Arete came from behind and landed a kick to his back, sending Nathaniel forward. His eyes darted back toward her as he twisted midair, reacting faster than someone in his condition should have been able to. Considering the strain on his body, he could not afford to pull any punches.
Arete struck him in quick succession, precise and sharp. She adjusted her patterns to avoid wide-area impacts that would only feed his Kinetic Muscle. Nathaniel tumbled, coughing blood, the same gold cracks still spreading across his skin, each one bright with pain.
Why did it have to hurt so much.Why did everything burn as if he were being torn open from the inside.
He tried to speak, but another wet cough interrupted him. Blood hit the floor. Arete gutted him again with a palm strike, forcing him to roll away. He used the principles of the art of falling as a baseline, twisting into an odd angle that absorbed the worst of the momentum.
Arete prepared to close the distance, but something pulled at the fabric of her suit. A hardened patch along her lower back. Resin. She had no idea what it was or why it felt warm.
Then it detonated.
Concussive force erupted behind her, mixed with blood and compressed kinetic energy. The explosion blasted her forward, straight toward Nathaniel, who was already bracing himself in position.
His eyes flashed dangerously. She noticed his foot. It was crackling.
He had pushed the Uratsu she had forced into him down into his leg. The moment he kicked off the ground, he rocketed toward her faster than her vision could track. She immediately pushed her output to four percent. Her form disassembled into light, vanishing from his path. She rematerialized behind him as her senses scrambled to understand what she had just witnessed.
He was using her power. But how.
She studied his synapses and limbs in that brief instant. He was accelerating his bodily processes, including blood flow. He pivoted in a flash, faster than reflex alone. She saw energy collecting at his fingertips. He was burning through the reserve she had introduced into him.
The silver in his eyes brightened into a ghostly white. Something about it made her hesitate.
He struck like a man possessed.
Two armored fingers jabbed into the sides of her torso near her clavicles. The shock hit instantly. He dumped her own energy back into her in a violent surge. Her throat tightened as she gagged, her arms spasming and trembling from the sudden disruption. It felt like taking a shot from a kinetic cannon.
Before she could recover, Nathaniel grabbed her collar. His other hand slammed against her abdominal core. She felt every drop of energy she had pushed into him funnel to that single point. It compressed. It ignited.
It exploded outward.
The blast sent her rocketing downward. She forced herself to access seven percent of her power just to tank the fall. The impact carved a crater into the advanced flooring. Smoke flooded the room. Her arms twitched and then fell limp, temporarily immobilized by the overload.
She looked up through the haze.
Nathaniel's legs were hanging from the ceiling.The rest of him was embedded in the reinforced concrete like someone had nailed him into it.
The interface pulsed once.
Then again.
Then a final, resonant chime echoed through Nathaniel's mind as the counter locked into place.
Impact count: 7 out of 7.
The remaining cracks of gold faded from his skin, retreating like evaporating light. Every burning nerve, every sharp coil of agony unraveled all at once. Relief poured through him in a wave so sudden it stole whatever strength he had left.
He relaxed, his body going slack as the last threads of pain dissolved.
Unconsciousness took him immediately.
He hung limply from the ceiling for a heartbeat, embedded in the reinforced concrete by the force of his own earlier momentum. Then gravity reclaimed him.
Nathaniel fell from above like a dropped sack of potatoes, hitting the ground with a dull crash that sent hairline fractures spreading across the floor. Dust lifted in a soft cloud around his motionless form.
He did not move.He had completed the sequence.His body had simply shut down.