## Chapter 295 — Across the Folding Table The folding table had been placed on a strip of blue floor tape that failed to follow the wall. Isha noticed the angle before she noticed Morita Ayaka. The room occupied the second floor of a small municipal sports building, above a hall whose polished floor carried the distant impact of basketballs. Event staff had arranged three tables beneath fluorescent lights. One held forms, pens and two clear document trays. Another carried sealed gloves, sample protective equipment and a row of size labels. The third stood beside a calibrated scale and a folding screen that offered privacy from the corridor while doing little to divide the room itself. Morita waited beside the first table with her coach. The clips had shown her moving: right hand measuring from a southpaw stance, shoulders tightening when she accepted a strike, hips driving forward until another woman had to carry her against the padded wall. Standing in plain training trousers and a dark T-shirt, she looked more compact than the video had suggested. Her weight sat through strong thighs and a torso built to keep pressure once she reached it. Dark hair had been tied back from a broad, attentive face. Her right foot rested half a step ahead of the left even while she waited. She looked at Isha with the same direct assessment. Shibata entered behind Isha and gave his name at the reception table. The organiser checked both gym registrations, then looked between the two women as though confirming that the pages had produced the correct bodies. “Vaeloren-san, Morita-san. This is the first in-person review. The pairing remains provisional until the medical review and both final confirmations are complete. Please ask for a private explanation at any point.” His Japanese was formal and practised. He had probably delivered the sentence to every pair that morning. Both women listened to the end. Isha and Morita bowed to one another. “Morita Ayaka,” Morita said, though the name had already occupied several pages in Isha’s home and gym. “Isha Vaeloren.” Morita’s gaze touched the three black lines visible beneath Isha’s short sleeve, then returned to her face. Isha looked once at Morita’s left ankle. No brace or tape showed above the shoe. The doctor called Morita first. Her coach followed her behind the folding screen while Shibata directed Isha towards the equipment table. “Do not begin the bout while waiting,” he said. “I had not intended to strike her beside the forms.” Shibata followed her attention across the room. Morita stood beyond the screen, one shoulder still visible while the doctor asked about the previous sprain. “You are already measuring the distance.” “Yes,” Isha said. He opened the event equipment sheet. “Measure it. Then leave it here.” --- Kanno held a booklet up to the gallery window and told Thomas that the paper was lying. They stood inside a small print fair near Sendai Station, where eighteen folding tables had turned a civic gallery into a temporary market of hand-bound books, photo zines, letterpress cards and objects whose makers disagreed about whether they were publications. The air conditioner carried the dry smell of paper, cloth and printing ink from one end of the room to the other. At several tables, visitors bent so closely over the work that their bags had become obstacles behind them. Thomas looked through the pale sheet Kanno had raised. The reverse side showed a blurred line of black type and part of a red photograph. “It appears translucent.” “It claims to be opaque stock.” Kanno lowered the booklet and opened it to the colophon. “The printer has photographed it against a dark surface in the sales image. That is an argument, not a property.” The woman behind the table heard her and laughed. “The merchant had nothing else in that weight. I put black card underneath for the photograph. That was misleading.” Kanno bought the booklet. Once they had moved aside, Thomas said, “You identified a false claim and rewarded it.” “I identified an honest confession after the claim.” She placed the purchase in her black work bag. “Also, the red is good.” Kanno had sent him the fair notice two days earlier with one sentence: **I am going. I think you would inspect the wrong parts in a useful way.** Isha’s final review occupied the same hours. The event notice allowed each participant one coach, and Shibata belonged in that place. Thomas had first assumed Kanno was offering to keep him from waiting at home. When he asked what she needed help carrying, she replied that the stallholders were capable of transporting their own paper. Now she moved through the room with no client folder under her arm and no obligation to make any of the work printable. She stopped for deckled edges, bindings that opened flat and photographs whose sequence irritated her. Thomas read introductions, captions and production notes. They often spent several minutes at the same table while attending to different objects. At a display of miniature books, Thomas opened a volume smaller than his palm. It contained twelve pages of drawings showing vending machines at night. Each machine had been printed in two colours, with the illuminated fronts left as bare paper. Kanno glanced over. “You have found infrastructure. The artist statement says the machines are lonely.” Thomas read the card, then looked at the bare-paper rectangles where the machines shone. “They have not been consulted. They do have sufficient lighting.” Kanno’s mouth moved. She took the tiny book from him and checked how the spine had been sewn. Thomas’s phone rested in his pocket. He had checked it once outside the station and again after they entered the gallery. Isha had said she would message when the review produced a result, not after every form. The absence of a message meant only that forms continued to exist. Kanno returned the miniature book to its stand. “There are seventeen tables left. Your pocket will survive.” Thomas moved his hand to the strap of his bag. “I was not checking it. I may have been confirming that the phone had not escaped.” “You touched the exact place twice. The building has doors.” He let the phone remain where it was. --- The event doctor read Isha’s accident history twice. The supplied record stated that a car had struck Thomas and Isha, that both had spent several days unconscious and that neither retained reliable personal memory from before the incident. It contained scans, rehabilitation notes and later discharge from active follow-up. It contained nothing about the Broken Court, the unfinished spell or the moment Isha had opened her eyes in a human body beside a hospital bed. “Any loss of consciousness since then?” the doctor asked. Isha answered no. He continued through headache after hard exercise, dizziness, disturbed vision and nausea. “None,” she said. He checked her pupils, eye tracking, neck movement and balance. Isha followed each instruction without offering more capability than he requested. When he examined the healed tattoo, he pressed around the ink and asked whether contact or sweat still caused irritation. “No. The skin feels the same as the surrounding arm.” The doctor wrote one line on the form and moved to her hands, jaw and shoulders. Her history and current responses gave him what he needed to decide whether she could safely take part in two short rounds. At the other end of the room, Morita stood on the scale in light clothes and bare feet. The organiser read the display, recorded the number and asked her to step down. Morita put on her socks before checking what had been written. “Seventy-five point seven,” the organiser said. “Within the declared range. The event-day check still applies. No reduction attempt this week.” “My weight has been stable,” Morita replied. Her coach did not add praise. He watched her retie the left shoe and asked whether the ankle had reacted to the doctor’s test. Morita said it had not. Isha’s turn followed. She removed her shoes and stepped onto the scale. The display settled at seventy-five point nine. Less than a quarter kilogram divided them in the room; nine centimetres of height distributed it differently. Morita studied the result, then Isha’s shoulders and hips. The look contained calculation rather than surprise. The organiser wrote the number. “Within range. Same instruction: eat and drink normally. Official weight remains on the day.” “I will not reduce,” Isha said as she stepped down. They moved to the equipment table together because the room had only one complete sample set in the relevant size range. He showed the approved gloves, shin protection and the clothing rules, then checked that both women had fitted mouthguards and understood what would be inspected at reporting. Much of the information repeated pages they had already signed. The physical objects made several lines less abstract. Morita tried the sample glove first. Her fingers filled it cleanly, and she closed the hand several times before passing it back. Isha’s longer fingers needed the next size. Both sizes went onto the sheet. “You have seen more of me than I have seen of you,” Morita said while the organiser searched the equipment case for the second glove. The sentence was quiet enough to belong to Isha rather than the room. “Yes.” Isha did not improve the fact with an apology. “I saw the kickboxing round and the wall round. Both were complete sections.” Morita rubbed her thumb over the seam of the sample glove. “My coach told me. He also told me there was no useful footage to send from your side.” “There is none.” The organiser returned with the larger glove. Conversation paused while he checked the fit and asked Isha to make a fist. The padding changed how her fingers closed and increased the width of the hand in ways she still had to remember under pressure. When he moved away again, Morita looked at her. “You are taller in person.” “You are harder to move while standing still than the paper showed.” Morita’s eyebrows rose. “We have not touched.” “Your feet have.” The right remained slightly forward. Morita looked down, then back up with the beginning of a smile. “Shibata-sensei said you learn quickly.” “He also said you like making people carry you.” “That part was accurate.” He called them to the rules table, ending the exchange before it needed another answer. --- The photograph of the warehouse canal stopped Thomas because the water reflected the wrong colour. The zine lay open at a table near the back wall. Its photographer had spent several winter nights around industrial Tokyo: service roads, loading bays, floodgates, vending machines beneath elevated track and black water disturbed by wind. The locations were listed only by ward. One image had been taken in Kōtō, facing a line of warehouse lights through rain. Thomas knew it was not the road outside Daniel’s office. The guardrail differed. The canal was too wide, and the loading canopy had a roofline he did not remember. His body still supplied wet asphalt, the hum of tyres and the sensation of a shirt collar damp beneath a coat. Kanno stood beside him, reading the sequence from the previous page. She noticed his stillness but neither turned the page nor asked whether the image belonged to Shin-Kiba. “Is the blue convincing?” she asked. He looked again. The photographer had pushed the reflected light towards a clean electric blue that no freight canal had ever managed around him. “No. Rain near Shin-Kiba made everything dirtier than that.” Kanno bent closer to the print. “The shadows are also too open. It may be three exposures.” “The road could still have looked like this to the photographer.” “That defence is generous from someone who prosecuted a piece of paper ten minutes ago.” Thomas turned the page. The next photograph showed stacked pallets behind green mesh. Nothing in it belonged to his death. “I remember roads like these more clearly than individual buildings,” he said. “A place can return before I know whether I ever stood there.” Kanno kept her eyes on the zine. “Do you want this one?” “I don’t know.” “Then continue looking. The seller has not introduced a deadline.” They finished the sequence. Thomas bought the zine after speaking with the photographer about the captions and learning that the blue had indeed been altered during printing because the original night files looked too flat. Kanno accepted the confession on the same basis as the translucent booklet. At noon they left the gallery for a nearby soba shop. The restaurant had six counter seats, four small tables and a ticket machine whose most popular button had lost part of its photograph. Kanno chose cold grated-daikon soba. Thomas ordered duck dipping noodles and carried both cups of water to a table by the wall. Only after the food arrived did Kanno take the translucent booklet from her bag. She opened it beside the chopstick case and ran one finger along the inner fold. “You invited me because you expected I would like the fair,” Thomas said. Kanno looked up. “That was the stated reason.” “I thought the unstated reason was that Isha would be at the review and I might wait badly.” Steam rose from Thomas’s dipping broth. Around them, the lunch room produced the contained sounds of noodles being lifted, tickets being called and bowls returned to trays. Kanno aligned the booklet with the edge of the table before answering. “You would have waited badly. That was foreseeable, not the purpose.” She closed the booklet. “I could have gone alone. I usually do. I asked you because you read every label and become offended by inaccurate arrows. A print fair seemed likely to occupy you.” Thomas separated the duck and spring onion in the broth with his chopsticks. “That description makes my presence sound like pest management.” “Pest management would have required an estimate.” Kanno began eating before the sentence could acquire ceremony. Thomas followed. The noodles were firm and the broth saltier than he would have made it, with enough rendered fat to hold warmth around the duck. He noticed each fact and kept eating. For several minutes they spoke about the fair. Kanno disliked a photo book whose pages required two hands and a flat surface because its maker described it as portable. Thomas defended a booklet printed entirely on shipping labels until she pointed out that the adhesive had begun joining unrelated pages. The adhesive continued holding its argument together. Kanno had made small books herself at university. The fact emerged when Thomas asked why she checked every fold before reading the first line. “Bad ones,” she said. “Photographs, short text, hand trimming. I used the department printer after hours and spent more on failed binding tape than the finished copies deserved.” “What happened to them?” “One may still be in a box I never unpacked. I threw away the rest after moving to Tokyo.” Kanno lifted a small nest of daikon with the noodles. “By then I knew enough about production to see every bad decision immediately.” Thomas looked at the booklet she had just bought. Its cover image sat a millimetre too far left. The spine thread had been tied by hand and cut unevenly. “You still bought that.” “I did not make it.” “That appears to be a generous standard for everyone except your former self.” Kanno ate before answering. “I did not say the standard was sensible.” Kanno returned to her noodles. The old booklets joined what Thomas knew of her: Tokyo, client revisions, the black bag, the plum coat, and a professional eye acquired partly by making objects she later destroyed. His phone vibrated once against his thigh, and he took it out. **Medical and weight accepted. The organiser is speaking to us separately before final confirmation. Morita remains willing so far.** Thomas read the message twice, then placed the phone between them where Kanno could see only if he turned it. “Isha?” she asked. “Yes. The review has reached the private confirmation.” Kanno did not ask to read the message. She finished the mouthful before saying, “I am glad they ask separately.” “So am I.” Thomas turned the phone face down. “I would still like the answer.” “It appears to be arriving through procedure rather than suspense.” “That is rarely how suspense feels from inside it.” Kanno accepted this and returned to the booklet. The conversation moved to her own work before the phone changed again. A client had approved a cover on Thursday, withdrawn approval Friday morning and asked whether the original print date could remain because only the chosen design had changed. Kanno had replied with three possible schedules and no opinion about causality. Thomas asked which one they selected. “The impossible one, then the expensive one after the printer declined to alter time.” “Did the printer use technical language?” “She wrote, ‘No.’ It was the clearest email in the project.” Thomas laughed loudly enough for the man at the next table to glance over. Kanno looked briefly satisfied and reached for the tea. --- The organiser gave Isha the private review in a storage room containing folded chairs, spare floor mats and a whiteboard carrying half-erased basketball positions. Shibata remained with her. The event doctor sat near the door with the completed medical form, while the organiser kept the final confirmation page on a clipboard. No camera or promotional staff attended. “Nothing in today’s review changes the declared category,” the organiser said. “Morita-san’s earlier ankle injury is accepted for participation, subject to the event-day check. Your accident history is accepted on the same basis. Your weights are compatible. You have now met the proposed opponent and seen the approved equipment. Do you still consent to this pairing?” Isha thought of Morita’s feet beside the table, the weight settling through them before any grip existed. She thought of the complete kickboxing round, where Morita had lost exchanges and continued thinking, and the wall round where delay became work rather than panic. In person, Morita was neither the largest nor the most dangerous fighter Isha had faced. She still wanted the match. “Yes,” Isha said. “I still accept.” “Any concern you want recorded before confirmation?” “The information difference remains. She has seen no footage of me.” The organiser nodded. “That is already recorded and was reviewed again with her. Is it a reason for you to withdraw?” “No.” Shibata had not spoken. He watched Isha’s posture and gave the organiser no signal on her behalf. The doctor signed the medical-review line. The organiser asked Isha to wait in the corridor while Morita received the same questions. The corridor window overlooked the entrance car park and a row of bicycles gathered beneath a shallow roof. Isha stood beside a noticeboard advertising children’s swimming lessons and an autumn badminton group. Shibata leaned against the opposite wall. “You answered the question asked,” he said. “It was clear.” “That has not always stopped you finding three more.” Isha looked through the window. A woman below tried to fit a large sports bag into a bicycle basket, failed, and attached it to the rear rack instead. “Will her coach be in the room?” Isha asked. “Yes. He may advise. He cannot consent for her.” Isha nodded. Across the corridor, the storage-room door closed behind Morita. --- Morita sat because the organiser offered a chair and because standing would have turned the question into a weigh-in of posture. Her coach took the second chair. He had spoken little since the equipment review. The doctor placed Morita’s form on top of Isha’s, aligned at the upper edge but not clipped together. He repeated the facts: both medical reviews accepted, compatible declared and measured weight, no planned cut, same rules and event-day checks, full right to withdraw now. “Having met Vaeloren-san, do you still consent to the pairing?” Morita looked at the whiteboard behind him. A blue marker line showed one player cutting towards a basket while three older red arrows remained beneath it from another lesson. The room had been used to explain many contests before this one. Isha was taller in person. The reach would matter. So would the ease with which she stood, the directness of her gaze and the way she had identified pressure through Morita’s feet before they touched. None of that contradicted the coach summary. It made the summary less convenient to imagine. Morita had also watched Isha try the unfamiliar glove instead of pretending it changed nothing. She had heard her answer the information imbalance directly. There was still no footage. There would be no new certainty before the first exchange. “Yes,” Morita said. “My reasons are unchanged.” Her coach shifted one ankle across the other. “Say them for the record, not for me.” Morita looked at the organiser. “The size and weight are acceptable. I know she has more fighting experience than her record shows and learns quickly. I have more competition experience and more time under these rules. I still want the match.” “Any new concern?” “No.” The doctor asked once more about the left ankle after the examination. Morita described the current absence of pain and restriction, then confirmed that she would report any change before the event. The answer went onto the form. The organiser signed, opened the storage-room door and sent Morita back towards the first table. Isha and Morita returned to the first folding table from opposite sides of the corridor. Their forms went into separate clear trays. The organiser drew one line through **proposed** on the pairing sheet, wrote **confirmed** above it and gave each coach an event notice. “Report at eight forty on Sunday,” he said. “Medical check and official weight come first. The bout is removed if either participant is unfit, outside the agreed category or withdraws. The public card will list names, gyms and category only. No photographs have been authorised.” Morita read the notice before folding it into her document sleeve. Her coach checked the reporting time and placed his copy in a separate pocket. “I am glad you accepted,” Morita said to Isha. “So am I.” They bowed again. Morita left with her coach towards the stairs while Shibata remained to clarify the wrap inspection with the organiser. Isha stood beside the crooked blue tape and sent Thomas the result. --- Thomas and Kanno returned to the print fair before Isha’s final message arrived. The afternoon crowd had thickened. A workshop at the centre table was teaching visitors to make a single-sheet folded booklet, and six adults were trying to follow instructions while pretending the paper had not already chosen the wrong direction. Kanno watched for less than a minute before refusing the offered final place. “You have prior experience,” Thomas said. “I also have a purchased object and lunch. Completion has been achieved.” They moved towards a table displaying old metal type, ink rollers and postcards printed from restored local shop blocks. An elderly man in a blue apron opened a shallow wooden tray, revealing rows of reversed characters darkened by use. Thomas leaned close enough to read them backwards. “You are doing that deliberately,” Kanno said. “I can read slowly. The letters were built to be read eventually.” “You are making the rest of us appear careless.” His phone vibrated. This time he did not reach for it before the second vibration ended. Kanno’s eyes moved to his pocket and back to the type tray. She let him choose the moment. Thomas opened the message. **Confirmed. We both accepted after the private review. Reporting time is eight forty on Sunday. Event-day medical and weight still apply.** A second line followed. **Morita said she was glad I accepted. I told her the same.** Thomas released a breath he had not intended to hold. The event now had a date, a reporting time and Morita’s renewed consent after meeting Isha across a table. He turned the screen towards Kanno. She read only what he showed her. “Then it is booked.” “Subject to the checks on the day.” “It is booked in the way events are booked before everyone arrives healthy and on time.” Thomas considered objecting to the wording and found it accurate. He wrote back: **Good. Kanno and I are still at the fair. We will be near the station for another hour. Join us when you finish if that suits you.** Kanno waited until he sent it. “Good. Otherwise the message would imply you had been left unsupervised among small books.” “I thought it would only be rude to name my location and omit my company.” Thomas put the phone away as the man in the blue apron lifted the tray lid. “You have also assigned yourself a role.” “No. I invited a friend somewhere and intend to finish the outing.” The man in the blue apron began explaining how the type had been recovered from a closed neighbourhood printer. Kanno turned towards him first. Thomas followed, still carrying the warehouse zine in one hand. The reversed letters filled the tray between them.