Proof of Fang: Yuki Kazikura vs Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom

[Malkavia]

Well blow her down—Yuki smiled. The great orange bird can have some fun. It was like…what was the opposite of an eclipse? A dancing ember waltzing between you and the cold lodestone behind. Alas, Shimmer had not a tick to feel the warmth. The mat squeaked under the rubber of her boot, and a thorny pop of a wreck, face to iron arm, head to mat, was a pace away. Yuki’s arm levered into view. Shimmer’s gut hollowed, seized, not again—

—And she ducked. Whoosh. Horrible unmeasured force grazed the world just over Shimmerlace’s skull. The hairs on her nape stood taught like pins as every inch of her cringed. ”Fuck me though—” The race kept going, pumping on and she pivoted and slammed her backside against the ropes. Another streeeetch and creak from the cables, harder and deeper this time from launchpad stacked on launchpad and her sprinting into the wind. ”Fish brain on a pike…” Fuck but that would have hurt with a tailwind this blustery.

Though. That did spark a smidgin of an idea, a glow-behind-the-eye kind of fancy. As the ropes tossed Shimmerlace back into the fray, break-neck gallop and all, she thought…Well if it fuckin’ does it for her. She had scant time to think, but the image—Lariat to the bug-eyed face of the grand orange-ish sky-bird! Well, it glowed. Reflex took it from there, shoved her into full sprint towards Yuki, extended the arm, and aimed to bring this out of control tumble-stone to a conclusion!

[CaptainL]

Yuki's greatest asset in the ring was definitely her speed and her quick thinking. It had served her well many times before, and she was hoping to leverage that to her advantage now - as she bounced off the ropes and went flying back in the other direction, she drew back her arm, looking to use the same momentum with which she went hurtling toward Shimmerlace to throw a lariat. If all went according to plan, Shimmerlace wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. She'd have no chance but to take it full force!

But to Yuki's surprise, her arm swept out, and only cut through the air! At the last minute, Shimmer ducked out of the way, just barely slipping under the path of her strike. Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped in a gasp. For as quick on the draw as Yuki was, it seemed that, at least in this instance, Shimmer was faster. Clearly, the pink-haired girl was learning well, and adapting to her tactics. Or perhaps it was Yuki who was growing too predictable in her approach - that was something that crossed her mind and caused her to bite at the inside of her cheek in regret. No matter. She was still in motion; she was still moving ever onward. Now that she had passed Shimmerlace by, she was quickly closing in on the ropes. She would soon have the opportunity to turn the tides - and when she charged into the ropes, stretching them against her weight, she would just as quickly bounce back, hurtling back toward Shimmerlace for another confrontation.

As she closed in on her opponent, Yuki whipped herself back around, her dark hair swinging in an arc behind her. But it was there she was met with another sight that made her gasp. This time, it was Shimmerlace who had her arm raised to prepare for a lariat of her own! It seemed she truly was learning from Yuki's example; evidently, she'd seen how the joshi wrestler had relied on the move to draw on her momentum in order to hit harder, and now she was going to use it for her own purposes! For a moment, Yuki went tense at the thought of being subjected to her own tactics. But then, a thought came to her. She knew the lariat well - but she also knew how it could be countered.

Yuki would only have a split-second to react, but she couldn't waste a moment! Just as Shimmer came into range, Yuki stuck her hands out in front of her, looking to block the incoming blow. If she could do that, her fingers would clamp shut around Shimmerlace's arm, and she would give it a sharp yank to the side, attempting to pull her down with an arm drag!

[Malkavia]

She hit! She hit. Except—Yuki didn’t go down. No, because Shimmerlace hadn’t caught her by the nose, Yuki had caught her, by the arm, and she took the sprite’s momentum and gave it an arm-drag PULL perpendicular to where Shimmer had thought she was going.

”Ack!” Shimmerlace barked, surprised, hurt, as her body continued to hurtle forward while Yuki yanked it simultaneously to the side. The Seelie Scion bent like a ragdoll at her side, lost her footing, and slammed onto her back.

She bounced. The force she’d built up ripped her from Yuki’s grip, and she rolled mid-air, shoulder over shoulder, then hit the mat again, and then—

Crack. Her back slammed into, felt like it folded around the ringpost, which finally put a brick-wall stop to her run-away-freight tumble. ”F-f…ff…”

Shimmerlace went wide-eyed. She felt it in her spine, bone cracked against metal. That was the first, icy ache; next came the splintering up and down her back, her back clenching, protesting the violence done to its muscle.

”...Fffuuuck…” The Seelie Scion groaned and stuttered and shifted in a heap at the ring’s corner, splintered in the wreckage Yuki had made from their mutual sprint.

[CaptainL]

In a split second, it was over. Had Yuki been off by even an instant, she would have been taken down by the Feychild's lariat - but acting half on instinct and half on conscious thought, she had been able to reach out and intercept the blow at the last minute, not only blocking it but grabbing hold of Shimmer and whipping her around in an arc to hurl her into the turnbuckle! As she went tumbling aside, Yuki bent at the knees, leaning over forward and panting for breath. Her hands rest on her knees, and her hair was dangling over her face, droplets of sweat running off her bangs as she shook them out of the way of her eyes. Even though she'd come out on top in the end, that had come just a little too close for comfort - and she needed to catch her breath before she was ready to head back into the fray.

"You know," Yuki said in between pants, starting to push herself back up to her full height, "you're not bad. You're definitely keeping me on my toes..." For a Young Lioness, Shimmerlace had displayed a good grasp on the situation. She kept pace of the momentum of the match, she was watching her opponent for any wrong moves, and she was ready to capitalize on whatever advantage she got. She'd even picked up a few lessons from Yuki on the fly, showing that even now, in the heat of the moment, she was keeping an eye open to methods she could use to perfect her craft. If she had left Yuki this winded, she had to be doing something right.

But that also meant that Yuki couldn't go easy on her. She knew why she was here - that she had to put forth her best effort, in the name of living up to the challenge that had been set for her! She owed Shimmerlace the best she had at her disposal; she had made a promise. She wasn't going to go back on that - every moment of the match had to be one she was reaching for success!

Yuki's eyes narrowed in focus as she looked over at where Shimmer had landed. She was right up against the ring post - which meant that not only was she stunned, a blow firm enough to knock her back into the turnbuckles was going to hurt all the more. The dark-haired girl nodded to herself, already firmly assured of her next action. She took off running toward Shimmerlace, and when she came close, she dropped down to slide across the mat, ready to bury the sole of her boot into her stomach as she came into range!

[Malkavia]

Sweet frog-tooth on a floral plate—

The shock from slamming the post exploded through her back to the nerve-packed column of her backbone, where it blew a fuse in her already-strained central nervous system. Shimmerlace dipped into a fuzzy black nowhere, blinked, found herself drooling on the mat. Between the flying elbow drop on her tum and the post in her back, there was a red-hot ring wound around Shimmer’s center. It ached, especially when she moved.

Her ears, eyes, mouth…it was all fuzz. But the fuzz was sharpening, and when the nub of her brain touched the ink of reality again, the first thing she heard made her cheeks burn and her stomach drop. Something about Shimmer’s mixed-up pate pulled up an echo of another compliment. I’m impressed had said the Scarlet Marauder. Her stomach had done a little whirligig and quiet, happy shiver then, too.

Yooks ain’t half bad. The ‘nickname’ lifted from a long-ago promo slid to the top of the Feychild’s mind. It was a half-processed thought, coloured with half a dozen images. Yuki showing up for her promo, accepting the match. The Feychild didn’t have time to really dwell on her shifting feelings towards the Great Orange Skybeast, though, on account of said bird’s boots flattening her tum against the turnbuckle. Her eyes popped open at once. Spit flew. A tremor shook her body. She choked, hollered, groaned.

”...Nnng…”

If she were to earn that not bad, she’d need to figure out a path out of this corner quick. At just this moment, though, her body didn’t seem much of a mind to hear what Shimmerlace thought it needed to do, and her sluggish roll towards her knees gave Yuki a dangerous opening!

[CaptainL]

For Yuki, everything seemed to be falling into place. Every hit she landed on her opponent fell in sequence - first the arm drag, then the impact with the ring post, and now, as she took off running toward her foe before dropping down for a baseball slide, Yuki managed to bury the sole of her boot in Shimmer's midsection, causing her to double over as though the air was driven out of her. She could feel the soft surface of her opponent's stomach against her foot, the way that Shimmer sagged forward, and the weight that set into her body, driven into a daze. Yuki took a moment to catch her breath, recentering herself in time for her next move. She scooted back across the mat, dragging herself a short distance away on her hands. Shimmerlace wasn't bad - she'd definitely surprised her so far, and she was showing her potential. But now, it seemed, Yuki was in the lead. She wasn't going to let go of that so soon - if everything so far seemed to be working, she was going to keep up with that!

Sucking in a breath, Yuki pushed off the canvas with her hands and feet, bracing them against the mat to stabilize herself as she rose back to her full height. Then, with Shimmer slumped in the corner, she would bend down, looking to throw her arms around the girl's waist. There, she would begin to guide Shimmer up a little higher. If she could get a good grip on her, Yuki would stomp her foot down on the mat and throw herself back in an arc, setting up a sudden snap German suplex to hurl Shimmerlace over her head and shoulders! That would get her back in the center of the ring, where she'd be more vulnerable - not to mention it would deal some damage in the process, and show off how much Yuki had grown in her command of power moves since her training under Aoi Fukiwara had begun.

[Malkavia]

The Great Orange Skybeast.

Shimmerlace knew firsthand that if you watch enough matches involving Yuki Kazikura, you get to witness moments of breathtaking weightlessness—a flip from the rope, a corkscrew in the air, an overhead kick. The Kazikura Destroyer. Collections of her more fantastical flights of technical flash littered YouTube as a testament to the heights of spectacle wrestling could achieve.

Even while her brain teetered on murky slush, Shimmerlace braced herself for that kind of attack. She had her hips primed to roll, boots prepped to kick as soon as she saw a shadow overhead, heralding some stomp or kick from above. When, instead, arms wrapped around her waist, she was unprepared.

The Kazikura prodigy still felt small. Slender arms around a larger waist. If it had been what at first it felt like, a hug, and Shimmerlace embraced her back, she would have covered the much smaller girl with her bulk, like a blanket. But it was no such thing, and once Yuki found her powerstance and grounded herself, Shimmer’s back and thighs peeled off the mat and the world blurred into a wind-whipped speed that made her breath catch in her fey throat.

The snapshot at ninety degrees: Her hair, her skirt, her tassels and ribbons paint a cherryblossom arc over Yuki’s autumn fulcrum. The Feychild’s eyes bulge from her head, teeth bared in a snarl more of shock than fury. Her hands flail, like her feet, as some half-conscious part of her searches for a handle, a surface, anything she can use to control the arc of her motion. Wind tears at her face, cold against her hot, damp flesh. Her only contact with anything solid is the commanding and merciless shoulder of her opponent. Shimmerlace has become herself, in all the wrong ways, weightless in the sky.

The last image to flash through the Scion’s mind before her face hit the mat was of the Warrior’s Sacrifice. The crack in Yuki’s spine. Her scream. It was a deceptive hope: not only had Shimmer failed to offer anything like the challenge that had led to that crack, but, though that match had seared a mental painting of Yuki into Shimmer’s brain, the real Yuki had grown into someone even stronger.

The ropes trembled from the impact of Shimmer’s head against the mat. The reaction from the frontbowl echoed and shook and filled the stadium. The feychild herself would hear nothing but a high-pitched ring as her vision went white and her body slumped like a sandbag center-ring.

[CaptainL]

The fact that Shimmerlace was larger than Yuki didn't even seem to bother her. In fact, it didn't even cross her mind. Yuki was riding high on an adrenaline rush, one that was fueling her to take things a step beyond what should have been a struggle. She was encouraged by the successes she had won against Shimmer in the past, and in the heat of the moment, every move she made, every breath she took, seemed to flow effortlessly into the next, as though her body already knew the right movements to make and fell into each one with ease. First there was the looping of her arms around the pink-haired girl's waist, and the way in which she pulled her closer as the muscles in those arms flexed, squeezing her waist tighter. Then, the way she pushed up off the ground, kicking her hips and back into an arc to swing her opponent over her head. Her head swung back, the edges of her hair brushing ever so slightly against the surface of the mat. And she pulled Shimmer along after her, swinging her like a hammer! To Yuki, Shimmerlace might as well have weighed as little as a feather. She found strength in the fact that she was closing in on victory, and determined to make her mark. And that was all she needed!

Yuki could feel the rumble of the canvas beneath her feet as Shimmerlace's head and shoulders came down with a thud. She could hear the roar of the crowds all around her. She knew that she was on the cusp of a big moment - and her eyes narrowed into a glare; she was ready to carry things through! Yuki sucked in a breath, her muscles going stiff as she braced herself in place. Her heels dug into the canvas, and her hips pushed up just a little higher as she moved to force Shimmerlace back down. Without even letting go, she would bridge her back into position to guide her opponent into a pin. And, seeing that Shimmer's shoulders were down, the ref moved in for the count!

"ONE!!"

[Malkavia]

It was like sleep paralysis—she could hear, or at least had a facsimile of hearing. The high-pitched drone made it hard to grip the details, but she could make out the general shape of the crowd’s background roar, the thud of the ref’s hand on the mat, his bellow. ONE! Likewise, she could make out the blurred shapes of the ventilation on the ceiling overhead, the glaring lights, the reds and golds of the hanging banners, all framed between her thighs, even if a blurred filter in her vision scrubbed out the grain.

TWO!

Movement, though—that was another question. It was like tugging on puppet strings that were many yards too long. Yank all you want, but all you got was more slack wire while the marionette wobbled in its pile of confused limbs and fingers and noses. Was that her leg bone or her hip she felt wobbling amongst all that numb soup? The only thing she knew for sure was her butt was pointed straight up.

THREE! Her body went as still and lead-like as it felt, crushed on the mat.

A limp and curled wee bug was Shimmer. Big breath, except her throat felt tight, and forcing the breath made it shuddery and achey, which was very, very silly, given it was only one fall. That was the whole point, aye? Two chances to get the one pin you need to prove what she’d come to prove. So suck it up Tinkerbell.

Feeling had just about returned to Shimmer’s hands when Yuki released her and she finally rolled over, but her mind still kept flicking all over the place. You can’t stop me coming after you. Yup, that memory again. Came often enough these days, bidden or no, Shimmer expected it. Don’t have to. As she did Angie’s response. The Marauder knew how to knife you back, no matter what you did; she’s impressed, until she’s not, and they never are forever.

Boo hoo. She got on her hands and knees. Spat. Some small disconnected part of her mused that wrestling involved a hell of a lot more drool than Shimmer’d anticipated. Then she growled the only half-formed idea at the top of her mind: ”Again.”

[CaptainL]

There it was. The three-count came, and only then did Yuki let out a breath, her arms going slack as she let Shimmerlace drop down to the canvas. She dropped to her back in the process, but quickly righted herself on her knees, taking the time to catch her breath and dust herself off. After she brushed a few strands of hair out of her face, Yuki looked back down at her foe. She bit at her lip a little nervously when she saw the tension running through Shimmerlace - the way she spat at the ground as she rose, and the half-muffled grumble that escaped her lips. Shimmer had definitely given Yuki a worthy effort. She was still very visibly a rookie, yes, and she most certainly still had plenty she needed to learn, but so far, Yuki found herself pleasantly surprised with her efforts. The fact that she had managed to keep up this long against a more experienced opponent was itself something to be proud of. But Shimmerlace, it seemed, was a more stubborn sort. For her, it wasn't good enough to merely be good - she had to be perfect.

Yuki sucked in a breath, a shiver running down her spine as she reflected on this new side of her opponent. It could well spell disaster for Shimmerlace if she let this perfectionism rule her, and if she drove herself down darker and more self-destructive alleys in the pursuit of flawlessness. At the same time, it could also give her that much more motivation to stand up to Yuki and to put her in her place. The joshi wrestler had to remind herself that this match wasn't over yet. For all she knew, it was only getting started - she needed to stay on her toes.

Straightening herself to her feet, Yuki leaned forward and extended a hand to help Shimmerlace back up. "Need a hand?" she asked. It was up to Shimmerlace as to how she would take the offer.