Katsuko Himura vs. Wild Thing - Taming the Shrew

'Wild Thing', she said. And she knew Lore's real name, too. Why did this woman care enough to look that deep? It was all public, sure, but it wasn't like she needed to know any of it. This was a fight, not a blind date. "I'm not done yet."

She said that, but the fact of the matter is that she was getting closer to it than she liked. Having her face mashed against the mask hurt, and what was worse, she wasn't in a position to really hit the woman - and, oh Lord, did she want to hit her, with all her little body and soul.

She felt the leg curl on her back and she cringed, realizing the witch was working up something, a move she probably would want no part of. Looking to hurt the odd woman any way she could, Lore brought her index fingers up and tried to stick them in both of her ears, digging down and stabbing her fingers in the sensitive hole. Lore used to have ear infections quite often when she was younger, and if this felt anything like those, she doubted the odd woman could hold on.

Katsuko's core tightened uncomfortably while she talked. Of course it was perfectly fair game to taunt and bait one's opponent: a fighter had to be of sound body and mind, and also character, to resist every kind of trap. But the arrogance in her voice still made her uncomfortable.

The trouble was, it didn't work. Wild Thing did not wretch and struggle and kick and buck like she'd hoped. She stayed grounded and on top--and she shoved her filthy fingers into Kat's ears.

At first, she just shuddered. Wild Thing's fingers were hot and greasy fingers, and the feeling of their insertion made Kat squirm. But then she started to apply pressure. Kat could apply a lot of pressure, and the ear canal is a very delicate part of the body. Compress air in there tightly enough, and agony will be sure to follow.

Worse, with this grip in place, Katsuko could do nothing to get out of the way. She grit her teeth. The pain started to build up rapidly, to burn, to come in hot waves.

She wouldn't scream.

Instead, she dropped the leg she'd set up in preparation for Wild Thing and simply started to kick. Like a donkey. She curled up her legs and kicked them out, and pressed up with her hips, and tried to roll Loraine over--and then did it again.

Of course, all that movement wasn't going to be good for the grip she had on Wild Thing's head.

Come on. Scream. Howl. Yelp. Make some kind of noise, anyway.

Lore dug her fingers in deeper, knowing this had to hurt something awful. All the woman did was shudder. Squirm a bit. She was holding it in, somehow, in a way Lore just couldn't fathom. This hurt. It had to be damned excruciating. Lore thought she was fairly tough, but it would even have her screaming. It's like the woman was too crazy to feel pain.

But she was still sane enough to get herself out of the mess, and that leg that Lore had been dreading was quickly brought into play. The woman kicked. Hard. Each kick drew more and more breath clean out of Lore's body, draining her to the core, and after a moment it was too much to take. A final kick came, delivered more like the wild animal the Lore was supposed to be, and it had enough force to knock Lore on her back and keep her there, groaning and holding her side as the agony came in billowing waves.

She gritted her teeth and tried to sit up, holding her side all the way as she looked back at the odd woman.

All Wild Thing could see was Katsuko's hard eyes. All she could feel were the shudders and the squirms that ran up and down her body alongside the kicks. What she couldn't see was the trail of blood that ran down the side of Kat's jawline from where her teeth had sunk into her lip.

She was not going to scream.

...But she was, if things kept going like this. She was going to scream, and she was going to let Lore go, and then Wild Thing was going to knock her lights out. All she could do was writhe and kick. Oh, they were powerful kicks--but they were kicks from a terrible position that would get her no where. At least, so they seemed to her. After all, they were...well. Untrained. Instinctive. Uncivilized.

(Animal)

And then Lore rolled off her, gasping with pain. It was surprising--but Katsuko was too tired and too relieved by the end of her torment to acknowledge that surprise. There they were, for a few moments: both reeling.

There was a window during which Katsuko could have rolled over herself to take over the mount Wild Thing had lost. But she didn't. This match was coming to an end. She realized that well. She lay panting and listening to Wild Thing pant; she lay feeling the throb at the back of her head that would not tolerate one more serious hit without turning black and shutting down.

Her first match at the AFW was not what she had expected. It was a dirty, bloody, agonizing slog to survive, without a touch of mutual respect. And all she could see now was the two of them fighting outside the ring without form on the dirty tile floor. Like cats dueling in the gutters, with Soren looking on.

So when she reclaimed her senses, she slid her back up against the ring and grabbed one of the ropes. From there, without turning her back on Wild Thing, she tried to spring back into the ring--and if Loraine let her get that far, she would retreat quickly away from the edges. If she had her way, the last bout of the match would at least take place inside the dignity of the ropes--and she would at least be in a stance of her training if she was cut down.

Lore fully expected the odd woman to take advantage she laid there, holding her side and gasping. She was in a prime position for it. But, of course, this woman couldn't do the normal thing, could she? No. It was like she prided herself on being excessively weird at every turn.

She just sat there for a moment next to Lore, not saying anything, probably sneering at her underneath her stupid mask. What, was she having pity? Mercy? Lore didn't want or need it. She just needed a little time to recover and then she'd would be all over her again, laying it her like the whirlwind and driving her into the mat.

She started to sit up again to do just that, but before she had the chance to mount another assault, the woman went back into the ring, taking the ferocity out of their battle and trying to make it more civilized. Fine. Fine. Lore didn't care much for it, but if that's what it took to get the win, she would handle it the more official way.

Lore pulled herself up and made her way into the ring, sliding under the bottom rope. Her side still hurt, but she was able to crawl, still, and she slowly stalked after the odd woman, taking her each step with full caution. Closer and closer...

The pause in the action had gone on for an unseemly length of time for any fight, let alone an AFW match. The crowd had been cheering throughout the fight. But now the sound started to die off and descend, giving way to uneasy rustling, and to laughter. There was a cat-call as Lore reentered the ring. The crowd was thirsty for blood, and Katsuko could taste it.

Except for her husband--who was still there.

(He was still messily dressed and washed, and he hung awkwardly in the back: he was still clearly and eminently himself. He was here for this fight, he and would be there for her last fight, and even after Katsuko's joints had rusted to such a point that she wouldn't dream of fighting, he would be unkempt)

The fight didn't have more than five minutes left to it.

Katsuko put her feet together and stood tall, so that her body was like one long rod. Breathing deeply while she watched her opponent approach, she raised her hands in her traditional guard. She ached with each breath, her head spun, and the amount of blood on her white vestments reflected that as well as anything else about her. But still: her stance was rigid.

Wild Thing too had gotten into the spirit of the finale. Her ferocity seemed to have concentrated into one hot point that burned like coal behind her eyes. She stalked like a cat, her braided hair swinging beside her face--her grimace hard and determined. She carried her power like a mantra that radiated invisibly around her as an angry corona, and she came with all this coiling energy ready to leap and descend on her prey like destiny.

It was an image that would stick with Katsuko long after the match had been decided. Strangely enough, she felt more at peace at that moment than at any prior point in the match.

Lore moved along without any problem, as natural on four limbs as most people were on two. This was the way she'd spent most of her life, hunting in the winter cold. Stay down, remain unseen. She started to circle the odd woman, coming in from the side.

But she stopped short of pouncing, as the woman took up a strange position. She was ramrod straight, save for her outstretched hands. A similar pose from the start of the fight. So rigid. So refined. So tame. Seeing it set Lore's blood boiling all over again. It was like this woman, just throwing the bare minimum her way. It was time she learned what a fight. a real fight, was like.

Her muscles tensed as she took a small step back, nails scratching along the canvas. Staring at the woman through that mask, one last time.

Lore let out a piercing shriek and bounded forward, closing the distance with two smalls leaps. She landed right in front of the odd woman and ducked, trying to plow her shoulder right into the odd woman's knees and take down. If she wanted to stand like a post, she could get knocked down like one.

Karate was the empty-hands art. Katsuko had learned what that meant when she was nine years old.

Back then, she had trained very basic stances like this one every day. For hours, she would take this Heiko-Dachi position and shift into the back stance. And pivot, and kick. And return to the base. She was determined and kept the schedule, so she grew and developed the mechanics. Training hardened her reflexes. She became skilled. She became dangerous.

(But there was more to it than that)

When Wild Thing charged Kat, her instincts were ready. As she had so many hundreds of times before, she drew back one leg and lifted the other. Wild Thing would leap. Katsuko would pivot, and she would slice diagonally with her kick--and knock this animal out of the air. Grace would meet ferocity like a mouse trap.

Except Wild Thing didn't leap. She ducked. She caught Katsuko by one leg while her other was in the air. Katsuko fell--and hit her head. Of course. And again, it wasn't enough to put her mercifully under. Of course.

Instead, her vision shot red and black and jagged and fiery, and for a few moments she lost all sense of her body; but that didn't stop her from flailing, kicking at Wild Thing with the leg free because it had been mid-air, dragging herself unwittingly away from center ring, away from Wild Thing, and towards the ropes. Through it all, she clutched her mask.

And she screamed. Or rather, gasped. Or rather both. Whimpering, choking noises came from the mask, sputtering and panicked. And loud. She couldn't stop herself; there was a sense in which she wasn't even, for that moment, fully conscious.

As Lore made her way in, the odd woman started to draw her leg back, as if preparing some inane kick to try and counter her. She did it with practiced precision, like a dance move she practiced thousands of times, trained to unleash with mechanical precision. Like she already had the move played out in her head and she knew exactly how it would go.

Well, she was wrong.

Lore ducked low and took the legs out from under her, sending her to the ground, flopping and flailing, as she hit her head. Downed and vulnerable - Lore's instincts took over and she pounced, trying to get a hold of the woman before she could get up and find her base one against. She was easy prey, now, and Lore figured that all she had to do was seal the deal.

Well, she was wrong.

A desperate kick to the chest stopped her at the last second, launching her back. She landed face-up and rolled to the side, looking over her shoulder and expecting to see the odd woman up and ready once more. But that didn't happen. This time, she stayed down, rolling about, all manner of weird noises coming from her, like a sputtering, broken toy.

Not sure what was happening but not letting it go to waste, she jumped towards the woman once again, trying to land on her and straddle the chest, holding her down.

Katsuko recovered herself to meet two sensations. The first was an overwhelming sense of nausea. The second was a bleary and half-processed image of Wild Thing leaping towards her. Like a faceless demon.

At that point, all Instinct wanted was to get away from the predator, so it made her run. It made her jump and dodge and bounce and flail and reverse-crawl desperately away, until either Wild Thing pinned her so she couldn't move or her back was against the turnbuckle. Yet even through all this, her training never completely abandoned her: some habit worn almost as deeply as the flight instinct made her keep her hands in front of her face.

If she made it to the ropes, then she curled up like a ball--a small, trembling ball, squeezed against the ring-post with legs and arms and fists between her and Wild Thing.

(I have to fight I have to fight I have to get up I have to fight)

She would try once. Her head would feel as though it were splitting open, and a convulsion in her stomach would put her back on her ass.