The knife shifted in his hand, tip angling toward Hao like it had been meant for him the whole time.
Up close, "old" felt like false advertising.
His hair was a bit grey. His face was lined. His coat had seen better decades.
But his body?
His body moved like someone who had never truly stopped.
His shoulders stayed loose. His center of gravity sat low and unshakable. Every step landed in the exact spot it needed to, like the ground had been measured in advance.
Old man? Hao thought before he shook his head.
The knife flashed.
A silver blur carved through the air.
Hao's motes screamed before his eyes fully registered the motion. His body leaned just enough for the blade to kiss nothing but wind instead of throat.
He felt the cold of it brush his skin.
A tendril shot from his palm, whipping toward the old man's wrist. It moved cleanly, sharply, like a move he'd practiced a thousand times on bags and dummies instead of people.
The old man twisted out of the way.
Not with flashy acrobatics. Elbow tucked in, shoulder rotating just enough, step sliding to the side.
He turned his hips and the knife came back around in the same motion.
Their clash wasn't pretty.
It was fast, sharp, and mean.
The old man's muscles felt like they were braided with wire.
He hit harder.
Every punch, every kick, every short, brutal strike landed with a weight that rattled Hao's bones even when he blocked.
Hao moved cleaner.
His feet slid where they were supposed to go. His head slipped off the line of incoming blows at the last possible moment. Motes tugged at his joints, adjusting millimeters in real time, shaving near-misses off by sheer precision.
Neither gained ground.
The knife kept darting in and out, a hungry silver mouth, always looking for something soft to bury itself in.
The alley became a shrinking cage of motion. Trash cans. Walls. Loose bricks. Puddles reflecting the thin light.
Hao's world narrowed to hands, eyes, angles.
A lunging step. A pivot. A sharp elbow that almost took his chin off his face.
Every contact told Hao one thing:
This wasn't some random psycho with a knife.
This was someone who had fought people like him before.
He seems to have experience, the Anchor said.
Great, Hao thought.
They locked briefly, forearm against forearm, shoulder to shoulder.
The old man's eyes were very close now.
Sharp. Empty of anything but assessment.
"You're fresh," he rasped. "Unspent potential."
"Compliment?" Hao grunted.
"Inventory check," the man said.
He shoved off and slashed again.
Hao twisted, his back skimming the wall, tendril snapping up to deflect the blade. Sparks spat where metal skimmed concrete.
Sweat stung Hao's eyes. The cold air felt hot in his lungs.
He rolled under another swipe, hand catching the ground, kicking out at the same time. His heel clipped the man's knee. It slowed him, but didn't drop him.
Hao's mind flickered.
That girl managed to eat hits after hits from this guy…
That half-second of thought cost him.
Steel bit into his shoulder.
The knife tore through flesh like it had been waiting for permission, sliding in under his collarbone and ripping down as the old man twisted his wrist.
Heat exploded under his skin.
Then cold.
Motes swarmed toward the damage like a panicked school of fish, crawling from under his skin, knitting vessels, clamping down on torn muscle even as he tried to keep his feet.
The old man grunted.
He sounded disappointed.
Hao didn't have time to react.
The old man dropped the knife.
He didn't watch where it fell.
His fist crashed into Hao's jaw with enough force to make his teeth rattle like loose glass in a broken frame. Stars burst behind Hao's eyes. The world smeared sideways.
He hit the ground hard.
Concrete punched his back. The breath flew out of his lungs in a sound that wasn't dignified enough to be called anything but a choked grunt.
For a moment, his body wanted to stay down.
The blessing disagreed.
Bones patched. Nerves fuzzed at the edges. Pain got wrapped in cotton and shoved one layer away.
Motes snapped tight along his spine and shoulders, yanking control strings.
Hao's body forced itself upright without his hands, his torso rising in one smooth, unnatural motion. His palms lagged behind on the ground, then pushed off a second too late.
The old man hesitated.
Just for a fraction of a heartbeat.
"That's new," he said.
Hao spat blood onto the pavement, jaw throbbing.
"Can we talk this out?" he groaned. "I don't get paid enough to be stabbed by strangers in alleys."
The old man's lip curled.
He brought his hands up again, bare now but no less dangerous.
"I need her," he said.
His voice no longer bothered with civility. It had the flat tone of someone reading a grocery list.
"I'm out of points. I won't share."
"What do you even need points fo—"
The man stopped listening halfway through the sentence.
His pupils shrank.
Something ugly and complicated flickered across his face, like a shadow passing behind his eyes.
A ripple in his own head. A tug across the connection no one else could see.
Soph.
For a second, Hao's perception double-exposed.
The alley.
Her heartbeat.
Her fear spiking.
Her awareness brushing his.
His presence brushed back.
And she felt it.
The old man jerked his head slightly to the side, as if someone had just whispered directly into his skull. His jaw clenched.
He took a single step back.
Looked toward where Soph had been smashed against the wall.
Empty.
SMACK.
A brick slammed into the old man's ribs with a sound you don't hear outside car crashes.
It hit the side of his coat like a thrown cinderblock. The impact folded him around it, knocking his breath out in a raw, hoarse gasp. He lifted off his heels and slid across the pavement, shoulder scraping concrete, coat flapping.
He hit the ground on his side, rolled, and skidded to a stop near a tipped trash bag.
For a moment, he didn't get up.
Soph stood where he'd been a heartbeat before.
Her arm was still extended, fingers splayed from the throw. Her chest heaved. Her legs shook like they were trying to remember how to stand upright.
She looked terrified.
Not of him.
Of herself.
Of whatever her body had just done.
Her eyes dropped to her own hand, as if expecting it to belong to someone else.
The fear shifted.
Her gaze flicked, drawn by something that wasn't sight.
It landed on Hao.
Stopped.
Her eyes widened in a different way.
"You…" Her voice scraped raw. "You're in my head."
The words sank into him like a second impact.
Anchor noted. "Efficient."
Hao opened his mouth.
"Wait," he started. "I can expl—"