Champion Kevintor Neverloss's Arc

Chapter 29 of 42

Kevintor looked past Sarah to the open doors of the dojo. He could see the edge of a tatami inside and the back of a woman's head, braided gray. The grappler he had crossed three valleys to find was sitting calm, not watching. She was waiting for the yard to settle itself. Sarah had laid a blue fold-out mat across the threshold of the doorway. Two panels, padded, seams reinforced. She had carried it here and set it down so he could not step over her without stepping onto her ground. "Move," Kevintor said. "No," Sarah said. "Beat me or walk back down the trail." She pulled a folded paper from the band at her hip and held it up. He saw a child's handwriting and a heart drawn in red. "My rank card. Eleventh. I dropped nine places chasing you. I'm not dropping a tenth." She tucked the paper back. "Refuse and the crowd writes you down a coward by sundown." He had not seen the crowd until she said it. They had filled the slope behind him while he stared at the door. A tiered run of plank benches sat against the tree line, and people had climbed onto every row. Farmhands. Two boys with goats tied to a post. A woman with a baby. Word had moved ahead of him again. He had four arts left in his body and needed the fifth from the woman inside. He could not waste the fifth on Sarah. He could not walk away either. He stepped onto the mat. Sarah came in low and fast. She shot for his lead leg the way her tattoos promised, clean and committed. Kevintor sprawled, felt the heat go out of his hips, and remembered he no longer had karate or kung fu to answer her with. He had Brazilian jiu-jitsu he had not yet taken out, and Muay Thai he was saving. He used the jiu-jitsu. He underhooked, dragged her past him, and took her back as she rolled. He sank a choke without squeezing. He held it. "Tap," he said. She did not. He held it longer. Her hand slapped the mat twice. He let her go and offered his hand. She took it this time without smiling. "You held back," she said. "You always do." She rubbed her throat. "She watched the whole thing. That was the point." Kevintor looked up. The braided woman stood in the doorway now, arms folded, studying him the way a buyer studies a horse. Sarah picked up her mat and folded it under one arm. "I came to test your instincts," she said. "They're still there. She'll take you now." The woman in the doorway tilted her head once and stepped back inside. Kevintor followed her in. Behind him, the crowd on the benches began to climb down, slow, talking already about what they had seen.