Nanami's eyes narrow as she briefly sees the look on Essoat's face.  It was a look she had seen too many times in her time at the academy, both from other students and certain faculty members, and it was a look that so often graced the faces of Essoat's kin that she had dealt with in the past.  It spoke volumes about the individual's demeanor towards others, and demonstrated perfectly a combination of their derision, arrogance, and dismissal of whoever was in front of them as being far beneath their notice or even contempt.  In Essoat's case, it was magnified by the fact that he also plainly considered her a lesser form of life, to be used up and discarded at his whim.<br/><br/>Nanami<span style="font-style: italic">hated</span>that look.<br/><br/>Despite the relative ineffectiveness of her spell, it had succeeded in at least affecting him.  However, her hopes of gaining a decisive early advantage went with it, and she knows that the fight is likely going to be much closer fought than she would have preferred.  The whip coming toward her was an obvious sign of that, with Essoat likely realizing that simply bewitching her into submission wasn't going to work.  Having seen a fight involving a whip user once before, there was one strategy that normally worked - block it with something you didn't mind losing, as they can curl around normal shield defenses if they struck the edge.  Conjuring a shield not unlike the one Essoat had just employed, she reshapes it into a thin cylinder away from her body, giving the whip something perfect to coil around.  Before he has time to uncurl the whip and pull it back to him, she steps forward and lays her hand flat over the whip just long enough to send a blast of electricity coursing back along it's length, again striking at Essoat through his own attacks.<br/><br/>[<a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/255105">Clever defense</a>:<span style="text-decoration: underline">4dF+3</span><span style="font-weight: bold">2</span>-> Ties, so I believe that give him a Boost but I don't take damage, correct? ]<br/>[<a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/255118">Clever attack</a>:<span style="text-decoration: underline">4dF+3</span><span style="font-weight: bold">4</span>]