Chapter 5: Where Does the Good Go
Tsukiko's training had been far more brutal than the woman had let on. Though her little test had primarily been a means of gauging Nanami's skill level and tendencies, by the time she began training taijutsu and kenjutsu, the Ronin had upped her punishments quite a bit. She still made sure to hold back so as to avoid breaking bones, but each failure to execute a proper block or attack earned another welt, another bruise to mark their training together. After a certain point, the woman's devil-may-care attitude had faded to a certain point, where her suggestions were less condemning and more focused on seeing the genin improve.
Once they'd stopped, though, even Nanami would have been able to tell Tsukiko's style of fighting. Aside from rapidly closing distance with what, normally, would have been devastating attacks, her fighting style seemed more focused on counterattacks, redirecting blows and striking in the same movement. With Nanami, the psychological psyche-out of an enemy that charged and seemed intent on forcing her opponent to disengage would be experienced several times over. Though, whether that was preference or her chosen mode of training was yet unclear - the Jonin-level shinobi purposefully avoided ninjutsu and seemed more focused on getting Nanami acclimated to defense and the reach and utility of her new weapon rather than showing off her combat prowess.
Once things had settled down, though, and the others had completed their training, the woman found herself a spot by the cooking fire, plopped a bedroll down, and laid back, relaxing and staring up at the stars. With little miss cook off to visit her teammates, and their jonin getting some alone time, she seemed to just content herself with lazing about.
Once she got to Konoha, there'd be quite a bit of explaining and politicking to do.