[Catch the Sun Again] Puar[W] vs. The Twins Who Returned

The journey that took place between standing near Barkley and to clashing with Zyren may have happened near an instant, but Sencha’s sense of battle was more refined than just recklessly rushing into her opponent, which was a key component to her membership in the master guild. Zyren had shown a glimpse of his thoughts attempting to overtake his action in a way that would freeze him and bring forth a sort of anxiety.

Zyren was a true warrior, however. Those thoughts died long before they could be born, and he closed his eyes. A smile cut onto Sencha’s face. As her steps beat to a drum in Zyren’s slowed world, her eyes moved like a fly, scanning the ki leys of Zyren’s body. As her eyes did such, they were shining as if catching light from another source, like a moon would do to a sun.

Sencha saw two different blueprints. She hid her shock at it, but seeing as Zyren and Soul were in a combined state, she figured it was because of that. It would be hard to read where his ki would travel through those insane ley lines, but nonetheless she could still see them.

Sencha saw the inferno in its cage, rattling and shaking it violently. It was filling the entirety of his ley lines and the smile she had could not fade. Her strike smashed into him, and she felt his body hardened to take the blow. Or was the fire inside him expanding his muscles naturally? That felt more like the reason his body was harder than she expected.

“Yes,” she said right after his declared No. Her acknowledgement was to the temporary pain Zyren was bringing forth so that he could flash. It was always painful when hands reached past the cool of the moon and clutched to the flames of the sun.

A painful memory would always fill the mind with regrets and the need to improve. It was such a miserable and debasing requirement. But the body and mind needed to be numbed by pain in order to reach for the rageful star.

It was a power given to those who failed, and Zyren used that to grab at it…

And Zyren snatched the sun right from the sky and his victorious cry echoed throughout the library, with both rage and pain which Sencha’s own smile dwindled from. She could feel every ounce of his emotions as if they were her own. The cost of his sun catch had to have been unbearable.

Sencha could not allow nurturing feelings to overtake her, despite feeling his pain and its form. Zyren needed proper guidance, and in the way of the Saiyans no less. As she struck him even faster, power lashed from his body wanting to trade blows with her. Sencha’s awareness and quickness allowed her to change one of her attacking hands, opening her palm and slamming against the power.

Her palm slammed against it, but only to redirect its pathing upward. Before it could escape her, she took a breath and grabbed his energy, pulling it back down and half spinning her body. She absorbed the ki, the sporadic explosive power turning into a finely woven thread of energy that was wrapping around her body. It was done with the elegance and beauty of a weaver, one that could take a chaotic bundle of cotton and weave it into a magnificent string.

Her entire body was cloaked in a red aura that was formed by Zyren’s own power. Because she dropped one hand, however, the speed of her assault was halved and that gave Zyren that opening he needed to duck low, and she looked down. She hid both her shock and the pride she had in his reaction time.

He struck at her knee, attempting to knock her off balance, but she had already raised her knee up, turning it into a spear that would clash with the empowered punch. That would block it, stopping her balance from shifting out of her control, and activate the threads of ki she stole from him mere seconds ago.

Those threads exploded from the point of contact trying to send him a few feet backwards, and Sencha’s assault in that moment did not end there. Her retaliation was swift and quick. While his fist was still colliding with her knee, she gave him two consecutive jabs toward his head. These jabs moved so fast that her fist caught fire and would burn him upon contact.

Zyren was amazing. He had many ways to interrupt the flow of her combination, but Sencha’s ability to read and react would not falter far behind. Soon Zyren was against a bookshelf taking the rest of her blows until completion. When there was finally a sliver of hope, he somersaulted over her and forced a split. Sencha turned around, seeing the confusion in Soul’s face.

That caused a grin.

Zyren didn’t like carrying dead weight, and even if Soul gave him more complete power, he was still holding him back, wasn’t he? Sencha thought to herself.

“Aye,” Sencha said in agreement. “This is your fight. Zyren has proven to me that he can grab higher power. I see why you are having trouble, Soul.”

Her eyes shone again, and she saw it clearly now. Zyren’s ki leys were normal. Soul’s were…

“Who fucked you up, Soul? Your ley lines to your ki are all over the place.” Sencha asked the question, but she was not that willing to give much time for him to answer. He would have to answer while in a heated battle.

There was a moment he may have had to answer, as the tattoos on Sencha’s body shimmered into a golden color and her eyes lightened into a teal color. The gilded color of her tattoos rushed upward, and her aura exploded, dying her hair gold. Sencha had long since studied and didn’t need to catch the sun with depressive or demeaning emotion.

She did not need rage and her hands were not clasping onto the sun with anger. She called it. The sun’s light came to her, but it still wanted to pervert her mind with intense rage. She suppressed that, frowning as the aggression surged through her ley lines.

She was much faster than before. Her image stretched as she darted toward the twins. Her approach and her attack both were unbroken… seamless. In one instance her focus was on the Sun Catcher, and her punches were swift at first. They were faster than before, and as she punched her feet shuffled to give her better angles, hitting him in various places of his body.

4 shots to the abdomen. 2 punches to his kidney. 3 jabs to his chest. 2 more to his face. 5 shots that traveled from his chest down to his abdomen again.

Then, something strange happened. She had studied only a split moment with a man who was exceptionally well at Dimensional studies. Sencha used that dimensional knowledge, wanting to try it out for once, and her arms disappeared right before Zyren.

It was as if the dimensional had devoured her arms, sending them to the ether. Her arms then came out of the ether, one on each side of his face, and both punched him 3 times each with undeniable speed and power.

Yes, it worked. Sencha thought. It was a move she had been working on for quite some time. It didn’t matter what Zyren did with it, the fact that she didn’t lose her hands in the dimensional rifts was amazing.

She continued the technique. Her eyes focused on Soul as she pulled her hands back to this reality and put her focus on him next. It was a similar start to her combination as she maintained the same stance.

5 punches to both of his sides. 2 fingers stab into his chest. 5 more shots from his abdomen and up toward his chest again. 4 blows to his face.

This time, faster and more immediate, her arms dipped into the dimensional rift and were spit out behind Soul. She punched him six times total to the back of his head before she pulled them back out again.

Barkley, who had traveled to the second level of the Osiris Wing to give them space, winced as she saw Sencha tearing into them. She knew that Sencha was nowhere near done either as she watched the woman set her stance and let out a battle cry to stabilize her breathing. “Here it comes,” Barkley stated as she put her chin into her hands, eager to watch the fight even more.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Sencha let out a loud kiai for each massive blow from her fists and elbows as she hit Zyren and Soul at the same with both his fists six times into their solar plexus. Hopefully that sent them both away from her a few feet. Whether or not it did so, her aim was put on Soul, and she rushed after him.

She would try and slam a powerful kick into their stomach to keep him going, if he was going already. When he’d hit the wall, her goal, she would still be following him and planting a knee into his abdomen, and then following up with a quick hammer shot into the ground. When and if he hit the ground, Sencha would stomp down onto him to keep him there.

Laws of Ice was a much different barrier than that of the Flames earlier, and it was also opposite of the element Sencha knew well. When she struck out at him, the cold barrier protected him and halted her advancement for a moment. Sencha needed to break free of the cold embrace before she could continue her assault and that pause gave both Zyren and Soul the time needed to form their attacks.

Zyren popped her in the side, causing her to recoil and buckle her body away from that explosive punch. The explosion made her feet scatter to the side in desperation to keep her footing stable, not wanting to fall or be sent flying away out of her own control.

Shit he got me; she thought before going toe to toe with Soul right after. Her punches against his slices created sparks, as if her own fists were made of metal against his steel. Soul did well at mitigating her damages to nothing and got in a few slices which made her flinch and whine a little. Even so, she was able to follow up with her rush to gain back the upper hand in their exchange.

With her foot on Soul’s spine, she turned to see Zyren attempting to close the gap before she could react. She smirked. Zyren wasn’t as great with the blade as Soul, and it was a simple dodge to the side that she needed to get out of his way. After her dodge she countered him with two shots from her fist toward his jaw.

But after all of that, Sencha grew weary. Not of Zyren, but of Soul. His body moved on its own, much like a warrior, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. Zyren needed a Saiyan warrior to push him, but Soul? What did Soul need? Sencha took another leap back and put space between herself and the twins, enough to give them both pause. After that she broke character.

Her accent was dropped, and her body started to change. She lost a small bit of height and had become thinner and womanlier in shape than the bulky warrior saiyan. Her hair had changed to a dark brown and her skin toasted up as well from that pale white to a light caramel. Her eyes were no longer teal but a vibrant green that reminded those that stare into it of a lush forest.

She wore clothing more fitting to woman in martial arts rather than a Viking like warrior as well, a battle dress that had the right cut to give her legs freedom, and comforting leggings that formed to her body as if it were just skin. Her power rose, as she felt the power of their attacks hitting her and knew that she needed to toughen her body up more as well. 

This caught Barkley’s attention some. “Pluto? Why is she showing herself?”

“Soul,” Pluto said with a somber frown upon her face. Her voice was much different. She was a human girl originally from the slums and her accent showed it still, even when she had many chances to change the way she spoke. She would never forget where she came from.

“Like, what is wrong with you? You can’t depend on your body’s auto movement forever. Wake up and stop being a burden to Zyren. It ain’t fair to him. If you are going to be like this, then go back into his body and let Zyren stand a chance at full power.”

Her feet slid apart, and she took on one of her most aggressive stances, Baji Quan.

Blink. Her form was gone.

She appeared to Zyren’s left and drove a punch hard towards his kidney. Upon contact the sounds of a cannon would be heard, just like her next two strikes at him.

Blink. She was gone again.

This time Zyren would see her form in front of him, her not moving too far but making her movement so quick that she wanted to trick his eyes. It was another punch and this time to his solar plexus, a loud boom following the contact.

Blink. She disappeared once again.

When she wanted to be seen again, she was on the opposite side of where she first attacked him, swinging her fist with all her might toward his jaw. With Soul down and confused, she decided to take on the only one she felt was in the fight, at least before she would turn to Soul again.

“Speak to me,” she demanded. “What is wrong with you?”

Like a true master, Pluto may be beating the living hell out of them, but she was still concerned. There was no malice in this fight and there was a purpose. They could not reach that purpose if Soul kept it all to himself.