Yae Mochizuki vs. Kozue Kaburagi - Twin Shadows

Gaaaaah, fuck, she got her. Kozue had only herself to blame, too - Benikage had trained her for that kind of thing, it hadn’t been something the woman slouched on. It was just not something she ever expected to see in the middle of a ring, but that fault was all on her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d been prepared for this, but all the training in the world wouldn’t matter if she didn’t properly apply.

The price for inattention was the pain going through her spine, a fiery burst that she had to endure, even as she pushed her way up. Yae was good, real good, striking for the shadows and making every hit count. That blow wasn’t enough to leave her ground for the whole match, but she would be feeling it for days.

Fight past the pain, deal with it. If she didn’t lock onto Yae quick, there would be much more where that came from.

She spun around just in time to see her opponent come her way, leap up, and plant a foot on her back for what she thought was an attempt at a curbstomp. Turned out not to be the case - no, Yae was using her as a boost, leaping off and going high. Spinning, whirling, her body whipping around in a full circle. In less than a second, that foot was going to come down on her skull. No time to dodge. Blocking a strike with that much force? Nope. But maaaaaaaaaaybe…

As Yae flipped through the air, Kozue planted her feet hard and leaped straight, coming at the whirling warrior with open arms. She wrapped them around her foe’s waist just as she was coming along for the halfway point of her rotation, holding that - admittedly hot - butt against her chest and using her jump’s force to cancel out the momentum.

With the two of like this, there was only one way to go. ”Down!”

Kozue fell with Yae in toe, dragging them back to the canvas and slamming against it with a powerbomb.

A curbstomp would have been easier, arguably more efficient in the long run. It was the choice any of her predecessors might have instructed for her if they approved of any of this professional wrestling, freelancing nonsense. It would have done decent damage and kept Yae in the green while she set Kozue up for even more punishment.

But Yae wasn’t after ‘decent’. The time for that had passed a good long while ago. They were on a different plane now. A place that only the likes of them could go. The years the both of them had dedicated to their skills existed to be tested in these moments. It was the essence of Ninjutsu. Putting on a 'show', getting the recognition she needed didn't even occur the outcast from Iga. Ninjette had set the bar high and Yae truly and sincerely meant to break it beyond repair. The back of Kozue' skull would be a good substitute for that for now.

That was the plan. Before she could even process what her opponent was up to, Kozue leaped up and snatched her out of the sky like a fly over a carp. The wind was snatched clean out from Yae's sails. Her rotation stopped dead in mid-air and in the next instant she found herself tilting the opposite direction.

“Fuck!” She knew where this was going. Didn't mean she could do shit about it. Her back slammed into the floor and punched the air clean from her lungs from both ends. Her legs fell limp against Kozue's shoulders. The kunoichi's chest heaved up and down arduously as she let out a long and pissed off groan.

Fucking pro-wrestlers.

Yae’s move had been the perfect set up, a fine display of her skill and speed, a credit whoever taught the damn thing to her. Could Kozue do something like that? Maybe. But she wouldn’t have thought to do it on her lonesome, and she would’ve needed some training to get the timing right, and it probably wouldn’t have looked nearly as good. It was almost sad she had to kill it halfway, like stopping a song right before it hits the high note.

Oh, well. Better luck next time.

So, now what? Kozue had Yae in a pinning position, and the referee was already moving in for the count, but she wasn’t about to make the attempt. There was no way a move like that was going to win this match, and she wouldn’t have been happy with it even if it could work. No, she had something better for this. More deserving. ”Slick move, there. Try mine.”

Kozue gave Yae a slap on the ass and a hard shove, pushing her off and rolling her back so she would come down on her knees. She pushed her chest up, got her erect, and then the New Jersey Ninja kicked her legs up and planted her hands on the mat behind her, rising to her feet with a flip and creating some distance between them.

Her feet had only touched the floor for half a second before she was in motion, closing the distance between them in a single bound. Instead of running straight into Yae, however, she leaped up into a somersault over her opponent’s head, making a full turn in the air before she shot her legs out towards the back of her head - her own version of the Heavenly Kick, a move on loan from her master.

So this is what one of those 'powerbombs' felt like. Gotta admit that she did not expect to be feeling one of those tonight. Or for it to suck this bad. Kozue took these all the time, eh? Tough bitch.

Yae had studied her fair amount of pro-wrestling moves before she decided to hop into this popular little league of spandex losers jumping from tight ropes. Every move seemed to have a flare and spontaneous energy to them that reminded her a lot of the training she did growing up. Ninja warfare was just as spontaneous and unpredictable. Decisions made in the quarter of a second could be the difference between life and death. Her Jersey-brand opponent understood that well enough.

Yae just believed that pro-wrestling moves could pack nowhere near the amount of punch that she was used to. Boy was she wrong on that front. Dead fuckin’ wrong.

The kunoichi went to stand up before she realized that Ninjette was doing that for her. Even with half the awareness slammed clean out of her, Yae still had to fight back a yelp in her throat when her ass was slapped and rewarded Kozue with an appropriate jiggle beneath the confines of her skirt. She kept a mental note of that for later as Kozue guided Yae onto her knees and left her wobbling upright.

Her eyes only caught Ninjette coming at her for a second. She brought her arms up to brace herself until Kozue vanished in front of her. Yae couldn’t make sense of it until she caught the replay after and saw that her opponent had leaped over her and kicked at the back of Yae’s head. All the while, the Iga ninja was still looking forward dumbfounded. A perfect target for two hard feet that slammed into the back of her dome.

The force punched through Yae’s head like a bullet. Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull as her face slammed into the floor and sent her into a slide across the floor. She came to a stop a foot from the ropes, lying face down and barely moving and generally hating her life right now.

Kozue still remembered the first time Benikage tagged her with this move - or, being specific, she remembered Benikage flipping over her head, disappearing, and knocking her the fuck out.

The two of them had been training, doing a spar, with Kozue managing to hold her own better than usual. The older kunoichi was keeping her on the backfoot like usual, but she was managing to make some gains, seeing through her patterns, even landing the occasional good hit. She got cocky, she got mouthy, she said some smart-ass remark about Benikage getting a little slow in her old age, and then…

A kick to the stomach brought her down, she flipped over Kozue’s head, and then, boom, darkness. She woke up three minutes later with her face in a pool of saliva while Benikage meditated nearby.

It took months to get her sensei to drop the knowledge on that move, and being honest, she still didn’t get it 100% right. She should’ve had more momentum in the flip, the time was off a little, could’ve been better on the dismount. She wound up fall flat on her face afterwards, less than graceful. Not too pretty.

But when she looked up and over her shoulder, saw Yae laid out? It was worth it.

As the crowd surged and cheered and booed, Kozue whipped about, crawled forward, and moved over Yae’s body, scrambling to flip her over. Once her shoulders were on the mat, she pressed their chests together and pinned her to the canvas, just in time for the referee to come over and start the count.

”1…!”

This looked pretty open and shut to everyone else in the room. Yae hadn't moved an inch after she hit the ground and Kozue had already rolled her over for the three counts. One or two Rumble Roses diehards in the spectator seats recognized the play, even a half-assed one. Even if Kozue lacked the finesse, she had the technique and the speed. The average wrestler probably wouldn't be coming back from that.

Kozue must have been really locking her down too. Their chests slammed together and from that point on Yae’s body didn’t move an inch. Didn’t so much as twitch underneath her.

TWO!

It seemed like that was going to be it. Not a bad match altogether if a bit anticlimactic towards that bit at the end. Yae Mochizuki may not have been able to put down the New Jersey Ninja as easily as she thought but at the least, she’d given one of Tension’s best a serious run for their money. And who knew? Tonight might have turned out to be a very humbling experience. Perhaps, all along, Ninjette was the only master that could show her the true meaning of discipline through-

“Three.”

Oh shit. Well, never mind. The referee nearly leaped out of skin from her spot on the ground. It was the only natural reaction to seeing a second Yae kneeling across from Kozue. How was this possible, a stupid person might ask? Yae didn’t have any twin siblings. She was still right there, on the floor.

Only was that really Yae on the ground? If Kozue took another look at that face next to her, she would notice what was essentially a patchwork face with sewn eyes, a button for a nose, a dumb stitched smile. A little doll she’d made about two months ago when she decided to break out her substitution manual again. She stuffed some melons into the doll's shirt for added effect and mostly because she knew someone somewhere would get her humor. But what was more important was that it was light and easily movable.

Ninjette would only be given a split second to piece that all together. After that Yae would reach out and snatch a tight grip on Kozue's lovely bangs. She yanked back hard and went to pull her face in close for a headbutt, aiming to hit Kozue with the metal of her headband.

It was a good move. That was the reason Kozue used it. Took your opponent off guard, hit them in a place where they couldn’t see them coming, and smacked their face into the canvas at 100 MPH. While it wasn’t Benikage’s best move, she’d seen her sensei knock out plenty of Roses with it, dropping them like sacks of potatoes. If it was good enough to drop Dixie Clemets flat on her ass, it was good enough to take down Yae, and the results spoke for themselves.

When Kozue came in for the pin, a surge of confidence she hadn’t experienced for a long time swept through her. This wasn’t just a win, but a win over another kunoichi. The legit kind. If that didn’t count as a sign of progress, she didn’t know what would.

Just one more second, one more count, and-

Hm.

Half of a second wasn’t a long time for most, but most weren’t Kozue. With her training, she was able to connect the dots in that instant. It was enough for her to figure out that the Yae she was pinning wasn’t, in fact, Yae, and that the melons she’d been stealing a grope on were, in fact, actual melons. Enough to realize that her opponent had pulled out the substitution trick on her, hitting her with a ninja classic. Enough to realize she was utterly screwed, and even voice her opinion on the matter.

”Shit.”

Yeah, that covered it, more or less. That syllable was all she could speak before Yae rammed their heads together, smacking her in the face with her headband’s faceplate. It laid Kozue out right away, leaving her to flop to the side, grasping her face, eyes screwed tighta as she dealt with the pain. ”Fucking...damn it…” She muttered under her breath. ”You make the doll yourself?”

So, a substitution jutsu. Yae had to be honest. She did not expect to have to resort to one of those in a wrestling ring of all places. It was fucking difficult to pull off in an environment like this, for one. Stadiums weren’t the most friendly places for her kin.

But Ninjette was just that worthy of an opponent. Each time that Yae thought she was secure, the Jersey Girl managed to turn things around on a dime with flawless execution and the flair to match. If Yae were a couple of years younger and stupider, Kozue would have had her dead to rights several times over by now. She made her feel alive in ways she hadn’t felt in months. She missed being challenged like this, having to strategize her next steps and use the environment as an extension of herself.

She wanted to show off everything. More than Ninjette could ever handle.

“What, you don't? Is that how city ninjas operate?” Yae grinned down at her opponent as she stepped over and straddled her opponent. Her hands grabbed Kozue’s wrist and peeled them away from her face, forcing their gazes to meet once more. The manic eyes of the Iga shinobi only seemed to fester with each breath. “Give it a try some day. It's therapeutic.”

Yae would pin Kozue’s hands above her head as her legs sneaked low to wrap themselves around the Jersey Ninja’s, locking them together at the ankles. From there, it was a simple matter of pulling them apart and fully executing the grapevine. It was important for her to start working on those legs and that stamina while she had Kozue vulnerable and hurting. Then Yae could start working towards setting her up for the final blow. That was how the strategic part of the runaway’s mind was thinking. Another part of her just wanted Kozue close. To feel her immobilized and to ask a very pertinent question critical to her success...

“So you like my melons? Charmed.” Yeah, she saw that, and she wanted to make sure Kozue knew that too. Yae torqued harder on Kozue's legs, spreading their legs further apart and pressing their bodies tightly together as she deepened the submission. Yae brought their foreheads together; nose to nose and chest to chest. The taste of her breath was fresh on the kunoichi’s tongue as their lips became separated by mere inches. And still, she couldn’t bring herself to break eye contact. Her soul was captivating beyond words. “Your peaches aren't bad either.”

Kozue wasn’t in the best position to show it, but, being honest, she was sort of honored that Yae was breaking out the fine china for this fight, really digging deep. This wasn’t the first time she’d had a hard match in the AFW, but it was the first time she’d had to use so many tools beyond the normal wrestling set and really live up to all her nicknames. It was making her glad that Benikage had been such a hardass throughout the training, making sure she stayed focus and took all her techniques to heart, even the ones that didn’t seem all that useful at the time.

This was the final test, and so far...well, the grade would come after the match, but things were looking good so far. Even if she’d just gotten her ass laid out.

It was why she managed a smile, even now. One mixed with a grimace. ”Hey, my sensei always used a log.” The image of Benikage making a doll was enough to get a laugh out of Kozue on the spot. ”Would pay good money to seeeeeeee...uh, hi.”

The sudden change in focus came when Yae took hold of her wrists and straddled her, sliding into one of the kinkiest wrestling moves ever made, the grapevine. Had she been out in a grapevine before? Couldn’t recall. She’d had enough matches to reach the point where they all started to blur together, but she felt like this would stand out. She was pretty sure she’d remember someone pinning her to the floor, intertwining their legs, and getting right into makeout range. That was the sort of thing you didn’t forget easy.

That wasn’t to say Kozue wasn’t about it, though. Far from that.

Kozue had always been flexible, and her ninja training only souped that up, so the spread and twisting on her legs wasn’t a big problem. Oh, it wasn’t comfy, she grunted and gave some resistance, but it wasn’t enough to make her dream of tapping. That probably wasn’t the goal, anyway - Yae was trying to get her attention and doing a good job at it. Kozue was laser focused on the woman on top of her. Those wild eyes. The breasts spilling over her own. Those hot lips, begging to be kissed, tempting her and spilling hot breath over her face.

This wasn’t the way she expected the match to go, but she wasn’t about to complain. She was already formulating ideas on how to recover, but that could wait for a moment or two. This needed a little exploration.

”Maybe I’ll let you have a taste, sometime.” Kozue let her eyelids drop, just enough to shadow her gaze, and breathed deep. Her chest pressed against Yae’s and molded along with it, making their bodies undulate in tandem. ”Maybe.”

Kozue’s tongue dart out and traced the outline of Yae’s lips, slipping around the sides, before she gave into the magnetism and leaned up for a kiss. It was full, it was wild, her flew about the teeth and saliva was traded, but it was brief. Just the demo. After two steaming seconds, Kozue broke away and tilted her head to the side, daring Yae to come after her if she wanted more.

It’s just one kiss.

It’s just one kiss.

It’s just one kiss.

Yae’s compelled the command into Kozue again and again through her eyes alone. Her mesmerizing gaze - a familiar look to her peers that danced somewhere between unfathomable euphoria and clinically insane - pierced straight through the Jersey Ninja and called to her basest desires. She’d only met Kozue today. She knew nothing about her daily life, her upbringing, what kind of life she’d led, and what she would lead in the future. All she had were context clues and a lot of assumptions. Yet that was what made Yae good at her job. It was why she knew that Kozue wouldn’t be able to resist the taste; the heat and passion.

The life of a ninja was one based on instincts. Acting on instinct, pursuing fleeting whims, living each day as if it were your last. Even with hindsight, Yae couldn’t say she wouldn’t do the same.

Her eyes closed as their mouths jammed together in a savage kiss. Her tongue flicked stealthily around her adversary’s, grinding their jaws together as she tilted her head to the side in a momentary attempt to deepen their sinful bond. Only, just as she sought more, Kozue suddenly pulled away. Yae’s eyes snapped open, choking back a gasp of surprise.

“A taste is all you need. After all…” Yae leaned in, seemingly chasing after Kozue for another kiss. Only a touch away from Ninjette’s lips, however, her mouth suddenly came away and instead whispered close to the woman’s ear. “...I am an assassin.”

Yae untangled her legs and shot her legs back up to either side of Kozue’s hips in a low crouch. Her thumb came up to her lips and wiped the moisture away from one corner of her smile to the other. At the farthest edge, just before the Iga kunoichi flicked it away, it was possible to catch the color of her saliva. It was cloudy, foggy, lacking transparency. When it hit the floor, it instantly vaporized against the hot canvas in a tiny puff.

Her ebony gaze locked onto Ninjette’s, analyzing every twitch. “How are you feeling?”