Double Bluff

With his hands covering her mouth he said "Quiet, or I'll kill you."

Without waiting for her to reply he excreted the hot temperatures in his body through liquified cells onto her. Black sludge squirting out of his body spattered onto her, causing burn marks on her skin.

With 35% of her body burnt, without emergency treatment, she would die within 30 minutes.

He planted a spiked tentacle into her back which burrowed into her. The pain was excruciating, and tears trilled down her eyes. The spiked tentacle had an eye and a small piece of a brain in its stem. The tiny brain was a clone of his own and so carried some instructions that he left.

He let go of the woman and she fell back against the wall. He then pushed the backdoor open and an old man, who was standing before the door and was about to open it stumbled back and fell.

"HuHHH" Akihito wailed.

Hikaru cut through the distance and covered his mouth in 0.1 seconds then absorbed him. Hikaru then laid on the bed to recover just as Mega started looking around outside.

Mega then smashed in through the wall and grabbed him.

In Hikaru's experience with playing chess against geniuses, rather than reading the opponent's intentions too far ahead, it was best to take advantage of when they were most hesitant. So instead of bluffing twice, Hikaru exploited Mega's doubts.

Having skills and experiences of acrobats and martial artists, Hikaru swung around Mega's body in an instant and snapped his head. However, he felt his joints dislocating instead. A lot of research must have gone into the cyborg for them to cover every weakness.

He started trying to pop Mega's head off but soon jumped away from two arm blades that went over Mega's shoulder. Hikaru broke through the walls of the house in his jump and landed onto the street.

Hikaru's eyes peered to his left, Botan's body was far off into the distance in a smashed house. His ability was probably the only thing that was strong enough to break past Mega's defence.

Mega walked through the wall, breaking it into pieces.

First, he had to distract Mega.

Mega a gun popped out of his forearm and he set it to automatic. Hikaru ran to his right and Mega chased him.

*Ratatatata*

Bullets raced after Hikaru, shattering windows and blowing holes into doors and walls. Then it suddenly stopped. Hikaru jumped backwards. Mega aimed the gun at him but didn't fire.

Hikaru had wondered why during their air battle that Mega had pushed Hikaru back into roughly the same area where they started fighting. It was clear that Mega's incinerator cannon could fire at any range if it had enough power but there were times when his flames had stopped just before hitting a building or he had fired from positions that minimised the amount of damage.

He thought that Mega was just conserving energy at first but soon realised that he was avoiding damaging buildings where the civilians were hiding in. It meant that Mega was still using his thermal imaging to see where they were.

Hikaru's theory was that Mega returned to this spot because the locals already knew of the danger and so the ones who had the courage escaped when their fight went into the air. This gave room for Mega to fight in and lower the risk of casualties.

Hikaru's bait was also meant to test Mega's morals. He understood his personality well when he disguised himself as Akihito. Since Mega didn't dare shoot the house behind him, it must have meant that someone was inside.

Mega retracted his gun and raised his fists like a boxer. Electricity sparked and rippled around it. Hikaru jumped backward into the front door of the house which blew back when he collided with it.

Inside the house was a boy who shrieked. His parents were out so he was home alone.

Mega was worried about the boy and so chased after Hikaru who grinned back. Hikaru's arms were stretched out several metres while holding onto the door frames like an elastic band, he catapulted onto Mega with legs cast in bone and leaving his two stretched out arms behind.

Mega made a cross with his arms and tanked Hikaru's "bicycle kick" in which he repeatedly kicked while in mid-air.

Mega's feet were pushed back several metres.

Just as Hikaru finished, he grabbed Hikaru's legs before they flew away and electrocuted them with hands. Hikaru jumped into the air over Mega, tearing his feet off.

Mega threw the severed feet away and turned around. Hikaru landed on his newly formed feet and had regrown his arms.

Mega used his leg thrusters to charge in with his fist drawn back. Hikaru wasn't fazed by his acceleration at all and moved to the side but when Mega got closer, he stretched his arm out from his side for a lariat takedown.

Hikaru went down as he expected but he didn't feel the impact. Hikaru had bent backwards to narrowly evade the strike.

What followed were Mega's Gatling gun punches which Hikaru dodged most of them, but they were too fast for him to avoid them all without blocking. Hikaru would occasionally use his hands, arms and elbows to defend against punches he couldn't dodge and take damage every time.

Electricity would bite into him when Mega's fists made contact.

Then after hitting Hikaru twice in a row, Mega pressed on with lightning-fast punches. Every electric pulse scorched Hikaru's skin.

Eventually, Hikaru dropped his parries as he was losing control over his nervous system. Hikaru's chest was jolting back and forth as if he was taking hits from a machine gun.

Mega bashed Hikaru with an uppercut and then flew up to catch him and smashed Hikaru's back against his knee when he landed.

His knee burst through Hikaru's stomach, breaking him into two.

Tendrils from the top half and bottom half latched onto each other and pulled them together.

Mega aimed his cannon at Hikaru.

Two of the arms Hikaru left attached to the door frame had their stump ends transformed into a bone spike with an eyeball on it. They shot out above and cut the power line. Both transformed into hands and grabbed two parts of the cut powerline.

Hikaru looked up and saw the hands holding the powerlines stretched out behind Mega's shoulders.

He grinned.