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habit—but the fact that Tsukino had seen it, too, impressed her. He had the strong hands of someone with considerable training in martial arts, and he had sharp eyes as well. The intensity with which he observed the matches also struck her, and seemed almost to suggest something intemperate in his character, a bitterness he might not be able fully to control. Or perhaps she had merely let the fact that he so obviously disapproved of her color her perceptions.
    In the end, Ishikawa lost—Durant was simply too quick and strong for him, even though he dropped his guard a couple of times—and the two singing partners shook hands in the ring.
    In what looked to be the last match, Tsukino challenged Durant and said, “empty hands.” Oleschenko had already lost his match earlier in the tournament, and Emily figured Kano would probably not fight at all, thinking the morale of his men would be no better served by a victory than a defeat. He would prefer to remain above the fray in their eyes.
    “I think you’re right,” Lt Otani said, when Emily offered this interpretation. “Besides, Moon is the battalion karate champion.”
    Emily nodded her approval, for Kiku’s benefit, when Tsukino took the first two points on speed moves. As much larger and stronger as Durant was, he just couldn’t keep up with the younger man. In one final point, Tsukino blocked a desperate, lunging punch and scored the winning point with a reverse-punch combination to the center of Durant’s chest that left him gasping for breath. Then, as Durant stumbled back, in what all the Marines standing around the ring took to be a gratuitous move, Tsukino pivoted into a spinning reverse-crescent kick that caught him on the nose. With his face bloodied, Durant fell to the ground in a daze, and Oleschenko and Ishikawa rushed in to help him to his feet.
    “You have to challenge him LT,” Durant said, once he’d regained his wits.
    Emily shook her head… and glanced over to see Tsukino staring at her, as if he were daring her to do anything about it.
    “What would it accomplish?” she asked.
    “She’s right, Sarge,” Oleschenko said. “There’s no point. Besides, if you couldn’t handle him, what’s she supposed to do?”
    “He broke my nose,” Durant roared. “And he did it on purpose.”
    “But it’s not gonna do anything for unit cohesion if I go in there,” she said. “You know this.”
    By now, the uproar among the Marines had largely subsided, but when Tsukino bowed in their direction it came back to life, though now more as perplexity and embarrassment than as the expression of outrage.
    “I don’t know, Tenno,” Oleschenko said. “We may have to do something. Just look at the men. They’re not gonna be able to fight alongside these guys… not with the memory of him taunting us like this.”
    “They’ll get over it, sir,” she said. “Just give ’em time. And don’t look at me like that, Sarge. That nose was never your best feature anyway.”
    Oleschenko rubbed his chin and cocked his head to one side, looking at his men, then at Durant’s nose, and then at Tsukino still standing in the ring glowering at them. “I almost can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but do you really think you can take him?”
    “Do it for the men, LT, if not for my nose,” Durant said, with a bloody towel pressed against his face. Oleschenko nodded his assent, with an expression on his face that she knew was little short of a command.
    Lt Otani rushed over as soon as she saw Emily remove her boots and strip off her uniform shirt.
    “No, Tenno-san,” she cried out. “You mustn’t. It’s not permitted, and you’ll get hurt.”
    “I’m sorry, Kiku-san,” she whispered. “It is what they wish.” She nodded to Durant and Oleschenko as she said this.
    “You’ll need these,” Oleschenko said, and held out grappling gloves, a mouth guard and headgear. Emily pulled the gloves on, tossed the rest to the side, and stepped into the