Deep Edges | Yuzuru Hanyu

17.

Leaving NHK victorious with a gold medal was far from Izumi's plans but she had to admit that it felt incredible to win again at home.

Her sexy performance seemed to have everyone captivated but the one person she had been interested in didn't say anything in the end.

After the Free, Izumi never saw Yuzuru again, the only indication that he had even seen the program besides the glare he threw at her in the end was the mere message of congratulations that he sent through her coach.

She just decided to move on as planned from the very beginning. There was nothing to earn by contacting the man after all. In fact, not seeing him again was probably best for her.

That competition ended up being the motivation that she needed in order to get part of her self-confidence back.

Being back to her old self felt better than she could have ever expected but more than anything, she was now fully dedicated to skating her very best in the competitions that followed.

It was on her next practice, mere days after NHK that she told Tsuzuki-sensei the plans to win the World Championships in just a few months.

Unlike what she expected, he didn't laugh. Her coach nodded and gave her the most determined of encouragement, telling her that they would both make sure to work hard and make that happen.

Izumi wasn't dumb at all, she knew very well that things probably wouldn't be as easy as they were in the previous competitions.

Well, unless Hanyu decided to become a tech specialist full-time, she didn't expect the other skater's tech to be called any time soon.

All of that was a bit demotivating but she also knew that there was nothing to do besides give her absolute best and skate like the Olympic champion had urged her to do.

Yuzuru's words had been more encouraging than she ever expected, and now, apparently life-changing.

After that conversation, it was very clear what they were fighting for and yet, there was the lingering feeling that what they were doing wasn't enough at all.

From spending extra hours in the gym to doing specific jump training, nothing seemed to work in getting those quads back, at least not in time for Worlds.

The one thing that tends to happen when you place too much strain on your body is that it will find a way to make you stop, whether you want it or not.

Izumi should have known that doing so many ice hours and work outside of it would have consequences but they didn't seem to show themselves as quickly as it could be expected.

The only first real sign and one that she was highly familiar with was the complete disappearance of her menstruation. She had to be honest, it wasn't something that she found that weird, it had happened before and word around always told her it was common amongst athletes.

After that first event went by relatively unnoticed and ignored, her body found another way.

Izumi suddenly got sick, her immune system a bit all over the place.

As much as it sucked, it was nothing that a few days without training on the ice and the warmth of her bed didn't fix. At least this time, her body's desperate calls for help couldn't be truly ignored. Well, she stayed in bed because her mother forced her, not necessarily out of voluntary effort.

But even with all of that, it was only a matter of days until she was back on the ice and training for nationals.

For the next month, she trained as normal and everything seemed fine.

Izumi was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as she started to finally be able to somewhat rotate her quads, even if they still needed a significant amount of work to even be considered a possibility.

She went to Nationals with the same layout that she had at NHK, not even bothering to include her now quite safe triple axel. 

Truth be told, another win at this competition wasn't particularly her goal, all she wanted was a qualification to the World Championships and to focus all of her energy on achieving that.

Izumi had to admit that returning to competitions in Japan without a certain Olympic Champion's eyes on her wasn't half exciting but in the end, his words prevailed and she found herself having all the motivation to get a good result.

After her fellow compatriots had a bit of a tough skate, there was some hope that maybe she could get out of there with the gold.

It was funny. Until she reached the competition, Izumi had been keen on just qualifying but once the possibility of reaching the top of the podium became so open and achievable, it was inevitable for any athlete to want the best result possible.

Her excitement about it wasn't in vain. After an equally stable free program, she found herself winning the Senior National Championships for the third time in her career.

If you were to ask Izumi, she would have told you that her performances at the NHK had been better, but it didn't matter in the end when she had the gold medal on her neck.

A good athlete is never satisfied. They can reach the very top of the world and feel like they can just step a little further and get into their own universe.

Her original goal to win the World Championships never changed and even if Nationals had gone better than expected, Izumi took a single day of rest until she was fully back into training.

It was only by the time her quad toe was starting to be significantly better and with a very high landing rate that the pain in her knee started.

She only felt it sometimes, the little tinge of pain when she landed. It was so insignificant that she just thought it to be some inflammation that would go away eventually.

The thing was, Izumi was about to find out the true dangers of the female athlete triad.