Kyo Akamatsu Vs. Kara Vela

Kyo has surprisingly beautiful eyes. A weird thought to have just before trying to smash someone into paste, she thinks to herself as the two stare at one another. It doesn’t stop her from winding up for her finisher.

Of course Kyo’s still talking shit, luckily he doesn’t know what’s coming. Kara would have responded to Kyo with something witty but decided to save up her energy for a more direct punchline.

She steadies herself, exhales against Kyo’s face and pulls upward. She lifts Kyo up over herself leaning backwards. Just before gravity takes over she spins 180 degrees so that Kyo lands back first onto the mat with their combined weight thrown into the hit. Even with Kyo bet ween her and the mat she can feel her entire body shake with the impact. Before the ring, or her bones are done reverberating she’s already getting to her feet and hauling Kyo up with her.

Every muscle burns, demanding pleading to be given a chance to rest but Kara ignores it. With teeth clenched and her entire body shaking with the effort she lifts Kyo up to their feet, lifts him up and twists in the air to slam Kyo again. Everything still burns but with the momentum building Kara barely notices. She starts pulling Kyo upward, readying herself to plant him into the mat one last time.

Kyo's eyes never drifted from Kara's as she suddenly exhaled against his cheek. Then, however, his feet were suddenly lifted off the mat. He felt a rush of vertigo as he was lifted forwards, Kara arching as she seemed about to throw him...

...before suddenly twisting, using gravity to slam Kyo down against the mat with her on top. The mat thundered with their combined impacts, air blasting from Kyo's lungs and his legs jolted upright before falling still again. He lay spread eagled under Kara, barely conscious, his body unresponsive like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Past the daze, Kyo felt alarm bells ringing in his mind. I'm losing, came the half-formed thought, past a haze of numbness and pain.

He wasn't left like this for long. In an instant, Kara was lifting him up, and, too dazed to counter, he was pulled shakily to his feet. Kara would have caught a glimpse of the glassy-eyed look in his eyes as he stood again. Again, too fast for him to react, he was lifted, and with the same quick and brutal movement, he was lifted up and slammed against the mat, Kara's muscular form ramming against his.

After the second impact, Kyo felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness. He was only dimly aware of the screaming of the fans, and could only make out Kara's grim, tired, yet determined face as she stared right into him. He became aware, once again, of his barely responsive body being dragged up, bone-tired and ready to collapse. At the back of his mind, he knew that Kara was ready to finish him off.

No, said that same voice at the back of his mind. As Kara lifted him in a third heavy embrace, Kyo's body tried to move-- his arms hung uselessly by his sides, but he still gropingly grabbed at her elbows, and his legs, somehow, managed to scissor around one of Kara's legs. Using what little energy he had left, Kyo gritted his teeth and yanked with his legs, hoping to unbalance Kara and topple backward, pulling her with him to ram her forehead against the mat!

She has him. The thought courses her mind as she lifts Kyo up without so much as a hint of resistance. She thinks it when she looks into his face and sees that nobody’s home. She considers stopping, surely even Kyo couldn’t keep up with this beating forever. But seeing that distant, no body’s home look in his eyes just eggs her on. But he’s taken a beating before, she thinks to herself, just finish this.

She plants herself, pulls upwards, and reflexively tenses her body to be ready to spin at the right moment. But as she throws her weight into the throw she stops dead in her tracks. She has enough time to wonder what’s wrong before her weight is suddenly pulled in the opposite direction. The mat rushes into view, and everything fades to black.

Somehow, the half-formed impulse that Kyo acted upon worked: he managed to unbalance his powerful opponent, sending her toppling the wrong way. The crowd lets out a collective gasp as the two wrestlers topple to the mat, with Kara's forehead in particular striking the mat with a very loud smack. And then, after the ring stops vibrating, the two of them lie still.

Kyo wound up sprawled on his back, colours dancing across his vision as he teetered at the edge of consciousness, his back a numb drumbeat of pain after the repeated slams by Kara. Next to him, Kara lies sprawled on her front, her face obscured against the mat and her brown hair flowing outwards. As the two lie still next to one another, the ref girl drops next to them, checking to see if either are still conscious. The audience began to collectively scream for either of their champions, entertaining the possibility that this could be a mutual KO.

And then, suddenly, Kyo groans and twists his body slightly, getting a shoulder up. The ref girl stopped counting him out, though Kyo remained mostly on his back, barely moving. Kyo was still awake, after a fashion, but it remained to be seen if the same could be said for his opponent.

Kara doesn’t hear the referee start the count, she doesn’t hear the crowd’s rumble turning into a dull roar, and she doesn’t hear her friends calling her name from the sidelines. All she notices is the blinding pain in her head that lays on her like a blanket.

By the time the referee counts to nine the barest hint of consciousness flickers through her mind. But not in time, as the referee calls for the bell just before her eyes flutter open. The first sound Kara hears clearly is the sound of the bell ringing across the stadium, and she knows that it’s over. She knows she didn’t go out like a chump, she knows that no one could fault her for a bad match. But all the same all she feels is tired and disappointed. So just lays there with a hand on her head to stop the pounding as the crowd cheers.

In the stands, Makie and Toshio were ecstatic as the ref girl signalled their brother's victory. "YEAAAAAAAH KYO!" Makie cheered, even as a jubilant Toshio hoisted her up on his shoulders. "I KNEW YOU'D WIN! I KNEW IT!" The rest of the audience shared in their applause, though for different reasons: this was supposed to be just a small opening match in a larger title event. None of them had expected the new girl to put up such an intense fight, or for the bout between Kyo and Kara to be such a gruelling, back-and-forth match. The two of them had fought as though there were a championship belt at stake, rather than just a simple win.

Kyo heard it all even as he lay on his back, slowly catching his breath and waiting for his dizzy, swirling world to re-orient itself. That was close, he thought to himself. Even he hadn't expected Kara to test him physically as much as he had. He was still a little confused by what was going on, but as he saw Kara lying on the mat nearby, he understood that it had been a count-out. He hadn't won by pinning Kara, or making her tap. He had won by getting lucky.

Slowly but surely, Kyo was pulled up to his feet. He swayed unsteadily, blinking at the audience with glassy eyes even as the ref girl raised his hand. Once she let go, however, he collapsed onto his knees, still barely able to keep himself upright. Blinking away stinging beads of sweat, he glanced over at Kara.

"Hey," he said, extending a hand in offer to help her up. "Can you stand?"

Kara looks up at Kyo standing over her and offering a hand. Very sportsmanlike of him, like always. Normally she wouldn’t mind someone being a gentleman, but the bitterness of losing still colors her feelings. Right now she just wants to go to her room and spend the night and next few days nursing her bruises. Not stay in the ring and play nice. She tries to rise, ignoring Kyo’s hand.

“I’m f-fine. I can get up myself,” she says, but her head throbs painfully when she tries to rouse herself forcing her down. After laying for a few seconds she reaches a hand up. “Ngh, alright never mind.”

With a yank she gets back to her feet and the world is a spinning bright dizzy mess. She has to hold onto the top rope to keep from falling back over. Everything outside of the ring is a loud buzzing mess and the ring lights are blinding to look up to. The only thing she can really focus on is Kyo, well him and the referee. She knows that her friends are in the crowd calling to her but in the mess she can’t pick their voices out of the crowd. Still the way the crowd is roaring, cheering on the two like there was no tomorrow. As if the opening match was some premiere event. It burned away some of her disappointment.

‘Yea I guess it was a pretty good show,’ she thinks to herself, at least her bruises can attests to that.

She looks back to Kyo and after a moment’s decision she offers her hand, still holding herself up by the ropes.

“Well you beat me fair and square,” she says. "I don't feel too bad for losing that way."

For a moment, Kyo thought that Kara was going to refuse his hand-- whether out of spite, out of wounded pride, or simply a determination to save face by getting up herself. For a moment, he considered retracting the proffered hand, but then Kara accepted it and stood back up. Around them, the crowd burst into applause, and even as the ref girl announced Kyo as the winner, Kara extended her hand to him.

He smiled at her. "Maybe I did, but you gave me a real hard match," he replied with a smile, accepting her hand in a firm grip and shaking it. "Not to mention enough bruises for a week. I just hope I made a good impression." As his eyes met Kara's, his heart thumped, and a million thoughts entered his head-- one to complement her further, another to possibly, maybe, offer feedback, and another still to stop being an idiot and ask for her number already.

"Um..." he stumbled, suddenly conscious that he was blushing a little. "So...if you ever want a rematch...or a sparring session at the gym...I'd be happy to do this again," he said, trying not to sound like an idiot. "After all, we almost ended on a mutual count-out. I'd hate to just leave it there."

As beat up as Kara is she doesn’t miss Kyo blushing or the nervousness in his voice. Kind of funny that he can go form kicking her ass to acting like a shy high schooler. She feels her own heart beat take a sudden jump as he stumbles into asking for another match. Somehow he seemed more eager for a rematch than the woman who lost.

“Heh, I’d love to, no way I’d let you get away that easy. What’s your number?” she says, reaching to her hip as if she had a pocket there before she realizes where she is. She blushes at her blond moment, maybe she took one too many hits to the head. “Oh, well you know what I’ll catch that later.”

She chuckles which sends a jab of pain up her side, making her smile turn into a wince of pain for a second.

“But seriously I’m looking forward to wrestling you again. Scratch that I’m expecting it,” she says with a smile. “But till then, I think I need to lay down for a day or three.”

She turns away from Kyo, walking to the ring side and brushing off the referee who offered to help her out. She can already see her friends standing by the exit waiting for her.