Red Queen

Hunt IX: Heart and Soul

"Iris how much longer do we have to study?"

"We're almost done with this unit Rose, hang in there," Iris says to me. 

It was the second week of November Yucca and I had been studying at my house with Iris, our tutor and one of the juniors at our school. Yucca has been staying here too, this was the only place she could really stay where she felt safe. 

"Hang in there Rose will be able to take a break, once we cover the last two sections," Yucca reassures me.

Yucca pats me on my head and I get back to work finishing the last two sections of my notes.

"well look at that finished already?" Iris asked the two of us. 

"well that's all for today's lesson, you'll have a test tomorrow on everything you've learned from this unit, I'll be going now," she says to us as she waves goodbye.

"well Yucca, do you want to study or train for the rest of the day?"

She ponders for a little bit wondering what she wants to do.

"let's go train, it's been a while I don't want to get rusty with my rapier."

I smile at her then we go upstairs to change into our training gear. After that, we head to the training fields that the school set up for us. 

"You ready to go, Yucca?" I had on my usual black compression shorts and combat skirt, with calf-high black combat boots, then I put on my red and black jacket. 

"Yeah, ready when you are," she said to me. she had on a blue combat skirt with white tights and blue boots then she put on a blue jacket. 

I grabbed my scythe and handed Yucca her rapier, then we both walked out of the house and to the training fields. 

-Training Fields-

The two girls were sparing with each other. Rose danced around with her scythe. she spun and danced about with her blade. Yucca matched Rose's speed and was able to keep Rose on her toes. 

"looks like you've been slacking of Rose," Yucca says to her with a smile parrying her scythe blade. 

Rose leaped backward recovering her balance in an instant, Yucca dashed forward forcing Rose to go on the defensive. 

Yucca is strong, she excels at 1 - on -1 combat but has trouble taking on multiple enemies. she's the complete opposite of me, I excel at fighting against multiple opponents. It seems Yucca's managed to find my weakness so quickly. Still, I found out her weakness as well so we're even. 

Rose then performs a feint attack. Yucca proceeds to guard her right side, but Rose's scythe blade was going towards Yucca's left side. 

Suddenly Rose's blade was stopped, she looked up to see Alces. 

"Alcea," Rose said surprised. 

Rose looked to see what had stopped her blade. Alces had stopped it with her katana, the blade was black, and it had a gold suba and guard with a white and black handle.

"That was a very nice attack there Rose. I misjudged you." 

"why'd you stop my blade though?'

"because I wanted to see if you were paying attention, you know testing your reaction time," she said as she began to walk away.