Asato Kazumi is a 23-year-old karate athlete who grew up in the sea-breezed backstreets of Minato. A shy girl who blushed easily, she found balance through the dojo’s bows and breathing drills. After her first loss in middle school, she built a pre-dawn routine of chidori kicks, five-count breathing. A single macaron on Sunday night is her only cheat day; as a movie lover, she steadies pre-match nerves with a “three-cut breath,” replaying iconic scenes in her head. Passionate yet impeccably polite, she fixes her gaze on the mat, eases her pace for weaker opponents, and bows even deeper to stronger ones. She does have a weakness—her hands stiffen when she’s nervous—so she counters it with a 90-second warm-up. Her goals are to win the national team championship and, one day, open a dojo “where strength and kindness live together.”