The dust hadn't even settled from Aira's first devastating kick before she was on him again—a phantom of golden fury, her fist crashing into his face before he could fully right himself.
"Enough!" Kuganbo's roar was primal, wounded pride overriding any tactical sense. His power exploded outward, a forty-billion-furnace of rage. When Aira's next punch came, he met it head-on, fist against fist.
**BOOM! **
The shockwave flattened the landscape for miles. Craters formed. Mountains crumbled. And Aira's arm... shattered.
*CRACK. *
The sound was sickening, unmistakable. Aira flew backward, her broken limb flopping uselessly, her body cratering into the ground.
Rhode's heart seized. He nearly moved, nearly intervened—but then he felt it. Aira's ki didn't flicker with pain or despair. It burned.
**CRACK... CRACK... CRACK... **
Bones realigned. Flesh knitted. In seconds, her arm was whole, her body healed—not with the gradual mending of the Recovery Technique, but with an instantaneous, terrifying regeneration that rivaled Cell's own.
Rhode's eyes widened. What...?
"Hahaha! AGAIN!"
Aira rose from the crater, her face a mask of savage joy. Her power, already doubled to over two billion, surged again—two point five... two point eight... approaching three billion. And still climbing.
She's not just fighting, Rhode realized. She's evolving.
The battle resumed, but it had transformed. Aira's style was no longer about winning—it was about surviving. Every time Kuganbo's fist closed in, a micro-shield of concentrated ki materialized at the point of impact—a technique refined from Yardrat's force fields, now deployed with impossible speed and precision. The shields cracked under the forty-billion blows, but they held. Just barely. Just enough.
Aira flew back, shattered a mountain, and Instant Transmissioned back into the fray. Again. And again. And again.
Each time, her power climbed higher. Three billion. Three two. Three five.
Rhode watched, transfixed. This was the state Aira had shown him years ago—the "stronger the more she fights" phenomenon—but now it was mastered. Refined. A weapon honed over five years of solitary training, waiting for an opponent who could finally push her to the edge.
She's not trying to win, he thought, awe coloring his realization. She's trying to break through. And this monster... he's the hammer she's been waiting for.
Two-point boost, mastered. Higher multipliers, still dependent on escalating battle lust. Rhode cataloged Aira's abilities as he watched the brutal ballet unfold below. The analysis was clinical, detached—a warrior's assessment of another warrior's arsenal.
And what an arsenal it had become.
The shield technique was brilliant in concept but should have been unsustainable—a massive drain on both ki and mental focus. One slip, one moment of hesitation against a forty-billion opponent, and she would be paste. Yet Aira showed no signs of flagging. Her stamina, impossibly, remained at peak. Her power continued to climb. Her battle intent burned hotter with every exchange.
Recovery technique, refined. Ki control, perfected. Stamina management, evolved to a level I can't even fathom. Five years alone, and she had forged herself into something new. Something terrifying.
She was close now. Rhode could feel it—the pressure building, the emotional temperature rising toward that critical flashpoint. One more push, one more surge of rage or desperation or sheer bloody-minded will, and the golden flame would ignite.
Then Kuganbo flickered.
For a single, horrifying instant, his form wavered—the telltale instability of a fusion reaching its limit. Then, with a sound like reality tearing, he split apart. King Cold and Zarbon tumbled away from each other, gasping, their fused time expired.
Aira's charge halted mid-flight, her target suddenly two again. The pressure, the focused intensity of fighting a single, overwhelming enemy—vanished. Replaced by confusion and a rapidly cooling battle lust.
No! Rhode's thought was sharp, urgent. Not now! She was so close!
The transformation, teetering on the brink, began to recede. The golden light at the edges of Aira's aura flickered, dimmed. The moment was slipping away.