Yes, Kumo ran a rough school. No one could argue with his results, though. Tidwell had seen things in this last week that he had not previously believed physically possible.

Ejecting the tape cassette, he refiled it, selected another, and fed it into the viewer.

The man on the screen was the physical opposite of Kumo who knelt in the background. Where Kumo was thin to the point of looking frail, this man looked like you could hit him with a truck without doing significant damage. He was short, but wide and muscular, looking for all the world like a miniature fullback, complete with shoulder pads.

He stood blindfolded on a field of hard-packed earth. His pose was relaxed and serene. Suddenly another man appeared at the edge of the screen, sprinting forward with upraised sword. As he neared his stationary target, the sword flashed out in a horizontal cut aimed to decapitate the luckless man. At the last instant before the sword struck, the blindfolded man ducked under the glittering blade and lashed out with a kick that took the running swordsman full in the stomach. The man dropped to the ground, doubled over in agony, as the blindfolded man resumed his original stance.

Another man crept onto the field, apparently trying to drag his fallen comrade back to the sidelines. When he reached the writhing figure, however, instead of attempting to assist him, the new man sprang over him high into the air, launching a flying kick at the man with the blindfold. Again the blinded man countered, this time raising a forearm which caught the attacker's leg and flipped it in the air, dumping him on his head.

At this point, the swordsman, who apparently was not as injured as he had seemed, rolled over and aimed a vicious cut at the defender's legs. The blindfolded man took to the air, leaping over the sword, and drove a heel down into the swordsman's face. The man fell back and lay motionless, bleeding from both nostrils.