Moe - Not Quite Hero Worship

Description: All of a sudden, Moe Habana's parents left sunny San Francisco for sunny Southtown, and their daughter is now adjusting to her new student life at Taiyo. This includes chance encounters with renowned fighters, though 'KoF team invite' was probably not in the brochure...



Even over the winter break, things at Taiyo never really completely slow down. It's a school full of enthusiastic go-getters, with a faculty that includes the Burning Phys Ed Teacher himself, a man who has inspired literally dozens of teenagers to reach past their limits with the spirit of hot blood and so on and so on.

So, some of the school clubs still meet over the winter break, with administrative permission: And in the Taiyo Dome, sports clubs and other groups keep up their practice with the cold outside nothing but a memory. Truly, they are enjoying the springtime of their youth. Other students are here because of, well... Remedial purposes. Insufficient attendance, let's say. Poor performance, in other cases. Even physical education credits are important to a prospective Taiyo graduate, a healthy mind only being useful in a healthy body.

In the 'insufficient attendance' list is one Kyo Kusanagi, reigning World Warrior champion, former King of Fighters, former (undefeated) Saturday Night Fight Champion, and so on. He was browbeaten into attending some of these remedial winter break physical education classes in order to help him get the credits he needs to graduate (actually he didn't care, but they called his mother) and so the perpetual highschooler is down there with all the little people, sweating away at....

No, wait, no he isn't.

Instead, Kyo has abandoned his cadre of fellow ne'er-do-wells and is, instead, sitting up in the stands. He's impossible to miss, because he's Kyo Kusanagi, and he's one of the only people up /in/ the stands, and more importantly he's definitely the only one who has his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him, while he takes a nap. He doesn't even bother trying to hide.

Naturally, though, how long will his peaceful slumber last?

Moe Habana goes to Taiyo now, because she has Japanese parents, and speaks Japanese, and didn't feel like going to Pacific with a bunch of prep school nerds. She was given her choice of where she wanted to attend when the family moved back to Japan from the US, and she picked Taiyo. It seemed like a good fit, and... well, it is. Moe's high-energy, slightly crazed personality smoothly flowed into the Taiyo student body and now it seems like she's been there for years. As a senior, it actually makes Moe a little sad that she didn't spend more of her school life here. But soon, graduation beckons and she'll have to become a responsible adult, just like her sort-of idol, Kyo Kusanagi.

Ahaha. Ahahaha.

Taiyo ALSO has the best gym facilities of any Southtown school thanks to being host to a few Olympic-level athletes. That means it's good for workout purposes, or intramural sports, or any combination of the two. Moe, in fact, came to play some volleyball with friends of hers, and the Taiyo student has just emerged from the locker room in her street gear, towel around her neck, to grab a water bottle from the cooler and chat up her fellow schoolgirls. Plans may be discussed for seeing that dreamy [popular boy here] who's just been in a new [choose one: movie, TV show, album] and they've just to go have it, blah blah blah. It's brainless stuff but it can be f--

Suddenly, mid-conversation, she shields her eyes and stares into the distance. It couldn't be.

This will require subtlety and guile.

"HEY!" Moe shouts, and boy can she project, waving her arms up and down. "KUSANAGI-SAN! IS THAT REALLY YOU?!"

It was a nice nap, too. The best kind of nap, really: The sort of nap that comes when you're shirking responsibilities, and when other people are slaving away at some menial physical task. Kyo was having a nice dream, too, about a world where people didn't constantly bug him, expecting him to save Southtown from a gaggle of supervillains and their actual literal /armies/ all at once, or save the entire world, or...

'HEY!!' shouts a distant voice, which filters through his dream in the same way a sledgehammer filters through a glass window. 'KUSANAGI-SAN! IS THAT REALLY YOU?!'

"Gnuh!" Kyo exclaims, before promptly falling out of his chair and onto the stairs as he gives a surprised start. Normally that only happens if Hayato shows up out of nowhere. If it's someone really dangerous, he'd just slip right into fightin' mode.

Picking himself up off of the stairs, Kyo stands up, giving his back a bit of a crack and then turning an annoyed, critical eye down on the lesser people down below. And he takes a deep breath, and with his mighty, genetically superior lungs he shouts:

"WHO THE HELL SAID THAT?!"

There are two reactions to Kyo's sudden Metal Gear guard reaction, on the field below.

Type 1: OH GOD, HE'S ANNOYED, LOOK BUSY D:
Type Moe: HEY IT REALLY IS HIM! :D

She doesn't know she is the inheritor of a secret power from the mists of Japanese history, nor does almost anyone else except a few select people. But if someone had to put a guess as to what that power might BE, just by examining Moe Habana one might come to the conclusion that she has at least a few of the animal totem powers as Marshal BraveStarr. As she VAULTS the lowest tier of seats to land on them, then wind sprints up the stairs to Kyo after a long set of volleyball games like she's some sort of [eff!]ing gazelle, this is almost believable.

"Hey hey, it really is you! Nice to finally meet you in person!" Moe enthuses. It has... a hint of fangirl in it, but perhaps unlike most Relative Nobodies who meet the Real Kyo Kusanagi in person, Moe doesn't seem the least bit intimidated, for better or for worse. "Moe Habana! My family are old friends of your family, I think!" She extends her hand to be shaken. Students below see this as 'producing easily-available lever point for hurling her onto the ground' and wince and turn their heads.

Naturally, like anyone awakened from a wonderful nap, Kyo is kind of cranky. Actually, he gets kind of cranky a lot, it... It's a thing, with him. The World Warrior champion is a bit bewildered, then, as Moe decides to run right up to meet him, vaulting over the obstacles in her path like they, in fact, weren't nothing, the girl clearly marking herself out as not normal - as normal as it gets around Taiyo High, anyway - by the way she leaps over things a normal person would need, like, a ladder or maybe some low scaffolding to get over.

He scrubs a hand through his hair, causing it to fall back into its usual part and its casual, artful disarray, which he somehow actually achieves effortlessly, and he squints slightly as Moe draws closer, introducing herself. Habana? Old friends of his family? He tries to think back to any family friends: Well, there's Daimon, but that's less a long-running alliance of clans than it is Saishu's hijinks. And there's... Um... Er...

"Never heard of you," Kyo informs her, after a few moments of thought, giving her extended hand a critical look before he... Folds his arms across his chest. "So what the hell are you doing here, anyway?" he wonders. "You outclass all those schlubs down there, why bother with their little reindeer games?" She's /obviously/ a fighter, no normal person could manage what she just did. And, of course, the very concept of 'doing normal people stuff with your friends' eludes him.

Can't imagine why!

"Awww, what? Boo! Moe Habana! Of the New Hampshire Habanas! Haha," the girl replies, when he says he doesn't recognize the name, suddenly delivering a friendly tap to Kyo's shoulder with a grin on her face. If she's bothered by his not having a clue, she doesn't show it; the truth, as far as Moe's concerned, is that she barely even knew before her parents brought it up on the plane to Japan. The Habana parents never seemed to have a problem with Moe entering professional fighting's seedy underbelly. That right there should tell you she comes from, if not an equally wacky family as Kyo, then at least one with clippings from the same wacky sapling. "Just joshin' ya, we lived in San Francisco. Family moved to the US back after World War 2." Here she scratches her head in the international symbol for 'GREAT MYSTERY'. "Parents suddenly got the urge to see the homeland, I guess, so here I am."

She takes a step back and gives Kyo the once over as he asks her about why she was down on the Field of Misfit Toys. She waves a hand dismissively at the idea that she should be seeking higher entertainments. "Come on, you've never just decided you want to play, uh... what's some macho sport they play in Japan... uh, soccer? We'll go with soccer." She inclines her head down at the field. "Didn't just want to get on the field and run around a bit, get the blood pumping?" She hasn't yet met Hayato Nekketsu, but it might seem to Kyo as if he and Moe Habana would get along just fine.

And then she looks away, grimacing a little. "Plus, you know. Busting heads can be fun but sometimes I just want to be a normal girl for five minutes. Like that uh... I met the volleyball captain here. That girl's got issues, man. Bottles it up, I can tell, trying to be maximum sports macho." She turns and grins at Kyo. "I don't want to end up like that."

And so, Kyo is confronted with one of the things that almost invariably makes his life difficult in various situations: An essentially upbeat, good nature. A vivacious spirit given over to boisterous activity and gregariousness.

Honestly, Kyo doesn't understand how people can /live/ like that. It seems so... Bothersome!

"You should look into a career as a motivational speaker," Kyo says, with what might very well be sarcasm laced in his tone, although he's sort of sincere about it as well, in his own - strange - way. Just so long as she doesn't try to motivate /him/, they'll get along fine. She can go motivate other people, people who are into that sort of thing, all that... Pep. And... Effort. "Personally, I'll pass on all that stuff. I get enough exercise without going looking for more."

He /does/ actually practice every day, although he seldom lets anyone see him do so... And then there's the repeated surprise attacks whenever his father is at home, or whenever he's out on the street and he runs afoul of any of the people who want to defeat and/or murder him to prove their superiority. "America, though, huh? Well, I guess it could be worse... Your parents could've taken you to that Metro City hellhole." He may have provoked the Wrath of Haggar by saying so, but surely that won't bite him in the ass anytime soon. "But man, they enrolled you in school in the fighting capitol of the world? They must be expecting their dainty little girl to grow up to be a regular Conina the Herbarian."

Look, he just woke up, his banter isn't at full effectivness yet.

Whoa. First impressions shattered! But thankfully, Moe has the benefit of something that other hangers-on and sycophants in the fighting world apparently don't: perspective and self-esteem. Sure, she's seen him fight and thinks Kyo's pretty damn nifty; she's also noticed some trace similarities in her Way of the Slicing Fist and Kusanagi kobojutsu. But she's pretty satisfied with herself now, and thus doesn't have any rose-colored lenses on. This might be why, when Kyo rolls that commentary out, she laughs and leans back on one of the nearby auditorium chairs, pushing her hands into the armrests to support her weight and whistling. "Woooooooooow. I expected someone with your skills to be all about the hardcore training but you're about as slack as possible, aren't you?" she asks, with a combination of genuine surprise (she trains really hard!) and amusement (she wishes she didn't have to!).

As for the rest, that just makes her laugh with a bit of self-conscious embarassment. "Yeah-hah, well." What was the first thing she did when she got to Japan? She got in a public charity fight with a Mexican luchador and proceeded to knock him out shortly before he decked her so hard she almost forgot her own damn name. "Well, like... my choices were here, or Pacific, or that frilly girls' school near the park," Moe explains. Her dad had been pulling for Pacific's prestige; her mom had hoped Seijyun might turn her into a proper Japanese lady. But the former didn't appeal to Moe and the latter doesn't seem likely to occur without some sort of brainwashing or cult membership, so they compromised on Taiyo.

"Out of that list? I think they're just happy I'm with normal people. Besides, what if I'd ended up at that like... punk warfare school across town? I don't remember the name but they had godawful yellow uniforms. To heck with THAT."

Ha ha ha ha, Kyo all about hardcore training. No, Moe is pretty much right on the money when she calls him about as slack as possible, and indeed he eases himself back into his earlier seat, putting his feet up and looking extremely self-satisfied. Of course, he does that a lot. "Losers," Kyo interjects, at the mention of Pacific. "Lesbians, every last one of them," he adds, on the subject of Seijyun, speaking from a comfortable position on his usual high horse, with the wisdom of a few more years than the usual highschooler would have.

And Gedo? Well, he's heard they have a roguishly handsome fellow with a wooden sword in their gang there, but otherwise...

"Not really any place for a girl, is it? I mean, sure, you're probably stronger than the average bear, but you'd just have guys leering at your goodies all day long, every day." As he says this, of course, Kyo casts a brief glance downwards, because you never know what a girl's gym clothes might show off, before he lets his head lean back to look up at the dome ceiling. "What about the fighting, though, huh? Gonna get yourself a little team together, try to hang with the big kids? King of Fighters is coming up, and all."

He sort of wishes it wasn't, though, after that meeting he had with Kagura.

And the one with Reiji.

So bothersome.

Wow. She grew up around ethnic high schoolers with lots to prove in the US, and they've got nothing on Kyo's smart mouth. Moe actually makes a little 'O' of surprise with her expression at Kusanagi's totally candid description of Southtown's various schools. Still, once it's over, she's got to laugh. They're a little crass but they're right on the money as far as Moe's concerned. Well, maybe not the lesbians but she has't met Zaki or Yurika yet, the butch and lipstick counterparts to a very confused Akira Kazama but that's neither here nor there.

However, Kyo then ambushes her a little bit with a question about King of Fighters, which makes Moe suddenly stop the displacement physical activity she was doing and didn't notice until she stopped: fingers stop drumming, leg stops swinging, etc.

"Haha... maybe if I knew a few more people, but you and that El Fuerte guy are the only fighters worth a damn I've said more than five words to. Plus I don't want to try and be some sort of... solo entry," she says, blithely handwaving that idea out of existence before it even comes up. "That would just be sad. 'Hey, I'm friendless and desperate, fight me!' Yeah, no."

With a shrug, she goes back to letting one leg idly kick against her seat, fingers start drumming again erratically. "I got an invite, though. Still some time left for registration. I know Taiyo's got some world class fighters hiding among all the self defense class wannabes. Maybe I'll run into one and form a team."

Of course, most of Kyo's stereotypes of the other schools are completely unfounded in anything that might resemble reality to anyone who /isn't/, you know, Kyo Kusanagi. He really does live in his own world, which only occasionally intersects with the one other people exist in. It gives him a very particular outlook on things, ably demonstrated by the way he derides whole groups of people he's hardly had any contact with. But come on, Seijyun is just a bunch of repressed girls who probably aren't even allowed to /talk/ to guys. What else is gonna happen?

The World Warrior lets out a faint snort as Moe mentions not wanting to be a single entry - that is a pretty ridiculous idea, who would do something like tha... Oh, right - and that she somehow managed to finagle an invitation.

How mysterious.

Now, Kyo isn't the sort of guy to suddenly go 'well you're in luck, you can join my team!' and flash a big sincere smile that results in a toothping to truly demonstrate the degree of super nice guy he is: He is in fact not much of a super nice guy at all. But he remembers something that big palooka Zangief said, about him discouraging younger fighters by being so amazing and such an amazing trash-talking jerk. That annoying little voice in the back of his head, the one that belongs to his usually on vacation better nature, has been bugging him about that on occasion. "Uh huh." Also there's a certain level of potential amusement in watching Moe turn her can-do spirit towards his /teammates/... "Tell you what. Gimme your sales pitch. If you impress me, maybe I'll let you join my team."

Is Kyo Kusanagi the sort of person who would fill the precious fifth spot on his King of Fighters lineup on a whim, on the off chance that the new recruit might, /possibly/, annoy his teammates?

Yes. Yes he is.

'Show me your sales pitch.' Could that mean...

"For real?"

...she's got a chance?

Something nagging at Kyo's attention to him might seem weird. To a creature of relative impulse like Moe it's lsess noticeable, but a few days from now when she's mentally reviewing just what went down on the momentous day she got a chance to show Kyo Kusanagi what she can do, she'll probably remember feeling a sense of... familiarity. Why would she spill her guts to him on life details just because he asked? No, there's something going on here that might just be bigger than both of them!

Or indigestion.

A pair of black fingerless gloves come out of her pockets and onto her hands at lightning speed, Moe flexing her fingers once the gloves are pulled taut. "I'd say I'm thankful just for the chance, but that'd mean I don't think I can impress you," the girl says, getting into a loose brawling stance.

And then she takes a hopping backstep, before turning on a dime at the end and surging forward with the force of the spin, hammering a closed fist down toward Kyo's collarbone. "Prepare to be dazzled!"

COMBATSYS: Moe has started a fight here.

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Moe              0/-------/-------|


COMBATSYS: Kyo has joined the fight here.

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Kyo              0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0              Moe


COMBATSYS: Kyo auto-guards Moe's Hoshiyomi!

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Kyo              0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0              Moe


When you begin to reach the sublime levels of physical, mental and spiritual perfection that a fighter of Kyo Kusanagi's caliber has, your relatively lofty view of the world can manifest in a number of ways. Many such individuals become reclusive old masters; those who climbed so high on a path of darkness often become more twisted than any mere mortal can imagine. And then you get people like Kyo Kusanagi, who actually don't change all that much beyond a realisation that they can just do whatever on a whim.

Seriously, who's gonna stop him?

Though Kyo is glad to see Moe has confidence in her abilities - mopey fighters with no self-assurance are the worst - he doesn't actually /say/ so, instead keeping his usual aloofness firmly in place as he withholds judgement on whether or not he's going to be dazzled. He doesn't even get up out of his chair as Moe readies herself, and when she comes in with that spiral-powered punch, he seems like he's wide open, completely unprepared to respond.

Of course, this is not strictly speaking 'accurate'.

Shifting on his seat, Kyo twists to intercept the incoming fist with his own open palm, keeping himself moving to blunt the impact even further... To the point where the strike seems to have... No effect whatsoever?! That's probably not good. "Whew, I almost felt that," Kyo says, with all of his usual bluster, using his new position to piston one leg between himself and Moe, aiming to drive his heel into the schoolgirl's sternum and hurl her /away/, giving himself enough room to get to his feet... And start tugging on his black and yellow Kusanagi gloves.

Yes, he always keeps them on his person.

It's a sensible precaution in his line of work!

COMBATSYS: Moe blocks Kyo's Combo Attack.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Kyo              0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0              Moe


If Kyo's typical bluster is a hurricane, try to imagine Moe as one of those people who jogs out into it in a Sue Sylvester-style track suit, smiling like an idiot and shielding their face with one bent arm as park benches and old people go flying through the air past her. She blinks when Kyo seems to nonchalantly just sorta... brush her attack aside but doesn't let it stop her, so that when that heel kick comes her direction she brings her hands up, almost boxer-like, to absorb the force of Kyo's attack as best she can. Which... is alright, more or less. Still stings, though, and it shows in Moe's response as she shakes out her hands, blowing out a breath.

"Just what I'd expect from a World Warrior," Moe admits, and it's the truth. However, just as quickly she's back into her relaxed ready stance. "That was a little of the family style... but now lemme show you what I learned _downtown_."

What does that even mean.

It means that, having dispensed some Slicing Fist, it's now time for Moe to mix in a little Bruce Lee on Kyo's ass(*). Surging forward, she suddenly thrusts her fist forward at Kyo's sternum... but doesn't make contact. At least, not for a split second; if the technique actually WORKS, she then drives the fist home that last one inch to deliver a really nasty Bruce Lee favorite. And in a totally different way than that K' guy too.

COMBATSYS: Kyo blocks Moe's Strong Punch.

[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Kyo              0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0              Moe


It does, at least, get Kyo enough room to get on his feet and get his gloves on, which means now he can safely control his bloodline flames! Which... Moe may or may not appreciate, in the long run.

"Uh," says Kyo, a little put out by Moe's compliment. "That's /the/ World Warrior."

Sure, it's just a slight difference, but it's one that changes everything, especially for someone of such a humble and pleasant disposition as our Kyo Kusanagi. This is, after all, the same guy who used to actually carry the Saturday Night Fight Championship belt around with him everywhere he went - even in class, which actually was his longest stretch of unbroken attendance in his entire tenure at Taiyo (although he spent most of it asleep at his desk) - and once beat the hell out of two guys whose names he doesn't even remember anymore because one of them hit the belt with buttery corn.

It's okay though, because it was Alan R. B. and Dr. Tran, two people who always, always deserve it.

As the clearly powerful punch comes swinging in, Kyo actually starts to move backwards, only to see at the last moment what's actually happening. He doesn't /stop/ moving though, so while the punch starts out an inch from his sternum it ends /up/ impacting with his side instead, hard rib and toned muscle absorbing the impact in place of a more vulnerable part of his torso. "I guess that's better than what most girls your age learn downtown," Kyo offers, quite graciously all things considered, before he reaches out to grab Moe and then hurl his entire weight into her, his intent to slam his entire mass into her in a short-distance shoulder block.

This actually imparts a frankly unreasonable amount of kinetic energy if it hits, so he's probably cheating with chi.

Chi-ting, if you will.

COMBATSYS: Kyo successfully hits Moe with Hatsugane.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Kyo              0/-------/----===|=======\==-----\1              Moe


Hoooo boy. Perhaps Kyo really is putting his accidental all into ramming his shoulder into Moe. And really, this is an audition of sorts on HER behalf too, right? What if Kyo turned out to be a poser, for example? Some sort of schlub loser she'd never in a million years want to team up with for KoF in spite of a sea of observational evidence suggesting it would be a great boon for her to do so? So the girl prepares herself to repel boarders, which in this case means setting her feet and hoping Kyo doesn't bowl her ov--

All these thoughts are going through Moe's head as Kyo effectively Smash Bros. kills her right out of the stands with that attack.

It's actually entertaining to watch. He connects, which is expected, and then he hits like having an anvil dropped on you, only horizontal. Moe actually flips off the stands and lands on the FIELD. A few people are giving Kyo the 'oh lord, you finally killed someone! D:' look.

Then Moe 'Excel' Habana gets back up and calmly walks back up into the bleachers so that she's squaring off with Kyo again, rubbing a few bruises and giving a low whistle. "Wooo... man, that hurt. Nice one, though!" Now people are looking at Moe like she's insane, which... isn't really true, to be fair. She's actually normal, by fighter standards. REFRESHINGLY normal, by fighter standards. It's just that those standards occasionally involve doing things in public that remind the populace why THEY don't make a living punchinating strangers.

Plus, she wants to impress Kyo.

"Okay. Lemme show you one last thing. If I haven't impressed you yet, this one's gonna rock you like a hurricane for sure," Moe says, limbering up. Yeah... she's gonna pull out the big guns, the signature move, her piece-de-resistance. Rushing at Kyo, she drops into a low spin, one knee bent, both hands extended palm out. If she connects, Moe windmills into the World Warrior countless times, before suddenly slamming an elbow into his stomach... and then twirling upwards with both arms extended, a spinning uppercut technique that should seem very, very familiar indeed to Kyo, except there's no flame here. Just cherry blossoms.

Yes. Real cherry blossoms. From thin air. Like she's an [eff!]ing magical girl up in this bitch. "Ouran!" is the name of the technique as she shouts it out, because that sort of thing is obligatory in this situation.

COMBATSYS: Kyo fails to interrupt Ouran EX from Moe with Oniyaki EX.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Kyo              0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0              Moe


D-dang, you know she felt that one. Her ancestors probably felt that one!

Kyo might not have much in the way of good grace, but in this case he has exactly enough to look slightly discomfited by the possibility that he might have actually, for real murdered somebody with his shoulder, as he watches Moe fly out onto the field from the strength of the impact. He really wasn't expecting /that/, but it's also possible he didn't fully think through the consequences of getting into a fistfight in the middle of the Taiyo Dome's stands. There's not a lot of room to move around, but there sure is plenty to move 'down'.

Fortunately, though, it seems that the Slicing Fist fighter has got enough toughness in her to get back up after that, climbing up into the stands to face off with the Kusanagi heir once again, which... Okay, so, if nothing else she's got gumption. Moxie. That can take you pretty far. Look at Shingo Yabuki, who barely has two braincells to rub together, but the guy sure can take a beating! And learn other people's moves with a vaguely unnerving speed. He's like some kinda... Fighting Rain Man.

As Moe charges at him, Kyo actually starts to duck low, snapping the fingers of his right hand to ignite a spark there, clearly ready to do something totally amazing and probably extremely painful to the young woman, when, instead, she catches him with both palms, resulting in a rather surprised expression on Kyo's face as he's caught by her windmilling strikes, the elbow to the stomach doubling him over briefly and leaving him vulnerable to the spinning uppercut technique that looks... Very, very familiar. In fact, it's almost exactly what he was going to do to her, although his involved less cherry blossom petals and more, you know, fire.

Knocked away as Moe cries out the name of her attack, Kyo lands on the stairs a bit further up, which would knock the wind out of most people but mostly just leaves Kusanagi laying there, looking shocked...

And then he starts laughing.

It's a good thing that Moe is really focused on showing off her most awesome technique because really, even the indefatiguable Moe Habana would probably have had... second thoughts if she'd seen Kyo Kusanagi preparing to barbecue her alive. Especially since this mini-fight proves that Kyo appears to have two settings: "Full-bore destroyer" and "Off". Thus ignorance is bliss, and she basically knocks Kyo away from her through the air before she lands and grins at him, cherry blossoms falling around her (she's used to it), bringing her fists up triumphantly. "Yeah! How was that, Kusanagi-s..."

Hm. He's laughing. That's not a good sign.

Come on, Moe. Take it with grace.

"Not good enough? You want more?" Moe walks toward the still-downed Kyo carefully, glancing at him with genuine curiosity. She'd thought she'd made a really good impression with that one, but there's a chance that her vigorous head strikes have actually triggered some sort of switch in Kyo's brain dealing with language formation, just like that boy in her middle school that we don't talk about anymore.

Scratching her head distractedly, Moe tries not to be discouragd. "Well... I might need a sec to rest but I got more than that!" Moe offers, brightly, as if the promise of such future techniques is enough to wipe the memory of this moment from both their minds.

COMBATSYS: Moe takes no action.

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Kyo              0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0              Moe


Head injury and Kyo Kusanagi are no stranger to one another, as he grew up in a household where whenever his father wasn't 'absentee' he was 'leaping out of dark corners and occasionally down from the ceiling while shouting "Ha ha! Kusanagi-ryuu Ancient Ambush Technique!" or something similar', which is presumably part of the traditional Kusanagi-ryuu Kobojutsu training regimen. Either that, or Saishu Kusanagi is a frontrunner for 'worst dad of all time'. Although he is destined to lose that award to Geese.

A fine effort, though.

Kyo keeps right on laughing, waving off Moe's words as he slowly works himself back to a chuckle, having found great amusement, it seems, in the fact that the schoolgirl was able to land a solid hit on him like that, despite his effort to introduce her to the very technique she sort of used on him. How curious.

"Nah, nah," he says, shaking his head and slowly getting to his feet. "You know what? You're in." She doesn't seem like she's going to embarass herself and the rest of the team by secretly being really bad at fighting, for one... And if he's going to go through with this pain in the ass of a tournament, well, there might as well be a girl around. Somebody's gotta offset K' and Iori, the Leather Pants Brigade.

Realising something, Kyo squints critically at Moe. "Uh... What was your name again?"

Log created on 21:06:34 12/21/2010 by Moe, and last modified on 01:54:59 12/28/2010.