By now, Shiki had recognized seclusion within this world all too well; her previous night of rest was no exception...
She still had little of a clue what this world was on the outside. All she had, on the inside, were a load of almost entirely strangers, with the only familiar being one that she nearly killed, willingly.
She had nothing here. No one to love, no one to care for, and the chains within this room of isolation didn't help one bit.
"Shiki... do you understand what we're trying to do for you?"
Shiki looked up to the lady in front of her. Chizuru seemed like a reasonable woman once she spent time with her (not entirely on her own will, obviously), but at the same time, she still found it extremely difficult to trust her due to her own mentality, her own curses – and the cursed ink on her body that wrote emotions for her to follow and not to follow.
The attempts to trust only grew more sidetracked by the little things; for example, Shiki honestly enjoyed the blood that spilled out of Ninon onto her body – she didn't want to even been clean, let alone mended for injuries.
"Shiki, please..." continued Chizuru. "I can't tell sometimes whether you're listening or not."
Shiki shunned her eye contact away from the other end of the conversation. "...Does it matter...?"
Chizuru answered, "Obviously. As far as I know, everyone in this world is still human – even those who are sheltered the deepest."
"I'm not sheltered. I'm lost," Shiki admitted. "No one seems to truly care for me... I just want something that can look up to me."
Even as a few tears escaped, she couldn't even find a way around a real expression of sadness. She always simply looked hollow.
Chizuru softly wiped the tears away from the sad assassin's face. "You'll be fine under us," the responsible priestess assured. "For until we help you get back to where you came, at least..."
Due to circumstances involving the tournament, as well as stuff regarding the only person capable of bringing her back home, Shiki was not yet prepped for a return to her timeline – and probably wouldn't be until her time in the tournament was over with, whenever that may be, between now at the start of round 3, and the eventual finale.
Outside of the tournament proceedings she found herself within with her qualifier 'victory', things couldn't be pinned down on how Shiki could be fulfilled.
Then again, it grew to be less difficult to once Chizuru looked upon the clues heading up to now – what with Shiki's battle against Momoko during that free-for-all... and at the end where she was all too close and personal with Ninon even when she was at her most agonized.
There was no doubt about it – Shiki was simply a mystery, and might always be...
Meanwhile, there was another, much louder, concern going on elsewhere in the master bedroom of one's late parents, before the hostess of the tourney...
"What I'm saying is, you had no right shoving yourself into a match, even for 'family's sake' – all you're doing is making yourself look more ridiculous!"
"'Ridiculous'!? You're no better than Mignon in this situation!"
Almost ear-bleedingly loud.
Elisabeth was sitting before the intense argument between the 'Psycho Soldier' and the 'Ego-Tripping Witch', and her scornful frown didn't at all improve.
Mignon refused any possibility that she was at fault. "You're more at fault, what with your attempted assault!"
Meanwhile, Athena was still hung up on the obvious wrongdoing her 'rival' did upon her. "Because you bit me!" She gestured to the unattended bite wound on her arm – if she didn't consider that Mignon was as human as anyone else, the Psycho Soldier could almost consider checking for rabies...
"'You attack me, I bite'; Mignon's learned more than enough on self-defense alone!"
"From what?! Were you raised by cats or something?!"
"The cat is Mignon's spirit animal, you dolt! Plenty of strong beings are cats – tigers, cougars, snow leopards—!"
"I have a hard time believing you're in the family of cats you think you're in..."
Mignon approached further, angrily proclaiming, "Are you trying to call heresy upon a witch!?"
Athena backed up, "Goddess's sake, Mignon, could you please just get out of my face?!"
"You get out of Mignon's face!"
"I'm not even trying to—!"
THWAP!
Immediately going silent, Athena and Mignon both flinched at the snapping sound of Elisabeth's riding crop forcing them out of each other's faces.
"I think I've heard enough of you two," Elisabeth groaned, the crop flicked outwards with one hand while she palmed her forehead in frustration with the other.
"So," Mignon spoke up, smiling hopefully towards a good outcome (primarily on her end), "now that you've heard both arguments, what's your verdict, my lady?"
"Honestly?" Elisabeth was prepared to be blunt. "Just based on this petty rivalry alone, I'd say there's something both of you are guilty of."
"Both of us—?!" THWUMP! Mignon's mouth was suddenly smacked into silence once Athena brought a palm in front of it to cover up further complaints that were ready to come out of the witch's mouth.
"Sshhh! You do not want to get her any angrier than she probably already is..."
"You're quite on point there, Athena – then again..." Elisabeth began to bring out the gripes towards the guilty party, and it started with the purple-haired pop star to the left. "...For a star of your caliber, I'd think you'd be more willing to let minor annoyances slide. Instead you simply gave in to your anger."
"It was a heated moment, ma'am."
"And what did that accomplish?"
"Clearly, nothing." Athena's shoulders drooped in a self-admitted defeat, the guilt again riding high.
Elisabeth settled one wronged gal already – now to deal with the other... "Now, Mignon," she began. "by this point in the tournament, you should've seen what happened last time someone inserted themselves into a battle for the sake of 'rescue'. I only let Alice off because she already dealt with enough with the injuries she's received.
Mignon calmly separated Athena's silencing hand from against her mouth... "Whoever this 'Alice' girl is, she clearly didn't know any better." As it seemed to turn out, Mignon had little to care for who were basically strangers to her in the cast-list of fighters within the tournament. Might've been the lingering salt over still being open to a fault, as she still had half a mind to retain arrogance, it looked like.
And Elisabeth didn't look too impressed already... "Beg your pardon?"
"It's obvious; in a situation like that, Mignon wouldn't simply charge into a fight – that's where the smoke... bomb... uhhhh~"
And before she could get her fill of explanation in, Mignon's confidence melted as soon as she felt the presence of Elisabeth eclipse her. As soon as the noblewoman got out of her seat and allowed herself to trespass Mignon's personal space with a piercing glare of lost patience, there was no verbal victory left for the white-mage witch.
"Mignon… it's in matters like this that you speak to your cohorts, and especially your superior, in a way that respects them. Stop thinking for yourself for just a minute, and maybe I'll listen. Do you understand, Beart?"
"I told her so..." Athena internally snarked, getting a second-hand shade of fear seeing Elisabeth look down upon the other girl in the room.
Meanwhile, Mignon was starting to sweat under the pressure of intimidation creeping down upon her.
"...But—"
Elisabeth's crop-handling only tightened further. "Yes or no, Mignon."
"...I understand." Any more defiance, and Mignon would've risked being reduced to a pants-wettening mess. There was no right way out of it – one bad move and she had to surrender.
With that, Elisabeth then decided her next act of authority.
"I'm going to go, and cure myself of this headache, and then I'll decide your punishment."
Before she fully left to the bathroom off to the side, she turned back one more time. "Ladies, I implore you not to make things worse for yourselves while I'm gone." Then she closed the door behind her...
When Athena finally decided afterwards to turn her head elsewhere, she saw that Mignon had flopped back onto the bed, laying limply with her hands buried against her face.
She may not have cared for the bratty witch, though still Athena knew broken confidence when she saw it – and a shattered spirit seemed to be even worse.
By now, mere minutes removed from the wildcard four-way bout, things were returning to a calm before the storm...
"You know, I feel kinda bad for Athena and that other girl; they really pissed Elisabeth off... I don't see either of 'em coming out of that situation without any whip marks on their bodies..."
Optimism was starting to rise for most of the ladies of the third round – all except the odd one out in Shiki and likely also Athena if things go the way some were expecting – but particular focus here, went to the slowly growing loyalty and friendship between Aoi and Leona, who were looking beyond the incidents with the Hakkesshu.
At least, it seemed like mostly Aoi was focused towards the road ahead, given her devotion to working up on her strength in the gym room. The punching bag was rolling with the blows laid upon it by the fired-up fighter, and handled well even the singes grazing through it from the flames belching through the knuckles of ...
Things weren't exactly as intense on the other end of things; Leona was seated nearby on one of the weight-training benches, having not picked up a dumbbell for a good little while. Instead she was staring, absolutely glaring straight into the wall she faced against. She knew what she could be facing against if the bracketology willed it – and a second guess was unnecessary when it came to who she was thinking about, away from her better judgment.
"Hey, uh... you alright?" Aoi only took full notice to Leona's inactivity as soon as she had a moment to stop throwing fists at the sandbags. "Haven't seen you lift a single weight since we got in here."
Leona barely lifted her lips. She was too deep into her thoughts to even glance back at the Kusanagi black-sheep.
The raised eyebrow of worry upon Aoi's head wriggled back down. The dread started to kick in within her again... "Fuck, it's about the Hakkesshu chicks, isn't it?" ...though it was less about the doom still looming over from the 2 out of 3 of the bitches remaining, and more about the over-thought being put into it at this point.
"I don't know what you want me to say," Aoi continued, trying to keep the silence from forming awkwardness in this conversation she was trying to keep up. "They're crazy bitches. Probably always have been."
"Shit, if there is a bright point to gather from this, it's that... well... they aren't exactly on the same page right now." Though there were still clear threats in the running in the form of Shermie and Vice, Aoi had grown to have just a slight less to fear after what went down earlier this morning.
When simply words didn't seem to budge the Ikari Warrior before her, however, Aoi was genuinely starting to run out of good ideas in trying to motivate further the blue-hair with a steel box of emotion kept locked in.
With enough room to spare on the bench behind the occupied, Aoi took a seat, a little hesitant to get close to the soldier – what with not just the possibility of Leona's reflexes preventing things from ending too peacefully in this, but also with previous instances of earlier today creating thoughts only worth hiding deep unless it became truly necessary. Reminder that the Kusanagi relative outright stumbled upon Leona topless at the start of the morning...
"We're gonna kick their asses. Just know that..." Aoi was leaning against Leona's back, hoping to provide herself an odd sort of comfort, and to spread the warmth and support.
…
Leona suddenly rose up from her seat, before Aoi's breath even found an unconscious chance to reach the soldier's shoulders. It almost caught the Kusanagi off-guard with how abrupt things passed by her body...
The leading lady of the Ikari knew exactly what she was intending, though. Her motivation steered her in a perfect road, and it started with the punching bag closer to the center of the gym room.
With an arm winding across, she zipped past the punching bag with a vibrant slash curving around her in the air...
...and after seconds of dramatic delay, the bottom half of the punching bag split off, immediately drowned afterwards by the spilling sand from the top-half carcass of leather.
"I've dealt with one – I won't let the rest get away with what they do." Leona cracked her knuckles and turned back around. "Everyone else will merely be collateral damage."
Aoi didn't know what to really think of Leona, and she had a feeling that wouldn't change for a while longer. As she grew to know the blue-haired soldier more, she also found herself knowing less In the subject of how much farther she and Leona were going to reach in this tournament, she was really hoping she wasn't going to be a part of that collateral damage.
The Kusanagi biker soon asked, "If you're so prepared for this kind of stuff, why not just tell me? I swear, something in me keeps thinking you're—"
"Scared?" Leona interrupted. "...No. I stopped being truly scared a long time ago... I merely grew."
The soldier outstretched her arm with a flat-palmed hand, still coursing with that sharp aura as she questioned. "Are you, Kusanagi?"
"Scared, you mean?" Aoi was uneased – with the stoic soldier before her, this wasn't the first time in this week of combat, that she felt this way. "...Shit, I don't know."
"Don't," said Leona.
There wasn't much else she needed to say besides that, as she surveyed the sliced-apart punching bag near her, which had freshly finished pouring sand onto the floor until it was a small hill at her boots. As she picked up a handful from the pile, she looked back up to Aoi. The conversation having dwindled into silence just recently, the biker seemed to be now placed awkwardly in the scenery.
Maybe there was a reason for one more thing to say. "Go on if you're done preparing," Leona suggested to Aoi. "The war continues soon..."
Aoi nodded with partial agreement to the consideration. "Might as well... imagine we don't have a whole lot of time depending on who goes when in this round." Not like she had too much of a choice, what with Leona unintentionally threatening a decrease in the amount of ragged punching bags hanging around the gym room.
She started to approach the opened-up doorway out of the gym room... fingers crossed that the arrangement of the brackets give them the best possible matchups for their motives and poten—
SLAM!
The gym-room door suddenly closed, separating the two growing friends from contact. If there was any shout of alert from Aoi, it wouldn't be heard anymore behind the closed-off doorway.
Leona knew what was up from the moment she heard the echoing slam of the doors, and merely glared with sharpness in her eyes… and the stealthy, well-endowed blonde emerging from behind the wide hiding spot the previously open door allowed, gave no mystery to what closed it shut.
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt something tender?" Lien Neville, scratched and clawed a-plenty by previous rounds, still had more than half a mind for mind-games on her fellow competitors... it was deathly obvious the lack of remorse she really felt for the recently-formed friendship she split away.
On the other end, while she knew exactly the danger the Hakkesshu was, that didn't mean Leona paid no mind to the other threats in the running. Even from the gathering period on Day Zero of the tournament, Leona had found herself crossing paths with some dastardly bitches. Maybe, as it turned out from the confrontation she had from Lien, it was destined to happen sooner or later?
Leona didn't need words at the moment (she rarely ever did throughout her KoF career, to be fair) – she was more focused on thinking of all the calculations and strengths behind the shell of the enemy, and what could be done to cause the most disadvantage from the earliest point.
"No response? Hmph..." No matter for Lien – the barely-feeling assassin didn't need input from the other party to still do damage. "Suppose you don't need to say anything. If anything, the silence helps you think, doesn't it?"
Leona still said nothing. Her stare said more than enough to show that she was growing to hate the blonde bitch before her. Maybe not as much hatred for her as it was for the Hakkesshu trio partially still in the running in this tournament, but even with barely minutes shared in one single room in the mansion, it was definitely getting there.
She kept her sight upon Lien, making sure to keep away from the anthill-sized pile of sand so that the assassin didn't take notice herself and pick up on any dirty tactics – she took a quiet but deep breath, holding her anger towards Lien simply within her head as she contemplated. In the long run, whatever she was going to do to the blonde fatale she was tasked with facing this round, was not going to be among the proudest of ideas she's ever had.
Especially if she was pushed any further towards the edge.
Continuing to face the silence of the Ikari Warrior, Lien curved her smirk into an angle akin to the horns of a demon... "I know what you're thinking – I'm not the first lady on your mind. On the other hand... you and me, sharing the same space... you've seen how it's been going down these past couple of days... You do realize what this means, do you?"
Leona did – begrudgingly so...
Fwoosh! A cloud of beige erupted upwards against Lien's face... Leona had just thrown the sand in her face!
"FUCK!" Before she could recover her sight fully, Lien was overwhelmed with detestation, absolute rage and frustration fueling the irritated tears. If there was anything to gather from her loud expletive, she did not take kindly to having dirty tactics thrown against her – especially before she had the chance herself!
Opting to jump into the action instead of easing herself in, Lien blindly swung a forearm forward – and was easily blocked off by Leona, who threw herself forwards against her breast-superior and backed her up on one of the chin-up bars across the room.
Still fighting to work her sight back into how it should be, Lien retorted furiously – "That make you feel any better, you orphaned piece of shit?"
She stomped a foot down onto one of Leona's, to barely an effect; Leona gritted her teeth beneath her closed mouth of neutral motivation, shoving her arm further against Lien's throat.
Over the corner of Leona's farther-away arm, there was a familiar spark of crackling bronze energy ready to unleash yet again...
Indeed, it was not anything different than what was seen before; what Leona used to deliver two kinds of finishing blows to her last two opponents, she was already starting to unleash within moments of her third bout's beginning.
"Oh hell no." Retorting with a gut kick to try to bump Leona back, Lien then grabbed the soldier by the ear and snapped her arm back, managing to yank out the small earring that Leona happened to be wearing. Just a sharp little pain over Leona's head, but enough to force her concentration elsewhere, to the bit of torn flesh upon her earlobe that was pushed aside by the earring's extraction.
From what Lien had gathered from Leona's fighting past – as she tended to do with many more a veteran fighter under work with the gang she swore under – she didn't want to have to hold onto that piercing for too long. She immediately shoved the earring back against its holder, with a palm flattening over it against the well-built abs of the Ikari Warrior.
With a full circle spin-around, clutching onto Lien's arm, Leona threw her opponent out of the way and made sure the earring was still in her new rival's clutches.
By this point, Lien got too much of the idea, of this hot-potato pass-around; she ultimately had to toss it over her shoulders and out of her sight.
Suddenly, a seismic POW! occurred inches behind where Lien stood, causing her to roll sideways away from the blast before it could catch her directly with its ball of flame and eardrum-blistering shockwaves of explosive sound.
As dumbbells, weights and other metallic belongings to the gym scattered a fair distance across the room, Lien sat in relief, the brief sweat from her frustration starting to help in cleaning away the sand that was still on her face. For her, the worst was over for that part alone – after Mignon's crazed attempt to bomb the shit out of her in the previous round, Lien had absolutely enough of getting quite literally blown up in this tournament.
The flames and soot of the resulting explosion beside the competitors in action, backdropped the fittingly burning tension between Lien and Leona, and the gym room was already starting to become a mess thanks to the unfortunate workout props that either caught flames or were simply blown into pieces. The two fighters were slowly gathering their bearings, spending their time staring each other down before considering combat stances.
"Right. No more bullshittin' around, eh?" considered Lien. Reddened around the eyes from the still-lingering irritation of the sand, and an overlaying patch of sweat down her face, she needed quite a bit of will to keep her focus and emotions in check.
She cracked her knuckles beneath the gloves and adjusted her wrist-worn gadget... "I'm going to absolutely enjoy breaking you."
Leona responded, "Believe what you want to believe, if you think that will help you." As the camo-clad soldier adjusted to the heightened temperature of the actively-burning room, she settled her arms into their usual prime positions.
"Time to face reality."
My initial idea, heading into Lien vs. Leona, was to have the first half of the bout here and then split it off into a second part to finish while allowing a little more story to occur afterwards. With how I arranged things here, however, I think does fair justice to the action and anticipation before this fight fully climaxes in the next chapter.
Next Chapter: A battle between two ladies who were raised to be unfeeling warriors... it lined up all too well the fortunes between Leona and Lien – but who is the stronger of the two?
