Hard Rain

other men had paused in their workouts
    and were watching.
    I snagged his right arm with my left and dropped under it for a
    duck-under, a simple and effective entry from my high-school wrestling.
    days in America. But he was quick: he dropped his arm, crouched, and
    cut clockwise, away from my entry. I immediately switched my attack to
    his left side, but he parried nicely there as well. No problem. I was
    feinting, feeling for his defenses, not yet showing him what I could
    do.
    I withdrew from attack mode and started to straighten. As I did so, I
    saw his hips swivel in, caught a blur off the right side of my head.
    Left hook. Whoa. I shot my right hand into the gap and ducked my head
    forward. The blow snapped across the back of my head, then ins tandy
    retracted.
    I took a quick step back. "Kore ga randori nanoka? Bokus-hingu
    janaika? I asked him. Are we doing randori, or boxing? I looked more
    concerned than I actually was. I've done some boxing. Not all of it
    with gloves.
    "This is the way we do randori around here," he answered, sneering.
    "With no rules?" I asked, mock-concerned. "I'm not sure I like
    that."
    "You don't like it, don't train hexe, judoyaro," he said, and I heard
    someone laugh.
    I looked around as though unsure of myself, but it was really just a
    routine check of my surroundings. Adrenaline causes tunnel vision.
    Experience and a desire to survive ameliorate it. The faces around the
    tatami radiated amusement, not danger.
    "I'm not really used to this kind of thing," I said.
    "Then get off the fucking tatami] he spat.
    I looked around again. It didn't feel like a setup. If it were,
    they wouldn't have been dancing with me one at a time.
    "Okay," I said, scowling to look like a soft guy trying to look like a
    hard guy. Playing the victim of idiot pride. "We'll do it your
    way."
    We squared off again. I logged his feints. He liked to lead with his
    right foot. His timing was regular a weakness for which his quickness
    had probably always compensated.
    He liked low kicks. Right foot forward plant, left roundhouse kick,
    return to defensive stance. I took two such shots to my right thigh.
    They stung. They didn't matter.
    The right foot came forward again. When it was a few millimeters above
    the tatami and he was fully committed to planting it, I shot straight
    in, my right hand hooking his neck from behind, my left hand darting in
    just behind his right ankle. I used his neck to support my weight,
    dragging his head down and ruining his balance. I drove through him,
    my elbow leading the way at his chest. His ankle was blocked and his
    body had nowhere to go but backward to the tatami.
    I kept the ankle as he fell, jerking it northward and spinning
    clockwise so that I landed facing the same direction he was in. I was
    straddling his leg and holding the ankle in front of me. In one smooth
    motion I caught it in my right biceps, wrapped the fingers of my left
    hand around his toes, and clamped down in opposing directions. His
    ankle broke with a snap like the sound of a mallet on hard wood. Freed
    of its moorings, the foot arced savagely to the right. Tendons and
    ligaments tore loose.
    He let out a high scream and tried to use his other leg to kick me
    away. But the kicks were feeble. His nervous system was overloaded
    with pain.
    I stood up and turned to face him. His face was I'm-going-to-puke
    green and beaded in oily sweat. He was holding the knee of his ruined
    leg and looking bug-eyed at the dangling foot at the end of it. He
    hitched a breath in, then deeper, then let out a long wail.
    Ankle injuries hurt. I know. I've seen feet lost to land mines.
    He sucked in another breath and screamed again. If we'd been alone, I
    would have broken his neck just to shut him up. I looked around the
    room, wondering if I was going to have trouble from any of his
    comrades.
    One of them, a tall, long-legged guy with an Adonis physique and
    peroxide-dyed, close-cropped hair, yelled out, "OH' and started to come
    toward me. Hey!
    The salt and pepper guy cut in front of him. "Ii kara, ii kara," he
    said, pushing Adonis back. That's enough.
    Adonis backed off, but continued to fix me with a hostile stare.
    Salt and Pepper turned and walked over to where I was standing. He
    bore an expression of mild amusement that was not quite a smile.
    "Next time, use a little more control when you put in a joint lock," he
    said, his tone matter-of-fact.
    The dark-complected guy writhed. Adonis and a couple of the