The morning of my final assessment had arrived.

I had already cleared the next four days with Tom beforehand. The first being today, the next two as my final mid-morning shifts, and the last one to rest and process the last two years of combat training. A total of twenty-eight fighters were graduating from their training this year, myself and Link included, so the graduates were split into group A and group B. I was placed into group A and was scheduled for an eleven fifty combat trial, though I was requested to arrive at least an hour earlier to wait for my turn. For routine sake, and to stretch myself out prior, I caught the seven thirty flight.

The halls bustled with movement and smiling faces when I first stepped into the building of Smash shortly after eight forty-five. It had been the same around this time when I had first started my work. When the midsummer graduation season came around, a lighthearted atmosphere uplifted every room with the idea of a peaceful triumph, an awaited end before the crowds thinned out until registration week in March. My eyes flitted across the faces I hustled past, patiently searching for any of my closest friends. Link was nowhere to be found. Mario was missing as well, although he was probably administering assessments. I didn't even end up running into Peach or Luigi, either. I proceeded to the cubby room to change.

Eleven o'clock came around after a couple hours of stretching and warming up. The assessments would be taking place in a different and much more prominent arena than the ones I had completed combat trials in before, so I kept that fact tucked away in my mind as I journeyed the white halls to reach the new location. Not just this, but it was all performed in front of an audience. Not consisting of the different members of the Smash community, but visitors from all over would have been packed into a single room to watch me fight. This was our big event each year.

I thrust open the double doors to the waiting room, instantly greeted by another luminescent room with pearly walls and floors. There was no furniture, just the piercing lights beaming down into the room and a scattered assemblage of fighters, some seated and less standing. A few sat in a criss-crossed seat. A few more sat leaning their back against the far wall. A duo of friends gathered together to sit on the floor and playfully sock each other's arms as if in teasing. A cluster assembled in the back left corner, standing to engage in conversation, and another duo near the doors that I had entered warmed up by sparring empty-handed with each other. Nobody was left out, I noticed. We really were just some huge, strange, slightly violent, and beautiful family.

My eyes swam through the sea of identical uniforms as the door latched shut behind me again. I was again searching for Link, Peach, and Luigi, but after a thorough examination, I still found none of them. Link must have been in group B and would have been finishing his assessments tomorrow morning. I spotted Mario amidst the crowd, standing off towards the left wall, and was furrowing his bushy eyebrows in concentration at a clipboard in his hand. His free hand was scribbling down onto the sheet pinned to it with a ballpoint pen, his motions implying checking items off of a checklist. Suddenly, as if he sensed my gaze falling upon him, his eyes darted up to meet mine as he realized my presence. He clicked his pen, slid it into the pocket at the front of his overalls, tucked the clipboard under his arm, and began to make his way across the room to join me with a few soft and polite "excuse me"s with every fighter he ducked past.

"Isabelle, welcome!" Mario greeted me brightly, reaching his empty hand up to encouragingly pat me on the arm. "Your last day of training! How the time flies! Well, only if you pass your test, of course. How are you feeling?"

"I'd say I'm doing well, actually," I admitted. It was mostly true, all except for a tingle of anxious anticipation somewhere in my stomach. "What do I need to do to pass?"

"Exactly what you'd think. You just need to win your combat trial and you're done," Mario explained. "And don't worry about it. If I didn't think you were ready, I wouldn't have scheduled you for your final assessments. You win this fight, you will officially be recognized as a Smash warrior and your training will be complete."

"Who am I fighting today?" I inquired. Mario had assured me after initially scheduling me that I wouldn't have been battling Ganondorf again at the very least, nor was he even an option as an opponent today, so I was prepared to take on literally anyone else. "Am I allowed to know this time?"

"Yes. In fact, you just missed the announcement," Mario told me, reaching into his front pocket and withdrawing his pen again. "My beloved Peach runs group A every year, so every person in this room will be going up against Peach. Group B is claimed by Luigi, so the works are the same. Link is in group B, if you were wondering."

Mario had offered the last sentence as a casual passing statement before he had already fixed his focus on the watch wrapped around the wrist of the hand which held the pen. I caught sight of the tiny markings of the clock face, but didn't get the chance to read it as he lowered it again and started off in a brisk walk towards the center of the room. Probably around five past eleven, I guessed.

With the clipboard still tucked under his arm, Mario clapped his hands together a few times to regain the attention of the room. The purr of sound in the room silenced and each head turned to face him as he spoke again, projecting his voice loud enough that it nearly rang against the walls.

"All right! Listen up, everybody!" Mario announced enthusiastically. "I hope you're all ready for your final assessments because it's time to begin."

A shiver of nerves trickled down my stomach at the sentence as I listened.

"After you all pass your tests with flying colors, you deserve an afternoon of rest and taking it easy," Mario went on. "But as expected, you need to put in the work to be able to get there. We're a little bit behind schedule, so I won't be talking for very long. If all goes well, each trial will take place exactly when scheduled or somewhere around there. Remember the timing of your trial. When you hear me say your name on the speakers, make your way into the arena. There will be a weapon for you hanging near the door. Almost like a regular combat trial. With that being said, it's time for me to go, but listen for your names. The crowd is waiting."

And so, our own wait time began. First, I put myself to the task of resuming my stretching, but found myself already bored of it ten minutes in. I plopped myself down next to a particularly chatty young human woman to engage in conversation and wound up following closely along as she blabbered on and on about the drama amidst her friends and family. With nothing of importance for input, it was entertaining to listen to. When she was called into the arena at eleven thirty, I sat by myself and watched the minutes tick by from the clock hung from the left wall. I let myself soak into the sensation of the gentle rumble of conversation, of the occasional roar of cheering from the other room, the ticking of the clock, my back resting against the wall as I sat.

"Isabelle."

My name in Mario's voice echoed from the speakers. It was just a hint past eleven fifty, right on time for my assessment to begin. I didn't delay. I climbed to my feet, feeling the anticipation spasm through my stomach, and began to weave past the fighters standing and seated on my way to the door at the corner of the room. My paw took hold of the doorknob and wrenched open the door, emerging out into the new space. My foot crunched down into sand and nearly thrust me off guard. I jolted back to my senses with the earsplitting clamor of whooping cheers at every angle. I had stepped into the most massive room I had ever seen, something close to the width and height of a football stadium. Rising seats bordered a plain plot of sand in an oval fashion, each and every inch to them packed to the brim with applauding audiences. The round lights beaming down from the tall ceiling almost seared my eyes.

I turned back to shut the door behind me, only to find it slowly sliding back in place on its own. A peg fastened to the wall next to the door carried a lengthy, thin, and razor sharp sword for my taking. I plucked the handle of the sword from its holder as the steady scrunching of approaching footsteps registered. I faced front again in time to see Peach shuffling across the sand, still near the center and several yards from me, to join me. It was the first time I had ever seen her without her elegant pink dress, instead dressed in an identical uniform to mine as her thick blonde hair tumbled down the black and red fabric. She held the handle of a sword, the same as mine, in her right hand. For the violent situation that was soon to befall us, an odd calmness had washed over her face, maybe even that familiar friendliness. Just another thing to prove that this wasn't going to change anything about her or about our friendship.

"Fighter number one," Mario's voice boomed across the area from wherever he sat with his microphone. The roar of the audience softened within seconds to listen to his words. I scanned the room for him and found him in the middle of the right-hand side of the audience, the only member of what appeared to be a judgment table draped in a gray tablecloth and a microphone pointed towards his mouth. "Peach Mario. Smash Warrior of twenty-six years."

The audience had been completely deafened at this point, on bated breath to figure out what would happen next. One could have heard a pin drop onto the sand. My heart pounded more heavily than usual, but beyond that, I was strangely calm now. Maybe it was because it was a certain fact that this wasn't going to be like what happened a year ago. Or maybe it was because since Peach was both my friend and an experienced fighter, she wouldn't allow herself to harm me terribly.

"Fighter number two," Mario went on. "Isabelle the Shih Tzu. Smash trainee of two years."

"Good luck," Peach told me in a soft, almost sing-songy voice. "I'm supposed to be on my own side, but I'm rooting for you, too."

"Ready yourselves."

Peach reached up her free hand to her face to dab the back of it across her forehead, presumably to wipe away the sweat of the effort of fighting three opponents before me. Her bangs, usually groomed straight and neat, were frizzy and disheveled. How she was going to manage battling ten more fighters after me and continued to do so every year was surreal.

"Gather your valor."

"You're not going to take it easy on me, right, Peach?" I asked. Though I tried to speak casually, I strained to prevent my voice from trembling with my hammering heart.

"I didn't even consider it, Isabelle," Peach told me as a smile crept across her lips.

"Rise to your prowess."

I adjusted my grip on the handle of my sword, gripping it securely in one paw. Peach noticed this and copied my motion. Our eyes met, a fixed, electric gaze in the fleeting moments before our next move.

"And fight!"

A spurt of sand shot from my feet as I took off. My feet hammered against the sand. The several-yard space between Peach and I vanished rapidly with the sprint we took towards each other. I knew my first move the second I launched myself forward. By nature, experienced fighters that were confident in their abilities tended to take the first swing, I had learned somewhere along my training. This was to steal the point of advantage when it was first available. To deal the first damaging blow.

I doubled over in a split second once Peach dug her foot into the sand to propel herself to land the first swing. My knees bent, my paw brushed the surface of the sand. It was a blunt force that pummeled square into my stomach instead of the audible swipe of the sword through the air. A faint sort of strained, gurgled sound escaped me as my back struck the sand after the kick. My face up to the blazing lights. The supple sand blanketed my fall better than the usual hard floor. My feet hooked the sand, reeling in a spasm-like movement to scramble up again. A second strike, one to my wrist, diminished my attempt and restricted me to the sand again. Peach's foot pinned down my wrist, my paw which clutched my sword, pinning it in place. Defenseless.

I watched Peach's second foot pivot in the sand as she bent to take up my sword in her free hand as I couldn't have stopped her. I acted abruptly. I lurched upward, clobbering my forehead right into her face. A squeaky whimper snuck from one of us with the impact. Peach was on the sand, already propping herself up on one elbow. It was my chance. I mounted the crunchy sand on my knees and flung the blade of my sword towards her torso. A thunderous clang followed the strike of our blades against one another. Peach had immediately caught the swing despite her advantage on the ground. I only blinked, had no time for retaliation. Something dull jabbed suddenly into the wrist of my paw that held my sword. My paw was empty. The sword slumped down into the sand somewhere to my right. Gone.

Peach was climbing to her feet again. Not quick enough. She had risen only onto one knee before my paws jerked up in a motion like passing a volleyball. I struck the flat of her wrist, knocking her off guard. A strained gasp left her as she lost her grip on her weapon and it tumbled down onto the sand. I lurched again. I was on my feet in a split second, ramming my foot into the handle of the abandoned sword and kicking it several feet down the sand before Peach could have grabbed it. I hadn't thought through her next move. The sound of silver scraping sand caught my attention. Peach was on her feet as well and had picked up not her own sword, but mine. I was the only one unarmed.

I disengaged to think. I scurried backwards, facing my opponent the entire way and crunching across the layer of sand. Luckily, Peach didn't rush me. Instead, she only drifted closer at a pace slower than mine, her motions tense and at the ready. I realized the presence of the audience once again, the large width of the sand plot. Hundreds of pairs of eyes locked upon me. A massive circle of sand surrounding me. I had the space to execute a plan. I just needed to execute a plan. My feet slowed on the sand, my thoughts firing at a mile a minute. I was expecting a challenge, sure, but this wasn't going to be easy to win. Peach and I met matches in physical strength, but she was too quick on her feet. It was a wonder how she could have perceived, internalized, and acted against my attacks in a split second. This wouldn't be a match of strength, nor a match of speed. It was a match of outsmarting her. That was the challenge I faced.

I had used that word before.

I couldn't fight him with brute force. Any attempt to do so would prolong my status, but not bring me lasting success. He was too smart for that, far too much so for my own good. And he wasn't holding back, either. He was immensely perceptive, picking out my motions before I even took them. He would counter any attack I could have made against him. I had to outsmart him.

My thoughts flashed back to my very first combat trial. The day that I had met Link for the first time and was set against him to fight. I had been here before. I just had to make the connections. The solution had been here all along. I had been too caught up in the moment to realize it. I didn't simply have to defeat Peach. I had to utilize every single thing that I had picked up in my training until now. Every lesson had been carefully crafted for this very moment. Every clue as to how I would accomplish the final step in my training. To proceed to the future, I had to return to the past. So what did I have to do?

You have to know what to do and when to do it. But something that's almost if not more important than your actions is your perception. Combat is tricky and it's unpredictable. You need to be quick on your feet and analyze their movements just like that.

Mario's voice sifted through my memories again. Of course. That was why I kept slipping up. I was stuck in the future, actively seeking out my next moves and neglecting focus on the present. That was it. To determine the actions I took against her, I needed to notice Peach's every move and retaliate accordingly. As long as I could pay attention, there was a chance I could have caught a flaw that granted me my victory.

I rooted my feet into the sand. The movement was subtle, but Peach caught it. Her pace quickened. Her blue eyes shimmered with determination. The sand crunched beneath her feet as she grounded herself to swing. My cue. I ducked my head as the thin weapon swiped the air above me and flung myself around to her back. Peach was still scrambling to recover from the swing when I marked my place again. I stepped closer in a clumsy motion before she could react and wrenched her into me with a locking arm around her neck. She was significantly taller than me, so it was a genuine strain to hold her in place. She barely struggled, like she was trained in this motion in particular. A thunderclap of pain streaked through my chin as she belted the top of her head into it. A strained gasp of pain escaped from me as I lost my grip on her and staggered to retreat by instinct. Try again.

Peach's thick blonde hair whipped around her as she spun to face me and lash another strike. A clue before the action. My paw latched onto the wrist of the hand which held the sword, abruptly halting it in motion. I clenched my teeth and bashed my elbow down into her arm to drop the sword. Immediately, she doubled over, but her grip remained intact. I tried again, my body pointed crooked in the curve of her bend, and drove my elbow sharply into her stomach. It must have done nothing, as the only response was her straightening and a hand clapping down onto the side of my arm in a firm grasp. Suddenly, my feet were tumbling through the sand from the push, my balance subsided. My front hit the sand, a soft fall with tiny grains digging into my paws.

That technique was worth a shot and somewhat useful, but Peach was just too quick and knowledgeable of her skill to provide me lasting success. Even if she slipped up and revealed her next move, she countered my reaction before I could have considered it. Maybe that was her plan all along. This was an entire different level of challenge than I had become accustomed to. The risk of my failure at this point could have been greater than my chance of passing. I dragged my paws through the sand, climbing to my feet again. What I needed to do was locate the weakness and utilize it. But I was educated in combat, not such intensive examination mid-battle.

Keep your eye on the target. No matter what. It is always better to be simple and focus on what you know rather than to try to outdo yourself every single time. If you're thinking of ways to show off or make yourself look better, you're not thinking about the fight.

What I knew. What did I know? I knew to accept the attack right in the moment rather than try to predict the future and delve into my training to form retaliation right then and there without thought. To an extent, I still had to think about what I was doing, what was happening, otherwise I would run away at first sign of conflict or find myself standing still to take a punch to the face. The trick was to not consider it, to rely on instinct. Surely I had instinct at this point, given that I had been training for two years. I had to let go of my reliance on my memory. I had to trust myself instead.

Well, it would have been a challenge to get back to my weapon where it lay across the arena, so paw-to-hand combat it was. I reeled across the sand, retreating before Peach could strike me behind my back. I steadied myself as she did the same. Her sword clenched tight, her blue eyes locked fixedly with mine. I was contemplating my next move before I realized and restrained myself. That was the beginner's instinct. I needed to train that out, to rely on my instinct as a professional. That was the entire reason that I was here. To prove that I had learned enough to defend myself.

I broke off into a brisk walk, reaching Peach in seconds. She was recoiling her arm, ready to slash open my uniform. With a fling of my paw, I seized her wrist and lurched to chuck it to the side. She hadn't seen it coming, doubling over at the yank of her body and hastily regaining her footing. I didn't give her the chance. I locked an arm around her neck, restraining her in place, and swung my knee up into her torso. I hadn't even withdrawn my leg yet before the feel of the flat of her arm appeared under my thigh. My only steady foot lost the sand beneath it with the tug she took from the bottom of my thigh and I was on my front again.

A heavy crunch from in front of my face accompanied Peach's sword thrusting into the sand to keep me from crawling away. Then my paws were around her wrist again, my back bent awkwardly on the sand to squeeze my entire strength into the hand that held the handle of the sword. I would pry her fingers from the weapon and remove it for my own use. This likely would have provided her the time to retrieve mine, but we would have been evenly matched. A blunt force slammed into my back and crushed me back into the surface of the sand. I squirmed, desperate to claw through the sand to escape from Peach's foot pinned down to my back. I was immobilized once again.

Well, that was no use, either. How was I meant to display everything I knew when clearly I knew less of the tricks? There had to be another way. Something I could have done to further take a grasp on Peach's weakness. It was considerably hard to do that when not only I had lost my weapon, but my movement was restricted to the sand. Right now, there wasn't much that I could do at all.

Sometimes you'll find yourself in a battle that seems almost or completely impossible to overcome. You're without all weapons except for your own strength or your competitor is far more skilled than yourself. You don't give up. Experienced fighters don't give up. You're never without tools to win your fight. Use what you have.

Maybe I wasn't completely restricted to the sand after all. Not everything I could have utilized to defend myself was without use. I kicked out my leg, failing to strike something once and slamming right into Peach's ankle the second time. Peach swayed to realign her stance, the foot that I kicked digging into the sand, but she didn't lose her balance. The struggle was all I needed. The very second that her hand lost its grip on the handle of the sword in front of me, the window of opportunity was rapidly shrinking. It was barely a moment after her hand disappeared that mine took her place, both wrapping around the handle and heaving myself to my feet.

Peach's foot vanished from my back and crunched into the sand. I climbed to my feet, grounding myself and facing her. Now, and maybe only for now, I was the one who was armed. My paws clenching the handle of the sword. The bead of sweat that snuck down the side of Peach's face. I might have had the high ground, but this fight was far from over. I couldn't deny the heavy cloud of heat congesting the room from the efforts of combat. I blinked, trying to process the perspired atmosphere, and my wrist was locked in Peach's grasp. She had noticed my moment of distraction and used it against me, having abruptly pried the handle of the weapon from my paws. The skin from her fist flashed in front of my face before the impact even belted me square in the nose.

Rid of a weapon and back on the ground with Peach towering over me, my paw grappled at the sand at my side. I didn't even allow her the chance to breathe before I chucked the pawful of sand right into her face. A tight screech slipped from Peach as she staggered in retreat. The space between us had opened up. Peach frantically rubbed her eyes with her free hand to clear them of sand. The second sword was across the arena. Now with diversion, I could have made it there in about six seconds. I scrambled to my feet before Peach had even lowered her hand and launched myself into a sprint to where the sword lay on the opposite end of the sand pit. My heart hammering, the audience gasping, my breaths streaking in and out and in and out with every pounding step across the sand until my chest screamed.

Something whizzed through the air, slicing the air just next to my ear. The jolt I surrendered to stirred such sudden panic that a thunderclap of pain streaked across my chest. I lurched to avoid the object flung at me, catching my foot in the sand in the process and collapsing back down onto my front. The object—Peach's sword, most likely—Toppled down into the sand somewhere far in front of me not even a moment after I did. The sand crunched with each brisk step she took towards me. My paws pressed into the prickly ground, a dejected sense of doubt wriggling into my stomach like a worm. I was running out of options. Every single move I took was so easily countered. Something told me that this fight wouldn't end in my favor. I quickly found myself stalling to rise, slowly climbing up onto my paws and knees, and silently wished I was still sprawled across the sand where the looming defeat was at least more comfortable.

"You're not giving up so soon, are you?" Peach's nearing voice addressed me from behind. She must have noticed my hesitation.

I was certainly getting there. There was, after all, not much point to a fight I was destined to lose. Maybe it was better to forfeit now than to try and battle against a predetermined outcome. But what was I supposed to do now?

"The motive isn't just going to be given to you. You need to find it. You need to create it. You need to feel it."

Surely surrender wasn't how this ended. Surrender wasn't usually in my name. I hadn't even surrendered to Ganondorf when we fought, despite what it cost me. Something had led me to this point, two years into my training. Something powerful enough to stir the courage to move on time after time after time. But now, for the life of me, I couldn't quite grasp it. I steadily rose to my feet to face Peach again, my thoughts darting swiftly through the corners of my mind.

"A great part of, if not the majority, of combat is simply confidence. Sure, there's the actual fighting. That can also get you quite far. But you can only win if you believe in yourself. Be confident, but not arrogant. Put your best foot forward and your chances of victory shoot into the sky."

Confidence. Right. Well, I might have been able to manage that. I grounded myself on my feet, facing Peach as we stood like we had when we had first begun. Both unarmed, yet again. I readied myself to launch at her with the very first hint of her next strike.

"Not yet," I told her.

It was probably the most short-lived idea that had ever sprung to my mind. Peach had barely so much as twitched in movement before my paws tightly gripped the fabric on her shoulders to restrict her mobility. It did nothing to bind her. My jaw clipped together with a whack to the chin. The initial stun was what restricted me instead, thrusting me into almost a daze before her elbow sharply clobbered my temple. I went down again, crumpling back into the sand, and I didn't get up.

I was enough of a warrior at the very least to know a lost battle when I saw one. The window of time in which the realization occurred was less than a snap and had already settled with certainty in my mind before my side ever hit the sand. The dismayed oohs of the audience as my body curled against the sand only further proved my failure. It was no use. I wasn't ready for this. I just kept surrendering to defeat again and again.

Reality had never felt so vivid. My body laying across the sand, the warmth clouding the air, the audience's eyes burning through me as they tried to figure out what was happening. My own eyes had fallen shut, blocking out the world around me in sight and still intertwined with it by touch and sound. It was done. I wasn't going to pass my final assessment. I was tempted to raise my head from the prickly sand, to meet Mario's gaze for help, but there was no way I could have done that. The second our eyes would have met, he would have known that I had failed him. It was achingly clear that I couldn't do this, so why did he put me here?

"I chose you because I saw the extent of your diligence. You didn't let any obstacle stand in your way. And don't."

Suddenly, my mind was drifting through the conversation we had shared after I had failed to fight Link after meeting him for the first time. I couldn't do it, I couldn't hurt him. I was so convinced that I didn't belong here. But Mario had seen something in me that I didn't yet see for myself.

"But you didn't know yourself. Not from what I could see. You were fighting for your future, not yourself. You didn't look into yourself enough to find something valuable to fight for."

Carefully, I eased myself up onto my paws and knees. A chorus of surprised gasps traveled through the audience surrounding the arena. They understood what was happening just as well as I did. This fight wasn't yet over. I hadn't realized it before this very moment that I had been knocked down again. I'd had something so important to tirelessly fight for this entire time, to defend until a victory was reached.

"Fighting for yourself is the best thing you can fight for. I chose you, Isabelle, so you could learn to be your own warrior along with everyone else's."

The sand beneath my feet crunched, spraying as it became disheveled, as I broke off into a sprint. Peach hadn't realized when throwing her sword in my direction that it would have been easier to reach than my own. I snagged the sword from the sand, staggering clumsily through the sand to face her as she approached. I clenched the handle firmly, determined not to allow the weapon to be knocked out of my paw again. The weapon that I once held was somewhere behind me, blocked by my stance. If Peach would have made a run for it, I could have easily caught her. I had the high ground and she realized it. Her feet came to a stop several feet from me, her ocean blue eyes staring into mine with a rippling glisten that might have been either curiosity or hope. She wasn't afraid of me hurting her. She wanted me to hurt her, to prove myself as the fighter I was meant to be. I wasn't going to give up this time.

The best bet to knocking her down was with some sort of paw-to-hand combat, like a knee or an elbow, rather than accidentally piercing her with the sword. I knew better than to reveal my actions ahead of time. I had learned my lesson from earlier in the fight. My feet were in motion again, hustling across the sand to reach her. Peach's fist was already swinging through the air to catch me by surprise, but it only swiped the air above my head as I doubled over to evade her attack. Her balance swayed, her torso catching on my shoulder as she tried to regain it. I had barely straightened back up to full height before my leg was against her stomach, heaving her to the ground.

The familiar feeling of dropping jerked my entire body as her hands latched around my leg that I had used to push her down. As Peach struck the sand on her back, I toppled down on top of her. My paws propped me up on the sand next to her arm, one still clutching the handle of the sword. I sharply kicked at her arms, freeing myself from her hold. Unrestrained. I crawled out onto the sand, ready to get to my feet. A dull ache sprung to the top of my head and my teeth clenched. Peach had gripped me by the hair sprouting from my ponytail, restraining me to my crouch on the sand.

For the first time, I utilized the blade of the sword, seeing it was time. I flung the sword towards her arm that restricted me to the sand. Only her strained gasp alerted me that I had sliced through the fabric on her upper arm. A line of red was already spreading across her pale skin from the cut in the uniform. I slung the dull end of the weapon into her injury, releasing her grip on my hair. I hadn't even yet risen before her hands were clamped onto my arms, holding me still yet. She was running out of moves to stop me. My heart hammered against the casing of my chest as the feeling of the grip flooded my senses. In one swift movement, I jolted my arms out of her grasp as if I were a butterfly spreading my wings, jumped to my feet above her, and pointed the tip of my blade to her throat.

It was as though the moment froze in the blink of an eye. The hasty blur of combat suddenly stilled. My eyes meeting hers, her eyes meeting mine. For the first time, she didn't even attempt to move. With my blade hardly inches from her throat, there was nowhere she even could have moved. My paws trembled, my focus locked upon her face. In the stillness, I silently counted the seconds going by. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Thunderous applause rising from the audience sharply interrupted my thoughts, a roar of cheers pounding through the room. My mouth dropped open as my stomach lurched with tingly excitement and thrill. I removed the point of my sword from Peach's throat to sweep my gaze throughout the audience. Every single member of every single row was putting their hands and paws together in rigorous applause. I heard the soft crunch of the sand as Peach delicately climbed to her feet, but it didn't tear my focus away from the sights around me. The lights almost seemed brighter in a way, the heat of the room diminishing to give way to a weightless, soaring sensation. Even Peach was applauding me once she was on her feet again, completely ignoring the cut on her arm I had given her as if it had been nothing but a theatrical act. I was in a daze, my head stirring and my heart clobbering my chest as the sounds overwhelmed my senses.

I won.

"Well, my friends, it looks like we have a winner!" Mario's enthusiastic voice boomed across the room. If the speakers weren't so crisp, the roar of applause would have muffled the sound. "My congratulations to you, Isabelle! What a performance!"

If I was the slightest bit less dazed with elation than I was right now, Peach's hand taking hold of my paw might have startled me. My eyes finally flitted to look at her beside me as she raised my paw as far as she could into the air, presenting me and my success to every pair of eyes and the humans and animals that owned them. My arm was too limp in my shock to have the strength to resist, so I allowed it to be lifted above my head in Peach's display of my triumph and listened to the crackling applause and cheering in my own honor.

A different sensation was bubbling up. Tears of joy and relief burned in the corners of my eyes and I gasped within the awkward, jagged breathing before the teardrops would spill over. Two years of training. Three phases. Two failed combat trials. Countless days of struggle. Now here I stood, after everything. I was really here. I had really made it. Suddenly, every single day that led me here held weight, held meaning. Without everything working out exactly the way it had, I wouldn't have been standing here right now.

Peach lowered my paw again, gently setting her hand on my arm to nudge me to the left, towards the opposite end of the arena from where I had first come in. Appearing to function on a sensor, the matching white door slowly swept open to provide for my exit and brushed the sand aside in the process. An illuminated white hallway, quite like most in the building, waited for me. Thin clumps of sand skirted the open barrier between the doorway and the hall. It was time for me to go. I didn't yet understand what was coming next, all that it was time to go.

I took the instruction to leave. I began to make the journey across the sand again, feeling step after step as my feet sank into it. It was strange to consider that I was leaving here in such high spirits after the rollercoaster of emotions I had just ridden through trying to defeat Peach in battle. It was even more strange to realize that it was all behind me now—This fight, the others, and everything else. The sight of the audience vanished out of the corners of my eyes as I left through the open door and the applause still rang through my ears, even after I was long gone.

. . .

Some of my favorite days from my puppyhood, despite my value for education, were the last day of each school year. The peaceful freedom of an uneventful afternoon to say goodbye to the year of learning. The same gentle summer sunlight pooling across the floors in puddles, the same emotional warmth hanging in the air.

My final two days of training at Smash Ultimate were laid out in the same way. There were no verbal instructions for the remainder of the day, but when I exited the arena from my final assessment, paper signs had been slapped onto the walls with tape with arrows directing fighters who had just finished their finals to a new destination. I was relieved of what was soon to be bafflement and followed the signs through twisting hallways. I arrived minutes later at the rankings room to several fighters already occupying the curved orange couches scattered throughout the room, a table of refreshments in snacks and beverages to celebrate the success of those in the room, and a different text on the ranking screen hung from the wall.

RANKINGS UPDATING FOR SEASON END

Thank you for your patience.

I headed out for home at three in the afternoon after spending a couple of hours in the gathering of my peers. I had been urged to take tomorrow off as there would be no training for me to do while Group B took their finals and to just come in for my informal graduation the next day. I planned to sleep in for the first time in years, getting up as late as seven for when I would need to get ready to leave for the shop. Now that I had finished the training program and was named an official Smash Ultimate warrior, the idea of my future here was completely thrown up into the air for consideration. And so I considered it for the entire journey home.

Two days later, I arrived at Smash for the final step of my journey.