No Pains, No Gains! (for TheLoneWanderer)

Cobra pulled her hands through her hair, flicking large amounts of sweat off, before looking at Senji and his question.

"I saw the look on your face. Don't want to overstress you." She explained, before getting up and walking over to the water bottles neatly kept just off the marked boundary on the mat. Cobra picked one up for herself, and then another for Senji. She walked back over to her spot, throwing the second bottle over to Senji for him to catch, before sitting down herself. "If you push too far in training, you could do some irreversible damages to yourself. Had a few unfortunate boys suffer like that back home." She took a swig of the water bottle, gulping it down, before resuming, "It's just as much about how much rest and breathers you need as about how much you build up. Don't give it time to relax and you'll tear it up, and sometimes that's just not easy to fix." Despite the serious look on her face, her eyes had a bit of worry to them like a mother worried her son was about to break himself.

"Give it 4 minutes."

Senji's eyes followed the arc, his hand snatching the water bottle just before it would've hit his chest. Her justification came soon after, with him getting sucked into the expression that made him feel just a tad bit guilty. The pressures of the world and the needs of his body were clashing against each other. In a real fight, there would be no resting. But there wouldn't be much of a resistance if he kept running out of gas.

"---I'm used to training until I drop. But I'm sorry....I know I should be careful about my regimen. I received enough lectures about that."

After saying his piece, Senji raised the bottle to his lips and spilled it into his throat. Cool, refreshing liquid chilled his body, aiding in his recovery from the round. There was another reason, aside from his eager dedication to the craft. In his formative years, he'd been reduced to a shell of what he set his sights towards. He'd gotten enough dreadful sleep for seven years, then it had been time to wake up. And now, he had to build his way back up to his ideal. Brick by brick. Match by match. Session by session.

Senji tried to scoot a bit closer to Cobra, thinking it a better position to ask her a question.

"You mentioned your home. Where do you come from?"

Cobra drank her own bottle a bit more, letting the cooling liquids refresh her throat and reinvigorate her body with a sense of freshness. It was often short lived, of course, but it was a good sensation. She did wonder, however; what was it that made Senji want to push himself so much? The manager hadn't explained much about it at all....

When Senji came closer to ask where was she from, Cobra raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Oh? Interesting question." she gave a small smile, "I'm from India. Spent more than 15 years instructing young boys and girls on the techniques and skills, help them tap into their potential, and help them grow into their own talents." she said while moving her hand in an arc motion, her eyes becoming almost sleepy looking like she was in a moments trance. "Many stay local, some get ambitious, some crash and burn, some simply quit from realization..." she opened her eyes, but they still had an almost lazy look to them before moving to look at Senji.

"My husband runs the gym. I'm one of the few teachers there. I earned the title of Queen Cobra from the people there. You can imagine why." She gave a small wry smile.

Senji got a quick answer, with Cobra opening herself up a bit more in regards to her background. He remained silent, sipping his water for a second, before chiming in near the end of her first part.

"India??---I know where that is but I have never been."

When she mentioned crashing and burning, a sense of familiarity came with it. His expression soured into the flavor of a lemon immediately, with Senji pushing his shoulders in a rhythmic motion up and down to roll them. He moved his fingers up towards the bridge of his nose. They squeezed lightly, soothing his mood to something better resembling the eager absorption of knowledge.

"It's a nasty experience when you have what you worked for torn away.----This place seems safer than other organizations though. I haven't encountered any weird people yet."


Senji set his bottle down, letting her finish before he concluded his piece with a teasing remark. After doing so, he changed his position on the floor. A Seiza with his hands neatly folded among of the valleys of muscle displayed on the tight contours of his lap. It was conveying respect towards the elders, as was taught during his younger years. Until they had no reason to be respected, that is.

"I'm not the greatest fan of forest-crawling serpents but you are not so bad, even if you aren't doing a flawless job of squeezing me~."

As Senji gave his responses, Cobra looked at Senji, her eyebrows raised a bit when Senji mentioned how AFW seemed "safer than other organizations" she was curious what other places he had tried out at. Whatever it was, it seemed to have really hammered in quite the mindset into him. She hoped he wouldn't end up overexerting himself.

When he gave his little tease though, Cobra gave a little laugh, before saying, "Oh we're just sparring, you should see my opponents in the ring after a victory, Kaiser Fond is still angry from a few days back."

With that, Cobra closed her water bottle, tossed it over to where she had picked it up from, and Senji would see it sail through the air, land where she had picked it up from, as it wobbled, seemed like it was about to tip over, before righting itself, a flawless balanced throw.

"Shall we proceed?"

A nice trick.Senji, at her question, nodded along with her words to acknowledge them before stretching his arm back and placing his unfinished water bottle quite a ways behind his back. He could finish it later!

"Happily, mhm..."

Senji raised his hips up by a few inches, to begin the hazardous process of edging himself over to Cobra's front. His lap, at that point, aimed to nestle itself between her legs. He placed his hands on Cobra's stomach, steadying himself now that he was on top. His eyes trailed up her body until they settled on her neck where he'd begin his next assault. His right arm tried to snap upward and slide against the front of Cobra's windpipe, balling his fingers into a tight fist. After that, he wanted to grasp said fingers using his other palm to wrap around the top of them. Senji leaned his body forward while spreading his legs out and back so that he could put his weight into the impromptu strangle.

The point was to grind the woman's neck against Senji's forearm and the ground, even if she had options from being beneath him should he have gotten that far in the first place.

After asking him if he wanted to proceed, Cobra let Senji initiate offense to see how he'd set up. Sure enough, it was a pretty solid stance and he got her locked up tight, feeling the pressure on her windpipe as Senji leant into the grapple, with his legs spread and back, making a solid anchor.

But Cobra, not very fazed by the tight situation she found herself, tightly wrapped her legs around Senji's stomach, bringing her own free arm up and tightly gripped Senji's head, anchoring herself onto him, before moving her legs up and down to grind the pressure of her legs locked onto his body, while she turned her upper body left and right at the same time, despite the tough lock Senji had, to pull and apply pressure on his torso that was already being pressured by the leg grinding.

As it stood, Cobra had a lot of answers to the situations she found herself in. And this was a particularly brutal one. Senji felt her legs wrap around his stomach, consciously choosing to let it slide since he had his hands full with the aforementioned frontal strangle. He stifled a grunt, it coming out half-formed and two metal coils strained his stomach with agonizing pressure. But, he should've been still choking her. This situation was fairly salvageable. As both a reaction to the right torso lock and commitment to seeing how the hold would Pan out, Senji planted his forehead beside of Cobra's and groaned into the floor. Despite the pressure, he continues to push and bank on enduring the crushing sensation rather than tap out. It was a bit more bearable than instant pain, with the lock being more of a gradual application of constriction. Though, Senji could feel his breaths being shortened every time he tried to draw in a winded breath.

Now, there is just the matter of who'd lose between his ribs and her windpipe. This entire debacle was something resembling some razor sharp scissors cutting grooves into a rock instead of paper. Despite this, he tried to push through the pain and focus on choking Cobra out to the best of his abilities as the redhead pushed his way forward to lay into the woman's throat. His knees trembled from the body-lock, the limbs quaking while the heavyset poured the pressure on. He could take some minor comfort in that it'd take some time for his ribs to snap...

Cobra felt like her windpipe was slowly being crushed even with her years of endurance build up. It's just a fact that there are some things aging weakens in a person and she was already pushing in her 40s. Senji was certainly a formidable person if he could properly get his hands on someone, she had to give him that on this test.

After an agonizing while of both applying the painful holds on one another, Cobra lightly tapped his head, signalling her submission. If he let her go, shed push herself a bit back, taking deep breaths and rubbing her neck. "Very... good." she would compliment him on that.

A nail-biting amount of time later, and the outcome was decided! Senji felt a hand tap his scalp for a sign of submission, which he acknowledged with a huff to the side and sliding his limbs up from around her neck. With that done, Senji sat farther back on his knees to give Cobra some space. His gaze centered down onto his ribs, beginning to rub the tenderized flesh with all ten fingers. He might need some ice tomorrow. Then, Cobra called for his praise which caught his attention. To her, he had passed her inspection!! At least for this round. For that, he was very proud.

"Thank you---so much-"

Senji exhaled out, running his hands along his stomach. She did not take it easy on him. When he had been in the hold, it was like her thighs were trying to meet in the middle. He DID outlast her this time, to give himself credit, as winded as he was now.

THREAD PAUSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.