Ibara Nayuki is a figure skater who performs around the globe, but audiences grow fed up with his passionless performances, and his coach doesn't know what to do with him. Just then, who should appear before him but Vasily, a ballet dancer once hailed as a child prodigy. "Not knowing why you're there in the rink is as good as not knowing who you really are!"
One year after losing her leg, 16-year-old Rin is tired-tired of the painful physical therapy, tired of being treated differently, and tired of her stupid, heavy, awkward prosthetic leg. All that changes when she encounters the Blade Runners, a group of one-legged athletes who run with "blades"-carbon fiber prosthetics specialized for competitive running-made by their gifted prosthetist, Kazami. The blades are light, flexible, and formidably difficult to control-Rin can barely walk with one, much less sprint. But as she tumbles to the ground again and again, she rediscovers many of the things that she'd forgotten, and finds a new goal: to compete in the Paralympics.