SS 19 Blade Uehara vs. Beauty Ichigaya

It's amazing what having your entire career and life's work on the line can do to add that extra bit of focus and determination towards whatever task you have at hand. Even if that tasked seemed insurmountable and had been one that Blade failed miserably at the first time around. But the memories of her past failure helped provided ample motivation towards not reliving that somber, heart-breaking moment of utter defeat once again...so you can see why the Aerial Artist was firing off on all cylinders right now and had that extra bit of pep in her step as she demonstrated just how she earned that highflying moniker or hers.

"MMNGH..." Blade bounced upward to a hunched over lurch on her knees, hugging her abdomen with one arm while biting her lips to stifle the anguished grunt that came with having the wind knocked out of her sails. Splashing down upon Beauty's side was not as comfortable a landing as if the infuriating blonde had just stayed flat on her back or front. So in general, that aerial maneuver pretty much sucked for everyone involved. Blade shook it off as best she with a throaty cough and ushered Beauty onto her front, whereupon she would splay herself out along canvas cinching in a textbook front headlock around the Beaut's cranium and that annoyingly luxurious mane of flowing blonde hair of hers.

Knowing that Blade was suffering too was small solace for Beauty, but she’d gladly take it at the moment. It was all she could ask for, really, because she certainly wasn’t having any luck dealing out the damage herself.

No, at the moment, she was far too busy rolling about in pain and wishing God had made her chest a little better at absorbing heavy impacts. Not only was taking this sort of damage unacceptable, but it was far too early in a match for it to be happening. This bout had barely begun, and she was already suffering her opponent’s heavy artillery. Not the best omen for the rest of the match.

She shook her head, freeing her face of stray hairs just in time to see that Blade was far from done, already coming in to seize her opportunity. A small but feisty arm wrapped around Beauty’s head and kept it secure, trying to keep her pinned to the mat.

‘Trying’.

Beauty was many things, but weak? Never that. She pounded her fist into the mat, defiant, and began to rise up, while the other hand came up and attempted to pry her way free of the hold, refusing to let Blade further capitalize.

It was no small miracle that Blade had taken this much of a commanding lead this early on in the match. She opted not to look up the betting odds of her winning this match since she only thought it would kinda depress her. But straight up taking the fight right to the beauteous powerhouse herself (and getting in a few less than "legal" pre-match potshots) ensured that the psychological advantage would be Blade's when she didn't end up just standing there gawking at Beauty's flaunting of her flawless physique at the beginning of the match. And now that advantage had Beauty splayed out, frazzled...

...and shaking it all off.

*Uh-oh...* Blade internally voiced as the arrogant narcissist starting making major headway in doing what she does best in the ring. Power her way out of her problems. The Aerial Artist struggling with gritted teeth and strained pressure on the headlock to delay the inevitable, Beauty climbing to her knees to eventually reach a hunched over posture with Blade arising right along with her. The ornery beast of a woman on the verge of achieving the freedom she fought for, until her captor nimbly wrapped her slender legs around Beauty's midriff and crossing them at the ankles to amp up the pressure.

That’s it, just keep pushing up. Keep rising. A bit more. A bit more, and…

”Ugh!”

Beauty pounded her fist into the mat, summoning her resolve. It wasn’t just a matter of getting back into the fight to pay Blade back, but on gaining ground. She knew all too well how this little firecracker of a woman could run away with a match if you gave her half of a chance, and surprise of surprises, that was exactly what she was doing.

Beauty put one foot on the mat, then another, and began to lift Blade up along with her, making the height difference all the more stark. Her neck didn’t have to support the urchin’s weight for long, as she brought her legs around to clamp around Beauty’s waist, wrapping her nice and tight, sticking to her like a limpet. Persistent little nuisance, not getting around that.

Fine, then.

Beauty took one step forward, dipped down, then brought into a charge towards the nearest turnbuckle. It was an awkward, ungainly way to move, but appearances hardly mattered in this instance - all she wanted to do was smash Blade’s back into the corner with all her weight behind it.

Blade always was known for being just a tad too stubborn for her own good. Exhibit A in proof of that being how the Okinawan refused to relent on the clearly failing attempt at corralling the beauteous brawler. The scruffy-haired tomboy sticking to her guns by clamping down even tighter to the narcissistic powerhouse with a reaffirming torqueing of her headlock and body-scissor like a rapacious spider-monkey. Blade hoping against all odds that something would give and enough oxygen would be denied to Beauty that the blonde would just calmly and quietly settle herself back down to the canvas...

"Awjusgimmeabreakforonce-" Blade grumbled out in seething protest as the exact opposite thing starting to happen. Beauty soldiering on upward to a stand on her powerful legs with the clamped on W.A. in tow, lamenting her rotten luck and poor decision-making right before being taken for a ride and impending collision square against the corner turnbuckle. A booming squash between the padded corner and the sculpted blonde being more than enough to dislodge the scrappy veteran, now hunched over with a shortness of breath while covering her bruised abdomen and the other arm dangling over the top rope.

Thank God, that worked.

For a moment, after the initial impact, Beauty leaned against her foe, her bosom pressed against the Urchin’s unkempt face. It wasn’t the most unpleasant feeling, she had to concede, but it was mostly to catch her breath. She had almsot forgotten just how much of a handful this woman could be if given half a chance, but that early burst had been a rapid reminder. Blade was dangerous.

But so was Beauty. And now she’d remind her opponent precisely why that was.

Beauty turned about and ducked down, reaching up as she went to pull Blade’s aching body onto her shoulders. She stood up, hoisting the small woman with ease - even winded, it hardly took any real effort. She straightened up, planted her feet, and then she moved.

Beauty stormed across the ring, full speed, picking up all the momentum she could muster. When she was close enough, she launched Blade off her shoulder like a human spear, hurling her head-first into the middle turnbuckle with her signature move, the Fall From Grace - otherwise known as the Lawn Dart.

Nothing quite like being bull-dozed between the corner turnbuckle and against 170 pounds of slim-lined, beauteous muscle ramming into Blade like a freight train with a vendetta. The loss of breath was real, as was the slamming impact that had the Okinawan slackening listlessly into the corner with her eyes dreamily shut tight and Beauty's blooming breasts mushed against the side of the tomboy's panting face. Tantalizing imagery that was zoomed in upon by the attentive camera-man being fed instructions over the head set by the backstage crew who knew a moneyshot when they saw one.

Beauty then hefting the Aerial Artist onto her shoulders with startling ease and with malicious intentions that just could not have meant good news for the high-flying source of her obsession. A frazzled Blade awakening to the aromatic smell of Beauty's perfume, and the more disconcerting feeling of hefting weightlessness and sudden acceleration, her limbs drooping downward as she tilted her head up before being chucked like a javelin face-first into the middle turnbuckle. A senseless Okinawan bobbing back to sit her butt on her ankles before teetering over to lay sprawled out on her back, grimacing up at the roof and the swirling lights above with a sympathetic audience feeling even moreso after witnessing the jarring feat of strength.

Beauty Ichigaya had hit the Fall From Grace how many times? A hundred? A thousand? Quite a few times in her career, she was sure. It was one of her more useful signatures, excellent for wearing an opponent down, and she was good enough that she could easily do the move blindfolded. She knew the exact number of needed steps, the exact force she needed to exert for each opponent. She had it down to a science.

So, with that in mind, it was a sure sign of her sorry state that she had to stumble back after launching the move, falling back to one knee after the effort of throwing her lightest opponent. Blade had truly rocked her in the opening, and the effects were showing, still leaving her loopy. But the ball was firmly in her court, now, and she had all sorts of ideas on how to play with it.

”Rise and shine, Uehara.” She shook her head, stood tall, and marched over to her fallen foe, her shadow engulfing the small warrior as she approached. ”We are far from done, you little wastrel.”

Wanting a low power, but effective, option for her next move, she reached down and grabbed Blade’s hair, using her grip to lift the rest of her upper body and set it up right. With her target clear, Beauty shot her knee out and smashed her foe’s face against the turnbuckle with it - a nasty move by itself, but made worse when she leaned forward and kept the pressure up, grinding her skull between the pads and the unforgiving bone of her kneecap.

Under normal circumstances, Blade was quite in her element whenever she had surrendered herself to gravity's pull and was soaring through the air with the greatest of ease. A daredevil's lack of self-preservation and an unscratchable itch to leap off of high objects led to not only Blade's father growing several more gray hairs whenever he had to make leaping catches when she lost her footing climbing the bookcase at the age of three...but also a wrestling legacy of high-flying chicanery. Of course...Blade was only comfortable in the air when she was the one being the main proponent of her flight...not a narcissistic blonde pitching her halfway across the goddamn ring for a face-smashing impact into the middle turnbuckle.

Blade recognized the sing-song voice through her warbled hearing and towering presence from her squinting eyes, but neither knowledge comforted her in the slightest as she grumbled and growled from being tugged back to a seated position and propped up against the turnbuckles behind her. The brash Okinawan than getting an abrasive facefull of Beauty's kneepad being smushed up against the side of her head with mounting leveraged pressure, causing Blade to go into scrambling fits with her sneakers scratching against the floor and gloved hands slapping and clamping onto the Beaut's sinewy thigh. The cameraman at ringside zooming in on Blade and capturing her anguished and mushed face as he found himself having a particularly busy day at work.

This was going to be a match of pace, Beauty realized. Honestly, it should have occurred to her before, but there was something about crushing Blade’s face against the pads that was eerily therapeutic. Like crushing one of those stress balls, only it was a human skull instead. It did wonders for her train of thought.

Blade thrived on speed, agility, movement, but this? Working her at this slow, deliberate grind? It was everything she was not and everything Beauty was.

She made sure to make the most of the moment, too, pushing to really get in the edge of her knee, as if she could penetrate that thick skull. With the leeway given through this match’s rules, she could’ve done so at her leisure, until Blade was more of a mess than she typically was - but there would be little enjoyment in that. Beauty would get little joy from keeping this in the corner. In fact, she wasn’t much of a mind to keep it in the ring. So…

She ease up on the knee, only to reach down and grab Blade by the head, yanking her up to stand. She wouldn’t be on her feet for long, however, as Beauty’s very next move would be to reach down, grab her around the waist, heft her up and attempt to throw her over the ropes, dumping her hard on the apron and spilling her out on the floor.