Description: Yashiro Nanakase, man among heart-choker-wearing men, is sent on yet another fool's errand in his persistent search for an invitation to King of Fighters for Shermie, who presumably is too lazy to look in her mailbox (or cannot see through her hair??). This time he goes in search of Takuma Sakazaki, but, typically, he has fled before Yashiro's might, and is nowhere to be found. Or is he? A week from that fateful day, Yashiro will startle awake, eyes wide, and wonder: could that have been him, all along!?
Takuma Sakazaki does not tolerate slacking on the dojo grounds. Everyone works, everyone is pushed to the fullest. Everyone bruises, everyone bleeds, everyone breaks something. Some just bruise, bleed, or break something more often than others. The distinction tends to be particularly narrow between those who do it the most and those who do it the least.
One of the more notable students, forty-year-old Howard Rust - a mere shop teacher at Pacific High - is trending significantly more towards the lower end of injury. Or, perhaps by habit, he just doesn't notice the bruises or the punches half the time, likely on virtue of still being in the general beginner courses despite having more real experience and talent than most in that bracket.
"Now kick!" Says a junior instructor between the older man and his sparring partner, a sparring partner roughly about twenty or so years his junior.
Said partner doesn't really have much of a chance, a single straight kick enough to send him against the ground. An improper handling of their knockdown breaks their elbow outright.
"Aw, shit," the man with the horrible combover says, already fully aware of what just happened by the sound of that collision, "I'm sorry, I... I got carried away."
Takuma would have largely approved of this happening, but he hasn't beaten the empathy and discomfort over hitting younger people out of the older man yet as he's met with the usual reassurances that these students can take it. Doing that sort of thing to students at /his/ day job, well, that'd get him fired right quick.
The cold afternoon rolls on as such, the crowd of students thinning as some are beginning to pack up and head on home for the day.
Boom!
A shocked family of three looks up in awe and terror as he strides in: tall, handsome, mighty, tall, famous, attractive, tall Yashiro Nanakase, his white hair and broad chest the first to be seen as he ducks to enter through the door he has just casually kicked down. Smirking, he straightens, his strange ab-revealing vest revealing, well, his abs, his chiseled and magnificent abs. The presence this bizarre man radiates is so stunning that none of the three even recognize him as a member of ever-popular CYS, the European pop sensation most recently famous for counting Justin Beiber as a member.
"Takuma Sakazaki!" he roars, even as he slouches slightly, as though already a bit bored, three seconds after the excitement. "Where is he!? I demand his King of Fighters invitation!"
The story behind this is long and convoluted.
* * *
"Ken Masters wasn't home."
Shermie gazes, one presumes, at Yashiro's stoic expression.
"Then where, Yashiro darling, did you get that black eye?"
"I fell."
Said black eye is drawn to the magazine in Shermie's manicured hand, as he realizes it is not, in fact, a fashion magazine. It is a fighting magazine, yet another King of Fighters prospective member spotlight. It is turned to a page on Kyokugen.
"That's fine. Actually..."
Yashiro begins to have that bad feeling again.
* * *
Ten full seconds of silence pass. It is a long silence.
"Th-This isn't the Kyokugen dojo," a child finally says. "It's across the street."
Yashiro begins to have that bad feeling again.
Thirty seconds later--
Boom!
Yashiro Nanakase, looking a little irritated now, kicks down the gate leading to the Kyokugen Dojo's paved training courtyard. "Takuma Sakazaki! Where is he!? Etcetera etcetera. Damn, I hate repeating myself," the hulking star is suddenly muttering, already bored. "Come on, somebody just find me an old man who I can beat on so I can take his King of Fighter's invitation."
Fun fact about that particular issue of the magazine. One can see Rust's backside in one of the photos showing Takuma firing off one of his magnificent Haoh Sho Ko Kens at an advanced student. More importantly, one can see that horrible combover of his nearly being blown asunder by being in the sheer proximity of one of said magnificent Haoh Sho Ko Kens.
It is that magnificent, almost as magnificent as it is terrible.
On the dojo grounds, the gate gets kicked down yet /again/, and the distinctive sound of it falling apart pre-empts awareness of a visitor moments before the muscle-bound musician makes himself known. The teacher has developed, steadily, the ability to tell what exactly got broken by the sound of it.
Unfortunately, he mistakes it entirely for the sound of a bench.
Inwardly grumbling at the latest string of things that vex him so over the holiday season, his knee pops loudly as he squints and tries to get a look at who it is over there - oh, hey, it can't be that guy, can it?
The junior instructor is already off to alert his immediate superior, who would repeat this process up until it's come up to Takuma Sakazaki himself... if he's even on the grounds right now. Chances are he isn't.
Despite this bit of protocol, the teacher comes ever closer, calming down ever so slightly with the reminder that wasn't a bench that just broke. He has had it up to here with benches. That it's just the gate makes it worse - he just finished helping build that.
"Uh... if, if you needed to get in and it didn't work, why the hell didn't you say so?" He doesn't really catch much of what Yashiro's complaining about or seeking. "Say, uh... hey, hey," he starts to waggle a finger, "aren't you... aren't you that musician?"
Howard Rust looks old, is male, and may or may not have an invitation to King of Fighters. As an added bonus, he's got a white belt. He must be really easy pickings.
"No."
Yashiro somehow manages to look both completely bored, his huge body's posture sagging, and totally pissed, his narrowed eyes blazing with simmering indignation, at the same time.
"I'm not that musician."
The New Face doesn't want to be here. He really doesn't want to be here. And sometimes he wonders why he lets Shermie boss him around. Of course, most men would be happy to be bossed around by Shermie, but as Yashiro would gladly tell you himself, he's not most men. Most men doesn't wear ridiculous heart chokers. Actually, that's kind of a dead giveaway, isn't it? But don't tell him to take it off.
The point is, in his heart of hearts, Yashiro would do most anything that Shermie and Chris asked of him. None of them have friends, per se, in the normal sense of the word. None of them need friends, in the normal sense of need. All of them are fueled by something inexplicable to others, and it adds to all of their mystique; in their own way, each can seem a force of nature, though what part of nature is pretty ambiguous.
He doesn't have to like it, though.
"I'm /Santa./"
Slowly, he rises to his considerable full height.
"And I'm /pissed./"
Whereupon he reaches abruptly for Rust, and without thinking too much about it, seeks to grasp him by that unfashionable gi and hurl him halfway across the courtyard, preferably in the general direction of other students. "TAKUMA! COME OUT HERE!!"
Meanwhile, Takuma continues to terrorize two boys in their underwear on the Boardwalk.
COMBATSYS: Yashiro has started a fight here.
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Yashiro 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Rust has joined the fight here.
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Yashiro 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Rust
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Yashiro's Hatchet Throw.
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Yashiro 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Rust
"No?" He could've sworn he's that musician. The older man's scratching the side of his head, looking back over his shoulder once to see his assigned instructor's already run off to alert the dojo's master. The older man shrugs visibly, one of his shoulders popping, although he's not quite as keen to shrug off the gate issue--
Which is where Santa promptly introduces himself. He doesn't recall 'Santa' being a given name, and for that brief moment before the man rises to his full height - a full three inches over the older man - he almost thinks to ask if he's already heard all the Santa Claus jokes. His mouth hangs open a little at mention about being pissed. Pissed that the gate didn't open, or--
"H-Hey, whoa!" Yahsiro's grip is powerful, and it's something of a wonder he doesn't just tear the gi clean apart with how quickly he grabs him. In fact, he kind of gets a bit of whiplash in his neck, falling to his knee suddenly in mid-stride and scraping his knee up against the hard concrete, taking out a whole lot of distance but not so much an edge off the pain.
He thinks briefly about what Takuma would say or do here. The reasonable adult in him would say 'there's a peaceful solution here, take it easy.' Takuma would come up to that reasonable adult and bash his head against some nails... again.
The man grunts as he stands back up, a pop in one of his knees again. It's a dojo crasher, ahh, might as well see if he can get the proper form right today. He's going to walk out of here bruised and beaten all the same, isn't he?
"Well, guess if you're gonna, gonna fight, then," he clears his throat briefly before stepping forward, thrusting his right hand - a highly visible burn scar, a very nasty one - forward towards Yahsiro.
"Ryugek--!" He gets tongue-tied in pronouncing the words together. Perhaps it is befitting, all the same, where the beginnings of a familiar technique by one Robert Garcia is lacking almost everything that actually makes it what it is. The motion is there. But there are no lights, not even the faintest hints, just a guy calling out an attack name to what is a basic forward arm palming.
Surely, with a guy of his build, that palming business by itself isn't worthless.
COMBATSYS: Yashiro fails to interrupt Random Strike from Rust with Dual Upper.
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Yashiro 0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0 Rust
Yashiro's first mistake is to immediately discount the old guy as soon as he is tossed aside, despite some less arrogant part of his primal instincts hinting that the man wasn't hurled quite so far or as hard as the wild guitarist thought he'd be. He immediately starts strolling forward, glaring around at a group of young students, a surprising number of whom are already nursing injuries. This kind of training doesn't bode too well for having fresh defenders present. "Hey, come on, where--"
And his second mistake is...
'Ryugek--'
"Ha! Ha ha-- oomph."
No chi.
Yashiro was told there'd be chi.
He spins around briefly, grinning widely as that furious light in his eyes brightens at Rust's assault. He's perfectly pleased not to be ignoring this guy. If he's fighting this one, that means he's not fighting Takuma, which is great. Plus, he's angry, and he feels comfortable taking that out on him here. Yet his blurring strike, which begins with a sudden swerve that tends to brace him against oncoming blows and allow him to overcome them, is short. He gauged the distance based on what he thought was coming.
"Ha ha ha!"
Yashiro manages this time to both laugh and look pissed.
"That was cheap."
Says the gate-crasher. He smirks down at Rust.
"I like it. Bring it on, old man."
The older man catches the sight of that blur. A blur is a great indicator of how hard something is likely about to hit, and with no real light coming out of his hand he's legitimately worried within that split-second of the exchange. So much he even flinches the moment palming strike all but halts Yashiro.
Yashiro laughs, Rust flinches. It's almost as though it was though the white-haired young man stopped him short, not the other way around, humorously enough, the man spreading his legs down a bit apart more to get to a more ready stance. If his junior instructor were here he'd be yelling at him to get moving more, not be so rigid.
"I, uh... thanks?" Though Yashiro is the one with the anger and the pep, Rust is sitting on a particularly frustrating week where he was told he couldn't go home again for Christmas to be with his dad because he had a second job as a groundskeeper on campus. Almost all his sick days - especially the new ones from this second job (they will probably not be letting him get away with this loophole next school year) - are probably going to be dedicated entirely to nursing his injuries from Kyokugen practice.
It's just as much heart-wrenching as it is maddening. Maybe that he hurt his sparring partner with just a kick is a good indicator of just how angry /he/ is deep down inside at some of the bull that goes around at work.
"Y'know it, I think... I think I will," he takes up Yashiro's invitation with a sneer that belies the above descriptor of how bad this holiday season has been, rearing back his head before thrusting it forward in, by all accounts, a textbook advancing headbutt made just a slight bit nastier because there's that awful combover absolutely nobody would want to touch.
Meanwhile, the top-level senior instructor goes to look for Takuma. He's not there. This could be a problem.
COMBATSYS: Yashiro blocks Rust's Hardhat Rush.
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Yashiro 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 Rust
Boom!
This time, nothing has been kicked down. This is the sound of Yashiro 'Santa' Nanakase's hand palming Rust's furious headbutt, stopping his elder in place. Something primal within the hulking pop star can sense Rust's anger; something dark that glitters inside him glories in that rage. That he would meet the man's attack head-on only to slam it short is his way -- his surprisingly subtle way -- of coaxing that fire to life. He is not himself fully aware of his provocation. It is second nature to him, now, to spread his vengeful fury.
"Weak."
He doesn't sound bored, this time, though.
"WEAK!"
He sounds like he's having fun.
Once again, that fist is a blur. Laughing to himself, Yashiro's other hand whips out to slam first into Rust's torso and then, as he lunges in to shoulder the man away and out of infighting range, lash out again to crush into Rust's face.
Hopefully the teacher has plenty of sick days--
Or a plan up his gi.
COMBATSYS: Rust interrupts Jet Counter from Yashiro with Brick Stacker.
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Yashiro 1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0 Rust
"Gk!" The strength in which Yashiro palms his scalp sends a jarring pain running through his neck and upper back, something that stings about as much as the shot to his feelings about being weak.
What happens next isn't so much a trick as it is a fact. It's a headbutt. His arms are free to do whatever he pleases, though in this particular case it would be a fairly bad tell in any other circumstance when he raises up his left arm by habit (Takuma would stress him to use his right, weaker as his hand is nowadays - it's just a maneuver he's always done with his off-hand because that's the one that's usually free in a fight) and tries to bring a palm down upon the top of the taller Yashiro's head.
That first punch to his gut is something fierce, teeth clenched tight to the grunt of some sort of string of consonants of his, spittle flying freely through his mouth as he continues through the motion with nothing but sheer, utter grit. The sort of grit he had prior to coming to Takuma, the sort of grit Takuma and his cohorts have been cultivating as he shoves his left hand - and Yashiro's head - down to the cement as though he were forcefully putting down a brick.
There is no sassy commentary on his part for the exchange as he sucks in air after taking the full brunt of that first punch of the interrupted combination. He has no idea as to what he just narrowly stopped. He may have just saved himself a few hundred dollars in a visit to the dentist within that split second. Something he is unable to contemplate as he spends the next couple of moments doubled over, one eye squeezed shut in pain as he tries to steady himself and get some air back in his lungs.
Holy hell, he's known some hard punches but that's probably up there in recent memory. Examples are kind of blurring together, this being the Kyokugen dojo.
What the--
"Unf!"
What the hell!?
Yashiro's long legs unfold smoothly as he rolls away and to his feet, still swift after that blow but, as his hand reaches up to wipe his split lip and his angry eyes flicker, vaguely surprised. "Huh," he mutters, glowering at his elder opponent with a somewhat quirked brow. "You're faster than you look, you old bastard. Too bad I hardly felt that."
On the one hand, Yashiro's bleeding. On the same hand, he's habitually full of shit. But on the other hand, he doesn't seem particularly the worse for wear; where Rust is weezing, Yashiro doesn't demonstrate either pain or fatigue just yet.
"Santa's warmed up," the New Face states sternly, recovering his composure as he casually reaches out with both hands to crack his knuckles and then run a hand leisurely through his white hair, with the air of a man who really, really loves his own body. "It's time to--"
Idly, he looks at the back of the hand he's just lowered from his hand, and he frowns at what he sees. "Fuck, am I bleeding?" There's a moment's pause. And then.
"Ha!"
At once, one of those long legs slashes out in a swift kick that attends to cut Rust's legs out from under him and upend the tough coot.
COMBATSYS: Yashiro successfully hits Rust with Light Kick.
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Yashiro 1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Rust
"I've, I've been around," that's about the best way he can sum it up as he's getting his breath back after that first punch. That first, nasty, powerful punch. Being tough doesn't mean stuff doesn't hurt. On the contrary, stuff still hurts... a lot.
It doesn't bode well when 'Santa' says he's all warmed up, straightening himself out best he can at mention of the bleeding. He just nods his head, thinking to say something helpful, you know, maybe offer to put a stop to this--
He's not as fast as Yashiro gives the older man credit for, lifting up one leg as it brushes against the bottom of his foot and promptly kicks him out on the one foot still grounded. It's of such strength that it sends the leg out a ways and sees him falling on his side just in front of Yashiro in an awkward - maybe even amateur - display.
Meanwhile, someone has checked the fridge. Takuma is out sunbathing, apparently, in this weather. Now what're they going to do? The Kyokugen students outside have all but taken a seat as though this were an official demonstration, as if they have some stock in this older man that might pull through despite still wearing the white belt of an initiate.
"Gah!" He doesn't hit the ground just right, which makes the impact against it a little worse, rolling up to his feet with a grunt. There's a significant, noticeable bruise on the heel where 'Santa' just kicked him, already shifting his weight to put more against the leg not quite as hurt.
"Hey, hey, while we're at it, about... about the gate," he mumbles as he reaches out to grab the taller, seemingly stronger and undeniably younger man by an arm, hoist him over a shoulder, and try to slam him onto the concrete in front of him.
"Took me the whole, whole goddamn afternoon to fix that, that gate!"
COMBATSYS: Yashiro interrupts Strong Throw from Rust with Million Bash Stream.
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Yashiro 0/-------/-----==|=======\====---\1 Rust
"Hey, hey."
Yashiro mimics his elder opponent as he rises, his amused tone not changing as he casually mocks his adversary. It's nothing personal, really; making him bleed has nothing to do with it. It's not even that Yashiro is pissed, per se, or rather-- it's that Yashiro /likes/ being angry. He revels in this feeling, even when he is silent and brooding, which is more often than his public persona would indicate. And when he makes other people angry, it's easier to sustain his own anger. Taunting people-- he doesn't even think about it. It's never personal, not for him.
But if it's personal for them, he is happier.
And it seems personal for this old man.
"Guess what."
A fierce punch slams into Rust's shoulder, driving him back before Yashiro can be grabbed. The force of the impact actually hurts Yashiro's hand; he didn't expect such force behind Rust's own body, perenially underestimating his foe, and his arm briefly goes numb.
This just makes him angrier.
"NOBODY--"
A second punch blurs to the abdomen.
"--CARES--"
A third punch, to Rust's side.
"--ABOUT YOUR FUCKING--"
Chest. Head. Chest.
"--GATE!!"
And one more to the head.
Yashiro, having hit Rust a million times (seven times), then steps back, his arms crossed, having broken a sweat at last, grinning wolfishly as he surveys his work.
"Bfff," the man staggers to a brief kneel with the shot against his left shoulder, clutching it briefly with his right hand moments after Yashiro is all 'guess what.'
"What?" He asks, blearily, trying to roll his shoulder to get some feeling back in. It's somewhere around three-fourths of a complete roll that he takes a second shot to the abdomen - already a bit tender - and his eyes widen to comical proportions. The blow stands him right back up.
The third makes him bend in the direction of the strike, another pained grunt and escaping of air from his lungs. Then comes the chest, already devoid of oxygen, feeling ready to crush into itself. A lightning-fast punch strikes between his eyes, a bruise the size of Yashiro's fist as blood flows freely from his nose.
The second chest and head shot after that is just adding further insult to injury, already well off balance right from the shot to the gut. To his credit - perhaps the only thing that can be put to his credit at all - he's on his feet all the way until that final shot to the face, seeing him corkscrewing into the sitting students.
Some of them have the sense to clear out of the way. Others don't. Those too slow to get out of the way are, evidently, too soft to be able to take a flying Howard Rust. Embarrassingly, one of the two knocked out right on the spot is a yellow belt.
That should've put this man down. That should've put /anyone/ down. The thing is, to his fortune - small as it is - he's landed on something soft (see: aforementioned two students who didn't get out of the way).
He rises slowly, pained. He's hurt, no doubt about it, a blackened eye, a broken nose, and who knows what else underneath the gi. Some of the students are wondering where the Sakazakis are, or even Marco! What's Marco even doing right now anyway?!
Sucking in breath once more with a pained wheeze, the man stands tall, circling his arms around himself once as he falls back into a proper Kyokugen fighting stance. Albeit, one of the more stiff ones and not the fluid one Robert utilizes - the one they're actually trying to /teach/ him to adopt.
"Gotta hit," he sneers once, "gotta hit... harder 'n that." He spits out some blood.
Inwardly he kind of hopes he doesn't hit any harder than that.
COMBATSYS: Rust focuses on his next action.
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Yashiro 0/-------/-----==|=======\====---\1 Rust
"Ha... ha ha ha!"
A bead of sweat dribbles down Yashiro's brow.
"I should kick down gates more often," the tall man chortles, managing to seem amused and mocking instead of impressed, which is how he actually feels. He represses as well a faint hint of dread. If Takuma Sakazaki's random students are as tough as this old man -- who Yashiro naturally assumes must be one of the weakest -- exactly how strong is that old man, anyway? Forget this King of Fighters Invitation.
(Actually, Yashiro has already forgotten it.)
"Sorry, old-timer, but--"
And at once, he is moving.
Who knew a grin could be so wide? That a man could look so like a beast?
"--THIS FIGHT--"
That a light, glimmering within his eyes, could be so dark?"
--IS ALREADY OVER!"
His fist is a sledgehammer to tear the earth asunder. His arm is an axe to cleave Rust in two. He winds up for that punch as though he intends to punt his adversary into the sky. In fact, his ambition is much more realistic.
"HUUURAAAAHHH!"
He intends to punch Rust straight through a wall.
Plunging towards the student of Kyokugen with reckless abandon, Yashiro attempts to end it all with a single devastating punch, his grin near rictus, skin pulled back from shining white teeth.
COMBATSYS: Rust interrupts Missile Might Bash from Yashiro with Intercepting Strike EX.
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Yashiro 0/-------/---====|=======\======-\1 Rust
Please don't, is what the inner grown-up in Howard Rust (and, well, the outer one - pretty much the entirety of himself) is thinking at mention of kicking down gates. He's a man who works so very hard getting stuff fixed, getting things made, and teaching other people to get stuff fixed and made. Then, of course, comes inevitably fixing and making things he was trying to get his students to get to make to begin with. He has a tough crowd to deal with. Better than when he first came to Southtown, by far. It's still tough.
Where Yashiro is grinning and laughing, the older American man is holding to something of a poker face, trying to gather himself and look composed when absolutely nothing about his physical state suggests he should be even attempting to do so.
Even 'Santa' over there says the fight's already over with that big, wide, goofy grin.
The older man keeps circling his arms around, something that strikes a strange balance between anticipation and/or not seeming to know what to do. Move, maybe? One of his ankles is much too sore to think about quick movement.
Just as Yashiro calls, the man raises his hands level in front of himself, grimacing his teeth as though showing the proper stance for gathering one's strength. Though, it could very well just be him trying to verbally non-communicate 'please don't hit me, please don't hit me, please don't hit me.'
"Haoh," he starts. He can't even get the Ryu Geki Ken right, let alone properly pronounce it with any degree of consistency. That first syllable suggests he's willing to try the next step up despite the very concept being well above his belt color.
Everything that follows is in the blink of an eye, between the primal scream of Yashiro's fast-approaching punch, and the hand movements and utterings of an older man that doesn't really seem like he knows what the hell he's actually doing.
"Sho," his voice gains higher clarity that fights against the tiredness of his vocal chords from a long day of yelling, grumbling, and shouting aloud at people. The exhaustion, if for a brief moment, melts away as if only to pronounce the final syllables.
"KO KEN!!"
It is drowned out by a deafening sound of flesh and bone meeting in one incredibly violent confrontation, enough that cement cracks around them and even releases a dramatic dust cloud that obscures all but the basic outlines of their figures.
There's still no trace of light, no faint hint of chi to be found among those better attuned across the ranks of students. There are, however, multiple gasps to be had among them as the view becomes incredibly clear as to whatever the hell just happened.
The white belt Howard Rust still stands, right hand raised high around where Yashiro's face is (or was), left hand lower to where Yashiro's abdomen is (or was), holding the picture-perfect stance of a successful Haoh Sho Ko Ken launch.
Without any sort of Haoh Sho Ko Ken launch to begin with, just an older man mimicking the motion and, to all appearances, somehow making it work for an entire lack of chi component. He is not budged a single inch by the powerful, gut-busting, bone-breaking straight.
He exhales quietly, fidgeting every so often as his body threatens to quit on him from the searing pain in his core. His joints don't actually want to even move all that much after that, as evidenced by the mere flexing of fingers and the noisy two or three pops that resound from the attempt.
There is no snark on the older man's end, just a narrowed eyebrow (the other one is much too swollen to do much narrowing with) while blood continues to pour freely from his nose.
*** ELSEWHERE ***
Marco Rodriguez is sipping tea at a sidewalk cafe. Seated across from him, a black bear is reading a newspaper. Suddenly, Marco's monocle pops off of his face.
*** HERE AND NOW ***
"Unnghh!"
When Yashiro opens his eyes, he opens them wide. He finds himself flat on his back, his arms splayed out around him. Suddenly he lurches to a sitting position, blinking rapidly. Awkwardly, his mind attempts to replay the events of the last few seconds, yet he has a hard time drawing those memories out. Wasn't there supposed to be-- didn't there-- who did he--
"That..."
Yashiro seems more dazed than injured.
"...was..."
But that wild look in his eyes is /considerably/ dazed.
"...BULLSHIT!"
The tall star rears to his feet, hand jerking out to point at the somehow still-standing Rust in a furious accusation. "I don't even know what you did there!" he shouts, as though it somehow matters. "I don't even-- you know what-- you know-- what-- I'm done with this. I'm done with you. Urgh! I'm done."
Yashiro's tantrum ceases abruptly.
"Ha ha ha!"
His eyes are still wild.
"Seriously, though, that was great. Ha! Wow. Hm."
He would hit Rust. Normally, he would, but.
"I, uh... I'll be... be going, then."
He's so stunned he can't even think to be angry. And--
"...Huh."
Yashiro cannot remember for the /life/ of him why he was fighting.
Muttering to himself, brow furrowed, the tall star turns to simply saunter off, reaching up to rub the back of his head as, utterly without explanation, introduction, or conclusion, he moves to remove himself from the Kyokugen Dojo premises.
COMBATSYS: Yashiro takes no action.
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Yashiro 0/-------/---====|=======\======-\1 Rust
The shop teacher slash budding martial artist slash guy with really bad hair probably doesn't believe it any more than Yashiro does, but there it is right there. An older, slower, less powerful man well out of the physical prime of youth stands, somehow, above a strange berserker of a man by the name of 'Santa.'
His hands are still outstretched, the stance held, as his body readjusts to the fact that the moment this man moves again, he's going to have to contend with at least three broken ribs among other such debilitating, fight-ending injuries.
"I think I, uh, I said its name," he mumbles. He'd like to turn his head to ask someone else if he pronounced it correctly but he's feeling awfully stiff. Just about any further murmurs on that subject are entirely drowned out by the laughter and the bizarre compliment about it being great, after that steady stream of insults and put-downs.
The shop teacher clears his throat as if to say something, but nothing really comes to mind what with his sinuses all clogged up with a busted nose and all. His mind cycles between a few choices.
'Oh thank goodness you're leaving, that hurt.'
'Stay here and fix the god damned gate.'
'Can you help me move my arm?'
'I just realized I'm almost out of gas on my truck and I don't have much cash on me, could I borrow 2000 yen?'
'Do you know if they're doing that 450 yen special at the Subway again?'
The students are murmuring amongst one another still as to whether or not what just happened in fact did, did this old new guy actually pull the Haoh Sho Ko Ken off? They didn't see any chi or anything at all. Others wonder if they should even be letting 'Santa' there get away.
The older man's stance begins to relax naturally, and with it there's sudden winces as numbness bleeds into pain, and pain bleeds further into... well, more pain. He likely could not have ever hoped to take another solid hit like that, should Yashiro have pushed the attack.
More than ever, though, the question remains in the old man's mind as he watches Yashiro walk off - who the hell was that guy?
COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////// ]
Yashiro 0/-------/---====|=======\======-\1 Rust
Log created on 22:39:35 12/26/2010 by Yashiro, and last modified on 03:16:29 12/27/2010.