The Right to Die | ✓ Amby Winner 2023

15. Fight Clean

His eyes snapped open to Sviya shaking him. "Didn't you hear the bell?" She scowled at him as his brain emerged from its fog. "Up, up. It's time for athletics, and we'll want to get there early."

She practically dragged him to the library door, and he stowed his book on a random shelf as they passed.

They parted in the crush of students, but he followed her midnight curls through the halls, tracking her to a large room that other people from their classes were pouring into. The ceiling rose higher here than in any other room M'yu had ever seen. Large circles were scored into the floor, forming rows and rows of rings lined up. It made the ground look like a life-size table of dominoes, but he didn't suppose Caps were much of ones for back-alley betting.

The students poured past the rows and toward doors at the back, one marked for girls and the other for boys. A short, muscled man stood on a podium, hand on the pommel of a sheathed sword. "Go get suited up!" he called, and the students moved in double-time.

M'yu joined the flow of the boys. Inside the room were rows of LMS suits, all hanging on racks. Opposite that were curtained-off stalls that boys disappeared into after snagging one of the gleaming metal rigs.

M'yu waited for a moment, trying to see if they had some way of marking whose suit was whose. Finding no discernable pattern, M'yu grabbed his LMS and took off into one of the stalls.

LMS suits were only partial. In fact, he would've thought they looked downright flimsy if he didn't know what they could do. Metal wires ran down the inside of his arms, curling around his shoulders and joining the spine piece at the neck. The spine ran down the back and circled the waist like a belt. M'yu strapped his on now, the way Aevryn had shown him yesterday. The metal rested cool against his skin. At the end of the right arm, the tip converged into a metal button that fit in the palm of his hand.

This suit was made with extendable pieces, unlike Aevryn's custom-made rig that he'd lent M'yu yesterday. That one hadn't fit quite right, the man being as tall as he was and all. Now when he pulled his clothes on over, the metal hardly showed through the fabric. The only thing visible was the small button on his right palm that activated the field.

His hand patted the linkcard in his coat, making sure it was secure before pushing past the curtain. The other boys' coats were piled up in the corner, and M'yu bit his lip. It would be more suspicious if he took his, and more likely to get confiscated. And no matter what else happened today, he could not lose that linkcard.

He left the coat in the pile and hurried after the other boys.

In the gymnasium, some of the other students paired off and chose a ring together. Others sat on wooden bleachers, chatting with each other. M'yu glanced around the room, and Sviya waved him over.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, too tight to be friendly. "I thought perhaps you and I might practice together," Ruslan said.

M'yu swallowed and turned.

He hadn't been impressed with Ruslan's fighting skills up until now, but there was something in the way he carried himself as he sauntered toward a ring that left M'yu unsettled. His head pounded with the demand to sleep, so he shut the headache up by prodding the sore in his mouth. Pain flared hot through his cheek, and he shook off the wince.

"Are you coming?" Ruslan called.

M'yu stepped into the ring.

The athletics teacher called out rules to them in a voice that said he'd made this speech too many times already. The grey hair around his wrinkled temple reinforced that point, and M'yu swallowed hard, trying to keep up with the monotonous drone.