After Jien and his unit noticed the attention of the other units practicing in the coliseum, they seemed to stiffen up a bit. The gazes of the three other units seemed to be trying to dissect them, wanting to understand not only some of the different skills shown but also why a unit would skip several steps to start practicing in this manner. It was only at this point, under the scrutiny of these gazes that they realized that they had been training in a method that was vastly different from the others around them.
Jien and Julie seemed fine under those gazes, keeping a relaxed posture, though Julie had a deepening scowl on her lips, appearing close to telling the onlookers off. Before she could however, one of the members of the group of one-armed sword wielders stepped forward. The boy was of average build, neither too toned nor too skinny, standing at just a bit taller than Jien himself. His golden blonde hair looking slightly shaggy and his dark green eyes appearing both sharp and filled with a certain tinge of something unidentifiable. His left arm was missing and the left side of his face bore a scar that ran from his cheek to his ear.
The boy sheathed his training blade, a unique type of blade that Jien had not seen before, shorter in length with a single edge and curved along the spine. The hilt was wrapped in simple cloth rather than leather but the way the boy was able to wield the short sword was with the precision of a well-practiced martial artist. The boy's expression was stoic and firm as he approached Jien specifically, ignoring the others entirely.
Once he was within arm's reach of Jien he finally spoke in a deep, gruff voice. "Name's Carmichael Lancing, leader of my unit. You chose an interesting way to train despite how early it is in our education, may I ask why you chose such drills over simple formations or forms?" His question was straight forward and to the point, not wanting to be tied down by pleasantries or the like in the least. The attitude was welcomed by Jien given his desire to keep things short so they could keep on with what they needed to do, but his preference would have been approaching other units rather than the other way around. He wanted to control who they would train with, but it seemed that this Carmichael wanted to take priority over that decision.
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Jien sighed, scratching the back of his head for a moment before focusing on the boy's sharp eyes, choosing to answer honestly. "The simple answer is that training forms would be a waste of our time. The long answer is that regardless of whether we train forms and get into synch in that form they will begin sorting us into primary and secondary roles before training us in them until we are in time with each other anyway, why waste the time on forms rather than finding where we should focus our attention in this week before they start forcing us into standard classes."
The answer left the blonde boy pondering, a frown forming on his lips. He saw the purpose in the choice, but he couldn't tell if it was better than his own. Perhaps the only way to do so would be to start a match between the units, something Jien had intended to do after a proper rest, though maybe not with the unit of the one-armed teenager. As he was getting ready to ask Jien for this match one of the two others arrived next to Carmichael, wanting to get in on the discussion.
She was brunette who had laced a selection of deep blue ribbons into her hair as if wanting to color it without dying it. On her hip was a slightly shorter rapier than Jien's seemingly at about half the length of an average rapier, attached to her other wrist was a simple buckler. Her dark, almost black eyes seemed to pierce right into Jien as an overly cheery, almost professional smile adorned her lips. "Hello, my name is Rebecca, leader of the unit over there." she stated while pointing to one of the groups, this one looking to have been made of merchants, or maybe lesser noble houses by how they carried themselves. "We were wondering if we could get a practice match with you guys. You seem interesting and I think we are about done warming up!" Her voice matched her smile, cheery and professional, as if trying to make a sale off a tough customer.
At that moment the last of the three arrived his tone full of pride and menace as he spoke. "Hey hey, don't you go challenging them all of a sudden. We are going to fight them first." The one who spoke these words was a tall boy that managed to somehow match Robyn in height despite his back slouching some. He appeared healthy despite the fact that he seemed overly thin, his uniform hanging off of him like it was oversized. His black hair was short and scruffy and his eyes beady. He stormed over to the group but rather than approaching the others who faced Jien he approached Julie with a vicious grin. "Why don't we have a match, whoever wins will do what the other asks for a day."
As he spoke he pulled two hand axes from his waist, holding them by two sticks that had been tied to the end of standard training weapons. "I promise to crush you quickly so we will have more time to focus on better things."