Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) (20 page)

They spent the next few days
swimming in the southern ocean, sailing on a little boat Michael had somehow
acquired—his resourcefulness always seemed endless. There were islands
across the bay to explore, wildlife preserves, snorkeling, hiking, all the
usual Christmas activities! Yuki was determined to spend as much time as
possible with her daughter, to share every activity,
do
everything she
did. But she just didn’t have the stamina. Her daughter was
amazing
. She
ran for miles before breakfast, did hundreds of push ups, sit ups, pull ups.
And then she wanted to go out adventuring for the rest of the day!

Even Michael’s security people were
impressed. None of them quite knew what to make of her. Two in particular paid
special attention to her morning regimen. Ethan and Jesse were former Israeli
commandos, younger than the rest of the security personnel, in their thirties.
They had heard she was a trained martial artist, and were naturally interested
to know more. They could see she was in shape, and when she practiced her katas
on the beach they watched closely. Ethan, the larger of the two, was dubious.
They were professional soldiers, trained in the most efficient fighting skills
military technology could devise. She was just an amateur, a girl. What could
she know? In other words, he was curious.

Jesse was even more curious. He
wanted to see exactly what she was capable of. He approached her during one of
her morning training sessions and asked her if she had done much sparring. Did
she want to work out with them? She figured their training would primarily be
in
Krav
Maga
. She had seen some demonstrations of this style, but never
sparred with a practitioner. She was intrigued. She knew it to be very
conservative, relying mainly on punch techniques and hard blocks, as well a few
low kicks and some rudimentary, but effective joint locks.

“Sure, Jesse,” she replied. “But
I’d like to watch you guys first, if that’s okay.”

Ethan was more than willing to
oblige her, in part because he knew he could impress her in a contest with
Jesse. They had fashioned some basic pads out of Kevlar vests and old bag
gloves. It wasn’t much protection, but it would allow them to strike with full
force to the chest. Emily tried one on, then laid it aside. It was harder than
typical sparring gear, more like a shell or armor. She thought it would be
restrictive, also hard on your knuckles if you punched it.

Jesse and Ethan’s match was fierce.
They punched and blocked with impressive ferocity. All their moves were quick
and forceful. Emily could see that speed and strength were at the core of their
impressive skills. They were always looking to finish the match with a single,
devastating blow. She knew that meant they had mistaken pure aggression for
initiative. They had no genuine access to their own
sen
. Although they were capable of many clever feints and
deceptions, they were not really capable of holding back. Their restraint was
only aggression deferred. The exigencies of the fight determined their actions,
rather than the other way around. In the end, Ethan overpowered Jesse with a
straight punch to the chest and a quick leg sweep. He landed on his back with
Ethan’s clenched fist just above his nose. He had no choice but to concede.

Jesse smiled up at his friend, and
they both turned to Emily expectantly. She congratulated them on their skills
and their stamina. They were truly impressive. They had fought at a furious
pace for nearly a minute, which is practically an eternity in a fight.

“Would you like to give it a try,
Miss Emily,” Ethan asked politely, but with a needling undertone. “We’ll go
easy on you.”

“I’m more your size,” Jesse
suggested sincerely. “How about we give it a go?”

“Why not,” Emily said. “But I’m
pretty sure this is one of those things where size doesn’t really matter.”
Ethan snorted. She was needling him in return, and they both knew it. She
flashed him a sneaky smile and brought back his good humor. He knew she was
manipulating him, but still found it irresistible. He handed her his pads and
gloves. She hefted them for a moment and then laid them off to the side of
their imaginary ring.

“You better wear those,” Jesse
insisted. “I don’t want to hurt you. The boss would have our heads, and who
knows what Andie and Yuki would do to us.” He seemed genuinely concerned for
her safety.

“I’ll wear the gloves, but not the
shell. It’s too heavy for me,” she said, needling Ethan again. “Don’t worry
about hitting me. I won’t tell if you don’t,” she teased him.

“Fine! Then I’ll take my pads off
too. I guess I’ll have to just do those little taps, like they do in karate
sparring.” Emily laughed, and Ethan joined her.

“Don’t worry,” she needled again
with a smirk. “I won’t hit you any harder than you try to hit me.”

Ethan was overjoyed with Jesse’s
embarrassment.

Emily stood ready and looked Jesse
in the eyes. She had seen how fond he and Ethan were of high speed punching and
blocking, a sort of pugilistic fencing. She thought it might make Jesse feel
more comfortable if she indulged him in this. They faced each other for a long
moment. He was trying to read her, to develop a series of feints so he could
tap her a couple of times, sweep her legs and then force her to concede without
risking any hard punches. Emily could see he wanted her to try to block one of
his leg feints, so she obliged him. He followed with a quick series of punches
to her head and chest. She blocked them all one after another. Her blocks
became more forceful with each one, gradually forcing Jesse to retreat step by
step. He was clearly distressed by this development, and didn’t want Ethan to
accuse him later of being fooled by this girl’s wiles. He tried to turn the
tide by stepping forward into a more aggressive attack. But before he could put
his left foot down Emily kicked it out from under him. He fell forward and to
his left as Emily hit him lightly with several quick strikes to his chest and
throat. Just before he hit the ground, she grabbed his right wrist and twisted
him over so his face was in the sand.

Jesse let out a sorrowful moan.
Emily hadn’t hurt him, but he knew he had been decisively beaten. And so did
Ethan, who roared his approval. At least she had done him the favor of letting
him hide his face in the sand so Ethan couldn’t see the expression of utter
perplexity written so unmistakably across it. How had she done it, he asked
himself. Everything had been going so well. She hadn’t overpowered him. She
wasn’t any faster than he was. It was just like the punch and block duels he and
Ethan had everyday. But Ethan had never managed to do anything like that to
him. Finally, he let the truth slip into his consciousness: the point hadn’t
even been close.

He picked himself up, dusted off
the sand and faced her, ready to try again. This time Emily decided to control
the terms of the fight more thoroughly. She let him make the first move again.
He lunged in with a left jab followed by a right uppercut. Instead of blocking,
she stepped back and swirled her arms around both of his. He couldn’t quite
understand what she was doing. She had grabbed hold of his wrists and twisted
them over and under. He could feel himself losing his footing as the pain in
his elbows and shoulders forced him to bend his entire body to the side. He
thought he would end up kneeling and hoped to find a way out from there. But
the twisting movement accelerated and he found himself flipping head over
heels, ending up on his back in the sand. Before he could gather his wits,
Emily was on top of him and he was defenseless.

In the third point, Emily made the
first move, realizing Jesse must feel he’d been tricked into acting first
before.
Krav Maga
was, after all, a
deeply conservative fighting style. He waited to see what she would do. She
looked directly into his face, caught his attention, kicked him lightly in the
chest before he had a chance to react. He rocked back slightly on his heels,
then leaned forward and tried to anticipate another kick. She surprised him by
stepping directly into his block. He tried to grab her—what else could he
do?—she slapped his hands aside and planted a side kick into his chest
that sent him sprawling backwards. He lay on his back for a moment shaking his
head in disbelief. He had absolutely no idea how she had managed to dominate
him so thoroughly.
 
Ethan laughed
after the first two falls. But now even he was agape. Watching attentively from
the side, he still had not been able to comprehend her technique.

Emily turned toward Ethan and
smiled demurely at him.

“You want to have a go? Don’t
worry. I’ll go easy on you.” Ordinarily Ethan would have reacted to a challenge
like that with an easy laugh or some bravado. But he was clearly shaken by what
he had just seen, and she knew it. Still he couldn’t decline, not in front of
his friend. He’d never live it down. He stood in front of Emily with visible
trepidation. She knew he relied entirely on his superior size and speed in his
fighting, and he was significantly larger and stronger than her. But he fared
no better than Jesse had. She sent him sprawling face down into the sand each
time, playing on his desperate aggressiveness.

After the third fall, she walked
over, extended her hand and helped him up. He was clearly embarrassed to have
shared his friend’s fate. She smiled at him graciously and, strangely, he felt
better about the whole thing. When he turned toward Jesse, his friend was
surprised to see him blushing. Both of them fully expected to hear all about
their defeat at the hands of this girl from the rest of the security team for
weeks to come. Of course, Emily said nothing to anyone. The next day, they
asked her to be their teacher.

The only witnesses to the events of
that morning were Andie and Yuki. They had watched from behind a hedge on the
back lawn. Yuki wasn’t surprised Jesse and Ethan had noticed her daughter’s
workout regimen. But it hadn’t occurred to her that she would end up sparring
with them. When she saw her toss the pads aside she was worried. She had seen
how ferociously those guys tended to fight when they sparred. She hoped they
would have the good sense to take it easy on her. When the fighting began in
earnest, her jaw dropped. Jesse was attacking her so fiercely! When moments
later Emily turned the tables on him and he ended up face down in the sand,
Yuki and Andie gasped simultaneously. They looked at each other and started
giggling. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

For the first time, Yuki began to
realize just how much the martial arts must mean to her daughter. This was
clearly more than just a hobby. She had just handled two highly trained
professional soldiers as if they were schoolboys.

Andie hoped
they weren’t overly mortified by what had just happened to them. But as
astonished and relieved as Yuki was by what she had just seen, it didn’t get her
any closer to her daughter.

In the end, Yuki found an activity
she could share with Emily, one that had no limits for her, clothes shopping!
It was every mother’s dream, and finally she got to indulge in it too. They
drove into Auckland, just Emily and Yuki, and hit all the fancy shops. Yuki
could do this for the rest of the holiday if she had her way. But finally even
Emily had had enough. Yuki got her all sorts of super stylish clothes and
accessories, so much in fact that she had to buy her new bags to haul it home
in. It was just like her daughter to want to use a duffle bag. She must have
inherited that habit from her father. Yuki picked out a fancy new set of
Japanese luggage, enough to hold her new wardrobe.

They had lunch in a little Japanese
restaurant near the university. Somehow, Emily found herself drawn to the
university end of town. Perhaps she just steered the car toward wherever the
young people were by some sort of powerful sympathy. Yuki had a bowl of udon
with fish cakes, and Emily had a sashimi plate with pickled vegetables. She
could see her mother was about to burst with the million things she wanted to
say. So Emily diverted her into a question about college plans. Yuki’s face
began to glow from the fire in her eyes. She had so much to tell her daughter,
and so much to find out about what she wanted to do.

“Mom, I already applied to five
schools. I think it’s probably too late to do anymore applications.”

Yuki was pleased to hear about her
daughter’s grades, and even surprised to hear about her test scores. She had
chosen schools well, some Ivy, some fine state schools. With her credentials,
she could pretty much go wherever she wanted, if only she could make it to the
fall. That little worry, catastrophic in its dimensions, lingered in the back
of all of Yuki’s joy and satisfaction. Her daughter was amazing, but she was
also in danger. They all were.

“What do you want to study, do you
know yet?”

“I don’t really know, Mom. Maybe
history. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry about what, Chi-chan?”

“I know you wanted me to do
science, and I like that stuff. But right now history looks more interesting.”

“It’s okay, Sweet Pea. You get to
follow your heart. You can always change your mind later. I just want you to go
to college and find your way.”

Yuki’s pleasure in this
conversation was almost indescribable. It was even greater than what she
experienced on the shopping spree. She couldn’t remember ever being this happy.

For Emily, the satisfaction she got
from her mother’s approval was immense. She always knew Yuki loved her, but she
had never experienced her mother’s love first hand before. She told her mother
every detail of her domestic arrangements, the apartment, how much she liked
wearing Andie’s clothes, her new style, the truck and the dirt bike.

Yuki wanted to hear all about her
friends. Why hadn’t she ever met any of them before? What were their families
like? She was especially taken by Emily’s description of Wayne. He sounded like
a kindly walrus or a sea lion.