It's surprisingly easy to fight someone who's scared of you, if you've got the heart to do it. Even if they're technically stronger than you are. In a fight, see, the will to act is everything. 

Katherine? With her beautiful blue planet at her back and a home to go back to? She's got it in spades. She's full of clever tricks and glitter sparkles and moves so cool I really don't know how to describe half of them. Though you might be wondering why I'm not making more of an effort to try anyway? It's... well. 

Hm.

"Lady, if you believe even half of what you're sayin' then I'm a cat. Are we supposed to be a bubble or a death machine? Are you helpin' us or smashin' us to bits? You don't even know! You got spit out've a crab and now you're sayin' this and that and like... nyeh! [i]You're[/i] cringe! How's about that?!"

She sticks her tongue out and everything. It is a testament to the power of fox magic in sufficient quantities that she manages to look cool and dignified doing it.

I don't like bullying, is the thing. And when someone's unarmed, flustered, and moving at one quarter their usual speed and surety then, like, even if they're some sort of awful intergalactic death goddess it doesn't feel good to just wallop her. Besides which, we all know where this is ending up. 

Yin understood that there really [i]were[/i] monsters in the dark. She knew how to handle them, too. The fact that she was so good at it is what got her in trouble, in the end. By comparison there's much more of Princessing in Kat. So much, in fact, that there's only one way that something that feels like a proper Princess Duel to her can end. 

And beauty like this, trickery like this, swordplay like this, even banter like this... the secret weakness of the Sword of Validation is that you can't use it on something without a heart. But here we are, with a delightful smirk on Kat's face and her wooden blade tilted just so under the goddess' chin. That's how it's [i]meant[/i] to go.

"Is that really all you have to say? Wouldn't surrender feel so much sweeter, darling?"

Not to betray my little Kat's trust like this, but she fished that line out of a book. I can't blame her. She's been wanting to do something like this since she had hands. Plus it's exactly what I'd do, too. The problem is, this isn't a Princess Duel. 

...It's surprisingly hard to beat someone who's scared of you, even if you've got the heart to do it. Yin would not have made this mistake, but Kat never had a choice. She has no idea how else to do it: of every battle she's ever fought in, there's been somebody older and harder and with blood already on their hands who would swoop in and make the hard, nasty cut. Without Berserker or Saber or even Actia around to make the move for her, she goes for what in her heart should have settled all of this long ago.

But when you've backed someone into a corner, and taken away all of their tricks, shrugged off their rhetoric? Well I mean, that's just how animals are. This is when they bite you.

And now is when the real fight starts. Hang in there, Fluffybiscuits.