For the Want of a Book...

In the back of her mind, Eka knew that she would have to go get her stuff. Her clothes, her gear, her everything was in small miles all over her dorm room, completely untidy. That sort of boorishness would not pass here it looked like, and the Georgian girl did not intend to be a problem. What kept her from bringing it up was that she really didn't want to go, or rather be the first one to go.

Eka listened as both of the girls talked. All or nothing...whew. She shuddered. Luckily Irene was there to swoop in and save the day, kind of. Whatever. She was going to have to learn to be comfortable with that sooner or later, so why not do that with some new friends? And it would give her a chance to look into some of Irene's matches.

"Hmm. We will make these decisions when we tussle together, yes? But I have been doing something wrong. I have wrestled and wrestled and I still have no dates." Eka smiled. She wondered how long she should pack for. Honestly, Eka wanted to stay for as long as she could. Maybe for a few weeks at first. Then maybe she could parlay it into something more.

"But we could always share a cab, if of course..." Eka turned to face Irene even as she stole a few glances at Natasha. The Georgian girl thought she was being really subtle.

Natasha could see that Irene hadn't understood what she meant by all or nothing but she didn't try to interrupt her, instead standing back and letting her finish before interjecting. "Actually what I meant was when it comes to hentai theres rarely if ever any restrictions placed on the nature of the sensual aspects. If you get into a hentai or an anything goes type of match like Irene described there won't be any limitations on what your opponent is allowed to do, so you would best be prepared to endure any number of erotic moves. If you don't prepare yourself for them a well timed hentai move can throw off even the best wrestlers." She explained, hoping she didn't sound like she was trying to lecture them or anything.

"And yes its good that you mixed together traditional wrestling maneuvers in addition to hentai ones, in a match where hentai is a possibility I find its best not to limit yourself so long as the rules allow for it. I personally use a good number of submission holds to weaken my opponent first, makes it easier to get them into any hold, hentai or otherwise, I want to in the later parts of the match." She said complimenting the technique of Irene as the woman was absolutely right in that regard, it was a philosophy that she herself practiced.

Natasha had guessed what Irene was getting at even before Eka not so subtly glanced in her direction, both women clearly wondering if Natasha could help in that matter without actually asking her. She understood where they were coming from though, after being offered to live in her home for the time neither woman wanted to ask for more even if they could use the help. "Here let me call you two a cab, this area is pretty safe but you never know right? I would feel much better if you two had a ride." Natasha would then excuse herself for a moment to call the driving service she used, getting an estimate of ten minutes before hanging up her cell phone. "The driver will be here soon, shall we go outside and wait?

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Irene nodded understandingly, blushing a bit over her mistake. Since Natasha was going to be teaching her and Eka about wrestling, hentai and otherwise, being set straight by the woman didn't hurt her feelings. “You are right, when a match allows for hentai, wrestlers who gravitate towards that stuff won't hold back for the sake of their opponents. Like that Natalia girl. I've never fought her, and I don't know if either of you have, but I caught a few of her matches the other day. Forgive my language, but she fucks people's brains out if they can't fight her off. She doesn't even stop after the bell rings, most of the time.”

A short period of silence ensued as Irene realized how strange her long tangent must have sounded to the other two women. She rubbed the side of her head nervously, but her rant was actually quite relevant to her desire to get some hentai practice in. A lot of Natalia's victories had been won against rookie and kawaii level opponents, which made her exploits a perfect example of what fate could befall an inexperienced hentai wrestler.

“Thanks for getting us a ride, Natasha. The sooner Eka and I get our stuff and get back here, the sooner we can all get to practicing,” Irene said, hoping that her enthusiasm might keep Natasha from becoming agitated with her requests for help. Since practice time in the ring had been the host's only request in exchange for everything she was doing for them, Irene would be sure to give 110% in the ring once they stepped into it together. “If you're both ready, let's head out, then.”

Eka wasn't quite sure what to make of Irene's last comments. At least she seemed to like hentai so Natasha and Irene would get along well. The Georgian girl never really had a taste for hentai in the ring but if there was a better person to learn from than the hentai champion, Eka didn't know her. Natasha laid her strategy bare for the two girls. Wear the opponent down, then hit hentai holds. It was rather similar to Eka's style. Except for the fucking them, that was the blue-haired woman's special twist.

The Georgian girl adjusted the straps of her backpack one last time. It was their turn to go and collect their things and return to Natasha's palatial estate. She was ready. She was more than ready, she was excited for it. Eka nodded at Irene. "Alright, let's go. I live on campus."

Eka turned to the door and confidently strode towards it. Before heading out she gave Natasha a wave and a smile. "See you in a minute." Eka turned to Irene, holding the door open for her.

“I live on campus too,” Irene uttered as the two of them started through the doorway. Before they left, Irene turned back to Natasha and gave a bow. “Thanks for your help, Natasha. We'll be back as soon as possible.” With that, Irene and Eka walked to the outer edge of the Loclear estate's front garden, to wait for the taxi. Once it arrived, the two of them piled in and were off.

With a car to transport them, the distance to the university proved quick and easy to cover. Something was bothering Irene, however: she knew that the driver wouldn't stop running his meter while he waited for the two women to run up to their dorms to pack. Plus, she didn't want to leave Natasha waiting for too long. For her sake and the sake of Eka and Irene's wallets, they needed to move quickly once the car pulled up at the front of their college. With this in mind, Irene turned to Eka with a cheeky grin on her face.

“Hey, Eka, how about we have a little race?” she said, raising an inquisitive eyebrow to the Georgian. “I was thinking we could compete to see which of us can get up to their dorm, get packed, and return to the cab the quickest. Whichever girl wins the race gets to pick who spars with Natasha first.”

On second thought, it probably would have made more sense for the two of them to race to see which of them would be allowed to use the book first, but Irene had more interesting topics swirling in her head than Russian botanical history. Besides, Natasha's offer had been generous enough that both of them would have plenty of downtime to use the book, with no real need to compete. Deciding which of them would face the champion first, however, was quite interesting to the little scientist.

As the taxi rolled through the gates of the university, Irene turned to Eka with a grin. “Do you accept?”

Eka was grateful for the taxi. Her surbated feet would get a chance to rest and she could look out at the neon city flashing by. When they rolled up to the university he turned to the scientist as she began to make her proposition. A little race...that would be exciting. Very exciting! "You're on!" Before the cab had came to a complete stop, Eka was flying out the door, into her dorm. The RA was too confused to stop her and she was fine with that.

The Georgian girl's mind was going almost as quickly as her feet were. A bout with a champion. Of course I want to be first to try me luck at that. To be able to test my mettle my footwork my everything against her. Eka made it up to her small dingy room threw her clothes haphazardly into her suitcase. The ravenhaired girl wondered if she would get her own maid or cook or anything. That was a concern for later. The concern for now was beating her new friend back to the taxi. She dumped book after book into her bag as they would be staying there for quite some time.

And they would be wrestling for quite some time too. The champion wanted to spar with them! Eka had to sit on her suitcase to close it, but it closed nonetheless. Her old wrestling coach always explained the importance of hustling and Eka was hustling now more than ever. A flurry of dark hair sprinted down the stairs with the rolling suitcase not far behind. A few pieces of her clothes were jostled out of the suitcase, but Eka didn't notice or mind. Her focus was far away.

Eka skidded through the main lobby, and she flung open the doors of the building. She didn't know how much time she had taken, but she really really wanted to be first.

“Why you...?!” Irene shouted as Eka took off before the cab could even stop, which prompted Irene to unbuckle in a hurry and follow her out. “Stay here, we'll be back!” Irene called in Japanese to the taxi driver on her way out. She ran as fast as her short legs could carry her, taking the shortest route she knew to her own dorm. It was on another side of the school, but the distance was roughly equal to where Eka had to run since the different student quarters had all been spaced at equal distances from the main road leading into the university. Once she arrived, Irene threw the essentials into a pair of fairly small bags, before darting out and calling an elevator to take her back down. It was a questionable choice since it would consume more time than sprinting down the steps, but Irene wanted to conserve her waning energy since her stumpy legs needed to work harder to cover the same amount of ground as Eka's longer ones.

Outside, Irene sprinted for the finish line, dodging students and at one point literally crashing into a starry-eyed youth who had refused to get out of her way in an effort to make her sign a student petition. The result was an explosion of papers and body parts as the two students took a spill. Irene, for her part, didn't care, and continued to run once she had recovered her bags, with a couple of papers stuck to her face. Sadly, Irene's heart sank when the taxi came into view with Eka already standing outside it. Darn...

By the time she reached the cab as well, Irene's chest was heaving in and out. She placed her bags in the trunk and took a much needed rest back in the taxi along with Eka. Without needing to be told, the driver set off back to their original address. Frowning, Irene pulled a piece of paper from the petition off of her face and read it to herself. It was a treatise asking students to save a pod of dolphins from the actions of a local fishing village, a hot topic among Japan's youth. Irene crumpled the paper up with her hands, swearing silently to eat the next dolphin she saw.

“Alright, you win,” Irene smiled over at Eka, still happy enough that the two of them got to practice with Natasha despite the order. “So, who goes first? You or me?”

Eka was beaming with pride. Her opponent was breathing heavy just like Eka. The Georgian girl had the luxury of not having any papers in her face though, and she gave a bit of a chuckle. There were always a bunch of activists on campus, and as a whole, Eka supported them. She was ready to admit that sometimes they were a little too intrusive. It looked like Irene had been intruded upon but was otherwise fine. Aside from losing.

"Me first. Me first!" Eka grabbed her bag and threw it in the trunk. She seized Irene's bag as well and hurled it in. The ravenhaired girl was moving as if the world depended on them getting back to the mansion immediately. While perhaps the world did not depend on her getting back, she was ecstatic about the fact that she would get the first shot at the bluehaired beauty. It turned that all her conditioning had paid off. That, or being taller than her opponent. Such an advantage in height did come in handy once in a while.

The Georgian girl seated herself in the car and patted the seat beside her. "Come on. Are you a hentai wrestler? What attracted you to that? That was never really my thing but I have always enjoyed, err, watching." Eka looked at the taxi driver and blushed a bit. They were still in public and that strain of conversation was really not cultured. "You mentioned that you haven't had any of, uh, those matches." She remembered what Irene had said about her matches, how they were 'anything goes'. It wasn't really Eka's style but it piqued her curiosity and Irene seemed like an interesting person.

Irene returned Eka's blush as the taxi sped off toward their temporary home. “Well, I was a huge bookworm when I went through my K-12 education. I was a prodigy that got placed into honors programs, and there wasn't a minute on or off campus that I didn't spend studying. Because of that, I never got to date or fool around like a lot of kids do in high school or college.”

As the taxi turned into a residential district on its way to Natasha's home, Irene's smile faded, and the girl gave Eka a gloomy frown. “By the time I started working on my doctorate here, the boredom gave way to depression. I needed something to add flavor to my life, to help me feel like more than some working drone. The AFW helped me do that. I haven't managed to get a hentai-only match yet, but I have flirted with some people, and I even lost my virginity a couple weeks ago to a Frenchman named Leon, after our match in the ring together. Even without hentai stipulations, I've made more friends in the AFW than I did at any school...even though I'm not very good at it.”

Gazing down at the floor of the taxi, the shade of crimson on Irene's face became a little more pronounced. In a short span of time, Irene had grown fond of Eka, as a possible friend, but she wondered if the Georgian woman would still value her companionship if she knew just how unsuccessful Irene's career had been, at least in competitive terms. She was practically a jobber, hence her burning desire to improve. Gazing back at Eka, she offered a small smile. “Maybe you and I could spar some time. I bet I could learn a thing or two from you. Nothing that you wouldn't be comfortable with, but you did say you wouldn't mind a little spanking,” she uttered with a shy but saucy wink to her acquaintance. “So, tell me a little about you. What kind of wrestling have you done so far?”

Eka listened thoughtfully. When Irene mentioned depression, she bit her lip. While the Georgian girl had never experienced the illness herself, she knew a few people who had to go through it. It seemed like the most unpleasant thing, something the ravenhaired girl could barely understand. Eka put her hand on Irene's arm to try and comfort her a bit. The girl managed a small smile and a wink, so it looked like it wasn't all bad.

"It looks like we will be bookworm friends, then, yes?" Eka returned Irene's small smile with a big hearty one. "I do not know if I am the prodigy you are, but schooling came very easy to me. My parents are doctors, and my education was good. Good enough to wind up here," Eka gestured to the neon city outside the taxi windows as they raced closer to Natasha's estate, "in Tokyo."

"But wrestling is an entirely different. Wrestling, like Greco-Roman wrestling is a very important sport in my birth country of Georgia. Everyone competes in it and everyone watches." Eka's eyes were glazed over at this point. She loved talking about wrestling. "And so, when I enter my high school in Birmingham, I see that there is a wrestling team. And you will understand it, they do no take the girl so seriously, yes? So I had to show all of them that I am no joke. No kawaii." The Georgian girl grinned. "But dad showed me some basic moves. And I was a quick learner and proved to be fierce on the mats. Like a mountain ram!" Eka gave a mighty fistpump while she beamed. Then she cast a glance at Irene and cringed a little bit at her overenthusiasm. "But one night, I had a girlfriend who thought it would be fun to go to a wrestling show. Like AFW wrestling. When I saw it, I was hooked. The spectacle of it all, it is just all so much, yes? So I sneak out at night and wrestle, and I beat the girls and the boys and a scout asks me if I would like to come to Tokyo. And here we are. I have had a few matches, I have two wins and three losses. Not bad, but could be better, yes? I need to stop fighting giant girls. Or get more practice. They have all been standard matches, or submission matches. No hentai, no real stipulations."

The Georgian girl wanted to hug Irene, right there in the taxi. She didn't want her to feel so down on herself all the time. "Yes, we will practice together. I will show you all of my favorite moves! There is a gator roll, which is useful, spladle, which is fun to pull off, and my personal favorite, the flying squirrel takedown! Yes, you will learn from me and I will learn from you. And we will both learn from Natasha, yes? And we can be friends!"

The taxi rolled up to Natasha's home, and Eka dug for her wallet.