Space and Time

Fk=μk · η

A/N: The beautiful new cover you see was designed by AFleetingDream_91. I slapped on the #freetheLGBT banner but the rest of the awesomeness is all Larissa's talent.

It didn't truly hit me how much of a burden a lost arm is until now.

Quite literally.

Sofia is in the middle of tripping me for a takedown, and I extend my bad hand to catch my fall. Of course, it hurts like hell – even with the cast – and I find myself falling onto my shoulder quite unceremoniously.

Roll, Aika. Roll.

I don't need to look to stage left to know that Nevaeh is poised to run at me, to take me out of the fight, if I so much as pause for a tick too long. I need to keep moving. This is the NCC. I can't lose.

All right, we've rolled, now we have to get up before Sofia comes at us again. No, not with that arm, Aika, you complete moron.

There we go. Now focus. Where is Sofia?

I look around the dark mist that surrounds me. I see several shadows around me, but I know that those could be the columns this stage is made of. I'm pretty sure Sofia's been hiding behind those while I dizzy myself by spinning in circles. She's come in for a strike on my blind (and bad) side every time. I'm trying to keep track of where I am relative to the stage, but I know that with every hit, Sofia snaps me out of my concentration. She knows that I'm hypersensitive on my bad side right now. She knows that I'm particularly anxious about not getting more injured, about defending myself. She keeps gunning for my weaknesses and I'm starting to get disoriented. I'm relying entirely on the cheers to figure out which direction I'm facing at this point.

It's been a few minutes since the beginning of the fight. I'm going to get worn out real fast if I don't do something about her soon. But she's been so precise. I've never seen her coming. My reaction time might be decent, but my accuracy isn't; I know this, she knows this, probably everyone knows this after seeing my last few fights. It's pretty easy to spot.

...Am I shaking?

Holy shit, I'm shaking. Why?

Is this... fear?

I'm frozen. My body's sweating from the heat of movement and exertion but I'm frozen. My legs are rooted to the stage and the dark mist around me feels worse than my ice baths. Those at least make me shiver. This is just nothingness.

Was it stupid to keep going with the NCC? To keep charging forward? All my friends and loved ones supported me, sure, but hell, they weren't going to be the ones standing here in the black fog-void. They weren't the ones feeling the pain of my fractured limb tearing at my muscles or being distracted by the flashing lights and buzzing ears my broken brain has conjured at the least convenient times. Was this all a bad idea? Should I call to submit? I still have time before Sofia knocks me into another hospital room. I have the chance to stop. I have the chance to save myself.

What. Do. I. Do?!

"Think about what you want. What you can do. What your opponent can do." I can hear Nevaeh's voice in my head. Even when she isn't yelling at me from the sidelines, she's yelling at me in my head, huh?

But. As always, she has a point.

I want to keep fighting. It's been my life, and the NCC has been my dream. If I lose this fight, I want to lose it because I lack the skill. I want to lose it because my opponent was better, not because I got cold feet. I never get cold feet, so why would I start now?

If the cold is slowing me down, then I have the perfect tool to speed things up. I'm in the NCC right now. I don't have time to be analyzing and reanalyzing what's going on in my fight. What I need to be doing is reacting. What I need to be doing is moving.