Moving forward with confident strides, Jurie made her way through the campsite, her eyes drinking in the busy, loud, hardworking soldiers. Suddenly a gust of wind blew her long hair into a bundled mess. A paper came flying at her, landing on her face. Huffing, Jurie ripped the paper off her face and glanced at the contents on it written in a gently, elegant like scrawl. 

Should have known from her voice

But did I have any choice?

Her lips are going to leave mark

Never had a kiss that could hit so hard

Should have guessed from her eyes

The way that they can see through my lies

She is going to mess me up

But there's too much pleasure like a sugar rush

Should have known from her smile

She doesn't need to try to beguile

All that she meets are under her spell

Loving her is like heaven and hell

Yet I should have known anyway

The space between us is grey

I fell for a friend and a foe

And a heart that beats so slow

Her heart melted as Jurie read the poem again. It was so sweet and as much as she didn't want to admit it, it got to her and she found herself wishing that she too would one day receive something as beautiful as this. The words were like gentle caresses on her cheek. And butterfly soft kisses on her cheeks. It must have been written by one of the soldiers to his fiancé or lover. Likely not the first. Young people are always so prone to falling in love. Smiling to herself Jurie placed the poem on a stray barrel, weighing it down with a stone before walking away. 

As she made her way to the artillery tent, Jurie picked up a western styled sword, deciding that she wanted to master the use of it, just like she did with her own katanas. Lifting it up, Jurie walked out to a moving human sized target and practiced swinging it. Bronze swords had always been exceedingly heavy. Though that did explain why most of the soldiers, had rather large biceps. Taking a full swing, she watched as the head of the straw doll was sliced cleanly off its shoulders. She had better get used to using the bronze sword before she taught the soldiers to fight with them. 

"Hmmm..." She hummed. "Nice." 

~~~

To his relief he found the poem weighed by a stone on top of a barrel. She apparently hadn't thought much of it. Good. But like any writer he wanted to know what she thought. What thoughts and emotions ran through her mind as she read it. Did she like it? Was it too melodramatic?

Stuffing the poem in his pocket he went straight over to Bhaaja.

"You pig of a bird." He muttered. He held out his arm, Bhaaja flew majestically down and landed on it. Cawing softly it took the letter to his family and flew to the East. Hopefully his parents were still somewhere in Arabia.

He tied a strip of blue cloth to his belt. He decided to stay in the training rink after the training session. He hadn't trained with a blindfold for a while. If he was lucky he might get some of the soldiers to fight him. But he highly doubted that. He might have intimidated them, but he was yet to win them over like Jurie had.

Entering the training rink he eyed the soldiers. Then his eyes fell on Montero who stood next to Jurie at the head. All eyes turned to Rami. No doubt they expected him to join Jurie and Montero at the front. But one of the many differences between Montero and Rami was that Rami, when it wasn't necessary didn't like to assert his authority. So he took his place between Jasso and Derek in the middle of the whole group.

Today he was going to be the pupil. And she the teacher.

"Men draw your swords." Announced Jurie.

They drew their heavy bronze swords, as did Rami. He hadn't quite mastered the Western Sword, it wasn't like his curved Kirpaan. The weight wasn't to bad for him though, so it would easy for him to learn.

"First we are going to learn our stances," she drew her sword and faced a straw dummy. "They are the most important aspect of Ninjitsu. You place your feet like this." Her feet were two shoulder lengths apart. All men copied her technique. "You hold your sword like this." Her sword was held in front of her hip pointing to the left parallel to the floor, her hands far apart from each other.

The feeling was unfamiliar to him. He was used to fighting with his sword in one hand. He felt slightly clumsy holding a sword like this. But Jurie seemed to do it with ease, strength, poise and grace.

"This is called the Sha No Kamae. From this stance you can do an angled strike." She demonstrated one both left and right and from many different angles. All men copied her.

"The basic downward strike," she demonstrated that. But instead of letting the blade fall, she showed how stepping back could cut through more of the flesh and bone.  Then she demonstrated blocking from every angle.

"Now I would like you to practice these techniques with a partner before we move on to the next stance."

So Rami practiced with Derek. He was slowly mastering this newfound technique, but t was uncomfortable for him. He preferred his own style. The people of Arabia had no famous martial arts style. The Montagues had took in variety of techniques. Like the Punjabi Gatka, it was almost like a dance. But the Japanese had a more grounded form of Martial arts. But Ninjitsu could be very aerial when needed. It wasn't a bad thing considering how she completely whooped his ass during sparring.

The whole day was taken up by Jurie's training, she taught most of the stances she knew as well the strikes and blocks used for each stance. Montero never left her side. The Spanish men where completely taken by her and her techniques and practiced them religiously. Even Rami who found the style of martial arts a bit uncomfortable was able to incorporate a few things in his own style.

It was twilight when Jurie announced the end of training.

"Ma'am?" One of the officers piped up bravely. "May we see you fight. Like actually fight with your Katana."

Jurie gave him a smile. She laid down her Western sword and drew her Katana. She turned to Montero and smiling sweetly she said. "Shall we spar?"

The excitement of seeing a duel rose and so did Rami's jealousy.

Jurie took her stance as did Montero.

Montero attacked first with his sword. Jurie blocked with ease. Flaunting her opponents sword to the side she threw him off balance.

He regained his balanced and blocked a flurry of attacks with obvious difficulty. Suddenly Montero ducked and ended up behind her. He attempted to knock her off her feet with the flat of his sword.

But Jurie merely leapt up in the air, then displaying a perfect backflip and twisting her body around so now that she faced Montero, her feet made contact with his shoulders. Then-BAM.

The Captain fell, Jurie's feet pinning him to the floor. Her sword at his neck.

There was dead silence.

Rami, was the first to regain his senses and started clapping. His clapping broke others out of their trance and they too started clapping. The whole arena burst into cheers and laughter.

As the men went out, they talked animatedly of the the young slip of a girl had managed to beat their captain a full grown man during sparring. Training was to be resumed tomorrow along with an explanation of the plan on capturing the Unspeakable army.

Rami couldn't help but think the fight represented Jurie as a person, short but full of energy and excitement.

Most of the men went out except for Rami, Derek, Jasso and a few others that Rami had befriended during the lunch break. They decided to help Rami with his training and in return Rami too offered to teach them a few things.

Jurie strode up to the group with Montero at her heel. Before she was about to ask why they were staying behind Montero interceded.

"Men shouldn't you be at dinner?"

"Captain we were just..." One of them started.

Rami decided to help him out. "If you don't mind Captain. I was just going to practice. Your soldiers were generous enough to want to help. If I were you I wouldn't stop them from helping others. It'd be a sin."

Montero nodded and turned grabbing Jurie's arm. "Let's go."

But she wrenched her hand free. "No Giovanni. I would like to watch, maybe even help out. I've only seen Rami fight once and that was when I was fighting him myself and we didn't use our own swords either. I want to see him fight properly. It's only fair since he saw me fight properly." She reasoned.

So maybe he hadn't lost every shred of dignity she held for him.

"You haven't seen me fight properly?" Asked Rami dumfounded. "But this is our third mission together."

"Well the first mission I wasn't paying attention. The second mission, I was knocked out. This mission, the time you were supposed to fight you fell under the influence of sleeping gas. And sparring doesn't count because we weren't using the swords we were used to."

"Still managed to beat me though," he mumbled at which Jurie smiled with pride. He untied the blue cloth from his belt and covered his eyes. Now there was nothing but darkness. But sometimes the darkness can teach you many things.

He heard mumbles of "He's crazy." or "Is he mad?"

Rami grave them a crazed smile drawing his Kirpaan and Shield. Indeed he looked like a mad man. It was his time to shine now.

He whispered three words.

"Come at me."

~~~~~

Hello hello!!! Hello guys!!!! We have updated!!!! Thank you for reading and voting and commenting. we love you all!!!! So...Rami is fighting blindfolded is he? What do you think???