Amidst the bustle of the layers, Fukata approaches Keiichi from the Angel Repair Centre, waving to him in greeting as he comes over. "Ossu, Keiichi-kun. You up for a match?" He asks immediately, is someone worried about their current match record? No...honest! "I believe this would be the third match we've had, kind of a decider?" Fukata grins.
Keiichi had watched Fukata's approach, and offered the boy a smile and a bit of a nod when the greeting was given. "Ah, Fukata-san. Of course! It's been a while since we've played, it should be interesting." He grins a bit as he pushes off the wall he'd been leaning on, gray eyes peering about for an open layer. "I think some people would rather like watching two 'guests' battle it out as well."
"Yeah, they probably would. Although I wouldn't mind a match against someone newer - I bumped into Mikage-chan first..." He looks dismayed, then turns to look for a free layer, and spots one pair just completed their battle. "Let's use this one, ne?" he leads the way there.
"Oh? I haven't run into her as of yet today, though I hope to get another go at her." Keiichi grins a bit, and nods as Fukata indicates a layer that will be abandoned shortly. He follows along and manages to avoid bumping into people, my it was busy. "The last encounter didn't go so well, but I think I can do better."
As the pair of young girls depart from the layer, Fukata gives them a nod of his head and says, "Domo." the pair of them hurry off, whispering to each other, and find a place nearby from which to watch this match. He takes a seat at the layer, and reaches for the headset.
After the girls vacate the layer, Keiichi slides into the seat that Fukata wasn't seemingly going for. Once there he sets Zankoku on his leg before setting up the headset, plopping it onto his head and poking at the power button. The readouts come to life and indicate that there are no angels on the layer! That was expected of course, since neither dues had fallen in yet. The boy lifts his eyes towards the other dues and smiles a bit, this should be an interesting match.
Fukata settles the headset down over his eyes and flicks it on. He smiles back at Keiichi as the layer forms between them, first the grass, then the trees and pathways, and finally the buildings build themselves out of rainbow pixels. Fukata reaches for his angel from his shirt pocket, closes his eyes and intones, "Even in the impossible..." he says as he clasps the angel to his chest, "...let us not accept defeat. Ikke! Yuki!" and with that he looses her into the air towards the layer. She spins as she flies and activates as she passes through the barrier, falling towards the ground. She flips forwards and lands on one of the houses, which creaks loudly and gives a little as she does and Yuki says, looking embarassed "Ah! I broke it!".
Keiichi chuckles a bit as Yuki makes her landing and moves to pick up the heavily cloaked Zankoku. "Reach beyond the gates of death, Zankoku." With that said, the boy tosses the zombie towards the layer, sending him through the air with a bit of a spiral. The angel passes through the energy barrier and a flash of red is emitted from the shadows of his hood, where the eyes would be. He quickly snaps into motion and twists his body about in a flip, coming to a heavy landing upon one of the stone pathways. The force of the impact sends him to one knee, and one fist comes to rest upon the ground as well while the cloak pools about him. He then rises to his feet slowly before crossing his arms over his chest and looking towards Yuki, a small hint of a grin on the corner of his lips. He's danced with this one before, it would be a good fight.
Yuki returns the look, looking forward to a good fight too. "I hope you're up to this, Zankoku-san." and with that she launches herself into an attack, bounding off of the house she'd perched herself on, and landing into a run she closes the opening distance between them quickly, and opens with a straightforwards kick to the chest.
Zankoku looks on as Yuki makes her statement and shifts into a defensive posture. She was the faster of the two, and he expected that the first move would be made by her. This was a correct assumption too, because she burst into motion shortly thereafter. Purplish black energy swirled about his feet, seeping up along his body and cloak before being absorbed into him. As the quick Yuki's kick comes in, it meets with an invisible force which detracts from the speed and impact quite a bit. It wasn't enough to stop it completely though, and the foot does make contact, it just probably wasn't what was expected. At the exact moment of impact, Zankoku slides back just a tad and twists into a low spin. He was attempting to sweep Yuki off her feet, qutie literally. If successful it would be followed through by another low kick.
Instead of making any attempt to dodge the attack, in an unusual move for Yuki she charges into the kick, countering with an attack of her own so that the sweep doesn't hit with any real force, and she lunges forward with a heavy punch to the head.
By some stroke of luck, Zankoku is just barely able to move out of the way of the heavy handed punch, which was probably a good thing. Still the avoidance was somewhat draining, even to him. He rolls back and away before coming back up to his feet and settling into a defensive posture. He couldn't rush in with her, it was too dangerous, he would have to play it safe.
With a smile, Yuki knows that evading that attack cost him as much as being hit by it would likely have done. She beckons him to come at her, "Let's not play the waiting game, Zankoku-san, hmm?" and she stares at him, waiting for a reply, or an attack.
Well the waiting game would have to end, he couldn't afford to sit around idly too long just as much as he couldn't afford to rush in. It was a catch-22. So in he goes, approaching Yuki with caution before letting a quick kick fly at her torso, feeling things out as it were.
Whilst Yuki never seemed to move, the kick also doesn't quite connect - strangely seeming to find it's reach just at her torso, and no further. And similarly without any visible movement, Yuki appears to be almost in two places at one time. One of them calmly smiling at the extent of his kick, and the other with a fist quickly approaching his face.
There Yuki went again, showing off her amazing speed and ability to almost be in two places at once. If only he could be so fast. Still Zankoku had a new trick up his sleeve, particularly meant for this encounter. Dark energies crackled over his form dancing all over his body as the attack came in, and at the very last moment, his hand snaps up while his head tilts back. He pushes the attack aside, hoping to push her off balance enough for this next strike to hit. While leaning back a bit he twists to the side a little and his fist juts out in a swift and decisive manner towards Yuki's hopefully exposed side. He had mustered all the power he could for this one, and if it hit it would be devestating to say the least.
As he hits one of the flickering Yukis, the other vanishes, and the flickering stops as she staggers back from the precise and crippling strike. She hops back and lands in a crouch where she punches the ground, clearly frustrated she was hit by such a move so early in the match. But then with a renewed focus she stands up to push on, with a gesture, she seperates again, and again, and again, and again. Soon there are many Yuki's, all sporting a slight smirk. The all rush forwards as one, an exact mirror of the original in each, as the unleash a countless number of punches and kicks on the zombie angel.
Zankoku grins a satisfied grin, having hit Yuki he accomplished his main goal for the match. Now to move on to the secondary one, victory! Provided his luck holds out that long anyway. For now he recovers his stance just in time to have to put up a defense of the flurry of attacks coming his way. His arms move busily to block as many as he possibly could, but it was impossible to get them all. He didn't really have much time to even counter, simply trying to keep his defenses intact.
As the onslaught goes on, the extra Yuki's flicker out of existance until there is only one punching at the zombie's defence. She stops finally, breathing heavily from her exertions. Moving suddenly, she spins into an uppercut, a suitable finish to that combo.
After that extremely focus intensive series of blocking, Zankoku found it much easier to handle only one Yuki rather than several. As a result he manages to bend backwards at the waist just enough to avoid the uppercut. This was quickly followed up by a sliding step backwards and a quick twist of the hips into a roundhouse kick, aimed at her chest.
With a quick backflip, Yuki evades the kick, and she continues to flip out of reach of Keiichi's angel, and at a distance some would consider safe - but this is not an angel to think that of. She's actually just getting a run up for her attack. She starts to run across the layer, increasing speed, and throwing herself forwards at the last moment, launching into a dropkick to the chest, angled to put the zombie angel into or possibly through a building.
Zankoku watched Yuki's retreat and her return warily as dark energy crackled about his form. He braced himself, ready for whatever might come. When the foot comes in with the dropkick, his hand juts out to smack it aside and try to veer her off course. He made no moves to follow through with another attack just yet though. That was unusual for him really, but circumstances dictated his actions today.
Taking a few steps back and keeping her distance from him, Yuki again takes a chance to catch her breath. She'd been on full offence since the start of the match, and it can't help but take a toll on her stamina. She waits for now, giving the pair a momentary reprieve.
The reprieve was welcome, though it might have cost Zankoku a little more than Yuki. There was no more time for rest, he would have to shift gears into full on attack mode if he had any hope of winning this battle. To that end he lunges forward while his hand draws out to the side. Dark energy ripples along his forearm, through his hand and along the ridges of his knuckles. There it springs out into a punch-dagger shape, which is soon punched square at Yuki. It probably wouldn't be nice if it connected.
With a nimble sidestep, Yuki avoids the blow, putting more energy into reading the zombie angel for openings than evading the fairly slow attack. She makes good use of the opening she finds too, grabbing a hold of his arm, and using him as a ramp she launches herself upwards into the air, and spins in the air, twisting to aim downwards, both arms outstretched to drill into Zankoku when she hits.
Zankoku proved to be more slippery than one might think, at least this time around. The dark energy that coarsed through his body kicked up and sent a surge through his body, increasing his speed beyond normal capacity for him. The result was that he moved out of the way with enough time to begin a counter attack, aimed to strike just as she would be landing.
With a twist, Yuki alters her path to miss by a little, and slams into the ground with a loud thud. She lies flat on the ground for a moment, not having expected to miss that time, and after a momentary pause she throws herself to her feet and snatches at her opponent, bringing a knee up to meet his chest.
Yuki does manage to snatch him, or at least his cloak, and when her knee smashes into it she finds very little in the way of resistance. That would be because he'd ducked out of it though, and while crouching low he attempts to kick her other foot out from under her while she's distracted. Sneaky, sneaky, little zombie.
Yuki vanishes, and reappears behind Zankoku, "Two can do that trick." she says as his cloak drifts to the ground. She makes the motions of cracking her knuckles, draws both arms back and unleashes a hail of punches upon the zombie's back.
Zankoku had a lot of experience with flurry attacks, being the victim of the time and again. Using this experience he somehow manages to twist and bob and come about before taking too much damage, and proceed to block the rest with his own hands. After the final punch is moved aside, his fist draws back as dark energy charges down along his forearm, and he then thrusts forward attempting to smash her in the gut.
Again the devastating precision attack lands, and Yuki flails backwards and falls to the ground and the meter drops to 1 bar left - which flickers on and off, as if uncertain of the angel's status. Yuki pushes herself back to her feet, just as the meter registers the last bar on, and the angel still (just) active. She reaches an unsteady stance, and levels her gaze with Keiichi's angel, she drops into a charge forwards, her last energy put towards and all or nothing attack, taking a slight sidestep to angle her line of attack towards a building, Zankoku in between.
As Yuki rushed in towards Zankoku, her body would meet with another invisible force. This one more maleable than the spirit shield though. It attempts to divert her from her path, but there is too much momentum built up for it to work out. Still, it slows the attack down a little bit. She smashes into Zankoku and sends him tumbling backwards along the cobbled path, rolling and bumping along. In the end though, he manages to push himself to his feet shakily. His hand pulls out to his side, dark energies swirling and coalescing there to form into a sphere of the substance with an uhealthy green glow about it. He peers at Yuki and ponders attacking again for a moment before the ball dissipates. He can tell that she can't go any further, and he would let her finish the match without any further damage on his part.
Fukata frowns a little, as the layer buzzes finality. He pulls the headset off and holds it in his hand, sighing. "That was a good match, Keiichi-san." he rises from his seat to reach into the layer and retrieve Yuki. "You've learned a new trick or two."
With the end signaled, Keiichi breathes a sigh of relief. Fukata was always a strong opponent, and it took everything he had to fight each time he and Zankoku went up against him and Yuki. It was a good fight though, and that made the boy happy. A smile is offered towards Fukata, "That was fun Fukata-san. Very close too. I'm going to have to improve some more though if I want to win again next time we meet I think." Every new trick would always be met with a way around it eventually, so it was necessary to keep coming up with more.
"I'll chat to you later, Keiichi -kun, but with two losses now, I think I'd better go find some newbies." and he grins evilly, then turns to head off to the angel repair centre.