You can take the Kendoka out of the Dojo

    Outside the gates of the Scale Emblem's 'new' castle there stands a tall slim albino girl in a gi with a katana. She shuffles forward twice swings, shuffles back twice, swings. The same cut, over and over, her face has a soft sheen of sweat. Her shaggy pixie cut white hair hanging damp as she keeps working. Bare feet scuffling across flagstones with each shufflestep. She does kind of stand out, white hair, white skin, white gi, in the flickering light of the castle gates.

It's a bit of a trip, but she needed to do the whole 'gather supplies' thing in this strange new land. Newish. Whatever. She's in the area, she's in the alliance, probably a good idea to stop by and check it out. Even from a distance, right? So of course when she sees what looks like a graphical error at first, she may or may not stare. Briefly. Then promptly stops, looks to the side and calls out, "Yo." keeping it quick and informal Also she stops to pretend like she's gathering something.

    Mizuki lacks the dedication of a kendoka. At first, she imitated Wisteria's movements using a sword she found somewhere. Then she started practicing dagger strikes. Then she watched Wisteria for awhile until she fell asleep. Then she woke up and has been going through unarmed martial arts movements... a mix of babby's first strikes and stances, and improvised slashes with her claws.

    "You know, if you exercised in were fang form you wouldn't get all sweaty."

    When Hisame approaches and greets, Mizuki looks back at her curiously, then smiles. "Yo!" She doesn't recognize the imp.

    Wisteria smiles at Mizuki and nods to Hisame "Hey." she says back her breathing controled but she's only on set four of 8. "I...would...but...I...want...to...keep...my...form." she says "Won't... have... Were... strength... back... home..." she grunts out one sylable per strike. 3500 down, just 5500 to go. "Plus... could... not... do... all... eight... thou... sand... cuts... in... one... sitting... back... home... so... all... ready... cheat... ing..."

There's a pause from the imp. There's more than one person and did she say thousand? Hisame's head slowly tilts to the side and she glances over. Whatever, neither noticed that she was being odd, or were polite enough to make up for it.

     "Does it really make that much of a difference between forms? Never... actually thought to ask." A pause and a consideration, "That's not incredibly rude or awkward to ask, is it?" Pause again. "Hi. I'm Hisame, I've never said a word other than 'Yo' to you guys. What's up?"

    Mizuki tilts her head. "You're chopping air. It's not about strength anyway." She looks to Hisame and shrugs. "I imagine it's different for every were fang. For me it comes with strength, speed, flexibility... I can jump like crazy, you ever seen a cat jump? But the biggest change is senses. Night vision, scents, feeling air currents on my whiskers much more sensitively than on my skin... Actually I kinda forget how dark things are for everyone else."

    Mizuki stretches. "She's practicing kendo, I'm hanging out. Wondering if unarmed fighting is actually viable with claws."

    Wisteria keeps cutting, shuffle cut, shuffle cut, shuffle cut, shuffle cut. "I... hear... better... smell... more... strong...er... can... leap... big... sharp... pointy... teeth..." she says with a smile. "Should... use... Tiger... or... Eagle... style... wu... shu..."

    The girl keeps working "And... stopping... is... the... im... port... ant... bit..." she grunts out "That... takes... strength..." she says and the strain can be seen in her wrists and forearms if one looks close enough.

Watching the two of them, the imp comments, "On the one hand, you two have me beat in dedication to training. I cheat though. A lot. On the other hand, don't overdo it. Injuries set you back, not forward since you have to spend time recovering, yeah?"

She leans against her polearm, stifling a yawn. "Is this a guild castle, or an alliance one? I think I'm lost."

    Mizuki ohs as Wisteria points out that strength is involved more than expected. She scoffs when Hisame says she's dedicated to training. "I really don't..."

    She blinks at the question. "This is the Scale Emblem Alliance's castle. You haven't heard? It was fixed up a couple weeks ago. Now it's a base of operations for us..."

    Wisteria nods her head finishes a cut, and then she stops, and with a practiced movement she sheaths her katana at her hip without looking, sliding the spine of the blade along the back of her wrist then the tip of the sword touches the scabard and she slides it down in with a click. "Okay I'll take a break." she says "But we have healing here, no training injuries." she says with a grin then produces a water bottle from her inventory and takes a long swallow. "We're working on the first floor town, and finding the second floor boss." she says "Well I haven't been on much of the search for the second floor boss... I've been trying to find out about Root cities, and Banks... like is it a Bank that makes a Root city, or something else makes a Root city and Landers will only put a Bank in a Root."

Hisame looks up at the building again and breaks into a grin, "Would you believe I don't usually pay attention to that sort of thing? ...I really should, shouldn't I?" She looks between the two and smiles. "I mean I can try and offer help ehaling too, not that I'm a healer mind. I do the other side of that sacred duo usually."

"I don't know. That's something else to bring up though, isn't it. "I haven't been in at all. I uh, first thing I've really done was clearing out some rats. I feel a bit behind. It's embarrassing really."

    "The other half? You are heavy weapons girl?" Mizuki wonders. "It's alright, we all need some time to adapt to this life. Is there anything you want to talk about or need help with?"

    Wisteria giggles "Mizuki-chi I think she means is dark magic, curses and poisons like I use when I'm not using blade arts." she teases and stretches pushing her hair back out of her face where sweat has it sticking.

Hisame shakes her head and says flatly, "Both of you are right really. I like to tank. I also use dark magic and... a lot of poisons. I was told it was quite brutal recently. It never occured to me-" she pauses, "I should probably try to avoid scaring landers with it."

    Mizuki ohs. "That makes sense..." She shrugs. "As long as the brutality is directed at the monsters threatening them... So, what have you been doing in here?"

    Wisteria nods her head and smiles "Yah, I mean... even in Ninetails they didn't look at me TOO oddly... and they're like.. the most racist when it comes to weres and caits cause they made us." she says "So if that can be overcome." she shrugs

    Mizuki hmms? "I thought Ninetails was LESS racist against us because they made us and they even have cait sith and were fang among the nobility..." She stretches and yawns. "Man, I should get some sleep soon. Sorry..."

Hisame cants her head and says simply, "I mean I get some sidelong looks at random, I just ignore it. I figure they can't handle the creativity!" She strikes a brief pose, turns it into a curtsy. Resuming her lazy stance, she gestures towards the castle, "I assume we're free to crash here?"

    Wisteria headtips "Well now yah.. but it use to be only humans in charge and Cait Sith and Were Fangs were like sub class warriors for the monster invasion." she says. "Now like they treated me pretty normal even when I was in Bun form or if they saw this." she says sweeping her hair up to show the WereFang tattoo on her neck, standing out super well against her white skin.

    Wist nods "Yah, come on, Mizukichi is going to bed so I won't have anyone to keep me company anyway so we can all go find a place to crash." she says with a giggle.

    Mizuki nods. "Scale Alliance members are free to crash here, yeah."

Hisame holds a hand up and says simply, "I mean I could keep you company. I even have energy drink analogues. I think they're mostly safe." Pause, "I mean at least as safe as energy drinks. I think." Pause, "Maybe I shouldn't share my hobbies. Anyway! Yep, part of the alliance. Will it kick you out if you're not? I kind of want to see that."

    Mizuki laughs. "I don't think we have access to that kind of game mechanic! But it'd be like, why stay here when the other alliances have their own bases?"

    Wisteria laughs and nods "Well you're looking for a place to crash and your Scale, this is the place, or one of the camps... I mean or floor one, I'm sure no one would stop you squatting in a building in the city." she sticks her tongue out and shifts into werebun form and squeezes Mizuki in a hug from behind. "Come on." she says "Lets go get a spot to sleep... I got half my cuts for the week in, just tonight. I can totally slack." she giggles again. Her grin however is monstrous, lots of razor triangles in ragged uneven multiple rows.

Hisame tilts her head at the rows of teeth and rather than being horrified, she has sharp teeth herself. She instead asks, "Do they fall out like shark's teeth?" pause, "Uh, do you know any alchemists that have experimented with theem if so?" Still, with a shake of her head and a wave, "Get some sleep. I'll be around a bit. Got to get back to where I was."

    Wisteria shrugs "I duno, if they fall out it's in some monster... and then they go puff." she smiles "But I'm sure if you find a caerbannog in the wild it'll probably drop teeth as part of it's loot."