The Second Step: Aizen Yuzuriha vs WYVERN II

[BlackAkuma]

Aizen never cared much for pleasing the crowd, but he wasn’t deaf, either. The moment he came in for a clinch, the boos started pouring in, with scattered calls labeling him a coward, telling him to back off and fight straight, accusing him of using a delay tactic to stay alive.

And they weren’t wrong - he was stalling to buy time. But that was a perfectly valid strategy, and one he wouldn’t apologize for, even if their opinions had carried any weight. While it wasn’t often that he was put in a situation where clinching like this was necessary, it wasn’t often he faced an opponent like Wyvern, either. Someone as determined, dangerous and strong as anyone he’d faced before, someone who could take him out with only a few well-placed shots, and worst of all, someone who was clearly cognizant of those facts.

And it was working, too. Keeping her locked down, preventing her movements, keeping him safe. A viable, if not flashy, strategy, and he believed that right up until the moment where her elbow sliced into his midsection. It was hard to believe that she managed to land a strike like that with so little space, but there was no denying the resulted. The wind was driven out of him, his legs weakened, it felt like he’d been stabbed with a dull blade. He was going down.

It didn’t mean he was going down alone, though.

As Aizen started to slide down Wyvern’s body, his hands came out of the clench and reached for her face. It would look like mindless fumbling at first, until they came together around her temple for a solid hold. With that secured, he kicked his legs out, dropped down on his backside, and tried to ram her chin into the top of his skull with a sitout jawbreaker, letting his weight do all the work.

[Hills]

The small section of Wyvern's brain still aware of the audience feels only disgust at their displeased eruption over Aizen's clinch. The ultimate purpose of the wrestler in the match was to win; entertainment was a distant second, and neither of the two combatants here were employed for their skills at pleasing the crowd. This was a pure fight, without elaborate stipulations or restrictive rules. The two would beat each other until one of them couldn't get back up. Defensive or resting plays were needed for that. Nobody could fight all out without any breaks for more than five to ten minutes, even without getting pummeled at the same time.

She might have been more annoyed about the move if it hadn't put in her in a perfect position for a decisive strike, but she would never criticize it. It was solid strategy under normal circumstances.

Wyvern can feel just how devastating her elbow strike was as the impact ripples through Aizen's body, still locked closely against her own, but doesn't pause for self-congratulation or satisfaction. He was still up. She would fix that. As she winds up for her second blow, however, her opponent grabs at her skull even as he falls from his feet. The Irish wrestler only has just long enough to realize what is happening before her chin is violently snapped off of Aizen's skull, his fall to the ground passing its momentum on and firing into her with his jawbreaker.

Tough as she was, Wyvern couldn't take a sudden hit like that and remain unaffected. Losing her balance, she begins to stumble backwards before losing her own balance and falling into a seated position. It won't keep her down for long, but Aizen has brought himself precious time.

[BlackAkuma]

The jawbreaker was a bit of a gambit. As he got into professional wrestling, he’d strived to build his repertoire, taking on a lot of new moves for a variety of different situations. The only problem was that he lacked any sparring partner - one of the downsides of a nonexistent social circle. So while he could practice the moves all day and learn them to perfection, he could only be sure of their efficacy in the middle of his matches.

Come to think of it, he couldn't help but wonder if Wyvern shared the same problem. He had never thought to ask someone if they wouldn’t mind training with him before, preferring solitude about all else, but he felt he could tolerate her more than just about anyone he’d come across.

Just a quick, idle thought, one he entertained while he tried to recover on the floor.

Lucky for him, the move proved effective, more than he had originally guessed, but that would mean little if he didn’t seize the opportunity. Wyvern was too strong to stay down for long - winded as he was, he needed to get up and make the most of this window, before it closed and he never got another chance to reopen it.

He reached up, pulling himself back to his feet with the aid of the ring apron, gripping it tight with one hand while the other massaged his aching sternum. After a deep breath and a moment to focus his wavering eyesight, Aizen stepped forward, shot his foot out, smashed her straight in the face, looking to ram her skull against the barricade with a brutal, simple blow.

Enough to put Wyvern down for ten seconds? Maybe. There was only one way to know.

[Hills]

Wyvern never saw the jawbreaker coming. While Aizen had certainly proved his competence and versatility, his fighting style on the whole tended to draw more from conventional martial arts and strikes. The jawbreaker, by contrast, was a move almost entirely unique to professional wrestling, a technique widely regarded as useless outside the unique environment where these fights took place. Once again, though, Aizen is able to take a seemingly impractical move and use it to its fullest potential, taking Wyvern offguard and shattering her momentum in an instant. Now on the ground, the Irish wrestler desperately attempts to dispel the disorientation left behind in the wake of the sharp impact, at the same time trying and failing to get her feet under her so she can rise. Aizen never gives her the chance.

Wyvern barely sees the kick coming before her head is crushed into the barricade, her eyes failing her in the subsequent explosion of visual white noise accompanying the heavy blow. Momentarily losing consciousness, Wyvern topples to the side in the wake of the hit, landing on her bad shoulder before falling flat on her stomach. Her eyes are open but unfocused, her senses unable to provide any useful feedback as her brain attempts to unscramble itself. By any conventional estimate, the match was over. The crowd roars its approval, the commentators pronounce the end of the fight, and even the referee begins the count slowly, almost as an afterthought.

But Aizen knows just how tough Wyvern is. And her hand is already starting to clench as feeling returns to her body.

[BlackAkuma]

Wyvern was going to get up. It didn’t matter if everyone in this arena thought otherwise, he knew it, as sure as he knew that the sun was going to rise in the morning.

All the same, he wasn’t of a mind to interfere in the count, either, knowing that he had to give her the space to get back. As such, he decided to spend his precious time recuperating, instead of just sitting around, waiting for the inevitable.

He took a quick walk to the announcer’s desk, where they were busy telling the world that this match was over and speculating about the possibility of injuries. More importantly, it was where they had some bottles of water for the commentators, so they wouldn’t have to go far when they were thirsty. He motioned to one of them for a bottle, and they were quick to acquiesce, tossing it over. Aizen gave them a quick nod, then proceeded to down it fast, letting the cool water flow down his throat in steady gulps.

Good. Refreshing. Not enough to fully reset, but at least he was stemming off dehydration, keeping the joints lubricated. He would need it, too, because he suspected that it was almost time to resume.

Aizen wiped his mouth, tossed the bottle aside, and made his way around the corner, looking to see how far the count was going and if, as he suspected, Wyvern was already up on her feet.

[Hills]

After the repeated trauma to the head, a lesser person than Wyvern would be lucky to know what day of the week it was, let alone where they were. Even the Irish wrestler, who has endured severe training to improve her resistance to such impacts, can barely maintain consciousness. The count is already halfway done by the time she can properly see again. In an odd way, it felt good not to be underestimated for once; Aizen's ruthless assault made it clear that he took her as a serious threat, despite the brief and humiliating experience that had been their first bout. Resisting the urge to shake her head, knowing that would only make the pounding worse rather than helping to clear it, Wyvern clenches her fist to restore feeling in her fingers before raising one arm and punching it into the ground, beginning the torturous process of lifting herself.

While Aizen goes to recuperate as much as possible during the break in the match, Wyvern slowly rises, reasserting control over her limbs and using the barrier as a support to lift herself to her feet. In a distant corner of her brain, she hears the chattering crowd fall silent in shock as she manages to get to her feet, but that's hardly a concern right now to her. By the time Aizen rounds the corner again, she's already up and standing without the need for support, although she still clearly hasn't fully recovered. Seeing him approach she raises her fists into the second stance he had seen before, fists lower near the waist to facilitate fast, lunging punches. Desperate for even a second more to recover, she doesn't attempt to restart the fight, allowing Aizen to come to her.

[BlackAkuma]

Blood racing, sweat seeping through his clothes, a dry mouth and unsteady feet.

Clear signs of a good fight. Yes, Aizen was loving this and yes, coming to LAW had been a good idea.

He was made sure of that when he came around the corner and saw WYVERN up, on her feet, clearly ready to be taking even more punishment. The woman was tenacious in a way that he just didn’t see often in fighters, male or female, and it made him all the more determined to bring the fight to her in the hardest way possible.

The referee gave them space, and that was all the cue Aizen needed to jump back into the fray. He took one step forward, then another, then leaned forward and broke into a full sprint, charging headlong towards, putting his newly acquired energy to good use. He waited until they were close, the moment before impact, before he leaped into the air and struck out with both of his legs at once, driving both of his heels towards her chest with his signature move - Shotgun.

[Hills]

Sweat was pouring from her body, dripping to the floor and threatening to impede her vision by dripping into her eyes. She could barely hear through the blood pumping in her ears. She couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs, despite knowing that she was breathing correctly. Every part of her body seemed to ache with some kind of pain.

For Wyvern, there was no greater ecstasy.

The pain and misery didn't feel good, but they felt so much more intensely than anything in her day-to-day life. Insistent reminders that she was alive, and that she could test herself against the best in the world. Truly, she could ask for nothing more. This...this was what she lived for. As Aizen begins his approach, he can see Wyvern's face cracking into a complete smile, truly enjoying their match.

The Irishwoman instinctively recognizes Aizen's intention even before he releases his devastating kick. Narrowing her focus, she waits until the last possible second before dodging to the side, Aizen's boot painfully scraping the surface of her ribs as she does so. Before he can land or continue, she snaps one arm out to the side, aiming to use Aizen's own momentum against him with a clothesline to the throat!

[BlackAkuma]

Wyvern was smiling. In hindsight, that was a bad sign, and one that should’ve told Aizen to abort his charge.

Though he had only known her for a relatively short amount of time, fighting someone gave you an odd insight into the way they thought, and he could tell that she was a deadly serious sort of person, focused on her fighting, not the kind of person prone to silly fits. He didn’t know what was going through her mind at the moment, but his best guess was that she knew something he didn’t.

But he was already running, already charging, already jumping and it was far too late to change any of that. He leaped up, struck out, and had nothing to show for it.

Wyvern, on the other hand, scored a solid shot on his upper chest, striking on the bone and swatting him out of the air. He came down hard on his back and rolled into a ball straight away, as he nursed his aching chest and coughed. Nothing broken as far as he could tell, but there was a likely fracture off that hit, one that was sending a steady supply of pain through his entire chest.

[Hills]

The clothesline was the break Wyvern had been looking for. Aizen had taken control of the match earlier, and she needed to get a strong hit in if she wanted any chance of turning things around. A surge of satisfaction goes through her as she lands the blow; Aizen was a more than worthy opponent, and overcoming him here was a testament to the skills which defined her. The heavy impact reverberates painfully through her body, but with her strength, she can bear the blowback from her attack without flinching. Immediately coiling back into her fighting stance, Wyvern looks to follow up before her opponent can properly recover.

With the Irishwoman launching herself forward to keep on the attack, Aizen barely has enough time to come out of his roll before finding a fist coming towards his face. While he likely won't have enough time to properly analyze the attack, the audience actually erupts into light cheering, seeing Wyvern putting her entire body into a blindingly fast, lunging strike more reminiscent of a stab with a spearpoint than anything barehanded. An unusual display to say the least, but that just made it all the more entertaining to watch.