Cocky Attack on Titan Face Claim DESTROYED with Swords and Logic! You won't believe what happens next!

Koyuki didn't even dignify Ai Masuyo's adorably shallow deflections with a response. Or even her attention. The moment the "okay, okay-" wormed its way out of her mouth, Koyuki knew where this was going. Ai Masuyo had her talents, but she was no debate captain. Every word out of her mouth came from a Saturday morning cartoon protagonist. Koyuki rolled her eyes, chucked the splintered chunk of wood that was once a bokken straight up into the ceiling with so much might it embedded itself into the roof above, and continued to fidget absently with her giant ribbon. Koyuki enjoyed taking handicaps. A true warrior, after all, won on any terms, but the stupid fuckin' ribbon was not one of those intended ones.

Ai Masuyo's pointed finger didn't get her attention. Her idiotic claim about bamboo didn't distract her from the over-knotted ribbon, but her last line, on the other hand...

"Not to mention you’ve been holding back this whole time. Your patterns are beyond easy to read-"

"Excuse me!?" Koyuki's head jerked to face her foe with all the indignity of a guilty child. "You confuse building momentum with mercy. You confuse battle etiquette with weakness, Ai Masuyo-"

"If this was a real fight, I would have avoided a fatal cut at the last moment. So, not dead!"

"No, fuck you. You're dead!" came a lame retort. A loss in its own way. Engaging with this at all was a defeat in its own right. She gritted her teeth.

Fine. Koyuki had wanted to cycle through a few weapons before escalating the fight to a fever pitch. "Holding back with easily read patterns" as this sore loser saw fit to call it, but if she wanted this over fast, she only had to ask. As Ai Masuyo brushed past her, she bumped her right back with her shoulder, her forehead pressing into her rival's for a brief, furtive moment, exchanging a stare as Ai Masuyo walked towards the centre of the room. She turned back, stared, and Koyuki followed suit, holding the gaze until Ai Masuyo headed towards her weapon rack. Koyuki did the same, her next weapon already decided:

She was going to pick all of them.

She picked up the entire rack with one hand and, with a might grunt, flung it to the center of the room. Every single weapon on her end spilled on across the centre of the room: bokken of varying sizes, yawara, kaiken, tanto, kanabo, tekken, kunai, and many more. Wooden recreations of weapons that would, to paraphrase the fuckin' genius in the room, "Be used in a real fight". She wasn't going to go back to the fuckin' wall everytime something chipped or splintered or broken. Nope. Ai Masuyo wanted a real fight and her transitions between weapons would be without pause. With a grim look on her face, she walked back to the centre, her feet finding the closest weapon she could reach:

A naginata.

Without breaking stride, she flipped it up in the air with her foot, catching it deftly with her left arm. She shrugged her right arm out of her deliberating sleeves, exposing her full toned arm, and shifted the naginata to her right hand. She assumed an orthodox stance, right hand gripping the middle and left hand closer to the base, the wooden blade thrust forward at a 45 degree angle. She smashed it into the wooden floor once, twice, the impact leaving a small dent below, a taunt for Ai Masuyo to engage.

"Etiquette? While you were swinging that weapon around like Jackie Chan in '94? I could have dodged half those with my eyes closed. Still can't accept that I've been running circles around you since highschool, huh Koko?" Masuy flashed her familiar smirk. It was like talking to a bag full of excuses sometimes. Over time, she'd come to realize that the only thing Koko hated more than other people was losing.

"Not dead!" She shot back just as fast as she hurried towards the armory, determined to show her friend how not dead she was. That was the intent in her heart before Koyuki suddenly zipped past her and reached the weapons before her, snatching them up in one giant armful. Like she was about to turn tail and steal them.

The confusion that hit Masuyo was short lived. It was a familiar sight, after all. It brought her back to that riverfront park they used to play together. Back then, her bratty yakuza friend loved snatching up every toy in the vicinity, carrying them in large handfuls and loaning them out to the other children in return for snacks and other forms of ‘interest’. When they couldn’t pay, she’d have the bigger kids she’d paid off throw the defaulters off the swings and kick them from the sandboxes until they paid their dues. The entire park might have been absorbed into the Koko-kai were it not for Masuyo nobly taking all of the debt on her shoulders and betting it all on a fight between them. Again and again, as many times as it took.

It only went off script when she suddenly threw the collection of weapons into the air and scattered them all over the floor. The Demon’s brow raised sharply as she looked over the chaotic scene in front of her.

The bewilderment in her head cleared instantly with a simple, firm crack of Koko’s naginata against the ground. She looked at Koko and tensed. The airtight stance and controlled power. The determination radiating behind her perpetually cool gaze. The sight tickled Masuyo’s skin and brought an overwhelming smile to the Demon girl’s lips as she bellowed a triumphant shout to the ceiling.

"Alright! Now that's the Koko I know!" Masuyo raised her finger skyward and promptly aimed it forward at her rival, trembling with building vigor. She knew it. She just knew this match wasnt some coincidence. "Not bad! Let's do it! I'll acknowledge that passion of yours! From here on out, I’m going to hit you with the full force of youth!”

Charge! The prodigy’s soles braced against the polished wood for an instant before breaking into a rush straight ahead to her awaiting rival. Like a lone warrior in a field of tall grass, as a spear fixed on its target afar, her rapid pace could only be matched by the runaway rhythm of her burning heart. Tightening her fists beneath the sleeves of her dougi, Masuyo raised her hands and leaped towards her-

“Whoooooooa-wait wait, hold on. Forgot to, uh, grab…uh…..” She fumbled on the spot before twisting left and right, eyeing the myriad of traditional weaponry on the floor frantically. Her fingers wiggled at her sides as her hands waved about indecisively.

Koyuki never wanted to go to school. Her path was set from the day she was born and the sheep-like rigours of the modern Tokyo Education system were a distraction at best, actual living agony at worst; to sit in a classroom listening to a system meant to turn you into yet another unfulfilled, empty cog in the Tokyo machine. She didn’t have the words for it as a child to articulate the depths of how much she depised it, but she did have all the unbridled tantrum-throwing scorn for it.

But Masuyo-san (Well, the other one in her life, not the bundle of crappy excuses incapable of picking a weapon) insisted.

“You need to be socialized.”

“Your face needs to be so-shall-lies-”

“I'm serious. You cannot be dousing our guests in gasoline. Where did you even get the gasoline? How did you even get the barrel out? The damn thing weighs more than you.”

She remembered shrugging her little shoulders. “Practice.”

“You’re going to school cos firstly, uh, it’s illegal not to send a child to school. I will tussle with the russians, the koreans, the triads, the other gumis before i suffer the indignity of lowering myself towards dealing with Social Services. Secondly, you are out of line, young lady, and I see that its partially my fault. Partially because its clear your inherent bloodlust is hereditary, you little psycho Sanada. Don’t tell your mom. But yes, you have no peers your age to engage with.”

“But Kana-”

“-Is your shadow, your enabler. Your handmaiden, if we’re going to be all oldie about it. She’s functionally your adorable little ninja slave. You say jump, she smacks her head into the ceiling. You say run, I’ll find her in Hokkaido. You say clone yourself, she Kage Bushins no jutsu’s. Which by the way Naruto is what you should be watching, not looking up best practices on how to dispose a body without a pig farm within 50 land miles on my com. You’re clogging my modem and making my search history look like Tsutomu Miyazaki’s. it’s creepy. They’re doing this exam tournament thing on TV where he wins by farting on some dog ninja. It’s funny. Watch that instead.”

“That’s boring.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I thought you’ll say that, you little shitstain. Okay, you and Kana are going to school. Separate schools, because neither of you will grow into anything resembling functioning adults if you’re both in the same place. I need you to know that I’m proud you took the initiative to douse someone in gasoline because he was being, uh, rude to me. It means a lot. But, growing up means you need to hide the fact that you want to douse someone in gasoline. Sometimes, you have to wait years before you douse someone in gasoline because it is currently not politically prudent for fire to burn. In fact, it’s often very important that you don’t seem like the kind of person to douse someone in gasoline. That’s what school is for. You learn to hide yourself in the throes of social camouflage. And pass tests, I guess. Whatever. Do you feel me, Ko? Of course you don’t, and you look like you’re gonna cry and scream about this, so I’m going to make this very simple: you go and you be a good girl with no disciplinary issues and you get to keep your knives, you get to keep your wooden swords and your gameboy and you still get to hang around when we execute someone, but if you don’t-”

Well, of course she went, and of course she hated it. She hated it from Primary school all the way to Secondary school graduation. She hated the teachers, the classrooms and and the desks. She hated getting on the schoolbus at 6 and she hated eating at recess and she hated, hated, hated, hated-

But it wasn’t all bad. Torture couldn’t get it out of her, but it wasn’t all systemic gloom.

She liked studying. It was a surprise, but she took to it. She was an academic anomaly from start to end: the angry, ill-tempered honour student. The discipline case who aced every test and exam. It helped that she saw it for what it was long before she ever heard the word ‘grading curve’: a competition, and if she could keep even one of these clowns from their favorite college, she would have won on every level.

She liked the extra-curriculars. And not just the ones where you threw someone over their head, whacked them with swords, or choked them out. Soccer, rugby, ballet, cheerleading, a very brief stint on the debate team in a competition themed about Japanese history, and others - all physically and mentally stimulating. Again, knowing it was a competition helped immensely with her motivation.

And, well, she made friends. Against all odds, she made friends. Most of them kept their distance after her full Yakuza ties were revealed after graduating, but it was not unwelcomed for a time. And well, then there was Ai Masuyo, who she knew long before they found each other in a classroom a few years into this horrific educational nightmare.

Well, she had a lot to bitch about it but it wasn’t all bad, and that sentiment kept her from driving her naginata right through Ai Masuyo’s indecisive skull, sinking it through the bone, and having her brains leak out from the other end. Instead, the blade halted abruptly right before it struck her seemingly oblivious old friend down, the wooden edge tapping against her brow.

She sighed. She sighed deeply and dramatically and with great irritation, but she waited.

But not without complaints and teasing.

“Dead." she said, drawing the Naginata across Ai Masuyo's throat in a slitting gesture.

"Dead." She traced a rising slash across her face, cutting it in mimed twain.

"Dead." The blade rose to one of her eyes, and she poked threateningly at it. "More deaths, Ai Masuyo, and more to come if you keep taking your time. Or are you just stalling? Gonna 'run circles around me', was it? Sounds like tough talk for yet another toothless MMA decision. But that's what you live for, isn't it? Three rounds of toothless play sparring. It's the kind of combat format you built your amateur career on. Emphasis on amateur. Look, if you're not going to hurry up, the unjustified victory is yours. Congrats on yet another one. You sure showed me." She rolled her eyes and her head rose to address the closest and most visible camera. "I forfeit-"

Masuyo let out a sudden and hearty laugh.

She hadn’t said a word after she started thumbing through the bundle of discarded weapons. Even as the blade of Koyuki’s naginata drifted across her vital points with a surgeon’s precision, her steel gaze was fixed on the floor. For two women whose shouting matches as girls had gone down as legendary in the halls of Hoono-ji Academy, the sight was a rare one. Masuyo Ai was caught in her battle trance. The notion of a match looked lost on her; unclear if she was even listening.

Then suddenly, she raised her head back and started laughing out of nowhere. No sooner after that did her hands find a pair of tonfa relatively close to the ground. She gripped the wooden weapons tightly and adjusted them around her arms, giving them a few practice swings.

“I’m happy, Koko!” She stepped forward, twirling her tonfa as she evened the distance between herself and her Rival for All Eternity. As she widened her stance and readied her posture, the knowing smile on her face seemed to shine ever brighter. “I’m happy you’re having fun too!”

The Ai legacy emphasized the mastery of several traditional martial disciplines, the center of which was formed by a firm understanding of kenjutsu, sojutsu, and kyujutsu. Building on those three as a foundation was an exploratory process where pupils could build an appreciation of many disciplines and respect for other schools. Fundamentally, Masuyo’s way of fighting was to connect with others. Through the thunderous cracks of splintering wood, the young Ai prodigy found kindred hearts from Kyushu to Hokkaido.

The Demon strode forward into a full lunge, moving to close the distance as quickly as she could. She raised her tonfa close to deflect any oncoming blows that the yakuza would swing at her. Her feet were nimble on the floor, looking for sweeps as she raced full speed ahead. Her right tonfa would spin forward, jutting its end towards Koko’s sternum and following up with an uppercut to the jaw with her left if she was able to land a hit on her.

"-this match because Ai Masuyo is a procrastinating, decision-begging, paper-fisted cunt of a human being who can't cook her way out of a ramen packet-" Koyuki's head snapped right back at the ripple of laughter, and fight or flight kicked in. She bounded back a step, then two, her naginata raised and ready, and then her eyes found the chosen tonfas. "Finally," she said, her voice drowned out by whatever little joke Ai Masuyo had been consumed by and wouldn't share. She wasn't even surprised anymore. Years of putting up with this had immunized her to the cray-cray. "I have lived lifetimes waiting for you to make a simple fuckin' decision. Go."

Ai Masuyo stepped forth. Koyuki Sanada held her position. In the moment, they were contrasts: stillness vs motion, stoic intensity vs mad laughter, the quintessential weapon of the martial Japanese woman vs some dumb shit that came from China and looked like stiffed bent cocks.

“I’m happy, Koko!” she bleated.

"Gratz." she deadpanned. "Go."

“I’m happy you’re having fun too!” Her smile threatened to blind her. She didn't reciprocate. Nor did she respond because, no, she wasn't having fun. Not yet, at least. Her body was whole, her mind was clear, her arms were steady, her feet were stable. Her heart beat to the rhythm of a slow drum, and her sweat came slow. Fun was an exhausting, decisive battle fought to the brink of physical catastrophe, win or lose. Anything before that was just a promise rarely kept. Ai Masuyo called her a sore loser many, many times across the years. It was rarely true because Ai Masuyo was a dumb dumb. And also because Koyuki rarely lost. But sure, she was not technically wrong. But what she failed to mention was that Koyuki Sanada was a sore winner too. Too many victories ended in decisions by judges who couldn't count with their fingers, injuries deemed too deliberating to continue (The bone was barely jutting out, walk it off!), and taps to submissions long before sleep took them. She was robbed time and again of the absolution of triumph. Amateur High School MMA was a contest for cats, for it seemed only pussies participated.

And well... she missed this. She did. She did, she did, she did. Ai Masuyo kept that promise of violence better than most. Most of the time. Even she couldn't save the dreg of 3 rounds, 2 minutes of high school MMA, but it was the thought that counted. She gave her all and more in six miserable minutes.

Koyuki saw the next few seconds as they could have happened as clear as day. She would make no move as Ai Masuyo advanced. Her, uh, friend was cautious in her ferocity and speed. Her eyes darted around. She was watching for the usual Naginata moves; the sweeping arc at the legs to take her off her feet, or the hooking thrust to snag an arm. Stab? Slam? No, not yet. At the last moment, she would have stabbed forward at her head, scraped her neck, gave up her reach, as Ai Masuyo would take her with a spinning tonfa, slamming its head into her sternum, as the other rose up swinging into her jaw. Painful, undoubtedly, but she would recover quickly and pulled her naginata right back even as she reeled from the blow, slamming the butt of her weapon into the back of her friend's head again and again and again-

And then what? The exchange of damage. They've done this dance forever. Ai Masuyo had demanded seriousness, and she had given her kendo and crude brawling. The activities of children. They could brawl and smack and whack to the finish or-

Well, the Ais were not the only one with a martial legacy, and hers dated back long before Okane left for Kyoto after Osaka castle fell.

She switched her grip. Her left hand shifted down to the butt of the Naginata. Her right hand caressed the shaft of the weapon, as if trying to reach the wooden blade, trying to steady it to aim. And she was, because while Sanada Tenchu Dekishi-Ryu covered all the traditional Japanese weapons, its core techniques worked best with the katana, and she was too damn proud to toss the naginata away and pick up the weapon she knew best and dearest. She dropped into a partial crouch, both knees bent, and-

She soared. A blink and steps covered as Ai Masuyo moved, seeking to plow a vicious straight-handed thrust right into -or perhaps through- her whirling offense, coming in like a torpedo against, well, whatever torpedos hit.

Nobody hated losing more than Koyuki.

The moment Masuyo had realized that, in those nostalgic days racing home after school, sweat-soaked beneath a summer son, she felt an unceasing urge within her. Not only to win but to always do her best. To rise above her previous self. To truly acknowledge this precious bond with all of her heart and soul.

As she watched the naginata running her down, she almost felt like Koko was doing the same.

Before that flash of untraceable speed, Masuyo barely managed to clasp her tonfa together in a crossed guard. The pole blade crashed against her weapons in splintering wood, slightly redirecting the path of the naginata across her left shoulder. However, that would do nothing for the force that swept the aikido prodigy off her feet, sending her skidding backward on her bare feet until they both crashed against the wall. As the dust settled, Masuyo remained tight behind her guard, locking her weapons against Koyuki’s blade inches from her neck.

She felt a warm, viscous trail run down the side of her face. If Masuyo could have afforded the opportunity to look away from Koyuki, she would find a shallow cut slashed across her cheek. Fresh blood welled from the wound and spilled gently over in thin streams down the soft skin of her youthful countenance. It was a minor cut altogether, hardly worth her attention in the fight ahead of her. Yet, for some reason, it aggravated like mad. Her face twitched just as surely her arms ached from the mysterious throbbing pain.

Masuyo had suffered far worse and far more wounds than the one Koyuki had just inflicted on her. The winding path of martial arts had exposed her to countless ruthless opponents, not the least of which was her best friend staring back at her. Yet still, the cut burned and pricked annoyingly beneath the skin. If she had to surmise a guess, the secret was in Koyuki’s technique. Masuyo couldn’t even guess the depths of her best friend’s arsenal, but there was never an end to the number of ways she kept surprising the Demon of Shibuya.

It was just another reason she couldn’t stop fighting her.

The corner of Masuyo’s mouth curled into a smirk. Her tongue flicked up and tasted a trail of blood that touched the top of her lip.

Her leg swept out in front of her and targeted a kick to the back of Koyuki’s knee. If she could unbalance her posture, Masuyo would push the spear away. Her left arm would come up first while her right lagged behind, twirling her right tonfa to extend its range before she lunged forward with a swift follow-up, aiming a skyward, shattering slice to the underside of Koyuki’s jaw.