Mashuka woke at first light out of habit, and half-expected to be killed on the spot by some ridiculous trap or another. But no, there was nothing but the silence of the room and the ambient ache to his muscles that came with the morning. He felt his stomach twist a bit at the emptiness, it was the first time he'd woken up alone in...well, it was the first time he'd woken up alone. 

Being relatively early, Mashuka lingered in the shower --itself a proper first as well, if hoses and tubs of old water didn't count-- humming an old tune he'd picked up in pul-e-charkhi. A happy one, funnily enough. The mood stuck, and went about dressing with a smile on his face. Standard underclothes, long-shirt and shoulder-shawl over it, with his pants and boots to round out everything else. Well, almost everything, He wrapped a fine red scarf around his neck and pulled part over his head as a hood. Not too heavy, but enough to deter the wind, it would do plenty well. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he strapped the kukri in its sheath to the back of his belt. The thing was well-made and light, but that didn't stop it from weighing him down simply from its presence. With any luck, like yesterday, there would be no call to draw it.

By the time he'd made his way outside he was no longer alone, in fact plenty of others had begun to rally around the field, listening to a women he didn't even vaguely recognize, but who self-proclaimed as the world's strongest. He wasn't sure, there had been plenty of muscled-bound woman back home, and it seemed like a hefty title for one to bear of their own calling. But he was the student, and she the teacher, and while she was unfortunately just as he'd feared the teachers would be, at least there didn't seem to be much lethality to the whole thing. Yet.

Much to his surprise, people began crowding towards the weights to do their laps around the school until they quote: "collapsed". Didn't sound great to him, and he'd run plenty of laps in his life already, weightlifting wasn't something he'd come here to learn how to do. Besides, if they were going to get beaten up one way or another, he'd rather gain some insight into a more advanced fighting style. So, raising his hand amdist the crowd, Mashuka pulled the hooded scarf back. He held a humble gaze and modest posture as he made his way over to Itsuko. 

[color=00aeef]"Uhm...I'll spar with you, Ms. Itsuko,"[/color] he said, smiling. Perhaps it was a bad idea to smile at an opponent, but she was their teacher, not their target, and he had no intentions of making bad relations with anyone at the school if he could help it. [color=00aeef]"You said no weapons, right? Right."[/color]

Unstrapping the kukri from his belt, he set it off to side with a quiet but sure-sounding: [color=00aeef]"Please don't touch that,"[/color] that was more to the general students around than anyone in particular. No weapons was fine by him, but he wasn't fond of letting the devilish thing out of his sight for long. Some people didn't understand the rituals of it, which was no fault of their own, but if drawing it meant blood, then it would get blood. 

That settled he made his way back to Itsuko, still bright-eyed and smiling. What was the tradition here? Bowing the whole body or merely the head? He wasn't sure, but he figured it best to go over than under, and so bent low at the middle as he'd seen some of the more eccentric Englishmen do, before rising back up. [color=00aeef]"I am ready, ma'am."[/color]

--

[@KoL]