Magic in a Bottle: Angelina Tarrant vs Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom II (Apex Match)

[Malkavia]

Yuuuuuki. Yuki Pooki. Yoooooooki Tootserooni.

Hoot

Hoot hoooot. Shimmerlace could have sworn she heard a sweet and affectionate bird of prey.

One eye was swollen shut, and the other was soaked in all these colorful fluids — pink and gray and red. She couldn't make heads or tails of shit. As she pushed in the direction she thought was up, the mat tilted, her hand slipped, and she fell on on her face. Splick. Snout to mat, and another arc of pain curled down her spine.

"Fn—hng!!"

She cringed, curling inward. Nnnnnope. Talkin' would be ill-advised. Fuck but she needed a window to the world. All she had was sound, and that was just rush and gasp and roar and boo and the nervous trickle and gush of a thousand entertained little fucks—

Why aren't you stopping the match?

Yuki.

Shimmerlace wiped her "good" eye and forced the eyelid to open, and though it twitched like a lifter under a max-load deadlift, she got it peeled. She saw Angelina—subdued. And Yuki, with her "x."

Shimmerlace had told herself she had selfish reasons for asking Yuki to attend this match. Strategic reasons. Maybe our Angelina would notice the bird in the stands. Maybe our Marauder would be distracted. And of course, those would be nice bonuses. But they weren't the real reason.

The Nutcracka lay beside Shimmerlace. She gripped its now-familiar heft. Once a metonym for everything opposed to her in this match, the teeth of the enemy, now it was just...a crutch. Her hands gripped its base, and she pressed its end into the mat. Her eyes slid shut and the world went blurry-black, but she pushed, and when her back pulsed, jaw throbbed, eye shivered—when her body begged to collapse and dissolve into a shivering nothing—she kept moving because she could be whatever she had it in her heart to be. If her illusion was believed.

When she forced her eye open again she was standing. Wavering, but standing. Her eye slithered up to Yuki's. She held that look, as her body heaved with each breath. Please. The feeling croaked in her throat.

Movement broke the spell. It was the referee, hustling towards her. Even with the world gone diagonal, she could see the concern in that face. And the mic in his hand. She wrenched towards him, swinging the bat out sideways. She was far clear of him, and stumbled when it clunked on the ground, but she kept her grip on its base. She could feel all of the eyes, then. Cuntest of eyes, the peepers of Skybeast, and the violet pair. A growl choked in her throat.

She wasn't even aware of the way she shivered as she leaned, like an old woman, with both hands on the Nutcracka.

[CaptainL]

With Yuki storming the ring, this match had taken a turn. Already it had descended into chaos, with both Angelina and Shimmerlace going to new heights of brutality in an attempt to one-up each other. But no one could have expected a third party to enter the fray. As Yuki made her way down to the ring, gasps and "oooohs" echoed through the stands, with many a spectator wondering what could possibly happen next. But Yuki had witnessed enough of this. She had no intentions of letting things run further out of control - she needed to step in before someone got killed, or seriously injured. If this match was allowed to continue as it was...that would only be a matter of time.

She stood facing the referee, her gaze locked on him with a glare of defiance. She threw up her arms, crossed and signaling for the match to stop. But...the referee was undeterred. His attention remained focused on Angelina and Shimmerlace, watching the two of them for any signs of submission. And when Yuki saw that, the glare on her face only narrowed as she clenched her teeth, her fists balled tighter. This clearly wasn't about wrestling any more - this was about hurting Shimmer. Surely the referee could see that. Why wasn't he stopping the match?

Stomping her foot on the ground, Yuki stormed closer, waving her hands to try and get the ref's attention. "HEY!! Are you even listening to me?! I said, stop the match! Someone's going...someone's going to get killed at this rate! What are you doing?"

At last, the referee had no choice but to confront the interloper. But when he turned around to face Yuki with a stern glare, what he said made her gasp. "Just what are you doing? This is an I Quit match, which means, by definition, no disqualifications apply. Until someone says 'I quit,' the match must go on!"

The color drained away from Yuki's face as her eyes went wide, but seconds later, her teeth clenched in a snarl as heat bubbled back up to her cheeks. She had certainly gone to extreme lengths to prove her worthiness in the past - lengths she had regretted. But this was a step too far. Was the referee - the official tasked with ensuring the safety of the wrestlers - really going to stand by and do nothing, as Shimmerlace was about to be blinded in the middle of the ring? Her teeth clenched, Yuki shoved her forehead up against the ref's own. She wouldn't let herself be ignored, she thought - she had to stand up for what was right! "So if she got killed, you'd be fine with it? What's stopping someone in a no-DQ match from bringing a knife, then? Does the law not even apply?

"I said what I said!"

"Rrgh..!!" A shudder ran straight through Yuki's body. She felt cold and clammy, and yet she felt herself heating up at the same time. Her whole body rejected what she was witnessing. This was wrong. It shouldn't have been happening. She should've been able to do something about this; she at least should be able to have someone listen to her - and yet, she couldn't. With a huff, she turned back to ringside, throwing up another X, but the paramedics just stood there, staring back at her blankly. No one would listen. No one could see how wrong this was.

At last, Yuki saw no other option. If the ref wouldn't stop this, only one person would. She turned around to face Shimmer once again - and when she saw the pink-haired girl, now lurching to her feet and ambling along with the bat at her side, everything seemed to slow to a crawl. A part of her was relieved that she could even walk at all - but the fact that she was moving toward the referee; the fact that she was even trying to escalate this at all, made Yuki's heart beat nervously in her chest. There was no good that could come of this. This match needed to end, and Shimmerlace was about to make it ten times worse.

Her hands on her knees, Yuki leaned closer, training a wide-eyed stare on Shimmerlace. Her voice grew softer - trying to call back to their conversation in the owl cafe, but the worry in her voice spoke to how seriously she took her concerns. "Shimmer. Please. Trust me, you don't need to do this. You'll hurt yourself. You'll hurt so many more people. Neither of you are in any shape to continue. You can end this all. Just...just say it. 'I quit.' Please."

Tears began to form in her eyes, and her whole body trembled, but she continued. "I know, I know you don't want to stop now...but trust me, your pride isn't as important as your safety. You're just going to get yourself killed if this keeps up...and I don't want that to happen. Not to you..."

Her breaths quickened into pants; she fought to hold back sobs. Even saying such words made Yuki wince - she knew that she herself hadn't abided by them. She had let herself get injured just to prove a point. But this was worse. Shimmerlace didn't deserve all this. And she hoped, at least, that after their heart-to-heart in the cafe, she could convince Shimmer even if no one else could...

[Monsy]

A sense of release drugged her when the belt fastened around her wrists. What futile strength gurgled out muscle fibres fizzled in seconds. Then, Angelina limped and melted into the canvas. Hair cloaked her eyes, then closed. Slowly, her mouth slacked, and she thought of pain solely.

Nibble, nibble, chew.
Pinch, gnaw, bite.

Angelina prodded the slips of overlapping leather, caught between them with her nail, then spread it. Her middle inserted, hooked over the prong and touched on the other side by the punch hole. She curled that finger inward. The belt bridged and the slack increased. Then she slowly pushed the flap back with her knuckle, sliding out the prong from the punch hole. The belt widened, leather slipped the buckle and her hands were freed.


She rolled to her other hip. Hand down, blowing hair out her face. She looked, saw glass and blood, then pushed to all fours. Moments later, when Yuki pleaded to Shimmerlace, Angelina snatched her glass shard off the ground and gripped the base until she bled. Then she climbed up using the ropes.

Yuki back turned.
Referee there, standing, not paying attention to her.
Shimmer too close to Yuki for her sanity.

So she did the only sane thing and hobbled. She grabbed a fist of Yuki’s black hair, pulled it back, then placed the warm shard across Yuki’s neck. With only mouth breathing, she groaned with a dead face against Yuki's skin, eyes dulled. The point pinned against Yuki’s jugular. “That’s… enough.” Her voice, calm and exhausted, “Poisonous fuckin’ psychopath. Snake. You… planned this.” And no laugh followed. Her hair-grabbing hand moved to cover Yuki’s eyes.

She breathed in and talked directly into Yuki’s ear. “From now on, you’re not allowed to talk to her.” She smiled lightly, “Shimma. Is now dead to you.” Then she looked at Shimmer, “That goes for you too. Yu-ki is dead to you.”

Her smile faded fast. She looked pale, eyes half-lid. “One word, one glance, from any of you to each other. And I’ll slice.”

Shivering from her remaining leg nearing collapse. She said while looking Shimmer dead in the eye… “I'll do it.”

[CaptainL]

With every stumbling, staggering step Shimmerlace limped forward on, Yuki could feel her heart pounding frantically in her chest. It should've been over now - it should've been safe. Angelina had been securely restrained, and no one was going to lose an eye. Surely, she thought, the redhead was in no shape to even try to escape, her stamina as spent as it was. The match had ground both its competitors down to their limits, and surely both of them knew they couldn't take much longer. Yes, Yuki thought - if given the opportunity, Shimmerlace would surely realize what was good for her. She'd know when to call it quits. She'd know she didn't need to keep doing this - that she had an out. This could work.

But even still, Yuki's anxiety was riding through the roof. She didn't know why it was, exactly. No matter how many times she tried to convince herself of it, that the match was all but over, that there was no other way - there was always still some lingering doubt; some nagging feeling hanging just over her shoulder. She needed Shimmerlace to accept this; it was as vital as defusing a bomb seconds from going off. Was Yuki's fear because there was so much riding on this one decision - that Shimmerlace making the choice to give up here could mean things wouldn't have to completely go to hell? Or perhaps, through all her prior encounters with Angelina, she knew that the Marauder would be harder to keep down than this - that no matter how hard she tried, she could never be sure that she wouldn't find some way to surprise her?

Whatever it was, Angelina did indeed surprise her. Yuki's full attention had been focused on Shimmerlace, but that meant she didn't notice when Angelina pulled her wrists free of the belt. She didn't notice her picking up a shard of glass - and she didn't notice her circling behind her, until she felt that razor-thin edge, held right up to her throat.

The moment it all happened, Yuki let out a gasp, but then she held the air there in her lungs. Her whole body was paralyzed from fear alone; even letting that breath out could mean bringing her throat up against the glass, and cutting it wide open. She couldn't move a muscle. But inside, her heart was racing. If Angelina's true depravity hadn't shone through enough already in this match, it surely did so here. Now, anyone could see that Angelina wouldn't even shy away from killing Yuki if it meant getting what she wanted. The Japanese girl could feel something drop in the pit of her stomach as a cold, clammy sensation ran through her from head to toe. She'd been hung by her neck from the ropes before, and yet, she never felt quite as close to death as she did right now.

All she could do was look back at the palm of Angelina's hand, where Shimmerlace should have been. Her eyes wide and her face pale, and she hoped against all hope that she'd make the right decision. Please, she thought to herself - she wanted to say it, but the thought of moving even an inch was too fearsome to even comprehend. It was all up to Shimmer.

Please.

[Malkavia]

Shimmerlace, with Nutcracka swaying under her weight, hitched from side to side. A blustery wind would knock her down. Just keeping her eyes open was a fight she could only half-win, and her one good eyelid slid up, then sleepily down.

Up, and down. Curl around.

And Yuki — God bless her — Yuki wasn't even looking at her. Shimmerlace caught snippets of Yuki glaring at the ref, Yuki shouting at the ref, Yuki begging the ref to go over Shimmerlace's head. Does the law not even apply? Her hysterics were so funny, Shimmerlace wanted to cry. Won't anyone please think of the children?! Then Yuki was talking to Shimmerlace, face to face, so close she could almost feel the prodigy's body heat.

Then Angelina pressed glass into Yuki's throat, and Shimmerlace's flayed skin turned to ice.

Her one good eye flitted from the throat to the person behind Yuki, as if she struggling to process what had happened. But she knew. Her vision might blur, and that glass shard might well have been a goose for all her observational power, but. It was Angelina. And like Yuki had said. The girl wants to destroy you, and she never, ever quits.

The crowd reacted much like Shimmerlace felt. Gasps of surprise. Groans of horror. They started to talk to each other—not the usual cheering, or booing, lining up behind this or that fave. They were talking in hushed voices.

Blood drained from Shimmerlace's face. Angelina was free. Her eyes watered at just the memory of what it had felt like when Angelina curled a thumb around her eyeball.

Tick, tick, tick, Shimbo my dear. Every second made her want to flinch, because it was another instant for the most ruthless fighter in LAW to find a route to her eyes. A flick of the glass at her face, perhaps. A pirate-shuriken! The idea was so absurd, Shimmerlace grinned crazily in spite of the nausea the idea inspired.

Except.

Angelina didn't do any of that.

The seconds wore on, and Yuki trembled, and the crowd breathed, and everyone waited for Shimmerlace to end it, and Shimmerlace realized...

A smirk inched onto Shimmerlace's face. When she spoke, her words were slurred and gurgled. "Ifffffff you killlll herrrr..." After everything. The home invasion. The brawl in the streets. Angelina was just gonna slice her prized lamb's throat? Before she had a chance to see Yooki tootserooni cry? Before tearing the prodigious, terrified, psychotic I quit from the broken skybeast's lips? She couldn't help but ask, "Th-then...wherrrrre's yourrrrrr gold?"

Shimmerlace wheezed through her nose. Her eyes watered, and her back trembled. The bastards had lined it up. Like a fairy-ring of dominoes—leading straight to her rabbit, her place in the sky...her gold earned over a whole year fighting in the shadow of a Terror who never dimmed, never died, and never quit.

Her eyes narrowed on Angelina. Angelina of the broken snout and tripartite leg, the Terror she'd finally made almost as broken as herself. The cunt in chief was in no place to react. All Shimmer had to was swing faster than Angelina could cut.

So she did it in one motion: She lifted the Nutcracka, swung it behind her back, and brought it down like a sledgehammer, with conviction, on Yuki's head.

[CaptainL]

This is it, Yuki thought to herself. This is where it ends. Her career had seen no shortage of upsets, spills, and close brushes with disaster, and her body still bore the scars to prove it - in her pursuit to prove herself worthy, to show the world she was capable of rising to any challenge, it was her health and well-being that had to pay the price. Yet, never had Yuki felt more afraid for her life than she did right here and now - with Angelina Tarrant right behind her, and the edge of the glass shard pressed dangerously close to her throat. Just an inch deeper, just a hair's breath closer to the middle, and it would slice her neck straight open - Yuki didn't want to think about such a thing, but it was too real and too terrible a threat to just ignore. All those other times she had suffered grievous injury in the ring, she could attribute that to merely being a consequence of her vocation; the inherent danger in choosing the life of a professional wrestler. But when it was Angelina Tarrant behind it all? Angelina Tarrant, who had seemingly devoted her entire being toward making Yuki's life hell? Yuki wouldn't put it past her. This time, she was trying to kill her.

She wanted to fidget nervously, she wanted to whimper - but she couldn't; to move even an inch would mean letting the glass slice her throat, and bleed her dry. She was frozen in place, standing as still as a statue, paralyzed by sheer terror. But then, she did hear something that stirred a response out of her. At the sound of the pink-haired girl's voice, Yuki's eyes flit upward in Shimmer's direction and her jaw dropped open in a silent gasp. What...did Shimmerlace mean by that?

She couldn't waste too much time thinking about it, though. All she knew was that Shimmerlace was back in this - and she wasn't going to be a mere bystander. She watched as Shimmer hoisted the bat higher above her head, and with it, her heart began to beat faster - with anxiety, with anticipation; she wasn't sure which. All she knew was that her fortunes would soon change. Shimmerlace wasn't submitting. If anything, if she attacked Angelina now, that could only escalate this chaos further and put her at risk of even worse retribution - the sort of punshment Yuki didn't even want to think about. And yet, even if she knew she should have been, Yuki wasn't mad at her. If Shimmerlace did attack Angelina...that would mean freeing her from her predicament. It would mean she'd at least get to slip out unscathed. That she'd be safe.

All she needed to do now was to wait for the moment the bat dropped. And she watched unblinking as Shimmerlace held it higher and higher. She didn't want to look away, lest she miss a single second. And she saw as it began to descend; as it cut through the air on the way down...

...And as it came down right on Yuki's head!

The dark-haired girl let loose a scream - all the pain of the impact, bound up in the shock of the sudden turn this match had taken. She had come out here, she had quite literally risked her neck, to save Shimmerlace - yet now, the Feychild was attacking her? It didn't make sense. It wasn't right. But Yuki was in no shape to contemplate that.

Just then, her footing gave out, and she dropped to the mat below in a seated position. Her thoughts were shrouded in a throbbing haze, and her vision went red as blood trickled down her brow and into her eyes. It was only a moment later, when the realization truly hit her, that she screamed again. Now, Yuki realized, she knew nothing about what the future had in store.

[Monsy]

Yuki made herself an irreconcilable demon by coming out. A ball of evil that was puked out into this poisonous and self-serving psycho. Angelina always knew that. And she knew that Yuki only wanted the spotlight of their shared moment for herself. She didn’t care about Shimmer like her new owner did. She needed Shimmer to see it too, so that Shimmer could understand her contempt.

And in this moment…

She wanted nothing more than to be alone with Yuki, in a place no one knew, with an alibi, tire tracks covered and Yuki’s awareness of what was about to happen. In her perfect world, she envisioned a lake. Crystal but full of big fish to nibble on the bones. Serene and undisturbed by campsites. She would dunk the body after swimming out to the centre, somehow after learning how to swim, and let Yuki sink in the middle. Then, after laying in the middle of that lake for a while, she’d go home, shower and feel nothing of it again.

But the bat was winding up. Angelina had to face giving up her dream.
Nutcracka went overhead. Her dream felt more impossible. Her elbow locked, wanting safety.
Then Angelina looked up, watched, then decided she wanted this no matter what…

So when Shimmerlace came down, Angelina sliced.
Like pulling a lawn mower’s chord, weakly.
It cut, but the shard snagged on some flesh and rotated in her slippery hand, then fell out of her grip.

“..a-ah--..”

The shard didn’t hit the ground before Yuki was cracked on the skull, slipping the slot in Angelina’s hold.

Angelina’s vision became mud. Her body slunk back and crashed on her tailbone. She sprawled and laid on the bottom rope with her upper-shoulders. Her head folded in. She watched, eyes opened, glassy, wide and with abject unease. When she didn’t see her brain matter on the ground, and her own chest rising and falling clearly, she blinked, then began to search for answers.

In Yuki.
And in Shimmer.

[Malkavia]

Alas, Yooks. The blow to her pate hit with a wooden clunk that'd reach to the back-of-the-stadium ears. Can you say concussed? That'd depend on the severity of the contusion, Shimmerlace supposed. But that's what you get, ye most condescending of birds, when ye refuse belief in pixie dust.

That CLONK was a fucker and a half where recoil was concerned, and Shimmerlace went careening backward. At first, the crowd didn't know what had hit them, and all Shimmerlace could hear was her own two feet going clunk, clunk on the mat as she backpedaled, but then. Oooh, but then.

Those cunts let them have it. There were boos and jeers, and that was just the background noise. Over that, other folks cupped their hands and shouted or screamed. The whole skeleton of the arena shook with the deep bass of their lovely fury. Must be some Yuki stans in the stands.

She was laughing...or trying to, anyway. The jaw had gotten stiff as concrete, and then there was her back, thumb, snout, and—and well, enough to say, she hurt a lot in a lot of places, and a belly laugh wouldn't have helped. But she wheezed and she chittered as her head throbbed like it was six am on the third day of a 72-hour all-nighter.

But she couldn't fall and conk out just yet. It took her full powers of concentration, but she managed to stay upright. Yooks was just sitting there, a big lub of meat exactly in the way. But it was easy enough to put a hand on her head and tip her to one side so Shimmerlace could clamber over. With Nutcracka dragging behind her, smearing bits of its red mess with the splatter already on the canvas, she cut a path towards Angelina in her corner.

The world might have gone the resolution of cracked glass, but she kept her path straight enough. Then, when she got close enough to take a swing at burying the bat in Angelina's brain matter, she took a long breath, and then a deep squat. Her face was an unreadable gore, with barely a quarter of an eye open. The crowd managed to stuff its ire for half a second and hushed, all eyes on the girl with the bat. Then, gurgling in her snout as she breathed, Shimmerlace extended her free hand—palm up.

[Monsy]

Angelina’s weapon was in foreign hands, approaching like the reaper. Knots went into her throat but she was calm all the same. Sweat laced down her face, while her brain had pragmatic admittance to see herself as fucked. Fucked-fucked-fucked. She hated it.

Her turn, she thought. Musta’ missed.

....Gotta move. So she pressed a hand down, and found herself depleted. She shrunk back into the corner, slid her butt up to be straighter, and was simultaneously leaning towards the ropes. Her spine just wasn’t answering.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you--” Angelina clenched her teeth and mouthed this quietly. Her scowl, weak but still hateful, wanting you dead. Angelina scrubbed her boot heel on the mat, clawed into it and put her nape against the second turnbuckle pad. She began to quietly hiss.

Then she looked at the extended hand. Her broken nose curled up at the creases. She switched glances from Shimmer to Yuki, to the hand, then back up. She saw her glass, not even a lunge away. It made her queasy to think about what she was about to do. Against her instincts, she laid her hand in Shimmer’s power, looking uncomfortable as ever. “Aagh??”

In a moment, Angelina found herself standing. Partially. The next, they collapsed again. The pair of them, pink and red, fell on-top of each other, chest to chest. Angelina shoved the canvas, suddenly panting and feeling flight or fight.

When Shimmer didn’t do anything, Angelina was straddling Shimmer’s stomach, glowering down at her, hands on the scion’s neck that didn’t squeeze. She mouth-breathed herself through it, and the glower slowly melted into a purely flat 6am frown. Angelina looked at her glass shard again, then to Shimmer, and all her face cuts. She considered all options for five draining seconds, from going back to cutting out Shimmer’s eyes, spending the remaining time just opening the wound-flaps into cavities, to doing that to Yuki. Or both.

But. When she looked at Shimmer's face, seeing her stare up, half-dead, she thought of her terms...

"Ya won't glance her way again, right?" Angelina asked, clasping her hands on Shimmer's face, thumb underneath the eyes, peering down. "Not a thought, worry or mention about Yuki. Ya spend all that on me, ok?"

[CaptainL]

It all happened so quickly, Yuki hardly had the time to process what was about to happen to her. Perhaps that was a good thing. She didn't have the time to see the bat, in all its barbed-wire-enrobed glory, plummet toward her head; to contemplate the impact, or anticipate the ringing in her ears, or to imagine how its wire would tear her skin and spill her blood. She was confident it was aimed for Angelina - and she could put aside her concerns about escalating the fight too much if it meant something would be done about the woman who was intent on killing her where she stood. She could never have even entertained the thought that she might be Shimmerlace's target. When she saw the bat descend, she could cling to her naive beliefs that it might have meant hope. And when the full force of what Shimmerlace did to her made its mark, it at least did so swiftly and abruptly, over as quickly as it began.

But the pain for Yuki was only beginning. With a loud, resounding THUNK, her head cracked backward off the force of the blow. The edges of her vision went hazy and her thoughts went dim and dark for a few fleeting moments as her footing gave way, and her weight carried her backward, her body collapsing against Angelina's own. But in doing so, her skin caught on the edge of the glass - and as she fell, it slashed straight across her throat.

When Yuki dropped to the mat, her screams were cut short as she felt something warm and sticky running down her neck; a wet spot began to form on her white shirt, making it cling to the skin beneath. Out of instinct, her fingers shot up to grab at her neck; to try to hold the wound there closed. Yuki was already sure what was happening to her, but she didn't want to believe it - she wanted to hold to that hope it might be something else. Sweat, maybe, or spittle, or maybe Shimmer had dropped some of her Gloaming Sap, or it was just a panicked mind playing tricks on her. But when she looked down and saw the thick red trails running from her fingers, her eyes grew wide, and she took in a gulp. Even if she'd known enough of such a possibility to recoil in fear from it, to have it confirmed chilled her to the bone.

This is it, she thought. This is how I die.

Yuki's head was throbbing, and her vision grew faint and fuzzy - was that just from the stress, or was she actually..? It only made her heart leap in her chest to think about it. Her teeth locked in a grimace and her hands clapsed around her throat, Yuki rolled herself over. Enough to see Shimmerlace and Angelina facing each other down. Enough to see the Feychild extend her hand.

Was this...an alliance?

Even with her body spiraling out of control, Yuki was still lucid enough to feel fear. And she certainly felt the shudder that went down her spine as she took in a gasp and held it there, suspended in her throat. She knew enough about Shimmerlace to know that something like this could never happen. She wouldn't dare. The fact she had gone this long, without quitting, told her that she was willing to risk life and limb just to see Angelina destroyed, and from what Yuki had heard from her, she wouldn't doubt it. But now...were they joining forces? Against Yuki?

None of this made sense. None of this should've been happening. This match couldn't happen. Not like this. This had to be a nightmare. She had to be dreaming...

"...w-why..?" In between the hoarse and haggard gasps, Yuki managed to rasp out a single word, in a whisper under her breath. As soon as she did, more blood gushed from between her fingers; she grabbed her own throat tighter to try and staunch it as her body bucked and reeled, hacking forth coughs and gags that were louder than the exclamation that had brought forth such a visceral response. Yuki shuddered, clenching her teeth. She couldn't risk that again. If there was even a chance, at this point.