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Deitric's facial features remained impassive as Jiro moved to adapt to the faux-shoulder check. Deitric had given the intent of a shoulder barge, but in fact he was still in good control of his movement and direction - all of his charge had been posturing - giving the outward image of a shoulder charge. He already knew that running straight forward to try and shoulder-check the man wouldn't work - it never did. He used the charge to try and open the man up. And it did - even if at the last few seconds only. But that was enough time to change his fake-charge into something else entirely.

Side-stepping a bull might've worked, but Deitric was no bull, and Jiro no matador. His charge hadn't been one at all - just a trick. With any luck, the abrupt change from a simple charge to a new attack would throw the man off. When Jiro sidestepped, Deitric ground nearly to a halt from his faux charge - nearly. He hadn't been sprinting - his strides had been long, meaning to cover the distance, but they were still very much controlled and paced so he could change it up if needed - but the sand wasn't the best braking material. But that was fine. As soon as he put on the breaks, his momentum carried him to the left - Jiro's right, where he had stepped. Just before Jiro would have stuck his arm out, thinking he had trapped the other warrior. Deitric's movements had abruptly changed, hopefully catching the other man off guard.

He had been leading left shoulder first, but now he twisted his entire body, his right fist rocketing forward in the nastiest, meanest flying haymaker the tribesman could summon forth. His entire stance twisted to right-dominant as the left-over energy of his forward movement combined with his weight and twisting motion, aiming to smash his fist home into Jiro's face. Of course, that wouldn't be all - he hadn't been able to stop, and once the punch was delivered, he'd most likely slam bodily into the other fighter, sending them both sprawling into the sand.

Unfortunately for both of them, sand wasn't the kindest thing to land on. It shifted, but it didn't allow for very much high-velocity stability - like two men crashing into it.

THWAK

Deitric's fist had slammed home into Jiro's face with a crash of thinly veiled knuckles on flesh and cartilage. His body had kept turning during the punch to deliver as much force as he could, and when their bodies smashed together, knocking Jiro flat on his back, Deitric was bucked forward and over and hit the ground first with his right shoulder and the back of his neck, rolling across the sandy locale for a meter or two before coming to a halt.

Well.

That hurt a lot.

"Hrgnnn..," the fighter growled as he rolled over in the sand, letting out a pained wheeze as he forced himself up. He'd hit his chest against Jiro's shoulder and knocked the breath out of himself, and eating sand didn't seem to help. Standing up to his full height, the warrior paused for a moment to catch his breath, coughing out a small bit of sand. His right shoulder ached dully from hitting the sand and having it used as the starting point of his tumble, but it wasn't as bad as the bruise forming on his chest from the collision.

Deitric reached down with his left hand, unhooking one of his tomahawks free from the belt-loop for a moment. For some reason, he re-considered, and promptly slammed it back home. If his opponent was unarmed, he might as well not use a weapon either. He didn't like attacking a man while he was down - if Jiro wanted to get up, he'd let him without restraint. He needed the time to get all the sound out of his throat and let his lungs get to working again.

Deitric smirked, keeping a neutral stance, his right hand at his side with his left casually resting with the thumb looped into his belt.

"Alright then," the fighter called,"c'mon."

He brought his right hand up in front of him, clenched in a fist as if he were going to fight with just hand, making a slight motion with his wrist in summoning for his opponent. He had already been on the attack, now it was time to see what his opponent could do.

The Khasmin man seemed like a statue now as his opponent came forward - if he noticed the advance, he didn't show it other than the fact he was watching his opponent. Flint and hardness glinted in his eyes as he watched Jiro, on guard and waiting.

The man lashed out with his foot, and Deitric responded quickly - by moving right into the kick pushing off with both feet to practically let his opponent's foot hit him. A dull thud issued as the foot caught Deitric around the sternum, a wheeze of air from his lungs as it connected. Even so, it seemed as though the warrior wasn't as affected as he should of been - what was under the leather jacket?

At the same time, his opponent might find himself in trouble. The kick was supposed to meet resistance, yes, but what about an opposite force, that of Deitric moving? In the soft, shifting sand, he might find himself forced backwards, off-balance, or even with a rolled ankle. But that wouldn't be the worst of it--

--Deitric's arms moved just as the Japanese man's foot hit him in the chest, sending a shock through his body and through the other man's legs, his right arm moving in a flash from the raised guard position to wrap 'round the ankle. At the same time, his left rocketed forward, aiming to smash open-palmed into the back of the man's knee to force the leg to buckle before grasping tight at the back of the joint, hoping to force his already off-balanced opponent to submit to his whim.

While leaping to meet a kick near preemptively was a tactic for some, it was usually used to simply knock the kicker over - but the sturdy fighter had more planned than that. His weight - a firm two hundred and fifty-two pounds - meant he'd be hurt as much as any man, but that the kick wouldn't of budged him too much, allowing him to get his grip on the leg and preform the subsequent action.

Having (hopefully) managed to get a dead-lock on the man's leg, Deitric would use his position to suddenly twist, using his greater body-weight to spin. If the man had been forced off balance, Deitric would take control of both their weights with his sudden spin - one spin, two, and Jiro would have been off the ground and in the air at Deitric's behest. But by then, Deitric would have already let go..

Sending Jiro flying right for the Firebrand's big glass window, of all things.

"HRAAH!"

"You know what's weird? I could drink a hundred of these things and I'd never once get sick. I might hurl a few times from all the liquid in my stomach, but the alcohol never hits me like it does everyone else."

Sakura did nothing more than stare at the bottle of BEER brand beer in front of her, twirling the liquid a bit before tipping her head back along with the bottle. She did so to catch an upside-down glimpse of sun, and while her hand retreated back to the counter, slamming the bottle against it, her head remained in place.

"My dad told me something once. He said 'son, your gift is your curse. For all the things you will enjoy in this world, the greatest pleasures will be out of reach.' For all the wisecracking and tough love that he gave me when I was a kid, I'm starting to think that it wasn't all just blowing smoke."

With a jerk, her head snapped forward so that she could sit properly in her seat again before twisting around. "Things are never as easy as you make them out to be." A pointed finger jabbed Sun in the chest as a pair of dark brown eyes gazed up from under emerald strands, each poke seeming to emphasize specific words.

"The story wasn't supposed to end like this. I'll see to it that there's another chapter being written, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to see it to the bitter end. And you're going to help me write it.

"Are we at least settled on that much?"

Athan Cole was hardly a stranger to the Firebrand, always stopping in when time allowed to share a drink with his friends.

In this particular case, Athan was sitting at a table when Jiro had come hurtling through a window, and it was Athan's beer that Jiro's tumbling body had decided to spill all over said big man's lap.

Now, Athan could have totally overreacted and perhaps even beat the living hell out of the guy, but he decided to do Jiro a favor.

He stood up, groin-soaked and all, and walked over to Jiro.

"Here..."

He bent down, picked the guy up by his shirt and one leg, and just tossed him back out the window.

"There ya go."