Kaoru Yoshida vs. Spider Kikuchi - A Bad Start

Match Type: Standard
Victory Conditions: Pinfall, Submission, or KO.

***

Spider Kikuchi regretted precious few things she'd ever done. That wasn’t to say she was content with her lot in life. Far from it. Ever since her AFW debut, she’d been maligned and ignored by upper management, kept away from the opportunities and titles shots that someone with her skill rightly deserved. She was being held down, by the people above her and the people below, the insipid masses that preferred cutesy idol wrestlers to women with real skill and talent.

That was the line of thought that seemed to dominate Spider’s mind these days, and that was the line of thought that stayed with her as she made her way down to the ring now, heading towards another match that was far beneath someone of her stature.

She strode her way down the ramp as her music played, ignoring the crowds jeers, as usual. Mongrels. Idiots. Insects. They weren’t worthy of seeing someone like her in action, were entirely undeserving of her skills. They would cheer and champion whoever she was fighting against, hail her as a hero just for slaying the big, bad spider.

Only that wasn’t happening. Not today.

She rolled into the ring with a knowing smile, giggling to herself as she slinked her way for the corner. Spider leaned against the turnbuckle and crossed her arms, waiting for her theme to fade out and her opponent’s to begin. All she knew - all she needed to know - was that her foe was new to the AFW. A rookie. Fresh meat that Spider would delight in tearing apart.

No, no, no. Today wasn't a day for heroines and happy endings. It was a day for despair and shattered dreams. A day for her pick some poor, innocent thing apart and see what made her tick. A day to dine.

Which submissions to use? How many screams to pry? Ah, the tyranny of choice.

After the spider made her entrance, Kaoru made her debut appearance. Kaoru descended the ramp barefoot and in a white dougi. The raven haired fighter had a straight posture and an air of pride around her. It was in her measured pace, the icy focus of her blue eyes and the grim calm that seemed to hover around her. Despite it being her first match, the crowd's eyes fell on the raven haired Karate fighter. In truth, AFW had its fair share of wrestlers who donned a traditional Japanese Dougi but it didn't make it less rare.

Kaoru slipped into the ring but paid no attention to her opponent. The Karate fighter took her time bouncing from foot to foot before stretching out her legs. She even sat down and stretched out her back and spreading her legs. Leaning her torso side to side, she got to her feet once again. Kaoru rotated her arm in her shoulder socket, feeling it click into place. Tilting her head side to side before rolling her head between her shoulders.

Kaoru took a squarer stance before inhaling slowly. She let out a long exhale at the same time her eyes met her opponents. Kaoru said nothing and only stared betraying nothing. Instead, she tied her black belt around her waist with efficiency before tying it with a snap.

"Kaoru Yoshida, pleasure to meet you." Kaoru said in a stiff posture. "I hope we have a good fight. May the best fighter win."

Kaoru's words were almost milatary with how concise and practiced each word sounded.

"Osu!" Kaoru said before giving a forty five degree bow with her hands at her sides.

Spider knew she was in for a treat the second she saw what her opponent was wearing. No, it was no unheard of for an AFW wrestler to come out with a gi on, but it was rare, and it spoke well to the sort of person they were dealing with, here. That type of wrestler. The holier-than-thou type. The martial artist. The snooty outsider who thought she was going to come in and show all these wrestlers how a real fighter threw down.

Poor, poor little thing. She had no idea what she was coming towards.

Spider Kikuchi was not about to warn her, however. When Kaoru came into the ring, she only stepped forward, making her way to the center of the ring as her opponent. Just a little while longer. She could wait.

She stayed there, smirking, when Kaoru stepped over to face off with her. She couldn’t just shake hands, could she? No, of course not. She had to be professional about it, bowing to Spider like this was some sort of dojo. A silly move, one that she would learn better on in the future. Just not today. Today was where the lesson began.

”Oh, I intend to.” That simple answer was all Spider gave, before she stepped back, shot her leg up, and kicked Kaoru square in the face.

Kaoru exhaled through her nostrils, by the look on her opponent's face, she wasn't exactly friendly. It would have been nice to have another opponent but she supposed that was irrelevant. She hadn't come to AFW to make friends and neither did Spider.

As the Karate practioner bowed, she heard her opponent's reply with a nod.

"As you should-" Kaoru said as her arms flinched in recognition of an attack. The intent, the step back and the look in Spider's eyes was all she needed to predict her opponent's next moves. Yet, the match had not begun yet. Kaoru shut her eyes and took the kick full on, stealing herself. The kick tilted Kaoru's head back and the pain it caused was evident at the sound it made when it connected with her face. Kaoru wanted to retaliate but it wasn't just her in the ring, she was representing her dojo. She wouldn't let herself be brought down to her opponent's level of depravity. She looked at Spider not with anger but with pity.

"..."

Kaoru stood strong, took a breath and only gave her foe a steely gaze in reply. It wasn't until the bell rang that she snapped into motion like an elastic flung from a finger. She got into a stance, hands raised and feet slughtly wider than shoulder width apart.

"If you wanted a handicap, you could've just asked." Kaoru said with a sad smile.

Huh.

Spider was expecting all sort of reactions from that kick. For Kaoru to go down, screaming, flailing about in pain. Amusing, all of them.

That, none of that, was what happened. Instead, Kaoru managed to take the blow in stride, as if she’d somehow absorbed the impact through sheer will. Impressive. Impressive and irritating, if such a skill would be showing up more often in this match.

”Hm.” Spider canted her head to the side, a slight tilt, staring at her foe as the referee looked between them, confused. After a moment, she just shrugged and gave the signal for the bell, letting it ring a second later. The match was on.

”Well.” Spider didn’t engage right away, instead choosing to keep her distance, circling Kaoru with a lazy walk. Her face was calm and controlled, with a sly smirk, but her eyes were working on overtime. Analyzing her foe, keeping a lookout for any flaws to take advantage, openings to seize. ”Well, well, well. You’re an interesting little morsel, aren’t you? What hole in the ground did you crawl out of?”

"Okinawa." Kaoru said with pride, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips.

Kaoru's hands were brought up high in line with her eyes, forming into fists. With her weight balanced on the balls of her feet, she danced lightly on her ties and off her heels. She circled her opponent, her gaze was steel as she also saw her foe watching her with intent. She danced just out of range of both their attacks before she made her move.

Without warning, the Karate girl moved into striking range of her fists. With a battle cry, she threw a feint with her left hand at her opponent's face before drawing right hand back and lowering her hips. She would follow up her feint with a reverse punch to her opponent's solar plexus with her dominant hand, stepping into the punch to impart some extra force to pay her foe back for that earlier cheap shot.

Spider wasn't expecting an answer, frankly, but what she got made her smirk turn into a full blown grin. ”Okinawa?” She spoke with a tone that almost implied she really cared. ”You’re a long way from home, aren’t you? Moving into the big city. Don’t you think-”

Spider’s taunt would, unfortunately, have to wait as her opponent seemed into on pressing into things right away, coming towards in a furious hurry. She danced back, moving away in time to avoid the first strike, light on her feet, mobile and nimble.

That wasn’t enough to avoid the follow up, however, a blow that came low and struck deep in Spider’s core. That blow forced spittle to fly from her mouth as the wind was knocked clean out of her, nearly bending her in two.

Spider squawked and went stumbling away as she grasped her stomach, retreating to the corner for the moment. Just needed to catch her breath, that was all. Lucky shot.

"Something like that..." Kaoru replied with a grin as she delivered the body blow.

After delivering the blow to her opponent's abdomen, Kaoru did not hesitate to go on the offensive. She saw her opponent stumble back to her corner, clutching her stomach. Kaoru took a step forward to pursue and turned on the ball of her foot. With her back turned, she looked over her shoulder as she attempted to deliver a straight back kick to Spider's chest.

"Soriyahh!" She let out a Kiai as she tried to use her heel like a battering ram just above her opponent's breasts.

Coughing, gritting of teeth, wincing. All that and more was going on with Spider’s body as she reeled from the blow and tried to regain her foot after one of the poorest starts of her career. The corner was never a good place to be, but so early in a match? Unwanted and unwise. This particular fly had quite a bit of fight in her.

Not that Spider minded a good fight. It just meant she would have to work for her food. That, she could deal with.

She lifted her head up just in time to see Kaoru’s bare foot coming her way, threatening to take her off with one swift, forceful kick, and she was just barely able to duck and roll forward, avoiding what could’ve been a crippling blow. That was all she had the time for, though. The dodge brought her to the center of the ring, where she rose fast and brought her arms up as she swung around, expecting another attack to already be heading her way.

Before Kaoru's kick could connect, Spider had managed to scuttle away before it could connect. Instead, Kaoru's foot connected with the turnbuckle creating a slight tremor in the ropes around the ring. Kaoru turned to see Spider scramble to her feet.

The Karate fighter walked forward as her opponent indtinctively covered up expecting a blow. Instead, Kaoru grabbed Spider by the wrist before trying to hook her other arm underneath Spider's before turning in towards her. With an exhalation of air, Kaoru would try and throw her opponent over her shoulder with a traditional Japanese shoulder throw, Ippon Seoi Nage.

"IPPON!"