Description: As far as Angel's concerned, everything's going swell. She's retrieved Isolde's glove from the Kasagi duo and escaped the catacombs, completing her mission with aplomb. Therefore, as a super-serious super secret agent, she reports to her superiors and, upon receiving orders to immediately return to Japan from Paris, heads directly to the nightlife district to get her drink on. But her planned night of dubiously explained-away debauchery is rudely interrupted by the sudden intervention of a man with a fan. Everything about Angel -- her outfit, her attitude, her lack of discipline, her outfit -- is offensive to Ryuhaku Todoh. There is only one path: he must make her his disciple so that she dresses like Kasumi Todoh forever. Can Angel's wild spirit be reined in? Will her wild style overpower Todoh-ryuu? Or will this just end up being a great party?
It's hot. The heat is the first thing that hits her the moment Angel slides out of her wonderfully cushy chair on the small private jet, leaving with some regret the small rolling mini-bar that she's successfully emptied out several times over the last twelve hours. A blast of searing air hits her dead in the face as she rounds the bend to stand in the open hatchway that leads to the tarmac below. With the unpleasant breeze comes a flurry of gray particles that send her into a fit of hacks and wheezes at the unexpected invasion into her lungs.
"Blugh-chagkh! What the Hell?" The NESTS agent covers her face with one hand and peers out into the drizzle of ash and smoke, squinting against the harsh climate. "Shiiiiit, Angel came to party but it looks like Japan got started without her. Rude!"
Stepping back into the plane, the young woman turns and moves into the cockpit, snatching the hat off one of the pilots as well as strip of cloth that looks like it might be a scarf from one of the storage bins. "Angel is taking this. For, uh, strategic... agent... things. SHUTUPNOONEASKEDYOU!"
Donning her new apparel, hat jauntily tilted on her head to shield her face from the ash and scarf-tie-thing wrapped over her nose and mouth to act as a make-shift filter, Angel bounds out of the plane with her spirit renewed. There is perhaps unsurprisingly a rather heavy crowd at the airport when she slips in through the terminal gate, almost all of them waiting to catch flights out of the country. Everyone is coated in various layers of grime and ash and the floor is in such a state that the janitors have simply given up trying to keep it tidy, instead occasionally sweeping the soot into small piles for collection.
Some six hours, several train rides, and one impromptu nap later, Angel wanders into the outskirts of the area labeled 'Chinatown' on the map she swiped off some guy's kiosk. She's spent a fair amount of time in Japan over the years, often due to her jobs taking her to everywhere on the globe from the Brazilian rainforest to freakin Siberia. She does not have fond memories of that place. Frostbite can get more than your toes.
Shifting her mind back to more important matters, like getting drunk as soon as possible, the Mexican girl wanders down the mostly abandoned streets, hands tucked underneath her arms for lack of pockets on her wardrobe; not that there is any room for such things. Her pace is casual, lackadasial even, seemingly unconcerned by the heat or the ash save for the occassional pause to sweep it out of her cleavage. She eyeballs the signs on the many store-fronts as she wanders, pursing her lips at the various knick-nacks and tourist paraphanelia being offered. Maybe she'll grab something for the kids back at base later.
The world's changing... no, more like being twisted. The way everything has bent is nothing short of unnatural. Humanity, as a whole, has received a wake-up call that not everything they've taken for granted would last. That everything they hold dear could well just go up in smoke... or get smothered by a tsunami... or freeze in an instant... or just simply... disappear.
In exceedingly rare instances, things are starting to appear that can not, or should not. Yet, there's at least the hope, somewhere, that some people are foregoing the whole mess to indulge in the usual self-destructive behavior in the name of hedonism... and perhaps with the further impetus that any racked-up debts will no longer matter. So long as there's a place to accumulate said debts to... celebrate? Mourn? The lines become increasingly blurry.
Just as blurry as any highly-developed sense of presence might suddenly feel. Much of the time, expert warriors tend to have a very keen awareness of their surroundings. Who might be coming. Who might be going. Who might be moving in to aggress through the sound of footsteps. How many. So many little cues, unspoken language to be picked up by those of varying masteries of martial arts.
Sometimes, it just goes all out the window, as a long-haired figure in vaguely traditional Japanese dress simply... appears, from the haze. There is no account of them having showed up from the alleys, or having been further ahead, or otherwise having walked there. They just... are.
"Feh!" They cry, waving their arms up as their features grow more clear. They do not appear to be wearing any sort of air filter, allowing their sinuses and lungs to be assaulted by the volcanic ash. Based on the singular word choice and gesture, they do not seem to be bothered much either way.
"Look at all this! Look at it." Is he speaking to Angel? Maybe he's just in a mood to monologue? Whoever that is... "Every time! Something like this happens, you see everyone come outta the woodwork! They all wanna go play then! Like it's the end of the world! THAT'S when they all seem most alive!"
There's no gagging, coughing, or sputtering to suggest any sort of being inconvenienced by the abominable air quality. Maybe it's because they're deftly fanning away the worst of it? There is a white fan bearing a single red dot - the flag of Japan - being held in one hand.
"Don't ya ever wonder about that?!" He suddenly snaps over to Angel, as though now making clear that yes, he is addressing her... out in the middle of ash-caked streets, under the smoke that blots out the sun. "I mean, really, you almost never see anyone other than times like these!"
Angel gives a start at the sudden noise, her mind drifting away from the present to mull over other things. Even in the best of circumstances, she rarely pays that much attention to her surroundings, the super-human enhanced senses gifted to her through years of cruel experimentation granting the agent a level of preternatural awareness in the small moments before disaster strikes even beyond that of the most paranoid fighter. To be able to truly take her off-guard in such a manner is a rare skill and not one that she is inclined to appreciate.
"ANGELDIDNTTOUCHIT!!" The young woman spins in place, flailing wildly at the air around her like a cat that has been snuck up on. She looks around suspiciously, half expecting an ambush or worse one of her bosses but instead there's just some old geezer. "What the fuck, old man?! Where the hell did you come from?!"
Lowering her fists, Angel rubs at the back of her neck and frowns. She might be embarrassed about that little display but that would require she have an inkling of shame left in her body; studies have shown this is not the case. The agent stares at Todoh for a long second or two, perhaps trying to size him up as a threat or just figure out how the hell he managed to get the drop on her in the first place. His aggressive question makes her jump again, arms wrapping around herself in a tight hug.
"Umm... A-Angel doesn't see anybody? Maybe you should put your glasses on, grandpa."
"THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT!!" He screams in a rage that is rarely achieved by anyone other than the aged - it's not clear if he's protesting the importance of where he came from, or how there seems to be no one else. Just like... a lot of him, really. One is generally sure they've seen him before. Probably on TV, probably just in the corner of their eye, and yet, it's rarely ever clear as to... well, just about anything about him.
A fist is tightly clenched, waved about as he sucks in that dirty air to fuel whatever sorts of absolute delirious nonsense he must see fit to spew to some young lady, out in the middle of nowhere, in one of the greatest natural disasters of this time... or any other.
Dauntless of her foul language as she clutches herself, he continues to aggressively fan his own person, scattering away soot that has since accumulated upon him from when he, uh, simply appeared.
"I'll have you know that I looked into GLOBAL COOLING!" ...What, now? "And people SMOKING FROM MT. FUJI." What? "Why, I even decided to REVEAL COLORS THAT ARE PROBABLY TRUE over... somewhere or another, and you know what that got me, young lady?!"
He takes a step forward, teeth grinding as he sneers. "Nowhere! Nowhere whatsoever! But oooooh, there was such a big FUSS that I had to take part, and y'know what, lady? No more! No more, I say!"
He turns away.
"For I, the great Ryuhaku Todoh," ...for a given value of great, "have decided, once and for all, there is only one good thing in life! The only one way to be! Yes. This is absolute fact and I am STICKING WITH IT."
This should be a good, ample opportunity for Angel to escape and maybe carry on with her fine, fun-filled... day? Evening? Thursday? If any fun can be had from Mt. Fuji continuing to fart all sorts of flame and funky ashes all over the place, to the point that Southtown should damn well be completely abandoned by now from just how unlivable the whole city has become from the blotted out sun and the impossibly bad air.
...Maybe that's why he's so wacky, now.
...He probably always has been this.
"Now YOU!" He turns around, dramatically pointing a closed fan to Angel. "I hereby solemnly promise, swear, and legally sign, that I, Ryuhaku Todoh, will... without further distraction by such matters of lesser, passing importance that NO ONE WILL EVER REMEMBER a month from now," a bold claim that so many lives and homes being lost forever on a global scale would be forgotten so soon...
"Pursue the further advancement of my great family martial art, as before, as now, as after, as FOREVER, and to staaaaart," he starts to giggle in a manner completely unbefitting for a man his age - or any man, really. At any age. Even a three-year-old would be embarrassed, as he suddenly pulls out two coathangers from behind himself that absolutely were not there when his back was turned to Angel.
A proper gi top, in one hand. Those flared, pleated, large trousers like he's wearing. Some tabi socks, a headband, and some other accessory-type bits wrapped around the top of said coathangers, waving them teasingly.
"We gotta get you dressed appropriately for your beginning lessons, see?" The sneering melts to a smile that is by no means any friendlier in the least. "You, and anyone else I find! Back to the basics, I say! All of you! Every! Last. ONE."
A thought floats aimlessly through Angel's mind as the enraged old man speaks to her, a small fragment of sense and reason that whispers to her on rare occassions when the mood strikes or whenever someone possessing the power and temperment to end her life at the press of a button should she even appear to not be paying attention is speaking to her. For reason that she cannot put her grimey little fingers on, Todoh fills her with the same level of confusion and dread that people like Krizalid and Igniz do.
Perhaps its his forceful personality, or the lingering unease she has from his impossibly silent arrival, or the fact that she's got a hangover and really /really/ wants him to stop yelling so much; or it might just be because he could be one of the few people on the planet who seems crazier than she is. Whatever her reasons, Todoh's confidently spewed nonsense prompts a completely uncharacteristic shift in her usual flamboyant and dismissive attitude. Angel straightens up stiff as a board, one hand practically slamming against her forehead as she snaps a crisp salute.
"Urk! Y-yes, sir! Angel humbly offers her questionable skills to the very loud old man!"
Angel gives her seeming complete obedience to his demands. Everything about what he says (or screams) appears to absolutely expect complete and utter compliance, without delay nor deviation from said demand. He stands there, holding that smile for a few seconds as he waves those things in his hands for a little while longer.
It disappears. He lowers his arms, letting the clothing on the coathangers touch against the filthy, ash-coated ground as an odd silence passes between the two of them.
"What, really?" He asks, as though legitimately and truly dumbfounded. "You're not gonna protest, raise your voice about how creepy or weird this is I came out of nowhere, holding these clothes, which are probably your exact size by some crazy circumstance..."
He casts an odd glance around the whole dreary landscape of Chinatown, a life being choked out that not even the neon signs can proclaim otherwise.
"...And you're down with it, just like that?" Isn't that exactly the sort of thing that he wants? He squints at her, as though entirely doubting of this circumstance that for once is absolutely everything and anything he could ever want out of randomly accosting someone on the street in these trying times.
"Well, then!" He grins. "Eeeeexcellent! Good! Let us begin now!"
...In the middle of the street. With volcanic ash spewing everywhere. Intoxicated by this happiest possible circumstance that he appears to have no idea what to do about himself, he drops the clothing into the dust and grime as though an entirely secondary concern, going back to that big, triumphant smile.
"Well then! Come, young lady! Show me what you must unlearn so that I may replace it with the TODOH WAY," he thusly proclaims as holds his arms forward, legs slightly spread apart in something that is unmistakably some kind of combat stance.
COMBATSYS: Todoh has started a fight here.
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Todoh 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Angel has joined the fight here.
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Angel 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Todoh
"Yyyyyeeess?"
Angel's lack of confidence in her drawn-out answer is fueled by years of managing to always say the wrong thing. She eventually learned that the best defense against letting people know that she never actually bothers to read those briefings they hand her is to just let them ramble on and agree with everything they say, shamelesslly pandering to their megalomania. It has thus far proven to be an air-tight strategy.
Whatever this old guy has planned, it probably isn't any worse than drinking herself unconscious on the floor of some dirty abandoned bar in the middle of the bad side of town. Less chance of waking up in some ratty motel without her clothes on too. Probably. Well, maybe if she gets /really/ wasted and he asks nicely...
Whatever, she's already in too deep! No time for regrets or second thoughts now! Especially since she never gave it first thoughts! Angel clenches her hands into fists, the supple leather of her finger-less gloves squeaking from the force being exerted upon them by her sudden enthusiasm. "Very well! Angel will display her extraordinary skills" - weren't they questionable a moment ago? - "to the weird old man who she will definately not be sleeping with later. UNLESSHEASKSNICELYWITHBOOZE. Angel has standards!"
Dropping into her own unusual combat stance, both hands hovering in the air infront of her as her slender fingers grasping at nothing in a constant open-and-close motion, the Mexican girl prepares to give Todoh a first-person demonstration of the random collection of strikes, punches, and kicks that she's accumulated through years of intense training, relentless practice, mail-order instruction manuals, and some stuff she saw on TV.
"Oryaaa!"
Angel leans forward and takes off at a mad dash, her tilted posture and extremely low-cut leather jacket giving the elder Todoh an extremely good view of her physical assets for the few instants that it takes her to cross the gap between them. The girl proves to be fast; -incredibly- fast. She is on him in an instant, her fist drawing back to swing at the space where his head currently occupies.
COMBATSYS: Angel successfully hits Todoh with Strong Punch.
-* WILD HIT! *-
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Angel 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Todoh
"WHAT? I'm married! Perish the-- awww, just get on with it!" The Todoh style master(?) stomps a foot like a tantrum-throwing child, which unlike the giggling would be an act that a three-year-old actually would give their approval towards. He's still got it, years and years out of his early childhood! (This is not something to be encouraged.)
There is no time to admire the gumption, or the view, or much of anything by any real measure of time by ordinary people. Angel, fast as all hell, shows virtually no flaw in her approach. Those skilled fighters who know their way around such things would find very little to complain about the form. The approach. The very delivery - it would and it should be praised. That, or abject horror, for those who would be subjected to it. For putting together just whatever worked for her these years, at least this punch could be considered one of the top parts of the pile.
The fist collides against the old man's face, a cry of pain blotted out and muffled by the very presence of her fist as he flies head over heels a good three meters or so away. He disappears back into the mists of the volcanic ash that plague the streets of Southtown for a merciful second.
His voice, on the other hand...
"No! No. No. No. NO!" He stomps right back into view, stamping his feet for emphasis even though he now possesses both a black eye and a bloodied nose. It is not at all the picture of some sort of masterful warrior who could deftly overturn blows from their inferiors and show them how it's done, because... he... absolutely did not do any of that. He totally got punched in the face.
"Your form is TERRIBLE!" It hit him in the face. "You OVERCOMMIT!" It hit him in the face with such force it threw him away. "It felt like a fly bit me!" It hit him in the face and the injuries speak for themselves as he huffs, wheezes, and furrows his eyebrows as angry as they'll go.
"HERE! This! Is a strike." He bends an elbow upwards, laying a hand horizontally as he steps inwards towards Angel, swinging the arm in an odd horizontal chop that, unlike her approach, is reasonably more telegraphed and seems, maybe, a touch more overblown and fancy-looking that a punch in the face ought to be.
Then again, he knows better.
Maybe.
Probably.
...Hopefully?
COMBATSYS: Angel counters Strong Punch from Todoh with Winds Fair Ground.
-**- LUNATIC HIT!! -**-
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Angel 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Todoh
Well, he asked for it and Angel delivers. The thump as her fist connects with the old man's face is a satsifying sensation for any fighter but at the same time she experiences a pang of something else; some long forgotten emotion that exists as little more than a shadow of a memory within the depths of her subconscious.
Is this what pity used to feel like?
Angel frowns slightly, retracting her fist from the empty space where Todoh once stood. She stares into the grey mists for a moment, scratching the back of her neck with a soft mutter. "Did I just kill some random old guy with Alzheimer's or something...?"
Her fears... well, mild hints of concern, are heightened a moment later. Todoh's voice precedes his battered form from admist the ashen fog, his defiant and chastizing cries echoing all around her like some sort of ghostly call from beyond the grave. The girl takes a step back, eyes going wide.
"A-Angel didn't mean to kill you, old man! Please don't haunt me!"
When the dirty form of the martial arts master reappears, covered in ash and bellowing in outrage, the agent lets loose a shriek that drowns out his explanation. Closing her eyes, she lashes out on pure instinct, catching the axe-handed strike on the outside of her arm as she reaches out to grab hold of the loose folds of his uniform.
"Angel!"
She yells as she swings her other hand around in a wild strike, bringing her baffling amount of strength to bear against her aggressor's chest.
"Hates!"
Another alarmingly powerful punch hammers against his ribcage as she takes as step forward, putting not only her strength but a small hop of momentum into the blow.
"Ghoooosts!"
The final blow does not come immediately. Angel pauses, drawing her fist back dramatically to build up just that little bit of extra power before she lays into Todoh with possibly the most amazing haymaker she's ever thrown.
The complicated, precise, well-storied exorcism ritual passed down between generations made up entirely on the spot seems to do something of the trick with the final haymaker punch. There is an eerie weightlessness to every impact - it's not an unfamiliar sensation for the powerful fighters who strike their all against someone who isn't quite up to snuff to taking it.
Aside from a number of great dust clouds that are kicked up in the wake of that great haymaker and those dirtied clothes that are now gathering soot on the ground (or the sound of something in the distance receiving a horrible impact, followed by something large falling down and breaking - a neon sign?)... it might be as though his presence never were there beyond whatever words - imagined or otherwise - lingered in the air after all that shrieking. Just like that, a strange unwarranted encounter from seemingly out of nowhere, now... back to disappearing into nowhere?
The dust clouds stir up anew, with the sound of heavy wheezing. A figure appears in the ashen mists of... more ash. They are caked in ash, top to bottom. They are ash in human form, accumulated from one assumes a traumatic scrape across surfaces so utterly stacked in it that it has now accepted him as one of their own.
Maybe.
He coughs loudly, expelling a giant cloud of dust and yuck as eyes somehow manage to peer out of the layers of the stuff that has been smeared all over him, blood seeping out the side of his nose and mouth obscured by said dust.
"What's this about ghosts? The... the Todoh style never dieeeesssss," he hisses - he tries to yell, but it could be that he might have a collapsed lung or something at which point the question is /why is he even back up/.
"It just... gets... a broken nose, m-maybe a few missing teeth, liquidated ribs, some... soft things punctured, mmmaaaayyyyyybeeeee, an odd scent in their trousers I will not... confirm nor denyyyyyy," his voice wheezes and hangs, huffing and puffing as he stands hunched over. Huff. Puff. Huff. Puff. Huff. Puff.
"It just gets disappointed! ...And isn't... making excuses to... sit down," he is totally making excuses to sit down and cough all his lungs out, as though the reality of what air he's been completely breathing in could be dawning upon him, wheezing and otherwise looking particularly pathetic. Or some kind of horrible ash monster that is equally pathetic. The patheticness is guaranteed no matter the analysis.
"Because that was weeeeeaaaaaak~" Nope, still in denial, it seems.
COMBATSYS: Todoh takes no action.
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Angel 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Todoh
The strange lack of feeling behind the impacts isn't lost on Angel's already addled mind. She allows one eye to slide open ever so slightly, peering out from beneath ash-sprinkled lashes only to find herself greeted by an empty street devoid of all signs of life beyond her own. The hair on her neck starts to rise, an entirely unpleasant tingling sensation working its way across her skin as she glances around for further signs of paranormal activity.
"Um... Mr. Ghost...? Helloooo? Are we still playing?"
The figure that strides out of the ashen fog is about as close to what she assumes a ghost must look like as she's seen so far. Why it took a few punches to knock the old man out of his disguise is beyond her ability to reason out but now that he's taken on his true form, she might be able to reason with him. This should be good.
"Gah! O-oh, hey there, um, Mr. Ghost, er Ghost-san." Todoh's wheezing denials only add further fuel to the fire, his raspy voice doing a pretty good job of sounding very ghost-like. Angel shakes her head and sighs. "There's no reason to cling to denial, Mr. Ghost! You should embrace the light! Move on! Go to the big koi fish pond in the sky! They probably have... uh... sushi and... eggrolls and...sake and..."
There's a deep low rumbling that emanates from within the busty Mexican, a sound not very far from unearthly moaning itself. She clutches her stomach and makes a face. "Damnit, Angel made herself hungry..."
She's about to turn and walk off, no doubt to find some Chinese buffet or hibachi grill to sate her sudden realization that the tiny bottles of acohol on the plane trip over did not count as a meal, when Todoh has to go and goad her. Weak?! Angel spins around, her expression all business now.
"Hey! Nobody with no body gets to call Angel weak!"
The agent takes two steps before her body turns into a blur of motion, a smudge of black against the dull gray of the ash. She translocates in an instant, reappearing before Todoh like a mirage, but the hurt she is preparing to lay down is very real.
Angel reaches out to plant her hands on his shoulders, pitching herself forward into a handstand as she does so. She lingers for a moment, her face sporting her usual playful smirk a few inches above Todoh's should he care to look up. "Oryaa!" Throwing her legs apart, the girl pivots her hips and whips her feet in opposite directions, using the weight at each end to add torque. The end result is that the both of them go spinning through the air, though one of them is going to likely have a rougher landing.
COMBATSYS: Todoh fails to interrupt Cosmic Futen Swing from Angel with Small Random Weapon.
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Angel 0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1 Todoh
Somewhere in that dark dust-dusted face, those eyes peer upward as she handstands on his shoulder with that little smirk of hers. He shakes his head with a frown, pointing down at the ground with one hand. She does not appear to comply within the stretched moment of time she handstands there.
"Oooooh, now you asked for it," he moans more then he menaces as he digs inside his... person? Where does the dust covering him end and the rest of him begin? He pulls out a fan (or creates some sort of fan-shaped extension from his ash-covered ghostly ectoplasm that is at least fifty percent ash, either or), folding it closed with a tight snap that would frighten cats for miles, hand shaking with rage for the remainder of that brief moment where she's just handstanding there...
"Get off my hheAAAAyeyeaAAAh!!" Such he screams as his entire person flails about in the spin, the fan coming open with the wild movement that it fans the very air around the lot of them. It possibly gives Angel a beautiful, dramatic windblown look as the frantic flailing of his arms adds more flair and force to the displaced wind and the scattering soot while he spins and corkscrews about in the air. New clouds form as ash is shaken off and away.
Maybe it's more ash-toplasm as he takes to the air to escape to the li-- what light? There's hardly any sunlight that can make it through all the smog that has taken residence over the skies of Sou8thtown.
"Boofwhooah!" The master(?) wheezes out as he collapses against a street that has no visual difference to distinguish it from the sidewalk or anywhere else aside from any slight elevation differences as a hint, the echo of a metal sewer grate adding a far stronger indicator of impact and location than any wheezing and coughing on his part might add.
A human-sized mass of soot rolls horizontally a short ways across the street, a series of prolonged groans and probably salty language a precursor to them sitting up. Their eyes are somehow clear from the piles of accumulated ash sticking to their person.
"All that, and... and you're not even... dressed appropriately!" He coughs, sputters, wheezes, the whole nine yards for a lung's rebellion against further abuse. "Unthinkable...! You nasty little goonie bird!"
...What?
The spinning trip through the air is thankfully short but no less brutal for its sudden application of force and acceleration, a feat made possible by Angel's enhanced body. The girl rides out the initial burst of g-force as her legs centrifuge around but when Todoh begins to flail about she lets go, pirouetting through the air as graceful as a Mexican ballerina.
The girl lands in a easy three-point crouch, her fingers digging into the layer of ash on the street to prevent herself from falling to the ground and ending up as dirty as her opponent. This, once again, presents Todoh with an exceptional view of her scandalous attire as she bends over with her back to him.
Ofcourse, he doesn't quite seem to appreciate it the way most people do. That or he's trying to hide it with insults. Whatever the case, he sounds like one of those annoying old people that just complains about how short girl's skirts are these days, which is silly, because she's not even wearing pants, much less a skirt. She'd hate to be his daughter.
Tilting her head to peer back at Todoh with a wry smirk, the NESTS agent starts to fall into a more comfortable place as the battle turns from weird random accusations about the weather to people complaining about her outfit. She casually runs a hand over her posterior, resting it on her hip after a slow trip upwards.
"What's the matter, old man? Does Angel's body make you wish you were young again?"
And then more insults. Goonie bird? What the hell? What does that even mean?! Angel's coy smirk turns into an indignant scowl as she whirls to face the battered, stirred, but not yet shaken, old man.
"Oooo! Angel was gonna be nice to you too! But now you're gonna get it!"
The girl takes off at a run, as she seems to always do, dashing across the ashen carpet until her body evaporates into a streak of black and white. She reappears on the opposite side of Todoh, little more than a momentary whoosh of air signaling her passage in the blink of an eye.
"Oryaaa!"
She calls out her battle kiai, attempting to draw his attention so that he'll turn around but even as she does so she dashes back the other direction, translocating to the spot directly before him. Regaining her mocking grin, Angel points a finger up towards the sky in a dramatic fashion as she calls out, "And now, Angel will take YOU to school!"
The young fighter turns sideways, tilting her body over... over... until finally gravity kicks in and pulls her down atop Todoh's seated form. Her arm windmills around as she falls, perhaps to gain momentum but mostly for extra flair; however, when her elbow comes down it is with the fury and power of Thor's hammer itself.
COMBATSYS: Todoh fails to interrupt Blue Monday Parade from Angel with Kasane Ate.
-* WILD HIT! *-
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Angel 0/-------/-------|=======\====---\1 Todoh
COMBATSYS: Todoh has reached second wind!
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Angel 0/-------/-------|=======\====---\1 Todoh
"O-Oh yeeeeaaaaah?" He hisses out as he appears to fall for the trick, hook, line, and sinker as he pivots about with a pained grunt, throwing his hands up into the air for the summoning of a truly awe-inspiring, amazing technique that has made countless lesser schools quiver in its wake in something that has suspicious similarities to, but is totally different, from laughter.
Three yellowish-orangeish chi segments cast a bright illumination upon the dark and depressing Chinatown streets, their blocky form casting a certain light down upon the foolish, impetuous youth of...!
Of...
...
"What body?" He grumbles aloud. "You're invisible or, something, where'd you--" He looks over his shoulder to watch her slowly and surely turn over while he has his hands raised, the great and terrible manifestation of chi gathered and ready to fall... the wrong way.
It's slowly starting to drift down. He hastily, hurriedly tries to pull it backwards, to guide it backwards and into her while she's tilting, tilting---
"Pfff!" The chi manifestation bumps up against his tender, sore, ashen cheek as it no longer has the elevation to clear his head but still enough momentum to strike into something (which happens to be his face).
Angel then takes him to metaphorical school, the show-and-tell being the elbow that strikes down into his back with such thunderous strength and power that the entire street's collected dust bounces upwards like a missile just struck down upon it.
The entire street - and that yellowish-orangeish... segmented... chi thing... and presumably its summoner - collapses a ways before Ayame as there is a muffled, hidden yell of pain, fury, and probably embarrassment that all seems to disappear into an even greater, smeller, damper darkness belo--
"Oh, really. REALLY!" Cries that voice, as his form is seen being pulled up and out one side of this new chasm formed from many years of fighting and abuse. The great elbow drop was probably the last straw for it - who knows what other such of ugly truths await about Southtown's infrastructure now that it's this close to being completely evacuated and abandoned from the volcano nonsense.
"THIS is how it always goes!" The one, the only Ryuhaku Todoh shouts above whatever injuries he's accumulated so far, shaking off so much of that dust and grime he's collected that his appearance is a lot cleaner, easier to see. His face still appropriately battered and bruised, he seems to have found something of a... second wind?
"This is how it ALWAYS goes!" He shouts, waving a finger to Angel. "I am hardened by the trials of a hundred incidents people have confused for 'defeat'! Yeh hah hah... hah... hah..." It's not much of a second wind if he's in a coughing fit now, is it, as he waves all the smoke and smog away from his face.
He probably had a cool boast or comeback that probably involved more nonsensical bits of name calling as he falls to his knees again... but the fury! The fury! The impotent, entitled, self-aggrandizing fury! It's there, in his face, in the shaking of a fist.
That means there's totally still room in that bruised pride to punch.
"Gack! Blughhahahghg!"
The devastating elbow drop brings forth a storm of ashen fury from the abused streets and Angel vanishes into the cloud of all-encompassing gray matter along with everthing else. The scarf-like piece of cloth she swiped from the pilot does a heroic job of protecting her lungs from invasion by the cloud of soot but every other inch of her body gets coated in a fine layer of grime. The girl reappears after a few moments, coughing through the thick haze of congested air and waving her arms to try and clear a visible swath through the aftermath of her weapons-grade elbow drop.
"Bluh! Angel has dust in places it shouldn't be!"
The heat combined with this new level of discomfort are finally too much for the girl. Still barely able to see through the smoke, she fumbles for the zipper on her half-jacket and yanks it down with a sharp *vrrrrrt!* that echoes through the empty streets. Stumbling backwards until she hits something flat to sit on, Angel flops on the hood of a car and fans herself with her hands as sweat pours down her skin. Heat and leather don't mix, m'kay?
"T-Time out... Angel is... dying over here!"
Despite her whining, however, the sudden application of a 'fog-of-war' to the battlefield is kind of exciting. Not that her opponent has been much of a threat so far, beyond bruising her delicate ego, but with apparent ability to sneak up on her in broad daylight this new development might give him an edge. Angel's eyes dart back and forth, trying to pick out any unusual sights or signs of motion in the gloom while she tries without much success to cool down.
COMBATSYS: Angel is getting serious! Her body is ready!
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Angel 0/-------/------=|=======\====---\1 Todoh
To Angel's complaints of the environment, they are highly reasonable. The request is one most people would honor, had they had the intention to come out and physically exert themselves in these kinds of crazy conditions absolutely unsuited to the continued health of anyone, ever.
It would seem, for a while, that he is ultimately complying to her awareness. No complaining from him... but no word of approval, either. The sound of rushing sewer water and other such environmental noises stand to mask whatever movement there might be, if it is so slight. There are hardly any feels of the vibrations one may leave with their footsteps as she lies to try and let the incredible, horrible, muggy heat pass as it may.
Where is he? Where did he go? Did the phantom decide to go away to whatever's next, following their assumed untimely demise in the wake of what was probably one of the best punches she has ever delivered? It's hard to say.
With how careful attention is paid, there is some movement... somewhere. Somewhere, at the tip of her perception. Something moves. Rustles, even, like something flapping in a breeze.
This is followed, moments later, by a great big shadow being cast over her, the visage of that strange old man now holding the two coathangers as sweat beads contrast against what particles have already settled on his person anew, a manic grimace that announces his untimely, unwanted arrival.
"Well maybe... you should have dressed appropriately!" Is he insane?! Isn't he cooking under all those clothes?! He whips them out in front and above her in order to beat out some of the dust, raises both arms, and slams both clothes' contents down upon her. They're warm! They're uncomfortable to the skin!
It's like he's actually trying to smother her to death with them! (...Is he?)
COMBATSYS: Angel dodges Todoh's Light Random Weapon.
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Angel 0/-------/------=|=======\====---\1 Todoh
It's quiet...
Too quiet.
Angel frowns as she glances around, her efforts to create some sort of cooling air circulation doing little more than spin more dust into her face. The heat of the earth itself is not something so easily quelled but her attention drifts away from the stifling warmth as the seconds tick away with no signs of the old man.
What was that?! Angel sits bolt upright as the hint of a sound plays upon her delicate perceptions. A faint rustling, hardly a whisper of cloth against cloth, dancing on the breeze beyond the veil of gray ash. Her awareness heightens as adrenaline surges into her blood, her senses keyed up like a small forest creature that knows it is being stalked by a hungry wolf.
And then the world grows a little bit darker as a shadow rises overhead. Slowly, she leans back and tilts her face upwards, big bright blue eyes shimmering with quiet terror like a deer caught in headights. Angel opens her mouth to say something but the imminent assault by those horribly uncomfortable looking clothes cuts her short, forcing the girl to abort into a new plan.
Abandon ship!
Throwing her arms up over her head, Angel flattens herself against the hood of the car and lets her knees go slack, sliding down towards the ground with a swift wiggling motion as if she were water flowing down a hill. Her swift and unorthodox manuever turns out to be a successful one, her face mercifully free of itchy cotton and fresh ash. The downside is that she seems to have lost her jacket in the transaction.
The lower edge having caught on a protruding bit of metal, Angel's extremely short leather top now hangs on the edge of the vehicle's hood as neatly as if it were a coat hanger. Some people might think she actually planned it that way. Regardless, the girl is now left with little more than a dull blue strapless bra, little more than a pair of undercups linked together by a strap of fabric, protecting her modesty. It doesn't do a very good job.
Angel spins around to face her attacker, her rather bouyant curves now free of the constricting leather. Realising her 'predicament', the girl grins and sticks her tongue out at Todoh, placing her hands by her temples to give him her trade-mark finger-horn taunt.
"Nyaaa~. Angel wears what she pleases, old man!"
Taking a step forward, the agent lashes out with a straight kick towards the Japanese instructor's poofy-pant covered legs. She follows it up immediately with a spinning hop that brings her other leg to bear, thrusting that out as well to try and catch the old grump as he falls or tries to dodge.
COMBATSYS: Angel successfully hits Todoh with Senseless Fists.
Glancing Blow
~~ Alluring Hit! ~~
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Angel 0/-------/---====|=======\======-\1 Todoh
When one takes a step back to even consider the notion, the fact that one Ryuhaku Todoh can appear just about anywhere, at any time, without anything resembling a fair warning or even (in some particularly grievous cases) adherence to the laws of time or space - but maybe at least a passing, grudging respect for quantum physics - and behold himself to no one to explain why he's even there.
Some would consider such a thing far more egregious and outright offensive than Angel's steadily decreasing number of clothes as the mass of dusty clothes thumps against the car hood with a completely unnatural amount of force that no cloth should ever be able to inflict against the hood.
It has /dents/ in its wake.
"Oh n-no you don't!" Todoh shouts as he waves the clothes up and about in the air again, whipping them with equal parts threat and something that probably resembles some exotic dances in some other parts of the globe as he attempts to pursue her as she teases him.
In an uncanny display of skill that may or may not reflect his claims of his own ability, he leans backwards and takes a dramatic step away from that first straight kick, at which point he gets a look at the angle of how much of her flesh is actually exposed to these elements.
He cocks an eyebrow, just in time for the second as it catches him by the hip and forces him to a very awkward-looking kneel as the struck hip sees a leg kick out into the air like a nerve just got pinched by the very impact.
"Th-that's not appropriate for my dojo!" He mutters, flustered, as he rears back the left coathanger, the one that has the gi top. Now, without any proper thing to tie around it or underneath, it is impossible to put it on to any sort of fully satisfactory degree.
"You will PUT ON THESE CLOTHES," he demands like some sort of drill sergeant as he whips the coathanger at Angel. The gi top flies free in a spiraling shape, threatening to do something completely improbable like somehow navigate her arms to drape itself around her... or at least, the far more likely outcome should she not escape, just slap her with hot, ash-filled fabric that must still be really uncomfortable on his own person.
Why would he inflict this on anyone else?!
COMBATSYS: Angel dodges Todoh's Thrown Object.
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Angel 0/-------/---====|=======\======-\1 Todoh
No matter how hard he tries, Angel always seems to be one step ahead. Perhaps it is her super-human agility and biologically enhanced reflexes that keep her moving just beyond his reach; or it might just be that she really doesn't like wearing stuffy clothes. As her foot impacts against his hip, plowing the slippery old man into the side of the car, the agent uses the momentum to kick herself backwards, putting her out of easy reach for his shirt-slapping antics.
Which, ofcourse, prompts him to just throw them at her. Angel looks surprised for a moment, her eyes going wide as the gi seems to open in mid-flight, it's ash-covered, itchy fabric splitting apart like some Hellish maw that seeks to devour her whole. Empowered by the desire to remain free of this abomination, she drops towards the ground, crouching just in time for the demon-shirt to fly overhead.
"Geh! Angel will not be oppressed by you or your pants!"
Hopping back to her feet, her ample breasts inevitably obeying the laws of gravity as they to do a little hopping of their own, Angel takes two long hop-steps forward, moving back into close combat range with Todoh as she brings her right fist back for a doozy of a wind-up punch.
"Viva la resistance!"
COMBATSYS: Todoh counters Full Moon Evening from Angel with Kuzu Otoshi.
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Angel 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Todoh
One step ahead, embarrassing him largely every step of the way. Every lecture turned around, every demand flippantly shoved aside, every display of his great(?) power, foiled! So many men (...and a few women) would submit to the perky NESTS assassin then and there as she springs to and fro, easily avoiding the... wrath? Of Ryuhaku Todoh.
It's hard to call it wrath when there doesn't appear to be much of a bite to it, for the most part. For all one knows, those teeth could just be imagined. He might be all gums, which may explain the ease in which he flaps them so, weightlessly and so eagerly.
The wind-up punch comes in almost with comic timing as Ryuhaku staggers forward after the gi top toss. The empty coathanger is dropped on the ground, that hand rising. The other hand, the one carrying those hakama trousers, rises low and forward. There is a gleam in his eye that somehow pierces the very darkness cast over Southtown.
The punch smacks solidly into the open, raised hand. He shakes his head for a curiously long time, before (somehow finding the finger dexterity, given what he's already holding in one hand) picking her up and slamming her into the cracked, damaged, super-hot ash-filled sidewalk behind himself.
To add insult to injury, the coathanger with the pants are raised upon high. "YOU WILL OBEY THE DESIRE TO WEAR DECENT PANTS!"
He smacks her with them about two to three times, spraying her in whatever accumulated powdery matter it has picked up since the last time it's been shaken about on top of, well, being slapped by a very large pair of pants before he finally relents, dropping them on the ground next to her.
"Seriously, put 'em on already," he says quietly and quickly -strangely sullen - with only the very, very faintest hint of concern for her well being, as he wipes some blood away from his nose with a sniff.
This is it, she can feel it; the last strike before an opponent is felled. Her blood is boiling (only partially thanks to the weather), her spirits high, her luck strong. She turned everything this crazy old man has tried to force on her on its head and now she's going to put him down for good. Then, she guesses, maybe get him to buy her a drink or something. IT'S HOT.
Alas, it is not to be. As her fist impacts against the outstretched palm, Angel's cocky expression melts into a look of utter dismay as it slowly dawns on her that she's been had. She tries to withdraw, pulling her hand back from the carefully woven trap that it has been thrust into, but there is no escaping her fate now.
"Noooooo!"
She cries out against the cruelty of the world as visions of her cold-drink-filled evening vanish like so much dust in the wind. Speaking of dust, ack, she's being smacked with dirty pants! Angel lifts her arms to shield her face from the onslaught. She tries to turn her head to the side to avoid further being sullied but the thick layer of ash, while providing some measure of cushioning for her harsh descent, doesn't do much to keep her face clean.
Thankfully, the attack doesn't last but for a few seconds. The girl opens her eyes to peer up at Todoh, but instinctively flinches as he tosses the pants down beside her. She frowns, first at the pants then at their owner.
"Nuh uh, can't make me!"
Angel grabs the pants by the coathanger and pops to her feet with a spry reverse handspring, displaying acrobatics as another one of her apparent skills. Or shit she just tried to do on a whim. It's hard to tell with her. Aiming to return the favor, the agent swings the pants at Todoh's head, whipping them back and forth a few times with enough speed to create a noisy crack each time she snaps her wrist.
COMBATSYS: Todoh fails to interrupt Light Random Weapon from Angel with Light Random Weapon.
- CRAZY Hit! -
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Angel 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1 Todoh
"Oh yes I caaaaaaan!" Announced with the mocking tone of a man who wants to have Lucille Ball understand that she has a lot of explaining to do, his coathanger-bearing hand jerking upwards in surprise as the whole thing is just taken clean out of his hands. He seems confused as to whether she is truly going to be accepting them or what, after all she just took them.
Then, the pants-slapping comes. There is a great, terrible duel of pants slapping between aging master(?) and young student(?) that sees Ryuhaku back away, wielding a pair of trousers against the trousers that are, for some reason, absolutely perfect for Angel's measurements. It's uncanny, really. For her, they are the perfect width and length to be wielded and slapped with.
"It's over, young laaaady!" He cries as he appears to parry those slaps as he holds up a pair him-- wait, where did he even get the pair?! How did this pose get through without anyone notic--
Oh, it's his own. He somehow, in the blink of an eye, removed those hakama trousers to meet Angel in an honorable duel of the pants... in the middle of an ecological disaster... among muggy, hot streets, fighting through ash-covered streets as the stuff flits about in the air with the promise of giving either of them permanent lung damage.
"I have the outdated movie reference!!" Finally, in the climax of the rapid pants-slapping duel, Angel's series of snaps beat out old man Todoh's, his head twisting rapidly to the left as a comical amount of saliva and even blood fly out from his maw as he dramatically staggers back towards that hole in the road created by his earlier elbow-dropping that probably should have snapped his spine in two.
He staggers back, arms waving, one foot raised revealing hairy, wrinkled, muscular legs and a pretty snazzy loincloth, as he comes within inches of toppling over...!
So. It has come to this. Of all the weapons that she ever dreamed of wielding in a random battle in the streets of post-apocalyptic Japan (what, you don't dream about that?), pants is one of the few things not on that list. Mostly because she doesn't actually own any but also partially because WHO FIGHTS WITH PANTS?! She does now, apparently.
Ignoring the fact that the crazy old man has now removed his own trousers to engage in a climatic slap-fest - she's seen weirder things at NESTS - Angel enthusiastically launches into the battle. Batting aside and ducking under countless -deadly- pants swats, the girl once more gets into her stride, apparently managing to maintain her confidence despite being taken to the mat like a little girl.
But she's not down yet! She's got tricks! Wiles! Pants! Wildly jiggling cleavage! With her torso whipping back and forth to juke Todoh's attacks there's no helping the fact that her chest is going to follow suit. Perhaps they serve as some distraction or perhaps the old man is just getting slow. Either way, when the final blow lands it is Angel that stands triumphant.
"Jajyaaan~" she says as the devastating pants-slap sends Todoh reeling, as if she just performed an amazing magic trick. She grins as he teeters on the precipice of the large gap in the road, seeing her opportunity to put an end to this nonsense.
"Angel's got the newcomer on the run! He's up against the ropes!" She takes the pants in her hands and wraps them up in a ball, clearly winding up to toss them straight into his chest and give him the little push necessary to send him over the edge.
"And here comes the pitch!"
Isn't she getting her sports references mixed up?
COMBATSYS: Angel successfully hits Todoh with Thrown Object.
-* WILD HIT! *-
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Angel 0/-------/-======|=======\==-----\1 Todoh
The decisive battle to win over a new disciple over pants is, in this final moment, won not with wit, panache, strength, or any sort of moral high ground whatsoever.
No... this very battle would be decided by pants.
"D-Don't you do it! Think of your futuuuure!" Ryuhaku begs and pleads as he kind of overly dramatizes the whole fact he is about to tip over into... well, not so much an abyss as much as it is a now non-functional sewer pipeline, or whatever the hell they got down there. One might probably wish they're falling to their death.
And here comes the pitch - Angel, heedless in her mission to never have to wear proper pants, ever, returns those pants that should have been hers with no return address, a fastball that goes into the triple digits as the pants batter into his chest with the force of a decently sized chunk of hail.
It's all one needs to throw him clear of the edge as he bends inwards, eyes bugged out of his head as he flies backwards all dramatically to a rising cloud of dust that may well pretend to be flying doves.
"Every... tiiiiiime," he wheezes out as it feels like time flows to a standstill. (Things being as they are, it may well be doing just that, right now), "they shove me aside...!"
"No matter what...!" He wheezes out, somehow finding the room to keep saying this even though there is precious little freefall time between being knocked off the edge and whatever the hell is down there. "What will it take... for them to see..."
"The greatness... of the Todoh way...?!"
There is no sound confirming he hits anything down there, as he disappears from view with both pairs of pants accounted for. Now, Angel no longer has to fear the tyranny of needing to wear proper pants, except...
A freak gust of wind blows that previously discarded gi top at Angel's back. Aaaaaaaaah!!
(...It's just a piece of clothing.)
COMBATSYS: Todoh can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Angel 0/-------/-======|
COMBATSYS: Angel dodges Todoh's Weakened Thrown Object.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Angel 0/-------/-======|
"Nyaaaa~"
Angel sticks her tongue out as the stricken instructor laments his inability to impress upon yet another potential student the importance of the basics, the love for Japan, and the need for pants. Her fingers come up beside her temples, wiggling tauntingly in the final moments before he disappears into the great depths below (its maybe like 5 feet or something), swallowed whole, never to be seen again (he'll probably show up again next week).
"Later, old man!"
The battle won, her trials ended, Angel takes a moment to revel in the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanies victory. Wait, that's not victory, it's the devil shirt! "Ack! I-It's after Angel's supple young body!" Twisting about as the gi lunges for her with clear malefic intent, the agent leans to the side at the last moment... causing the shirt to flutter listlessly past her like a dried leaf on the wind. A horrific fate avoided, she lets out a deep sigh and turns to pose for an imaginary crowd (there's always someone watching, somewhere), running her hands up the sides of her ash-coated body.
"Mmmm, Angel needs a good rinse after that. I bet there's a nice hot spring around here!"
The gi, already forgotten by Angel, drifts lazily over to the small hole in the ground and drops down onto Todoh, returning to its master until it has another chance to consume an unwary victim. Sooooon...
Log created on 09:11:57 09/17/2014 by Todoh, and last modified on 19:40:18 09/17/2014.