Friends Like You

Kaede was still bouncing when Yuki entered the room, ready to go from the first second her opponent entered the room. Was it the most efficient use of her energy? No. Not really. But she knew, if she had any chance, she would need to be ready physically and mentally, hitting Yuki at 100%.

She was hyped. She was eager. She was...cute?

For whatever reason, that single word lit a spark somewhere deep down. The more and more they did this, the less and less patience she was having for Yuki's bullshit.

Kaede should’ve been surprised when she came at her with that same kick, just as deadly as ever, just a high - then brought it back, before swinging it again.

A feint, and one that nearly worked, as Kaede almost overthought her dodge and wound up clocked anyway. She managed to duck, barely, avoiding the blow by inches, hissing as it passed overhead.

Whatever. The point was, it worked, and she once again had a counterattack option to roll with. It was tempting to go with what she went with before, since that clearly worked...but then again, it didn’t work, really. Yuki was bigger, stronger, and more experienced on the ground than she was. Trying to outwrestle her would never go well, even if she was on top.

No, she had to be smarter this time. Instead she swept her leg low and target the back of Yuki’s knee, trying to see if she could work on weakening her base. Seemed like solid strategy to her.

A bit of a smirk wormed its way into the corners of her mouth after Yuki threw that first feint. Seeing Kaede jump like that, seeing the nerves get the better of her instincts and almost leap face first into certain death, just couldn’t help but put her in good spirits. These past few weeks were no doubt spent in rumination for her. Thinking about how to dodge that kick, how to counter that kick, how much that kick had hurt when it got her. She was probably thinking that this time would be different, that this time she’d take that kick and send it clear out of the ring.

Yet here she was, jumping like a wee little rabbit at the slightest twitch. Real cute. Yuki had a mind to just end this already, and so she went for it. Her thigh pulsed, revealing the contours along the leg and the sheer muscle packed beneath the tight skin, before she threw her leg up, cutting the air in half as it neared Kaede and..

...it missed. It wasn’t a scrape like last time, it was a dodge. Kaede slipped right past it with perfect timing. Figures. Get knocked out by something enough times, you were bound to learn from your mistakes. She already knew what was coming and hurried to get her leg down before the punkette came at her with another lunge. Except that wasn’t what happened at all. Kaede’s leg slipped behind, cutting her leg out from under her with a sweep. A sense of deja vu overcame Yuki as she fell back and knocked her head hard against the canvas.

“Gah!”

Alright. She had one good move. Like she was supposed to be impressed. She took a second to absorb the shock, but the next, she was back on the recovery. Yuki rolled over onto her front before slapping down her hands on the canvas and trying to push herself back onto her feet. Kaede wanted to fight for real? They’d fight for real.

Holy shit, Kaede knocked Yuki down.

For split-second, she just a fraction of time, she couldn’t do anything but look on in shock. She’d expected that kick to hurt Yuki. Maybe make her stagger. Slow her down. But to actually put her in down, to get her on the canvas while Kaede was standing tall? That was a Christmas-miracle coming early.

That split-second, though, couldn’t last forever. Yuki was already recovering, because the universe apparently had a problem with her being happy for more than two seconds. She was getting up now, and there were two options to deal with that - hammer her until she stayed down or jump on her and try her luck at keeping her down. Again, given how the latter sort of thing had gone before…

Kaede rushed in as Yuki rose to her knee, straddled her back, and started throwing wild punches at the back of her head, swinging left and right and left and right, trying to wrack up as much damage as she could as fast as she could, get in every last bit of energy.

Yuki was a beast, but she was still a human. She could get knocked out the same as Kaede could. It would just take longer.

Honestly, Yuki wasn’t sure how to take all of this. She’d been building the punkette up - or hadn’t been, rather - for the past couple weeks as a non-threat. Someone she could topple with ease. That’s what made this whole thing so damn appealing in the first place. But now she had to honestly look at her position and say that that same whelp she’d called cute but a couple moments ago had now just taken her to the ground in one fell swoop.

Don’t think her ego was going to recover from that one.

At the same time, she had to read the situation again. Kaede put her down. It wasn’t a fluke like last time. No stroke of luck. That was a clean kick with decent power to it. No hesitation to be found. She honestly didn’t expect the punkette to clue in that fast. Was she…

No. Yuki just lowered her guard. Nothing more to it. The moment she got back to her feet, this punk was done.

Seemed Kaede had clued into that as well, though, because the next thing the bleached blonde knew, her opponent was raining down fists from her back like there was no tomorrow. Couldn’t let that stand for long. The back of the head was a nasty spot. Impossible to defend and always exposed. She had to give Kaede credit. If there was one thing she could do, it was punch. Not great, but not bad either, and ‘not bad’ was all she needed to be. The She-Wolf had to get out of this.

Yuki reached behind her, trying to grab at least one of Kaede’s arms as they came swinging toward her. With one tank downward, she’d aim to throw this monkey off her back and right onto the canvas where she belonged. The moment she got her off, there would a strong left hook waiting for her.

”Stay down!” Swing. ”Come on!” Swing again. [color:5f90=#ffooff]”Fucking-” And again.

Kaede was swinging harder and faster than anything in her entire life, she was sure of that. In part, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hurt her fist more hitting something. As it turned out, the human skull was just about the hardest part of the human body, and repeatedly striking at it wasn’t the best thing for the rather delicate joints in her hand. Imagine that. Next time, she was wearing padding.

Regardless, for now, she wasn’t stopping until her fists broke or Yuki did something to make her stop. This was the best advantage she’d gotten over the woman since they started this thing, the closest to a real chance at putting her away, there was no way she’d lose it-

And she lost it.

Kaede howled in rage as she was flipped over, and she started to get back up the second she hit the mat, before a punch to the face made that much more difficult.

The blow knocked the sense clean out of Kaede and left her glassy eyed, hit with enough force to bloody her mouth in an instant. That blood helped in a way, though, because it snapped her to attention in an instant, triggered her like nothing else, made her realize the trouble she was in.

Knowing she needed to make space, Kaede tried to roll away, sloppily tumbling away as fast as her groggy state would allow. She didn’t have much of a plan - everything revolved around her escaping. Now.

If Kaede had this sort of tenacity when they first met, she may have gotten a better recommendation from Yuki She was still an annoying piece of work, but she was an annoying piece of work that was putting some effort in for once in her miserable life. Could have brought a tear to her eye in another life. In another dimension.

Nah. Even then the Wolf Mother wouldn’t allow it. Even having that thought was a dangerous precedent. God, Kaede was nothing but trouble for her.

For now, the bleached blonde was satisfied with getting this rowdy monkey off her damn back. Though she was loathed to admit it, Kaede could build some seriously decent power in those fists if you gave her the chance. Yuki was almost seeing double. But whatever, she got her off. That was the important part. Then she socked her one on the cheek. That was the even more important part.

The punkette was quick on the uptake, however, and she started rolling away Yuki gave her a bit of distance. Let her think she was just in the clear. Then, at the last moment, she’d lunge forward, taking a couple large strides towards Kaede before suddenly breaking into a baseballer’s dive, aiming to kick the rookie in her back. Or stomach. Or side. Whatever ended up facing her as the roll kept going.

Her goal was the same either way: getting Kaede out of the ring. If she thought she was safe on the retreat, the punk was dead wrong.

The plan - yes, Kaede felt she had one, this time - was simple enough. She needed to get to the outside of the ring and just...regroup. Recoup. Recharge. It might have seemed flimsy, but she had managed to hurt Yuki back there, if only for a few moments. If she could just hang on a little while and get some breathing room, she could...do something. Anything had to be better than having her face perpetually pounded into the mat again.

Her head was swimming, aching from that hellacious punch, but she was close now, so close, and-

She rolled over to her side, just in time see Yuki heading her way like a human cannonball. ”Oh, fuck-”

The baseball slide hit her in the stomach and sent her sliding out of the ring, crashing down hard on the floor below. She landed on her back - so much fun - and stayed there, too, gasping for air and writhing about.

Bad. Too bad. Barely able to move, she did the only thing she could think to do and reached over to the apron, hoping against hope that she might be able to pull out a weapon or something, but knowing full well that Yuki wasn’t likely to give her the chance.

Right. Roll away. That will solve all of her problems. God, Kadede could be such a pain in the ass sometimes.

She had that kick to the stomach coming, in all honesty. If your gonna make a retreat to the ring, you gotta do it fast. Letting your opponent see you hurt is like jumping into a pool full of sharks covered in freshly cut steaks. That’s why you already had to be close to the safe zone by the time you went for the retreat. Rolling halfway across the ring was basically begging to get taken out. Gotta be quick on these things.

Not that she’d ever explain that to her. It wasn’t like Yuki owed this girl anything.

The She-Wolf heard the thump not too long after her feet connect with the punkette’s gut. She stood up and peered over the side to see her lying there, sure enough. Sliding underneath the bottom rope, she’d step one foot down onto Kaede’s stomach before spreading her legs across and leaning down to straddle the rookie’s midsection. Number 3, here we go.

“Now just stay down and go to bed like a good little girl, got it?”

Yuki clamped her hand down on Kaede’s neck and reeled her fist back. Taking a moment to really clench her fingers together, wanting to make sure this shot put her out clean. She felt her arm pulse. Cannon was loaded. Three...two...

A ring bell. An old, rusty ring bell was sitting there under the apron, just outside of Kaede’s reach. That was her hope, her one chance to survive this. If she could grab it, she could use it, and...do something. She wasn’t sure what, since not being able to stand limited her options. But it would be far better than nothing.

So close, almost there, just a little further…

Yuki’s foot put a stop to that notion, pinning her hard to the floor, making her squirm underneath the heel. Before she could even think of pushing it off, Yuki was on her again, straddling her, keeping her down while she raised her fist like the blade of a guillotine. She wanted a still target. Wanted Kaede to placid.

Fuck. That.

She struggled. She fought. She bucked. There wasn’t much she could do against Yuki’s weight and power, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. She threw everything she had, what little it was, into the effort. Fighting from the floor.

All the while she stared up at the fist, knowing it was coming down at any moment, but not shying away. Kaede wasn’t giving Yuki that satisfaction, at the least.

Why was she expecting anything different? Why did she keep giving this scraggly little rookie the benefit of the doubt? Why on Earth did she ever expect anything new from Kaede Komatsuzaki?

For only one moment and one moment alone, she actually thought that gears were turning in the punkette’s mind. That she’d be able to assess just how thoroughly screwed she was and learn to take her walloping like the fighter she pretended to be.
Silly her, right?

Yuki’s eyelids shut closed for a second, taking in a bit of air through her nostrils. Her brows furrowed before she opened her eyes again. She just didn’t want to let her have this, did she? Kaede wasn’t going to go quietly, no matter how bad things seemed to get. Even if things ended up the same way, giving up just didn’t seem to be in her blood.

There was something oddly familiar about all of it. A sentiment she felt long before all of this. Before Kaede. Before the federation. It reminded her of…

“Right.”

The hammer fell. Yuki shot the fist straight across with a lethal hook, making the air scream as it went, headed straight for the jaw of the bucking bronco beneath her. Once that was over, she’d send another one. Just making sure.