Private A Shield Tested True

[Kirae Orade]

Tags: Niijima Izumi


Punches. Grapples. Throws. That's what Kirae was practising as she stood alone amongst the trees. Perhaps this would have been better training if she had something to throw her attacks against. For now, she just dealt with the imaginary foe ahead of herself. A near carbon-copy of herself visualised as Kirae threw a few harsh jabs at her imaginary self before stepping back to dodge the imaginary strikes. She might have looked insane doing this, dodging and blocking strikes that didn't exist. But it didn't matter to her. She had to train. Had to perfect herself.

Beads of sweat dripped down Kirae's face as she threw strike after strike. Of course, she could be using her shield through her techniques, but right now it was resting against the tree. Her skills with her shield wasn't what she needed to work on. That was already a shield. Instead, she had to build on herself. Kirae had to work on making herself a shield. A living shield that could stand up to punishment. A shield that could bash its way through. A shield that would not falter from a lack of stamina as she threw armoured punch after armoured punch...until Kirae suddenly stopped.

Her exhaustion had started to kick in. She could have pushed herself through it, but instead Kirae made her way over towards the tree that she had rested her Shield against, laying herself down against the trunk as she gasped for air, holding a hand to the chest piece of her armour, her gaze falling upon it with a grimace. It wasn't a full piece. Her beskar'gam was still a mix-match of actual beskar and other types of metal. Kirae still felt as if she hadn't earned a full suit. Of course, it would make her duties as a shield-bearer far safer...but that wasn't what she was worried about.

Instead for now, she took out a flask from the inside of the shield and prepared to take a drink, letting her eyes flicker up towards the sky above her, listening to the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. There was much for her to practice but she wasn't going to falter. Of course she wasn't going to break herself by pushing herself too hard either. Instead she'd rest for as long as she needed before she went back to it all.​

 

[Niijima Izumi]

Niijima Izumi hadn't been training.

In fact, she wasn't even in her regular samurai attire. Dressed in a black and red silk kimono, the woman looked oddly out of place as she walked almost too carefully among the trees. She had just finished performing at a teahouse as a geisha, her 'secret' trade. Beads of sweat glistened under the sunlight down her face and neck as she made her way. It had been a long night of entertaining patrons who she barely cared for; a night of dance, musical instrument performances and tea ceremony hosting that she was tired. And yet through it all, she had refused the teahouse's offer to hail her a carriage to take her home. Instead, she opted to torture herself, having taken off the cake of white makeup usually found on geisha's faces, preferring to walk home. As a performer, her name was Sakurako. As a samurai, she was Izumi.

And right now...she wanted more than anything to be Izumi.

The woman allowed a small sigh to escape her lips, her golden-brown eyes shifted upward to the unforgiving sun hung above. She took in a deep breath, and closed her eyes, her footsteps stopped as she tried to clear her mind. Izumi had pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind while she was performing, and now that she had time to finally breathe, all those thoughts shifted to the forefront, like a tide disrupting the sea. There was no stopping it, a shiver running down her spine. Thoughts of her duties as a samurai, the integrity and duty she knew was hers to uphold, were weighing down on her. And the more she tried to uphold them, the more she felt trapped.

But there was no way to stop it...was there?

And just as she was about to give in to her thoughts, she heard a sound from the distance. It seemed that she wasn't alone. Of course, this was a public place, and anyone was allowed to enter and exit as they pleased. Izumi had simply been startled, her thoughts had gotten in the way of her other senses, which she knew was an unforgiveable mistake if she had been in battle. Although she doubted this other person was an enemy, she wouldn't have had the means to defend herself, having left her twin blades at home. She did have a dagger tucked in the sleeve of her kimono though, for emergency situations. As somewhat of an assassin, the woman was prepared at all times.

A little too prepared.

She opened her eyes slowly, allowing her pupils to turn to the direction of where she had heard the noise initially. Her steps calculated and careful, Izumi would make her way towards the sound, her right hand gripping the inner hem of her kimono sleeve. A flick of her wrist would be enough to allow the handle of her dagger to slide smoothly into the palm of her hand. Her own footsteps were as light as they possibly could be, though the shoes she wore would prove to make this difficult to accomplish. As the woman neared the origin of the sound, she would find a person lying against a tree trunk. From what little she could see, Izumi guessed that the other person had been training, or at least had been doing something related to that, her eyes having immediately taken in the shield that lay close to the stranger.

Izumi didn't speak, though she knew that any fighter would have at least heard her come close. ​

 

[Kirae Orade]

Tags: Niijima Izumi


"If you were going to attack me, you'd have done it already."

Kirae muttered slightly, waving her hand in the rough direction of the stranger. It wasn't entirely that she had heard the stranger approaching, though that had been part of it. But she also felt it through teh Force. That someone had been watching her. It was not a feeling Kirae cared to accept. The Force wasn't something Kirae had wanted to accept. It felt as if it was an affront to her nature. There might have been other of her fellow Mandalorians who accepted it, but Kirae was struggling to accept it herself.

"Unless you're trying to bide your time. In which case, I'd say it's foolish for some kind of assassin to let themselves be known first."

Even with that comment, Kirae continued to relax against the tree, folding her arms along her front. She felt as if it the stranger more than likely wasn't an assassin, but you could never be too careful. Though Kirae didn't know why an assassin would have been sent after her. Maybe a bounty hunter, but she hadn't heard of a bounty placed on Mandalorians. She ran a hand through her hair for a moment, ruffling up the wet tuffs for a moment, as Kirae finally opened her eyes, letting her lavender eyes gaze off in the direction of the stranger, raising an eyebrow.

"That's...not an outfit I'd have expected to see out here. Looks pretty fancy."

If she was honest to herself, Kirae had never seen an outfit like that before. Having mostly been raised and living on Mandalorian-based planets, she was used to seeing armour. Something as more of a second skin. Kimonos, dresses and any other outfit like that seemed exposed to Kirae. Far too exposed. She had always wondered how it must have felt like being dressed in one of those but it wasn't something she ever entertained. Her role was not to entertain herself with fickle little wishes like those. She was a fighter. A defender. She was the last of her clan, she had to always seem like a good representative of it. She could not disgrace her ancestors.

She also couldn't afford to let herself get hurt, even if the stranger seemed like they weren't going to make the first move. Kirae reached her hand out towards her shield, mostly so that if anything did come flying the woman's way, she'd be able to block it. But at the same time, she was still in no rush to get up to her feet. She'd just watch and react to what was going to happen.​

 

[Niijima Izumi]

Izumi hadn't heard the first sentence muttered by the stranger. But the fact of the matter was, the other person had undoubtfully noticed her. The young samurai hadn't initially wanted to hide her presence, and so it wasn't surprising that the stranger would have noticed her. The samurai noticed that the stranger hadn't moved from her seated position whilst she continued to speak, her next sentence more audible than the first. "If I were an assassin I wouldn't have come at you from the front..." Izumi whispered in response, her tone soft yet assertive. Indeed, she was a true assassin after all, and for the stranger to comment on what was Izumi's profession was rather...strange.

But then again, her attire would have given off a different appearance, she supposed.

Even from where she came from, the samurai had their own way of dress to symbolize their status. They often wore it with pride, especially the onnabusha, or female samurai, for they were few and far between. Their attire consisted mostly of a Kosode, a short-sleeved, plain silk robe as the inner layer of their kimono, the nagajuban or under-kimono, worn beneath the main clothing to protect it from sweat, and then the Keikogi, a durable jacket, sometimes quilted or lightly padded, allowing freedom of movement. Izumi was definitely not wearing the durable jacket, though it made her feel the utmost discomfort especially in a place like this.

"It's a kimono," she stated matter-of-fact, "it's a pretty common garment where I come from. Most women wear it, though what it is made of and the patterns are vastly different." Even as she explained, her voice held the quiet tone that if it wasn't as quiet as it was around them, it would be quite difficult to hear her. "I am from Little Jar'kai..." she whispered, though she knew not much about her land. Even though she grew up there, it felt so foreign. Now as a mercenary of sorts, she was freely allowed to travel the lands like this, though she had yet to find a place she called home.

"Where are my manners, my name is Niijima Izumi. You can call me Izumi," she noticed that only those who were from her land called each other by their family names. Ever since she started traveling, she had adapted to the difference and simply presented a way to address her using her first name. It pained her on the inside every time, as a samurai's family name carried with them the honor and sophistication others who were not from where she was would never understand.
​

 

[Kirae Orade]

Tags: Niijima Izumi


"An assassin comes from the front. A real warrior comes from the front."


Whilst Izumi whispered, Kirae spoke clearly. It wasn't entirely Kirae disrespecting the idea of an assassin. They could be useful in the right circumstnaces, but Kirae was a warrior. A defender. Her entire being was the opposite of what an assassin would need. Kirae was loud. Upfront. Perhaps obnoxious to a point with how much she tried to stand out. Stealth was never something that Kirae would be able to achieve, but it was also something she would never care for herself. She was not some sorceress, some assassin or some sly viper. She was a shield. She would take on whatever threat she could, up front and as long as she could stand.

She continued to listen as Kirae's hand slowly started to shift away from her shield once more to return back to relaxing. It didn't appear as if Izumi was going to attack her, so there was no reason for Kirae to have her hand ready to swing into action. No. Instead she could just try and do her best to listen. That's what Kirae always did best. If she hadn't been a defender, more than likely, she'd have been some kind of recorder of history. Be it verbally history or written. Yet Kirae couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the sound of these..."Kimono". They sounded ridiculous to Kirae but she understood it was only because of her own upbringing. Arrogance was one thing that Kirae did her best to keep in check.

"Kirae Orade. But call me Orade. Few people use my birth name."

Most of the people she felt comfortable using her birth name were gone now. Her family. And she didn't want her clan's name to be forgotten. So by having others refer to her by that, then...in a way, her clan got to live a little longer. It would more than likely pass on into history after Kirae's passing, for she wasn't exactly the best at recruitment.

"I've never heard of Little Jar'Kai. Though I am not that knowledgeable about different places."​