of Nezha’s fights.”
“I’ve been a little preoccupied with my own.”
“Then you don’t know what he’s capable of. I just dealt with his semifinals opponent in the infirmary. Nohai.” Raban looked deeply rattled. “They’re not sure if he’s going to be able to walk again. Nezha shattered his kneecap.”
“Seems like Nohai’s problem.” Rin didn’t want to hear about Nezha’s victories. She was feeling queasy enough as it was. The only way she could go through with the finals was if she convinced herself that Nezha was beatable.
“I know he hates you,” Raban continued. “He could cripple you for life.”
“He’s just a kid.” Rin scoffed with a confidence she didn’t feel.
“You’re just a kid!” Raban sounded agitated. “I don’t care how good you think you are. Nezha’s got six inches and twenty pounds of muscle on you, and I swear he wants to kill you.”
“He has weaknesses,” she said stubbornly. That had to be true. Didn’t it?
“Does it matter? What does this Tournament mean to you anyway?” Raban asked. “There’s no way you’re getting culled now. Every master is going to submit a bid for you. Why do you have to win?”
Raban was right. At this point Irjah would have no qualms about bidding for her. Rin’s position at Sinegard was safe.
But it wasn’t about bids now, it was about pride. It was about power. If she surrendered to Nezha, he would hold it over her for the rest of their time at the Academy. No—he’d hold it over her for life.
“Because I can,” she said. “Because he thought he could get rid of me. Because I want to break his stupid face.”
The basement hall was silent as Rin and Nezha climbed into the ring. The air was thick with anticipation, a voyeuristic bloodlust. Months of hateful rivalry were coming to a head, and everyone wanted to watch the fallout of their collision.
Both Jun and Irjah wore deliberately neutral expressions, giving nothing away. Jiang was absent.
Nezha and Rin bowed shortly, never taking their eyes off each other, and both immediately backed away.
Nezha kept his gaze trained intently on Rin’s, almond eyes narrowed in a tight focus. His lips were pressed in concentration. There were no jeers, no taunts. Not even a snarl.
Nezha was taking her seriously, Rin realized. He took her as an equal.
For some reason, this made her fiercely proud. They stared at each other, daring each other to break eye contact first.
“Begin,” said Sonnen.
She leaped at him immediately. Her right leg lashed out again and again, forcing him back in retreat.
Kitay had spent all of lunch helping her strategize. She knew Nezha could be blindingly fast. Once he got momentum, he wouldn’t stop until his opponent was incapacitated or dead.
Rin needed to overwhelm him from the beginning. She needed to constantly put him on the defensive, because to be on the defensive against Nezha was certain defeat.
The problem was that he was terribly strong. He didn’t possess the brute force of Kobin, or even Kureel, but he was so precise in his movements that it didn’t matter. He channeled his ki with a brilliant precision, built it up and then released it through the smallest pressure point to create the maximum impact.
Unlike Venka, Nezha could absorb losses and continue. She bruised him once or twice. He adapted and hit her back. And his blows hurt.
They were two minutes in. Rin had now lasted longer than any of Nezha’s previous opponents, and something had become clear to her: He wasn’t invincible. The techniques that had seemed impossibly difficult to her before now were transparently beatable. When Nezha kicked, his movements were wide and obvious like a boar’s. His kicks held terrifying power, but only if they landed.
Rin made sure they never landed.
There was no way she would let him maim her. But she was not here merely to survive. She was here to win.
Exploding Dragon. Crouching Tiger. Extended Crane. She cycled through the movements in Seejin’s Frolics as they were needed. The movements she’d practiced so many times before, linked together one after another in that damned form, snapped automatically into play.
But if Nezha was baffled by Rin’s fighting style, he didn’t show it. He remained calm and concentrated, attacking with methodical efficiency.
They were now four minutes in. Rin felt her lungs seizing, trying to pump oxygen into her fatigued body. But she knew that if she was tired, so was Nezha.
“He gets desperate when he’s tired,” Kitay had said. “And he’s the most dangerous when he’s desperate.”
Nezha was getting desperate.
There