- TOH SHIN DEN II: Thicker Than Water -

a Battle Arena Toshinden 2 fanfiction by Athena Asamiya and Kasumi Todoh


CHAPTER FOUR: Commencement



Translations:
ne - used to ask for agreement to the statement made
-chan - honourific used for close friends, children or pets
mina-san - everyone [polite]
-sama - honourific used for higher people of status, gods etc.
hai - yes
mo, ari? - any more?
sou ka - that's right


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The alarm clock went off at precisely eight-thirty in the morning. Grumbling, the occupant of the bed next to it moaned out and rolled over, attempting to shut off it's annoying menace. Long blond hair askew, Sofia sat up in bed, still half-asleep. She suddenly shot into realization. It will be the opening match soon. And I have to be there! What English Sofia did know was used in the best way she could muster, but she had to admit she enjoyed the curse words. "Damn it! I am going to be late!"
Scrambling out of bed, Sofia pulled open her black bag of luggage and removed her costume for this year: a small red-and-black leather dress-type outfit that was slit open from the bottom neck to right above her bellybutton, exposing most of her quite-oversized cleavage. She also removed a pair of lacy-type elbow gloves, leather-strapped wrist bands and her trademark pair of stiletto heels. Sofia smiled wryly as she put on her costume; most people often told her that her typical costumes were extremely revealing. She never paid attention to it, believing that the less clothes that were there to hinder movement, the better.
Although she had to admit, she didn't feel completely assured of her victory today. Sofia had to admit that rather, she felt a bit nervous. She had never seen this Chaos fight before, so she didn't quite know what to expect. Although, if he really was a "pushover" like Tracy had said, then she didn't much to be nervous about. Still, Sofia had learned two lessons from the previous tournament: never let her guard down, and never underestimate an opponent, no matter what she'd heard about them. Also, it was the first fight of the tournament, and SHE was to be one of the first combatants. Such was an honour, though in any tournament but this one.
Coiling up her skinny bullwhip and attaching it to her waist, Sofia, in all her pride and glory, simply couldn't resist checking her reflection in the mirror before she left on her way to the main colosseum. Smiling seductively at herself in the mirror, Sofia grabbed her leather jacket and headed out.

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Kayin grinned proudly at the young blond girl leading a massive group of other hyperactive young ladies, all practically drooling over him and his blond good looks. "Now, who should I make this out to?"
"Alicia Masters!!" the lead girl practically screamed. She turned to her clique and they all couldn't contain their excitement, hopping up and down and shrieking. Kayin smiled. "All right, 'to the beautiful Alicia, love Kayin Amoh.' That sound okay?"
"Oh - my - GOD!!!" she screeched, throwing her arms around Kayin happily and kissing his cheek. "I love you Kayin!"
Kayin grinned. "Same to you. You girls have good taste, you know that? See you at my next fight." He waved and walked back over to Eiji, Ellis and Tracy, leaving the group of girls to scream over his hotness. Eiji shook his head sadly. "Poor kids. Too bad they don't know what you're really like, ne, Kayin-chan?"
Kayin took the empty seat next to Tracy and flipped his hair back conceitedly. "Yeah, well, good looks are half of what counts."
"What's the other half?" Ellis asked curiously.
"Ass-kicking capability."
"Boy," Tracy said, putting a friendly arm around him, "I like your style."
Kayin smirked jokingly. "Thanks, but we can't ALL be me."
"Shut up, Kayin-chan!" Eiji shoved Kayin in the shoulder from two seats over. Ellis laughed, "Same ego problem as last year."
"I do NOT have an ego problem!"
Tracy snorted. "Yeah, right. Reminds me of half da cops on the force." She observed the nearly-packed stands of the main arena which they were seated in. "Lotta people here, huh?"
"Yeah," Ellis agreed, also surveying the crowd. "Just like last year. I think I even see a couple of the fighters from last year too, among all those reporters and fight fans."
"What, no assassins or murderers this year?" Kayin joked, though it was in a slightly dry tone of voice. Eiji leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist. "With the threats they've made to us, it looks like we're in for another fight."
This sombered up the others quite a bit, though it was broken when a black-leather-clad lithe figure strolling onto the arena caught Tracy's eye. She held up a gloved fist. "Yeah! Here comes the Queen of Pain herself, ready to kick ass! God, I wish I wuz fightin' today!"
"You wish you could fight every day, Tracy," Ellis giggled.
"Ain't that the truth! No worries, Sofi will kick this freak's ass to hell and back, damn straight!"
Sofia knew her four friends were also in the arena somewhere, where they'd be watching the fight. This knowledge calmed her slightly, but she still knew that she was on her own, as it was against tournament rules for an outsider to help or interfere during a fight.
As she climbed into the arena, numerous whistles and catcalls from the male side of the spectators sounded out. Sofia revealed a bit of her naturally-dominatrix nature by blowing a kiss towards them, causing the cheers to rise even more. Smiling seductively, she sauntered towards the center line to get her first good look at her opponent.
Chaos was a fair bit taller than her own five foot seven, and was wearing a bright red and yellow costume that looked quite bulky in some places, largely padded in the shoulders. He pivoted on one leg, and held his weapon, a scythe, over his head in a very peculiar fighting stance. He also had a very cold look in his eyes, though it was also slightly blank. When she realized the fight was about to begin, Sofia cracked her whip once and sneered for intimidation, "Well. Do you think you are worthy enough to fight me?"
Chaos, surprisingly, didn't answer. He didn't say anything at all. How wonderful, Sofia thought to herself. She was about to say more, when she suddenly heard the announcer's voice.
"Mina-san, welcome to the annual Grand Martial Arts Tournament of the Fighting God - The Toshindaibukai!"
The crowd roared.
"This is the opening match of the tournament, and please welcome your fighters for this battle: Sofia and Chaos!"
Even more cheers and cries sounded from the excited audience. Even the group coudln't help themselves from cheering on Sofia a bit.
"Without further ado, let the match begin! Bout One!! FIGHT!!"
Chaos got right down to business, charging towards Sofia and attempting to hit with a hard swiping slash to her chest. Sofia quickly jumped out of the way, barely avoiding the hit. She drew her whip back and snapped it forward, sending out of a fiery ring of blue ki while at the same time shouting, "Thunder Ring!". The circular blast of energy hit Chaos and knocked him back a slight way, but it was only a matter of seconds before he recovered and was making another somersaulting dash forward. This time he caught her offguard by spinning through the air like a pinwheel and slicing at her with the whirling blade of his scythe. However, Sofia was back on feet within seconds. Chaos leapt into the air and shot down a green-coloured blast of ki at her. Sofia threw a Thunder Ring upwards, cancelling out the projectile quite nicely, following up with one of her newly-learned moves, a sparkling backflip called the Jewelry Shower, which rapped Chaos in the head with her stiletto heels and knocked him to the floor, where Sofia stomped on him with one of her heels. Chaos rose back up, and as soon as he was upright again (or at least what was upright for him), he sprang forwards quickly and swept her feet out from under her by hooking the huge blade behind her legs and pulling swiftly. Sofia hit the ground, rubbing the large scratches she had newly acquired. All right, she thought to herself, it is time to get serious.
She launched back to her feet and hit Chaos several times with her Aurora Revolution, spinning around him with several whip slashes, finally knocking him over. No sooner had he gotten up than she launched into a quick combo of a crouching fast kick, followed by a hard crack of her whip, and finishing off with a Rattlesnake, right in Chaos's face. Her whip became a blur as it snapped and lashed out at Chaos several times, before letting up on her assault as he collapsed again, this time unconscious on the floor of the ring. Sofia was declared the winner of Bout One while posing for her fans, which gladly cheered.

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Far above, in a special enclosed box seat with a one-way window, stood a tall, thin figure, and judging by the shape it was definately a woman. She regarded the fight with curious eyes, then turned to watch a small lot of television monitors as they showed close-ups of the different angles of the fight, thanks to a number of small surveillance cameras posted in and around the arena. She smiled with some satisfaction when the camera panned up, and the group of four fighters, Eiji, Kayin, Ellis and Tracy, were visible from the camera's view. She turned away and seemingly nodded to the darkness behind them, but it was for a reason. Another figure stepped out of the shadows, her dark partner.
"So," the other, a man, stated quietly. "They did come?"
The woman nodded again, motioning to the screen that displayed the four fighters. "See for yourself."
An unseen smile was shown to the darkness. "Perfect."
"I couldn't have agreed more." The woman looked over her shoulder, towards another direction in the shadows. "Master-sama."
Appearing out of thin air, the young girl's frame, clothed in the same mauve-and-white jumpsuit, arrived in the box seat. "My two angels. What have you discovered?"
Both man and woman bowed silently to the Master. The woman looked up from her bow. "Observe the surveillance monitor, Master-sama."
Master raised an eyebrow, but approached the screens and examined their views, then looked out onto the arena. "Ah, this is very good. The five from last year have arrived."
"Hai," the man said. "They are here and ready for their deaths."
Master shook her head, smiling coldly. "Not so quickly. We still have to try the clones. Let their precautions be in vain, and let us have a little fun with them first."
"Hai."

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"Bout Two! FIGHT!!"
The second round did not start off well for Chaos. It was clear Sofia had the upper hand. She decided to keep the fight within close range, hitting him with three straight combos in a row. Chaos barely had enough time to get up before he was struck back down again by receiving Sofia's boot in his face. Finally Sofia had him backed up almost to the edge of the ring. Just when victory seemed within her grasp, Chaos spoke for the first time all match, and what he said was surprising:
"It seems you and I are not so different. We can both suffer memory loss and have it not affect our fighting abilities."
Sofia unwittingly let her guard down. "What? You mean you're..."
Chaos suddenly launched into his Overdrive attack, with three rotating triangles and multicoloured blasts of ki flying out, smashing into Sofia. Being at close range and not blocking, she took the full amount of hits. Staggering from the attack, Sofia shook aside the previous remark and thought to herself, Two can play at that game.
She began to pace towards Chaos, ki sparkling off her body. Chaos didn't realize what she was doing until it was too late. As soon as Sofia got close enough to him, she launched into an hyper-type of Aurora Revolution, extra hard and extra fast. Then, before Chaos had time to recover, she spun into the air, with more ki shimmering down and leaving a sparking trail. "Call Me Queen!"
Sofia came down right on top of the battered Chaos, and he collapsed and lay still.
"The winner, SOFIA!!" shouted the announcer, joined by a chorus of yells as Sofia shook her head, smirking. "Mo, ari?"
A few minutes later, Sofia joined her four friends, who were waiting for her just inside the door to the arena.
"You okay?" Kayin asked. "From where we were watching, you almost looked bored fighting out there."
"You were quite right, Tracy," Sofia laughed. "Chaos was a pushover."
Tracy grinned happily. "Told ya so. We could all tell that you really didn't have a thing to worry about." Ellis smiled at the same time. "Great job, Sofi."
"Well, now that that's over," Eiji said in low voice so as not to be overheard by anyone, "I think we should get down to business and try to find some clues about the Himitsu Kessha and where they might be holding Naru. Meet me in my cabin in ten minutes."
"Right," the others nodded. As they all parted outside among the flow of spectators, Sofia couldn't help but give a quick thought to what that estranged fighter had said. Memory loss? It happened to him too? But how...I thought I was the only one that experiment was performed on. Apparently I was mistaken. Sofia rose her crystal-blue eyes to observe the setting sun in the distance, beyond the golden tower.
What monstrosities are these people capable of...?

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About an hour and a half later, the group had discovered that deciding to dig up information on the Himitsu was a lot easier than actually doing it.
"Man," Tracy muttered, close to exasperation, "I've worked on tougher cases in my time with less info, but this is damn stupid."
"There appears to be absolutely no information whatsoever on them, other than what we already know," Sofia said, rifling through one of the numerous piles of KGB files and documents she had brought with her, most on the top-secret organizations around the world. Ellis sighed. "And that's not much, is it?"
"Well, Himitsu Kessha is Japanese for 'Secret Organization'", Eiji said. "So I guess if they were to start putting out stuff about themselves they wouldn't be a 'secret' anymore."
"Cute, Eiji," Kayin snorted. "And thanks for the Japanese lesson."
After shooting Kayin an annoyed look, Eiji continued seriously, "They can't stay hidden forever. If they truly want to take revenge on us, then they'll have to make a move that will involve exposing themselves to do it."
Ellis nodded. "Just like last year, right?"
"It's crazy, even for them, but even I can't see any other way. The question is what the attack will be, where it will be, and when. It's a waiting game."
"And in the meantime we have no idea what Naru's going through," Kayin said darkly.
"I know you're worried about her, and so am I. But if we try to attack or raid their headquarters before we have enough information on them, we could end up putting Naru-chan in more danger."
"I agree with Eiji-kun," Ellis replied. Tracy and Sofia both nodded in agreement, although neither one said anything.
"I guess you're right," Kayin agreed finally, though it was close to a mutter.
"We can get a fresh start in the morning," Eiji said to him.
"That is, if none of us are fighting tomorrow," Tracy added.
"Oh, sou ka. Did anyone check the line-up sheet for the next battle?"
"I'm on it," Ellis replied, and headed out the door with a smile and wave. "See you guys...Eiji-kun." Eiji blushed slightly, as Tracy punched him in the shoulder jokingly while Sofia laughed. Not taking part in this, Kayin got up and went to the window.
Naru. No matter where you are, don't be afraid. I swear to God, we're going to find you.

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Vermilion sat in a chair facing a wall filled with computer screens, similar to the ones that had been in the box seat earlier. Most of them were off-line, but a few, the ones that monitored action in the arenas, were still on. However, at the moment he did not seem to be looking at any of them. More like he was staring past them, deep in thought. That thought was interrupted as the door opened and Master walked in. Vermilion turned around to face her. "I take it you saw today's match?"
She nodded, practically turning up her nose at him. "I did. And you?"
"Of course."
"My angels were monitoring it for me. Wasn't much, was it? I could tell who the victor would be almost as soon as it began."
"Well, what could you expect?" Vermilion replied. "That imbecile Chaos wasn't exactly high up on your list of fighters with any sanity." He emphasized the word 'your', and snickered. "Why did you send him anyway? One of our Soshiki's fighters could've easily been more suited to who they were battling."
Master gave him a dark look. "Let's just say it was a...test. I doubt it would've mattered, anyway. One of THAT group could have taken on any of our fighters with pretty much the same result."
"True," Vermilion agreed. "So, now that we've seen a sample of what one of the these fighters can dish out, I think we can safely assume the others are the same. Those five in particular, the ones that hang out in a group, are the ones we should look out for."
"I agree. Those are the same five that beat Uranus last year. We need to be well prepared for anything they may try."
"Kayin Amoh's in that group. As long as we hold his daughter, they'll be cautious in trying anything."
"Even so," Master stated, "we'd be fools to underestimate them." She grinned. "I say we up the stakes a bit. We should attempt to cripple their defences now, before they learn anything of our plans.
Vermilion looked thoughful. "We can't allow ourselves to be seen quite yet. However, if we were to send Dark Eiji or Dark Ellis, anyone who sees them will mistake them for the real fighters and think nothing of it."
"Good idea," Vermilion said. "We'll start with Kayin. We don't have to it in any particular order, as long as we don't arouse suspicion, and he will simply be fooled into thinking Dark Eiji is his friend--at first."
"I shall start making the arrangements right away." Master turned to leave. "They shall finally learn the true power of the Himitsu Kessha!"
Vermilion watched her go, eyes glimmering with a lust for power behind his tinted glasses as he fingered the trigger of one of his firearms.
"Not for long, foolish girl. Not for long."

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