Disclaimer: Violence, Angst, Language, Graphic Imagery, and a hint of Hormones

Sooo sorry for the long wait everyone! I'm deeply touched by all the reviews and the praise to continue the fic. I assure you, even if it the fic goes a while without an update, It will be updated sooner or later! Again, thank you and hope you guys enjoy!


Chapter 16

Drifting and Writhing

"Speech" 'Telepathy' Thought "Dream" *Reminiscing*

Nail stood over her unconscious form before sitting on the edge of the bed and pressing a cool damp cloth on her forehead to stifle her fever. Looming at the doorway of her quarters was Piccolo, his arms crossed so tightly his tendons were flexed in sharp tension. He stared at her paled features, his stomach knotted with the worry and anxiety that were usually so foreign in him.

Sighing, Nail stood from the bed and faced his counterpart. "It's not a coma, thank Kami. It seems more like an unconscious sleep. I'm not sure when she'll awake, but surely it won't be soon, with the fever and all…" he trailed off as he realized just how worried Piccolo looked. His expression gave nothing away, but his eyes were focused solely on her unmoving form, tucked under the white covers of her bed.

Diverting his gaze, he walked past Piccolo towards the main room, silently letting him know he was giving him privacy. Piccolo closed his eyes, his exhale calming as he stepped towards the bedside Nail had just vacated. He stared down at Sofia's sweaty features and absently wiped away some moisture from her cheek as he sat at the edge of the bed.

She'd been unconscious for many hours now. When her eyes shut and he couldn't tell if she was breathing, he had quickly taken her in his arms and headed back to the palace, where he had split-formed from Nail so he could take a look at her. The warrior class Namek had enough experience in first-aid to know just what to do. He had ordered Piccolo to fill the bathtub with cold water so he could dump her in, since her body was burning up. While Piccolo silently did so, Nail undressed her and placed her in a plain white gown, using her blood-stained shirt to clean the rest of the blood from her face and neck.

When the tub was filled, Piccolo came back into the room and took Sofia from Nail's arms, and wordlessly returned to the bathtub, where he gently eased her into the frigid water. He kneeled at the tub's side, holding her head up so it wouldn't submerge. Nail followed him into the tiled bathroom and stood over his shoulder, watching as the ruthless warrior carefully cupped water into his hand and ran it along her face, quietly repeating the action with her hair.

After a few minutes of him absently repeating the treatment, Nail had cleared his throat, snapping Piccolo back to the other's presence. He let Nail take over then, standing back and mutely watching as he pressed his forehead to hers. Once the former native of Namek had ascertained she was physically and mentally alright, he had picked her up out of the tub and had been surprised once again when Piccolo took her out of his arms and walked away with her to her quarters.

Water dripped all over the floor and into her bed sheets as he placed her on the bed. Nail came in and once again took over, drying her hair and her garments before placing a compress to her forehead and tucking her under the comforter.

Piccolo stood up from the bed and contemplated her sleeping features once more before turning towards the main room.

"It wasn't your fault, Piccolo," he glanced up at Nail, who sternly looked at him from the kitchen doorway.

Glancing away from his counterpart, he asked in a monotone, "Is there anything else for you to do?"

Nail crossed his arms and sighed. "There's nothing else I can do. It's up to her…" he trailed off as Piccolo's cold glare focused on him again.

"Then its good that time's up," he remarked, as he came to stand in front of Nail.

Bowing his head, Nail placed both of his hands on Piccolo's shoulderpads, a white and yellow aura beginning to envelop them both before it flashed brilliantly. When Piccolo opened his eyes, he was alone again.

He dug his white nails into his palms, his jaw clenched tightly as he stood there feeling a maddening sense of helplessness.

"Dammit..!" he ground out loud, his eyes clenching shut in his rising frustration and anger.

"Just wake up and end this, Sofia…"


"Bring me more sake!" Katsumoto roared with a victorious smile as he tossed the empty jug at on of his men. The man nodded and chuckled as he pushed through the crowd of drunken and hollering masses that filled the spacious room. Food, women, and drink were flowing freely and wantonly, as were the laughs and shouts in Katsumoto's honor. The hall he had met Kyouran in that first night was now the center of his victory celebrations, and he would've never thought even his genius could grant him the status he'd sought so quickly.

He tore into a piece of salted pork and chewed predatorily as he traced his gleaming stare over all the faces. He saw the group of geisha and felt his pulse throb in his veins. A wench would do him some good after the few days of celebration he had sieged the city with.

One of his men jumped up on the long mahogany table and did a drunken dance, to the amusement of the group of men swarming all around the room. Katsumoto snickered, and snatched the bottle of imported European wine one of his men was swinging around in drunken conversation. Taking a long swig, he licked his lips and eyed the contents of the bottle.

"European swine can sure make a sweet ale. Where's the strong stuff?!" he shouted after draining the bottle and tossing it against a pillar, shattering the bottle loudly, but not loud enough to dull the raucous debauchery that echoed in the hall. "More sake now!"

Glancing at the geisha again, he decided that after he got another jug he'd saunter over and show one or a few of them how the new lord and master of Japan claimed what he was due. A soldier presented him with a ceramic jug brimming with sake, of which he took one long swig and sighed contentedly before wiping his mouth and looking back to the gallery of females.

That's when he saw her.

Kyouran stared with a hooded crimson gaze from behind the small group of intoxicated and giggling women, her long obi resembling a pool of deep red as it cascaded fluidly down her lovely curves to flare outward around her feet. Her necklace and hair gleamed in the light of the sconces as she turned to give him a sultry glance from her profile before walking quietly into the shadows of the hall and exiting into the back rooms.

Katsumoto felt her stare send a jolt of awareness to his groin, and the utter surprise of her presence enticed him into chasing after her. He pushed passed the throng towards the back rooms, going through the sliding door and entering a cluttered hall of cheap women and horny soldiers. He could see her cascading chocolate hair swinging with her movements, and got a glimpse of her provocative red gaze as she turned down a corner, her lashes fluttering at him and a small smirk pulling at her dark-painted lips. Shoving a man out of the way, he darted down the hall and took the corner in a dash to keep up with the usually lethal woman. Reaching a niche in the hall, he turned and looked up the narrow steps leading up to his new chambers and saw Kyouran standing on the landing. He took the steps two at a time as she turned and went out of sight.

"Kyouran, my pet," he called with a husky-but-determined drawl as he roamed down the dimly lit hall. "It pleases me to see you're not upset or resentful at my victory. I'm glad you accepted my invitation," he called down one of the halls, but she didn't respond. "But why not come out and let me thank you for helping make this all possible?" he walked into the sitting room just before the entrance to his quarters, and saw Kyouran's glowing red eyes peeking at him from behind the door of his room just as she shut it silently.

Katsumoto chuckled, very pleased with himself as he licked his lips as he put down the sake bottle on the nearest table and headed for the door.

"Oh Kyouran," he confidently purred as he entered the room.

His eyes grew wide as he saw her smirk from the balcony's railing, two barrels of black gun powder on either side of the frame and crates filled with rockets scattered around the room. She snapped her fingers, creating a spark that ignited the barrels of gun powder and crates filled to the brim with fireworks just as Katsumoto shouted a curse and dove out of the room. An ear-deafening explosion rocked through the whole building, sending shrieking fireworks to shoot, pop, and crackle all over the room and into the walls.

Kyouran watched the dazzling explosions of color and sparkles from the roof of the Fujimi Yagura, leaning back on her palms and crossing her legs as the breeze played with the pool of fabric that dangled over her perch. Once the explosions dissipated to random pops and fizzles of smoke, Katsumoto dragged himself up from under the plush couch he'd flipped over and used for protection from the dangerous projectiles. He kicked the debris away from the door to his room and made his way through the wreckage toward the jarring tear in the side of the building that used to be his balcony.

"ONI HAKAISHA!"

She heard the roar of incensed fury and stood, looking elegant even as she stood on the roof drain of the edifice. She pulled out a kunai knife from the inside of her tight obi and flung it effortlessly across the distance to embed in the ragged and singed wood of the bedpost directly off to his side.

Growling, he tore the knife out and unwrapped the note attached to it.

Your libido, while earning you the victory of Edo, also almost led to your demise. Keep it to yourself if you know what is good for you.

Fisting the note irately, Katsumoto's quicksilver gaze took on a look of trepidation and anger as shouts and yells began to pour in from outside of his room.

Kyouran was no longer on the roof, but all Katsumoto could do was glare at the spot she was once in. "Fucking...BITCH!"


The dark cavern glimmered with stray rays of sunlight that penetrated the gaping mouth from above, the worlds of darkness and light seeming to shift as Hiretsukan emerged from a tunnel towards the imposing figure that had his back to him at the edge of the slanted plateau ledge that led to a bottomless drop into darkness that even the sunlight was unable to penetrate. His fire-orange gaze flickered from the light as his expression set into displeasure while the figure cleared his throat.

"I have grown vexed with your…arrangements, Iyashii," The figure announced in a tempered tone, not bothering to address the demon or his minion with a glance.

Arasoi stared tensely in the shadows at his master, who stepped closer to the figure. "You are rushing what must come with time, sire," he stated with submerged irritation. "Perhaps touring your new throne room would"

"If you continue to speak to me as an insipid human child, I will cut your tongue off and make you swallow it!" the figure suddenly snapped without moving from his spot.

Hiretsukan ground his jaw while the figure stared up at the blue sky that rolled pass the jagged crevice of the cavern. "I want to see her…to have some fun with her," he stated in a husky whisper more to himself than to the strategic demon.

"I have seen the path your destinies must take before you are united, and now is not the time"

The figure whirled and grabbed Hiretsukan by the throat, lifting him so his leather-clad feet dangled from the rock floor while the mysterious figure bore his narrowed obsidian eyes into him. Arasoi appeared suddenly to defend his master, but stopped when Hiretsukan made a minute gesture with his hand for him to not move.

"What you make up in intelligence you lack in vision, Iyashii Hiretsukan. I have let things progress to your measures for long enough!" he seethed viciously with a wicked inflection to his growl before letting him go and struggle to regain his breath.

"Taming a spirit like hers isn't a novel task, sire!" Hiretsukan stated with veiled contempt as Arasoi stood like a sentinel by his side.

Grunting at the statement, the figure began to ascend towards the now blistering sunlight from the cavern's mouth. "Then it is a good thing that I'm the only one adept at the challenge, isn't it?" he stated sinisterly as he faded from sight.

Hiretsukan cursed loudly and whirled around, coming into gaze with the cobalt blue eyes of his loyal subject. Stalking past him, he barreled down the tunnel and barked to the young demon, "The contingency plan has kicked into action, Arasoi! Do as I've instructed," his voice echoed from the tunnel.

Arasoi set his jaw, his skin crawling at what he must do next. But no matter the trepidation the business of ordaining destinies created, his devotion to his master would fuel him into the darkness that lay ahead…


Sofia felt the darkness come all around her like a cloak, heavy and stifling. She tried to thrash herself into consciousness, but unlike before, she couldn't awaken from the darkness.

What's going on…the dream is long over, so why can't I wake up…

She felt something circling her in the darkness, and she tried to force it away and wake up, but it began to scrape all around her, like sandpaper against raw skin. She tried to yell, but the heaviness was numbing her from struggling, even from parting her lips. Suddenly, she felt as if she was being sucked down deeper, and that the jarring feeling was materializing as an entity rather than a sense of dread.

'Nisou Kyouran,' a sudden ominous voice called out from all directions, and Sofia began to feel as if she was being pawed at by strong hands from all sides. Suddenly, the invisible hands gripped down on her arms and sunk down on her shoulders. 'Or is it Sofia now?' the voice suddenly rasped frighteningly close to her ear.

Sofia felt her skin crawl, and every fiber of her being wanted to wretch away from the invisible force, but it sunk deeper on her as she arched and thrashed violently to escape. Then, she was suddenly hauled up and slammed against something searing in the dark, and she felt her whole body revolt and her lips curled in a wild snarl. She couldn't scream, or even whimper the force was so overpowering.

'Please struggle… it makes me miss seeing the real thing, my gemini!' she felt the slashes start to tear into her skin, superficial but stinging like hot pokers to her. 'You're what's left of the whore? I can't wait to break you…!' the voice spat with acidic malice as it began to fist its tapered fingers sharply into her hair and tug her neck back as she bared her fangs and seethed like a muzzled animal.

Swiftly, a jarring jolt shot up all her senses as she felt something wet and ravenous drag lazily along her neck, and all Sofia could see was the darkness in her eyes, even as her mind's eye began to be assaulted by the rapid flow of gory, horrifying slaughter of faceless figures, screams and cries for mercy inundating her to the point of revulsion. As the screams turned bloodcurdling and she began to shake under the overpowering force, she heard the demonic voice whisper almost impishly, 'Can you see what fun we could've had? There's still a chance it can happen, lover!'

Then sudden gnarling pain of having something impale through her chest made her choke and her throat clenched. Her eyes went wide, and she heard the mocking lamenting voice grate into her senses as it hissed, 'Entering you like this makes me want to skip the foreplay and claim you for real…'

Blistering agony overtook her senses as Sofia tore against the force's hold and began to roar a scream as the pain shot up her spine and blinded her even to the darkness…


Piccolo paced the same line in the tiled floor back and forth as he tried to fight the crippling sense of worry that kept trying to invade his thoughts. His arms were at his sides, tense and flexed from having his hands tightly clenched into fists for over an hour as he mentally berated himself.

'Piccolo, I was thinking…' Nail suddenly ventured. 'What if…you and Sofia leave the chamber earlier than planned,' he stated more than asked, the aloofness usually in his tone absent now.

Piccolo halted in his place and contemplated what his counterpart just said. He mulled it over, and the answer was too obvious to him.

'No. We're not leaving.'

A short silence fell before Nail said a bit more firmly, 'Are you sure? Even if Sofia doesn't wake up anytime soon?'

Piccolo frowned. 'She's likely to snap out of it soon. The facts that she's breathing and she's unharmed make it clear that this is only temporar—'

'That doesn't mean anything, Piccolo. Just because she's physically fine, doesn't mean she's psychologically unharmed. Maybe staying in this chamber wasn't a good idea,' Nail sagaciously interjected.

'What in the hell would the chamber have to do with anything?' Piccolo ground out in irritation.

'She is from another realm, Piccolo. A totally different plane of existence; staying in this altered chamber of space and time could be having an effect on her that we don't perceive,' Nail stated patiently, which earned a deeper frown from Piccolo.

'Be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that we haven't accomplished what we came in here for, and I'm not leaving until we do,' he stated in a monotone-but-stubborn tone. 'It isn't like the old man didn't warn me. He said she'd go through some weird changes, maybe this is just another one of those changes that we can't help.'

'Not to be argumentative, but when do you ever listen to Kami-sama?' Nail remarked as frugally as he could.

Setting his jaw, Piccolo regarded his position in the argument, and realized that he was arguing against being rid of Sofia. If he agreed to leave the chamber prematurely, she'd surely end up having to return to her realm, and he'd just have to find another means for training as much as possible before Frieza arrived.

So why was he thinking of toughing it out with her? Why not get out now and let Kami sort this mess out?

'Piccolo, you don't know what she has been going through. I'm not trying to make you the scapegoat, but it isn't as if you've asked her about her dreams…' Nail stated and trailed off in contemplation.

'What does her sleep cycle have to do with this?' Piccolo countered in aggravation.

"EEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Piccolo jerked his head towards Sofia's quarters and ran to the doorway, her shout still echoing up to the dome ceiling. He watched on as Sofia thrashed and clenched her jaw as her hands and legs twitched from wild spasms. In a heartbeat he was rushing towards her, but Nail told him to stop.

'What do you mean don't touch her!?'

'You don't know under what duress she could be in! It could harm the both of you if you make contact with her right now,' Nail stated in a hard tone to his counterpart, but Piccolo stood in conflict as he watched her arch off the bed and shout as if she was being tortured.

"Dammit—Sofia!" he ignored Nail's warning and leant over her just to shake her awake when her eyes snapped wide open and she began to thrash and roar like an animal on the defensive, lashing out at him as if she was trying to tear him apart with her black talon-like nails.

Piccolo jumped back just as she tore through the front of his gi and scraped the metal that rigged his shoulderpads together, slashing and gnarling the front of his cape. Sofia lunged at him, maddened cries drowning out his shouts as he grabbed her wrists and tried to get her under control before she hurt him or herself by thrashing around so violently.

She was shockingly strong. He could barely restrain her wrists before she jerked them wildly out of his grip. Her pupils were dilated and her gaze was unfocused as she cried out savagely, wringing wildly in forceful directions to be released so she could tear into him. Finally unable to keep her at bay any longer, Piccolo tugged her harshly towards him and braced her against him while he jerked her wrists between them and pinned them together against his chest.

"SOFIA! SNAP OUT OF IT!" he shouted directly in her face and she stiffened, her frame trembling with fear and animal rage. The air between them was crackling with static, and her skin was scalding hot. Slowly, clarity started to seep into her wide gaze, her pupils coming into focus on him. "Sofia…it's me," Piccolo said in a stern-but-soothing tone. "It's me…"

Her whole body was recoiling against his touch, but she was returning from what ever primal mania took her over. Deciding it was safe to let go, he eased his grip from her wrists and stood firm, bracing himself for a possible outburst. However, she sunk back on her heels, her hands falling to her lap as her trembling turned into a nervous shake. He watched her silently, wishing the turmoil in him would subside so he could get his bearings.

Then her eyes looked up into his and he felt a chill go through him. Her eyes were still wide, blank with shock, but her expression was so haunted, as if she'd seen years of brutality that would even make the most jaded warrior cringe with dread.

"It's me…it was only a nightmare," he said in a hushed tone, as if he was trying to soothe a wild animal with the tone of his voice. He stepped closer to her and she unexpectedly sat up and thrust forward, fisting her hands in the cape of his shoulderpads.

Piccolo stood stiff as she trembled, holding onto him as if she was afraid to fall back into whatever darkness she had just escaped. Her eyes shifted wildly on his expression, as if she was trying to see someone else.

"Sofia…" he gingerly placed his hands on her back, the touch so light it wasn't even denting her clothes. She finally forced her trembling eyes onto his, and she fidgeted closer against his hard frame. She felt her vision explode in clarity, his eyes breaking through to her in stark recognition. Those onyx orbs were warm and deep, and all she wanted was to be held by their power forever; to be protected by him.

Sinking against him, she clung to him, and Piccolo had to catch her before she crumbled completely. He supported her, feeling her ragged breath against his chest and how her fingers twisted into the back of his cape and shirt while he stared worriedly down on her.

It felt so ephemeral to him. She made him feel like everything was there and gone in a blink of the eye, and that the only thing he could hold onto was her. His mind went blank when she looked up at him again. She shifted, and she was suddenly so close, so warm against him. Her hands fisted into his cape as she leaned up and he brought her up to meet his parted lips.

She sighed in desperate relief and clung to him anxiously as he enveloped his arms around her. They kissed frantically, his worry and distress from before dissipating at the feeling of her heat against him. Sofia kept shifting to accommodate her disproportionate height, her bust rubbing against his exposed stomach and chest with her movements. Piccolo's skin was tingling in that alien way that made him manic with curiosity. He cupped her rear and brought her up, pressing her securely against his chest as he kissed her deeper, their tongues languidly rubbing and probing against each other.

Sofia was still trembling, but Piccolo's warmth and his hard body were keeping her anchored, and she wanted so much to never let go, to never fall asleep and for him to protect her. They parted from their kiss, utterly breathless and clinging to each other as if they'd float apart if they didn't.

She kissed him again, and Piccolo let her, but his body was growing stiff from her contact, and he felt himself getting aroused. He began to snap out of the reverie-like state he'd fallen into and started to disengage from the situation, pulling her arms from their tight grip on him and holding her back.

Sofia didn't want to let go, she wanted him to hold her and protect her. The noise that rose from her throat sounded like a weak protest, and Piccolo felt a shiver go up his spine. "D-don't…!" she whispered in a tone he'd never heard from her.

He paused, and she looked pleadingly up into his gaze. Piccolo knew he couldn't do this. Parting harshly from her, he let her stumble dangerously close to the edge of the mattress. Swiftly, he walked to the doorway and left her there, alone and utterly scared for the first time in a long time. Her chest contracted in pain, a sharp, hollowing pain threatening to cripple her limbs. She jerked desperately against the nullifying paralysis and lunged to move, forcing herself out of the bed to fall to the cold floor. The shocking cold made her flash to her nightmare, and her body stiffened as she felt the pendant of her necklace send a sharp pulse into her chest.

She suddenly had the volition to jerk up to her feet, her pain turning into unbearable anger. Gripping the pendant against her chest, she snarled at being abandoned and tried to focus her resolve at the doorway several feet away.

Piccolo stood in inner turmoil at the steps exiting to the void. Nail was yelling at him, but he couldn't hear anything the other Namekian shouted. He could only feel the crippling sense of despair that overtook him at knowing he had to detach himself…He was too damned attached. It was making him feel things that were foreign and that filled him with so much overwhelming fear and bitterness.

His white nails were digging sharply into his palms as he felt her presence, watching him. He turned, coaxing his expression into an empty mask as he looked at her over his shoulder. She stood away from the doorway, her hand gripping the pendant at her chest as she supported herself against the wall with the other arm. Her eyes were veiled by her hair as it fell over her face, her mouth parted as she inhaled and exhaled her breath hungrily.

He couldn't help but turn and walk up the steps to cut some of the emptiness between them, but his mind shouted vehemently for him to stop. Standing in utter conflict, Piccolo berated himself for his damned indecision and his weakness that only—

"You coward," she seethed between clenched teeth as she glared up at him.

He was taken aback not only by her accusation, but by the red flare in her eyes that sparked just as fast as it dissipated. She clawed at the wall, standing straight while her features betrayed a swell of pain that went through her from her efforts. Her hand fisted the pendant as she pressed her side to the wall.

"Sofia—"

"Don't say a word to me! You fucking coward!" she felt her anger boiling; every pore seemed stretched as if she would burst from her rage, and the pangs of pain kept shooting into her chest.

Despite the emotional turmoil flooding his mind, anger rose sharply within him at being verbally accosted by her. "Watch yourself—!" he spat between clenched teeth as he stalked closer to her. Before he could get too close, she pushed him back with a solid telekinetic blow to the chest. The blow knocked the wind out of him.

"You're like everyone else," she stated with submerged hurt. "You are no better than everyone else…you're so empty of anything meaningful; all you have is the fear of the world inside you, you fucking coward—!" she gritted her teeth as every wave of anger jolted through her chest.

"Shut your mouth, Sofia—!" he was suddenly closer to her than she expected he could be in the blink of an eye. He grabbed her by the upper arms and subdued her against the wall before she could compose enough focus for another telekinetic blow. "Who do you think you are?! You're just a selfish brat with no comprehension of the world! Just because you can't stand to live your own life doesn't give you the right to try and latch onto mine!" he shouted in her face, letting go of her arms as he spat out, "Don't confuse me with what you are ever again."

He hadn't made it a step away from her when she suddenly spat, "Can't stand to live, huh," Piccolo glanced back at her, not understanding her retort. "Living in a shell of your former self since Goku defeated you," she whispered contumely, hitting a nerve when she added, "you can't stand what you've become, and because of that you push everyone away…you're a coward and a fool…and to top it off, for all your noble sacrifices, you're still fucking empty inside."

He turned, his imposing height pressing over her. His glare was hollow of anything, but she felt his rage as if it came off in waves from him.

"Just like you."

Her eyes wavered in anger from the cold utterance, and he saw a pang of fury flash through as she shouted, "At least I wasn't created to be a hollow, hateful coward—!"

SLAAAAAAAAAAAP!

The contact of skin striking skin echoed to the domed ceiling.

Piccolo stood stiff, his arm still extended from hitting Sofia across the face with the back of his hand. He slowly lowered his hand when she stood transfixed against the wall, a bruise forming on her cheek and a welt swelling the corner of her mouth from his blow. Her eyes were wide, while her expression betrayed a torrent of emotions that struggled to reach the surface.

Nail shouted at him, but Piccolo could only focus on Sofia. He never let his temper get the best of him, especially in a situation that didn't involve life or death. She could push his buttons, sure, but she had never hit a nerve that would make him lash out in such a petty way. The ruthless warrior felt a jolt in his chest. Guilt? No, it was more like…shame. He'd hit her in temperamental anger when she hadn't deserved it. His mind was a tumult of indecision. The one thing he wanted to do was hold her…but he knew they had floated so far apart in the last few minutes that it would be a miracle if they could ever return to what they had before…

Sofia felt the ire she hadn't felt in years rise up in her like a sick, dizzying wave. He'd hit her…he had abandoned her in her overwhelming fear and now he'd hit her as if she was an inferior, weak creature that he could abuse into submission. She couldn't feel anything inside of her but that violent wave of fury…The person she'd trusted for months with her very life was her ultimate betrayer, and she couldn't help feeling the devastating decay eat away at her from the inside…

He reached out for her arm as she remained still, staring blankly while her shoulders shook minutely. "Sofia—"

Her eyes came alive with wrath as she focused on him. In a split second, she fiercely struck him in the face with a punch that snapped his head to the side and sent him to sprawl to the ground.

His head swam as he sat up and stared at her, the copper-sweet taste of his blood and the loose tooth in his mouth shocking him into incredulity more than the actual blow.

When he looked back up at her, he could see how her frame shook uncontrollably, as if she was being torn apart inside. Sofia abruptly stared down at him with a lethal glare that was completely alien to her usually cool and playful countenance. That's when the necklace started to pulsate to the rhythm of her heartbeat.

"If you come near me again….I will…kill you—!" she forced past her clenched throat before phasing out into her room and out through the archway. He heard her blast off into the void.

Before Piccolo knew it, he was on his feet and running out after her, his stomach in knots and a cold sweat breaking out along his spine as his mind raced. He suddenly realized the quandary he was in: he needed to pull her back from the brink, but she had severely warned him; if he got too close now, both of them could harm the other more than anything else could. But, he felt compelled to reach over the void that he had stupidly created. He could see her energy trail, a violent red tearing through the ghostly white of the chamber's sky.

Blasting towards her at a breakneck speed, Piccolo tried to sort through the mire in his mind. Adrenaline, anxiety, irrational anger, and guilt fueled him, tugging at his insides until he felt like his abdomen was tied in knots. Everything was racing around him, and he fought every urge to not lose his temper and make a rash move in subduing Sofia.

He knew something was wrong. The way that necklace pulsated was eerie and ominous, nothing like the flashes it would have when she'd suffer a bout of rage. It was almost as if it fed off of her, and she off of it. How his mind could mull over anything in his frenzied pursuit made him wonder, and then dismiss it all. He could only focus on her manic maneuvers to ditch him, but even if he had to deplete his ki to catch up with her he would without a second thought.

Please Sofia! Let me fix this…!


She was burning from the inside out. And that wasn't a metaphor for the pain and fury she felt. It felt like her blood was on fire and it was roaring to burn right out of her. Her senses were throbbing, her whole body and mind thrown into a hypersensitive chaos that she could barely focus on a thought or catching her ragged breath. The pain was intense—yet utterly hollowing. The only thing that pushed the emptiness that threatened to swallow her from the inside out was the irrepressible rage. Each pang of fury sent a jolt right through her chest, along with a myriad of harried images and noises, as if her mind was screaming and her memories were being erased and replaced with others. Only one voice kept breaking through to taunt her in the anarchy of her mind.

'Nisou Kyouran!' The voice rasped in a vicious sing song tone, jarring everything in her and causing her to lace her talon-like nails into her scalp and scream. The loss of control caused her to plummet in the air, and the chaos is her mind suddenly became replaced with the confusion of above and below, stark white in all directions distorting her senses so much that she barely remained in the air, regaining jerkily her control. That's when she finally sensed Piccolo gaining on her. She suddenly halted in mid air and whirled on him, the action so abrupt that Piccolo barely had time to come to a skidding halt just yards away from her.

Piccolo's jaw was clenched so tight the muscle was twitching from the tension. He couldn't believe the malcontent she held in her gaze. Eyes that looked ancient, but vivid from the ire she held solely for him bore down, her breath ragged and her frame jerky under the brunt of internal turmoil while her pendant pulsated turbulently.

They both floated above the ghostly floor. The air around them was suffocating and thick, but even Piccolo didn't expect for Sofia to raise her hand palm facing out at him, seething through bared fangs, "I told you to stay away!"

Just as her hand started to envelop with crimson ki, Piccolo's keen battle sense kicked in at realizing he couldn't fully avoid the blast. He phased as quickly as he could in front of her and gripped her forearm firmly, jerking it away so the blast misfired into the distance of the void, the echo of its crash rumbling raucously like thunder. Sofia recovered by palm hitting him in the jaw and jabbing a pressure point with her index and middle fingers in his shoulder that sent a hot jolt into the joint, forcing Piccolo to grunt and let go of her forearm. He fell back just in time to avoid a roundhouse so full of force that it probably would've sent him reeling to the ground below.

"Dammit—! STOP and let me—oof!" Piccolo's shout was silenced by a telekinetic blow that sent him skidding back in the air.

Sofia was in berserk mode, not even hesitating as she cupped her hands to her sides and charged a crackling sphere of energy within her bowled palms. As sudden as her rage flared, the pendant resting over her chest shot a paralyzing pain that went through her and directly up her spine. She yelled from the intense pain and grabbed her skull, the hot flash sending her mind into debilitating blindness to her surroundings and causing her to plummet and crash to the ground hard.

"Sofia!" Piccolo blasted down to the ground, landing hard on his knees from still having the wind knocked out of him. He recovered quickly and rushed towards her, gripping her arms in an attempt to stop her from thrashing about from the pain and inner torment.

Meanwhile, Sofia felt trapped in her head, as an unknown force entrapped her in a slew of flashes and nauseating confusion of scenes engulfed in fire, death, war, with an unexplained gravitation to such mayhem rising all around and within her. Then, from the chaos emerged stark darkness. It was thick and suffocating, as if she was submerged in an ocean where the surface was miles above her head. Before she thought she was going to black out, Sofia was grabbed and pulled towards her concealed tormentor, the air exploding from her lungs as terror prickled all of her senses.

'I've been craving your taste for eons—SOFIA!" the tormenting and insidious obsidian eyes of her nightmare and of Kyouran's past instantly morphed into dark onyx that was completely alien to her in the chaotic haze.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" She shrieked in a whirl of fear and fury, lashing out at Piccolo like a frenzied and injured animal, managing to slash the side of his face from his cheekbone to his jaw.

Piccolo hissed and leapt away from her, jumping into a less intimidating pose and cautiously judging his distance from her as she regained her stance and circled around herself, as if she was looking for shadows and aggressors that just weren't there.

Reality blasted into her eyes, the blistering white stinging her retinas as she staggered on her hands and knees into a defensive stance. Her actions were blurring with the fear she felt. She was barely aware Piccolo had touched her until she felt her black nails slash his face.

"Just-stay-away!" she hissed quietly, not really focusing on him until he moved towards her. Her pendant flared red, and Sofia shrieked when a powerful and jarring pain went through her like a lightning bolt. She instantly keeled over, gripping her head and thrashing convulsively when she hit the floor.

The white light blasted away into a vision of mangled bodies strewn throughout a small charred and bloodied village. She heard wails of despair and utter torment echoing in her ears, the scenes blasting from one to another so rapidly she was getting nauseous from the visual chaos. Then a desolate meadow emerged from the dark recesses of the chaos. Sofia felt like she was a vapor caught in an immobile vacuum, her senses numbing while a benign sensation began to sharpen within her. The field felt incorporeal and cold, but beyond that Sofia stopped registering her surroundings and focused on the eerie figure that stood in the wavering darkness of the tall gray grasses.

She instantly knew it was Kyouran. She couldn't make out anything but the shape of her frame and her facial features. Then her vision fizzled and she felt like she was looking in the opposite point of reference, instead she knew it wasn't Kyouran who loomed in the swaying gray grass. She was staring at herself. The alarming thing was that neither figure differed in appearance. It was as if they were mirror images of one another, but acutely decipherable in aura. When that shocking realization struck her, Sofia felt her vision shift again, but this time the thrumming aura was suffocating, shifting Kyouran's appearance in the penumbra. It was pure rage. The aura was contorting into malicious and flagrant viciousness that was so inundating it felt as if she would be consumed whole by it. Yet again she was thrust to seeing herself, but her figure too was slowly changing into the mirror image of Kyouran's nocuous and blatant malevolent aura.

The passivity of her perspective broke, and she found herself trapped between the mirror images until both figures shifted and became one. She was within the purely un-concentrated rage, paralyzed to stop the wave rise within her and pour out of her very psyche. When it felt as if she would suffocate, a sensation akin to a searing current began to lace up her limbs, scorching her with a black tribal-like vine of fire to brand all over her. Just as the violent sensation reached her face, her vision exploded and all the energy around her curdled into a scintillating haze that seemed to deafen everything around her. The final image was of herself as she opened her now crimson eyes and the black brand coalesced from her left eye to slither down the side of her face.

Piccolo had rushed over to her when she convulsed to the ground. Her eyes stared in stark blindness right at him, but he knew she was gone to whatever internal struggle was blazing within her. His mind was racing and he could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage as a sudden sense of helplessness seized his mind. Just when he had decided to pick her up and rush her back to the small palace, Sofia bolted against him and tore herself from his grip, screaming and wrenching herself up before blasting off into the sky. When Piccolo gave pursuit, he watched as she was seized yet again by the violent attacks on her psyche. However, just as quickly it dissipated and she stopped, whirling slowly to face his direction and stare him down.

He could've sworn her chocolate eyes were flashing crimson, but when he phased closer to her, the peculiar glint was gone and her aura was heavy with fierce loathing as it scintillated violently around her.

Unexpectedly, the crackling boom of thunder resounded within the endless void of the chamber. That's when Piccolo felt a rain drop land on a brow ridge and run down the contours of his angular countenance. The drop was followed by more and more, until the void's sky was seized in thick, cloudy darkness before a torrential downpour begun. Staring aghast at the sky, Piccolo watched as lightning began to scintillate within the clouds before striking out across the atmosphere. A large bolt of lighting struck the ground, flashing the horizon red, and calling his attention back to Sofia.

She floated, her red aura complimented by the flashing of brilliant lighting that were accompanied by the raucous roar of thunder. The rain pelted down on them, but Sofia's burning aura fizzled the rain before it could touch her skin. Her psychological state is reverberating this dimension…this is her inner state, Piccolo mentally concluded just as an electric bolt slammed into the ground just to his side. Sofia struck him before the flash of light dissipated and the thunder rolled.

The pendant was glowing steadily as she quietly succumbed to her berserk mania, effectively forcing Piccolo on the defensive with a series of blows and phases that had him dizzy. He guarded every blow but could feel her fiery ki lick at his skin. The chamber revolted all around them, lighting raining down and flashing so bright that he would lose sight of her just before she would reappear and sock him in the jaw.

Becoming bruising in her offensive, Sofia pounded and pummeled Piccolo as if on a mission, causing Piccolo to weigh the pros and cons of having to initiate a ki defense. A bolt of lighting grazed Sofia's right side, causing her to cry out more from the shock than pain. The distraction was long enough for Piccolo to blast a protective sphere around himself and repel her away. Sofia recovered instantly, her hands coming to her center to resemble a tai chi pose before a concentrated crimson haze coalesced around her palms and morphed into a crackling series of charges before she blasted it with a feral yell straight at Piccolo.

Piccolo barely suppressed his shock long enough to avoid the blast that grazed his cape and set it aflame. He hurriedly yanked the weighted shoulderpads and canopy and let it fall to the ground, while a sonic boom resounded just behind him from where her blast detonated against the ground. Where did that attack come from?! Piccolo shouted mentally as he turned back to face Sofia.

She fluidly fell into her eerie fighting stance, her body absent of the uncontrollable shivers of before.

"Dammit Sofia! I don't want to fight you!" he shouted at her over the deafening crashes of thunder and the pelting deluge.

"Then stay still if you wish," she coldly projected and bared her fangs at him, her aura exploding around her as she blasted towards him, her hands poised to drive her crane-fisted palms into him.

Piccolo felt trapped, the sensation causing anger to bubble to the surface and cloud his rational mind. "I'm going to end this!" he shouted as he raised his index and middle finger to his temple, instantly charging his most deadly attack.

She still advanced, regardless of the pain that was shooting warnings all over her nervous system and the sharp buzzing at the back of her skull. Her arms enveloped completely into a fiery charge of ki that would've sliced cleanly through anyone or anything had Piccolo not pointed his flickering fingers at her.

"SPECIAL-BEAM-CANNON!" He shouted and fired his spiraling energy at her, causing Sofia to skid to a stop and force her body into a shield pose. Her left side took the brunt of his attack before she cried out and her hold faltered. She jerked quickly to the side to let the beam shoot past her, but the damage to her arm was done.

Piccolo thought for sure she would've met the blast with her own attack, but her reckless defense nearly skewered her left side. His attack lit up the void and flashed against the dark lighting clouds before the red and bright flashes of bolts colliding all around them took over the scene again.

Sofia's conscious was wavering under the brunt of pain and the weight of her sanity. She let her gashed and bloodied arm fall limp to her side while she raised the other palm face up towards him. The attack style always reminded the Namek of the ruthless Saiyan Prince, a comparison that was terrifying him to the bone, especially now. A spiral of ki came to life in her palm before firing straight at him faster than he had anticipated her attack, catching him on the side of his upper arm before he could evade the blast completely.

He jerked back towards her, absently clutching the wound on his arm, and spared a glare as he decided he couldn't let her make another energy attack.

Sofia's pendant was in a consistent crimson glow, the aura resembling a cocoon with every flash of thunder that fell from the ominously dark sky. The fractures to her radius and ulna were mending rapidly, as was the gash that lacerated her left arm. She clenched and unclenched her fist experimentally, relishing the freedom of the ki saturating her mortal coil.

Tilting her head as she considered Piccolo mockingly, she drawled caustically, "Lessee if I can finish this," and threw her formerly wounded arm up above her head with her palm cradled towards the sky. As if she was harnessing the pure lighting from the clouds, a coalesced sphere of molten red ki formed and expanded within her upraised palm before she was suddenly assaulted by an internal pain. The energy faltered as she threw her head back and arched from the blistering pain that shot up her spine from a series of jolting spasms that were radiating from the garnet pendant resting in the onyx banding over her chest.

Piccolo watched for only a second before resolving to take the chance opportunity. Blasting off in the blink of an eye, he barreled at her before spearing her and using the momentum and his muscled frame to drive her towards the misty white ground below. They both slammed in the ground hard enough to crush any other mortal's bones. Sofia roared hoarsely from having the wind crushed out of her lungs before blasting a ki field outward. The blast propelled Piccolo off of her to slam back to the floor several yards away from her.

Sofia pounced onto her heels and bared her fangs at him as he recovered onto his feet with a swift back flip.

"You bastard—!" She seethed and cupped both her hands in a clear gesture of a mounting ki assault, when suddenly a bolt of lighting skirted striking her directly, but managed to blow her off her heels to crash on her back. "OOF—!NGAH!" she choked and shouted when her skin made contact with the electrically-charged ground. The jolt was equivalent to coming in contact with a live power line, instantly sending her nervous system into spasms before she could manage to get onto her knees and freeze in agonizing horror. A series of jolts emanating from the pounding reverberations of her pendant paralyzed her body and zapped white hot suffering into her cerebellum—

She was no longer under the torrential downpour; no thunder or lighting stormed above or around her; turning in several directions, Sofia felt the incorporeal veil she was subjugated to. Nothing but her buzzing mind existed in this plane of awareness, as the landscape began to turn into clarity and a scene emerged. Kyouran was barreling towards her as she emerged from the edge of a dense forest into the meadow where her first introduction to her own brutality occurred.

She was halfway into the meadow when she skidded to a stop and whirled around just as she fired a concentrated sphere of ki back into the wood. Popping and crashing sounds echoed loudly just before a wicked chuckle emanated from the shadows of the trees.

"Now how am I supposed to introduce myself when you're firing so tempestuously at me like that, Nisou Kyouran?" the mocking rasp began from the tree line, but became a whisper right over her shoulder.

Kyouran phased out just as the figure was about to strike her from behind. Reappearing to face him a few yards away, Kyouran's expression hadn't wavered, but the pulsing of her pendant was evident through the white of her gi top.

"I'm so glad you got rid of that bulky breastplate, Nisou Kyouran," he husked in a sinister leer. "Now I'm fortunate to appreciate your full assets."

"You must be the fool everyone's going on about," she replied in Japanese, a clear sign she considered him inferior. "That lowly pimp Hiretsukan should've told me you were a low-grade demon."

The figure seemed to grimace at being talked down to. "Is that anyway to speak to your twin star…" he growled in a submerged tone.

Sofia watched the scene unravel. Kyouran's expression tightened, but her eyes betrayed the most surprise.

"My…twin star…" she muttered in a disbelieving tone as she was suddenly overcome with a dormant instinct that glowed subtly within her crimson irises.

"Yes…" the obsidian gleam in his eyes revealed the intrigue he felt for her. Stepping out of the shroud of shadow of the tall tree branches that hung over his head, the figure propelled himself in a lazy phase to stand in front of her for the first time since he had surprised her on the path from the market. Her necklace was illuminating through her clothes, the static around her enticed him to tip her chin up so she could stare up into his chiseled features.

In that instant, Sofia was thrust into Kyouran's point of view. At first the sun's late afternoon glare flashed in her sensitive eyes before they were able to focus on Kyouran's twin star and murderer.

Instant recognition shot into her and chilled her to her very soul.

She could only feel herself scream in horror as Kyouran lashed out against her twin star, shouting violently, "DIE!" before unsheathing her sword in one swift motion that brought the blade to slice the figure's forearm cleanly off in a flurry of dark blood, his yell of pain and their brutal scuffle before she managed to tear away and furiously run away for the first time in her short existence.

Left to grip the stub that his arm ended in, the malevolent figure hissed in a breath of what was more uncontrollable rage than pain. Glaring in the direction of the village his beloved soulmate was running to, he managed to let a snarled laugh break past his clenched jaw as he saw the plume of dark smoke that rose from the distance into the slowly darkening sky.

He spiked his ki to his feet and took off to see if his humble gift to Kyouran would please her as much as his doting caress had.


The charred smell of wood, soil, and flesh had assaulted her the minute she took flight towards the village. There was no question in her mind that she wasn't going to reach the blossoming village she had left what felt like eons ago.

Phasing into the center of what was once the priestess village, Kyouran stared at the wanton devastation littered and torn around her. Fires still danced on some of the wooden structures, but much of the village was smoldering and decimated.

The bodies were stacked in heaps as far as she could see.

She walked towards the direction of the high priestess' private home, only to find it still ablaze. On the way, she had spotted the corpses of many priestesses and protective guard, the body of Nisou Murami standing out before that of Kakyo. The priestess had been left a bloody mess, with her face a pale hue that contradicted the dark red she wallowed in. Her death wasn't instant, but it was clear she hadn't even had the opportunity to fend off the attack with a defensive spell. Kakyo the True had faired differently, however. His body revealed a story to her; a scenario of a man struck instantly by the black spike embedded in his side, but who continued to fight against what looked like a small horde of tracks that hadn't delved the killing blow that had left his chest cavity torn open and his heart ruptured and charred.

She found High priestess Sumeragi tied to a robust beam that seemed to have been erected in the small clearing at the eastside of the village solely for her own session of torture. She hung limp in her bonds, her mouth muffled with a web-like substance that prevented her from reciting incantations. Her neck was restrained by barbed wire wrapped around it and the beam that slowly sunk into her carotid artery and over her jugular while simultaneously forcing her to watch the devastation her followers and fellow priestesses fell to. She had bled out slowly, the most prolonged death she'd ever seen.

A small jolt deep within her gave her a macabre sense of poetic justice to the scene. Her keeper, who had treated her like a domesticated savage spending her remaining moments tied and left to die like the very animal she'd deemed Kyouran to be.

The snicker escaped her lips before she could prevent it. A wave of anger overtook her, as she hissed and slashed the restraints and wire, freeing the only mother she'd ever known to crash in a heap at her feet.

She glanced away from the lifeless shell. That's when she saw the jewel of the mass devastation. The small child was placed on the stage-like rock perch like a lifeless porcelain doll. Kyouran hopped up and crouched over the body with the lifeless vivid green eyes that stared blankly into oblivion. She placed her palm over the small girl's eyes and closed them, her gaze falling on the silver charm bracelet around the delicate wrist of her murdered friend. Strangulation was evident as the form of death. Dark rings laced around her pale neck, her auburn hair tangled and strewn messily around her.

Gritting her teeth, Kyouran lifted the lifeless girl into her arms and carried her to a secluded spot in the destroyed village. Next to the shrine marking her mother's resting place, she buried little Mekareh, pushing the soil to cover the grave with her shaking hands. The rage was like acid in her veins, but she still forced herself to retrieve Kakyo's body and bury him with his family, as she thought Mekareh would've liked.

As for the rest of the village, she piled all the bodies on a makeshift pyre she created, burning them and letting the wind scatter the ashes into the heavy sky weighing over her head. She watched the flames lick and dance around, her necklace pulsing continuously.

"Doesn't seem as if you liked my gift, Nisou Kyouran."

In an instant she was clashing her sword against his, her irises glowing fierily up into the cool obsidian eyes that mockingly cherished her expression.

"Oh come now, dear, I did all of this to free you!" he sauntered as he forced her to skid back with a blow of his sword.

Kyouran gritted her teeth before her gaze widened in surprise at the dastardly figure across from her.

He caught her shocked gaze and followed it. "Oh," he raised his arm and fisted his hand before releasing the clench and wiggling his fingers at her. "I let it regenerate while I watched you have your tender moments with this ant hill you call a village." Flashing a maniacal grin before clashing their swords again in rapid combat, he slashed at her blade as he shouted, "Now let me return the favor!" and broke her sword into shattered metal before driving his sword into a tree, completely missing her as she phased to the sky above the clearing.

He chuckled under his breath and went after her. The intense battle waged rapidly above the ground, the whole time the figure tried to goad and entice Kyouran ineffectively.

Finally growing aggravated by her lack of response, the figure shouted, "Why do you INSIST on fighting me! I'm your king just as you're my queen—GAUH!" Kyouran cut his rant short with a fist driven into his abdomen and a ki blast to the face, which sent him to crash into the ground and create a sizeable crater.

Landing quickly to the ground, Kyouran paused, and looked over her shoulder, sensing a familiar force making its way to the village, while yet another advanced quickly upon her and her antagonist.

"NISOU KYOURAN!" She turned calmly to meet the incensed figure, who leapt from the shallow crater, scraped and enraged into fervent cursing. "Where's that ravaging beauty I saw go wild?! Don't you see you're attacking your equal in birth and power?! We could rule this puny cosmos together, dammit! You belong to me, and I won't let you make a fool out of me with your impetuousness!" He spoke in a feverishly angered pace, his aura emanating all around him.

"You are in no way equal to me. A subversive rodent like you has no bond to me. I reject you, and your pimp Hiretsukan's so called destiny."

"So be it." The figure growled as reply, and in an instant he attacked her with a frenzied combo, which she furtively blocked. This only enraged the figure, so he tried to claw at her face, but she dodge just in time. All of a sudden, the figure pulled back with something in his hand. Kyouran put her left hand on her throat, realizing that he had grabbed something when she had dodged his attack. The figure sneered at her and threw what he had grabbed by her feet. She looked down, and saw her pendant and necklace in the dust. She narrowed her eyes and snarled at him. He was smirking, but the faked severity and sadness in his voice dissipated on the two last words, which he said with malice. "My naïve beauty. If you only knew how true our destinies are connected, you'd have accepted your place next to me in our future empire. But alas, I will have to save my affections for the distant future instead…my twin star."

Then in an instant, he appeared in front of Kyouran. Before she could react, he pulled back and rammed his clawed hand through her chest and out the other side, leaving his arm embedded up to the elbow in her chest. Kyouran gasped and choked a shout, coughing up blood into the air and to run down the corner of her mouth before she grabbed at the figures shirt in a throw of rage and incredulous pain. Blood began to stain her lips as she gasped and wheezed for air in her choking lungs. His cold obsidian gaze stared hoodedly into her slowly glazing stare before he lowered his sickening lips over hers. Licking the blood from her lips, he watched as her gaze glazed over and her expression grew blank. The tension went totally out of her body, and she fell limp in his grip.

"What a fucking pity…" he ground between clenched lips as he pulled his arm free from her chest and let her lifeless body fall to the ground. He turned his back on the lifeless woman, and bowed his head in what looked like agitated disappointment as a pool of crimson began to stain the soil all around her. Huffing, he growled under his breath, "Here I am alone, a Daimaou without his Daimajoou."

Turning around for one more cursory stare at his lifeless twin star, Piccolo Daimao licked his lips, tasting the lingering flavor of her potent life's essence as he ran his palm over his brow ridges and swept his antennae back, causing them to bob back into place. He crouched down beside Kyouran, running his taloned fingers into her damp and bloody hair as he leaned in for one more taste of her—

Piccolo's face came into stark focus as he loomed over her, calling her name and trying to shake her back into reality. Sofia wretched up and out of his grasp, screaming in terror and horror from the utterly maddening revelation of her visions into the past and truth.

"YOU! IT'S BEEN YOU THE WHOLE TIME!" she skidded away from him like an injured animal, staring at him with horror, disgust and trepidation. "The whole time!" she shrieked, incensed, fisting her hands into her mussed hair, gripping at her scalp as she shook her head in a state of mania, as if she could erase the truth and the visions from her mind.

Piccolo stood abruptly, shock and confusion etched around his tense eyes. "What are you talking about?! Sofia, for the love of Kami just stop—" he was cut off when she shrieked a bloodcurdling cry of rage at him before propelling herself into her fighting stance and attacking him with full force. Her aura and the rain whipped all around them as her fury began to boil over, making it very difficult for Piccolo to fend off her flurry of attacks.

"YOU KILLED HER! NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO FINISH IT WITH ME!" She raged savagely at him as she laced her ki to brace around her knuckles in a telekinetic set of brass knuckles, slashing at his skin and licking against his own intensifying aura.

"Killed who?! Who the hell are you TALKING ABOUT!?" he finally snapped, trying not to fight back but grappling her hard enough to blast her away from him to skid along the slick and puddled ground. As she slid, Sofia cupped her hands and charged a flash of ki to spiral towards Piccolo, one which he quickly avoided by phasing out and reappearing behind her. Wrapping his arm around her neck while hoisting her against his chest, he tried to subdue her as best to his ability, but her aura was burning and blistering his skin. As he wrenched her wrists in his other hand and pinned them against her chest, he growled, "Don't make me knock you out, Sofia! Now tell me what the hell is going on with you!"

Arching away from him, she inwardly let her energy build until she released it outward as she shouted, "Your fucking sire KILLED me—! You KILLED KYOURAN!"

Piccolo was repelled from his hold around her neck, allowing her to whirl on him and try and duplicate her former explosive attack, raising her hand over her head to collect a solid sphere of concentrated ki in her open palm. "SOFIA! JUST TALK TO ME—!" he tried to shout over the commotion of their environment and the surge of her power up. However, he went practically deaf as the dark sky over them opened up to drop a robust bolt of lighting to crash against Sofia's mounting ki sphere, setting off a thunderous explosion and boom that brightened the void into a blinding white flare and sent both of them to crash respectively away from each other.

As soon as the ringing in his eardrums ceased, Piccolo heard her piercing screams. His stomach dropped and every fiber of his being rushed as fast as his injured body could get him to her. She was half a football field distance away, arching off the floor and wrenching uncontrollably in pain, the puddles around her still rippling from the boom that was rising to the zenith of the void. The rain had ceased as if it had never fallen, the sky clearing to the usual stark white it was characteristic for.

When he made it to her, he almost visibly cringed at her battered condition. The blast had left a dark bruise over the left side of her ribcage that was slowly bleeding through her shirt. From how she cradled her right leg as well as the telltale bruises that spotted all over the front of her leg, it was clear that she had shattered her fibula.

"Dammit Sofia…" Piccolo whispered gruffly, but his tone was that of despondent worry over her. When she didn't reply and just tried to curl into a ball, he decided he wasn't going to watch her suffer. As he placed his arms under her legs and around her back, she freaked and flinched away from him, only causing the bloodstain on her shirt to darken and grow. "Don't move! You've broken ribs and your fibula's shattered. The less you move the less you can make it worse—" he paused his chiding admonishment when Sofia stared wildly up into his eyes. Her gaze was fiercely pained, revealing betrayal, mistrust, and a deeply haunted terror. He knew it was all aimed at him, for whatever part he could've played in her internal chaos and break. "Sofia…"

"You—don't know, do you…?!" she whispered harshly, her gaze trembling, on the brink of having another blow to her psyche. Piccolo stared back in stunned silence, his eyes softening in a way that was enough of an answer to her. "This necklace was mine—it was Kyouran's, my past life…" she paused her whisper when he started rushing them back to the archway of her room, which seemed like miles away to her. She didn't look into his gaze; she couldn't stand to. "The only reason I exist is because she died. It's all in my head…!" she clenched her eyes, and all Piccolo could do was stare down at her and feel the bottom drop out of him.

"…How could you not know what you did to me...?" she finally forced out just as they reached the palace, completely shocking Piccolo.

"I told you, I don't know what you're talking about!" he stated roughly, his patience and internal fortitude weighing with the frustration and chaos from just a few moments before.

They entered through the archway just as Sofia stared up at him again, but her gaze was purely judging and skeptical of him. "Your sire killed me—he killed Kyouran!" she shouted at him, causing him to stiffen and stare aghast down at her. "I'm Kyouran's reincarnation…YOU are Piccolo Daimao's reincarnation, so how could you not know what your sire did to my past self!?" she shouted in agitation, her eyes and her body trembling in his arms. "How do you expect me to believe you didn't know who I was and that you're not trying to finish what your father started and succeeded at!?"

Piccolo didn't know what he felt towards her accusations. He just stared at her as if she was insane. "I have no memory of that, and I'd have inherited my sire's memories if it had happen—!"

Sofia slapped him with every morsel of energy left in her battered body, her expression betrayed and painfully appalled at his response. Piccolo's eyes widened as her just slap sunk in. Everything in his heart told him she was telling the truth, but no molecule in his body held any record of such a thing.

"You bastard," she seethed at him, her face constricted from the pain of her body slowly mending her wounded side and leg. Piccolo stared intensely down at her, conflict etched in his expression and flashing in his onyx eyes. Those eyes…she knew them so well. She'd felt sheltered and even warmed by them once, but now she saw them as the sources of her devastating betrayal. "Put me down…Just put me down!" she demanded, her voice faltering with every emotion welling in her coming up in her throat.

Wordlessly, he took her to her bed and placed her on it. The way he was looking at her was making it hard for her to keep her exhausted emotions in check.

"I don't have any memory of what you told me." *Something really doesn't want me to know what's going on…* Ran through his mind for the second time, reminding him of the time he had hit the mental blockade that had guarded him out of whatever memories were held in that recess of his mind. Realizing something, Piccolo turned away from Sofia and placed his hands on both sides of his head, running them down to his neck as he bowled his head and cursed under his breath. Could it be?! Could they have…!

Sofia watched him, and felt the hollowness of before begin to corrode her again. She could never trust him again. The correction her mind made was that she should have never trusted him.

"As soon as you heal your wounds completely, you are to pack up and prepare to leave. We're leaving the chamber and you're returning to your world," he suddenly stated without even addressing her with a glance.

"…what?!" Sofia snapped, suddenly sitting up much too fast for her body to have compensated the sharp flash of pain from her side. "You're not getting rid of me without explaining what the hell you did—!"

"I didn't do anything to you! Before you accuse me of something I don't even have a memory of, why don't you take up your grievance with that sunovabitch Kami!?" he railed finally, whirling around and shouting at her, striking out over all the turmoil and the lack of knowledge or action towards the entire matter.

"Because it was YOUR BASTARD OF A FATHER who's responsible for what's going on! He not only killed Kyouran, but set it up for you to take his place—!"

"Daimao is not my father," he growled, "and I know NOTHING about any of the shit you keep accusing me of! So the sooner you get the hell out of here and let me figure this all out, the better it will be for the BOTH of us!"

"FUCK YOU!" Sofia vehemently railed back at him, earning only a deep glower from him before he turned and stalked to the door. "Don't you DARE run away from me again, you chicken shit coward!" she shouted.

Piccolo snapped back around and set her in his cold glare. "This from the one who ran away and threw a fucking temper tantrum for so long out in the void that she manipulated the environment just like she manipulates everything else in life!? You nearly got yourself killed! Get yourself under control already!" he raged intensely before continuing to stalk out into the next room.

Sofia gritted her teeth in exasperation, clawing her way to the end of the bed and shouting a curse at him. "Goddammit Piccolo, you fucking asshole!" she shouted as she propelled herself off the bed and tried to rush to the doorway, but the pulsing of her pendant caught her by surprise for the first time since the ordeal of earlier.

Piccolo turned and gave her a sidelong glance as she gripped the pendant and struggled to stand and walk without looking pained. "The subject is closed until you start listening to me!" he hollered at her, earning him a glare and a glower. Huffing, he turned to head toward the time chamber's door, when he heard the rushed padding of her feet going towards the threshold of both rooms.

"Piccologet BACK here!" Sofia yelled just as she began to pass through the threshold between her reality and his.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Whirling around at her bloodcurdling scream, Piccolo watched as Sofia's pendant sent crackling jolts of static all over her body before reaching a critical point of pain when suddenly the garnet stone cracked and exploded into hundreds of jagged shards before embedding themselves in her skin. The onyx necklace and banding shattered as they hit the floor while Sofia screamed and writhed in excruciating pain. Piccolo rushed to her, but stopped himself before touching her when he watched as the shards began to sink into her skin, as if the stone was assimilating into her very body.

Sofia fell to her knees writhing and screaming before she began to convulse and contort in all directions. Piccolo yelled in shock, and tried to restrain her from hurting herself. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" she suddenly shrieked as an invisible burst forced Piccolo back to slam against the wall before hitting the tiled floor with a loud thud and shout of pain.

Energy was radiating off of her, so much so that it kept him at bay from being able to aid her. He could only watch as Sofia continued to convulse and writhe as if in the throes of death before the violent movements ceased into struggling and eventually dulled into tremors.

Piccolo screamed her name. Sofia could've sworn she heard someone calling her name, but she couldn't feel him shaking her in his arms, nor see his panicked face shouting over her. Awareness was disappearing, and the stray thought of dying glimmered in her mind, but, something within her was awakening and all she knew was that it had told her she wasn't dying.

Blackness was like a blanket around her; not suffocating, but similar to soothing peace. Then, nothing…


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