Like Nothing You've Ever Seen
Jan. 20th, 2020 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerWeird conversations are just a thing with my friends. Thanks for fielding awkward questions. I appreciate.
Also, migraines suck. I'm finally getting back to just *slight headache* while sitting in a dark room wearing sunglasses. Painkillers help, but still. Yikes.
More author's notes:
background notes
In this universe, Japan is run by the women. Inoue-chan is Andrew. Miyamoto Suna is Xander, and she's a matriarch of the Miyamoto Family, or Miyamoto-gumi. Akiyama is the Matriarch Willow. Maki is Giles. Abe is Willy the Snitch. Natsukawa is Buffy. Yukata are a type of summer kimono that's lighter than a regular kimono. The type Cordy's supposed to wear when out in public (and, well, in general, just in case anyone visits, not that the Miyamoto Family are a normal yakuza Family that 100% follow the rules) is more of a male-styled one, with a more subdued color and different sleeves, etc. Ani-san, as mentioned last time, is the male equivalent of One-san, for yakuza husband. Cordy got married to Miyamoto to protect herself from her family. Cordy's supposed to use -san and -sama out loud, but in her head refers to her as -chan or her given name. Irezumi is the Japanese yakuza-style tattoo. Ofukuro from what I can find is the female equivalent of Oyaji, which Majima uses for Patriarch Shimano (boss/father).
Main Points:
Buffy/Yakuza AU
Chapter Summary: Cordy goes to see her wife (Miyamoto-chan) at a fight club.
Word Count: 2260
Rating: Teen (yakuza level violence, hints at sex)
Cordy’s not going to pretend that Inoue-chan doesn’t have a good point about her fear. She’s seen the discipline, though on the whole it seems like Miyamoto-chan is so much more reasonable than the others, and she generally tends to use her rep more than her fists. That being said, she’s the Ani-san of the Miyamoto Family. She’ll be fine, and if she has to use her power, well. It’s best not to, particularly with Matriarch Akiyama so curious, but she’s not powerless, either. “I want to see my wife.”
“It’s a underground fighting ring.” Inoue-chan seems to be under the impression that she doesn’t know what’s going on. Perhaps this is the side effect of not talking about her background, no matter how much she hates doing it.
She thinks about a dozen responses before eventually settling on, “I did have to escape from my father and his army.”
Inoue-chan hesitates, grip on her yukata faltering enough for her to press on.
Honestly, she’s not sure why she’s so insistent about seeing Suna. Perhaps it’s that it’s such an important part of her wife’s life and she still knows next to nothing about it. Not like, as she pointed out, she’s a stranger to violence, though before her escape she’d only done so on behalf of her father. Maybe she wants to get it through her mind what she’s capable of, that no matter how much she feels like dismissing the Miyamoto-gumi’s concerns about—no, that’s minimizing it, in itself.
She wants to understand the fear. She’s better off here than before, but she still feels caged, restless. She needs a new project—perhaps she should ask Miyamoto-chan about it. It’s not as if her Clan is traditional in any sense of the word, after all.
She weaves through the crowd to find an adequate viewing position, leaving Inoue-chan (briefly) behind to stammer apologies and pay the entrance fee. She’ll make an apology after, in her own way, perhaps by taking the lieutenant on an impromptu food shopping spree? At times (all right, many times), it seems that the woman’s pride as a chef exists before her pride as a yakuza or even her personal pride.
The place reeks, but then, it would. It’s not that which catches her attention for any more time than it deserves.
No, there’s her wife. Her chest is bound like some sukeban, which of course she kinda is, and she's wearing spandex leggings. Leather gloves for extra grip on that bloody fang of a knife. Probably.
The thing is, it’s kind of hard to make out all that much under the layers of caked on blood.
Inoue-chan audibly swallows beside her, which is an understandable reaction if she’s seen exactly the sort of violence that leads to this result in the first place. Or maybe she’s one of the Miyamoto Family’s yakuza who has a crush. It’s understandable. Cordy tries to stifle any inappropriate thoughts about Miyamoto-chan’s wardrobe, whether on her or off. Now is neither the time nor the place.
The tattoo on her back is glowing a sinister, deadly green, visible even through the blood and whatever the family matriarch happens to be wearing. It’s impossible to tell how much of the blood is Miyamoto-chan’s and how much is from the opponents, but from the look of the woman facing her warily, blood dripping insistently from what looks like a decently deep gash in the upper forearm, orchid glow clashing a little, it’s probably a large portion.
The woman mutters, and what looks like a samurai’s armor flickers over her body, eyes gaining that same inhuman glow. The announcer, a short but crafty looking woman who seems to be fairly popular (though that might just be the subject matter of her commentary), yells, “Ah, an irezumi has been invoked by challenger Obuchi-san! How will fan favorite Miyamoto-sama respond?” The announcer smirks at the roar of the gathered crowd.
She’s never seen an irezumi invoked, though she’d heard the rumors. Allowing a spirit to take over your body sounds particularly dangerous, which is part of the reason she hasn’t suggested she get one herself. She’d get one with plain, non-spirit ink, but she’s not sure how that’s viewed, and in any case it’s highly illegal (down to ‘the yakuza themselves would enforce this rule were they aware and not otherwise incentivized to look the other way’) for a man to be tattooed. It’s one of the reasons for the rumors about advisor Maki-san, whom she’s only met briefly. He strikes her as a shrewd sort, fully aware of the limits of his power and position and more than willing to use those to his fullest, though completely loyal to his Chairwoman.
She’s doing her best to hide any hint of being uncomfortable, because she’s not about to be dragged out now, but it’s still there. Not, mostly, how her wife looks, though at the moment a little disconnect might be occurring there and it might occur to her later to cry bloody murder and lock herself in her room. Mostly it’s…as much as she’d enjoyed, celebrated even, the thought of a society with women in charge, and as much as she’s adapted in the nearly two years she’s been here, it’s still weird to see a crowd full of women screaming, bloodthirsty and likely drunk. Even odder since, given her situation, she still has to act as one of the ‘weaker sex’, just as she had her entire life, but since her marriage and position are what keeps the vast Chase Cult out of her face, she’s hardly complaining. Well…much, anyway. Stir crazy is still a thing that is not fully alleviated by Miyamoto Family antics.
The matriarch in turn bares her teeth, lone eye narrowing before with almost no warning charging in, dagger in hand. It bounces off midair, armor flickering again before subsiding back into invisibility, coinciding with an increase in the eye glow. Her opponent’s eyes, glowing and contemptuous, appear fairly murdery. From nowhere at her back, Obuchi-san draws a sword with the same flicker as the armor.
Miyamoto-chan’s too close to really be able to block the move, and a knife no matter how magic (unless it was telescoping or something in which case Cordelia thinks that’s extremely clever and amusing as a possibility, even if it isn’t true) doesn’t help much in the way of stopping the blow or keeping her opponent at an arm’s distance.
She snarls, visible eye flashing with that same threatening emerald light, and backs away, circling her opponent guarded but menacing, every bit the wounded predator.
“Ofukuro likes to make a game of it,” Inoue-chan leans in to whisper to Cordy. The hush probably isn’t just to avoid disturbing their bloodthirsty neighbors. “She enjoys the violence and seeing how far she can go. She loves it when the crowd’s enjoying themselves, too. Abe—you may or may not meet him, he’s a sketchy little weasel that runs an izakaya—likes to complain about her showing off, usually when he thinks no one’s listening. He’s often wrong.” And there’s the slightest hint of the vicious yakuza that, to some extent, exists in every single member of the Miyamoto-gumi. Just a tiny appearance of a satisfied grin. “It’s more than that—she’s a showwoman. Testing her limits, too. She rarely invokes her own irezumi, just taps into it low-key the whole fight to keep her going. Aoki-chan clocked her in at four hours and twenty-seven minutes against Akiyama-sama once, and there’s rumors of seven or so but most of the time they don’t fight with an audience.”
“It’s hard to imagine Akiyama-sama fighting physically,” Ani-san murmurs back. Usually the woman won’t even bother crossing the room to turn on a light switch, though it’s possible and even likely she uses unnerving shows of what would be trivial magic to keep her visitors on their toes. It wouldn’t be half as intimidating if it didn’t lack any usual indications of spellcasting, like a magical signature, incantations, or gestures.
That earns a slight chuckle, but then the crowd roars and her eyes are drawn back to the action.
The matriarch is practically dancing around her opponent, hyena cackle rumbling menacingly as she darts in once, twice, probably hundreds of times in a barely visible blur, stabbing wildly perhaps in an attempt to find a chink in the armor. She’s cackling with what’s been termed the Haiena’s laugh in the underground, mad, savage light in the lone eye.
The challenger tries for a slash this time, only to gasp in shock as Miyamoto-chan flows under like quicksilver, waving cheekily before flipping herself over the head of her opponent and then stabbing, several times, viciously, only encountering that spiritual armor again. Both fighters glow with what looks like spiritual fire, though she’s pretty sure her wife still hasn’t invoked her irezumi…
“When you’re an errand-girl, the rules for irezumi are different than for higher ranks,” Inoue-chan murmurs in her ear, and this—this is interesting. This is exciting. No one was telling her these things before. No matter what else she is or has to act like, a taikomochi or club host is not who she is. “I’ve noticed with more spirit ink it’s harder to just completely, hmm…what would be the correct word here? Turn off? Your irezumi completely. When you’re an errand-girl, if you are even drawing on your irezumi when not explicitly told to do so, you can be punished, but that gets less common as you move up the ranks—I think because you can’t. And it becomes easier to call upon your irezumi youkai in ways other than invoking it. Obuchi-san is obviously not a matriarch, because she has to invoke her irezumi to get the same effect.”
“Miyamoto-san’s just waiting for Obuchi-san to be unable to maintain the spirit, huh?” Cordy asks, voice also low, and Inoue-chan nods and shrugs.
“True, it’s kind of like this is a video game and there’s a timer for the power.” Of course one of the Miyamoto-gumi would make this comparison. It’s one of the social, bonding activities, just like Western Movie Nights, though for those of them who have actually endured physical rather than spiritual punishment, holding a controller is a little difficult. “Human bodies, even those of women, can only endure so much.” That ‘men are babies’ attitude is a little jarring but funny all the same, given that, in Cordy’s experience, they would complain about pain that the women in the compound would just silently endure. But, as with other generalizations or assumptions, it’s still problematic. Take Maki-san. “However, even when invoked, it’s often incomplete for all but the family matriarchs. Obuchi-san probably has an irezumi of a samurai spirit, leading mostly to good defenses, but it’s possible, if Miyamoto-sama tries for hard or long enough, to get through on one of the occasions her control weakens.” Inoue-chan pauses before adding, “Obuchi-san is probably one of those who’s trying to increase her reputation by beating those of higher reputation. I think I saw her challenge Chairwoman Natsukawa once, at Amaya-kai HQ. She’ll occasionally have events where she allows fights, I think to exhibit her power. Even Miyamoto-sama’s lost now and then, but the Chairwoman never has. Miyamoto-sama, of course, jumps at the chance…” (she would, wouldn’t she) “…but it looks like Obuchi-san hasn’t learned her lesson. Just because she lands a hit or two doesn’t mean she isn’t leagues out of her depth. She’s kiddie-pool material.”
The contemptuous words make Cordy glance back and reevaluate the situation. “Did Miyamoto-san allow that hit?”
“Even if she didn’t, she has probably the best endurance I’ve seen in the world of the yakuza—even in rival clans. Though,” Inoue-chan adds with a smirk, “…you’d probably know more about that than me.”
She rolls her eyes at that, smiling but not dignifying that with a response, and turning back to the fight.
If possible, Miyamoto-chan’s only gotten faster, almost like she’s everywhere at once. Her knife flashes a dozen times, only—now that she’s paying attention, it looks like those are almost entirely afterimages, and she’s already moved on somewhere else.
What accompanies yet another of those laughs is what looks like a change in strategy. Miyamoto-chan backflips out of he way, and again when her opponent tries, slowly, to follow her. The armor might have protected the challenger, but it also makes her much slower compared to the matriarch. And then, with a teeth-bared grin, launches herself bodily straight into the other woman. Somewhere between the momentum and raw strength, Obuchi-san finds herself toppling, a half-crazed matriarch on top. She ignores the sword stabbing straight through the stomach, to which Cordy winces. “Armor ‘r no armor, y’still feel the impact, yeah?” And she begins slamming the other’s head into the ground, again and again. The woman goes limp, only that’s apparently a ruse, too. She suddenly kicks the matriarch off, sword coming out with a spray of blood.
Both combatants pause, Miyamoto-chan with a hand casually placed in front of the wound as if by accident, the other woman gasping and clutching her head, and Cordy finds herself holding her breath. When Obuchi-san finally prostrates herself in what the Ani-san thinks is probably a formal demonstration of surrender, she can’t prevent herself from cheering, just like those around her, even as she hopes there’s some type of magical healer on standby.
Also, migraines suck. I'm finally getting back to just *slight headache* while sitting in a dark room wearing sunglasses. Painkillers help, but still. Yikes.
More author's notes:
background notes
In this universe, Japan is run by the women. Inoue-chan is Andrew. Miyamoto Suna is Xander, and she's a matriarch of the Miyamoto Family, or Miyamoto-gumi. Akiyama is the Matriarch Willow. Maki is Giles. Abe is Willy the Snitch. Natsukawa is Buffy. Yukata are a type of summer kimono that's lighter than a regular kimono. The type Cordy's supposed to wear when out in public (and, well, in general, just in case anyone visits, not that the Miyamoto Family are a normal yakuza Family that 100% follow the rules) is more of a male-styled one, with a more subdued color and different sleeves, etc. Ani-san, as mentioned last time, is the male equivalent of One-san, for yakuza husband. Cordy got married to Miyamoto to protect herself from her family. Cordy's supposed to use -san and -sama out loud, but in her head refers to her as -chan or her given name. Irezumi is the Japanese yakuza-style tattoo. Ofukuro from what I can find is the female equivalent of Oyaji, which Majima uses for Patriarch Shimano (boss/father).
Main Points:
Buffy/Yakuza AU
Chapter Summary: Cordy goes to see her wife (Miyamoto-chan) at a fight club.
Word Count: 2260
Rating: Teen (yakuza level violence, hints at sex)
Inoue-chan is whimpering a little, tugging on Cordy’s yukata. “Ani-san, that’s not a good idea.”
Cordy’s not going to pretend that Inoue-chan doesn’t have a good point about her fear. She’s seen the discipline, though on the whole it seems like Miyamoto-chan is so much more reasonable than the others, and she generally tends to use her rep more than her fists. That being said, she’s the Ani-san of the Miyamoto Family. She’ll be fine, and if she has to use her power, well. It’s best not to, particularly with Matriarch Akiyama so curious, but she’s not powerless, either. “I want to see my wife.”
“It’s a underground fighting ring.” Inoue-chan seems to be under the impression that she doesn’t know what’s going on. Perhaps this is the side effect of not talking about her background, no matter how much she hates doing it.
She thinks about a dozen responses before eventually settling on, “I did have to escape from my father and his army.”
Inoue-chan hesitates, grip on her yukata faltering enough for her to press on.
Honestly, she’s not sure why she’s so insistent about seeing Suna. Perhaps it’s that it’s such an important part of her wife’s life and she still knows next to nothing about it. Not like, as she pointed out, she’s a stranger to violence, though before her escape she’d only done so on behalf of her father. Maybe she wants to get it through her mind what she’s capable of, that no matter how much she feels like dismissing the Miyamoto-gumi’s concerns about—no, that’s minimizing it, in itself.
She wants to understand the fear. She’s better off here than before, but she still feels caged, restless. She needs a new project—perhaps she should ask Miyamoto-chan about it. It’s not as if her Clan is traditional in any sense of the word, after all.
She weaves through the crowd to find an adequate viewing position, leaving Inoue-chan (briefly) behind to stammer apologies and pay the entrance fee. She’ll make an apology after, in her own way, perhaps by taking the lieutenant on an impromptu food shopping spree? At times (all right, many times), it seems that the woman’s pride as a chef exists before her pride as a yakuza or even her personal pride.
The place reeks, but then, it would. It’s not that which catches her attention for any more time than it deserves.
No, there’s her wife. Her chest is bound like some sukeban, which of course she kinda is, and she's wearing spandex leggings. Leather gloves for extra grip on that bloody fang of a knife. Probably.
The thing is, it’s kind of hard to make out all that much under the layers of caked on blood.
Inoue-chan audibly swallows beside her, which is an understandable reaction if she’s seen exactly the sort of violence that leads to this result in the first place. Or maybe she’s one of the Miyamoto Family’s yakuza who has a crush. It’s understandable. Cordy tries to stifle any inappropriate thoughts about Miyamoto-chan’s wardrobe, whether on her or off. Now is neither the time nor the place.
The tattoo on her back is glowing a sinister, deadly green, visible even through the blood and whatever the family matriarch happens to be wearing. It’s impossible to tell how much of the blood is Miyamoto-chan’s and how much is from the opponents, but from the look of the woman facing her warily, blood dripping insistently from what looks like a decently deep gash in the upper forearm, orchid glow clashing a little, it’s probably a large portion.
The woman mutters, and what looks like a samurai’s armor flickers over her body, eyes gaining that same inhuman glow. The announcer, a short but crafty looking woman who seems to be fairly popular (though that might just be the subject matter of her commentary), yells, “Ah, an irezumi has been invoked by challenger Obuchi-san! How will fan favorite Miyamoto-sama respond?” The announcer smirks at the roar of the gathered crowd.
She’s never seen an irezumi invoked, though she’d heard the rumors. Allowing a spirit to take over your body sounds particularly dangerous, which is part of the reason she hasn’t suggested she get one herself. She’d get one with plain, non-spirit ink, but she’s not sure how that’s viewed, and in any case it’s highly illegal (down to ‘the yakuza themselves would enforce this rule were they aware and not otherwise incentivized to look the other way’) for a man to be tattooed. It’s one of the reasons for the rumors about advisor Maki-san, whom she’s only met briefly. He strikes her as a shrewd sort, fully aware of the limits of his power and position and more than willing to use those to his fullest, though completely loyal to his Chairwoman.
She’s doing her best to hide any hint of being uncomfortable, because she’s not about to be dragged out now, but it’s still there. Not, mostly, how her wife looks, though at the moment a little disconnect might be occurring there and it might occur to her later to cry bloody murder and lock herself in her room. Mostly it’s…as much as she’d enjoyed, celebrated even, the thought of a society with women in charge, and as much as she’s adapted in the nearly two years she’s been here, it’s still weird to see a crowd full of women screaming, bloodthirsty and likely drunk. Even odder since, given her situation, she still has to act as one of the ‘weaker sex’, just as she had her entire life, but since her marriage and position are what keeps the vast Chase Cult out of her face, she’s hardly complaining. Well…much, anyway. Stir crazy is still a thing that is not fully alleviated by Miyamoto Family antics.
The matriarch in turn bares her teeth, lone eye narrowing before with almost no warning charging in, dagger in hand. It bounces off midair, armor flickering again before subsiding back into invisibility, coinciding with an increase in the eye glow. Her opponent’s eyes, glowing and contemptuous, appear fairly murdery. From nowhere at her back, Obuchi-san draws a sword with the same flicker as the armor.
Miyamoto-chan’s too close to really be able to block the move, and a knife no matter how magic (unless it was telescoping or something in which case Cordelia thinks that’s extremely clever and amusing as a possibility, even if it isn’t true) doesn’t help much in the way of stopping the blow or keeping her opponent at an arm’s distance.
She snarls, visible eye flashing with that same threatening emerald light, and backs away, circling her opponent guarded but menacing, every bit the wounded predator.
“Ofukuro likes to make a game of it,” Inoue-chan leans in to whisper to Cordy. The hush probably isn’t just to avoid disturbing their bloodthirsty neighbors. “She enjoys the violence and seeing how far she can go. She loves it when the crowd’s enjoying themselves, too. Abe—you may or may not meet him, he’s a sketchy little weasel that runs an izakaya—likes to complain about her showing off, usually when he thinks no one’s listening. He’s often wrong.” And there’s the slightest hint of the vicious yakuza that, to some extent, exists in every single member of the Miyamoto-gumi. Just a tiny appearance of a satisfied grin. “It’s more than that—she’s a showwoman. Testing her limits, too. She rarely invokes her own irezumi, just taps into it low-key the whole fight to keep her going. Aoki-chan clocked her in at four hours and twenty-seven minutes against Akiyama-sama once, and there’s rumors of seven or so but most of the time they don’t fight with an audience.”
“It’s hard to imagine Akiyama-sama fighting physically,” Ani-san murmurs back. Usually the woman won’t even bother crossing the room to turn on a light switch, though it’s possible and even likely she uses unnerving shows of what would be trivial magic to keep her visitors on their toes. It wouldn’t be half as intimidating if it didn’t lack any usual indications of spellcasting, like a magical signature, incantations, or gestures.
That earns a slight chuckle, but then the crowd roars and her eyes are drawn back to the action.
The matriarch is practically dancing around her opponent, hyena cackle rumbling menacingly as she darts in once, twice, probably hundreds of times in a barely visible blur, stabbing wildly perhaps in an attempt to find a chink in the armor. She’s cackling with what’s been termed the Haiena’s laugh in the underground, mad, savage light in the lone eye.
The challenger tries for a slash this time, only to gasp in shock as Miyamoto-chan flows under like quicksilver, waving cheekily before flipping herself over the head of her opponent and then stabbing, several times, viciously, only encountering that spiritual armor again. Both fighters glow with what looks like spiritual fire, though she’s pretty sure her wife still hasn’t invoked her irezumi…
“When you’re an errand-girl, the rules for irezumi are different than for higher ranks,” Inoue-chan murmurs in her ear, and this—this is interesting. This is exciting. No one was telling her these things before. No matter what else she is or has to act like, a taikomochi or club host is not who she is. “I’ve noticed with more spirit ink it’s harder to just completely, hmm…what would be the correct word here? Turn off? Your irezumi completely. When you’re an errand-girl, if you are even drawing on your irezumi when not explicitly told to do so, you can be punished, but that gets less common as you move up the ranks—I think because you can’t. And it becomes easier to call upon your irezumi youkai in ways other than invoking it. Obuchi-san is obviously not a matriarch, because she has to invoke her irezumi to get the same effect.”
“Miyamoto-san’s just waiting for Obuchi-san to be unable to maintain the spirit, huh?” Cordy asks, voice also low, and Inoue-chan nods and shrugs.
“True, it’s kind of like this is a video game and there’s a timer for the power.” Of course one of the Miyamoto-gumi would make this comparison. It’s one of the social, bonding activities, just like Western Movie Nights, though for those of them who have actually endured physical rather than spiritual punishment, holding a controller is a little difficult. “Human bodies, even those of women, can only endure so much.” That ‘men are babies’ attitude is a little jarring but funny all the same, given that, in Cordy’s experience, they would complain about pain that the women in the compound would just silently endure. But, as with other generalizations or assumptions, it’s still problematic. Take Maki-san. “However, even when invoked, it’s often incomplete for all but the family matriarchs. Obuchi-san probably has an irezumi of a samurai spirit, leading mostly to good defenses, but it’s possible, if Miyamoto-sama tries for hard or long enough, to get through on one of the occasions her control weakens.” Inoue-chan pauses before adding, “Obuchi-san is probably one of those who’s trying to increase her reputation by beating those of higher reputation. I think I saw her challenge Chairwoman Natsukawa once, at Amaya-kai HQ. She’ll occasionally have events where she allows fights, I think to exhibit her power. Even Miyamoto-sama’s lost now and then, but the Chairwoman never has. Miyamoto-sama, of course, jumps at the chance…” (she would, wouldn’t she) “…but it looks like Obuchi-san hasn’t learned her lesson. Just because she lands a hit or two doesn’t mean she isn’t leagues out of her depth. She’s kiddie-pool material.”
The contemptuous words make Cordy glance back and reevaluate the situation. “Did Miyamoto-san allow that hit?”
“Even if she didn’t, she has probably the best endurance I’ve seen in the world of the yakuza—even in rival clans. Though,” Inoue-chan adds with a smirk, “…you’d probably know more about that than me.”
She rolls her eyes at that, smiling but not dignifying that with a response, and turning back to the fight.
If possible, Miyamoto-chan’s only gotten faster, almost like she’s everywhere at once. Her knife flashes a dozen times, only—now that she’s paying attention, it looks like those are almost entirely afterimages, and she’s already moved on somewhere else.
What accompanies yet another of those laughs is what looks like a change in strategy. Miyamoto-chan backflips out of he way, and again when her opponent tries, slowly, to follow her. The armor might have protected the challenger, but it also makes her much slower compared to the matriarch. And then, with a teeth-bared grin, launches herself bodily straight into the other woman. Somewhere between the momentum and raw strength, Obuchi-san finds herself toppling, a half-crazed matriarch on top. She ignores the sword stabbing straight through the stomach, to which Cordy winces. “Armor ‘r no armor, y’still feel the impact, yeah?” And she begins slamming the other’s head into the ground, again and again. The woman goes limp, only that’s apparently a ruse, too. She suddenly kicks the matriarch off, sword coming out with a spray of blood.
Both combatants pause, Miyamoto-chan with a hand casually placed in front of the wound as if by accident, the other woman gasping and clutching her head, and Cordy finds herself holding her breath. When Obuchi-san finally prostrates herself in what the Ani-san thinks is probably a formal demonstration of surrender, she can’t prevent herself from cheering, just like those around her, even as she hopes there’s some type of magical healer on standby.
