A crash, a rip, a tear, and Aighrit was all smiles once more. This was good. Rags could fight, and here that was what bought and paid for your meat. The possibly unintended side effect of tearing at his skirts, a tactic which uniquely avoided the normally heavily defensible snakeskin and bronze plated material which under normal circumstances could hold up well even under the stress of taking an incoming blow but which had no practical defense against ripping or tearing and in that effect was little more than a strip of leather worn hanging from a skirt for decorative purposes, was that it placed her head and his at a conflicting angle. Whether or not she had even realized the back of her skull had connected with Aighrit’s nose as she tore, her body naturally seeking out a counterbalance to her upward momentum as she tugged and having found it in the flesh of his face, and hard. He did not resist as she stood, not because he wouldn’t have but because the suddenness and violence of the potentially accidental strike had taken him completely off guard. By the time he was reacting she had already stood and moved with haste toward her blade, having cleared enough distance that he couldn’t strike her in the back. 

He could have attempted to run her down, of course, but he didn’t. Should he take her by surprise he could have put the weight of his practice blade to the side of her head and landed her on the ground, but if she turned and struck first, something that was entirely within the realm of reason as he assumed she would want to face him and strike as soon as she could to keep up her momentum she could in turn do the same to him. It seemed a largely unreasonable gamble to the cautious youth. Blood was running down his chin, and around his mouth from the nose above. Still he smiled and waited the second for the girl to turn and run toward him. It hadn’t actually been necessary to use the leather strips which comprised his skirt to grip his blade, it was a blunt practice sword which could be gripped hard as one might without risking even so much as a papercut, but it showed thought, intelligence. Maybe he would grow to like this thoughtful fighter. For now he would merely do his duty and continue the fight until one or the other was on the ground. He may be bleeding, his nose might even be broken, but it wouldn’t be enough to finish the fight in the eyes of the Doctora. 

Blade gripped in his left hand Aighrit made no move to stop the girl as she charged him swinging. He too was a thinker, and in this the art of the blade dance upon the sand he had more understanding than she. She would learn if she so chose, and might well grow to be an incredible force in the camp if she showed as much growth as she showed thought and gumption, but for now he would stick to what he knew. As she swung diagonally and downwards from her right, his left, he stepped backwards and to the left with his right foot, his body now facing her right side, raising his blade at a left diagonal angle relative to his position, the angle being to her right and upwards gliding along her own blade, and simultaneously stuck out his own left leg. Not enough to comically cause both of her legs to fly up into the air and send her into summersaults even if she didn’t react to it whatsoever, but enough to cause her to lose balance if she didn’t move around it and possibly enough to cause her to misjudge her footing and wind up on her right knee with her left leg lunged forward in front of and to his right. 

As his leg extended he would make a downward, looping slash at what would either be her back at her waist level or, if she did indeed wind up on one knee, the back of her head with the practice sword in his left hand. If she avoided the leg entirely she could of course just keep on with her forward charge now aimed toward thin air and miss his attempted slash entirely. He had struck before he would consciously know what would happen to her if anything from his extended leg, and couldn’t know for sure that he would hit anything. It didn’t matter. If she legitimately kept running despite his having moved from her direct path it would just look like he had swiped at thin air for some reason. Even if she dodged the leg, stopped running, and turned to strike it would put his blade in her direction and able to be adjusted to block or hit another target so long as her angle didn’t change markedly, and he didn’t expect her to fall entirely especially without sliding along the sand and well out of range to strike him, or to jump and strike while swinging backwards as she charged though if she did that it would be pretty impressive. 

Dramatic changes in angle were unlikely in this case, and it was more important here that his blade remained in a relative position to be useful in the ongoing fight regardless of whether it hit or not. This was no longer going to be a measure of quick finishes on the ground, but a protracted bout of skill at blade and sharpness of wit. She had the advantage of proactivity for the moment, though his block, attempted trip and slash might well force her into the defensive posture of having to react to what he was doing, but he had the advantage of a presumably far greater amount of moons of training with the blade and at the particular form of fencing common to the pit fighters of the arena. Even those with significant training at other fighting arts often found the change to facing an opponent on the sands to be a difficult one to adapt to. Here it was rarely a battle of quick deaths delivered by a particularly devastating parry and riposte on the part of a superior duelist, but the long, protracted contest of death by a thousand painful bruises. She had smashed his nose to a bleeding if not a broken state, he had elbowed her in the face. They would continue to inflict minor pains upon one another until one simply could stand no longer. This was the way of things at Australos.