The lights faded gradually, cloaking the arena in an inky darkness. Once the arena went pitch black, overhead spotlights flicked on, bathing the stage in a faint sanguine-red color. Thousands of eyes gravitated towards the dimly lit stage, like moths attracted to light. A vague, feminine outline manifested amidst the light, but the scarce lighting made it difficult to see any details.
"AND NOW, STANDING AT 170 CENTIMETERS AND WEIGHING IN AT 62 KILOGRAMS—" shouted the announcer, his voice growing in tension with each word.
"—LEEEEEYYYOOO YIHHHHNNNNNN!"
The woman on stage—"Leeyoo Yihn"—stood still as a statue, her crimson eyes widening in confusion. For a second, she thought that she had made her entrance at the wrong time and that it was someone else's turn to walk out. She turned around, about to sheepishly make her way backstage, when her entrance music started playing. Then, it dawned on her: she was in the right place, and the announcer had simply egregiously mispronounced her name.
But once the woman, who was actually named Liú Yīn, realized this, her entrance sequence had already continued on. White lights to the side of the entrance ramp were flicking on, starting at the top of the ramp and progressing towards the bottom. The idea was that Yīn would run down the ramp, lights illuminating in-sync with her stride. However, the lights had already progressed halfway down the ramp, with Yīn still standing on the stage, awash with red light.
Yīn's heart fluttered—she had messed up her entrance. But Yīn was not one to despair. Her shocked expression morphed into one of neutral certainty as she crouched down into a sprinter's start position. Her body coiled, primed to unfurl. She took in a deep breath, her chest and diaphragm expanding. Then, she exploded. She let out a sharp exhale as her legs sprung to life, rocketing her forwards. Step after step slammed into the ramp, with each impact imparting more speed to the woman.
Yīn chased the front created by the lights, like a jet engaging its afterburners to catch up to its own pressure wave. The distance between the edge of the illumination and Yīn shrank alarmingly swiftly, with Yīn eventually overtaking and overshooting the front. But, not wanting to mess up her entrance even more, Yīn adjusted her speed to match the lights.
Spotlights turned on, lighting up the space from the base of the entrance ramp to the edge of the ring. Upon entering this illumination, Yīn's legs started firing on all cylinders, her arms swinging to impart even more momentum to her strides. But just two strides later, Yīn was already coiling up, her stance lowering.
She pushed off the ground with her right leg, converting her forward momentum into vertical momentum. Her left foot slammed into the ring apron, pushing off of it to give her even more height. Using this height, Yīn cleared the ring ropes, vaulting over them with a front flip. She continued this motion, entering into a shoulder roll upon landing inside the ring, before breaking out into a sprint towards the corner opposite to her opponent.
Yīn came to a stop in the corner, her breathing even and unlabored despite her preceding explosiveness. The ambient lights slowly faded back in, returning the arena to its previous state and allowing everyone to get a good look at Yīn. The woman had lively red eyes with flowing black hair, and was clad in a revealing black dress that cut off mid-thigh. She wore boots that went up past her knees, and her hair was adorned with gold ornaments.
The red-eyed beauty gave a polite bow to the audience before doing the same to her opponent. She wanted to apologize to the stage crew for messing up her entrance, but could not see a way to do so at the present moment. Overall, Yīn felt a sense of unease. Even though this was not her first match, she still did not entirely know what to do. Should she greet her opponent? The audience? Wait for the referee's instructions? There were so many choices, and it was all overwhelming. Competing in LAW was not like her old jobs, and she could not rely on danger or duty to sharpen her into assured decisiveness. Thus, for now, all Yīn could do was stand there, crimson eyes wide, lost like a deer stuck in the middle of the road.
