Onigashima vs. Novae - Wrestling with the Stars

Hm. This was odd.

While Tatiana was a fairly recent fan of wrestling, she’d watched it enough - especially tag matches - to know there was certain rhythm to the way things went, a pattern to things that most matches followed. It usually started with two teams, and one of the team members got into trouble, and the other team tried to stop her from getting help, until she either succeeded and reached her teammate for the tag or she failed and got pinned.

That was how 99% of tag matches went, as far as she could tell. So she was a little surprised to learn that this one would be in the 1%.

She got the tag on Valerie, who promptly hopped over the top rope and took her place while she rolled inside. She spared a quick look towards her sister, making sure she was all right, before she turned her focus to Yukari and started to circle her, staying at a safe distance, but working her way in with her arms raised. This woman was confident, and not without good reason, already proving herself to be the powerhouse in this match. But Valerie was no weakling herself, and she had more than a few tricks and traps that she could employ.

Seeing that Valerie had taken her sister's place, Yukari would prepare herself as well, circling her while keeping her distance from her, arms raised in preparation for the clash between the two of them. She had a feeling that Valerie might pose a greater challenge to the blue demon, though there's only one way to ascertain this.

"Let's see what you're made of!"

Yukari would then close in, seemingly going to lock up with Valerie. But, rather than engaging her in a grapple, she would try to get past her, getting herself behind her, where she would hold both her hands up, clutching them together, looking to swing into Valerie's back with a sudden double axe handle!

Hm. This was odd.

While Tatiana was a fairly recent fan of wrestling, she’d watched it enough - especially tag matches - to know there was certain rhythm to the way things went, a pattern to things that most matches followed. It usually started with two teams, and one of the team members got into trouble, and the other team tried to stop her from getting help, until she either succeeded and reached her teammate for the tag or she failed and got pinned.

That was how 99% of tag matches went, as far as she could tell. So she was a little surprised to learn that this one would be in the 1%.

She got the tag on Valerie, who promptly hopped over the top rope and took her place while she rolled inside. She spared a quick look towards her sister, making sure she was all right, before she turned her focus to Yukari and started to circle her, staying at a safe distance, but working her way in with her arms raised. This woman was confident, and not without good reason, already proving herself to be the powerhouse in this match. But Valerie was no weakling herself, and she had more than a few tricks and traps that she could employ.

The came in close, locked eyes, and for a moment it looked like Yukari was about to try and overpower her - that would’ve worked, too, but that didn’t seem to be her real plan. Instead, she came in for a strike, trying to go for an axe handle. Hard move, would’ve floored Valerie, if she had whipped around to her opponent’s side, ducked down and shot her legs out around the blue oni’s shin. She twisted hard to the side, trying to make Yukari trip up with a drop toehold.

When Yukari was about to land the double axe handle onto Valerie's back, her opponent managed to act quicker by shooting her legs around the blue demon's shin before tripping her down into the mat with a drop toehold, and Yukari shrieked as she landed on her chest. "Aauuhh!!!" The pain around her chest made her lose her concentration, leaving her momentarily vulnerable before her opponent.

But, she didn't plan to stay idle. She would press her hands on the mat before attempting to push herself up, hoping that she could get herself up before Valerie could put her in something even more troublesome. Hopefully, she would be able to get back up before Valerie could do something to her.

At ringside, Tatiana was enjoying a well-earned rest, gathering her breath after nearly being torn apart. She could almost hear Valerie chastising her already, telling her she’d moved in too fast, too hasty, giving too much ground to her opponent - and she wasn’t wrong. She’d have to get better at reading the ring and working in tandem with her sister, not just getting by on the skin of her teeth.

For now, though, she could breath easy. Easier. From the looks of things, Valerie had this.

She’d brought Yukari to the floor, flat on her stomach, and she was quick to make use of the golden opportunity. She jumped forward as her opponent tried to rise, pouncing on her back to bring her back to the mat. Her arms went around Yukari’s neck as her legs did the same to her waist, going for the simplistic - but effective - rear naked choke.

They weren’t too far from the ropes, so she wouldn’t bet good money of it getting a knockout or a tap, but that wasn’t the point. If she could just wear Yukari down, sap away some of that impressive strength, it would go a long ways to taking out Onigashima’s biggest advantage over them.

Yukari was on her belly after being tripped down onto the mat earlier, and she knew if she couldn't get up as soon as possible, Valerie would take advantage of this and get her trapped in some kind of hold. She was proven correct as Valerie got down and wrapped her arms around the blue demon's neck, putting her in a rear naked choke, which made it extremely difficult for her to breathe.

"Hrghhhh!! Ngghhh!!" Struggling to breathe, Yukari saw that the ropes weren't too far from them. Knowing what to do next, she would start dragging herself towards the ropes, exerting her strength in order to bring herself closer and closer towards them. Still, her strength was continuously drained by the hold, she needed to reach the ropes fast before her endurance ran out.

"Y-Yukari-chan, you can do it!!" Shizuka cheered for her partner, trying to rouse her as she clutched on the top rope. She was hoping that she could find an opening to assist her partner, but for the time being, the chance wasn't there, and Yukari had to deal with Valerie squeezing her neck for the time being.

Valerie clamped down hard on Yukari, squeezing with all she had to offer, pumping away on Yukari. She’d seen enough of this women to get a good feel of the way she operated, and enough to know what would happen if she was allowed to get free and build up steam again. She had to put a stop to this woman, here and now.

She wasn’t going down easy, either, struggling for the ropes, dragging Valerie along even as she kept tightening the hold. Her partner egged her on and with good reason - it seemed certain that she would endure and reach her goal.

Just a little further, a little further, a little further still…

Just when it seemed like Yukari was only inches away from the ropes and the separation she craved, Valerie released the hold and gave it to her, confusing the audience and even Titania. The reasoning became clear a second later, however, as she stood up, turned away from Yukari, then threw her backwards, tugging her legs in as she flew in an arc. It was a moonsault aimed at her opponent’s back, but one with a mean twist - instead of landing with her stomach, Valerie did a full rotation and came down to land on her knees, drillign them into Yukari’s spine on impact.

Dragging herself closer and closer towards the ropes, Yukari endured the rear naked choke from Valerie, knowing that she would get her release as soon as she reached the ropes. Much to her surprise, however, Valerie suddenly released the hold, and after a second of confusion, Yukari would immediately grab the bottom rope in order to try pulling herself back up, not knowing what Valerie had planned for her after releasing her from the hold.

Before Yukari could try pulling herself up, Valerie threw herself backwards after turning away from her, performing a moonsault which was certainly aimed to the blue demon's back. But, rather than landing on her stomach, Valerie aimed to have her herself landing on Yukari's back with her knees, hitting her spine with them. The impact caused the Ao-Oni to let out a scream of pain.

"UwaaAAAGHHHH!!!"

The attack left Yukari momentarily paralyzed, her body twitching near the ropes as she was unable to pull herself back up. At the moment, she was truly in deep trouble, and Shizuka could only watch helplessly from the opposite side.

Valerie’s technique seemed to be working splendidly, hammering Yukari into the mat and keeping her there. It was a more brutal form of wrestling than Tatiana had employed, but you couldn’t argue against the effectiveness of it. Their opponents were worn down, hurting, and the momentum was in their favor.

In fact, things were going so well that Valerie was of a mind to end things. Not with her finisher, Yukari wasn’t worked well enough for the triangle choke to be reliable. However, it seemed like her back was in real, excruciating pain. That gave Valerie a few ideas.

She rolled off of Yukari’s back and made her way over to Tatiana with her arm outstretched, going for a tag - kind of surprising considering how short the rest period had been, but there was a method to it. ”Your Meteor Crash.” She slapped hands with a perplexed Tatiana. ”Do it on her back.”

”On her back?” Tatiana called back as Valerie made her way over to the hurting Yukari. She grabbed the Oni by the ankles, starting to drag her towards the middle of the ring while they were still in their grace period.

Moaning in pain after taking the hard blow to her back, Yukari was having a hard time at the moment. She tried to focus on recovering, but it seemed that she would need a while to recover from this. And amidst the pain, she could hear the exchange between Valerie and Tatiana, and from that, she knew that both of them were planning something, which didn't sound too good.

"Ergh..." Even so, there wasn't much she could do at this point as she was unable to stop Valerie from grabbing her by her ankles before she was dragged towards the middle of the ring. She could tell that something bad would happen, but she was powerless to stop them.

"Yukari-chan, get up!!" Shizuka yelled to her partner, clutching on the top rope. She saw what Valerie and Tatiana were trying to do, but there wasn't much she could do at this point. Hopefully, she could find a way to intervene next, but for the time being, Yukari was truly helpless against their opponents.