When they reached the Academy at last, Sayuri and Miyu were told to stand with the new recruits. That was when Sayuri realized that the boys were older than them as Ryuu and Keiji were standing in the ranks of the second year students and Tanjiro was standing with the final year students.

Judging by the years they were studying in, Tanjiro must be around eighteen years old while Ryuu and Keiji would be sixteen to seventeen. She and Miyu were fifteen which was the age they were permitted into the Ninjutsu Academy.

Her training began at the Academy alongside the rest of her batch mates. She had a fair idea that it was important for her to get trained to the best of her ability as the future of her clan depended on her. Before sending her to the Academy, Sota and Ichiro had told her that she was supposed to be the next leader of the Sasuke clan so she had to prove herself worthy of the title.

That responsibility forced her to do her very best in every task and every lesson, learning all she could and perfecting it. She would spend her offs training with Miyu and the first year passed with her diligently getting used to her new life.

She didn't get to meet Ryuu or the others often because they were busy with their own lessons but sometimes the first year students were taken to the combative ground to see when their seniors were sparring.

Ryuu was no doubt among the most skilled students in the Academy. All the trainers praised his skill and even Sayuri knew he was brilliant for he always won each match that he was put up to.

She had seen him spar with his batch mates twice but there was something very different about his fighting style. He could easily win the matches without landing a single severe blow to the opponent.

And that ability of his to move gracefully, defend and attack with a perfect balance and take down the opponent without inflicting any pain revealed a very important shade of his personality.

He hated giving pain to anyone, be it even his opponent.

Seeing him spar so effortlessly made her want to spar with him and see for herself what his techniques were up close. But that was not allowed during the lessons and she had seldom seen him free to ask him to train with her.

Her first year ended and when the next year started, their lessons increased and the training routines got tougher. Sayuri often had no time on her hands to even call Jack and Tim so she told them that she would not be able to contact them as frequently as earlier. 

They still thought she was studying in a regular high school in Japan so she kept up that pretense, knowing it would be better if they didn't know the truth about the clan. They would get worried for her safety and ask her to come back but now that she was there and knew her duty, she would not be able to return until she took all her responsibilities to completion.

So from a call once a week, she resorted to sending emails and replying to the emails Jack sent in return every once in a while.

By then she had fully adjusted to her life as a warrior of the Sasuke clan. Her training would be complete when she would graduate from the Academy and if there was something still left to learn, Sota and Ichiro would prepare her for that.

As she was now in the second year of her training, they were often asked to spar with their batch mates so that their juniors could learn from them and see what sparring was like. With her zeal and devotion, Sayuri was one of the best fighters of her batch and right then she was put to a match against her batch mate Akira.

The rules of the sparring match were simple. The one who drew first blood won the match but there had to be no sneak attacks or foul play. And it wasn't allowed to fatally hurt the opponent either because the sparring was for educational purposes and not an outright battle.

That day Ryuu was in the audience too, standing in the back behind all the first years who had gathered to see the match and were quite excited about it. He was standing far enough for Sayuri not to notice him there but his brown eyes were focused on her, curious to see how she would fight.

Each match was based on two rounds. If a student won both rounds, it was a clear victory, otherwise, the match would be drawn and if the fighters wanted, a third round would be held to determine the winner. But mostly no one exceeded the number of two rounds as they were all there for the purpose of learning from each other and their trainers. They accepted the draws as well as the wins.

The bell rang and the match began, both Akira and Sayuri taking their positions. Ryuu could see that Akira could prove to be a challenge for Sayuri because the boy was skilled in wielding katanas such that even the seniors knew he was someone to be on guard from.

But he was also confident that Sayuri wouldn't have let those years of training go to waste. She was just as much determined to perfect her fighting strategy and he knew because he had often seen her training with Miyu during her offs.

As the match began and Sayuri and Akira charged at each other, Ryuu's brown eyes got even more focused on the pair. While Akira used brute force, Sayuri seemed to judge his moves and go for an attack right after. It was easy to say that they matched each other's skills.

She was sharp and focused, he observed, but unlike him, she had no limitations to her blows. So he could see that she fought lethally, even though she was toning down her moves for her not to get disqualified.

Akira managed to draw the first blood as his sword sliced past her arm. Ryuu stiffened, seeing the darkening of her suit indicating blood seeping through the fabric which meant the cut had been deep. If Sayuri wanted she could withdraw the match by claiming that her opponent had cheated and intentionally landed a deep cut.

But she did nothing of the sort.

The bell rang again for the second round and everyone was in shock at how quickly it ended. Ryuu too stood in silence as he kept his eyes focused on the lithe black figure of his childhood friend, dancing like a flame with a sword in hand.

The first blood was drawn in half the time it had taken earlier. And Akira's forearm had a thin graze that wasn't deep enough but the line of red marked Sayuri's victory. If Akira hadn't defended himself with his forearm held in front of him, that thin line would have landed on his cheek instead.

The match was announced as a draw as neither of them requested for a third round.

Akira left the ground and Sayuri too handed her weapon back, her hand gently fitting over her arm to staunch the blood. The trainer asked her to tell them if the cut was deep but she shook her head and left the ground as well. The combatants for the next match were brought up in their place.

As Sayuri was passing through the crowd of first years who had gathered to watch, a hand brushed against hers and she stopped, feeling someone had put a round jar in her palm. She looked up and was surprised to see Ryuu there but before she could ask him what he was doing there and what he had just given her, he left.

Opening her palm that he had closed around the jar, she saw that it held a silvery paste inside. A soft smile flickered on her face as she realized that it was the same ointment he used to prepare to heal battle wounds.

He had given it to her so that she could apply it on the cut and have it healed soon.

***