Time had slowed down to bring attention to this moment. Both J and I stared into each other's single eye. His pupil glared a prominent green, while my own a prudent hazel. All around us, the environment stood still to be our pillars for the arena that existed to contain our clash.
All around us, the blood of our bretheren dripped like a vivid rainfall into viscous puddles.
I'm facing the Man in Black as a Fractless. This is one hell of a deathwish.
Out of all the bodies and corpses that bled red from different places, there was a single, static moment when they all fell at the same speed and hit the floor at the same time.
Plip!
Flow State.
Upon the synchronized sound of all blood drops falling, we both dashed straight towards one another in an instant. J crossed his katanas in front of him, forming an X that approached me at increasing speed. I held my blade at my side with my arm stretched far back, ready to strike forth the moment I was within a distance of reaching him.
His swords are longer. He'll be within attacking range before I can get to my own.
That realization helped me understand that this first encounter put him on the offensive, and myself on the defensive. Seeing that his swords were already positioned across one another gave me the prediction of what path they were going to slice.
Clang—!!
As expected, his swords came towards me in a crossing slash, and I parried it upwards with my blade. Now that his arms were raised high, his body was wide open. I gripped my knife and swung it across as fast as I could.
Clang—!!
Quicker than I could blink, J brought both his swords down the instant I was to slice open his stomach. He'd parried my blade aside, leaving me open for an attack this time.
Shit—!
As he returned the opportunity by aiming for my stomach, I leaned far aside, narrowly avoiding the attack as it shed the cloth of my clothing. Just as I was recovering, another slash from his blade was already approaching my face. Again, I'd dodged by just a margin.
He's fast!
If it weren't for Flow State, I would have died twice by now. Less than a year ago, I was watching J use his incomprehensible skills in battle with awe. Now, I was battling him myself, just barely keeping up.
I need to stay alert, and aware. One falter and I'm dead!
We were exchanging blows back and forth, but nothing was landing. The steel of our blades grinded heavily against each other as we constantly traded parries. Among the golden sparks from which our weapons collided, we both moved amidst the factory to dodge each other's attacks, going from platform-to-platform, and jumping from wall-to-wall.
"Secondary Form: Akimbo Amplified."
As J leapt towards me, his swords suddenly glowed a bright blue. They'd been imbued with a plasmic layer. He swung his swords towards me—an opportunity perfect to parry and create an opening—but I dodged instead, and fell back immediately.
In Secondary Form, his swords could cut through steel. With a blade like mine, parrying isn't an option anymore.
I turned my back and fled with aim to get to higher ground, but he stayed on my tail. My danger senses flared heavily, constantly, as I moved around the factory and he chased me down. I could feel warmth brushing along the back of my neck from the plasma on his swords every time he swung in my direction. With this predicament, I felt like a mouse fleeing a cat.
Other than to slice and kill, my knife is currently useless in terms of defense. He could cut through it with the strength of his amplified swords and kill me immediately.
"Klyson!!" I heard Soho call out from below. "Do you need help?!"
I didn't reply. For one, I needed Soho to focus on keeping Garren stabilized until he got the medical attention he needed. But truly, wasting the energy of a single breath to reply to her would cost me my life at the moment. If I casted my attention of J aside for even a millisecond, my head would roll along the floor.
You can't keep going like this! His stamina heavily outweighs yours!
I was getting tired, but I wasn't slowing down. I couldn't, not with J on my tail. But I knew I couldn't lead the chase forever either. I had to steer it my way before things got worse.
"Tertiary Form: Razor Revolution."
Things had gotten worse.
Seriously—?!
J began to spin the swords in his hands as if they were propellors on the front of a plane. They moved so fast that they appeared to me as unmoving blue circles. But I knew that among that illusion were razors that could shred me to pieces. With the step-up in the form of his weapons, his speed only seemed to ramp-up. I was practically being cornered, as J's intent to kill got heavier. As if parrying already wasn't an option before, with his currently active Tertiary Form, a defensive attempt would be indicative of giving up.
The blade in my hand now only existed to kill.
How can I possibly get through J's Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary forms combined?
That extra-mind space, the free slot to think—exclusive to my awakened Fractless self—answered for me, in the split-second of an instant I needed it before his blades would slash my limbs off.
Click.
I unhooked the last remaining flashbang from my holster, letting it fly towards J's spinning blades. As they made contact, inevitably being slashed open, the grenade exploded, flashing a blinding white light at the highest center of the factory. For a moment, it painted white into everyone's eyes, including J's, who I witnessed stagger for the first time ever.
Your body may be 99% cybernetic, but that eye remains human.
Expecting the flash, I turned my head at the right time to avoid its blinding effect, while the sound of its explosion rung aggressively into my ear. Before I even turned to look back at J, my blade unsheathed first, with my arm leading the way towards his temple.
Besides that eye, your brain is the only thing that remains of your human body. If I sever it, your body will no longer work.
I laid my eyes on his face, majorly wrapped in black bandage revealing only his green eye. Except this time that I looked, it was no longer green. Like the aquatic glow of the plasma that submerged his momentarily stationary blades, his eye had become a glistening blue.
{ ACTIVATED }
Cybernetic machinery that littered J's brain whirred and operated in succession, all as a result for finding the individual in a moment of which it would otherwise meet its demise. As I pondered back on a random day, in a random room, years ago when I was still at A.X.A., I recalled something particular that I'd read-up on J's capabilities.
[ At the time of which J should face suggested death, his green eye will turn blue, indicating an activation of an otherwise unused compartment of cyber-machinery in his brain. The usage of this compartment will accelerate the rate at which J's nervous signals travel by sevenfold. ]
Just as my mind could biologically react in time to save myself from death with Flow State, J's brain could calculate fatal evasion at a rate even faster than me.
Physically, mentally, and mechanically, J was a superior version of me.
No—!!
Blinded, he managed to block the strike to his head. Simultaneously, the tip of his second blade was already at my neck. The heat from which it emanated already began to sizzle against my skin.
Fwoop—!
Suddenly, in my peripheral vision, I looked as the wall behind J imploded with a flashing green explosion. Debris flew forth which littered our sights, before sensing a dangerous sensation before me. My face was lit up with an abrupt green hue as a familiar green sphere manifested right around J's head. Just as it was halfway through its instantaneous formation, J immediately weaved out of its way with unbelievable speed. He fell forwards, descending from the platform we stood-on towards ground floor. In front of me, the green orb condensed and collapsed the air within, producing an ear-piercing sound.
Pop!
With a green flash, Seris appeared before me. Her hood still covered her face.
"Seris?!" I was alarmed. "You saved me!"
"Ian's orders." Her voice was monotone. "I'm here to protect you from the waves."
"Waves?"
Her hood lifted for a moment, and I caught a glance of the seriousness in her aquamarine eyes. "You've been exposed, Klyson. Soon, there are going to be waves of people after you for what you've done."