I stay on the first tier and hope to avoid combat. When a girl comes down to my tier, I fight her, but I am free to use long glides on my left skate along the circular rim of the roof of the tier, conserving my right knee and my skate blades.
Most of the girls get swept up in the excitement of the Motivation and start unnecessarily using third- through sixth-gate level jumps just to intimidate each other. The moves are flashy and risky, and before long, there are only two other girls left in the round beside me: Chiriko and Etsuko.
They each start to hop down from their tiers toward me. If I stay here, they’re going to trap me from the left and the right. I hop up onto the second tier. To my surprise, the roof of the tier flexes as I land on it! Of course! The thin tiers are just ornamental, and they don’t bear any weight. Perhaps I should have paid more attention in architecture class.
I hop to the eighth tier and race to the center of the circular space atop the roof and begin to spin. As Chiriko and Etsuko jump up to the top tier, I unleash a sweeping leap in a circle across the roof. The impact blows Chiriko clear off the roof so that she lands on the ground near the entrance of the pagoda near Sensei Madame Liao and the other girls. Etsuko goes flying off the back side, but she manages to grab the first tier and haul herself up. I leap down there, alternating between left and right skates.
As soon as I land, Etsuko spins and takes an illegal swipe with her blade straight at my throat. I flip back and catch her skate with the jagged broken end of my right blade. I use the force of my flip to whip her down onto the ground. She hits so hard that she bounces just as Sensei Madame Liao and the other girls come racing around.
However, I was so surprised by Etsuko’s illegal attack that I can’t stop my own fall, and I tumble through the air. It doesn’t matter if I touch the ground now, since I am the last one, but the force is too strong in too small a space. I don’t want to crush my knee or make my left blade take all the impact, and I don’t have time to right myself, so I land on my two hands.
Pain screams through my left wrist, but I hold my position because everyone is looking. I push off my fingertips, land on my feet, and string two seventh-gate spins together into a beautiful ending flourish in the shape of a calligraphic figure. I bow to Sensei Madame Liao.
Afterward, as the other girls begin to disperse, Sensei Madame Liao asks me quietly, “Your knee?”
“It holds.”
“Give me your wrist.”
I wince as she holds it.
“Not broken. But you won’t be able to do any combat with that arm until it heals.”
She pauses and says, “Not bad.”
I don’t know why, but these little words fill my heart with warmth.
She continues, “But enough with those ending flourishes. You look like my mother.”
Ten thousand years of stomach gas. Doi was right. Again. But still, I took first. That puts me back in first place in overall rankings. I know that would never have happened if Doi hadn’t gotten herself and Suki disqualified from this Motivation.
I need to go thank her. I begin to skate back toward the dormitory. Then I think of Cricket alone among all those boys at their Motivation. Was Hisashi’s extra coaching enough to help Cricket from failing terribly? Whom did Cricket convince to partner with him?
A great cheer rises from the direction of the Radial of Mighty Tranquility. The boys must still be doing their third Motivation. The girls never cheer for each other like that. I skate toward the noise, but I stop. I really need to go thank Doi now. Another cheer comes roaring from the boys’ Motivation. I can’t resist.
I arrive at the great, circular arena on stilts over the water. The crowd chants, “Twelve! Thirteen!” Hisashi is in the center of the court. He and his pairs partner are working as a team to fend off two powerful attackers.
The two boys they’re fighting must be older boys brought in to administer the Motivation because they seem like giants next to Hisashi and his partner. I can’t tell if they’re second- or third-years from the trim on the front seam and cuffs of the robes because they’ve stripped down to the waist. Waves of corded muscle flutter and dance under their skin at every movement. I recognize them! They’re the two kind boys who ate with me my first day at Pearl Famous, Hong-Gee and Matsu.
Hisashi holds his partner’s hand, swings him at the older boys, and shouts out a move. Hisashi’s partner performs it, landing another toe kick on their opponents! The older boys move with so much flowing power, it’s like watching a pair of lunging tigers. However, Hisashi and his little partner flutter aside with moves that are boys’ moves but executed with as much nuance and efficiency as girls’ moves. The older boys are no more able to catch them than tigers can catch moths. The crowd counts out each contact they make in their unbroken string of landed strikes on the older boys.
After they’ve strung together sixteen strikes, one of the older boys finally manages to land a backhanded chop on Hisashi and his partner. Their hands separate and they go flying into the audience, taking down half the circle in twin tsunamis. They stop just before sliding off the edge of the arena into the sea below.
The crowd applauds as Hisashi and his partner stand and clap and
