The corner stool caught her again.
Coach Reyes was in front of her before she'd fully sat down, both hands on her cheeks, tilting her head up to focus her eyes on him. The cutman was already working on the puffiness under her left eye, the cold of the enswell sharp against the soreness there. Daisuke was behind Coach Reyes's shoulder, his mouth moving, saying her name.
"Yuki. Eyes on me." Coach Reyes. Steady and direct. "You're still in this. You hear me? You're still in this."
She heard him.
"Round two was rough. That's done. That's over. Round three is a new fight. New three minutes. Whatever she did to your head in there, you leave it on that stool when you get up. You understand me?"
She understood him. She did. But for some reason those places felt blocked off by the fear.
"She's playing into you," Daisuke said, leaning in over Coach Reyes's shoulder. "You can adapt and work her. Use your advantage and make her regret trying to show you up. You did it before against Taniqa Thompson! You can do it here!"
"Yuki." The cutman advised. "Breathe through your nose. Your mouth is tight."
She breathed through her nose.
"Good."
Coach Reyes was still talking. Don't turtle up, eyes alive, keep moving, don't let her hit you for free. She was listening. But there was the question she couldn't shake…
Can I really win this?
She made the mistake of looking up.
Across the ring, in the opposite corner, The Devil was sitting on her stool. Not talking to her coach. Not looking at her gloves. Looking directly at Yuki with that smile. The same one. Still there. Still amused. Still seeing her terrified and afraid.
The gap opened wider.
"YUKI!" From the crowd. From a specific place in the crowd, close enough to the ring that the voice cut through everything else. A voice she knew better than almost any voice in the world.
She found her girlfriend's face in the stands.
Tears. Running openly down her face, not bothering to wipe them. Her hands gripping the railing in front of her. A look that Yuki had never seen on that face before in all the time she'd known her.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE FEARLESS!" Her voice cracked on the last word. "START FIGHTING!!!"
Yuki stared at her.
She had never seen her girlfriend cry at a fight. Not when Yuki had lost before. Not when the count had been close. Not when she'd come home with her eyes black and her ribs sore. Losing was one thing. Losing was just a fight going the wrong way. But this…
Her girlfriend wasn't crying because she was losing. She was crying because she was afraid. Because she was watching Yuki Tanaka be afraid, and Yuki Tanaka didn't do that, and whatever was happening in that ring wasn't just a rough round, it was something that looked wrong to everyone who knew her.
Something snapped.
The words Coach Reyes had been saying for the last sixty seconds landed all at once, all of them, useful and clear.
She sat up straight.
She exhaled.
It's just a fight, she thought. What the hell am I doing?
I have to win. That's what a fight is for. Winning. What am I doing not trying to win?
I am Yuki Tanaka and I am going to the Olympics and winning a gold medal and nobody. Nobody is going to stand in the way of that.
Coach Reyes was still talking. She looked at him properly for the first time since she'd sat down.
"Two things," he said, and she could see him register that she was back, something shifting in his expression. "Keep moving. Don't let her-"
The bell rang.
She stood up. Her corner stepped back. She put her mouthguard in.
She walked to the center of the ring and her feet felt right.
______________________________________________
Zoey watched her come out.
Something was different. Round two, Yuki had walked to center like a frightened rabbit. This wasn't the same person as that.
'Oh,' Inner Zoey purred. 'Look at those eyes.'
Zoey looked. She saw it.
'She isn't scared of us anymore.'
'Nope,' Zoey agreed.
'I wonder what happened. She was terrified at the end of round one and the whole second round.'
She raised her gloves excited to see what she had left to show them.
Yuki came forward and threw a fully extended straight right aimed directly at Zoey's face, her entire body loading into it.
Zoey saw it coming. She didn't dodge. She loaded her own straight and threw it at the same moment. They hit each other in the face simultaneously. The crack of it went through the arena audible. Both heads snapped sideways at the same instant, same direction, and for a half second neither fighter moved.
Then Zoey's head came back. She blinked once.
Yuki's feet crossed.
Her balance went in a sudden rush, one leg over the other, and she went sideways toward the ropes. The top rope caught her across the back and she grabbed it with both hands, bent at the knees, head down. The only thing between her and the canvas was the rope and the fact that she was still refusing to let go.
The crowd was exploding.
Zoey moved toward her.
Yuki pushed off the ropes.
She turned and brought her guard up and her eyes were still alive and she was not going to the canvas. She was holding that decision in place no matter how her body felt.
Zoey was already inside her guard.
The left hook turned Yuki's head right. The right hook turned it back left. Yuki's arms came up to cover and Zoey worked underneath them, the uppercut sending Yuki's chin toward the ceiling, her whole body rising with it for a moment.
Yuki screamed with blazing willpower. She swung both hands. Left, right, short and fast and with everything. And both of them landed on Zoey's face.
The crowd felt it.
Zoey felt it.
Then they were in the center of the ring slugging, both of them throwing in the short fast exchanges that the first round had started.
Zoey stepped right.
Yuki's head tracked her.
The left hook came from outside and caught her clean on the jaw.
______________________________________________
I will win, Yuki thought. I will not lose. I'm going to defeat this devil and bring peace to-
The lights changed.
The arena softening at the edges, the crowd noise becoming something heard through water, her legs making decisions without consulting her. She was aware of going down, aware of the canvas coming up, aware of her knees touching it and then her gloves.
She was on the canvas on her hands and knees.
She could see the referee's shoes. She could hear the count.
The referee was kneeling in front of her.
She looked up at him.
He was checking her eyes. She tried to give him what he was looking for. She tried to do what it did on round two when she'd convinced him at seven.
He crossed his arms.
The crowd broke in two directions at the same volume. Her people and the Devil's people, both of them at maximum at the same time, the building barely containing it.
The referee's arms were still crossed.
She sat back on her heels.
Her corner was through the ropes immediately, Coach Reyes kneeling in front of her, Daisuke right behind him. The ringside physician was there too, crouching beside her, the light in her eyes, the questions, the hands checking the swelling. Yuki answered what she could answer. Her voice was working.
They helped her to the corner stool.
She looked at the ring.
The Devil was in the center of it. Her corner around her. The crowd in full celebration on one side and full outrage on the other. The announcer's voice over all of it.
Zoey Winters. Still technically undefeated. Still standing. Her hand raised by the referee while everyone who had bet on her and hoped for her celebrated all at once.
Everyone who had written the five percent.
A tear ran down Yuki's face. Then another.
Oh, she thought. I lost.
She watched The Devil across the ring.
I really wanted to win, damn it.
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
She felt a hand on hers and looked down. Her girlfriend had come over the barrier somehow, was crouching beside the stool now, her face still wet, holding Yuki's glove in both hands.
Yuki looked at her.
She didn't have anything to say yet. Neither did her girlfriend. They just stayed like that for a moment, the arena going on around them, the noise of other people's feelings filling all the space.
It was enough.
For right now, it was enough.