Soul Drive: Ignition

Hiro's head throbbed uncontrollably as he turned it back to the car. The water bottle still sat in the grass but Hiro knew it had been spiked. He could feel Masato's gaze on him and knew that if he didn't do something quickly, he and Yutaka would be dead.

"What did you do to Yutaka?" Hiro choked, trying to gather all the strength he had left. He staggered back to his feet, his world spinning as he tried to locate Masato by the shack.

"You should be more worried about yourself," Masato replied, his voice smooth and velvety, as he watched Hiro struggle. "You just drank a powerful Nero toxin. You have maybe three hours left at best, though you will most likely spend the last hour in a coma."

Hiro's expression didn't change, he looked past Masato. His piercing brown eyes, locked on the place he last saw Yutaka. "He better be alive,"

"Seriously? My dear boy," Masato said with a chuckle, folding his arms across his chest. "You are the one dying here. Why are you wasting what little time you have left on him? Although this is your fault. If you had listened to him from the beginning, well we wouldn't be here right now."

"I know" Hiro's voice quivered, a clear look of sadness on his face. "That's why I have to save him."

"You really are something else," Masato said with a smile. "I mean I have watched your battle at the embassy on a loop. Your determination is incredible but to experience it in person is something else entirely."

The ground began to tilt as Hiro felt the toxin coursing through his veins, hijacking his nervous system. His vision blurred and he knew he was on the verge of collapsing again. He stumbled back and clutched the car door, his knuckles turning white as he fought for balance.

"You really aren't going to go down are you?" Masato observed, stepping off the rotted porch. "This would have been so much easier if you would just give in to it. I don't feel like getting my hands dirty today."

"I remember you..." Hiro murmured, his mind flashing back to the docks the first time he fought Nori. Every breath was laborious, as the memory came into focus. "I saved your life."

"Such a shame, really," Masato continued, pacing before Hiro like a lecturer before his pupil. "If you had just let Nori rampage, you might have avoided dying now."

"Why..." Hiro managed to spit out between shallow breaths, "I saved you?"

"You ruined me," Masato said, letting his mask of calm slip for the first time. "You are the reason I have to live on the streets. The reason I lost everything I worked decades for. So now I am going to take the only thing you have worth taking."

But Hiro was not one to fade quietly into the darkness. Even as the toxin wreaked havoc within him, his mind raced, "How did you find me?" He asked, he needed more time to come up with a plan.

"I followed you," Masato said with a wide grin spreading across his face, "I watched the entire embassy battle and then I followed you in the shadows. You should try to be more careful."

Hiro muttered to himself about the stupid mistake, but before he finished, Masato's fist crashed into Hiro's side. The force sent him crumpling to the ground, where the hard concrete kissed his cheek with unforgiving coldness.

"What's that?" Masato commanded, delivering a swift kick to Hiro's stomach, silencing the boy's pained groan. "You're going to need to speak up."

Gritting his teeth, Hiro attempted to push himself up, he needed to move. But Masato's foot connected with his legs, sweeping them out from under him and sending him right back to the ground.

"Don't bother getting up," Masato said, glaring down at him. "Save what little energy you have left. I want you to hear this before you die."

Hiro's mind raced, trying to piece together what Masato wanted him to know. He grappled with the weight of his own limps as his mind screamed at them to move.

"You see Hiro," Masato continued, "After they fired me I was able to get my hands on my own Mach. I figured if one Mach could cause the entire government so much trouble.... imagine what I could do to them. And I never would have thought of it if it wasn't for you,"

"You're..." Hiro managed to choke out, trying to form a sentence, "You're sick... someone will stop you."

"Big words coming from a dead man," Masato retorted, his voice dripping with arrogance as he delivered another kick, causing Hiro to wither in pain.

Masato's eyes, cold and unyielding, watched Hiro as the boy struggled. The labored rise and fall of Hiro's chest was erratic, like a dying flame in the wind. On the ground, Hiro's fingers twitched, clawing at the dirt, etching lines of desperation into the dust.

The whole scene unearthed Masato's long-forgotten childhood. The visions of his childhood bullies forcing him to the ground. He had everything a child could want. Toys, trips, tutors. But it was just gilded fluff—a distraction from the fact his parents were never present. He paused over Hiro, casting his gaze back through time.

---

Masato was back in the dusty old manor he grew up in, once kept neat and tidy, now almost barren. The maids had left almost a month ago and his mother stopped cleaning after a week. At the time he knew something had gone wrong but he had no idea just how bad things a gotten for his family.

During the war, his family lost everything—not to the markets, but to the government. Their factories were acquired from them and their trademarks were revoked as a part of a wartime effort to make their antiviral drugs more accessible to all. Under the new wartime act their family wasn't paid and they were soon tossed out onto the streets as their wealth dwindled away.

Masato watched everything he loved growing up being loaded into vans and taken away, never to be seen by him again.

---

"Never again" Masato whispered to himself back in the present. "I won't let you take everything I work so hard to get back. I won't let them take it either. I will make this world worship me." Masato his voice unhinged

Hiro had taken Masato's moment lost in thought as his window, gathered all his strength. He pushed against the ground, every muscle screaming in protest, trying to rise—to face his fate standing, not kneeling.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Masato produced a small vial from his pocket, holding it just out of Hiro's reach. The liquid inside was a strange fushia color. "This is salvation, Hiro. The antidote. And it's yours if you can take it from me."

"I don't believe you," Hiro said, eyeing the small vial, "You wouldn't let me live even if I could take that from you."

"Are you sure about that?" Masato asked, trying to slip back into his collect persona. "What if you are wrong and this is the antidote? After all, how twisted would it be for you to die not even trying to get the one thing that would save your life?"

Hiro couldn't read Masato, his vision began to blur as he tried to think. There was a way to know for sure, his Mach, one scan of the vial and it would be able to tell him exactly what was contained in that vile. But it would be risky, the Mach system uses the pilot as a power source, in his current state he wasn't sure how long he would actually be able to wear the suit for. His options were limited, but one thing he did know was he was going to fight until the very end.

"Now there is the look I have been waiting for," Masato announced, leaning close enough for his breath to graze Hiro's ear, "you've decided on something. I can't wait to see what your last plan of attack looks like."

Hiro lunged forward, his shaky hand outstretched toward the vial. In one swift motion, Masato tucked the vail away from Hiro's grasp. The Masto angled himself so Hiro glided past him, unable to catch himself on the man. Masato couldn't believe the pathetic attempt, he almost laughed as he watched it—a desperate attempt at survival.

"Masato," Hiro breathed out, from below him. "This isn't over."

Hiro's fingers, slick with icy sweat, betrayed him as they fumbled through the grass until they came in contact with his Mach. He knew he would never be able to take the vial from Masato; it was a cruel joke and pointless to attempt. Instead, he threw himself in the direction he had lost his Mach in when the poison had just started to take effect.

His finger grazed the talk button causing the device to spring to life, the AI voice confirming his identity as it activated.

The teal armor sprouted from the old phone and engulfed him like a second skin, the color of the ocean's depths. The reinforced armor offered him some support, keeping him stable and unright even though he felt like collapsing.

"Foreign substance detected," the AI's voice, calm and clinical, broke through the haze in his mind. "Projected system failure in thirty minutes."

"I know that, I need you to scan the vile," Hiro instructed, his locked onto Masato and the pocket that held the possible cure.

"Scanning. Trace elements in the air and on the vial suggest a seventy-two percent chance the vial contains the antidote."

"Not exactly the best odds," Hiro muttered, as assessed the situation. He needed that vial and he only had thirty minutes to get it, he didn't have time to think of a plan.

But Masato hadn't moved the entire time, a serene smile on his face. "Predictable, Hiro. So very predictable."

With a flourish, Masato produced an old digital camera from his pocket, his thumb caressing the menu button with an exaggerated tenderness. "At full strength, I know I wouldn't stand a chance against you, but now..."

"So who's really desperate here?" Hiro shot back, missing his actual shot with his laser as his vision blurred.

The camera clicked and the camera vanished into the swarm of nanites, and Masato's figure was enveloped in a forest-green Mach. His Mach was sleek with well-defined ridges down the back, he was translucent with only his mouth visible.

"Looks like it is my turn now," Masato mused aloud, almost contemplative. "Honestly I wish I had put in more hours on this."

Hiro said nothing, his breath heavy in his chest. His soul sabers released from their sheaths, as he took a defensive stance.

Masato scoffed, and with a flick of his wrist, summoned soul stars their plasma glowing as the sun began to set. He sent them slicing through the air, with deadly precision.

"Damn it," Hiro grunted, as he almost lost balance stopping the stars. His movements were sluggish, the stars returned to Masato, and Hiro wasn't sure he could stop them again.

"You're not looking so good," Masato taunted, circling Hiro like a hawk. "Just how long did your Mach say you had left."

"More than enough time," Hiro huffed, forcing a grin despite the tremor in his hands. "To kick your ass."

"That's right," Masato replied, throwing another star star. "Try to die thinking you had a chance."

Hiro didn't attempt to stop it this time, he threw himself out of the way just in time. He looked up at the countdown clock on his visor, fifteen minutes left. He couldn't beat Masato but if he could just get by him, maybe he could get to Yutaka, and get him to safety before his time was up.

It was the only option he had left. He was going to die. But Yutaka didn't have to share the same fate.

"Did you forget about me?" Masato drawled, launching a laser straight at him.

"Shit," Hiro spat through gritted teeth as he narrowly avoided it. He quickly returned fire, tucking his blades back into his suit.

"Pathetic," Masato said, dodging each blast with ease. "At this rate, there is no way you will save your friend, let alone yourself."

Hiro launched another array of blasts toward Masato, each one getting closer to their target, Masato stayed only a few centimeters away from each blast.

With Masato distracted, Hiro began pushing forward, closing the gap between himself and the remnants of the house. He just needed to get a little closer.

This was it, Hiro could see through the entranceway but there was no sign of Yutaka anywhere. Hiro's teal armor glistened as the last remaining ray of sunlight faded and he drew his soul blades, their glow lighting up the darkness and allowing him to see as his vision faded. His grip faltered, the twin weapons feeling heavier than they ever had before.

"Locate Masato's Mach," Hiro ordered the Ai, unable to see anything but the glow of his own blades, within seconds he was informed the Mach was moving in from his left side.

Hiro lunged forward, knowing he needed to get a good strike in, but his usual swift strike became a sluggish sweep. Masato danced aside with ease, the grin never leaving his face as he delivered a savage kick that sent Hiro crashing into the porch, the wooden boards splintering on the impact.

"System warning." Hiro's AI called out as he freed himself from the porch.

"I know, I know," Hiro spat out, he could feel his own frustration building.

"Tick tock," Masato tsked, delivering an energy blast that sent Hiro crashing through the wall of the house. "Careful now, if this place collapses Yutaka will die for sure." Masato laughed.

Hiro got back to his feet, he was tired of being thrown around like a ragdoll. He thought back to his battle at the embassy, how he willed his Mach to create something new, a way to win, he prayed he could do that now.

"Creating the soul saber will deplete your current energy level," The AI warned, its tone emotionless. "You would die instantly."

"I'm open to other suggestions," Hiro managed to whisper, his legs had become totally numb and only held up by the Mach.

"Deactivation of the Mach until would secure you ten additional minutes of time," The AI informed him.

"He'll kill me bore that," Hiro rasped, barely audible over the pounding in his skull, "Please there has to be something."

"The nearest hospital is five minutes away," came the calm, synthetic voice in his ear. "Autopilot can bring you there."

"He'll destroy the hospital if we lead him there," Hiro murmured grimly, his heart sinking as he realized he had no real options left.

Masato entered the house and grabbed Hiro from behind, lifting him off the ground. "This was nice, but I really must be going."

"Thrusters on full," Hiro retorted, the Mach suits thrusters sent the pair flying backward threw another wall in the house, knocking Masato off him.

Masato was flung into a nearby tree, as Hiro charged his arm canon for one last blast, aiming at the man struggling to free himself. But a vision of Diaki replaced Masato and Hiro hesitated, giving Masato enough time to escape.

"You had me?" Masato seemed almost surprised. "Don't tell me you can't kill, I saw you slice right through that Mach and its pilot."

Hiro took a moment to try to recover from the vision of Diaki. He could feel his heart racing—it wasn't real, Diaki is dead, you had to do it, he told himself.

"I don't need to kill you to stop you," Hiro grunted, looking up at Masato and recharging his arm canon.

"That is the only way out of this fight," Masato said, with conviction. "Of course killing me like this means the antidote goes with me."

"I know," Hiro said, realizing Masato intended to force him to kill or be killed. With his next breath, he launched the blast at Masato one final time, hoping it would make its mark.