Blast from the past 2: Inoue meets Karasu

2 years ago:

*This place is a dump*
Were Anja's first thoughts as she entered the seedy underground fighting club in the morning. A chill ran down her spine as she thought how she had entered clubs like this before and how less that was mentally away from the luxury prison arenas of her childhood but totally different in appearance. Satin had been replaced by cold walls of mortared stones, and the bottom seemed to give a squishing sound whenever one of her feet hit one of the stairs she was walking down. Seducing lights had been reduced by flickering, bare lamps. But the guys you met in either club were so similar...

Bad luck had washed her ashore the isles of Japan, a place she was not to keen to visit at this point, sleeping on a steamer that she thought of as ripe for overhaul had been no good idea when it set for the sea the next day, but now she was stuck here until she found a good way to escape from that island again.

At least she had found a job rather quickly, she sparred for the girls who boxed here. Although Anja had a understanding of how to box adequately, she was a wrestler at heart and therefore had chosen this rather easy job nobody liked anyway as you probably subjected yourself to a heavy hitter with a bad aim that knocked you out by accident or with malicious intent. But Anja was well suited for that possibility with her enhanced stamina and endurance.

She found the locker room, although it probably didn't deserve that reputation as it was just a room with some lockers and a bench in the middle.
"Hey."
She greeted the single girl already in the room politely, without taking a closer look while she searched for the number of the locker they had assigned her to, opening it and beginning to undress without any shame.
"You probably know where I can find Inoue Ritsuko? I'm assigned to spar with her today."
She asked in her refined Japanese, with a bare hint of her German accent after discarding her shirt.

Inoue knew this club well, it was the only place that kept her out of the near constant summer rain, as well as giving her enough money to eat twice a day and better yet, a place to fight. She'd spent most of her time here, as the last couple of months had led to her being quite notorious in this particular arena. Her first day, she'd hospitalized her opponent in a lawless fist fight, the poor guy didn't have a chance. It was only a few days later that Inoue got accepted into the boxing circuit where she excelled. She'd dabbled in wrestling but mostly against those even newer than herself. This was much before Inoue discovered her true affinity for wrestling. At this point, she was invested in her pugilism, finding nothing more satisfying than managing to show off her natural skill and outbox anyone who thought they could handle her. She was young, at the age of 20, but her skill made it hard to hold a gripe over her inexperience. Truth be told, she'd been fighting longer than some of the so-called veterans.

Seeking respite her, she arranged a spar for this day, no newcomers had proved good enough to box her, and she'd been wrestling a lot more lately, getting a hold of things, but still only winning half the time. Inoue was homeless, and would have been reduced to wearing rags, the owner of the club took care of her basic need of clothing and food, but offered no hand in getting her off the streets. Streets where Inoue only found more conflict. She was much different during this time, a lot more spontaneous, she took every challenger serious then, she didn't have quite the same ego as before, though she still had the drive to test her skills against everyone and make her mark.

She was fairly lithe at the time, due to her rigorous training and limited opportunities to eat more than what most people considered a snack. She seemed to only be fed well the day before a match. A shame really, but she was trying to stretch her money, save it and rent an apartment for at least a month, to be out of the rainy season would be ideal. Inoue stood before her locker, at 5'7, 120 lbs, she was a bit too thin, but still displayed large bust and smooth, sinewy legs. She wore a simple, white wife-beater that hugged her decently sized chest, and a short pair of silver running shorts that only reached one third of the way to her knee. Her black hair was a bit more overgrown than she usually wore it, and so it was organized into a raven colored ponytail. She dug through her locker, listening to the rain pelt the structure, a leak on the far end of the locker room making itself known.

At the sound of a voice, Inoue turned, her native language spoken flawlessly by an obvious foreigner. Strange.
Inoue glanced over with a nonchalant look on her face. Inoue nodded as a greeting as the question reached her ears.
"Yes, I was expecting you. I am Inoue." Inoue returned the reply in the same language, relatively bland and not overly friendly.

So this was who she was to spar with? Inoue had never seen her, she was impressed that it wasn't some out of shape pushover like last time. She actually wished to be going into a real match with this girl, it would have been interesting to say the least. Either way, she simply needed the workout, her skills hadn't gotten much use lately so she was eager to take even sparring.

It wasn't a really warm welcome, but she had not expected one. Jealous or insecure girls were numerous, and surprisingly the more poor people were more determined to keep what they got than the rich ones had done, at least in her memory. But still, she stayed duty friendly and smiled politely while she discarded her trouser and stepped into her former ring clothes, a black short trouser and a black top with and black boots with pink ravens all over them. They were still ok after all those years, giving testament to their quality.
"Nice to meet you. My name is Karasu."

Contrary to her opponent, Anja had different priorities and was better fed than her opponent as she had no need to save money for a permanent home, but her body clearly gave away that she did not bath in milk every day with showing small bruises from sleeping and hanging around in unusual places. Eat, Drink, Clothes, dry place for the night. And Inoue probably wasn't constantly on the move and hadn't slept outside for a considerable time as a child. But still, given the time of the day and her appearance, Inoue probably wasn't a rich banker either or trained so hard that she looked that way. A kindred spirit in some way, Inoue didn't even try to look friendly and try to appeal to the generosity of foreign people.
"What's it going to be, Inoue-san? Shock-absorbing gloves? Full contact? The owner of this...hm...club hired me, but it's you who calls the shots what we do. Of course the manager would prefer light sparring for you to not get hurt."
Karasu was only 18 at this point but already very mature for her age, treating most things with the wake eyes of an opportunist that rented herself out and sought for a good deal with it. She knew that nobody handed you over something voluntarily when you were already down on your luck.

Inoue noted her sparring partner preparing, her gear seemed all the more extravagant, likely custom. Inoue was unsure of this girl's social standing, as Inoue had grown up in a fairly traditional household, she'd done her part to keep clean and uphold a certain appearance, when she could. Inoue knew the politics of places like this club. The manager wanted money, the way to guarantee that was to anchor his star fighters down, and force competition through that would be marketable. Inoue's last boxing match being a month or so ago. They hardly thought the match through, it failed to go a whole round. They put her in the ring with a life size barbie doll from America that thought she had talent. She was a novelty, was, because she hardly resembled a human when Inoue mauled her. That was by far the easiest fight she had, and now the manager was content to have her sitting on her ass or forcing her into wrestling matches where sometimes she stood no chance. Inoue's brown eye's traced back to her own locker, she pulled out the tattered high-top ring shoes she'd refused to replace. They were pure white at one point, now a dingy gray. They were comfortable, and incredibly light, the kind of boxing Inoue did, she'd always found the near weightless shoes to be her best friend.

Inoue had noted the foreigner's friendly demeanor, able to place her age accurately as well. It was odd to find someone younger than her in this line of work, still, she seemed to be in very good shape as well. Inoue saw a certain appeal in Karasu, perhaps it was a draw to something more exotic. Whatever the case, Inoue bowed briefly as she sat on the bench and began taping her hands. Inoue listened to her next words and smirked a bit. The manager wasn't here. In fact, Inoue was fairly sure she'd been alone until her sparing partner got here. She wanted to take advantage of this, wanted it to be a chance to get the desire for a match out of her system. She'd push for the sparring session to be as close to a real fight as she could get. She didn't pay Karasu's well-being much mind, she was getting payed for this regardless, and it wasn't Inoue's problem if she spent that money on medical bills. The lifestyle she lived had made her cold in that way.

"I'd prefer full contact. Eight ounce gloves are what I will be using. I'll set a timer to divide the session in two-minute increments with thirty seconds rest." Inoue had a bit more of a tone to her voice now, as she was anxious to be getting in the ring, whether it was supposed to be simple sparring or not. She thirsted for a fight to some degree at least, one that Karasu looked as though she'd be able to provide.

"Fine. I kind of hoped that you were no sissy."
The competitive spirit of Anja was more than pleased with the answer she had received from Inoue, spotting a wolfish smile for a second as she closed the locker before her. A slight majority she had sparred with in this club were sissies, or so new that they didn't know better, but that was no real surprise. Anyone who hired a sparring partner from the street had probably mostly rubbish and some pearls at his disposal and he or she hoped to build with some success to probably better their own life.
"I go and get us some water buckets, sponges, gloves and mouth pieces. See you in the ring."
She was relatively new to the club, but the basic foundation of clubs like these were basically the same.

She walked out of the locker room to disappear into the back office of the club, reappearing in the boxing area with two buckets filled with water, two pairs of gloves, two sponges, two towels and two mouthpieces, placing them in their respective corners.
*Uuhh. I never fail to wonder how gross that is.*
The mouth pieces were not really new and she could only hope that the makeshift chemical cocktail she had applied on them made them a little bit safer.

After setting up the ring, she stretched herself and warmed up. Boxing wasn't her primary method of fighting, but it had been quite popular in the Circle of Dragons and Anja had fought against a decent number of good boxers then.

Inoue found herself smirking somewhat at her opponents words. Inoue hadn't really considered the fact that it was reckless and irresponsible to fight in a match with no regulator. Inoue saw no reason to hurt the girl more than necessary anyhow, but Inoue could only smirk at the fact that she knew she'd be yelled at by the manager for her lack of forethought, despite knowing full well the risks. Inoue didn't care, she just wanted to fight, she'd waited too long. Inoue quickly did as she said she would, finding the PA system off to the side of the ring. The speakers acted to mimic the sound of a bell, and a large scoreboard, leftover from whatever this club was beforehand, would display the time in large, clear, lit up numbers. It began to tick down from three minutes, Inoue figuring it would give them both enough time to get ready. She already saw that her opponent would get in the ring and begin to warm-up. Inoue took a moment to slip the worn out, white gloves on, and placed in the mouth guard without a fuss. She was used to them by now and had little trouble breathing or talking with them in. She took to her corner of the ring, simply cracking her neck.

The timer on the wall was ticking down for them to begin. "When the clock hits zero, it'll automatically start a two-minute increment for us to begin. Are you ready?" Inoue was anxious. She wasn't sure how she stacked up to Karasu. Inoue counted on her having a strength advantage, but nothing else beyond that would be obvious just from appearances. Inoue watched the clock tick down to zero, then as promised it reset and an artificial bell sounded. Inoue stepped forward, anxious for the fighting to start, but beginning with methodical pacing and a readied guard.

"I'm always ready."
She stopped her hopping from foot to foot to come into the middle of the ring, taking a solid stance. Anja had been built up as a fortress from her trainers from early years, able to endure wave after wave of attacks, occasionally showering attackers with a pot of burning tar and crossbow bolts in retaliation. Therefore her footwork was barely average, hitting power average but with excellent technique.

Anja's preferred defensive stance was the Ali technique, a low defense with a mocking disregard for any offensive power an opponent could probably muster. Contrary to the legendary boxer, her footwork was in no way good enough to evade hits as he had done, she preferred to take some hits and laugh them off, making her a combination of Ali/Foreman in regard of fighting.

She started with a left Jab, testing the defense of Inoue. It was not particularly hard boxed from her side, she wanted to test out where Inoue defended good and where not.

At Karasu's response, Inoue cracked a small grin.
Inoue's smirk didn't fade , stepping forward to meet Karasu, whom seemed to take to an odd stance. Inoue counted on a punch coming quickly, and it did. The minute she got close, she saw a left jab coming. Inoue, being as harsh as she was, decided to teach Karasu to be more careful. Inoue played a good deal of mind games, she always tried to harm her opponent enough to get them to avoid her. Nothing was more amusing than an opponent backing away from her. Inoue would try slapping the jab down with her right hand to leave Karasu vulnerable for a moment. She'd then fire an unnecessarily hard left hook at her head. Inoue figured it'd give Karasu something to think about almost right away.

Indeed, Anja was always ready. Ready to move further when she felt that she had been in a certain area for too long. And she was always ready to fight, any reasons for confrontation were variable and of no importance most of the time for her.

Her head instinctively made a little bobing move as the hook came in, but it still hammered into her cheek with some force, causing her to take a small step back with one foot by the sheer impact of the hit. The chin was her main point of defense, followed by the eyes and nose.
"That's it? Really? Like a mother's kiss."
She said with a slight grin on her face. Anja had no idea how a real mother's kiss felt, kisses from her *stepmother* had surely been no gift for those in need of some comfort, but the analogy to her former mistress would have been lost when talking to a stranger. The punch had been hard enough to seriously hurt a sissy or even KO her, but Anja was rather intrigued from what the girl could do.

Anyway, she was a little more cautious in her movements right now as she had experienced the take down power of her opponent. This time she would use a fake right hook to the kidney of Inoe which would swing back to defense again as soon as possible, firing the same left jab at her again.

Inoue's smirk faded as Karasu seemed to take the punch in stride. That was essentially her full power, and she barely startled the girl. The slighter girl took offense to her sparring partners words, but she laughed it off. "Oh, you'll wish you hadn't said that." Inoue scoffed in reply. She would try to get off another punch, but she quickly had to slide her fists down to defense. She would have easily guarded the fake, but her opponent was smart and managed a jab directly to Inoue's face. She exhaled sharply and scowled, it caused her no pain, but it aggravated her. She could already tell she'd be enjoying this particular spar, but it had been a while since she had been in the ring with someone that held a candle to her. Karasu was probably a better trained formal boxer, Inoue simply knew how to fight, and adapted to boxing. Inoue would contend with the jab, using a head fake and trying to jab Karasu twice, using the same right hand with blazing speed. Her left would remain defensive and used for parrying, seeing as it carried less sting than her right.