36 - Hard Target

The force of Esmeralda’s body blow coerced Naoko into backing up a couple more steps, her facial expression a pained wince as she sought to bring her forearms front, a makeshift barricade against further attack. In the meantime, Esmeralda found herself with ample time to slip away from the ropes, steadily moving forward toward Naoko and circling right, gloves slightly below chin level.

“Mu…still swinging those wrecking balls around…” Naoko thought, furrowing her brow as she re-secured her footing. “…I shouldn’t have let her just bulldoze her way out of there. And now she’s closing in on me again, she likely doesn’t want to let me get too far away now. But if I intercept her approach…”

Naoko narrowed her eyes, timing her movement against Esmeralda’s. As Esmeralda stepped in, Naoko noticed a drop of her right shoulder, a sign that she’d be coming in with another low right. However, as Naoko realized, it also signified that the right side of her face would be unprotected. In response, the Senshi preempted Esmeralda’s attack, leading off with a double jab that popped Esmeralda’s jaw, jostling her head back with each hit. Grunting through the jabs, Esmeralda altered her aim, gritting her teeth as she powered through with a tank shell of a right cross, timed just as Naoko was retracting her fist from her second jab. Esmeralda fired it over Naoko’s retracting arm, not giving her a chance to bring up her guard or slide away in time.

“…Kuugh!”

Naoko took the jolt of a hit, her head wrenched to the right as a plume of her sweat was knocked loose.

“No mas de ti!” Esmeralda snarled in a vicious tone. Before Naoko could recover, she grunted again as a brutal left upperhook followup from Esmeralda slashed upward across her opposite cheek. Dazed and nearly knocked off-balance again by the abrupt, rigid combo, Naoko hurriedly reached outward, wrapping Esmeralda up in a clinch, making an attempt to tie up her arms and give herself time to recharge and rebuild stamina. However, rather than try to get away from the clinch, La Rosa instead embraced it, ensuring that she got her left arm up over Naoko’s right before it could be pinned down. Although Naoko managed to partially ensnare Esmeralda’s right arm, it wasn’t enough to completely restrict its movement. Clutching Naoko in close with her left, Esmeralda growled as she drilled in painful short shots to the belly with her right.

“Huu! Huu! Uff! Ungh!”

Naoko let out terse, agonized yelps with each body blow, panting heavily in between.