After a few seconds, Katsuko looked like she was just barely restraining the impulse to roll her eyes. So, not completely subtle. In a game of patience, he knew which one of them he’d bet on.

Above them, streaks of cloud scrolled gently across the sinking fingernail-moon, washing dark shadows over the training field. A strand of Katsuko’s hair slipped across her forehead.

“When they were handing out bastard genes—” she began, and blurred into sudden motion, drawing her swords like a striking snake and hammering them down at him. He caught both blades on two drawn kunai. Metal screeched against metal as he slid the kunai down, choking her swords near the grip.

“—you definitely got in line for seconds,” she finished.

“Actually, my parents were married,” Kakashi said, and twisted both kunai, knifing for her unprotected fingers.

With suicidal disregard for her ability to ever perform jutsu again, she slammed her hands up, against the kunai. A quick wrist twist caught his blades on the metal plates of her gloves, striking sparks. And then—

Shit.

She scissored the swords, using their longer reach to carve for his inner elbows, aiming to cut his arms in half. He broke the lock, disengaging, and dropped down flat, throwing both kunai at her knees. But Katsuko was already leaping. Her swords flicked like liquid lines of steel, spinning his kunai off into the distance. They landed somewhere on the other side of the fence. She twisted in midair and dropped knee-first towards his head, with both blades facing point-down like mantis claws.

No ninjutsu.

He flung himself to the right, narrowly missing a vicious ear piercing. A bright hot line sliced the outside of his shoulder, parting cloth and skin. She landed hard enough to dent the ground, swords sinking deep. Kakashi vaulted back upright, putting distance between them, and flung a humming cloud of shuriken at her.

She yanked her swords free and scythed them through a fluid pattern, creating a moving wall of steel. Only one shuriken made it through, on that weaker right side. A line of shallow blood laid itself open across the back of Katsuko’s forearm, scattering droplets like jewels.

She shook her arm, grinning. “Thought you wanted to spar with swords, cricket?”

“What do you call those?” Kakashi said, nodding at her weapons.

“I call them Princess and Goremonger,” she said, spinning them easily. “And you’ve got something up your sleeve.”

He shook his sleeves back to his elbows, showing bare arms. “Who, me?”

Katsuko’s smile didn’t change. “Stop holding back.”

She’d noticed that?

In the field, if this was a real fight, where would he go next—? Ah. He smiled, eye curving, and said, “I’m going to break your guard.”

“You can try,” she said, with a teasing lilt that fell between playful and serious. Her eyes swept over him, analyzing.

Kakashi hadn’t telegraphed a move in a fight since he was eight, when Minato had kicked him repeatedly to knock that shoulder-twitch out. He dropped that same shoulder now, and Katsuko’s eyes flickered, catching the movement. She was already shifting to the left when he attacked.

On her right.

His kodachi and tanto struck together, clashing against the guard she’d managed to bring around in time, but he’d made the angle awkward for her. He pressed forward, forcing the weight of defense entirely onto that right arm.