“One hundred!”
Doi nods at me. “Let’s knock them on their butts.”
We start our first battles with Doi as the foundation below, hoisting me into the air. Doi launches me up again and again above the roof of the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties in great arcs so that I can fight my opponent in the air. It’s an astonishing sight to see girl after girl being shot into the air around me like living cannonballs. Meanwhile, Doi spars with her opponent on the ground as she weaves between other girls before racing to meet me at the other end of the arc in time to catch me and launch me back up. Her skate kicks my skate up hard enough to pass sufficient Chi to keep me airborne, but not so much that I can’t control my flight toward my opponent.
I force any thoughts out of my mind about how my skates will be ruined. I’ll worry about that later. When I feel that Doi’s beginning to get tired from supporting me below, we switch positions. Then, I’m the one bumping her up into the air while sending sweeping kicks at my opponent here below.
Pair after pair of girls is eliminated around us and the chaos thins until at last, the field of battle is cleared and there is silence. Doi and I take a moment to catch our breaths. We look across the spine of the palace roof to the only other pair left standing: Suki and Etsuko.
Doi and I look at each other and silently consider which of us wants to take on Suki more.
Doi says “She’s yours” at the same moment that I say “She’s mine.”
Doi grabs one of my skates, whips me around her in eight spins, and swings me into the air. Etsuko launches Suki up at me like a grimacing cannonball.
Suki and I clash up above, skate on skate. We sling ourselves in backward flips to stay aloft as long as possible and try to knock the other one out of bounds of the roof of the palace, but we’re evenly matched. Our uniforms are black against the darkness above us, but we’re illuminated by the rings of luminescent plant growth around our wrists, ankles, shoulders, and hips.
We must look from below like the constellations of two goddesses who have peeled themselves from the night sky to do battle.
On the roof far below, Doi and Etsuko look like swirling blossoms of cloth and metal as they spin and swipe their skates at each other.
Doi and I work in beautiful harmony. With every fling into the air, I’m saying I need her. With every kick off her skates, she’s saying she needs me. I need her. She needs me.
As Suki is launched into the air, she reaches into the front of her robe and pulls out something colorful. When I fly up to meet her, she flings it at me. I snatch it out of the air. It’s a paper doll of me, toppling an entire pagoda with a flying side kick of my skates. The words Peony-Level Brightstar, Unstoppable Secret Weapon of Shin! are printed in gold logograms above my head, stamped with the imperial seal.
Aiyah! That’s the new “secret weapon” evidence! Where did she find them? How is this going to look now? I know she’s doing this to distract me, but I can’t let anyone else see these.
Etsuko and Doi fling Suki and me back up into the sky. Suki whips two more paper dolls to either side of her. I air dash to the left and sweep kick to the right to snatch both of them. As Suki descends from her arc, she flings five more in all directions.
I come down and Doi kicks me hard back up. I pluck three of the paper dolls out of the air, but in my distraction, Suki manages to land a lightning squall chop on the side of my face and I go spiraling down. Doi has to race across the whole length of the roof to catch me in time.
Below us, everyone’s looking up to see what Suki is throwing around in the air.
“Peasprout, focus!” Doi launches me back up and I reposition myself in midair so that I am flying straight at Suki’s face.
Suki reaches into the front of her robe and flings fistful after fistful of the paper dolls in all directions. They flutter down around us in a cascade of color. Some of the students below are already picking them up and examining them.
Below me, I see Doi pick up one of the paper dolls as well. I hold my breath, but she merely looks at it, crushes it into a ball, and throws it aside before continuing to fight Etsuko.
I can hear from the change in the sound of Doi’s and Etsuko’s skates that the roof of the palace that they’re skating on doesn’t seem to be the same thickness everywhere. Some parts are thicker and some are thinner, like ice on a pond. As if New Deitsu didn’t patch it as—
I cry out a warning, but it’s too late. The roof caves in. Etsuko goes crashing into the interior of the palace. Doi hops aside to avoid falling in, but I’m plummeting toward the hole. Just before I disappear into the chasm, Doi hooks my foot with her foot and sends me flinging up again.
Suki’s not so lucky and falls through the hole. I see her land with her knees on Etsuko’s shoulders. Doi jumps into the hole to continue the battle, so I plummet down and land with my knees on Doi’s shoulders.
The ceiling within is too low for Etsuko or Doi to launch Suki or me airborne, so we battle inside the palace stacked like giants from a legend, with Suki and me battling with our arms and Etsuko and Doi with their skates. We fight side to side as we race down the length of the
