Other Fan Fiction ❯ Namco vs Tecmo ❯ The Lost Souls ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer (I don't know why I bother doing this…): If owning a copy of the game means that you own the rights to it then…I still don't own Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur. Tecmo and Namco own them respectively. Oh well…

Hitomi stretched her arms casually and flexed the fit of her gloves over her hands before looking up at me. Was it eagerness? Seung Mina spun her zanbatou in a gentle arc and smiled at Hitomi. What a strange reaction to a girl who was literally from another world.

"Good luck," Mina called out.

Hitomi turned and smiled in return. "Same to you."

I exercised my constructive energies to another level for this ring. I made it in the form of a classic dojo, except I replaced the pads with a hardwood floor. The floor was made up of squares of the wood arranged into a grid. The walls surrounding the square ring were of a traditional Japanese style - wood and paper. Making the walls more or less fragile was deliberate, to ensure that someone could be kicked through, making it count as a ring out.

Hitomi and Mina each appeared on the fighting surface. Hitomi raised her fists, while Mina held the blade of her weapon out in a ready position. The other fighters stood or sat in the grandstand that I had created hovering above and around the edge of the ring. I floated above the ring itself.

"Ready? FIGHT!"

The two fighters moved forward, Hitomi faster than Mina out of necessity. When there was one square between them, I focused on the piece of wood. With a cracking noise, it fell away into the nothingness beneath the floor. Hitomi and Mina stomped hard to arrest their movement, and Hitomi almost fell in, stumbling back and regaining her balance. I was itching for a ring out by now.

Paying little mind to the perilous ring, the two fighters closed in on one another again. Mina attacked first, bringing the blade in a sharp arc. Hitomi ducked under it, counter attacking with an alternating left and right hook punch. Mina danced back, stabbing out with her blade and following up with a rising sweep. Hitomi dodged both attacks, dropping low into a sweeping kick. Using the long haft of her weapon, Mina pole vaulted herself over Hitomi's leg, and the kick struck the haft instead, toppling it but in fact helping Mina to regain her footing. The Korean stabbed out with the non-blade end of her weapon, and Hitomi crossguarded her chest with both arms, reeling back from the impact anyway. The panel behind her fell away, and she windmilled her arms for a desperate moment, before finding her stability again. She cursed the perilous floor as Mina charged forward again. When her opponent was about three steps away, Hitomi dived and rolled to the side, hoping the Mina wouldn't be able to stop in time. She was wrong, and Mina was on her again, hacking away with the blade. The steel ribbing on Hitomi's arms were working wonders, allowing her to block blade slashes like she would block a kick. Hitomi kicked out, but Mina held the haft of her weapon diagonally to protect her chest, and the kick bounced from it. Mina was predictably forced back by the impact, but she was smart to it now, stabbing the end of the haft into the ground to arrest her movement before she reached the edge of the panel she was standing on. The panel behind her fell away, fooled by her intuition. Well, it was really me that was fooled.

They closed in again, trading swift blows and effective blocks. I was truly surprised that Hitomi was overcoming her range disadvantage. On the other hand, she was taking advantage of her greater speed and agility: although it had range, Seung Mina's weapon was not particularly nimble.

Mina deflected a high kick, counter attacking with a kick of her own, striking Hitomi in the gut and winding her. Mina brought about the end of her staff, smacking Hitomi in the side of the head. The blow was not particularly heavy, but it was enough to daze her, and Mina raised the blade triumphantly, swinging it hard in a downward arc. At the last moment Hitomi raised her arm to block it, and screamed as the blade's impact dented the ribbing, the resulting shockwave breaking something in Hitomi's arm, dropping her to her knees. Mina raised the blade again, ready to stab it through her opponent's heart. But Hitomi was not done yet. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she snapped out with her leg, kicking Mina just above the knee. She missed the knee joint itself, but it was enough to but Mina off her swing. Hitomi rose to her full height, driving her good fist into Mina's gut. She stopped herself from relishing the squishy feeling, instead moving into a sharp uppercut that snapped Mina's head back. Hitomi drew back her arm again, reaching out with the heaviest punch she knew how to throw. Mina was flung across the ring, her battered body bouncing three times before sliding to a stop, trailing a thick line of blood. Hitomi, her energy spent, collapsed to her knees, clutching her broken arm.

There was a hushed silence at the sudden brutality of the match.

"Hitomi wins," I announced, repairing her arm as quickly as I could, before knitting together the broken body of Seung Mina. I breathed life back into the corpse, and the ring disappeared, all of the fighters now gathered in that strange limbo that I had gathered them in at the beginning.

"Now," I said, "The next battle is among us. The two participants shall be Gen Fu, and Heihachi!"