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With his cousin back home, Arian had found himself back in the position of once again having to juggle his timings when slipping out to go hit the patrol beat as his counter part.

It was something that he had become woefully out of practice with, given that these past few weeks he had pretty much been able to slip out pretty much at will and so instead had settled for starting his patrols earlier in the evenings.

Despite having given in and picked up a pair of fingerless gloves for use while out on patrol, picking up a hot drink had become something of a habit for him and it was thus why as Athene he had both gloves and the take out cup of caramel syrup infused latte as he made his way towards the park.

Despite doing his best to keep half an eye out for trouble, Athene wasn't formally patrolling this time round, instead however, he was meeting up with Hara, the blue-haired Chronos Page having asked that they meet for a practice spar. He hadn't minded doing so - despite being an eternal senshi, fighting still wasn't really Athene's thing and although the dark-haired senshi was better than he'd been back when he'd first started out (not that hard) or even as he'd been as a Super (again not that hard), he knew that it wouldn't hurt to practice.

Sparring with Hara would serve to do that while at the same time helping someone out that Athene had started to consider a friend. They had agreed to meet up at the the park, the park having seemed the logical place for an evening practice spar.

Hara was already at the park by the time Athene got there, the two of them seemingly take out hot drink buddies as the blue haired Page was sporting a take out cup of her own in her hands.

"Evening Hara Berezaiti," he called his quiet voice friendly, a slight smile on his face in response to her cheerful greeting. "How are you?"

Making his way over to where she was, he set his cup down carefully on a nearby bench before asking "And how shall we play this?" Thinking about it a little before adding "Should we do something like first one to three landed hits wins? Or mayhaps even five landed hits." He remembered Maia having something similar in the first of her training sessions that he'd gone to and it had worked pretty well to his way of thinking, although he was pretty easy about the whole thing and happy to go with something else if Hara wanted to do something different.

"Three works for me" Athene agreed. "And to be honest we're helping each other out." His slight smile was slightly rueful as he admitted "Fighting's not really my strongest point and although Aikido's helped I'm kind of out of practice with things." It was a side effect of having had to wait on the stitches from the injuries he'd picked up during the events of the Shades and their Queen's attempted takeover coming out before he could take up classes again.

He shook his head at Hara's question about the Cape "No it's not something I've ever watched" he said quietly. "Although it sounds interesting - mayhaps I'll try checking it out sometime."

He took a few steps back before slipping into one of the ready stances that he'd picked from said Aikido classes, continuing to speak as he did so "And I'm ready whenever you are" and then added as the thought occurred to him. "By the way do you mind if I don't try to use magic? It's just that my magic's kind of unpredictable but when it works then it traps things" well at least his base and super attacks did - his eternal attack seemed to barrier things instead.

Spar-wise Athene decided that he would probably wait for Hara to make the first move, preferring not to be the one to move first if at all possible.

"Well I can tell you how my magic works after we finish sparring if you want" Athene offered as he watched Hara slip into a fighting stance of her own. "And Knights get magic too as they get stronger" he added. "Although it seems to work differently to senshi magic, so mayhaps you'll be able to tell me about yours when too when you get it."

He waited a few moments to see if Hara would take the first move, still preferring not to be the one to move first but eventually he darted in, left hand moving in an attempt to make a flat strike at the blue-haired Page's arm.

"Okay, after we finish" Athene managed a nod as he shifted his free arm to block Hara's incoming strike, before twisting his hand to try and latch onto the blue-haired Page's wrist.

It was the first part of a move that Hara would perhaps recognise from their shared Aikido classes, the precursor step to trying to flip someone.

It was not something that Athene would usually resort to as the move really wasn't one of his strong points - he was strongest at breaking his own falls - and a miscalculation on his part would end up leaving him wide open - but there was a glimmer of a chance that it might work and so Athene was going to give it a try.

Although Athene had managed to latch his hand onto Hara's wrist, she had moved before he could get a tight enough grip which meant that Hara was able to break his hold without too much difficulty.

It meant the risk that he had considered when contemplating the move had come to pass as he was left off-balance and despite the fact that it was something that he should be able to recover from, for a brief moment Athene was left wide open.

Although Athene could see Hara's intent, that moment of being off-balance meant that he was unable to avoid the move and so instead he let himself tumble backwards breaking his fall before rolling to the side, he was up and on his feet as soon as he could having learnt the hard way that being on the ground made you vulnerable.

"My grip does need work" he agreed ruefully, knowing that Mr Green probably would have had a thing or two to say - mostly about his tendency towards holding back. "It's first hit to you I think" he said voice, pretty easy about it, even as he continued to try and put his all into the spar.

Off the ground he darted in again, hand moving out in another flat strike, moving his hand as if to strike Hara in the side. Landing a hit that way wasn't his intention however, his attempt more to try and unbalance the blue-haired Page slightly as she tried to block and then try and trip her if he was successful.

It was something that he'd had used on him at one of Maia's training sessions and something that he was wondering if he could replicate, taking the other by surprise seemed to be a needed component for it to work though.

"Still it's something I know I have to work on" Athene admitted, "Especially as fighting isn't my strongest point." Not that Athene was sure that that it would ever be his strongest point, given that he didn't particularly evenlike fighting, but he was willing to work at being at least competent. He learnt, the hard way, that while he preferred to avoid fighting where possible powered life meant that he wouldn't always have the choice.

He hadn't been completely certain that Hara would fall for his feint, after all the move he was attempting wasn't one he'd attempted before and even though he'd had it used on him seeing didn't necessarily translate into replicating.

But as the blue-haired Page moved to block, he took the opportunity to shift into the secondary part of the move and tried to use his leg to unbalance and then trip her in the hope of sending her tumbling, albeit hopefully not too hard.

After all the point of the exercise was supposed to be training, not who could hit hardest.