Blaise Cameron vs. Makoto Takeda: Time to Say Goodbye...

Blaise has no idea how to react to Mako's comeback. It definitely wasn't what he expected to hear! But the disrespect is obvious, so it earns an extra degree of pressure. The teen arches his back and pulls on the rope, digging his knee behind her shoulders. The hold continues well beyond the five-second grace period before he releases her and takes off for the opposite ropes.

Boots thunder across the mat, and the teen pivots to stretch the ropes across his back. They spring him forward again at twice the speed. Though his movements are decisive and there's the definite intent to beat down his opponent, but that's all there is - a sort of detachment. He's trying to put everything out of his mind to just focus on this advantage.

He springs at the ropes and grabs onto them - one hand on the top rope, the other on the middle. His legs swing between them, leading his boots towards Makoto's face in a full 619!

It was a good thing that Mako enjoyed tallking shit about Blaise's mom, because she didn't get much chance to say anything else. He just came down even harder, putting all of his shrimpy weight on her body. Gasping was no longer an option. She couldn't breath. Period.

He could've held her there all night if he really wanted to, but fortunately, he seemed to also realize the importance of consciousness when it came to forming words like 'I quit'. Mako was released, and she immediately began sucking in as much air as she could. In, out, in, out, with the occasional burst of spit erupting from her lips.

She started to make a vague attempt at standing up, but she had to deal with something else, first: Blaise's feet. They suddenly came swinging into her view and crashed into her face like twin cannonballs, with an immediate and powerful effect. She was sent flying with the impact, flopped on her back, and even rolled over to her chest, before coming to a painful stop in the middle of the ring.

After a moment. Mako planted her palms on the floor and started pushing up, but it was slowing going. Vision was blurry. Equilibrium was fucked to hell between the air loss and getting her face kicked in.

The momentum brings the nimble young grappler into a crouch on the mat, facing her with his forward balance poised on his fingertips. This match demands a verbal submission, and she's in a good position to twist one out! So, perhaps comically, Blaise crawls forward before literally pouncing at his smaller opponent's back.

For once, there's no finesse to his submission hold. It's nothing but gusto with a healthy dose of desperation. Should he find his target, he'll wrap his left arm under her chin and hook down towards her right armpit. His right arm crosses over her right shoulder, the left hand grabbing onto the forearm to lock it into place. But this isn't a choke. He mounts her rear and pulls back to force her upper-body into a tight arch, hugging her head over his left shoulder right beside his face.

Get up. Get up!

Mako couldn't hear Blaise's footsteps over the crowd's deafening roar, but she could feel the mat tremble. He was closing in. Fast. Faster than she'd ever thought he could close in on a girl who was helpless and on the floor.

Even with the pain, Mako couldn't help but smirk. The boy could learn, she'd give him that.

When he sat down on her back, she thought she had a good idea what he was going for - not that she could do anything to stop it. And it turned out she was wrong, anyway. She expected a camel clutch. What he wound up going for was more painful and more intricate, enough to make her scream bloody murder as her back was arched in a shape it was never meant to go. The referee moved in and took a knee, getting as near to Mako's face as most people would dare to.

"Do you quit?" She called out. "Do you-"

"Fuck off!"

Blaise could learn when his everything is on the line. Not just physical harm, not just humiliation, but his everything. His trainer might be pleased, if he weren't assuredly having a coronary over this. Blaise can only think about this moment and making the most of it - it's all he has left.

"Quit!," he barks into her ear when she refuses. He rears back, turning his bootsoles flat against the mat to try to wrench Mako in as tight an angle as her spine would allow. Unfortunately, in his desperation to ramp up as much pain as possible, the position compromises his stability at the knees. "She's gonna quit, ref'! She's gonna quit, or I'm gonna snap'er in half!"

"Not quitting, fuckstick!" Mako was quick to bark back. "Fucking deal with it!"

It wasn't just a matter of stubborness, it was pure necessity. She couldn't end it like this. She couldn't, not to him, not like this. Not only would she lose the Valkyries and the job, no other gang would touch her. At least Blaise could find a job at some other place. Her? Who would hire her, after everything that had gone down? Very few places would let you get away with the shit that the AFW let its people get away with.

This was a gangster's paradise, and she wasn't ready to leave.

She cried out as he stretched her even further, getting close to the breaking point...but she also saw an opening. She reached around with her spare arm, got it behind his legs, and swung it forward hard into the back of his knee, trying to trip him up and give herself an opening.

"You wi-"

Blaise is cut off as his legs are taken out from under him, his balance removed and forced to tumble backwards off of Mako's narrow hips. He comes to a halt on hands and knees, peering at the female before him.

"Need more convincing, huh?"

The teen pulls himself up to his feet, hoping to beat her there and make purchase on a couple fistfuls of her hair to control her ascent.

Mako started to rise back up, but encountered some difficulty when her back refused to go along with the plan. Blaise helped her up, though, gentleman that he was. By grabbing her hair.

Yeah, okay, he was doing a good job of keeping her on the ropes. He was taking whole chapters out of her book, now, just pages. But if he really thought she was close to being done, he was even dumber than he looked, and she didn't think that was possible.

Mako showed him the error of his way with a right hook and a left hook, both fired out in rapid succession, going for his ribs and drilling the knuckles in.

Blaise had hopes that he could continue to steamroll Makoto, and for once, he was actually following through. But she's just not beaten down enough to be his proverbial chewtoy. She rockets the first fist in, causing his body to jolt and curl inwards. His fingers remain stubbornly tangled in her hair, until the second hit lands, forcing him to release her in favor of holding his already-battered torso. She had already been taking it to him earlier in the match, and in a particularly rough way. Punches like that aren't helping.

The teen tries to stagger back a step from her, hoping to discourage a follow-up. He seethes through clenched teeth, eyes burning on her.