Kira arrived at the school with an eager heart.

The red gates stood open, twin stone lions guarding the entrance. From somewhere inside came the sharp rhythm of wood striking wood and the smell of incense.

She paused at the threshold.

Students were training beyond the inner yard, their movements quick and precise. She tightened the strap of her satchel, grinned and stepped inside.

Names

The first courtyard was filled with students moving through stances and strikes. Wooden tablets hung along the walls, each carved with the names and histories of the forms.

Kira admired how the older students moved – balanced, precise, their strikes snapping clean through the air. She tried to imitate them. Her movements looked right at first, but collapsed the moment an instructor nudged her elbow or tapped her ankle.

Once, attempting the Dragon’s Tail sweep, she lost her footing and fell hard. Someone laughed across the courtyard. Her face flushed red-hot.

After that, she spent more time studying the tablets.

She traced the carved characters with her fingers, memorising the names, the sequences, the histories. Long after the others had gone, she practised alone in the fading light.

Slowly, the forms began to make sense.

When the instructors passed, they nodded.

Kira carried those nods with her long after she left the courtyard.

Patterns

In the second courtyard, Kira applied the techniques she had learned against her fellow students. Instead of kicking air and wrestling wind, she met bone with bone and muscle with muscle.

If she paused mid-drill to think about the sequence, a fist or shoulder would remind her. In patterns – was it claw, kick, throw, or throw then kick? – she hesitated, and students who understood less defeated her easily.

The instructors forbade explanations during drills. Only repetition. Only correction.

Again.

And again.

Slowly, Kira stopped chasing the sequence. She began to move with her opponent instead of at them, her body answering strikes with blocks and counters before her thoughts caught up.

After the drills, the students sprawled in the shade along the courtyard wall. Yun complained about her bruised ribs while someone passed around roasted chestnuts. When one of the younger students winced beside her, Yun handed him the bag of chestnuts first.

One afternoon, during the River Fist sequence – punch, block, feint, kick, step, throw – Kira’s breath, balance and timing aligned for a single instant.

The throw landed cleanly.

No one said anything.

Reasons

Every day in the third courtyard, Kira fought someone new.

There were no drills here, no tablets. Only fights, and the slow burning of joss sticks to mark the time.

Techniques that worked one day failed the next.

When Kira asked why, the instructors only answered with more questions: “Why did it work then? Why not now?” She wanted to throw them out the gate.

Instead, she fought harder. She drove through the familiar sequences faster and faster – and lost even more rounds.

One afternoon, a throw left her elbow aching. She sat against the wall and watched. Yun missed a sweep and laughed, pulling her opponent back to their feet. Across the courtyard, another student tightened his shoulders before every strike. A third slowed as the joss stick burned low.

Each fight was not the same.

The next day, Kira watched first. When she stepped forward to spar, she waited a fraction longer before moving.

The fight felt different.

That evening, she and Yun sat on their favourite spot along the courtyard wall, watching the last students finish their drills. “You notice everything now,” Yun said. “Distance. Balance. When someone’s about to move.”

Kira shrugged.

“It makes the fights easier.”

Yun watched the courtyard for a moment.

“Does it feel easy to you?”

The lanterns flickered as the instructors began putting them out.

Chaos

The fourth courtyard was chaos. It changed every day: new scenarios, new weapons, sometimes even a different courtyard.

One day, she was told to shield the weakest student. Another, to disarm an attacker without leaving a bruise. Once, fifteen students surrounded her; Kira fought until she was pinned. Yun simply slipped away.

One afternoon, the instructors placed a red ribbon in the centre of the courtyard.

“Protect it.”

Kira, Yun and three others stood over the cloth as their classmates spread out.

Two students rushed Yun. Kira almost moved – then saw the feint. A third opponent was already waiting to break through the centre.

If she stepped away, the ribbon would be taken.

Kira held her ground.

“Hold the line!” she shouted.

The clash lasted seconds. The instructor raised his hand.

“The task is complete.”

Silence settled across the courtyard.

Kira turned. Yun was sitting on the ground, clutching her arm. The injury did not look serious, but she moved carefully.

Kira stepped toward her. “Are you okay?”

Yun looked behind them. Kira followed her gaze. The ribbon lay untouched behind them.

“Does it still feel easy?” she asked quietly.

Kira offered her hand.

Yun did not take it.

The next morning, Yun’s place in the courtyard was empty.

World

Evening had settled over the town of Iron Gate.

Kira had spent the day running errands and was hurrying back to the school. Her right elbow ached – it had never quite healed after the third courtyard.

A tug at her sleeve.

Before she could think, her body turned. Her hand closed around a wrist. A thin, ragged man stood there, her wallet caught halfway from her sash.

Neither of them moved.

Three techniques flashed through her mind. Two would end with his arm broken, the third with his leg.

Kira looked at his face.

He was younger than she had first thought. His arm trembled in her grip. He could not have been much older than the youngest students at the school.

If she tightened her hold, the fight would begin.

She loosened it instead.

The wallet dropped back into her hand.

The man hesitated, then slipped into the crowd.

Kira stood there a moment longer, breathing. Then she turned and walked back toward the school. When she returned, an instructor’s amulet hung from the edge of her table.

Begin

Kira returned to the first courtyard.

Students moved through the familiar stances and strikes. The wooden tablets still hung along the walls, their carved characters worn smooth by many hands.

She walked among the students, adjusting a shoulder here, a foot there. Most were stiff, their movements careful. She remembered that feeling.

A student approached her after the drills. “Where should I begin?” he asked.

Kira paused.

She saw all the courtyards at once – the tablets, the drills, the joss sticks burning low, the ribbon lying on the ground.

“Begin where this stops working,” she said.

The student frowned slightly, trying to understand. Kira almost explained. Instead, she watched him return to the courtyard and try again.

From beyond the walls, the sound of evening voices, the distant call of birds.