for hurtful language and mild violence.

The light spattering of raindrops on the flat of a swordblade were all that could be heard by her. It was the entire world, fixated. Her breathing was outside of reality, not part of her and not part of her body. Mirror reflective of the streetlamps below, the blade itself quivered. Rain warped its surface and slid down and fell, twisting earth itself.

Siloutted across the rooftop, black and hunched over into a cocoon, he was waiting. There was no reflection from him. The rain came down in a curtain between them, devoid of words but consistant like the beating of a xylaphone. Her feet slid out, heels lifted from the grainy rooftop and her elbow flexed. The sword, an extention of herself, her entire arm a blade, came forward in a careful arch. Her free hand moved, fingertips touching the hilt.

Hands closed. The leather squeaked inaudably between her fingers. She could feel it, but hear nothing. Rain slicked down her face, trailing in her fur. It was only the rain. No other sound.

He hadn't moved.

She jumped forward, bringing the sword up on an angle and begining to run. Footfall was hypersensitive, the scratching sound of claws on gravel moving rapidly enough to match rainfall. Ahead, he began to uncoil, unfurl from the cocoon he'd formed out of his own body. Three meters away and he was already standing. Darkness receeded from his face long enough for a cerulean sliver to impale the storm.

Her blade met opposition when she swung, she could not see but she knew what it was from. The lights below lied, but it was there. His sword had moved in the distortion of the rain and now held her at bay. From his stance fixated against the neon lamps of the rooftops, she could see he held her one handed.

Muscles tightened under her skin, she could feel them clenching around bone slowly from shoulder downwards. Her palms were sweating, through her fur, and her grip quivered. The blades scraped against one another. The sound was like ripping violin strings, and it shredded through the air the longer she held her stance. His feet were splayed calmly, his entire modis unconcerned. Hers was locked, trained and solid and quivering.

He didn't waste time driving the point home. The blades broke contact and she was sent back, stumbling, her feet tripping over one another on the slick tarred surface. Hind claws dug in, small fissures sinking into the rooftop as she took time to breath. Readjust, to glare, and he stared impassively through a shadow of his own body.

To charge again.

She met his blade this time with a series of quick strokes, each one blocked lazily with one hand by his own. She moved around him, attacking on each side, but he followed her effortlessly each time. The more she moved, the easier it was for him to predict her next movement, and his cobalt eyes never left their focus on her. Like the optical illusion of a great painter, they followed her wherever she chose to run.

He was in no danger, and wanted to prove that now. With a deft flip of his wrist, the blades interlaced, twirled around one another counter clockwise. He was light on his feet and took control of her swipes easily. The sword that she had been squeezing until her palms sweated seemed to phase through her fingertips and go flying up and away, undirected, to clatter on the rooftop in the shallow rainwater meters away.

Now she was trying to get away, but couldn't see where her sword had gone, and tripped over her hindclaws. She went down backwards, clattering with a high pitched yelp. The living equivolent of her weapon. He lowered the dark blade and took steps forward. No sound, but the rippling of rainwater against her backside was indication enough.

He filled the sky, dark and towering, a Rauc obscuring the universe from view. The lights lit him from below and reflected up against his pale yellowed fur and into the cerulean eyes, a golden sea of fire swimming there. The corners of his mouth turned down, and his shoulders raised slightly in response to an unheard sigh.

"You haven't learned anything, have you?"

And she tried to scramble away.

His sword came down.