Cassius held his blade vertically in front of him before placing it in it's sheathe, he took a breath. "I don't want to cut you. So I'll be careful to aim for your sword. Besides, I think we both might have enough scars from escapades." Cassius stated before jolting forward, rolling into a thrusting strike. Minerva could see there was a great deal of force into it, enough to possibly cause her swords to wobble, but still easy to coriograph, but the um-prepared would more than likely end up with a blade going through their chest out their back. He stood up with a diagonal slash going up to the right. This simple action would indicate he would be decent at causing bleeding. 

Garnet mused for a moment, nodding. "From what I can tell... Rolling throws your body into it, which suits your frame and posture. Risky, but safer than charging into someone head on. Swift enough, especially in a narrow hall. The rising slash could cripple a sword arm." She smiled at this. She could tell he had some form of grasp. "You could easily go behind from that point and finish with slash to back of one's knees, or go into a backstab. Depends on the situation." Garnet really was taking fascination from this. 

Cassius moved back to his half of the ring, nodding to Minerva. 

"Suffice to say, he could learn a few tricks..." Garnet this time stepped in with a wooden sword she found on a rack. She took a proper stance, right leg forward, left back, yet she had a targe on her left wrist. Her right arm was out, sword closer to her abdomen to breast. This was a proper stance that allowed for freedom. With the blade not too far away, or too close, it gave a good middle ground on fakeouts, or to tricking one's offense for a counter attack. 

Cassius saw this stance and took note. 

"This is closer to a altered fencer's stance. It uses every aspect of your body for leverage, control, and with this stance you can defend to go right into initiation. It is safe, but not entirely risk free. No stance will ever be risk free." Garnet began. 

"Hmm... I can see what you mean. Easy to overstep, and understep." Cassius nodded. 

"At least you notice, and that is where the difficulty comes in. But with this shield, I have better chances of emergency defense... I want you to do a few basic swings." Garnet gave him a nod to proceed. 

Cassius assumed his stance, with the blade in it's sheathe, he went for a thrusting strike, Garnet used the wooden sword, deflecting it to the side before bringing the shield quickly to his chest, stopping only to give him an idea what can be done.

"This is one method of knocking the winds out of one's sails." Garnet gave a gentle smile, gesturing with a nod for Cassius to take a step back to begin again.

Cassius went for a overhead swing, Garnet perfectly flicked her left hand from the right to the left, she redirected his force, applying strain to his right arm. She giggled somewhat at the shock in his expression. 

"It's okay to not see that coming, really." Garnet placed the wooden sword to his chest. "But this is a means to counter initiate as well. A good critical strike that isn't quite overwhelming. With force at this point, I can push you to the ground by using your fear to try to back away from the pain so I can end you thus." 

Cassius was a bit amazed she knew all this, but not shocked. "I take it Beatrix taught you all this?"

"Mmm... No. The stance, yes, the counter? No. That was something I learned on my own. The force principle was something a certain doctor from Treno told me about. To redirect one's force makes one overextend, which exhausts them. I just applied that here. With all your force from your body being used against you, it would be easy for anyone to inflict serious harm. But if I wanted..." Garnet began, somewhat swatting forward at his forehead, a horizontal slash from her left hip to center, to a vertical rising slash, to thrusting down at his collar area between his shoulder and neck. "This would kill you in a real fight. You'd be much to weak to use that side of your body even if you did survive." Garnet took a step back. 

"Well damn... I'd imagine so... But Lindblum did entrust us with flask for potent potions that heal all that right up..." Cassius took a breath imagining how badly that would hurt.

"Hmmph... Yeah, I guess [b][i]YOU'D[/i][/b] survive. But the unprepared would not. But it would be inconvenient to use your strongest resource just in a battle of endurance, no?" Garnet raised a brow with a slight grin.

"No, you're correct. I'm honestly quite proud to say you even surprise me. Princess or not." Cassius nodded.

"You're correct, Royalty does not entitle merit for intelligence, but merely the pursuit and willingness to seek and learn entitles that. Based on your life escapades, you live and learn by said fundamentals." Garnet gave a gentle nod, Cassius did in return before she placed the wooden tools away, now outside the cage once again. All that was left was Blank, possibly even Wylde if she so wanted to.