War of the Tsurekin

(Sorry for the lack of posts these past few days. Things are getting pretty hectic over here with me having to finish up assignments while fighting off a cold. It couldn't have come at a worse time, either. Tomorrow I have an assignment due which I'm no where near finished, so I have to work all day today while my cold is sapping at my mental strength.)


They found their way back to the others. Ivy saw the red mark on Skylar's cheek from where her father had slapped her. "Skylar, what happened?" she asked, worried.

"Nothing," Skylar lied.

"Her father slapped her," Kai said. Ivy started to say something, but Kai added, "Everything's taken care of. He's gone now."

"What did he want?" Ivy asked.

"He wanted to take me home with him," Skylar said. "I told him to screw off and he slapped me."

"If I had known he would do something like that I would have sent him away."

"It's okay, Ivy," Kai said. "He's gone now."

Ivy smiled and nodded. "Well, that's good. Now why don't we start with this morning's training?" Kai and Skylar joined everyone else as they gathered in front of Ivy. "Before we start, there's something I'd like you all to see. For those of you who are not aware, last night Kai and Ryukin performed Soul Fusion for the first time." There were a few surprised murmurs among the group. Ivy looked at Kai and said, "Kai, would you like to show us all how it's done?"

"Sure." He and Ryukin went off to the side, putting some room between them and everyone else. He kneeled down in front of Ryukin and placed his hand on his head. Just like before, their bodies began to glow. Ryukin broke up into hundreds of pieces and reassembled himself as armour on Kai's body. Then the remaining bits formed the sword.

Ivy said, "Everyone, I'd like you to meet our newest member, Shinryu."


(If you don't have any ideas of what to do next, you can depict everyone's reaction to seeing Kai and Ryukin fuse.)

***Thats fine, and that works. ***

Skylar smiled as she watched everyone's reactions. They gasped and made several remarks of surprise and awe.

"That is so cool!" Ceder grinned. "I can't wait to do it myself."

"It takes alot of work." Ivy said.

"Why does he have a new name?" Becky asked.

"Because, he is neither Kai or Ryukin." Ivy explained.

"How does that work?" Elise asked.

Ivy explained, "Kai and Ryukin's minds and souls have become one. He has all the memories and thoughts of both, but only has them conveyed through one consciousness. It's something hard to understand unless you actually do it yourself."

"You and Akira can do Soul Fusion as well, right?" Skylar asked.

"Yes, would you all like to see that as well?" she asked. Everyone nodded excitedly. "All right. Akira?"

Akira smiled and shook her head. "Mattaku, you kids sure are a pain." Akira kneeled down in front of Mirage, and Ivy in front of Sahara. When they touched their Tsurekin, Akira and Mirage's body glowed with a white light, and Ivy and Sahara with red.

The transformation for both of them was similar to what happened to Kai, with their Tsurekin breaking up into small pieces and swirling around their bodies. The armour arrangement was similar as well, legs to legs, arms to arms, their Tsurekin's heads becoming helmets, and so on. Neither of them had any large weapons like Shinryu's sword, though. When Akira and Mirage finished transforming into Shaira, their predominant feature was their large, sharp claws that looked dangerous enough to gut a bear in one swipe. Ivy and Sahara finished transforming into Memphis. Their claws were large, but not as large as Shaira's. Instead, Memphis' predominant feature was her large mane.

"What do you all think?" Shaira asked. Her voice was steady and calm like Mirage's, but at the same time carefree like Akira's.

Memphis turned to the others and said, "If you all train very hard, you'll be able to do this as well." Her voice was authoritative, like Sahara's, but also caring like Ivy's.

Skylar looked at them in awe. What she would do to be able to have that bond with Tala. Tala nudged her.

"We'll get there." She said softly. "Soon, I can feel it."

"I hope so." Skylar smiled down at her and then looking at the others. "Once another of us master it will we spare that way?"

"Not right away," Memphis said. "Even without prior training in this form, when you use Soul Fusion it unlocks a significant amount of your Tsurekin's hidden power. If you spar right away you'll risk the chance of seriously hurting each other."

Shaira said, "If you really want to spare, it'll have to be against me or Memphis."

Shaira and Memphis both defused, turning back into Akira and Mirage, and Ivy and Sahara. Ivy said, "Now, without further ado, let's start today's training."

(((I've nothing my day has been horrible. Stupid little brother thinks he can bully everyone and whenever I stand up to him I get in trouble. :@ I'm so sick and tired of him. Mom wont stand up to him cause she is scared of him, and dad doesn't think he can do anything wrong. :@ )))

(I'm sorry to hear that. It's really tough when no one will listen to you about something like that. My suggestion is to keep standing up to him, because the moment you stop he wins.

As for the story, we could do a time jump to later that night.)

(((Ya, trust me I"m not going to back down from him. I'm sick and tired of it all. My ',' button doesn't work less I jam it down. :@ SO if I miss one and don't catch it that is why. )))

Skylar finished training and dragged herself inside laying down. She had put 110% of her energy in the training today. She was going to get better, she wasn't to happy she hadn't been able to do more with the agent, but that would change soon.

"So you never told me how the date went." Elise smiled walking over and sitting next to her as the others walked in and started playing in the game room, or sitting around and watching tv or something.

"It went well til that agent showed up." Skylar smiled.

"Come on, girl, did he kiss you?" Elise demanded in a whisper. Skylar felt her cheeks flare and Elise grinned. "He did!"

(That's good to hear. How old is your little brother, anyway?)


Shigure was sitting off to the side in the game room while everyone else did their own thing. She couldn't get Ty's kiss out of her mind. It was the absolute first time a boy had ever kissed her. She didn't know what to think. Her face started to turn a little red when she realised she may actually like him.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, snapping her out of her thoughts. She took it out and flipped it open. Alex had just sent her a text message, saying, "Your final assignment is ready. Come to the junk yard at midnight."

So, it was finally time. Once she completes this last task her brother will be set free. She had been waiting a long time for this, yet in the back of her mind she felt sad. She looked at everyone else in the game room. For the short amount of time she had spent with them, they were already starting to feel like a family to her. She knew she would have to betray them sooner or later, but she had hoped to spend a little more time with them.

Ty spotted Shigure and began to walk over. She shut off her phone and put it back in her pocket before he arrived. "What are you doing over here all by yourself?" he asked.

"Just relaxing," Shigure said.

Ty sat on the chair beside her. "You're always sitting by yourself. Why don't you join the rest of us?"

"I'm fine by myself."

Ty shrugged. "If you say so. By the way, a new movie just came out to theaters a few days ago. I was wondering if you'd like to come watch it with me tonight?"

Shigure shook her head. "I can't tonight, I have something else planned."

"All right, then how about tomorrow night?"

Shigure thought about it for a moment. She didn't know what her last mission was, so she couldn't make any promises she might not be able to keep. But she couldn't outright say no, either. She settled with, "I'll think about it."

(15)

Ty nodded, what was he supposed to expect? For some reason he had a feeling something was quiet right, but he would trust her. He just wished he could spend more time with her alone. He streched his legs out and smiled.

"So, that whole soul fusion thing is pretty cool." He smiled trying to strike up a conversation.

"It is pretty neat, I'm sure we're all closer to being able to preform it." She replied. She seemed a tad cold, like she was trying to block herself off. He didn't know why and that bothered him. He wanted her to trust him.

(Want to do a time jump to midnight? I can't really think of anything right now. Good news, though. I'm finally over my cold. I just hope another one doesn't pop up out of nowhere the next day like what happened to me last year.)

***We can do that, I don't know what to post. I hope it doesn't that would really stink.***

Shigure waited until everyone in the mansion was fast asleep before sneaking out. But as she got dressed she noticed the stuffed frog she had won at the carnival sitting beside her bed. It reminded her of the time she had spent with Ty. It caused her to hesitate.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Kaeru asked.

Shigure sighed. "It's not a matter of wanting to or not, if I don't then they won't free my brother."

"Even at the cost of betraying your friends?"

She shook her head. "It's my own fault for getting too involved with them."

"No matter what you choose to do, know that I will always follow you."

Shigure looked at her Tsurekin for a moment. She nodded and said, "We'd better get going."
___________________

They arrived at the junkyard just as the hour turned to midnight. Alex was already there waiting for her, sitting on the roof of a crushed car. He smiled when he saw her. "Well, well, the time has finally come, hasn't it? Just one more task and you'll be reunited with your brother."

"Just tell me what I have to do," Shigure said.

"Not so fast. You've still got some intelligence to report, don't you? We all saw the Tsurekin Agent on the news. While there wasn't any footage of the battle, I know for a fact that someone from The Aushalten defeated it. Now tell me, who was it that was strong enough to defeat the Agent?"

Shigure considered for a moment whether or not she should tell him the truth. But finally, she said, "It was Kai. He and Ryukin have managed to perform Soul Fusion."

Alex seemed a little surprised to hear that. "Is that so?" He smiled. "Then I can't wait to fight him again." He hopped off the roof of the car before saying, "Is that everything?"

Shigure nodded. "Yes."

"All right then. Jirran has told me to give you your mission details. Listen closely, because I'm only going to say this once. Under Ivy's mansion there's a vault where she keeps all her great grandfather's finds. Among those artifacts is a red crystal orb just larger than your fist. It may not look like much, but that crystal has some powerful energy flowing through it. Ivy doesn't know its significance yet, she probably thinks it's just a normal artifact. It shouldn't be too hard to get at once you're inside the vault. Once you obtain the orb, bring it back here."

"What's the deadline?"

"Before the sun rises, so you'd better hurry."


(You can have Skylar or someone wake up to get something to drink and have them see Shigure going to the basement.)

((Ok))

Skylar rolled over in bed and growled as she sat up. She couldn't sleep, she had the worst feeling that something was wrong. She sighed as she sat up and looked around the room for the glass of water she normally had. Tala stood up and looked at her. "You didn't get one tonight." She said streching.

"Joy." Skylar growled getting up and wrapping a blanket around her shoulders before walking down the hall quietly to the kitchen. She got a cup of water and walked towards her room again and then froze when she smelled something. It was Shigure, but Skylar wasn't anywhere closer to Shigure's room.

"What's wrong?" Tala demanded.

"Hush." Skylar replied they slowly walked down the hallway and she saw Shigure's form slipping down the door to the basement. "We're not allowed down there without Ivy with us and I don't smell her."

"I don't like the look of this," Tala said.

Sky nodded. "Me neither. Let's check it out."
__________________

Shigure and Kaeru made their way down the long staircase until they came to a large metal door. There seemed to be no way to open it other than a small panel on the wall beside it. The panel consisted of only a small lit up green square about the size of her thumb. A finger print scanner, she thought. Shigure reached into her pocket and pulled out a thin strip of sticky acetate and pressed it against the scanner. Using the print that had been left recently she managed to open the door.

The inside of the vault had many treasures and artifacts. Most of them looked to be worth a few thousand dollars on their own. But greed was a temptation Shigure had been trained to ignore, she was here for one thing and one thing only.

She walked past a few display cases until she came to one with an old round rock. The surface was covered with stone in clumps here and there, but underneath was the gleam of crimson. This was what she was looking for. She pulled out a thick knife and started to carve a hole in the glass of the display case.

"Shigure, what are you doing!?"

Shigure's heart sank as she spun around to see Skylar and Tala standing at the door. She had been found out. The moment Skylar saw what Shigure was doing, her mission changed. Now, her objective was to take the crystal and escape no matter the cost.

Shigure spun back toward the case. She raised the thick knife over her head and brought it down on the glass with all her might, shattering it into pieces. Alarms blared throughout the mansion. No doubt everyone would be here in a matter of moments.

"Shigure, stop what you're doing!" Skylar demanded. Shigure ignored her, grabbing the crystal from its case. "Tala, stop her!"

"Right!" Tala rushed forward, but was immediately sent flying into the wall when Kaeru hit her with his lightning fast tongue. Both Shigure and Kaeru started running for the door. Skylar ran up to stop Shigure, but was knocked onto her back by the girl. They both went up the stairs and ran out the building.

A few moments later Skylar heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Ivy came down first, followed by Sahara, Kai, and Ryukin. Ivy kneeled beside Skylar and asked, "Skylar, what happened here?" For the first time ever she heard really panic in the woman's voice.


(They're going to follow Shigure to the junkyard.)