Description: Being in Taizhou hasn't been healthy for Hayato Nekketsu, although in a way that has been difficult for him to realize. There's sometimes a fine line between having a Burning Spirit and being a berserker. And Vice having her way with a nightclub full of (relatively) innocent people is enough to drive him over that line.
Normally, for all her feral mannerisms and subhuman vocalizations, Vice is incapable of tracking by scent, at least with any preternatural distance or accuracy; she can dimly feel the presence of powerful combatants and objects, of battle itself if it's really close, and she has a good sense for others with Orochi's curse running through their veins, but normally, that is it for unusual perceptions.
This is not a normal day.
These have not been normal /weeks/.
Blood - Alan R.B.'s blood - has been in her nostrils and has been for as long as she can remember; given, however, that the long, long stretches of time in which she isn't engaged in some kind of combat have been filled with unending agony and unfulfilled wanting, 'as long as Vice can remember' doesn't mean so much these days. Some insignificant object of his, some trace of him led her through Taizhou, to Shao Jiao.
And then the trail got muddy with sweat and lust and drugs and wanting and Vice felt right and home.
And then the walls, the floors, the windows, everything was painted with blood when Vice remembered how far away from home she really was.
Now, she is stalking ever so slowly towards a curtain where, under normal circumstances, live acts do their backstage preparations; this being an abnormal day however, it's instead being used by what clubgoers didn't flee or die at the outset as a place to hide.
There are thin, uneven trails of blood in her wake.
The voice mail was somewhat incoherent. Clearly Ji Zhou was pissed off about something, but between the sputtering and occasionally lapses into what Hayato assumes was cursing in Chinese, it's hard to tell exactly what the problem is. Except that the man is angry at someone. Since it came pretty close on the heels of Hayato's match announcement, which is taking place in a nightclub Ji Zhou probably has some interest in, Hayato can only assume that they're related. No point in worrying about it, though. He just decides he'll find out when he gets there.
He's not quite walking casually, but he isn't really hurrying as he approaches the club. Well, at least until the screaming starts to reach his ears. And then he sees the people running away from the direction he's going. The teacher starts to pick up the pace.
There's nothing untoward about the club from the outside, aside from a few stragglers just now making good time down the street. There's no blood outside, because the people who actually ran into Vice didn't make it that far. Having located his destination, Hayato hits the door at a run. Thankfully it opens inwards, and he's able to smash his way right through. No bouncers felt like sticking around, so there's no one to stop him. He stops himself after getting a short distance inside, though, skidding to a halt. It's hard to /hear/ if anything's going on, since nobody turned off the music on their way out, but even with the unusual lighting it's hard not to notice the blood. The bodies are also a bit of a hint that something isn't right. As is the trashed furniture.
The music and lights are distracting, but there's only one figure that's actually moving, which makes her pretty easy to pick out. The trails of blood would give Hayato momentary pause... but it sure doesn't look like it's /her/ blood. And so he starts running again, vaulting over a table as he closes in.
COMBATSYS: Vice has started a fight here.
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Vice 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Hayato has joined the fight here.
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Vice 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hayato
There /was/ one figure actually moving; the door opening, Hayato hustling towards her... those things bring Vice to a halt.
She gently uncurls her fingers and inhales through her nose; the sound is terrifically loud--painful sounding, almost, not that there's any break in it to suggest her having to stop due to discomfort. She drinks in Alan R.B. and the clubgoers and Hayato -- especially Hayato, whose scent she dimly recalls even if the man himself is a murky blur -- and once her lungs are full, she is stilled for a short while with her shoulders hunched, her head tilted, back straight.
"Cody isn't here," she utters in a voice low and cracked and bleeding with the agony of its usage.
She swiftly turns, then, to meet the man who is nearly upon her. Her back was pretty much clean, save for some dust and maybe the occasional streak of red; her front, though...
Well, it should be no wonder there's a trail; her face is completely painted, there are sticky threads dangling from the frontmost locks of her hair, her clothes are wrinkled and matted, and her hand -- especially her right hand, which is all of a sudden screaming towards Hayato's throat -- is covered with miniature crimson rivers that go flying every which way with her motion.
If she gets a grip on the teacher, she'll hang on for no other reason than to dig past his flesh with her nails and draw whatever blood she can before pushing him back the way he came with more strength than she, who under normal circumstances could be described as 'a whole lot stronger than she looks', would normally display.
These, unfortunately, are not normal circumstances.
COMBATSYS: Hayato endures Vice's Death Blow.
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Vice 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Hayato
The blood is intimidating. To a person who can be intimidated, anyway. Hayato? He just gets angry. He charges right in toward Vice, only stopping because her arm is like an iron bar once she gets her hand on his throat. Fingers dig into his neck and draw blood, but the teacher just growls in response. His shinai falls to the floor and rolls away as he reaches up to grab Vice's arms with both hands, glaring at her as he does so.
Hayato has been having some problems with his temper lately. And getting just a wee bit too excited during the course of a fight. And it's been happening faster and faster. It hasn't led him to do anything he'd regret, so far, but until he actually realizes there's an issue it's going to be hard to control. And given that he'd be pretty pissed off about all the people Vice has killed here anyway, well... something snaps.
The teacher's eyes blaze as he glares at Vice, and then attempts to make something else snap. Still holding onto her arm he rears back, lifting his right leg. Blazing orange chi surrounds his foot as he kicks out and down, attempting to pull Vice toward him while at the same time driving his foot directly into her kneecap.
COMBATSYS: Hayato successfully hits Vice with Devastation Kick.
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Vice 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Hayato
Vice's knee bends, gives... and does not break; she most certainly relinquishes her hold and definitely doesn't look as if she's going to be moving quickly--or at all any time soon. Actually, she's wobbling so badly on her feet that it's likely even /standing/ is a chore right now.
And yet... if Hayato were to pay any attention at /all/ to her facial expressions, he'd see wide, bulging eyes and lips perpetually curled to reveal blood-stained teeth, but little in the way of pain; she even growls quietly when she tries to shimmy her injured leg forward and finds herself unable to due to the damage sustained. Sickening crack or not, it's got to be bad in there.
Fresh trickles of blood manage to ooze past the cracks of her teeth the second time she tries to shimmy, stops, growls, and at /that/ point, with little recourse but to play the hand she's been dealt, she tries to shift the fight so that her current mobility issues won't be so anymore; her injured leg draws up a little to insure that no weight will be laid on it, and then she springs off of her good leg, hands outstretched to grab for Hayato's shoulders.
There's a roar - not a scream, not a cry, not a shout, a full-on, echoing off of the walls, 'this bitch is crazy' roar - as she tries to pounce the Burning PE Teacher, and should the two hit the ground, she will pin him there with heavy, delicate hands and bring her visage frightfully near to his.
Fortunately, she won't try to feed on him or anything.
/Un/fortunately, the air around the two will detonate in a pillar of deeply violet, immolating chi with the vivid outline of a human skull drifting up its center.
COMBATSYS: Hayato counters Come And Try My New Parts from Vice with Counter Thrust.
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Vice 0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Hayato
Hayato gives Vice a feral grin as her knee buckles under the force of his kick and she gives back for a moment. He knows that's not going to slow her down for long, though... and in fact, it probably wouldn't slow her down for long even if he actually had broken her leg. Or cut it off completely, for that matter. When Vice lets out that roar Hayato takes a step back, turning away from her slightly... but he's not scared, and he's not retreating. He's still got that grin on his face as she leaps.
And once Vice is in the air Hayato shifts his weight, stepping right back toward Vice and bring his right arm swinging about. He extends it fully, his fist slamming into Vice mid-leap, then continuing on to push her right back in the direction she came from.
Before she knows it, Vice is all wrapped up in the curtain she was initially dragging herself to; the whole thing is torn from its moorings by Vice's weight and the speed at which she hit it, revealing a door that's just slammed shut; apparently, the renewed surge of activity was enough to get the stragglers to /laeve/ instead of waiting around to see if they could maybe get some kind of help to come.
It takes a little while, but the lump that is her prostrate form shifts ever so slightly when she begins to stand beneath the big, dark sheet of fabric, and as soon as she has reached its full height, the tell-tale sounds and sights of her frantically tearing through it from the inside out are evident.
She's left with a very long, ragged strip of cloth in no time flat, and as soon as she's fully visible, this makeshift weapon is sent hurtling towards Hayato--specifically, towards his throat; if she succeeds in winding it around him, she will jerk backwards on the cloth with all the strength her back and arms can provide her.
Where Hayato actually ends up is of no concern at all to her, but there'll be a /lot/ of kinetic energy to go around.
COMBATSYS: Hayato blocks Vice's Deicide.
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Vice 0/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Hayato
The heavy cloth wraps around Hayato, though he manages to get an arm in the way to keep it from tightening around his throat. It doesn't help keep him from getting yanked off the ground, though, and being pulled through the air at rather high speed. He manages to twist before he hits the wall, taking the hit on his back while braced for impact. When he falls to the floor he actually manages to remain on his feet.
The teacher growls for a moment, tugging at the cloth for a bit before he finally manages to wrench free and hurl it to the floor. And then he starts running toward Vice at a dead sprint, leaping into the air with his right arm winding back. "Grrrrraaaah!" His eyes are opened wide, a toothy grin on his face as he attempts to deliver a blazing punch with the full weight of his body behind it.
COMBATSYS: Vice blocks Hayato's Manly Punch.
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Vice 1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Hayato
Hayato's fist smashes directly into Vice's face... albeit with a little less oomph than it by all rights should have. After a brief, stilled shot of the teacher's knuckles pressed violently against the deadly secretary's features, the camera slowly pans down his arm to reveal why:
That cloth - the one that Hayato escaped but Vice maintained control of - was wrapped around Hayato's incoming arm in an impossible blur of motion, giving her some leverage with which to yank back on the appendage and blunt some of the force.
Even /then/, Vice's nose will begin to bleed in short order; her tongue will extend just far enough to catch the first droplets.
"What's the matter," she raspily hisses as she slowly pulls his grappled arm away from her face, "You suddenly forget you got balls, huh?"
Her grip shifts a little; one hand remainds on the cloth, the other goes just above his elbow.
"Rrrrg---fucking--limp-wristed--"
She never finishes her thought, unless the low, rumbly growls she lapses into when she suddenly pushes with one hand and pulls with the other to try snapping Hayato's elbow count as a thought, anyway. Whether she is successful or not, she'll unwrap the curtain and try to shove him away from her afterwards, more out of a desire to unbalance him than a need to keep him at some kind of distance.
COMBATSYS: Hayato dodges Vice's Medium Throw.
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Vice 1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Hayato
Hayato's fist briefly unclenches, fingers reaching for Vice's face. Yes, he's definitely got an urge to do something decidedly unheroic right there. But even raging his thought processes haven't stopped completely, and avoiding a broken arm takes priority over, say, ripping Vice's face off. With a grunt of exertion the teacher grabs tightly onto the cloth and yanks back, managing to break free of Vice's grip and slip his arm out of the cloth.
He doesn't comment about the asperions against his manhood, instead just pivoting back to grab Vice by the shoulder. She doesn't want to walk around much, but Hayato is in no mood to drag this out, so they both get what they want. Well, except Vice probably doesn't want Hayato's forehead smashing into her nose, which is what he tries to do next. Followed by using that same piece of cloth as a makeshift garrote, trying to wrap it around the secretary's neck and pull it tight.
COMBATSYS: Vice dodges Hayato's Armed Combo.
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Vice 1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Hayato
Vice's lips curl upwards just so, in those moments when they're face to face with no nascent between them.
They aren't /long/ moments, of course, but she takes the shift in stride; she leans to the side to allow Hayato's head to move just past hers, grabs his hand before he can take control of the cloth and flicks her wrist upwards to try and flip him smoothly onto his back.
And then she'll just sort of stare down at him for a little while with stringy drips of blood dangling from her mad smile and threatening to spatter on him.
And then she'll raise her uninjured leg above his chest.
And then it'll come down with such force, such rapidity that the very air between her stamping foot and Hayato's body will be whipped into invisible scythes cascading every which way around and, perhaps, against him.
COMBATSYS: Vice successfully hits Hayato with Outrage.
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Vice 0/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Hayato
The world spins for a moment, and Hayato finds himself staring up at the ceiling. And then up at Vice's bloody face. And then at her leg- hey, he'd better move. Not quickly enough, though. The foot knocks the air out of his lungs as it impacts with his chest. To say nothing of the wind slicing at his body. But even though all of that, Hayato is still able to reach up in an attempt to grab Vice by the leg and attempt to hold her in place.
He only uses one hand, though... leaving his other hand free to ball up into a fist and be used to strike out at Vice's /other/ leg. It's already injured, so a good punch to the knee is probably not going to be appreciated. His position doesn't let Hayato get off his best punch ever, but he's plenty strong enough to do some damage even without a wind-up.
COMBATSYS: Vice interrupts Fierce Strike from Hayato with Withering Surface.
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Vice 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Hayato
Vice's leg swings backwards when struck; it's the best she can do to spare herself right now, and even /then/ it's pretty troublesome. She loudly exhales through her nose in some dim recognizance of the pain of impact, of planting her foot not so far from where Hayato's arm will fall.
And then she wrenches her other leg, the one he's holding onto backwards, dragging him along the ground a short ways before she actually leaves her feet in a small forward somersault. Mainly, this is to dislodge him from her so that when she lands /again/ - on both legs, sans any worsening in her perpetual grimace despite the way she nearly buckles to her knees upon touching down - he is airborne.
Airborne for all of 0.2 seconds, because she dutifully grabs him about the waist, drives him head and shoulders first to the ground with a bone-rattling powerbomb, then cinches him about the ankle to carelessly swing him towards a table so that he smashes clean through it with his skull.
After that, she'll let him go.
Let him go hard enough that he goes flying towards the bar.
In a very short period of time Hayato is introduced to a number of very hard surfaces. Eventually he hits the bar hard enough to make the whole thing rattle, causing a number of glasses and bottles to fall over or off onto the floor. The sound of shattering glass is largely drowned out by the music, though. The teacher shoves himself to his feet with a grunt. As he does he spots a bottle near his hand... but alas, it's empty. Oh well, maybe later.
He's got other things to do right now. Like picking up a table that he landed near, then throwing it in Vice's direction with a loud roar. And Hayato himself is not long behind it. Thankfully, if there was anything that would have been in the way, it was cleared out by his flight into the bar.
COMBATSYS: Hayato successfully hits Vice with Large Thrown Object.
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Vice 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1 Hayato
Showing her flexibility or perhaps just her sheer, primal tenacity, Vice does not fall, she bends; wood explodes against her and clatters to the ground around her, and because of wounds opened up by sharp pieces of wood - to say nothing of the continued issue from between her teeth - she bleeds, but she does not leave her feet.
In fact, Hayato, in the throes of his own berserkergang, will find her plenty capable of meeting the challenge of his charge despite her limpness--actually, when he's close enough, she isn't even /limp/ anymore; her muscles all bunch and coil and she swings violently forward to meet him with a solid blow to the center of his chest.
If she's lucky, it'll send him flying right back over the bar, and maybe then she'll get to join him and all those bottles and assorted other pieces of glassware nestled back there.
COMBATSYS: Hayato dodges Vice's Strong Punch.
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Vice 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1 Hayato
Reacting with unexpected swiftness for a man his size, Hayato suddenly ducks as Vice's fist lashes out. His jacket flares out behind him as the punch just barely flies over his head, grazing his hair. There's a very brief moment as Hayato looks up at Vice and smirks. And then he leaps.
Brilliant orange energy surrounds the Burning Phys Ed teacher as he tries to blast Vice off her feet, punching and punching and punching as the two of them take a short, spinning ride through the air, before crashing down onto and then through a table. But even after they hit the ground, Hayato doesn't seem inclined to stop punching. Not even after the blazing chi eventually starts to flicker out.
COMBATSYS: Hayato successfully hits Vice with Burning Windmill.
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Vice 1/-----==/=======|-------\-------\0 Hayato
Before she knows it, Vice is on her back and there's blood flying from her nose and mouth as she's pummeled mercilessly by a perhaps unexpectedly violent fighter after rather a lot of vicious back and forth; at that point, it doesn't take long for her body to slacken, her eyes to slowly fall shut and her jaws to finally relax.
It's a blessing to be beaten into unconsciousness, really, as despite all the preceding violence, the time she spends in blackness is time spent without the inescapable feeling of her blood burning her from the inside out. Really, the second to last thing to go through her mind - after all the thoughts about what she's going to do to Hayato the next time, to Alan R.B. when he's found - before her consciousness fades is that this would all be much, much easier if she weren't fairly likely to wake within the hour to continue her painful hunt.
The last thing, incidentally, is Mature.
COMBATSYS: Vice takes no action.
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Hayato 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Vice can no longer fight.
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Hayato 0/-------/-------|
Eventually Hayato has to stop punching because he's too out of breath to continue. And while he's kneeling there, panting, with Vice not making any moves to rip off his limbs, he's able to start coming down from his battle high. He looks down at Vice, and at himself, both rather spattered in blood at this point. And then at the room. And then he allows himself to think about what he was just doing. He staggers to his feet and takes a few steps away from Vice, leaning on a table to support himself.
He looks like he might be about to vomit, but he doesn't. Instead he closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths, clenching and unclenching his fists. After a few moments he opens his eyes, looking around until he spots his shinai. He picks it up, then takes another look around the room. At all the bodies. At Vice. He grits his teeth for a moment, then stalks toward the exit. Followed by the sound of him slamming the door hard enough that it's shocked right off its hinges.
COMBATSYS: Hayato has ended the fight here.
Log created on 17:52:24 05/30/2010 by Hayato, and last modified on 22:01:44 06/01/2010.