Yes, yes, I know it's been a while since the last chapter.
No, I didn't catch 'the Corona Plague'. Hell, this is already coming later than usual after the problems with FFN in terms of "story updates" demotivated me slightly at the start of the month.
I'll save what I have to say at the end.
As the fight continued up to this point, the momentum worked less like a weight balance to work to push to your advantage, and more of a seesaw, or a pendulum that swung between each end of the combative spectrum with more time spent with an equal balance.
And what was it for – for one to climb up higher in the chance to fend off the mist of darkness that was the Hakkesshu?
Would it be worth it, for Asamiya or Kusanagi?
It was hard to say, and the answer could only be found once one couldn't find it in their body anymore, to get back up – as it usually was for the past, present and future of the tournament...
...but for now, a moment of serenity, as both ladies desperately needed it.
Athena conveniently found herself a chair that wasn't damaged and brittle enough to crumble after such carnage of scenery, while all Aoi had was the cracked wall behind her to climb up.
Aoi had a hand against her chest as she felt up and down it, sensing the deep breath sinking in and out of her stomach. Her legs were wiggling to a point of nearly collapsing and sending her back down on her butt against the wall.
"Fuck... *haaah... haaah...* …My heart's pumping like a piston..."
Athena wheezed in the midst of her own heavy breathing – a little bit of the smoke out of her opponent's firey efforts caught in the idol's throat.
"Glad you're enjoying this... *cough-cough!*"
"And you aren't? ...Hmmh... would've thought better from a popstar."
"That's the least of my problems right now... I came into this thinking it'll be a little fling, a little friendly competition, just to test my skills. I can imagine you felt the same, Aoi."
Aoi scoffed, working through the dry throat in her system.
"And it only took a few days for me to realize that this Elisabeth chick doesn't give a damn about 'friendly competition', if she's letting slide 'sexual assault' and 'attempted murder' all over the place. I don't care if she just overlooked it, a mess is a mess.
Athena slowly slid off from the chair she rested on... "I guess we both got off easy, with who we had to fight through. No fear of losing dignity, or life..."
No one would've wanted this conversation to linger on the slight darkness that hung in the corner of all these proceedings in the tournament thus far. All that it led to, was silence as the two fighters in action pondered whether to continue talking with their lips, or to restart expressing themselves with their fists.
Then again, there was something on the mind of Aoi Kusanagi...
In regards to certain incidents from the morning...
"You never did tell me what happened with you and Elisabeth. ...And the bubblegum girl, I guess."
"Was there ever a need for me to tell anyone?" Athena inquired. "I think Elisabeth would've preferred it stayed private... her and Mignon."
Aoi shrugged. "I kinda provoked you – I'll take the hit."
"Are you sure...?" asked Athena – by now, she was starting to pick at the bottom band of her uniform shirt.
Aoi sniffed. "Well... considering she'd like things behind closed doors...
"We're talking about it now, with the cameras on us," Athena acknowledged. "Privacy's kinda bungled now..."
It was by this point that Aoi finally started to notice Athena's hands fiddling around with her shirt.
"...What's your point, kid? Something you wanna show me?"
"Uh... well..."
With a slight lift on the back of her shirt, Athena gave forth a little bit of 'necessary exposure' as the fabric unveiled the reddening flesh; she didn't commit to presenting all ten marks – only enough to show the welts that dressed her formerly spotless skin.
Aoi hid the wince in her expression – but her eyes squinted to tell enough of just how she felt just looking. It made her a little more comfortable and uncomfortable considering her fullbody outfit – yet a leather one likely to rub up awfully on any potential welts she could receive herself.
"I'm... I'm a tough chick," Aoi eventually retorted. Regardless of how she felt, she was assuring – not just for herself but for the Psycho Soldier.
"I'm tough," she repeated. "You just... you just gotta learn to be one yourself. Kinda wish we didn't have to beat these lessons into each other..."
Athena didn't give an immediate response – though you could tell she was thinking on it, at least. She wasn't one to stumble over herself often with these thoughts following tough experiences.
And she similarly didn't miss a step when she dropped her shirt back down and pushed the chair aside from her left arm.
"Well... who are we to disappoint ourselves by not settling things? Let alone, everyone watching..."
Aoi's body rustled away from the wall, stumbling forth, slightly off-guard once the conversation got away from her.
"Athena, hold on—"
"Nonono, I know what I'm doing," Athena assured, leaning against that chair with certainty. "A fight's a fight, but a 'performance' can be anything. Let's cut the storytelling and get straight to the theatrics – make the most of it, yeah?"
Aoi felt things were passing by a little faster than she would've imagined. The idol she was conversing with had endured quite the lashing and it was almost making the eventual continuation of fist-to-fist a little hard to get back into.
However, she pushed on to set things back into course...
"Alright... just... don't blame me if you start crying."
Athena winked. "Same to you."
Then, with a sudden swing of the left leg, the chair was kicked up and across the table.
Just as Aoi crossed her arms over the front of her body, she felt the opposing aura suddenly appear behind her, as Athena teleported closer and tore down the guard, just in time for the top brim of the well-sculpted wooden seating to catch the Kusanagi on the mouth.
Aoi thrusted her own body backwards to try and shake Athena off, but the Psycho Soldier answered back with a double-knee against Aoi's back. Athena followed up with a spinning back kick to send Aoi against the table, but whiffed the next kick as Aoi leaned herself lower to dodge it.
As Aoi's body stumbled backwards, Athena partially vaulted – her movement stopped short of where her legs bent around as her thighs fell over on top of Aoi's shoulders, sitting atop the biker with crunching legwork as her upper body slumped back against the wall. The surface of the wall, and the friction it threatened to gather, clearly wouldn't be doing wonders on the crop-made marks on Athena's back.
Aoi dropped Athena, the schoolgirl's face and chest slamming against the table with fierce momentum put into it, but Athena quickly flipped over, clocking her heel against Aoi's jaw as she rolled frontwards.
Athena then threw the same leg over onto the top of Aoi's head, then shifted her body sideways from the top of her back, to swing in another kick into the side of Aoi's face that hooked the back of her knee and ankle around the Kusanagi rebel's neck.
Athena rolled backwards off the table the same way she rolled onto it seconds before, climbing over Aoi's shoulders to cling onto her back – Athena's legs extended, and she sprung off of Aoi's back with a sky-climbing leap. She clung onto the wall as she flew upwards against it, and hopped back off it as she spun around to dive back onto her opponent with her spine first before most of the rest of her body.
Aoi's immediate thought lapsed for a second as she felt the full weight of the magical schoolgirl smash against the back of her skull – but she quickly wrapped one of her arms backwards around Athena's chest, locking down the Psycho Soldier for a moment until she broke free again with a couple elbows towards freedom.
Aoi ducked again upon the inner sense of a swinging right hook coming in, grabbing Athena on the length of the arm beyond the elbow and wrenching it over until Athena was again slammed onto the table on her whip-wounded back – only for the pop idol to quickly slide back off and drag Aoi along by the forearm.
The two spiraled around each other as one tried to fight the other off of her arm – but Athena fought as much as she could to keep the back-pain distracted as she chipped down on Aoi's legs with small but fierce low-kicks, before twirling up with an ankle against the back of Aoi's neck that rattled her like a bobblehead.
Aoi pushed the momentum right back into her body as she shoved her weight against the table and blindly swung a kick; her knee managed to catch Athena at around the top left of her temple just as the Psycho Soldier climbed back up to her feet – and just like that, Athena was more deeply grounded than before, left a half-conscious heap as the road to recovery and return into action was elongated by the continuous hard hits.
"Mmph!" Athena was faced with a brief headache that could not have felt promising for her condition.
As she throttled her body to try and skip a step in her getting-up process, she hobbled herself around by her upper body to cling onto Aoi's legs. Aoi stumbled backwards, back against the wall once again, as she focused firstly on trying to 'respectfully' pry the opponent away from her body – but she was only pressed further as Athena picked herself up further and tried to run the momentum through her legs, up to her arms in intent to try and position properly.
Aoi quickly took back her claim on being the leading half to this dance of harsh blows and targeted critical strikes as she took Athena on a tour of fists around from the left side of the table, looping over the top corner and meeting lastly at the top side, width-wise...
…where Athena eventually found a break away by pulling a chair away from the table and shoving it into Aoi's gut. Walking up the backside of the chair, Athena looped her leg over the top of its backrest and clipped Aoi again in the head with a kick, mostly knee making contact, before rolling over, balancing herself upside-down very briefly…
...and spiraling her legs as she launched herself to the sky, taking her Kusanagi opponent up with her as she comboed her through the air with the tornado-like legs!
Aoi plummeted with the subtlety of a sandbag smacking flat against the ground, but unlike that metaphorical bag, she was able to get up with slight difficulty. As she got back to her feet, she saw that Athena had taken another stance – one with arms and legs further spread out at the sides, akin to some forms of Wushu.
Aoi smirked with a retained interest, and settled back mostly into her fighting stance... "I see how it is... a little Shaolin? A little Kung Fu, eh?"
"Master Chin taught me pretty much all he knows", Athena responded. "If you ever bothered to hang around the tournaments, you'd know already..."
Aoi replied, "Don't get smart on me, alright? I'm like a couple years your elder. ...Are you even of drinking age yet?"
Athena knew the taunts towards her weren't fully meant for venom – she played along to it, with wisdom in retort. "Skill is not limited by age, or by mind. That's what the master would say..."
Aoi nodded, adjusting her neck, weary off the rough landing. "Cute."
"Thanks." Athena immediately dashed back into the offense...
She pursued first with a right-left kick combo at the sides, but they were blocked by guarding forearms – which quickly led to Athena throwing a higher right kick that clicked mostly against Aoi's left shoulder as she answered back suddenly with a grab-hold onto the raised leg and her opposing forearm slamming into Athena's gut as she wrapped the arm around the idol and started shoving her against the table – but not without, of course, a bit of fussing and rotating on the opposite end with Athena's right elbow swinging in right beneath the back of Aoi's neck.
Athena's standing leg found its way up, crushing in on the right of Aoi's ribs as she tried to cling her lower body onto Aoi's upper, before she tried to throw in a couple more strikes around the shoulder and back. Aoi refused to hold her opponent any longer, and shoved off the idol – but Athena attempted to sweep back in with a very low-angle dropkick that Aoi side-rolled past. The result was the two swapping sides as Aoi combated from high height and Athena on the low-down; Aoi thrusted in with a sharp knee, trying to slam the hardest end of the kneecap onto the opposing performer, but Athena craned her neck back and slid past Aoi again, grabbing the knee-throwing leg and pulling it backwards as she attempted a takedown.
Aoi yanked the grabbed leg forwards again, taking that momentum into a backflip as she swung both legs down this time – Athena raised her arms too late, as the legs swung past her potential grasp and crashed right on the top of her head, and she stumbled back enough of a distance to bump against the wall behind her, bonking her head by unintentionally slinging it back from the momentum.
Before Athena could sum up the mental strength to figure out a counteraction, she felt the knees of Aoi crash into her gut as the biker soared in; Aoi continued to put on the offense by twirling in with a jumping savate kick, nearly leaving a bootprint on the right of Athena's face as the idol was swung around fully from the gravity being slashed to the side. Again, Aoi slammed a boot against Athena's body, little regard to the crop-marks left on the Psycho Soldier's back, as Aoi threw a kick against it in like a hammer against a nail.
Things were no longer swinging towards idol Athena's way as Aoi continuously kept her pinned against the wall with a few more back-strikes where it hurt most. Though the relative respect was still there, it was clear they were giving it all against each other because that's what the spectators would've wanted.
Whether it could have the potential to go to far was to be debated between the comfort zones of the currently-competing – and that seemed to come somewhat into play as Aoi started to grab onto the back of Athena's shirt with a heated touch.
"No~!" Now was not the time for further wardrobe dysfunction – Athena fussed and fought back with a few mule-like backward kicks that clocked mostly against Aoi's legs, until she was worn down enough to capitalize upon.
She then threw her whole body backwards upon Aoi, sending them both against the table – Athena's body specifically wound up rolling backwards, traveling across the table, until she fell seated on the floor on the opposite end.
The flimsy rollout of a bottle nearly clocking against the side of her head as it fell off the table against her lap quickly became the focus right as she was starting to form a longer-standing plan to evade the flames of her Kusanagi-born opposition.
She took notice to the label on the bottle – which struck as familiar to one of the usual set of drinks Master Chin interchanged and utilized in his fighting style.
Drinks that were likely to be flammable if used a certain way...
On the other end, Aoi was climbing over the table, ready to pounce straight down with combustible elements – but as she reeled an orange-blazed fist and charged further forward...
"Pfftttt~!" Athena spat out a hose-blast of the liquor in opposition to the orange embers Aoi was about to throw her way – and the flames went wilder than what the biker was willing to handle.
Thankfully, with the strong leather encasing the better portion of her body, Aoi narrowly avoided becoming a walking figure of fire – she was even lucky not to lose an eyebrow, too.
"Holy shit~" Aoi was already feeling her lungs rejecting the resulting smoke, and as soon as it cleared, she took notice to Athena taking a brief guzzle of the drink, channeling her drunken master in the spur of the moment.
And by the grimace on her face, there was an unestimated 99.9% chance of Athena regretting it in the long-run.
"I didn't take you as the type to drink." again climbed the table and slid in onto Athena's side, just barely connecting with a slide-kick as Athena weaved with a slight stumble.
"I'm not." Simultaneously fighting the opponent and the hard stuff flowing into her stomach, Athena swung her body back with a balance upon one leg, and a springing backfist that clocked Aoi on the cheek.
Before Aoi could reel back in to retaliate, she was met with a short shield of Psycho Power being pulled up in front of Athena's arms as she blindly tiptoed backwards – on the other hand, a few sips of the liquor and Athena was already carrying an unintended unpredictability in her step.
Aoi reached and tried to grab the pure wall of Psycho Power, but the guard was already lowered, and she was again drenched with a spit-splatter of a who-gives-a-crap brand of alcohol – Athena tackled back in, throwing herself full-body against the biker with a full spiral, and they both went down to the floor briefly, before Aoi rolled back over on top and picked herself up along with the ambitious Asamiya.
"I hope you know how to drink and fight responsibly," Aoi advised, as she pulled Athena up by the neck and skirtline of her attire, and then dropped her down stomach-first onto a sturdy knee.
Athena's body briefly quaked on her knees, before Aoi drove in deeper with knees of her own, crashing into the side of Athena's ribs and sending her rolling across the floor for a moment. Aoi continued to pursue, at one point trying to drop a fist directly down, but Athena kept rolling.
When Athena finally climbed off the floor, she chucked the liquor bottle right at Aoi's face, bouncing off the side of her nose and leveling her for a moment – so Athena was able to get in a brief combo of kicks that culminated in a theatrical flying kick against the side of the jaw. Aoi stumbled, holding onto the edge of the table along the way before she fell on her ass.
Athena swiftly plucked the bottle off the ground, taking a lanky, fairly unbalanced stance that continued comparisons to Master Chin. "I know how to use this. Kinda."
Now that she was thinking on it, Aoi was realizing how much further Athena was going with 'theatrics' "No you don't." As she re-entered the fray yet again and threw more heated punches – punches that mostly weaved as Athena swung herself through with unorthodox, buzzed-drunk dodges – Aoi was making sure not to angle too far towards the bottle, knowing the flammable properties she could potentially spark.
Athena's knuckles showed the limits of their durability as the skin atop slowly reddened from the many little punches she managed to land that accumulated to plentiful bruises that were probably set to form on Aoi's body beneath the biker-suit.
One double-hand chop, however, was deflected before impact, as Aoi swung her own arms in and outwards to catch Athena off-guard, and prompted another bootprint onto the schoolgirl sweater with a strong kick. She continued to follow Athena down from the knock-back, tackling into her – but that was as far as she went as the opponent fought the action with a reaction...
Athena's body was glowing subtly with her gifted powers as she lifted a hand... Rather than taking up the aura of a blade-shape, the semi-transparent glow better fit the shape of a fist around her own fist, doubling the power of a potential hammer-down, but it was blocked before it made contact with something whether spine or skull, Aoi catching the arm and pulling it sideways – towards the feast table...
SMASH went the table, finally finding its fate in the midst of a tussle that went over, under, all around and inside-out with the wood – it was bad enough that more than half of the quantity of food and drinks that was only freshly restocked in the morning, were wasted on the growing calamity of the fight.
Now the whole piece of furniture was split in half, and there was even less of the room to work off of.
The curtain call was coming soon – and it could be felt on the growingly fatigued bodies of the fighters...
Audience reaction was generally as tense as expected by this point, especially for those most closely-involved with those in the midst...
…
After getting over the brief danger that came with the previous match's across-the-mansion scenario, Momoko was now with her eyes glued to the corner-screen of the hospice.
"Athena-chan~ you can do it~!"
She clung tightly to the pillow wrapped around her arms as she watched her 'big sister figure' slowly approach the critical mass of the fight.
…
Leona's body was barely active in any form as she was finally being carried towards suitable comfort by the lovely maid, Iroha.
The mai was having a bit of a rough time carrying the soldier's toned yet wounded body, however. "Mmph... of all the ladies I've helped through the mansion these past few days... you seem like one of the strongest..."
Leona didn't respond back. Wasn't quite in the condition to hold a conversation, at least.
While her physical condition still looked crusty as hell – especially in a physical sense where the blood on her face was slowly drying – it was clear where her focus was, as whenever there was a TV screen within her sight, she was completely focused on it.
She was simply hoping Aoi wouldn't stumble and fall out of the running... not when there was still trouble looming within the brackets.
The clock was ticking down on the fight, as the two wasted more and more and even more of the air in their pairs of lungs, on kiais of determination – the winddown was playing out like a classic 'puroresu' brawl, trading forearms with a spurt of caught breath on each trade-back.
"You're stumbling..." Aoi could tell, as she laid into the purplette and saw her flinch more than normal.
Athena's throat briefly filled with a belch-bubble, indicating almost-rejection of what she guzzled down it.
"I'm not trying to..." Just as she said that, her legs split out a little harder than she was planning, and her balance toppled on even worse standing.
"Lightweight, are you?"
The hand that clutched the bottle finally let it loose from Athena's grasp. "I promised myself a long while back I wasn't going to try that... that I was gonna regret it if I do..."
Athena threw another wide punch and whiffed by a mile – things were not coming up her way, and she grew to realize it as Aoi wrapped an arm around.
"I guess you were right then, weren't you?" Aoi slammed a knee against Athena's gut to shake her off, and then laid one extra into her ribs with a boot that stopped briefly on the surface, before pushing against resistance and at the same time pulling pack on the power-gifted girl's arms, managing a light crack in the 'cage' as the rubber heel of the boot pushed deeper against Athena's stomach and earned a visceral grunt of pain from her.
Aoi didn't want to be bringing the pain upon the Psycho Soldier, but she knew she wasn't going to get past this easily.
"If you want to let the curtain fall now, that's fine. Cause it could probably get worse..."
After a moment of caught breath and coping with a screaming internal pain, Athena suddenly threw herself back up onto Aoi's body with a frog-leap – and she was soon shoved off with a swinging right kick right beneath the head, rattling the side of her neck.
There was a brief lump of ache in Athena's throat that she gulped back down... "I'm doing the best I can... *hah~hah~mmnURP~!* I've come this far... and if I can be honest – I don't... I don't want this to end in a bad end~!"
The instinct that remained in Athena coursed through continuously in the form of her ever-present Psycho Power – and it formed again in one of her hands in the form of a hand-covering blade that she thrusted in with a right hook...
Aoi caught her beyond the forearm, and pulled in just as her upper body charged in...
...and her forehead clashed with Athena's so hard that the sound made almost resembled a hard, bony clacking of skulls coming together!
The sound echoed as the two completely broke away from one another, bodies reeling back harshly – yet not hard enough for either to fall flatback, somehow.
Aoi palmed her face briefly and found a slight smear of blood resulting from a split eyebrow. That was damn near nothing on top of the possible concussion she brought upon herself.
Athena was too personally dazed to even check – but she had a feeling that started from the painful feeling wetness that opened out from her hairline, and another rather minor feeling she was going to taste what was slowly dripping down no matter where she turned her head.
Even though her brains were slightly slushed from the headbutt, Aoi was somewhat capable of a retort...
"I appreciate the determination..."
She took a posture that adjusted well to her right arm winding up WIDELY for the big swing, a fist just burning with an aura suitable for what she'd want to be 'the final blow'...
"...but if anyone's taking them down, it's gonna be me!"
With the spectrum of flames charged in her fist, Aoi swung the farthest and the deepest that she possibly could – and probably ever had up to this point – and smashed it into the bullseye-center of Athena's chest!
The idol went flying off her feet and almost immediately met the wall behind her with a force that cracked the plaster – and the back of her head hit it especially hard from the whiplash, so hard that she was lights out immediately.
The only thing that was holding her up now was the wall her body was leaning against. Even then, she was slowly leaning forwards...
...before falling into the arms of Aoi, who clutched the body of her defeated opponent with a very tight hug – so snug and tightly-clutched that Aoi could almost hear the heart pumping on autopilot within Athena's body despite her unconsciousness.
She almost didn't want to let go – even with all the burning passion she put into her fist, she was willing to give the respect the Psycho Soldier likely deserved for the effort, how long she lasted, and how much she took before finally succumbing. Even deeper within, was the possible thought that she may have gone a mile more than needed – just to defeat someone that she held no personal vendetta towards, unlike certain others.
"I got ya, Athena... I-I got ya..."
Aoi's body was quaking with an emotion that she tried to keep low-key, as her arms remained wrapped around the KO'd Psycho Soldier.
The worst was over for both of them today – but Aoi knew she had darker tides to look towards. She could already see it, in her mind's eye. The Hakkesshu still lingered and it was coming down to the wire just who was going to be the one to bring down what remains – even if it was guaranteed by the setup of this round that one of either Vice or Shermie were going to fall before Aoi gets there, there was no room to consider ease in the proceedings...
Aoi carefully lowered Athena's body until the fighting idol was laying face down, resting on the floor. She spent a good long time looking down at Athena, who was likely guaranteed a trip to hospice, whether under her own strength or being carried there.
"Athena... I don't want to let anyone down. I won't. Not until all this is over with..."
Winner: Aoi Kusanagi
Next Chapter: One last phase of thuggery from the dark end of the pool, before it potentially implodes by the end of the third round...
But first...
As you may have noticed, compared to other stuff I've written the past few months, my updates on SNK Heroines have been a little farther apart than usual. As I check my "last modified" dates for a couple of my chapters, there was even a two-month gap at one point.
Truth is, while the interest in this story is still there, and I want to make it to the end – especially since this is the longest proper story I've ever done in my fanfiction career, both in terms of chapters and word count – it hasn't been my biggest priority as of late. Especially given how this year has been so far.
Again, this doesn't mean the story won't be finished. It just means it may take some time.
Based on my very patternless update-schedule methods, it's hard to say how soon after this chapter, the next one will come around. It's a mixture of trying to smooth out the basis of the upcoming fight and how the fight itself will go (since the most I had arranged so far of the tournament is how the fights are set up all the way up to the finals), being focused on other ideas that bounce in my head and want to be put down to an OpenOffice document, and just utter procrastination (especially during these pandemic times) since, well, fanfiction writing is far from my only hobby and it takes a bit to motivate me to get more than a paragraph or two at a time.
Whether Chapter 56 will come up within the next month after 55, or if it'll be sooner or later, it's hard to say. All I can say on it is that after finishing this round, I'm probably gonna take a bit of an extended pause in updating this story and take a little bit time to put towards other ideas. I MIGHT manage to write a little bit extra heading into the next round before I stop posting, but that's not for certain.
To my loyals, keep patience in mind. It's better to do things at your own pace, than to rush it and get it over with.
~ Many thanks, LordryuTJ
