Tension Tag Tourney Round 1: The Ishii Siblings Vs. Fire and Ice

“Heh. No chance!” Yamato retorted with a grin as he turned Blaze over to lock the single leg crab in. Just like in their last bout, he once again had the redhead trapped in his hold in the center of the ring. However, the woman wasn’t about to let him get far with it.

Her hand then suddenly grabbed a fistful of Yamato’s hair and yanked back. “Agh!” he shouted out, releasing her leg and moving his hands up to try to pry Blaze’s hand off of him. And in the process, he also tripped backward and collapsed onto the mat right beside the woman. “Let go!” he shouted, and the ref then came over to make sure she did. If she hadn’t released him by then, she’d start counting to five to warn her to let his hair go.

Blaze gasped with relief when Yamato released her from the hold. He only had it in place for a few seconds so she wasn't all that worse for wear. She released his hair, ignoring the referee's warning not to do it again. She grabbed his arm, pulled it back straight while planting her feet in his side to keep him in place. With his arm in hand, she wrenched at Yamato viciously as if trying to pull the arm out of its socket.

Relieved when Blaze finally let go of his hair, Yamato was just about to get back up when the redhead suddenly grabbed his arm. Feeling her feet dig into his side, his arm was then wrenched painfully in the clutches of his foe.

"Aghh!" Yamato cried out, flailing about as Blaze tortured his limb. After a couple seconds, he then attempted to roll over and throw a couple of punches at the woman's leg, hoping it would be enough to encourage her to release her hole.

Blaze wrenched and wrenched on the man's arm but his blows eventually hurt her too much to keep the pain on. "God damnit," she swore to him as she rolled away, stumbling to her feet. Her leg was hurting in one spot as if it was cramping up from the punches. With a groan, the redhead limped to her corner and lunged forward to tag Frost in.

The silver haired girl didn't rush into the match, knowing that either Yamato or possibly Mariko would be waiting for her. She slipped through the ropes slowly, watching whoever would be there to face her at that point.

Luckily for Yamato, his wild strikes had been enough to force Blaze to relinquish her hold. And as she rolled away from him, Yamato rolled back over to his corner too, where Mariko already had a hand out waiting to get tagged. Reaching up and slapping it with his own hand, Yamato then rolled under the rope and onto the apron as Mariko entered the ring, right about at the same time Frost did.

Immediately Mariko’s mind ran back to the final moments of the last match between these two teams, when Frost held Yamato in that anaconda vice for several moments even after he’d submitted, just to hurt him as much as she could. Mariko hadn’t forgiven that, and was determined to make her pay.

Putting her hands up, the younger Ishii sibling inched toward Frost, seemingly as if she were going to attempt to initiate a lockup between them. But once her foe was close, Mario would instead abruptly reach out her hand to slap Frost right across the face.

Blaze rolled under the bottom rope to safety and laid there on the apron for a few moments before pulling herself up. Frost was spinning around the ring with Mariko carefully closing in on each other as all bouts tended to start. The two got close enough and Frost reached forward with both arms to grapple the younger sibling. Instead, though, she was greeted with a rather forceful slap across the face.

It wasn't the hardest she had ever been slapped, but it was so sudden and surprising that the silver haired woman spun around grabbing her face.

That felt good. And watching Frost get spun around by her slap was amusing to her to say the least. It stung Mariko’s palm a bit, but in her mind Frost had that and plenty more coming after what she’d done to Yamato in their previous bout. Disrespect had been repaid with disrespect, and now she just had to pay her back for the extra pain she’d previously inflicted on the older Ishii sibling.

And as soon as Frost’s spin had come full circle to bring them face to face again, Mariko attempted to wrap an arm around the back of her neck to pull her into a headlock, before jumping up and coiling her legs around the woman’s waist with a body scissor. With both holds in place, Mariko would attempt to squeeze the life out of Frost’s neck and torso with a guillotine choke. “Don’t you dare pass out yet." she commanded. "I want you to squirm and beg for freedom.”

Frost was caught off guard by the sudden submission. The two dropped to the mat as Mariko applied the hold and wrapped her legs around Frost's torso. "You bitch," she groaned as the Ishii girl coiled her up and choked her with the inside of her arm. The words fell on deaf ears, though it probably wasn't apparent to Mariko at the time. The silver-haired girl was too focused on trying to find a way out of the tightly gripping hold.

"Hang in there!" Blaze shouted from the apron, perilously leaning halfway over the top rope into the ring. Frost did just that and held on. She managed to flatly pry one hand between Mariko's arm and her neck, giving herself some breathing room. It didn't do anything to break her free from the hold, but it at least alleviated the worst part of it, the choke.

The pain being inflicted with her hold was quite apparent, bringing a grin to Mariko’s lips. However, Frost did manage to squeeze a hand in to stop herself from being choked. But in doing so, she might have just given the younger Ishii sibling yet another opening to work with.

As soon as Frost’s hand made its way between her neck and Mariko’s arm, the Japanese woman swung her hips to try to roll the woman onto her back, while trying to grab for her arm at the same time. If this worked, Mariko would then swing her legs over Frost’s body and lay back to seamlessly transition into an armbar, tear apart the limb as much as she possibly could.

Frost managed to get in some breaths but wasn't able to escape the hold Mariko had on her torso. Frustrated, she tried to force the hold off. And somehow, it actually worked. Or so she thought. Mariko had released her neck and rolled her through into an armbar. "Son of a-" she shouted in accented English as she landed on her back. She managed to get clench her fist right before the hold was locked in and did everything she could to flex her bicep and fight the hold.

Mariko had far too much leverage, though, and Frost's arm couldn't take that much pain for an extended period of time. Without the Ishii sibling on top of her, she managed to pound her free arm and legs into the mat and pull and push herself towards the nearest ropes. She tried her best to keep her arm fighting the hold but despite her resilience, she accidentally relented just as she managed to get to the rope and grab on. For an agonizing few seconds, Mariko wrenched her arm in full. The knowledge that the ref would break the hold didn't bring much relief.