Valley Doll III vs Kyo Akamatsu — Iron Person Match

[Underdoggo]

The crowd collectively winced as Kyo brought Valley down, back first across his outstretched knee. They were wincing not just because that move had looked painful, but also from the sheer and utter brutality of the hit. In his time in LAW, Kyo had not seemed to be one to resort to pulverizing his opponents like this. Clearly, Kyo was taking Valley with the utmost seriousness: anything genteel or honourable about this match had just gone out the window.

As Valley rolled off of Kyo's knee, he followed after her, not wanting to give her the chance to recover. Cupping her chin with one hand and grabbing her knee with the other, Kyo would press a knee into Valley's already sore back and try to bend her against his knee in a bow and arrow hold!

The ropes weren't too far away: the question was, would Valley be able to endure long enough to reach them?

[BlackAkuma]

Yup. Valerie was going to need a massage after this match. A good one, too.

She didn’t think anything was broken back there, but it felt like something was out of whack in her spine, and she suspected it was going to be bothering her for the next few weeks. Then again, a crack in her back would be the least of her problems if she didn’t do something major to change her fate in the near future.

Kyo was giving her no slack, whatsoever. Instead of letting her deal with the pain, he transitioned from one move to the next, going into a move Valerie despised with a passion: the Bow and Arrow hold. Stretching her out and lifting her up, he used gravity as aid to stretch her out even further than normal, putting her flexibility to the test. A test she was failing.

The ropes were close, but not close enough for her liking. Valerie reached, wishing her limbs could grow a few extra feet, then attempted to rock back and forth to topple them over and break the hold. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be worth it if it bought her even a few seconds.

[Underdoggo]

Valerie had to be in incredible pain right now. Kyo was not letting up, and was tying her spine into knots, bending her cruelly over his knees in a body and arrow, stretching away on her chin and knees in the bargain. This hold just had to be wearing away at her resolve, and yet she wasnt crying out. He barely even heard a whimper from her. Instead, she resolutely rocked back and forth, trying to loosen Kyo's grip.

And, inevitably, loosen it did.

The bow and arrow came free, allowing Valerie to flop to the mat. Impressed and annoyed by the blonde's tenacity, Kyo rose to his feet, and tried to move over to the downed Valley Doll. Moving to sit on her back, he would try to snag one of her legs, wrenching it down across his shoulder to start bending away at her leg and spine in his signature stretch muffler.

"Give up, Valerie!" he growled as he tormented her back again...though they both knew the choice was wider than that. Give up, or expend energy trying to crawl towards the ropes and make a rope break. And Valerie could absolutely do the latter, but Kyo would.make sure to make her feel every crawl as she did so.

[BlackAkuma]

Valerie was in incredible pain right now, but that wasn’t the worst. As bad as this submission hold could be, it was always the helplessness of it that bugged her, lacking any real good way to escape, and that had likely been the thought process when Kyo chose it. There was no getting away, no good way to escape, all you could do was hope for the merciful end…

Or so it seemed, until her little trick worked out after all. Valerie breathed a sigh of relief as she flopped away and tried to push up, only for her back to give out before she could even contemplate standing up. She needed a chance to get up and recoup, just a few moments to rest and recover.

What she didn’t need was for Kyo to come and sit on her back, exacerbating her pain, and she definitely didn’t need him to grasp her leg and pull her into, of all things, a Stretch Muffler. As bad as the Bow and Arrow had been, it was a pleasant Sunday compared to the agony for this hold, and Valerie was left shrieking as he torn into her tendons with the brutal hold.

”No! No!” She cried out in brutal defiance as her continued to crank her leg back, pushing her to the limit. Submitting seemed like a better idea with each passing second - no, she didn’t want to give up, but she had to think of the long haul in a match like this. If serious damage was done, Kyo could make an easy comeback, and then there was the match after this one, and the match after that.

No, no, she had to try, at least. Desperate, she made a mad crawl for the ropes, clawing at the canvas in a wild bid to reach them.

[Underdoggo]

Kyo gritted his teeth. Against a lighter wrestler, he would have had no problem maintaining the stretch muffler, bending her into an almost perfect C-shape as he contorted her leg beyond its limits. The problem was, Valerie was anything but lighter: she had enough power to make him work to maintain the hold, pushing out with her leg even as she struggled to escape, shrieking in pain. It was taking a lot of effort to maintain the hold.

But maintain it he did, and judging from the way she was cryuing out. She was not saying those magic words of "I give" or tapping out, but it was clear that she was in a lot of pain. It was enough to prompt Kyo to torque her leg back further, to stretch on those tendons and calf muscles, to make her really feel the pressure in her leg and lower back.

But as before, Valerie was not simply taking this lying down. Painful inch by painful inch, she crawled towards the ropes. Around them, the crowd stomped and cheered her name, urging her to escape this brutal hold. "VALL-EY! VALL-EY! VALL-EY!" Kyo did not begrudge the fans their favouritism: Valerie's sheer resilience was nothing short of incredible.

And then, finally, Valley grabbed the lower rope. The crowd erupted into cheers the moment she did so.

Exhaling deeply, Kyo rolled off of Valerie. He would have to try something else. Valerie was not going to tap out: it was simple as that. Whatever it was that was driving her, it was allowing her to overcome mere pain. So he would have to batter her up for a pinfall instead.

Rolling back up to his feet, Kyo yanked on Valerie's arm, aiming to pull her up as well. Hoping that she was still to exhausted to fight back properly, he moved to drive her head between his thighs. For a brief moment, his legs squeezed on either side of her head, compressing her skull like a trapped walnut.

That was, before he would wrap his arms around her firm midsection and try to lift her upside down...before suddenly dropping down, aiming to piledrive her unceremoniously into the mat. If he pulled all of this off, then he would retain his grip around Valerie's waist, keeping her positioned upside down, his head balanced against the underside of one of her thighs as he tried to press her down for a pinfall!

"ONE..." the ref would begin...

[BlackAkuma]

Valerie had never much cared for the fans, one of the many differences between her and her mother when it came to wrestling logic. She wouldn’t say she hated them or anything, but it was no understatement to say that she was far less invested in pleasing them than the original Valley Doll had ever been. She didn’t have taunts that called on their help, she didn’t try to get chants going. At most, she might slap a few hands every now and then and flash a smile their way.

That didn't stop them from rallying around her, regardless, goading her along as she made a mad crawl towards the ropes. It was a hard trek, with her fighting for every inch along the way. Closer. Closer. Closer...

Got it.

Valerie allowed herself a deep gulp of air and a relaxed breath as she clung to the ropes, with Kyo breaking the hold soon after and letting her relax…for all of two seconds. She had scarcely gathered her breath when her head was shoved between his leg and held tight. A powerbomb? A pedigree?

Worse. Much worse.

By the time Valerie realized what was about to happen, her skull was already on a collision course with the canvas, as Kyo brought her up and spike her on the floor with a resonating crash, one that sent tremors up and down her spine. She flopped back to the mat as a lifeless heap, all too easy for Kyo to pin.

”2…!”

By the time Valerie regained some semblance of sense, it was already too late. Her limbs refused to cooperate, couldn't must anything beyond a twitch, resistance that Kyo likely wouldn’t even notice. No way to reverse things, and certainly no way to stop the count.

[Underdoggo]

And just like that, Kyo managed to bring Valerie crashing down to the mat. Head first, at that. Not a move he pulled off often, but he was glad that it had worked in this instance.

Keeping his grip around Valerie's waist to keep her upside-down, with her shoulders pressed down against the mat, Kyo held his breath and leaned against her slightly. It was only as he did this that he realized this resulted with his cheek pressed against the underside of Valerie's lycra-clad thigh. His face flushed red at this realization, but he maintained the pin. He had to. Damn it, he needed to win this fall...

"3!"

And with that the bell rang, signaling Kyo's first fall. With a short breath of relief, Kyo released Valley and rolled away. He could have continued his offensive then and there, attacked Valley while she was down, or pulled her up to set her up for another devastating series of moves.

Instead, I he stood up and took a step back, waiting for Valerie to do the same.

"Come on, Valley-san, get up," he breathed. "We're not done yet."

[BlackAkuma]

Three.

Three.

As the bell rang and Kyo got off her, Valerie took a moment to catch her breath on the mat and take stock of her situation. With anyone else, she might’ve been worried that they would hit her while she was down and try to score another pinfall, but she knew that he wouldn’t do that. He was good, he was honorable, and he wanted to do this the right way. She respected that.

But what bothered her, what ground her gears, was knowing that she’d just let her lead slip away. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, it was only one fall and she was still leading, but…

Push past it. Forget about it. She was still leading, she still had this match well in hand. No more screwups.

Valerie gave the mat a good smack when she heard Kyo’s voice and pushed her way back, nodding his way as she rose. ”’Valerie’.” She spoke with a deep sigh. ”Call me Valerie. Please.”

Valerie stood tall, rolled her shoulders, then stepped forward and slid into her grappling stance, eyes forward and locked on him with a razor focus. She stepped forward, but didn’t charge in just yet, wanting to gauge where Kyo’s head was at before she committed to anything.

Besides, she needed more time to recover.

[Underdoggo]

"Call me Valerie."

Kyo nodded silently. In this match, the two of them were intentionally forgetting any friendliness they had shown to one another, slipping into ring personas in order to better batter, brutalize and destroy each other in the ring. That, at least, was part of what Kyo had been doing, which was why he had been thinking of her as Valley Doll, not as Valerie. Whether she knew it or not, that request of hers was going to throw him off, psychologically.

He tried not to think of it as the blonde rose to her feet, circling him. He mirrored the circle, rather than charge straight in. He had scored a pinfall now: he wasn't going to maintain this momentum by being reckless and stupid.

Even so, he did seize the initiative, darting in to grapple with Valerie. Moving quickly, he darted under her arm, aiming to wrench it tightly behind her back, before sweeping with a boot to knock her legs out from under her. If all went according to plan then he'd take Valerie down to the mat, keeping one arm trapped as he sat against her butt to keep her down. Not flashy, but hopefully effective.

[BlackAkuma]

It was a minor thing and she knew it, but Valerie had never much cared for nicknames, especially that one. It was weird to go by the same nickname that her mother had, and originally, she hadn't even wanted to lean into the family too much. She’d only gone with the collar scheme and the title after her parents convinced her that people would just call her Valley Doll III anyway. She might as well roll with it.

That wasn’t what she wanted from her relationship with Kyo. That wasn’t how he would know her, and she was glad to see the nod. They understood each other.

She nodded back as the two of them squared up again, with Valerie taking her time as she made her way around the ring, not wanting to waste any energy needlessly. She was still a little loopy from that last fall, and she needed to recover - thankfully, she was still up on points. The onus was on him to bring the offense.

And that he did, moving in swiftly and swooping around behind her before she could grasp him. He snagged her arm in the process and whipped around behind her, catching her while he tried to knock her legs out, but she was able to get one foot up before he she went all the way down, dropping to a knee instead.

He had one arm locked down, but she had two perfectly good ones to work with, and she used the other reached behind her, trying to grab his head, jerk forward and pull him over her shoulders, throwing him forward and escaping the hold in a single motion.