Himari

“Himari-san, I really don’t think this is a good idea.” Misao’s voice hissed in her ear as she began to walk forward towards Chikao.

Himari was undeterred. Even if she thought they were right, it had become far too late to back down. “It’ll be fine,” she whispered, projecting a calm she didn’t quite feel. “Trust me. He doesn’t look that much tougher than my semifinal opponent from the trials.” The lie felt like acid in her throat.

Still, she stepped forward, and Misao disappeared into the throng of soldiers that had surrounded them in the space between his acceptance and now. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and took a breath. Then her left foot slid back, and her right hand grasped at Shugojin. Her eyes opened and locked in on the larger man. This wasn’t her first time taking down a man much larger than her. She was sure it wouldn’t be her last.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Chikao sounded much more serious now. The joking tone was gone. He sounded more like a training instructor who was about to teach a student a particularly difficult lesson. “I’m not gonna go easy on you just cause of your name, you know. There’s no shame in bowing out when you’re overmatched.

Himari bristled at his words. He was already reminding her of her fight against Roban. “Thank you, but I’m no stranger to chopping down an oak. It’s not too late to join us.” Belatedly, she realized her heart was racing. Was she nervous?

“Suit yourself,” Chikao shrugged his shoulders, lifting his Tetsubo in a relaxed stance on top of his shoulders. “We begin when you are ready. Don’t hold back, Sato-sama.” His casual way of saying her name stabbed at Himari’s chest. Her eyes narrowed.

And then she was a flurry of motion. In that smooth, practiced motion, her blade cleared it’s Saya and struck directly for his neck. As she thought, his Tetsubo slid into position and parried the weapon upwards. Instead of waiting for his counterattack, she leapt into the air and threw a left footed kick straight for his face.

Only to be caught off guard as his left fist punched straight into her stomach.

Himari flew back a half dozen feet, gasping for breath. Her eyes shot to Chikao as she caught herself, and she was barely able to leap out of the way as his Tetsubo crashed into the dirt where she had just been. She was fortunate, at least, that in those moments she had managed to keep a hold on Shugojin. A slow breath escaped, and she slowly back pedaled to reassess her situation.

For how large Chikao was, he was remarkably fast. She grit her teeth and moved to position 4, left foot forward. With only her side profile, she thought she might make a harder target for him.

This time, as she charged, she feinted a swing for his face, only to twist and swing her heel into his ankles. He was large, but a strike at his base should send him crumbling. The problem was that when her heel should have struck his ankles, she felt only air. And then an intense surge of pain as he stomped down on her leg. She screamed, tears stinging her eyes with the surge.

As she looked up, he was staring down at her, his Tetsubo pointed at her head. “Had enough, Sato-sama?” That damned smug satisfaction again. “There’s no shame in admitting that you’re beaten. Admit defeat, and we’ll give you some good sake for the pain before we kick you out.”

Her brow furrowed in anger. And she swung her blade haphazardly at his ankles, forcing him to back off her feet lest he lose them. With one hand, she pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, and a surge of pain shot down her left leg as she tried to put pressure on it. But she wouldn’t be deterred. She couldn’t fail here. “I’m not beaten yet,” she almost growled at him.

He laughed, his tetsubo returning to that damned casual stance. “Come on girl! I coulda killed you by now, don’t be stubborn. Honestly, I’m impressed you can even stand on that leg.” He didn’t move. And Himari knew he was right to. The advantage was entirely his, after all.

Undeterred, she took a slow breath to calm herself down. What could she do to get an advantage? Her eyes closed, and she held her left hand out in front of her. The small sphere of water circled in her hand, a small manifestation of the Aura that she’d developed. It wasn’t much. But maybe, just maybe, she could use it to her advantage.

“Ohhhh, what a cute trick!” Chikao taunted her. She closed her eyes and tried to focus more of herself into that small sphere. She pushed it to rage, to become more torrent than stream. And then she threw it with all her might at his face.

It didn’t hurt, of course. She hadn’t expected it to. But as she’d hoped, he lifted his hand to block away the water. Pushing off with her good leg, she leapt at him and swung at his torso. She doubted she could cut through him, but into him should be enough.

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Again, he was faster than she expected. But as he stepped back, he looked down at his loose kimono. The obi opened, and with it the kimono unfolded. It was in this moment that Himari realized something very important: while his girth was impressive, it was also not simply a love of food that made it so. She had cut into the muscle of a man who had spent a lifetime of training. And all she’d managed in all that was a thin line of blood across his stomach.

It was this moment that Himari realized how truly overmatched she was. She grit her teeth, stepping back just enough to avoid the Tetsubo that was screaming toward her face. As her attention focused fully on her opponent again, she saw a look of frustration on his face that confused her.

“I am trying, Girl, to be very patient with you. And you are fighting against every opportunity for clemency that I am trying to offer you. Surely you can’t be that daft?” He pointed his tetsubo at her again. “I will tell you again. Surrender. There is no shame in it. We can treat your wounds and give you a nice bottle of sake to see you on your way.

Himari spit on the ground next to her, not caring to notice the bright crimson that had hit the ground instead of clear liquid. “With respect, Chikao-san, only one of us has the luxury of being able to afford to lose. If you are seeking clemency, I am more than happy to accept your surrender.” The look of rage on his face told her that she had gotten the desired reaction.

The feel of sudden danger permeating from Shugojin told her to duck. She leapt into a roll just in time to avoid a horizontal swing that might have knocked her head clean off if it still had been there. As she rolled past him, she jammed her hilt into his knee. For the first time, he let out a shout of pain as he briefly dropped to a kneel.

Standing, she was discovering, was quickly becoming more a burden than a help. But she refused to show weakness, and so she pushed herself up anyway. As he slowly made his way up, she took a moment to lift her left leg, easing the pressure while she could afford to. She didn’t… think it was broken. As reluctant as it seemed to be to hold her weight, she had to rely on the fact that it was still doing that job. “Well well,” she grinned through her tears. “Looks like it’s your turn to kneel to me this time around.”

“Don’t think you’ve won because you caught one lucky break,” he spit his rebuttal at her. Rising to his feet, any hint of the casual tone he’d been taking with her had gone. “I am going to make you submit, or I am going to make you wish that you had never stepped into this village. The choice is yours, Sato-sama.”

“As I said before,” she said, her weapon pointed at him in position one. “I can’t afford to fail here. And if I have to put everything I have into taking you down, so damn be it.”

The two kept wary eyes on each other. She knew that he likely wasn’t going to fall for a distraction from her Aura again. So this time, instead of willing the sphere into her, she started flooding that Aura into her left leg. To her surprise, the pain seemed to ease some. She could still feel it throb in pain, but it was a dull, more manageable pain. For a moment, she smiled. This was manageable. She could make this work.

Chikao didn’t give her the chance to consider beyond this moment. He stepped forward swiftly, heedless of any damage done to his knee. The tetsubo swung downwards at her, and this time she parried with her blade, side stepping and letting her blade move with the motion. Before she could bring it back for a counterattack, though, a searing pain shot through her face as she was struck by his back hand. She went sprawling to the ground some distance away. Any control she’d figured out with her aura was gone.

“What more do you need?!” Chikao demanded of her. “How much more do I have to hurt you, Girl? Do you think that whatever this is you are fighting for is worth dying in the backwater of the Empire, where no one will even remember your fucking name after you’ve died? Think, Sato-sama. Stay the fuck down!”

As she lifted herself up with one arm, she realized that somewhere while rolling across the ground, she’d dropped Shugojin. Her vision was blurred, unable to quite focus after the force of that hit. She reached to touch her face. Nothing felt… fully broken. But oh this headache wasn’t going to go away soon.

Unable to find her sword, she pushed herself to her feet. There was no sound other than that of her feet scraping against the dirt. The jeers were gone. Or had she just lost hearing with her unfocused vision? No, she definitely heard him. She slid herself into an unarmed stance, ready to meet his next attack. “I’m… not done yet.” She managed through choked, pain words. “Come on.”

There was a slam. As her eyes finally started to focus on him again, she realized he’d put his tetsubo on the ground. Somewhere in the back of her head, she could hear her father saying something about how fighting fair was for fools. Maybe she could take advantage of that…

All thought was pushed away by a fist slamming hard into her gut. She fell to the ground again, choking sobs escaping. She could hear him saying something, but through the pain all she recognized was him backing up again. She took advantage of the space. Pushed herself back to her feet. Dammit, somehow she had to figure something out.

A foot went into her left leg, and it screamed in agony. Or did she? Awareness was becoming difficult. This time, she scrambled back and got back up. She wasn’t going to let herself lose. She hadn’t come all this far just to fail here. As he approached her, she could see that he was saying something. But she just couldn’t understand it.

So she swung with every bit of remaining strength she had. The blow connected with his right cheek, and he recoiled backwards in shock and pain. This was it, this was her chance! She pushed forward with whatever strength she had available to her, swinging to follow up, to not give him time to recover.

And then a blow struck her in the back of her head, and blackness brought her low.