The Duel (For Teenwrestler)

[Underdoggo]

The bokken smacked together again as Homura spun, moving with a balletic, stormy grace as she brought her weapon up to block Kyo's strike. For a moment, their blades were deadlocked; past the grinding of the two bokken, Kyo saw Homura smirking. She was enjoying this. No, he realized, not the fight: she was enjoying an opportunity to assert her dominance. Past her earlier self-righteous declarations, Homura was showing exactly who she was now.

And then Homura broke off...and in a movement so fast Kyo almost couldn't follow, jabbed her bokken right into Kyo's abdomen. The blow doubled him over, and he immediately took several steps back, keeping his bokken in a guard position; his breathing was a little more laboured now, and his grip on the bokken felt a little less firm than it had been a few seconds ago.

Past the icy resolve of his focus, Kyo was feeling something he didn't often allow himself to feel: panic. What the hell was happening? How was this woman so damned good? Kyo had been practicing kendo since he was five, but Homura was almost effortlessly showing him up in this duel...

[Teenwrestler]

There was certainly an aura behind Homura. Nobody really knew how she got into the big leagues of LAW despite having no confirmed background in wrestling. She was not hyped when she came, didn't have any particular references or migrated from another organization. No, she took out Belinda's original challenger in the Apex Tournament and came out to defeat the blonde. That was the point when people really started to recognize her and know her worth. It was on to the next high profile victim and the look on Kyo's face could tell everything. She could sense his fear, his panic and most importantly the disbelief of being out-classed by someone who had no pedigree when compared with himself.

After blocking the strike, she struck low and hard- driving the handle of the bokken against his abdomen causing him to double over. Before he could react, she would hit another sharp strike aimed at his back as harshly as she could before he would take a few several steps back to recover. His guard was broken and he seemed winded out already. Homura would smirk as she would lean back a bit, placing the bokken in front of her as she held the handle with both hands and planted the foot of the bokken against the floor.

"Is that all? I'm disappointed. I knew you were weak but *scoffs* I had no idea....." she mocked before raising her bokken again, looking to dash in like a ninja and attempt a wild swing strike aimed at his ribs.

[Underdoggo]

Homura was moving again. Kyo reacted, bringing his bokken up to blow-- a fraction of a second too slow. The edge of her bokken slammed against his ribs again; this time he gagged from the blow, and staggered back, nearly sinking to a knee as he was left breathing hard.

Kyo was on edge now; Homura was showing herself to be a superb duelist. He had no idea where she had trained, or how long she had been training, but she was showing all the signs of an expert: her easy confidence and arrogant swagger belied an almost perfect posture and poise she had seemingly been deliberately hiding until now. For the first time in this match, Kyo was getting the strong sense that he was outmatched.

The common sense part of him wanted him to yield. But he had been training under his mom since he was a boy. His mom, Juno Akamatsu, a world-class kendo champion in her own right. He would not sully her memory by yielding the moment things got tough, nor would he allow himself to be beaten by this cruel newcomer. Homura's scoffing merely strengthened Kyo's resolve.

Homura came in, launching a wild swing at Kyo's ribs. He responded by bringing his bokken up, trying to drive Homura's blade sideways before stepping behind her, turning to swing his own bokken down on Homura's shoulder...

[Teenwrestler]

The advantage was with Homura, she had stricken him a couple of times now already with Kyo unable to land even a single blow. The strike to his back almost left him down on knee but the heir to Akamatsu wrestling legacy had some wits about him and managed to stay up. Of course, that wouldn't last too long because once more the bluenette lunged in with lighting speed and aimed to send a wild swing at his ribs to really put the pain on him. To her surprise and to his credit, he managed to bring his guard up and block the attack.

Homura raised an eyebrow and showed just a hint of excitement when her lips curled into a smirk. Kyo then swing behind her, and as soon as he did, Homura would bring bend forward to hunch herself forward while bringing her stick up over her head and behind the back of her head to once again block the attack as if she was a master samurai. She chuckled before using some nimble footwork to spin in a semi circle and turn around, facing her male adversary.

Chuckling villainously, she brought her bokken up making the top part of the stuck point towards him. "Well well, it seems your mother taught you something after all. Too bad you will leave here as a disappointment to her and everything she did for this sport" she mocked him, knowing full well enraging him would only make him an easier target in such a combat sport where one had to be calm and composed.

[Underdoggo]

The dodge Kyo managed to make was not exactly his preferred method of fighting, but it was still a counter he had practiced hundreds of times, Down his bokken came, descending in a deliberate arc meant to rap Homura firmly on the shoulder. Not enough to dislocate her shoulder, but enough to score a point, and more importantly, enough to jar her arm and slow down her striking ability.

Or at least, it would have, if it had connected. Instead, to Kyo's surprised, Homura, showing incredible reflexes, brought her blade up around to block the blow, before spinning around to face Kyo again. For a moment, the two were staring one another down once more; footwork slow, breathing measured; Kyo had finally managed to regulate his breathing again after taking two blows to the chest like that. He felt his calm, his discipline and his focus slowly come to the fore again.

That was, until Homura brought his mom into this.

Despite himself, Kyo felt his grip on his bokken tighten. He did not rise to her taunting, but he felt his breathing quicken. Everything he had done relating to kendo, he did to honour his mother. He still remembered, in his early teens, having to sit by her hospital bed and watch her slowly waste away...

Wordlessly, he launched himself at Homura, feinting low and then spinning his blade up and around for a furious side swing aimed at Homura's elbow...

[Teenwrestler]

This battle required more than just strength and skill to win. The art of Kendo required you to have a level head, have control over your emotions and most importantly discipline. Homura already made it known to Kyo that he lacked discipline, that he was weak and now all that she needed to do was enrage him so that he was no longer in control of his own emotions which would ultimately make him sloppy. Perhaps she did not even need to do that, because she was already doing a pretty good job schooling him in this fight. But no, she wanted to! Because her plan was to break him physically and mentally.

He was already shocked to see how well she was attacking and defending, even with her back turned to him, she managed to cross guard block his attack to her shoulder. After eventually spinning around to face him, she tried to verbally attack him where she knew it would hurt the most. However, despite her taunts, Kyo remained silent. There was a slight change in his expression which signaled to her that he was pissed off that she brought his mother into it but she was impressed that he managed to still have a good grip on his anger.

He then lunged and went for a furious swing at her elbow, which connected. Homura grimaced in pain while staggering back, clearly hurt by that strike. After a few seconds of trying to suppress the pain that she felt against her elbow, she would look up and smirk at him. "So, it took involving your mother into this for you to actually try huh? Sadly, it won't be enough Kyo" she said before lunging at him, doing a 360 spin and then going for a swinging strike aimed at his right shoulder and then another swing at his left forearm in an effort to try and disarm him from his grip of the bokken.

[Underdoggo]

There. Kyo finally managed to connect with a blow against her elbow. Not a huge blow, but one that would hopefully help the longer this duel went on: the more Homura exerted herself, the more that elbow would bother her. That was Kyo's plan, at any rate: small, precise strikes to slow Homura down, to slowly hamper her ability to fight effectively. Although, he noted, Homura was already slightly ahead of him in that regard: his chest was still sore from those earlier strikes, and his breathing was a little more laboured than before.

And then Homura was moving again, spinning in an elegant arc that sent her bokken flashing around, her hair twirling gracefully as she spin. Kyo brought his bokken up in time to block a blow to his shoulder: he only narrowly managed to block another swing to his forearm that surely would have disarmed him. Homura's sheer speed and precision were a struggle to keep up with: the longer this fight went on, the longer he would be on the defensive. Kyo needed to end this.

He did a spin of his own, launching one, two rapid strikes at Homura's arms that would force her to parry. This was all to keep her attention upward; at the third strike he would swing upwards, aiming to bring his bokken mere inches from the side of Homura's head: if this had been a real match and they had both been wearing head gear, Kyo would have had no qualms with smacking the side of her head. As it was, he would just leave his bokken hovering there, as an unspoken checkmate.

It was all or nothing with this strike, he knew...

[Teenwrestler]

After showing a significant amount of dominance in her performance against Kyo so far, she finally faltered and the male fighter finally managed to land a blow. His stick hit her against the elbow causing her to wince in pain, showing a hint of the pain through her facial expressions. Enraged by him even daring to strike her once, she went in for the kill. Spinning around gracefully, she went for a heavy strike from above to his shoulder which he expertly blocked. Not finished yet, Homura would then go for another strike to his forearm but once again he managed to block it. Homura clicked her tongue in frustration, not sure where this persistence was coming from!

It was Kyo's turn to spin as he launched two strikes of his own which Homura managed to parry and deflect but he was counting on her to make those blocks for his real plan was to keep her distracted, have her guard up on the wrong place only for him to bring his third strike upwards and to the side of her head, dealing a checkmate to her. Homura's eyes went wide and she stood there stunned. For a moment, she said or did nothing apart from tightening the grip on her bokken which she had brought down to her side.

"......." she looked him dead in the eye with that look of horror and shock before suddenly smirking. "Your hesitation is your weakness and your ultimate downfall" she would say. Knowing that his guard would not be up anymore, now that his bokken was next to her side, she would use that to jab the top end of her bokken as hard as she could against his abdomen!

[Underdoggo]

A collective gasp came over the dojo as Kyo's bokken hovered mere inches from Homura's head. He saw Homura's eyes widen disbelieving shock, going as still as a statue save for the whitening of her knuckles around the hilt of her bokken. The onlookers in the dojo were just as surprised: given how much Kyo had been on the ropes, it didn't seem possible for him to come back as effectively as he had. The fact that he had, though, was impressive in and of itself, and soon one person started clapping, and then another, as the whole dojo began to applaud Kyo's well-earned comeback.

That was, until Homura smirked.

And then, a second later, the edge of her bokken slammed in against Kyo's abdomen.

"GUAAGH!" Spittle flew from Kyo's mouth as he doubled over, collapsing onto his knees. Everyone around them gasped in shock at Homura's unexpected attack, and none seem more surprised than Kyo as he wrapped both arms around his midsection, dry heaving breath.

"That...was...cheap...shot..." he could be heard to wheeze between breaths.

[Teenwrestler]

People were left stunned in silence when Kyo seemed to get the upper hand on his opponent, after being on the back foot for so long. He got Homura in a check-mate situation, letting her know that he had won this fight and the only reason why he had not struck her down was due to the lack of protective head gear. For a second, Homura had the look of disbelief in her expression too. However, that did not last too long and soon she grinned maliciously at his face. Then suddenly, her bokken struck him hard in the abs and Kyo fall down on his knees. The small crowd were left shocked, gasping in surprise at this turn of events.

Kyo's bokken fell to the ground as he wrapped his arms around his mid-section, protecting himself. Homura would raise her bokken up over her head with both of her hands gripped on the handle before bringing it down, once, twice and three times across his back to brutalize him. "Cheap shot? I don't recall setting any rules apart from disarming your opponent- which apparently is the fate you have suffered already" she said, looking down at his bokken and then kicking it away.

Homura would then place the base of her bokken down on Kyo's hands, pinning it to the floor while she stood tall over him. "Pathetic. Your idea of honor is misguided Akamatsu. I do whatever it takes in order to win, and if you want to find out more....." she said with a grin before unleashing a harsh kick aimed at his ribs to send him rolling away from her and force him down on his back. With that, Homura would approach him once more and press her foot on his chest and his bokken pressed lightly against his throat.

"Then I challenge you to a wrestling match....." she said.