Claws

"Are! You! READY?!" The public address announcer's deep voice rumbled through the speakers of the cavernous auditorium, rising in volume to match the roar of the capacity crowd.

Hideo, clad in his fluffy red mascot lion suit, jogged out on stage, waving to the crowd as the judges reset their score sheets and prepared for the next performance. Ranko felt bad that he'd missed out on her little pep talk, as boys weren't allowed in their dressing room, but Kumiko had shared the highlights with her boyfriend afterward.

"Remember what I said," Ranko encouraged, squeezing Rin's shoulder tight as the other cheerleaders bounded after Hideo onto the stage. "Don't try to push it. You don't need to do anything more than we rehearsed. You've got this, Rin."

The green-haired girl nodded hopefully. "I promise, I'll make you proud, Ran-chan."

Ranko beamed. "You already have. Speaking of which…" Ranko slung her pink backpack around her body, letting it dangle over her shoulder in front of her and reaching into it. She withdrew a white binder, its fraying plastic cover plastered with a photo of the Yusue High cheerleaders.

Rin looked closer as she noticed the cover photo had been changed, grinning when she recognized her own face in it. "You put this year's squad on it."

Ranko nodded, handing the binder forward. "Listen, I need you to hold onto this for me, okay?"

The junior nodded, looking around the backstage area. "Sure, Ranko! Where do you want me to put it?"

"In your bag, dipshit." Ranko laughed, watching the shorter girl's eyes widen in shock.

"You don't mean…" Rin gasped as her friend and squadmate gave her an emphatic nod.

"You earned it, Rin. No matter what happens out there today. You're ready."

"You'd better be ready," the announcer continued, "because our last squad needs no introduction. Please welcome our returning All-Tokyo Cheerleading Invitational champions, the Yusue High Fighting LLLLLLLLLIONS!"

Ranko smiled, gesturing with her neck to the stage. "That's your cue. Go lead your squad, captain."

Rin bounced on her heels, looking around frantically. Finding nowhere else to put it, she thrust the binder forcefully back into Ranko's arms with a loud squeal of excitement, giving her a tight hug before charging out onto the stage, throwing herself into a trio of handsprings that carried her to the front center of the formation.

A high-pitched male voice began pealing with no musical accompaniment from the speakers. It was almost painful to listen to at that volume, and a quiet murmur arose from the crowd at the fairly slow music selection.

"Whee-dee-dee-dee, de-dee, dee-dee-dee, oh-wee-bom-bom-bo-way… Whee-dee-dee-dee, de-dee, dee-dee-dee, oh-wee-bom-bom-bo-way…"

Each of the girls swung their pom-poms gently side to side, rocking their hips and swaying their heads along with them and lightly bouncing their knees.

"I've gotta say, Isanagi. This isn't the sort of high-energy performance we'd expect from the defending champions." The young radio announcer turned to her fellow commentator. "Has Ranko Tendo's injury doomed these girls before they even started?"

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion slzzzzzzzzzt!"

The loud record scratch was punctuated by Hideo bringing the paws of his red lion suit to his cheeks in mock dismay as all thirteen girls froze in place for a two-count, their arms held stiffly at their sides.

Rin felt the vibration of the sound system in the soles of her feet, the vinyl-and-foam gymnastics mat beneath her rumbling with the audio sample of a lion's roar. She rushed forward, tossing her pom-poms on the floor just in front of the judges' table and flashing the three-person panel a bright smile. Single-file, the other twelve cheerleaders followed her and did the same, adding their pom-poms to the pile and flitting around the mat in a circle until they returned to the center of the mat.

"Everybody thinks we're cute and soft and pretty! Everybody wants to come and pet the kitty, but little do they know who really runs this city!"

Rin took the leading point of a V-shaped formation, with Kumiko and Tanda on her left and Shika and Moriko on the right. As one, all five girls launched into a series of two back handsprings, driving the chevron backward until it surrounded Hideo, who waved a white Yusue High flag featuring a bold red lion on an aluminum flagpole in both of his "paws." Tamiko and Etsuko ran perpendicular to the formation, leaping into the arms of Momoe and Ayame, respectfully. Each of the fliers were launched overhead, criss-crossing in the air over the whole of the formation in a pair of double twists before Kayo and Aoi secured Tamiko in a basket catch and Yori and Mizuki caught Etsie.

Ranko's jeering voice flowed from the speakers over a high-energy electronic dance beat. Man, it's weird to hear myself singing and not be performing, she thought as she watched from a plastic chair an attendant had brought her backstage, trying her best to resist biting her red-and-silver-painted fingernails to quell her nerves.

"You're looking unsteady, 'cause you just weren't ready! Ain't no lettin' up, we're shreddin' up your banner to confetti!"

"I don't know, Miho. These Lions sure look like they came to fight today to me, with or without their captain." Isanagi Mikami stroked his chin, watching the routine intently from the radio broadcasters' table at the edge of the mat. "Who the heck is this girl who's taken Ranko Tendo's place?"

Her name is Rin Matsubara, the green-haired girl thought with a sassy smirk at the broadcasters. Don't you fucking forget it. Her body came alive, thrashing herself this way and that in a dance all her own. Ranko could barely follow the choreography she'd designed at the speed with which it was executed, the newly-appointed captain's pigtails almost parallel with the floor at all times because her head had never stopped moving.

On either side of the dancing cadre of cheerleaders, Kumiko and Moriko ran hard toward the back of the formation, where Ayame and Momoe awaited them.

Ranko held her breath backstage, biting her knuckle hard. Come on. Come on. Come on. Please.

"You tried to puff your chest up, but now, we got you pressed up!" Ranko's voice rocketed from the speakers at warp speed, her voice more of a spoken rap than words being sung over the hammering electronic beat Jacob had assembled. "You underestimated; I'm afraid it's where you messed up!"

In perfect synchronization, the two running girls leapt forward, propelled skyward by the interlaced fingers of Ayame Makino and Momoe Sada.

Come on, Kumi. Come on. Come on.

Each of the girls executed a flawless double twist in mid-air, with Kayo rushing up to join Ayame in a basket catch of Kumiko on the right, and Yori forming the second half of the basket that lowered Moriko safely back to the stage floor on the right.

"YES!" Ranko sprung upward from her seat to her feet, pumping her fist in the air in elation. So excited was she that she'd momentarily forgotten certain realities of her current situation. "Ow," she whimpered pathetically, flopping her butt back to the orange plastic chair with a loud scrape that was thankfully drowned out by the sound of her own voice blaring from untold numbers of speakers surrounding the auditorium.

"GO, KUMI!"

Ranko blushed with a bright smile. Even with some six or seven thousand people roaring in the auditorium, she'd recognized the sound of a singular cheer. She'd spent enough nights in packed bars and concert venues straining to pick out the sound of her wife's voice over the din to be well-practiced at it. Ranko scanned the crowd for the source of the sound, grinning broadly as she found Akane halfway up in section D and recognized the brown-haired woman bouncing excitedly on her feet next to her wife. She was still in her police uniform from the shift she'd left early to be in attendance. Ranko could not see the face of the portly man seated to the left of Kumiko's mother behind his video camera, but she knew who it was instantly. Awesome! Mr. and Mrs. Iwata, I'm so glad you guys could get off work to see this! Look at our girl go!

As her silver-haired friend rocked her hips, beaming in elation and relief as she danced face-to-face with the lion mascot costume manned by her boyfriend, Ranko clapped her hands hard twice, refocusing herself. Okay. We're not done yet. Dial in. We got this, girls.

"You. Don't. Have a shot! Might think you're gonna win, but you're certainly not!"

Rin smirked, wagging her finger as she dragged her leg slowly across the stage, her hand on her hip under the hem of her red-and-silver pleated skirt. Behind her, Momoe launched herself into a back handspring, moving from Rin's right to her left. She bounced out of the handspring into a single twist, landing mere centimeters from Tamiko. Her feet had scarcely kissed the blue vinyl mat before Tamiko was airborne in a handspring of her own, her single twist triggering her girlfriend's handspring, and on the chain went across the stage until six of the cheerleaders had their turn.

"You'll be all covered with gauze, tore up all over because you weren't preppin' for the weapons at the ends of our paws…"

When Ayame landed, she reached forward, grabbing Tanda by the wrist. She planted her feet, whipping Tanda to the right and launching her forward in the opposite direction, back across the mat. Tanda sprung forward on her wrists, reversing the chain through the second row of cheerleaders with her own aerial twist. Her landing set off Shika, who in turn prompted Kumiko, and then Aoi, Kayo, and Moriko.

"While we're rocking you, they're mocking you, in shock and awe! No use tryin' once the Lions got'cha locked in their jaws…"

"Man, these girls are really locked in! You can really see the hours of preparation that went into this routine. You can't find even a millisecond where one of them is out of sync. Every single one of these Lions is laser-focused." Isanagi turned to his co-broadcaster again, watching as all twelve girls behind Rin lowered to crouches, placing their right hands on the mat and shaking their backsides in synchronization as they moved forward. "You really have to credit their choreographer for this."

"Actually," Miho Nakasone said, leaning forward into the tabletop microphone. "Yusue squad captain Ranko Tendo is credited with the choreo for this routine."

The man to Miho's left's eyes widened. "Sing, dance, write music, cheer, choreograph. Is there anything that girl can't do?!"

Walk, Ranko thought with a dark chuckle from her seat in the dark.

All thirteen of Ranko's squadmates scraped their outstretched fingers along the mat, from right to left. As their hands crossed past their bodies, the girls began to rise to standing positions, slashing diagonally through the air with their outstretched fingers. They held up their clawed fingers at shoulder height, much like the gesture Ranko and Akane had shared in the lobby.

"Mess with the cat, you get the CLAWS!"

Tamiko charged up to the center of the formation, and Rin, Yori and Aoi all surrounded her. Tami pulled her hand up to her lips, affecting a cutely enchanting doe-eyed expression as she rolled her hips in a manner that was anything but cute, her pleated skirt sliding dangerously high on her left thigh. The three girls surrounding her made a show of pawing at the air around her, orbiting her clockwise while the remaining nine cheerleaders danced in a wider concentric circle around the quartet counter-clockwise.

"We can tell you're smitten, but your moves aren't hittin', 'cause you'll never have the skills it takes to kick it with a kitten…"

The outer circle of girls split apart as it stopped rotating. Kayo and Kumiko executed parallel back handsprings, taking stationary positions next to each other. At equidistant positions splitting the outer circle into thirds, Shika and Mizuki did the same to form another pair, and Momoe and Tanda a third.

Meanwhile, Ayame closed inward from the outer ring, placing her hands on Aoi's hips and lifting her to a standing position on her shoulders. Etsuko did the same with Yori, and Momoe with Tamiko. As one, the three elevated cheerleaders launched themselves backward from their squadmates' shoulders, each executing a double twist in the air and landing in the waiting arms of the pair of girls behind them. As the fliers catapulted through the air, Etsuko, Momoe and Ayame all fell backward to the mat, pawing at the air with both hands and both feet like playful kittens as they lay on their backs as Rin danced alone at the center of the flower the girls had created with their bodies.

"Baby, honestly? Nope! But, since you're holding out hope, we're gonna tease ya like a feather on the end of a rope!"

Ranko giggled, singing along with herself backstage as she bounced excitedly in her solitary seat. They're doing so freakin' great!

Hideo charged forward, the Yusue flag in his fluffy mitts, and Ranko sat up in her seat. This had been the only new part of the choreography she'd changed after replacing herself with Rin and Kumiko with Hideo. It had been in Ranko's original design, but Kumiko didn't feel comfortable enough to attempt it when she'd been the one tasked with wielding the flag, so it had been cut. Hideo was willing to try, however, and Ranko had called in a favor to help get him trained on the moves in time.

In the eighteenth row of section D, Akane sat forward in her chair nervously as well. Come on, Hideo. You can do it. Just like I showed you guys at practice.

The boy in the giant fluffy lion costume whirled the flag over his head, spinning it around his body at incredible speed for someone whose dexterity was so hampered by the unwieldy mascot costume. Rin bent backward, mere centimeters from Kumiko's boyfriend, writhing this way and that with the music as the flag flashed around her on its aluminum pole. Despite the pounding bass raining down on her from everywhere, Rin could hear the flag whoosh through the air every time she narrowly dodged it with her dance.

"I gotta tell you, Miho, that Rin Matsubara is like a girl possessed out there, and this mascot? Good gods! Where did they find this guy? His name's not even in the program! That's what you get here at the Invitational, everybody! Come for the dancing, stay for the two-meter lions doing Shaolin kung fu! We've got it all here, folks!"

"I mean, it's cute that you tried, but you just picked the wrong side. See, that's the thing about a lioness: she always rolls with pride!"

As the word pride hit, Rin reached up with her right hand, catching the flagpole as Hideo whirled it toward her. Hideo released it, letting her snatch it from him. She whirled it once around her body, leveling it parallel with and level with her waist. Bouncing once on the balls of her feet, Rin began to run in the direction of her squadmates, who had formed a single-file line down the center of the mat with no more than a meter of space separating each of them. As she charged her squadmates at a full sprint, each girl crumpled into a front roll under the pole, the flag whipping over their backs as they ducked it. As soon as the pole had passed them, each girl rocketed back to her feet, resuming her dance as if nothing had happened.

"You. Don't. Have a shot! Might think you're gonna win, but you're certainly not!"

The line of cheerleaders split up into two parallel ones, with Mizuki, Momoe, Yori, Tanda, Kumiko and Shika on the left and Tamiko, Ayame, Kayo, Etsuko, Moriko and Aoi on the right. Each of the girls on the left reached across the gap, taking the wrist of the girl across from her tightly in her grasp. The six pairs frolicked in stationary circles, never releasing each other.

"You'll be all covered with gauze, tore up all over because you weren't preppin' for the weapons at the ends of our paws…"

The six pairs of girls sped up their rotation to build momentum, and then, as one, all six of the girls who had made up the left line planted their feet, whipping their partners around and releasing them upward as they were thrown toward stage left. Each of the six girls who had been thrown went airborne, soaring some three meters and completing a triple twist before landing on their feet, each facing the judges as their feet rejoined the mat.

"While we're rocking you, they're mocking you, in shock and awe!"

Hideo ran to the center of the mat, laying prone on his stomach in his lion costume. Yori charged up next to him, dropping to her knees and bracing her hands on the mat facing the judges. Moriko, the shortest member of the squad, stood at attention a half-meter in front of Yori as Rin tossed the flag to Kumiko, jogging to the back of the formation.

"Well, this is interesting, Isanagi. It looks like they're setting up for a big finish," Miho said, sitting forward in her chair at the broadcast table in anticipation as Mizuki, the squad's tallest member, took a standing position directly in front of Moriko.

"No use tryin' once the Lions got'cha locked in their jaws…"

"This is where you'd likely have seen Tendo throw in the quadruple twist, Miho. With her on the sidelines, it'll be interesting to see what the Lions do here…"

Bellowing in exertion, Rin took off at a dead run toward the formation. She did her best to tune out the crowd, her nerves, and the two quartets of cheerleaders that dotted the left and right wings of the mat, each of whom launched into a single twist from a standing position as she sprinted forward. She stepped with her left foot on Hideo's back, lurching forward and planting her right foot on Yori's shoulder blade through her bra strap. She carried her forward momentum up the staircase created by her squadmates' bodies, stepping on Moriko's left shoulder and then Mizuki's right in her sparkly silver cheerleading sneakers and screaming as she propelled herself forward toward the judges' table.

She executed two front tucks, followed by a twist. And then another. And then a third.

As Rin flew forward, Hideo stood, gesturing forward with his paws. Yori leaned to her left on her hands and knees, extending her right hand outward in a claw gesture. Moriko leaned to her right, mirroring Yori's pose as Mizuki slid downward into a full split on the mat, facing forward and extending both her hands in stiff claws and scratching at the air. Kumiko took a position behind her boyfriend, waving the flag frantically over his head.

Rin landed in nearly a superhero crouch, her lime-green pigtails flopping over her shoulders. She let her right hand hover just millimeters from the mat to avoid a mandatory penalty for a three-point landing. Once her momentum had been arrested enough to demonstrate control and to avoid a deduction, she let her hand contact the mat, taking the same crouched pose that all eight of the girls that had done the single twists at the formation's sides had already assumed. With a loud roar, all nine of the posing girls dragged their fingers across the mat, slashing upward across their bodies in perfect unison as they rose to standing positions. As the bass line thumped to its conclusion, they smiled brightly forward before turning their outstretched fingers to face the judges, raising their claw-like hands in a threatening posture.

"MESS WITH THE CAT, YOU GET THE CLAWS!"

As the crowd erupted, Ranko silently dragged herself to her feet in the dark, smiling wistfully as she tucked her crutches under her arms.