped the bloody rag onto the cloths covering the table. She would wipe a spot of blood on her hand on the top cloth before retrieving from her side a smaller, clean cloth she folded and held to Rin's arm, grabbing the girls free hand by the wrist and placing it where her own was to indicate the girl should hold the new cloth in place for her as Hotaru reached for a long strip of bandage.
Ronald
"Ah, wait, Matsu-sama, you needn't incomodate yourself with this..." She tries to stop her weakly, but she quickly surrenders to being bandaged. She doesn't mind it, to be honest: though they are completely different from each other, it feels like the times her mom bandaged her childhood injuries. 

"Oh, they were wonderful, Matsu-sama! Sensei was a bit aloof, but she truly took care of us all. And my fellow students were equally good to me, despite me being an outsider they made me feel right at home. You see, my village had no dojo, so I had to attend to one In a nearby town." From a fully objective perspective, those years had not been *That* Great: their sensei was approaching retirement and was getting increasingly tired of handling a horse of rowdy Matsu children, and the fierce competitiveness of the school's teachings often led to Rin being mobbed by other kids, who saw her as an easy target. However, she seemed to only remember the times of camaderie and growth, and indeed, even the most aggressive students had been won over by Rin's cheerful aura.

As she spoke, a large smile was directed at the Matsu but then it lowered towards the table , as she drew abstract circles with her good hand. "By the way, Matsu-sama... I don't know if i said it yet, but thank you for taking the time to teach me. I will never forget your kindness."

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Anne
Hotaru pulled the bandage tight as she wrapped it, but she would pause every so often and check the tension by slipping a finger under it, making sure she was not cutting off Rin's circulation. She would go back and loosen things a few times as she did this.

"Miho-san has watched over my younger brother in recent years when I have been unable. He is a rowdy boy and your cousin does well to keep him in line. I thought it fitting when she asked that I perform a similar service to her. So make sure you thank *Her*. You can thank me when you make it through summer." Hotaru told her, giving the bandage one final tug and tucking the end snugly under.

Hotaru would sit back then, to level her gaze on Rin. "Two days. Then we will begin things in earnest. I will not tell you what to do with your time but I will warn you, refrain from getting inebriated outside the noble quarter, stay out of the markets and *Do not* Cross the river. Visit the Licensed quarter if you desire but I caution against it unless you go with someone you can trust. Ryoko Owari Toshi is like no other town or city you have ever stepped foot in. The very streets here are soaked in deceit. This city has *Earned* Its moniker 'the city of lies' and there is a reason only the Scorpion has ever been able to control this place long-term." Hotaru would ensure this girl understood the danger of the city.

"And above all, remember the mon on your back and shoulder and remember that your actions reflect back on our clan and Kitsu-sama. The Lion want Ryoko Owari Toshi, we will not get it if we are misbehaving in the streets. Do you understand?"
Ronald
She was already about to tell that *Of course* She was going to thank Miho-neesan, she was always looking out for her even thouggh she never smiled at her or complimented or wanted to spend time with her, but then Hotaru started speaking about Ryoko Owari, and her head started spinning. Not like other cities? She had never seen any kind of city, even the town where she attended her dojo was barely big enough to deserve one. What happens past the river? What if she has to buy something from the markets and can't go there? And is the Licensed quarter where they do...

She cleared her throat. "I-i understand, Matsu-sama. I will not cause trouble, I promise." She scratched her bandage. "By the way, it is just for my curiosity, but... What happens across the river?"

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Anne
"Nothing any self-respecting samurai will get involved with, that's what. This city harbours a lot of dangerous elements and besides that I would not want you running afoul of the Thunder Guard. The chance of Interactions with both are greatly increased across the river. Keep to this side, I assure there is plenty of entertainment to find and decidedly less trouble to wind up in." Hotaru cautioned. Even she loathed to cross the river alone, in part because she would stick out like a sore thumb and would attract the most unwanted of attention, that of the Thunder Guard, but also because she was avoiding stumbling across the opium dens she knew were more prevalent and more obvious in the lower class districts. Hotaru was no paragon and it would be hubris for her to assume she could completely avoid the allure of the drug. She had no intention to allow Ryoko Owari Toshi to ruin her.
Ronald
*Uh, what's a Thunder Guard? Are they related to the Seven Thunders or something...?* Her knowledge of the city was fallacious at best, but Hotaru seemed to be taking this fact for granted, so she preferred to play it cool and act like she knew what she was doing. "Got it, Matsu-sama." The first part she understood well, though! All stories depicted Ryoko Owari Toshi as a den of vice, and the reason the Lion was here was to bring Lady Sun's light over the Scorpion's corruption! 
Or that was what Miho-neesan told her, at least. 

"Then... Should I take my leave? I don't want to waste too much of your time, I am sure you have more important things to do." To be completely truthful, she was also just eager to explore the city. She had never been in a place so large and bustling before, and there was plenty of things she wanted to try, even without going in the bad parts! *Do they have theaters here? They must have some, definitely. Ah, to see _No Man's Bride_ on a real stage...* She was already shifting on her chair impatiently. She was sure training would be gruelling, so in these two days she'd make sure to explore the city as much as she could. That way, she'd also show her and Miho-neesan she could handle herself!

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Anne
"You may go. I will see you in two days." The elder Matsu dismissed the girl. 

She would be an interesting project, Hotaru decided. She seemed eager and, at the very least, that was something she felt she could work with. Her clear squeamishness would be the first thing she would tackle. It was the most problematic of the girls traits, and had the potential to be the hardest to break. Hotaru was resolute to let the girl enjoy her first days in the city though, it would be the last break she would allow Rin until summer.

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