Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System

Chapter 637: Who Is He.

"This is insane..."

Kafka’s comment echoed his teammates’ thoughts, though he appeared a lot calmer while making it. Beatrice did her best to appear unperturbed, but her nervousness was clear to the eye. Merry, on the other hand, was an anxious mess. She kept looking between the cage and the screen where the slowed recording of the match was being displayed.

"This is bad... this is really bad..." She covered her face with both hands. "I don’t know who I should be cheering for!"

"I can’t believe you..."

Heaving a sigh, Kafka returned his attention to the fight. He was the only one who could follow it with his own eyes, thanks to his abilities being wired toward sniping. Still, he wasn’t a martial arts nerd like his white-haired teammate, so it was a little difficult to analyze what was happening in front of him. For the first part of the match, the two seemed to be matched in skills and power, but then Wolf transformed and gained the upper hand. For a moment there, it seemed like he would go home with the win, but then his opponent turned things around in an instant.

Wolf had always been adamant about elevating his abilities through the use of martial arts, and for that reason, he made them an essential part of his training. One would think matching him would be difficult in this day and age where firepower ruled over everything, but here he was, struggling to keep up with a thug playing gangster.

"Ah!"

Merry gasped as they watched Wolf being blasted into the metal cage. Struggling to stay in his seat, Kafka kept his eyes on their furry teammate, trying to confirm whether he was alive. Obviously, that was entirely unnecessary. One of Wolf’s abilities was hyper regeneration, so as long as his head was still attached to his body, he should be able to come back from any injury.

"It can’t be..."

A faint whisper drew Kafka’s attention to Beatrice, making him realize that she wasn’t looking at the arena. The shock in her expression immediately put him on guard, but nothing could have prepared him for what he would see by following her line of sight.

"What is he... doing here?"

A blond man walked down the stairs to the arena, flanked by a group of black suits that kept everyone from getting close. He acted as if he owned the whole place, ignoring the existence of everyone else in the underground level. Merry went pale upon seeing him, and as if to make all their fears come true, he had one of his guards open the cage surrounding the arena and went in himself.

By then, the crowd went silent, confusion spreading quickly among them. Even then, it was a little difficult to hear what the blonde man was saying.

"Get up," Beatrice shot up from her seat. "We need to handle this before-"

Neither she nor their orange haired teammate could follow the fight at the speed it had reached near the. Kafka was the only one who could, and for that reason, he was the only one who caught the faint glimmer that coated the Cyberpunk’s bionic limbs.

"Shi-"

Before he could say anything, the red-haired gang leader lunged at the blond man. He planted a fist straight into his face, and the shockwave from the impact spread through the underground level as if it were a missile strike. A second one followed as the ceiling was obliterated. As the rubble fell and the screaming began, the three heroes were left wondering what in the world they had just gotten themselves into.

~[ ]~

Kaiser lay in a pile of rubble, his mind entirely blank. He stared at the faintly glowing sky, and little by little, he began to wonder how he got there. With barely a minute having passed, he didn’t have a hard time remembering. He was in the arena, trying to strike a conversation with the red-haired youth and the white-haired lab rat, but the next moment-

"Ugh..."

Sharp pain set his face ablaze, waking him up from his momentary daze. He recalled everything with crystal clarity. The fist that hit his face, breaking through the ceiling twice, then ending up outside, buried in an entirely different building. He couldn’t understand how he failed to react to the attack. Was his guard really lowered to a point where he could be punched in the face by a third-rate rust bucket?

A light tap drew his attention, and he raised his head to find the red-haired mongrel standing at the center of the intersection.

"I will ask you this once," he said. "Who sent you?"

Obviously, Kaiser didn’t answer. Why would he?

"You sure..." as if pulled by invisible strings, Kaiser rose without bending a single joint. "Don’t have any manners." Brushing the dust off his suit, he adjusted his coat and looked at the red-haired youth. "I expect nothing less from a thug among mongrels."

His comment clearly wasn’t well received, as in the next instant, another fist came flying toward his face. This time, he wasn’t about to stand there and take it. He might not be that talented a martial artist, but stopping a rust puppet in its place wasn’t that big of a challenge.

His blue irises turned gold, and his fangs peeked as the corners of his mouth rose into a grin. A violent blast of air ruffled his blonde hair, but it died soon enough. The fist aimed at his face was not in his hand; it stopped in its tracks before it could reach him. His opponent’s eyes narrowed, and the shock they held couldn’t be any clearer.

"I see fighting that third-rate knockoff has boosted your ego."

Holding his right arm up, he initiated partial transformation. Its size exploded, and its structure changed, black claws taking the place of its nails as golden fur covered most of it. He wasn’t going to rip him apart, however. No. That would be too swift an end for such an insolent low life. Kaiser clenched his fist and grasped that of the red-haired thug pinning him in place.

"How about I teach you-" Twisting his body, he allowed the power channeled into his arm to explode forward. "Your place!"

A loud boom shook the surroundings, blasting the debris around them and kicking up a massive dust cloud. The blast carried to the building on the other side, shattering glass and spreading cracks through the wall. Kaiser didn’t go all out. He wanted the red-haired thug alive, after all. Still, the punch he threw should have been enough to obliterate most people, which is why it felt strange when he didn’t sense the moment of impact.

As the dust cleared, the Kaiser’s expression darkened. He was still holding on to the fist he caught earlier, and he had yet to retract his transformed arm. The red-haired mongrel was still there, completely intact. And how did he manage to avoid being obliterated? He simply stepped aside.

Feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise, he quickly let go and backed away. The red-haired thug had swung his free hand up, and when he failed to touch him, he tried again, forcing Kaiser to quickly retreat. For some reason, his instincts told him that allowing that hand to touch him would be a very bad mistake. As he tried to understand why, he finally noticed that the thug’s left arm was different, as if he had swapped the bulky green prosthetic with a slimmer alternative, one with a dark blue coating.

The change left Kaiser wondering if the thug had ejected the plating of his bionic arm, altering its form for some reason. That didn’t explain why it had suddenly become a source of immense danger, and why he felt the need to evade its palm at all costs.

"You sure are a tricky bastard." Kaiser clicked his tongue. "But this confirms one thing."

Suppressing his instincts, he went on the offensive once more. The embarrassment of having his previous attack dodged pushed him into transforming his arm back. The red-haired mongrel wasn’t worth the effort, and for that reason, he was going to defeat him while in base form.

"You are indeed related to him!"

Kaiser launched a salvo of attacks, raising his speed with each one. The air exploded with each punch he threw, and the road cracked whenever he brought down his foot. With each strike, he put more focus into his movements, making sure to evade the dark blue hand looking to get a hold of him.

Unfortunately for him, one thing became clear with each passing instant. No matter how fast he moved, no matter how varied his attacks were and how sharp his reactions got, he still failed to get a single tap on the red-haired thug. So far, he had ensured that nothing the bastard threw at him would connect, but as things were going, Kaiser was no longer sure they would remain the same.

’This mongrel... who is he?’