Keeping the edge

[ThatPolishDude]

Going to her right was not the best move for a southpaw as it slightly opened his left for hooks and could make space for crosses to come right through the front depending on his guard. Not that most ortodoxes would even know so it wasn't really a mistake. Then came the liver shot which Huan blocked by bringing her elbow down. She was moving faster than she did in her spars before.

Then to keep Senji from getting too close as he tried before with Geun, she threw a left hook and the right cross follows by a jab, the last was just for checking distance as against a southpaw, jabs from the left were next to useless. Then she fired off a low kick from her left leg, aiming for the outside of his right thigh, where the peroneal nerve was, just as Geun planned before. A kick from her left would seem like something less than ideal, the force would be obviously smaller but it came surprisingly hard and fast. In fact, all her strikes were unbelievably quick and surgically precise while still maintaining proper control of force to not hurt her student.

[TheLoneWanderer]

Given previous experience not limited to a nasty foot to the stomach, he noted she'd stepped it up a notch. Good, she was trying. Still, he felt she was pulling her punches. Senji tended to do that too and ramped up as his opponent did to keep up with them. Then the assault came, fast with minimal mercy. Left hook? Take it with the right arm which was outstretched. The right cross and jab came within seconds of each other, and she'd managed to make him back up after the jab despite Senji having compressed his elbow inward for the cross to drive against it instead of his jaw or face. His gaze swept across Huan, setting on her legs when he saw the tell of her getting ready to kick into his thigh. Given such a move, Senji was a hair too slow to avoid it digging into his thigh. The nerve getting hit made Senji's right thigh numb from his point of view, and promoted a small exhale from pain.

"Keep-ing your hits controlled. I see."

To try to catch Huan before her leg could retract, he ducked low and went to turn into her as to where the right side of his body was close to her chest. Senji's left arm was brought downward to scoop her left leg by curling underneath the back of it in order to lift it. To complete the transition, Senji tried to grasp her right arm and then pull it over the back of his head in a similar movement to wrestling's Fireman's Carry. Therefore, perhaps Huan would end up drapped along his back. She wasn't so heavy as to where he couldn't withstand her weight, but Senji dropped to a knee before pulling her along the length of his trapezius so Huan ended up on her back. He recognized a flaw with this, however. If she was familiar, she could lock him in a crucifix. A position Senji hadn't seen too often. To rectify this, Senji finally tried to finish his chain by pulling his left arm out from between her legs.

[ThatPolishDude]

Huan saw Senji go for her leg but given where it was and her own speed she would manage to get it back before he could grab it. Normally she would linger a little in the spar, letting the other person get their moves in as well but now she wanted to see how Senji would react when someone didn't play his game.

With her position reestablished and Senji in a somewhat compromised position, she would capitalize on it by going for a knee strike to his head. It was hellishly fast but she pulled it at the end, knowing what a combination of the opponent moving down and the knee coming up could do and wanting to avoid that. Then as quickly as she came in she would back out to avoid another attempt at a takedown.

[TheLoneWanderer]

So that's it. She wasn't going to bite easily. Senji retracted his limbs as they caught empty air. Therefore, he was more naturally prepared to guard the incoming knee strike. If he didn't guard it, it was probable he'd get a damaged nose and bleed from it should she also not pull it. The blunt edge struck against Senji's forearms which he kept in front of himself, leaving a persisting sting. His left arm snapped out as Senji continued to persist while trying to catch Huan by the shoulder so he could pull her back close.

Figuratively, a single shell was loaded into the magazine tube. The pump was pushed forward to chamber a filled cartridge. Therefore, a finger grazed the trigger ready to fire. The hammer set into motion the firing pin, striking the back of the shell to send the slug flaring out the barrel.

In reality, after he'd hopefully caught Huan by her right shoulder, his two fingers on the right hand lined over her heart before they curled into a straight fist and exploded forward with minimal contractions to bury itself into the chest. The One-Inch Punch. A knockout blow delivered from about an inch away. The younger Takijima took a lot, years now, of practice to get it as close as he could to how Bruce Lee pulled it off with such speed and power. As fortune would have, Senji had finally found a way to implement it in this current fight. Geun and Haru wouldn't have seen him perform this before, and he'd in fact learned it, before events years later scarred him, from the very man he had a lonely battle with in a cold expanse of snow. Now he aimed to use it to damage Huan severely....

[ThatPolishDude]

Huan's retreat backward made it so the distance between them was to far fo Senji to grab her and seeing where the attempt was leaning she quickly batted away his hand before it could get in position. She certainly did not expect that in a friendly spar and something in her got a bit irritated by that. If it wasn't for her on the defense here it could have ended badly.

With that limitation in mind, she sent a lightning-quick sidekick to Senji's abs, this time with all her bone-crunching force., where she aimed it would hurt like a bitch but was highly unlikely to damage him but she felt a bit of a reminder of what had its place in the sparing and what did not was needed.

[TheLoneWanderer]

The Dragon's breath or One-Inch Punch missed. Or more accurately, was jammed before it could soar. Senji pursed his lips. She'd seen a special move of his. That complicated future encounters if he chose to use it again. He lurched forward to continue the pressure on but was met with her foot twisting into his abs, piercing past the rash guard and felt down past the dermis. Senji hunched over by reflex, going to push her calve to the right, hard so she couldn't simply readjust, with his left hand as he stayed bent over. Fair enough.

["Was I about to increase the pressure too much? So Huan dislikes that...this feels more painful compared to her earlier hits. I know she's pulling her strikes so she doesn't hurt me as much."]

His right arm went to hook underneath her calf and try to drag the older woman forward and pulling on her leg. The intention was to have taken advantage of her being on one leg during the deeply piercing kick. If that was done, Senji continued pulling as to try and force her forward and knock her off balance. If she fell, then she'd probably be placed in an unorthodox position. That being, coerced into performing a haphazard split. Trying to get behind her, he chained with with an attempted RNC as he knelt behind her; his legs weren't able to get hooks in. His right arm went to thread around the front of her neck as the fingers attached to his left arm's bicep. He pushed his left hand behind Huan's scalp in a gamble to clinch a tighter chokehold while she was spread out. Incidentally, Senji had thought of this as a slight variation of what him and Hiroyuki generally used to counter knees or kicks.

The split, if such a thing happened, resulted through the extension of Huan's kick as opposed to something like a natural roundhouse or clinch into knees usually transitioning into a Double or Single Leg Takedown!

[ThatPolishDude]

As her log was caught a single thought came through Huan's head "Wrong move". Not that it was wrong overall, on a contrary, it would work against most people but with her, it took just registering it to start the counter. Admittedly it too wasn't something that should happen in sparring but she was still coming of her irritation and all she could do once she started was to pull her attack, for as much good as it could do given what it was.

With her leg held by Senji, she immediately started to turn and launched herself in the air, bringing the leg she used to launch off of up to kick back against the side of Senji's jaw. Then as she landed and turned away from him she brought her chin down, it wasn't likely that Senji would stay on his feet, let alone be on the offensive after that but she still wanted to guard against any chokes. Then she turned quickly around with a spinning backhand to cover her movement and step back.

At the same time when Geun saw what was about to happen, she instinctively winced in pain, recalling being on the receiving end of that kick, granted her experience unlike Senji's was with that strike at its full force but sufficed to say it was the only strike of that fight as Geun lost a few seconds of her memory which included her landing on the mat like a sack of potatoes. Then after the whole ordeal was done she whistled not even looking at the aftermath. "Stop, you need to chill!"

[TheLoneWanderer]

["What-?"]

This instant after his single thought was where Senji experienced a temporary loss of memory. The foot had torn through the air at his jaw to reach it. Such a move staggered him immensely as opposed to how he'd been defending Huan's hits before now. The leg slammed into him with a high amount of force, causing him to let go of her leg due to the imminent weakness. The impact did not break his skull, although it rattled his mind against its inside due to the space between the skull and grey matter inside it. As a result, Senji blacked out for a second.

Senji awoke before he hit the ground, sticking his arms out to catch himself. The hard hit ended up saving him from Huan's second hit which had taken the form of a backfist. He took a few moments to remember where he was, his gaze moving across to see Huan and Geun saying something he couldn't hear currently. In the moments after, his vision cleared which allowed Senji to notice that he'd managed to change direction somehow. There'd been a kick incoming, right? Must've knocked him out momentarily and the rush of the fall woke him. His durability helped stifle the blow too even if he ended up on his knees.

His innate inclination towards fighting drove him forward as his body wasn't incapable yet. She appeared to be guarding high so...

Senji sprung from the ground after turning back towards Huan following her backfist. Too many Leg Takedowns would be predictable and lead into a counter on her end. However, Senji aimed to tackle into her stomach instead and topple the woman over that way. If he got Huan on her back, then he'd begin driving punches towards Huan's guard after raising himself back up in a similar fashion to Geun's ground and pound, without the elbows, to overwhelm Huan after his delayed recovery from the blazing fast counter kick that prevented him from even doing this tackle as fast he could without being struck. He refrained from fighting lethally so these would only be to make sure she couldn't simply ignore them.

[ThatPolishDude]

Huan turned her head to Geun, making the tackle catch her by surprise, her friend was of course right and she wanted to deescalate it now as well but it seemed as though Senji must have missed that part of the conversation. Regardless Being mounted was no surprise after the tackle and so Huan got her guard up in time, defending from the strikes. "Fuuuuuck..." Geun exclaimed in frustration as she got onto the mat.

Meanwhile Huan was already in the works of getting out of their engagement. After taking another strike on her guard she would snake her arm under Senji's armpit and behind his neck to pull while the other hand grabbed his wrist and pulled it across her body, getting him close and twisting his frame, then her foot went over his leg and to the outside, her other leg posted wide as she bucked and rolled before backing out.

Just then, Geun reached them. "Did I fucking stutter?!?" She said clearly angry to which Huan replied. "Chill, he must have blacked out for that." "I should chill, did you see what you two were doing? For me of all people to be..." "And you are right, it went too far, wanted that sidekick to be a pause, then it flew, you know how it is." Huan said to which Geun just let out a discontented huff before her friend turned back to Senji. "Sorry for that. Now come closer, I need to see your eyes. Feeling dizzy or nauseous?" She said and if Senji did as she told him Huan would then look at his eyes, checking for any asymmetry in how the pupils dilated as it could suggest a concussion.

[TheLoneWanderer]

Keep walking. He had to keep walking on this torturous march. Senji pounded at the guard, making progress until she snaked an arm around his arm and neck to pull him closer before performing a escape to get out from underneath him. Turning to face her, Senji slowed to a halt at the command. His pained, irritated expression softened as he planted his hands on the ground to help push himself back up. Senji's lips curled downward into a curious frown at the argument between the two. Listening to Huan and Geun, Senji had the gaps in his memory filled. Senji rooted himself in place, looking from one to the other. The shorter and the taller one. It looked to be getting a bit heated but luckily Huan turned his attention to Senji before she went to walk up to him as he stared at her singular eye.

A question came his way which he took care to think about before answering. The snap of his head must've dispersed the shock, similarly to how he was forced to deal with Bast. He brought his left hand up to his jaw, caressing the bottom part of his head in order to massage it. Senji looked just a little bit upward at Huan as requested though he appeared to not be in need of a shoulder.

"When I woke up, I saw multiple images but it faded after a few seconds. A concussion would be worse."

To show there were no hard feelings, Senji reluctantly raised his arm to pat Huan on her left shoulder. If she had no further inhibitions about his decent condition with a lack of being concussed, Senji let himself falter and lay down on the floor before letting out a lonnnnnnngggggg breath. He was of an acceptable health just resting for a moment. He kept his arms spread out on the mat, fully outstretched while laying there barring his aching jaw and uneasy body.

"You can take a minute while I'm dying here, Huan. Come when you're ready, Geun. We can start again if you two want."

He personally didn't care if she wanted to mount him first and start from there, similar to specific training, or take a ready position a short distance away until he finished readying himself as opposed to jumping straight into the next round. Looked like the kick wouldn't be cutting things completely short though.