"What's got you so curious, Niko?" Riko asked as he looked at Niko sitting beside him in the moving SUV.
"Those syringes… Seemed like a waste to just-," Niko spoke with a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
"Staying there would've been a death wish. Even if we take down Kage, you think that snake would just sit back and watch her men fall?" Riko replied.
"The product was a dud anyway", Riko added.
"What about the supplier?", Niko asked.
"He's been taken c-"
"Sir!" The driver glanced back at Riko. "There's someone ahead!"
The Bronca brothers leaned forward, straining to catch the sight of an empty highway. A man stood in the middle of the road, adjusting his cap. As he raised his head, his eyes glowed with an dense blue flames.
Suddenly, he leaned forward taking a step and disappeared from the view.
In that very instant, the SUV's tires ignited with a similar dense blue flame. Their structure disintegrated in seconds and with a deafening sound made by the increased air pressure, the tires burst, sending peices of rubber flying.
The SUV, now on its rims, skidded wildly across the freeway. The driver struggled for control, but the vehicle spun violently. The weight of the SUV shifted, and it began to roll.
"Niko, out!" Riko shouted and using their speed the brothers leaped out the unstable vehicle.
The high-speed SUV crashed, rolled end over end as the metal frame groaned on each collision with the ground. Glass shattered and twisted metal crunched as it finally came to a halt.
Resting at an awkward angle against the ridge, smoke billowed from the wreckage covering sight of driver's blood spattered all over the front.
"What was that all about?" Niko asked with narrowed brows as he watched his brother standing in the middle of the empty freeway.
Riko's gaze was locked on a figure not far from them. A man with those unsettling dense blue flames flickering in his eyes.
"That's the same bastard who was teleporting," Niko remarked with a sense of amusement.
"Why are you back, kid? Thought you learned your lesson the first time".
"You know him?" Riko asked.
"Of course. Before Kage ripped open the veil, I saw this jerk casually strolling down the street with his girlfriend like nothing-" Niko replied.
"Enough," the man muttered looking at Niko.
"Chit-chat, chit-chat! Why don't you just shut the-" He vanished mid-sentence, and before Niko could react, a brutal kick smashed into his jaw, sending him reeling backward. "-fuck up."
"If I didn't know you moved that fast, I'd be on the ground right now", Niko caught himself, rubbing his jaw with a smirk.
"Are you ignoring me?" Riko's voice cut through the air as he closed in. He raised his hand and swung it precisely at the man's neck. However, the man flickered, evading the attack entirely.
"I told you!" Niko snapped while wiping a trickle of blood from his lip.
"It's not just speed. The bastard teleports."
Riko's attack swiped through nothing but air. His expression twisted with frustration. Their priority at the moment was leaving the state under ORBIS' Jusridictions.
"Niko! Get serious." Riko's voice was low and steady as he turned to him. But Niko had already made his choice.
In a split second, his shadow stretched out, creeping toward the streetlamps along the freeway. One by one, each lamp burst with a dull pop, trailing smoke and sinking them into pure darkness. Together, the brothers synced their energy flow.
Their speed, reflexes, and senses were now sharper than ever.
"That's more like it," A raspy voice sliced through the silence. In the shadows where even the moonlight couldn't reach, the dense blue flames in the man's eyes stood out.
He spread his arms wide as blue flames flickered to life in his palms, casting a faint glow across his face. And in that breathless instant, all three of them struck.
Niko, being offensive reached straight for the man's neck. His spear like hand was parried with hit to the elbow. However, Riko with a follow-up aimed for the back from the start.
His hand tore the air apart moved towards the open back of the man. A clear hit, or so what he thought. But again, the man disappeared leaving Riko's attack in vain.
The moment their target disappeared again from the sight, he appeared behind Niko again. With much sharper senses, both of them reacted before the man could make his own move. Every movement was getting sharper with senses reacting to the slightest shift. Sparks that flew as each clash ignited by the blue flames in the darkness, lighted across their faces.
"I see it now!" Riko shouted with a grin spreading across his face. "You don't teleport freely."
The man disappeared again, but this time Riko anticipated it. He jerked right, cutting through the air. His strike connected, slicing into the man's arm. Blood spattered onto the ground.
"It's that creepy energy surrounding us," Riko said, eyeing the wound he inflicted on the man's arm.
"What do you mean?", Niko frowned.
"Focus, Niko. There's a… foreign, thin layer of black strands. They're barely visible, which is why I missed them. But those strands; they are the only places he can shift to."
Riko shot the man a taunting look. "Isn't that right?"
"Pretty Impressive-", The man nodded.
He brought his hands together, clasping them and looked at Niko. "But, what's the use of knowing that now?"
"Why do you think I kept going after you again and again?", He said looking at Niko with a smirk.
"?", Before Niko could respond, an unbearable heat surged within him, as if flames had ignited deep in his core. He gasped, clutching his brother as searing pain ripped through him. From his organs to the nerves, from blood to the bone; The flames, consumed everything.
The shadows around them began to dissipate, revealing the cold light of the moon.
"Niko!", Riko screamed holding onto his brother who was losing his life with everypassing second.
Niko's body jerked violently, the blue glow of his skin intensified as the fire consumed him from the inside out. The fire clawed at his core, making him feel as if he were being ripped apart from the inside.
"Stop-Stop it…", His voice broke as Niko's skin turned an unnatural black.
"Tch. Tch. Tch." The man appeared in front of Riko, bending down to inspect Niko's lifeless, mangled body, which now contained nothing but scraps of bone desperately trying to maintain a humanoid form. But even that would eventually dissolve leaving only a mask of decaying flesh.
"He died just like that," the man remarked, looking at Riko. "And I don't even feel sorry for him."
"Fu—Bastard!" Riko shouted, his bloodshot eyes narrowing as he swung his hand through the air, unleashing a raw power that sliced through the space around him for several meters.
"Uh-uh." The man vanished, appearing behind Riko and effortlessly evading his attack.
"This is…Amusing", He muttered with a smirk looking at the distruction that one swing of Riko's raw power had caused.
"You really made a small yet fatal mistake"
"You could've gone all out from the start"