Description: Making good on her promise to come by the Kyokugen Dojo at 8 AM following that ill-fated fight for her hero and inspiration, Asuka Kazama decides the best way to try and get the downtrodden world hero Howard Rust back up to speed is to outright insult himself and Kyokugen in general to start a fight. Does she find what she wants to find in the following conflict, or do some things end up going a little too far...?
Howard Rust didn't really have long to rest between that evening and the next morning. Not from nightmares or frights or what have you, he's just... sore. He generally always is, but there's a certain soreness in his very soul. The sort you see when you wake up and look in the mirror and stare for maybe fifteen minutes longer than you should. The sort while you drag your feet even after you have some of your favorite coffee.
He's at the dojo as early as always... mostly in time for Marco to have to fight off militant zookeepers on the other end of town (long story), for Ryo to be out on a mountain trip with Robert, and who knows what the hell Takuma is even doing right now beyond leaving a mysterious note on their household fridge that the radiator needs fixing.
Beyond doing some of the usual (ludicrous) exercise routines, it is an uncharacteristically free morning and the white belts don't have class until the afternoon that he's going to have to oversee in lieu of a proper instructor on the grounds.
The TV - left on, for whatever reason while Howard checks the radiator on the opposite end of the household - blares its message loudly.
"This is Samuel Berkinson, Fight Network News. With recent infighting and dismemberments located in and around Southtown, Questions begin to arise. Who is there to stop it? One used to think we could rely on strong backs like Terry Bogard or Rock Howard to help shoulder the burden of the problems we've undoubtedly had these last few trying years. Needless to say, however, they have not been there. What can be said, however, is that Southtown-- No, all of Japan needs someone to call a hero."
The older man grunts as the program goes on. Talk about this masked lady or whatever being a hero, the hero the world needs for beating a bunch of really unskilled thugs. It's distracting! Is this a show advertisement, or...
"Fight... News... Network," he murmurs aloud as the segment ends. "That's... that's on actual news?" What the heck does it mean about evils encroaching on Southtown? There was that nasty shootout some time back, but things didn't look like they were getting any worse than usual... were they? Rubbing the back of his head, his eyes look to the very time.
It is, in fact, 8 in the morning. What was so special about that ti-- oh yeah. Crap, if I don't get to the front before she gets here, it runs through his mind as he stumbles up to his feet and makes for the door to get back to the open grounds. He looks especially sloppy today, that puke-worthy purple hairpiece and all, like the sort of man that really needed to take a day off.
Maybe a week.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Whilst the unlikely hero of several wars basks in the uncertain lull of the morning's dwindled chaos, a presence is fast approaching the grounds of the Kyokugen Dojo. If Southtown is indeed stricken by a terrible evil, trapped in the throes of a black future descending, then the innocent bystanders afflicted by this travelling force of nature might well believe the beast to be upon them. Heavy footfalls follow one another like falling thunder, throwing up the dirt of dew-touched street, the morning's sun bringing a warmth that's nothing...
...as to the furious heat of Asuka Kazama. The brash Osakan is running late, as it happens, that brow-quirking news report well on its way off the airwaves and Rust's eye lingering toward the clock as she rounds a corner at a loping sprint, arms pumping and the light gleaming off her electric blue bodysuit. She's clad for action, of course; and what better for action than high-cut shorts and a zip pulled down past the taut flesh of her navel?
Nothing, that's what. Eminently practical as she is, however, the girl *is* running late on her own schedule, drawing tight gasps of cool air as she quickens her step. Stompstompstompstomp, she makes rapid progress toward the looming sprawl of the dojo, her dark hair plastered to her forehead by budding beads of sweat, hazel eyes frantic as she strives for the all-important first... well, third... impression she won't admit to being so keen to make. It's a race against time on both sides, a daredevil dash against the clock, victory to be claimed--
--by neither. She skids to a halt, left hand upon her left knee and heaving breaths in the same instant that the beleaguered bearer of the loathed toupee finds his way out of the door and onto the grounds. Her wild gaze finds him quickly, widening...
And Asuka draws herself up, the weary panic falling away like water from slick feathers, turning side-on as she thrusts forth a gloved hand, a finger extending in a dramatic, demanding point.
"I told you," she yells, setting a flock of birds to rapid flight from the roof of the Kyokugen dojo, "Not to be late!"
Don't tell me she's been actually standing outside the last fifteen minutes or something, he fears. Fears that draw back to those of harrowing meetings back when he was a part of the Pacific High school faculty where a meeting generally meant nothing good was about to go down, in a school system where he was pretty much the bottom of the pecking order among his co-workers.
He almost fears this is true when he first sees her form - that hair, those clothes - but the way she's catching her breath before she just points a finger at him in an accusatory manner.
"H-Hey, I was... I was here since, like six!" He raises his hands up defensively. This one's not him! This time this one's not him! Even if he really ought to have been visible on the grounds as to, say, prevent her from just tearing through what few students are around in search of him.
"Uh, anyway," he clears his throat and coughs a few times. He's not really looking that much better from last night - he's still got a few bandages here and there, "welcome to the Kyokugen Dojo, it's, ah, well, Sakazakis aren't here... the, uh, the senior instructor Marco's somewhere," he's not actually terribly clear on those details as he rolls one of his shoulders to get a kink out. By God, that is a kink. It's loud and disconcerting! He probably slept on it very funny. "So, ah, I guess I'm the, well, the guy in charge for now, and... uh, you see,"
He takes in a deep breath and claps his hands together, standing up straight and at least trying to put on the air of being someone who is not just completely and totally out of it. It's a new day, right? "Guess I'm... here."
He didn't need to say that, of course he is here.
"I, I would show you a tour of classes and such, but, since everyone who leads classes are, uh, out," and that's too bad because a lot of the advanced classes happen in the morning, "don't think there's... really much I could share," he looks around to see if there's anyone within shouting distance - maybe those that milled about the grounds are already just getting ready to pack it up and head off in absentia of any real classes.
Squint. There's a moment when Rust begins to protest that Asuka appears set to continue her tirade, the pointing hand stilling dangerously as she considers putting it to use-- and even if they're many yards apart, she's confident enough in her abilities to clearly believe she could do this. A short skirmish is waged between warring sides in those hazel eyes, and then she lowers her hand with a 'hmph', fingers coiling loosely in and out of her palm as she flicks out her wrist. Her stare remains accusatory, but she's notably more relaxed around it; a truce, then.
Her other hand lifts to run through the matted strands of her fine brown hair, the tomboy turning to face her fallen hero as he addresses her. An eyebrow curves slightly, her expression otherwise softening to something approaching neutral as she self- and somewhat sub-consciously rearranges her appearance.
When he's done, so is she, her hair still appearing mussed - but in the lawfully chaotic fashion of quietly vainglorious tomboy's the world over. The process for her involves no clicking, groaning or other form of difficulty, and yet she doesn't exactly seem settled. Her hands shift toward her midriff as she just stands there, silently, looking Rust straight in the eyes.
It's a silence some would call awkward. But it's more like the calm before the storm.
Then there's a loud *crack* and a series of smaller pops.
"Right," comes the surprisingly cool tone from the Osakan as she works on her second set of knuckles, her lips tugging up on one side to bear teeth in a dangerously relaxed grin. "You've got nothing to share, can't win one little fight, and don't even remember your own name." Suddenly, her eyes narrow. "So why are you here, huh?"
There's an almost sly confidence in her tone now, and she lowers her hands with a loose roll of her shoulders, starting to step forward, those heavy, garish boots she's wearing clump-clumping on old, crumbling stone as she approaches Rust. She's tiny, really, by comparison to the broke-backed hero; and when she stands before him, she's looking up in a way that suggests only through the cocksure certainty of youth she's not out of her depth. Nobody looking on, listening in, could possibly...
"I'll tell you why, and there's another thing you got wrong."
...believe what she says next.
"*I'm* the one in charge. Today's class starts just as soon as you tell me where to set up an asskicking. Mine or yours," her gaze takes on a bright shine now, the building excitement plain in the set of her shoulders and the faint twitch of youthful lips, "Doesn't matter. It's time you remembered who you are."
Now that he thinks about it, maybe he could've disguised a historical tour as an attempt to finally figure out where the hell Robert keeps the tapes that Howard lent him and never got back when she starts dropping a derisive tone of voice on him (again). Can't win one little fight, don't even remember his... name?
"Name? Uh, it's me, Howard R--" He murmurs out his protest to this accusation, nonplussed as to where she bases this particular assertion and unaware of that little faux pas with the autograph book. He looks the part of a truly confused man, ready to be walked over given the slight slumping of his shoulders.
Being intimidated and pushed around by a small girl wearing maybe a bit too little, again.
"What?!" He suddenly speaks up when she mentions she's the one in charge. "No, no," he waves a finger, progressively raising his voice, "y-you're not in charge of, of anything here," oh my god if she said this in earshot of the likes of Takuma or Marco he could hear them tearing through and beating the piss out of them.
"Look, if you just, just wanted some spar thing goin', you could've said," but is he really in the shape for that? It's always kind of easy to count Howard out just by looking at him, the way his joints pop, the certain sluggishness of what is fatigue or injury or some combination thereof. He does not look the part of a man who is a brown belt in Kyokugen (who, for some reason, decides to try and wear a toolbelt with this too - fighter fashion is weird).
"Y'know, I'd, I'd like to think I'm kinda, well, tolerant," he says as he takes a step back towards the concrete lot, "but at this point, you're insulting the god damn school, and, well, that's not something any of us here, any of us here tolerate." As if there really is anyone else to this 'any of us here' business.
"Look, I know I wasn't in, in top form last night, or," or try the last month or two, "or that maybe that, that I'm not some kinda friggin' super rich TV guy like... like Eagle, or Ken, or... or Dudley," all famous names of highly successful fighters who have made and/or maintained fortunes through organized fighting (and generally decent people, though it's been said Eagle can be pretty difficult to work with) - is that a hint of envy in his voice?
"I, I don't know what it is but I'm not about to just... just stand here and be insulted at my, my /job/," he points to himself, and then to her, "to someone who thinks they know it better, I, I've had enough of that!"
Suddenly, there's a finger before her own face. For a moment once it extends, the tomboy goes cross-eyed, her carefully-composed demeanour falling into silly parody as she follows the waving digit. A rapid blink, an even quicker shake of her head, and she's looking past it back to the aging warrior's face; if very much NOT the toupee atop it, ugh ugh ugh.
Stunned shock turns to indignation, hazel eyes wide and mouth a faint scowl through the opening tirade, the former narrowing and the latter forming a hard line once he starts making excuses again. But once he reaches the culmination, when he finally stands up for himself, everything seems to fall away.
For a second or three, she's just the little girl desperate to see all that's good in the world, and prevent all that's bad. Meeting her hero and being so bitterly disappointed. For a second or two she might be no bigger than she appears. For a second, the beginnings of a shy, innocently-pleased smile touch her lips.
"There he is," she murmurs, almost softly, almost affectionately - insofar as Asuka Kazama thus far appears to be capable of expressing anything so tender. It doesn't last. A beat later her mouth is wide open and she's leaping backward, landing on legs spread in something approaching a fighting stance. But whilst one hand hovers ready just above her hip, the other is thrust forth again; her own finger returned to the point.
"The man who doesn't just stand there while bad things happen, the man who *stands up* for what he believes in! Well, Howard Rust, I've got one more bit of news for ya..." Her speech is back to that casual slur now, the cold, cool and calculating confidence of a sly would-be teacher countermanded by the brash and bolshy Osakan. "Asuka Kazama - Fight Breaker!!" You can actually hear the exclamation marks, loud and clear. "Challenges you for the honour of Kyokugen! If you don't wanna be insulted..."
Her hand drops, and she pulls it back along with the other, a sharp grunt elicited from the contraction of powerful muscles. One remains open before her in vertical profile, the other pulled back in readiness to strike. Her posture lowers until she sits in a horse stance variation, power rippling subtly around her.
"You'd better shut me up before I do it again!!"
COMBATSYS: Asuka has started a fight here.
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Asuka 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Rust has joined the fight here.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Asuka
Asuka may appear pleased with this development, but Howard over there has all the makings of a man upset. Furrowed brow, slightly bared teeth. Like the years of build-up of having to endure young girls talking down to him about just about every facet of life he's pretty sure they can't speak from experience (and then beat him up). Even as she recites all the things about him that she - and so many others - look up to him for, his right hand goes to the makeshift hilt of Ol' Rusty.
It proves difficult to coax to get out of its little toolbelt pocket slash sheath-hole. It is as though it has decided it really doesn't want to come out and be swung - for that given moment of standing up for oneself, it's almost comical to watch him struggle to get the thing loose while Asuka proudly declares it's the challenge for the honor of the Kyokugen school. (Does Kyokugen use pipes in general like him? No, they don't, and yet...)
One hard tug later, Rust spins about on one heel in an attempt to keep from losing balance with that tug, bringing down his other foot as his own stance lowers with a visible forward lean, raised left forearm, and the pipe pointed down and back.
"Keep talking like that, and," and what? He doesn't finish his sentence. Asuka could probably identify all sorts of things wrong with the man's stance. To say nothing of what parts of his body look especially good for doing nasty things to. Heck, one of his knees suddenly creaks a bit as if to say 'hey, hit me, I want to get a big payoff on an insurance scam!' Naughty knee.
He points Ol' Rusty at her once in order to gauge the distance between the two of them, how far up he'd have to move to be in swinging range, taking some steps forward to be more proactive with this particular fact. Howard does not have great foot speed, and this could well work against him with Asuka's eager anticipation as he moves in.
He finally swings the pipe, perhaps telegraphing the blow as he takes it in both hands, but there is a small hitch to it when it gets close enough to Asuka - he tries to hook it into her clothing somewhere instead of actually striking her with it, possibly by the belt, to try and lift her up and toss her into the stone around where he stands.
This part admittedly is not quite a Kyokugen technique unto itself - his own touches he's kept?
COMBATSYS: Asuka counters Wrecking Ball Swing from Rust with Falling Rain.
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Rust 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Asuka
Apparent weak spots are certainly there to be targeted, in Rust's case even by an amateur; a white belt taking their second or third class could spot the tells a mile off, or perhaps even a complete stranger to any formal training. A generic thug. But how many of his fights has Asuka Kazama seen? How much has she studied? Certainly enough to know that all is not as it seems with a man like Howard Rust, that the creaking body belies a spirit whose endurance is far beyond. If he wants it to be.
It's that passion she's attempting to stir, and she sees it in the approach - the stance is awful, ridiculous even, before he charges. His route toward her is a lumbering and predictable one, but she can feel that subtle, nearly ineffable shift in his energies; below the surface as above, he's neither acting nor thinking like he was. He's not trying to impress her.
He's not trying to apologize to her.
The brash Osakan sinks her stance just a half-inch deeper as Rust closes upon her, hazel eyes watching not the pipe but the man behind it, the 'strike' viewed in her periphery because it's never, ever the point. To focus on each hit alone is to miss the point; a battle is fought within as without. An opponent tells not through the melodrama of his wider movements. Through himself. And by the same token, that's what she needs to do.
Her leading hand shifts wide as though to parry the pipe, but misses by a clear foot as she thrusts herself forward and upward, twisting from the hip to present her flank and shoulder toward Rust's gut. Beyond the hooking range of the pipe she explodes, her trailing arm only then reaching the point of his weapon just above his own grip. Hazel eyes watch the clear space before her; at such proximity she can feel him, feel his true weaknesses. She doesn't need to see him to close her grasp, sink her shoulder against him and bring him sailing clear over her head.
His impact is hard enough to shatter stone, and it does, those creaking joints treated to a less-than-therapeutic impact with the path leading to the Kyokugen Dojo. Brickwork cracks and explodes into cloying dust, as Asuka sinks back into the same horselike stance from whence she came, drawing a slow breath.
"I'm done talking," she says, voice hard yet quiet. "Get up."
Go through him.'"
Howard has never fought a Kazama before. He's heard the name in passing, but never really got to experience what it is that gives her the name 'Fight Breaker.' One might actually contemplate - were they not en-route to the ground at such a worrying speed - as to whether that's a bit of an Engrish title, does it mean she's the one who breaks out the fights, breaks them up?
...That'll probably come to mind later, when one is not at threat of being embedded into the very brick to a halo of dust and grime as the man exhales loudly a second time. When's the first? When he got shoulder checked. He somehow managed to get the breath knocked out of him twice in quick succession - he's either good at holding in breath, managed to get a quick breath in transit to the ground, or was simply struck so hard the body had to make up air in his lungs for him to exhale again.
There should be no such biological uncertainties about being able to suck in air to make a low, grumbling string of incomprehensible consonants. (His knee faces the disappointment that it can't yet go through its plan for insurance fraud.)
Sucking in air, the aging man does not have the recovery speed some of his peers do - even considering the force of that impact - as he pulls himself up to a short hop to swing one leg out in a textbook kick. Asuka may or may not recognize it as the sort of kick that one sees at the very end of Ryo's famous Hien Shippu Kyaku. Usually such a thing is led with another kick first...
There's a second, similar kick followup as he spins in the air, the momentum actually carrying him slightly backwards with the kick - something to put the two of them back into more pipe-friendly range. He doesn't have quite much regard for whether or not she's actually still near him after that sequence that ended up with him on the ground so much as it is a cover for him to reposition by all appearances.
"'m done listening," he murmurs out almost inaudibly.
COMBATSYS: Asuka blocks Rust's Girder Sway.
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Rust 0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0 Asuka
The trouble with textbooks, in this context, is...
Well, Asuka's actually read most of them. For all her loudmouthed, reckless ways and the hypocritical confrontations she forces with those who fail to meet her unfairly high standards of expectation in the world, she is - by point of fact - nigh-scholarly in her pursuit of martial perfection. She takes her teaching every bit as seriously as Rust does, and while she could do with admitting she has a great deal more to learn, she's so very almost good enough to account for the worst parts of her attitude. Indeed; she's done talking, *and* she's not 'all talk'.
"Good."
The single syllable comes harshly thudding in the wake of a fluid one-two defensive action, the sunken-stanced tomboy's lead hand batting the opening hop-kick away rather dismissively - though with the controlled air of a master in the making. The second meets a spin of her own, in a beautiful tandem with Rust's motions, her arm flying high to intercept the attack not at the intended point of impact, but partway down. His rebound may be less controlled than intended, because she intends to keep control for herself. She's moving even as she replies verbally.
There's no cry, no fierce kiai, nothing but the clump of her boots and the rush of air about her otherwise surprisingly graceful movements. Pipe range be damned, she's closing *fast* to get within range of her previously-chambered palm. The wrapping about her gloves ripples in the summoned winds before her strike, bound for Rust's solar plexus as the other lifts instinctively to bend an elbow beside her head, covering fore and above.
Asuka's a little reckless, sure, but she doesn't leave many openings. She's more about creating them; and the driving force behind the rigid flesh of her palm promises power, perhaps, to rival the former construction worker's own.
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Asuka's Fierce Punch.
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Rust 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Asuka
The blocking sequence does wonders to minimize the amount of 'spring' he gets, forcing him down to a surprisingly graceful kneel a little closer than he might have wanted. Even if he did make good on a clean hit, she may well be closing in fast enough that the intended distance he meant to put between them would be rendered moot in a flash.
"Kff," a weird grunt comes both from one pop in his knee and that feeling in his lungs that he really needs to cough. That palm might be almost welcome in this regard if he were possibly choking on something.
He pivots to put his left side in front, meeting her palm with his left elbow, the smacking of gloved flesh against tired, overworked elbow surprisingly loud as a smack, the man's lips shut tight and eyes slightly wider. The pause this affords is exceedingly brief - moment of hesitation, or a great sting?
Moving to intercept what he thinks is about to be a second punch, he flexes out his left forearm to try and take her currently extended arm and throw it up and back to try and put her off balance before hooking one of his legs outward to try and pull her heel out from under her if he gets that chance.
Based on her closing speed and ferocity, there really aren't many chances for him to 'get' other than to sit there and try to just take it which... doesn't win fights alone.
COMBATSYS: Asuka endures Rust's Quick Throw.
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Rust 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Asuka
Holding true to her promise, Asuka barely makes a sound through the sequence which follows. Rust's technicality is met by a display of her own, the propulsion of her forearm succeeding - and, indeed, causing her to dramatically shift her point of balance in order to adapt and move. His foot finds its placement too, but she's just a little too well-arranged when the sweep occurs, a looseness in her frame that may tell the experienced older fighter what's coming. Or at least that *something* is.
"Hup..." It's the only sound she makes, an almost childlike little exhalation made with a subconscious jubilant thrill that her counter-manuever succeeds. It comes as she goes down, the vibrant logo upon the back of her electric blue bodysuit throwing up more dust from the crate once occupied by Rust, but the admittedly-hefty collision giving way immediately to a backward roll. It's tight, controlled, and carries her just out of striking distance-- at least her own, pipe notwithstanding.
Hazel eyes rapidly focus upon the centre of her target, if not the point she attacks a beat later, a deceptively-wild twist of her crouched frame carrying another rush of winds and more of that bestirred dust. It rises about her lithe form in a stinging cloud as she spins into a leap, kicking her legs above to enter a no-handed cartwheel a half foot above the cobblestones.
If he's able to keep his eye on the birdie - that is, the heel of her leading boot - he'll see it come down to strike a grazing blow across the face, making way for the second blow, carrying the greater momentum as the first claps toward the ground. Another one-two, this time the final impact driving toward his chest, forcing him down, placing pressure on those knees.
And bringing him back into a stance, her arms shifting seamlessly to a relaxed, open guard.
COMBATSYS: Rust attempts to interrupt Thunder Fall Kick from Asuka with Cement Upper.
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Rust 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Asuka
Rust doesn't rest on his laurels with the foot sweep seeming to make (soon to be very fleeting) success, his form taking a slightly lower crouch as he draws his foot back and his right arm drawing back ever so slightly, tantalizingly so. He's moving to follow it up as Asuka seems to fall into more preferable piping position, his fingers on his right hand flexing a bit as if to re-assert their grip on Ol' Rusty. It's not always a sure thing that his grip is true, not after the Southtown Invasion of 2009.
She springs up. It's by his very reflex that Ol' Rusty starts being swung upwards, the tip scraping the ground hard enough to cause sparks to visibly fly out as he moves to throw his right side forward into the young woman who's already sprung into decisive action.
In Howard's case, he tries to take advantage of the fact he is grounded, with full traction as he stands up a bit straighter while the pipe starts to swing upward while she very briefly takes leave of the Earth. It's the trademark advancing uppercut-like swing of Ol' Rusty, the very move Asuka has probably heard plenty about in her idolizing binges of the older man. The Cement Upper.
Two bodies come in contact with one another. At the very moment the grazing blow comes across his face slightly heavier than intended due to his movement into it, the pipe's about to collide with Asuka. As his head turns a bit to the side with the first strike, it comes down to a matter of very tiny fractions of a second that might determine whether he's too late to stop the second kick, or if the impending pipe diverts her body's momentum just enough to spare him from another taste of the Kyokugen grounds - even in a best case scenario where her maneuver is mostly redirected, he's probably looking at that second kick grazing him too.
It's one of those moments that organized fights and their recording crews would kill to capture on film, to see the exchange in slow motion.
COMBATSYS: Asuka fails to reverse Cement Upper from Rust with Sweep Throw.
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Rust 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Asuka
Cameras would flash, the crowd would roar; but this isn't a battle taking place in a glitzy arena, captured on pay-per-view for the world to see. Watched perhaps by only a handful of the Kyokugen students willing to play wayward from their other duties, Rust drives himself forth to bat his tormentor from the air. Heels over head, and flying through the air - albeit with controlled grace - it's all Asuka can do to even realize what's coming. It was always a risk, but perhaps...
In that tiny fraction of a second, her hands - held close to her body for balance and to offer at least some semblance of guard during the daredevil manuever - shift into proximity with the striking head of Ol' Rusty, pale flesh catching in the firefly flicker of raised sparks. Hazel eyes narrow as she continues her fall, but the second strike suddenly curves inward with a shifting in posture, her body seeking not to use that momentum to drive home the planned kick--
But to coil around the pipe, and the arm holding it. It's a gambit the tomboy knows could backfire, and as the snapshot passes she almost thinks she's got it, beginning to flex her spine in preparation for the flood of holds that follow...
Which is when her world explodes into a rush of black and red, the breath leaving her lungs and her ready back hitting the ground several feet away as she's propelled away by the counter-strike. She can see stars, and hear nothing but a caterwauling cacophony of pounding blood. It's all she can do to tumble off one shoulder, grit and stone scuffing open wounds on the bare flesh of her arm as she uses it to fumble herself to a crouch.
And there she waits panting, hands hovering before her and muscles aquiver, frantically readying herself to defend again. They're done talking, so she doesn't; but her gaze says it all, the batting of eyelids expressing less shock than an odd, pained pleasure. This is what she wanted. This is what she came for.
Where cameras lust for every moment, every visceral visual, Asuka Kazama would bottle the feeling of facing a true, honourable opponent if she could. Let alone a man she thought to be a hero. It's a question oft asked, why does one fight?
She fights for justice, she fights - ultimately - for peace.
But she also fights to feel inspired. The air seems to crackle.
It hurts, but it's *good*. She's got what she wanted.
The slightly better purchase than expected or intended on the first kick aside, Howard doesn't miss a beat in steadying himself. Ol' Rusty gets a showy spin between his fingers that is more a side effect of him nearly losing his grip after such a hit and the near-fumbling of his attempt to just not drop it outright. As Asuka's admiration and seeming joy at fighting an opponent empowers her desire to keep fighting, admiration of a man to help guide her forth in her own fights for justice, it begs the question.
What is this man fighting for, in so much that he could so easily slip and lose against opponents he probably should have the upper hand on? What is the secret? (It is probably not that thing on his head.) Why is it that he seems so able and capable now, when the fight he put up with Lucia the evening before was particularly... sad?
If Howard has any idea, he's not saying. Taking in a breath, it's hard to get a read on what it is he might be viewing before him - there isn't a smile. His eyes are generally nondescript to begin with, beyond the squint. Weighing the options between holding back or pushing forward while she benefits from the added time to reassert herself in those seconds spent making up his mind, it seems his answer is to in fact move in again with that same slow gait. One of his knees pop loudly again in protest of him moving so quickly (by his standards).
Boots kicking up more dust into the air, he moves in with a backhand swing of Ol' Rusty as he closes in towards Asuka's arm's reach, lowering his pipe-wielding arm if undeterred to draw in ever closer and then thrust it forward into her chest to keep trying to push her back.
COMBATSYS: Asuka blocks Rust's Power Pipe.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Asuka
"C'mon."
It's barely a mutter, and certainly not delivered with the fierce urging that identifies a taunt or even a desire for violence. Despite the naturally brash inclination of Asuka's tone and the wavering brightness in her faintly bloodshot eyes, the slurred portmanteau is embodied, ultimately, with better intentions. Rust gives little away - beyond the fact that he's undeniably, absolutely Howard Rust - that much is true. But she's sensitive to rhythms and patterns beneath the veil of the gaze alone.
Something is surfacing, and she wants to coax it out. Even needs to. That momentary joy and jubilation yields to the hunger that drew her to Southtown in the first instance; it wasn't, even, to dispose at last of that wretched toupeee. She needed to see him, because she needed to understand what happened on that fateful day in the airport. Why he could keep fighting when she could not. Why he's always kept fighting, against such odds and worse. What is they call it? Psycho Power? It was her first taste. Somehow, she knows it won't be the last if she continues to stand; and she knows one man who's done so time and again.
"C'mon."
She's just short of saying 'please', and as he draws closer he might hear the fractured syllables clearly at last. As he raises the pipe. As Ol' Rusty comes in to finish its job upon this girl who seems, again, just as short as she rightly is. Five foot three, possessed of an athletic frame that nonetheless belies the power she's delivered so far, Asuka might not be so laughably small and skinny as some of her near-peers - but she's no Chun-Li. All her hope, all her belief, all her drive...
Has she really got it, both above and below? It's what she needs to find out, as much as she needs to see one of her heroes stand proud before her eye and prove the answers she wants. She needs to know that she can stand opposite. That she can do what she believes she must; 'Fight Breaker' could mean many things.
But it doesn't mean anything until she proves *why it should*.
Thunk. Ol' Rusty strikes a solid forearm, a brief battle waging between the two forces, flesh near enough yielding to metal before she grunts and shoves all the harder, propelling it back with a hard denial of the strike's purpose. She doesn't say it, but she might as well scream, 'no!' It's what lies beneath.
And then she's surging forward again, rising from a crouch into what would become a sprint were Rust further away-- once more, seeking by all reckoning to go straight through him, her blocking arm swinging wide as it did before to make a second defence. Now it moves to slip beneath his armpit and around the back of his head as though that were its natural place, her momentum shifting in the instant she appears to be due to pass him, that arm in place if he doesn't move in time. If she can get that far...
It'll be with a staggering ease that she drives him to his knees, straightening up and twisting her arm forward, over that terrible toupee toward the ground. He'll bow as if on command, then take a knee because he has no choice.
COMBATSYS: Asuka successfully hits Rust with Power Throw.
- Power hit! -
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Rust 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Asuka
And little choice he has, for the moment; the Kazama girl steers her hero into her thrall, a hefty boot scraping the dusty stone beside his strained knee. Hazel eyes behold him askance, and from above, as she brings her other arm around and locks it across the other - just shy of a stranglehold in the moment that she leans close to his ear. Her voice is husky with the effort of holding him still; maintaining control is never so easy as it looks.
"This," she gasps out, "Is the man I admire. So--"
Suddenly she's all vim and vigour again, a blur of motion dragging him along for the ride as she takes a wide step past her own right flank and backward, spinning into this new point of balance with a tightly-phrased yell of effort, 'hraaaaaahhhh!!'
"WHY CAN'T YOU FIGHT LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME?!"
Her cry reaches his ears as she releases him from her hold, heaving him through the air like a sack of so many bent and creaking potatoes, falling back into that wide, powerful horse stance as her hazel eyes blaze a quiet display of her own inward passions. Part of her feels she knows the answer, as he does...
But which of them will say it, and which of them is right, only the battle may come to tell.
Like hell he has no choice, if he were capable of reading the text describing the goings on. Overextending himself on that second lunge allows Asuka to get in clean and lock her arm around his armpit and the back of his head. His left hand tenses visibly as he starts finding himself in a fight against leverage that has decided to tag team with a young girl. He proves highly resistant to forcing himself to take a knee, his entire body locking up... sort of like a statue. It's an awkward moment for all involved - he can't quite move to dislodge her. It's more a matter of time as to figuring out who caves first - a girl trying to bring him to his knee, or his knee. The knee that locks itself up and joins in his body's staunch refusal to her own body's polite request for him to kneel.
Someone has to give.
The request turns more into a demand with the effort she puts into it, and his legs continue to be particularly unwilling - but what can he pull against her, body stiff like this? There is a token attempt at trying to swing her off, without much avail.
It's around the time she goes for the other arm lock that she starts laying in the necessary pressure to get him down to his knee. This is the man she admires, and yet, despite such resilience he seems almost helpless to pull his way out of there. Locking himself up like this may well have been what does him in. This means it's not a matter of when she gives up, it's a matter as to when his body does.
His knee eventually caves, being forced down to a knee with a very unpleasant snapping noise. Did something break? His face contorts in pain, a brief gasp before the real assault adds more injury to, uh, current injury to ears and body alike as she hurls him a respectful distance across the lot. He has the unpleasant bonus of having his body collide against uneven terrain, his upper back suffering a particularly nasty blow on impact with a raised bit of stone. The sort of thing that probably sees people go into rehab for a good long while.
His body continues to crackle and pop very alarmingly as he pulls himself up. Just as his body refused to bow so suddenly before, it is putting up a very big resistance to being moved at all to begin with. The sort of thing he deals with almost every day when his body decides it is just time to stop moving for the day. How does a guy keep fighting even with a worn-down, abused body like that?
He offers no words or shrugs to really respond, blinking all of twice as he blearily looks back out to see where she is. Ol' Rusty is pointed at her again, as though he were really uncertain of the actual distance between them.
He shakes his head once (does that actually count as a shrug despite what was written a few moments ago?), inhales deeply, and moves in again. It's the same story as it has been this entire fight - Rust moves in, Asuka likely stands at ready to overcome him. He's either not noticed the emerging pattern or is willfully ignoring it, stepping inwards once again with the occasional sounds of his joints fighting against the idea of cooperating with his movements and intents.
So much so, as he closes in this time he seems to fall to a crouch, catching himself with his left hand as he moves in with his right elbow against her, then swinging to put the butt of Ol' Rusty up against whatever part of her may be around midsection-level at the time of a potential impact.
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Asuka with Crushing Pipe.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////// ]
Rust 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\0 Asuka
Passion isn't always a strength. Sometimes it's a distraction.
The Osakan tomboy stands with breast heaving beneath the dark blue of her undershirt, the toned outlying muscles otherwise taut and flexible in that familiar stance. Repetition, yes, and so far Asuka's maintained the upper hand in the first innings; but that's all outward concern, all facade upon the truth of this conflict. She's seeking something, and believes he has it. Perhaps he's finding the purity of the fight where she's missing it-- Rust is reacting, as an experienced fighter should, to the needs of his body and the conventions of his self-forged style.
It's telling that he says nothing back, barely reacts to her words, where she stands with emotions stirred and gut clenching and unclenching like a quivering fist.
When he comes in low, she's shifting her stance to spin around through the same region of his approach - below the pipe, below the swinging arm, lulled into an expectation of the third repetition. It's where hours of theory and days upon days of training in a hall do little compared to true, real experience. Rust has fought for his life, and the lives of others, numerous times; Asuka Kazama has fought only under the auspice of her own pride, and for the needs of her own, headstrong beliefs.
It's the former that explodes out, along with her breath, as his elbow finds her spinning, churning gut. "Hnhnk!" Hazel eyes widen upon him, the momentary paralysis leaving her open for what follows. If not entirely caught off-balance she's certainly off-guard for a precious, necessary instant, the wild motion of her arms lacking the control to intercept, Ol' Rusty finding solid purchase in a strike that lands - tellingly - straight to the solar plexus. She almost crumples, she almost falls...
But with a hard, unrestrained gasp she pushes herself backward with the momentum, stance still spread wide as one hand slams down to lend control to a ferocious three-point skid.
Her mouth opens-- and no words come out. She's learning.
Then she's jolting forward, with more undeniable ferocity than actual speed by the standards of their kind. A short dash brings her back to proximity, a leaping, near-horizontal hop carries one leg upward in a swift knee, her arms high to ward off return strikes. The blow is more a feint, liable at best to find glancing purchase to the midsection or chest if he sinks. As she lands, she rapidly swings into the true assault, spinning through three hundred and sixty degrees to pursue his intended stumble with a hooking kick to the torso, her foot setting down--
To propel her immediately through the same circle once more, reaching a culmination at the halfway point with the scything motion of a brutal roundhouse kick from the left leg, the pale flesh of her bare leg rippling with honed muscle.
"Si-yaaaaaaaah!"
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Asuka's Strong Kick.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////// ]
Rust 1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0 Asuka
Howard pushes back up with his left hand to a stand when she falls back after both blows, his shoulder and knees both still expressing their concerns. There's a low humming grunt as he finds himself forced to stretch his knee out a little to get that kink to go away, eyes on Asuka's movements even as the rest of his body is trying to call attention to itself, its needs.
This is nearly a mistake, suddenly having to put his foot back down as she goes at him with the same fervor even as the two exchange nasty blow for nasty blow. His left forearm deals with the motion of that advancing knee - he holds steady enough in his stance despite the intent to stumble him back. Though she has her arms where they are, he rears back his head thinking there's at least one clear ope--
He cancels that very quickly when the circular spin, arm coming up his /right/ side, the one he defends himself from way less when given the option. He doesn't have the option, and seems ready to potentially sacrifice the grip on Ol' Rusty as he leans into that hooking kick with his right elbow, deflecting it with a bit of a push that only sees Ol' Rusty slip a bit lower in his grasp than usual. She spins very quickly into that follow-up roundhouse kick, faster than he can think to get a hit in on her in the transition.
He settles with taking his right foot back, lowering his stance and swinging his left side to face her to catch that final brutal roundhouse kick, locking his firearm against her angle with that boot just barely grazing his head, a frown as the forearm shudders - strong enough it nearly shoved his own arm back into his face, not to mention the skidding of boots against stone. The hairpiece shifts ever so slightly from the impact.
Rather than spend a moment reasserting his grip on the pipe, there is a subtle glow forming at his drawn back foot that does not build to any respectable intensity other than simply being /there/, a flash of a color that's so washed out it's impossible to determine its hue. White? Blue? Green? Nothing on the warmer side of the color spectrum, but it's a toss-up between any of those three (one other student has gone on record believing it's a really pale purple).
"Hrrr," he growls out the beginnings of a kiai as he suddenly swings the chi-clad foot forward somewhat gingerly. Too gingerly to be a righteous kick unto itself.
"...aaahh!" As the chi around it flickers onward in a teetering, tottering disc-like... /thing/ of chi that just barely hovers above the ground, as though it struggles to even properly exist as a manifestation at all as it closes the gap en route to Asuka's ankles.
It looks like it might gently massage her feet for all the threat magnitude it seems to carry - is this really the manifestation of the strength of a man who stood against and survived Vega?
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Asuka with Detour.
- Power hit! -
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////// ]
Rust 0/-------/----===|=======\====---\1 Asuka
A weapon that slays giants is rarely what it appears; as a mere scrap of tawdry leather brought low the Goliath, so too can a sputtering, indistinct and uncertain disc of messy, raw and unfiltered spiritual energy topple one of the world's worst living nightmares. Privy as she's been to some of Rust's more infamous battles on the public stage, Asuka wasn't there to see the true totality of Rust's heart, soul and body combined as one. She knows the legends, she knows what she feels is true...
Seeing it in action, insofar as she can even make out the gurgling, limply-manifest thing barking at her heels, perhaps lacks what her passion's fantasies have shown her. Takuma's ultimate 'fireball' is a mythic beast in itself, yet one shown time and again in action replays. She's seen it from a dozen different angles. Now, she sees Howard Rust's from but one.
"What is--"
She starts in her native dialect, brash and astonished in the instant she's still pulling her striking leg back and maintaining her guard, a diverting palm ready to bat away a pesky kick to the thigh, the hip or the midsection. It's telegraphed, that flicking nonsense that falls short, and then explodes.
Sort of.
That's the part she couldn't possibly predict, though as it occurs she stamps her foot back to the ground and instantly bounces off springy calves and thighs, striving to leap above it. It should be possible. It should be *easy*. If this were filmed, she might watch it back and damn herself for failing, but just as she brought Rust low moments before, against his will and his internal insistence that she couldn't possibly control him...
He does the same, now, to her. She'd scoff if she had time, arrogant and self-sure as so many would likely be; but she doesn't even have time to be so flawed, going from surprise to detonation in half a heartbeat. Her ankles are whipped in opposite directions by the spread of the little fireball, and she flies upward in a *paff* of whitey-greeny-purplish-blue.
Her only thought as she tumbles is: 'How does it hurt so much?'
Her body's not running on thought, however. In the tumble it's already righting itself in spite of the brain that should be in control, the motions of a thousand core training exercises, a thousand acrobatic tumbles onto the hard dojo floor, commanding her into immediate action. Physics alone states that she should be slowed by her progress up and back down, but like Rust and his denial of her technical ministrations, the hard and fast truth about Asuka Kazama is that she's just too damn *stubborn* to get hit that hard and not hit back with immediate matching force.
She lands on one foot directly before him, the motion of righting carrying with it a steeply-angled hooking kick aimed to sweep right across his cheek, through and back down to the ground. Like the kick before, it elicits a sharp kiai, and like the one before *that*, it leads into another. Another roundhouse. Another resounding slap across the same cheek. She follows the momentum through, the left leg now grounded as the right seeks to rip Rust's ankles from beneath him as he ripped hers. Another kiai.
For an instant as she turns, her hazel eyes meet his, burning with a ferocity that's absolutely, utterly impersonal. Animal. If the bizarre effects of his assault upon her somehow carry the totality of his being, if it represents the culmination of his unorthodox and peculiar art - of what makes him Rust...
Then this is Asuka Kazama.
COMBATSYS: Asuka successfully hits Rust with Kishin Enbu.
- Power hit! -
[ \\\\\\\\ < > ////// ]
Rust 0/-------/=======|-------\-------\0 Asuka
He'll find the fourth strike familiar, as she spins and flips beautifully overhead, this time higher and more gracefully than the first, another one-two Thunder Fall carrying the fifth blow in its wake. It's firmer, more devastating if it lands fully; enough, in fact, that as it catches him atop the *back* side of his head, it will plow him face- and chest-first into the hard stone. Enough not, perhaps, to crack bone; but to rebound.
And she'll be there, recovering before he does, catching him as he drops with one over-large hand extending a calloused, bound grip for a face she can only hope is as astonished as her own moments before. She wanted him to show her everything, so she completes her own display, teeth gritting as one leg swings off the ground, the one loose element in otherwise flawless technique lending her the sheer, brute power to pitch Howard Rust backward with all her own weight adding to the ensuing impact.
She falls with him, catching her own fall just barely upon one violent stamp of a heavy boot, driving his skull and his creaking spine with unrelenting, reckless force into the already-shattered pathway beneath them. Into the very Earth.
"URRRRYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Spittle flecks her lips, and her blood runs hot as she takes a panting breath and straightens up, one arm crooking inward instinctively before her, the other chambering just above her hip, fingers flexing off the tension of her final assault. She watches the fallen hero warily, wondering - not for the first time in recent history - if he'll get back up...
This time she doesn't say it, but she thinks it. C'mon. Over and over. C'mon.
Post-projectile, Rust steadies himself, shaking out his left arm as he regards her latest spill. Maybe it's his turn to really keep her on her toes. His turn to really, for once, actually get a yapping young girl to lay off of him about his life, his way of living, how they're doing it better than he can... he's not really sure how 'beating the hell out of them' really ties into that, but that's not particularly important right now.
He moves into her as she starts to move back into him. That first hooking kick comes in too fast for him to notice, too clean, his head turns to a spray of saliva and a bit of blood. His left hand tenses into a fist entirely by reaction and instinct, forgoing any sort of defense to just lean into her, weather the blows, find an opening to strike. For that moment, he almost seems like he might manage that. All the way up to the slap, he stands with minimal imbalance and staggering. He brings his left fist low with a sneer, moving one leg at a critical moment.
That's the moment she sweeps him out from under his legs, where the leg misses his slightly raised leg and gets his ankle, yanking him off balance. The Thunder Fall actually manages to strike him before he even hits the ground on his own (lack of) merit, body bouncing off the stone where he is caught.
Astonished? He barely looks like he's even /there/, eyes unfocused and dazed as fingers grip his skull and once again caress that absolutely horrible thing on his head. How he looks is the least of his concerns, considering...
One could hear the impact for a good mile or so, of head hitting through stone and dirt to a laundry-ruining spray of pebbles, dirt, and disgusting crabgrass that has started to sprout through some of the cracks. (Was it even there moments before?)
Will he get up? His shoulders creak loudly - the telltale sign of his body choosing to lock up on him. He stirs. It's a coin toss either way if it's just moving enough to reassure he's not dead, or if he's really willing to pick himself back up.
There's a muffled voice - it's his, but it's impossible to hear what exactly he is saying, to make any of it out. Probably some choice words, if not one of his infamous strings of unrelated consonants.
His left hand uncurls to a cacophony of crackling knuckles, pushing... there's no mistake. He's getting back up now. He's getting back up. It's a laborious process, like one of some sort of giant waking up from a thousand years slumber. The resulting cloud of dust obscures his bloodied face very briefly, caked in dirt and dust. A bit of crabgrass has taken up residence between his scalp and that other object on his head.
"D-Did you hear me," he murmurs out with a sort of hostile tone to it, as if unfairly expecting her to have heard what he was going on about while his face was buried in the ground, fighting knees, shoulders, back, and everything. He doesn't look terribly steady on his feet, but yet, he still has that grip on Ol' Rusty right there. That he doesn't let it go, that the air suddenly feels cooler against where he's been busted open.
Sucking in air in at last in a hiss of bared teeth from a bloodied mouth, he moves towards her with whatever speed he has that can honestly be considered a 'speed,' swinging his right leg down into a low kick - more than one low kick. From his stance, rigid as it seems, many low kicks, working everything from the knee down on his end as it is once again bathed in that washed-out, flickering energy that characterizes whatever level of chi manifestation he can actually muster through him.
Each kick against flesh, stone, or otherwise is loud - in such rapid succession, much like a construction worker's jackhammer with an especially violent repetition, almost as if it's more adrenaline than technique that gives what strength a tired, locked-up knee can muster when forced to act.
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Asuka with Jackhammer Kick EX.
[ \\\\\\\\ < > / ]
Rust 1/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Asuka
"No."
Of course she doesn't hear him. She couldn't hear him. Even if he'd spoken aloud and clear as the morning sun, she might have missed his pain-wracked soliloquy over the cacophonous symphony of her internal bidding. What she came here for, what she even concealed from herself, is all forgotten in the sheer, overpowering need to have this endlessly frustrating, yet infinitely admirable warrior get back to his feet. To weather her ultimate assault as few have yet to do during her brief career upon the wider stage. She's got no further than that, not thought through what happens next, operating as a wild beast. Now. It's all about the moment, about fulfilling need in the face of all else.
Once Rust stands before her, she cycles her guard, arms swapping position in a manner that's so fluid and powerfully graceful it presents a lie; that she's got a plan, that he's lumbering into another trap. There is no such thing. There's only she, and him, and their need to cling through this raging conflict because...
...it's as far as she gets. Does she know why? He begins to lash out, so predictable yet with undeniable speed and power both. Not every fighter is fast like quicksilver, deceptive like a snake, but not every fighter has the passion and courage of Howard Rust. Few do, not just in Southtown or Japan - but in the world. The news can speak of heroes, of those rising up to provide salvation, slap garish names and gimmicks across the digital airwaves in hope of latching onto that ineffable, painfully beautiful quality that makes an old, never-was fighter stand and scream defiance in the face of an overwhelmingly strong presence. In front of another capable of holding the Earth in his hand.
"I couldn't *hear* you--" Asuka's teeth grit as she moves aside from the opening strike, swaying perilously as the rigours of battle swell against the maelstrom chaos of her thoughts and feelings. "Don't need--" She swats at the next kick, attempting a reverse-forearm block to parry it aside, but finds a welt upon her arm, the limb numbing immediately. "To *hear* y--- hngh!"
The next kick batters her, driving her young, fresh knee against its own joint. Forcing her to fall to the other with a gasp of pain. "H-Hear you..." He's still coming forward. Now the blow is at chest height. Desperately she sweeps her forearms into an 'x', feeling just the one and hoping the other is there. That it holds.
It doesn't. It's blown asunder, scattering her guard and forcing her to topple to all fours out of desperation simply to avoid falling to her back. This isn't life or death...
But then it comes to her in an instant.
"I--" His foot hammers forward again.
"I feel you."
It's a flat statement, one she shouldn't by rights have time to deliver, the words lacking her usual harshness of vocalized passion. Lacking anything resembling the face that Asuka Kazama chooses to present to the world. They come from her heart, from the pit of her being where she finally puts it all together. The reason she's seen him lose, the reason he hides, the reason she's never truly understood why it is that she admires him so much.
The foot strikes her in the temple, an explosion of white-hot pain scrambling her brain and rendering useless the sum total of her being. There's a split-second where Asuka realizes she's falling unconscious, a tiny gleam of consciousness on the fringe of itself, with no time to be acknowledged. No chance to understand anything beyond what she came to see in that final moment. Hazel eyes remain open for a beat, her form still.
And then she falls before him, amongst the cobbles and crabgrass.
Her penultimate revelation?
Rust fights when he has to. He fights when there's a cause. When it means something.
If she could think or feel, she'd be honoured.
COMBATSYS: Asuka holds herself back from the fight.
[ \\\\\\\\ <
Rust 1/-------/=======|
COMBATSYS: Asuka can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\ <
Rust 1/-------/=======|
Howard, despite injury and blood trying to get in one of his eyes, quickly draws back his leg and stands in his stance again. There's some sudden motion with his feet, a little bit of shuffling, that seems kind of like an afterthought in all this and probably has no real meaning beyond the movement itself being noted. He breathes in deep as he shuts one of his eyes to deal with that particular aggravation in a morning that feels full of them already.
It's on the tip of his tongue, to mutter out in a growl as to what he was saying that was so important for him to ask if they heard. He ends up mentally lingering over what she means by that they feel him when she lies still, collapsed after that last series of blows. His brow remains furrowed. Those last kicks carried more than what strength and routine that the Kyokugen Dojo helped refine and empower further - but they carried another, darker thing with it.
Frustration.
Loads and loads of frustration, all carried out on someone who admired him to the point of feeling that what they said and did would be the one way to get him back on track. A flash of panic goes through him - Kyokugen way of never holding back your punches or kicks in training or not, it is still a sobering thought.
I think I just really hurt her, is what he goes to. I took out my entire frustrations with other people a lot like her, on her. These sobering thoughts lead him to put Ol' Rusty away through its proper toolbelt pocket - or tries to, as he ends up just sliding it along the side of the pocket and then accidentally drop it.
That's not really as important right now, as he kneels down to her and gives her a look-over for where she might be bleeding, where she's bruised... and y'know, maybe he should wipe some of the blood away from his eye while he's at it.
L-Let's... let's just, get you cleaned up, y'know, out of, out of the middle of the lot," he murmurs aloud, "call an, an ambulance... shit. I'm sorry."
He's not sure she's hearing him, as he wheezes once to help pick her up. Where's the rest of those jokers when he needs them to maybe call a freaking ambulance or maybe bring some gauze or something for the cuts and swelling? Regardless of her feelings on how and when the man truly measures up to his best, it's his own thoughts that dominate him - that he may well have gone a bit too far on an overeager, well-meaning fan.
Might have to cancel the white belt classes today if none of the others show up, maybe he can get Yuri to help oversee despite Takuma's immense distaste at the idea of her leading a class at all.
This morning's off to a good start.
COMBATSYS: Rust has ended the fight here.
Log created on 10:25:17 06/07/2013 by Rust, and last modified on 19:42:29 06/07/2013.