Her miscalculation was inexcusable, and Galina paid that debt with a powerful fist to her gut. The sky and bright canopy of the trees above suddenly wheeled into view as her entire world was upended, her breath knocked out with a soft [i]ooof[/i] of a gasp as she landed, hard, flat on her back on the ground. 

It was not that Galina failed to anticipate he would attack her - she most [i]certainly[/i] did. She counted on it. Galina had been awaiting Souma's blade from the moment he entered the tea room. In truth, she had to admit - however reluctantly - that his exquisite self-control to this point was a most admirable feature. But it was the matter of his blade - or lack thereof - that she failed to take into account. The entirety of their 'reunion,' Galina believed he would have tried to cut her, to slice her throat or stab her in the chest - perhaps even sever her spinal cord, were he quick and precise enough. She had anticipated he would make a move for his own blade, wherever it might be hidden on his person. 

It was no false pride informing the Russian spy that, blade in hand, she was a matchless artist, utterly without peer. Galina knew very well she could move far faster than Souma, sweeping the kindjal from its hidden sheath at her back long before Souma could produce whatever blade he carried, wherever he may have hidden it. Yes, he would suffer some cuts at her hands, of course, but only those needed to incapacitate and not kill. Only those injuries needful, to keep Souma still long enough that she and Yury might yet make good their escape. 

Galina understood herself well enough now, to recognize the sentiment of a scarred yet stubbornly naive woman, once enamored of the kind, exotic young man she met at a magical party one starlit evening, who did not wish Souma dead. Even humiliated, hurt and shamed before her entire family, she could admit to herself that her inner world at the least, was still degrees brighter with him in it, no matter his guise.

A shame then, it seemed Souma did not share that sentiment at all.

He was on her in an instant, making swift use of his advantage. Her grave, possibly mortal mistake was her failure to foresee the possibility he would not pull a blade at all, but would prefer to choke or beat or crush the life out of her with his own bare hands. And this was a choice that had given him the so-slender edge he needed, to see her flat on her back.

Galina's dark eyes widened in surprise, but only for a split-second as years of training - and the survival instincts of an apex predator - surged through brain and body all at once. She did not think, only acted now before Souma could incapacitate her further still, and finish what he had begun. The kindjal was sheathed behind her at her back, and she could not reach that familiar bladed comfort. Instead, Galina's right hand grasped at Souma's throat as he descended on her, her left flying to the sparkling cherry blossom kazanshi in her hair. Deft fingers twisted a single metal leaf just so in the elaborate clasp, and then wrapped about a metal bough, lifted from the hair piece to reveal a gleaming, delicate-seeming stiletto blade. The small knife's razor edge flashed in the sunlight as it descended, to be buried to the hilt in the back of Souma's shoulder. At the same time, Galina bent her legs upward, beneath his body, to catapult him up and away and scramble to her feet at the very least, where she could finally unsheathe her kindjal.