Part 4: Collision
The moment detonated in silence.
Kairo pivoted just as the shadow struck. A blur of claws, bone and kinetic violence hit him with the force of a collapsing car. His feet left the ground. They smashed through a wall of cryovats—shattered glass and twitching tissue exploded in a mist of pink fluid and cartilage.
0 was on top of him.
There was no pause. No words. No recognition. Just bared teeth.
0's mouth latched onto Kairo's shoulder, biting through tendon and plating, its jaw cracking as it twisted its entire body to tear the flesh free. Blood jetted sideways, spraying the walls in a grotesque arc. Kairo responded by shoving his left hand—fused into a jagged spike—through 0's lower abdomen.
It pierced bone and hit spine. 0 laughed.
Not a human sound. More like a dying engine coughing code.
Kairo rolled them. 0-1 clawed down his ribs, pulling slivers of meat and armor with it. They smashed into a metal console, crushing it like tinfoil beneath their weight. Sparks rained. One caught Kairo's open wound but he didn't flinch.
0 ripped a panel from the wall and smashed it against Kairo's face. Bone cracked.
Kairo's right eye burst in its socket. Fluid hissed down his cheek.
Kairo kneed 0 in the sternum, heard a sickening crunch, then drove both claws into 0's ribcage and peeled it open. Ribs split like wet wood. Kairo pushed them apart with brute force, exposing the core housing beneath.
0 retaliated with blinding speed, jamming two fingers into Kairo's throat, then slamming his head against the floor. Again. And again. And again. The concrete cratered with each blow. Blood spread in fans. The screaming clones in the adjacent tanks began to howl.
They fought in a ballet of gore.
The air filled with the scent of burnt copper and ruptured proteins.
Kairo finally roared—guttural, primal, a sound pulled from the back of something older than language—and lifted 0 into the air with one arm. He spun and slammed him against the wall.
The wall didn't survive.
Neither did the clone tanks on the other side.
Both monsters dropped into the surgical pit.
Dozens of suspended bodies burst on impact. The floor filled with liquid failure.
Arms reached for them. Voices cried out, half born, begging, unintelligible. Kairo pushed through it, his flesh mutating again. Bones realigned. New muscle coiled like rope. Blood boiled.
0 tackled him. Fangs bared. Flesh steaming.
They hit the floor so hard the ground cracked. Then— Stillness.
Only the hiss of dying machines.
Then...
Kairo's hand emerged from the muck. Gripped a jagged surgical arm. Drove it into 0's jaw, straight through the neck.
0 twitched.
Then bit the rod in half.