Description: In Thailand, a man's obsession is born. In Thailand, watch Kurow Kirishima ambush Rock Howard. In Thailand, watch Kurow Kirishima wear another man's... red fighting jacket?
Thailand. Lately, the focus in Thailand has been one of grand conquest -- of military necessity. Of, well, raw numbers. However, some things are more personal. Even the most numbers-focused, cold-hearted bastards in the world occasionally have that one little sore spot, that one thing that they just can't let stand. Such is the way Kurow feels about Rock Howard, presently -- that /humiliation/ last week simply cannot stand. He has to track Rock down, and, for lack of a better set of terms, beat the piss out of him.
To this end, Kirishima's been -- well -- stalking Rock, more or less. He's gone through the jungle -- indeed, through virtually all of Thailand, searching. All the while, he's been trying to get into just the right frame of mind to face him, to humiliate him at what he seems to take such pride in. After his battle with Haggar last night, he most sincerely wants to simply tear /someone/ apart... and the young heir to the Howard legacy, whom he's just now coming up on, whom he can -just- see from his elevated position in the Thai jungles, seems a fine target.
Rock Howard is just outside the small Thailand Controlled Township where Rose, Alex, and the rest of the WILD CRUSADERS (name to be decided) met just one night previously to plan their strategy to save the country from Shadaloo. Rock was there because he bet a favor against Alex in a steel cage pit fight two weeks ago. He lost, and for that, he has to save the universe. Things could be worse. Alex could have made him do something like try and assassinate Lord Vega. That's about the only thing that would have been a bigger mess than this.
Retrospective, as the sun starts to rise over the Jungle, Rock's ventured out to the perimeter of the forest to watch it in relative peace. The bombs still thunder on the horizon, their jarring tremors hard to avoid, but in his present mental state -- just happy to still be alive with all the people out there who want to see him dead -- Rock can't really fault himself for not finding them very bothersome. Compared to a night in the busy metrotopia of Southtown, it's actually almost quiet.
Hands jabbed in his pockets, Rock stands on a small rock outcropping to get a decent vantage over the green jungle canopy. The time for them to move out is getting near. The time for them to put it on the line and see if they really are the men they think they are is coming. That starstruck sunrise could be his last. He smiles.
Kirishima watches Rock look out toward the sunrise with an expression he's never seen before -- at least, not on Rock. That mix of hope and resignation is curious, to say the least, and something a man with a worldview like Kurow's can't even understand. He taps a clawed finger against his chin, trying to figure out just how to strike, just what he can do for optimal impact...
... and his mouth slowly turns up in that borrowed grin, for what may be the last time. He pulls his claws off, shoving them into his pocket; he won't be needing them today. He's seen the strengths and weaknesses of Rock's style. Indeed, Kurow knows them as well as he knows his own now, understands them the way he understands Kirishima-ryuu. There's exactly one thing that'll serve him here, and it's something Rock knows all too well.
Kurow leaps down from the trees, swinging a hand up forcefully, eyes locked squarely on Rock. A sound finally splits the quiet. It is, no doubt, a highly familiar sound to Rock; it's one he's known since his childhood. And it may, today, be his undoing.
"Reppuken!"
COMBATSYS: Kurow has started a fight here.
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Kurow 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Rock has joined the fight here.
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Rock 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Kurow
Guile heads back to the Thailand main area.
COMBATSYS: Kurow successfully hits Rock with Fireball.
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Rock 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Kurow
Rock hears that sixth sense whistling type of noise first. His eyes snap to one peripheral and then flash to the other peripheral. He can sense that someone is there. He knows that someone is watching him. It is not an unfamiliar sensation to the son of Geese; his father has had him trailed since the day he walked out of that house. Even when he's managed to truly lose his tails, he knows that the next corner down the road -- there'll be more.
He just never thought he'd feel like that in Thailand. Taking a tense gulp of air, Howard's red eyes train the tree line. He takes a step back, his booted heel grinding against some of the pebbles lining the stone outcropping. It's not solid footing for trouble. And trouble can't be far.
"Show your--" he starts to say, his voice spiking high to try and make it carry. He can never finish the summon. The famous cry of his father's most famous technique splits the sky. Head snapping left, Howard's eyes burst wide. The the swirling slice of chi energy explodes into and around Rock. It ignites the morning horizon in it's bathing glow, swallowing him in it's terrible embrace. Pain rips through him, tearing as the ancient arts do their job.
The chi finally melts back into a calming sky and Rock is down on both knees. Smoke coils from his jacket and body, rising in steady twists, as he clutches at his black shirted chest. He's only felt that from one other man in the universe. He's only felt that kind of pain, that terrible memory, from Geese Howard.
"KUUUUURRROOOW!" Rock yells with immediate distinction, suddenly shooting off the stone floor and up to his full height. He spins wildly around on one toe, his eyes dancing a furious rhythm, seeking their source.
COMBATSYS: Rock focuses on his next action.
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Rock 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Kurow
"Rock Howard," Kirishima says, evidently rather pleased to see the strike explode into Rock, knocking him about. It's not truly a Reppuken -- Rock can probably tell. It's something close, especially with something like Reppuken, which has a certain notoriety as the tool of evil men, but even then -- it's just not the same. It's fake, a fact which is hardly obvious to the naked eye but as clear as crystal to someone with some familiarity.
He steps forward toward Rock, moving at a nice, steady pace. His stance is different from his usual defensive posture, though; in fact, it's the spitting image of Rock's own more offensive posture. "You really thought you'd get away with the things you've been doing lately?!" he asks of his enemy, rearing a fist back and rushing in. "I'm so sorry -- everything catches up with you eventually, son of Geese Howard."
He swings for Rock's gut, trying to keep the punch as direct and straight as possible, in the name of avoiding the usual catch-and-strike that Rock is so fond of. "Consider this a lesson in personal responsibility!"
COMBATSYS: Kurow successfully hits Rock with Jab Punch.
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Rock 0/-------/=======|-------\-------\0 Kurow
Rock had a strong suspicion that Kurow Kirishima was to blame for the people he'd met who seemed to know him that he'd never even seen before. There were a lot of inaccuracies and a lot of facts that weren't matching up. Between the way that, in their repeated dealings, Kirishima continually mimiced his manuevers and expressions -- he was the prime suspect. After he took Sakura; there wasn't anything left to do but drive his head into the cement.
But he wasn't sure. Now, watching him perfectly mimic his hybrid fusion of Terry Bogard and Geese Howard fighting styles, he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. Kurow Kirishima got his reward; the pain Rock's about to add to it is just Sweet Christmas.
But he needs to take it first. Kurow's surprisingly unbladed hand slams into Rock's gut. It topples him forward, air audibly shooting from his chest. It's not evident with his jacket on, but his stomach and chest is still bandaged from another of Geese's men -- Yamazaki. It's a weak spot and there's no doubt that Kurow knew that.
Rock's jaw grinds. He'll have to be tougher. That's the only way he's going to walk out of this alive. This has gone beyond just a rivalry. This has become personal. This man wants to kill him and he wouldn't mind doing the same right back. Digging his heel into the stone cropping, he suddenly barrels forward.
There's only a few feet between them but that's all Rock needs. His chi blisters and spikes with radiance, golden glow shimmering off him after the first planting of his booted toe. He launches himself straight for Kurow's bulk, his right arm tucking inward to send the elbow splaying outward. His other hand coils on the decline of his leaping tackle, ready to extend straight for Kirishima's glass jaw and knock the two of them off the rocks and down into the jungle below.
COMBATSYS: Rock successfully hits Kurow with Hard Edge.
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Rock 1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Kurow
Those inaccuracies are, yes, Kurow's fault -- he wanted Howard to suffer, and even if he couldn't beat suffering into him, he could certainly take the long way around and make his life as difficult as possible by turning the world against him. Rock Howard, however, seems to do a good enough job of that just by talking enough shit and smashing enough faces in -- as Rock has likely started to learn since his brief dual-title reign, pride goeth before a fall, and he certainly had a surfeit of that.
Rock's advancing strike catches Kurow full-on, sending the pair into the jungle below; Kirishima, however, has more experience with falling than Rock. ... At least, when one ignores the experience at falling from heights that's written into the Howard family's blood. Kurow knows how to break a fall very, very well -- by himself, as necessary...
... and with others, if the opportunity comes. As the pair start to fall, Kurow reaches out for Rock's extended arm and, with a sudden kick off of a 'barrier' of chi formed just beneath his feet, tries to position himself so that his legs are planted right on Rock's back, and that arm quite forcefully wrenched.
Needless to say, when they fall, only one of them is going to be hitting the ground straight-on.
COMBATSYS: Rock fails to counter Takedown from Kurow with Joudan Crack Counter.
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Rock 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Kurow
Rock was planning to Hard Edge Kurow off the cliff-face. He was planning for the momentum and pain train to carry the ninjazord on the long fall into the jungle below. He knew it would hurt him a lot, but he also knew that it'd be the guy on the opposite side of the tracks who'd really be done. When Kurow endures through that punishment and proves to Rock that he's at least a little worthy of respect...
The two go crashing into the tree canopy. Half-foot wide branches are what meet Rock Howard's back as he's twisted around by the more agile Kurow. He slams into a series of them; one after the other. The thick bark explodes into splinters as they crash through them. Anacondas and kaola bears turn their heads to watch the descent. It's a terrible and beautiful thing -- one foot in either direction and Rock could have either been saved the series of bone-snapping tree impacts or been impaled on an already upswunging root.
In the end, Rock's body slams flat and true into the dirt between two huge trees. The ground quakes with their impact, dried dirt swirling upwards around them as the small indention ripples outward. He doesn't move for several seconds, just staring up at Kurow with unblinking red eyes. Probably because it hurts so god damn bad. Finally, he blinks, consciousness swirls back to his mind, and he plays it off with a voice quaking in hurt.
"That... All you got?"
Kurow's own eyes meet Rock's, those intense red eyes receiving no answer in the harsh, cold grey ones the Kirishima family has had for generations. Leaping off of the Howard scion, Kirishima slips back into Rock's usual fighting stance, that mix of Geese's caution and Terry's push-on attitude. "You should know just how much I've got in me right now, Rock," Kurow says, grinning at him. This time, it's his own, not that borrowed one, though similarities shine through.
"After all," he continues, reaching down and grabbing what's left of a moderately large tree, felled by the advances of Shadaloo through Thailand, hefting it -- it takes a lot of effort, and it's so very, very telegraphed, but in a way, that's almost more worrisome. It brings up the most worrisome question of all: does Rock have it in him to deal with it? After all, even a moderately-sized tree is plenty large.
He rears the enormous piece of dead wood back, and yells, "I'm /just like you/!" The force he puts behind that tree may be even more of a shock than the fact that he can lift and maneuver it; it's actually likely more than Rock is used to seeing from Kurow. There's something about slipping into someone else's mental 'space' that makes Kurow just a little stronger, just a little tougher than he is when he uses his family style. Perhaps he's simply better-grounded.
COMBATSYS: Kurow successfully hits Rock with Random Weapon.
- Power hit! -
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Rock 1/--=====/=======|====---\-------\0 Kurow
It probably has more to do with using the unstoppable powers of the Legendary Wolf. They say he once cut down more trees than a chainsaw, drove more spikes than a steel-driving machine, planted more appleseeds than-- Rock is thinking about apple trees when Kurow brings that huge chunk of wood around. Still prostate against the ground, he was completely unprepared for this sort of murder.
His head is ringing and his body feels like at least three or four ribs are cracked from the earlier fall. He's got nothing he can do when a tree is thrown at him. Howard makes a valiant effort, half-lifting from his back to try and roll to the side. But it doesn't work. The huge trunk of wood slams into the ground, bounces once end-over-end, and then comes crashing down square and true across Rock's body. Lengthwise.
If he didn't have Geese genetics he'd be crushed to death. As is, he's crushed to near death. The lob, being round, rolls off him after it's initial impact but it leaves an agonized Rock -- still on his back -- still plotting the fact that he's going to die to this fucker who has been cruising around for the last six months pretending to be him.
This obsessed ass. This nancy boy, flute-toting, woman of a thing has been pretending to be him for the last six months. He's been destroying friendships, alienating allies, and /ruining/ his life. He's kowtowing around with the girl he likes, acting like he runs Southtown, Justice High, and everything from there to the equater. But most importantly? He's standing right there. Right now.
Blood boils. Palms slam into the ground at Rock's side. He digs into the dirt. He forces himself to sit up. He forces a leg to plant. He forces strength to stand. He forces himself to look Kirishima square in the eye. He forces himself to say. "I hate you so much."
Chi explodes. Rock runs on pure adrenaline. There's no other logical explanation. He should be in the hospital. But he's there. Charging at Kurow. His body blurrs as he crashes into the man's sphere of influence. He asserts his will in the form of a symphony of destruction. A rapid beating of fist and fury. Kicks and cracks. It all builds, a swirling, buzzing, burning frenzy that culminates with the cry of, "DEADLY RAVE NEO!" and a blinding beam of golden power thrust straight down the length of his intersecting arms.
COMBATSYS: Rock successfully hits Kurow with Deadly Rave Neo.
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Rock 0/-------/------=|=======\=------\1 Kurow
Kirishima may have Rock's power, but what he doesn't have -- /can't/ have -- is Rock's undeniable spirit. He looks at the oncoming strike critically, analytically. He starts working the numbers in his head in the split second he has to do so, and tells himself that the risk is worth the reward of trying to extract himself from the path of the oncoming freight train that is Rock Howard.
It's not enough. The first strike is all Rock Howard needs to pull Kurow in -- it catches him right across the face, and leaves him unguarded as strike after strike rains down on his body, finished with that enormous burst of energy. It sends him into another tree, which splits into splinters upon his impact. He slowly stands, clutching his chest.
He doesn't let Howard keep him down, though. Kurow has always been quite the force of will, surprisingly -- even though his own body aches, he pulls himself back up and locks dead onto Rock.
Slow footfalls carry him back in close to Rock, speeding up into a full-on rush near the end, as he reaches out for the other teenager. "It isn't enough," Kurow says, "to take your power anymore, Rock. Not with that hate." Reaching out, he tries to pull Rock into a hard vertical throw not unlike the one he learned from Geese so long ago, hands swirling, leaving afterimages of chi in their wake. If it works, as Rock descends, he grabs at his leg and slams him down full-force into the ground, finishing with three simple words.
"I want /everything/."
COMBATSYS: Rock counters Ankoku Nage from Kurow with Joudan Crack Counter.
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Rock 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Kurow
Rock Howard and Roy Bromwell marched into Geese Tower, rode the elevator straight to the Penthouse, kicked down the door to the rooftop alcove, and battled Geese Howard. They lost. Rock was systematically dismantled, as he always is, by his father. There is nothing about him that the man doesn't own. There is no facet to Rock Howard's being that his father doesn't understand and know how to manipulate. How to exploit.
Kurow Kirishima needs more lessons from the man in the Tower. Rock's hate for him might be growing to near Geese proportions, but in this case, the memory of the originator saves Rock's life. Detecting after the third forward step what Kurow is going to attempt, Rock -- still working completely off his sixth gear energies -- prepares for it. The last time he saw anything like it, Geese threw him off of the roof of the building, swing out, caught him, and then made sure he /knew/ he'd saved his life.
Rock will never let that happen again. He'll never let his father do that to him again. He's learned. He's prepared. He knows how to fight the Rashoumon. You fight it with guts. You fight it with heart. But most of all, you fight it with pure, wild, disregard for your life.
Rock lets himself get swallowed into the first part of the Rashoumon. The throw. Cast into a wildly out of control spin straight up into the air, he snaps through a few of the remaining tree branches before he realizes that they're the secret. At the apogee of the toss, Rock makes a wildly lurching grab. His fingernails scrape across the bark of one surviving tree limb. It's enough. Gaining control of his momentum, he orbits the branch in a full rotation before accelerating himself straight back down.
He comes down across Kurow with a furious snapping kick, bounces off the impact, up, and over the ninja-man... And lands the completely improbable, completely impossible deviation of the Crackshoot like he did it after Sunday morning breakfast.
"Too bad."
When Kurow goes down, he goes down hard. It's always like that -- he has a handle on things until just the moment that everything goes pear-shaped. And then it all falls apart -- just like that. The kick catches Kurow right on the back of the head, sending him down like a ton of bricks. For a second, it looks like he's fallen, like it's over, just like that.
He's not licked yet, though. Coming back up to one knee, he says, "You know, Rock -- you're better than I gave you credit for. But even the strongest of men have weaknesses. And I know yours." He keeps his eyes straight on Howard, moving slowly around him. Kirishima's got just this one chance to finish this -- he has to use it for all it's worth.
The boy saw how Kain tore Rock apart even when Yamazaki was bearing down on him at the same time. There's one simple little thing he just can't handle -- and it's that very same thing that, since the start of the fight, he's known first-hand that Rock couldn't handle.
Kurow's hand swings up once. It's the same motion as always. The same motion Rock's known since he was young. It takes more out of Kurow than it did the first time, is that much more exhausting. But when it summons that familiar wave of chi, that's when he finds himself /so/ sure it'll be enough.
COMBATSYS: Rock fails to slow Fireball from Kurow with Double Reppuken.
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Kurow 0/-------/----===|
COMBATSYS: Rock can no longer fight.
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Kurow 0/-------/----===|
It is enough. Adrenaline and the desire to murder can only take you so far in a fight like this. They're in the wilds of Thailand. It's a hundred and sixteen degrees. There are four million species of animal in the quarter mile radius around them that could kill either one of them in one bite, sting, or cut. You're just all around screwed, Rock Howard.
Footing slipping as he finds one of his crushed legs giving out on him after his amazing acrobatic display, Rock falls forward. This is precisely the same time that Kurow gets back on the offense. Recovering by getting his foot back down on the ground and bracing his leg with a hand, Rock turns and tilts his head back at Kurow just in time. Red eyes see nothing but a blinding wave of chi. "Aw, fuuuu--"
The Reppuken hits him like an artillery cannon. It decleats him with a clean explosion of glowing power. Shot back from the impact point, Rock lands on his back and his inertia carries him into a series of backwards rolls. He finally comes to a stop a dozen yards back. He doesn't move but his body? It smokes. It smokes real good.
The grey-haired youth watches Rock roll away impassively. Just as quickly as the youth turned on his fighting spirit, he can turn it off -- it's all back to simple, brutal calculation. When the boy finally stops, momentum lost in the jungle and muck of Thailand, Kurow walks toward him. "I told you, Rock -- everything you have, /I want/. And I'm taking it one step at a time."
He reaches down, grabbing Rock's shredded jacket. It doesn't take him long to pull it off of him; it's a little beaten-up, certainly, but he's happy to have it. It's just one more little piece of his enemy, one more part of him he can take from him. Slowly but surely, he tugs it onto his own torso, shifting it a little to try to keep it intact.
"Fits perfectly," he says, kicking Rock's limp form once and walking off... albeit with a nasty stagger. He's finished here -- Rock can be left to the tender ministrations of the Thailand wilds. Kurow isn't going to risk keeping his own injured body here any longer.
Log created on 19:46:49 06/21/2007 by Rock, and last modified on 23:41:14 06/21/2007.