She strikes the ore vein in front of her over and over. Little nuggets pile up at her feet, but she still keeps at it. Her answer doesn't come for a while, til long after he probably though she'd ignored him. As she sets down her pickaxe, takes a long swig from the waterskin at her hip, and catches her breath...

"... Well, two's a good number. Yin, yang, you know. And three is pretty sacred, I hear. There's five elements. Seven days in a week. And what about pokemon types, you know how many of those there are?"

She grins, breathlessly. The workout is more intense than swordplay. She's unused to this, but all the same, it isn't enough to dim her spirits. She's as evasive as ever.

She flashes him a grin as he answers by-the-book. Something in her eyes tells him he doesn't quite agree with that point, but she chooses not to argue with him.

Instead, she answers in the form of a riddle.

"Well, I'd say it's impossible to define something without its opposite. You want Truth in contrast to what? Falsehood? Fiction? Ideals?

She takes another sip of her waterskin to punctuate her response, proud of her non-answer.

She smiles at his intensity. There is something sagely about it, almost innocent, though she knows he is anything but. She sets the waterskin aside and gives him her full attention.

"Recency."

The word doesn't mean anything on its own, so she waits, then adds a little to it.

"The higher-ups gave us a lotta quizzes when they were ushering us through training. Guess I'm still thinkin' of those questions. Every one you'd bubble in the answer: True, or False?"

She lets out a sigh, leaning back and resting on the rock.

"If only life was that simple, eh?"

She gives him a wry smirk.

"Oh, you want my Truth? Why didn't ya say so?"

She laughs at her own joke, pretending she hadn't known this whole time, hadn't led him along like she was a cat on the prowl playing with her newfound prey. She'd been having fun, jovial as she was evasive, but very suddenly she grew serious.

Stonefaced, she leaned in and looked him unblinking in the eyes.

"I know what it's like to have everything taken from you. Reduced to something less than human. An animal, fightin' for your life. Powerless to do anything but scratch, and bite, and fight for your very life with everything you have. You're stronger then, stronger than you even know.

"And that's my Truth, that's why I fight. Strength. Because the strong survive. The weak die. And, I..."

She looks distant suddenly, as if remembering something in a wistful haze. Her eyes fall to the distant wall, unable to meet his eyes any longer.

"I won't ever let that happen again."

Hana straightens up, pushes herself to her feet in sullen silence. As if chewing on his words, she finally answers.

"You're right. I intend to die with blade in hand."

A blade. She won't go flailing with teeth, nails, or fists.

A blade is what makes her human.

She picks up her pickaxe, beginning to hammer away at the ore vein with renewed vigor. Her efforts are more intense now than when they quit. Renewed resolve. Perhaps their rest had helped.

"Y'know, Inoue... some say that there are as many types of pokemon as there are pokemon in the world-- which means we'll need a hell of a lot of ore, eh?"