A question was asked by the newly found partner by the name of Nathaniel M. Rystoff. Where were we going to train was the question but nobunaga did not answer. He just merely walked out of the pub and the town and after a few more minutes of walking briskly, he found himself at the training grounds of the grasslands. There were training dummies, target zones, and a large training section in the shape of a big circle. This was meant for sparring, and sparring against this man would be exactly what might be needed. It was too late to back out of a partnership, besides its not like he really wanted to.
Nobunaga took his cloak off and tossed it to the ground and walked to the center of the sparing ring. He didn't once look back at his partner, but kept his mind on the training and the tournament at hand. The ring was old and rusty at this point as rain and the constant use of it had also helped its aging process. The wood was horrible, and splinters would be promised if one was to hit the ground. The faded red ring on the outsides of the circle further showed the crappyness of this training grounds.
This was not a place one should go to train but in this case anywhere was better than nothing. Nobunaga quickly drew his two powerful swords. In his left hand was a blade with a skull on the hilt. His fancy demonic blade. Able to cut through nearly all metals if swung hard enough. And in the right hand he clutched his most favorite sword. It was his Lightning Shadow Blade. This blade was always spewing lighting from the blade. There was also another side note. Its blade was laced with poison and the lightning itself was also laced with the same poison. A blade like this was one of a kind.
"Well this is where we start. Attack me." Nobunaga said as he placed his shadow blade to the ground. He didnt want to use that against him for the simple fact of, what would a dead partner, or a badly poisoned partner do in this fight. The test of strength has begun. Time to get to know each other with each other with the use of blades.
Nathaniel frowned at the sight of the place. It was in disrepair, and though a healthy amount of discord was nice this was just ridiculous. Did Nobunaga truly mean to train here? The wood looked rotted, easily capable of breaking were either of them to hit it too hard. What would they do if chunks of the putrid wood broke off? There was also the trouble of splinters, something he wasn't eager to get. The circle on the ring was so faded he could barely see it, and their fighting would no doubt make it even worse. Really, they'd be better off fighting in some field. Fighting here was like those drunken morons arm wrestling in the pubs, the ones who would shatter bottles of glass and line the shards on either side so that the loser would have their hand forever torn at.
Still, he swallowed his distaste. He had to be adaptable and ready to fight in any condition in any place, had taken that as his motto not so long ago. He'd never thought it would include some poorly crafted joke of a training ground, but it could have been worse. Then Nobunaga pulled out his two swords, and it did indeed get worse. Nathaniel couldn't resist staring, his mouth going just the slightest bit dry. Both of the blades looked like they could cleave him in half, and though he was anticipating such things in the competition he had hoped he wouldn't need to worry about it beforehand. His newfound partner wasn't out to kill him already, was he? The sun, abnormally warm on his back, made him shudder. Then he drew out his own longsword, both hands on the hilt. His lips set into a determined line, and his eyes locked on to Oda.
"Should we not be using wooden swords for an exercise such as this?" Any swords from here would likely bend or warp, but using weapons as honed as these was sure to injure one another. A problem, considering the tournament was not truly that far off. He had the ability to heal, but one misstep could easily mean death for one of them. And what if this was some elaborate test, and he was not truly meant to attack? He hated having to try and think these things through when he should be fading into a numb blankness, a lack of thought as he entered auto pilot. Years of fighting had trained his muscles so that he could fight in his sleep.
His sleep didn't typically include men built like this one, armed with two swords that seemed to whisper death from their very blades. "Prepare yourself." He stated calmly, like a shark releasing himself and relinquishing control. The bloodthirsty side of his mind took over, the overridding demand of war and chaos. He moved at Nobunaga sharply with the blade held outwards and flat, level with his chin. The metal glinted and the wood creaked under foot. Somewhere distantly a bird was calling, and the wind had suddenly picked up loosely. All these things Nathaniel knew at once and was equally ignorant to, as his arms held the blade and his muscles coiled. His arms slowly began to outstretch, as if to impale the blade through Nobunaga's chest. Then, arms halfway outstretched, he feint to the right and fell into a roll guided by his shoulder. The wood gasped and indented under the sudden weight, but the change wasn't enough to throw him off.
Quickly as he rolled his left arm outstretched as he swung the blade at Nobunaga's back. As it would have hit he finished the momentum of his roll and with the last of it through his weight into his legs so that he could lunge back up and enter a strafe. A defensive manuever, in case the blow missed. Of course, were Oda fast enough he would no doubt catch Nathaniel and halt the strafe. It was something made even more likely given Nathaniel's misjudgement of speed of the other; he assumed that with how built and armed Nobunaga was he couldn't move as quickly as the more leanly muscled ex-Captain could. He was wrong, and in fact Oda could probably move a lot faster.
Nathaniel had much to learn about Nobunaga, not the least of which was to release his assumptions and start anew with how he saw the other.