Bruce felt Jenso's Ki before he heard him.

He heard Jenso's declaration before he saw him.

The first thing he saw upon reaching the next floor was Jenso's output vanishing courtesy of Nexus.

'Annoying.'

"Jenso may be a fool," Bruce said, walking past Jenso to stand between him and Nexus. "But at least he's alive."

Bruce had been preparing for his fight too long to make a speech. He only felt he owed Nexus some effort to make him understand.

"You can't sell hope when you've been dying for centuries," Bruce said, surreptitiously tossing his wooden instrument behind him for Jenso to catch. "The living prove their existence by saying something. Even the dead can speak. You've been undead for too long, Nexus- you haven't been saying anything."

Even if Ki wouldn't last in front of him, Bruce lay his hand over the hilt of his sheathed blade.

"It's time to let others speak."

Bruce glanced behind him at Jenso.

"When you need strength," he said, casting a significant look at the instrument. "Just use your fire to call upon my power."

Bruce had confidence enough in his efforts to have infused a drastic fraction of his Ki into the item- he would support him with all his power, as he's promised.

Bruce turned his back to Jenso again. His posture spoke of relaxation, yet he exuded purposeful readiness.

"Go."

Jenso's eyes widened in surprise for a moment as his powers vanished. He'd felt this before, back when he and Bruce were within a temple a long while back. It was a familiar feeling, so he quickly realised what was going on. As Bruce appeared on the scene, Jenso couldn't help but smirk widely. "Exactly as he planned, huh?" He retorted to Nexus's words, catching the instrument that Bruce handed him. He attempted to dash past Nexus at his left side, so he'd need to turn towards him to slash while keeping himself on a small distance out of the sword's immediate reach. "Gotcha." He replied to Bruce. He'd certainly be moving slower than usual, so he chose to be cautious.

Nexus cringed as Jenso walked past him. But he let him through. Then he turned to Bruce. Just like before, Bruce felt his grasp on Ki and the arcane leave him, while Nexus stood firm with his short sword in hand.

"You should be well aware that I cannot surrender," He said, as Jenso left the room, "But as long as I engage the enemy..." He waiting and glared. The silence carried on for a few more moments. "Jenso will lose," Nexus said softly. He swung his sword and pointed it at Bruce. "But I have no intent of silencing him, or anyone else. If you wish to fight to the last breath, don't let me stop you."

Bruce raised a brow at seeing Nexus allow Jenso past. It was neither what he anticipated nor entirely unexpected.

He sighed, his thought about Nexus' ability reaffirming itself. He tapped a finger against his once-again empty sheath. The worst part was being forcibly removed from his Sage state- it felt like a violation.

Bruce knew that his Ki and arcane powers were still there. He had no evidence and couldn't feel them, but it wasn't quite blind faith, either.

He had a sense that it was like muting music versus shutting it off- even if it was the same on the surface, with the former, it's still playing.

He just had to un-mute his music.

Nexus' glare, and his sky blue eyes provoked an idea. A soft smile grew into Bruce's face.

'If the eyes see all, what happens when they don't?' Bruce pondered, reaching into Jenso's bag to pull out a handful of sand. He filled his other hand with dust that had once been earth. He splayed his fingers out, letting the sand fall while he paced in front of Nexus, and blew the dust out toward him.

Even if he couldn't sense the Earth quite how he did, he knew the subtle differences in sound of a tread over different materials.

This done, Bruce closed his eyes. He couldn't know for sure how Nexus' ability worked, but if it wasn't solely a matter of Meta Energy, and was anything like Shaidra's teleporting, there was a possibility eye contact was linked to muting Bruce's powers.

Bruce waited. Until he was un-muted, he could only react, but he kept reaching out with his soul for his Ki and his Sage state. When he fond them again, the volume was going to come out blaring.

"I appreciate what you've done for me, and for Jenso," Bruce said, eyes still shut, easy smile still present. "So I'm going to do something for you, Nexus."

"I'm going to give you that missing ending."

A stature far beyond what normal men could ever hope to achieve. Rajaka stood with an endless stream of energy flowing through his body, gathering at a constant pace as the time went by. He smiled. With both hands, he began to bend and stretch his knuckles, cracking them audibly. His skin let off a dull yellow aura to match the ferocity in his eyes.

"Oh yeah," He growled, "This is gonna to be fun. I'm gonna enjoy snapping your limbs off like brittle branches. I'll plant your ass so far underground, there'll be bitch trees growing for centuries to come." He cracked his knuckles again, and began to stretch his legs out. "I'll be a good sport, though. Go ahead. Take your time to prepare yourself. Turn blue again. That was a neat trick." He began to turn his neck, stretching the tendons in his shoulders. "How'd you do that, some kind of parlor trick? Lights and mirrors?" He spun his neck around and flexed every muscle in his body, still smiling wide.

"You're going to wish it was just some fancy lights and mirrors when I'm finished with you...." the sage spat before biting down on the power pill and swallowing it in one big gulp. "Honestly there's a lot more to it then that." He then stretched his legs a bit before sitting down with his legs crossed and following with shutting his eyes. His energy returned within moments after and soon his hair glowed the regular blue from his normal sage mode. "You see as far as elemental sage power goes, each has there own well... let's call it a tech tree, one which I discovered on one of my more recent journeys." The wind began to stir around him once more as it was before, slowly growing more and more fierce by the second. "People like Bruce have there earth armor which makes them almost as bulky as you are.. well minus the regen factor... and lets them summon those golems, and water sages can change water density so that it can absorb almost any impact or blast through even titanium." Jeff's body began to turn white again and slowly became ethereal and almost ghostlike and his hair glowed everso brightly to match his body's change in hue.
"and those Gaians have there one with nature, which gives them an animal based form depending on there soul right? And that's cool and all but... I still personally think that wind sages got the best cut of this deal."
Jeff then stood up and opened his eyes showing the piercing blue glow they were giving off as well before vanishing entirely. A whisper could be heard around Rajaka, but it was different then how Jeff would normally use the wind to project his voice, it almost seemed to be emerging from it.
"You see, us wind sages are..."



With that 4 Jeff's fully armed with nano blades appeared, surrounding him from the front, back, and his left and right sides. Each aiming to slash at a different part of him. While all of them were technically still mirages the wind followed the blade movements to a key and slashed with a force similar to how Jeff's blade would regularly.. or seemed to. The attack looked to be aiming for Rajaka's upper body portions but then shifted last moment to aim each for an angle of his right leg attempting to chop at it from all sides like 4 wind chainsaws, slicing constantly and rapidly with no signs of stopping.

"...or well technically the atmosphere, but I think wind sounds cooler." Another Jeff appeared for the sole purpose to shrug while nodding his head before vanishing a second after. "Honestly doubt that small mind of yours cares for the real specifics beyond that."

Rajaka's eyes drooped as Jeff sent a flurry of attack towards him. He flexed his right arm tightly as each blade neared, and a flare of Ki roared outwards, dispersing the clones and wind in an instant. Jeff's attacks were stopped effortlessly, silenced by the sheer aura that Rajaka had begun to put out.

"Ok."

The golden giant began to walk forwards. He rose his hands and flicked them outwards with a light shrug.

"I'm an arrogant blockhead. I get that. People won't stop going out of their way to remind me." His hands fell back to his side and he kept walking forwards, away from the center of the crater. He was headed further inland, looking to slowly make his way towards more populated cities. "That says a lot about me, but it says even more about the wimps that try to butt heads with me." He rose one hand and pointed with his thumb towards his back, urging Jeff to try again. "Sometimes it works, though. Y'know, I get real mad, really mad, and break a planet or two. Heh, you'd think they'd stop trying to goad me after losing their first few countries- But no. They insist on calling me an idiot over and over again. Bullying me into a corner until I flatten them." Rajaka chuckled. "It 'aint just my muscles that keep winning me fights, kid. It's self-indulgent little ass hats like you who keep on treating me like a brick. People that just keep tossing stuff at me, expecting a different result every time. That's it, man. That's all it is." Rajaka grunted loudly and stomped the ground. "As much as I like winning, it gets real boring, real repetitive..." Rajaka spun back towards Jeff and pointed towards him.

"When people like you just keep lettin' me win."

"I'd call it more of testing the waters really..." The real Jeff appeared once more a yard away in front of Rajaka keeping close attention to him and his energy levels. "Though even if you put it that way, you do realize that when you go destroying people's villages and murdering those who live in them.. that kinda makes you the bully... or well worse then one really." Jeff blinked wondering if he truly saw himself as the one being bullied or not.
"Well whatever, how about we change the game then?" The sage taunted patting his chest as if to put a target on himself. "You try and hit me with everything you got and we see how that goes? IF you can even manage that, winner."

The sage kept up guise of acting completely unguarded by having no battle stance at all whatsoever and putting his hands outwards as he waited for Rajaka to take the bait. Between his previous attacks with trying to stop him from reaching the city and his most recent being downright shot down despite the pure arcane output it had left him debating other strategies. At the very least, he had no fear at all of Rajaka managing to land a hit on him. And frankly even if what he planned to do was obvious, Rajaka did have a point, he isn't just a brick and head on attacks that don't catch him off guard would most likely keep failing regardless who was the one throwing them.

Thus the sage waited for Rajaka to try something, anything really and thus took the moments to casually have the wind compressed in various hidden spots in the forest while having the wind which that kept roaring around the crater to hide any signs of him doing so. The second Rajaka would strike, Jeff readied to vanish back into the wind and counter how he saw necessary, keeping any and all options open till the time came.

Rajaka ignored Jeff entirely and continued making his way inland. "I'll pass," He grunted, "You're just like Zelriane. I'm never gonna hit you, the way you're moving. Not like this." Rajaka continued gathering energy inside his body as he walked forwards. "And you'd have to be a complete idiot to sit still. Nah, I think I'm gonna go kill the rest of your buddies while boss man crushes your stupid little friends." Rajaka stomped the ground slightly with one leg and began laughing loudly. He turned to Jeff and stomped again.

"IT'S NOT LIKE YOU CAN STOP ME!" he shouted loudly, his voice echoed loudly, covering the sound of the two delayed spears of yellow energy shot upwards from either side of Jeff, moving towards him from his blind spots. Rajaka's Ki held a property beyond its most simple nature to overpower other forms of energy. If one was struck by enough of it, it could paralyse their soul. In Jeff's case, it wouldn't take very much. One strike was all Rajaka needed to slow him down. Even if it only lasted for a few seconds, that was more than enough time for him to run over and strike a deathly blow. The giant muscle-head was more clever than he seemed at first, when it came to battle, anyways.

"Well, can't say it wasn't worth a shot." Jeff shrugged and floating into air slightly as he pretended to not notice Rajaka's attempt at a blind spot attack and simply just fiddled around with his right hand gauntlet. "To be fair, I doubt you can figu-" Before he could speak more, the sage would be cut off with a sudden a painful sounding "ACK" when Rajaka's attack made contact with him...

Or seemed to anyways...

Right when the attack was on him, Jeff used super split second timing to swap himself out with a wind mirage which was designed to look like it was taking the hit and mimic being knocked down and unconscious by it, though it would only last a few moments due to the sheer force of Rajaka's Ki. Jeff even went as far as to make the mirage lose sage mode and have the swirling wind begin to drop in power, at least for the few moments.

Once swapped out the real Jeff appeared up in the air behind the hopefully dropped guard Rajaka and struck with his arcane boosted gauntlet harpoon, aiming for a precise strike angled to shoot past the scapula bone, if he did have one, and inject the harpoon deep into his arm. From there an 2 orbs that was placed into harpoon while Jeff was just pretending to fiddle with it and then set off chain plasma explosions inside of Rajaka's arm attempting to blast the entire limb off in a single strike at the cost of a chunk of his harpoon and chain.

Rajaka grinned and began running forwards. But he lurched and stopped hard on his left foot as something struck the back of his shoulder. He reached backwards as fast as he could, but was blown forward by the series of explosions. An influx of ki fought back against Jeff's attack, spreading out from the open wound and concealing as much of the damage as it could. But as the smoke cleared, there was a visible hole in his left shoulder, and his left arm had gone somewhat limp. The skin around the wound was grey, but he didn't seem any worse for wear. Despite his limp arm, he spun around towards Jeff and extended his right arm above his head, creating a sphere of Ki.

"Yeah, that's it, shrimp. Bring some more of that," Rajaka goaded, letting the sphere in his hand float upwards like a little balloon. He created more spheres, one after another, and allowed them to float away from his body in all directions. The spheres began to surround him, separated by several yards. The injury on his arm was beginning to heal rapidly, but he wasn't looking to move from his spot any time soon.

While Jeff took the seconds to form the spheres around himself Jeff had let one of the crates which hid in the forest open up and he used his wind gale to carry a replacement hook and chain to himself which he swiftly reattached back to replace the parts used up in the explosion. After the part snapped into place, the sage almost vanished instantly.
"Well if that's what you want." Jeff's voice echoed from random directions as in a burst of wind which effortlessly weaved around the spheres letting Jeff appear behind Rajaka once more for a split second to slash a left arm nanoblade at his good arm along with also firing off a strange golf sized bullet using the wind cannon to propel it with the same force his regular wind sniper bullets would have. This bullet however aimed for the wounded spot Jeff struck earlier, attempting to pierce into the wound and inject nanobots into Rajaka's body which would then begin to feed off of his ki, a device he had been long preparing to use to help fight the giant and slow down his regen abilities. At least for a little while.

And just as quickly as he rushed in for the attack, he vanished once more and weaved safely around the spheres around as particles of wind before reappearing several yards behind Rajaka, curious to see the effects of his moves. "Been meaning to test a lot of things on you anyways. And there's only one real way to find out if they work or not."

Rajaka's body didn't recoil as the bullet struck his wound, momenets before it fully closed itself. The nano-blade dug a few inches into the thickness of his shoulder, but was shrugged off. Rajaka spun around and swatted at Jeff with his good arm, and grunted as he reappeared nearby. "You know, you should probably consider talking less. You're not great at the whole... speech thing." Rajaka's sword wound closed itself up quickly, and his left arm sprung back to life. He cracked his knuckles together and loosely shook his left hand a little. "Keep making those bullets though, kid. Those things leave one hell of a tingle." The spheres that surrounded him began to fade and grow, slowly spreading until they were completely invisible to the eye. The air grew thick as Rajaka flexed his arms. "You 'aint got the power to really hurt me. All ya got are your little toys, and pitiful Ki reserves."

Jeff's head tilted as he places a hand under his chin curious to what Rajaka had going on. Regardless to what it was he could feel the yellow titan's energy making a big impact of the atmosphere around himself as the energy seemed to turn into some odd form of gas which if it wasn't for the fact of Jeff's ability to sense pretty much any abnormality in the air would make it a huge problem. Instead this offered another opportunity to try something out.

"Well, when you have thousands or ideas and thoughts echoing in your head almost constantly with things ranging from what you should do in a situation to what I should have for breakfast tomorrow, you'd have some fun trying to organize those thoughts into words too." Jeff spoke as his visor changed shape to cover his entire face, shifting into gas mask mode.
"Though here's a good thought, how about I say no to that nasty plan of yours straight up?"
The sage then clasped his hands together and shot his hands outwards towards Rajaka before beginning to rip them apart from one another.
"Just so you know, if our situation was reversed, I could have done what you did to techmo too. It really doesn't make you special." As he said this, the air molecules around Rajaka and his gas began to produce static as Jeff began to use his wind control to have the air pull away from itself and thus rip the molecules apart, soon after triggering massive explosions in the air where he had done so in attempt to blast Rajaka head on and neutralize his gas attack all at once. While regular ki itself would pose a problem, making it gaseous brought this into Jeff's territory and in theory make it an easy disposal. Regardless, Jeff kept countermeasures such as the visor's gas mask to keep his air purified along with having torrents of wind follow up with the explosion to keep the blasts contained and surrounding the yellow monster of a person. 'One with Wind's Wrath: Naplam Strike'

Despite his efforts, Rajaka's Ki wasn't physically affected by the wind or the flames. It remained stagnant, while the explosions headed straight towards him. The giant dropped both his arms and narrowed his vision slightly, bracing himself for impact as flames engulfed his figure entirely. As the explosions died down and the smoke cleared, Rajaka was still standing. What was strange however, was how his skin had taken on a rough, grey coloration. It remained that way for a while, but his body seemed relatively unharmed by the attack, save for a few strands of hair that grew back almost immediately. He un-tightened his pose and smiled wide. "I know I ain't special, bub. But I'm strong. I'm a never ending supply of energy. My ki is practically overflowing. I mean LOOK AT THESE MUSCLES! Rajaka flexed his body, expanding his muscles beyond their natural limits ever so slightly before letting them deflate back to their regular, still overbearing size. "And it's like Zelriane says, strong people make the rules." Rajaka widened his stance, stretching his arms out in a welcoming posture. "I'm gonna make this simple so you can fit it in that banjaxed little head of yours. Here. Here it is. A simple thought. Here's the first and only rule of Rajaka law; You can't hurt me, bitch." His muscles twitched quietly. He pulled his left arm back stiffly, working out the tensity that built around his healed shoulder, and thrust it forward towards Jeff, creating a golden wave of energy that expanded at it headed towards him, quickly growing into a massive wall as it travelled, nearly 50 yards in diameter by the time it came within range of Jeff.

Jeff didn't bother to speak this time, merely vanishing once again as the ki wall came blasting after him, taking into the wind once more and traveling upwards with it to get out of the blast radius of the attack. Then suddenly the wind grew silent a short after a moment with a false Jeff appearing falling from the blast eyes opened from shock and with a very bloodied leg, attempting to fool the giant once again into attacking the fake while the real Jeff appeared in the clouds where he pulled out a tablet and began to mess around with some buttons.
With the nano's that were injected into Rajaka not being destroyed, but overall not serving the original purpose, Jeff instead shifting them into scout mode. Having the creatures send him data on his vitals, where vital organs were located, and if possible attempting to figure out what was influencing Rajaka into being so damn well focused.
'I might not have blup anymore, but my regular tech should be able to give me plenty details' The sage thought as he readied to have the data read out onto a screen on his visor and thus turning his attention to see how Rajaka would react to the fake Jeff who was pretending to take a deadly hit.

Rajaka cringed as Jeff seemed to fly towards him. He ignored the falling body though, and began to look around frantically. "Where'd you go you tricky little shithead?" He shouted, looking around the crater. "I may not be all that smart, but bodies don't fly towards the ground when I'm blastin' them away." He paused and looked up at the sky, peering through the clouds carefully. "That shouldn't have hit you, anyways..."

The nano bots mapped out Rajaka's blood system quickly, but it was peculiar to say the least. First and foremost, his blood pressure was insanely high. The little robots had a hard time manoeuvring through his river-like veins, rushing against an constant current that kept his body healthy. What made it even weirder, was the fact that they passed through at least 4 hearts on their trip through his body. They were huge, positioned all around his chest area, and emitted a loud thud with each beat that echoed through his entire system like a chorus of drums. His lungs were another story. He only had two, but they were absolutely massive, hugging his abnormally sized rib cage and bringing in massive amounts of air. The rest of his body seemed relatively normal, aside from the lack of a liver, kidneys, and an intestinal system more than twice as long as a human's. He must've been able to eat anything. Traces of powder made their way through the final sections of the small intestines. Without the liver to filter is, there were still significant traces flowing through his bloodstream, and being injected into his muscles and brain. His brain however, was not receiving nearly as much blood flow as the rest of his body.

Rajaka pulled his arm down and began to flex it, aiming to strike the sky.

"Found ya,"

His arm grew slightly, and he unleashed a thunderous punch towards the sky. The nanobots in his right arm were destroyed instantly by a sudden overflow of Ki, but before this, they were able to pick up on a peculiar physical behaviour within his body. His muscles literally grew, and then shrank, like balloons. Bigger, and than smaller, as if he'd just created more muscle in order to improve his attack. When they grew however, they seemed more relaxed. The bigger they were, the less tense Rajaka felt. No wonder he was so big.

Another shock wave began to fly towards Jeff, identical to the first, but directly afterwards, Rajaka rose both his hands horizontally, and spun his body around 180 degrees, unleashing another series of shock waves in a circle around him to cover the entirety of the ground, including where Jeff's clone was falling. With the air, and the ground covered for the next few seconds, he hoped Jeff would fall into his trap.

With the newly gathered data on the giant humanoid's body, Jeff had more and more ideas surfacing into his brain on various potentials of how to take advantage of his the structure and overall exploit it for the battle. Given with the current situation he would be left with little time to downright think of it as Rajaka managed to somehow discover his whereabouts. Seeing the attack coming for him along with feeling the presence of the one being shot down short after, the sage took to the idea of staying in the sky for the next couple moments, merely flying at a decent speed to get out of the air attack's blast radius and waiting for Rajaka to finish his attack on the ground and letting the shockwave of it pass.

The second that ended however, the sage didn't hesitate to come back crashing down with his blade, aiming to swiftly slash a sharp downward plunging strike into the giants back along with following up with shooting another golf ball sized cluster of nanobots into the cut as he made it by using his other arms cannon once again. Several yard long wind scythes came crashing down along with him slashing into the giant from above in various places and leaving trails of slices deep into the ground where it missed him. As for the nanobots launched into Rajaka's body, they merely just latched onto one of the vertebra of his spine and laid dormant from there, waiting for the next chain of actions to be given later on.

Jeff this time however, would wait a couple of seconds for Rajaka to turn around and prepared to launch a sticky plasma bomb from his bag, right into Rajaka's face, preparing to vanish back into the wind right after and take back to the sky with a surge of wind.

Rajaka kept his eyes on the sky, waiting for the little fly to swoop down again. He caught note of Jef coming down, and spun around, barely fast enough to see him aiming a glob of whatever the hell that shit was towards him. The cut ran down from his upper shoulder to his waist, only a few inches deep once again, but the nanobots missed entirely, evaporated by a sudden shock wave of Ki that Rajaka launched with his right hand, missing Jeff in the process. He sighed and looked back up at the sky. The incoming bombardment of scythes was dispatched with another shock wave that erupted from every point in his body, eliminating them one after another before they could strike him, or the ground.

"Nice try, fly boy."

He reached back towards his cut and pushed into it slightly as it began to close up. The back of his vest was ripped in two now, slowly falling off of his body to leave his upper half completely bare. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, but sealed them and let out a deep sigh. "I don't have many of those left-" He grunted to himself, opening his eyes to see something bulbous attached to his nose. "Huh?" The following explosion forced him to take a step back. But as the smoke cleared, his was revealed to be relatively unharmed, with only a few shreds of his mask torn away. His upper body recoiled into a dark grey coloration in response to the explosion, but slowly returned to normal, along with the rest of his body. "Well then." He looked up at the sky, and then back down at the ground. Rajaka smiled and shrugged, waving both his arms around carelessly. Then he dropped one arm to his side and began to move his right hand's fingers around slowly, while his hand remained still, and his elbow rigid at a 45 degree angle away from his body. "Glow..."

Jeff's body began to glow yellow. Something was clinging to his Ki. It grew brighter and brighter until it enveloped his entire being. Rajaka glared up and spotted the yellow spot through the clouds. He lowered both his hands and crouched down, as if to brace his entire body. Both of his hands enveloped themselves in globes of radiating energy. "Time to make you," Rajaka thrust his hands upwards and unleashed a flurry of small yellow spheres, hundreds at a time, into the sky randomly, "SHINE!"