Industrial rock begins throbbing from the speakers as the massive screens come alive, first with a pair of felid eyes of a vivid green. Then shimmering, slashy text materializes surrounding them, reading:
KATSUMI
OSHIRO
Spotlights converge at the entrance ramp, and without missing another beat, the Punk Princess herself emerges to the uproarious reception of the audience. Some cheer wildly. Some shower her in scorn. Whichever direction their heart tilts, it leans heavily. Through nearly thirty matches in LAW, Katsumi has become a polarizing figure, complicated and challenging to fit into an easy box. Vicious, even cruel in the ring, yet there's a puckish mirth behind it, something more human than savage. She's good to her fans, even detractors, engaging with them more playfully than mockingly, and even some candid reports of her being significantly more personable towards opponents she'd otherwise humiliated or hurt.
There's more to the punkette than the sharp edges on the surface. For some, that's fascinating. For others, it's tertiary. And for a few, it's even endearing. But they all know what to expect of her when she makes an appearance, and that inspires these wild waves of reception - for approval, or disapproval.
Wearing her wrestling gear consisting of chic black and gold, much of her body is left bared as if at the ready to grapple even now; garters snug around her thighs, boots strapped and laced, trunks hugging her narrow hips, her slender waist fully bared, studded bralet clinging to the modest curvature of her bust. The addition to the ensemble, aside her typical accessories, is a cropped leather jacket.
She sustains her confident power stance under the waves of sound battering against her comparatively tiny body, uptilting her pixie features and shutting her eyes in a display of aloof ego. And then she begins walking - strutting, really - down the ramp, her hips set in easy sashay with each step. Arms are raised, palms outturned to either side of the audience as they yell and scream at her, simultaneously acknowledging and dismissing them.
She doesn't immediately enter the ring upon reaching it, but rather diverts around to the commentator's table. She snatches up a microphone, and when a commentator starts to protest, she simply snaps her fingers at him and points. Apparently that's enough warning to back off, because that's precisely what he does, offering a cartoonishly exaggerated shrug to his contemporaries before fishing out a spare for himself.
Katsumi rolls beneath the bottom rope and smoothly lifts to her feet again, walking a lap around the ring's perimeter and nodding along to the mixed noise of the crowd, hitting her like a pulse with each new quadrant she faces. And finally, she stops at the center of the ring and her music cuts off. The microphone is raised...
"It's!"
"About!"
"TIME!"
Some audience members get it. Some don't. The noisy response from the audience is a static blur anyway. She pauses to let it die down again before continuing, pacing as she speaks.
"When I first joined this federation, I came in with a promise! Not just to the roster, but to each and every one of you! That I, Katsumi Oshiro, was gonna establish the new real in this company! This company, that's been overrun with egotistical prostitutes and bitches who got lost on their way to softball, or frilly idol sing-alongs, or whatever the Hell goofy crap would have them!"
"Because this," Katsumi says with a hard stomp of her left heel against the mat, "is a wrestling ring! It's a modern gladiatorial pit in an urban jungle, where only the strong survive - and baby, I'm an apex-fucking-predator. And I was born hungry."
"So exCUSE me if I get a little out of pocket when some bimbo, some ten-yen hooker, some worthless social media clout-chaser - you know, most of LAW's people - step between these ropes, because there's no glory in beating a flouncy-freaking-nobody!"
The response to that one is severe. Cheers, boos, a mixture of hate and support; the titillation offered by a fair swath of the roster is one of the major draws to LAW, after all. But there are those not in small supply who crave the action and competition between two solidly skilled opponents, something not necessarily mutually exclusive, but so often sacrificed for the fappening.
"Listen, people," Katsumi continues, strolling to one corner of the ring. "Can we get a little honest up in here?" She paces to the adjacent corner. "Can we get a little uncomfortable?" To the third corner. "Is that alright? Do I have your blessing~?," she asks with an innocent moue.
Returning to the center, she continues, "Because I don't care if what I'm saying gets in the way of Polly Pissy-Pants's Pantaloon Party or whatever the Hell! I came here for just two reasons! One!" A finger raised. "To do what I was born to do and tear apart anyone they put in this ring with me! And two!" The second finger joins. "To prove I'm the best in the business, and not about to settle for anything less!"
"And when I was brought into this company, it was with a promise that I was gonna get the shot I deserve. The shot I earn. Because where I came from, they couldn't handle me! I popped every damn monocle in the prefecture! But here, here I was told I could be the monster I was born to be! And y'know what!?"
Katsumi throws her free arm wide to the side. "We're livin' in the now, baby!"
"I've fought through everything that's been thrown at me, I dealt with Sienna Smith trying to get me out of the wrestling business permanently, I've faced down every challenge, and now your girl's taken her first victory at the We Are Law PPV! And I'm here to tell you, if you didn't believe me before, y'better wake the Hell up! This is happening! It's real! And this train ain't stoppin' 'til I've got the gold!"
"So you can get on board?"
She pauses, letting the wave of noise from the audience wash over the ring for a few pregnant seconds.
"Or you can be a bitch about it."
