Fists flying around her had always filled her with excitement, with adrenaline, and she usually managed to avoid trouble when things got sticky — she didn't have the reflexes she did for no reason. After all, even if she wasn't a fighter, she still had some pretty impressive acrobatics, and they had saved her from getting burned when she got too close to the heat of the battles she refereed.
But still, she should have expected it — after all, her job wasn't guaranteed safe. Perhaps she was still naïve, only two years into her job, or maybe she was just arrogant and reckless.
The two fighters she was announcing in were nothing particularly special, or so she thought — but after some close-quarters blows, the taller guy suddenly changed tactics and charged an attack that neither his opponent nor Koto had expected, his energy exploding in a dramatic array of color that blinded her. For a moment, she couldn't hear anything, then she realized it was because the sound of her own scream was drowning out everything else, and by the time her vision returned to her, she had somehow ended up on her back outside the ring, her stomach and legs covered in blood and her body surrounded by rocky debris. She had to be replaced for a week while the gashes mended, and she hated every moment of her down time — and her pride hated the jagged scars that refused to go away.
But, as time went on, she adjusted to the idea of those scars. They were her own battle scars — proof of her dedication to the thing she loved. She'd never let the idea of gaining some scars get in the way of her job, of throwing herself back into the ring and letting everyone know just how far she would go.
However, she wasn't the only referee girl that would be putting herself into danger, and the others would more than likely be less adjusted to the potential injury. She developed her ribbon technique for that reason. Juri was scared, unaware of the very real danger, and Koto felt partially responsible for her potential self-sacrifice — she had predicted the problem before it even occurred, and she was ready to rescue her co-worker and friend when the time came.
She would never let another ref girl put herself in harm's way the way she had.