Match of the Millennium

Description: As part of the pre-NFG FightFest(tm), two soon-to-be Taiyo transfer students meet in the ring! It's instinctive nekomimi swordsmanship vs. instinctive Canadian kung fu as Nako and Faye battle it out in a deft match of back and forth that takes both young women to the limit!

[FAYE]
[A little plane flies across a Mercator-projection map from western Canada to Japan] SOUTHTOWN

It's not that Faye Asagiri hadn't been to Japan before; her father, as a diplomat, obviously had plenty of need to return to his mother country in the course of the young woman's life. Still, those trips were always a little bit at a time, moments when he could justify bringing her with him: a weekend in Hokkaido, a spring break in Osaka, the opening of an anti-war exhibit in a Hiroshima gallery... that sort of thing. To her, Japan was always kind of a new and interesting, very different place from Vancouver.

And yet, here she is -- moving just before the April beginning of the Japanese school year, and attending Taiyo, as the nature of her dad's job changed and living in Japan full time became necessary. Vancouver is a big and beautiful city, of course, but Southtown is... something else, scale and intensity-wise. It's a good thing that it doesn't bother her that Faye looks and feels like a tourist at this point, because that's exactly what's happening. For example, she's in the crowd just outside the ring as if she weren't there to compete, holding a taiyaki with one hand, and angling her phone's front camera back at herself with the other.

"You guys these are SO GOOD? I mean I'd had red bean buns and stuff before, but--" A bite into the fish-shaped sweet, some chewing, before she continues, "--getting this actually in Japan, completely different level of good. Although maybe I shouldn't be eating, because..."

If you were watching the stream, all you'd see is a blur, as Faye leaps up into the RIVALS(tm) ring, then turns her camera around. "...I'm having my first-ever public fight today! I have no idea how it's gonna go, and the opponent is someone from my brand-new high school," she says, swinging the camera back around to herself. "Apparently Taiyo has lots of martial artists in the student body so I'm prob gonna need your white light, FayeTime fans!"

The observing crowd doesn't 100% know how to deal with this; some recognize Faye's face from NFG promos for the event, but there's definitely a few out there who are trying to figure out if a TikTok personality just tried to crash a scheduled match!

[NAKO]
Faye's opponent, on the other hand, has never been outside Japan!

Well, probably. She doesn't remember ever doing it, though, so it's as good as true.

Nako Irie is a Japanese resident, and - just as Faye said - a student at Taiyo. But she, too, is new; last year, she didn't go, having spent much of the year staying inside and out of sight while her (adoptive) parents figured out how to handle things. And while she was accepted - with some misgivings! - into Taiyo for the upcoming school year, she hasn't actually attended yet...

So there's someone else here, and unlike Faye she's actually waiting near the ring. She hasn't gotten *in* but she is near one of the entrances to the foam cage. And also unlike Faye, she's nervous! It's visible in the set of her ears, which have flattened down slightly rather than perking up quite so much, and her tail. She's kept most of it steady, but the very tip of it keeps flicking.

Nako has seen plenty of matches on TV, but TV isn't really the same as the real thing, as she is rapidly finding out...

She also clearly didn't have any idea what to dress in for something like this, so she's wearing a boxy, loose-fitting grey top that's long enough to pass her hips and probably count as a short skirt, and black leggings. The back of the top swallowtails a little bit, which is how her tail is out. The leggings are also adjusted. There's still a little flash of skin right around the top of her tail, now and again, at the small of her back.

Also she has a sword, though it's very clearly not a deadly weapon. This one's a bokken - a heavy wood 'blade' used for endurance training because of its weight, and in the spirit of the event she's put some padding on it; though it's still enough to really knock the air out of someone and leave bruises, it probably won't break anything unless things go really badly and it definitely won't cut anyone.

Nako has been getting some Looks. It's not every day a Darkstalker shows up in public. She has been trying to ignore them. One of the ways she does that is by checking her phone, which is why she is now clued in enough to push away from the side of the ring she was standing by, hop into it...

"Excuse me!" she says, raising her voice slightly. "You're Faye, right? Faye Asigiri?" Nako turns her phone around...

...she's got Faye's stream on it. "I'm Nako Irie! I think you're waiting for me...?" She looks more eager, suddenly, her furred ears perking up.

[FAYE]
zomg twinsies! (Faye blessedly does not say this)

Obviously, since the human eye evolved to track movement, Nako's entrance to the ring yanks Faye's attention from her phone, but doesn't trigger the impulse to turn it off and put it away; the result is that Nako is presenting her phone to Faye with Faye's stream, and Faye's stream is Faye pointing her phone at Nako pointing her phone at Faye. Thankfully this doesn't accidentally cross the (sorry) streams and rip open a portal to the Phone Dimension, but it does mean Faye's video is, however briefly, some real trippy mirror-facing-a-mirror stuff.

"Oh! Yes! Hi!" the Canadian bursts out, before seeming to realize what's happening with her phone and pulling it back to face herself. "She's here! Okay. Time to actually do the thing, and I'm not gonna blurrycam it off my phone, haha. Wish me luck and if you want to watch, I think there's a link on the NFG website! Byeeeeeee!"

A tap-tap-click, and stream ends before phone shut off, Faye turning back to actually look at Nako properly. "It's so great to meet you!" she bubbles, with JUST ever so slightly vowels, the tiniest accent to give a hint to her origins.

She looks at her phone, not sure what to do with it, until an NFG official offers to take it during the fight, Faye handing it over gratefully before turning to Nako. "I know it's silly to act like a big streamer or whatever," she says, looking sheepsih. "It's just from friends back h... from my old school," she amends mid-sentence, "wanting to be supportive. But it's fun to show them stuff like this. I love your ears! They're so cute, really lifelike too. That must have been expensive but they look great!" Oh, dear. Oh dear, oh dear.

And at the end of all that high speed schoolgirl-ing, there's a little signal from the organizers that it's faito taimu. Faye faces Nako full on, suddenly all business, and brings her elbows up, placing one fist into the opposite palm in a Chinese martial salute. "Okay. Nervous as hell but let's do it!" she says, before dropping into a loose kung fu stance. "Let's have an honest fight, and good luck!"

COMBATSYS: Faye has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Faye             0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Nako has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Nako             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0             Faye

[NAKO]
Fortunately, Nako is far enough away that the stream doesn't get *too* weird from the mirror gallery of cameras. Only a little weird, especially at a low resolution (Nako was watching on low resolution). It could have been much worse!

When Faye hands her phone over, Nako realizes she really ought to do that too and passes hers along a moment later. "It's nice to meet you!" Nako's nervousness is, if not forgotten, at least overtaken by this actually starting up. It's real, it's not just a hope and a dream. "I hear we're both going to the same school next year... the same year even, I might be in your class! It's nice of you to stream back where you came from, too."

'I love your ears! They're so cute, really lifelike too. That must have been expensive but they look great!'

Nako's train of thought completely derails.

She does, indeed, have those ears Faye noticed. And slightly cat-pupiled eyes, though in bright light it's a little less obvious because they only get really slit-pupiled when it's dim. And slightly fang-y teeth, though it's mostly not obvious with her mouth closed. And a tail that looks like the back half of a narrow snake, thin and whiplike, with fine scales.

Her ears flatten down again. "Ah... Those are my actual ears," she half-says, half-mumbles. Any microphone on the cameras probably can't pick it up clearly; Faye can if she's paying any attention at all. Nako realizes she could have just lied, but, well... it'd come out eventually, right? Plus, she's not a very good liar.

So she's feeling slightly awkward when the signal comes down. Faye is immediately all business; Nako takes a moment extra to recover, taking a deep breath in and slowly letting it out, not quite meditative but close. "Okay!" she says, some of her former brightness back in her voice as Faye drops into a loose stance. "Good luck to you too!"

Nako remains straight but keeps her sword held low, pointing about at Faye's ankles. If she knows kendo she might recognize the stance, but it's not a perfect match for the sport stance. She uses it pretty much the same way, though, lifting upwards into a sudden thrust!

Which would be enough, but a spark of pink-purple chi erupts on the bokken's tip, stabbing out to add an extra few inches to her reach and stretching backwards to line along the blade. Surprise!

COMBATSYS: Faye dodges Nako's Serpent Fang.

[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Nako             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
Perhaps mortification is, for once, actually useful: Faye DOES in fact hear Nako's comment about those being her real ears, and the Canadian's face blanches paler than usual as her brain runs through the implications of what it is she just said, more or less. The rest of the next few moments -- Nako's bright return of the wish for good luck, the fight actually starting -- register for Faye but as a kind of background noise, really. Nako can probably see it, herself; the stance wavers a bit, the pupils of Faye's eyes are a little too narrow.

Her thought processes, however, go suddenly from self-recrimination to how to 'fix' the situation, which refocuses Faye's attention on Nako... and the glowing wooden blade headed her way. Taking a sudden hitched breath in, she hops backwards in a stationary backflip, the arc of her legs coming up and over missing the tip of Nako's strike by mere centimeters.

Coming up from the inevitable crouch such a move would leave her in, Faye looks at Nako with a mixture of mild panic and genuine regret. "I'm so sorry! I thought... there isn't..."

Tiny little memories of her own past, and how she's had to deal with certain parallel situations, bubble up, and seem to calm her. "I really am sorry. But they are extremely cute and that's the truth!"

A slight, sheepish smile, and then a deep breath before Faye gets back into stance... a little firmer this time, a little more confident. "Alright. Here we go..."

Ducking forward in a low dash, the Canadian tries to close the gap with her opponent, looking to grab an arm or a shoulder. If she gets her purchase, Faye pulls Nako toward her, unbalanced, before placing a hand forward, palm out, on the kendoka's stomach... not a palm strike, but a glowing aura of cobalt-ish blue being the tell that Faye's palm would suddenly disrupt Nako's internal flow of chi, which could be just as bad!

COMBATSYS: Faye successfully hits Nako with Hakkei Shou.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Nako             0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0             Faye

[NAKO]
"...no, it's fine! I know it's a little unusual..."

Nako is very quick to assure Faye of that, partially because - well, it was a mistake, not trying to be cruel at all, and partially because she's still hoping to make friends with someone who has better-than-average odds of being her classmate next year. Just because you got off on the wrong foot doesn't mean it's impossible! Or so she thinks.

Part of the unusual part is that she's here at all, and she knows that. After trouble NFG has had with supernaturals before, plus the unusual situation of an obvious Darkstalker attending a Japanese high school... Well, maybe they think Taiyo can keep her in line, if something goes wrong?

"Let's go!" she agrees with Faye. At least nothing can completely take away her cheerfulness!

Nako pulls back from her thrust, taking a different stance - it's not more casual, really, but it's less formalized, less of a sport kendo stance. She's expecting a strike, and moves to parry, shifting the angle of her sword... but she's not expecting a grab that pulls her forwards. Her blade doesn't stop Faye from getting in, and once she is in, it's not too hard to press a palm against her stomach!

It doesn't send Nako flying. She was expecting that, after; a palm blow or a punch, once she did get grabbed. But this is probably worse. She can feel the blockage and she has *no* idea how to immediately clear it! Nako takes a half-step away, breaking the grip, while reversing the sword and delivering something close to a punch with the pommel end, if that's the correct term on a bokken (it's not, that's kashira). There's no glow of chi this time, no shimmering light - Nako may be trying to right herself, energetically speaking, or maybe it just doesn't come all the time anyway.

COMBATSYS: Faye blocks Nako's Quick Strike.

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Nako             0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
Once the social gaffe has been worked out, and Nako seems to be... well, 'at-ease' is probably too much to expect in a semi-professional fight, but certainly a little less on edge. That makes Faye herself ALSO seem a little less on-edge, and the result will probably be of benefit to everyone watching (or participating) in this fight. "Yeah! Let's."

The Canadian appears to have caught her opponent by surprise by opting for a grapple over a strike, but... well. Faye doesn't know anything about kendo, but she's been studying different martial forms since she was a kid; it's obvious that even if Faye doesn't recognize the nuances of the style, Nako knows her fundamentals firmly, so that moment of surprise isn't going to buy her much. The hilt-punch reprisal proves that, but Faye was thankfully ready enough for it to be on the defensive herself; as Nako's bokken comes in, the Canadian interposes one forearm in front of it laterally, pressing her opposite palm against the back side of her blocking arm to reinforce it.

Faye's natural inclination would be to try and snap kick in return, buy herself some distance... but some internal measure of sportsmanship is telling her not to strike twice in the same place. Instead, she simply says "Nice strike!" before dropping low to the ground and attempting to scythe a very low sweeping kick through Nako's ankles from the back, hopefully either dropping Nako properly or, at the very least, making her back off a step or two!

COMBATSYS: Nako blocks Faye's Medium Kick.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Nako             0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0             Faye

[NAKO]
"R - right!"

Nako has never performed quite like this before. Honestly, there are more people here than she is usually around for any reason; she hasn't spent much time in crowds. And they're all watching her (and Faye). She has half an urge to duck out of sight entirely and half a thought to make sure her shirt isn't riding up when her tail moves (it's not).

But getting to the actual fighting, with someone else who wants to fight, who wants a real match but doesn't have any rancor behind it - that's helping her stage fright. So she's in the weird situation where she's becoming *more* relaxed, not less, as the battle continues, as she gets out of her own head a little bit. Whether Faye means to be encouraging or not, she really is.

When Faye's kick comes in, Nako is a little better prepared for it. She hops back to make a little bit of extra distance, slightly messing up the ranging; Faye can still hit her, but it's further up the foot than she's probably hoping for, and thus with less force, and Nako kicks up one of the balls to bounce harmlessly off Faye's foot to interfere further. She did get that distance she wanted, at least...

...but Nako has an advantage when they're further apart, as far as she can tell. She's got reach, because of that bokken! And she uses it, a rising cut with the weapon - and her chi bursts out again as she pushes through the previous blockage, drawing a half-moon arc of energy, vertically oriented, in the air that lingers and leaves an additional hazard for a couple of extra moments. Not too long, but long enough. "Ha...!"

COMBATSYS: Faye interrupts Roaring Tiger ES from Nako with Hasaiken EX.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Nako             1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
You would think, after getting the distance she was looking for -- even if Nako neatly blunted the force of her strike -- that Faye wouldn't be thinking of immediately closing the gap. In truth, though, that's... pretty much exactly what she thinks to do. Nako's style combining a wooden sword with all of these energy fields is new to someone who took up martial arts mostly as exercise rather than fighting, though she eventually went that route. The kung fu teacher your mom sets you up with in urban Canada is probably not going to be treating you how to deal with energy blades!

And while it's clear that Faye herself has a qigong-empowered blow or two to her name, what may not have been obvious during her previous technique was the intense concentration and focus she was devoting to performing it at all. Defending against it? No clue whatsoever, meaning that when faced with the arc of Nako's strike, she has three alternatives:

1.) avoid it, which seems unlikely given Nako's speed
2.) hunker down against it... but will that do any good against her opponent's energy?
3.) Leap facefirst into it and try to surprise her opponent again

It's that third one that she opts for; kicking off the ground, Faye hops at Nako in a low arc that... well, to be blunt, takes her *right through* the crescent of force. The pain on Faye's face is obvious -- that *hurt* -- but her focus remains long enough so that it doesn't halt her forward momentum; landing near Nako, she goes into a sort of spiral, lashing out with two swift shoulder-height blows, one with each fist, then using the momentum of those blows to spin into a high kick, and then using the arc of the kick to spin a third time, putting her back to Nako and then rushing forward in a classic tetsuzankou. At least if such a forceful blow connects, it might give her a little bit of space again! But the lingering ...not-quite-burn of Nako's energy slash remains...

[NAKO]
Here's the thing: Faye might have been trained by someone who didn't expect her to get into a fight with someone with a sword, but Nako didn't get trained at all.

Everything she is doing, just about, is on instinct. The very first time she picked up a sword (and that one was a prop, at that) she realized she knew what to do with it; how to hold it, how to swing it, how to channel chi through it. If she thinks too hard about *why* she did what she just did, she starts second-, third-, and fourth-guessing herself and it stops working so well. That's something she's going to have to get over during NFG...

But she doesn't really remember having any experience and whatever instinct she has doesn't always know how to deal with someone like Faye. Nako managed a powerful slash, but at the end of the slash she holds it a little too long, and when Faye comes in she freezes for an instant before her talent takes over and she's blocking. The punches connect solidly... more so than the kick, which she's more prepared for, and the final blow, which she's braced against. It skids her backwards pretty nicely, though!

"...nice!" She means it. Being able to improvise a flurry like that is impressive too, and the equal of what Nako is doing, even if her tricks are shinier and more glowing.

Nako needs to pace herself better, she thinks. She holds the distance for the moment, trying a quick testing slash - no chi again, just a probing cut, diagonally downward, to see if Faye goes for a block or a dodge and how she moves. It seems right.

COMBATSYS: Faye blocks Nako's Medium Strike.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Nako             1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
Compared to shiny energy blades, a good old fashioned smack with a wooden sword is much more in Faye's ability to process. Her left fist tightens as she tenses her forearm and, somewhat more forcefully than before, interposes her arm in front of Nako's strike, effectively batting it out of the way. Not a flawless defense -- you still have to let the sword hit you somewhat in this case -- but one intended to keep you from taking quite as much punishment as a clean hit to the face might give, for example!

It also, conveniently, gives Nako's fellow Taiyo inductee a moment to step back and assess, the deflection being followed by a tiny hop. Faye's hand comes up and wipes across her mouth as she hops a little on her feet, watching Nako's movements carefully. "Your movements are so natural," she says, smiling a little. "I wish I could be like that. I feel like I'm second-guessing my every movement. Doing this in front of a bunch of people and cameras is kinda hard..."

But she can't just sit there and watch... and if Nako has energy abilities of this level, then maybe it's in Faye's interest to tap into her own. The qigong in her style is new... VERY new... and it shows, as the Canadian brings her palms toward her chest, positioned vertically opposite from each other, gathering a sphere of that cobalt blue chi in a rough sphere, the purple-blue edges of its shape spiralling off into space, Faye's face a mask of concentration. Moving back a step, the orb floats freely in front of her, before Faye plants her feet and with a "HYAH!" pushes her palm into the orb... which sends it spiralling across the distance toward Nako at speed!

COMBATSYS: Faye successfully hits Nako with Soukihou.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Nako             1/-----==/=======|======-\-------\0             Faye

[NAKO]
Nako feels the impact and she gets at least a little bit of what she wants out of it. Now the question is whether she can actually take advantage of it, if she lets her body do what it wants to do and fight properly. She's here to learn as much as anything else, so maybe she should think this through too...

"It really is!" Nako agrees, with feeling. "I didn't know what it would be like... I've never done this in public before..." The tip of her tail flicks as she holds a defensive position, taking advantage of the momentary break in active violence to catch her breath and refocus.

But it doesn't last long, and Nako wasn't expecting it to. Faye brings her hands up, starting to gather her own energy into a ball, and Nako has a flash of insight as to what it's about to be used for - well, let's be honest, it wasn't exactly that mysterious!

Nako swings at the spiraling ball of energy, but its slightly irregular path means she only clips it, and her sword doesn't do a whole lot to the already-fuzzy edges of the sphere... if she'd gotten a direct hit, maybe, but she didn't! The chi impacts Nako's chest with enough force to jostle her and send her staggering backwards to absorb the impact.

But even as she recovers from it, she switches to a one-handed grip hands on her blade. Her other hand grips thin air as a second blade, apparently made of chi like black smoke, manifests itself in her grip - not glowy like her previous strikes at all!

Nako comes in with both blades, and instinctive two-sword flurry. Her actual bokken does most of the striking as she holds the chi blade back, smoke wreathing it and streaming from it whenever it moves - but the last, most powerful blow is a thrust with it, causing it to break apart against Faye if she connects! Faye caused a chi blockage earlier; this is more like a chi leakage.

It might look creepy, but it doesn't feel like evil magic or anything like that, if she's sensitive enough to tell... but it does sap energy as chi-imbued smoke continues to seep from the impact point. It also makes it a little harder to see, especially for the cameras, though Nako doesn't seem to be having much problem with it.

COMBATSYS: Nako successfully hits Faye with Nightbird ES.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Nako             1/----===/=======|=======\==-----\1             Faye

[FAYE]
One good turn supposedly deserves another, but as Faye's attempt to pinwheel sideways away from Nako's oncoming rush of strikes gets clipped by a blow from the chi blade, it's going to be hard for the Canadian to consider it a 'good turn'; the physical blows from the bokken are bad enough, but the energy-sapping properties of Nako's chi blade are another thing entirely. Once the combination is finished and Faye ducks back multiple steps, clutching her side for a moment.

The weird part is, though, that -- setting aside the disturbed equilibrium she feels internally -- her hands, and even bits of her exposed skin, feel like they've got the same blue-purple ragged edge of light that her attack did a few moments ago... though Faye herself doesn't seem to notice it, or at least, she doesn't ever seem to stop and look at it. It's as if she's literally bleeding her own chi.

Centering herself, or doing as much of that as she can given her wavering mental state, she clenches her fists, forearms shaking a bit, dropping into a Shaolin kung fu stance and squaring off with Nako. Her face is a little less cheerful/genial, at this point; more focused, but that's to be expected, all things considered, given that they're deep in the fight at this point. With a "hup!", the Canadienne surges forward and, at as quick a clip as she's capable of, attempts to strike upward with the heel of her palm, right under Nako's chin. A slightly more aggressive place to strike than what she's done so far, but... well, we're not in the opening moves anymore!

COMBATSYS: Nako dodges Faye's Medium Punch.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Nako             1/----===/=======|=======\==-----\1             Faye

[NAKO]
Shifting her stance after the strike as she returns from having two swords to just one, Nako hesitates for a moment. It might be the glow around Faye's hands, or something else, but for an instant she seems a little uncertain. Is that something she did, or something Faye is doing? She isn't sure!

The hesitation looks like it's a good moment to take advantage of for Faye, but Nako snaps back as soon as she squares off, looking more focused. Her sword raises before she even thinks about it, though she doesn't precisely parry the incoming blow - she sidesteps instead, leaning back slightly to bring her head the rest of the way out of reach. It's still close - so close she feels the air move from the rising palm!

And that's enough to make Nako just as focused, her eyes widening just the faintest amount and her ears perked up. (The similarity to a pouncing cat is more obvious than she'd like! She doesn't have much of a poker face...) They're in closer than she'd want for a full swing so she does something she rarely does, and certainly something that wouldn't be a kendo move... she slides one foot forward and reaches to push Faye with her free hand, tripping her up, only to follow it a moment later with a downward poke with her blunt sword to make sure she stays there!

COMBATSYS: Faye dodges Nako's Armed Combo.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Nako             1/----===/=======|=======\==-----\1             Faye

[FAYE]
Perhaps as the lingering effects of Nako's earlier strike are starting to recede -- it no longer looks like Faye is 'bleeding light' like she was before, for example -- means that some of the Canadian's acrobatic mojo is coming back... or perhaps she just really doesn't feel like taking another heavy blow again so soon after the last one. Either way, as Nako makes to grab her, Faye's stance shifts to a more soft-style kung fu, one hand pushing Nako's gently out of the way, and the other pushing Nako herself ever so slightly away -- not so strong that it could cause pain, but enough to prevent the rest of her technique and give Faye some breathing room.

When she comes back up, meeting Nako's gaze, Faye is taking deep breaths, but looks... embarassed, maybe? "I feel like... I'm supposed to be... saying kung fu action movie stuff..." she gets out, assessing her opponent for a moment before deciding what to do next. "I just... can't think of anything!"

She lets out a little self-deprecating laugh, before shaking her head and taking a few careful steps toward Nako, her stance still in that soft-style mode. Faye reaches out, when she's close enough, to grip Nako by the shoulder and then pull her forward and down, while Faye herself moves forward; an attempt to 'swap sides' with her cat-eared opponent, in other words.

COMBATSYS: Faye successfully hits Nako with Quick Throw.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Nako             1/--=====/=======|=======\==-----\1             Faye

[NAKO]
What reflexes Nako has seem to be expecting someone who matches her strength with strength. Direct parries, fast movement, simply standing there and taking it - any of them would suit!

Being gently guided out of position is less expected, even though Faye has done similar things already. Nako overcorrects when she's moved because her tripping foot is at a bad angle and she doesn't want to roll her ankle, and ends up in a short stagger for a moment until she gets both feet back under her. Her snakey tail whips behind her to improve her balance, too.

"I don't think anyone expects us to," Nako says, before abruptly looking a lot more worried. "At least I hope not! I didn't think about that at all ahead of time, you can't always hear the fighters on TV so it didn't occur to me..." If Faye is trying to get Nako as mentally off-balance as physically, she's succeeded, because as usual Nako second-guessing herself is her own worst enemy!

At least that second-guessing wasn't about the actual fighting part. Once again Nako shows her inexperience; she's expecting to be thrown to the ground or struck when Faye goes for the shoulder grab again, not basically shoved past Faye as she moves forward. Nako even almost manages to keep her feet, but she goes down to the bouncy mat when Faye swaps sides, rolling reflexively and righting herself a moment later.

And she comes up swinging. At first it looks like the same strike from before; a rising slash that leaves one of the crescent-moon chi arcs in the air behind it. But this time it has a follow-through as she switches to a powerful two-handed stance and lets out a sudden kiai, sweeping her blunt blade horizontally through it and forming an X (well, a +) of chi power to strike through Faye's defenses!

COMBATSYS: Faye blocks Nako's Great Lion's Blade ES.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Nako             0/-------/--=====|=======\====---\1             Faye

[FAYE]
As the saying goes, 'once bitten twice shy'. Faye's felt the bite of Nako's energy blades before in this fight, so to say that she's shy of having it happen again is an understatement and a half. Some sixth sense of Nako's growing fighting spirit, as the fight's gone on, said to her that something big was coming, and big this certainly is; the strike is delivered at a speed where evasion would take more than Faye has in the tank, by her estimation.

A look of uncharacteristically grim determination crosses the Canadian's face as she stares down Nako's incoming initial blade, her mind whirling with all the 'defense against someone armed' katas and stances and options... all of which are things that are still largely theoretical in her head, knowledge she learned in the dojo but never had to put into practice in a... well, 'life or death' is overselling it, but the stakes are definitely higher right now!

Gritting her teeth, Faye does the only thing she can think of to do: she meets the + of Nako's cross blades with her own arms in a horizontal X in front of her, yelling out a loud kiai as she does so. There's a hiss-gasp of pain as Nako's plenty powerful strike slams into Faye's improvised guard... and then, the purple-blue ghost flame of Faye's chi suddenly runs up and across her arms and hands, as in reinforcing her guard; Nako's own energy splashes against it in a wild lightshow of multicolored sparks until, at last, the storm has been weathered. Not without cost; Faye's arms are red and bruised with the effort, her breath heaving again, but ending up standing and not flat on the floor -- which felt like a likely outcome! -- is still worth celebrating.

Not that the Canadienne is doing so, at the moment; instead, she's looking down at her arms, watching the fading glow of energy that she in no conscious way drew upon or directed in... well, tactically unwise wonderment. "What was...?" she asks aloud, mystified.

Then the light is gone, and Faye blinks, looking up at Nako in clear surprise. "Sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't... sorry," she finishes, a little lamely. "I didn't mean to seem like I was ignoring... yes. Sorry." Her arms come up, hard-style Shaolin stance resuming, fists clenching. "Let's... let's keep it going."

Kicking off the ground, Faye races forward and, when -- IF -- she gets close to Nako, suddenly drives her knee upward toward the other girl's stomach, almost more like a kickboxing strike than kung fu; if the knee strike connects, Faye follows through with a complete backflip kick, leg carving an arc through the air, using the knee strike as a springboard.

COMBATSYS: Nako blocks Faye's Tenchuu Kyaku EX.

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Nako             0/-------/=======|=======\===----\1             Faye

[NAKO]
When cross meets X, Nako puts some muscle into it. And she's surprisingly strong, too. She certainly doesn't look especially muscular, and she's a few inches shorter than Faye on top of that! (Or underneath that, as the case may be...)

The clash of energy is surprising enough that her tail stiffens and her ears flatten as she presses against it, making the lightshow brighter, but is unable to break through; she finds herself rebounded slightly, taking a step back to absorb momentum as she fails to break Faye's guard.

"...for what?" Nako seems slightly mystified. As far as she's concerned, Faye is doing extremely well, while Nako is feeling pretty gassed. She's not out of energy *yet* but she can feel the burn, both from exertion and from where she's been tossed around and chi-blocked...

...and kneed. Nako uses her blunt blade angled diagonally to absorb some of the blow, but when it's followed up by the backflip kick it presses the blade against her body, digging in. Faye might not have gotten a solid hit through her guard, but it's still enough that Nako feels it!

But that means Faye is (for a moment) airborne and that means, as far as Nako knows, she's committed to that movement. Nako whirls, repositioning herself - she's running out of room to reposition, she's put herself in a place where a couple steps back is the mesh 'fence' of the ring, but the circling movement lets her commit to a faster slash with a much shorter-lived chi shine, an almost dancelike step keeping her quick to evade and her blade ready to parry or block again.

COMBATSYS: Faye fails to interrupt Fox Dance from Nako with Shinkuuha.

[                      \\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Nako             1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
Known to nobody here but Faye herself, but the young kung fu fighter's use of energy in her strikes -- and, apparently, things other than her strikes -- is almost entirely instinctive, at this point; there are some techniques she's managed to make rote, but 'rote' is not the same as 'mastered'. Case in point: when Nako comes in for her quick strike, Faye decides to take a chance and execute just one such technique, one that requires brief but intense focus.

As Nako is approaching, she can see Faye bring her hands to her core, palms inward, just as before when she fired off that orb of force... but this time, the sphere of energy that builds between them is bigger and brighter; Faye's face is a story of effort expended, as if she were compressing something huge into a tiny space. All she has to do is keep it steady and release it at the right--

This is when Nako's strike smacks her in the face, sending the Canadian stumbling back more than a few steps, concentration utterly broken. With no will or strength to guide it, the glowing blue sphere simply floats away into the ether, diffuse and harmless.

When she recovers, Faye is gripping her nose with both hands, so her rueful little laugh afterwards is muffled ever so slightly. "I guess that move still needs some work."

[NAKO]
The ball of light is something Nako is not eager to experience a second time. Once was enough - she'd already failed to deflect the smaller one. This one is glowing bright and quite a bit bigger.

But she can tell it's an effort for Faye even if she may not entirely be aware of the full details behind it! And Nako, who also does most things by instinct and has not really 'mastered' many of the maneuvers her body seems to know how to do without much conscious input, is very aware that sometimes the best thing you can do is press the attack so they can't finish.

Though, she didn't really mean to hit her in the face... "Sorry!" Nako blurts out, seeing Faye holding her nose. Part of her wants to give her a minute to recover, and under most circumstances that might be what she would do, but right now she's extremely aware she's being watched (and judged, because Nako is always judged, even when other people aren't) by all the spectators. And while NFG Rivals' intro matches may not get quite the crowd of a more established fighter, that's a long way from zero.

So in an attempt to finish it up, Nako grips her wooden sword with both hands at about waist-level and points it forward, raised slightly - that one *is* a kendo-approved stance, it's perhaps the most common one taken. She holds it for a moment, just long enough to say, "Well, *I* thought it was impressive..."

But then she strikes! A fast thrust, first, at about gut-level to knock the air out of Faye, followed by a straightforward, direct, and most importantly not hesitant slash somewhere along the ribs. She is trying to end this, because if she doesn't it's going to be ended for her - she can't hold on too much longer herself!

COMBATSYS: Nako successfully hits Faye with Power Strike.

[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Nako             1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
"Don't be," Faye says, moving her hands away from her nose with a sheepish grin. Blessedly, she's not sporting a bloody or broken nose, though it does look a little bruised. "I mean, that did sting a good bit, but that's kind of the point, right?" Apparently she's got the 'be gracious about getting hit in the face' part on point, at the very least. Shaking out her hands and arms, Faye gets back into stance, needing to prepare herself for whatever Nako has in store next.

Apparently, what she has in store next is a test of Faye's poor, battered arms, which are all she really has to defend herself against Nako's weapon. Plenty of fighters can do as much damage with a fist as with a sword, but there is a different quality to taking repeated hits from a heavy object on your bare arms than someone else's punches, however strong, and it shows; Faye does get her guard in front of Nako's thrust, but has to instantly pull it away, hissing in pain; she's simply taken too many hits right on her forearms to this point, and they aren't going to take any more. There's a slight upside where she doesn't get the wind knocked out of her, but that's about all; the sideways slash puts Faye down to one knee, hand steadying herself against the ground.

For a moment, it looks like Nako might get her wish and this fight will be all sewn up... but with a quiet yet intense "I can't... give up... yet...!" Faye's body suddenly bursts back into glowing with that blue-purple light. Hopefully before Nako can retreat, she leaps to her feet in a sudden pirouette... and the energy around her suddenly explodes outwards, more than a foot from her actual body, in a shape that can be vaguely recognized as a bird extending its wings to leap into flight.

COMBATSYS: Faye successfully hits Nako with Kouyokusen.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Nako             1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0             Faye

[NAKO]
"I mean... it is fighting, so I'd be surprised if it didn't!" Nako returns a slightly embarrassed-looking smile, but the clearer sign is in the position of her ears. Nobody ever accused Nako of being hard to read.

For a moment, Nako *does* think the fight is over. She's not going to hit Faye while she's down, or at least not down in that way, but she does start to lower her sword and try to catch her breath. She's really at her limit. But Faye has just a little more to give, and she acts before Nako even gets her sword all the way down!

The explosion of chi strikes Nako; she's holding her sword in front of her, bracing it with her other hand most of the way up the blade, but that's not enough to ward it off at all. She hops back, back - and hits the mesh that she'd gotten too close to, her tail warning her before she rams her entire back into it.

She holds her sword back like she had it sheathed and snaps it forward - it's not iai because she didn't put it in any kind of scabbard but it's the same kind of sudden back-to-forward movement, accompanied with the launch of a spike of chi. If she can't get too close because of the bird-shaped silhouette of energy, maybe she can pierce it with her own power!

COMBATSYS: Faye dodges Nako's Cat's Claw ES.

[                          \\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Nako             1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0             Faye

[FAYE]
The heavy breathing she's doing suggests that it is not necessarily a 'second wind' that's powering Faye right now -- she looks, if not as much, then probably even MORE like she's going to topple over at any second than Nako does -- but clearly, some inner fire is stoking the forges at Faye Metalworks right now and producing pure steel as a result.

Nako's blade carves a clean, quick cut through the air, but in a burst of unexpected speed, Faye suddenly leaps TOWARD the surge of chi heading her way, rather than around or above it, shouting a wordless "HaaaaaaAAAAAAAAA--" At the last second, the Canadian suddenly drops to the ground, effectively baseball sliding across the ring UNDER the projectile and continuing her advance at Nako while losing barely any forward momentum.

The slide turns into a spiralling stop just a foot or two shy of the cat-eared kendoka, Faye turning the centripetal force of her rotation into energy to stand up and strike at lightning speed, looking to extend a hand and slam a palm right into Nako's stomach. Looks like turnabout is fair play on the 'knock the wind out of them' front... with two injured and tired fighters, any attempts at a final strike must be decisive!

COMBATSYS: Faye successfully hits Nako with Shingekishou.

[                                < >  ////                          ]
Nako             1/-======/=======|===----\-------\0             Faye

[NAKO]
'A baseball slide' was definitely not where Nako would put her money, if she was a gambling sort. The expression of surprise on her face is probably going to make some clips later.

And even when Faye DOES do it, Nako expects, perhaps, to be kicked in the legs, or tripped up. Not for her to rise up with a palm to the stomach. It's a solid hit, one that Nako doesn't even come that close to deflecting; she practically folds up around the palm, unable to catch a deep breath as she hunches down involuntarily.

She manages a wild attack with the sword - a much less finesse-ful slash than her previous strikes, one step up from flailing - before her legs finally give out and she drops, slipping backwards and landing on her rump! Or, almost...

She's sat down on one of the balls scattered about, and it rolls forward out from under her, dropping her onto her back with a thump. Nako doesn't get up from this one - she's conscious, but she dropped her sword and is apparently more than slightly dazed.

It was a good match, she thinks, but *definitely* does not have enough brainpower (or air) to say that for a few moments.

COMBATSYS: Nako can no longer fight.

[                          \\\\  <
Faye             0/-------/----===|

COMBATSYS: Nako successfully hits Faye with Random Strike.

[                             \  <
Faye             0/-------/-======|

COMBATSYS: Faye takes no action.


COMBATSYS: Faye can no longer fight.


[FAYE]
Perhaps it will be of some comfort, once Nako recovers enough to get the play-by-play on what happened, to see that Faye was just as much on the verge of collapse as the cat-eared student was, and that her wild final strike manages to hit a momentarily triumphant but utterly exhausted Faye in the left shoulder as the Canadian tries to get to her feet, sending her in a short but definitive spiralling tumble to the ball-strewn ground a few feet away.

For a moment, the dark-haired Taiyo student puts both hands on the ground, taking big heaving breaths. She's come back from a couple blows that feel like they could and almost did end it all for her in this fight so far; will it happen again? But then Faye slumps forward onto the ground, inelegantly face-first. It took everything she had to even things up with Nako; her resolve might be strong, but this is all Faye's got left in the tank.

Apparently both competitors get to spend some time on ring floor, dazed and recovering, as the announcer shouts out the double KO and the adjudication goes to the judges... but in the foggy edges of her awareness, Faye's sentiment is the same as Nako's: a good fight against a worthy opponent. You really can't ask for more.

Log created on 17:12:13 03/09/2025 by Faye, and last modified on 09:47:24 03/12/2025.