Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

The Rematch

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"Hand to hand with no magic, a 5 minute match, same as before," Nove was explaining. "No lethal moves, winner determined by knockout. Have a good clean fight, and go!"

She waved her hand and stepped back, letting the two fighting girls take their stances and begin to circle each other. They leapt in, traded a few strikes, and leapt out again.

"I hope they don't get too rough," Nanoha said with a bit of worry in her voice, watching the fight.

"Don't worry, they'll be fine," Subaru told her, as the two girls traded blows again. "In fact, Vivio seemed most eager to have her rematch with Einhart, although I'm not sure why."

The women turned back to the fight, where the two girls had finished testing defenses and were getting more aggressive. As they charged at each other, Einhart dropped and swept her leg out, but Vivio jumped and flipped over her opponent. She lanced out behind with her own mid-level kick, but Einhart was already dropping and rolling under it, then sprung to her feet, coming in with a close-range punch.

Then, to the surprise of all, she suddenly stopped inches from Vivio, who took advantage of the pause to grab the arm and flip and slam the other girl into the ground. She backed up as Einhart snapped to her feet, but there was a confused look on her face.

"Why did she just pause like that?" Corona wondered aloud, speaking what everyone was thinking. "She would have landed that punch."

Next to her, a certain agent sighed.

"Tea?" Subaru questioned. "Do you know something?"

"I promised not to say," the gun mage replied glumly.

The two fighters closed in again, Einhart leading in with a flying kick which Vivio dodged. She landed and flipped backwards onto her hands, twirling both legs. Vivio blocked with crossed forearms, then charged in as Einhart returned to her feet and twisted to face the attack. She clearly saw it coming, but froze again as Vivio delivered a 1-2 punch combo, finishing with a spin kick that knocked the other girl away.

"Is it some kind of bind spell?" Rio considered.

Nanoha shook her head. "No, I didn't sense any magic being used."

"And magic is against the rules," Nove added, studying her pupil. "Vivio wouldn't cheat. But still..."

While both opponents were panting, and the time limit was fast approaching, Einhart was clearly the more battered of the two. Her face was showing more confusion and puzzlement now, but there was still determination there. She wasn't going to lose!

As the last minute ticked on, the two girls closed in again, trading lighting-fast punches and kicks. As before, Einhart suddenly froze in the middle the exchange and Vivio took advantage, landing several solid punches to the girls abdomen and chest, then dropping to sweep her off her feet with her leg. Nove finally noticed that Vivio had her right eye closed during it, but couldn't figure out why.

Einhart hit the ground with a thud as time was called, and didn't get up. The small audience moved in, checking Einhart for injuries, while Vivio flashed a V-sign with her fingers for victory.

"Alright, spill it Tea, what was going on out there?" Subaru demanded.

Tea merely looked at Vivio, debating whether to answer, but decided to let the younger girl explain.

The Strike Arts student smiled proudly. "Well, since Einhart kept insisting that a real fighter should use everything she has in a fight, and that I was too straight-forward, I had Teana do a little checking."

"Does this have something to do with why you kept closing one of your eyes?" Nove inquired.

Vivio nodded, smile widening into a grin. "Apparently, Einhart had a traumatic incident with a traffic light awhile back..."

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Author's notes:

Completely blaming RB for this. I toss out a half-baked idea on AIM, and she's all "YOU HAVE TO WRITE THAT!" Although, in all fairness, it was born out of my post in another thread about her eye colors and Vivid. And, since you've come this far...

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Bonus Extra:

"Nanoha-mama, how much longer do I have to do this?" Vivio whined.

"The engineers are almost done, honey, just a little longer," Nanoha soothed from the corner.

Vivio sighed, realizing that perhaps she shouldn't have used that trick to defeat Einhart, as she turned to the next street in the intersection and opened her right eye while closing her left to signal that the next line of cars could go.