Dangling from a Cliff

"No. I will not fight you,"

She growled lightly, "Dang it! Why not?!" She tried pushing herself back into her angry self mode. She wasn't the type that showed her sadness, she pushed his hand off her shoulder. "Don't think you can lay a hand on me either, the only way you can touch me is if we're fighting." She said annoyed, she hated a man's touch especially one of pity. She never forgot how her father had tried to kill her, she only let certain types of people get closer to her once they knew her. She didn't know this person well, and she didn't want him getting too close.

"Before you get mad, I will explain to you why I will not fight you, hopefully you will listen to this with your head and not you emotions. For starters, you are still weak from your escapade earlier, it would be no challenge for me to fight you in your current physical state. The same goes for your current mental state. You are tense and thinking in haste, therefore you are bound to make many stupid mistakes during a serious fight, any of which could cause a serious injury when fighting against me. So I'm going to say this now. Until you are able to come to terms with whatever it was that happened to you in the past I will not fight you."

She listened annoyed, under her bandanna her eyebrow twitched from how annoyed she was. "You don't..." She was interrupted, she wanted to hit him. He was acting as if he knew her so well, and he didn't. She'd feel better in a fight, she felt her best when she was fighting. All her troubles would melt away if only he'd fight her, dang it why did he have to play mister nice guy now. She thought only wanting to fight.

"I don't care about whatever you're about to say about being in peace with it because it's untrue. You are still too easily affected by comments about it and therefore cannot possibly be at peace with yourself. I'm sorry, but I will not fight a swordsman who us weaker in mind than she is in body."

Her eyebrow twitched again, "Weaker in mind than in body?" She asked annoyed, "I don't think with my head, I think with my heart. My heart enjoys fighting, fighting is the one thing that makes me happy. And you refuse to do it because you think my intellect is lower when I'm angry or upset over something. In fact I fight better when I am angry or upset, because pain is nothing to me then. So why don't you stop trying to be mister nice guy and just fight me!" She said annoyed and almost pleadingly, she wanted everything to disappear into the excitement of blades clashing. She wanted to think rashly and have close calls, she enjoyed fighting on raw emotions which disappeared with a thrill of pure excitement when fighting. "Please, fight me, I feel better when I fight truly I do. If you won't fight me I'll find someone else who will." She said her voice was more lonely and quiet than angry. She had nothing else to make her happy other than fighting. Fighting was something that gave her a thrill, she didn't fight with emotions, she fought with intent to win, intent to become stronger. Fighting could make her forget everything sad, even if it was only until the fight was over.

"You really are an idiot...aren't you?"

"Mhmm, being a fool is a specialty of mine." She said being sarcastic to him, she didn't care if she was called names as long as she could fight.

"Very well, you may fight me if you wish, however I will not make it easy on you. You are about to see a small taste of my power, and why I wanted to avoid fighting. Remember that you chose this, not me.."

"Thank you for agreeing to fight, I promise you that I won't disappoint you. By the way, names Fia." She said with a tough personality showing now, she put her hand on her sword. Already she felt ready to fight, the idea of fighting always cleared her mind a bit more. She saw him disappear, and slowly figures of her appeared. Only without her bandanna, this made her only more annoyed. "You really did this just to spite me didn't you?" She said annoyed at the form they had taken. "If you want to play that way then." She took off her bandanna, now she'd look just the same as them. Her white hair swayed in the cold wind's breeze. She really looked a bit more beautiful than the clones, considering she was the real macoy and not a fake.

"These are called shadow clones. They are just shadows, so slashing them and killing them causes no pain. However they can cause you pain, as much pain as you would be able to cause to a regular person. There's good news though, if you are able to figure out where I am and successfully land a single attack on me, I will remove all of the shadow clones, in turn healing you of all of the wounds they caused. I will give you a good 30 seconds to prepare yourself, however once that time is up, I will have them all attack you until you are able to locate me. Best of luck."

"You say that but you don't mean it, in short you're confident that I'm a ignoramus and can't figure it out or have no guts to do so without looking like a idiot." She said annoyed, she didn't need time to prepare. She was ready, she really hadn't planned on him using such an underhanded trick. But she wasn't a coward or someone who couldn't stand pain. The fact was she could handle more wounds than the average person, she didn't care about making mistakes. She only cared about achieving the goal.

"I will give you but one hint: I reside in one of the shadows that the 5 clones did not appear out of."

"Great hint sherlock, there's approximately thousands of shadows. Either way it doesn't matter, I'll figure it out and you'll lose this match." She said confidently, even though she had no clue where he was. She figured he was somewhere underground or in a shadow or something. She had no clue since the sound seemed hard to place exactly. Though she had figured out a general direction though it wasn't definite, but it was a lead. She took her sword in hand, she wasn't good at thinking as well as she was at fighting. This wasn't a fight, but to her even though this seemed like a dirty trick. She'd play along with it, she was glad he hadn't played high and mighty and turned her down again.

Closed her eyes, her mind concentrating. She couldn't figure out exactly where his voice was coming from, then the signal came. She drew both her swords in an instant, the clones weren't her they didn't have her ability with a sword or her other ability. She didn't want to use it yet, but considering, no she pushed that thought from her head. If she used the ability now she wouldn't have anything in case of an emergency. She knew it was well thought of, but obviously this was a trap, she had to take a few risks in order to make it. She lunged at the clone in front of her, just in time to miss the slash towards her head and the other one from the side. Chances were they had more brains than she did, but she didn't care. She was a pirate, and one injury wasn't going to kill her, if she could get out of the trap that was already set. She continued to try to get out of the other clone's trap by evading and blocking what she could. She had been in situations like this before, she replaced the clone figures of herself in her head with navy men. Yes, it was much more fitting, an evil grin appeared on her face.

"You're saying these snide comments in order to goad me, however you should know it won't work. I also think you are not an ignoramus, nor am I afraid of fighting you in one on one combat. I have my own reasons for this little..hmm..test I suppose I should call it."

"You just want to play with me like a toy, don't you?" She asked a bit annoyed, if she could keep him talking perhaps she could place his location. All she had to do was imagine he was a navy officer hidden ordering his navy men to kill her. Yes this really was getting her annoyed, hahaha she was going to enjoy making him look like a fool in the end. She didn't care if he had more abilities than her. She had physical strength and training.

She continued to dodge, she knew attacking them wouldn't do any good. She knew she couldn't keep this up forever either, she waited for him to speak more while edging towards where she had thought she heard his voice coming from. Dodging five clones was hard, but then again she did have plenty of practice because of being on enemy ships and helping captain take over ships or steal goods from the navy.

"Yeah, I did do that just to spite you by the way...I figured it would be entertaining to see your reaction and it did just as I wanted it to do. Oh yeah, there's something I forgot to mention earlier. For every shadow that you hit that isn't me, a new shadow clone will emerge from it to pour on its attacks. So I suppose you have a bit of a time limit, don't you..?"

A look of shock came over her face, he wanted her to remove her bandanna. Was he a pervert or something, he was toying with her. Dang it, she cussed in her head. Was she playing into his hands? "You're a jerk you know that." She said out loud a bit annoyed, he was trying to play with her nerves. Well dag nab it she wasn't going to have it. She growled angrily slashing her swords into every nearby shadow, she didn't care what happened. She wasn't going to let him get away with it. Her slashes went into the ground, slashing rocks in pieces, she was like a hurricane let lose. She didn't stay put for a minute, she was going to slash every shadow until she hit him and she didn't give a care how injured she'd get.

"This fight is over, and whether you choose to accept it or not, the victory belongs to me. You have proved my point."

A part of her lurched with anger and hurt, she didn't want the fight to stop. She didn't care about the wounds she had obtained and disappeared. She was like a tank, in all her fights no matter how much blood loss she usually did pretty well. Of course after the fight she'd normally pass out or something and get dragged to the hospital or have someone to drag to the hospital. But either way the fights had never ended this way.

"I told you before this fight that you were weak of mind, and had I let this fight continue, you would have died because of the weakness. You let your emotions control you and that creates follies. There are times in battle when using your emotions are necessary, however blind anger like you just exhibited will get you killed in a situation like what just occurred. You may not have felt any of the pain from the attacks because you were lost, however just because you don't feel the wounds doesn't mean that they're not there and had I not stopped that you would have bled to death. Right now I'd imagine you hate me and that you want to kill me, and I will do nothing to resist any attacks that you may bring."

After he told her this she felt like garbage, she fell to her knee. Her head looking down, she felt horrible, not because she had lost. But because of what he said and the way he said it. She remained silent for a while, tears had begun to form in her eyes. She remembered a similar situation with the captain, she slowly rose to her feet avoiding eye contact she searched for her bandanna. She needed to find it quickly, if she kept up like this her front would be knocked down. And he'd notice she had tears in her eyes that were ready to fall down her cheeks. She couldn't allow pity or compassion. "I don't hate you. And you're not a jerk either, you simply took advantage of me like any enemy would." She said quietly.

"I know that what I just did was not something I should have done. It's not my jobs to point out your faults, nor is it my job to teach you of them. I just felt that as a swordsman, the realization of them would allow you to become stronger. I am sorry for what I have done, now feel free to do with me as you wish."

She could find her bandanna, where was it! She felt desperate, she turned away from him and ignored what he said simply walking away. She couldn't face him when she was so visible and open, she couldn't let him see her this way. She didn't want to be known as being weak. A tear fell down her cheek, she failed. She put her swords away, she needed to hide. She didn't want to be seen as a woman, she wanted to be seen as a swordsman. Another tear followed the first tear, she paused a bit away. She needed to pull herself together, she hated when she felt so weak. It made her hate herself for having any feelings, she wasn't necessarily effected by his display to cry. Though it had pushed her to the edge a bit more, she wished she had just been ripped to shreds by his swords. She had ignored her body's exhaustion by her pride and ignorance. Though it slowly wore on her, making her feel even more weak. She forced herself to continue walking away.

Her bandanna was replied to her face from behind, she was shocked at the action. It was oddly a very kind action, she was right about him. He wasn't as big of a jerk as he acted to be, she was glad she took back calling him a jerk. She also was glad he hadn't purposely put her bandanna on in front of her. She was glad he hadn't seen the tears running down her face, or how her eyes seemed to show every emotion. When someone looked in her eyes they could tell so much about her and what she felt or thought. That was one of the reasons she didn't show her eyes often.

"Look, I'm really sorry about that. It's just like I said, I didn't want to fight you while you let your emotions run rampant. Not just for my safety but for yours to. So I made you go through that..test..so you could understand why I didn't want to go into combat with you. However, I promise you that when I feel you have rein over yourself, I will fight you fairly, as a swordsman against another swordsman. No, a swordswoman, and an equal at that."

She turned around, the tears on her cheeks very apparent. She didn't know what to say, she wanted to say something, though she didn't want to sound weak. Her eyes went wide as she felt her legs were going to give out, her energy had been used up and her emotions weren't helping her energy level either. She tried to keep her legs standing a little longer, but she was weak and the tears were cold against her face. She swayed slightly, her body was trying it's best to stay up, but since she wasn't fighting now and she had let tears fall she really didn't have the energy to keep standing. It was like the pain from the earlier wounds was hitting her now, she fell forward as her legs couldn't hold her up anymore. She cussed in her head, this had to be one of the worst days of her life. She was so weak in front of someone, and not only that but they had seen her face. She barely knew them and yet they already knew her more than most people got to know her.