[center][b]Shattered by a Judge[/b]
[i]a collab between Prince and Winter[/i][/center]

Although there were plenty of comments for Shouta to reply to, the only that stood out significantly was from Alicia. He hadn't caught her name, but he didn't need it. She spoke as if he needed her judgement. She spoke as if his abilities or his title came from his skill, and although that was true to some degree, it was also false to a far greater one. Shouta was no swordsman. Aside from the ocassional bladeplay and the basic thrusts, Shouta knew very little about swords and their art. He never claimed to. Yet, oddly, this girl wanted to challenge him. Anyone with common sense knows that challenging a drunken man to anything is a terrible idea, but challenging a drunken pirate... 

Shouta stood up, steadier than before. He was drunk, sure, but he was equally focused. His glowering eyes hit Alicia, as if his will were a stone wall. Shouta rolled up his sleeve and offered up the bulk of his toned forearm, then told her, "take yer blade an' try tah cut me. Try'n cut my whole arm, if ya can. Yer judgement will mean as much tah me as your blade will tah my skin, so go on. If youse gonna speak big, act big." 

She maintained her calm and curious nature as the man would rise from his seat before proceeding to walk towards her, the young women seemingly more curious than afraid as he stopped in front of her while rolling up his sleeve. His words caused her to raise her eyebrow, having not ever received an offer quite like that before. Never the less her curiosity was still not satisfied and she would happily oblige with the man’s request even if she did suspect his drunkenness may be convincing him of being invincible. “Very well” she replied softly before her right hand shot to the side like a bullet, blade in hand before she slowly and gracefully brought it over to rest on his arm, her other hand holding his arm from underneath to support it gently. 

"Stop pretendin', girl," Shouta told her. He wanted her to swing. To chop. To slash. He wanted her blade to graze his skin and do nothing, or at best a cut as deep as a papercut. What she did, instead, was treat him like some pampered princess. Shouta lifted his other hand and grabbed her blade, then pressed it into his skin deeply, slowly cutting down his skin with enough force he might as well have been half jerking the sword from her hand. Yet, there was no blood. A red line down his skin, a light tear, but no blood from his fingers or his arm alike. 

"This ain't a bad blade, girl," he told her, holding it firm. "Ain't teh best, by far. But it an' you ain't enough to hurt me. Matter a fact, I'd you don' even deserve a blade like this yet," Shouta told her. He kept her blade firm in his hand, a harder grip than stop. "I can stop a cannonball with jus' mah hand. I bend steel like twigs. Ask yerself, girl, why are some of teh most feared pirates swordsmen if just a Judge can do at?" His glare was almost hot with its intensity. "I's called teh power of destruction. A great swordsman can channel their will into their sword, an' that be were you find their power. It ain't jus' the sword an' it all 'bout technique." @

Alicia watched as he gripped her blade before he began to press it into his skin in a sawing motion, both her eyebrows raising before coming together in a slight confused frown as the skin refused to break or tear to the blades bite. Her mind told her it was a trick and that it was impossible, yet here in front of her lay evidence of something beyond the realm of simple logic. She listened as he spoke and although she didn’t fully know this man, his words stung her; as if she could feel all the times her bones had been broken from her training or her muscles had burned from the consistent stress they’d been put through. 

This blade was a culmination of four generations of masters, each of their swords having been melted down and forged anew to embody the blade she wielded now. And yet this man, this random man met in a strange land told her with certainty that she was undeserving of such a beautiful instrument. The hurt was in her eyes, though she never allowed it to show across her expression. “I see…” she replied, taking a moment’s pause, “It appears what I thought isn’t quite as it seems… thank you” she paused again, “You’ve shown me that there is more that I have yet to learn” she said and inclined her head respectfully. She’d been humbled by this man and although she felt hurt and slightly ashamed, the determination to improve had ignited within her, burning as bright as the day she’d started her training those many years ago. 

"I see it in you, girl," Shouta told her. "Youse know yer not ready, but you value this blade..." Shouta allowed an almost malicious grin to dart accross his face. He gripped her blade with his second hand, then glazed over his arms a deep, carbon black. With a quick twist, one that couldn't be stopped as he held two focal points of the blade, he snapped it. The clang of the blade and its warped metal made a bigger noise than any words he could have said. Then, it was a moment of dead silence.

"You do not deserve it, girl," he told her, almost completely voiding his tone of his drunken slur. "You will practice day after day with swords of weak steel, you will break a hundred of them before you return, and you will train every day, every night - every waking hour - as if every slash were to kill me. But you will not swing this blade again until you can cut me with one," Shouta instructed her. His voice had finality. He sounded like a mentor, albeit a harsher one. He took the broken piece of metal in his hand, merely holding it. It was bent and it was in two parts, but it was not beyond repair. "An' I'll keep this 'til you can," he told her. 

Time had almost appeared to slow down, becoming nonexistent as the sound echoed the tavern causing many of the inhabitants who weren’t already observing to turn and watch as they halted their conversations. Her eyes watched in disbelief, her hands shaking as her heart almost broke, her stomach tightening in knots as words refused to find her lips. Four great eras of some of the worlds most powerful and world renown sword masters having been shattered before her eyes which left her with nothing but a sense of disbelief as a sharp chill ran up the length of her spine. She could never return home now, not until she restored this blade and won back her honour as one of the greatest swordswomen to ever walk the mortal world. 

Alicia fell to her knees as if she’d been beaten relentlessly in the stomach, her hands finding the floor as she began to comprehend the situation and everything which had been done to her over the last couple of minutes. Her hands eventually found the hilt, a small bit of metal twisting from it where the blade had once been. She held it in both her hands, her thumb sliding along the insignia of her families crest which had been marked on all four of the legendary swords it had been forged from. She looked up from the hilt and into the eyes of the man who had brought her such torment, her gaze burning with such intensity that it would melt that stone wall. Her eyes glistened as two streaks of tears ran down her cheeks, though her expression was of pure loathing for his being. 

“I swear by the name of my family, the next time we meet I will cut that piece from your body and restore what you have stolen from me today…” she said before standing, the hilt of her sword clenched tightly in her hand. “Remember my face, for It will be me that brings your end” she said, her words dripping with hatred concealed behind her grace. She then turned, walking off towards the taverns exit which she pushed open before disappearing into the night. 

"I swear," Shouta said as he slid the warped piece of metal into his small side satchel, "all youse Rookies talk to much. Dun' know how to let a drunk man enjoy his booze." Shouta allowed the metallic sheen on his arms to fade before he looked back to the other pirates claiming they were part of the Stardusk crew. He didn't even care enough to watch Alicia leave or even catch her name - he'd have twice his fortune now if he had a gold piece for everyone that ever promised to kill him. "Now, praytell, who be yer captain? I be needin' word wit' dem," Shouta added at the very end of his rant, needing to make another point to the rookies.