Girl Rides the Wind by Jacques Antoine Read Free Book Online Page A

out.
    “He is very quick, Tenno-san,” Ishikawa said. “Do not extend your guard, or he will find an opening.”
    “Why are you helping me, Dice?” Emily asked. Lt Otani seemed to have the same question written on her face.
    “After what you did just now in the ring, I respect you, Tenno-san. And I do not wish you to get hurt. Maybe, if you can hold him off long enough, his temper will pass. Remember, strikes to the top of the head will not hurt as much, because of the helmet.”
    When Emily stepped back into the ring, she noticed that the dignitaries had found their way through the ranks to stand next to Sgt Tsukino. Watching the women, something felt out of place, since Soga Jin and Heiji Gyoshin seemed rather too refined for the company of someone as coarse as Moon. “There’s a story behind that,” she thought.
    Kano raised the shinai above his head, jodan -style, once she seemed ready, and Emily held hers over one shoulder. His movement was sudden and precise, as the shinai glanced off the top of her helmet, and the Jietai roared their approval. In fact, she hadn’t moved at all, not even to block, preferring merely to watch and breathe, to listen to her heart—and his—and admire the stillness out of which his stroke moved.
    But his heart was not perfectly still; she could sense this. Turbulence disrupted his spirit, and she wondered about the source of it. Was it his irritation with Tsukino, or with her? Or perhaps some still-unresolved feelings about his father?
    A second stroke slipped past her guard, and caught her on the shoulder, above the collarbone. If she hadn’t been wearing the guard, even the bamboo would have broken the bone—and Dice was right; it hurt much more than the head-strike. But Kano’s technique was excellent, and she would gladly let him hit her again, despite the pain, just for the privilege of seeing it up close.
    When the third stroke came, she’d moved to block it, to protect her neck, but she couldn’t prevent it from scoring, a diagonal stroke across her chest. The Jietai cheered, and she bowed to him, before turning to leave the ring.
    “Stop right there,” he cried out in a loud voice, more like a growl than speech. “Do you take me for a fool? Am I not worthy of your best effort?”
    “You have my highest respect, Sensei ,” she said, with another bow, and began to untie her equipment.
    “That is not good enough. I am not a child, to be put off with easy falsehoods. Take up your shinai and face me again.”
    “Do not seek this fight, Sensei . There is nothing to be gained in it.”
    “Fight,” he roared one more time at her.
    “Fine,” she muttered, and tossed the last of her protective gear aside, then picked up the shinai and stepped to the center of the ring.
    He glowered at her and said, “Do you think I will not hit you without padding?”
    Emily said nothing, and held her shinai out front, chudan -style, pointed directly at his face, but not well-positioned to protect her head and shoulders from an overhead stroke. His puzzlement was easy to see, and she could feel the question in his heart as she let her breath move in and out of her body: “Can I hurt her?” Part of him wanted to cause her physical pain, to work out his frustrations by beating her bloody. But she sensed another train of thought somewhere inside him, a doubt that threatened to pull down the entire edifice of his resentments, and perhaps of his confidence, too.
    With a heart that could find no stillness, Kano hesitated, and Emily lunged forward, striking him under the chin, and the restless crowd fell suddenly silent. He stumbled back, stunned and bewildered by her stroke, and tore off his helmet to stare at her.
    The shinai pointed to the sky above his head a second time, and again he could not bring his hands to focus in the suddenness of an unclouded mind; and Emily brought her shinai down inside his stroke, parrying it and slashing across his chest in one fluid movement. The