Chapter 22: Dance Revolution

The nightclub occupies a basement level beneath a Roppongi office tower. The entrance is unmarked—just a steel door between a convenience store and an izakaya, accessible only to those who know where to look. Hana has never been here before, has no memory of walking through Roppongi's late-night crowds to find it.

Yet here she stands.

The interior is larger than the building above should allow. Dance floor stretching toward darkness. Strobe lights cutting through artificial fog. Bass vibrations that register in her sternum before her ears process the sound. The music is electronic, driving, built on patterns that feel both contemporary and ancient.

She's been here for perhaps thirty seconds. The transition happened between one breath and the next—her apartment, then this. Artemis's transportation magic, casual as a subway transfer.

"You're getting better at the arrival."

Nikandra emerges from the fog. The Huntresses' vocalist looks the same as she did during the ferry challenge—ageless fifteen, thoughtful eyes, brown hair braided with silver charms. But her clothing has changed: dance attire now, fitted and practical, designed for movement rather than performance.

"Practice," Hana says. "I've had a lot of unwilling practice."

"Haven't we all."

The music shifts. The tempo increases. Something changes in the air—a thickness, a presence, the sense that the normal rules of physics have been suspended.

Artemis appears at the edge of the dance floor.

She's wearing the white chiton tonight, the fine wool catching light in ways that don't match the club's industrial fixtures. Her bow is absent. Her expression is curious, assessing.

"Two dancers," she says. "One challenge. The floor will test you."

"Test us how?"

"You'll see." Artemis raises one hand. "Begin."

The floor changes.

The first arrow manifests from nothing.

Hana sees it—a silver streak crossing the dance floor at chest height—and moves without thinking. Her body drops into a controlled slide, momentum carrying her beneath the projectile's path. The arrow dissolves into mist where it would have struck.

Pattern recognition, Vex observes. Track the source. Anticipate the trajectory.

More arrows. Three this time, from different angles. Hana spins, ducks, redirects her momentum. The choreography training proves unexpectedly useful—body awareness, spatial positioning, the ability to move precisely through complex formations.

Nikandra dances beside her, through her, around her. The handmaiden's movements are different—more fluid, less analytical. She seems to flow with the arrows rather than avoiding them, her fifteen years of service to Artemis evident in every gesture.

"You're thinking too much," Nikandra calls over the music.

"I think. That's what I do."

"It's slowing you down."

An arrow clips Hana's shoulder. Not painful—no actual impact—but the touch sends a chill through her arm. A marker. A point against her.

She's right, Quinn suggests. Stop calculating. Start feeling.

Feeling gets you killed, Frost counters.

Feeling also gets you through situations calculation can't handle, Sage observes.

The floor shifts again. Platforms emerge from the ground—geometric shapes, arranged in patterns that change every few seconds. The music accelerates. The arrows multiply.

Hana jumps to the nearest platform. It's solid for exactly two seconds before tilting, forcing her to leap again. Nikandra lands beside her, then springs away as both platforms dissolve.

"How long does this go on?"

"Until one of us can't continue." Nikandra's voice carries no judgment. "Or until Artemis sees what she wants to see."

What does she want to see?

Your limits, Vex suggests. Where you break.

Or where you don't, Quinn adds.

Eight months of training.

The number surfaces as Hana navigates the shifting platforms, dodges the manifesting arrows, matches Nikandra's pace through sequences that grow increasingly complex. Eight months of 5:00 AM runs. Of pool sessions that pushed her lungs to their limits. Of weight circuits that rebuilt her body from the inside out.

Not for this. She didn't train for supernatural dance battles.

But the training applies anyway.

Her cardiovascular endurance holds where it would have failed months ago. Her reaction time—always sharp, now refined—catches trajectories before they fully form. Her muscle memory, built through countless rehearsals, adapts choreographic precision to combat necessity.

Not magic, she thinks. Discipline. The human answer to divine challenge.

Nikandra is faster. More graceful. Better adapted to this particular test after fifteen years of similar challenges. But Hana isn't losing ground. She's keeping pace.

The realization surprises her.

"You've been preparing," Artemis observes from the sidelines. Her voice cuts through the music without raising volume. "Since our last meeting."

"I run." Hana dodges two arrows, vaults a shifting platform, lands in a controlled roll. "Regularly."

"That's not what I mean."

Another sequence. Another set of patterns to navigate. Hana finds herself falling into a rhythm—Vex tracking trajectories, Quinn flowing between movements, Sage identifying strategic positions, Frost predicting threats before they manifest.

Not fighting each other. Working together. All her.

This, she realizes. This is what integration looks like from the outside.

The challenge ends without announcement.

The arrows stop manifesting. The platforms stabilize. The music fades to ambient rumble. Nikandra stops moving, breath coming fast but controlled, and turns to face Artemis.

"A draw," she says. "Neither of us fell."

"Neither of you were meant to." Artemis walks onto the dance floor, her sandals making no sound on the shifting surface. "This wasn't a competition. It was an assessment."

"Of what?"

Artemis stops in front of Hana. Those gray eyes—ancient, calculating, entirely inhuman—study her with renewed interest.

"When we first met, your mind was fractured. Pieces fighting each other. Chaos where there should be coordination." She tilts her head. "That's changed."

"I've been working on it."

"So I see." Artemis looks at Nikandra, then back at Hana. "You kept pace with a divine handmaiden. Someone locked at peak physical condition for fifteen years. Someone trained by me specifically for challenges like this."

"She's better than me."

"She's more experienced. There's a difference." Artemis's almost-smile returns. "For a mortal with no powers, you seem to handle yourself as if you have them."

Is that a compliment?

From Artemis, it might be, Sage suggests.

"I'm almost tempted," Artemis continues, "to see if I cannot bring them out of you. The bloodline is there. The potential exists."

"I don't want powers."

"No?" Genuine curiosity in her voice. "Most mortals would sacrifice anything for what you might possess naturally."

"Most mortals haven't seen what power costs."

Silence.

Then Nikandra laughs. The sound is unexpected—warm, genuine, breaking the tension that had been building.

"You're good," she says. "Really good. I haven't had that much fun in years."

"Fun." Hana's voice is flat. "You call that fun?"

"Don't you?"

The question lands wrong. Uncomfortable. Because somewhere in the chaos of arrows and platforms and survival calculations, Hana had felt something other than fear or strategy.

Something that might have been enjoyment.

The return to her apartment is instantaneous.

One moment the nightclub. The next moment her window, her furniture, her laptop still open on the desk. The only evidence of the challenge is the sweat soaking her clothes and the strange ache in muscles she didn't know she had.

Hana stands at the window, looking out at Tokyo's skyline. The city glitters indifferent to divine games and supernatural dance battles. Somewhere out there, people are sleeping, working, living normal lives.

You enjoyed it.

The thought comes from Quinn, but it doesn't feel entirely external. It feels like her own observation, finally acknowledged.

Did I?

Your heart rate elevated from performance, not fear, Sage notes. Your movements showed increasing fluidity as the challenge progressed. You smiled at least twice during particularly complex sequences.

I didn't notice.

You weren't supposed to. That's what enjoyment feels like when you stop monitoring it.

Hana sits in the chair by the window. Her reflection stares back at her from the dark glass—a face she's learned to recognize, a body she's learned to inhabit.

Eight months ago, this would have felt like defeat. Like capitulation. Like accepting something that was done to her against her will.

Now it feels like... something else.

You're adapting, Frost observes. That's survival.

Is it?, Vex counters. Or is it something more?

Maybe both, Quinn suggests. Maybe adaptation and something more aren't mutually exclusive.

The voices are quieter now. Less intrusive. More like thoughts than interruptions.

Hana watches the city until her breathing slows, until the sweat dries on her skin, until the strange enjoyment fades into something she can analyze later.

Then she showers, changes, and prepares for whatever comes next.

Because in this life she didn't choose, something has shifted.

And she's not entirely sure she minds.