Meting of the Minds
Sakura’s
@Zoey Boey vs Gisu Nerumen and Morris Martinez
Word Count: 6,722
EXP + 7
Despite her lengthy boast, Sakura managed to kick things off with such speed that Gisu didn’t get the chance to hop on her board in time. The young psionic yelped when struck in the knees and got knocked over by Sakura’s Hadoken, clearing the way for her to try and punk Morris as well. By now though she’d lost her initiative, and though seemingly relaxed in his recumbent position, Morris was both literally
and metaphorically on the ball. He lifted his hands into a ‘snapshot’ position, his thumbs and forefingers each making an L on opposing corners of a rectangle, and his Elastikinesis altered the elasticity of the air directly in front of him to create a vertical trampoline. Sakura’s momentum carried her right into it, and her attack amounted to nothing as she bounced back. Morris dispelled his trampoline and pulled a spiked metal sphere the size of a billiard ball, which he tossed like a coin. As it fell, he caught it in a smaller trampoline, stretching it downward. Then he grabbed the bulge and pulled it backward, and once he released it the ball hurtled Sakura’s way like the payload of a slingshot to make sure she had something to worry about as she landed.
Sakura dove out of the way, worrying about it sufficiently enough. She watched where it went and then asked her question about their ages.
Gisu got to her feet with a frustrated grunt, annoyed that she’d been downed so easily. “Ugh. Appearances don’t mean anything in Psych-OSF ‘cause of the anti-aging drugs, you know. We could be in our thirties for all you know, so don’t underestimate us.”
“Fourteen and fifteen,” Morris remarked offhandedly, a mischievous smile on his face.
Sakura looked relieved.
”Oh, great. That’s about how old I was when I started getting my butt kicked. Okay, the fight’s on!” Sakura said, excited.
Glaring at him, Gisu dropped her Hoverboard, though it stopped before it hit the ground. When she jumped onto it, a current of psychic energy levitated her into the air. Its lateral blades gleamed in the sinister afternoon light. “You look tough. But we’re soldiers for a reason. You’re about to find out the hard way.”
“And they don’t pay soldiers to talk,” Morris chimed in. “They pay us to follow orders, and our orders are to bring you in.” With just a slight lean, he sent his chair rolling to the side on its big hoverball, putting some distance between himself and Sakura as he circled around. Then he used the
tech built into his chair to create a bubble shield around Gisu, and as she surfed forward the battle began.
The anger from earlier had mostly melted away as Sakura faced the challenge before her. Stakes and context melted away in her mind and a smile found her face.
”Yeah, yeah, let’s go!” As Gisu came forward, protected by a bubble shield, Sakura thought she would test it.
”Hadoken!” She fired out another quick moving fireball, and then another one when Gisu responded, looking to lead her shot this time.
Rather than try to avoid them, however, Gisu took the fireballs head on, and even with their power combined they only cracked the shield. When each struck her shield, a ripple of energy spread across its surface, then coalesced into a feedback pulse that returned to Morris’s techno-chair. Meanwhile Gisu charged directly into her opponent, performing a kickflip that sent her board into a wild horizontal spin beneath her, its bladed edges turning into a buzzsaw of rapid hits. The barrage ended with a double stomp into the board itself to bounce off the psychic current like a springboard and send Gisu flying away.
Sakura guarded against the strikes, gritting her teeth, before catching the board Gisu was on and holding it in place. The stomp broke the stalemate and Sakura stumbled backwards, barely managing to stay on her feet.
As Gisu landed and began to circle around to come at Sakura again, the barrier given to her by Morris vanished despite having plenty of durability left, and Morris began to move as well. Strafing in a circle, he slung spikeballs at Sakura while Gisu performed a series of quick dash attacks to try and slice Sakura as she sped past. On the third one, however, she would perform a flip over Sakura right before impact and then dash into her from behind.
Sakura ducked under one spikeball and avoided another, wide eyes tracking the projectiles. Her leg was sliced out from under her, and she had to absorb the next spikeball with her arm. Deflecting Gisu’s follow up slice with her hands, she rolled to the side and glanced towards Gisu only to just barely see her flip behind her.
”Oof!” Her head jerked back and she was sent flying forward. She converted her roll into a spinning front flip to face her enemies once more, her boots skidding on the pavement. Gathering blue ki in her hands, she charged up another fireball and launched it in the general direction of the pair, and followed behind it with a run.
Gisu’s board slice and the way she bounced off Morris’s trampoline reminded her of her battle against Gemma. She’d seen the moves before- could she exploit them?
Sakura swept around her advancing fireball and tried to put it between her and Gisu. Once again she gunned for Morris, the backliner and support that was making her life so difficult. With a mighty leap she jumped above him again, but at the apex of her jump she tucked in and did a flip, stopping her momentum mid air and changing her trajectory into a downward kick that would just miss him. Then she shot up into Morris from below.
”Shouoken!” With a fist-first rising uppercut.
While Gisu swerved around the fireball, Sakura made her move on Morris. Despite his casual attitude earlier, the boy had a serious, almost curious look on his face. Why would his opponent try this again after his no-sell last time? His fingers hovered over the second blue button on his chair's armrest, and as Sakura fell he made the snap decision to press it. Another bubble shield went up, this time around himself, and Morris soaked his opponent's tricky uppercut with a web of cracks on his shield. He'd protected himself, but this wasn't a win; she'd gotten him to spend his emergency shield with very little expenditure on her part. With that barrier on cooldown Morris needed to play this safe. He backpedaled quickly, and Gisu flew in to buy him a moment by drifting into Sakura with a bladed sideswipe. Even if it didn't connect, it ought to get her attention, and if she messed her hands up by trying to grab the board's bladed sides again, all the better.
Sakura watched Morris bounce away, satisfied with that. She remembered that Gisu existed just in term to turn around and catch the blade on her forearm. It was like she was made of steel, but the dings and scrapes that a sword would leave in plate armor were left on her flesh instead. But it was entirely a matter of focus.
”Sore!” Sakura brought her blocking arm down and raised her other one up, leaning back to give her leg plenty of room to chop up into Gisu from below, her leg going completely vertical with her signature Chin Buster Kick.
"What the!?" Just what was this woman made of? A horizontal blow capable of chopping lumber barely seemed to register, and with the commitment Gisu put into that strike, she'd halted her momentum and couldn't just slide by. Sakura's leg shot upward with such speed and flexibility that Gisu couldn't fully lean away in time. Her cheek got clipped and she bent over backward atop her board, twisting to put her hands beneath her and convert her fall into a handspring. Her backflip completed a couple yards away, coming to rest on a cushion of psychic energy. It welled up as Gisu crouched down, and after a brief delay she shot back toward Sakura with a lower profile. It was time to really start doing tricks. After pressing down the nose to perform a hard nollie, she launched into a sideways backflip that sent her flying at her opponent like a drill–the Tamedog.
”Uh oh!” Whatever confidence Sakura had in her ability to stop powerful strikes, it clearly had a limit. Wide-eyed at the scary looking attack, Sakura bent her knees and looked to jump clean over Gisu’s drill move. She brought her legs up, Gisu cutting loudly through the air beneath her.
Meanwhile, Morris had an idea. Sakura's fortitude came in part from her stance, so her technique began where her feet met the ground. The same couldn't be said for himself or Gisu, who floated on Levitation hoverballs. With his sling shots ineffective so far, Morris emptied out the bag of spiked balls into a single trampoline and launched them all at Sakura at once. In addition to pelting her painfully, they'd hopefully act as caltrops once they littered the ground, limiting her footwork with the threat of piercing penetration.
When she landed, one of them smacked her in the back of the head.
”Ouch!” She stumbled forward, rubbing her head. She turned around and crouched low, using her arms to protect herself from the spiked balls, hissing through her teeth. She’d really love to be dodging all these slices and stabs these two were doing.
Sakura looked around, frowning at the caltrops.
”Oh, man.” She complained, already knowing one of them would stab into her feet at some point. Ibuki did this crap to her all the time.
Sakura shot a fireball at Gisu and then tried to move to the side to get out of the middle of the caltrops.
Highly mobile, Gisu wove around the fireball easily. Though she’d managed to stick the landing for her Tamedog trick attack it had still taken an extra moment to correct. Now that she’d recovered, though, she was back in action. Both psionics could see that their agility and unpredictable fighting styles had Sakura on defense. It was time to up the ante. Morris tapped further into his Elastikinesis, creating an extra-strength vertical trampoline in front of him that he dragged backward. This would run through his mental energy faster, but he felt confident that this investment would pay dividends. When he released the trampoline, it sprang back with enough tensile strength to function as an air cannon, hurling a powerful wind front toward Sakura to knock her off balance -maybe even off her feet- before she escaped the caltrops. His assault became a one-two punch as Gisu cruised in and leaped toward Sakura with a Tail Grab to wallop her with the underside of her board.
Sakura gasped in surprise as she felt herself get knocked off her feet by a gust of wind, her arms flailing for something to grab onto. She gasped in something a little worse than surprise when Gisu thoroughly smacked into her body with her board. Sakura spat and flew backwards, landing on some caltrops that stuck into her. She converted her tumble into a back roll and then backed up, getting out of the field of spikeballs at the cost of a pretty nasty hit. Not to mention the fact that the caltrops were still there, except the one that was stuck in her arm, which she pulled out in frustration, causing some blood to run down it. She discarded that one down the street. How was she going to get the party started? They had psychic powers that- Sakura slapped her forehead.
She had psychic powers. And not just Levitation. Sakura tapped into the SAS, and noted the bevy of psychic abilities at her disposal. Sclerokinesis, Psychokinesis, Teleportation, and Pyrokinesis. Luka’s Teleport might come in handy in navigating between these two opponents.
All she had to do was make sure she didn’t teleport into anything or anyone. She aimed a fireball at Morris, and then launched into an EX-Sakura Drop, her body flashing orange as she leapt forward with her fists locked together over her head.
”Here I come!” She was zooming in like a heat-seeking missile towards the leading Gisu, but her eyes were on Morris. In a move she thought was cheap as hell, she teleported from Gisu mid-move and was suddenly bringing the hammer down on Morris instead. She felt like she was picking on Morris, but he was really giving her a lot of trouble.
If it hit, they would both bounce up.
”Ichi, ni…” Sakura smacked him again, sending him even higher.
”...san!” She brought the hammer down to send him crashing into a wall. Sakura landed quickly and charged up a point-blank fireball.
Thoroughly jumpscared by Sakura’s sudden teleport on top of him, Morris couldn’t take any action before his foe’s fists slammed down on top of him. Squashed against the hoverball beneath his chair, he bounced right out of his chair and could do little but get pummeled through the air. “Oof-ow-gah!” Before he knew it, Morris found himself plastered against the stylized facade of a Tex-mex eatery, dazedly staring down the metaphorical barrel of a blazing hadoken.
Unlike Sakura, Gisu did not announce her attack, even as misdirection. Instead, after locking on, she performed a backflip to sling her hoverboard out from under her at high speed. It slammed straight into the street fighter from behind to cut her combo short with a painful double-stab to the back. The force of the blow crush countered her, sending her spinning into Morris, and both slumped off the wall. “Crap, sorry!” Gisu winced. Running in, she snatched up her hoverboard from where it had fallen and began to whirl it around like a sign spinner to try and strike Sakura repeatedly. With any luck her eye-catching whirlwind of offense and defense would keep her foe occupied long enough for Morris to slink away.
”Kuahhh!” Sakura’s fireball fizzled out anticlimactically, the wind driven from her and slamming her into her foe, coincidentally giving her one more hit in her combo. Sakura fell onto her back, eyes squeezed shut. Sucking in air, she regained her composure and got to her feet just in time to get wacked across the chest by Gisu. Stumbling backwards she jerked from side to side before managing to block one. She spent some V-Meter and did a V-Reversal. One of her eyes flashed white and fast, she spun, dodging the next strike and sweeping Gisu off her feet, sending her away.
”Right there!” Gisu would have had to stop attacking and block it, and even then she would still get shoved back. The strike wouldn’t hurt at all, but it did get Gisu off Sakura.
The two of them were really working her body. Sakura wiped some spit from her lips. Well, it was the easiest part of her to hit. Normally Sakura would get nothing but a breather off a V-Reversal, but now she teleported up to Gisu and was suddenly in kicking range. Assuming she was back on the board, Sakura did some side kicks and a spinning heel kick aimed at Gisu’s legs while she was on the board to knock her off or force her to defend. Once she had established the pattern and forced Gisu to raise her board to block, she used Levitated to hop right on, set one foot on the edge of the board and used her other leg to drive her knee right into Gisu’s torso.
As impressive as spinning her board was, Gisu couldn't call melee combat her forte. Thanks to her unfamiliarity with the V-reversal, it meant the end of her offensive pressure. With some distance put between herself and Sakura she quickly scrambled back onto her hoverboard, only to find her adversary right on top of her. "Come on!" Gritting her teeth, she backpedaled from the kicks while performing a tail press for defense. If she lost her footing, she was done for. She wanted nothing more than to disengage, but Sakura was one step ahead. To Gisu's surprise she actually commandeered the board, which made the psionic feel about as indignant as it made her feel stupid. Gisu tried to block the blow, but a good amount of force still went through, and with a grunt she fell off the board and onto the ground.
Of course, the next second the hoverboard slipped out from beneath Sakura like a banana peel, flinging her comedically onto the ground as the board slid away.
”Haha bwah!”Gisu ran after it, knowing she wouldn't last in close quarters combat. Meanwhile, Morris made it back to his chair. Despite his propensity for riding in it everywhere, he evidently wasn't crippled or anything and could move on his own just fine. His bubble shields were off cooldown, so he was ready to defend, but this time he planned to attack as well. "Lucas, I need this." Using SAS, he borrowed his squadmate's PSI. Immediately he used PK Thunder, sending a crackling thunderhead to home in on Sakura's position. When Gisu reached her board, she'd tap into Yamaguchi's Electrokinesis to electrify her blades. It was up to Sakura to decide who she wanted to stop.
Sakura got back to her feet. Homing projectiles and lightning blades- these two were making her work for it. Pyrokinesis looked like it might come in handy here. Her hands lit up red, and then blue as she gathered the energy for a charged Hadoken.
”Hadoken!” Throwing her palms out, wrists pressed together, psychic fire and fire ki combined into a heavy hitting fireball to meet PK Thunder head on.
Sakura covered her face with her elbow, watching the resulting explosion with one half-open eye.
”Wow, awesome!” She cheered.
She began to run towards Gisu, looking to meet the dangerous skater head on. Sakura leaned into her run, going full ninja and leaning down low, her closed fists extending behind her. This was to bait Gisu into lowering her board. Then she would transition into a hopping spin kick.
”Shunpukyaku!” Her leg would aim to slam into Gisu like a clothesline, crushing any low attacks. If it was blocked, Sakura would be able to get back on the ground fast enough to defend herself.
Her foot slammed into the bubble shield constructed around Gisu by Morris. The repeated impact of her spin kick cracked the barrier and returned kinetic energy back to Morris, who was already preparing his next move. He'd put himself behind Sakura to hit her with another trampoline airblast, pushing her back toward Gisu, who performed a front flip to try and bring her hoverboard's lightning-infused tail down on Sakura's head.
Sakura kept a mental bead on where Morris was this time, and when she heard the trampoline pull back she was ready for his airblast. She let herself get pushed forward and then planted her front foot, placing both her hands on the dirt. Bracing for impact, she performed a Focus Attack, charging it up. Looking to absorb the impact of the board, she returned fire with a slow but armor-breaking knee aimed to pierce through the cracked barrier and to drive the wind out of Gisu.
”Hoaah!” She yelled. The electricity wasn’t good for her stun bar, and she shook her face to maintain concentration.
After that she grabbed Gisu’s shoulders and jumped up, for a moment she maintained a handstand on top of Gisu. Then she brought her legs down, rolled along the ground with Gisu, and flung her at high speed towards Morris.
"Drat," Morris grumbled. Sakura had already proven herself strong, but smashing through a barrier like that put her above a majority of Others, and now Gisu's assault had been foiled again. He used his Elastikinesis to create a trampoline that bounced his teammate high into the air, where she could right herself and catch a much-needed breather as she drifted down using her Levitation. For a moment though, that left him alone. Morris took a deep breath and focused the PSI power gleaned from Locus to shoot a flurry of PK Fires as he bounced around, each projectile a little fork of lightning that exploded into a burst of flame on impact. He aimed at both Sakura and the ground around her, since they would dissipate if they didn't hit something within a second's flight.
Sakura watched Gisu float, and then made some pretty intense eye contact with Morris, her eyes alight with a passion for fighting. Sakura got a feel for the PK fire when she raised her arm and the thing zapped into her block, causing her to slide back. After that she dashed forward and sprinted onto a nearby wall, running along it for a moment before diverolling, the PK Fires exploding all around her. Her diveroll converted into a bounding leap, and in mid air she pushed a blue and red psychic hadoken mid-air, about half the size of her normal ones because she wasn’t grounded. Either way it was still burning hot and something to deal with while she landed behind it and looked to close the rest of the gap.
With his SAS PSI running low, Morris made the best use of it that he could. When he held our his hands, a PSI Magnet formed, and the swirling vortex sphere devoured the hadoken to convert it into a little health. However, the visual pollution meant he wasn't quite aware of just how fast Sakura made her approach.
When she got close enough, she converted her run into a galloping stride, still plenty fast but with her fists up. Juking another burst of flame, she aimed to slug her back fist towards his magic chair.
Her relentless pursuit paid off, catching Morris mid-bounce after she swerved around his PSI. His chair rocked back dangerously on its hoverball, dented a bit from the impact, and he fought to steady it. A personal bubble shield popped up to give him the moment he needed, meaning both his barriers were on cooldown again.
Sakura was by no means unscathed, but a giggle escaped her lips as she put the pressure on Morris. After smacking into it with a few kicks to make sure he wouldn’t retaliate, she hopped forward and grabbed onto Morris' chair.
”Oops!” If he predicted it, he could swat her hands away, but the moment would pass before he could react if not. Sakura twisted and turned aimed to slam Morris and his chair into the ground.
”Toriyah!” She shouted.
He would've landed hard if not for his powerful instincts of self-preservation. A trampoline formed beneath him just before he hit the ground, but it's stretch still led to an impact with the asphalt below, and when it bounced back it flung both Morris and his chair apart. He landed and rolled across the ground, looking up just in time to see his chair smash against the street. No way it's generators would be working after that. Before Sakura could follow up, Gisu dive-bombed her from above like a hawk to nail her with its lightning-infused nose right before her borrowed Electrokinesis ran out. She rebounded from the strike and coasted down near Morris, a little jarred by the impact. Though able to fight on, both had seen better days.
Sakura was pinned to the floor by the impact, taken again by surprise. It was hard to keep track of both opponents at once.
”Urgh.” The electricity didn’t play well with her, and she put a hand on her head as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. She was looking a little rough.
”Not bad, you two.” She said.
”What do you think of me, huh? I’m pretty tough, right? Pretty cool?” Sakura asked as got back onto her feet.
"Pretty annoying," Morris managed to huff without looking too pitiful. He got to his feet and reached up as if to adjust his collar. "You've been pushing us around for long enough. It's time we showed you what happens when brains meet brawn."
He tugged a red strip on his outfit, and his hood popped up to conceal his face with a shadowy veil. Orange lines criss-crossed it in a tessellated triangle pattern, and the next second a number of the triangle flares up to create concentric circles. By now Sakura knew this act: Brain Drive, a state of heightened physical and mental acuity that boosted psionic abilities. Gisu activated hers as well, her signature pattern a ring of speed lines radiating out from the empty center.
Sakura looked between both of her empowered foes, taking a step back. As they did, though, she remembered that she could do the same thing! Closing her eyes for a moment, she inhaled through her nose and exhaled out of her mouth. An orange spiral wrapped upwards before flaring into a pattern of sparkling blossom shapes.
”This is incredible!”” She exclaimed, opening her eyes and then widening her stance, ready to receive her enemy’s attacks. Sakura had activated her own Brain Drive.
Gisu boosted forward atop her hoverboard, faster than ever on a psychic current like a miniature tsunami, and as Morris backed toward his chair he manifested trampolines throughout the area. Gisu bounced off them, changing directions at high speed to attack Sakura with a blistering series of drive-by slices.
Sakura tracked Gisu with her eyes and the first slice scraped past her block. But the second struck her from behind before she could turn around.
”Ugh!” She had to resist falling into a spinning vortex and collapsing on the floor as she jerked back and forth from each subsequent slice. She relied on prediction, hopping over one slice, pausing in the air, and then doing an aerial EX-Shunpukyaku, her leg lashing out in a full circle around her lightning fast.
”Hoooah!” Sakura yelled. If Gisu got hit by one kick, she would be sucked in by the wind, battered around and then expelled back where she came from.
It wasn’t just Gisu’s Levitation that were on point, though. Thanks to Brain Drive, her mind and body were actually functioning faster, so when Sakura whipped up a whirlwind kick in the middle of the battlefield, the psionic’s reflexes saved her. She banked right in time to narrowly avoid running into the EX-Shunpukyaku. Nevertheless, the cyclone might have pulled her in if not for Morris. He conjured a psychic trampoline beside his teammate so she could grab hold, staying just out of reach while she accessed PSI through SAS. Powered by her passion for what she loved the most, Gisu built up and let loose a conic blast of psychic hexagons, brilliantly flashing magenta, cyan, and yellow. “PK LOVE!” As the strongest smash attack Lucas -and therefore his squad- had at his disposal, it was a show of power that could deal major damage, but Sakura’s whiffed kick didn’t have so much recovery that landing PK Love was guaranteed.
Sakura landed, having to pull her arms back in from the left-over momentum of her spin kick. Aware that it didn’t connect, she looked up at where Gisu was and was left agape at the incoming psychic blast. She only had a moment to raise her hands. She channeled Gemma’s Sclerokinesis and crossed her arms in front of herself, her body turning into steel in the fraction of a section she had before impact. All she could do was hope her two methods of defense would be enough to prevent her from getting knocked out. Cracking one eye open, she saw the PK Love wash over her in spectacular fashion, a kaleidoscope of colors and concentrated will. It was over faster than she expected, but the moment stretched on in her mind.
When it was over she felt Gemma’s steel power leave her, having used its entire charge of nullifying the attack. Sakura’s arms were still crossed in front of her, and she glanced down at her body, confirming the lack of damage.
”...heh. Cool!” She punched her arms downward at her sides and her palms and feet ignited with blue flame and a shower of cherry blossom petals that faded away in an instant. Defending that attack had given her enough V-Meter to activate Sakura Senpu. Her damage potential was higher than ever combined with Brain Drive.
Gisu’s jaw dropped in shock as the recoil from PK Love sent her wobbling on her board, not just at the manner in which Sakura no-selled her prospective knockout blow, but also what it implied about her squadmate Gemma. Pyrokinesis was a common enough power that Gisu couldn’t immediately just to definitive conclusions about Hanabi, but Sclerokinesis? Only one man possessed that power, and if Sakura could access it through SAS, that meant only one thing: that Gemma’s absence this afternoon wasn’t a coincidence. Deeply unsettled, Gisu couldn’t stop her mind racing. Gemma was one of the most principled men she knew. If he’d turned his back on Psych-OSF to partner up with its enemies, could that mean…
“Gisu!” Morris yelled in alarm.
Crap, right! Gisu focused on Sakura, who’d just powered up even further before her very eyes. In a panic, she put her hands together to cast a PSI ability point blank. “PK-!”
Smacked solidly in the face, Gisu’s head jerked backwards, Sakura’s clenched fist pulling away. Point blank might have been too close. Sakura rolled forward and leapt into a flying knee to knock Gisu away. She dropped back onto the ground in an acrobatic crouch, but instead of continuing to strike Gisu she paused a moment and watched Morris out of the corner of her eye, waiting for his interference.
He did not disappoint. While strafing, he used his Elastikinesis to rapid fire a bunch of small trampolines directly in front of them, grabbing each and stretching them back as far as he could before releasing. Their smaller size but greater stretch made for a more concentrated and hard-hitting blast of air, almost like a long-range barrage of punches. He formed and fired them as fast as he could move his arms, which was pretty fast. Gisu used the chance provided by his onslaught to recover atop her board, albeit not as fast as before.
”Straight through.” Sakura pivoted and brought her arms back and forth like a loaded weapon, firing a blazing EX-Fireball towards Morris as he strafed. It looked to blow through his smaller projectiles and crash right into him if he stayed the course. Sakura teleported into the air above him, and then spun downwards in his direction with a controlled spinning kick that altered her momentum as she pleased. Sakura Senpu left a clean, blade-like trail of energy off her spin kick.
The moment he observed the EX-hadoken cutting through his air bullets, Morris sped up. Though unstoppable and surprisingly fast, that fireball couldn’t change direction to follow him, at least. When Sakura teleported, he momentarily panicked. He’d seen that she could do this and he tried to keep it in the back of his mind so that he could trampoline her when she did, but right now his mental stack was piled high. Brain Drive meant he could act fast enough, but his first instinct was to hammer his chair’s emergency personal shield button. Thanks to all the damage, it didn’t respond. He couldn’t hover out of the way either since Sakura Senpu actually
could change directions, so the barrage of kicks hit home. For the final strike, however, a Guardian Vision of Commander
Camilla Vodello appeared to intercept it for him, leaving him bruised but not beaten as he span off f toward the sidelines on his chair. “Craaap,” he seethed, angry with himself.
Sakura on the other hand, was a picture of serendipity. Senpu was also a state of spiritual enhancement, not just physical.
”Wow. That lady had a long neck.” She noted, with great wisdom and serenity.
Morris spotted Gisu on the move, made a huge trampoline in front of him, and snapped it with all his strength to send a wall of air Sakura’s way. It caught her and buffeted her back–directly into a trampoline Morris made behind her, which made her stumble forward, off-balance. At that moment Gisu drifted into her, sideswiping her legs out from under her with the tail of her board. That afforded the two a crucial moment, and through SAS their minds cried out as one. “Let’s go!”
With Brain Drive about to expire, Morris went for broke. With Elastikinesis he manifested dozens trampolines around the area, surrounding and pointing inward toward Sakura. Gisu pushed her Levitation to the limit, picking up speed before slamming into one of the trampolines. She began to bounce around, faster and faster, becoming little more than a giant blur of metal and borrowed Electrokinesis, almost impossible to track. Morris revved up his chair’s hoverball, using a trampoline as a barrier to stop him moving forward as the psychic orb built up speed. Finally, he dispelled it and shot straight toward Sakura atop his chair, a living battering ram. At the same time, Gisu made her final approach, shooting at the street fighter like a bullet. At the last second though, she performed the same flip maneuver she’d used to nail Sakura earlier, vault over her and then inverting her momentum to drive her board’s nose into Sakura’s heart.
Sakura was impressed by the raging electric inferno that she was in the center of. She watched as she got up off the ground, the light catching in her eyes. With Senpu and Brain Drive active, both nearing their conclusion, the rest of the world melted away. And for a moment it was like she saw the pattern of the rain. The speed and power of the attack was immense, and she was right in the crosshair. But for a split second as the wave crashed down, Sakura spotted a weakness. She took one step to the side, to line up properly with Morris. And in half-a-blink, Gisu was there, next to him. They were synced up.
The moment would be over blindingly fast from the outside, but within it Sakura found the time to make eye-contact with Gisu and smile sympathetically, encouragingly. Doubt. Sakura saw it. It was visible on a fighter from a mile away.
”MIDARE ZAKURA.” With a tremendous upward spiral, Sakura punched the air between them, her punch bursting with ki energy. It was clean and smooth, a battering ram. It would stop them both dead in their tracks. She lifted them up, dropped, spun, and then erupted upward again. Spinning, she lifted all of them together with an upward thrusting punch, leaving a line of energy beneath her. There was an explosion that sounded almost like a ringing bell. Sakura landed, untwisted her upper body and dashed forward.
The two were knocked close together. When they rose to do battle again, she would catch them both across the face with her leading elbow, Sakura sweeping her upper body in a horizontal arc. Linking her hands together she clocked them again on the back swing. Then with the last of her empowered spin kicks she lifted them both into the air with three slicing, streaking kicks. With a straight kick that hit neither of them directly but was accompanied by a pushing force of pure ki, the pair would be sent tumbling into a wall.
Sakura held her leg high in the air after the kick, the limb vibrating with leftover power. The pleasant ringing came to a stop, blue embers drifted to the ground and vanished, and the dust the kick had lifted settled. Sakura lowered her leg smoothly and with great care, before standing firmly on the ground. Brain Drive ended, her hood falling to reveal her face to the sky again.
For her opponents, Brain Drive wasn’t the only thing that was over. Morris had slumped down off the wall, completely senseless, and only by some miracle was Gisu able to remain on her knees. On that final impact, though, Sakura had heard a shattering sound, just like the one that accompanied an Other that had been broken to the point its bulb appeared. That begged the question: could Gisu be finished off with a Brain Crush as well? Sakura didn’t know how, though, and before she could answer Gisu ran out of time and wiped out for the last time.
Sakura cleared her throat and then spat onto the ground.
”Good fight!” She raised her fist, grinning.
”But if you wanna beat me as a team, you both gotta be on the same page. Let’s do it again sometime.” She rubbed under her nose, satisfied with a battle well fought. But the thrill, that wonderful elation she was always chasing, faded with her victory. Back in the real world, Sakura remembered why exactly they were fighting.
She considered Friend Hearting them, but it was best to see what the others did first. After all they weren’t driven mad by Galeem, they were attacking them because of real genuine loyalty to a cause they believed in. There was a pretty big chance they would just arrest her again, and there’s no way she can beat them twice in a row.
”Phew! Teeheehee!” With an exhale and a giggle, Sakura skipped to join the others if they needed help in their battle, or just to reunite with them. How invigorating! Sakura was plenty beat-up but her grin was wider than it usually was.
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