Kyo Akamatsu Vs. Kara Vela

Preceded By: Schoolboy Strip Match: John Mitchell Vs. Jean Richards
Followed By: Domino Vs. Hana Fujioka


Kyo Akamatsu:


Vs.
Kara Vela:


Match Type: Standard
Winning Condition: Pinfall, Submission or Knockout
Special Conditions: None

With a sharp tug, Kyo tied up the last of his boot strings, rotating his foot slightly to make sure his footwear was secure before he stood back up. Old bruises ached in protest as he did so, and as he looked in the nearby mirror, he was given a grim reminder why. His bruises from his brutal match with Juni Acker had mostly disappeared by that point, though there were still a few faint scars across his forehead and cheek where the German girl's brass knuckles had torn open his flesh. Even after most of a day in hospital and a week of recovery, Kyo's body still ached.

He clenched a fist involuntarily. He remembered being at Juni's mercy in the ring, being pummeled by her even when he was long past the ability to defend himself. He remembered those brass-tipped fists whistling in, each blow feeling like an explosion against his skull. At the memory, his arm involuntarily shivered. If Toshio hadn't been there in time to save him....

He felt a tap on his shoulder as Toshio stepped into view behind him. "Hey bro, I know you love admiring yourself in the mirror and all, but you don't want to keep your fangirls waiting." Lately, Toshio had dyed his hair a silvery white, to differentiate himself from his brother. And also, to use Toshio's own words, because it looked 'super cool.'

Kyo forced a smile. "Just focusing, that's all. Making sure I'm mentally ready. You know." He didn't want to admit to Toshio how scared he had been when he had been unable to fight back against Juni. And, despite the fact that he'd been in the ring dozens of times, how scared he still was. He'd been beaten before, but...never so brutally.

Toshio slapped him on the shoulder. "You've never been more ready, man," he replied. "Come on, this is a major PPV event, your name on a big title event. This is what you've always been preparing for. Don't let it go to waste now!" He smiled. "Come on, ease up. Makie and I will both be rooting for you in the stands."

His brother's reassuring words helped...a bit. "Thanks," he said with a warm nod. "After this...let's all go out for sake. I haven't treated you two in a long time."

Toshio laughed. "I'll hold you to that. Just remember you offered when you see the tab at the end!"

Giving Toshio a sour look, Kyo turned to the exit, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the ring.

He was greeted by the warm air of the arena, his music blasting and the announcer shouting his name as hundreds of fans burst into cheers. He was wearing his usual knee-length black wrestling tights and matching boots and pads, leaving his fit upper body bare for the audience to see. He paid the audience no mind, though, as he strode relentlessly towards the ring. He just wanted to get this started so that his nerves would ease up.

This event...."Climax," as it was called, was one of the biggest events Tension had had for a while, and was drawing in a lot of big names. Some, like the tough boxing girl Carmen Rodriguez, were former opponents of his. Some, like Domino, Clyde Gastin, and Killer King, comprised the male half of Tension-- guys he had never met, but implicitly understood to be rivals. And then there was Reira Kishima, the woman who currently held the Tension title....the woman he had to defeat if he was going to take that belt for himself.

He knew a lot of the names here...but he had no idea who he would be fighting.

Sliding under the ropes, Kyo hopped on his feet and stretched against the ropes, watching the opposite corner. You are a rock. You are phased by nothing. You are afraid of nothing. You can endure anything. He repeated the mantra to himself, over and over again, as he waited for his opponent to show up, trying as much as he could to shun the memories of his bout with Juni.

Kara should be waiting just outside of the entrance, or waiting excitedly in her changing room. Instead she’s in a hallway just before the ramp, staring at a tablet replaying a past match of her opponent, nibbling on a pastry. She's already dressed in her bright blue single piece wrestling suit, with white boots and a drawing of a dragon swimming up her side. She barely raises her head when her door opens and Vita’s head pokes in, wearing some AFW shirt she got for free and of course she had to tie dye it.

“Are you still getting dressed Kara? Tell me you are,” she says with a wide grin. Kara gives a sideways look and turns back to what she was watching.

“Oh your nervous? Haven’t seen that in a while,” Vita says skipping into the room. “Reminds me of that first real match we had. I thought we’d have to pry you out that time.”

“How’d you figure I’m nervous?” Kara says.

“Come on Kara I know you. You don’t study your opponents unless you’re nervous, usually Rian does that and you brush him off. That and its real cute how you nibble like a mouse when you’re anxious,” she says, snatching the pastry from Kara’s mouth. “You shouldn’t be eating just before the match. It’s bad for your stomach or something.”

Kara gives Vita a look like she’s considering taking her food back. Vita pinches Kara’s cheek in response.

“I wouldn’t be nervous, if Rian hadn’t dragged me into another of his ‘genius plans’,” Kara says, brushing Vita off. “We’ve barely gotten hear and he drops me into a tournament.”

“Oh come on, I’ve seen the guy’s record, you’ve got a fifty, fifty chance to win this,” Vita says with a smile. Kara opens her mouth to speak, but Vita springs in quick as a hare. “Look Kara, you’re ready for this. You’re no pushover and even if you go down I know you’ll make it look amazing,” Vita says, and Kara stays quiet for a moment.

“Shit, why do I listen to you,” Kara says and starts walking towards the door.

“That’s my Kara. Me and Rian will be watching,” Vita says, and leaves Kara just before the entrance to the ring.

Kara takes a deep breath, and steps out into the limelight. Some people cheer her as she walks by and she waves to them, while sweeping the crowd to try to catch a glimpse of Vita or Rian. But Kara’s eyes barely leave the ring and her opponent inside.

She quickly slips underneath the ropes and moves towards her corner, giving her plenty of time to look over her opponent.

‘He’s pretty much as tall as me, and looks pretty strong too. I guess I shouldn’t have expected a pushover,’ Kara thinks to herself.

As she makes her way to her corner she spots Vita and Rian sitting at the front row, Vita waving excitedly. Kara smiles, and waves back, and makes her way to the middle of the ring. Despite herself she can feel her heartbeat pick up, and as the referee comes into the middle of the ring she can feel a small smile creep onto the corner of her lips.

‘Well it may very well be fun,’ she thinks to herself as she watches her opponent.

At that moment, another piece of entrance music began to play, and Kyo's heart raced. This is it. He clenched and unclenched his palms, and took a deep breath. Look at me, I'm as nervous as I was during my first match, he thought angrily to himself. I'm better than this. I just need to focus, and everything would be fine. As much as he tried, however, he couldn't quench the tight ball of fear at his core-- the fear of suffering another brutal beating just like he had to Juni Acker. What if his opponent was someone who was just as bad as her?

He remembered, dimly, that his opponent was a newcomer named Kara...something. He had now idea how strong or skilled she was, or what she was like in the ring, but all the same, he felt no small amount of trepidation about this fight.

Slowly, though, his opponent made his way to the ring, and his fear subsided momentarily. From a distance, he made out a tall brown-haired girl wearing a blue leotard, and given the way she was waving to her fans, she didn't seem like a heel. But what was readily apparent was that she was staring Kyo down, just as Kyo was staring at her.

It wasn't until Kara Vela made her way into the ring that Kyo got a good sense of who he was up against. Kara was tall, an inch taller than Kyo even, and her slender, curving figure was enhanced by broad shoulders and well-muscled limbs. Her rippled evident power in a way that reminded Kyo, not unpleasantly, of the muscle girl Mindy Priest. His eyes quickly went up to Kara's, and he noted that those shimmering blue irises of her were scanning him intently.

A moment of silence passed between them, before Kyo stepped forward, never taking his eyes off of hers as a silent battle of wills stormed between them. He smiled, faintly. "I take it you're new here?" he asked, before giving a slight nod. "You'll pardon me for asking, but I remember seeing your name on the roster only recently."

As Kara’s music plays out and the referee comes onto the ring she moves out of her corner stretching her arms as she did like she would before a swim meet, pulling her arms behind her head. She keeps her eyes on her opponent, and takes the chance to look him over now that he’s close up and he doesn’t disappoint. He has a strong and lean build of an athlete, not heavy set but not a pushover either. She wanders up to his face where large brown eyes look out at her from under hair dyed blue.

‘He looks tough, and not bad on the eyes either,’ Kara thinks to herself, and her heartbeat picks up. ‘And it’s refreshing to have an opponent that I can look in the eye without having to look up.’

“You’d be right,” she says. “The name’s Kara, but I guess you already knew that. Kyo right?”

Kara moves towards Kyo, offering Kyo a handshake. She doesn’t watch him very hard for a tricks, he doesn’t look like the type for surprise attacks. Or at least that’s what crosses Kara’s mind. As she looks him over the thought crosses her mind that he looks a little nervous too.
‘Though that might just be my own butterflies,’ she thinks to herself.

“I heard you’ve had a few fights, I guess that makes you a veteran or something,” she says, and her voice grows serious. “I hope that’s the case, I don’t like wrestling jobbers,”

‘Great idea Kara just piss him off why don’t you?’

She doesn’t do the tough act often, and she isn’t be best at it but she can shake the thought that he looks a little nervous. If Kyo took her handshake she’ll increase the pressure as she speaks, not enough to hurt but enough to show off.

Those blue eyes seemed to regard him intently, and Kyo saw a flicker of guarded emotion in them. Was that uncertainty? Nervousness? Kara was fairly new to this league, and was already in a major championship match. It stood to reason that, maybe, she was even more nervous than he was. He wanted to believe this...but he had also given Juni the benefit of the doubt as well.

He took a quick glance back at Kara's fit body, trying to gauge her strength and stance, and trying to infer what kind of fighting style she had. He noted the firmness of her muscles and the curve of abdomen...and then stopped abruptly, his cheeks reddening ever so briefly. Kara was certainly easy on the eyes, but it was bad sportsmanship to ogle her at the start of a match.

Kara made her greeting, and extended her hand. She definitely didn't seem at ease, which did a lot to make him relax as well. "Well, I don't like calling myself a veteran-- it makes me sound older than I am," he said with a good natured chuckle, "but I'd hardly call myself a jobber either." He felt her increase the grip on her handshake: reflexively, he tightened his grip as well as his eyes remained level with hers. "I'll try not to disappoint you."

When Kyo matches her grip she can feel her pulse race and a smile creeps across her face despite herself. She looks straight at Kyo, only glancing downward once or twice at his washboard abs. She notices him gawking for a moment, and smiles inside at the complement. She’s always been proud of her physique, it took her long enough to get it like this.

“Glad to hear it,” she says, meaning it too. “And so will I. So let’s give them a good show.”

She takes a step back to give Kyo some space before the match starts, and as she waits she pretends to stretch her arms, flexing her arms that bulge slightly. If she catches him looking at her she’ll give a slim grin.

She notices out of the corner of her eye that Vita and Rian took a front row seat. Vita’s bright red hair stands out in the crowd, though the way she jumps is a little distracting, she admits to herself. Rian fits in pretty well, though even under his fairly normal shirt and pants it easy to tell he’s in shape. Vita was already waving and bouncing in her seat while Rian tried to shrink into the crowd. But they’re both watching expecting her to win.

‘And I won’t disappoint you guys either,’ she thinks to herself and readies for the bell to ring.

As Kara backed away, Kyo's heart skipped a beat. He was reminded of his own first match, and the feelings he'd felt then-- apprehension, edginess, excitement. His heart was racing, and his stomach was swirling with butterflies, and for a brief moment it would have been easy to forget that he was a veteran of dozens of matches. But at the same time, the excitement of that feeling, and the eagerness of fighting a tough, honest opponent like Kara, thrilled him. He took another quick glance at her, and this time, saw her flash him an appreciative grin. Despite himself, he found himself blushing at the smile.

"Go Kyo!"

The shout brought him snapping back to reality. There, in the front row of the stands, he caught a glimpse of two familiar faces. His two siblings, Toshio and Makie, both wrestlers as well, were there in the stands, cheering him on.

"You've got this, Kyo!"

"Kick her ass!"

He smiled at them, a lot of his previous worries washing away, and turned back to Kara. At that moment, the bell rang, and the match began in proper.

Staring the girl down, Kyo began to circle her, locking eyes with her and silently daring her to break away. As he circled, Kyo raised his arms in the universal sign for a test of strength.

Kara always loved and hated the moment just before the bell rings. Just like standing on a diving board above a pool, waiting to dive in. The referee slowly sauntering her way across the ring doesn’t help her.

She’s raises her eyebrows in surprise when Kyo’s arms come up in an offer of a test of strength. Most people her size or smaller than her don’t have the guts to go into a straight up fight. Her smile broadens and she raises her hands to match his.

She idly noticed that Vita and Rian are sitting a few chairs from the two that started cheering for Kyo, and they had gotten louder. Whether cheering for her or against Kyo’s friends she couldn’t tell.

“Come on Kara! You can take this squirt!” Vita calls from the crowd, and she’s pretty sure Rian also yells something but it’s lost in the crowd.

‘Don’t start trouble out there guys,’ she thinks to herself as she approaches Kyo.
She snaps her attention back to Kyo, and tries to keep the jeers out of her head. As she approaches she nods towards the crowd, and speaks just loud enough for Kyo to hear.

“Can’t let you win now, they’ll kick my ass if I do,” and with that she steps forward to lock hands with Kyo just in time with the bell.

The bell rang, and Kyo saw the smile on Kara's face widen as he motioned for a lockup. It was a good-natured, competetive smile, and that did a lot more to put his mind at ease. He knew now that this was going to be a good, honest match, not some all-out brawl against someone out to destroy him.

"I'd be very disappointed if you did let me win," Kyo quipped back, smiling in return at her before darting in for the lockup. The crowd cheered as the two wrestlers locked hands, and withing seconds they were pushing and twisting against each other in the center of the ring, cheek to cheek as they pitted strength against strength. Kyo gritted his teeth as he found himself struggling against the strong American, pouring a lot of effort into his arms just to match her.

Strength wasn't everything, however. After several seconds of grappling, Kyo would duck low, aiming to dart behind Kara's back and twist her arm back in a chickenwing. This was just some early grappling in the match, to see how Kara would respond and how good her technical skills were...