Mutual Kill

TigerGotFangs concentrated her mind back on the game as he reached close as she brought down her sword to attack him but suddenly he moved at the last possible second. Instead of attacking her, he dipped down and rushed himself towards the incoming katana. It was like he was throwing himself at the katana to get himself slashed into two.

'What the hell is he doing?'

Crey, who had lost almost half his mind to the anger and the pain which was wrecking his body, had washed his mind to the single objective of taking revenge. He, therefore, ignoring his normal laid-back mode, rushed towards the TigerGotFangs.

Although his face was covered with a plain white mask even she could pick up the vicious vibes coming from him. She quickly understood that she had already won half of the battle because losing patience and temper in the fight are usually pre-signs of getting defeated.

She waited for him to come close, a subtle smirk on her face which was showing her confidence that it would be over once he would come close to her. She eased her sword and then suddenly slashed vertically on the head of Crey, forcing him to halt his rush by blocking her katana.

'What?'

Halfway through her attack, she realized something but it was too late to pull back, therefore, she put even more strength behind her slash. Crey, instead of parrying, ignored her slash to close the distance. He subtly shifted to let the blade of the burning katana slice through his shoulder, sizzling through his skin but there was no change in his expression.

'Slick….shhh'

Blood and red vapors sprayed in the cold air as Crey's left arm whisked away in the air after being severed by her katana. Blood doesn't flow out because of the high temperature of the katana; blood vessels get cauterized immediately to seal blood from flowing out. There wasn't a flicker in his expression as he used the chance to head too close to her.

He wielded his sword to slash at the neck of Girl as she was shocked at this sudden development. She had no chance to block this one but still, she used her superior reaction speed to pull up her shoulder to take that sword slash instead of her neck. The hot sword sliced her shoulder. Her body and mind abruptly trembled in fierce shock of scalding pain.

She wanted to pull back but somehow held herself from backing off now because one wrong step, she would get herself killed by him. She instead bit her tongue and forced herself to finish him but Crey was already anticipating another close sword exchange.

'Slash…

Gut...ahh!

Swish…

Pierce...ughh!'

Blood and smoke splashed around as she was now well within the battle rhythm he had set up at the start by sacrificing his arm. She quickly realized that he had deliberately compelled her into this fight of exchanging injuries.

It was a desperate way of fighting, completely unexpected and unfamiliar to her. Crey was only focusing on attacking while She had no major advantage of her super-speed in this exchange of injuries and slashes.

It had suddenly turned from the game of skills and ability into a game of pain tolerance and endurance. Crey had brought the fight to a different playground of his expertise, like it was said - if you can't win the game, change the rules. But still, he is massively handicapped here too.

Pain sensitivity Crey has been feeling was hundred percent as compared to her default fifty percent. And secondly, she had superior reaction speed(her genetic ability) which was allowing her to shift injuries from fatal places to less vital regions of her body. Thus, although he had managed to change the game he was still going to go down before her.

Swords were slicing as well as striking with each other, trying to defend as much as possible too. The speed with which battle was proceeding - there was not even a half-second extra to think before acting.

Though she could pull back using her speed, she was tied down by Crey who was always targeting her neck, head, or heart, forcing her to use a few of her special milliseconds to always shift her wounds or risk getting hit in those fatal areas.

Suddenly amidst finger-biting combat, their eyes met and what she saw was only empty eyes as compared to her teary and red eyes who were holding pain and pushing her body amidst the pain on the head of adrenaline.

It was like he wasn't even feeling any of the hundred scorching cuts on his body. Suddenly her eyes narrowed as she understood that he was out of her league in tolerating pain and despite all her advantages it would be 'her', who is going to fall if this continues.

'I can't go on….' She thought as she realized the effect of adrenaline was beginning to fade and real pain had started to catch up.

She gritted her teeth and suddenly instead of moving her body away, she let his sword pierce her chest piercing her lungs. The hot plasma blade went through her lungs, charring her internal organs in an instant but the time she got in trade was plenty to let her prepare a perfect unavoidable finishing move.

"Ah!"

This moment was what suddenly brought Crey to life from her earlier unfeeling state as even he was shocked at her unexpected action. His pupils dilated in surprise and the last thing she saw was a smirk on those red bloody lips, as the katana quivered and decapitated him in a flash. A headless figure stood for another second after it collapsed slowly on the ground.

"Ughh…"

A painful groan escaped from the breathless girl as she saw the message of 'TigerGotFangs Win' in front of her screen before she collapsed. If this was a real fight, it would have resulted in mutual killing but because it was a game she was able to clinch victory by killing him before she collapsed. She was able to clinch victory just by an inch.