Nathan Weed vs. Kozue Kaburagi - First Strike: Standard Match

The crowd gave Kozue a fresh round of applause after she landed the neckbreaker, and for once, she really felt like she'd earned every bit of it. Pulling off moves in practice was one thing, doing it in the ring was another, and she was glad she'd managed to see the opportunity when it presented itself. She certainly couldn't argue with the result, as she looked behind her and saw Nathan writhing around like a caugth fish in his last moments.

Poor guy. Suffering. Having a hard time breathing. She knew just the thing to take his pain away.

Kozue scooted back on her butt, moved her body perpendicular to Nathan's, drapped her back across his chest and bridged her legs, going for the pin. "Steve walks warily down the street, with the brim pulled way down low..."

The referee dropped down and started the count, slamming her hand down beside Nathan's head. "1...!"

Two!

Nathan heard rather than felt the count, but trusted that it was there, and a part of him settled in for the loss. Kozue was nonstop, and Nathan was only human. He’d been beaten up but good, and the gap between their conditions seemed unsurmountable. He'd gotten off a handful of good shots, but not much more than that; Kozue, on the other hand, hit him hard, hit him often, and hit him in places that made him feel those shots throughout the match. Heck, even if they were on even footing, Kozue was so much more imaginative in the ways that she put the hurt on people. To keep going now would just be putting off the inevitable, postponing a certain conclusion in favor of continued torture.

Even if he broke the pin here, he didn’t know what he could do to turn the match around.

But he lifted his shoulder a hair before the third count anyway. Because he could.

"3...!"

That final count came from the crowd - that count had been so close that they'd actually counted to the last. But there was only one count in the arena that mattered, and that was from the one person who wasn't going to make it: the referee. She came close to three, so close that Kozue thought for sure that the win was hers to take, but it seemed like Nathan had just a bit of energy left in him.

She pulled off of him and rested on her knees, huffing as she decided what to do next. She needed something big to push him over with, one final, definite move to seal the coffin, and there was only one way she could think to get that done. "Time to fly."

Kozue jumped to her feet and raised her fist to the audience as she dashed over to the corner. She jumped up and planted both feet at the top, facing outside the ring, taking a moment to get her balance and milk the audience. Hands at the side as camera flashes went off all around her. She took a quick glance behind to make sure the distance was right, smirked for effect, then bent down and flipped backwards with the biggest moonsault of all time.

Hair flying. Crowd cheering. Heart pumping. If there was a better way to end a match, it didn't occur to her.

Nathan surprised even himself with that shoulder. What did he even think he could do? Kozue had a death grip on the control of the match, and Nathan was in no condition to even dream of wresting it from her.

Then Kozue made a mistake.

If it weren’t for her warning, Nathan may not have known what to expect, or when to expect it. But when the crowd’s roar had reached deafening levels, when the flashbulbs were so numerous and consistent that he could see them through his eyelids, he opened his eyes. Kozue was at the corner, playing to the crowd, rightfully confident that the match was hers.

When she looked back, Nathan breathed. When she turned back front, he tensed through the ache in his muscles. And when she took off, Nathan moved, rolling out of the way and to the ropes.

A fan once asked Kozue why she loved doing moonsaults so much. Her answer was simple: "Because it's awesome."

She wasn't joking. It was the first move she'd really learned, the one move she'd used in just about every match she'd had, the one she could do the best and work from just about any angle. Standing, springboard, off the turnbuckle. Anytime, anywhere. Kozue jumped off the turnbuckle, went flying through the air, and her lips curled into a light smile as the arena whirled around her.

It was an indescribable high, her own little slice of Nirvanah, and it all came crashing down when she got to the halfway point of the move. From there, she had exactly half a second to look down and realize that her target had moved. "Fuck-"

Kozue's face hit the mat first, and the rest of her body follow shortly after, as she landed with a sickening THUD. She wasn't totally done - her legs wiggled, her arms made some slight movements, a low groan came from her mouth. But she wasn't getting up soon.  Definitely not soon enough...

That was not a good sound.

Nathan, once upright, turned around to see Kozue all but out on the mat; her body twitched, and her voice oozed past her lips like lava, so he knew she was awake, but she was in no condition to wisecrack or mount any sort of defense. She was ripe for a pin.

But Nathan knew that if she were to escape, he'd have no retort. He barely kicked out of the last one, himself, and Kozue had a way of snowballing advantage with the slightest opening. He needed to make sure that she was down.

Nathan warily approached Kozue's prone body and pulled to her feet- could she stand on her own? He needed her to be standing if he wanted to land the vicious, fully-drawn right hook that he had planned for her across her chin.

There was a horrifying moment where Kozue was sure she'd broken something that wouldn't be coming unbroke anytime soon. She'd landed on her head in the exact sort of way no one should ever land, like a complete fuciking idiot, and now she was paralyzed. Couldn't move. Done.

Fortunately, it wasn't quite as bad as all that. After a few moments, she was able to move. It hurt like a bitch, but she could do it. Not a good moment. Painful, but more than anything she was embarrased, and glad that the crowd couldn't see her flushed face while it was flat on the floor.

Which, no surprise, meant that Nathan had to ruin that when he went in for the kill. She'd thought he would just pin her, call it a day. Nope. He hauled her up on wobbly legs, making her stand. She struggled to keep her legs under her and shook her head. Maybe if she could pull her thoughts together in time...

Nathan kept a hand on her shoulder, but, for the most part, Kozue was standing all on her own. Sure, she looked like she was a little uncertain of her surroundings, and he’d seen more focused expressions on car crash survivors, but she was up.

Nathan wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, she was uninjured, thank goodness. Her face was tomato red, but everything else looked just fine- her neck, her movement was all normal. He could feel safe landing something that would lay her out, put her down, and end the fight.

On the other, Nathan hated to win like this. He didn't earn this; he was collecting on an opponent's misstep, an opponent that had led him around by the nose for most of the fight. It felt unfair. It felt wrong.

The disgusted feeling didn’t stop Nathan from planting his feet, drawing back his dominant fist, and swinging it out across his body, across her chin, then well beyond in a follow-through brimming with excess. But he hated it. Hated it.

So, this was it. The part where Nathan hit Kozue with her finisher.

That had to be what was coming. Matches had  a certain rhythm to them, and anyone who'd been watching wrestling for even thirty minutes could tell exactly how this would go. Nathan picks up the wounded and weary girl, he hits her with some crazy move with a crazier name, crowd goes wild, he goes for the pin, and it's over. Not a pleasant experience for her, but fuck it, at least the people would get their money's worth.

That was why there was a look of surprise on her face in the split second where she saw the punch heading right towards it. She knew it was happening. She just couldn't believe this was the way it would end.

But it was. His blow crashed against her face, hit right on the chin, and the results were predictable. Her legs gave way, she collapsed, and down she went, falling right on her poor, abused face. Somewhere, in distance, Kozue swore she could hear the sound of someone counting. But the noise was so far away, and it was getting weaker all the time.

Nathan kept his eyes open just long enough to watch Kozue crumple to the mat. The referee swooped in soon after, but Nathan could tell a knockout punch when he connected one. He retreated to a corner, closed his eyes, and rolled his neck as the ref started her count.

One!

A ref in a boxing match wouldn’t have bothered with a count. When one fighter was so clearly gone, the ref stepped in and ended the fight- heck, it didn’t even have to go that far. The ref had the authority to signal for the bell if he or she, by professional judgement, determined if one pugilist had enough. In professional wrestling, however, everyone had to stand through this whole arm-drop ceremony nonsense. Dramatic, yes. But an utter waste of time.

Two!

Nathan opened his eyes; Kozue was still in the same place on the mat, face down and unmoving. He’d seen wrestlers get knocked out before. Usually the crowd jumped in on the count with the ref; today, though, the ref was shouldering that responsibility all on her own. The rest of the crowd started up their boos again, and, this time, Nathan didn’t worry about whether they were justified or not. They were right; what an anticlimactic ending. Nathan had cheapened their tickets, and Nathan sympathized. He wasn't happy about it either. Nathan turned around and slipped out of the ring, just as Kozue’s arm flopped back to the mat a third time.