Dame Kurella dragged herself out of the wrecked wall.
Her grey fur was matted with dust, but her eyes were burning.
She straightened up.
"Ah, so the king of the scrappers has a spine after all? Quelle surprise. I truly expected you to tuck that mangy tail and scurry back to the dirt like a good little coward. It seems you've come back just to make a mess of my evening... how tiresome."
Kurella taunted them as she brushed the dirt off her shoulders.
Yamcha tightened his fist.
"Mugicha was right all along, even Oolong saw it... and I was too blind to listen."He muttered to himself under his breath.
Kurella burst into laughter, as a flicker of sadistic curiosity crossed her face.
"Ah, let me guess... the little orphan is here to cry about his family? Quelle tragédie. They failed to meet their quotas. In our world, a broken tool is simply discarded. It was a mercy, really. Don't you find a job well-done... much more beautiful than a lingering failure?"
"Tch. Like you were ever gonna let us walk away. Whether we handed over the balls or not, we were dead the second we saw your faces. Less witnesses, less loose ends... that's how your kind operates, right?"
Yamcha roared, dropping into a wide, powerful stance.
He cupped his hands like claws, he prepared his Roga Fufuken stance.
"I'm going to hunt every last one of you down. No hiding, no running... I'm not stopping until there's nothing left of your organization but a memory. You're all dead men walking."
Bulma pushed herself to her feet.
The panic drained away, leaving focus.
She wiped the dust from her cheek, already thinking ahead, this situation was dangerous, and it demanded everything she had.
"Yamcha, listen, we're a team for the next five minutes. I'll keep her distracted and cover you with my gear, but you've gotta be the one to close the gap. Let's end this, now!"
Yamcha didn't turn his head, his eyes locked onto Kurella.
"Just stay out of my way."
Yamcha threw himself forward, closing the gap in a heartbeat.
"RAAAAAAH!!"
His hands raked out in sharp, snapping strikes, each one aimed to tear through her guard.
Kurella answered with an eerie calm.
She flowed around the attacks, long limbs cutting precise angles through the air.
Each time Yamcha tried to slip past her defense, her claws met his fists head-on, steel shrieking as sparks flew.
Through it all, her eyes stayed locked on him, cold and unblinking.
"So... this is the great Wolf of the Desert?"
Kurella leaned back, a stray punch whistling past her ear as she offered a lazy, mocking smile.
"I was expecting a predator, mon cher, but all I see is a frightened pup snapping at the air. Are you truly the best the sands have to offer?"
Kurella lunged forward with a horizontal swipe of her claws.
"Here! Let me show you how to actually draw blood!"
Yamcha didn't fall for it.
He twisted in the air, the claws slicing past his chest with a sharp whistle.
When his feet hit the floor, he spun on his heel, using the narrow hallway to steady himself.
He sank low, muscles coiling tight, then surged forward.
This wasn't his usual flurry of strikes. He poured everything into one committed charge.
"Roga Fufuken, Howl Strike!"
The air around his fists screamed as a ghostly wolf's head took shape, jaws wide, riding the force of his punch as he drove it straight at Kurella's core.
The pressure alone tore loose strips of wallpaper.
Kurella's eyes flared wide as Yamcha's power surged.
She snapped her massive, furred arms into a tight cross just as the blow struck home.
The hallway erupted.
The shock rippled across the twelfth floor, glass bursting outward as the last intact windows gave way.
Kurella was driven back step by brutal step, her claws carving deep grooves into the floor as she fought to keep the force from tearing straight through her guard.
Kurella dug in, claws carving into the floor until the momentum died.
Her breathing hitched, then evened out.
The rigid calm returned as she looked over her torn sleeves and the bruises creeping along her arms.
"Heh... Maudite soit-elle. Such a clumsy, graceless style... and yet, you managed to touch me. You've left a smudge on my reputation, scrapper. I hope you're ready, because I don't leave messes behind."
She adjusted her footing, pulling it in tight instead of spreading out.
Her hands rose into a poised shape, like a fox listening in the dark.
"If you want to dance, I'll take that clumsy little style of yours and... refine it. Let's call it the Kitsune Fufuken. It's much more sophisticated, don't you think?"
Kurella was gone.
Not in a rush, she slipped through the space between moments, her movement leaving echoes in the hallway.
Yamcha felt it before he saw it.
His body tensed, warning bells going off, but he reacted just a shade too late.
Impact hammered into him in quick succession.
Her strikes were tight and exact, nothing wasted.
Where Yamcha hit with weight and follow-through, she cut for joints and nerves, each blow sharp and biting, like needles driven under the skin.
She circled him in clean, deliberate angles, then ended it with both palms striking his chest. The burst through him and tore out his back in a rippling wave.
Yamcha was thrown across the hall.
He crashed into a credenza, wood exploding apart on impact, and dropped hard to the floor, coughing.
Shit... even Yamcha? She just brushed him off like he was nothing. This is bad. This is really, really bad.
Bulma thought, concerned.
She didn't rush to his side.
Her focus stayed on Kurella, who was already resetting her footing, posture clean and composed, as if the exchange had barely cost her anything.
"There. Much better, non? Now... I believe it's time to tidy up the rest of this hallway. We can't have trash like you cluttering up the architecture, can we?" She said, looking toward Bulma.
Yamcha dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing away the blood as he drew in a rough breath.
The haze in his eyes cleared, replaced by something hard and dangerous.
He pushed himself upright, boots crunching against broken wood as the remains of the credenza shifted beneath his weight.
"I was actually worried there for a minute. Then I saw how you work. You're great at killing people who can't fight back, but you're way out of your league here. I'm not some mess you can just tidy up."
"What did you say?"
Kurella's gaze tightened, that stiff calm of hers wavering for just a moment as confusion slipped through.
"No, that's impossible! I hit six of your pressure points. You should be a heap of meat on the floor. How are you defying my technique?! Get down... get down and die!"
Yamcha ignored the pain.
"You know, I was gonna try and talk to you. Get some closure for my guys before I sent you where you're going. But you're too stuck-up to be useful, aren't you? I'm done wasting my time. I'll just go find that rabbit, I'm sure he'll be much more talkative once I get a hold of him."
He dropped back into the Roga Fufuken stance once again.
"Stop it! Stop acting like you're fine!"
A manic laugh escapes her as she points a trembling finger at him.
"My technique was perfect! You're just too stupid to realize you're already dead! One more move and that stubborn heart of yours is going to give up. Just... drop already!"
"Fine. Let's find out what gives out first then... my heart, or yours."
The hallway seemed to recoil as their styles crashed together.
"ROGA FUFUKEN!"
"KITSUNE FUFUKEN!"
Kurella struck first, her Kitsune Fufuken cutting forward in tight, needle-sharp motions, fingers darting for Yamcha's eyes and throat.
Yamcha answered in kind, charging straight into her space.
His Roga Fufuken was all weight and hunger, wide arcs, crushing follow-through, attacks meant to tear through whatever stood in front of him.
Their blows met again and again, the impact snapping through the air.
For a few heartbeats, the fight lost all shape, reduced to motion and force colliding at arm's length.
Kurella kept her rhythm clean and exact, angles perfect, but something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Yamcha wasn't fading.
He was pushing harder.
Each strike meant to cripple him landed true, and he powered through it anyway.
Pain didn't slow him.
"What—how?!"
The question tore out of her as her composure finally cracked.
Panic bled into her movements just as Yamcha's claws tore through her guard, ripping away the precision she depended on.
"You're worried about my nerves? My heart? Don't bother. By the time I'm through with you... there won't be a brain left in that head of yours to feel a thing!"
Yamcha roared.
As Kurella overextended a strike, Yamcha parried her arm violently to the side. He let out a primal howl that shook the very foundations of the Hotel.
"Roga Fufuken: Pack Fury!"
Yamcha became a whirlwind of destruction.
He didn't just strike once; he unleashed a relentless barrage of hundreds of claw-swings and kicks from every conceivable angle.
"Hah! Tchah! Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!"
It was as if a whole pack of wolves was tearing into her at once.
Kurella was hammered against the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, her durability failing under the sheer volume of the assault.
The final blow was a massive, overhead double-fist strike that smashed Kurella directly into the center of the hallway floor.
The impact was so great that the reinforced concrete buckled.
Kurella's sapphire-blue eyes faded, the feral light extinguishing as her body slumped limp.
The grey fur receded, her elongated snout shrank, and her claws retracted until she was nothing more than a broken human woman lying in a pile of glitter and debris.
She was gone.
Yamcha stood over her.
He didn't look triumphant, he looked hollow.
"You've spent so much time looking down on us that you forgot what happens when you back a man into a corner. I've got no crew left to protect... which means I don't have a single reason to hold back."
He slowly lowered his hands.
Bulma didn't rush over.
She remained several paces back.
She stopped just outside his immediate reach.
"Is she... dead?"
"She won't be a problem anymore."
Bulma's gaze shifted from the broken woman on the floor to Yamcha.
She tried to study him like a complex equation, calculating his intent.
"Look, I'm not stupid. I know how we started. But now you're the only reason i'm still breathing, and I need to know if that's going to change. Are you staying on our side, or do I need to start looking over my shoulder again?"
Yamcha finally turned his head.
His eyes were hard, devoid of the warmth or humor.
He looked at her with a stoic detachment.
"What happened in Brown Town stays in Brown Town... for now, we have a common enemy and a common goal. I'm not interested in settling old scores while the people who slaughtered my family are still breathing."
Bulma nodded once, satisfied with the logic.
"Fine. We'll play it your way for now. We're in this together until we're out of this mess, but don't think for a second I've forgotten who you are. Let's just get the job done."
"Then stop talking and move." Yamcha replied, turning toward the stairwell without waiting for her.
Bulma followed a few steps behind.