Rōnin

Luna had discussed the next course of action with her commanders, and they were to retreat back to The Deep, capital city of the Darklands. It was a good month and a half march until they reached it, so they had to be well prepared, and it would also give Luna time to learn from Akira. She spoke with him when she visited his tent and they agreed to train in the evenings after camp had been set, and that was what she intended to do that evening. After they had marched north for the entire day and made camp when it came close to dusk.

She found him kneeling outside his tent facing away from the sunset. She approached him carefully, he noticed her long before he gave it away. He looked at her at the last second, giving her a light start.

"I assume you have come to train." It wasn't a question.

"I have, what do you have planned?"

"First, you need to learn how to fight without weapons, then we will move on to those later." He tells her, surprising.

She didn't question it, she assumed that he knew what he was doing. "Very well, I'm assuming we will start with the basics."

"Indeed, basic strikes and blocks with your hands and a few kicks as well." He tells her.

"So lets begin."

And so they did. Beginning with blocks and dodges, she paid close attention to what he taught. She followed his movements closely and did her best to correct mistakes he pointed out. She wasn't as good as she had hoped and went to bed sore that night. And same with the next day, and the next. Slowly she got faster, stronger and more flexible in her movements. The actual training wasn't very eventful, just the same thing as it always was, stretch, exercise, blocks, hands, feet, combine. Luna learned her most effective kicks and worked those a bit harder than the rest to improve them, but still working on those that she wasn't so good at to keep them ready for use if the time came.

She began to work on throws too come the end of the month, as well as disarms against an armed opponent whilst unarmed. It was also around that time that she began to work with weapons. She found that he had carved two wooden swords for training, their shape and size perfectly matched the second longest sword he had, worn at the hip. He told her that this would be the main weapon used by his warrior kind, the katana.

Again, they began with basics, simple cuts and chops as well as how to kick with a weapon in hand. Whilst they were sparring with their swords, she spun low to throw a right hook kick at his feet, followed up with a katana slash to finish him off, she won that match.

"Well done princess. Perhaps you are ready for other weapons too." He tells her.

He picked up two sticks he had found on the way that were nearly as long as he was tall. They both were mostly straight except for at one end where they curved off like the katana blade.

"This is the general shape of a naginata, a slashing and stabbing polearm. It is favored by women in my home for its reach and versatility."

Therefore more training was added to the already long list. Luna had by this time perfected lowering the moon amidst a training session and often stayed up late to train. The naginata was different and required more space, and that's what it was supposed to do, create space in a battle. She was also told of other weapons that could be used, the Nagamaki for example. The nagamaki was a sword with a blade as long as that of the katana, and the handle was just as long as the blade and followed its curve. Unlike with the naginata where the hand positions could change during wielding, the hands would stay in a fixed place on the hilt.

Another weapon that he told her was entirely anti-armor was the kanabo, a heavy war club wielded in two hands that could be either studded with, encased in or made entirely out of iron. He also told her of the stories behind the weapons, that kanabo were used by most oni, or demons. He told her that it took perfect balance and strength to wield such a weapon. When she heard of this weapon relief flooded into her, she noticed that most of the weapons she was learning to use were mostly slashing and cutting weapons, which wouldn't work on the plate and mail armor of the nobles whom she and her armies opposed.

She focused on mastery of the daisho and naginata, which she was best at. He began sparring with her very intensely, not pulling any strikes and not slowing down at all. She didn't mind, despite the many bruises she often went to bed with, she knew that she needed to learn to go against great speed. She would always start a fight with her naginata stick, and might or might not finish with it.

Luna also learned of the armor used by the samurai, she learned of its construction and its pros and cons. The main pros were flexibility and lightness as well as decent protection from most glancing blows and a few direct ones. The cons were that it still weighed one down and it wasn't as strong as many other armors in her area. Akira explained the purpose and functions of the mask he wore. He told her that there were several kinds of masks worn by samurai. His mask, the menpo, only covered the nose down to the chin whereas the somen would cover the entire face. He told her that both of these were shaped to be as hideous as possible to scare one's opponent, the other masks wouldn't do this as well as they didn't cover
as much of the face. These masks were the Hanbo and Happuri, the former covering only the chin and throat while the latter covered the cheeks and forehead.

She was steadily learning, and eager to have the weapons forged so that she might use them on the enemy.