Koyuki Sanada vs Sara Connor - Blood and Steel

The ankle lock was the term used by Brazilian thieves and American appropriators. In old judo, the truest form of the ground game untainted by western decadence, it was called Ashi-Hishigi. it was not recognized by the contemporary version of the Kodokan Judo Association of Japan because somewhere down the line Japanese Martial Arts became less about the brutal, unyielding honorable combat and more about 'protecting its practitioner's safety and welfare while promoting holistic competition'.

For Fuck's sake, ladies and gentlemen, are we children of the rising sun or housecats?

And speaking of housecats, there was one clinging quite urgently to Koyuki's leg right now, threatening to rip it off. In the split second before the jaws of Sara's legs closed around her ankle and applied unbearable pressure to her Achilles, Koyuki had two choice: attempt a counter to escape the impending pain... or let it happen and outlast Sara in a battle of mutual pain.

Put like that, it was no choice at all. She chose the latter.

She was not going to messily slug around with Sara on the ground while neither of them had bled yet.

The hold sank in, Sara stretched out and brought the pain. Koyuki, for the first time in the match, very visibly seethed in pain, a low, hissing sound that must have been music to Sara's ears.... but that was not the only sound ringing in the American's ears if Koyuki had her way. Koyuki's reach advantage was a boon now as she, gritting through the slowly increasing pain, reached across the length of their interlocked bodies, grabbed Sara by the hair, and sought to slam her head into the ground again and again and again and again and again, jerking her head back and forth violently, tugging it at awkward, painful angles before she sent it back down to the floor again.

If she got that far in her abuse of Sara's head, she would seem to take a respite, keeping Sara's head still for a moment, her grip on it firm but not cruel... right before it became clear she was holding it still so her free leg could smash right into her face.

Sara and this move had a little history. While it wasn’t a favorite, she had busted it out a few times in her earlier years and gotten a few submissions out of it...and a DQ. That happened when a particularly stubborn opponent had held on too long, forcing her to put more pressure into the move. The referee had instructed her to let the hold go, but she was too wrapped up in the moment for an immediate response.

Two seconds too long. Snap.

Koyuki was taking the hold far better than that woman had. Much less screaming, thrashing, waiting. Only hissing, as if withholding screams was going to piss Sara off.

...it did. A smidge. Stubborn bitch.

She cranked the hold hair, ground it deep, put some torque into the move for maximum. Even if this wasn’t going to work, it was damage that would slow her in the long run. Koyuki’s kicks were lethal, so dealing damage below the waist was an investment. She was making good gains with it, too, really working away on her opponent’s bones, when she felt an unwelcome sensation in her hair.

It was Sara’s turn to hiss now, but that stopped when Koyuki started dribbling her skull into the mat, hammering it over and over. She maintained her hold throughout the assault, even gripping it tighter out of pure spite, but there were no ignoring the damage. It was already reaching the critical point.

It proved to be too much right at the end, when Koyuki let loose with her coup de grace, shoving her foot hard into Sara’s face. The blow knocked her back and dropped her flat, forced to let go of the hold, but she still had the presence of mind to realize her position. Needing to make some distance, she brought her own leg up and returned fire, smacking her sole across her foe’s face before she rolled away and made an attempt at rising.

Koyuki had not been put in an ankle lock for a very, very long time.  She hadn't been doing real competition for a couple of years now, and any actual fights she had on the streets were wild, lawless skirmishes with bats and knives and whatever she could get her hands on. It was ugly, nasty, and no one taking you to the ground was looking to submit you. No, they just kicked the shit out of you. The finesse of judo was not conducive towards hard pavements, and it had long taken a backseat to brutal, vicious beatdowns. Still, as rusty as she was on the actual application, she remembered her fundamentals:

One of those fundamentals was that being in a properly applied ankle lock for more than a minute was not great

And this was a very properly applied ankle lock.

The hissing gave way to a slightly more desperate, frustrated sound as she continued to hammer and hammer and hammer away at Sara's cranium. The pain ratcheted up and up and up and up and up... and then it was gone, like a breath of fresh air after living in a room of knives for weeks. Koyuki's cranium-inflicted brutality had proved superior, and Sara was the first to give. She had lost their exchange. She was running, and Koyuki was eager to pursue.

Sara had other ideas. Her bare foot smacked into Koyuki's face, eliciting another hiss, but that wasn't going to stop the Yakuza. She followed along with Sara's roll on her knees and, as she rose, sought to smash her point-blank in her tummy with a powerful closed-fist uppercut. Whether or not she succeeded, Koyuki would attempt to rise-

Only to stumble, the pain in her left ankle too much for her to front or simply brush past. She would grab onto Sara, clinging to her neck and shoulders for support, her forehead pressed to the American's. Their eyes staring into each other's souls, their toned bodies heaving with strain, their chests barely centimeters apart, their sweat mingling where their heads and shoulders touched. A flash of red dripped into her vision, and she knew there was blood, though whether it was from the last kick from Sara or the American's forehead, she couldn't know at the moment. She didn't care.

A stalemate for a few seconds at best before the action started again...

Sara didn’t much care for her nickname, but she did take some pride in what she’d done in life to earn it. People don’t call you the ‘Android’ because you give up easily and react easily to pain. No, she’d earned that moniker through a lifetime of being the toughest, the most stubborn, the hardest, a relentless fighter who didn’t stop hounding her opponent until the bell rang...and sometimes, not even then.

It was that intensity that let her hold onto Koyuki, damn the consequences, for better or worse. When the punches came raining, she did her best to weather them, even as she felt her forehead open up under all the abuse. She was tenacious, focusing on the limb, knowing it would all be worth it. Just another second, and another, and another, and-

Finally, finally, it all proved too much, even for her standards, and she had to let go and roll away with a kick to cover her retreat. She figured that would be enough space for her to recover and regroup, thought she’d get up and reset. Koyuki, however, had other ideas.

Her ideas involved an uppercut, sinking deep into her gut the moment she rose up, knocking the wind clean out of her. It wasn’t enough to bring Sara down again, but it came close, had her stumbling back and clutching her stomach. She brought her arms up, expecting followup…

...but it never came. Instead, Koyuki was too hobbled by that ankle, her work from earlier already paying dividends. That sight along was almost enough to bring a smile to her face.

It didn’t. But it came close.

They were clinging tight now, forehead’s pressed together, the heat between them mingling and coming off like a furnace. This was fine with her, it was her range, after all, and she knew how best to use it.

Knees. She clenched Koyuki tight, then pulled her leg back and let fire, shooting a knee up into her opponent’s stomach, going for the dead center. Another would follow after that, and maybe another after that if she could get away with it. Maximize her time.

Koyuki learned a lot more about Sara in their minute-long skirmish than she ever did in the years they had known each other.

Koyuki learned she was tough, focused, and brutal in a way she was never able to appreciate as a distanced bookie trying to balance a digital scorecard. She learned that she had a mean right and a meaner ankle lock. She learned that this fight was going to go much, much longer than she was used to.

She also learned that, underneath all that cool professionalism and terse demeanor, there was a fire she could manipulate and stoke as she saw fit. There was an anger, an instability to her that she recognized in so many of the people she surrounded herself with, and while it was often a driving strength, it could also make one brittle.

In the seconds-long staredown where their foreheads dueled for supremacy and they glared into each others souls, Koyuki also learned what she wanted from this fight.

She was going to break Sara.

Physically. Intellectually. Psychologically.

She was going to outplay her on every single level. Physically dominate her, strategically crush her, and leave her feeling small and weak on the inside and out by the end of this. She would look back on this match and see no merit, no growth, no small little consolation in any part of this fight. Just pain, pain, pain, and more pain. A bad memory to carry her until the day she died.

Yet, even after all they had done and would do to each other, she didn't hate Sara. In fact, she liked her as much as she ever would an American swine, but she was a credible obstacle. And obstacles were meant to be overcome with extreme fuckin' prejudice. Sara had earned her place as meat on the table. She could give her no higher honor as an adversary.

The knee came, a vicious stabbing missile that dug deep into Koyuki's abs. Spittle splattered all over Sara's face, as Koyuki exhaled in obvious hurt... but she kept eye contact. It was the biggest display of pain she had shown so far... and part of it was staged. Or, more accurately, Koyuki wasn't trying to grit through the pain. She wanted Sara to believe the knee shot had done more damage than everything that came before. She wanted her to focus on it...

The second knee came but Koyuki's own knee rose to meet it, catching it in mid-strike. Like their foreheads, the knees pressed against each other, stuck at an impasse.

Koyuki would break contact with their foreheads and, inexplicably, press her lips to her opponent's forehead in a kiss. Right onto the open wound there, blood staining her lips. It was a surprisingly gentle gesture.

"This one's for your employer." she whispered, her voice thin as ice. "And this one's for you."

And she would then slam her elbow right into the side of her head before purposefully putting her knee back down, and then doing nothing, as if allowing Sara to go her turn, as if insinuating that Koyuki was so in control she could allow Sara to freely make her move... and could either of them dispute otherwise at this junction? She was the one doing the bulk of the critical damage.

Koyuki was, she decided, going to piss the American the fuck off until all she saw was red, red, red. Guess she would see how much strict focus she could retain underneath the barrage of Koyuki's psychological campaign.

‘Mixed’. If Sara could choose one word to describe her feeling about this match so far, it was that one, right there.

On the surface, it was everything she needed it to be. There were various ways to promote her brand. Crushing weaker fighters was one of them, showing how she was superior to the average AFW wrestler, but that could only go so far. You didn’t learn the power of a weapon by shooting beer cans in your backyard. No, to see what it could truly do, you had to fire at hard targets, see what it could truly penetrate, the far range of damage it could do. So, too, it had to be with Sara - if she wanted someone to use her as a weapon, they had to see her at the limit. Her peak.

For that, Koyuki was prime target, the best she could’ve asked. Tough enough to take her best, strong enough to give it back, skilled enough to force out her best techniques, with enough stamina to go the distance...so far, anyway. Sara was going to beat her, she erased all doubt that said otherwise, but she would be the perfect target for the exercise.

That confidence swelled as her knee sunk into her opponent’s taut midsection, shooting deep, slicing past the muscle and bone and tickling the organs underneath. It was enough to get a serious reaction out of the woman, must’ve hurt like fire, and Sara was all too willing to launch another one.

When she did, however, she found that Koyuki’s knee was ready to meet her own, resulting in a crash that sent a shock through her bones all the way from her knee to the toes. A stunning moment, enough to leave her open for half a second. Not long enough for much of an attack.

But a kiss?

There was time enough for that, and it was what Sara took, right on the forehead. Right on the wound, too, which was more than a little disgusting, if she were being honest. The words that came after brought a raised eyebrow to the Android’s face, only for an elbow to wipe it clean after a second later, knocking her head hard to the side. When she brought it back around, an instant later, her face was flashing red, rife with anger. Probably the response Koyuki was going for.

Trying to make her mad? Not smart.

She was begging Sara to return fire in kind, and she would get her wish. The Android drew her arm back, reeled her body away, then jerked forward and swung her elbow around in a wide arc, coming at Koyuki with the same blow she’d just used.

The only difference? Sara was aiming a little lower. The neck.

Koyuki's plan had one little chink to its foolproof armoring:

She was really, really, really easy to piss off too. More accurately, she was just perpetually pissed off. She woke up mad at the world, every minute she stayed awake stoked that anger like a tree soaking up the sun's rays for nourishment. Every time someone opened her mouth and didn't say the right thing in the right way, she got madder. Every little obstacle, every little step out of line from what she wanted to do, every slightest annoyance - mad, mad, mad. The world hadn't been right since the day she could walk, and every living soul conspired to keep it that way, and it pissed her the hell off.

That elbow to the neck from Sara? That was a cocktail syringe infusion of mad mixed with mad and suffused by mad. The maddest thing about it was that she was forced to try to dodge it, as if she was acknowledging to herself that that blow would have been crippling. She slipped back and the elbow thrust clipped her larynx and slashed past her chin, opening it up. Blood dripped from her chin, dots of it finding her body, Sara's top, and the canvas below. She snarled, less from the throbbing pain and more from the fact that she had invited the blow yet pussied out. She thought Sara and her had an understanding, that while this was a no DQ match and one of them was undoubtedly going to be bloodied and broken on the ground, they were still bound by an accord of honorable conduct.

So naive, Koyuki, so fuckin' naive.

Regardless, she was not the one who broke the accord first. Kid gloves off then. She was free to destroy Sara in a more comprehensive manner.

Without any fuss or fanfare, she balled her fist and smashed it in an upward swing-

Into Sara's cunt.

It was hard to be sure, but from what Sara could tell, she and Koyuki had a great deal of things in common, at least when it came to the way they viewed the world. Mercantile women, industrious, out for themselves, little compunction. It was a mindset she could respect, understand, and most importantly, anticipate.

When she threw that elbow, she knew that Koyuki would try to avoid it, messing up their little standoff. Even without a crowd to watch, it would be an embarrassing moment, a blemish, and they were women who didn’t take kindly to that sort of thing, who didn’t suffer weakness. Sara had just forced her opponent to show hers. A small victory, but a victory, one that couldn’t be ignored.

There’d be retaliation, the Android expected that. What she didn’t - but, perhaps, should’ve - see coming was the nature of that retaliation. She saw the uppercut coming, but realized too late what the target was. ”You-”

It was a direct hit, and the noise Sara made in response was one of both indignation, pain, and pure rage. Her legs buckled from pure reflex, but they didn’t stay that way for long. She rose up quick and jerked forward, hurling their skulls together for a harsh headbutt and pushing off.

Space. They needed space. Now.

The uppercu(n)t landed with a satisfying thwack and Koyuki could feel Sara crumple around her fist, struck in a place where no amount of training, conditioning, and toughness could hope to truly mitigate the pain. The groin, just like the eyes and the liver, always hurt, and Koyuki was all too happy to pay Sara back for calling her bluff with the neck strike. As Sara's knees fell from under her, Koyuki's leg bent and rose in a knee shot intended to meet her straight in her falling, soon to be cracked open head...

But Sara was tougher than Koyuki gave her credit for.

The fall recovered into a stumble, and that stumble in turn gave way to a mad second-long scramble that ended with Sara's head smashed head-on into Koyuki's. A flicker of blood sliced through the air. It could have been Sara's. it definitely was Koyuki's; her nose was bleeding. She stumbled backwards and to the side, one hand pressed to her nose, her retreat finding the ropes. There was some pain in her expression, but it was overshadowed by the shade of intense annoyance on every inch of her face. The snarl on her face as she stared at the recovering Sara between her fingers could chill hell itself.

And as quickly as it came, she let it go. She was in control. She was winning. Sara got one good hit in, nothing more. Uncontrolled anger was a symptom of a loss of control. Let it pass. Let it go.

Make it clear where she stands.

"Let's make one thing clear, Sara Connor." she snarled in Japanese, her voice calm but fast. English was a courtesy she extended, and they've reached the point in the fight where none was going to be given. If Sara didn't have the sense of mind to learn even basics of the language of the rising sun, then she wasn't even worth the words Koyuki was spewing. "If you've been going easy on me: stop. This will not impede any professional proceedings between us in the future. So stop bringing this loser's podium performance and actually try to win, yeah?"

There was one word in the japanese taunt above that was said in english. Starts with L. No third guesses.

Koyuki lifted up her blood-sliced hand and gestured to Sara with one taunting finger, uncharacteristically letting her come for once. As she did so, she slid along the ropes, always pressed against her, hoping Sara came in hard and fast.

"When you're done playing dressing up, come at me. Before I grow old." Koyuki said in Japanese yet again with an arrogant half-smile. "Then again, I guess that's the only way you're gonna win this."

Sara, above all else, strove to be a professional. Too many fighters let things get personal in their work and let their feelings cloud their judgment. It was always a failing, in her opinion. Whatever strength they gave from rage, it didn’t outweigh whatever they lost in terms of focus. Rage made you predictable, controllable, and against a sage opponent, that would guarantee defeat. Sara had to be above that.

But, at the end of the day, she wasn’t a machine, despite the moniker she went around with. She was human, she was a woman, and getting punched in the vagina was something that tended to set her off. That was likely the response Koyuki was going for, so kudos, because she’d succeeded.

Sara stumbled back after the clash, reeling from her own headbutt. Koyuki’s skull, was, not unsurprisingly, quite thick, and she wasn’t accustomed to smashing her forehead against dense objects. She was stunned, but thankfully so was her opponent. They both could use a quick reprieve.

But it wouldn’t be a quiet one.

As Koyuki spoke, Sara looked on with narrowing eyes, which might’ve given the impression that she didn’t understand what the woman was saying. She did, in fact, speak Japanese. Not well enough to hold a decent conservation, but since ‘decent conversations’ weren’t something she cared for in any language, that had yet to be a problem. She understood it well enough to navigate Tokyo and take care of her needs, having passed the basic classes that the AFW provided for their overseas talent.

Sara glared towards her opponent, seething for a moment, before she took a deep breath and pressed it down. Focus. Focus. ”Okay, Koyuki-san.” She growled the name out, as she wiped the blood clear from her forehead. ”If that’s the way you want it.”

No waiting, no taunting, no holding back. She moved in fast this time and closed in on Koyuki with a right straight, lashing out from long range as she came her way. She ducked down in the next instance and swung low, throwing a left hook at her opponent’s ribs, trying to drive her back towards the ropes with a forceful advance.