Apparently finally having gotten more used to the crowd, The Layer Phantom stepped in proudly: one hand up into the air to greet the ones who were going to watch his fight today. He actually dared to look up into the crowd. "Hmm." An actual smile had appeared on his lips: for he thought to recognize a person in the crowd. Following this the boy walked up to his seat and sat down in it: letting himself rise up to the layer. As his opponent then spoke, the boy just smiled in return.
"And the layer for today's match is... A giant litterbox?! What were the designers at Angelic Layer thinking when they made this scenery! Anyways, Angel Fall-in!" The announcer calls, which causes Yamada to sit up slightly, glancing across at Ranmaru, "What are you smiling about?" She grunts, and then takes her angel in her fist and flings her towards the layer. "Resistance is futile. Annihilate them all, Vasques!" The big angel thumps down onto the layer in a crouch, her feet digging into the clay beneath her feet as she pushes to a full standing position, slaming her fist into the palm of her hand threateningly.
"Resistance is futile? You'll find out that I am a bit more hard to defeat than that." Finally someone he had tapes of, who he seen fighting: and thus had a good evaluation of. "Come on, I'll even let you punch first."
There seemed to be some movement underneath the cloak as he took hold of Kamui: an action quite invisable to others. His fingers wrapped around the lithe body of his angel, holding it quite gently. "Illuminate the darkness with your soul of bonds!" He suddenly calls out as his cloak is thrown to the side and Kamui suddenly gets flung towards the layer. "Kamui, show us your light! Fallin!" The black feline angel shoots forth..
It's head first as it touched the bright light of the layer, immediatly forcing itself to open it's crimson red eyes, the rest of it's body following quite quickly. It's fur ruffled violently by the speed it had been thrown! It's limbs seemed to twitch for a moment before explosively coming to live. Stretching out completely before making a beautiful double flip forth: finished by landing perfectly on both knees and one fist, it's other arm set before it's face. It's tail lashed violently for a moment before the angel actually seemed to 'bother' to get up and take some paces back to his side of the layer.
Kamui's head cocked slightly to the left, it's lips reveiling one tooth, allowing for the angel to give quite the smug look. But this look was not directed at any opposing angel, it was directed at Yamada. It's eyes illuminated with that red hue, it was almost demonic: if not, at least feral.
"You should learn to respect your elders." Yamada doesn't even seem to wait a second after the timer begins. Instead, she runs headfirst into the battle. Perhaps she's angry about losing to little kids so often in this tournament that she wants her revenge against someone, and Kamui seems a likely target. Vasques dives towards the cat-angel and sends a powerful kick at his midsection, followed by a spray of dust and kitty-litter.
"Tsssk." Ranmaru really had nothing to say against that, as to him that was such a useless insult. His angel simply stepped to the side to let Vasques through like a bull. "Ole!" The angel says in a meowing voice, which sounded a bit hokey: but still fun to here since the angel had held his arms up and everything as if it had been holding a red piece of cloth. However, this was quickly followed by the angel racing after the storming Vasques and throwing a simple yet fast punch at it.
Vasques skids to a stop after her attack is dodged, turning around to glare at the dark-furred angel. She ducks below his own attack, then tries to come up with a thrusting side-kick aimed at his belly. "Get out of my face!" The angel yells.
"What about in your face." Ranmaru joked innerly by producing a really low volume voice: barely even audible to himself. On the layer, his angel looked up at the newly oncomming attack and did something quite... well, something that has been done many times before. He jumped up into the air with a stretched-forth leg: apparently trying to hit Yamada's angel in the head. Said jump doubling for a dodge.
Vasques raises her arms up in an 'x', warding off most of the damage from the attack before reaching a hand out, trying to grab on to the cat's leg and drive him down into the ground below like a rag-doll. Yamada, it seems, cannot hear the commentary, and just stays leaned back in her chair, watching.
Kamui however was one sneaky little kitty. As Vasques had grabbed and threw him down, the angel started using it's hands to propell itself along with the momentum: causing him to sneak under her legs: forcing it to probably let go... and then stopped propelling, moving it's both claws so that if he would be let go: he would end up pushing over Yamada's angel. The plan? To unleash major scratchin'.
Well, no major scratching is to be had. "Is that all you have?" Yamada mumbles, leaning her head on her hand boredly. "If so, this is going to be a really dull match." She yawns, a move echoed by her angel just before stepping forward and sending a lazy punch towards the cat's head. "I guess your angel is just a toy afterall..."
"Don't underestimate the lower power angels... you might get scratched." Ranmaru commented, revealing one of his corner teeth like a cat and looked down at the layer where his angel just ducked away from a blow and from the crouched position pushed himself off with both claws aimed at Vasques' head, claws extended... "Badly.."
And scratched is indeed what Vasques becomes. Three long claw marks etch across her face as she scowls, turning to look at the feline. Yamada just rolls her eyes. "Children have such big egos when it comes to their playthings. It's too bad they don't understand the art of war." Vasques draws one hand back as if she were going to just haul off and punch Kamui, but instead, she steps down, with one foot, trying to stomp on his toes before kicking upward with the other.
"I have no ego, only a heart." Ranmaru replies with a kind voice, staring down as his angel finishes off his last scratch. And he probably was lucky that he had studied previous matches of Vasques this well, otherwise he might not have been able to see through that feint. No, his angel darts to the opposite side for a moment by taking a couple of sidesteps before running around the corner to Vasques' back and throwing a couple of scratches and punches from that position.
Well, if he had studied those matches well enough, perhaps the deus would have expected the way that Vasques draws her opponent in only to crush them. So when the punches come, she responds by slaming each one back with a blow of her own, stepping forward and finishing off the display with another arching punch at the cat's head. "The heart is weak thing. It is strength that means everything in war. Those who rely on their hearts are the first to fall."
"But there is a big difference here. This is not a war." Ranmaru replied, shaking his head. "Angelic layer is a game where people play with their hearts. Sure your angel is strong, but this is only statistics and technique... I feel nothing behind your actions." The boy continued as his angel was smashed aside. Sure, the meter had just fallen heavily, but not as heavy as one might have expected out of a speed angel. "There is nothing behind your actions but an empty soul." Ranmaru finished and forced Kamui to throw a punch immediatly after the counterattack. "I can't let such a person win."
"Big words, boy, but Vasques will crush your angel like paper." Yamada leans over towards the right, and aims a hand out towards the layer, pointing at her angel. "Wait and see." The big angel pounds her hands together once more, then dives forward, sending out another powerful punch at Kamui, this time aiming to strike him directly in the chest.
Oh, but he knew what Yamada was doing. She was forcing Kamui to keep dodging, until there would be a point at which he could no longer do so. It did not matter to him, he was just going to try his best. "Ikke, Kamui!" The angel dodged by crouching downwards, laying himself down onto the ground as Vasques came over him, and then forced both clawed hands upwards to try and strike at it's chest... trying to pierce it!
Vasques was not that easy to pierce, her thick defenses preventing much of the blow from passing anywhere past her arms. The angel grits her teeth and steps backwards, breathing a bit hard as she tries to gather up ideas about how to slow down this little speed demon.
Apparently wishing to be the one deciding the pace of the game, Kamui shot forth the moment Vasques stopped moving for a moment, throwing a... for his level... mean punch at her with the intention of throwing her off balance. "Keep going Kamui." Ranmaru commented.
The paranoid Vasques manages just barely to get out of the way of the incoming punch. Tossing herself to the side into a not so nice patch of something on the layer. "Ugh." The angel mumbles as she lifts an arm up and then swings it back down to remove the clinging substance. She gets back to her feet, and once more charges towards the speedy kitty, tossing out another kick, this time right at his kneecap, perhaps trying to disable him.
But as bad as things would look if Kamui kept dodging like this, Ranmaru forced his angel to do so anyhow: rolling sideways through the grit. He knew that if this would not finish within a small ammount of time, he'd be done for. "Faster, Kamui!" He shouted over the layer. And his angel did just that, it moved faster at Vasques, claws stretched forth again. A simple yet normally devestating rush!
And not only does that rush strike Vasques, but a strange thing happens... what would normally have been a low damage strike, seems to eat away a bit at the leather armorment she wears, causing her to blink and look down in surprise as she winces. "That's it... it's time to slow you down, permanently." Vasques tries to grab onto Kamui, twisting her body in an attempt to slam him head first into the ground.
Indeed, it would slow Kamui down. But not the way it was intended. Simply for she was unable to grab hold of the angel, yet Kamui was forced to get out of the way with quite the weird and unexpected flips and jumps: Landing behind her with the last jump and turning around. "Keep going, together." Ranmaru whispered to Kamui: whom in turn let it's claws come out and were thrown at the opponent's back.
A yell of pain comes from the angel as those claws dig into the back of Vasques, causing her back to arch and her lifebar to drop significantly. Anger shows on the face of her dues as her angel is attacked so viciously, but there are no further rude comments as she sits forward, concentrating on the match for the first time. "You'll pay for that." Vasques turns around and swings a wide, uncontrolled punch to try and knock her opponent away.
And for the first time in this match, Vasques was able to hit Kamui with a normal attack! Apparently not concentrated enough, Ranmaru is forced to watch Kamui get hit by the attack and rammed all the way to the other side of the litterbox. A little 'crack' sound voices through the arena as the angel came against the wall. "..." And it said nothing, it just looked up and dashed at Vasques again... yet he seemed that much slower all of the sudden.
The angel is just barely able to dodge, quickly running all the way to the other end of the arena... and waiting there. Just standing there at the edge, realizing it had more chance of dodging if there was the room and the time to get out of the way.
Seeing her opponent on the run, Yamada steps forward, stomping across the layer like godzilla. And then... *squish* ... The angel looks down, scowls, and then looks over at Kamui again as if somehow this were his fault. She steps forward, takes off the big boot, and chucks it at Kamui.
The angel just keep standing there, tipping it's head to the side as the boot comes flying. Ranmaru, sitting there and watching it all, can't help but chuckle. "You could almost smell it." He stated, pointing at the boot down on the layer. "Wouldn't you say?"
"That's disgusting." Yamada sneers, wrinkling her face up. The timer is ticking down to the last minute of the match, and she knows well enough that her angel is wearing down. So, she does one last charge at Kamui. Either she'll strike him, knock him back out of the layer... or go out herself. One way or the other, it will be over after this attack.
And with something as simple as a step to the side, Kamui lets the opposing angel rush past. He was even kind enough to gently bow before her, and make a motion that basically said: 'ladies first'. Almost gentleman like... if there was not that faint presence of mean-ness with it. "I had fun." Ranmaru comments as Vasques ends up missing her target.
And, Vasques topples out of the layer, landing with a clatter on the ground, just as the announcer calls out, "Layer Out! Kamui Win!" The big dues shrugs her shoulders and lowers her chair down to the ground level to retrieve her angel, only giving a small nod towards Ranmaru. As she picks up her angel, she glances over her shoulder, snorts once, and then mumbles, "What is it with these newcomers. It wasn't half this hard against Suzuhara." She hurrumphs and stomps off the arena floor.