Ryozan did not feel the impact he had hoped for when their fists collided, but he did manage to do some serious harm to his opponent. The spikes on his gauntlet dug into Mr. Sunshine's flesh as his hasaiken shattered the bones in his wrist; for all practical purposes, his opponent's left hand was neutralized. Even though it was not the exact damage he had hoped for, he felt a certain amount of pride in what he accomplished with that attack. After all, Mr. Sunshine had said that his flesh had yet to taste a blade, and while Ryozan's blade was one of ice rather than steel, this still meant that he was the first person to draw blood against this formidable man. It meant that he was better than all those men that fell before him leaving nary a scratch; it meant that all of his opponent's conquests were now, in part, his. However, the Tanzo family had not retained its power for so long by being the strongest loser. This brief taste of success spawned a small grin across the kitsune's face and spurred his desire for victory even further. But first, there were more immediate matters to deal with.

Ryozan had dealt damage, but he had sacrificed his balance for it. He did not want to enter ground combat with a man who was larger and stronger than him, even if he had two injured arms. Yet, Mr. Sunshine seemed to know that the ground was where he would have the advantage, and seemed keen on forcing him into that position once again. He felt the shift in weight, and indeed, his tail would not be able to support any excessive force. However, he had been given plenty of time to pour ice energy into Mr. Sunshine's right arm and while he still had enough control of it to jerk it around, the frostbite would likely reduce his dexterity, and the strength of his sword strikes would suffer as a result. For the sake of regaining his balance, he was willing to let the sword arm slip from his grasp. But, thanks to this new positioning, his opponent had left him a nice opening to take advantage of.

His left leg landed on the ground once again, relieving his tail of its burden, and then he clenched his left hand into a fist. By shifting the left side of his body forward and jerking his sword arm to the right, Mr. Sunshine had exposed the front of his body to an attack. Based on where Ryozan's left hand was after releasing Mr. Sunshine's arm, it was already inside the defenses of his sword arm, and blocking with a broken wrist would be both painful and difficult. So, Ryozan aimed a compact left hook at Brighton's gut. His opponent was unarmored, so the blade protruding from his gauntlet would be able to dig no less than three inches into his flesh. If the blow bit deeply, Ryozan would follow up by ripping the blade out with a violent slash, tearing his opponent's body completely open. 

The kitsune was not unwary of the threat from the right, though, and even from this close range, there was still a vital area his opponent would be able to strike. Rather than drawing his right hand back for another strike, as he would normally do in this situation, he brought his arm up around his neck and braced his right hand against his left shoulder, protecting his neck from any desperate sword strikes that would come his way.

Ryozan wanted to keep this close proximity that he had established, so if Mr. Sunshine tried to dodge away from the strike, Ryozan would track his movements and try to maintain the in-fight. Likewise, he was now on to Mr. Sunshine's plan to take him to the ground, so he diverted some of his attention to his opponent's footwork so he could react to another sweep attempt without resorting to his tail.