The jump was unexpected, but he wasn't a Plant for nothing- he'd already made a dash of his own, putting those rusty gears of old combat to work, veering around Cloud and being too slow, carpet was so different from sand, didn't slide nearly as much---
His gun bared even as the other's sword lost its support and was falling to the ground, mind carefully blank aside from where to move, how to move, when to react, who to block (never answering why), and his mind was eeriely calm, boots screeching on their own as the blow landed on the metal of something much smaller than those blades, eyes behind yellow glasses a thin, thin line of blue, smoldered. Not angry- he rarely felt anything but sadness over a fight- but determination, the will to drive this point home. Stubbornness. Necessary.
Hand was twisted, knees barely holding (strongstrongstrong), knocked a bit off balance from the strike, hoping to knock or slide the girl's blade away- bide enough time think (not about Luki or Cloud, just about positions and attacks, for this wasn't between normal humans or on Gunsmoke, where Vash knew the unspoken laws), enough time to get out in an utterly normal voice, chin ducked under the cover of red in front of his face. But even as his wrist flicked and his attention was split between the girl in front of him - so many vulnerable points, she was just a child, his Arm hurt, Wolfwood--- and saying,
"Did you give up?"
Just had to knock her out. Vash knew he'd be the one to do it, the one to put a smile on afterwards, but that didn't mean he needed the other embracing a messy death. Blades tended to hurt a lot more than guns, generally. Not nice at all.