Prudish Physics
The thrill of the chase is a stimulant in the hunter's mind. From birth it sits dormant through the days' slow rotation towards death. It awaits the one signal out of many that will send it tearing through the physical universe to bring blood into calm.
The heat of desire is a stimulant in the lover's groin. There it blossoms like a monster weed. It contorts in grotesque accumulation of mass, throwing crooked rebellions against each attempt to thwart it.
These two primal urges are each potent in their own right, sharpened through evolution and, in a primed killer, each worthy of respect. And knowing this, knowing full well the consequences, he'll grab those wires anyway and cross them with the fervor of a mad scientist.
Kagami Kyoji is the ultimate tease. He'll build you up so hard it'd take a thousand of him to sate the monster he created. Don't let the mirrors fool you. Shred the original of those mass productions and it'll be lost forever in a rain of shards. No human body constructed within the laws of nature would survive what you'd end up wanting to do to him. In this mundane world with its prudish physics, you'll either destroy him before you're close to satisfaction or you'll release him to play another day. Forget your catalogue of moves against a world of adversaries. Kagami pits you against yourself. Pressed against the wall after a day-long battle, checkmate poised over his throat, he'll taint your hard-won victory with that infuriating choice. In that hypnotic moment, he'll leave you wondering who it was that really won.
He watches his back now. There will be no more freebies from boomerang attacks. He once fell for diversions. Now his heightened knowledge affords him the ability to slip away from most strikes at the last possible moment. Even Bloody Rain yields astonishingly meager results against the sophisticated layering of geometric shields. He wins each game of calculus at a dangerous narrow margin that melts into a blur. He has reduced our game to the exploitation of mistakes.
I see him again, dim in the shadows. The weak light from his earring swings sharply across his eyes. He is speaking now. It's all part of his act. He'll reduce you to your most animalistic urges and then speak civilities through the snarled commands of your lizard brain. Just calming yourself down enough to respond in kind is a task in itself. Then he'll offer a smile, a token reward for having followed his breakneck pace-- before he fucks with your wires again.
I employ a dirty trick. With a swing of my sword, a beam collapses and the rotted eiling caves in. That's the arresting moment of held breath. He thwarts the debris as though equipped with sonar, but it's the light, the hot blinding wash of the summer sky at noon that gets him. He angles away from it and blinks. I track him beneath the brim of my shielding hat, my sword up and ready.
As quickly as thought, the light scatters. The rays reflect off a low-hanging mirror and my hat makes for useless defense as dots shoot across my vision. There is time just enough to sweep my sword into a wide crescent, buying distance and falling back. Kagami smiles across a large glass prism surrounded with a turbulent sea of mirrors. He speaks and my blood throbs a faster torrent. What nerve to compliment me on my failed attempt.
Bloody Rain.
Double the projectiles, half the space to maneuver. Doctor Jackal isn't known for losing his patience, but today my mood is... tangible.
When I hear the rip of fabric, it is my turn to smile. The storm of blades thins back to air and I lunge, deflecting the remaining projectiles with broad swipes of the sword. Through the clearing space I see the consequences for his mistake of deploying defensive strategies a second too late. The arrogant fighter has overextended when the most prudent thing to do is mind one's resources. We're both bleeding, but he looks redder, and it's got nothing to do with the comparative shade of our clothes. My momentum rises, his momentum catches like torn clothes passing over a row of jagged nails. He fails to match me pivot by step, so I tighten the circle and close in.
After a day of dancing images, the contact is electric. The impact against a firm but pliable body feels almost unreal when you expect yet another dispersing mirage. I see the tender throat with its graceful tendons within biting distance away. In the corner of an eye, a titillating look of alarm and vulnerability. The lizard brain takes over. It responds to soft warm skin and everything else is superfluous. Those dry non-living things called garments snag and rip, a true annoyance for the predatory eye keen to find its quarry so hard won. There is a thud, a frenzied struggle of creaking wood and billowing dust and all the other prerequisites of a kill, but in fighting him, I have ended up fighting myself again. On this fateful day we are both the losers. My body follows every irrational command of my lizard brain. There is intense pressure building beneath the skin like the fitful complaints of a volcano. I can feel all muscles quivering at one final attempt to stop the process. Then it happens. The pieces of metal inside begin to twitch and move as though with their own will. Every single last one of them. To thrust. To enter him.
I feel pain. Such inconceivable, fantastic, otherworldly pain.
They'll find us interlocked like a pair of porcupines gone unimaginatively wrong, my scalpels fused to his bones, our hearts hanging out our chests as a result of our bodies rupturing in their desperation to bring that over-stimulated desire into fruitation. Our screams, too, are infused, spiraling into echoes as I entertain one last thought in my swiftly darkening mind.
We weren't made for this world, this mundane world with its prudish physics...