First blows exchanged

The corner of Ayanna’s mouth curled in an annoyed grimace. ”Who does she think she is, the arrogance to not even take a stance?!” She hopped down into the pit, bringing up her fists and going into a slight crouch, and approached master Ilya, waiting for any sign of an attack to parry or an opening to exploit.

Ilya remained standing there like she had, the back of one hand resting against her hip. After a few moments of posturing and probing, Ayanna leapt forward and delivered a rapid series of punches, but Ilya slapped them all away with the flat of one hand while leaving the other down by her side. Ayanna growled, and continued with another series of punches and kicks, but made no headway against the master’s one-handed defence.

All the while, Ilya regarded her from top to bottom with a piercing glare... until her instinct and training noted an obvious opening in Ayanna’s defences, and she moved to exploit it. Ilya knew how to read her, and deficiencies in Ayanna’s physical defence would lay bare a crippling deficiency in her mental ones: modesty.