The day of the new dance competition came. I set up the tables and chairs and lights. I did registration. The judges had to be escorted in, as well as the girls from other dance schools.
An hour before the competition, I ran back and forth helping the girls with their makeup and hair and outfits. I was in the middle of braiding when Ms. Hyuuga came backstage.
"Has anyone seen Kimiko?" she asked. "It's almost twenty to start."
Someone came in, huffing. "Hyuuga Kagami?"
Ms. Hyuuga turned around.
The messenger passed her the note.
Ms. Hyuuga read it.
"What's wrong?" I asked, seeing her expression.
"Kimiko is sick with the flu," Ms. Hyuuga said calmly.
The girls were less calm.
"What! But she's the lead dancer! The second act is all her!"
"Kaori."
Kaori jumped.
"Fill in for Kimiko. Haruka, fill in for Kaori. Ayae, fill in for Haruka."
It was my turn to jump.
"Wait, wait!" I rushed to follow Ms. Hyuuga. "Ms. Hyuuga, I don't know the advanced dances."
"You've seen them in practice, haven't you?"
My head spun. "Yes… but!"
She held my shoulder. "Just do your best, Ayae. Now go change."
Ms. Hyuuga wasn't wrong. I did watch the girls in the advanced division practice. Many times. Enough times to know… Haruka had a solo piece.
But Ms. Hyuuga didn't want to risk rearranging more girls. Kaori and Haruka were the two best dancers after Kimiko. They could do many roles. But the other girls might get confused if asked to switch positions last minute.
Before I knew it, I was on stage. I stared out at the crowd. The judges watched us intensely.
My heart pounding, I got into position.
Whelp. Here goes nothing.
The group dance wasn't too bad. I just had to copy the other girls. After years of shinobi sparring, anticipating their movements was a breeze. There was music to help and everything.
But then came the solo…
Ms. Hyuuga did say just do my best.
I might have gone off script and made up some moves.
Okay, I made the whole thing up.
When I was done, some of the judges looked horrified. I gave a cheesy smile.
Despite my disaster, our school did well in the judging. The bespectacled lady gave us an eight. The old bearded geezer gave us a seven, and he was usually the harshest. We then got an eight and a nine.
We nearly cheered until the last judge showed his score.
Four.
I recognized this judge from one of the previous competitions. He was hard to forget, with dark skin and golden hair and strange fashion.
"I must respectfully disagree with my peers. From a technical perspective, the execution is precise but trite. All the main roles are ill-fitted. As for that third act…" He paused. "For such a carefully crafted narrative, it is entirely derailed by the solo, which comes off as glaringly ad-libbed. It makes the rest difficult to care for."
Wah, so harsh! He was talking about me too. I wanted to huddle in the corner and cry.
Because of that four, we didn't even place. It was disappointing. Many of the girls got upset. They thought he was totally unfair. Some thought he hated Konoha, or Ms. Hyuuga, or both, and that was why he gave us such a low score.
"Why would he hate Ms. Hyuuga?" I asked, confused.
Did Ms. Hyuuga and the judge know each other? Did they have a fight at some point?
I peeked at the judges table. He was… very handsome. And Ms. Hyuuga was easily one of the most beautiful women in Konoha. They had to be around the same age.
My eyes went wide.
"Did they have a bad breakup?" I whispered frantically.
One of the girls giggled.
Another face-palmed.
"No, Ayae, look at his skin color. He's from Lightning."
I didn't understand.
"The Hyuuga clan and Lightning don't get along," one the girls explained.
Konoha and Kumo had fought on opposite sides of the war. The girls said there had been rumors of the Hyuuga clan almost declaring war again, had the Hokage not stepped in and made peace.
"I bet he only attacked Ayae because she's Uchiha. Everyone knows the Uchiha kicked their ass. He's just a sore loser his country lost."
"Ugh we have such bad luck! Why did he have to be our judge?"
Everyone hushed when Ms. Hyuuga walked in backstage.
At the end of the competition, all dancers went back on stage to give bows. I looked up and noticed the Lightning judge staring at me. Haruka noticed and held my arm protectively. She walked with me out of sight.
The winners, the school from Honey, were the last to leave the stage. They were super happy, jumping and hugging each other. Some came to me asking for recommendations of good Konoha restaurants. I happily listed all the ones I knew.
Then all the dance schools split ways. A few left the village. Others went back to their inns.
Soon it was just me and the stage movers.
It was evening. I had just put away the last of the chairs when someone approached me.
To my surprise, it was the Lightning judge.
All the other judges had left hours ago. I wondered what he was still doing here.
"Uchiha Ayae?"
I nodded. "That's me. Are you lost?"
"No, I wanted to follow up on today's performance."
"Oh! Ms. Hyuuga is with the other girls at Shushuya. I can take you there."
"Actually, I was hoping to speak with you, Miss Ayae. In private preferably."
I stared.
He was very different from most people I knew. I couldn't read his expression.
"Okay," I said.
.
The Lightning judge, Mr. Ekkusu, followed me to Ms. Hyuuga's dance hall. It was dark and empty. I turned on all the lights.
"Does this work?" I asked.
He nodded.
He finally told me what he wanted to talk about. Well, it wasn't so much a talk. He wanted me to dance. He wanted to see that solo again.
I had not been expecting that. Sweating, I waved my hands. "Ah! Sorry, I don't think I can."
"You can't?"
I couldn't tell if he was surprised or skeptical or something else.
"It's just… um, well, you see, the main dancer, Kimiko, had the flu…"
I explained to him what happened. The solo dance wasn't something we rehearsed. I made it up on the spot. I couldn't dance it again even if I wanted to. I wouldn't remember.
His expression changed.
"I see."
I thought that would be it. I felt bad. I should have asked sooner what he wanted. Then I wouldn't have wasted his time bringing him all the way to the studio.
"Could you make another one?" he asked.
"Eh?"
"It doesn't have to be the same."
I looked closely and believed he was serious. This was important to him.
"Please," he said, bowing.
My shoulders lowered.
I did as he asked.
He asked for more. He wanted to see another dance. And another one.
The entire time, he did not speak, just watching me closely.
Finally, he showed me some sort of earpiece. It came with a device, but the device didn't look like any type of walkie-talkie that I had ever seen.
He asked if I could dance again, but this time with the earpiece on.
Curious, I agreed.
He kept the device in his hand. I noticed him click a button.
I jumped.
To my amazement, I could hear music. There was music coming from the earpiece!
Dancing to the music was lots of fun. The music was also different from anything I had ever heard. He clicked a button, then another button. The music changed. It was also different, but a new type of different.
Some of the music even had singing. It was so strange and wonderful, I had never danced to music with words before!
I giggled.
I was so caught up in the moment that I never heard the front door open. I never saw Ms. Hyuuga come in.
"Ayae?"
My foot stopped.
Ms. Hyuuga froze when she saw Mr. Ekkusu.
"May I ask what's going on?" she asked, giving a polite smile.
Mr. Ekkusu did not bow.
"I'm taking her, Kagami."
"You want to take Uchiha Ayae from Konoha."
"She's wasted here."
They stared at each other. I looked back and forth.
Ms. Hyuuga sighed, not looking very surprised. "It's late, Ayae. Come, let me walk you home."
I closed my mouth.
I didn't argue, only glancing back at the lit dance studio.
Once we were far enough on the street, I couldn't hold my tongue anymore.
"Ms. Hyuuga, what's going on? What does he mean he's taking me?"
I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that! I hoped I hadn't done something wrong, bringing him to the studio without permission.
"Mr. Ekkusu likes you, Ayae. He wants to be your new mentor."
"What! But he gave us a four! Because of me!"
Ms. Hyuuga shook her head. "Yes, you're the reason it wasn't lower."
Ms. Hyuuga said our poor ranking this competition was her fault. Her work this time just wasn't good. The last minute role switching hadn't helped, but even if the dance had been performed perfectly, she didn't expect a good score.
She respected Mr. Ekkusu's honesty.
Me, on the other hand, I had caught his eye since the first time he saw me dance.
I didn't understand. I wasn't a judge, but I knew enough ballet to know I wasn't the best. Why wouldn't Mr. Ekkusu want Kimiko or any of the other girls instead?
"I thought I messed up on weight," I said.
"You did. You're still not light enough for advanced ballet."
Ms. Hyuuga smiled.
She explained that taijutsu clashed horribly with ballet. Learning both had mixed up my style in both.
But ballet was only one type of dance. Gravity and weight and strength might be bad in ballet, but not in others.
"Konoha is insular from the dance community. The only three types of dance that we teach in this village are the three that I know. But in reality, there are thousands of different forms and styles. Mr. Ekkusu is famous for his mastery of them all." She looked at me. "He doesn't care if you're not perfect at ballet. He doesn't train pretty ballerinas. He trains professional dancers. He has no student that doesn't go on to become world-class."
My eyes widened.
Then I frowned.
"So he wants me to go with him?"
Ms. Hyuuga nodded. "To approach you like this, he must see great potential in you."
"Well, tell Mr. Ekkusu I'm very sorry, but I already have a great teacher. I'm not leaving my home for Lightning."
"Who says he's taking you to Lightning?"
I blinked.
"Isn't he… from Lightning?"
Here, Ms. Hyuuga looked a bit disappointed. "Konoha does not admit people from Lightning without special permission. He's a citizen of Fire, Ayae. He's been a citizen of Fire for twenty years now. The place he would take you isn't one you're unfamiliar with."
It took me a moment.
"You mean…!"
"He's from the Fire capital, Ayae."
.
I agreed to see Mr. Ekkusu again.
I wasn't going to go with him, of course, not in a million years. But I was curious. I wanted to know what it was that he wanted to show me.
It was a dance.
He unrolled a hairband from his wrist. He tied up his braids, so that his neck and shoulders showed.
My dad and I sat at the bench of the dance studio. Ms. Hyuuga played the music.
Not even three notes in, I understood.
I understood why Mr. Ekkusu gave us a four.
Because he showed what a ten looked like.
He took the same music, the same steps, the same technique… and showed the better way to put them together. The better way to pivot from one spin to the next. The better way to move across the stage. The better way to face the audience, so that anyone would only need to look once and not ever look away.
If I wanted to learn ballet, he could teach me ballet. He could teach me a hundred times better than anyone else. That was a promise. He'd fix my weight problem, easy.
But…
He had a feeling there was something else I might like to try.
The music fastened. Haruka's solo had arrived.
His heel kicked. And suddenly, a spin became a flip... a drop... a quarter turn. As swift as wind. As smooth as water. As whimsical as fire.
And suddenly, I was back in the Chuunin Exam, one of hundreds in the crowd.
These…
These were Itachi's movements.
I couldn't speak.
How did this person know Itachi's fighting style?!
Mr. Ekkusu didn't.
Just like how he was able to see Ms. Hyuuga's vision and make it real, he had seen mine.
He had seen from what I had done, what I was trying to do. And he had seen from what I was trying to do, everything that I dreamed and wanted.
He wasn't showing me Itachi's dance. He was showing me mine.
When he was done, he studied my reaction. He noticed my trembling.
"What type of dance is that?" I asked.
Mr. Ekkusu was very calm, his breathing even, his heartbeat steady.
"I don't know. I made it up on the spot."
He looked thoughtful.
"We can call it… martial dance."
