There is a quiet lull between matches as the layer is cleaned off and people get some refreshments, but slowly they begin to move back to their seats. The announcer clears his throat slightly, tapping at the microphone. "Is this thing on?" Maybe he's new... he certainly doesn't sound like the previous announcer. "Anyways! Ladies and Gentlemen! Please take your seats as we welcome our combatants for the next match!" There is a quiet roar from the crowd and a mulling of motion as people struggle back to their seats. "For this match we have... Fukami Kikichi, a newcomer to these games, let's give her a big welcome! Annd... Takayama Kiyoshi, a local tutor training to be a teacher! Let's have a round of applause for our two duelists!"

Kiyoshi, all smiles as he always seems to be (except when playing on the layer), walks out from the hallway, giving a wave to a group of students he tutors at Eriol who seem to be waving a sign for him near the front of the stands. He glances behind him, knowing that his opponent is a student and thus showing his usual concern for those younger than himself.

Kikichi walks out of the waiting room and a wall of sound hits her. Fighting the instict to bolt, she steels herself, forcing herself to take one step after another. By the time she makes it to her chair, she is out of breath and trembling. "I hate crowds..." She scowls at her opponent and at the hundreds of cheering or jeering spectators, more because she's scared than anything else.

Unlike her other battles in this tournament, Kikichi knows absolutely nothing about Kiyoshi or the angel he uses. She hadn't had the time to commit to any real research on her opponent. This scared her more than anything. She hates to be unprepared, but she was ready to deal with it. "Just do your best to react to the situation Kiki..." She looks at the fans in the layer, wondering if someday she might have fans of her own.

Having affirmed that his opponent is indeed behind him, Kiyoshi makes his way forward towards his side of the layer and the waiting egg-shaped chair. As he does so, his happy demeanor seems to slip slightly, especially once the strange, limp doll that is his angel is drawn out from within his jacket. The little thing, looking like a ghostly child, is set into the careful embrace of his hands as he sits, turning his headset on and awaiting his opponent, and the start of the match.

Kikichi waits patiently for the start of the match, bracing herself for the sudden jerk of the egg-chairs rise above the glowing white layer. She squints her eyes, trying to get a good look at her opponent deus and angel. The sometimes teacher at Eriol Gakuen was holding what looked like a strange child; limp, sad, and kind of scary. A mere child in real life would pose no problem to a seasoned fighter... but this wasn't real life, and Kiki wasn't a seasoned fighter. Heck, she had only just begun to experiment with Angelic Layer, and being thrown into this tournament by her brother was almost too much for her to handle. Could she possibly win against her obviously more experienced deus, or would she succumb to her own lack of wisdom. No, she couldn't think that way. She needed to focus. She pulls out Jinto. He wasn't exactly large, though he wasn't small. Stocky would be a better word for his size. The pale skin seemed to have a light blue tint to it. Kikichi smoothed out the angels' pin-striped blue martial arts gi and prepared for her angels' entrance to the layer, going over the words she would use in her head.

With both duelists finally in their chairs and ready, the announcer clears his throat once more, giving the microphone another tap. "Let's see what sort of turrain they'll fight on today!" The layer flashes, flipping through the possible sceneries, and some that seem to only be there as 'teasers' since they never come up. It clicks, finally, to a stop on a lava covered layer. "Oooh... The volcano! How will they handle -this- dangerous layer? Now's the moment you've been waiting for, folks! Entry-Angel!"

At least he didn't rattle on like some announcers, so Kiyoshi can be thankful for that much at least. As the young man stands up, he craddles his angel in his hands, and then throws them forward, sending his angel in an arc towards the layer. "Never to be forgotten. Your spirit lives on, Akuma!" His voice chokes slightly in his chest, but that's just nerves... right? As the ghostly angel comes down towards the layer, it seems as if she will fall right into the lava, but at the last moment, she swirves upward and seems to hover, her feet inches above the glowing, hot layer below. Her head lifts, and her eyes open, showing empty, glowing red sockets beneath.

Hearing the announcer's last speach snaps Kikichi out of her trance and she looks to the layer. LAVA! Oh no! "No time for worrying now Kiki...do your thing" she whispers to herself. Sitting up tall, she holds her angel out infront of her. "Jinto, show our opponent how cold you can be!" She throws the angel towards the layer, the doll arching gracefully near the top of the invisible sphere before passing through, moisture in the air crackling as Jinto meteors toward the edge of the craterous volcano. There is a large crash as ice shatters and scatters, though it melts immediately in the heat of the natural hazard. Jinto stands up from a kneeling position and takes a defensive stance, staring deep into the red eyes of his opponent.

This particular layer scenery, combined with Jinto's abilities creates an unusual effect. Normally, the ground around Jinto is covered in a sheet of ice, however the ground is hot, which instantly melts the ice, creating a thin steam that wafts upwards. This mist is then refrozen at is hits the icy aura that surrounds Jinto, falling back to the ground to start the process all over again. Normally, Jinto would hold back and stand defensive in the onslaught of his opponent, but in this hot layer, his defenses wouldn't last long. He needed to act quickly if he was going to have a chance in this battle.

On the layer, Jinto Jinto rushes forward, feet steaming on the solidified lava. The air around Jinto snaps, and tiny shards of ice fall to the ground and melt, leaving a path of steam behind the frigid angel. The layer was uneven, and Kikichi had to concentrate to ensure that Jinto did not trip, jumping holes and gaps that would surly lead straight to Jinto's defeat. As Jinto nears the ghostly angel, he cocks his arm back, a ball of crystaline ice forming around his fist. He strikes out at Akuma, preparing for a dodge from the ethereal looking doll, curving his arm from right to left in a hook designed to connect with the jawbone.

Akuma... does nothing. It's a simple explanation for a complex process. She sees the attack coming, follows it's motion, and simply allows it to strike her on the face. However... even though the attack knocks her head cleanly around, making it spin slightly. When it stops, though, that same look seems to hold on her face... a look like death itself has come to show it's true power. There is a clicking sound somewhere deep within the angel as her arm shoots upward in a jerky motion. Then, it lashes out forward, trying to rake across the icy angel with the sharp fingertips of her decayed, claw-like hands.

Jinto expected a dodge, but instead of meeting air, he cleanly met fleshy resistance to his attack. Ice shattered from his fist, and then all heck breaks loose. The angels head spins and it's arm lashes out at him, threatening to scratch him with dead fingers. "Jinto! Watch out!" Kikichi thinks quickly and has the angel created a jagged sheet of ice around his torso, just enough to cause Jinto to spin to the ground from the strike, but not take severe damage. His face hits the ground and it steems from the heat of the rock beneath him.

Prying his face from the hot stones he was stuck to, Jinto stands to face his dead opponent. Swirling his hands in the air, Jinto collects a ball of ice, compresses it into a solid block, and then chucks it at his enemy, hoping to topple the creature into the lava below.

Akuma isn't so much toppled into the lava, but floated close to it. The edge of her robe lights slightly on fire, and... fire plus the undead does not always mix. She groans as the fire sweeps up along her leg, blowing a black puff of air to try and put it out. However, her leg is left blackened and even more disgusting looking than before. When her attention turns back towards Jinto, though, she looks... irritated. Reaching her hand forward, the angel shoots it towards Jinto's shoulder, seeming as if she were trying to grab him and yank him forward.

Disgusting! Seeing the monster reach forward unnaturally creeps Kikichi out. "Jump back Jinto!". Jinto listens to his deus and steps back, just out of reach of the grasping, bony arm. The grasp is quick however, and Jinto, not being very quick, wasted a lot of energy to save himself.

After narrowly dodging the wicked angels attack, Jinto decides to retaliate. He snaps his let into the air after the retracting arm, sending ice shards after the dead flesh, hoping to penetrate and possibly debilitate the arm of the undead angel.

When the ice shards come rushing towards her, Akuma responds by one of the few more interesting ways she knows how. The ghostly angel moves forward and lashes out with her hand, returning much of the ice back towards it's source. That isn't the end of her attack, however. Showing decaying, moldering teeth, she takes a deep, rattling breath and then blows it out, with a great deal of dark energy behind it. While it isn't meant to do much damage... the infesting power of undead energy is sure to throw a wrench into whatever plans the living may have for harming this spirit further.

On the layer, Jinto Jinto reels as the cloud of dark energy crawls into his flesh. If he could have vomited just then, he would have. He does his best to shrug off the effect, but he can feel the negative flow of energy from his body and suddenly cannot think of the tactics he had planned in the near future.

If dead-head wants to play breathy, we can do the same! Sucking in a large breath, ice crackling in the air as it is drawn into the angel, Jinto blows at Akuma, a long stream of cold air streaks towards its target, intending to hamper joints and freeze flesh.

Once again, Akuma remains eerily still. The icy gust seems to blow through her, causing a few strands of hair to turn into ice, but leave no lasting mark on her form. Her head tilts with a click, and then those ice-covered strands of hair snake out as if they had a mind of their own, using the sharp, piercing icicles in an attempt to jab through Jinto's formidable defenses.

Jinto likes ice... as a tool for his own uses, not for his enemy to turn back upon him! Sharper than even he could currently make, the ice-hair jabs deeply into Jinto. Thinking quickly, he grabs onto the hair and freezes it, leaning forward to snap it off before it can be driven any further into him. He pulls out the frozen hair spear and tosses it into the lava, which splashes slightly before melting the ice and then burning the hair, giving off a sickeningly sweet smell of death and decay.

Jinto collects more ice from the steam and moisure in the air, but instead of creating a block of ice, he forms a long, sharp point, in essence, a javalin. He throws the point, arching it over the bubbling lava, and attempts to pin Akuma to the rock she hovers over.

Akuma somehow manages to remain unpinned, although her kimono does end up pinned down slightly by the javalin. She looks at it with a distracted sort of innocence, and then looks back at Jinto. As she moves forward, the Kimono rips, revealing a bit of her boney, decaying ribcage as she floats forward like some monster out of a nightmare. Her arms extend forward, as if she were going to grab on to the icy angel and draw him into a hug... perhaps the last hug of his life, if she were able to grab hold and squeeze the living daylights out of him.

Jinto is slowly but surly being crushed to oblivion. Try as he might, he cannot escape the grasp of the preternaturally strong Akuma. He tries to control his movements so as to not allow himself to be crushed inwards. He steels himself to breakout and waits for an opening to do so.

Eventually, it seems as if Akuma realizes that she cannot squish her opponent to death. So, looking at him curiously, she gives a raspy, clicking sound as disgustingly putrid breath flows from her mouth. Still, there is something oddly child-like in her blank, hollow gaze. A gaze one could almost get caught up in, and not notice the impending strike of her razor-sharp taloned fingers towards Jinto's stomach.

Jinto does indeed get caught up in the hypnotizing gaze, and hardly even feels the rake of bone accross his mid-section, so fully caught up in the red eyes of his opponent is he. The snake has charmed it's prey and it's only moments before it swallows it whole.

Seeing as she has Jinto under the spell of her undead gaze, Akuma leans in, as if she were going to place those gray-blue, parched lips of hers onto his throat. To some, the movement may seem a bit forward, as such things weren't often seen on the layer. But for Akuma this is no sign of love or affection. If she knew or understood such things, she lost them at the same time she lost her life. Instead the gaping void of her mouth opens, and her gruesome, greenish teeth show as she moves to bite down on Jinto's shoulder.

The vapid bite of the undead angel instantly plunges Jinto into a state of panic. Thrashing wildly, Jinto thrashes about in an attempt to release himself from his captors grasp, pain shooting throughout his entire body.

Having succeeded in her task, the ghostly angel seems to flicker out of existence for a moment. Is she gone? No, there is no true death for someone like Akuma. She reappears a moment later, rasping as if she had just been someplace very dark, or very cold. With a groan of sound, she leaps towards Jinto, her sharpened, bony fingers trying to wrap around his neck and drag him, too, into the abyss of death.

Now that Jinto is actually awake and fighting, he was able to see death itself come at him in the form of Akuma. Crossing his arms over his head, he instantly freezes all of the moisure in the air, comrpressing it into a solid sphere of ice around his body. Akuma's nails strike the wall of ice, but have no way of pressing all the way through. Extending his body, the ice shatters into a million pieces, and Jinto calls to them, sending the ice shards, shinning and spinning, at the unstopping, unfeeling monster that threatens to obliterate him. A cascade of blues from the ice and reds from the lava's light reflect off of the shards as they pass to the side and through his opponent.

If Akuma feels the cold sting of the wounds, she shows no sign of it. Instead, she simply falters for a split second, then continues to advance, driving further and further towards the edges of the layer. She seems intent, obsessed, posessed even, as she tries to lash out once more with those raking claws, trying to slash them past Jinto's face.

The claws, black, and unforgiving, rake through plastic flesh, leaving Jinto winded. He allows his opponent to close until the last second, and then he pulls his head back, covering it in a helm of spiked ice, and then throws himself forward in an attempt to disuade the petulent demon.

Unperturbed, Akuma simply charges forward with a sheer force of absolute, undying will. It is easy to imagine that this is the last sight, the last sound that many might hear before they meet their end... She barrels right through the attack, and lashes out with her arm, this time... aiming to knock poor Jinto off of the layer, and perhaps, finally, to safety... from herself.

Jinto is knocked from the layer, straight at Kikichi, who barely has time to throw her arms up in defense from the solid doll as it barrels into her forehead. "OUCH!"