Unwound

Shiori grinned and slipped in her mouth guard.

“In the red corner, we’ve got our replacement fighter in her amateur debut, all the way from Tokyo, Japan, weighing in at one hundred and twenty pounds, representing Black Arts dojo, Shiori ‘She-Cat’ Hirano.”

She-Cat? Jesus. Shiori was going to kill Knox after this.

“In the blue corner, weighing in at one hundred and thirty pounds, with an amateur record of ten wins and zero losses, representing ABC dojo and originally hailing from Brazil, Sophia ‘Stinger’ Curacao.”

Shiori and Sophia stepped into the center of the ring and listened to the rules. They bowed to each other rather than bumping fists.

When the bell rang, Ronin’s entire body seized up. It was harder sitting here waiting for someone he cared about to get smacked around than to be in the cage himself.

Thank god Amery hadn’t ever watched him fight.

Shiori came out swinging, which surprised both Ronin and Sophia. As the women circled each other, he noticed that Shiori held herself more like a boxer, hands up, body turned. She dodged a couple of Sophia’s kicks. She managed to bob and weave enough to keep Sophia from taking her to the mat.

Every second of the three-minute round ticked by like an hour. At the thirty-second mark, Shiori switched tactics and charged for a takedown.

“That’s it. Get her down and keep her down.” Ronin’s jaw tightened when Shiori sustained a strong blow to the side of her head. Didn’t appear to make her loopy, just more determined.

The ten-second warning sounded and the first round ended.

He set the stool in her corner, grabbed the towel and the bottle of water.

Shiori removed her mouth guard. “How’d it look?”

“Good. I have you ahead. You kept her on her feet longer than I expected.”

Breathing hard, she nodded and took a drink of water.

“I sensed some hesitation on her part,” he said, mopping her face.

“Me too. I think she’s holding back.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got ten years on her and it’s supposedly my first fight.”

“Supposedly?” Ronin repeated.

Shiori patted his cheek. “As you say here in the west, this ain’t my first rodeo.”

Ronin grinned. “Goddamn. You’ve been holding back too.”

“Not anymore.”

During the second round, Shiori toyed with Sophia. Their ground game wasn’t evenly matched. Several times Ronin saw where Shiori could’ve ended the bout, but she opted to stay in taunting mode.

But the first minute of the third round, Shiori zeroed in, knocked Sophia to the mat, and got her to tap out by putting her in a rear naked choke.

After Shiori was announced as the winner, Ronin accompanied her back through the gauntlet. Knox and Deacon leaned against the wall, not speaking as they waited for the main event to begin.

Knox said, “Look at you, She-Cat. Not a mark on your face. I’ll admit I was hoping for at least a swollen lip.”

Shiori sauntered up to Knox, swaggering in that supremely confident and yet wholly feminine manner. She stood on tiptoe and spoke directly into his ear.

After she stepped back, Knox seemed flustered for a beat or two. Then he said, “I’ll pass.”

Shiori bumped fists with Deacon. Then she headed to the women’s locker room.

Ronin looked between Knox and Deacon. “Need anything?”

“Nah. We’re good.”

“I’ll head up to the balcony level and watch from there.”

He cut through to the side door and scaled the stairs. The seats were packed, and people were rowdy, ready for the final fight.

Since Deacon’s opponent had a less-impressive win-loss record, he entered the event center first. His theme song was Pink’s “So What,” which was just wrong on so many levels. A dozen people followed him in. He stopped and kissed a woman and a baby; then he did the “man hug” thing with guys outside the ropes.

Cut to the entrance again, where they announced Deacon as Deacon “Con Man” McConnell—which was just f**king stupid that all these fighters had nicknames. When he’d fought, they’d forced a nickname on him too, calling him Ronin “the Master” Black. Better than someone’s other suggestion of Ronin “Jet” Black. At least Ronin’s entrance music had been tongue-in-cheek—when “Back in Black” by AC/DC blared from the speakers.

Deacon’s entrance tune was old-school and a sly wink too—“Enter Sandman”—the same song he’d been using since he was Sandan belt rank. Two people followed Deacon—Knox and Ito. Deacon didn’t kiss babies. He sure as f**k didn’t hug anyone on his way into the cage. After the pat down, he retreated to his corner and conferred with Knox and Ito.

The announcer spent way too much time blathering—nothing new, that’s what they were paid to do. Once the fighters had been introduced and Katie did her thing, the bell rang.

If Ronin had the chance to study his fighters from higher in the arena, he took it. Sometimes critical errors, especially repetitive critical errors, were better seen from above.

Deacon owned the match from the start. Ronin felt a stab of annoyance that the main pro bout had such mismatched fighters.

But as he watched, he realized Deacon’s ground game wasn’t up to par—surprising for a jujitsu MMA fighter. That showed Deacon had been spending too much training time on boxing and not enough on grappling. He needed to get back to basics.