The sensation of that cold rain, coming from beyond time and space, dissipated in the blink of an eye. As Sard snapped out of that dark mental image with lightning speed and returned to the dry chill of the street, reality was before him in all its harshness—and Shinya had already made his move.
As Shinya's final sentence hung in the frozen air of the street, the first move to break the silence came from him. Shinya lunged forward with a hunger, as if he had been waiting for this moment for years. His first attack was an explosive straight punch aimed directly at the center of Sard's face.
Sard shifted his body with a millimetric movement, as if expecting the attack, but Shinya didn't stop; he immediately transitioned his missed punch into an elbow strike, continuing to press onto Sard. Even though Sard brought his arms into a guard position, Shinya's attacks were unexpectedly heavy. While Shinya tried to pull down Sard's guard with his right hand, he rose with his left knee to drive it into Sard's solar plexus. Sard parried the knee strike with his hip and pushed Shinya off him, but without losing momentum, Shinya spun in place and unleashed a sharp kick toward Sard's temple.
Sard blocked the kick with his arm; the force of the blow echoed in his bones. Shinya's tempo increased every second. A right hook, a left hook; then a hard sweeping kick to Sard's lower leg to break his balance... Instead of stepping back, Sard parried every attack at a narrow angle, staying within Shinya's range and waiting for him to slip up. When Shinya threw an ambitious right straight, Sard didn't just dodge this time; he swatted the punch aside with the back of his hand and landed a glancing blow across Shinya's face.
A thin gash opened on Shinya's cheek, and within seconds, warm blood began to trickle down. When Shinya felt this warmth, his gaze grew even more feral. "That's it!" he shouted and threw himself at Sard again with a flurry of rapid punches. The two were locked in a blur in the middle of the street; the sound of knuckles hitting bone thudded through the empty street like a drum.
Sard had finally begun to read the rhythm created by Shinya's uncontrollable ambition. When Shinya opened his guard slightly too much to deliver a final finishing blow to Sard's chin, throwing an uppercut with all his weight, Sard caught that split-second opportunity he was looking for.
Sard slipped under Shinya's move with a swift motion, caught the arm left hanging in the air by Shinya's missed strike, and broke his balance in a single move. Immediately after, using his body's full weight, he launched his counter-attack. A heavy blow to Shinya's exposed abdomen doubled him over. Sard didn't stop; before Shinya could even catch his breath, he landed a hard right straight directly onto his nose. This was followed by a jarring spinning kick that exploded against Shinya's ribcage. Shinya recoiled from the force of these consecutive and devastating blows, only coming to a stop by crashing hard against a wall.
Using the wall he leaned against for support, Shinya slowly straightened up and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. Despite the blows he took, that nauseating grin reappeared on his face.
"Not bad..." Shinya said, his voice muffled by the damage he had taken, though his mocking tone remained. "It was just a lucky hit, Sard, don't get ahead of yourself. But what did I tell you? I've improved... in a direction you can't even imagine."
Shinya took a deep breath. "Want to see my new ability?"
The moment he finished his sentence, Shinya's body flickered like a mirage and vanished completely within a second. Before Sard, there was now nothing but empty darkness and the howling of the wind.
Sard stood frozen in place. His muscles were tensed, his ears straining for the slightest sound. Suddenly, a hard punch exploding on Sard's right jaw sent his head snapping to the side. Immediately after, a kick coming from the void landed in his stomach. Sard doubled over in pain, unable to counter an opponent he couldn't see. One blow hit his back, another his kneecap. Sard was punching the air, but his hands only struck emptiness. He was being pummeled like a punching bag by an invisible enemy.
Despite taking hit after hit, Sard was still standing. He was shaken, his body being tossed around by the force of the blows, but his knees had not yet touched the ground. The voice of the Shinya he couldn't see whispered right in his ear, echoing as close and cold as a snake's hiss:
"Do you remember the first day we found you, Sard? How we pulled you out from those ruins? If it weren't for us, if it weren't for Asphex... you would never have reached where you are now. You owe us everything."
This sentence caused a dam to break in Sard's mind. As the final blow sent him to his knees, the dry chill of the street was suddenly replaced by the scent of fresh earth and dampness that stung the back of his throat.