Protection: The Sword and the Shield

The Week Fall

[June 8, 1992] [Continued]

......Security Forces Training Compound, Longbottom Estates

......Flashback

Neville's trainer was one of the pureblood members of the group that would be named Berserks. All of whom were young men, second sons or greater, from the Abbot and Diggory family. Robert Abbott was one of Hannah's cousins and was a fencing master and had helped to develop Neville's skills. The man had no problem admitting that the young heir had surpassed him.

That was why Robert had found the man that was currently in the training room to meet with Neville. The man was a muggle and it had been a watershed moment when Augusta had agreed to allow Robert to purposely violate the Statute of Secrecy to recruit the man to help train Neville and likely the rest of the security team.

Soga Yoshisada was a Japanese man that could trace his personal family history back to the days of the Samurai. His family had for generations taken that connection seriously even when such things were looked down upon. He considered himself as close to a Samurai as one could be in modern times. Though he supposed he would more accurately be Ronin as he had no master.

He had immigrated to the UK as part of his family's business plan to expand their company. As part of his family's tradition he was a master at Aikido and Kendo and had been practicing at a dojo when Robert had found him and approached him. The master of the dojo had allowed him the opportunity to use the space to practice and the other man had acknowledged that "Yoshisada-sama" had a skill far beyond his own.

The discovery that magic actually existed was not a tremendous surprise to the man as it explained some of the odd things that his family had come into contact with that had no explanation. It had taken three weeks of discussion and negotiation including speaking with the family leadership in Japan for Soga Yoshisada to agree to train a westerner.

The final deciding factor was when the future Sensei was given the opportunity to watch Neville train with his blade. The boy was indeed a prodigy and the opportunity to teach him to use a katana was one that the man felt he could not ignore.

Neville was brought up to speed on what the man's presence meant and thanked the man for offering his time and effort in training him. With that Neville had the most interesting combat training he had ever imagined. His first lesson was how to serve tea. Neville, being a boy, had loved the various ninja and kung-fu movies he had been introduced to over the summer and so was familiar with some of the traditions that had been copied into the movies.

Learning the actual tradition was exciting to him and he opened himself to the entire learning process. For his new Sensei, the young man had passed a test. Yoshisada knew how much his culture had been sold and marketed in movies and was impressed that the boy did not seem to think himself knowledgeable because of what he had seen in the movies. The boy was also calm and patient in a way that Yoshisada had not been at that age.

......End Flashback

It had taken almost the entire summer before his Sensei had begun to teach him the various sword forms. No one told him but he had learned them at a speed that was awe inspiring to Yoshisada. Now at the beginning of this summer he was proud to show that he had not let his training slip while at school. Once again Yoshisada was amazed. The young man had gotten better during the school year and if not for his periodic commands to halt, the boy would have beaten him already.

Deciding that there was nothing to be gained by denying the young man the truth he called a halt to their training. He sat Neville down and told him the truth about his remarkable progress. Neville was astonished but accepted the praise graciously. He and his sensei then devised a training regimen that would challenge Neville and make him even more skilled. No longer would he be teaching him, but rather they would be working together to improve and refine and to create a style unique to Neville.