Casualties

For a moment, Hikaru was about to hit the pavement.

However, he hovered.

Seeing this Mega blasted his back thrusters. The cone of the fire was so huge that it roared in the air. It was ten times bigger than him.

Soon, he broke past the sound barrier, resulting in a sonic boom. Mega smashed into Hikaru with his arms out in front of him. The force of the collision cratered the ground, breaking a water pipe on the side of the hole. Water started to pool with Hikaru in it.

Hikaru's angel suit was completely deformed and massively dented, that part of his abdomen could be seen.

Mega grabbed Hikaru by the face and lifted him with one hand. Hikaru was held up by 45 degrees from Mega's eye level. Then he did the same thing with his other hand.

Mega's body which had dimmed before, lighted up again. Orange light flowed through his vein-like tubes across his body. The brightest light came from his core and palms. The palms were glowing brighter as the incineration cannons charged up.

Feeling the heat from Mega's body and whirring noises, Hikaru slowly brought his hands up. They twitched as he was very weak and lacked strength. His whole body was pulverised after Mega smashed into him. He was barely alive because of his fast-healing rate.

The soup in the suit was quickly repairing itself. Bones need to be bound together first before the muscles could act, muscles needed to stitch themselves to push and pull the skeletal system and blood vessels needed to ligate to deliver ATP, nutrients, catalysts, calcium ions etc. for muscles to contract.

It is also needless to say that nerve cells needed to connect to transport nerve impulses. If it weren't for the suit holding Hikaru together, he would just be a sludge of mashed jelly.

It was hard to admit, but perhaps this is Hikaru's first defeat. The end was coming near.

'No.'

Cells multiplied like rabbits, they moved around quicker and assembled and disassembled faster. With just one thought, his whole body was working collectively to mend itself, to function, to feed, to consume.

His very soul denied death.

He will not die. If the Shinigami came to claim his soul, he would consume the death god too.

Hikaru's hands clutched onto Mega's wrists.

"I will not die!"

He tried pulling apart his hands but Mega didn't budge.

Hikaru's skin began to sizzle against the radiating heat. He made gasps of suppressed pain.

"hemmh! uh, sssss, hah"

While his body was being singed, he couldn't gather the cells fast enough to make weapons because not only were they being burnt but because the pain was affecting his concentration and so limited the speed of construction.

"I'm going to kill everyone you love! I'll make them suffer before I kill them and then I'll rip you apart. You hear me? You f**king gacha machine!" Hikaru broke his cool demeanour and shouted vulgarly.

Mega's eyes opened wide and he squeezed Hikaru's head. Hikaru's suit around his head bent inwards and some blood squelched out of it like a squashed tomato.

"Aghhhh!"

Hikaru kicked wildly at Mega but broke his legs. He was like a child kicking a brick wall.

The incineration cannon was fully charged. Scorch of flames the size of 5-metre diameter enveloped Hikaru and stretched endlessly into the sky.

As the blaze reached the clouds, all of them nearby got sucked into the fire revealing the night stars. The house closest to the line of fire had its ceiling blasted. There was a semi-circle hole on the roof. The cannons died down.

There was nothing left but a puddle of silver ooze beneath his feet which quickly cooled down and solidified as it rolled across the ground. A glob of melted metal was dripping from his hands still in front of him.

Naturally, there wouldn't be any left of Hikaru once he was burnt with super temperatures. However, it was too easy.

It would be easy since Mega came from the future and had fought him before. This was a cakewalk compared to last time. However, he did not believe Hikaru would go down that easy. He needed to be sure.

Mega scanned around with his thermal vision. Most of the civilians have left since the pair were close to where the first fight started.

There were still a few heat signatures here and there in the houses. Some crouched while holding their heads in while others would pace around or look through the windows. Rarer even, there were those armed with a hunting rifle or holding a melee weapon. There was even a man who hid under his covers in bed.

Mega found an injured woman leaned against a wall on the side of a house. He turned off his heatwave aura and quickly approached the lady. The lady was in her mid-years and had grey hair mixed in with black hair.

She screamed when she saw Mega.

"Please don't be alarmed! I'm here to help you!" Mega put his hands in front of him

Mega was completely naked. His clothes have been burnt off revealing an obsidian cyborg body.

Seeing that the woman was looking at his body in fear, he said: "I am a cyborg but I'm here to destroy the monsters."

"The monsters?"

The lady who witnessed the fight between the monsters calmed down a bit.

Mega looked at her injuries.

Those were burn wounds. Did she get hit by his incinerators?

Mega didn't see any traces of Hikaru. He seemed to have lost him.

"Miss, can I take you to the hospital?"

"... Can you? Uhm I don't know if I should trouble you." The old lady said.

She was reluctant because it was a crisis, and everyone should be looking after themselves. She didn't want a young "man" to risk saving her life, but she was wary of him too. After all, she just got attacked by a young man.