AV 17 Tag Title: Imperial Order (c) vs. Masuyo & Valley Doll

That wasn’t as fun as she made it look.

Did Masuyo have much of a plan for her bull-headed charge at her agile opponent? Any ideas or a follow-up or even a general idea of what she was going to do once she had her adversary on the ground? Besides giving Gwen the worst headache she’d ever had since ten minutes ago, not really. Masuyo wanted her on the floor, and there were definitely less costly ways of accomplishing that, but she hadn’t cared much for it.

All of that showboating and taunting was still freshly burned into her memory. She was going to take this pompous princess down one way or another. The audience certainly didn’t seem to mind that kind of thinking either, even if she was far removed from her hometown for the first time in twenty years. She’d taken Valley to the limit with their match, and she was sure she could do it here with Gwen. The question here was whether or not it would be enough this time for the Demon to come out on top? Not only that, but would she still have enough in the tank to deal with another, equally skilled opponent afterward?

Only one way to find out.

Her head collided with the surprisingly robust cranium of the heiress, giving her a nice ring in her ears as she fell down to all fours. She rubbed a hand against the top of her head to soothe some of the irritation as she pushed herself up to one knee. She looked up to see exactly what she hoping for. Gwen on her back, stars dancing above her head.

A small voice in the back of Masuyo’s head told her to go for the pin. Try and get the blonde aristocrat out of the game as soon as possible to deal with the redheaded crusader afterward. She killed that voice as soon as it came. That was her when she was still new to this game. Be smart, not fast. She had a ripe opportunity here, and she wasn’t going to screw it up. She even knew what her plan of attack should be already: take care of those legs.

She came around the heiress on all fours, crawling around to Gwen’s lower half and shifting about to sit down in front of her. She reached over and went to grab the imperialist’s impressive legs, folding them between her own. Locking their shins together, Masuyo would place her hands behind her and crank the pressure on her adversary’s leg with her own, securing a tight figure-four lock.

Evidently, being in the same ring as Masuyo was proving to be incredibly detrimental to Gwendolyn's capacity to form cogent strategies mid-match. No sooner was she in the middle of formulating her next plan of attack than Masuyo quite literally butted heads with the posh noblewoman. Whatever strategic thoughts she was ruminating about beforehand were now being replaced by fanciful spinning teacups and twirling blue hydrangea flowers instead of your typical dancing stars.

Whatever momentum Gwendolyn had coming into this timely tag-in of hers was by now wholly undone by the scrappy resistance of an impertinent upstart who was supposed to be easy pickings at this point. The very idea that this ill-mannered savage was capable of putting up this much resistance only meant one thing...that Akiha had done a horribly subpar job of whittling at Masuyo's resistance before Gwendolyn could rightfully seize victory. Because most certainly none of this was her fault, so for now Gwen rightfully assigned the blame to her tag partner's feeble efforts. And would gladly scold Akiha on her shortcomings once this match was finished.

Gwendolyn remained splayed out and raised a hand to her face to both massage the point of impact right above her forehead, and shield those insufferable rooflights from blinding her vision anymore. Her eyes remained shut nonetheless as she fought through the throbbing head pains to begin gradually propping herself up on her other elbow. She was regretfully completely unawares of any shuffling movements around her until they suddenly involved the pulling and yanking of her legs. All of this information was reaching her at snails pace and through warbled vision due to her recent head banging, but nothing snaps you out of your foggy daze better than the feeling of your toned legs being crossed over themselves into an entangled submission and the excruciating pain shortly afterward.

"RRGh...BLooodyyy heLLLL..." Gwendolyn snarled out through her gnashing pearly whites, now arching her spine with both of her hands brought to shield her cringing visage. Her sinewy thigh muscles flexed from the immense pressure shooting through her legs for what felt like an eternity of idle movement until she propped her arms behind her so her and Masuyo were on eye level. Gwendolyn glaring vengeful daggers at Masuyo before she glanced over her shoulder to ascertain where she was in the ring. She briefly lifted her supple backside off the canvas and began scooting backwards. But she got no farther than two shifting movements before just collapsing to her back from the unbearable pain with a high-pitched yell, and once again shielding her eyes and forehead with both hands.

Well, this was pretty anticlimactic.

Make no mistake, this hold sucked. The MMA maven of all people knew how badly a figure-four could work the legs, how the sinew apart at the seams and made it feel as though the extremity itself was being split in two. It played a good mind game, as well. Even if one was locked inside of it, their arms were still free, giving that faint illusion of hope only for the pain shooting through the legs to drag it away the instant an idea started to take shape, dragging the victim to and fro from heaven and hell. As effective as it was simple in most cases.

Though she felt like Gwen was overselling it a bit. There was the usual thrashing left and right, but she seemed to regain her senses soon enough and shot a few daggers her way, which Masuyo returned kindly by bringing her fingertips to her lips and blowing an air kiss her way. After that, though, it seemed like she was having a hard time with it. After a couple pushes, she collapsed as the Demon cranked the hold momentarily to keep her from the ropes, and that seemed to be the end of it. The MMA fighter rested on her elbows and quirked an eyebrow, admittedly surprised herself at how quickly things hand turned about. Given that her leggy adversary gone toe-to-toe with someone like Valley, Masuyo expected the heiress to be a little familiar with the hold. Didn’t make it any less excruciating, but still.

It was actually around this moment that Masuyo realized she didn’t really know much about Gwendolyn. She was somewhat familiar with Akiha. Like most aspiring establishments in Shibuya, almost every electronic in her family restaurant utilized one component or another from the Kosha company. For all she knew, though, Gwen’s western highbrow could have all been a schtick. At the very least, she knew she had a very good pair of lungs. The leg lock was more than enough to reveal that.

Things slowed to crawl both literally and figuratively as the blonde imperialist seemed to have become nearly paralyzed. She wasn't too far from the ropes after that little butt scoot, but she'd have to drag Masuyo's weight along with her the whole way. An interesting position to be in for sure, for the both of them.

No harm in getting comfortable, then. “So. Guess we should get to know each other since we're not going anywhere anytime soon. Where are you from? Britain? France? Monaco? Just kind of float around? Is that how you ended up in Japan? I've never left Shibuya personally. You really have that kind of money? I mean, not to throw assumptions or anything, but you look like someone that's pretty well off. How much did that orchestra cost when you came in by the way? Did they seriously have to rehearse that whole thing? Is that something you usually do or was that just something special for today?” She bucked her hips up a bit, giving a quick jolt in torque to the figure-four when she felt Gwen squirming about a bit more. “I'm flattered if it was. Really. Means a lot for my first title match.”

Gwendolyn wouldn’t have put it past this insufferable neanderthal to not recollect just why the heiress was being particularly incapacitated by  this rudimentary leg-lock. She highly doubted someone of Masuyo's barren intellect could recall what she had for breakfast, let alone ascertain why Gwen was in particularly agonizing misery. Whatever lingering stinging sensations in her kneecap from that blasted earlier dragon screw takedown were suddenly amplified tenfold like jolting electricity coursing throughout her leg. She was now being not so pleasantly reminded of what just occurred moments ago in the most excruciating way imaginable.

Not to mention that unlike Masuyo, who was as fresh as a newly bloomed daisy this entire time, Gwendolyn was still wrestling with having taken the brunt of the punishment from Valley Doll and as a result was the more fatigued of the two posh noblewoman. The fact that her legs were immaculately sculpted and toned meant that she could endure the hyper-extension of her knee and manage several butt scoots backwards. Gnashing her teeth and ignoring several sensory overloading distractions. Whether it was the referee incessantly badgering Gwendolyn with ludicrous questions about her doing the unspeakable and submitting...the feeble minded peasants in the arena cheering on the heiress' potential submission...or the pulsating agony shooting through her legs that eventually became too much to bear. Whatever distance Gwendolyn had covered would be unknown to her as she flopped down to her back and shielded her cringing face behind both of her hands.

Her resplendent golden ringlets now scattered haphazardly around her head on the canvas with a sweaty sheen to her porcelain skin that was less a result of the general exhaustion from the match, and more a result of a cold sweat from feelingthe force being applied to the ligaments and tendons in her knee. To her it was simply unfathomable that some one of her noble pedigree was being brought to the brink and having her limits tested by some...some...petulant, no-name, roustabout who thought now would be a fantastic time to conduct her own personal interview. Suddenly, the agitation of having to endure any more of Masuyo's inane blathering was becoming ample motivation to put an end to this time together they were having. Gwendolyn gnashed her teeth and gradually began to prop herself up by the palms of her hands, glaring vengefully with gritted teeth at Masu while continuing her shifting retreat backwards and kindly retorting to her torrent of questions.

"I...much rather preferred it...when that relentlessly babbling mouth of yours...was stuffed to the brim...with copious amounts of food..." Gwendolyn breathed heartily and groaned in between each mouthful of words, scooting backwards and hoping Masuyo would be distracted enough to just go along with the ride. "Your...inept...septuagenarian of a partner...at the very least...did me the professional courtesy...of sparing me of her mundane prattling...before we exposed her for the aging, decrepit, talentless peasant she was..." Gwendolyn prolonged her last few words with a pained sneer before dropping back and extending her arms to clamp onto what she knew were the bottom ropes behind her.

It was probably a bit difficult to tell whether or not the MMA maven was being serious or intentionally irritating with the questions she threw her opponent’s way. If she were being honest with herself, however, it was likely a mixture a both. Masuyo had never seen professional fighting and having fun as mutually exclusive. She never cared for much for money, even less about fame. Some of the best friends she ever made were found in the ring. It was a great place to grow not only as a fighter, but as a person. That attitude was probably the only reason she hadn’t made any enemies in her professional career. At least, nobody she could call such a word.

But Gwen was clearly fixing to fill that void in her life, perfectly fine with keeping things pretty hostile between them. Masuyo’s smile all but faded at the first words to leave her mouth, No, she didn’t expect a warm reception from the pompous heiress, but the venom the woman spat her way could hardly be any more potent short of insulting her family. Instead, she settled with doing the second worst thing one could do to Masuyo in the middle of a match: insulting someone she admired. She may not have known the Californian long, but she was humble, kind, selfless, leaving with the utmost confidence in her partner to finish what they couldn’t together.

Masuyo’s brows furrowed as she stared across from the gold-haired aristocrat across from her. Her family had entertained all kinds of businessmen and patricians, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever met someone so condescending. So downright uppity. Someone that desperately needed to be taken down a peg or two. She kept that sharp look on her face well after Gwen had finished her haughty diatribe and grabbed the bottom rope behind her, signaling a break from the official.

The Demon, however, didn’t let go. Not even as the referee began counting down. If anything, the figure-four seemed to tighten as her steel gaze burned into Gwendolyn’s blue orbs, refusing to offer even an ounce of relief to the noble. Just a half-second shy of her elimination and an abrupt end to the tag title match, Masuyo unraveled the hold at a speed matched only by a true master of the octagon. She stood up and took a few steps back, giving her opponent some space. “Kiite yo. I don’t know how they do things where you're from, but around here we respect our seniors…” She raised her hands in front of her, keeping one close at her waist and another slightly higher and outward, slipping into a traditional aikido stance. “...and we embrace humility.”

Het tone had shifted radically from what it was a mere moment ago. She stood as still as a statue in her pose, waiting for the heiress to come and receive a lesson that was very clearly long overdue.

Equal parts genuine contempt, and devious distraction. Those were the main motivitations behind Gwendolyn's vitriolic salvo towards Masuyo and the elderly Californian she seemed to cherish so dear. This insufferable wastrel wished so fervently to speak with the illustrious heiress, so Gwendolyn was happy to oblige. And by doing so, keep this contemptuous rookie fixated on anything else that did not involve applying more pressure to this blasted leg-lock, or notice how the heiress was making further headway towards the tethered salvation Gwen was scrambling to obtain. Her malicious remarks all flourished from a seed of truth, in particular from how she grew to detest Masuyo the more they spent this excruciating time together. From enduring Masu's own incessantly babbling mouth, towards having her patience be tested from having this uncultured swine consistently get the better of her.

But luckily...patience, endurance, and her own elitist pride prevailed. The heiress hooking one arm over the bottom arm and grasping her wrist to ensure she wouldn't be tugged back to the middle of the ring, eagerly awaiting the very instant she was granted freedom from this accursed submission.

Which was taking too long...far...far too long...

In an infuriatingly ironic example of tasting her own medicine, Masuyo squeezed ever second she could from the leg-lock in a familiar callback to earlier in the match when the heiress was perpetrating the same bending of the rules upon Valley in her single-leg Boston Crab. Gwendolyn snarled through her pearly whites and tensed her strained leg muscles as the fruits of her hard-earned journey were denied for several agonizing seconds more. Her misguided assumption about Masuyo being the prototypical rule abider was easily her biggest miscalculation, as was the chance that her spiteful words would spark a malicious fire in the MMA maven. A sweaty shimmer to their interlocked legs that were graciously disentangled at the 4.99 second.

Gwendolyn breathed out a sigh of relief and clutched her afflicted knee, her forehead flattened against the canvas to better hide her pained visage in what was undoubtedly the most vulnerable Gwen had been this entire match. And all to some...some...unkempt, motor-mouthed cretin making a mockery of her this day by out-wrestling both herself and her absentee partner back to back. Her hazel-eyed glare peeked through her curtain of golden haired curls upward at Masuyo, incapable of comprehending how someone of her noble stature was losing to such an uncultured philistine. And was now daring to look down upon her, both literally and with those condescending words .A fire now being lit in Gwendolyn as she clamped onto the nearby ropes to aid in her aggravated ascension, the twinges of pain were evident in her enraged face as she was clearly applying pressure to her leg too soon. She visibly struggled to stand back up and start wearily hobbling towards Masuyo on unsteady legs...

"You...nngh...dare presume...to lecture and scold someone of my refined pedigree about the intricacies of this business...someone who has been bathed in championship gold...since you before even darkened these halls...You...an unsophisticated reprobate...a rank, nameless amateur unworthy of even licking the grime from my boot!!" Gwendolyn spitefully snarled out before attempting to prove her point by lashing out with a, slower, weaker, and strained attempt at her Colère de Dieu spinning roundhouse kick finisher...

This was about all Masuyo cared to hear from Gwendolyn. When they’d first met on opposite ends of a lovely buffet in the middle of the ring, she’d taken the blonde aristocrat’s pompous attitude as part of the venue. Part of the usual pre-match trash talk to build up events like this. Let her play up the arrogance more than usual, fully expecting the blue-eyed noble to dial it back at least a few notches when the time came to trade blows. And that, if it came to it, she’d take her loss with some pride and leave with nothing but the hope she’d left her title with a worthy successor.

But the longer she stared at the woman across from her, barking her insults and demeaning dribble, the thinner her patience grew until it had all but vanished. There was rarely an opponent Masuyo met that she found undeserving of respect. Respect was what held those bonds together. Win or lose, it was what made everyone stronger at the end of it all. If words of spite were all that Gwen had to throw at her in her final moments, then the least the aikido prodigy could do was return her generous gift in kind.

When the co-champion stumbled her way over, Masuyo only met her with a pair of furrowed brows, clenched fitsts, and teeth grit behined a pair of pursed lips. Her razor-sharp gaze made a quick trail up and down Gwen’s body, looking for the slightest deviation that could pose a threat. But she was overcompensating. With the kick coming the Demon’s way, even an ameatur with two left feet could have dodged it with so much ease it would be as if they were told a day in advance. It certainly didn’t do the fine structure latent within Gwendolyn’s graceful leg justice. It was slow, it was shaky, it was didn’t post the slightest threat.

Which is why Masuyo opted not to avoid. Instead, she met the poor excuse for a kick with open arms, letting it soar closer and closer towards her head, noticeably lacking some elevation where it mattered. Just a second away from impact, the MMA maven would raise her arm and drop her elbow down onto Gwendolyn’s leg. At the same time, Masuyo’s front leg would kick up, looking to snatch her opponent's kick out of mid-air, killing its momentum and crushing her knee painfully between a rising knee and down-striking elbow.

Once she managed that, Masuyo already had an idea of what she wanted to do next. It was something she researched quite a few times after her debut, in the event she and the Slamazon found themselves on opposite ends of the ring again. She didn’t have the flexibility or cheerleader-esque grace to pull it off exactly, but she had an idea she’d been meaning to try one of these days.

All she needed was some momentum.

Dashing off to the right with Gwendolyn hopefully still reeling from her possibly crippled leg, Masuyo would take off over to the ropes at her side, turning her back at the last moment to bounce off them and shoot straight back at the heiress. As she neared, she would shoot her left arm out, reaching for a solid grip to end Gwendolyn here and now. “Take your gold…" She said, bringing her left hand to Gwendolyn’s neck, and her right to the inside of her leg, cupping her upper thigh. “...and shove it!”

The Demon would throw her adversary down, cartwheeling the imperialist onto her back with an offensive Heaven and Earth throw. Masuyo followed her to the ground the whole way, keeping her arm hooked under her leg and pinning her with a move closely reminiscent of her partner’s fan-favorite Valley Bomb. She’d lean forward into the hold, falling to two knees and making sure Gwen’s shoulders touched the canvas, signaling the referee to start the pin.

As harrowing a sight as it may have been for the embattled heiress to quite literally be standing on her last legs in one final moment of defiance towards the individual who clearly had the ability to end this bout between them whenever she wanted, it was an act born not from honorable selflessness or stout-hearted bravery. But from abject outrage and snooty disgust that this vacuous buffoon...this imbecilic troglodyte...this abject rookie...had the unmitigated gall to admonish her, Gwendolyn DuPont Bettencourt~...,about the intricacies of this business. Someone of her prestige and high-class nobility, who was a multi-time champion and, in her mind, the unsurpassable paragon of aristocratic superiority~...

The very notion made her blue blood boil and fueled the adrenaline keeping her from buckling from the soreness her legs were coping with. Her slouching posture trembling slightly as she clenched her fists and gnashed her teeth while steadily approaching the raven-haired MMA maven who was daring to look down on her with those condescending eyes of hers. An individual of Gwendolyn's gargantuan pride couldn't stand being addressed in such a way by this relative newcomer thinking she had gotten the better of her...despite all evidence to the contrary. The heaping exhaustion was written all over the heiress' face as she struggled to stay vertical from a match she long since needed a break from, whereas Masuyo was still fresh and energetic even after tearing through both of the haughty noblewomen.

Gwen simply could NOT accept that she was on the cusp of losing to Masuyo. And in her maddened furor, attempted a subpar version of her infamous finisher, and was awoken to the stark reality of her situation once the crunching impact between Masu's knee and elbow rekindled the searing hot agony in her leg. An inelegant shriek preceded Gwendolyn collapsing down to one knee, the heiress' face twisted in agony as she gripped the afflicted leg, which by some insufferably damnable coincidence was the same leg that was sprained from the earlier dragon twister. Gwen's greatest offensive assets were crippled and barely keeping her upright...but she refused to take this indignity lying down...her own haughty pride willing herself back up to her trembling legs to stare down this so called "demon"...were she still there.

Her hazel-colored eyes widened in bewilderment from realizing she was alone in the middle of the ring. She was only just then getting the distinct impression that none of this boded well for her right before a pair of hands gripped her thigh and tugged her neck for a tumbling spin-cycle that ended with a climactic slam onto the canvas. Arms splayed to the side, mumbling incoherently, hunched over herself with her pert backside in the air, Gwendolyn might have objected to the indignity of this position had she not come down with a sudden case of dizzying vertigo that not even the audience's raucous cheers could awake her from...or the referee's nearby pin count.

"One!"

"Two!"

"...THREE!"

Akiha had been taking some time to get herself back into shape, making sure she was at hundred percent and fresh. It took her a bit of time but when she did get back up she was hungry for some revenge. The crimson hair wrestler would then watch as the two wrestlers went back and forth for a bit, taking some mental notes about her fellow Japanese wrestler. Though eventually seeing what happened to her partner leg she knew that Gwendolyn would be out of the match. When she saw the pin count she decided not to break it up, even if she saved her blonde partner, there was not much she could do at this point.

As the pin started, Akiha would start to make her move, making sure she was out of sight of Masuyo. Now in the ring at the two count, Akiha was now behind her raven hair opponent and with the three count, she would wind her leg back and attempt to deliver a powerful kick aimed right at Masuyo head, trying to knock her out with a single attack. It was also a form of punishment, for spending so much time working on Gwendolyn's leg to stop her kicks, only to then be hit by Akiha fresh legs.

One down. One to go.

The biggest lie Masuyo could tell at this moment was that she had complete confidence that Gwendolyn would stay down and let herself be eliminated. The heiress had proven herself to be many things in their very short time together, and a gracious loser was definitely not one of them. Taking away the fact that the move Masuyo had used to lay her out was a prototype at best, Gwen just seemed to have the worst traits in general when it came to having a fighting attitude. Even if she did kick out, there was just as good a chance it was to spit in Masuyo’s eye rather than make a comeback.

Not that Masuyo wouldn’t have enjoyed the idea of putting her flat on her back for the third time tonight, but that wasn’t what she was here for. She’d knock herself out than keep fighting someone that couldn’t defend themselves, pig-headed as they were. Not to mention she didn’t have the energy to waste.

They were all moot points, in the end. Masuyo kept the leg hooked, turned her body to stone, an immovable force weighing down on the imperialist as the official's hand met the canvas. She let the number rise in her head and heard the audience count alongside her. The second count came, and the heiress hadn’t stirred. She was done. The whole way, Masuyo’s face stayed eerily still, a frown on her face that looked chiseled from stone. “For the record, I don’t share Valley’s opinion.” She said in time for the three count, letting Gwen’s leg fall ungracefully to the side as her final mark on tonight’s performance. “Your hair looks like sausage cur-”

Black.

That was the next and last thing that Masuyo was aware of. It came down quick and hard like an iron shutter, closing her away from the lights and sounds all at once. Her half-conscious body went limp in an instant as the harsh smack echoed across the arena, causing a few onlookers to recoil and shift in their seats. With a slump to the side, Masuyo fell and rolled onto her back, her body moving on its own, one hand moving to her head, and her chest rising and falling steadily as she laid at Gwendolyn’s feet. Even as the crowd voiced their displeasure at the swift surprise attack, the Demon remained unresponsive after just one of the crusader’s well-placed kicks. The night had taken a devious turn, but there existed only a lingering hope in the crowd that it would avoid a sudden and ignominious end.