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Neon Hearts in Derelict Futures [Briar & AlrunaRose]

Aolieon lackadaisically whirled the baton around, spinning it between her fingers as she lightly stepped slowly with the balls of her feet on the mats. "Perhaps you should consider keeping as many options open as you can, neh?" she flipped the baton into forwards grip and flourished it around in a flurry of what seemed to be an amalgam of feigned strikes, turning motions to parry strikes and sweeping hand motions with her free hand, but stayed out of Therrye's reach -- almost as if she was briefly reminding herself of some block of principles as she slowly circled with careful side-steps. "You never know what's gonna be a good idea, until an opponent gives you an opening for when it's a good idea, after all.." She then seemed to hip-roll egregiously awkwardly on the spot, grunting at the realization of no warm-up loosening her shoulders afterwards, all seeming like she was shaking off some rust.

When Therrye went for her shoulder, she simply flicked her own baton at her inner wrist, whacking it with a decent sting and minimal movement; in the process, Aolieon angled her elbow outwards to block the wide-arc of the baton at her own shoulder, wincing for a little bit but otherwise blocking the blow with a harder part of her arm. Once her baton found it's mark on Therrye's inner wrist, the tip of the baton thrusted outwards to prod her assertively in the crook of her right shoulder to provoke some distance gain, pulling back and gesturing like the baton was some wizard's wand playfully (while actually imitating a retreating rapier's guard). Aolieon's expression betrayed no annoyance or aversion to her attempts -- only a giggle of mirth as Therrye attempted to stay out of her range. She gestured for her to approach her with the baton, encouraging her to simply come at this like a traditional exchange of blows. "This duel ain't gonna get anywhere if you continue to play keep-away, sweetheart. I'd tell you I don't bite, but that would be lying... wouldn't it?" Aolieon jabbed at her with her words, letting her tone get low on that last bit as she licked her lips -- as of right now, it looked like Aolieon was in positive control, but that's only because for obvious reasons, melee weapons were her forte...
Once Therrye took the encouragement and began coming at her more traditionally, Aolieon would circle her slowly, turning away strikes, blocking and lightly swatting, while her free hand took turns also swatting, palming, and performing light touches. Her entire approach to this bout seemed subdued, gentle and a tad playful -- almost as if she wasn't taking this too seriously. But every now and then, there'd be a hooking motion, either with the baton finding it's way around Therrye's and going around her arm, or Aolieon's free hand lightly touching, backhanding or flowing around Therrye's own; where the outside of a wrist or a riposte of the baton would find a way to very loosely grip Therrye in what could barely be considered a grapple -- and yet simply following through with the motion would throw Therrye off her own footing. There was a couple of times where Therrye would go in for a strike, and a simple prod of the baton in the crook between her shoulder and collarbone would disrupt the movement before it could be carried to term. Other times, Aolieon would engage in a defense against an attack that barely had any measure of rigidity to it -- and Therrye would simply be allowed to overshoot her movements to where her body would otherwise be carried by Aolieon moving out of the way. There were even times when a concerted attempt to knock Aolieon off-balance would be met with a strange brick wall of internal power, where Aolieon's stance would suddenly become so grounded that she could thwart Therrye's advances with a two-handed shove or a simple hook-away from herself. After barely a minute of simply circling around, it would have seemed that Aolieon had settled comfortably into a fascimile somewhere between focus and serenity, as stances became wider and more delicately postured; movements came more gentle and more expressive -- even the baton itself seemed to settle into the ensemble of her movements and become merely an extension of Aolieon's left arm and a flowing, encircling style of martial art seemed to click into place.

Aolieon grinned from ear-to-ear, enjoying their little play-by-play into the movements, always on the lookout for any natural habits of Therrye's which might reveal a thing or two; whether a used tactic echoed the penchant of an old habit, or a tensing of restraint betrayed a feeling, emotion or quirk were included among the list of things being felt for, but still she was enjoying the exchange.
Finally, Aolieon released a quip. "So, you gonna knock me on my ass or something? I know I'm not as sturdy as a Militech turret, but c'mon -- mess me up; fold me into a pretzel, something!"
 
She certainly has the skills to back up that sass. "That  does sound like something you'd suggest," she remarked, with something else in mind entirely. Her gaze swallowed up the details of Aolieon's movements in their totality, however; while she was not a genius like the other Liandri, her intuitive grasp of fighting outpaced her own knowledge of it. It was one of the leading reasons for how she survived the imbalanced matches she'd been set up to die against.

"Tell me all about openings, dancer," she smiled, with more teeth than perhaps either of them expected. Therrye gave her own wince at the strike on her wrist, but avoiding pain ranked low on her priorities. Reading how, where and when she was struck told her precious information, and the pain itself was instructive when matched with the rest. This sort of behavior probably wasn't much of a surprise, all told. Aolieon had well seen her propensity for treating bullets as things one can block with their body.

The woman's playfulness reminded her of painfully fond, not-so-distant memories. Pretending otherwise was what most of her adopted.

Chuckling at her barb, her violets went partially lidded while she replied. "Shame you were too distracted to bite me for very long." Refusing to give her immediate satisfaction, the bruiser led with a series of feints and provocations to see if she'd actually dive into offense instead of offensively countering.

But then she did launch into active series of strikes. Therrye wanted to start pressing her guard and leaned more into power and speed. She would have preferred to make it a trifecta with technique, yet that was her largest weak spot. For all she lacked in offensive capability here, this nevertheless remained a profound lesson in defense. Every turn of her baton, every flaw in her guard, every push on her stance told her what she needed to know to improve. At some points, her grin overshadowed the pain delivered by the blows entirely, reveling in the dance that clearly favored her opponent.

The longer this went on, the more her stance adjusted. By degrees, she was assimilating these lessons and turning them into alterations of action. That wasn't all she was learning, though; the language of how she fought whispered hints of her past, personality and education. "Dancer describes you so well," she mused, almost as if a thought had escaped into speech unbidden.

Beyond her minimal tendencies for self-preservation (which communicated something deeper than an appetite for pain), Therrye traded off which hand wielded the baton on occasion. Her right hand was dominant, but her left wasn't terribly neglected, either. Echoes of two weapon fighting lingered in how she held her body and came into swings with just the one baton. Several times an opportunity came to try a kick, but she hesitated, however briefly, and passed it up. Extra tension lingered in the shoulder with her old plates, though its effects were mild at most.

In all of it, she remained more concerned with watching and interpreting Aolieon's movements than actually trying to hurt her. She didn't simply restrain herself - and could hardly see the samurai work for defense in enlightening ways if she gave it no effort - but Therrye became far more invested in provoking her responses than expecting blows to land.

"Are you always so eager for punishment?" While it rolled off her tongue easily, she wasn't much thinking of their spar when she said it.  That caused a flicker of conflicted emotion that was quickly pushed to the side. Shaking loose her arms and stretching her neck, she smirked softly as she adjusted her stance to something more restrained. "Let's find out if I can." Therrye still had no intention to aim for truly injurious blows, but she stopped holding back on force.

Unlike her previous aims of bodying or provoking Aolieon to school her, her attacks moved her much less afield from where she grounded her stance. It was more like a porcupine than a badger, applying constant threat within her reach without lunging away from it. She still took steps to follow and push, of course, yet they were much more restrained. Trading away more considered blows and placing, she embraced a flowing flurry of assault. Having seen more of how the woman defeated her, she shifted her angles or changed her follow-through to put more pressure onto attempts at defense. With the amount of force she was applying now, successful hits would be much less 'fun'.
 
"Ohh, I could try to tell you about all the infinite possibilities of how you could turn a fight around..." Aolieon giggled, fending off more strikes as she could, but she leered as she sent out another tongue-in-cheek quip. "...but hearing me go on and on like that might be too much trouble for you! I'd get bored, you'd get tired; you might have to take me home again..." she chuckled teasingly, betraying the probability of a scenario she wouldnt be opposed to -- however, she pressed it so casually that it could have quite easily been taken as a simple jest. She continued slapping the baton away and at one moment, she followed through which a riposte that whiffed over her head with a powerful whoosh through the air -- she left a split-second opening in doing this lofty attempt at intimidation, but if Therrye didnt capitalize on it; she'd bring the baton handle down and surprisingly go into a two-handed wushu push to make her stumble. Whether or not she was bludgeoning decently and given the chance to marvel at bit at the pain or the push followed through and enabled a little detente between their dance; Aolieon would chuff and lick her lips. "I could go for days, if I really wanted to. Not so sure about you, though," she concluded with her sass, winking at Therrye sardonically. She twirled the baton a little more, then gestured for her to come again -- resets weren't at all demanded by Aolieon; the sparring simply went through ever so brief lulls before they were encouraged to resume. She didn't seem to put much stock in resetting to work on poses, and that facet seemed to lend itself to not only continued learning, but a practical approach to combat that wasn't necessarily life or death, but fun in its own way.

Slowly but assuredly as Aolieon kept her loving game of baton patticake up -- Therrye began to adjust her technique and start to apply pressure. She started getting closer into her guard; she switched weapon hands and for awhile it just seemed like she was evening the playing field to rise to the occasion -- the decision to switch from her dominant hand was a strange one indeed, but it didn't seem at all like her skills had depreciated all that much, which was interesting to note for sure. There were some echoes of being generally familiar similarly with the weapon in her hand -- had she been practicing with escrima sticks or something, lately? Aolieon switched hands to respond in kind, electing to keep her opponent's focus one-sided, but it wasn't a definitive answer to this change-up and it wouldn't last long... Therrye had started to switch to tanking some of Aolieon's blows, rather than letting her defense be entirely occupied with Aolieon's give-and-take. Therrye started getting a few successful hits in, due to her ability to now keep Aolieon fully occupied on defense. Aolieon's eyes dilated and she grinned -- even she was beginning to get excited.

Aolieon started changing it up, including some simple and intermediate knife drills into her martial-arts mix-ups, allowing for quicker, snapper hits that ended up being a bit unconventional and hard to spot due to said drills being made for use with a significantly shorter weapon held in reverse grip. The baton began fluttering about in upright figure-eights, reverse figure-eights and other shapes, making it harder to tell which way the baton was going to go in deflection, or come from in attack -- it looked like something a strike force operator might do when backed up against the wall, or out of bullets.

🎶 Paul Hertzog -- "Bloodsport Theme Suite" 🎶

Still, Therrye pressed back and accepted her challenge -- no longer holding back on force, she started getting some decent, even heavier strikes in. This made Aolieon begin to grunt and hiss in pain, as she intensified her whirling flurry in an attempt to keep parrying. Grip tensed, allowing harder blows to be turned away, but she still kept closing, applying pressure -- her eyes began to sharpen. She started stepping back, baiting with her own faints, moving as if she was lowering her guard a bit -- when the fated swing near the head would finally come, Aolieon would weave backwards and suddenly fling her upper body to the side, tucking into an impromptu side-flip -- barely enough to be entirely gymnastic in form, but enough for her to bring her heel behind her and right across Therrye's face... an unexpected change-up into something altogether different from fighting in its entirety, and with enough force to at least to daze her target and send her reeling. Had Aolieon been caught in the throes of her own emotion and that kick had been delivered with intention -- there is no doubt in the world that it would have broken Therrye's nose or knocked some teeth loose, because no matter how benevolent one's intentions are in sparring; there's a special something to be said about full-body momentum attacks that come more naturally to someone and out of left field at the opponent...

After that little exchange, a single look at Aolieon would reveal just the beginnings of a sweat broken and a light pant; her eyes widened in surprise at her own instincts with maybe a tinge of remorse. Aolieon grinned with mirth, shrugging with the baton still in her hands. "... heh. Sorry," she offered, collapsing the baton into her free hand and flinging it to the side like discarded trash. "Still not giving those luscious legs the limelight they deserve, I see..." she managed to follow up, trying to play her instinctive brutality off as something that was relevant to their sparring lesson. She giggled lightly, however; not entirely sorry after a few strong whacks from Therrye's baton... then, Aolieon began to move in a way that Therrye probably had never seen before...

Even in such a diversified and nuanced field of practice such as mixed Martial arts -- Capoiera was a largely uncommon sight. It is said that this martial art found it's origin centuries ago in less developed countries, having migrated to others in the minds of plantation slaves, who would practice it in their free time in preparation of escape designs, as well as to teach themselves a method of self-defense. Many masters would ignorantly shrug it off as 'cultural dancing' in its observation, and so Capoiera would end up being mastered by those who practiced it among their shackled companions, much in the same way that Tai Chi could be mastered in complete isolation and with minimal living space. That being said, for such a niche and outlandish fighting style heralding from Latin America; it was both an unconventional and largely underrated martial art, as even though it appeared to present glaring weaknesses at first sight -- not only could a Master of Capoiera curb these weaknesses decently, but it kept an opponent at a range largely uncomfortable for many fighters to engage... as the legs more often than not have more reach than one's fists; the usage of full body momentum made strikes devastating if projected with worth, and fighting in an element that was somewhere between half-standing and prone was not something many martial arts and fighting styles lent themselves well to...

"Youre right about one thing -- Im a dancer through and through, bruiser. One thing I hope you'll realize though, is that your legs have the potential to be weapons just as devastating as those strapping gorilla arms of yours, baby. You should learn to get your whole body engaged in a fight; after all, in the same way that you miss every shot you don't take -- what you don't use, is something people can just use against you..."
Aolieon crouched down and began stepping side to side; her back foot pronouncing itself far behind her as the arm on the same side as the leg going backwards came up to sway in front of her face -- Aolieon's "Ginga", as the default fighting "stance" for Capoiera was known, carried a little something with it -- her hips sauntered backwards with her steps, and her upper body seemed to meander in its own figure eights, creating a highly active "stance" that gave way to infinite possibilities... after a few moments of doing this side to side dance and even circling her a bit -- Aolieon postured her hands in front of her with a mischievous grinning leer and beckoned Therrye forwards... Alerting the bruiser that this wasn't just some theatrical little skit she was doing in the middle of a match.
 
Therrye gave a soft chuff to her leer and tease. Part of her very much responded to the notion, and her eyes dilated momentarily. That wasn't the part currently in charge, though. "You're no fainting damsel in distress; you can bed yourself, can't you?" she retorted, clipping the samurai's thigh with a downward swipe before getting pushed back. Taking the breath and swishing unthreateningly with the baton, she smirked unimpressed. "Big words from the gal who fell asleep on me."

Aolieon certainly got more hits in with the change up, and made some quiet noises at the impacts. Watching her figure eights for a couple moments, she just doubled down on pressing the assault, turning blows to follow parries and make them struggle to release, and hooking her own baton following blocks to unsteady the dancer. The switch to her gymnastic-lite heel strike did get a good retort in, and all Therrye could do in response was turn her head slightly to spread out the impact on her jaw instead of take it straight to the teeth.

Regarding her with a grin, she stretched her jaw and imagined what level of bruise her cheek would be left with. Rather than deter her, it only made her more interested in what would follow. "Feisty," she said lowly, narrowing her focus with the discarding of the baton and the inevitable shift in approach that would follow. A nasal exhale was her only response to the legs comment; even though it was something she'd made the decision to remedy, she wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of telling her that. Then she'd definitely know she was the motivation for doing so.

The switch to Capoiera was not one the bruiser expected and it consumed her focus. Vague tickles at the back of her mind told her it reminded her of  something in the halls of memory, but there was a large difference between fighting against someone who knew an art vs someone who had learned from someone who'd been inspired by some old vid. "Then show me what that body of yours can do."

Given how their first exchange went, Therrye knew charging in would give her opponent the definitive advantage. Tossing aside the baton with more intention than the other woman's carelessness, she dredged through the murk of her past to pull her footing toward a more kick-forward footing.

Not because she thought it would provide her with any edge (and it wouldn't, given the minimal development there over grappling moves), but all to provoke Aolieon toward offense. Using her slightly superior reach, she threw some kicks at the woman's shins. Really, the more she could focus herself on dodging and parrying, the faster she could start to get a read on what this form brought to the arena.

Either which way, though, she fully expected to take a beating from it before she'd make any meaningful progress in responding to it.
 
"I think I'd rather play Russian Roulette," she stated -- of course the reference was quite literal, because the fact of the matter was home was not a place she wanted to be. Echoes flashed through her mind of thoughts she had attacked herself with only a handful of hours ago, but she brushed them aside. "And I had been awake five days prior, i think -- you were comfy. What can I say?" she jabbed, deciding that brazen honesty was a potentially more beneficial approach to getting inside her head.

When the bruiser flung her first kick at one of her shins; she had sensed the waters being tested -- using her momentum from kicking backwards, she twirled her body, pulling what was originally her forwards leg out of range as the leg originally behind her slid to whirl her about to the side... but she didnt stop there. Allowing her body to drop, the stepping leg continued on its whirling path; her hands behind her, they switchec up to support weight as she swept the first leg forwards in a left arc... then the right leg swept opposite; there was plenty of time to slip out of the way, but before Therrye knew it, Aolieon's legs had left the ground as both came up in a sort of cartwheel, coming at her like a sword threatening to split her in two -- even if she stepped out of the way, the cartwheel would complete itself, and with additional carried momentum -- her body would tuck into a sideways handspring. As the legs came up above her again, it would look like the same movement would come again... but her legs would turn to the side, swinging them in an overhead blow as momentum was canceled and she would go for additional head blows by twirling upside down.

Finally, shed back-handspring away from Therrye a couple of times, landing on her hands in a handstand. Her legs would point skyward -- her waist bent them forwards, then to the side, then backwards, almost allowing her back to nearly form an L-shape with her body. She'd then return to neutral and bring her knees in, assuming this particular handstanding pose.
"Well, don't just stand there -- show me whatcha got, bruiser." She'd smile from upside down, giving her time to figure this all out.
 
"That would explain a lot," she murmured. As much as Therrye felt inclined toward empathy and caretaking, Aolieon had already told her to fuck off in clear terms and there was nothing one could do for the unwilling. When the scorpion tells you its nature, you listen, and the bruiser took the words to heart. "You can say whatever you want, dancer. You're already saying plenty," she smirked, the honesty of her footwork more clear and forward than anything she'd ever expect from the Liandri's lips.

True to the form, it was hard to follow and predict. She'd already committed to the defensive, but these sharp blows rewarded her parries with continued strikes, and some painful impacts were her rewards. Shifting more toward dodging, she found herself getting pushed harder toward the lines on the mat.

Then she drew back into a stand that looked far more like a performance piece than a fighting stance. It was puzzling, it was threatening, and it was fascinating. This style seemed perfectly suited to her agility and grace, and she was already getting an inkling of how much she could get hurt by it.

That, of course, did little to deter the bruiser.

Suspecting that her fists were more of a liability here, she edged forward then swept with a palm toward a shin again, already readying to lean her upper body backwards and dodge a kick to the head.

Coming at this from a hand-centric approach would do her few favors, but she kept at it, striking with the side of hand and pushing at her swinging legs with open palms while she observed the fresh hell coming down on her. Focusing on her so intently, she didn't bother replying to her sass yet.
 
Aolieon waited patiently in the handstand for a couple of seconds, drinking in the amazement that the other Liandri had at her strange theatrics. Was almost enough to make her sigh flightily in nostalgia -- she began to recall the movements and eccentricities of an old drunken Xeno bikkhu who was as cultured and peaceful as a Maelstromer was known to be honorable. When Therrye advanced, Aolieon's legs kicked outwards, individually somehow managing a flurry of upside-down kicks that at least might encourage her opponent to back away for a split-second, and identify this handstand as a guard stance. Then, she pushed on her hands, spinning on her own head mildly as she whirled her legs about in a helicopter-like whirlwind of kicks, keeping her legs wide as she pushed and seemed to outlandishly navigate the mats while upside down. Aolieon haaaated performing this technique as it put an undue amount of pressure on her horns, and she had to be careful the slight upwards curl of her upper horns didn't snag the mats and cause her to simply fling herself prone -- still, she recalled something unhinged said to her about how pain was the agent of doubt and she needed to 'stop being a weak-kneed, watery-eyed wimp'. Aolieon twirled about upside down for two turns, swinging her legs wide and slightly upwards for goes at Therrye's midsection and head. Then mid-twirl, one leg abruptly arced backwards going for an overhead strike, before being hooked back around to whirl for another midsection blow. Finally facing Therrye, she went for a simple one-two combo of a side kick and a roundhouse (still upside down). Finally, Aolieon pushed upwards with a severe grunt in effort, pulling into a handspring that delivered her heels forwards in a dropkick -- falling prone but performing a split to restart momentum and start sweeping the legs.

Aolieon turned her body to the side, sliding in to deliver a few stagger kicks to Therrye's shins before whirling herself back around and kipping up slightly to bring both legs back around the other side and attempt another single handspring drop kick. Aolieon kept going for good strikes merely to keep Therrye on her toes, but what she really wanted was to get Therrye on the ground -- still she kept evading and relying on those stout gorilla arms to block her attacks. Aolieon went back to default position and then slid in hard and fast sideways, opening her legs into a scissor-kick in an attempt to close them around Therrye's ankles and twist her body like a rag to try and get Therrye to fall over backwards... however, the low kicks had been coming frequently, so a simple hop up could have been more than enough to get out of reach. Aolieon bent her core inwards like a slithering snake in order to dodge any potentially incoming Superhero Landing or other attack that might come from jumping.

She was going to have to get semi-serious if she really wanted to get her on the ground -- and so it was time she mixed in the grappling. She kipped up back into default, going into a sprint before executing a hands-free cartwheel; making it look like she was going for another strong overhead kick -- at the last moment, she turned her body with the momentum to face forwards, opening her legs and allowing her body weight to descend upon the bruiser. Whirling about her shoulders, she'd somehow clamber up past her guard and fixate her thighs around Therrye's head -- it seemed like Aolieon was about to pull the signature Frankensteiner from their previous encounter in the middle of the street, but her knee hooked around the ankle of her opposite leg... closing Therrye's head into a leg-based grapple that fastened the bruiser's head between the vise of her thick thighs. Aolieon grabbed her hair with one hand but didn't pull unfairly in any sort of way, just maintaining enough grip on her to maintain balance as she sat atop the standing Therrye -- the other hand reached down to clasp around the ankle corresponding to the knee that was holding the headlock in place. Therrye hadn't even been brought to the ground yet... and already, the dancer had her in a submission hold, threatening to smother the bruiser unconscious with her own crotch.

Aolieon let out a gleeful slight moan, giggling with derisive mischief as she simply hunkered into her grapple, knowing now that if she was committed, she needed to hold on for dear life. "Hahaha, you're in trouble, now, bruiser -- Clock's ticking..."
 
The shift in art was, as expected, a bit of a nightmare. Powerful kicks came in singles and flurries with unfamiliar bridges between the strikes. Watching her movements could help tell when a swing might happen to varying degrees, and where it might aim for her. That meant a rather large range of timing and placement for defense. Wisdom in fighting would have instructed her to back off persistently to have space to react and evade.

But if Therrye did so, fewer blows would be coming and she'd have less to learn from.

Earning herself bruises aplenty in the doing, she shifted to a persistent arm guard for her head while swaying toward dodges and palm-parrying what she could. This kept her from getting any more shiners on her face, but rattled her arm thoroughly and left her legs open. Hisses of pain came from the shin kicks and she backed up immediately after receiving them, giving her a tiny moment of breathing room.

If this was specifically about showing the bruiser just how effective legs could be, the dancer was doing a fantastic job of it.

Focused on defending, still, she barely cleared the attempt to knock her down, and did not push her luck at trying to get in a counter attack. This form of hers was undoubtedly full of responses she had yet to see and Aolieon was clever besides. An apparent opening could easily be a trap.

Anticipating another push into kicks and lower/upper body attacks, the thighs to head grapple was not the maneuver she expected (though now that it'd happened twice to her, she certainly would in the future). Huffing in an expression that communicated a certain sort of swearing, Therrye slapped the woman's hips hard and then dug thumbs toward the inside pressure points while her grip tried to loosen her. The ghi did her no favors, though, and made it harder to pull off this improvised deterrence. It didn't help either how this hold on her echoed their first night together, adding a different sort of flavor to the lightheadedness being inflicted upon her.

Not having any intention to yield, she remained standing and switched to hammer on her hips with punches. Even without her breakers on, she didn't want to go full force on Aolieon; she wasn't much letting up, though, and it wouldn't be long before she dropped from the blood choke no matter how defiant she felt. Her vision was getting foggy and the speed of thought was breaking down. Given her effort to make this happen, she doubted Aolieon would let up until she passed out.

Left with few options, and even fewer that weren't more savagely injurious, her eyes widened as she released a feral shout and grabbed the Liandri's arms to keep her in place. That was when she hopped up and forward, taking her down to the mat with a body slam. In the moment that followed, she pushed hard to slip an arm under and around her left while moving the other to scoop her neck and lift it before grasping that arm with the first to lock the partial pin. "Nice fucking try," she growled, more activated than she expected or wanted.
 
Aolieon's glee at having locked Therrye in a pin before she had even been brought down to earth was short-lived, as the bruiser wasted no time trying to figure out how to get out of the pin. The handful of concerted strikes to Aolieon's sides were particularly distressing, causing a decent amount of pain; she struggled to hold on -- she had taken many bullets and cuts in many places, but the abundance of flesh surrounding her hips betrayed a large amount of surface area to bludgeon... and of course, the nerves surrounding these areas were no less loud in their protest. Her grip on the bruiser's hair tightened and she grunted and groaned with each blow, but followed up with heaving sounds of determination, tightening her vise as much as she could without actually trying to cause damage. If this was an assassination target, a simple fling of her body would be enough to discombobulate or twist the neck -- Aolieon tensed in her muscles, freezing amidst the blows, pushing down on Therrye's head slightly to maintain he'd upright posture; reasserting her grip over the fact that she didn't wanna hurt her... It wasn't even intended for her to choke the bruiser unconscious -- this was just her showing internal grappling power, but now, underneath the bruiser's alarm, Aolieon was fighting to not let her body move in any unwanted directions... the risk elevated, and Aolieon was too caught up in the movements of this stage of their spar to know what to do to de-escalate...
Eventually, Therrye fell to one knee; Aolieon giggled a little bit, but withheld her mirth and even let a bit of nervousness in there. "Careful..." she managed to call out -- the reply was a loud roar as Therrye capitalized on the opportunity to send Aolieon crashing to the ground first before things got out of hand.

A searing lightning flash of pain seared from her core and wrapped itself around Aolieon's ribcage -- she felt something dislocate itself, and that sent viscerally electrifying sensations through her that she was not on-guard for at this point in time. Aolieon let out a scratchy cry of pain, sounding like nails on a chalkboard from deep within the throat -- a signal of harm that escaped all too quickly to not be noticed. At the same time that Aolieon's body thudded onto the mat, her muscle tension loosened with the freeze of impact, allowing Therrye to slip out and immediately proceed into a counter-pin of half immobilization. The bruiser's left arm locked her right side completely up as she leaned atop her, while the right arm settled its elbow into her sternum and rested her right hand upon her neck.

🎶 DOLLVOiD -- "Insatiable Havoc" 🎶

Pain. Subjugation in a strong grapple. The sense of a feral presence that posed a threat. Being counter-pinned so quickly took Aolieon by surprise for sure, but the settling of the hand on her neck became a rogue element to oppose the element of what Aolieon could only surmised could be a dislocated floater rib, or worse, a cracked one -- both immediately threatened the ability to breathe... and so all of the sudden open warfare broke out in Aolieon's mind as various hemispheres of a fractured psychology and aspects with a stake in this bid for interaction began to violently fight for the authority to command the next impulse of combat. The only thing that was an indicator was a brief expression of shock, the next few breaths out of her which lightly wheezed and her eyes twitching as the pupils showed minor staggering fluctuations.
You see, Aolieon's relations with the concept of choking could only be likened to her relationship with the business end of a certain snub-nosed revolver -- she had a twisted love for the taste of cordial and the dance of death it represented, but it also carried with it a subconscious terrifying aspect that threatened to plunge oneself into an instinctive storm of impulse -- the same one people might liken to fight or flight, or trauma response. In that manner, choking was one of the ways she faced her demon's directly and it was quite a thrill to her, but when she was unprepared for it? One might as well go searching for unexploded ordnance with a hammer...

Seeing the bruiser's anger finally roused once more was counted as a success, but the pain of the ribcage disarmed it entirely. Aolieon felt threatened, but seeing those violet piercers aimed at her and feeling hands on her neck aroused her. Something burst forth, plucking the ribbons out of the grip of self-restraint and began frantically wrestling and slashing at a primal force entirely different from itself -- one borne of blood, trauma and shadows of helplessness snatched from darkness and aimed at lashing out at anyone and everyone. Salacious thoughts intercede intermittently; time slowed as tactical matrices were analyzed for a logical way out, in addition to a rational resolution. But most powerfully, an aspect of unrealized being screamed and tore at her killer instincts. Amidst the whirlwind of split-second thoughts -- Aolieon's vision began to tinge, and she was starting to see flashes of red...
No-no-no-no-no, not now! Aolieon began meekly thrashing out of instinct against the bruiser's hold; her eyes dilated with that spark of lust as the grip began go tighten around her neck but exercised restraint in not becoming a full on blood choke right off the bat -- the Therrye she had come to initially become quite familiar with was still in there, and she needed to respond in kind... Don't... not here...
... a compromise she didnt entirely agree to herself was made; a deal struck against the will of reason, and the back of her mind let out a derisive and delusional spike of humor, which then was echoed by her lusty designs and primal instinct for combative courtship...
Aolieon stopped struggling to breathe -- what came out of her throat instead was a vibrant, hearty and delusional cacophony of Yandere-esque laughter as her eyes sharpened and began to glower violently. She swung her left leg upwards, chucking a left hook directly into Therrye's face to turn it and distract her for a split-second before her leg could come into view -- it crossed in front of Aolieon and underneath Therrye's right upper arm, hooking the knee behind her left shoulder. What followed was Aolieon's own feral snarl of an exerted groan, as Aolieon thrashed against her choking hand and pushed as hard as she could upwards to pull Therrye off of her. Her left arm clawed into Therrye's exposed side underneath her halter top, bleeding her to cause distracted sensations and allow her more leverage -- whenever at last Therrye could be yanked free of her, Aolieon would kip-up with both legs before pulling them into a full force dropkick into her face, using the remaining momentum to handspring away from her, but Aolieon would falter, landing on her knees for a second.

Not wanting to draw too much attention to her own injuries, she'd spring up and begin strutting, circling away a bit as she fought HARD to quickly regain control of her thoughts -- the wheezing in her breath could be audibly heard. "Whoo, that was intense -- yeah, we both went a little too hard there, Christ..." Aolieon's eyes were significantly dilated, clearly indicating that she had been given quite a tempting startle, as her hands felt her ribcage for a second. She breathed deep a couple of times, wincing as she troubleshot her own injuries, and found the problem -- hooking her right arm into her midsection just beneath the ribcage, she grasped the wrist with her left hand and then flexed her arm suddenly, shoving her elbow in -- a light pop could be heard, and Aolieon would let out a guttural groan of notable pain as she popped her own floater rib back into place... She still felt another rib being the problem, but Aolieon really really REALLY didn't want this fun to end, so she committed herself to playing off the pain as if she had cured the actual problem on the spot.
"Oh me, oh my -- what the hell are you, and why are you so much fun??" There was a change to Aolieon's body language; her struts were slower, more thought-out. Her gaze was more focused, sharpened and tje dilation remained to a normal degree, but there was a sharpening of color that brought the amber into something less natural -- making her eyes burn vibrantly with a more chartreuse color. Her wheezing dissipated, and she resumed her Ginga, but it was slower, simpler... like a lioness ready to pounce, there was a note of both fiery passion and delusion in her eyes... possibly a glint of murderous intent. "Amazing, truly, my sweet -- I gotta learn to stop underestimating you," something else changed -- her hands stopped moving in their default guard; claws started forming in her hands, and unusual palm maneuvers; she was switching between large back steps of the Ginga, tactical footwork and wide crouches. It seemed like she didn't know what she wanted to use, but she might also deceptively keeping her options open. A hand slid to where her hip pouch full of drugs would be -- nothing was there, went back to Ginga. Her eyes darted to her inner wrist, nothing. Something was reaching for things she didn't have, and her grips tightened -- something was wrong, but it seemed to be melting away for the time being. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes in an attempt to find her center... her eye twitched as she held back a cough or a larger indicator of pain, but she also opened her eyes, and the color/dilation seemed to be regaining it's bearings slowly. A brief look of concern, of mild worry crossed her face; then it went numb and she inhaled, seeming to be back to her normal self. What the hell just happened, there?
 
Something about the threat of being choked out had inevitably gripped her anger and pulled it taut; while she could generally keep herself level-headed and disarmed of such things in a training environment, this was clearly one of those triggers that called back on much darker days of life or death conflict. Or, perhaps, something in the exchange with this specific sparring partner had yanked it out of her where it otherwise could have been stymied.

The scratchy cry of pain from the Liandri's throat did a lot in immediately blunting the fury that'd spiked in her, and distracted her besides with concern over having caused significant and unintended damage to the dancer. However much she was upset with how things had gone down between them, taking it out on her in any physical way was not okay, and she briefly wondered if that had been pushing her in any of her response. Even if it wasn't, this was not the fighter she wanted to be, and had spent a great deal of time pushing out of since her escape into freedom. Why didn't I just take the L?

Her conclusion leaned toward negative on personal grudges driving her behavior, but she wasn't given much time to consider it as the woman tore at her and kicked in her in the face. Between the thrashing and her own internal conflict, she eased up more readily than Aolieon probably expected, and was promptly rewarded for it with a brutal slam to her face. "Fuck!" she growled out, clutching her now-bleeding face with one hand while the other pulled up defensively. When the attack wasn't followed up with another, she rolled away, coming into an almost animalistic crouch and glowering for a moment through her open fingers.

The heave of her chest thinned as she got a grip back onto her emotions. There was no missing the rattle in Aolieon's breath, and real concern cut through her chest. Wiping blood from her nose, she returned to her feet, but didn't assume a fighting stance immediately and winced visibly at the samurai popping a rib back into place. "So we did," she replied, an edge of disappointment in herself for it. What nonverbal movements followed betrayed confusion, vicious impulse, and pain; even if Therrye had felt a burning desire to pummel her into the ground, those were clues enough that something more serious had happened, whether a concussion, a traumatic trigger, or else.

Holding up her hands, she backed off a couple steps. "Neither of us are in the proper state of mind to continue a 'friendly spar'," she said with some consideration to her choice of words (though she felt more even than Aolieon currently looked to her, she included herself regardless, and felt responsibility besides), "and even if we were, I'm worried I seriously injured you, Aolieon." Her hands lowered and her gaze held clear, unrestrained concern toward the woman before glancing briefly at Matsuo. "Matsuo-san should take a look, at the very least."
 
🎶 Brad Fiedel -- "Future Flashback" 🎶

Aolieon panted short breaths for a pause, placing her hand on one of the supporting pillars as she regained her bearings. She bit her lip in that well-known manner again, her thoughts getting pensive and contemplative and somehow showing no negativity. "Yeah... sorry about your face," she breathed out with a little bit of remorse of her own, but it sounded much more exhilarated than it did regretful. She huffed for a moment, smoothing her hand gently down her side until she identified exactly where the problem child was. Wincing for a second, her fingers traced it and she paused for a second; her vision narrowing as thoughts raced, performing a tactical diagnosis quite hurriedly. "Nothing to worry about -- we have a good idea how well we can get rises out of each other, neh?" she chuckled a little bit, still holding her side for a spell before managing a smile that seemed a bit genuine... and quite possibly mildly impressed.

Mr. Matsuo had seen the whole ordeal and had been keeping a cautious eye on their sparring match the whole time. Upon having his name mentioned, he looked up from his passive, seemingly uninterested observations to level an empty but serious glance at Aolieon. "Do you need medical attention?" he leveled the question openly into the air, as it could only be intended for one person. Aolieon's face lit up and contorted into a look of semi-serious refusal. "No, no... I'm fine, trust me; just needed a minute to catch my breath, promise," Her hand fell down to her side, no longer clutching her ribs as she closed her eyes, inhaling dynamically through her nose to figure out the ideal range of breath for herself now. Not a second later, she pushed off the wall; her fists clenching as she brought them in front of her and she exhaled audibly without any wheezing sound -- her fists unclenching as if she had just performed an on-the-spot meditation exercise. Her head raised and she undertook a serious, steeled gaze at Therrye as she stood upright, making a strong play for suddenly 'being fine'... Matsuo was unconvinced, as he crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow at the dancer. "... You aren't in a warzone, Ari-chan -- you are in my Dojo," he leveled at her, using an affectionate surname, as if to call upon gentleness. Aolieon was unfazed at his point, no matter how true it may have been, and it now looked like Aolieon had reestablished positive control over her breathing. "Are you sure you don't just want me to look at it; perhaps administer some local anesthetic, perhaps a padded vest?" Finally, Aolieon turned her head at Matsuo, her gaze looking sharp and stoic as she seemed to be holding herself in a manner that was vaguely reminiscent of a certain biker leader... "No," she replied adamantly in a low tone; her eyes sharpening not at all severely, but enough to denote an off-putting mindset. She then turned to Therrye and leveled a small smile, walking up to her gingerly and casually thumbing underneath her nose and cheek in one gentle stroke to clear a stray amount of blood she had missed. "Don't be so cavalier, bruiser -- I did almost choke you out, so your counter was warranted... that being said, I don't think you'll be taking these legs for granted any time soon now," her mirth-filled leer was back as she turned her head, fluffing her hair back as she looked at the hand what had thumbed her nose -- sensing it inappropriate to play into her own strange desires right now, she curled her fingers around the thumb, wiping it off subtly in her palm, which was strange by itself, but altogether leagues less inordinate than if she had simply locked it off right then and there... "If you're that concerned, then why don't we level the playing field a bit -- play a little game??" she turned her head respectfully to Matsuo. "Its been awhile, but... Id like to request the Trial of the Monkey King," Matsuo's eyes lit up, and he smugly smirked lightly at Aolieon. He cut a glance at Therrye and shrugged -- obviously if she did not want medical attention, then it wasn't going to be given unwillingly. "I'll be right back," he answered to Aolieon's request. She smiled and nodded, crossing her arms. "You might like this one. It's a bit challenging, to say the least."

Matsuo came back with a reinforced plastic bo-staff, made to withstand severe punishment and with metal tips. Matsuo stood it up on its end and then stood between the two razorgirls, turning more towards Therrye as he explained the premise of this kind of match. "Sun Wukong was a legendary divine figure of Chinese fiction, written about over a thousand years ago -- what's important is that much of his power was in his Staff. The match is simple -- you both begin with one hand on the staff, and must try to combat the other for positive control of the Staff... preferably while maintaining one hand upon it," he said, demonstrating a solid grip upon one end. "If you can gain control of it from your opponent, you may use it to aid you in the match. The match will end when one or both fighters are otherwise considered incapacitated -- you do not have to fight to unconsciousness, and you need not shed unnecessary blood... However, whether or not one is incapacitated or falls in the duel -- whoever holds the Staff separate from the other wins." he concluded, leveling the bo-staff between them in preparation for their hands to grasp it. "This should be good training for what we practiced, Therrye-san." Matsuo added, beaming at her with a small wink. Aolieon tilted an eyebrow st her, looking confident and cool in her conviction. "What do ya say, bruiser? Wanna get one more good match in; have some fun before we throw in the towel?"
 
The bruiser shrugged off the apology -- not in derision, but in that she held no real blame for the dancer's retaliation to her pin. Focused in as she was, Aolieon's responses of pain to her self-investigation with the hand did not go unnoticed. A near-silent exhale was her first response to the quip, then she nodded in agreement with a slight smile. Still all sass and banter, after everything. How she swung between hot and cold from each day to the next inspired some whiplash; last they met, she seemed to have zero interest in how Therrye got particular rises out of her, and now she wanted nothing more despite whatever injuries she'd sustained.

Further, the push and pull between an apparent deathwish and cranked-out survival instincts could be seen streaking through her actions the past week and change. Even if she knew nothing else about Aolieon (and she still knew little), that pattern didn't strike her as arguable anymore. Her refusal to back off from sparring and her 'promise' that she was 'fine' only rang false to the physical tells otherwise. Why does she want this so much? All the same, Matsuo didn't press the issue, which gave Therrye some pause about completely stonewalling her. Clearly, he let fighters make whatever calls they wanted for their own health, and only intervened if absolutely necessary. That they shared some history -- added to, with his comment about a 'warzone' -- didn't seem to affect this protocol.

Despite her better nature, the bruiser was curious to read deeper into the tale she was singing through their movements and choices. She could not deny that reality, and though she still kept it under a rug as best she could, there was also something affecting about having the dancer in her arms again.

At Aolieon's approach and touching of her face, Therrye nearly slammed her in the sternum; restraint held down the hostile response, and she simply drew back a half-step instead after the soft stroke at the drying blood. "No, I won't be overlooking them ever again," she replied with far less amusement. After her own rise of anger and subsequent impulses to restrain and subdue the Liandri, she started taking this much more seriously. That her sparring partner had gone into a frenzy of her own at being restrained only made her less inclined to give any inches to uncontrolled emotion.

Watching Matsuo-san walk off, she glanced back to Aolieon, allowing another slight smile as she shook her head, "When is it not challenging with you," she mused with more depth than she'd intended. There was little denying the truth to the sentiment, though she was not looking to cut at the woman with her words.

Looking up and down the staff, she listened intently to the words of her new mentor. This sort of match gave some advantage to her augmented muscle and greater weight, and what that enabled to her to do, but it struck her as very little contrasted with the samurai's superior techniques in CQC. Just as Matsuo-san had thrown Ares like a toy the day before, so too could Aolieon make use of leverage and acrobatics to make light of her strength. Nevertheless, Therrye was terribly stubborn, and ready to endure blow after blow in order to obtain victory. Her relationship with pain was much closer to that of a wrathful badger's than else, and while she would be trying to keep well away from rage her steely resolve yet remained.

Nodding deferentially to Matsuo, she spoke firmly. "Understood." Then she gazed back at the samurai. Giving voice to more of her concern or care for the woman seemed pointless at best, particularly in light of her own desire to dive into suffering over all of this. But if sparring was the only way to get a truly honest conversation out of the dancer, then so be it -- she'd give her what she was after. A saying she'd been told in her sunrise days, amusingly spoken about fighting, came to mind: 'If you love what you do, work will ever be fun instead of labor.' What does she love so much about pain, she wondered, though uncertain that was the real underlying question here. "I'd ask you to rest after, but I suspect you're going to do whatever you please regardless of the cost to you," came the conclusion of several lines of thought and feeling. She almost spoke of how it reminded the bruiser of her nature as a child, but she expected Aolieon to take that insultingly, and had even less interest of sharing that sort of casual vulnerability and truth with her anymore. That was the sort of direction she'd aimed for and she'd receive what she wanted there.

Therrye took hold of the upper side of the staff, given her height, and narrowed her eyes as she shifted into a heavily modified brawler's stance focused toward resolute footing. There was no mirth and little play here, and as soon as the signal came to begin, she'd grasp at the top of the staff with her other hand to drive it down, parallel to the floor, and follow it by turning the staff to drive Aolieon into her own space if she held onto it, where the bruiser could body her with superior mass and force.

Of course, she expected the dancer to utilize her agility to flow around the staff as she moved it, so if she didn't stay in harm's way with the turn, Therrye fully intended to wrench the staff toward herself with both hands and draw her into headbutting range. She'd earned herself quite a few retaliatory blows to the face after all of the kicks she'd thrown, after all.
 
"... mm, d'aww -- you used to delight in these legs..." Aolieon pouted, giggling a bit, head rushing with possibilities, now that she had had a sharp rise pulled out of her for the first time by the bruiser outside of the bedroom -- this signaled a whole new world of potential, and the bruiser now had her full attention... but something was off.
Aolieon noted that the bruiser's demeanor had changed; noting her distance gained, her drop in expression and how empty her gaze seemed to be. The air surrounding Therrye had become sharper; her violets had dulled in color and her expressions had muted themselves. It took Aolieon back for a second. Was it something I said? she curiously mused. Surely, a sentient such as her who makes fighting their mantra wouldnt be so upset that she had tried to choke her out... Aolieon slow-blinked, registering all the body language changes and mulled through the matrices; assessing threat levels, conjecturing movement hypotheticals, trying to piece together all that had happened. And all the while, she had maintained a fake but warm smile for which the facade had melted a little. The pain in her side complained, warning her of the danger and cataloging a degrade in her overall performance; passive thoughts turned to pistols and other items of close-range interdiction that would require less oblique movement; the numbers of various ripperdocs who dealt in bioware and 'ganic surgery flipped through her head; mental notes of guard protection and other movements to be less risky with in protection of the newly developed weakspot played in her head -- when the bruiser spoke the word "Understood," all of the errant thoughts consolidated themselves like organized notecards, and shuffled themselves into a neat deck; setting themselves aside and allowing Aolieon to focus upon the present.

Aolieon did somehow manage a warm smile; she was still about to get inside Therrye's head, but this time she channeled another old friend, who had always had the intuition to know when a soul was troubled and could use a little putting at ease. "Ye have little faith, bruiser," reaching her hand slowly and visibly forwards out to touch her, empty of malicious intent -- an aversion would earn her a frown as her hand slowly fell; enough trust in the moment would earn her a trademark ruffling of her hair and further warmth in her smile. Whatever the case, as Therrye gripped her portion of the Staff, Aolieon took pause for a moment. In a way, she was seeing a reflection of herself for a second; many thoughts and quips ran through her head -- she saw something she liked in this sentient; she had moxie. Honestly, Aolieon might have been sorry about dropkicking the bruiser in the face, but she wanted to see how the bruiser reacted under pressure for a split-second; ergo, she wasn't at all sorry about the grapple. But she found the response passable, and even under the guise of a one-time bedwarmer, the bruiser had found the valor to do what was necessary to get herself out of it -- maybe there was some truth to her words that day in the street...
Before gripping the Staff and letting Matsuo make his calls prior to "Hajime!" Aolieon finally settled on responding rather than reacting to the bruiser's recommendation followed by resignation at her self-destructive ways... A low-toned but velvety reply, free of mirth, bereft of lasciviousness and carrying a note of acknowledgement and respect -- yet also phrased as a challenge, not devoid of that trademark Aolieon sass.

"... Make me. If you try, I just might listen..."

And so she grasped the Staff, fully expecting Matsuo to call it quickly and they were off the races quite so. Aolieon was immediately taken aback when she grounded her stance and immediately tugged with concerted force down and pulled towards the bruiser. Aolieon bounced her ass down to move with the staff, swinging her weight outwards as she let her side of the Staff touch the ground -- she used this position as it came towards the bruiser to vault her body to the side in a Capoiera movement, narrowing whiffing her body to the opposite side of Therrye's body as she clung to her Staff. The bruiser clearly wanted her pulled closer, and so she allowed Therrye's strength to launch herself past her and pull the Staff with her across Therrye's body -- now behind Therrye, she used her free hand to grab the bruiser's left shoulder and use the last of the momentum to try and pull her into a CQC takedown -- if Therrye's stance was grounded enough, the Staff might come to her neck and lock her in a bar, after which Aolieon could very easily twirl and try to slide to the the side of/between her legs in a second attempt to swing her tumbling down.

If that didn't work, we'll now the only thing to do was ride this bull to victory. Matsuo didn't say that she had to remain holding onto the Staff perpetually throughout the fight -- only that so long as she didn't remain incapacitated, the fight would continue. So if she truly chose to exist as a mountain and fling her around; unless Therrye suddenly decided to turn both her and the Staff into a giant pair of nunchucks, she could just wrap her legs around her waist, let go and pull her into a Frankensteiner again. The possibilities were endless, but the best thing to do with an opponent clearly aware of the score and not so easily dispassioned of their weapon?? ... Stun them decisively with a good CQC throw.
 
At the second reaching out toward her, Therrye registered a difference in intention, yet Aolieon had made clear that she was not to be trusted -- that she did not want to be trusted. The bruiser narrowed her eyes in suspicion, not striking her aside, but not leaning into it either. "I have faith that you're determined to suffer," she stated simply, and without elaboration.

Her challenge in return was a little surprising. The words were likely well chosen, though, and she took it literally; "just might" meant as much as "could possibly maybe" so far, and anything short of a promise was water over pavement swimming with all the debris it could find on the city streets.

As expected, Aolieon flowed along the staff to make use of her incredible acrobatics. Instead of going away from her, though, the dancer went up and over, drawing from the bruiser's own strength to grab and pull her backwards and down. The staff swung across her body with the movement, and Therrye could map out how this would play out, with the staff becoming a weapon against her in a hold, pin, or takedown. Rather than try to mountain her way out of this, given her very unfavorable grip position and leverage for that, she swept her left foot out to push herself from the ground into a spin. Releasing her right hand and arm from the staff, she was able to half-twirl her facing toward Aolieon's direction as she was pulled backwards, left hand still gripping near the center of the staff to keep herself bound to it.

The shift in facing was meant to make the bruiser's shoulder crash pointedly down into Aolieon's chest as she moved into a takedown position and deny her the easy wrap around from behind. Meanwhile, Therrye's right hand was now on top of the samurai's where she was holding the staff. Fingertips and dulled nails dug hard in between the bones leading to fingers while her thumb wrapped around Aolieon's hand to keep it there and not let her bring both arms to bear in trying to pin her down.

While that position was almost entirely defensive -- her options for moving from her were frankly mid at best -- she wanted to put the hurt on her first and was making pain the priority.

If she was then able, she turned her knees to plant her feet onto the floor and shove them both along its surface, intending to disrupt the dancer's rhythm and skid her beneath the bruiser's body weight while she continued to crush her hand.
 
🎶 Paul Hertzog -- "Bloodsport Theme Suite" 🎶

Everything was going well; the simple CQC takedown -- until Therrye let go of the Staff and immediately twirled around when it looked like Aolieon herself was going to bring her down to earth in one fell swoop.
... Well, I don't know what I expected after all those advanced theatrics...
WHAM!
Instead of teching out of the throw or stepping back or anything else -- Therrye committed to the motion by shoulder-checking her and taking Aolieon down with her, and in the direction she wished to slam her down, no less.
"Uff! Ohh..." Aolieon failed miserably at stifling a particularly pained groan at being landed on -- her midsection raising a riotous complaint at having been landed on with what felt like at least two bucks of partially cybered-up slugfest flesh and steel. To make matters worse, the bruiser gripped her hand in such a way that she began to apply torque to bone and pressed her feet into the mats to slide Aolieon across them, proverbially dragging her beneath her weight to prevent any slip-outs.

Aolieon hissed and snarled, both at the pressure of her body and her hand practically being encased in a vise-like grip. Aolieon shook her head and glared venomously at the bruiser. "Don't crush my primary sword hand, gonk-brain! It's a training exercise, not a fucking bloodsport," she spat, her eyes glowering as she rolled the wrist locked around the Staff around and lightly bopped Therrye in the back of the head -- hardly even enough force to cause harm, feeling more like a sensei's whack of a stick than a coordinated blow... Her breath heaved as she scanned her steeled face for anything indicating malicious threat; her breath heaved, exposing that wheeze from before, betraying that she was practically sitting on where she had been injured.

... Aolieon's face softened and a note of bewildered curiosity shone across her face, as it seemed the bruiser let up and got up off her. She frowned, tilting her head -- this reaction so suddenly was not what she expected. Staff still in hand, she rolled her body slowly to stand up, getting her legs up beneath her and grasping the staff in two hands as if in a defensive posture for a second, still uncertain of what Therrye was about to do... then she sighed, pursing her lips as she tossed up the Staff, gripping it in one hand nearly centered between its middle and tip, but otherwise fully in her hand and leveling it at Therrye.
"You're supposed to grip the Staff in one hand near one of its ends, and you're supposed to try and fight to wrest control of it from me... with one hand. Think tug-of-war, not full-scale disarmament," she said, seemingly okay for the time being. She waited patiently, leveling her gaze and sharpening it poignantly, as if she really didnt want to take no for an answer. Whenever Therrye would grip the Staff appropriately, Aolieon would reset herself in a default kata stance, still grasping the Staff, as she convened with all her thoughts for a moment while catching her breath.

... rib possibly compromised, weakness exploited; channeled power, rage, full-contact blows -- this one's a threat, even in this context.
I've kicked her like twice in the face, now -- like hard. I think if there's any anger and resentment; it's valid.
So rusty... I think I overdid it. What's gotten into me, trying to impress like I'm fighting in some gaijin kumite?
She been making me pay for my mistakes, though; she certainly been able to capitalize on my telegraphing; can't flow like I used to...
What the fuck do I do? I really wanna take her seriously, but if I push it much harder, she's gonna have me leave in a Trauma Team AV...
Her gaze cut sideways, towards Mr.Matsuo, who was now looking dead at Aolieon. His arms were crossed, and he smirked a little. As he stood just outside of Therrye's periphery, he mouthed two words without sound, but Aolieon heard more than two words, and in an echoing voice she never expected to pierce the veil of her focused thoughts.
... "Show her" (them) what you can do; who you really are... Just a little bit...

🎶 Starset -- "Perfect Machine" 🎶

Aolieon's expression grounded itself, and she lowly nodded, fixating her gaze back on Therrye. She slowly closed her eyes, very slowly grounding herself in her stance as she grasped the Staff and took a deep, meditative breath. Her eyes opened -- the amber color dulled in a semi-shadowy void that echoed ominously similar to a once witnessed bloody reign of terror, but a faint glimmer of warmer color in the lower point of her irises that the light caught; this and the pinpricks of the observable pupils were the only indicators that something was different at this point. Her free hand came forwards, fingers slightly splayed and thumb curled in something between an open palm and a knife hand -- her stance practically shouted 'karate'; there was no different flair, no signature interpretations, no taunting sass, lascivious thoughts, and seemingly no deception. Almost as if like a true Samurai, Aolieon had completely emptied herself of this moment in the present. The slightest of smiles; gentle, warm and vaguely echoing the confidence so sharp it's blade was nigh invisible -- her knife/palm hand turned inwards, and beckoned the bruiser forth with her fingers before resuming its original position.

Immaculate defense. Intermittent techniques and styles that echoed something not of the dancer. Mixed Martial Arts. Whatever the bruiser tried, the hand hooked away attacks, parried, pushed and kept the fist away from her; legs flew up and tanked kicks and turned feet aside, shuffling in steps both gingerly and tactical in maneuver -- and the Staff stayed locked in her hand, her body flowing like water with wherever it went. The palm/knife hand cut and swashed through the air like the fascimile of a knife, becoming a blade in its own right when wielded by Aolieon. Every now and then, her face would change and other things that didn't seem at all dancer-like would come forth; a straightforwards roundhouse, an uncouth and raw fist; a shouldering of the Staff, a rolling backfist... The look in Aolieon's eyes remained unchanged; entirely unfocused as if tired but also sharpened to never let Therrye out of her sight -- her eyes looked deep into Therrye's soul and saw nothing, but that wasn't quite it... it was more like they expected nothing, and yet seemed prepared for everything. When most apropos and unexpected, a Capoiera flip-kick would appear, or a wushu hooking hand out of nowhere, but not a change in that softened expression unless a raw technique was being channeled. All that was seen seemed to be a proper polymerization of things both seen and unseen -- dancer, soldier, Samurai, Edgerunner, assassin... and something dead.
The dancer let Therrye do whatever she want; for a decent spell, it seemed that something else had arisen, never before seen and was stalwart in the standing of its ground -- not an apex predator, but something that stood perennially against them.
Something not made for this world, and yet knew this world and didn't subscribe to it's kaleidoscope of derelict futures...
... something that looked Death in the face and hadn't blinked in years.
 
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While intuitively it seemed the natural call in the moment to the dancer trying to immediately drag her down, the whump of her weight into her chest made her tense. Damn it, she thought unpleasantly with gritted teeth, knowing she'd likely made things worse, and then having the evidence rattling into her ear. Her annoyance flickered back to the fore, and it was all self-directed. Eye twitching at the glare and callout, rather than the hit to the back of her head, she immediately released her and drew backwards to withdraw her weight. Sucking in a deep inhale through her nose, she released it, clearing the emotion. Even at the best of times, danced the sentiment, once again reminding her of how deep the Liandri'd gotten under her skin.

Offering a hand to Aolieon to take to pull back up if she desired it, she took no offense if it was left to dangle or swatted away. "Playing a game by its 'supposed' rules is a fast track to losing," she said mildly without derision or judgment, eyes sharp in an oblique way at a variety of things that were not samurai-shaped, "but I clearly missed the point of the exercise." Therrye knew she didn't have to say it, but she still didn't like how she'd aggravated whatever injury lurked in the dancer's chest. "I'm sorry."

Taking her grip, she waited until her sparring partner seemed settled before resuming a stance, aiming for a more balanced one this time. The focus of her gaze shifted rapidly across Aolieon's body as she purposefully took a knife to her battle patterns and cut out the center to clarify the question for answering: How do I make her submit without a single blow to her body? Tempting as it was to part of her to headbutt her head-on, this called for calculated precision rather than leaning into the battle lines of more savage memory. Putting everything toward her limbs limited her range a lot, given where her expertise in CQC laid, but having already made the mistake once, she'd rather take the L than aggravate it further. Given the requirement to keep hold of the staff -- though she considered dropping it entirely to pull her into a pin before picking it back up -- her usual flow of tactics would be interrupted. Glancing back at the staff, she decided to simply experiment. Between what Matsuo-san had recently instructed her in and these imposed limitations, Therrye centered on a path of iron resolve and constant flow over brutality and power.

More properly aligned between planned action and desired intent, she was ready to begin. It was a few more moments before her opponent was, however, and what followed was something wholly new to her. Previously, she'd only seen such darkness in the woman's gaze in more intimate circumstances, and while the ex-slaves had spoken well enough of the bloodbath for her to picture it, that was a more distant association. Seeing it here, now, without drugs or sex involved, it hinted in a different direction, and with enough scrutiny, Therrye decided it was not a threatening, death-minded expression. A caress shimmered over her nerves like breeze from the ocean, waking throughout her body.

Briefly, an ache tugged through her chest, certain memories yearning to be added to and expanded upon.

Maybe this can be more than a duel of sass and force, she mused.

While the samurai moved with specific intention in defense, Therrye pressed into experimentation. She didn't immediately give away the same, and used her hands to slap, chop, grasp and punch, swapping which arm was in play without dropping the staff. Sometimes she tugged the staff, others she angled it or shoved it, aiming to disrupt stance, parry and attack. All of this was secondary to her bringing in kicks and sweeps, though, aiming to drop her and initiate grapples. Aolieon's approach had changed drastically, though, and the seemingly chaotic mix of styles and options gave her nothing to predict or accustom to. It was a brilliant showing, and that was really an understatement. No true opening appeared and no upper hand could be taken. A touch of awe was not unwarranted.

Taking in the shift in Aolieon with quiet regard, a small smile slowly returned to Therrye's expression, contrasting all of the gravity she'd taken on. This did not resemble the woman much, yet it was in a rather interesting manner, and that made her all the more curious. More surprises yet awaited in the woman, clearly.

Having nothing to consistently pivot off of, the situation would have easily frustrated many a fighter, but Therrye instead inhaled the information as it came. A stream of potential, even in fragments, spoke of the Liandri's past, training, potential, steel and skill. Within this mindset, she believed she could take on much anything and triumph. What drew it out, though? Surely, it wasn't her.

Surely.

The urge to speed up and press at this blazing defense was slapped aside. Paying attention was more important, and reinforcing the rhythms Matsuo-san had offered in alteration to her patterns came third to the first of not inflicting further harm. This trifecta sealed in a pattern that had no intention of triumph through subjugation; reading the woman and stepping closer toward mastery were the real prizes ahead of her. Even if much of it was picking up puzzle pieces one at a time for a 10,000 count set, each piece was important, and the picture was that much clearer with every one.

Eventually, though, Therrye wanted to see how this immaculate defense flowed into offense. Gripping the staff with both arms, she shoved the staff forward hard and lunged with it -- rather than follow through in an attempt to body, though, she released one arm, spun and dropped herself into a sweeping kick using Aolieon's weight and force on the other side of the staff to push off from, and then released the other arm from the staff in a pouncing leap toward the dancer's legs wherever she had chosen to reposition herself in the wake of the attack.
 
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A turn of a testing hand, a rejection of a side kick with a foot; the staff would angle or be pulled away -- a slight detect, a tightened grip and the lightest of hops saw her move with the staff not only like water, but near-instantaneously as if Aolieon had been welded to it... Victory was altogether uncertain, and yet in this moment, the Staff already seemed to be a part of her -- a dangerous indicator of what to expect if it positive control were to be asserted by the dancer over the one Weapon in this scenario.

A pointed intrigue was noted in the bruiser's movements, as it seemed to be testing, baiting and feinting... testing the waters of this different kind of style, and clearly something in the bruiser was advising her not to attack. Rightfully so, for a myriad of reasons hitherto unknown yet. It seemed the bruiser had fallen back on trying to establish a concrete foundation, going back to practicing some combative principles, and Aolieon had picked up on that -- she also picked up on the fact that her foundation was not yet ironclad; a decision had already been made, and the dancer's only reaction was to lower her eyelids at this display listlessly, as if to say, Really?

Amidst her borderline split personality disorder and PTSD-induced madness; Aolieon had amassed a sacred yet altogether subtle respect for training in her sunrise years, but the calamities of the past and the many times she had crawled out of mud and dirt, up and to including the one where she lost everything had left this once great Warrior altogether fractured. Yet even in her emptiness, the dancer had found reason to take mild off-putting offense to this response to her adjustment of approach.
You see, this was not the aspect of Aolieon dedicated intuitively to scientific method and lightning-quick overthinking and analysis of scenarios and matrices...
This was not the salacious aspect that put on a sultry facade for the purposes of getting inside people's heads and pulling classified information from bedwarmed desires...
This was not the psychotic aspect dedicated to matching the energies of renegade mercenaries and cyberpsychos, as well as purging an immense abysmal maw of hatred onto others in an attempt to not let the suffering of the past turn inwards...

... this was an aspect gifted to the dancer by a Night City Legend in the acknowledgement of her first-ever dream.
This was an aspect designed to engage multiple opponents of a razor-sharp perfected skill; to play chicken with Militech explosive rounds, and run like the wind faster than any body might be physically willing to from the vengeance of Max-Tac.
🎶 Ioan S. -- "Dangerous Roads"
This was an aspect cultivated and brought to bear by hundreds of Warriors, many of which long gone, for the sole purpose of fighting the Arasaka Corporation.

... and so it wasn't very long at all that, when recognizing an opponent in training that dared not venture upon offense, Aolieon wasted few idle moments before venturing upon offense herself.
Still swatting and deflecting Therrye's blows intermittently, Aolieon then snatched her wrist mid-deflection, turning it away and pulling the bruiser towards her apartment that she could then let go and shove her elbow directly into the crook of Therrye's shoulder with the intention of causing a brief disconnect between her free arm and the rest of her cyberware, or at the very least causing the arm to go briefly numb from a pressure point pressing. She then slid her grip up towards the center of the staff; closing the distance in order to take a swift moment to inflict a belittling slap on her face, followed by a two-finger poke solidly in the forehead, pushing her head up and back -- Aolieon's arm raised up above her head and with an incensed but restrained snarl, her elbow descended with a force similarly used to defeat a certain Centaur, with the intention of breaking Therrye's stance and bringing her down to one knee. One, two, three little errant face slaps and then Aolieon would grip the Staff with two hands, leveraging it to the side just enough to get Therrye's legs out from beneath her but not cancel her grip on the Staff -- then, her foot pronounced forwards and kicked hard into the bruiser's sternum, completing the combo and leaving Therrye partially sprawled, barely held aloft by her grip on the Staff, and the threat of Aolieon's unyielding grip upon the Staff with two hsnds, despite Therrye's weight...
... and yet while it was the perfect time to whirl and rip the Staff from her grip -- somehow Aolieon found the muted wherewithal to allow her opponent to reset herself.

Finally, Therrye brought forth a more concerted effort to work for the Staff -- trying to use multiple types of kicks in order to sweep her legs out from underneath her. Aolieon's only response in her empty and vigilant stare was the barely noticeable twitch of an eyebrow. She hopped in place to dodge the first kick entirely, then hopped again -- this time bringing her knee up and driving her foot down onto Therrye's leading thigh; completely disrupting the movement and pinning the bruiser's lower body to the ground. That same foot came in for some light errant kicks before once again finding her chest with some concerted effort to bring her shoulders out from beneath her. Suddenly, Aolieon gripped the Staff in both hands and leapt up and out to the side, ececuting whirl midair as she used her full body momentum to rip the Staff out of Therrye's hand -- the outer edge of the Staff whiffed overhead and crashed loudly against a fluorescent light, hardly deterred in its path. She then landed upright and planted her feet in a wide kata stance before swishing her foot semi-circularly to turn and face the semi-prone Therrye...assuming an elegant but refined posture of a bo-staff fighting stance, looking similarly as to how one might wield a naginata.

Now in possession of the Staff, the playing field had its scales tipped largely in favor of the Samurai, who now had a Weapon she was authorized to use in achieving victory through incapacitation -- still, Aolieon's stare was empty, she was focused and immaculately cognitive in the present, allowing the bruiser to dust herself off and rethink her strategy for a moment. It wouldn't be long however before quite possibly the dancer would once again move on the decisive offensive, so Therrye didnt have long to rethink herself and figure out how to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.
 
It wasn't lost on Therrye that she was playing with a dangerous opponent who could do a lot of damage to her in a short amount of time. She just didn't care. The insights she could gain, the unreal level of flowing forms and arts, the synthesis of so much training -- experiencing it was some of the best dopamine a bruiser like her could get her hands on, and provoking harsher responses from her was only going to get her more of the same. At this point, she'd already injured Aolieon, and she was plenty willing to take such and more in turn to get everything she wanted out of this interplay.

If particularly pressed, she might even admit that she was thrilled to be reading all of this in the dancer.

Whether the Liandri intended to enrage, humiliate, or else, Therrye didn't give into the bait. Her emotions remained cool as air conditioning now that she'd reached this flow, and keeping herself from venturing into territory where she'd do anything she'd regret gave her a sort of freedom to just embrace this. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt when she drove her elbow in her shoulder or onto her head, or firmly planted a foot into her sternum to send her reeling, she just did not care. Initially, winning didn't even matter either, but that turning point was rapidly approaching as her mind swam from one stream of flow to another.

Turned out of her grip on the staff and onto the mats, the elegant and menacing form of Aolieon above her just made her grin, particularly with the punctuation of the smashed fluorescent light. She was enjoying this, and the earnest question continued to roll through her passive mind: What are you, truly? To think she'd ever see such a presentation in the samurai would have seemed farcical just a day prior. Now, though, so much more had clicked into place, and ever more was unspooling out.

Returning to her feet, the bruiser cracked her knuckles and took two seconds to assess and inventory. Aolieon had not been brutal in her blows, her state had not seemed to deteriorate any, and their emotional states remained consistent. It was a good time to shift tack before that staff began bloodying her. "Can't say I know this gal in front of me very well," she noted, a brow adding emphasis to the smiling sentiment, "but I like her."

From there, Therrye drew forward to push into her guard and give her as little room as possible to strike with the staff. Shifting her body and parrying with forearms while kicking out at the dancer's legs, throwing elbows at her nose while shoving at the staff to deaden her momentum, swaying and hurling punches at her arms and upper chest -- the bruiser was delivering a brawler's approach to an enemy that minded its weapon by giving it as little room as possible.

Aolieon's skill and flexibility with the implement made it clear enough that this wouldn't be sufficient, though, as blows thonked into her flesh and stirred reinforced bone. She needed to gain more control.

She advanced, then, with measured steps. A flurry of blows from hand and feet were entirely feints and parries as she spiraled into Aolieon's guard. Her blistering retorts of force and leverage pushed Therrye to throw herself backwards a couple of times to reset, but she was determined. On the fourth attempt, she spun just clear of an upward strike of the staff toward her jaw and came closer to her with its motion. As the samurai brought the staff back down with whirling momentum toward her head, the bruiser kicked herself forward from the mat to get closer to the fulcrum of her strike, leaned her head to the side and caught the staff in her left hand. Pain vividly hissed in her breath, and she knew she'd be feeling that the next several days, but fuck was that worth it. Feeling like she'd been channeling some of Bethsket in the latter half of this match, she shot her right elbow toward Aolieon's sternum to force a dodge while her left hand pushed back against her control of the staff and prevent a skull-vibrating defense with it.

The point of all of this was seen when her right hand snared the center of the staff again. This time, she had a better picture of just how the dancer would use the staff to come at her, and she kept it at length from her body to better divert momentum or follow with its shifting path. Goal in hand, her left arm slid free of the staff and took on its new directive, focused determination overriding the signals her body was sending that no, maybe you shouldn't actually use the hand with possibly bruised bones like a machete.

Her attention bifurcated, body, legs and right limb flowing into an attachment to the staff and a surprisingly (for her) agile defense against the Liandri's blows while her left arm rained nearly incessant knife strikes and punches at Aolieon's right shoulder and head. When the decision between defense and offense came up, she prioritized staying with her target, then continuing to inflict concussive force, and lastly in avoiding blows. Grunts of pain came whenever she tanked particularly unpleasant strikes, but she refused to give up at this point. There was something important to gain despite the costs.

It would have been easy to assume that Therrye had some beef to settle and pride to mark in defeating the woman; she'd practically played patticake with her face, her nose had been hard-kicked and bled, and bruises were blooming throughout her body. And, besides, there was the whole throwing her across the street and pointing a gun at her head thing that was less than a week old. Similarly, one could have assumed she was pushing deeper and deeper into anger to gain any advantage she could against the terrifically skilled samurai, particularly if they'd seen her in action on a run. None of that was the case, though, and her violet rings remained near even, the pull of dilation taut against the push of contraction. She'd matched Aolieon's flow state with one of her own, and the joy of the match had receded (though not vanished) behind a singular objective: make her do what she'd said she'd do.
... Make me. If you try, I just might listen...
The driving force behind that was something she'd tried to express, tried to bury, tried to reconcile and tried to avoid, but it remained hooked and beribboned in her chest all the same. Instead of smothering it, in this shift to flow she'd let it bloom as the focal point of her intent.

More than anything else -- even stacked against discipline and self-respect -- it aligned with her most desired outcome in this match. Later and only later would she let herself entertain feelings about that reality, given how destabilizing they could be.

Battering her down still wouldn't be enough while she remained focused away from where the dancer was most vital. That wasn't something she was going to compromise on, though, and that meant yet another approach was called for. Yielding her fury of left-handed strikes, she replaced her right arm at the center of the staff and gripped higher up with her left hand so that she could begin harrying the shit out of the dancer's feet and legs with her side of the staff. This was a temporary shift at most, but breaking her flow was important, and the setup to what came next.
 
🎶 Ioan S. -- "Dangerous Roads" 🎶

Aolieon reset herself in her own way, but continued to remain grounded against any tidal waves thar might be set upon herself. Matsuo smirked complacently at his smashed light, but knew what had been unleashed. He walked a decent distance outside of the ring so that he could throw something light to get the attention of his brother and throw up the "time out" gesture, but the T wasn't for timeout -- it was to let him know to have Trauma Team on speed-dial. Still, it was a rare occasion to have some of his promising students start potentially swinging for the fences, and he wasn't about to pass this opportunity up himself.
Moving back to Aolieon, she let out the lightest snort as Therrye pulled herself up off the mat as the bruiser began to pace and shot her own conjecturing jab about this new flow state the bruiser was witnessing. Aolieon grunted softly, muttering lowly underneath her breath, "I'm sure," as if to address the situation passively while not betraying that she was not only still heightened in focus, but alluding to the fact that there were far more counterarguments than there were reasons to get this invested into a match such as this. She shifted her overhead, naginata-like guard calmly into something that represented a multi-angle quarterstaff defense, planting her feet and resolving to wait infinitely for the bruiser's inevitable advance -- still, the delight and anticipation upon the bruiser's expression had been noted, and somehow hadnt gone without appreciation; just not externally in the slightest...
Figures this is what it took to fascinate you...
One might as well have heard unintelligible whispers upon the wind, what with how muted and powerless that intrusive thought was to dissuade Aolieon from her current resolutions of flow state. She had already been working on a matrix of approaches, likely sequences that might be brought to bear and tactical considerations. Bo-staff, naginata, kali sticks for if she decides to break the staff went the considerations of approach, even if the bruiser should have been able to intuit that authorizing the dancer not one weapon but two might have been one of the most lead-headed ideas this side of reasonable, what with all she had barely seen in the beginning. But that was how one needed to approach lives like that one she used to live...
... You leave nothing to chance. All is probable until the reality of the situation gives itself unto one path over many -- keep all realities muted in response, however. Setting upon this approach leaves little justification for adrenaline or extreme contingencies... this is a drill. Nothing more. Shake off the rust, and prove youve still got it...

🎶 (MGR) Jamie Christopherson -- "A Stranger I Remain" (remix by Sly Shinobi) 🎶

Therrye was smart to try and close the distance as fast as she could, but a quick snap of the staff spitefully into the inner arm and a quick transition into a shoulder cross-bar shoving strike to throw off her footing and back was the immediate response, with the Staff being withdrawn just as quickly as it advanced. A second advance ended in two resounding thwacks; one to the outer upper arm and a stance change with a step back and a change of staff grip as it whacked the other upper arm -- a pronounced leap back and the Staff seemed to shift into naginata tactics, with a powerful strike crescenting down to the outer calf & shin; the opposite end of the Staff followed up right afterwards, adding to the potential pain and trip-up with the facsimile of a grounded pommel strike. The extended end of the Staff still low to the ground, Aolieon stepped forwards and found a spot in the mat off to the side to thrust the Staff into, using it to vault/lunge her body forwards and turn her body, bringing her hips and ass directly up into Therrye's upper body and face to finally knock her back down to the mat. The momentum of this pole vault followed through, putting her behind Therrye and back into a naginata defensive stance, this one looking more default.

Letting the bruiser get back up, she whirled the Staff a bit to make it seem like it was gonna be used as an extra-long sword while grounded -- a rather nuanced feint, as the next charge saw the tip of the quarterstaff thrust into that same spot in the crook of Therrye's shoulder that she hit with her elbow from earlier, deadening her momentum as she stepped back; resuming of momentum would have ended in a stunning thwack towards the side of the head, with an anticipated block of said blow resorting in the lightning-flash of a looping riposte which snapped the Staff to the other side of her head... Aolieon paced off to the side for a handful of steps, knowing full well that the wide and overwhelming influence of her precognitive defense had well outside of the means of her guard, in addition to the blended medley of attack & defense was undoubtedly being adapted to by the quick-learning bruiser. She resolved to no longer merelt counter-attack, but venture upon pre-emptive corporal punishments of reckless advances into her guard.

Throughout this and other attempts at advance and mitigation of her control over the Staff, Aolieon did witness a particular aspect of reckless endangerment and revelry in the way this battle had turned out. The bruiser was doubling down, showcasing an extensive endurance and commitment to matching the energy of the dancer -- there even seemed to be an elation and investment within the tides of this duel that had the bruiser in the grip of excitement and determination to respond... those rare eyes of dilation she hadn't seen too often out of the bruiser had returned, and yet there was no abatement in the storm and flurry she was attempting to apply. It wasn't long before the pre-emptive punishments of her advances had to be followed with a full-length parrying movement of Therrye's entire body coming forth to draw her around or behind Aolieon to deter the bruiser from getting any good combos in -- the rising tensions, the matching of the flow states and Therrye's own conviction in getting some rather determined body blows in was causing Aolieon to wince and steel her expression disapprovingly at the pain, but there were no groans or elaborate reactions to the pain as her own flow state revealed her to have found an ironclad malleability to the blows which lent itself well to the bitter neglect of sustained damage -- undoubtedly allowing the dancer to drive her own endurance and damage thresholds into an otherwise unanticipated (and ridiculously dangerous) red zone of pain tolerance for such a 'ganic and soft diva.
In contrast, the dullness of her empty expression was allowing the color to return to her eyes. Extremely sharp pupils could be witnessed, denoting an icy focus which also betrayed a conscious whirlwind of a tactical mentality, where the true self of a beauty was coming back into tangibility through the backdrop of emptiness and immaculate martial application. A warm slight smile appeared before the coldness of her expression resumed itself, but the light in her eyes didn't fade, as the eyes flitted back and forth and kept pulling information in millisecond assessments and responses -- Aolieon appeared to be coming back into her own naturally, but the push and pull between the bruiser and dancer was accelerating to breakneck speeds, and even Aolieon found herself amused and mildly lauded by Therrye's conviction in giving this much of herself to her own combative resolve. The vignette of dark mystery around the dancer was coming into focus as a colorful mandala of different lifestyles and outlooks characterized by a whole new world of combative experience largely unanticipated for how raw and surface-level Aolieon had made herself to be known, and the complementary appreciation of the bruiser, although incredibly subtle amidst the chaotic madness of their flow states wasn't without its own noticeability...
 
With Aolieon having separated herself from pain responses so thoroughly, the path of suffering submission had gone out the window. As she wanted to avoid maiming the dancer, and was explicitly avoiding center of mass assaults she was reasonably sure would land, options for stunning her were limited. She considered a blow to the woman's horns, but that -- especially being the only Liandri she'd met -- struck her as a dishonorable move that would have left her feeling dirty about any advantage she drew from it. If she was going to win this, she'd do it the hard way, and that was that.

Using her strength and leverage on the staff to turn it into a bit of a stirring stick, she rapidly pinballed it between the samurai's feet and lower legs. Individually, none of the blows would be enough to threaten long-lasting injury, but through grinding repetition, she aimed to shock her nerves into locking up her fluid movements and cradling tendons tight. She wouldn't stay still for this kind of treatment, of course, so when the samurai moved the axis of the weapon away from Therrye's targets, she threw knees and kicks into hip sockets and flexors, pushed her to back off with threatening headbutts, and/or snapped the staff toward rattling the woman's collarbones. Where before, she'd opted to test, to learn and to endure, this was all constant, flowing assault. Defense pushed solely toward turning attacks into counterattacks, and flickers of wincing pain aplenty graced her countenance for every blow she failed to reverse or parry. Saving herself from injury had long gone out the equations for her battle decisions, and only the most dangerous of incoming strikes might change the math there.

While the heart of her flow remained a certainty, the more savage the dancer became, the tighter Therrye's eyes went. Something beneath them was closer to the surface than it had any right to be, and its face rolled between eager smirk and casual dominance; if the once-lover could see it as the curtain of her steel resolve fluttered, she might understand just how far the bruiser would go with this.

Briefly, her control faltered as unknown technique and speed made her nearly lose the staff, shunting her down onto one end instead of keeping its center. As Aolieon pressed the advantage, her jaw tightened while she pulled herself back through shove and twist and swing and kick, carrying the same determination a rescuer would need to follow a guide-line through a hurricane.
 
🎶 Keiki Kobayashi -- "Ballistic Missile" 🎶

... Unarmed target, chrome only where it counts; combative techniques raw, unrefined but showing experience -- Threat: Credible, but low to moderate. Can afford to be left alive -- such pain, so annoying. End the altercation before other potential threat risks arise... The thoughts came naturally as she remained in focus through combat. Despite having one hand on the staff and maintaining it to mitigate it's damage; Aolieon was getting aggravated with how Therrye was tanking all of these blows and still somehow maintaining her grip upon the Staff. What's more is that it was somehow lessening the impact of her strikes, which was causing her to start delving into the realm of full strength as she attempted to daze her opponent and reasser control over her weapon -- Goddess, how she hated when an opponent tried to prolong the inevitable, especially when they restrained her capabilities as if it might save them. This was why she often carried multiple weapons, and even in this scenario where she had seemingly removed all but one; there were still two concealed weapons within her own body that she could call upon and even a third which was less obvious but not at all concealed... Twist the hand, potentially zero in on the pinky if this keeps up to terminate half the grip strength. Resistance to knockout significant -- gonna have to stop holding back if I am to achieve victory; just apply full contact and go for a full blow to the back of the head. That should take care of this eyesore... All else fails, use the girl's strength to help snap the staff and then go for a brutality...
The blows were getting increasingly harder for a minute, with wranglings of the staff providing more leverage and allowing cracks of it to resound loudly against the bruiser. Her face was getting emptier and emptier and care was falling loosely from her hands -- finally something spoke up loud enough over the maelstrom of darker combative applications and need to bring this altercation to a decisive end.
Stop! You're hurting her!

🎶 Kevin MacLeod -- "Private Reflection" 🎶

After pulling towards her and nailing a decisive kick in the sternum to make Therrye fall backwards and finally let go of the Staff -- Aolieon froze for a second. A stillness fell over her that while aligned with her empty flow state, seemed to have been caused by an outside force. Whenever Therrye would advance again, the heat would get turned up but only as Aolieon focused all of her efforts, speed and maneuverability on defense and not allowing the Staff to be regained by her.
Still, the familiarity of this blurring whirlwind came to her as if a perpetually relived memory; staff flurries, ripostes and whiplash all aimed at turning away blows, concerted steps out of range; the incorporation of the forearms and elbows in turning away strikes as footwork and shoves were all included to keep the bruiser off of her. The breakneck speed of the staff came as easy as breath, and her empty stare became mildly troubled and frustrated.
What even is this?
A turn away and a thrust -- a right hook narrowly grazed her shoulder but was naturally turned downwards, bludgeoning the top of her shoulder.
What am I even doing here?
She planted the staff down, whirling around it as if some kind of pole and threw a flurry of staggering kicks forwards, before bringing the staff about her own head to encourage distance.
What was even so important that I had to bring my strength to bear against this one razorgirl?

... No answers came. Originally, Aolieon had intended to show her a bit of her own skills to assert the idea of Therrye keeping her distance and quite possibly school her in martial thought -- maybe there was some childish craving of attention there, maybe not. But the mind had fallen dead silentat this point, caught in the throes of a match that had been taken too far and had invoked a tactical fight response dedicated towards a force of nature with a defense budger that made the bruiser's net worth look insufficient for a vending machine purchase... and Therrye was no 'Saka ninja. Sure, Aolieon had been known for sass, salaciousness and knowing how desirable she looked and how to leverage it, but pride? Self-importance? All of it was false; constructs of social banality, with the only purpose to make it look like such sins were there. Anyone could strut the boardwalk like their sugar daddy owned the very ground beneath everyone else, but only a truly insufferable piece of scop would believe the lies they tell others... This wasnt about pride, this wasnt about training and this wasnt about spite either; no matter how well Therrye walked the line between her passions and her triggers and even boldly went in places no one dared to before -- even if Therrye pulled a heel-turn at this very moment and decided that Aolieon's demise was the only thing worth living for; it would be a decent spell of time before the bruiser had enough street & threat cred for any vindictive prose between them to be worthy of record within Aolieon enough to justify her own true spite. Plus, she didn't actually hate the bruiser -- her only crime was trying to place her feelings where they didn't belong, and that alone was hundreds of miles from being worthy of hatred.
... Aolieon paused, realizing she was quietly starting to give herself to the ancient habits of wartime struggle -- she doesn't deserve this. Aolieon's demeanor changed mid-fight; the primary focus being denial of entry into her guard... to not let her have any satisfaction of dealt blows. It was best to belay any further sustained damage, because all that could be ventured from this match -- in this split-second, it had lost all worth.

Her strikes and movements became softer, but no less grounded in motion for the purposes of rejecting Therrye's advances. Her staff techniques remained immaculate and on point for the various forms she used, but something felt as if it had been ripped clean from this engagement. Any attempt at offense was aimed purely at defusing any counteroffensive maneuvers that may have seemed too complicated for a simple block, parry or side-step to deny. Still, the bruiser seemed to not be letting up, and this spot of Aolieon's sorrow was allowing blows to penetrate her guard and land a few decisive blows.
The bruiser gambled everything to step into point-blank range and catch the staff; a hiss of pain resounding as she opted for a counter to her sternum and a side-step to refuse a head strike that would have been painful. Therrye moved the staff in ways to harrow her legs and even as she hopped, kicked and sprung to avoid them; movements occurred to disrupt her flow and keep her on the back foot. Aolieon put her on the back foot and Therrye didn't sway from doing anything to keep her anticipated onslaught at bay. Seriously, what's her deal? Came the thought. What does she have to prove that was in any way comparable to the intentions I once had? Her brow furrowed in perplexion... Is she trying to teach me something about fighting, or something about herself?

In the past, a good handful of Warriors that were in their own way worthy of Legend (yet somehow stayed out of the limelight for their own personal reasons) had been asked to honorably train her in some art they had in spades -- no matter whether it was the beginning of her sunrise years with a timid and terrified expression or later on when she had amassed an eggregious kill-count and carried herself too haughtily to even take the finest Masters seriously; Aolieon almost always pissed off her trainers, and there were few exceptions. The Ronin himself chose to redirect any feelings masterfully towards the apex of a learned lesson, and the Kobayashi brothers had been training people for far too long to let a sassy diva put a damper on their martial sensibilities and enlightened ethics. Whenever a mentor did get pissed off though -- there was always something to prove when it came to their mastery of their arts, their expertise in matters and the lives they had led to get to where they were now while still breathing. A fiery duel always occurred where Aolieon would be backed against a wall and confronted with the visage of a sentient that had driven themselves leagues past all the fire & fury of life, all for the sake of becoming what they wanted to be... Never giving in or breaking their stride for a moment, if it meant they would fall prey to what this world was trying to make them into -- Kenji Kobayashi, Razer Ranstan, Khazan the Redeemed, Big Mama, the Ronin -- all of them had this moment, where the heat of battle revealed a vignette of what they truly once were, and what they had shaped themselves into with the fires of war and/or strife.

... But as the onslaught of bruiser attacks continued and the dancer had finally been pulled back into self-awareness enough to regard Therrye's energy personally and look into her eyes as she advanced -- she saw a vignette of not what once was, but could be. She saw that Demoness once more, lunging out at her and making itself known. Only this time, it pulled itself up onto a beach where the skies were red and the wharf was littered with corpses. Clad in immaculate augmentations that did nothing go betray one's natural human aesthetic, emerging from the piles of dead amassed from a vendetta gone wrong and the consequences of what they had wrought; it heaved a chain over its shoulder and exerted itself with a splash of violent will.. pulling the chain up and with it coming a massive creature looking like something of an eldritch Water Dragon -- the dead eyes of the gargantuan beast entirely blackened with gold irises, which vaguely formed into a circle imposed over by a golden three-leaf clover. The Demoness's clothes were damp, stuck to her extremities; she was covered in dried blood and with an expression as if it had miles of will more than necessary to do what it did. It dropped the chain to the side, walking amongst the dead and stomping clean on the throat of a chromed-up ninja, before approaching her directly to look her in the eyes and offer it's hand. A warm smile so assuring and brazen emerged on its face, tilting it's head as if it knew how impossible it's deeds done were. It's eyes widened with earnest confidence, speaking those two fateful words again.
"Embrace eternity."

🎶 Yomo Shimomura -- "Night of Fate" (remake by Enrico Deiana) 🎶

Aolieon's guard faltered, letting one of the bruiser's body blows snap Aolieon back to reality. Her face steeled and her defense resumed as a stream of tactical calculations resumed overhead while yet another all-out war waged in Aolieon's mind -- only this time, something ribboned in passion crossed blades with something far more immovable and ironclad in its resolve against emotions and passion...
Let her in...
It's not worth it -- there is nothing worthwhile to be gained in dragging another into this mess I've made!
Aolieon's whirlwind of attack & defense peaked -- her feelings fought against something she didn't want, and yet her eyes dilated and that lilac blush returned at the intrusive prospect of someone so strong managing to sustain itself this long against her skills forged in fire. Her eyes sharpened darting to and fro; she needed to do something. To get away from all this and clear her mind before she did something stupid -- she needed to end this, and fast!

Her eyes settled on the defibrillator in the corner. It was less than ideal, but a stoppage of the heart with enough gentleness could guarantee a successful defibrillation that would ensure the assassination technique ended up more or less non-lethal. It's why martial death-touches such as Buddha's Palm had become largely irrelevant in the theater of lethal martial arts -- this era had brought about so many ways to bring someone back from the brink of heart stoppage with consequence-free repercussions. Aolieon gripped the staff and went for another side to side combo, breakneck in reflexes to cause a stumble. The center of the staff between Aolieon's hands came up and thumped into Therrye's sternum before being made to clobber her directly in the face, causing her face to lift and her guard to be lifted just enough to gain access to her chest. She subconsciously bit her lip, letting one hand go free of the Staff and moved to engage her chest with lethal intent as her face came close to distract the target. An intrusive thought beckoned her to steal a kiss before she stopped her heart, but that is not why in this very moment, Aolieon froze; her own desperate sensibilities and the storm within her mind peaking to such a high intensity that it gave all of her movements pause; in that moment, for the first time in the heat of battle, she hesitated; so close to the bruiser herself, so deep into her guard... and this would be the dancer's downfall.
 
🎼 Gunship - Ghost (feat. Power Glove)

You're supposed -
It's a training exercise -
- you're supposed to -
- play a little game??
You're supposed to -

Abruptly thrown from the staff, a flicker of anger came and went, pulsing discordantly amidst the rest of her intentions. No, came the response, resolute in its focus. While she'd relished seeing this side of Aolieon and the staggering scale of mastery she presented, any pretense of this exchange actually being a game or an exercise had evaporated under the explosive press of escalating force. Therrye'd remained locked in and present for this after her initial falter, and the dancer had spun out in the grip of this battle trance.

It was beautiful in its deadly clarity, exquisite in its deafening technique. And in spite of her endurance and determination, she understood it would likely end in serious injury for herself.

The point of winning her had centered around the Liandri being so gonk-headed as to not care about her own health, and she was just as stubborn in pushing the point of that. With such resolution and focus, it would have been impossible for Aolieon to have not noticed that she was avoiding any exploitation or worsening of her chest injury and persistently kept pulling blows aimed in those directions. Nevertheless, she kept fighting like the bruiser was a tank she was determined to dismantle. At least she could be thankful she hadn't yet attempted to crack any of her bones.

Though she had no intention of giving up, she'd resolved to go down fighting for the ending she was aiming for if it came to it. Whether by victory or sacrifice, she'd give her cause to fucking listen. Therrye's conviction would not be shaken by brutal blows or unflinching threat.

Flowing through a new round of battering with sways of her body and blocks of her forearm (adding to the mounting collection of serious bruises there), she drew close enough again to blitz her left arm with three blows in quick succession. This was the distraction, though, and not the true prize. Pushing up the staff while she kicked out at her left thigh, Therrye pushed forward, left hand released and reaching out to ensnare and grapple her from the right -- then she was stymied, staggered in the sternum and smacked in the face. Always with the fucking face, she grimaced, briefly imagining a livid field decorating her violet flesh.

This isn't working, her mind tapped at her like a flick to the nose. As she returned from the blow, her gaze locked onto Aolieon's, the darkness torn between opposite impulses. Drop her. The apprehension of her having locked up with a bite of her lip (two flavors of her at once spread across it like a meal) registered only after she was already in motion, head rushing forward in a move so innate, so practiced, so relied upon that it could be drawn out reflexively with tremendous and sudden force. The bruiser's skull crashed into the dancer's, landing just above her nose with her forehead.

Reaching for her immediately to swing into a grapple, the understanding of her hesitation caught up with her in the same moment that she realized the woman was not struggling against her grip; her body had started falling without any resistance, and Therrye had caught her from dropping to the mats. The darkness was swallowed up in withered violet as sudden fear churned: Did I go too far? Between them fell the bo-staff, forgotten entirely for matters far more important. Using both arms to hold the Liandri's weight more evenly, she tore away her eyes to find Matsuo. Experienced and as attentive as many others in the space, he was already on his way with kit. Therrye kneeled down, then, and carefully laid Aolieon out on the mats. Without the will driving her, she seemed far more fragile like this than the bruiser had any right to believe -- still, having dropped her, that note of concern had wormed its way in and flared to life. Thoughts calculated the inputs and likely outcomes to tell her she was probably fine, but that was too many percentage points past comfort, let alone what she'd been aiming for this entire time. Steadying her breath, she held her focus to the moment in case she needed to move into action swiftly. Panic came difficulty for her, and dire situations were the furthest from when she'd allow herself to sink into its clutches.

With a quick check of her vitals, Matsuo-san dug around in the kit and retrieved something the bruiser hadn't been worrying over: a packet of smelling salts. Offering her a congratulatory smile (with a touch of smirk), Matuso spoke softly so as to not be entirely humiliating of the dancer in public. "Though much remains for you to master," mirth was present aplenty in that restrained expression, "that was an impressive showing." Presenting his hand, the woman took it after a little hesitation, and received a congratulatory shake and thump on the shoulder.

High praise, all told.

There was plenty Matuso-san could share and point out in this moment, between the two of them being present in wakefulness, but that was not for him to intervene in (regardless of his concerns). Bringing the smelling salts to Aolieon's nose, he snapped them open to hit her with a chemical inducement to consciousness. Though she gave the dancer space to return to waking on her own terms, the demonstration of clear mind in the ensuing minutes brought vivid relief to the bruiser. Much as she'd been loathe to even be in the vicinity of it of late, there was already a great deal of care for the Liandri, and seeing her thusly injured had wound her up tight.
 
... and just like that; the move towards what had become natural...
Then a flash of white light...
... and a whiplash into the dark so quickly that any mind wouldn't realize what had happened for minutes.
The mildest of sickening of crunches; not enough to cause permanent damage, and Aolieon went limp -- the reality of consciousness whisked away just as quickly as a good dream.
... and then a familiar darkness, graced mildly by a bioluminescent vision of herself that only ever had the right to exist in dreams...

... you beautiful idiot.
What are you?
Go back into the dark, where you belong.
I only tried to warn you.
You've always been trouble, and that's that. Even i can't deny that...
Salt the wounds; remember what you are and strangle this to nothing, where it was before.
... You wouldn't listen.
After everything youre privy to, and still you push after all these years... don't you know when some things will just never be?
What is it you want?
... I only want what they'll never let you have.

... the smell of an unpleasant house cleaner called her out of the abyss -- somehow, she felt herself desiring this exodus, and so her eyes began to flutter open of their own volition.

🎶 Linkin Park -- "Castle of Glass" 🎶

Flourescent lights graced her vision, sharpening it unpleasantly. Blurred vision came back into focus with a handful of blinks, and the two figures kneeling over Aolieon were revealed to be Matsuo and Therrye. Flickers of memory rushed forwards -- Aolieon blinked again, and exhaled through her nose, wrinkling her nose at a long-forgotten smell. She sort've flumped where she was, deciding that the mats were comfortable enough to just lay down on for a bit... and then the headache hit her like a truck.
Aolieon's eyebrows furrowed in pitiful regret, as she brought her hands up to cover her face in mild embarrassment while she moaned the ensemble of a child-like protest from the cessation of naptime. All that had transpired between them had made her hairtie from the fight's preparation to come undone, and her hair was an unkempt mess around her head and horns -- except this time, those who were around to witness were acutely aware of how she had came to the mats a bit too strongly. Her hands fell away from her face and she stared listlessly up at the ceiling... Her arms flopped loosely to either sides of her head, finding solace in the nest of her hair, and she had somehow found the appearance of waking up the morning after all too quickly. Her eyes fell upon Therrye and they seemed to sharpen a bit before finding their normal set of dilation. She puckered her lips in a mild pout before drawing them back to form an expression of mildly repelling complacency.
"... You haven't been practicing," Matsuo began -- her gaze ran back up to the ceiling to stare holes in it up to the sky. One of Aolieon's hands came up to gesture with a middle finger to Matsuo, before flumping back down to the mats. "Combat prowess is a perishable skill, and your martial arts have lost some refinement. You can either reject it or you can learn from it -- it's that simple," Matsuo continued, without a single note of resentment. "It's not my fault most of my opposition has the shelf life of an airhypo, Matsuo-san..." she groaned, slowly turning her head to regard the bruiser in full. "... It's been awhile since anyone's knocked me unconscious," she said with a sleepy smile, clearly letting all that transpired between them demystify into water under the bridge -- whether that was because she hadn't taken it at all personally, or whether her memory had been concussed into forgetting more than half of what happened would remain to be seen. "... that makes you two for two in making impossible things happen, bruiser." She managed a light chuckle for a second, smiling with only a touch of mirth before her face melted to just casually stare into the bruiser's eyes.
Matsuo waved at Aolieon from where he was, and he offered his hand as if he wished to pull her up. Aolieon blinked at this gesture, and then replied, "I think I'll just lay here for a minute, honestly. Thanks though," Matsuo lightly exhaled through his nose with a smile, but with his other hand, he pointed at the flourescent light she had smashed. Aolieon puckered her lips in reluctance before she rolled her eyes, and then begrudgingly took Matsuo's hand -- transfering him 3,000 eddies for the breaking of his dojo lights. "Come and see me when you're ready to talk -- I'll get you something to help nurse your injuries," he concluded, getting up and giving Therrye another pat on the shoulder before standing up from kneeling and moving to the locker rooms to get some other first aid goodies... Aolieon looked back at Therrye, blinking slowly and biting her lip as she sifted through various pits of emotion and thoughts, trying to find something meaningful to say... after awhile, she managed a slight smile, and settled on something generic but not altogether phoned in...
"... You're pretty good."
 
🎼 Kords - Overture

While Aolieon's regained a stable focus and clarity, Therrye exhaled out more of her gnawed tension. Less visibly than the dancer's worried lip, such feelings expressed themselves largely in coiled muscles in the chest and arms. Their subtlety did not make them minor, though, as the bruiser's heart repeatedly reminded her. That she did not draw up soon and laid on the mat left some to still swirl their spirals, but her lucidity was of great relief.

And as subtle as the tension might have been in her body, the tricolor of emotion in her mouth was not. Guilt sat next to concern which sat against affection. The latter would get tucked away, the second would get smoothed out, and the first would linger in the edges as her smile became more casually amiable. Unwrapping herself around that singular focus was not done in an instant, and it'd only pulled the hooks in her chest closer to the core.

At her mention of unconsciousness, the bruiser offered a very mild shrug. There was no trace of smugness or gloating. A couple blinks followed her next words and she chuffed audibly, her smile growing. "Determination's never been in short supply for me."

She glanced toward Matsuo to watch his response to Aolieon wanting to continue lying there; he did not seem that concerned, though, so she let another knot of worry unravel. He would know better than she what wounds were ones to give greater care to; for all her fighting experience, that had never been a priority of her handlers, let alone herself. Tracking his retreat for a couple beats, Therrye looked back toward the dancer and then reflected some bemusement at the compliment. She supposed the dancer was not actually that sparing in praise outside of her femme fatale introduction -- it had just only come when it particularly warranted.

"I'm good?" Therrye laughed good-naturedly. "You're a damn genius, so I'll take that as quite the compliment." Her grin easily slid up the left side of her face. "Your technique is something else. And all those styles?" Some dilation had already been present, though it'd increased another notch while the words fell easily; another part of her was tapping at other gates to glaringly point out that lip bite, but it wasn't the one in charge yet. Besides, hitting on concussed gals would be a definite low point, even in her more fuck-gal days. "Whatever Matsuo-san says, you're a nightmare in battle," and she meant that as striking praise.

Letting the effusive glow fade -- she was happy to gush, but never liked to draw it out too far -- she offered a prime point of contrast to it. "You weren't treating it much like 'sparring' for awhile there, though." It wasn't a condemnation, really, but more of an open acknowledgement with notes of curiosity. Her warmth was still plenty present, and as soon as Aolieon made move to get up, she'd offer her hand.
 
Aolieon chuffed with a bit of a hearty chuckle that ended up interrupted by a bit of a groan as she clutched her side, wincing with pain. But afterwards she immediately sighed and smiled sultrily at Therrye's comment about determination. "I can tell..." she lowly breathed, with the end of the groaning tones sounding like a bit of a familiar pleasurable sound. It would have been quite the understatement to say that Aolieon hadn't found a truly admirable quality in Therrye's capacity for determination; it did quite remind her of herself, as well as other certain people... For certain, Aolieon had detected the building blocks of what would make a great soldier and partner-in-crime -- however, while a fixer might take one good sparring match pushed to the envelope as proof enough of a Runner's moxie; it wasn't enough for one such as Aolieon, because life wasn't that simple for someone of her caliber. Some classic Edgerunner grit wasn't enough to go the distance in the fields which she reaped, let alone the war games she used to play... Still, merit was due credit, and it had won Therrye some more of Aolieon's time -- more than a gig well pulled off, a couple of drinks and a good burger might...
Her thoughts mildly caressed the memories of that first night they were together as she looked up at the ceiling -- quietly and simultaneously, she was flipping through the little notes and observations of combat data she had gathered from the bruiser. What Matsuo had said was true, although what he was respectfully not alluding to was that in undergoing a sparring match and swearing to non-lethality; a chunk of Aolieon's repertoire was made unavailable -- Aolieon wasn't a fighter; she was a killer, and a good one at that -- despite that fact, the reality that Therrye had been able to put her on the back foot regardless of how many styles, defenses and homages to fallen friends she pulled out of her pocket was quite an impressive thing to come to terms with... even if she mildly resented being humbled by someone she didn't know quite that well, regardless of the pretenses or gravity of the situation. Still, Aolieon found herself lowering her eyelids, turning her head to and fro lightly with a lauded smile and a little lilac blush as she wiggled underneath the praise of the bruiser -- the temptation was too hard to resist.

Aolieon even gushed a little nonverbally herself; her smile softened as if in nostalgia staring up at the ceiling, eyes drifting over to the shattered light. "... I had some good teachers," her eyes drifted down to where Kenji sat at the desk, quietly staring at Aolieon himself in silent respect and knowing. When they met eyes, Kenji's eyes immediately found the screamsheet he was reading once more. Kenji was a good teacher for some things, but that was far from what she meant. She mused upon those gone and passed, remembering to keep herself in the present in the process as she tried to find some meaningful words that wouldn't give too much away. "I put a lot of work into it... Thanks," she decided upon adding, looking back to Therrye, her own eyes dilating a little as she regarded the bruiser with a few touches of warmth than were there usually. When the bruiser added what she had to say about how Aolieon treated the match, she lowered her chin in a bit of a sardonic side-eye with a light chuckle.

🎶 Sean Kolton -- "The Decision Has Been Made" 🎶

"What, you've never gotten into a friendly duel with someone that ended up getting so intense -- you started trying to remember your old moves?" she retorted, snorting with mirth. She curled her lip in a smirk, letting her gaze trail off listlessly into the unobservable void once more. Her expression faded into a brief thousand yard stare, softened by memories of training, of dogma, of trials by fire and of what certain people had the gall to still say even when faced with dire evidence to oppose their views. Then she smiled, recalling something a certain strawberry-blonde headed Boss used to say. "When you get down to it; you may grow to hate it more than anything, but no one can deny how special fighting can be," Aolieon began, "It can prove your heart right, when everyone else believes you're wrong. It can settle scores that are far beyond words, and it can separate the liabilities from the reliable. It can make you feel alive, when nothing else can make you feel to begin with -- for some, fighting even makes them feel happy... it's why we have so many who make this cause their life's work," she echoed the words verbatim by accident -- she could have easily warped them to refer generically to all Edgerunners, but this was in truth in direct reference to the Fallen. "Friends can find themselves on the opposite sides of a battlefield, and still they will fight with all their strength -- not because it is, but because the fight does each the justice and respect they deserve -- sometimes it's the best way to go; in the arms of someone you'd trust more than anything in the world, especially over the hands of the green with a brand new rifle to your left, or the Borg who's been working for your employer for decades to your right. A fight among friends is one of the best things in life, because for a moment -- it makes everything right, when everything about life is wrong."

🎶 Some dojo Ambience to bring it back around... 🎶

... Aolieon snapped out of it for a moment, looking back at Therrye -- realizing how out-of-context her echoed words were. She snorted a little at how ironic it was, but managed to follow up before too much silence. "It doesn't seem quite right to call us friends just yet, but... you earned all that, I guess," she said, referring to all her seriousness in the fight. "... what little I cared to use," she muttered under her breath, letting a smile remain on her face. Eventually, she squinted her eyes, pushing up off the mat and taking Therrye's hand to sit upright. "... and I do think I'm not the only one who went a little over the top, in my defense," she said, holding her side and managing a mildly pained smile. "S'ok, though; maybe we should have set up a few ground rules, first -- wouldn't have tried to smother you, if I wasn't led to believe you didn't like it at first, anyways..." she tturned er head and gave her a sultry wink, giggling a little bit, while Matsuo came up, bowed and gave a few icepacks, a couple of Bounce Back inhalers, and some Dorph. "Thanks, Matsuo-san. I owe you more than a good talking to, at this point..." Matsuo merely bowed again, shaking his head at her silliness. "Is it safe to assume you'll
... be resuming practice here?" Aolieon looked around at the old dojo, thought to herself, then looked back at Therrye before regarding Matsuo again. "... I'm thinking about it, yeah. Possibly... probably," she finally replied. "Your brother's doing some work for me -- would be a shame to waste the opportunity, for sure..."
 
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