Description: Sakura, fresh off a fighting tour, returns to Japan to take in the air of her home country--and to visit Osaka, where she runs into (almost literally) Asuka Kazama, the owner/proprietor of the Kazama Dojo.
After a long time spent traveling the world, touring and fighting, Sakura needed to get back to Japan. To be back in her home country, if not her home -town-, to walk (relatively) safe streets, to breathe (relatively) clean air. A Tokyo girl through and through, she'd taken advantage of a holiday to grab Kei and they headed off...
... to Osaka! Where, thankfully, they're still civilized, kinda. No one really should trust a pair of teenaged girls but they've been mostly responsible--not doing too many 'touristy' things, but romping around the city (respectfully). Now, of course, it's just about 7pm or so--primetime for the nightlife to start up--and they're in one of the loudest, most Tokyo-like sections of the city--the Shinsekai District. Or, well...
Sakura is. See, Kei got a bad takoyaki and she had to beg off, looking green and pale at the same time, and so Sakura's sort of just bombing around this part of the city by herself. She's already proved that she can take care of herself, so she's got little to worry about--and fight fans would recognize her anyways, with the traditional hachimaki headband, the white-blue-yellow sailor outfit and the red Converses...
Asuka Kazama has been having a rough time lately, returning home one afternoon to find her father's dojo a smouldering wreck; the old man himself lying broken in a pool of blood at its midst, thankfully at least not surrounded by the dead and dying bodies of the children who'd been studying there pre-crisis. A call to the authorities brought along one Lei Wulong of the Hong Kong Police Department, and the case was blown, as they say, wide open. The bodysuit-clad tomboy has since been on a rampage through the Tokyo-based King of Iron Fist tournament in search of the perpetrator, returning empty-handed and unavenged to a still-empty dojo.
With failure heavy in her heart, she was determined not to allow emptiness to reign. Action stations.
This was approximately two and a half hours ago, giving the world's other, less famous fighting tomboy (obviously there are only two) just about time to grab a shower and throw on her best professional promotin' gear before hopping aboard a train to Shinsekai. Said threads apparently consist of a cute flat cap, neon-spattered black top bearing the rather dubious legend 'SWALLOW' - though in Japan, this is probably entirely normal and nobody even looks twice - and a rather snazzy pair of jeans with a purplish fade down both legs and a white flower motif branded against the left. Most importantly, however, Asuka carries a couple of thick wads of freshly-printed flyers, one in her back pocket and one... uh, elsewhere. Somewhere safe.
In the here and the now, she's half-striding, half-sashaying through the central strip of Shinsekai, moving through the throng packed between various boutiques and parlours with hands a flurry of motion. Right and left she throws out the poor, overworked flyers, slapping them indiscriminately into peoples' hands or the crooks of their elbows, even stuffing a few outright into pockets as she keeps up a steady stream of hearty yelling in her thick, local accent. With the crime in the area and Asuka's particular assets, a normal girl would probably be carrying herself a bit more subtly, but the boisterous tomboy doesn't seem to think twice.
This probably has something to do with the number of people who visibly FLINCH when she comes near them, though she doesn't react to that either, save to make extra sure each of these seeming detractors receives some promotional material for the Kazama-style Martial Arts Dojo. There are others who are more confrontational about the whole affair, but these mostly get shouted down. Case in point:
"Hey! You! Learn the spirit of strength and the means to stop conflict!"
"What the hell are you--"
"You heard me! Kazama-style Martial Arts is YOUR key to a better lifestyle!"
*slap*
And one more step is taken toward acquiring fresh students. Rather pleased with her progress, and a spring in her step, Asuka certainly isn't expecting to run into a bona fide fighting legend-- and she's in that special place right now where she's the untouchable fighting queen of Osaka /anyway/, fresh from beating another girl senseless - like she had any sense - in the preliminary rounds of Iron Fist. All of which leads, in a roundabout fashion, to the Osakan's surprisingly large hand whipping out as she passes a certain Ansatsuken prodigy in a fuku, deftly planting a flyer over her face in mid-yell. Talk about a first impression.
"Kazama-style Martial Arts! Be the best you can be!"
Well, of course she's the untouchable fighting queen from Osaka. There's only like three fighters from Osaka anyways, and two of them are dead!! ... or one of them is, that joke definitely wouldn't be funny if Sakura -actually said it out loud-. So it must remain in the ether. Sakura is boppin' along, earning looks of various types--awed ones from people who recognize her from her work in the 2005 King of Fighters, leering looks from guys who like the tomboyish look, angrier looks from the various gangsters and the like who are considering whether she's worth trying to take out...
... and then a hand. More that...
... a -flyer-. *SMACK*
Sakura pitches backwards, flailing around, spinning around a good one-eighty before she regains her balance, peeling the flyer away from her face with an outraged yell. "HEY!!!" she shouts, then glances down at the flyer. "Kazama...?" Immediately she thinks of Akira, and Daigo, who are comrades, if not exactly -friends- (at least, in the case of Daigo), then she shakes that off and marches forward, which is back the way she came, and she reaches out with a slimmer hand for Asuka's shoulder.
"Hey, you, apologize!!'
Shinsekai can be a good place to take a load off, but it's also a bad place to go if you're alone and can't handle yourself; those looks Sakura is receiving are mild by comparison to some she'd get if she wandered much further afield. Most seemingly 'decent' people are in groups of three or four at a minimum, making the pair of fighting tomboys among the very few enjoying their night jaunt alone. But then, the worrisome Kei has likely already pointed all of this out, making Asuka's apparently frivolous air somewhat disturbing...
To someone who hasn't faced down demi-gods and strode across battlefields slinging orbs of cerulean chi.
Happily doing her familial duty, Kazama doesn't initially notice she's being hollered down - there are a lot of people on the street, after all - and is in mid-sling of another crisply flapping flyer when the smaller, but no less potent set of digits descend upon her firmly rounded shoulder. A stammered protest from the pimple-faced teen she's forcing her literature untoward descends into a relieved mumble as Asuka spins around in her turn, though rather more controlled than Sakura as she whips her arm around to throw the grappling hand off. Despite being dressed like any other hip young thing out on the town, the hazel-eyed Osakan puts both technique and strength into that simple motion, and the faint smirk on her lips is suitably confident.
"I ain't gotta apologize to anyone!" She states with all the conviction of the brash youth she is, sizing Sakura up in one of those moments people frequently come to regret - well in her little bubble several miles away from Brain Central, seeing only a scrawny girl about her own age. In a school uniform? Really? "You should hold onto that, turn up tomorrow and put some meat on your bones - you'll be a strong fighter like me in no time. Here," Eyes gleaming beneath the shade of her cap, she throws in a swift wink and extends the other flyer, still chambered from her aborted attempt to hand it off. It flutters between them in the night air. "Bring two with ya and I'll make the first session free, how's that for an apology?"
She lets that hang, expression wavering somewhere between 'c'mon, best apology ever' and 'hit me, I dare you'.
Right. Sakura doesn't reflect on how, in another world, she'd probably be doing much the same thing for the Ansatsuken dojo... if there were one. She is, in many ways, the master of her 'own' fighting style, or at least, her own subschool of the style. Already the gangsters are forgotten as Sakura focuses on the tomboy in front of her, one who is, admittedly, dressed more for the night than Sakura herself is.
But that doesn't matter! What matters in the here and now is--grr!! "Some meat on my--" Sakura is livid, but it's a quick, surface anger, not the deeply held kind of fury that usually blossoms into a lasting grudge. The emotions flash across her face like a rush of water down a fall--anger, consideration... and then a smirk of challenge. Obviously this Osakan doesn't recognize who she is.
"Thanks," she says, tartly, "but no thanks. I've already stepped up to the plate on the world's biggest stage and won--I don't need your 'Kazama Style' Martial Arts!" And then... she steps back. Not far--a couple of steps' worth, in one big backstep...
... and she raises her hands, closed into fists, already sheathed in those red leather fighting gloves. Her brown eyes flash in challenge, though she's already starting to grin fiercely--and people, recognizing with that gut-sense that a fight is about to break out, are swarming--to get out of the way, to get to the area to watch, to place their bets.
Sakura's already lost the anger, evident as she winks at Asuka, and booms out, borrowing from a popular video game character, "_Show me your moves!_"
COMBATSYS: Sakura has started a fight here.
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Sakura 0/-------/-------|
Asuka has led something of a sheltered life, particularly by the standards of someone so relatively skilled. The majority of her familiarity with the wider fighting world comes from the occasional re-run of Saturday Night Fight or Neo League matches snatched during school hours in the common room, or more rarely the real, live version at home; but a barrage of chores and an actually pretty-goddamn-serious attitude to training has prevented this becoming a habit until very recently. She's got a rough knowledge of who's who, just not enough that faces click immediately to names. Besides, who watches their FACES? She's interested in their moves!
Even so, when Sakura makes mention of her illustrious career, the smirking girl bats her eyelids, shifting the non-flyer bearing hand from her hip to rub a knuckle against her nose, face scrunching up thoughtfully until she realizes this doesn't look at all badass and abruptly reverts back to where she was. By this point she's met by a raised guard, and a surging of fighting spirit that nobody in the know could possibly miss...
The flyer is flung aside in an instant, finding the face of a patron emerging from a nearby pachinko parlour. His puzzled flailing goes unnoticed as Asuka checks the rest of her promotional material is stowed snugly away - doing so requires a bit of groping that gets the Osakan soundly ogled by a pack of thuggish youths behind her - then throwing up her own hands with a toss of her head, soft brown bangs lashing the side of her face.
"Now you're talkin' Kazama-style. A real warrior doesn't tell when she can show." Surprisingly, that particular lesson isn't found in any ancient scroll. Asuka seems to think it's suitably awesome though, turning one palm up beside her as the other thrusts out to bear a pointing digit down upon Sakura. "Listen up, people! This out-of-towner wants to see what a real martial art's all about, and I'm gonna show her!" Some of the gathered crowd actually does seem interested; and a small betting ring is likely to form within two minutes. The rest just move to form a circle because it's better than getting accidentally kicked in the face. Smart bunch.
Asuka flips her pointing hand over, and cracks it to a fist so firm and hard her knuckles crack in symphony.
"Get ready! Asuka Kazama, Fight Breaker, is gonna show you how she stops fights!"
Wait, what? Whatever she's yakking about, she finally returns that wink with a broad grin and then immediately lunges into action, stepping into a deft pirouetting motion that sees her spin through three hundred and sixty degrees, turning into her right hip as she chambers a leg and unleashes a brutal heel-hooking kick. Beneath the flared line of her jeans, she's wearing a pair of boots suitable to sell the massive hit with a firm smack even if it's blocked; of course, given who she's fighting, she might not even get this far...
And it's at the exact moment of impact that her brain finally catches up to her mouth.
"Wait, are you--?"
She keeps her guard up on retracting her striking limb, but she's still /squinting/. That can't be smart.
COMBATSYS: Asuka has joined the fight here.
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Sakura 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Asuka
COMBATSYS: Sakura blocks Asuka's Onikubigari.
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Sakura 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Asuka
That is, indeed, a brutal-looking heel hook. But it doesn't quite find the mark--that is, it's a solid strike, but, Asuka can tell immediately, not hitting what it should be. Instead, the heel impacts Sakura's upraised forearms--left braced by her right hand, placed along the muscle. It is a pretty terrific impact, not quite sounding like a gunshot, but a deep, percussive sound all the same, boot smacking into tensed flesh and rebounding off.
"Well, Asuka Kazama, tonight you're facing the Blossoming Flower of Ansatsuken--Sakura Kasugano!!" Okay so no one -really- calls her that, but she can't let a girl calling herself 'the Fight Breaker' go without giving herself some particularly impressive title. Name recognition alone is enough--some of the crowd 'whispers', still particularly audible: "Kasugano! Ain't that the girl fought in King of Fighters? They usedta call her the Panty Flash Queen!" That one was a bit too loud and the guy who said that--a gangster with a -magnificent- tunnel pompadour--gets a quick, angry look from Sakura, and that makes him look sheepish.
Then she returns her attention to the fight. One good kick deserves another, doesn't it? Sakura goes into a half crouch, turning her body around her left hip--and then lifting -off the ground- in a low arc, spinning around with her right leg extended in her variant on the 'Hurricane Kick', shouting, loud and clear and crisp, as she flies: "SHUNPUU KYAKU!!"
COMBATSYS: Asuka blocks Sakura's Shunpuu Kyaku.
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Sakura 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Asuka
Staring dumbly really doesn't do Asuka any favours in this particular exchange of dramatic words and promises, the spotlight well and truly claimed as revelation is forcefully dawned on the few people gathered who - like their fellow Osakan - hadn't yet made the link between a famous face and a famous name. Squinting eyes widen in time to allow the larger tomboy time to prepare, but she's still a bit busy being momentarily starstruck. 'Big in Osaka' is one thing, but there's something Sakura is that she could never claim to be, by far.
"You're, like, famous!" The declaration comes with a quirk of the lips that's not quite a grin, but is far from displeased as Kazama mirrors Kasugano's forward motion with a sliding backpedal of her own, the leather of her boots creaking a gentle protest as she grounds firmly into her heels. Rather than attempt to outrun the other girl's velocity, she opts for sliding those raised forearms across, catching the incoming roundhouse upon a firm cross-block. A sharp grunt emits from between her lips-- she's famous, and she can hit. "Makes sense."
That sounds almost musing, as hazel eyes meet Sakura's own from across that guard. Asuka isn't idle though, already shifting her balance to assist the striking leg a little in sweeping away, entering her own countering spin. Favouring the mirror image approach, she even goes low.
"By which I mean," she adds in a dissonantly conversational tone, as her left leg extends through a circling sweep, aiming to remove the Ansatsuken prodigy's feet from beneath her at the very instant they set down. If she can land the first strike, she follows into a lighting-quick second from the same leg, rushing across the tarmac like the river she's named for, before swooping to her feet in a perfectly smooth motion to finish the combination with a rising knee strike from the right leg. "It makes no sense at all! Why're you /here/? There's not been a big tournament in Osaka since, uh..." Okay, she might be a little starstruck. "Ever!"
COMBATSYS: Asuka successfully hits Sakura with Medium Kick.
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Sakura 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Asuka
She's already forgotten the incident that started this whole thing--that's kind of how Sakura is. Besides, there's no time for it in the middle of the fight. There's barely enough time for talking! But she manages. "Aheh... yeah, I guess." She is, but she doesn't -think- about it. Because Ryu wouldn't, and doesn't. Fame isn't what she's after. It's being the best, fighting all comers, win or lose.
Unfortunately, right now, she's on the losing end--Asuka recovers a touch faster than she expected, and, as the Flower of Ansatsuken is touching down, she gets swept off her feet, only to take the follow-up knee into her stomach; she grunts and rolls, bouncing across the asphalt--but she comes up on her feet for all that, displaying that trademark resilience.
"Just out sightseeing. Was on a fighting tour but, y'know. Gotta come home--even if Osaka isn't my home," she says. SHe's already decided that she's gonna like this girl.
"Say," she remarks, thinking about it, "... do you happen to have any relatives in Southtown? Uh, Akira, or Daigo?" It's an offhand question, asked even as Sakura starts concentrating that chi of hers. It flares into her hands invisibly, becoming visible only as it leaves her palms, out-thrust in the classic pose, the Ansatsuken Prodigy leaning forward into the motion as she calls out again: "HADOUKEN!!"
COMBATSYS: Asuka interrupts Small Hadouken from Sakura with Exorcisor.
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Sakura 0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Asuka
Arms raised high in the wake of her final, punishing blow to the torso, Asuka lowers them - along with her striking limb - with a calming outrush of breath, lips briefly forming an exhaling 'o' before they pull back to a light, steady smile. It's not quite a smirk, because she's not really copping that attitude any more; though unavoidably brash, the confrontational stuff was dropped sometime during the revelation of precisely who her opponent is. Sakura frickin' Kasugano. She's unwaveringly confident in her own abilities, but going up against someone whose name has been up in lights across the world stage is still a privilege and an honour.
But make no mistake; she won't hold back in the slightest. It's more reason NOT to, right?
"Home is where your heart is," murmurs Asuka by way of appreciative reply to Sakura's response to her own banter, already easing her shoulder with a gentle roll as she takes a step forward-- she has an advantage, knowing how her opponent works, and recognizes that motion with a flicker of excitement. "And nope! Not that I /know of/!!" That last comes out like a harsh kiai, brow creasing and eyes gleaming as she throws herself heavily into the ensuing cerulean blast from Kasugano. It's her first time facing the legendary technique, but she's braced and ready...
To plow clean through it, warm motes of eye-searing blue-white scattering across her flank as she hurls her solidly-muscled frame into a horizontal, leaping charge, pushing off the back leg and twisting into the other, chambering it as though for a knee but spinning through ninety degrees to instead present her back. The left arm braces the right by a closed fist as she drives an elbow through the dissipating storm and into direct, punishing contact with Sakura's sternum, punctuating the blow with an empassioned, "HRRRRAAAH!"
The attack comes out so fast, her recovery just follows naturally, and she spins back out into an aikido stance.
"Kazama family's pretty big, though. We've been around for centuries. I'll have to ask my old man."
That... she wasn't expecting. At all, actually. So she gets a little wide-eyed when Asuka -busts through- the hadouken, small as it is, and strikes her right in the center of the chest with an elbow. That impact reminds her -very- much of Akira... even as she's going down, the impact toppling Sakura onto her butt with a loud *whuff* of expelled air. God, that hurt. This fight isn't going so well--she's more philosophical about it than some might expect her to be--but she isn't close to giving up yet.
"Look them up sometime," she says, as she kips back up to her feet, flashing the crowd with--well, okay, dark red bloomers, nothing to see here but strong, well-planed legs, and that only briefly as she lands back on her Converses. She gives Asuka a somewhat wary look--she is a pretty practiced fighter now, and she can tell that Asuka has 'it'... that intangible, indefinable 'it' that Sakura herself possesses.
So why isn't -she- a household name yet? Something to think about... later. Right now, she has a fight. Centering herself, Sakura finds her inner strength, that wellspring of life force that all have, though only some can touch... and she starts drawing upon it. Suddenly, a blue aura flares around her, a brief, cyclonic wind gusting up around her feet, ruffling her pleated skirt. Is she gambling? In a sense, yes, very much so... but all fights are gambles, because even with the most well-known fighters, even with people who have faced each other -hundreds- of times, there's always something new and different... or almost always...
COMBATSYS: Sakura brings her inner strength to bear!
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Sakura 1/------=/=======|===----\-------\0 Asuka
There's a disappointingly simple answer to Sakura's wonderment-- like buried treasure, not all the world's fighters emerge from their cocoon so early, and Asuka Kazama has simply been bound to her home city by a strong sense of duty and the necessity of circumstance. Child to a single parent and inheritor of a long sense of tradition, she's spent her years not just training for battle but keeping house and playing mom to herself. Her appearance in the Iron Fist tournament would have been her famous debut, had she not left following the prelims.
And the reason for that... well, that's another story entirely. As is the insane blonde girl she left behind.
"I just might do that," she assures Sakura in the present, delivering a firm nod at the idea of finding more of her family; it's a good first step for someone who's starting to look outward, and not just upon her quest to find and defeat the mysterious and powerful warrior who crushed her father. "Right after we--" She stalls that sentence, mouth left hanging open for a moment as Sakura begins to focus her enviable energies. That last one stung, even in the countering, and Asuka has a fair knowledge of how much more her fellow prodigy is capable of...
Which is why she /doesn't/ just charge right in, though it may well be curiosity exceeding trepidation.
"Heh." Reaching up to flick at the tip of her nose with a thumb, Asuka sinks back into her heels, posture spreading slightly as she then brings both hands together before her. "You're flashy, alright. Looks even better live than on TV..." Trailing off momentarily with a crooked smile, she starts to pop her knuckles, fist to palm, fist to palm, before pounding her fists together. Indiscernably to most, her own latent chi shifts, sending a tiny tremor through the tarmac beneath her feet. "But the Kazamas ain't been around for centuries just to leave the heiress to their style without a few tricks of her own! Show me your best, Sakura Kasugano!"
Suddenly she's stamping forward, bringing one foot heavily down as the other turns out to account for balance as she thrusts her left arm, pointing dramatically. A breeze billows at her hair, but there's nothing tricksy about it; just the effect of a warm summer night in Osaka.
"And I'll show you mine!!"
Somewhere in the crowd, a mind is impregnated. A fanfic is born.
COMBATSYS: Asuka takes it up a notch!
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Sakura 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Asuka
Tricky. Very tricky. But Sakura's committed, now--she isn't going to let Asuka's taunting pose throw her off. She smirks, as that energy flares up--then seemingly dies down...?? "My -best-? You haven't earned it yet, Kazama!" declares the young Ansatsuken stylist. It's a bit of a teasing reply, and Sakura isn't going to hold back either.
She takes her own jolting step, closing the distance just slightly as her hands draw back into her gut. All that energy that she called up? Now it makes itself known, literally exploding into the air, between her hands--the ball of energy compressed, looking intense, concentrated. "Haaaaaaaaa..." It takes more time to properly control the flow of that energy--a matter of a second or so, perhaps, but a second is a long time, in a fight--
--and then she throws her hands out and up, not the close-palmed pose from earlier, but her left hand up at her forehead and her right down below her waist, unleashing what is, essentially, a Sakura-sized ball of that blue-white chi--ball?
No, it isn't a ball, it's a flattened sphere, practically a disk of the stuff, intangible and promiseful of pain, roaring out at Asuka's body, coruscating, wide rings of blue and white visible in the center of it... and it seems to be launched by Sakura's voice, as she completes the incantation, dutifully. "DOU... KEEEEEEEN!!"
COMBATSYS: Asuka endures Sakura's Empowered Large Hadouken.
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Sakura 1/-----==/=======|=======\===----\1 Asuka
Asuka's pointing finger begins to withdraw, when that abrupt oscillation in the other girl's power occurs. Hesitation turns to the tight clasping of a fist, an answering smirk tearing across the Osakan's lips as she absorbs the insult with a gentle lifting of the chin. Something like the exact opposite of turning the other cheek-- but not actually because that would mean, like, turning her /other/ other cheek and that would be odd. Anyway, the heavier of the battling tomboys seems no less prepared as she shouts out her answer.
"Suits me! I'll just have to give a little bit better than I get!!"
Fate and Ansatsuken combine to render this task quite the uphill challenge, the summoning of cerulean flare this time resulting in something far removed from the relative puffball Asuka so neatly broke through earlier; though not, it should be noted, entirely without damage to body and spirit. Her hazel eyes actually widen as the vast projectile emerges, an expression halfway between shock and awe threatening to consume her boisterous resolve... and then she's lunging forward to meet it regardless, mouth wide in a wordless cry cutting over the end of Sakura's own. Her leading hand extends to a palm as if she means simply to push the mighty assault aside, but it soon folds in to present an elbow and finally a simple raised forearm, warding off the blaze as it consumes her.
There's no way to really /guard/ against it effectively, at such proximity, and the Kazama heiress indeed does no such thing; she just powers into it, mentally envisioning the fjording of a warm stream, pushing her feet from the ground as though running through the thick, curdling mud of a dreamer's sprint. Each step feels perilously slow, and yet she persists, repeating an internal mantra until finally she BURSTS from the other side. She's as surprise as anyone to realize she's still roaring, but she can see Sakura through the shimmering trail of her famous technique, and this emboldens her. With an invisible blaze of her own erupting, Asuka covers the remaining ground in a non-literal flash, form a blur, cap flying from her head at last. That leading hand extends...
And this time, it seeks for a grasp on the lower half of the other girl's face.
"This--" She grunts out, grinning savagely as she seeks to maintain that vicelike grip. Power bubbles from within, setting aflame those hazel eyes as she throws herself bodily into the culmination of the most directly damaging, singularly brutal technique in her arsenal. So simplistic to watch and in theory execute, nonetheless... "Is my /second best/!!" In playful echo of Sakura's own tease, there's nothing light or cheeky about what follows, as the muscles in Asuka's arm bunch and her body explodes forward, plunging to a crouch and slamming Kasugano with devastating, pavement-cracking force back-and-back-of-headfirst into the earth beneath Osaka. "SURRRYYYAAAAAA!!"
COMBATSYS: Asuka successfully hits Sakura with Rangetsu.
- Power hit! -
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Sakura 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0 Asuka
"HNGH"--that's about all Sakura gets out before she's grabbed, and, well, basically just slammed, headfirst, into Osaka. Her world literally explodes in pain--and, no small amount of blood. The impact splits the back of her head open, after all, slammed against the pavement. Actually, that's sort of a lie. She isn't actually feeling the pain yet. She doesn't just bounce, she bounces and flips onto her face. Not a -great- showing from the KOF champ, is it?
Only... she's getting up. That alone is probably worthy of noting, as the crack that sounded--and the crack that appeared in the asphalt--has already shocked the crowd into silence. Granted, she doesn't look good at all, her eyes basically unfocused... who can blame her for falling back on what she knows best, what she trained herself for? "Gnnhgh..." She shakes her head, and then those eyes, previously dull, snap back to life.
The surge of energy is immediate and powerful and instinctive in nature, as she wobbles on those Converse-clad feet... there's no shout this time, no cry of defiance, at least not one with words, as she compresses her hands together, then springs them apart...
This projectile is smaller than the 'large' hadouken earlier, perhaps about the size of her torso... but it -seethes- with compressed, barely-contained energy, seeming somehow much more solid and tangible than normal. Its passing crackles through the air as she throws it forward, wobbling...
COMBATSYS: Sakura has reached second wind!
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Sakura 0/-------/-<<<<<<|===----\-------\0 Asuka
COMBATSYS: Asuka blocks Sakura's Shinkuu Hadouken.
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Sakura 0/-------/-<<<<<<|=====--\-------\0 Asuka
Heavily scoured by the spirit-searing heat of Sakura's copious energies, Asuka remains hunkered in her offensive crouch following the blistering frontal assault. Her grip is relinquished - but she couldn't have kept control if she wanted to, her hand visibly shaking as it's withdrawn, hazel eyes faintly bloodshot as they track the other, more famous tomboy over and down once more. But in spite of these physical signs, the Kazama heiress doesn't seem weary as such, releasing a cooling outbreath and rising slowly to her feet as Kasugano remains down. A few murmurings in the crowd seem to indicate a victory for the hometown girl; murmurs she doesn't appreciate.
"It ain't over!" She utters sternly, stubborn stare lashing out sidelong before it returns to Sakura. "She's not done, you idiots." Stretching out her aching wrist, Asuka scuffs a foot forward, spreading her stance in certainty of what's to come. She's seen the Ansatsuken prodigy rise dozens of times from hits just as hard-- or at least near as dammit, and there's not a flicker of doubt in her mind she's about to face something else. Perhaps she finally earned her best? "C'mon, get up. I won't forgive if you--" It's primal, when it comes. Asuka grins.
There's no time to further cajole or offer excited welcome, save in the abrupt repositioning of her arms. In such close quarters, escaping the overwhelmingly powerful, throbbing wave would be a tall order. There's a brief window where she considers it, or perhaps again seeking to simply bull's-head her way through. But while Kazama may be a tough little spitfire, she's also not stupid; this one's bigger, so it hurts more. It's with that highly intellectual deduction that she decides to form up a curious variation on that earlier 'x' shaped guard, one arm held four or five inches before the other with both palms facing out as she digs into her heels...
And then ends up tearing vast furrows in the tarmac as she's driven back. Her arms begin to shake before even half the mighty fireball has dispersed, rolling over her to dissipate just before reaching the wide-eyed crowd. By the time she's weathered the fullness of the Shinkuu Hadouken, Asuka is gasping, copious chest heaving amidst the dissipating hurricane's vestigial fury, blue-white motes dancing in the air and light flashing in her vision. It's all she can do to push on, but she does, unspeaking but for the gleam in her eyes - the warrior's spirit saying a thousand words - as she breaks into a headlong lunge, spinning about as though to break out another big elbow--
"Hyah!"
Then, suddenly diverting. Her left leg swings out wide, the broad, toned muscles in calf and thigh bunching as the Osakan launches into a tight leap, taking her to the very edge of the audience's circle. Toward a lamp-post. Her right foot plants to the curve where the base narrows out, the left almost catching up in the instant it takes to activate a second leap, this one swinging wide and high to carry her into a soaring overhead arc. It's an acrobatic motion, unlike anything Asuka's used thus far, seeing her perform an aerial cartwheel to come crashing down footfirst, the rested left leading a two-step charge to the head and body - back or chest, if the first hits.
"HI-YA!!"
COMBATSYS: Sakura parries Asuka's Thunder Fall Kick!
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Sakura 0/-------/<<<<<<<|=====--\-------\0 Asuka
They may not be instantly-recognizable household names the world over, although arguably Sakura might have more cachet there than Ms. Asuka Kazama, the Fight Breaker, but this is, in its own way, a true Clash of Titans. Sakura is well-known for resilience and a 'never say die' factor that is both evident and intangible. Most, if not almost every, fighter of their age would not have just been put down by the potentially skull-cracking blow that Asuka laid on her--not even able to rise, much less to marshal their energies--but Sakura achieved her skill, her position, with audacity, poise, and courage. To this, she has added resolve, and that resolve burns brighter than any wildfire in her chest--and comes through in her eyes. She might have actually passed out for a moment, her body operating on instinct, but for now, that fire is deep in her...
... and as she follows Asuka's acrobatic move, with her eyes, her body briefly acquires the kind of stillness that Zen masters aspire to. It draws more murmurs and outright shouts from the crowd--most, certainly, on the side of the Hometown Hero, but a few admiring Sakura's pluck, one shouting, rather uselessly, "LOOK OUT!!!"
But Sakura doesn't need to. She moves with a swift precision that calls to mind the -true- Ansatsuken master, her idol and mentor, turning at the last moment and facing the cartwheeling Asuka. The first leg comes down... and Sakura catches it, in a rather neat outer-forearm block that literally parries it the way one sword-wielder might parry another's incoming strike, deflecting it off to the side. There's still the other leg to worry about, though, and Sakura takes care of that one in the same way--backing up to keep proper spacing, deflecting the other leg off with the other forearm.
And then we get to the same old song. Those who know Sakura know how hard she worked to perfect the Hadouken--and even so, it isn't necessarily -perfect-... but it is the one technique she's refined above all others. She has other moves, but few come as instinctively to her as any other, and she's -almost- close enough to touch Asuka as she flings her hands out in that classic pose. Almost, but not quite, so it's that sudden explosion of blue white--at this range, like a spherical fluorescent light bursting into dazzling, brief brilliance between the two--that'll do all the damage.
COMBATSYS: Sakura successfully hits Asuka with Medium Hadouken EX.
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Sakura 0/-------/---====|=======\==-----\1 Asuka
Hurling one's body into such a manouevre is draining and disorientating, to most; and even for a warrior of Asuka's apparent pedigree - outwardly obscure as she might be - the sheer brilliance behind Sakura's deflecting motions guarantees her options are limited. It's all she can reasonably do to land with both legs steady upon the ground, hazel eyes momentarily obscured by a sweep of dishevelled bangs as she keeps her gaze focused askance on the rising gleam of the fourth iteration of that legendary technique. It's getting hard to spot the difference now, to a relative neophyte in the art of chi, and the Kazama girl hears her own, inner voice simply scream...
Move. Just get the hell out of there. You can't handle this!
Grumbling out a long-suffering, 'okay, okay' to her alarmed other self, the Osakan starts to spring backward as she has in fact done a thousand times from the same technique. The Thunder Fall Kick is designed to be more challenging for her opponents than her, the acrobatics concealing a deft rebound at their finale, generally keeping her from the immediate possibility of countering harm. Here, though-- well, she's just outmatched. Cerulean blaze erupts across her front and flank, pitching her into a wild spin with an honest-to-goodness cry of pain and alarm, the mounted damage over the course of this impromptu battle finally overpowering her natural grit.
When Asuka comes around, she's not entirely sure where she is-- until a couple of supporting hands reach out to push her upright and slap upon her shoulders. A grimace becomes a grin, and she realizes in this moment she only needs to know one thing; where her famously tenacious /opponent/ is. A hand quickly rises to throw the hair from her face, but in the same movement the other is rising to hover a guard, and her legs are pumping to throw her back into the fray. Once more she finds herself lunging through the dissipating blue-white energy of an Hadouken, and now she attempts to draw on that energy, using it to sense not just the girl who threw it...
But to penetrate through to her very centre. Asuka may not harness chi in the same manner, but she's spent endless hours meditating, and drawing her own internal power to a wellspring maelstrom at the core. She's aware that she uses chi in a different way, and she can feel it in others.
At least enough to guide her when she enters a short, hopping lunge through what remains of Sakura's technique, arms throwing it aside like curtains - along with her own pain - before clapping together just before that hidden fountain just beneath the abdominals. Unlike the more direct, unrelentingly forthright blows she has thrown thus far, this one possesses a bit of subtlety; though it still comes out in a forward rush, one final smaller step carrying her under the other girl's guard as she seeks to drive her right palmheel through to that located centre. The other remains behind it, bracing, acting as guide for the additional, deceptive power that shudders forth.
"Gotcha," she adds by way of an oddly calm kiai, a crooked smile pulling her mouth aside as she strikes.
But it's half a prayer, because even as she plunges in, she can't be entirely sure. Kasugano's good.
COMBATSYS: Sakura instinctively dodges Asuka's Inner Strength.
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Sakura 0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1 Asuka
Sakura can take a hit--but so can Asuka. That Osakan girl comes plowing -right- back and Sakura, having just recently tasted just how hard the girl can hit, wants no part of it. Her feet are moving before she really thinks about it, acting with that unnatural precision that isn't her hallmark--yet. She waits until the last minute, then, just as Asuka closes in--at the *very* last moment before Asuka's thrusting palms would make contact with her body--Kasugano hops back.
It isn't a far hop--not some wild 'GET AWAY!' jump. It's just enough to keep her out of Asuka's strike, and as her feet land, she already knows what she's going to do. Her body weight is already shifting, her feet moving to apply pressure and friction and momentum in the proper direction... her right hand, curled into a small, surprisingly potent fist, dropping to waist level as she takes a single step forward, re-closing that distance...
...and then, Sakura's legs propel her forward and up in a leap as she brings that right hand up in a classic, jumping, rising uppercut, one that might make her try to barrel right through the Osakan's position if she doesn't move, or get hit.
It isn't a -perfect- repliation--actually far from it--but this shortened version of the Shou'ou Ken--not shouted because Sakura is, quite simply, Just Too Tired--is actually far closer to the mark than some of her previous efforts. It has pep, spark, and economy of motion.
Truth be told, Sakura kind of likes her own little variation on it--she might not try to 'fix' it all that much, and besides, it's ingrained now...
COMBATSYS: Asuka fails to counter Shou'ou Ken from Sakura with Wild River Rush.
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Sakura 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Asuka can no longer fight.
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Sakura 0/-------/---====|
There's another thing they share. A knowledge that Important Lessons (tm) never stop coming, in the world of fighting; and while Asuka may only be taking her first steps into a world beyond these rabble-thronged streets, her attunement to and awareness of her own abilities and limitations is only a little less astute. Like the girl that Kasugano was just a few short years ago, she still possesses a slightly inflated view of her competence - in relation to those around her, it's almost natural - but she can tell well enough when an opponent has an edge.
In this case, it's experience and the adaptability that comes with it. Where Asuka has observed and placed an assumptive pinpoint into the map of battle, attempting to trace the lingering energies of those sequential fireballs to their source and systematically attack that point, Sakura remains loose and free in her tactical estimations. That evasion almost seems easy to the eyes of another, and what follows effortless. They're in such brutal proximity now that the brash Osakan reacts by similar instinct, but without the same well-honed awareness, snapping her striking hands up, palms shifting apart in a barely misplaced grapple attempt.
It's not poorly judged - one hand finds the crook of Sakura's elbow even as the other misses its firm grip upon the wrist, the strike sweeping past en route to her chin. Where the other might see a shrugworthy flaw in her ingrained technique, Asuka momentarily sees the genius of it; like her own style, this modified Ansatsuken makes no beef about the identity and preferences of its mistress, and that may be Sakura's greatest strength. It's honest. It's genuine. "Heh." It's the oddest sound to hear from someone being struck firmly in the jaw, but as Asuka's head snaps to one side and she's half-thrown and half-spun back through the night air, she's actually smiling. She knows how damnably close the fight was, how close it might always be between them...
And she's learned something, too.
Once she hits the floor, air exploding from her lungs and eyes wide with the shock of impact, she feels nothing but absolute satisfaction. There's always a lingering disappointment in knowing the body won't fight any more - though it is, in fact, a rare feeling for her - but it just seems to sweep away on her namesake river, as she stares up at the skies of her hometown, breathing quick and shallow, chest heaving beneath her little black shirt. The crowd is alternately cheering and grumbling at one another as bets are cashed in and friendly rebukes offered; surely a few will hang around for autographs from the former King of Fighters, but they're so much background to Asuka Kazama as she lies there. She said it earlier, that 'home is where the heart is', and right now, in every way, she feels at home. She feels comfortable. Apart from, y'know, the pain. Pfft. Pain doesn't hurt.
"Damn," she says at last, smile bubbling to a fiercely-amused little grin. "That's how you advertise."
She doesn't know the half of it; those flyers, stashed so carefully in her back pocket, now lie strewn around her.
There's a moment, a fierce thrill of joy as Sakura lands that uppercut--not because she's hurt another person, but the sheer joy of having completed her attack successfully. There are very few people that Sakura -enjoys- hurting, and none of them live in Osaka, to the best of her knowledge. Sakura ends up turning a full three-sixty after that leaping uppercut, landing in almost lazy fashion--and then, as pain and exhaustion hit her all at once, filling the gap left by the outrushing fade of adrenaline as it subsides, she stumbles. But... she does not go down. Though it's a near thing, to be sure.
She makes her way over to the Fight Breaker... and offers a hand up. "That was spectacular," she says, the pain fading away now, endorphins--a 'fighter's high'--blunting that edge, though it doesn't do much for the fatigue, and making her sound a little giddy.
"When you slammed my head into the pavement I really thought I might die! I haven't been hit like that since the last time Ryu showed me how to do the Shin Shoryuken!" ... by punching her in the chin and the stomach with that legendary move.
Seems she's got a hard head, though, and the head wound probably looks worse than it was, already having closed up some (and, thanks to her relatively dark hair, being less-than-fully noticeable). If she's allowed, she'll haul Asuka up to her feet and offer another grin.
"That was a lot of fun. Way better than what I had planned!" ... which is probably either a) nothing or b) trick some gangsters into thinking she was easy prey and beating them up or c) finding an arcade. "Kazama-style Martial Arts, huh? I bet I'll be seeing more of them, soon." This fight, win or lose, had to be pretty good advertising, after all.
When Sakura's hand hovers into view, pale against the neon-faded stars, there's a moment where Asuka just sort of stares at it with a relaxed kind of surprise. Like a monk wandering down from a remote mountainside to encounter civilization for the first time in many years. Her face says: 'Oh, a hand.'
And then her brain reminds her where she is, and what was just occurring. That amused grin calmed to a pleasant smirk, she reaches up and accepts the grip, grunting a little as she's pulled upright, body response slowed by the rigours of battle but buoyed just enough by adrenaline - those same thudding endorphins Sakura is subsisting on - she's able to make her footing without too much trouble. Puffing out her cheeks, she takes a few to unmuss her hair and smooth out her top before flashing the Ansatsuken prodigy a big ol' smile.
"The spirit of Kazama-style," she echoes from earlier, "May be to stop fights, but usually the only way y'can do that is to hit /harder/. Haven't got much answer for that crazy fireball stuff, though." Her nose wrinkles at that, as she recalls the explosive, distinctly un-flamelike warmth of eating those heavy cerulean orbs. Plowing through them did her right once, but they're fast AND powerful. "I mean, those are the breaks, right? When you're as good as we are, everything hurts, it's just about who stays on their feet long enough to pull through. I'm glad it was you, though; hate to be torn apart by all your fans in my own frickin' town."
Her sidelong glance to the people gradually beginning to mill away carries an air of chagrin along with the almost palpable pride the Kazama heiress clearly feels for her native environment. It's a pretty shitty area, really, but she stands amidst it like it were her personal palace.
"You can bet you'll be seein' my style again, though!!" Her passion flares as she looks back to Sakura, hazel eyes gleaming in a way not at all suggestive of a lingering concussion from that last, perfectly-timed blow. "But just to make sure, here..." Breaking off, she drops down to a crouch and rifles through the papery rubble at her feet for one of the flyers that has yet to escape on the Osakan breeze, hoisting up one that's in pretty good shape for having fifty six kilos of tomboy strewn across it. "Not sure I could take a beating like that /every/ day, but if you'd turn up even once it'd be, like, an honour to me and my students. Y'know, if you have time n' stuff."
Turning a bit bashful at that, she reaches with her other hand to rub at the back of her neck, grin quirking.
"Otherwise, uh, I'll see you at the next big tournament? You've inspired me, Sakura Kasugano."
That admission is accompanied by an even more awkward shrug, as though telling someone they're an inspiration instead of a useless idiot who deserves to get their head beat takes a fair materialization of effort. Which it probably does. Her expression softens anyway, in the moment before she withdraws the hand hopefully now sans flyer and flips off a quick, casual salute to the world's foremost fighting schoolgirl. Unless she's stopped, that seems to be all, a slightly wobbly turn seeing the Osakan start off back down the road to a whole heap o' warm rice and an even cosier, much-needed bed for the night. Oh, though en route she does stop to scoop up her fallen cap.
They may have a lot in common, but fashion may be the one place they differ. Though a certain insane blonde is sure to disagree.
Log created on 20:35:34 07/12/2012 by Sakura, and last modified on 23:31:38 07/23/2012.