The Arisawas vs. The Rodriguezes - World Warriors

The polar opposite reactions from the Arisawa siblings shouldn't come off as such a surprise if you had gotten to know them. Goto verbally reprimanding Carmen with his calm and collected demeanor intact...with Natsu flying off the handle and delivering a leaping forearm strike to the back of Carmen's cranium. Balanced retribution in Natsu's eyes...plus the emphatic pop she got from the audience made her know that she must have looked pretty friggin cool doing it.

"ALRIGHT!!! Hey big bro!!! Did you see when I-!!" Natsu cheerful exuberance would disappear with a wincing groan after turning around to witness Goto get suplexed out of his shoes...if he ever wore any. Natsu nervously pulled at the collar of her schoolgirl outfit with her index finger, backpedaling to the ropes behind her before slyly exiting the ring and hopping off the apron. As much as she wanted to help Goto in this particular instance, she could already hear her brother's disciplinary speech about interfering. Plus if she did help she wouldn't have been any better than Carmen...

A swelling nervousness starting to grow in the pit of her stomach for when this match was over. She knew she wouldn't hear the end of this as she sullenly sulked around the ring towards her corner...

When Army put his all into a move, he really went hard, and this was no exception. He threw Goto so hard the movements forced him flat on his back, which put him in an ideal position to watch the guy go off sailing. Not quite the best he could do - was a little winded, after all - but still picked up some impressive distance.

He rolled over to his chest as Goto groggily did the same, and popped back up to his feet. Army regretted the sudden jerk, his body still reeling from the choke he’d been trapped in a moment ago, but he managed to shake it off and keep going. Couldn’t let this opportunity go.

While Goto was busy getting up, Army ran to his side and bounced off the ropes, looking to build up some momentum. He then used said momentum to storm forward, do a quick jump, then come down on Goto’s back with a simple elbow drop. Feeling good.

Carmen on the other hand, was in a much less chipper mood. In fact, as she started to push up and saw Natsu sulking away, you could say she was straight up pissed, and not at all hesitant about expressing that anger.

Pushing up to her feet, she moved after Natsu from behind. When she was close enough, Carmen reached out, grabbed her by the wrist, pulled the younger wrestler towards her and tried to clobber her in the face with a stiff short-arm clothesline, making sure to hit her with the crock of her elbow.

Goto was barely on his hands and knees when Army dashed past him. He was just pushing to one knee when the elbow, and Army's body, crahed into him. Once again he was flattened back down to the canvas and growled in pain, grunting loudly as he was compressed under Army.

"Nnnnghhh!"

His fingers dug into the canvas but at the moment there wasn't much he could do but try and push the pain in his body out of his head.

Halfway into her trek back to her side of the ring, Natsu was still scratching her head in contemplation. Thinking of how she could avoid getting chewed out by her big bro over bungling everything up before she was yanked out of her daze by a firm tugging of her free hand. Natsu stumbled backward from the pull before Carmen mowed her down with a stiff clothesline right to her face.

"Pwagh!!" Natsu groaned out before collapsing to the thinly padded surface. The spirited schoolgirl was waylaid with enough momentum that it left her briefly hunched over herself with her taut backside sticking into the air before she slumped over. Cradling the back of her head and tapping her foot against the floor from the throbbing head pains.

When Natsu went down, Carmen took a moment to rub the back of her head, nursing what might likely become a lump in the next hour or two. The little sprite could hit hard, she’d given her that. But if she was going to strike someone in the back of the head, she’d have to learn better than to walk away afterwards. Especially when that ‘someone’ was Carmen Rodriguez.

”Next time you try something like that, it’ll be worse.” Carmen warned her with a raised voice, speaking the crowd’s rising chorus of jeers. ”Stay down.”

Army heard the sudden shift in the crowd’s mood, but he couldn’t really focus too much on the cause of it - unless it was all him and they just really hated elbow drops, for whatever reason. Regardless, things were back in his control now, and it looked like they might stay that way for the foreseeable future. Long enough to score a win? He hoped.

With Goto looking sufficiently winded for the moment, Army decided to try for something bigger. The first step was getting them both on their feet, though, and she went about that by grabbing his wrist with one hand and his hair with other, forcing Goto to stand along with him as he rose back up.

"Nngh!"

Goto grunted as he was tugged to a standing position. The elbow drop was still resonating through his body, but his instincts weren't totally gone. With his free arm, he winged a sloppy forearm at Army and tried to wriggle awy from the man's clutches.

If anything, win or lose, Natsu could consider this match, at the very least, "educational". Learning when not to intervene in a tag match and to never turn your back on a Tension champion after blindsiding them being just a few lessons she could take away just from the last few minutes.

"...nngh." Natsu rubbed the back of her own head as she unsteadily and lethargically shuffled herself upward, her normally boundless spirit taking it's own hit from Carmen's harsh words. She didn't expect someone she admired from afar to be so adamant about keeping her down...it didn't feel good.

"Heh, that's good ta hear..." Natsu coyly muttered while grasping the ring apron to help her get vertical, her head lowered and not meeting Carmen's judgmental eyes. "...cause that jus felt like a mosquito bite anyway~..." Arching over herself slightly once back on her feet, Natsu brazenly attempted a wild haymaker to Carmen's jaw that if she missed would send her tumbling over and tripping over her own feet.

Goto’s strike - even when it was sloppily thrown - still had a bit of impact to it, enough to make Army wince and weaken for a hot second. He was quick to snap the hold back in, though, not wanting to give up the superior position he’d lucked himself into. Best to work with what he had.

Army reached over and gave Goto a quick punch in the side, softening him up a little for what was to come. From there, it was just a simple matter of lifting the smaller man up, getting him just high enough to make him sit down on the turnbuckle. Not a big move by itself, but the crowd was leaning forward, eager to see where he was going with this.

Their attention was somewhat divided, however, by the separate spectacle happening at ringside. For some silly reason, Carmen had assumed Natsu would take the good advice and simply stay down when prompted to. She didn’t.

Instead, when Carmen heard her voice and turned around, she was greeted by a wild blow to the face, one that even left her reeling. The 24/7 Champion spun around and went stumbling towards the announce table, temporarily stunned and taking a moment to shake it out.

Natsu clumsily fumbled forward before straightening herself up once more, the schoolgirl having put a little extra pepper in that strike than in her previous ones. The more Carmen spoke and the more she got to know the 24/7 Tension champ, the more her lofty vision of her seemed to crumble. Compelling Natsu to take this outside fracas a little more seriously now that she felt like she had something more to prove.

"...*pant*...ya know...maybe you're not as awesome as I thought..." Natsu bitterly said while approaching Carmen from behind, aiming to clamp onto her scruffy mess of hair. She was intending to yank Carmen away from the announcer's desk before applying some impactful knee strikes to her gut while keeping her hunched over. The announcer's in question having left their chairs but could still be heard broadcasting the match on their feet, as well as a few fans cheering on the chipper schoolgirl's attempts to put the pressure back on Carm.

Carmen was stunned, literally and figuratively. She hadn’t seen that blow coming, which threw her for a loop, along with the fact that it had been a pretty damn good strike. The combination left her reeling, which was all the setup Natsu needed to come in and take advantage.

”Ugh!” Carmen croaked, as the first knee found a place in her gut. ”Uff, Ungh!” And a second and third. Natsu was small, but quick, and what she lacked in power could be made up for with sheer alacrity.

By the fourth knee, however, Carmen had regained her senses, and she wasn’t about to let Natsu have her way for much longer.

The knee connected, but Carmen didn’t let it go down. Instead, she wrapped one arm around Natsu’s bare thigh, reached up to hook her shoulder with the other one, pulled her in close, then jerked back with a sudden, violent pull, trying to send the younger fighter up and away with a T-bone suplex.

Not the most pleasant move in the ring. But on the bare floor?