Kyo Akamatsu vs. Carmen Rodriguez - Let's You and Him Fight

Kyo's back was throbbing with a drumbeat of pain twinned to the one in his chest as he leaned against the steel fence, feeling the blunt metal posts dig into his spine. Behind him, he heard fans shouting encouragement or insults, some even reaching forward to grope at his shoulder or butt. He ignored them, for now-- Carmen was coming, with exhausted, yet lethal, intent in her eyes.

The moment Carmen grabbed his arm, however, he dragged up whatever willpower and strength he could to resist. As she pulled him forwards and tried to whip him into the corner post, he snatched out with his other hand, trying to grab her wrist and hold onto her as he was spun around.

And then, without warning, he would try to kick his legs up around Carmen's bare yet muscular waist. If he managed that, then he would drop down onto his butt or back, pulling Carmen down with him as he tried to twist her arm painfully behind her back in a kimura lock, while at the same time squeezing her torso in a body scissor. The only problem with this hold, though, is that it would still leave Carmen's other arm free...

Things were going well...relatively speaking. Carmen wasn't the one with her back to the barricade, at least. She was the one advancing. She was the one controlling the fight. She was winning.

But, even though she'd only known Kyo for a short time, there was one thing she could tell about him right out of the gate:he was good at turning things around. That was why she now found herself on the floor with his legs around her waist and her arm yanked behind her back, in a hold she'd never even heard of before. But not knowing the name didn't stop it from hurting her. Not one bit.

She growled and thrashed in the hold, gritting her as he poured his strength into the lock. Pain, agonizing pain, tore through her arm, and his legs made every breath pure torture. She shook her head and struggle for breath that just was not coming. She had one arm left, and she could either use it to tap or to fight. She decided on the latter, as tempting as the former was.

She swung her arm around and tried to elbow him in the side from behind, hoping to dig in deep to his ribs.

The crowd was going wild now as the two wrestlers were practically sitting chest to chest at ringside, muscles bulging as they fought to maintain and resist the hold, respectively. Carmen's fans were going particularly wild, stomping the stands and shouting "CAR-MEN! CAR-MEN!" as they encouraged her to escape from Kyo's powerful hold.

Kyo felt Carmen's warm breath on his shoulder and chest, and felt their sweat intermingling as they were pressed closely together. He closed his eyes and kept his head in the match, locking his ankles together and twisting painfully on Carmen's trapped arm, putting pressure on the wrist and elbow joints. He couldn't remember which of her arms she had been favouring for her punches, but it didn't matter-- this way, at least, he got to neutralize one of her two dangerous weapons.

"Give up," he breathed, his cheek brushing against Carmen's as he squeezed into the girl. "You've fought well, but this is over. Give up now before you--"

He was interrupted as Carmen's elbow rammed against his ribs, causing him to gasp sharply. Another elbow followed in its wake, followed by another. Agony shot through Kyo's chest, and his own breathing became ragged in turn as his grip on Carmen's wrist began to slip.

A final hit caused him to lose the grip entirely as he toppled onto his side, clutching the side of his chest and breathing hard, his legs still entwined weakly around Carmen's waist.

It was a shame Kyo was a man.

That was a stupid thought, and Carmen regretted thinking it the moment it came out, but there it was. He had a lot of the qualities she would have loved in a woman - reslient, tough, intelligent and skilled. He was giving her one of the hardest fights of her life and truly challenging her burgeoning wrestling abilities. And there was certainly a lot of close contact. She wasn't getting much out of it, but she doubt Kyo was that resrved. Not that she would blame him one bit.

It was just a weird, idle thought, something to occupy her thoughts while she tried to deal with her arm nearly being wrenched out in Kyo's hold. It helped. Not much. A little.

As soon as he eased up on the hold, she lurched forward and rub her tortured arm, hissing as the flames raged beneath her skin. It took some sheer will, but she managed to push past it and shove his weak legs away, even got two stumbling feet on the floor. The crowd was behind her, Kyo was stunned, and all she had to do was finish the job and go home. She could do this.

"As long as I've got one arm to work with, I'm never done."She reached under Kyo's shoulders and lifted, trying to raise him to his feet and toss him back into the ring under the bottom rope.

Kyo had taken worse punches from Carmen so far in this match, but that didn't stop her blows from hurting. Although the close range had robbed Carmen's punches of most of their impact, they still hurt like hell, and Kyo's ribs were hurting so badly he was afraid one of them was broken. As Carmen shoved his legs away, he tried to roll, breathing in deep, controlled bursts in an effort to shut out the pain. Carmen was giving him one of his most grueling bouts ever, and although he was quite sore from it, he was also loving every minute of it.

Carmen was, he admitted to himself, everything he dreamed about an opponent-- tough, determined, and challenging-- and not unattractive either. It was just his luck that all of his favourite female opponents were either spoken for, or preferred other girls.

He gasped as he was suddenly hoisted back to his feet. He was breathing too hard to muster a counter attack, and unable to stop Carmen as she tossed him unceremoniously back into the ring. He winced and rolled across the canvas. Carmen and her deadly fists had the initiative again, which meant he had to get back in control, and fast.

Carmen swore she could hear her father egging her on, giving her some pointers, telling her to finish the fight. This wasn't just about them and their match. She and Kyo represented history. Two styles, honed through generations of deligent training and conditioning, distiller through lifetimes, coming to a head in this ring, right here. Her grandchildren - if she ever adopted - would be watching this.

Get in there.

She rolled in under the bottom rope and stood up as fast as she could...which wasn't fast at all. But with a little stumbling and staggering, she made it up and trudged her way over to Kyo. She ducked down and lifted him up with one arm under his shoulder, while she reeled back and tried to give him an uppercut with the other. Her arm so numbed up that she could barely feel the motion, but she didn't care. Her body was finishing this fight whether it wanted to or not. "Drop. Just drop."

Like Carmen, Kyo too came from a tradition of fighters. Wrestlers, martial artists, judo champions, and above all, samurai. He had lost once before by surrendering to a superior foe, and he knew there was no shame in that, but samurai didn't surrender. They would take their own lives rather than live with defeat, and while Kyo certainly had no intention of doing anything so...drastic, at the same time he knew he had a proud legacy to uphold.

He breathed hard as Carmen pulled him up, sweat dripping from his brow. He heard his fans screaming, and blinked rheumily. Almost instinctively, he used his position to wrap his other arm around Carmen's slender waist, giving her a squeeze before, acting almost on instinct, he arched backwards.

Carmen's fist exploded against his chin a second later, causing colours to spark across his vision. Then the two of the crashed into the mat, back-first, as Kyo completed his back body drop. The crowd screamed ecstatically as the two wrestlers nailed each other with brutal hits almost simultaneously. Kyo flopped onto his back, unmoving, as he released Carmen, and the ref girl immediately knelt down next to the two fallen wrestlers to see if either of them had been knocked out.

Carmen wasn't even 100% sure what was happening. She hit him, she knew that much. She felt the satisfying sensation of her fist crashing into his flesh, felt his body tremple as the pain ran through him. She'd accomplished that much, but she didn't expect what came next - not by a long shot.

The next thing she knew, the world was upside down. She was falling, fast and hard, right into the canvas, and there wasn't a thing she could do but flail about and wait for the impact. And what an impact it was, too.

She hit so hard that she bounced off the canvas, flying back up for a few inches before gravity yanked her back down. Her head hurt. Her neck hurt. Her back hurt. Her everything hurt. She started to roll into a ball, shrivel up from the pain, but even that exertation was too much. She flattened out and laid back on the mat, staring up at the ceiling while she prayed to God for some morphine.

Everything was a dull blur for Kyo as he lay on his back. A dull ringing noise flooded his hearing, and he could barely see anything but a grey haze as his head twitched left and right. Though he didn't realize it, the crowd was going wild right now: both wrestlers were down and seemingly knocked out, and the fans were going crazy, screaming for their respective favourites to get back up or crying in alarm at the apparent injuries both had suffered. The ref girl was going into a mild panic herself, checking over both wrestlers to see if either had been permanently knocked out.

After a few seconds, the ref girl started her countdown. Kyo barely heard it-- he knew someone was saying something, but he was too dizzy to make out the words. His head hurt way too much anyway-- it would be simply if he just lay here and rested for a bit...

His fist clenched. No. Raw willpower surged into his battered frame. Slowly and agonizingly, he raised his arm, before gritting his teeth and twisting sideways, barely getting a shoulder up before the ref girl's countdown reached ten. The crowd went wild at that moment: Kyo Akamatsu was hurting badly, but he wasn't out of the fight yet. The question was, was Carmen also able to continue, or was she done?

Laying on her back, staring up at the ceiling while the referee counted somewhere in the distance. "Kyo Akamatsu, you really know how to make a girl feel at home."

There it was. That familiar non-feeling that she got in moments like this. It was weird to go through your whole life with your body doing what you told it to, only to suddenly try and move your chest and get a distinct 'NO' in response, but that was exactly what was happening here. She tried to sit up. She failed. She tried to sit up again. She failed.

Carmen relaxed. Took a deep breath, trying hard not to think about the referee's count. Steeled herself, summoned all the will she could muster, and pushed.

She groaned all the way, but she managed to get her shoulder up and turned to her side away from Kyo. It hurt. Moving hurt. Just blinking hurt. But she wasn't done yet. Close, very close, but not yet.

God, she wanted the fans to stop yelling so loud, though. She appreciated the encouragement, but she had a migraine that would take out an elephant, and the screams were not helping.