A Backhanded Maneuver

Everything I heard about that man made me want to hurt him even more. Sky Asterio doesn't deserve his life, and as soon as I'm strong enough to take it, I will do it alone.

He's a pure-blooded Asterio, so there's no way I can just achieve this power and leave to go fight him. I'll need to train with Fico for a long time to become stronger than his luck-blessed strength.

I felt nothing other than total spite for him. Sure, I've done terrible things, but not as Sky has.

"Save your vendetta for later. I'll try and summarize Hikari's ability for you guys now. Hikari is a database brought to life. She has memorized everything about the game the Guilds used to be a part of, and she memorized all of the muscle movements the people took and how they used their strands. Project HIKARI is what birthed her existence. She analyzed all of those things and comprised it into one unit," Genesis began.

I see... so she couldn't see the future, but she could try to predict it based on other patterns.

"How can she do it so fast? How can she run all of those things so fast in her head?" Fico asked after staying quiet for a while.

"It's as you're thinking. There's a lot going on, almost an impossible amount of information. She needs a ton of blood to be pushed into her brain, so when she's fighting, her heart rate spikes into triple digits easily, nearing about two hundred and fifty beats per minute," He said.

"That's dangerously high... can her body handle that temperature? Can her brain handle that pressure?" Fico added on, picking up various tools on the counter.

"Of course, it couldn't... does anybody see where I'm about to go with this?" Genesis asked with his arms wide open, waiting for us to answer him.

I didn't understand what was going on.

"No? Then, I'll tell you. I said earlier that the Asterio blood enhances what we're already good at... Hikari Asterio is an A.I. with Asterio blood, who can push past her limit and mimic one of the most defining abilities of Sky Asterio. Adrenaline Surge," Genesis finished.

I got it now... Genesis was smart enough to do that, but where did he get Asterio blood to enact that plan?

"This Adrenaline Surge, what does it do?" Zeka asked. He had suffered an extremely heavy hit from Sky during our brawl, so it seems he was taking it personally now.

It made me nervous to see somebody else have my goal at an intensity like mine, but I wasn't too worried about it. I would be the one to kill Sky Asterio.

"Adrenaline Surge is a birthed ability he got on The Pinnacle, the Isle he first woke up on. What it does is amplify his surge of adrenaline, giving him super-human strength and speed at the cost of his intelligence. Had it not been for The Deity, he would've gotten himself killed on several occasions, but she made up for the lack of his intelligence when he had that Adrenaline Surge active, and he was able to stay alive," Genesis said, pacing back and forth. It seemed he was jealous.

"The Deity? You mean that girl, Illya Asterio?" Kire asked. He seemed passionate about something for once.

"Do you know her?" Genesis asked in return, stopping his movement and looking at Kire with his finger put against his lip.

"Wait a minute... something's suppressed in my mind..." Kire muttered, before falling to the ground.

As soon as we entered this room... I noticed that my worry had faded away. What I hadn't noticed was that some of my memories were blocked off.

"I have to ask, Quake... when I invited you into my home and you senselessly accepted... did you think that maybe, just maybe... I wanted something that you had?" Genesis asked.

My knees collapsed and I fell to the ground in confusion. It all happened so fast, but I could obviously tell that my memories were being blocked right now. Things I wanted to remember weren't coming to my mind.

"Hikari, analyze them," Genesis said, swiveling in his chair over to a desk with a computer and monitor on it.

"I got it, Master," Hikari muttered, putting her hand above Fico's head.

"Fico, Incarnation of Ethanol," Hikari started.

"Zeka, Incarnation of Regeneration,"

"Kire, Incarnation of Sunbeam,"

"Austin, Incarnation of Bladeripper,"

"Amy, Incarnation of Thalassa,"

"Cole, Incarnation of Healing,"

"Arashi, Incarnation of Evaporation," Hikari explained.

She could figure out our Incarnations that easily?! Fico told us to keep them hidden no matter what, but Hikari, just with a wave of her hand, figured it all out.

"So, Hikari, what do they look like? Do they align?" Genesis asked, snapping his fingers.

The pressure fell from my knees and my memories were restored. I could tell that this was replicated in everybody else because Kire shot up and held a pointed object to Genesis's throat.

"WHERE IS MY FUCKING SON?! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HIM?!" Kire screamed out into Genesis's face.

"I can tell you that your son is safe and a lot smarter now, but I can't tell you where. You kill me, and you might lose the location forever," Genesis told Kire.

It took Kire about ten seconds, but he backed off. The quiet room stayed like that until Genesis adjusted his collar and looked back to Hikari.

"They do align. Every single Incarnation Quake possesses used to belong to Sky Asterio. They are replicants, not the true product," Hikari admitted.

"W-What?! Sky had all of our Incarnations?! That's impossible... the maximum limit for anybody is three!" Fico shouted out. If she was surprised, then I knew this would be hopeless... I was starting to get anxious now.

"With all of that stuff, that kid wouldn't need anything else in his life... hey, Hikari, what did Sky do with all of those Incarnations? Or rather, what did he plan to do?" Zeka asked Genesis.

"Defeat me, what else would he do with all that power? It seemed that four hundred years ago when Sky was bested in combat, he knew what I would try to do. Sky put a curse on me to make me immortal and lose my memories, which is why I needed to make Hikari. I lost all of my abilities and strands and was only able to hold onto one of my Incarnations," Genesis explained.