Yesterdays [Shaoling, Yugiri]

There was something rather amusing about such a technique being used against her, and Shaoling's expression lightened just the faintest bit again. As Yugiri's kick came up to meet her, Shaoling focused her energy directly into her forehead, further reinforcing the rotation of her shunko to protect her. Even with all of her skill, this wasn't the sort of technique one used casually.

"25 Zushiki: Tetsudama."

Rather than simply take the blow, Shaoling swung her head downward, the full impact matching Yugiri's kick even as she felt the shockwave run through her body. Using her head in such a way would have been outright suicidal without her level of mastery, but Shaoling wasn't ever particularly fearful. Raising one hand, Shaoling spoke curtly, briefly, and forcefully.

"Hadō 33: Soukatsui."

She was more than proficient enough to discard the incantation to minimal detriment, and she knew that to try and speak the incantation would have given Yugiri more than ample warning as to what was coming. The entire purpose of utilizing kido at all was to catch her by surprise, use something unforeseen.

Headbutt!? Her surprised did show but she grit her teeth in frustration again. Use everything to kill your opponent, that's what she learned from this woman but facing the depths of her conviction was proving to be difficult with the growing pain of her arm from shikko's usage.

If she was surprised by the willingness to risk damage to her head - her senses - then the usage of Soukatsui at such close range was just plain reckless on her teacher's behalf but not enough to completely catch her. She used her hair to shoot and wrap around Shaoling's ankle from the position and push from her hands up into the air and leave them both in the risky position of the blast radius.

Utilization of her hair was quite ingenious. Shaoling respected the effort in waiting this long to utilize it, but rather than cut short her spell, she simply unleashed the Soukatsui even knowing that she would be caught in it. If she couldn't survive her own spell, she may as well not continue to live. She knew Yugiri wouldn't be able to move all too far without creating an easily-exploited opening, and so she simply allowed herself to be scorched, grinning confidently when it was all said and done.

"You put my lessons to good use."

That, in itself, was some of the highest praise Shaoling could have given to Yugiri. She had never once been gentle on the girl during the time she taught her, never held back her criticism or softened her words. She supposed that, in a way, she might have been too strict, but she couldn't change that now. Even so, she had little she could say was wrong with Yugiri's form now.

Yugiri grunted with the feeling of fire kissing her skin and leaving her with burns up her body. She was probably covered in patches of charred skin and missing part of her clothes but the vizard would certainly not skip a beat. So while Shaoling praised her for the hard work, Yugiri's hand yanked her hair and pulled her teacher by the ankle towards her.

If she wanted to play dirty then Yugiri would give her something dirty and so the dark-skinned woman tried to pounce on the hopefully staggered woman. Attack and hold her other limbs and neck with her hair to steal away every bit of freedom the little bird had and give Yugiri a chance to punch at Shaoling's stomach.

"You talk too much."

"Do I?"

Yugiri may have felt confident that she had Shaoling on the ropes, but the reality was that she was never quite helpless. After all, her shunko never ended. Even now, it was coursing around her, biding its time, and now it once more began to accelerate, the wind rapidly growing to gale forces yet again.

"I've been told I talk too little. My current student always tries for longer conversation."

She wasn't exactly in a position to physically push Yugiri off of her, but that wasn't much of a concern. The shunko would be enough. And if by some miracle it wasn't, then she frankly deserved to lose.

Her punches were hard to connect and soon did she see a growing error to her decision and the pain of a vicious gale against her fresh burns were truly agonising. "Ugh." She groaned in pain while finding it too hard to focus with the burning sensation that was clawing at her body, it took all her will just to refuse to lose that made her want to keep going. Even if it was in the most unrefined of ways, she'd claw at Shaoling until she passed out or her teacher yielded.

"Y-yeah...."

Akuro. Trying to mutter it was already hard so she didn't bother but she showed the hakuda technique which ran shunko through her hands and teeth in particular to enhance it and create claws of reiatsu. Now attack like a savage dog and that's what she did. Everything that could be weaponised was. She smashed her claws against her teacher's shunko to try and break it, claw and dig into her flesh before tearing at it. Yugiri even tried to headbutt her former teacher and bite at her neck.

Even if it was becoming more and more apparent that each attack was becoming slightly weaker than the last and her wounds were becoming more and more serious as time dragged out.

It was conflicting, watching Yugiri attempt to break through her shunko even when it had become a fruitless endeavor. Shaoling certainly felt pride in a former student for that sort of commitment, and she knew that she would have done exactly the same thing. But that very knowledge was why it only made her a bit disappointed. Not in Yugiri, of course, but in herself as a teacher. She could have endured the blows indefinitely, but she instead intensified her shunko one final time, to a degree well beyond what she would normally use in a simple match with a student, and pushed Yugiri far from her before standing.

"A suicidal effort is only worthwhile if everything is on the line. Otherwise, you ought to retreat, lick your wounds. Strike again when you're stronger."

How hypocritical of her. Hadn't she already put herself into far greater danger in her bout with Erika not long ago? And she'd loved it. But Shaoling was also all too aware that living like that wasn't something to be celebrated. She wouldn't condone it in Yuujin, and she shouldn't condone it in Yugiri, either.

Her claws couldn't maim and her teeth couldn't get close enough. Even the last-ditch savage hakuda approach of Akuro which threw away all semblances of defence for nothing but raw offence was worth nothing in the end when she got caught in the gale and tossed a little away. Her shunko was still crackling around her as she tried to pull herself up off the ground and shakily stand there on all fours while watching her blood trickle down her arms and drop to the ground from her skin.

"Right..."

She wanted to win. She wanted to win with all her heart to beat Shaoling and show herself how much better she was than the person Shaoling had seen before. Prove to her teacher and herself that she was better than the noblewoman of her past but she couldn't do it. How was she supposed to reach her dream when she couldn't even outpace Shaoling. It made her tear up and punch the ground she was prostrated on in frustration.

"Damn it!"

That reaction struck Shaoling more personally than she perhaps would have liked. She saw far too much of herself in it, and it reminded her of why she had ever taken to training Yugiri to begin with. By all accounts, she hadn't ever had any obligation to do so beyond her duties as retainer to the Shihoin household. She'd never shown the same attention to the other children.

Back then, if she'd seen this sort of behavior, she would have scowled, given Yugiri a stern word and told her to pick herself back up. But Shaoling wasn't the same woman she had been back then. Not only because of how her life had gone, but because of her own decisions. That wasn't who she wished to be, that soulless machine the Feng had raised. Picking herself up and dusting herself off, Shaoling approached Yugiri and crouched down, giving her a simple pat on the head.

"You've come very far from when I last saw you."

It was leagues away from being genuinely comforting, and Shaoling was aware of that. Just because she wished to be a bit more human didn't mean that it could simply happen overnight. Maybe it would never happen at all. But making small efforts was better than not trying at all.

"I'm quite proud to have trained you so well."

She tried to contain her emotions, thinking back to the amount of time that she spent resisting them or trying to suppress them in her life to keep them out of her way, in pursuit of the absolute peak that she could achieve and then some further. As hard as she tried though she still felt her tears running and only felt more frustrated, she wanted to win so bad and her best wasn't enough.

"I... I..."

What did she even want to say in this moment. She knew what she wanted to say but her pride didn't want to admit it, she never asked for help and any time it was offerred she would either say no or act cool and indifferent through the whole thing.

"I want you to help me be better!"

Her teeth grit while she dug her fingers into the dirt. Shunko was handed to her on a guilded platter, she didn't have to do the hard work of perfecting or stabilising it. Her teacher had perfected her own shunko and could help the process. She wanted to be able to master her shikko and not risk her body breaking under the pressure in the middle of a fight like it did in this fight.