Katana worked the ties of her black cotton jacket, but her eyes never left Chinn’s. “As long as you keep practicing, you’ll never know real fear. You don’t play kendo ; you fight in the way of the sword. You must be in fear of your life. Then your mind will be one with your body, and the sword merely an extension of the whole.” As she said this last, she pushed her jacket from her shoulders and let the keiko-gi slither to the floor.

Chinn’s chest squeezed. The sight of Katana’s sweat-stained body—high, rounded breasts; the ridges of an abdomen dewy with sweat; muscles that corded along her forearms—made everything recede into the background: her frustration and fatigue, even the Old Master. Her head felt hollow, and she was dizzy and a little breathless.

Man or woman, Katana could have anyone she wants, and yet she’s picked me.

“I,” she began, and swallowed again, struggling against a sudden wave of desire. Her voice firmed. “I can’t fight you that way, Tai-sho. I am Amaterasu and a chu-sa. I have pledged my life for you.”

“Yes,” said Katana, her tone a low, melodic contralto. She stepped away from her clothes and reached out to draw the ball of her thumb along Chinn’s lips as her own curled into a half-moon. “But pledging loyalty and fighting for your life are two different things, hai? So,” she said, releasing Chinn and backing away, “Kore o kudasai.”

Do this for me. Chinn’s tongue flicked out to wet her parched lips; she could still feel the pressure from Katana’s touch. “You know I’ll give whatever you desire, Tai-sho,” she whispered.

Katana’s lips parted in a silent laugh. “Later. But for now…” She turned, strode to a lacquered wooden stand, and plucked up a katana, still in its sheath. Balancing the blade in her hands, Katana’s features suddenly tightened, and her eyes narrowed. “We fight.”

“Until one is blooded,” said the Old Master. Chinn flinched; she’d forgotten Sensei was there. But the old man took no notice of her discomfiture and merely withdrew to his position to watch… and to judge.

In a few moments they stood, katanas unsheathed and at the ready position. After sweltering in her armor, Chinn felt her sweat wick away, and a forest of gooseflesh suddenly erupted along her forearms. This is for real. These are real katanas, and at best, they’ll hurt like hell. At worst… No, she wouldn’t think the worst. The worst wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Katana, and she had to trust in Katana to do the same for her.

She cast her mind back over her last attack pattern. Now, in the calm after the storm, she knew her error. In the split second after she’d begun the attack, she’d been so focused on connecting, she’d lost track of Katana herself. Katana’s counterattack had been as simple as it was devastating: exploiting Chinn’s anticipation by executing a classic debana-waza that took advantage of Chinn’s forward momentum. Chinn had come to Katana, and Katana had waited until Chinn was committed and couldn’t pull back in time.

Chinn let her eyes run along the length of her sword and to Katana’s throat. They were close enough for Chinn to see how Katana’s skin bounded with her pulse, and the sight was a little unnerving. In the dojo, the exercise hall, she was used to glimpses of Katana’s dark eyes and the barest outlines of her face—all that she could see when Katana wore her men. But this… this was like giving the enemy an identity. It reminded her of something an instructor had told her once; that it was easier to kill a person when that person was an anonymous cipher within the hulking carcass of a ’Mech. Chinn shivered again, not with cold this time but with a sudden, sharp apprehension.

The Old Master hacked the air with his right hand. “Hajime!”

Instantly, Chinn sensed the change in Katana: the way Katana’s muscles, strong as endosteel, tensed ever so slightly; the way her heels raised a centimeter from the floor so her weight balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring. Chinn readied herself, feeling Katana’s eyes bore through hers and into her brain.

My mind is a pond. It was one of the Old Master’s teachings, and now Chinn seized upon the words as a precious mantra. My mind is a deep, still pond. I reflect everything and absorb all. Her eyes locked onto Katana’s: peering past them and into Katana’s thoughts. I am a pond; I am…

Katana made a sudden shifting movement with her upper torso, and Chinn’s eyes flicked away from Katana’s blade for a brief second.

It was all the opening Katana needed. “Yah!” Even as the word flew from her lips, Katana mounted an attack. As she bounded forward, she brought her sword up into jodan, a ready position over the head whose attack angle was impossible to engage.

Startled back to alertness, Chinn resisted the temptation to glance up at Katana’s blade and instead found her opponent’s eyes, read their intent—a head cut, right on center–and quickly thrust her own sword out to parry. There was a clash of metal upon metal as their swords met, and Chinn felt the force of the blow shiver through the blade and into her arms as she batted away the attack, her kiai a high shriek: “Toh!”

Disengaging, Katana took a half step back, and then Chinn was spinning away to her left, her blade whirling to the ready. She faced forward just in time to see Katana advance again. Chinn saw it all in a flash: the way Katana’s right foot stayed behind her left, the way her blade turned slightly counterclockwise. A cut to the side! As Katana brought her sword around in a two-handed thrust, Chinn parried, pushing her left foot diagonally left as she lifted her arms up and twirled her blade point-down and parallel to her left ear in the split second before Katana’s blade sliced toward her middle. A clang as blade met blade, and then Chinn had disengaged, swinging her sword up and over her head as she slid her right foot behind her left.

“Toh!” she cried, whipping her blade down. The bright steel seemed to move in an agonizing stop-motion as Chinn’s brain fought to control the speed of her thrust. Can’t hurt her, not really, I can’t…

“Yah!” Katana dropped into a squat, rotating her hands clockwise and stiff-arming her sword. Chinn’s blade cut against the reinforced, notched hi. Chinn heard a scraping sound as steel slid against steel, and she felt a steady pressure pushing her sword aside. Suddenly, the pressure was gone and, without thinking, Chinn pulled back, angling her sword along the left side of her body, point-down, just as Katana swung left in a lethal cut aimed at Chinn’s waist.

My God! Chinn barely had time to register the clash of steel before she had sprung back and out of range. Too damn close. She was winded, panting hard, slick rivulets of sweat coursing between her breasts. Her shoulders burned, and she could feel her calves knotting with fatigue.

A glance at Katana showed that even she felt the strain. Yet, even as Katana gulped air, her lips peeled back from her teeth in a feral grin. “You see?” she said, her words punctuated by deep gasps. “Fighting… is… different.”

Something tripped in Chinn’s brain. If she’s talking, she can’t be concentrating. She forced her breathing to slow so she could hear over the roar in her veins. Something that Sensei had said very long ago: Sound comes first . If you wait until your eye catches the attack, then you will die.

Now Chinn concentrated all her effort into listening for the minutest change. She heard the thrum of her heart and forced her mind away from that; she heard air whistle through her nose, and she blocked that out, too. From Katana’s position two meters distant, Chinn heard her tai-sho pulling in air: a long inhalation, then the rattle of air rushing from her lungs, in and out. And then, she heard a change so subtle that afterward she couldn’t really describe it: a hitch and then a small, barely audible click, like the sound a dry throat made when a person swallowed.