Trent shook his head. "She's not normal." They were wrong. She was exactly what she had always been. But now they were finally seeing it.
Nadira shifted her stance slightly, resetting her footing as if preparing for the next hit. Her shoulders relaxed, her center lowered. Every part of her body communicated one simple truth. She was ready. Are you?
The tension snapped like a wire pulled too tight. Riker opened his mouth to speak. Zayn groaned on the ground. Milo's fists trembled. Trent took a step backward and Nadira did nothing.
She simply stared. A stare that cut more deeply than any punch she could have thrown. Her eyes locked onto them, steady, fearless, stripped of hesitation. Eyes that no longer belong to a girl they could intimidate. Milo, humiliated, and shaking with rage, charged forward without thinking, setting off a chain reaction that would escalate the rooftop into full chaos.
The rooftop stretched open behind Nadira, an exposed battlefield of concrete, rattling vents, loose buckets, and sharp winds slicing between the railings. She stood just a few yards from the stairwell door now, pushed there by the chaos, her shoes leaving faint streaks of water on the ground. The space felt wider, emptier, more dangerous. One wrong step could send someone over the edge, and Milo decided that someone would be her. His face twisted with rage as he staggered up from Zayn's fall.
The humiliation of watching Nadira slip free. No, outmaneuver two of them burn deeper than any injury. Rage made him blind, stupid, reckless. "She wants to fight," Milo snarled. "I'll show her a fight."
"Milo, don't," Trent warned, but his voice fell apart. Milo didn't hear anyone. Or he didn't care. He charged. Not like Riker controlled, smug, slow enough to show off.
Not like Zayn calculating, striking from behind. Milo stormed forward with reckless intent. A bull sprinting without aim. Pure muscle behind every stomp. His sneakers slapped the concrete, sending vibrations through the rooftop floor.
His breath came in harsh grunts and his eyes wide, bloodshot, unhinged, locked on Nadira like she was prey. His plan was obvious from the first step. Shove her hard off the ledge. If needed, give her a scare she wouldn't forget. He didn't know that in judo, charging straight ahead was not an attack.
It was a gift. Nadira held her ground, her hair whipped across her cheek, her pulse steadied, her mind emptied of fear, noise, and cold water. Everything narrowed down to angles, foot placement, force, direction. The rooftop wasn't just a rooftop. It was a tatami mat with sharper edges.
Milo lunged. His hands reached for her shoulders, fingers spread wide, ready to push. Nadira stepped in. Not back, not aside. In her left foot slid diagonally across the concrete, body rotating into Milo's momentum.
His arms barely brushed her shoulder before she redirected them, guiding his force with the precision of someone who understood balance better than he understood his own strength. Her hips sank, her torso twisted, her right arm threaded under his. Milo stumbled forward, expecting resistance, and found none. Nadira's voice came out in a low, steady exhale, the kind a fighter uses to center their strike. Then ippon seoi nage, perfect, clean, devastating.