Ryōgoku Rumble

Akashi stared at the television in disbelief. She was at the Friction complex. She couldn't allow herself to go down to the great Sumo hall, Ryōgoku Kokugikan. There was one time when her and her eldest brother, Kajinosuke actually seemed to agree on something, though their reasons were different. And once, where her youngest elder brother, Hatchiyama, did not see eye to eye. Normally the two were close and Hatchiyama was the only one that Akashi really talked to her in her family. But now things were different.

After screaming at him in person and then at the phone, she couldn't follow him down tot he Sumo Hall, the place of her birth and accept what he was about to do. She was just glad that there wasn't a hanbasho any time soon to further embarrass her. She could feel it, in her loins. Something was about to go down that might bring great shame to her family. But as pissed off as she was at Hatchiyama, there was someone else that she had developed an incredible ire towards: Rebecca Tomko.

The last time they had met, she had gotten quite intimate with her and her girlfriend and fellow wrestler, Adrian Kytes. Akashi thought it was great. She was hoping to be able to spend more time with the two but that didn't seem to happen. Adrian was just too much of a child and too insecure to let Akashi take care of her int hose ways. But still, even if she was willing to give the awkward couple some space, which she knew was the right thing to do, she thought they could at least be friends. Everything seemed to be alright until Rebecca began to challenge members of other sports to competitions.

Akashi didn't really care about that until she learned that it was time for japan's national sport to be crossed off the list. She didn't like that Rebecca would do this to her countrymen but when her own family got involved, that was just the final straw. She was waiting near the entrance of the empty arena, watching a monitor.

Tanikaze Hatchiyama was always his own man. He clapped his hands together as he stepped up to the dohyou. The first person to be challenged was his brother, the Yokozuna Tanikaze Kajinosuke who turned the offer down immediately. Other Sumo followed suit, including Akashi's twin brothers. After it seemed like Rebecca would be denied her challenge, Hatchiyama stepped forward and now he was on the clay ring, just in front of the entrance with a camera crew and a small amount of audience who were able to secure tickets tot he impromptu event. He was wearing his mawashi and was ready to accept the Amazon's challenge!

Akashi wasn't the only woman not to happy about the whole affair, as she stood in the middle of the clay ring in a tank top and boxer's shorts (barefoot, she didn't want to know how many curses she was inviting just being here, might as well show some token approach to the tradition) Rebecca was not happy that things had gotten so far, and it was with a sigh of relief that someone finally answered the challenge.

It had started off with such a simple and innocent idea. The amazon had a lack of matches recently and with the arrival of Iron Maiden as the current monster of the moment, she needed to get her name back out there as the strongest woman in Japan, and when she had suggested open body slam contest, management: or more specifically Mercy Wrenn, had just jumped for it. It started off simple enough, first was the fans at a convention getting dropped effortlessly onto safety mats, then it progressed to actual atheletes in various sports. Baseball, football, martial arts, even a few weightlifters failed to get the 2 meter tall giantess off her feet for a big slam, nicely re-establishing the American's reputation as the strongest and one of the scariest women ever to grace a Japanese promotion.

But this was definitley a step too far. "I told you no-one was going to go for it." She growled to Mercy, the number of taboos she was breaking right now were staggering, and the lack of challengers before Hatchiyama Tanikaze finally stepped up to a round of applause, "Well at least one of you got a spine." She muttered before bowing to the challenger, giving him a bit of respect for having the balls to risk being the most humiliated sumo wrestler in Tokyo. "<You know the rules right? Got to get me up and down, controlled for it to count, no hiptosses or shoving takedowns, just body slams.>" She clarified for the young sumo and the audience back at home as she waited for the signal to be given and for her to add another point of infamy to her record.

Mercy Wrenn turned her head and adjusted her collar. She couldn't say she was thrilled with the way things had unfolded. The last thing she wanted was for Rebecca to go face to face against a Tanikaze. She only knew one of them and she tried to keep a wide berth from the Sumo. Akashi SEEMED friendly enough, but Mercy didn't really want to test the waters. She had seen her mad as well and she thought, as Hatchiyama stepped forward, that what was about to happen might bring that wrath up close and personal. This had all started when she was trying to give Rebecca something to do to get her off her back. That seemed to backfire and now she was in a giant Sumo arena about to watch the first family of Sumo get humiliated on their home turf.

"People are going for it!" Mercy said defensively. "AFW numbers are up. Well... not in Japan... anymore..." She muttered and sighed, pressing her palm against her forehead.

Hatchiyama lifted his leg and stamped it down as he looked at the giant Amazon. If it was Sumo wrestling, he had no doubt he could toss Rebecca to the ground. But a dead lift body slam? He was starting to think that his decision might be a little bit hasty. But he couldn't back down now.

"Hai!" He said and slapped his fist against his chest. He looked over at Rebecca and crouched. When he was ready, he shot forward and charged. He slammed his body into Rebecca's to try and give himself momentum before his hand slid between the Amazon's legs and he grunted with all his effort to try and hoist the large woman up. He was used to grabbing a mawashi so it was awkward for the youngest Tanikaze brother.

Rebecca sighed as Mercy buried her face into her palm, it was kind of a shame Adrian was trying to rehab her image: she would have been pretty much the perfect manager for the whole affair, reveling in the controversy created and probably holding a microphone trying to rile up the Yokozuna into defending his honor against the greatest threat to Japan since Mecha-Godzilla or whatever nickname the former cosplayer could come up with. But she had to make do with what she had and focus on keeping her feet on the floor.

Bracing herself for impact, she buckled slightly as the young sumo collided with her and immediately went for the leg to begin his attempt. Despite being a fair bit shorter, it didn't mean he was lighter than the Amazon, this was sumo after all, where you could get 550+lb champions, and body slam contests weren't too different from what they had to do in normal competition, so she knew this was going to probably be the toughest challenge. That wasn't to say it was completely in Hatchiyama's favour, the lift required was a lot bigger than required to win a sumo competition, and he was used to wrestling guys with easy to grab belt things, all Rebecca had to grab was her rock solid thighs and the waistband holding her shorts up, and if he touched those he was getting murdered.

Holding tight, Rebecca, tried to shift her bodyweight around, get enough momentum to dislodge the young Tanakazi from her leg and shove him back after stepping off, then it'd be her turn to do some heavy lifting.

Hatchiyama pulled up with all his might once he secured the bottom part of the big Amazon. He grunted hard. In the heat of the moment in a sumo match, there was momentum and balance to think about. All that mattered was to make sure something other than the soles of the opponent's feet touched the dohyou.

Unfortunately, he thought he was going to have a clear shot at a body slam, so when he felt Rebecca shift, and try and dislodge him, even after lifting her a bit, he was forced to drop her almost immediately as she shoved with her powerful hands and pushed him away. Hatchiyama looked at her briefly with confusion in his eyes as he pushed forward to try and regain the position.

Rebecca instantly twinged the moment Hatchiyama backed off Bodyslam challenge, not bodyslam match! She scolded herself. It was a bit of a force of habit to try and resist beyond just going dead weight whenever someone charged in like that. She wasn't here to grapple them, she was here to let them try and fail to grapple her, all she had to do was stand there and hopefully not take it, but if the sumo could legit get her up then he was walking out 50,000 yen richer.

When he regained the position, Rebecca didn't react by trying to avoid, instead she tried to go dead weight as much as she could. The sumo could get one leg in the air, sure, but the whole body?

Hatchiyama pushed his big belly against Rebecca when she seemed ready to go again. He had used a lot of strength with that initial pull but tried not to question the shadiness of Rebecca's move. He could do this! He focused on Rebecca and grabbed her leg. She felt way heavier than before now that she had her dead weight. But he lifted her off the ground once more, ever so slightly. However, in the process of turning her, he didn't flip her around and as she was tilted 45 degrees, the youngest Tanikaze brother couldn't hold and flopped forward, slamming Rebecca down and landing on top of her.

A good move for a sumo wrestler but near enough to a bodyslam. He panted as he pulled himself off of her and lowered his head in shame while he remained on his hands and knees on the dohyou.

Mercy watched and she nearly bit off her fingernails when Hatchiyma lifted Rebecca upwards. It was in her best interest to see the Tanikaze men fail. and when Hatchiyama collapsed, she squeaked with delight, trying to make sure she wasn't caught on camera.

Once she had settled down, she stepped forward and offered a hand out to the large Amazon, smiling at her. "Keep up the good work!" She said, trying not to let Hatchiyama hear her. She covered her lips and cheek with the back of her free hand and whispered to Rebecca. "You're doing great. I'm sure Akashi's going to be pissed at you now!" She didn't want Hatchiyama to hear her but she CERTAINLY didn't want AKASHI to hear her.


While the audience stirred and the cameramen tried to get every angle of the seemingly anticlimactic battle, there was another person who stepped forward. A very large, imposing man. He was the current Yokozuna and the de facto patriarch of the Tanikaze household. His name was Tanikaze Kajinosuke. He lifted up his leg and stamped it to the ground to get everyone's attention.

"Hatchiyama-kuuuun." He said in a low tone. "I told you not to do this and now you have forced me to defend the honor of our family!" He looked coldly at Rebecca. "I will challenge you now." He said stepping forward as Hatchiyama practically crawled out of the dohyou.

"Nggh!" Rebecca grunted as she fell backwards, her back smacking down on the clay as the young sumo practically fell on top of her. It wasn't the greatest of victories for the amazon, but a takedown like this wasn't a bodyslam, and as such Hatchiyama had failed the bodyslam challenge and Rebecca had gotten a good feel for what she'd be up against should anyone else feel like taking a shot at it to redeem the sport's reputation against this gaijin menace. Standing back up, taking Mercy's hand, she afforded herself a small confident smile.

"Well if she wants to embarrass my family she fucking can do that anytime." She whispered back, dusting herself off for the next challenge if there was going to be one at all while her first challenger slinked off to wherever sumo wrestlers who were made to look foolish slink off to. "Ah." She mumbled when the senior of the Tanikaze household took up the challenge to redeem the honor lost, this guy looked to be much more of a problem than his younger brother. He wasn't taller than the amazon, no-one here was but he was just... bigger than her. The Yokozuna probably had the best chance out of anyone even if he hadn't been forced to deadlift his opponents before, he'd probably faced heavier than the amazon. "I think you're gonna need to go get the check ready..." she told Mercy, even she didn't exactly fancy her chances here.

Kajinosue stepped forward and looked at Rebecca. His face was stern. There was less theatrics with him than with Hatchiyama. He did not come here recognizing the show of it. He looked quite serious. He stared Rebecca down hard and slowly crouched.

Akashi, meanwhile was nearly ready to tear the television off the wall and hurl it. Her face was beet red and she had her fingers dug into her thighs as she sat down. She couldn't believe Hatchiyama was made to look a fool by Rebecca. But what was worse was when Kajinosuke actually stepped up. That got Akashi out of her seat.

"Nii-sama!? How could you!?" She screamed, shaking the television. "You can't be serious! With everything you've said! All the scolding and all the talk about dishonoring, you're going to go up there too!? This isn't right! It's just not RIGHT!" She said. Akashi couldn't watch anymore.

When the screen flashed to Rebecca, Akashi growled. "Kisamaaaaa!" She could not hold back and her fist smashed into the television, cracking it. She pulled away her hand, growling in pain as she stormed off to the infirmary.

Kajinosuke calmed himself, breathing in and out as he prepared himself. When Rebecca was ready, he pressed his hands against the ground and shot forward. Like hatchiyama, he charged and bounced against Rebecca with his stomach, shoving her before he bent over and grabbed her.

He heaved her up with what seemed like much less difficulty than Hatchiyama and nearly effortlessly made the transition as he spun Rebecca's body around. Mercy watched with wide eyes. It seemed like the eldest Tanikaze was going to make this look easy. He nearly had Rebecca's big bulk flipped entirely around. All he had to do was set, hold and slam.

But as he went to set, his hand slipped, not used to that kind of grip. His knee buckled as he instinctively moved to try and catch Rebecca and those dropped as well. He crashed to the ground on his knees, nearly piledriving Rebecca int he process. But, as nearly successful as it was, he, too, had failed the body slam challenge.

Just take it, kick his ass later Rebecca reminded herself, focusing on staying put even as Kajinosuke charged her, forcing the amazon to take a step back from the shove. Under any other circumstances that was grounds in her book to start kicking ass and send the big man flying but as she was heaved up Rebecca braced herself for the worst, she had definitely bitten off a lot more than she could chew challenging the sumo wrestlers. Even if the smaller ones failed, the Yokozuna it seems would have no problem claiming victory as she was hoisted into the air and could feel herself going horizontal, soon the blood would start rushing to her head and she'd end up getting another feel for how uncomfortable a clay ring was to land on.

Well she got the last bit right. "Motherfucker!" She reflexively yelled as the elder Tanikaze's grip failed him, sending the American inadvertantly downwards and forcing her to get her arms up to break the fall before she broke her neck. The two ended up in yet another undignified heap and while this was a victory for the amazon, how close it had gotten and how dangerous it had been when he lost his grip pissed her off. "Do you want me to show you how it's done, asshole?" She snapped, picking herself up and dusting off.