For the first twenty minutes or so, Rutger instructed them on things that Honey had already taught Juliet—how to draw the sword, how to hold it, how to sheathe it, and so on. She’d already committed many of those things to muscle memory back when she, Honey, and the crew of the Kowashi had traveled from Titan to Luna. Apparently, Honey had been taught well because Tanaka didn’t have many corrections for her or Juliet. He showed them what he wanted, watched them do it, and nodded, expressionless. When he began to demonstrate striking and the footwork and control of the body required for a “good cut,” as he put it, things started to get interesting.
Seemingly satisfied that everyone knew how to stand and hold their sword, he asked them each to demonstrate a simple overhead chop he called a “men-uchi.” He didn’t demonstrate it, but Honey, who was first in line, seemed to know what he meant. She lifted her sword over her head, stepped forward, and swung down like she was aiming to split an imaginary opponent’s head in half. She grunted with the strike, but Tanaka furiously shook his head. “Weak! Where’s your kiai?”
“Um, Sensei, er, my old sensei didn’t insist on that . . .”
“While you learn here, you will use your kiai with every strike. It will focus your power, strengthen your spirit, and put fear into your foes!”
Honey nodded and repeated the strike, this time making a loud, fierce exclamation that sounded very much like, “Men!”
Juliet frowned, puzzled, but then Angel explained, “Traditionally, a kiai will call out the target of a strike. ‘Men’ means head. A combination of strikes would have a different kiai, depending on the targets.”
When Applebaum performed the strike, his kiai was more like a garbled warcry, “Hiyagh!” Rutger nodded, then turned his attention to Juliet.
“Help me chop like Honey did,” she subvocalized, then lifted her sword, conscious of the tiny adjustments Angel made to her wrists and shoulders. When she stepped and chopped the sword down, she mimicked Honey’s cry of “Men!” It came out softer than she’d intended, and she knew she was being self-conscious. Still, her strike was perfect in its resemblance to Honey’s, and Tanaka nodded, folding his arms.
“Do not be shy in here, Lucky. Focus your will and your killing intent into that kiai. Your enemies should cower at the sound of it.”
Juliet nodded, feeling flushed for some reason, and quickly fell back into line. From there, things became both easier and more challenging. Things were easier because Tanaka began to show them what he wanted and how they were all wrong, even Honey, and harder because they had to repeat the same movement over and over, making tiny adjustments until Tanaka was satisfied. If they couldn’t repeat it perfectly ten times in a row, they kept trying. They worked on that overhead strike for more than an hour, and then Rutger said it was time to practice “blade discipline.”
“Lucky, Leo, activate four of the practice synths and bring them here.”
“Practice synths?” Juliet raised an eyebrow, but Leo was already walking toward the equipment room. Tanaka was talking to Honey, trying to explain why her wrist rotation wasn’t perfect, so she just followed Leo. She caught up to him by the door, and he held it open, nodding.
“Looks like you impressed him. He wouldn’t let you out of his sight if he didn’t think your men-uchi was perfect.”
“That your low-key way of saying yours is?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Nah, he gave up on perfection with me a long time ago.” He followed her into the equipment room, and Juliet lost track of his further words as she took in the space. It was much larger than she’d imagined, a five-meter wide by twenty-deep storeroom with a vaulted ceiling and shelves and racks lining the walls on the left and right. She saw strike and kick bags, extra gis, a rack of wooden practice swords, jump ropes, climbing ropes, weights, medicine balls, jumping boxes, full-sized dummies, and a hundred other things of that type. She stopped categorizing everything when her eyes fell on a row of blue, plastic-looking synths against the far wall, standing before a charging bank. There were six of them.
“Synths? Really? He keeps them offline, though?”
“They don’t have personalities. They’re basically robots.” Leo strode toward the far wall, gesturing as he spoke. Juliet noticed that each synth had a number from 1 to 6 on its chest. “You turn them on, tell them what the job is, and they do it. They don’t even talk unless you ask them something. Not sure why the boss sent you with me; I just have to say ‘follow me,’ and they’d all do it.”
Juliet nodded, distracted because she’d noticed a new orange line on her left hand. Had she touched the blade of her sword when she’d sheathed it? “Damn . . .” She tried to rub it out with her thumb, and Leo laughed.
“He’s already seen it, trust me. No way he lets something like that slip by his notice.” He touched something behind the first synth, prompting its round LED eyes to begin flickering. As he moved to the next, he said, “Yeah, I reckon he sent you with me for a minute alone with your friend. Probably wants to see if she was just playing nice for your benefit. I recognized her, you know? I pulled duty in that mental facility back on New Atlas a couple of times.”
Juliet folded her arms and scowled. “Ah, thanks for letting me know you’re a creep. It wasn’t a mental facility, either; it was a secret prison for kidnapping victims.”
“Not what they told us.” He shrugged, turning on the third synth. “You’re an operator. You know how it goes.”
“Not exactly, no. I never let someone pay me to keep a girl and her babysitter prisoner.”
“Uh-huh, but would you take a job to keep some scientists safe from ‘dangerous subjects’ and people wanting to steal their research? I could act all shitty, too, you know? You killed a bunch of my friends with that IED you left in the tunnel.” The fourth synth’s eyes flickered to life, and Applebaum stepped back, shaking his head. He glanced at Juliet, but when she didn’t take the bait, he sighed and turned back to the synths. “One, two, three, and four. Follow me into the dojo.”
“Understood,” said One.
“Right away,” said Two.
Three simply nodded, and Four said, “Will do!” They all had Australian accents.
Juliet snorted. “You gave them accents like yours?”
“What? Is that a crime, too? Just cravin’ a bit of home.” He marched toward the door, his train of synths behind him, and Juliet followed a few steps behind. She was irritated that she’d let him get under her skin, but she felt good for speaking her mind; too many times in the past, she’d avoided saying what she felt in order to “keep the peace” or some other excuse to avoid awkwardness.
Back in the dojo, Tanaka lined the synths up on the mat in a staggered row, all facing one direction. He pointed to a spot in the middle of them and said, “Leo, stand here. Honey and Lucky stand there.” He pointed to the mat near the first synth. “Leo, the four synths, and I will simulate a crowd. Your job is to pursue Honey through the crowd without touching anyone with your sword. You must keep it ready and avoid making yourself vulnerable.”
“I just follow her between the synths and you guys without hitting anyone?”
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“That’s right, but we won’t be standing still. Imagine you’re on a sidewalk. Don’t worry; I have actual simulations of situations like this, but the VR chamber isn’t ready—hopefully by Monday.” That simple instruction began a very frustrating, annoying half an hour of practice for Juliet, made more so when she learned she was the only one being put through it. Tanaka just shrugged at her irritation—she was the only one with a “monoblade,” after all. While she felt singled out, she did her best to make the most of it, determined to avoid giving orange marks to the people in the “crowd.”
Her good intentions were meaningless in practice, however. The synths moved erratically, supposedly simulating a larger crowd and how people might jostle one another. Applebaum went out of his way to try to bump into her, and Tanaka, while appearing to move normally and away from the cluster of synths, somehow managed to be in the perfect spot to trip her up when Juliet had to hurry to avoid hitting a stumbling synth. In the end, Rutger counted seven orange marks on the ‘crowd’ and two on Juliet, including the one she’d given herself earlier.
“If I ever have to move through a crowd and they're as clumsy as you all, I’m not going to feel bad about slicing them up!” Juliet growled, annoyed at the negative feedback.
“What if they’re a bunch of school kids who just got off the bus?” Honey grinned; she’d had far too much fun evading Juliet and using the crowd for cover.
Tanaka grunted, nodding. “Leo, get the ring tree. Then you’re dismissed. Honey, you too.”
Leo jogged back to the equipment room, but Honey narrowed her eyes and glared from Tanaka to Juliet. “Why? Is she in trouble or something? It’s not really fair to hold her accountable when . . .”
“Lucky is not in trouble, but she will have one more drill today to help her with blade discipline. My goal isn’t equity; it’s to ensure she becomes the best possible swordswoman.”
Juliet looked from Honey to Tanaka, and though she’d been irritated earlier, she felt a kind of pride, or something close to it, from his attention. She wondered what that said about her. She’d never had a real father figure, at least not a stable one. Was it good that she wanted to show him she could do what he asked? Was it bad? She decided to ask Dr. Ming about the whole thing. “Thanks, Honey. I’ll catch up, I’m sure . . .” She trailed off as Leo emerged from the training room carrying a wooden pole with seven spindles sticking out of it, each adorned with thin, transparent lines from which hung black, plasteel rings blinking with LED lights. The pole was built like a stand with feet on one end, and Leo stood it before Rutger. Then he bowed and turned to the locker room.
“No, no, Leo. Go to your apartment. The lockers are for my real students.”
Leo stopped in his tracks, turned, and started for the door, muttering something about really feeling the love.
“This is a ring tree. There are twenty-one rings of various sizes; I want you to thrust your sword into each ring without touching the edges. Do it slowly and perfectly once, then faster. When you can pierce each ring in less than a minute without touching the edges, you’ll be ready to carry the monoblade.” The rings were still swaying from when Leo had set them down, and Juliet looked at them, her brows creasing in consternation. Some were barely large enough to contain her sword blade. “Before you begin, we should review the proper technique for thrusting your sword.”
To her surprise and relief, Honey didn’t go straight to the lockers. She moved to one of the cedar benches and sat to watch while Tanaka took ten minutes to teach Juliet the proper technique for a sword thrust. He started by ensuring her stance and grip were right, turning her hips so she could stand facing the rings, her feet shoulder-width apart and one foot slightly forward. “Good. Alignment like this will ensure the force of your body is behind the thrust. Hold your sword like this.” He showed Juliet how to hold the sword before her, with the point angled toward the ring tree. “See the red dot on the pole? Imagine that is your opponent’s throat.”
Juliet nodded, adjusting herself slightly, appreciating Tanaka’s guidance, but also, deep in her gut, a little unnerved each time he touched her. Something was very charged about her perception of him, some memories too visceral to keep down. She figured it would take time before him adjusting her elbow or turning her hips was going to feel normal. “Fix your gaze on the target. When you are learning, it’s like learning to hit a baseball; keep your eye on what you want to stab. Later, when you’re more skilled, we’ll learn to avoid giving such things away in a duel.”
“Okay.” Juliet nodded.
“When you thrust, extend your arms smoothly toward the target, driving the sword forward. The motion should originate from your shoulders and proceed through your elbows to your wrists, ending with the sword moving in a straight line through that ring. Push off your back foot and lean your torso forward to add power.”
“Okay,” she said again.
“After the thrust, maintain your control. Quickly pull back to your starting stance, ready for the next attack or, in a real fight, to defend. Remember to breathe and remember your kiai.” When Juliet nodded, he said, “Begin.”
It took Juliet seven tries to get the sword through the first ring without touching the sides. She wanted Angel to help her, but she also wanted to see what she was capable of, so she doggedly kept at it until she’d cleared all the rings once. It took her twenty minutes, and she must have touched the edges a hundred times. In the end, her left arm, shoulder, neck, and back were exhausted and sore, so much so that her arm shook and sweat dripped from her fingers.
As she finished the last ring, Tanaka slapped his hands together. “Good! You did better today than I guessed you would. I . . . I knew your right arm was cybernetic, but it’s much higher quality than I’d expected. Very precise.” Juliet caught his weird hesitation about her arm, and it puzzled her at first, but then she remembered how she’d almost killed him back on Titan, driving her old cybernetic arm into his chest, pulverizing his heart.
She shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t think I could have finished without it.”
“You would have, but you would have taken longer and required more rest. Now you have a baseline, something to improve upon. It was a good first day.” He didn’t smile, but his face looked less dour than usual, and he offered her and Honey a quick bow. Honey shot to her feet and bowed back, and Juliet copied her, still a little put off by the whole thing. “Will you return tomorrow?”
“Are you wanting to do this every day?”
He nodded. “As often as possible. It’s the best way to learn.”
Juliet glanced at Honey, raising an eyebrow. “What do you say?”
“I can’t do every day,” she replied. “Monday through Thursday works for me.”
Juliet shrugged and looked at Tanaka. “Will that work?”
“Hai. Monday, then.” He turned and stalked toward the exit.
Juliet watched him leave, her mouth slightly open, caught off guard by his abrupt departure. “Bye, then . . .”
“Oh my god!” Honey laughed, running over to grab Juliet’s arm. “That was so awkward! There’s so much tension between you two!”
“It’s obvious?” Juliet started to walk to the locker room but paused, glancing at the ring tree and synths. “We should clean up.”
“Yes, it’s obvious. Jeez! I thought I’d have a hard time letting things go, but you take things to a new level. He moves around you like you’re bristling with porcupine quills!”
“Synth One, pick up that ring tree.” Juliet issued the command, wondering if it would listen to her, and it did. As soon as it held the ring tree, she said, “All synths follow me.” Then she led them into the equipment room, and Honey followed behind.
“You’re not going to comment?”
“Oh, I know it’s awkward, and, yeah, I keep trying to put it all behind me, but I keep picturing him back then. I also keep thinking about the weird things he’s told me, and, like, it makes everything he says and does feel loaded. I feel like it went okay today, though, and I think things will get more . . . normal, I guess.”
“Yeah. I hate to say this, but, um, he knows so much more than Sensei.” Honey looked pained, and she winced as she quickly added, “No offense to the Mongoose! I love you, Sensei!” Then, laughing, she continued, “Tanaka totally fixed a couple of things I’ve been doing wrong for years. I’m actually thrilled you want to keep doing this because I had so much fun! I haven’t focused on basics like that in a long time, and I wasn’t expecting to get anything out of it, but I did. I’m excited to see how things go.”
Juliet thought about her words while she maneuvered the synths into position. Was she surprised Tanaka knew more than Sensei? At first, sure, but thinking about it, she had to admit that Sensei wasn’t exactly running a high-end dojo. Tanaka, on the other hand, had learned from an old master in Japan, a guy on the payroll of a powerful corp, teaching their children and future operatives. Still, she felt the urge to defend Sensei. “It’s easy to look at someone’s work after the fact and point out little mistakes. Think of what you were before Sensei started teaching you. Tanaka gets to build on all his hard work and the foundations he created.”
“Yeah, good point, sis!” Honey punched her in the shoulder. “Let’s hit the showers, huh? You’ve got a lunch date, and I have to pick up Lilia.”
Juliet nodded and then started to leave, but Honey walked slowly, looking around at all the equipment. “You think this guy is going to open a real dojo or something? It seems wild that he’d get all this stuff just to teach you.”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s part of him trying to explore his ‘new self.’ Maybe he wants to build up a dojo full of followers and try to take on other schools at tournaments.” The idea made her laugh, and as they showered and changed, she kept picturing Tanaka leading a bunch of kids around on field trips to different tournaments, and the image kept a smile on her face.
“This was good for us, huh?” Honey asked as they got ready to leave. “You’ve been smiling like an idiot, and I feel more relaxed than I have in a long time.”
“Good? Yeah, I think it was good.” Juliet held up the practice monoblade and frowned. “You think he was serious about me taking this everywhere?”
“Yeah, but I’d check it for trackers. You got software for that?”
“Yeah, good call.” Juliet plugged her data jack into the sword’s pommel and waited for Angel to look through it. “You sure you can’t come to lunch with us?”
“No, sorry. I have to pick up Lilia in less than an hour and don’t want to feel rushed.”
Angel sent a pleasant chime and a green checkmark through her AUI. “There’s no tracking software in this sword. It does have transmitters and receivers, but they’re all tied to the array of scanners in this dojo.”
“Thanks, Angel,” Juliet said, pulling her cable from the sword’s hilt.
“Angel, still, huh? Not gonna upgrade now that you’re making some good scratch?”
Juliet laughed, shaking her head. “No way, sis. Angel’s the real deal.” Gripping the sword in her left hand, she gestured to the door. “Ready?” Honey nodded, and the two of them walked out, careful to skirt the dojo mats now that they had their shoes on. When they reached the door, Juliet turned to bow to the center of the dojo again, and Honey followed suit.
Outside, in the hallway, Honey hugged her and said, “Thanks again for inviting me.”
“Thanks for coming! Imagine all that awkwardness without a friend to witness it!” They laughed and walked toward the reception where Juliet’s second—or third if she counted Applebaum—awkward encounter of the day was likely waiting for her.