Shredding It

This was what she’d been needing, in hindsight. Something to soften her knuckles after a long month of doing fuck-all. Tam had skimped on her training with her livelihood in Japan not shaping up to be as lucrative as she’d predicted. It wasn’t as though she’d expected a life of luxury.

She’d gone too long without an old-fashioned brawl. There weren't many pastimes that stuck out when she thought of home, but a fight on the side of the street with a roaring crowd was the closest thing to nostalgia. Sending the Cherry Blossom flying across the skatepark was bringing back fond memories.

Tam gripped her shoulder and gave her arm a good crank before she shuffled off. The bunched-up crowd of skater boys and gals quickly parted for the Vietnamese girl, kicking up a small tempest with each stomp of her sneakers as she made her way to the site of impact. Her crooked grin and furrowed brow looked demonic up close, though it was all too familiar for Shun.

“Yo, Tam, done already? I was expecting some, like, Dragon Ball Z shit.”

“Can it, Yamcha.”

Tam’s shadow loomed across the cracked wall and the broken Japanese girl at its base. The Vietnamese bruiser reached down and grasped a handful of Natsuko’s brown hair between her calloused fingers, lifting Natusko slowly up from the ground and onto her knees. Her glaring eyes regarded the Japanese girl for the briefest moment, them exhaling deeply as Tam raised a hand to wipe the back of her forehead. “What? Is that all you got? I just broke a sweat."

"A moron that trains hard is still a moron. Take it as a lesson: you cross me, you die.” Tam clenched her fist tightly, raw power trembling within the tight confines of her palm as she chambered it far back. “Any last words, Sakura-chan?”

Typically Natsu's entire goal at the skatepark is to gain as much airtime as possible after ripping across half-pipes at windswept velocity. Starting off with a few Axle Stalls and Fakie Rocks skate tricks just to get her warmed up. Unfortunately there was nothing particularly rad or gnarly about how she ended up sailing through the air this time around. A rare sense of vertigo accompanying the megaton punch socked square into her abdomen, the cracked indentation in the concrete wall behind her indicating to the astonished onlookers taping with cell phone cameras just how much raw strength the Viet-Fighter was packing behind those scrapped fists of hers. Natsu sucking in whatever fresh air she could in between her chortled coughing, facials nudged against the pebbled asphalt as she hugged her midsection. The palm of one of her hands eventually flattened against the floor to attempt pushing herself upwards before Tam's tightened grasping on her auburn locks did the job for her.

Natsu overhearing every spiteful word from Tam but with nothing uttered in response aside from heaving breathes, her eyes though were shadowed over and indecipherable as she sagged pathetically before her adversary once brought up to her knees. The imminently defeated schoolgirl only expecting a carefree day at her favorite skatepark to help her unwind. Memories replaying of her brother training and warning her about being forever vigilant since any day can become the day you need to fight for your life. "...*pant*...I do, actually...Hope you're ready for Round 2..." The sole of her sneakered foot stamping down onto the now cracked concrete as Natsu used one arm to shove Tam's hand off of her scalp. Feral eyed intensity shining through with her right arm cocked back behind her to attempt to unleash all of her summoned strength directly into Tam's breadbasket before having it soar upwards towards her chin for her attempted Blooming Cherry Fist uppercut.

Tam had gone through blackouts before. Just never like this.

Natsuko said something. The next thing she felt was a piston slamming into her chest, ripping its way up the middle of her ribcage like a xylophone, before it found purchase in the underside of her jaw. The sound of a cracking bone and a visceral smash welcomed the darkness that swarmed her vision almost immediately. The next thing she felt was the pain of a thousand needles in her back as she found herself staring up into the afternoon overcast.

Kento’s video recording would help her - and roughly 12 million viewers once it went up on his YouTube channel - connect the dots. The Sakura Girl’s uppercut had not only sent her skyward, but into a backward rotation that sent the Vietnamese woman into a reverse spin ten feet off the ground. Her rag-dolled body had its fall broken by the nearby wooden bleachers. Their shoddy construction collapsed underneath her rocketed weight almost instantly, leaving her buried in a pile of splintered wood and nails.

By a small miracle of muscle memory, Tam had braced for the impact by locking both of her hands behind her head. Although she’d cushioned the impact, the shock still kept her body numb for the most part. All she would be allowed to do was stare up at the gathering clouds hiding away the vast blue shine above, her eyes wide and body twitching involuntarily from head to toe. A trail of blood leaked from the side of her cheek. Tam tried to command it to move, but nobody was home. She was pinned.

“...Fu…fuck..” Her eyes inched slowly down towards her feet, trying to look past them to wherever Natsuko might be.

Amidst the cacophonous chaos of headstrong adolescents riled up into a ravenous fever pitch from the frenetic street fighting on display, tranquil silence broke through the ensuing madness like beaming light piercing through nebulous clouds and stifling fog. Raucous bystanders recording off their cell phones and opportunistic bookies collecting cash all equally ceased whatever they were doing to center their awestruck attention on the Viet-Fighter barrel-rolling through the air until finding port against emptied rafters. Recordings capturing sakura flower petals all throughout Tam's flight plan, which people thought peculiar considering there were few blooming trees in their immediate vicinity. Natsu's fluttering bandana settling down once she herself landed on her sneakered feet, resting her hands on her knees whilst hunched over and catching her breath. Winded from Tam's gut punch but after a few seconds she'd straighten her back out and wipe some sweat from her brow.

"...Phew, that was a bit close. Sheesh, I'dda taken this fight a whole lot more seriously right off the bat if ya just told me that's what you wanted in the first place." Natsu remarked with newfound determination and gleaming intensity in her eyes as yet unseen from her, tightening the bandana around her head when Ken and Shun's heads would poke through the people gawking down at Tam from around the cratered hole in the rafters. "Yoooooo, dat shit was crazy Tam!!! I'd say you got more distance with yours, but Natsu got a shit ton more height with how hard she straight up duffed you-" Shun's ramblings stifled by Kens hand covering his yapping mouth before the both of them wound up being the next people rocketing into the air. via Tam's fist. "Hey yo, so uh, I think she's jus been playin with you up till now Tam. N' I ain't no ref or nuthin, but I'd say youse two are bout even now. Ahm thinkin' we just call it a day and bounce b4 Five-O shows. I can't go back to jail, Tam!!!"