Pico slowed his pace, eventually coming to a complete halt.
"Mmm?"
He narrowed his eyes, peering into the shadows ahead. A faint trace of energy brushed against his senses. His grimace melted into a hopeful, predatory grin. "I found you."
Quickening his steps, he sprinted toward a protruding stone high up on the cavern wall. Believing his prey was cornered, he leaped into the air with eager excitement. But the moment his boots touched down on the stone ledge, his triumphant expression dropped into mild confusion.
"Hmm?!" He looked around the empty rock, scratching his head. "I could've sworn I sensed something here... Oh well. Guess the hunt's still on."
He hopped casually off the ledge.
Right as he was falling back to the ground, a ghostly, shimmering flash of light darted across the stone wall out of the corner of his eye.
Pico twisted his body mid-air. Instantly, his arm elongated, stretching out like a massive rubber whip. He lashed out at the spot where the light flickered, his face splitting into a manic smile.
"Gotcha!"
CRACK.
His fist smashed right through the solid rock. Pulling his hand out of the crater, he blinked at the empty hole. "Mmm? What was that just now?"
Before he could process it, another flicker of light dashed past the left edge of the wall.
"I got you this time!" Pico shouted, his elongated arm snapping back and rocketing straight toward the left angle with blinding speed.
BOOM!
Dust fluttered down from the shattered rock, but as the debris cleared... there was absolutely nothing there. Pico withdrew his hand, his brow furrowing. "Is my head playing tricks on me? No... I'm pretty sure I saw it this time."
He took a step to venture deeper into the tunnel, then hesitated. He peered into the pitch-black corridor ahead.
"No," Pico muttered to himself. "It's pretty dark in there. I'll have a bigger advantage in the open. If he's coming after me, it's better I let him have it."
Slowly, he began stepping backward, his eyes darting frantically from wall to wall, trying to trace the ghostly phenomenon. Suddenly, the phantom light flashed across the stone right beside him. Pico thrust his long fist out instantly, but it was entirely futile. His knuckles hit nothing but rock as the light vanished.
"Tch!" Pico hissed in absolute frustration.
Abandoning the narrow pathway, he turned and sprinted back toward the massive, open chamber filled with the towering root stems.
The moment he stepped into the clearing, he planted his feet and threw both of his arms wide open. Spinning his head to check every angle of the cavern, a wild, adrenaline-fueled smile took over his face.
"Come on! Bring it to me! I'm ready!" he screamed into the cavern, his voice bouncing off the walls. "I know you have some tricks up your sleeves, boy! Where are you?! Show yourself!"
Silence answered him.
Pico's eye twitched. "Alright then... I'll fish you out myself!"
*"HAAAH! AHAHAHAHA!"*
Pico erupted into a frenzied barrage. Standing dead in the center of the chamber, he began violently rotating his body, launching thousands of rapid-fire punches in every direction. His arms stretched and elongated like massive whips, his fists flying across the massive chamber, blindly striking every wall, root stem, and shadow in a chaotic tornado of destruction.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BOOM-CRACK!
The chamber shook violently as chunks of rock and pulverized wood rained down. Pico laughed maniacally through the onslaught, drunk on his own destructive adrenaline.
Finally, his momentum broke.
Pico stopped spinning, dropping his head as he bent over. He braced both hands heavily against his knees, gasping for air.
"That little brat..." he thought, grinding his teeth as he panted. "He's trying to make a fool out of me..."
Flick.
A single, silent flash of light cut through his vision.
Pico’s eyes blew wide in shock. Before he could even raise his head, a single palm gently rested against the center of his chest.
It felt like a sudden, cold breeze washing over his skin.
A voice echoed from the quiet air, ringing with lethal precision:
"MATSUKAZE SHIHAI!"
In a terrifying instant, that freezing breeze densified into a crushing wave of concussive force. Before Pico’s instincts could trigger his morphing ability to hollow out his body, the compressed seikon density had locked directly from his heart straight into every virtualized joint in his body, entirely overriding his ability to morph.
The terrifying shockwave erupted through his chest.
"AAAAAAARGH-GHAH!" Pico shrieked in sheer, unadulterated agony as a massive spray of blood violently erupted from his mouth.
The devastating wind hit him point-blank, launching him backward with the force of a speeding train. He flew across the cavern, smashing completely through the thick stone wall at the edge of the chamber with a deafening CRASH. The impact completely shattered the barrier, sending Pico’s broken body tumbling into an entirely open chamber on the other side.
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The cave opened into a wide chamber, its rough walls jutting inward at uneven intervals. Rock outcroppings crowded the edges, casting the corners into deep shadow. Above, small holes pierced the ceiling, allowing thin shafts of sunlight to spill through like arrows, their pale beams scattered across the rough, uneven floor.
Pico lay sprawled across the stone, moaning in sheer agony as he groaned against the ground. His morphed body was warped in a disfigured, unnatural shape, the body twitching frantically as it desperately tried to piece itself back together.
Toka walked in slowly from behind the shattered wall, his breathing steady.
Rolling his battered frame over, Pico looked up at Toka, his face contorted in raw pain. "What... what did you do to me?!" he wheezed, his voice cracking. "What have you done?!"
Toka stared down at him, his expression entirely unreadable.
"I can avoid any attack!" Pico screamed in a crushing, desperate voice. "Your stupid wind technique was a perfect matchup for me! There's no way I couldn't sense you coming! Explain yourself!"
Toka let out a quiet sigh, brushing his hair backward as he took a long, deep breath. "Oh, please shut up."
Pico watched him in utter disbelief.
"I'll admit," Toka said, his eyes softening as though running through past memories. "Your technique was undoubtedly something my wind palm control couldn't easily fathom. You might have been one of the real challenges I didn't expect to encounter in this survival test. However..."
Toka paused, a flash of his father's old teachings echoing vividly in his mind.
“When you’re pushed into your darkest corner, that’s when you’re forced to break through the limits holding you back.”
"What are you blathering about?!" Pico spat, before his mind suddenly raced back to the strange flashes he had chased. "Those... those lights...!"
"Yeah," Toka replied calmly. "You could obviously sense energy, so I had to push my limits by suppressing my seikon flow to near invisibility."
"Near invisibility?!" Pico echoed in sheer confusion.
"It's a secret art of the Hakushō household," Toka answered.
"Although I still haven't perfected it yet," Toka added silently to himself, "it got the job done but still, I have my limits."
Pico let out a bitter laugh, leaning his head back against the stone wall. "I see... so while I thought you were running away like a coward, you were plotting this whole thing. Who would've thought you still had something like that up your sleeve..."
Toka watched the crippled boy lying against the rock. "Your body... you were right on the very edge of morphing when my strike connected, and that led to this structural collapse. It doesn't matter anyway," Toka added softly, his face hardening into a sharp glare. "It was inevitable. Now... tell me. Where are you keeping Cindy?"
Trembling in genuine terror, Pico tried to crawl away along the dirt, his shattered body refusing to cooperate. Tears began streaming down his face as he cried out in pathetic desperation.
"Help! Big brother, please! Help me!" Pico sobbed, dragging himself inch by inch.
Toka’s brow furrowed in complete confusion. "Huh, you say what now...?"
Pico kept weeping, reaching his trembling fingers toward the cavern wall. "Big brother... help me!"
Losing the last of his patience, Toka stepped forward, reaching his hand down to grab Pico by the hair. "I'm getting tired of this charade. Get up!"
Before Toka's fingers could touch Pico's hair, a handmade of solid wall clay merged straight out of the stone face. With lightning speed, the clay fingers clamped tightly around Toka's wrist.
Toka’s eyes blew wide in shock. 'What the hell?!"
The stone arm violently yanked Toka forward, attempting to pull him directly into the solid rock wall. Reacting on pure instinct, Toka ignited his seikon flow, bursting a flare of kinetic energy through his arm that shattered the clay grip into harmless dust.
Toka bounced backward, landing heavily on his feet as he clutched his aching wrist. "What on earth was that?!"
He snapped his head toward the crying Pico. "Hey! What the hell was that?!"
Suddenly, a harsh, irritated voice echoed straight from the cavern wall.
"Will you shut up already?! You are such a pain!"
Slowly, a figure emerged from the wall as though the rock itself were giving birth to a human form. The camouflage peeled away, revealing a boy standing directly behind Pico.
Toka’s jaw dropped.
The newcomer looked down at his broken brother with an irritated scowl.
"Honestly, Pico... you're such a pain."
Standing right behind the weeping Pico was a boy identical to him in every single way, the exact same face, frame, and posture, with only one glaring difference: while Pico had fiery red hair, this twin possessed a shock of bright orange hair. He stood tall, looking down at his broken brother on the floor with deep annoyance.