[Quarter Finals] Whirda & Yuuka vs Yu Kanda & Mickey Mouse

[Karl Jak]

Face to Face
#17 Whirda Windstrom & #31 Yuuka Kazami vs #01 Yu Kanda & #16 Mickey Mouse

Mickanda wasted no time in laying down his angelic judgment on the plagued woman and her snarling compatriot. Or trying to, anyway.

The fused mouse-human hybrid was quick, but not quick enough to catch either of the women off-guard. As he sprinted up the stands, leaping from one chair to another, Whirda disappeared, attaching an umbral tether to Yuuka and successfully evading their new opponent’s initial charge. The mouse-eared man spun around to see the Pepsisters reappear in the ring.

“That was close,” Yuuka muttered under her breath, stepping out of the teleportation.

“He’s nothing,” Whirda growled. She turned, ostensibly to toss some umbral daggers in the fused man’s direction, but instead found herself staring down the sharp end of Mickanda’s Keytana. The hybrid had hurled it at her, and she caught sight of it just in time to duck beneath it.

Yuuka wasn’t so lucky. The Keytana dug into her leg, slicing through her ankle and sticking in the floor of the arena, essentially pinning the Youkai to the spot. Yuuka Kazami hissed in pain, leaving a flustered Whirda to sit for a moment in her own fury, which boiled to the surface much more readily now than it had even an hour ago.

The dusky-faced woman marched to Yuuka, wrapping her fingers around the Keytana’s hilt and ripping it out of the ground and out of her partner’s leg. The green-haired woman screamed again, stumbling and falling to her knees as Whirda Windstrom turned to face their overconfident adversary, who’d returned to the ring. She brandished the fused man’s sword at him, the scowl on her face deepening as the lights in the arena began to flicker and go dark one by one. First, just the lights nearest Whirda faded, and then they all began to go, one by one by one, until the arena was almost pitch black.

“Catch me now,” Whirda snarled, swinging the Keytana forward at the tall, slender form of Mickanda. The exorcist reached up and grasped the blade, stopping it in its tracks. It dug into his gloved hand, ripping through the fabric and through his skin; he felt the warmth of his own blood running down his arms and sighed, closing his eyes and falling into a strangely zen-like state.

From his touch, innocence energy lit up the Keytana and flowed down even into its hilt. It began to crawl up Whirda’s fingers and wrists and the darkness inside her recoiled, releasing her grip on the sword and stepping back. Light blue energy snaked up her arms, illuminating her position just in time for Mickanda to readjust his grip on his weapon and slash it at Whirda’s abdomen, slicing through her stomach and sending her toppling to the floor.

The sword glowed bright, blanketing the entire arena in a dim blue glow. Mickanda stepped toward Whirda, glancing down at her. “Sorry, pal,” his strangely twin-toned voice frowned, “you’ve still got a friend in us if you want.”

Whirda looked to let out a furious roar, but was halted by the impact of Mickanda’s yellow boot to her face, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Yuuka, meanwhile, clambered for the edge of the ring. Stone Cold Steve Austin, broken and battered from Whirda’s maelstrom but still able to stand, had limped to the edge and tossed the Youkai her parasol just in time for her to whip it open to block another assault from the Keytana. Mickanda pressed forward, trying to break through Yuuka’s defenses, but for an umbrella, the woman’s shield was surprisingly resilient.

When Mickanda stepped back, Yuuka shut the parasol and launched a barrage of flower bullets at the fused creature, pelting him in his bare chest. The bullets dug into the man’s skin, and he stepped back, unable to move as shot after shot collided with him. Yuuka pulled herself up by the ropes, holding herself aloft with one hand and firing with the other. When at last Mickanda seemed to be subdued by the bullets—though still standing—she took a moment to breathe, and smirked.

“You're just making things easier. Now I only have to defeat one of you,” the Youkai grinned, lifting her parasol and launching herself off the ropes, sprinting as best she could toward the man with one foot still bleeding profusely. She swung the parasol down at the deliverer, preparing to bash him in the side of the head and send him into the same realm of unconsciousness Whirda already occupied.

Until one of Mickanda’s hands raised and grabbed the parasol.

Yuuka’s eyes went wide as Mickanda lazily looked up, in pain from the many bullet wounds in his chest but barely hanging on.

“We are sorry,” he droned, slamming the parasol’s handle into Yuuka Kazami’s face and knocking her to the ground. “Be wary of the darkness,” Mickanda said to Yuuka, and she faded as a bright white light washed over the arena, and Mickey Mouse and Yu Kanda both fell out of the transformation and to the floor of the arena.

Yu Kanda pushed himself to a standing position, nursing the remnant bullet wounds in his chest, knowing one of them had to be standing to be declared winner of this match. Hulk Hogan approached the exorcist tentatively to raise his hand and declare the pair’s victory. With the crowd cheering for Dwayne’s apprentices Yu simply stood there, watching as his partner’s heart broke. Having shared a link with him mere moments ago, he knew exactly how Mickey was feeling, and it ate him from the inside.

Mickey Mouse, meanwhile, crawled to Little Susie’s body and laid her head on his chest.

This was no way to win anything.

* * *

In the conference room that PepsiCo had sort of commandeered, Mr. Bepis scowled.

“Hmph,” he huffed, “defeated by a long-haired hippie and a cartoon mouse. Disappointing.”

He held out a hand, and a crystal goblet filled with the brown elixir of life he peddled to the populace was dropped in his fingers almost automatically. He swished the liquid around a bit, and then placed the cup to his lips. He prepared to drink, but fury at his defeated minions—and his thwarted plans—overcame him, and he squeezed the glass, smashing it into scores of pieces with his Pepsi-addled might.

Blood snaked through his fingers where the crystals sliced his hand open, weaving through and mixing with the tributaries of Pepsi cascading across his palm and down his arm.

His harem of assistants remained frozen behind him, like bottles of the elixir left too long in the freezer, as he used his clean hand to flick off the dissatisfying stream of Whirda Windstrom and Yuuka Kazami’s climactic battle. He couldn’t bear to watch anymore.

He leaned back in his office chair, licking the cocktail of Pepsi and blood off his hands and slurping it down his throat as new plans for world domination festered in his head.

[spoiler]
Mickey and Yu win and advance to the semi-final.

The Pepsi Ladies move to the Consolation bracket and will be on bye in Round 4.[/spoiler]