At the corner of the stadium, Rin took out her phone and keyed in a string of numbers before putting it at her ear.

“Dooo... dooo… dooo…”

The engagement tone was heard. Rin has no choice but to keep her phone away.

“If he were to receive my call, he might be angry with me for getting distracted. But I wasn’t distracted at all. I never lost my focus at all.”

She has finally understood how it really felt to be in full focus. She felt like she was in the water, and that was how she began to feel the things that she had neglected in the past. The pupils of her opponent were constricting; the slight relaxation of the fingers; the slight movement of the black belt and then the toes gripping the mat tightly inside of the shoes.

And then there’s wind…

A raise of arm. A raise of leg. The change in the air currant and direction.

Rin sat blankly at the corner, hoping for the revival round to end quickly. She didn’t care who would get the bronze medal; she just hoped to end the final so that she could go back to the hospital.

Unsure how long had passed, a loud yell was heard.

“Ahhhhh!”

The stadium erupted into loud cheers. Rin looked towards the mat and saw Kato Sakura crying out of happiness. She was waving both arms in the air, thanking and bowing at all the audiences.

The revival round has ended and the final was going to start soon. Rin unscrewed the bottle and started drinking before she began her warm-up.

---

Training base

“Starting soon! Starting soon!” Boram squealed excitedly when she saw Rin and Xu Jiao walking towards the mat. Rosie quickly put her book away and Kris had also come back from his call.

“How’s Jaejoong sunbae?” Rosie asked.

“He’s fine.” Kris yawned and reverted back to his lazy self.

“That’s good!” Rosie heaved a sigh of relief.

“Omo!” Boram gasped.

Both Taeyeon and Baekhyun turned to look at her. “What is it?”

“Look! Xu Jiao is wearing red protection gears! Will Rin…” Boram began to feel worried because she also realised Rin would win every match whenever she was in her red gears.

But she was wearing the blue one in the final.

“…” Rosie was speechless as well.

“Stop being so superstitious!” Taeyeon scolded the two.

“I know right.” Rosie let out a dry and awkward cough. “Senpai will still win Xu Jiao no matter what colour she wear.”

The stadium was still very hyped up and it could be probably because of Kato Sakura’s victory. When the final was about to start, they were all cheering loudly.

Both Rin and Xu Jiao were already at the mat, listening to the short briefing by the referee. For Xu Jiao, Tian Yu was seated at the coach seat but Rin’s side was empty.

“I heard… your boyfriend… is sick!” Xu Jiao said. Earlier this morning, she and other athletes had witnessed the scene of Jaejoong fainting in the stadium.

Rin nodded.

“Don’t worry!” Xu Jiao said. “He will be fine!”

Rin was stunned for a second. “Thank you.”

“But! Even you don’t have a coach! I will not show you any mercy!” Xu Jiao snarled. “I will defeat you! I am champion!”

“I’m sorry.” Rin said calmly.

“What?” Xu Jiao was shocked to hear Rin’s reply. “Do you think I will let you off by apologising?”

“I’m sorry! I want to KO you so that I can end this match quickly!” Rin replied. “I need to go back to the hospital.

It took Xu Jiao a while to understand what she meant. Her eyes went wide and screamed angrily back at Rin. “Arghhh! Lee Rin! How dare you insult me! You will not KO me! I will KO you!”

Xu Jiao has never been insulted like this before; no opponent had said that she wanted to KO her even before the start of the match.

In order to defeat Rin, she has been practising her secret move all days and nights. She has never used it in any match because she has been keeping it until she could finally use it on Rin in the match.

The sudden roaring at the competition shocked the audiences in the stadium.

“Has Xu Jiao gone crazy?” Rosie rolled her eyes.

“Could it be some psychological strategy?” Boram muttered curiously. “Is Rin going to make Xu Jiao lose her sanity before the match?”

“Don’t think so.” Taeyeon shook her head.

“Xu Jiao is the angry type athlete.” Baekhyun analysed. “Even the opponent doesn’t provoke her, she will still get agitated on her own. The more agitated she gets, the more energy she will get.”

“Xu Jiao is like a volcano.” Kris yawned. “Her energy will only explode when she is angry.”

The referee made his way to the centre of the mat.

Rin was on the left while Xu Jiao took the right side. With one signal, the two gave one another a bow before bowing at the audiences.

“Beeep!” The whistle blew, indicating 5he start of the match.

“Haaa!” One second after the start, Xu Jiao let out an angry roar and charged towards Rin.

With a slight tilt of her right foot, Xu Jiao raised her left leg up and kicked it towards Rin’s head.

That kick seemed to carry a huge amount of power and anger.

“Omo…” The Korean reporters let out an astonished gasp.

They had watched quite a few of Rin’s match; this was their first time seeing someone that was comparable to Rin. They could also tell that the kick was powerful and ferocious. It seemed like Xu Jiao was so much stronger than Rin.

The vertical kick was like a shadow looming over Rin but she didn’t look shocked because she could already read Xu Jiao’s moves after fighting so many times with her.

The moment Rin tilted her head up, the energy in Xu Jiao’s left leg had fully depleted and it stopped five inches away from Rin’s head.

“Haaa!” Just when Xu Jiao’s kick was about to miss her head, Rin let out a yell and spun around to do a roundhouse kick. She has to end this as quickly as possible.

Her mind was still with Jaejoong. She has to go back to accompany him and she has to find out what was he suffering from.

And then just when she was about to do her roundhouse kick, a moment of excitement flashed past Xu Jiao’s eyes.

Rin got a shock and before she could decipher that expression, she noticed Xu Jiao’s left leg began to move towards her head.

She quickly raised both arms to block that kick.

“Bam!” Even though the attack was blocked, the impact still created a loud sound after that.

A loud buzzing sound was ringing in Rin’s right ear and the impact was so huge that caused her arms to also hit her on the head.

“Omo!” The Korean reporters were stunned. Even Reporter Bang had stopped typing as well.

“This… this…” The girls at the training base stammered in shock.

Xu Jiao’s strengthless left leg could actually gather energy for the second time to attack Rin. Rin stumbled a few steps back and steadied her footing very quickly.

0 : 0

Nobody would expect Xu Jiao to launch such ferocious attack three seconds from the start of the first round.

“Phewww!” The people at the training base heaved a sigh of relief when they knew that Xu Jiao hasn’t managed to score a point.

“Arghhhh! Lee Rin! How dare you!”

“Xu Jiao could actually gather energy for the second time?” Taeyeon gasped unbelievably. For one moment, she thought she had seen wrongly. “It’s impossible! Her first attack was missed and the energy was already gone by that time. There isn’t any chance for her to make use of repercussion force to gather energy again?”

“She still has some energy left.” Baekhyun explained. “She didn’t use it all up because she was waiting for the right time to attack Rin again.”

“She had finally used it.” Tian Yu sighed, shaking his head with disapproval. “She never learnt her lesson, hasn’t she?”

Every since her two consecutive losses to Rin, Xu Jiao felt extremely insulted and hence she has been working on a new footwork. In the end, she managed to learn this new push-kick technique strategy.

But after mastering this new technique, Xu Jiao never used it in any tournament no matter how tough her opponent was. At first Tian Yu thought that it was because Xu Jiao did not have much confidence in her move but he has ne