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Who: Alexander & Toushirou
What: Swordfighting with sticks!!
Where: Middle school grounds.
When: Thursday(?), after classes end for the day.

He arrived just as the bells went off, signaling the end of class and the beginning of freedom. The stampede of pre-teens followed, but he had found shelter against a tree and so was safe from being swept away. He had a coffee (black) in one hand and his phone in the other. For him, the day had just begun.

The yawn that overtook him said he wasn't quite yet ready for it.

Whatever, yawn! He took a sip of his coffee and scanned the students for the one he was there for. A few from the club waved; he waved back. When Toushirou appeared, Alex pocketed his phone and waved at him. "Hey, Toush!"

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Toushirou was rarely in as much of a rush as the other kids to get away from school. This was probably due to the fact that unlike most kids, he didn't find the place torturous. Besides, he was liable to get trampled in too big a crowd; even for his age, he was small and he knew it.

So he'd made sure his locker was organized, that he had all the right books in his backpack for the assigned homework and a couple of extra-credit assignments that he didn't really have to do, but he liked being ahead. He'd been planning to head straight home, but that voice stopped when he got out the door.

And he twitched faintly before frowning at Alex. "Quit calling me that."

He grinned and made his way over to him. "Hey, man, how you been?"

In one ear and out the other. Of course. Why should he have expected anything different? He huffed irritably.

"I'm fine. Is there something you wanted?"

"Yeah, actually!" He thumbed to the open area on the grass. "How about showing me those wicked sword skills, huh?"

The request was selfish, two-fold -- genuine curiosity and a desire for reassurance that Toushirou had some means of defending himself, even if... well, swords didn't have jack on firearms.

He rolled his eyes and moved to walk past him. "Is that all?"

It wasn't like he was in a hurry to get anywhere, but still. He didn't just drop everything for an impromptu sword fight, of all things. If he could call it practice, maybe it would be justified. Sparring someone who didn't know a thing about swords sure didn't sound like proper training to him. It would be over too quickly.

"So cold!" he said cheerfully, following after him. "You're gonna be a heartbreaker. I can tell."

(That is not how to get what you want, Alex.)

Okay, that got a side-eye. Because really? Really? And to top it all off, the guy wasn't going away.

"That wasn't funny, you know." That shot about being 'cold' had to be intentional. It just did.

"Yeah, you gotta be careful with those," he said, completely missing his point. Noticing a sizable branch, he bent down to pick it up. "Broken hearts are a messy affair."

But that wasn't -- he hadn't meant -- Why was this guy such an idiot? It took an impressive amount of willpower to keep Toushirou from doing an honest-to-goodness facepalm.

"That's not the part I was talking about." He noted the branch in Alex's hand. "What, are you going to swing that at me, now?"

He threw Toushirou a strange look. "No." He stopped and held his coffee cup to his chest in mock solemnity. "Do I look like a man who'd strike an unarmed opponent?"

"... Are you ever going to get off of this whole sword thing?"

Toushirou would almost consider running at this point to get away from the idiocy, but that seemed like such an extreme action. Also, a really stupid one. He had some dignity, for crying out loud.

That would be pretty extreme, but it would also make Alexander feel pretty awful (which would probably work out in Toushirou's favor.)

"Aw, come on. Indulge an old man," he said, shrugging with a hopeful smile.

Damn his dignity. It left him in situations he'd rather not be in. But somebody had to be mature around here and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Alex.

The sound Toushirou made was halfway between a sigh and a growl. "Fine. If it'll shut you up."

He shrugged off his backpack and set it against a tree, eyes scanning for a halfway suitable branch. Of course, it wasn't like any of them would be a good enough substitute for what he was trained for.

Strange as that much still was to think.

That earned him another chuckle. As Toushirou picked out his substitute, Alex finished the rest of his coffee, crumpled the cup flat, and shoved it into his back pocket. He'd throw it away later.

Once a stick was chosen, Alex waved his up and around, more like a wand than a sword. He was a man pushing thirty. It wasn't that he didn't feel silly, but that he didn't care.

"Ready when you are, master!"

He wished he could figure out what so many people found so damn funny about him. Those little chuckles at him weren't that uncommon; he seemed to get them from a lot of adults.

A slim but sturdy branch on the ground caught his eye. Sure, it was nearly as long as he was tall, but it felt right when he picked it up. The sword he'd had the night of the hunt had been too short. This branch at least had the length he was used to, even if everything else about it was wrong.

A shift of his grip, finding the balance point. There. That would work.

But when he turned back to Alex . . . "Do you have to act like that?"

If Alex wanted to embarrass himself, he could do it on his own. Toushirou didn't want to be associated with it.

"Like what?" he asked, brows lifted in mock innocence.

He really hated the false innocence game. It was annoying as hell.

He scowled, and with an expertly aimed strike, swiped his branch at Alex's wrist to knock the stick out of his hand. "At least attempt to take this seriously, will you?"

Startled, he made a small noise and recoiled his hand. The stick dropped onto the grass.

He hadn't even seen it coming.

"W-ow," he said, his stare on the stick lifting to Toushirou's level. A wide grin spread across his lips. "First blood's yours. Well." He shrugged and bent down to retrieve his stick. "Metaphorically.

"Okay! On three. One, two, three!"

He swung his stick at Toushirou's legs.

First blood. Something he'd managed to score for real on one of the so-called werewolves, even as Lyall had tried to jerk him back.

The attack was easy to block, and the block wasn't a passive one, either. It had some force behind it, enough to not only stop the stick but knock it slighly off course as he moved in for a slash at Alex's midsection. Not too roughly, of course. This wasn't a real fight, after all.

The swing hadn't much force, making it easy to parry, and inexperienced Alex left his torso completely open. Toushirou's slash hit exactly where he meant it to. Sucking in a breath, he tried to hit Toushirou's stick in a poor parry attempt of his own, but he could already tell this little duel was close to finishing.

This was the truth behind Toushirou's claim. Alex had doubted not the claim, but the concept itself. Suddenly knowing how to wield a sword?

Apparently!

And this time, he twisted away from his inside position, making a strike at Alex's knuckles as he moved. That stick probably wasn't going to be in the guy's hands yet again after that.

"Satisfied?"

On the contrary, the strike on his knuckles only made him grip the stick harder, but he was, indeed, satisfied (though he had to let out a little "yeesh!" at the smack.)

Rather than reply with words, he considered sword-wonder in front of him, running his free hand through his hair. He exhaled through his nose and tossed the stick to the ground. "Maybe you really are secretly a samurai," he said, grinning lopsidedly.

[ ooc: sorry for the delayed reply! my tags are gonna be slow this week. ]

Toushirou just rolled his eyes as he tossed his own branch aside.

"Whatever."

Like he even knew at this point. Besides, what kind of samurai could freeze things with his mind? Samurai were real. People with . . . frost powers . . . weren't. Or they hadn't been until recently. Because it was pretty clear that he existed.

An ice samurai, of course!

With a huff of laughter, he folded his arms across his chest. "All right, I can see your Varista meter pushing eighty. I'll catch you later, yeah?"

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