Lei Fang gasped for breath as she lay slumped in a corner of the arena. She could feel her heart racing, as beads of perspiration trickled down her face.
She looked pleadingly at the slender opponent, standing adjacent to her, smirking in a way that only a conqueror might.
"Kasumi," she muttered," did you not realise that this was only practice?"
Kasumi merely flashed a confident grin, before spinning around and doing several cartwheels across the mat. Upon landing, she clapped her hands in a display of self approval and shouted to Lei Fang. "I beat you, Lei Fang; practice or not. I am superior to you this day!"
Lei Fang winced at the thought of being humbled. She knew only too well the pain of defeat, but usually she had fought with great conviction; even at practice.
"I make no excuse, Kasumi," she responded in a low voice," but today my heart was not in the battle. Today my spirit is lacking. Maybe all of this fighting and brawling; it is no longer my passion."
"Aha, Lei Fang!" retorted Kasumi." You have no stomach for a fight? But you and I are a team! We crush our opponents without mercy."
"This I know," replied Lei Fang," but Kasumi, does it not occur to you that we are women? In a battle we fight without fear; but is life not more than all of this? Should we not be seeking higher things?"
"What could be better than beating the living daylights out of some pompous male, Lei Fang?" Kasumi smiled. "You and I have no peers in a contest."
"This is so, Kasumi," Lei Fang half mumbled, as she adjusted her clothing and rose to her feet, "but do you not think that something is missing? Sometimes I feel an emptiness inside. This I cannot explain."
Kasumi moved towards Lei Fang, grabbed her shoulders and shook her; causing Lei Fang to fix a penetrating gaze directly at Kasumi's face.
"Lei Fang, you must snap out of this. It is no good for you." Kasumi spoke rapidly. "You are a fighter, first and foremost! The fact that you are female is of no consequence. Remember the glory of victory; the taste of triumph!"
"But, Kasumi," sighed Lei Fang "there are times when I feel such a terrible longing. Times when I wish there were more to my life."
" Enough of this talk, Lei Fang!" blasted Kasumi. "Pull yourself together and leave these thoughts to other times. We must for now prepare to fight as a team in a high level tag match. We ask no quarter and we give none. Nothing else is important."
"As you say, Kasumi," Lei Fang uttered in response, "but I know that these feelings I suppress must one day be answered. For the present, fighting is a supreme passion; but someday I must surrender to another passion. The one that burns inside me, yearning to be fulfilled. Someday soon this inner thirst must be quenched, so that my soul may be content."