Sagar strode out of the dugout shoulder to shoulder with his opponent.

He felt almost naked without his coat and swords, but his shirt and trousers would have to do.

As they reached the open air of the little concourse that led from the tunnel mouth to the stone tiles of the arena, people must have spotted them, because a wave of cheers and applause from the thousands-strong Farrian crowd swelled to greet them…

…then subsided again to about half its original volume, breaking into a buzz of confused chatter.

No wonder, Sagar thought as he stepped onto the arena floor and began to make his way over to one side of it. I'm not a Farrian, after all; I'm another 'filthy foreigner' you weren't expecting–just like the pup was.

And his opponent was a Farrian–but she was also a woman. As far as Sagar understood, women did not normally become monks, or fight, in Farrian culture, as was quite right and proper. How this woman had managed to progress to the quarter finals, he had no idea. Maybe she had had a free pass like him, for some reason.

He regarded her where she took her place now opposite him about fifteen paces away on the other side of the arena, standing in a simple stance with two fists bunched and knuckles-down on either side of the top of her hips. She wore a leaf-green robe liked the baldies did, tied with an earth-brown sash at her waist. Her build was slight and slender. Like all Farrians who grew it she had dark hair, cut short like a Dokanese man's. Only the femininity of her cheekbones betrayed her as a woman, but had you not been told you might be forgiven for mistaking her for a man.

Why do I always get paired up with these women who act like men? Sagar thought. It was like someone was trying to teach him something. At least hopefully this one won't also turn out to be my long-lost sister.

He had begrudgingly learned not to underestimate women who looked a bit like men from his experience with Elrann. But Elrann had only beaten men in drinking competitions (probably by cheating) and only been able to make a laughing stock of him when she had her firearms at her disposal. Elrann had never fought him hand-to-hand, and Sagar knew that if she ever did, he would win. Just like he was going to win in this fight against this Farrian woman.

Because if there was one thing that growing up on his father's skyship had taught him, it was how to fight, with a sword–or without one. He hadn't needed the scumsucker's ridiculous 'training'.

So I'm sorry, little Farrian girl, he thought, still regarding her with his exposed eye, but there's not going to be any glory, or prize money, or Jewels for you today. Those all belong to me.

"Ready?" the announcer said to him, yanking his attention back to the present moment.

Sagar nodded, smiling.

His opponent did the same.

"Then…...FIGHT!" The announcer shouted the word so loud it rang out over the crowd, then immediately rushed off to the sand that bordered the side of the arena to get out of the way.

The woman standing across from Sagar pointed a finger at him and called out in a loud, theatrical, somewhat angry voice:

"Sagar of Imfis! My name is Hiuna of Farr, and I am going to win this tournament! My whole life I have sought to prove my right to fight alongside men, and in this tournament I am going to do just that, first by defeating you, Sagar of Imfis!"

Sagar winced at the repetition of his name. Did she have to underscore that, when he was a man wanted by the Empire? The woman, 'Hiuna', had shouted loud enough for the whole audience to hear. They went quiet before her strange announcement, tensing to see what would happen next.

"Er…okay?" Sagar said at a normal volume. Who did she think she was to challenge him, a fearsome pirate skycaptain? "Show me what you've got, then," he invited, beckoning with a hand.

And then Hiuna was sprinting straight at him.

"HA!" She gave an aggressive yell, then leapt into the air, aiming a flying side-on kick at Sagar's chest.

He got his hand up in time to deflect it as he stepped to one side out of the way, but boy did it hit hard as it glanced off his palm, sending a ripple of shock down his arm.

Hiuna landed, then immediately sprang back up and launched a barrage of punches at him. High. High. Low. Middle. High.

Sagar blocked or dodged all of them, then jumped backwards to put some space in between him and the woman and buy himself some more time.

But she didn't give him any. She ran forward at once, closing the gap, came in with another kick, another flurry of punches, more kicks.

Sagar blocked them all, tendons tightening in his neck from the effort.

Hiuna came out of a roundhouse kick and continued rotating with her body, spinning around with a wicked surprise punch aimed at Sagar's stomach.

Time slowed.

Sagar could see that he was going to be able to block the punch in time, but it was coming towards him with such force that the impact of it might just knock him backwards all the same…backwards and out of the arena, the perimeter of which Hiuna had driven him to with her barrage of strikes.

His instincts activated.

Just before the punch connected, Sagar summoned the wind.

A localised gust of air rushed from the open palm with which he had been about to block the woman's punch, so forcefully that it stopped her fist in mid-air, then pushed it–and her–backwards.

Sagar stepped into the gust and drove his palm forwards to conceal his wind attack, connecting with Hiuna's hand as it moved backwards and making it look as if he had somehow blocked her blow and followed through with a counter-strike in the same rapid movement.

He extended his arm fully, and Hiuna went staggering back a few paces towards the centre of the arena, grunting, almost lost her footing and falling over.

She regained her balance, then came back into a fighting stance, this time with her two fists held out in front of her, ready to fend off whatever Sagar might throw at her next.

But Sagar did not follow up with another attack…yet.

He was trying to work out if he could win this without more obviously resorting to his wind power, or 'projection', or whatever the princess called it.

She had pushed him to use it so soon. Much sooner than he had anticipated needing to use it.

The Farrian's delicate face was still fixed in angry frown of determination, but now her brows crinkled even further, betraying puzzlement.

She knew something was amiss.

"You have some skill!" Sagar called out so the nearby audience members would be able to hear, deciding to follow up with a verbal assault, "I'll grant you that. Not bad, not bad at all, especially for a woman who wants to be a man."

A few snickers and fluttered across the crowd, reaching Sagar's keen ears. He needed to keep up this momentum.

"But you're still outmatched, I'm afraid!" he yelled, baiting her for all she was worth. "I'll make quick work of you, woman!"

"You got lucky, foreigner!" Hiuna shot back. Sagar could see sweat beading on her forehead. Good. "I almost had you beaten in ten strikes! You got a lucky hit in, somehow! I won't let that happen again!"

Pounce when they least expect it, rang a remembered voice in Sagar's head. The voice of the man he hadn't known was his father until it had been time for him to say goodbye. When they're most riled up, that's when you get the jump on them.

Sagar bounded forward, coming on with a vicious right hook aimed at the woman's head.

She got her arm up to block it, and he followed up with a left jab, which she smacked out of the way with her other hand.

He kept the pressure up, bombarding her with more punches. She blocked three more, then danced out of the way of the next.

Damn it, he thought as he kept up the barrage, unable to land a hit. She is skilled. And surprisingly strong. He wished that he could take off his eye patch to see with both eyes. He would have to resort to his other trick again.

He counted one, two, three more useless punches, then suddenly crouched and spun, whipping out his leg like a dog flicking out its tail, bringing it around in a low, sweeping kick.

As he did so he slowed time and summoned the wind to assist him so that he spun round impossibly fast, his kick moving with the speed of a gale.

A small whooshing noise followed his leg round.

He felt the kick connect with the woman's legs before he saw it happen. The back of his calf blossomed with brief impact as he swept her legs out from underneath her and she went over on her back, smacking against the stone with a satisfying slap.

Sagar came up immediately and sprang forwards, aiming a gut-punch at her prone form.

Before he landed, the woman rolled to the side and out of the way, and he punched the air where she had just been, pulling back just in time to stop his knuckles from hitting the stone of the arena floor.

He watched as the woman kept rolling, then pushed herself up from the ground with her hands and, keeping her momentum, twirled around several times in the air, before landing in her double-fisted fighting stance again some distance away.

Well, that was pretty impressive, he supposed.

The woman scowled at him, more furious than ever.

"What are you doing?" she called out. "I am your better many times over, and yet you keep scoring surprise hits on me! You are cheating, somehow, foreigner!"

Sagar shrugged exaggeratedly, making a show of it. "You can think that if you like, lady! Whatever helps you to feel better about yourself!"

"Raaagh!" She cried out in anger and rushed at him again, arriving with a furious punch which he parried to the side. She kept on at him, throwing strike after strike, so that Sagar had to consistently use the wind to speed up his responses, to nudge himself out of the way of an attack, to nudge her slightly away from him.

She was throwing everything he had at him, making him sweat now, too.

And it would have been enough, were it not for his special ability.

Sagar pushed one of her high punches further up, past his shoulder, then saw an opening. Her stomach was exposed.

He brought his knee up hard, even harder than he could normally by propelling it with a gust of air.

Spittle and a humiliating "Urk!" issued from the woman's mouth as she flew backwards through the air and landed on her back on the arena floor again.

The skypirate turned away out of embarrassment for her.

To his great delight, the crowd was cheering his name.

"SA-GAR! SA-GAR! SA-GAR!"

Apparently they knew a good fighter when they saw one, foreigner or not.

"One!" someone yelled.

The announcer beginning his count.

"Save your breath," Sagar said to the announcer where he knelt in the sand at the edge of the arena near to where Hiuna had landed. "I hit her very hard. She won't be getting up any time soon."

"Two!" called the announcer.

He turned back to the crowd and started motioning with his hands for them to cheer louder. They obliged him.

"SA-GAR! SA-GAR!"

He clasped his hands together and held them aloft, shaking them together to proclaim himself the champion.

"Thre–oh!"

The crowd went quiet all of a sudden.

"Huh?"

Sagar spun round just in time to see Hiuna running towards him.

She barrelled into him, grabbing hold of his arms and headbutting him in the face.

Pain erupted across Sagar's nose. He went over backwards, the woman still gripping his arms.

His hit the ground and on instinct rolled to the side, immediately hoping to pin Hiuna down just as she had tried to do to him.

Instead they kept rolling across the arena floor, shoulders banging against the stone, as the woman kept converting their momentum into another roll, and he did the same in turn.

Eventually, their momentum ran out, and Sagar found that he didn't quite have the strength left to bring her over in one final roll.

He sank back against the stone, banging his head. The woman lay on top of him, her face close to his, bright bands of pain around his forearms where she still held them tight.

Damn but she's surprisingly strong.

"I don't know what trick you were pulling, foreigner," Hiuna growled, huffing and puffing right in his face, expression furious and determined, "but I'd like to see you try it while I'm holding onto you." Her breath smelled of jasmine.

Sagar tried to think up a response, but found that his mind–and his body–had suddenly become very distracted by something.

He had a woman on top of him. This was the first time he had ever had a woman on top of him.

He had fantasised about it plenty of times, of course, but this was the first time he had ever had a real woman on top of him. In real life. Reality.

And she was quite beautiful, if you took the time to notice. Her cheek-lines had a kind of delicate defiance to them, and her eyes burned with a green fire.

And through his shirt, through her robe and under-garment, he could feel pressing up against him the unmistakable shapes of two small, but nonetheless round and firm, breasts.

His loins stirred. So what if apparently he had a thing for women that looked a bit like men? At least she was still a woman.

Hiuna must have noticed something was happening because her frown deepened. A very pretty frown, really, if you took the time to notice. Above very pink, inviting lips.

The woman's face was just inches away from Sagar's.

He tilted his head up a little, closed his eyes, and kissed her on the mouth.

He felt her body tense with surprise. Then, after a moment, to his own surprise and delight, she relaxed, and kissed him back.

A hot, sticky kiss. A passionate, heat-of-the-moment, wrestling-on-the-arena-floor sort of kiss.

His first kiss.

"Five!" the announcer shouted somewhere above them.

What?

Sagar managed to mask his shock and continue kissing Hiuna, but only barely.

"Six!"

The announcer had started the count and he hadn't even noticed. That's right, he was being pinned to the ground, after all!

Was that why Hiuna was kissing him back? To keep him pinned down?

"Seven!"

But if she was doing that, then why had she also relaxed her grip on his arms?

"Eight!"

Did he even want to win this tournament any more, or had he found something–someone–better to preoccupy himself with?

"Nine!"

But she might just be trying to win too. What was he thinking?! Of course he wanted to win this tournament. Death or glory!

Sagar brought his free hands in under Hiuna's stomach.

Her eyes opened wide and her face spasmed, breaking the kiss, just before...

He pushed upwards.

As he did so, he projected a gust of air, and managed to get his feet up and under her too to lend the appearance of a double-footed kick helping her on her way.

Hiuna flew backwards off of him, over his head.

Sagar managed to scramble up and twist his body around in time to see her arms and legs flailing wildly as she described a high arc through the air, turning over a couple of times, then landed with a thump in the sand to the side of the arena.

"Out of bounds!" the announcer yelled. "Sagar of Imfis wins!"

The crowd roared.

No sooner than he saw her hit the ground, a dread weight tugged down at Sagar's guts, and his head went foggy and dizzy.

What was this feeling?

Oh, poodoo.

He hadn't recognised it at first because he wasn't used to feeling it.

It was guilt. Remorse.

He had made the wrong decision.

Had he? Hiuna had only been kissing him back in order to keep him pinned in place, hadn't she? Or had she?

He sprinted across the arena floor to where she was standing up and brushing herself down, face set in grim fury.

"Hiuna," he said when he reached her, ignoring the announcer who was squawking something behind him. "I'm sorry!" The unfamiliar sound of his own apology astonished even himself, but he meant it. "I didn't mean to–"

"Don't!" Hiuna burst out at him, voice atremble. She began to run towards the dugout, covering her face with her hands. Was she crying?

"Wait!"

Sagar ran after her, following her into the dugout.