Snippet #1854878

Step, step, turn, step, lunge, strike. "Kyah!" Hoshiko's light, airy voice rang out, echoing in the afternoon air.

A zephyr blew in from the coast, stirring the loose ends of her braid and easing the summer burn that reddened her fair cheeks. Ignoring the static buzz of the radio just inside near the sliding door, she rotated the staff, facing the tip toward the ground, and shifted fluidly into her next stance. Her movement was as graceful as a dancer's.

Step, lunge, step, step, twist, strike. "Kyah!" she yelled again, as much force in her tone as in her powerful downswing.

"...Good afternoon Okinawa... idiots planning attack... shrine..." the radio buzzed from behind the Shōji screen. but the words were lost to her as soon as they reached her ears.

She barely noticed the door slide open, her attention completely focused on each breath, every position she'd memorized. Lunge, step, step, turn, step-

"Hoshi-chan!" her grandfather's gravelly voice interrupted her thought-process.

Hoshiko froze in transition, not moving a muscle, except for the rise and fall of her chest, the only sounds that of the billowy white and red sleeves of her Miko uniform in the wind, and the inhalation through her nose. Never let the enemy see your weakness.

"Hoshi-chan!" he called again, stepping outside.

She merely lifted an eyebrow, the accentuation of that high arch the only indication she heard him.

"Hoshi-chan, they are planning another attack on the shrine!"

Wordlessly, at first, she twisted, tendrils of her black hair whirling round as she thrust the staff forward and shouted, "Kyah!"

"Hoshi?" he asked when she'd lowered her weapon.

"Yes, Obaa-san," she said, expressionless, no inflection in her response.

"Did you hear-"

"Yes, I heard."

"Those ruffians never learn," he grumbled, crossing the soft, wet grass to the center of the backyard where she stood. "What are you going to do?"

Lifting the staff again, she slid it with the slightest flick of a wrist into a red and gold fringed sheath slung across her back, and glanced back at her grandfather as she stepped into the shrine. "That, Obaa-san, is a question you should be asking them."