Lions and Dragons

”You want us to what?”

For the first time in the entire night, Key’s eyes shot wide and she felt something approaching excitement, and she couldn't have been happier for it. She’d been languishing with Lock for the past two hours, hanging around in one of the last places on Earth she wanted to be and one of the first places on Earth her partner wanted to be - a jazz club. Specifically, some high class jazz club in Ueno that the blonde had stumbled on, called the Space Lion. An old-timey kind of place, with wooden floors and chair and ceiling fans and lowlights. Swarming with the cultured elites, guys with turtlenecks and sunglasses, women with fancy skirts and fine jewelry.

There were a great many things that Lock hated in the world, and having about 60% of them within a three hundred foot radius wasn’t doing wonders for her mood. But she’d lost an impromptu bed wrestling match with Lock the night before, and the consequence was that they had to go on a date somewhere she liked. Despite Key’s best efforts to get her partner to listen to something with an edge to it, she still had a taste for these soft, sleepy tunes and the whole scene around them.

It had been a drag. They’d started out the night listening to some jazz quartet playing, croning out old favorites. Then they had to listen to this guy play the piano for thirty minutes that passed like thirty hours. He must’ve been good, because the audience - Lock included - gave him a round of applause every few minutes or so. All while she and Lock were served some of the softest alcoholic beverages you could find on the island.

Key was in the process of trying to stomach one of them, sitting at a booth table with Lock on the other side, when the blonde’s phone started buzzing, and the annoyed look on her partner’s face when she peeked at the screen told the story - it was Jack, and if he was calling on their date night, it was important…or important to him, anyway. The band was taking a break, giving them a few cherished moments of silence, and making it easy enough to hear what the blonde was saying even through the irritating murmurs of the crowd.

”Yes, but-” Lock started up, confusion wracking her voice, with more than a little irritation.

”Can this not wait until tomorrow? I’m here, Key is here, we’ve paid for-” And now she rolled her eyes and brought out that stern, authoritative tone. Sometimes it could keep Jack in check, sometimes it couldn't.

”This is extremely unprofessional, Jack. We’re not your slaves, you can’t just called up, when-”

Now, she went quiet for a bit, and while Key didn’t have the super hearing needed to make out Jack’s words on the phone, she could get the gist off thing just off the rhythm she heard. He was laying things out. Making offers. Promises. Giving Lock the once over in that sly, sleazy way he had with things. You’d think it wouldn’t be enough to sway someone as well-put together as her partner, but…

”Fine. Fine. We’ll be there. Thirty minutes. Yeah. Goodbye.” With a heavy sigh, she ended the call and cast her gaze back across the table, not bothering to hide the irritation in her eyes. ”Your wish has been granted. We’re on the clock.”

They had a fight. That was good. That was an improvement over what they were doing before, at least, and the thought kept Key’s smiling, all the way up until the point where they reached Jack and she learned exactly what her boss had roped them into.

An oil wrestling match. In a pit. With them wearing, well…

Spoiler:

…this.

To make a short story even shorter, Jack had gotten into some kind of disagreement with a Yakuza boss at one of the grimy fight clubs he liked to frequent. He’d mentioned his associates, the boss mentioned hers, and they’d gotten into a discussion over who could beat who. Jack, always looking to make an impression on those who could help him down the line, needed them to perform and show that the incoming gaijin shouldn’t be overlooked.

How that translated to an oil wrestling match of all things, neither Lock nor Key could figure out, but here they were. All dressed up, at the bottom of a large, wooden fighting box, all dressed up in barely anything at all. Jack sat on a couch about fifteen or so feet up, his legs kicked up on an ottoman with his new friend beside him.

”May I present Lock and Key, my pride and joy.” He swept his hand and gave them a wave, along with a knowing wink. ”Say hi, ladies.”

As irritated as Lock was, she wasn’t about to let that get in the way of decorum. She gave a sage, respectful bow, and Key followed suit a moment later. ”はじめまして.”

With that out of the way, all eyes turned towards the other entrance on the opposite side of the pit, where their opponent would be coming in soon. Jack hadn't told them who his new lady friend was bringing in, but if she had the confidence to take them both on at once, she must’ve been a badass…or thought she was, anyway. The rules were that they couldn't engage the opponent two-on-one, that they had to switch out at certain intervals, but even so, this was gutsy. As stupid as the setup, Key was looking forward to meeting this woman.

And breaking her. Of course.

“You want me to what?”

Koyuki Sanada did not often take off days. Off days were for salarymen who hated their jobs, who could toll for a corporate entity they didn’t believe in day in and day out and tolerated it.  They devoted the majority of their lives to a pseudo-western capitalistic machine that served nothing but itself, hoarding away the little morsels of time their money-making overlords allowed them. They lived a fraction of their lives and gave everything else away for creature comforts.

No, Koyuki didn’t enjoy a lot of what the Yakuza had become in the modern nights, but she still believed in the cause and in the role they played in society, and any leave of absence she took was for the purpose of self-improvement to better serve that cause.

And self-improvement took different forms. Unarmed Martial arts honed the body and tempered the soul, Kyudo trained precision and form, meditation calmed the mind and banished the shadow of doubt-

And minigolf trained hand-eye coordination and balance.

No, it was not a guilty pleasure. Yes, it was useful. Shut up. No, she did it alone because she wanted to not because she was embarrassed by it. Yes, it was a product of European colonialism, but so were her converses. Living with evil was a compromise in a tragically globalized world. And yes, she was going to play all 18 holes today and she was going to like the fuck out of it.

She was mid-swing on hole 3 when the phone rang. She should have ignored it. She wanted to. She was well within her rights to. She should have swung the club and got on with her game and let the ringtone blare on, but to her professional regret, she sighed and picked it up.

It was the boss.

Which brought us to:

“This is not a professional request,” Koyuki said in Japanese. “I’m on a…” she stared ahead at the fake strip of grass with a cute little flag stabbed into it at the end of it.  “...meditative retreat. Find someone else. What about Yamaza-”

“Has to be someone with lady bits.” came the smooth female voice from the other end pf the phone.

What? Odd. “Then what about-”

“She’s doing inventory.”

“Okay, then what about-”

“Sales pitch.”

“Okay, what about-”

“Has to be you, Ko-chan. I promised them you. Don’t make me a big fat liar.”

Koyuki sighed. It was a very, very heavy sigh that had nothing to do with wanting to avoid a fight and everything to do with wanting to enjoy one fuckin’ day of minigolf. For self-improvement, of course. “Why can’t you just kill people who piss you off like a normal fuckin’ person?”

“Where’s the fun in that? It’s always ‘kill, kill, kill, kill, kill” with you, Ko-chan. You’re 20. How are you the darkest thing in every criminal-filled room? Look, it’ll only take an hour. You come around, kick their asses, make this smug little Gaijin look foolish as fuck, and you can go back to playing minigolf-”

“I’m not playing minigolf.” It was a small miracle that she kept her tone even. Still, she refuted it just a tad too quickly.

“Right, your meditative retreat. Yes, you can go back to sitting around, contemplating the cosmos, and embracing the oneness of the universe blah blah blah blah. I don’t care. Be down here in 30 minutes.”

“My current location is too far-”

“Your minigolf course is 15 minutes away from the club.” Just as well that she was alone. Nobody could see Koyuki cringed. “Come down. Now.”  Her tone hardened ever so slightly. “I mean it.”

“So you can win a useless bet.”

“So I can win an incredibly useful bet for the ongoing health of my ego.”

“And it won’t take long.”

“It won’t.”

“I need to get my suit. I’m currently in-”

“Your yoga clothes, I’m sure. Don’t bother. Let decorum slide for this one. No worries.”

Koyuki wasn’t exactly tuned into the cultural zeitgeist, but she believed the term for this was: sus

“Are you leaving something out about this, Masuyo-san?”

“No, not at all. Just a normal, normal fight between 2 ladies of the gaijin’s choosing. Simple as that.”

----------------

Liar.

When Koyuki walked out on her side of the door, it took her but a moment to take in Masuyo, that one-eyed hag, sitting on that too-large couch on the balcony with the gaijin, the pair of scantily clad women across from her, and the tables and chairs on the club floor cleared away to be replaced with a wooden pit of…

That fuckin’ liar.

She feared she was coming in underdressed, but it turned out she was painfully overdressed for the occasion of this bout.

Spoiler:

She shot Masuyo a skyward glare and the Yakuza Boss gave a little waggle of her fingers and a wink with her remaining eye. That glare carried over to to the gaijin, a big blonde man who sat like he owned the place, and then carried down to her would-be opponents. Her hate and revulsion of the whole lot of them was palpable, definitive, and undisguised.

“And Introducing,” Masuyo said in clear, barely-accented English. “My 2nd in command, Captain Koyuki Sanada. Koyuki, say hi-”

“I am deeply unhappy to meet you all.” Koyuki said in much more accented English. “And I do not want to be here. I do not see fighters, only two whores. Do not insult me.”

Masuyo laughed and poured more wine into Jack’s glass. “I think this is going off to a great start, Mr. Riley.” She clapped her hands once and stood up. “Okay, who’s going first. Koyuki, you might want to unburden yourself-”

“They can undress me if they can even get there.” Koyuki said, stepping up to the edge of the wooden board, staring into the slick, oily liquid inside. She took off her glasses, making eye contact with first the blonde, then lingering on the redhead. “Unlikely as it is.”

“Fighting words.” Masuyo said. “What say you, Mr Riley? You are the guest here.”

There Jack sat, next to Masuyo, sinking into the big chair with one leg over the other like a goddamn king. A private room, Lock and Key in a pit of oil, and a saucy fight about to break out. All the wine he could drink, and a good show to take it all down with.

God, Jack loved this fucking country.

Where else could something like this go down? Not that there weren’t places and people somewhat like this back home, but in his experience, they lacked the flair, the showmanship, the style. He could tell from minute one that Masuyo was a special kind of woman, that they could spark something interesting off here, so when the time came to show off a little muscle, he was more than willing to get his partners into the mix for the effort. Granted, this was at the cost of ticking off Lock, so there was a strong chance he’d be skipping their monthly private night together, but he’d figure some creative way to make it up to her. The blonde tended to cool off quick enough with some face-to-face time.

For now, though, the fight was on, and he was left to chat and wait for Masuyo’s compatriot to show up. The fifteen minutes passed well with some chatting, a little casual flirting, the occasional bored glare from Key and annoyed glare from Lock. Time whittled away until, finally, the sound of approaching steps echoed through the room, and the door opened to reveal…

”Oh.” Jack had the briefest cough of a laugh, then leaned forward with fingers interlaced as curiosity set in. ”What’ve we here?”

He wasn’t sure what to expect out of a Yakuza enforcer, but his imagination definitely skewed to something a little refined. Scars, muscles, overly ambitious tattoos, that sort of thing. What came out of the other side was much like that at all. Slim, taut, cool. A calm vibe that he couldn't deny liking, an edge that worked well. KInd of hot. And when she talked…

Jack knew his partners well enough to guess their reactions to Koyuki’s ‘greeting’ with a high degree of certainty. Lock, natural as always, would brush off the insult in her mature fashion, not wanting to give their opponent the satisfaction of stooping. Arms folded, eyebrow raised ever-so-slightly, she would simply walk to the side and get a good look at the Japanese, as if she didn’t even hear the taunt.

Key, on the other hand, well… ”I’m gonna ram those fucking sunglasses down your bloody throat, cunt.”

The soul of wit.

”Well,” He had a quick chuckle and opened his hand Key’s way as he slumped back. ”Ophelia is hot for it, clearly. No harm in starting strong, I’d say.”

Key wouldn’t have waited for permission, either way, but now that she had it, she moved out with a snort, brushing past Lock as she made her way out onto the oil. She took a tentative step into it, letting her feet get used to the cold, before she moved with more confidence towards the center. Arms to the side, legs wide to keep her stability, she beckoned Koyuki on and lurched forward, looking ready to charge forth in an instant. She had a smile on, the wild, mischievous look that she liked to bring out any time she was gearing up to pounce. Just waiting for her target.

The gaijin may have been given the impression that Koyuki's foul mood was because she was being forced to wallow in oil like some dirty tramp but frankly, Koyuki couldn't care less. Shame was a byproduct of insecurity and vulnerability, and neither of those words was associated to Koyuki when it came to war. She fought anytime anywhere in anything and this didn't even come close to the most mortifying thing she had ever done. No, she was more offended that Masuyo-san thought she would be embarrassed enough to reject this that she needed to be lied to. She walked into this fight expecting one thing and got another, and it threw her off her game. She stared up at Masuyo-san again as the redhead issued her threat, not bothering to offer her opponent the respect of meeting her eyes as she talked. The older Yakuza winked with her remaining eye, that smile of hers unshifting.

They needed to have a talk about open communication. Again. The truth was what you kept from the rank and file out of necessity, not those running the show.

Her eyes shifted to Jack as she retorted in Japanese, "Did someone say something? I swore I heard something but I didn't quite get it" One of them knew conversational Japanese, she suspected. The blonde woman probably. And if they didn't, it wasn't her responsibility to correct their linguistic deficiencies. They could stay ignorant for all she cared. "Because I don't speak 'little bitch.'" Masuyo let out a chuckle: not loud enough to be impolite, but enough to tell everyone someone was being mocked. Always the right balance in passive-aggressive courtesy. Wasn't it exhausting to live the life she lived, perpetually cloaked behind all that bullshit? She had respect for her independent of her seniority, but she would never understand that need to camouflage her intent in such a manner.

And with that, Koyuki turned back to her opponents, fixating on the blonde woman. She had known the redhead for 30 seconds, but she already knew exactly how to piss her off: dismiss her. Ignore her. Pretend she wasn't worth engaging with.

And as expected, the redhead went first. Koyuki's gaze did not shift as redhead took her first tentative steps onto the slick oil, waddling ungainly like a penguin from the Osaka aquarium. As the redhead found her steps, Koyuki peeled herself away from the blonde's shapely figure and took a step onto the top of the wooden box, intending to vault in-

"Koyuki." Masuyo-san said in english. This was for all ears then. What now?

"Yes?"

"Shouldn't you ask the rules?"

"Kill them. Hang them from highest tower in Tokyo. Get on with day."

"Um no, that's murder." Koyuki rolled her eyes. "Not the rules. This contest starts the moment you - yes you - put your feet down onto oil. Mr. Riley here-" Masuyo said, nudging her held champagne glass in the blonde man's direction "-Gets to switch them out when he sees fit - but only during a break in the action. If you knock out one of them, the other lovely lady is switched in to take her place. If she recovers, she can rejoin the brawl BUT if either girl verbally submits to you, she's out of the contest for good and she can't return. Other than that, everything goes short of bringing weapons into the box. We clear?"

"So kill them."

"Figuratively."

She did not really know what that word meant in English. She didn't care either.

"Sure." Koyuki said, turning back to the-

"Oh one more thing," Masuyo-san said. That huge smile was frozen in place. She tapped on the collar of her very, very expensive suit. "I think you should do the courtesy of disrobing for our guests, no? Keep things even."

She stared at Masuyo, then shifted her gaze to the blonde, then shrugged. Whatever game Masuyo-san was playing, it made no difference to her. She was here to play her part and move on. The ankle boots came off first, two heavy plops followed by two more as she kicked them to the side one after the other. The socks came off next. Then the red jacket hit the floor, all the layers coming off one by one. Despite her initial plea to 'get this over as soon as possible, she took her time, letting what should have taken less than a minute drag onwards to three. Mostly to piss off the redhead. She really didn't like the redhead. Let her stand in the cold oil longer than she wanted to for all she cared.

Then she pulled her shirt over her head, revealing her lean, taut body built for battle and the sprawling visage of an eastern dragon carved out of greenwood etched onto her back. The girls wouldn't see the full thing, but they would see hints of it threatening to creep out onto her shoulders and to her sides. Jack, however, would get a decent view from his vantage point. She left her denim shorts on, a small bit of defiance against Masuyo-san. With that, she stepped forward, planted a bare foot on the wooden box as she did earlier on, stared down at the slick ankle-deep oil, find her distorted reflection in the liquid she was going to be fighting in, and wondered how many times she was going to press the redhead's face down into it.

She pressed her second foot onto the top of the box-

And instead of gingerly lowering herself into the oil below, she kicked off from the top of the box in the direction of the redhead, elbow raised and pulled back diagonally to ram into the redhead's face with a vicious flying elbow, her feet skimming the oil right before the collision, just barely paying homage to the letter of the rules that dictated the trigger of the start of the match. If her elbow struck true, letting her momentum from the jump carry her into the redhead, using her to cushion her fall as they collapse into the oil as she tried to take mount.

Jack was amused. Key was pissed. But Lock was, honestly, growing more intrigued by the second.

Yes, she was still miffed by the situation itself, being dragged away on her night off, but that was more about the principle of the thing than any quibbles she had wrestling in oil. She had a schedule, she liked to keep that schedule, and as much as it might have annoyed her partners to be so strict, one of the had to be the responsible one at all times. Jack was the idea man, looking at the big picture and seeing the forest over the trees. Key didn’t care what they were doing so long as it involved violence at some point. It fell on her to deal with the details, to ferret everything out through the noise and make them efficient.

So, yes, she and Jack would be having a more private chat about the nature of their relationship at some point in the near future, but she was here now, and she chose to table that and focus on the situation.

While she couldn't claim to know the ins and outs of Yakuza culture to an intimate degree, she was fairly certain that the relationship she observed right now was fairly atypical. As near as she could tell, Koyuki was no stranger to wetwork, carrying herself with the accomplished ease and professionalism of a woman accustomed to getting her hands bloody. Granted, all three of them could say the same, but it was fair to guess Koyuki had washed more red out of her clothes than she and Ophelia combined. She didn’t seem to balk at the idea of taking on two foes at one time, and that confidence wasn’t some small play.

Lock stood and watched, arms folded, keeping her gaze centered on their opponent, putting the pieces together. It was the reason - one reason - why she had more problems letting Key go first. Whatever Koyuki had to offer, it was prudent to let the bulkier, bigger of them bear the brunt of it. Key would more than suit as a canary in the coal mine, and who knew? She might even be able to wrap this up all by herself. Doubtful, but she wouldn’t complain, either way.

Key, on the other hand, would complain. ”Bitch, hurry the fuck up.”

She stood out in front, hands on her hips, as Koyuki made a play of taking off her top. A way of getting under Key’s skin right from the start, and it worked like a charm. Three minutes passed, and Key spent that time pacing back and forth, grunting, and occasionally kicking some oil Koyuki’s way, just to get her a little wet earlier than she might have liked.

When it looked like her partner might take the initiation sooner than the rules allowed, Lock called out her way with a sigh, knowing she needed to cool her down. ”Relax.”

”I’m relaxed.” She snapped back Lock’s way with a sharp twist of her head, glaring straight at her. And not at Koyuki. ”I don’t have all fucking night for the girl with the dragon tattoo, all right? Someone hurry up and make her-”

Koyuki was fast. Damned fast. So fast that Key barely had time to turn around, drawn by the sound of rushing feet, before the woman’s elbow found a temporary home in her face. The blow rocked her up body back, stunned her, but it wouldn’t have been enough to bring her down, even with the surprise…in normal circumstances. But with the oil beneath her feet, getting caught off guard like this was an unforgivable sin, and the price for it involved getting dropped to the floor with Koyuki on top.

Not a good start. But it wouldn’t last.

Key had only been on the floor for a second and a half before she planted her feet and bridged up, surging with power as she pushed upwards to fling her foe off. The moment she was free, she flipped over and pushed up in a rush, trying to and center on Koyuki before whatever came next.

Some people did Yoga. Koyuki found golf, despite its place in the world as the corporate man's game, to be her idea of quiet, low-effort meditation. Posture, precision, hand-eye coordination, a singular goal you repetitively worked towards over and over again - it was her the Yakuza Captain's idea of a solo leisure activity. There was simplicity in golf that the real world denied her, and the more she thought about this sudden request, the more fuckin' pissed she was at Masuyo-san, at this big blonde man with his big grin that saw this as some kind of amusing diversion, at the pair of scantily-clad women across the wooden oil-slicked arena from her. She slowed down even more everytime the redhead opened her mouth, and she stoically ignored the flickers of oil sent her way. She would pay that back sooner rather than later.

The redhead she had already dismissed as a veiled threat. Clearly the stronger and more aggressive of the two, she had no doubt that what she saw was what she would get. Strength she could deal with one eye closed. The blonde on the other hand... Well, that one was clearly the thinker between the pair. She didn't know what was coming with that one, but she was watching. She was watching and she was listening.

Too much thinking, too little action.

In the aftermath of Koyuki's opening move, The Yakuza Captain's elbow struck home, sending both of them careening down onto the ground below, dipping hands and elbows and feet and one red-headed back in slick, cold baby oil. Koyuki swiftly moved to secure the mount, straddling the redhead's back, but her opponent was faster and more resilient than she gave her credit for. She bucked and surged, going from her knees to her feet in the blink of an eye, and Koyuki was thrown off, jerked to the side, her half-naked form sliding across the oil. She stood up as well, her leg dipping into the oil and lashing out in a rising kick that sent a wave of oil into the redhead's face. One part petty revenge for the oil flickers earlier, and one part a distraction as she closed in again, elbow raised to ram her the face once more!

There was no particular strategy behind the elbows; she just wanted to see how many times she could get away with it before this london bitch wised up.

Key was going to murder this bitch.

She was going to grab Koyuki by the hair, grip it tight with both hands, and ram her face into the oil until she stopped moving. Lock would probably try to stop her from doing that, and she might even succeed, but she wouldn’t be fast enough to keep her from getting a few good smashes in. Enough to give this woman a lifelong reminder of why she shouldn’t have come at Key the way she had. Enough to make her regret it every time she looked in the mirror.

That was the goal. Key didn’t know how she was going to get to that point, but she would be there eventually, and everything she did from this point on was going to be working towards that goal. Admittedly, she wasn’t on the right path towards it so far, but it was a good thing to know what you wanted out of life.

It was still heavy in her mind as she rose up and locked on her opponent, catching sight of her for a flash of a second before the oil splashed her face. She took a second to wipe her eyes clean, clear her vision, and that second was all the time Koyuki needed to rush in and clock her across the face. An elbow, it felt like.

Painful, yeah. Knocked Key’s head to the side, loosened her jaw. But it also brought Koyuki in close, exactly where Key wanted her to be.

She reached out with wide arms and wrapped them around the gangster’s waist, pulling her in tight and lifting her up as she rose to her feet. It wasn’t the best grip, the oil already working against her, and she wouldn’t be able to hold it for long, but that was fine - she only needed a couple of seconds. Just long enough to whirl around, spin them about, and bringing Koyuki crashing into the floor with a belly-to-belly suplex.

Three elbows.

The answer was three fuckin' elbows before the redhead could muster up a meaningful response.

This slow, lumbering 'Ello Gov'nor' excuse of an enforcer. Riley should be ashamed and as if picking up on her representative's thoughts, Masuyo said as much to dear Jack.

"Not the best start for team London, innit?" she said with a small chuckle, briefly adopting a scathingly terrible cockney accent with those last few words. The eyepatch'ed side of her face was presented to Jack, hiding the vicious glint in her remaining eye. "What's the story with your girls? I didn't want mine when I picked her up, but her mom's just someone you don't say no to. Thankfully, she's on the productive side of nepotism. Never had an assass-" Another small chuckle. She covered her mouth coyly in mockery of a schoolgirl "-enforcer quite so needlessly brutal. Love it. Just love it." She took a sip from her glass before her eye widened slightly. "Oh dear, spoke too soon. Miss Key's trying her best."

A comment that coincided with Koyuki sneaking in a third elbow against the redhead's delicately elbowable nose, right before the londoner's arms wrapped around Koyuki's waist. The Yakuza Captain managed to slip one arm out before the hold tightened. Escape was not on her mind. Now face-to-face with the redhead, she had a micro-second to decide whether she was going to do some damage or spit right into her face. With great reluctance, she chose the former-

As if.

She summoned up a glob of saliva and fired it right into the redhead's punchable face right as the belly suplex went off. Koyuki felt her world turn upside down and she twisted in the air to save her face from smashing into oil-slicked wood. Her back was the casualty instead as she smashed down, her bobcut drenched in oil, her back submerged, and her face annoyed. She moved to get up-

No, it wasn’t the best start for Jack’s side. That was pretty easy to admit, no getting around it. Masuyo knew how to pick her enforcers - Koyuki was quick, fierce, aggressive, dangerous, the kind of opponent you just didn’t come across all that often in professional circles. No getting around it, and those elbows Key was taking looked none too pleasant.

But Jack wasn’t without some faith in his ladies. Koyuki had come in strong, took her by surprise, but all that would do was piss the redhead off and give a bit of a headache. As she was about to find out in the most direct way possible.

Power. Pure power. That was Key’s biggest strength, and it was what she brought to bear as she hefted her foe up. The spit in her only served to make her that much angrier, giving her some extra fuel as they went upwards. With a defiant shriek, she brought her opponent crashing down, hammering her into the floor and sending oil in every direction. It was a hell of a landing, and to Koyuki’s credit, she came back from it fast, rising up not long after the impact’s echo had faded.

Too soon for Key’s liking.

The redhead pounced, moving over her fallen foe, scrambling to get on top. A punch? A choke? She might get to those eventually, but for now, she was just wanted something simple, something direct, something to even the scales.

A headbutt. Two, in fact, brought down in rapid succession, driving her forehead into the middle of Koyuki’s face. And, just to emphasize how Key felt about the matter, she brought her leg up and drove her knee between her foe’s legs, driving one of the hardest parts of her body into one of the softest of Koyuki’s.

Needless to say, but Jack was satisfied to see it. ”Don’t put too much stock in the way the story starts, love.” He threw a sly wink Masuyo’s way before moving to refill his glass. ”It’s the end that matters.”

"Actually," Masuyo said without missing a beat, cheerily undaunted by the turn of events. "My niece -she's doing literature in Tokyo U- tells me the beginning of the story is very important for establishing themes, audience messaging, and is just as, if not more important, than the conclusion of a story. I miss her. I think her mom finally told her I'm not in Logistics and I didn't lose the eye from a falling crate." She laughed. It was the laugh of someone who didn't really give a shit either way, clinking her glass against Jack's refilled one. "Oi, Ko! You're embarrassing us!" she shouted to the currently mounted Koyuki. "Get moving!"

In the aftermath of that vicious groin shot, Koyuki managed to flash a shaky middle finger up at Masuyo's general direction. Just as quickly as it appeared, that finger flashed into the space between Key's chest and her abs, a vicious improvised nukite spear hand intended to stab deep into Key's ribs. She went again and again and again, a second hand reaching up to hold Key by the chin to steady her strikes, striking and striking and striking with every intention to do so until those ribs splintered or she was stopped. Koyuki reacted remarkably fast to the groin shot, but it was clear she was still reeling from it. Her breath came heavy, her cheeks were flush, and her blows were exceptionally vicious.