"You do know what kind of event this is, right?"

"I do, yes," Mikko replied with a weary sigh as she finished penning the final of thirteen signatures. She probably should have read the documents before signing them, she might even have done so if not for the line behind her and the overly concerned gentleman behind the counter. If anything she was just curious about how much legalese they must have stuffed into the document, in order to turn 'We aren't responsible if you die', into seven pages.

"Look, I'm not trying to be a-"

"Why do guys always say that right before they act like jerks?" Mikko cut in, her steely blue eyes fixed on the man behind the registration desk who was so eager to give her advice. "Do people normally get lost and wind up registering by accident?"

"No, but-"

"Do I look confused about what my registration fee is for?"

"That isn't the-"

"Were you going to give any of these other goons the third degree about how maybe they aren't cut out for this?"

"Most of them are-"

"Men?"

The clerk's mouth opened and closed a few times in a way that looked like nothing so much as a particularly befuddled trout. "Older."

"Nice save." Mikko felt some of the tension in her shoulders melt away as she laughed despite herself. "I get your concern, but I'm nowhere near as frail as I appear." She smiled then, her head crooking slightly to the left. "If it makes you feel any better if any of them think the same way you do, they're going to be pulling their punches."

"It doesn't." The man chuckled, then reached for his nearby stamp, slapping it down twice upon her paperwork, before handing her a copy. "Women's locker room is down the hall to your left. You'll have it mostly to yourself. Good luck."

With a nod, Mikko snapped up the paperwork, hefted her bag, and proceeded down the hallway he'd indicated. It was only once she'd made it halfway down the hall that she allowed her fraudulent smile to falter into the scowl she'd been suppressing.

It was hard to tell who she was more annoyed at, the man behind the desk for assuming she couldn't fight, or herself for letting his worldview get under her skin. The last thing she needed to do before her first real competition was second guess herself, but as she looked over her shoulder, it was hard to argue that the clerk was completely out of left field with his worries.

Most of those lined up for registration were, well, they looked the part of fighters. Men in their twenties, the majority were at least half a foot taller than her, though otherwise, their body types varied substantially. There were thick bellied men with arms as wide as one of her thighs, broad-shouldered athletic types, and bodybuilders who looked as though she could pop one of their pecs with a pin. Size wasn't everything, of course, nor even the better part of what made a good fighter, but Mikko couldn't shake the fact that they looked like they were supposed to be here.

And she did not.

She was a seventeen-year-old girl who would have looked more at home as the protagonist in a romantic comedy than a martial arts flick. Yeah, she wasn't covered head to toe she looked considerably more formidable, but no amount of training could do much about the fact that she'd topped out at a solid 5'5" three years ago. Or that even her most fierce warrior look tended to be more often described as adorable than intimidating.

"Don't have to look strong," Mikko repeated to herself as she set her gym bag down on one of the slim wooden benches inside the tiny women's ready room. "Just have to be strong."

It was a mantra she'd repeated to herself for years, and nervous though she was, Mikko was itching to put it to the test.

There was just one small problem.

***

"Ready?"

Not really. The thought came unbidden and unwelcome to Mikko's mind as she stood at the edge of the main stage. She'd expected it to be hot under the floodlights, but this was positively ridiculous.

Then again, so was her outfit.

Nerves were Mikko's only real excuse for how she'd managed to travel halfway across the city without realizing she'd left with an empty gym bag. Why it was empty was a different matter entirely, but when all this was over she planned to have a long talk with her mother about how she needed to stop swiping her things for laundry without telling her.

And I thought losing a couple of pairs of earbuds to the washing machine was bad. Mikko snorted in dire amusement. She'd had a full hour of waiting to sit and stew on her mistake, but she was far from over it, particularly in light of how bizarre she looked compared to her fellow competitors.

Of the eighteen fighters in her preliminary bracket, she was the only girl on the fighting stage, the only one under the age of twenty, and the only one without some form of Gi or other fighters garb. Instead, while they wore their school emblems, combat sleeves, and other more typical apparel, she graced the audience with a cream-colored woolen sweater that rose up to her chin, and a pair of dark leggings that she desperately hoped would be able to keep up with her flexibility.

"On my mark!"

I really need to focus on the positives in life. Mikko smiled grimly, ignoring the sensation of a bead of sweat as it trickled its way down her neck. Maybe one of them will be too busy starting at-

"Begin!"

That last thought was drowned out in a sudden surge of adrenaline as eighteen participants surged forward as one. No one wanted to be the fool who stayed near the edge, not in a match where even a single foot out of bounds was the end of your ambition.

"You first, huh?" Mikko asked of the man to her left. She'd caught him eyeing her during the introductions, so she was unsurprised as the man altered his course to intercept her. He was a big, burly fellow, one who stood a full foot taller than her and half again as wide in the shoulders, his bare chest covered in a half dozen curious scars.

She wondered why he chose her as his opponent. The tournament format was last man standing, and that applied to the preliminaries as well; there was no scoring system and no real incentive to eliminate a weaker opponent rather than focusing on a stronger opponent. Either he was trying to conserve energy while the stronger fighters tired themselves out, or he was the only one on the fighting stage who had even an inkling of just how strong she was.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

That inkling didn't help him.

She slid his opening jab with almost contemptible ease; her elbows tucked neatly in against her slender frame as she stepped into his guard and delivered a devastating counterpunch to the abdomen. Judging by the open-mouthed agony of his expression, the surprise and power behind that first punch very well might have done the job by itself, but she followed it up with a hard cross that sent him sprawling, just to be sure.

The roar of the crowd at her sudden reversal was deafening, and for just a moment, Mikko allowed herself to soak in the moment she'd dreamt of since she'd been barely a child. Her turn on the fighting stage. Her turn to shine, at long last.

One down, seventeen more to-

The sudden sting of a punch rocked Mikko back on her feet. She'd been so lost inside her own head that she'd failed to take stock of the situation on the fighting stage, and that same head had taken its punishment in the form of a solid haymaker thrown by a man twice her age.

Yet, despite having the element of surprise on his side, the attack hadn't done much. It hurt, sure, but the man who threw it simply wasn't that strong, and worse yet, he had no follow-through. It had forced her to take a knee through sheer shock, but if there was one thing a decade of martial arts training had instilled in Mikko, it was how to take a punch.

She was actually a little baffled by his behavior as she turned to find him waiting patiently in guard a few steps away. Apparently, the old man had it in him to sucker-punch a teenage girl, but kicking her when she's down? That was a bridge too far.

"Haaa!" Mikko shouted as she pushed off with her back leg, launching into her opponent with a barrage of punches and kicks meant more to test his defenses than to inflict significant damage.

His guard was wanting. The man was both slower than her, and less skilled on the defense than she was on the attack. Moment after moment attacks slipped through his blocks and dodges, clipping him on the shoulder, on the arm chest and even once on the face, a testament to the difference in ability between the two of them.

She ended it with a horizontal spin kick that took him clear in the left side of the jaw, a blow that sent him skidding nearly a dozen feet off to the side, one arm of his unconscious body mercifully sparing him the ten count as it flopped out of bounds.

Again the crowd roared, and this time her thoughts drew momentarily inward rather than outward. Two opponents down, and neither one a significant challenge. Mikko liked to think she held a high opinion of her skills, but this was going almost too well. So long as she could keep things narrowed down to a fistfight, she might actually come out on top!

With a bit of distance and as much time, Mikko spared a moment to take stock of the situation around her. In addition to the two she had bested, nine other men lay sprawled across or just outside of the ring. That left seven still active competitors, and already the dynamic of the battle had shifted drastically.

On the far side of the stone battle stage, she could see a tall, muscular black-haired man trying his best to fend off a duo who fought with such unison in style and speed that Mikko was sure that they must be related. Nearer, and more concerning, were three combatants who had caught the tail end of her previous duel, fighters who'd decided they'd be better off dealing with her first and each other later.

"Any chance I can convince you to fight me one at a ti-" Mikko didn't even make it through the totality of her banter before the two men on her flanks raised their hands in unison, sending beams of blinding blue energy cascading towards her.

Mikko didn't hesitate.

A dash forward carried her out of the path of the attacks and into melee with the third man, a handsome boy only a few years her senior with glittering green eyes and a godawful orange gi. They were quick to exchange blows, and to both her dismay and delight, this one was neither surprised nor immediately outclassed, standing his ground and striking back once for every two blows she rained upon his heavy guard.

With Mikko in such close quarters, the men on either side were forced to make a snap decision. Support their erstwhile ally in close combat, or continue striking from range, and risk doing more harm than good.

The two made vastly different decisions.

To her right, the second man came rushing in, his sudden barrage of kicks forcing Mikko onto the defensive for the first time. Meanwhile, to her left, the second man had presented his hand once more, his voice raised high in a kiai as energy began to collect in his outstretched palm.

Yeah... that's not good. Mikko frowned, ducking under a sweeping right hand from one opponent before pivoting out of the way of a kick from the other. Or, maybe it is.

The two kept her busy for the next several seconds as the light behind her continued to grow in intensity, but to their dismay, she was slowly getting a handle on them. Individually they were talented, and together they might have even had the potential to best her, but their tenuous alliance was entirely out of sync. One fighter blocked the other with his attacks, or provided her an opening by cutting off an avenue of retreat, and it was that disharmony she exploited as she heard the sudden shout behind her.

"HAAAA!" It was as much a signal as part of the attack, and the very sound changed the dynamic of her battle once more. As she'd expected, her opponents dipped immediately into defense in an attempt to clear the blast radius, but unfortunately for green eyes and his terrible gi, they tripped over one another in their attempts to do so.

A quick grasp of his fighting garb, a bit of leverage, and Mikko had a projectile of her own.

The man struck squarely in the center of the beam attack and the sudden detonation not only totally incapacitated him; but washed back over the user as well, throwing him from the stage.

"Neat. Twofer." Mikko giggled, her head swiveling in the direction of the trio's last remaining member.

Judging by his reaction, maybe she could be intimidating after all.

It took mere seconds two sweep the last of the three from the fighting stage, which, to her surprise, left her with a single opponent.

The man's clothes were ripped and torn, his body covered in a thin sheen of sweat wherever it showed through under his combat suit. A trickle of blood ran down from a cut somewhere under that mass of spiky black hair, dripping from one eyebrow to the cheek beneath and frustrating the man's vision enough that he lifted an arm away from his guard to wipe at it.

"My mom is a big fan of the saying 'What works, team works!'" Mikko grinned, turning her head this way and that to look at the defeated bodies of both of their opponents. "I think she might have to revise that saying."

"I think you're right." The man chuckled, though he was unable to hide the wince that accompanied the bout of laughter.

"You okay to fight in that condition?"

Her opponent didn't respond with words, but with a kiai. His voice rose in a shout halfway between anger and determination, while a few bits of the stage that had shattered loose during their battle began to shift and stir. It wasn't much of an effect, nothing really, compared to the sort of displays that had literally shaken the earth in the past, but it was a show of his willingness to fight on nonetheless.

Mikko let him throw the first punch as he rushed her, catching the impact against her upraised forearm and retaliating with a harsh jab from her left. The same jab that had all but incapacitated her first opponent did not phase this man, even with his injuries, and the two of them quickly began to trade attacks in earnest.

He was stronger than her, but she had an edge in speed. On technique, they were damnably close, but with his injuries, it wouldn't be much of a contest. He was probably the better fighter, and certainly the more complete fighter, despite how much she hated to admit it, but he wouldn't be the fighter to win this match.

A solid kick took him in the midsection, knocking some of the fight out of him as she sent him sprawling back a few steps. The opening was only there because the man could barely see out of his left eye, but she exploited it nonetheless. If he ever went back to watch the tape of this fight, she didn't want him, or anyone else, thinking she was taking him anything less than seriously.

That didn't mean she had to be cruel in finishing him, however.

She ended the fight with a quick one-two combination of blows to the head, punches that staggered him long enough for her to throw a hard side-kick to his midsection that sent him skidding the last few feet out of bounds. He was so out of it, or so into the fight that he actually started back towards her before it occurred to him that he'd stepped off the stage. Only the timely intervention of a voice over the loudspeakers brought him back to his senses and kept her from having to continue to bludgeon a defeated opponent.

The sing-song feminine voice rang out over every speaker in the arena as the girl herself all but charged the stage, her dainty hand waving to the crowd as she literally slid to a stop in the center of the battlefield, one arm thrust in Mikko's direction.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Your winner of the first provisional block! Mikko Mori!"