Fuyuko was very curious about the group that Mordecai wanted her to meet and spar with this morning. Papa had let her know last night that a group of trainees had arrived and that he was going to want her to work with them, starting early today.
Over an early but thankfully large breakfast, he'd told her more. They were from a temple of Zagaroth, specifically the one in Ekuilance, the capital of Kuiccihan, and from what he'd seen it looked like the trainees were within a couple of years of her age or equivalent.
This group of seventeen trainees probably represented the entire current cadre of champion trainees who were in the final stages of their training process for the whole kingdom, and possible even a bit beyond.
Fuyuko had gotten a brief overview of the selection process for Lord Zagaroth's champions; it seems that while just about anyone was allowed to enter training, the screening process was known to be very thorough about who got to advance, and Mordecai would be surprised if more than about half of the current set were selected as champions.
Fuyuko approached the older human woman who seemed to be in charge of the group. "Excuse me, Ma'am? I'm contractor Fuyuko. My," she coughed to cover that she'd been about to say 'papa', "er, Lord Mordecai said he'd like for me ta be the evaluator for yer group, instead of Miss Kuni or Miss Seon. Um, but that's just combat stuff, for non-combat stuff they should still see Miss Jiah."
The woman seemed amused and said, "Interesting. I'd heard about the evaluations for less experienced delvers, but I don't recall hearing of contractors filling in for them. I'm Priestess Helena, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"It's new to me as well Ma'am," Fuyuko replied, "but he said he thought it'd be good training for me if I sparred with each of them. Um, I guess Kuni and Seon will still be evaluatin' everyone, but they'll be just watching."
"I see," Helena said, then tilted her head as she looked up at Fuyuko speculatively. "May I ask how old you are?"
"Er, fifteen. Mordecai said that your trainees seemed to be about the same age."
The woman nodded thoughtfully. "Do you have magic training?"
Fuyuko hadn't been expecting to be quizzed, but it seemed like it would be fair for Helena to know a bit about her before agreeing to this. "Not as spells and such, but I have some special skills and I've trained against casters before."
"Very well. Please, lead the way to where the spars shall be held."
Once Fuyuko had lead the group to the proper place, she checked with Helena and then addressed everyone else directly.
"So, um, Lord Mordecai said he'd like ta have me spar with each of ya, and Priestess Helena has agreed to it as well. This will be yer evaluation. Those two will be doin' the evaluatin', I'll just be sparring with ya. Ah, oh yeah, that building there is an armory of sorts. The weapons are wood, but they all have the same enchantments; they'll do less real damage but will make you feel the pain more and will leave colored marks. You can also ask Jiah ta have a weapon made for ya if we don't already have it. These are dungeon rewards, so you also get to keep them after the spar."
She was doing her best to enunciate better, especially in front of people, but speaking in front of a bunch of people made her nervous, which made it easier to slip into street talk.
"I've already got mine," Fuyuko continued, showing off two long daggers, "and you can take what ever ya need. Oh, and you can use any magic ya know, if I take a bad hit the match is yours." Of course, she had more than those two daggers on her. Since she couldn't have returning enchantments on them, she had several additional daggers tucked away where she could draw them quickly and a pair of wooden falcata were taking up the space in her bracers normally occupied by her ice pistols. This way she could retain her fighting style.
After all, only the weapons had to be changed out for the spar. Everyone got to wear their normal armor and such.
While the trainees were gathering their weapons, Helena asked, "Is there any particular order that they should spar in?"
Fuyuko started to shake her head, then paused and raised up a finger, "Wait, let me ask... okay, Moriko suggests that you start roughly from weakest to strongest." Fuyuko frowned after she said that and thought the suggestion over.
Even with healing spells, that would leave her the most tired when she was facing the strongest, and they would have had the chance to see her fighting style already.
Maybe she shouldn't have asked, because of course Mama M would choose the order that would make Fuyuko work the hardest. Well, it was too late now; she'd already passed on the suggestion and she wasn't going to make a fuss about it.
She couldn't help but be nervous as she waited for her first sparring partner. Fuyuko had no idea how they fought and she was sort of representing the dungeon right now; she didn't want to make a poor showing.
Her first fight was with a dwarven woman in heavy armor, wielding a sword and a wooden shield covered in knobs meant to represent spikes.
When the signal was given, Fuyuko immediately flipped her left dagger to grip it by the blade and charged forward. She extended her left dagger in a pommel-first thrust. The dagger met the shield in a solid hit that was useless in itself but allowed Fuyuko to pin the shield long enough to slide past on the outside. Her armor included heavy gloves when she wanted them, so even a live blade wouldn't have cut her palm so long as it wasn't allowed to slide. Using the tip to attack with would have made it more likely that the hit would slide instead of pressing briefly.
It was hard to be faster when you are on the outside of a turn, but pinning the shield let Fuyuko get in a kick as well. Again, it did no damage but it interfered with the dwarf's movement, letting Fuyuko turn in to smash the pommel of her right dagger down on the helmet.
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Her attack was intercepted by a slightly wild parry from the dwarf's sword, but the pace of the battle had been set. Fuyuko was faster and had longer reach, and she used those to her advantage as she refused to take the heavily armored woman head-on.
It would never have worked nearly this well on Bellona, but it was also the sort of thing Bellona had been helping her train to do. Daggers would almost never break through a heavily guarded front and even her falcatas would have trouble if she didn't have power to knock the other person's shield away.
So she continued her battering assault, using footwork to slow her opponent and let Fuyuko stay mostly behind her. If Fuyuko had to choose a side, she went for the dwarf's sword arm, because she could parry and deflect a sword far better than she could deal with a heavy shield.
There were still face-to-face occasionally, but Fuyuko used every trick she'd been taught to maneuver her way behind the dwarf again.
Her efforts were hampered by a bit of spellwork on her opponent's part. The woman seemed to mostly be focused on magic to enhance her defenses, but Fuyuko did have to dodge a few beams of fire and a couple of ice shards.
It took a few minutes, but Fuyuko was able to bash her foe enough to start crimping the armor in a few key places. Unlike her real daggers, hitting metal that hard with the wooden ones caused them to rapidly start splitting despite being enchanted, and she had to drop them to pull out new ones.
She was eventually able to get in clean strikes against the tiny sections of exposed buckles and leather, though her height made it harder to get at some on the much shorter dwarf woman.
This was the entire point of her training against heavily armored foes, there was always a connection point that couldn't be inside the armor in any standard design. You had to be able to tighten the last few buckles from the outside. You could make them be exposed only at certain angles, but they had to be exposable within the normal movement range of the wearer, and the wearer had to be able to get at them.
There were designs built from the ground up to only be equippable because of the magic that was built into them. But if the magic was interfered with, they either fell apart immediately or were impossible to get off without a lot of time and physical work by others to pry the metal open.
Once she had enough colored marks scored across the weak points, the match was called in Fuyuko's favor.
She didn't come out of it completely unmarked, but she'd avoided the sword and the shield's 'spikes'. Getting bruised by the edge of the shield or being slammed in the gut with a backward headbutt was a small price to pay.
After time to catch her breath, replace her daggers, and drink a mixed healing and stamina potion to speed up her recovery, it was time for the next spar.
The next several matches ended in wins for her as well, though she was having to work harder and change up her weapons more. Not everyone was wearing heavy armor, and despite the similarities in their uniforms and fighting styles, there was clear customization as well. They were developing their strengths as individuals more than they were training to be a unit, which made each fight harder for her to predict.
Then came her first draw, followed by her first loss. She won the next match, then lost again, and then another draw. Over the course of these bouts, Fuyuko was forced to use more of her tricks as well as occasionally swap to her wooden falcatas. She was better with her daggers, but they were not always the best tools.
Fuyuko was fairly certain she'd have won them all if she'd been using her ice pistols, but those could be too lethal. She was the one who was guaranteed to be able to come back if something went wrong, they only had that emergency safety once each.
Not that she was eager to test that safety for herself. Fuyuko was willing to take slightly larger risks than she might have otherwise, but there were sane limits to what a person should be willing to risk for a spar.
Eventually, it was down to the last two opponents. Since she needed to take the time to eat as well as use potions to help her armor repair itself anyhow, Fuyuko took this time to observe these last two young men.
The younger-looking one was about Bellona's height, so almost as tall as Fuyuko. The slightly older-looking one seemed closer to Mordecai's height. He was also vaguely familiar, though Fuyuko couldn't place why. She was pretty certain she'd never met him though.
Soon enough, it was time to resume the spars. The two had been gesturing in a way that had Fuyuko guessing they were deciding who went first. The conversation ended when the taller one made a somewhat mocking bow while motioning to the sparring ring. This earned him a punch to the shoulder, then the shorter one shook his head and smiled before turning to make his way to the ring.
The guy facing her was strong, and not just because he looked like he had the most muscle out of all the trainees, other than possibly the friend he'd been arguing with. She could feel his aura more distinctly against her own than her previous opponents.
"Hello Fuyuko," he said jovially, "I'm called Yugo, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'm looking forward to our match. I think I'll win of course, but I don't think it'll be easy, so please, give me all you have. Hey, I might even be wrong."
'Called' Yugo, huh? So not his real name. He'd known to be careful about naming himself too. Even if Fuyuko was only an adoptive faerie princess, it was difficult to lie to her directly for most people. She guessed that he used the name regularly too.
"A pleasure to meet you as well, I think," Fuyuko said as she studied his familiar-looking features. "I'm guessing you chose the 'strong' meaning of Yugo?" It could also mean gentle and soothing. Kazue's lessons were sinking in, if slowly.
Wait.
'Strong'.
It was hardly the only name that meant strong and there were plenty of people who were named for such. But people who weren't trying super hard to hide often took names with similar meanings or sounds to their own.
How many of the people using a 'strong' fake name were as tall as Papa while also looking familiar to Fuyuko despite never meeting him before? Or rather, a few inches taller than Mama M. Plus even the way he spoke was familiar. She inhaled deeply and focused on the nuances of his scent, just to be sure.
That too had familiar notes, though not exactly the same either.
Fuyuko smiled and held up her hand in a 'wait' gesture. "I think we want a couple of guests to watch this match." Why should she be the only one having to deal with having people watch? "If ya don't mind the presence of a delicate-looking flower matched with a fiery gem?"
Yugo had looked wary when she'd smiled at him, and Fuyuko guessed that she might have shown sharp teeth. Now he looked amused and resigned. "Well," he said, "that didn't take you long."
"It does help that your sisters have talked about their little brother. Yer face looks similar to theirs too," Fuyuko replied.
"Hmm." He considered her with narrow eyes for a moment and then said, "If you don't use my name and title, I won't use your titles, fair?"
"Fair," Fuyuko said with a laugh.
Soon enough a pair of amused-looking young women had arrived to watch, one of them with her paramour in tow, the other with a brightly plumed dragon hatchling.
Some of the other trainees looked confused, but Yugo's friend clearly knew what was happening considering the way he was trying to not laugh. He wasn't doing a very good job at it, which might have been deliberate given the glare Yugo aimed at him.
Then Fuyuko squared off to duel against His Royal Highness Prince Gou, youngest brother of Princess Orchid and Princess Bridgette, aka 'Ruby'.
She hoped they were this bad at hiding their identities only when it wasn't really important.