Kyo Akamatsu vs. Valley Doll - The Road To Recovery

The Slingshot Spear hadn’t been all roses and sunshine for Valley, either. While she didn’t need both legs to do the move, it would’ve been better if she had, and the compensation put a lot of force on her good leg. Kyo wasn’t a soft target, either, nowhere near as fun to slam into as the ladies she was used to doing the move on. Crashing into was like hitting a sandbag, and it made for a rough landing when she came down and rolled off.

But she could confidently say he’d gotten the worst of it. He was the one retreating. He was the one taking a powder outside of the ring. Which was all well and good, they could both use the rest, but Valley knew she couldn’t afford it nearly as much as he could. She had to fill this gap, press this advantage, but if she just slid under the ropes and went after him, it would be an exchange in his favor.

No, she had to exit the ring, and she had to come on him, and she had to drop the hammer right as she did. But how? Suicide dives were out, no way could she pull off a Golden Triangle moonsault…

The idea came to her after a second of hard thought, and she committed herself to it right away, knowing there was little time to contemplate. As Kyo recouped outside the ring, Valley grabbed the top rope with both hands, took a tight grip, and yanked her way up onto them, turning around in mid air so the back of her thighs would touch down on top of them. From there, it was just a matter of letting the ropes do what came natural - the bounce her legs up and sent her flipping off them and falling below, coming down on Kyo from above with an Arabian Press Moonsault.

Kyo's chest burned from where Valley's shoulder had collided with it. He let out a ragged breath; as far as he could tell, nothing was broken, though that hadn't made the impact any less painful to be on the receiving end of. Given the way she had landed against him, he could tell that the impact hadn't been a bed of roses for Valley either, but he had no intention of being pinned by the Californian: wordlessly he shoved Valley off and rolled under the ropes.

Dropping to the arena floor, he stood up and walked gingerly away from the ring, breathing hard from that impact. Around him, this much closer to the stands, he could hear his own fans cheering him on that much more clearly, though he was also more aware of Valley's fans jeering him as well. They could jeer all they wanted, he thought to himself, clutching his chest and slowly turning to face the arena. The only thing that mattered was getting back in the ring and--

He froze. The moment he turned around, he saw Valley springing back from the top rope, diving down at him in an almost flawlessly executed moonsault.

Oh for the love of...

For the second time in a row, Valley cannoned own hard into him, smashing him down against the matted arena floor. The audience went wild around Valley and Kyo as the Slamazon's moonsault struck home. Kyo, left unmoving and groaning ever so slightly under Valley, couldn't exactly share their sentiments: pain throbbed in his chest, his spine was aching dully, and his body felt slow and sluggish to respond. This, he knew, was a very bad situation...

”1!”

Valley woke up with a start and looked around, her brain resetting in an instant. The cheering crowd, the referee counting above her, the smell of cheap popcorn hanging in the air - she was in a match. And this body beneath her, man, solid, Asian...Kyo Akamatsu. She was in a match with Kyo Akamatsu.

Everything snapped into place after that. Her leg was hurting, so she did an Arabian Press Moonsault on Kyo, and it seems to have been effective. He was laid about beneath her, not moving much, looked to be in real paint. She was hardly in much better shape, and from the looks of things she’d just been knocked out - only for a second, sure, but that was the gist she was getting.

For now, though, she was the one on top, in control. What was she about to do with that?

The first step was getting them up and standing, so she could eventually move him back into the ring for a proper finish. Reaching, she wrapped one arm around his neck and gripped the barricade with the other, using it for support as she stood up. As she did, she tightened her hold, choking him if didn’t comply. And even if did, but a little less so in that case.

"2! 3..."

It was as the count began that the world around Kyo suddenly seemed to start moving again. He had finally noticed that Valley had been lying against him, her soft breath tickling against his chest. Maybe she had been knocked out, perhaps, or hurting from that impact? Kyo didn't know, but he knew from how his own spine was throbbing with agony just how hard that moonsault had hit, and it was taking a monumental amount of willpower to even try to move.

Then, with a slowness that was almost painful to watch, Valley rose to her feet, grabbing a hold of Kyo's head to pull him up with her. Kyo felt himself swaying unsteadily to his feet, his head tucked neatly under Valley's armpit. On reflex, he reached up to grab weakly at Valley's wrist. He was rewarded by the feeling of his head being squeezed tightly against Valley's bicep, her arms neatly cutting off his air supply.

So...that left him battered, hurting, and briefly in Valley's control...though if Valley thought he was in no state to fight back, she was mistaken.

He went back to his meditations, and shut out everything else in his mind. Digging into a core of willpower, he balled a fist and sent one, two punches up into Valley's midsection. Whether that succeeded in softening Valley's grip or not, he would then wrap his arms around those finely sculpted abs of hers, lift her up, and take a step back before charging forwards, aiming to ram Valley back-first into the barricade!

Though this was hardly Kyo's intention, of course, the resulting impact would send both him and Valley sprawling into the fans behind...

There was still some good time left before the referee’s count was done, but Valley’s plan was to get Kyo back in the ring as soon as possible. This was just the worst position for her to be in. With no ropes to save her, there was nothing to stop Kyo from, say, getting her in a kneebar, wrecking her leg for the next few seconds, then ducking into the ring and leave her for the countout. He wouldn’t do that, he was far too honorable, but she didn’t like leaving that sort of possibility. The longer this dragged on, the lower chances would go. She needed to wrap this up.

Kyo Akamatsu, however, had other ideas. Ideas that involved ramming her back into the guardrail. Painful ideas.

To his credit, that idea worked, too. Valley cried out as her spine was smashed against the steel, and she immediately released the hold and slumped against the metal, gritting her teeth as the pain worked its way through her bones. It was tempting to just take it and drop down, and she almost did - but that wouldn’t fly. She couldn’t give Kyo that kind of space to work.

With that in mind, Valley reached the side, grabbed the bars of the barricade for support, and shot her good leg out with a straight kick, aiming her heel towards his knee. It wouldn’t quite even them up, but it would be a good start.

"...4...5..."

Kyo heard the ref still counting in the background, just as he also heard Valley grunt loudly as he rammed her into the barrier. He felt her grip immediately come loose, and he stood back up to his full height, taking a deep breath now that he was free of of her constricting headlock. In front of him, Valley was slumping against the barrier, face twisted in pain, and he knew he had the advantage now. He just needed to grab her arm, whip her over towards the edge of the ring and....

Like lightning, one of Valley's legs snapped out, nailing Kyo in the knee. Hot pain shot up his leg, and he was unable to stifle a cry of pain as he dropped to his injured knee, forcing himself to prop himself up on the palms of his hands. Damn it, that one had actually hurt. Valley, it seemed, was determined to repay him for the injuries done to her own leg.

Kyo was far from helpless, though. A lot of fans and one-time opponents had often compared Kyo to Ryu from Street Fighter: a straight-laced, focused fighter who acted according to a highly developed sense of honour. He had always hated that comparison, personally, but right now, having been dropped down into a crouch in front of Valley, Ryu's signature move came to mind.

He spring forward, shooting his fist up with a fierce uppercut now that he was right up close to Valley. If the blow did what was intended and managed to stun the blonde for a bit, then he would try to stand up, grab her arm, and drag her over towards the edge of the ring. Around them, the crowd was feeling the tension: while at the start the two wrestlers had been fighting in an almost genteel, respectful test of skill against each other, now the fight had descended into a ringside brawl.

Netflix.

The moment Valley got back to the apartment, she was taking control of the TV, seizing the remote, hopping in the bed, and binge-watching something until she fell asleep. She didn’t know what yet, and she didn’t care. As might not have liked it, but for just this one time, she didn’t much care what her partner wanted. For the next 24 hours, the world didn’t exist out of her bedroom.

It was a lovely thought, and the main thing keeping her going at this point. That, and simply being way too stubborn for her own good. This was something Kyo found out the hard way, when he tried to move in on her, clearly looking to fling her around and wound up taking a blow to the knee, bringing him down and giving her the high ground of him for a precious moment. It wasn’t much, but she was grateful for it, and she pushed off the barricade to move in for it.

That turned out to be a mistake, because Kyo was quick to greet her with an uppercut to the face. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated, just a rough but effective blow to the jaw that sent her reeling. It might’ve knocked her clear over if the barricade hadn’t been there, and left her in stunned stupor.

The cheap thing to do, in Kyo’s situation, would be to head for the ring and wait inside. Valley wasn’t out of it, but she was having a hard time getting her bearings after that blow, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to figure out which direction was up or down in the next few seconds, much less get to the ring. Lucky for her, Kyo wasn’t that sort of guy, and dragged her stumbling to the ring. That was the direction she needed to go, so rah-rah.

She was in trouble, though, and knew it. For now, she went along with the flow and let him pull her around, not giving much in the way of resistance. Saving her strength, because she would damn sure need it all soon enough.

Even as Kyo proceeded to Shoryuken Valley with a fierce uppercut, his body was giving him a fierce recap of all of the hurts he had taken so far in this match. Specificlaly, his knee was throbbing something fierce, his chest ached, and his back wasn't exactly in good shape either. Even as Valley's head snapped backwards from the blow, Kyo found himself falling down to a knee again, wincing as pain flared up in the leg.

It had been a long time since an opponent had tested him like Valley had, he knew, a damn long time. If he was going to win this, it needed to be soon, and it needed to be decisive, before the resourceful blonde had a chance to turn things around again. Grabbing a hold of Valley's arm, he would drag her towards the ring. A part of him was tempted to whip her back-first into the corner post, or to slam her back against the ring edge...but, well, for one thing, ringside brawling wasn't his style: he wasn't bad at it, but he preferred fighting cleanly within the ring itself. And second, the ref's countdown was still ongoing, and he wasn't one to waste time.

Shoving Valley into the ring, Kyo rolled in after her. He needed to finish her off decisively, and to do that, he needed to make her tap. A part of him was tempted to go after her leg again with a boston crab, but given how much damage he'd inflicted on that limb already, he was afraid of potentially hospitalizing her at this rate. Instead, he decided to work on her back a little more: rolling Valley onto her front, he would try to press his knees against her back, before trying to cup her chin with one hand and her knee with another, before trying to roll onto his back and stretch Valley's lean, fit body across his knees in an elevated bow and arrow!

Assuming he managed to lock in the hold, he would grit his teeth as he tried to test away at Valley's flexibility, his injured knee burning as he exterted force through it. "No shame in tapping, Valley," he would manage to say through clenched teeth, trying to ignore the growing pressure in his knee, "you're not getting free from this."

Even as he said this, a part of his brain would automatically think a scornful reproach back at him: you idiot, she's not going to tap. She wants this victory as badly as you do. In fact, she wants it more.

Valley was starting to feel the fatigue take hold of her as she was rolled into the ring. While she was grateful to be back inside, to not have that countdown to limit her anymore, she knew that hardly meant she was in the clear. Kyo had dictated the pace of the latter half of this match, and while she’d managed to hold on and survive, that would be enough to carry him to a win, and it would likely be soon. Her leg was still hurting from the earlier damage, and while she was in a good enough spot to keep fighting, she was starting to see other problems manifest. Namely, slips in her consciousness, as if her body was flirting with the idea of giving up, in spite of what her mind thought on the matter.

A bad sign. She needed to start bringing this to a close, and she knew the only way to do that was with something big, something that would get her a solid win. She needed to get to the corner. She needed to fly.

But Kyo had a different gameplay, one that seemed to involve grinding her down to the nub. She gritted her teeth as his knees dug into her spine, and the next thing she knew, she was being pulled back and bent in a classic bow and arrow hold.

Valley cried out as the move stretched her out, putting her flexibility to the test. It had been a while since she’d been in this hold, and she couldn't say she missed it one bit. It was frustrating, in that there was no simple way to counter it, no textbook escape.

But that didn’t mean it was inescapable. Far from it. The move was unique in wrestling holds, requiring Kyo to use all of his limbs while Valley still hand two to work with, and one of those was able to reach the knee she’d just kicked a moment ago. She reached around, feeling his leg blind, until her palm touched his knee. Valley gave it a quick, tentative squeeze, then balled her hand into a fist and started hammering at the leg, drilling her fist into it with blow after blow, perfectly willing to smack it as many times as she needed to make him let go.

The crowd's shouting reached a crescendo now as Kyo locked in the bow and arrow, arching Valley's fit, attractive body over his knees as though putting her on display. Kyo had been on the receiving end of the bow and arrow, and knew how, when applied well, just how devastating it could be for your back and neck. Sweat rolled down his forehead as he kept pulling back on Valley's chin and knee, keeping her tightly wound across his knees.

One of those knees was still bothering him, and he grimaced as it began to throb harder. It was now turning into a race of endurance to see whether or not he could make Valley tap before this hold became too painful for him to maintain. With her arms free, Valley would of course try to escape, but from this angle she couldn't get a good hit at his face or chest or...

Wait. She could still punch at his legs--

The next thing Kyo knew, Valley was balling a fist and punching out, once, twice, into his exposed knee. Pain exploded in the joint, and despite himself, Kyo cried out in pain as hot agony shot through his leg. Instantly, he released the bow and arrow as his legs dropped to the mat--

-- the movement rolling Valley off of Kyo and sending her falling down frontally across him. Kyo's eyes widened suddenly as, by accident or by design, Valley had him in a pinning predicament. The referee noticed as well and began the countdown.

"ONE! TW--"

With a ragged gasp, Kyo twisted, trying to get a shoulder up, before trying to roll away onto his side, clutching his hurting knee as it now throbbed intensely...