The remnants of Masato's hammer shifted through the grass as the breeze pushed them along. Kimiko's chest heaved, her eyes as sharp as the arrow notched in her bow, lining up the finishing blow. Masato kneeled on the ground before her, his smug smile wiped clean off his face as he prepared to die.

"So long," Kimiko muttered to herself, her arrow charged and ready to make its mark.

Masato's lips parted but no words came out, only a gasp as if he was choking on the air around him. He looked up just in time to see the arrow leave Kimiko's bow, aimed at his heart. With a twist of his body, he narrowly avoided death, the arrow embedding into the stone behind him.

"That was slower," he said, regaining his composure as he realized the change, he quickly catapulted himself toward her.

"You're just being desperate now," Kimiko retorted, already sidestepping his counterattack, and watching Masato come crashing back down to the ground. "Your flight systems are clearly not functioning and you're grasping at straws."

Kimiko knew Masato was right, charging a soul arrow came at the cost of her stamina, she needed to end this fight before Masato regained his confidence. Her fingers danced over the bowstring, releasing another arrow that sang through the air, forcing Masato to contort his body in a desperate arc to evade its strike.

"Those arrows you're firing come at a cost don't they?" Masato called out, he was beginning to piece together what was happening.

"Stop talking and trying to buy yourself time," Kimiko gritted her teeth, drawing her last arrow.

Masato attempted to dodge it but this time Kimiko had planned for his motion, curving the shot ever so slightly. The projectile found its target, burying itself deep into the heart of Masato's Mach generator. A sizzle of electricity crackled, followed by the ominous hum of a system beginning to overheat.

"System failure imminent," the AI's disembodied voice announced, sterile and unfeeling. "Survival chances zero percent."

"Damn it!" Masato cursed, the realization hitting him like a cold wave. He ripped the arrow from his chest but the damage had already been done. This was the end of him but that didn't mean he couldn't take someone with him.

"Don't do it!" Kimiko's shout echoed as she watched Masato dive toward Hiro's unconscious body. A surge of adrenaline propelled her forward, her arm extending in a powerful swipe that connected with Masato's trajectory.

Her blow sent him careening off course, the ground rushing up to meet him as he skidded across it. He crashed, a crumpled heap of man and machine, in a crater a mile down the road.

"You are going to die alone," Kimiko said, watching the smoke rise from the cracked concrete.

"You think you stopped me..." Masato coughed, a twisted grin forming on his lips. "You think you've won? You have no idea what's coming..."

Kimiko was too far away to hear the ramblings of the dying man. She turned away from the cater, her thoughts immediately returning to Hiro. She rushed to his side, a small needle extending from her Mach to take a blood sample. She needed to create the antidote, and fast.

Her Mach quickly analyzed the poison coursing through Hiro, with a bing it informed her of its effects, it also informed her the creation of the antidote would take hours. She knew this was time they didn't have.

"Hiro doesn't have an hour." she tried to reason with the AI, sweat building across her forehead, "There has to be another way. There has to be something you can do otherwise what is the point of you." Tears began to stream down her cheeks, the AI fell silent for a moment, the quiet was deafening as she waited for a response. Then her visor sprang to life and streams of code blazed across it, suddenly a pulse left her suit stretching for kilometers. It was scanning for something.

"Scan complete, all necessary components of the antidote have been located," the AI informed her, a small circle appeared on her visor to show where it was found. "creating extraction tool and molecule separator."

Kimiko was in shock, the tube-like device built itself in her hands, ready to create the antidote in seconds.

"Begin extraction," Kimiko said firmly, as she reached the patch of dirt. The device began sifting through the dirt, with one vial beginning to fill with the liquid antidote.

Laughter began to rise out of the pit as Masato chuckled, his voice echoed in the night while Kimiko tried to tune it out. "Hiro... dear, tragic Hiro. I know who really killed your parents."

At this, Kimiko stiffened, her blood running cold. "What do you say?" Her demand was sharp, as she cautiously approached the pit. She left the device to finish its work.

"Such a deep, dark well of secrets," he continued, he seemed unaware that Kimiko was even listening. "And I kept them all... right to the very end."

"Who killed Hiro's parents!" Kimiko demanded as she slipped into the pit, but Masato didn't even look in her direction.

"Oh the things I did for you," Masato gasped, his laughter turning into a coughing fit. Then, with the theatricality of a performer taking his final bow, Masato and his Mach erupted in a ball of fire and sound, sending Kimiko soaring backward.

"Damn it!" Kimiko screamed into the void where he had been, her fists clenched in rage. She pulled herself back up on her feet.

She turned away, her eyes burning not with tears, as she made her way back to the molecule separator. "I will find out the truth," she vowed as she retrieved the finished antidote. "And when I do, Hiro will finally know just how sorry I am,"

Kimiko's fingers trembled as she deactivated her Mach armor, the nanite peeling away and reforming into the small Tamagotchi once again. She sprinted back toward Hiro, her boots kicking up dust and debris. His chest rose and fell with the shallow breaths as he clung to life.

"Come on, Hiro," she whispered, pressing two fingers to his neck. A weakening pulse thrummed beneath her touch. She apologized for what she was about to do to him, tearing a piece of her sleeve, she did her best to clean the injection site.

Fishing into the depths of her utility pocket, Kimiko's hand emerged clutching the small vial—she quickly filled a syringe with the violet liquid. She plunged the needle into Hiro's neck, the violet liquid disappearing into his veins within seconds. "Come on Hiro, you can live through this," she urged, as she watched his body for any signs of improvement.

Minutes stretched into infinity as she kept watch over her once best friend. Finally, just as she was about to give up, Hiro gasped as he took a breath, his breathing becoming more stable with each one. Kimiko exhaled slowly, allowing relief to wash over her. Hiro would survive—she had completed her mission.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Kimiko knew he couldn't see her, not yet anyway. Not until she could prove herself to him. With a final glance at his peaceful face, she reactivated her Mach and took to the skies, fleeing the scene without leaving a trace.

As the cityscape unfurled below her, Kimiko's thoughts wandered back to the mysterious Mach Pilot's final words. Who was he? How did he know about Hiro's parents? Her Mach engines hummed silently, and she let herself get lost in her thoughts.

She tapped the comm device nestled in her ear. "Osamu, I got there in time. Hiro's safe."

"Kimiko?" Osamu's voice crackled through the line. "What happened out there, how was Hiro poisoned?"

"An unknown Mach pilot." Her reply was curt, as she made her way back to Hiroshima. "Somehow he got close enough to Hiro to get the poison in him. Don't worry though, I've eliminated the threat."

"You mean he's dead," Osamu said, the relief evident in his voice. "Kimiko if you need to talk about this."

"I don't. It was an easy choice to make if it meant saving Hiro," Kimiko said, not wanting to dwell on the fact she took a life. "The real problem is he claimed to know about what happened to Hiro's parents. He claimed they were killed and he knew who did it."

"Did he say anything else," Osamu asked her, clearly excited by the new information. "Anything we can use."

"No, he was just rambling while he died," Kimiko said, as she recalled that night's events. They didn't even know who this mystery Mach was working for, the Canadians, the Japanese, or if was there a third party lurking in the shadows.

"I'll meet up with you later today to debrief," Osamu said abruptly, and the line went dead.

Kimiko arced through the clouds, the city shrinking beneath her. She still wasn't sure she should trust Osamu, he clearly had an agenda of his own. She clenched her jaw, as she considered just what she was willing to share with him.

"Osamu why are you so interested in Hiro and his family," she muttered to herself. "What are you hiding."

Her Mach landed gently just outside the city limits, she stepped out of her suit and one fluid motion, placing her Mach in her bag before walking back into town.

---

The wail of sirens faded into the sounds of Tokyo's nightlife as Osamu stepped out of his unmarked car. The apartment complex loomed before him, a charred skeleton picked clean by fire and violence. He adjusted the stiff collar of his uniform, its fabric foreign to his skin—tonight he was Officer Sato, a lowly patrolman, not the secret agent working for the Canadian government.

"Officer Sato?" A uniformed cop approached him with a clipboard in hand, eyes skimming the scene with practiced detachment. "Looks like the fire was set intentionally according to the fire chief."

"Any leads on who did this?" Osamu asked, squinting at the scorch marks branding the walls, the fire so intense it melted most of the wiring.

"The building belongs to a branch of the Yakuza," the officer replied, thumbing towards the remains. "Someone had it out for them big time."

Osamu paced through the aftermath, past bodies that were almost unrecognizable due to the flames. He carefully took in every detail of the scene, noting the odd burn marks on the bodies. In the back, he found a gaping wound in the building's architecture, but it was its perfect circular shape that he found the most concerning.

"Must've been some bomb," another officer mused, peering at the scorch marks that crawled up the walls from the hole.

"Some bomb indeed," Osamu agreed, but he knew that no bomb could do this. His mind walked him back to the strange Mach that had just attacked Hiro and now this.

A crumpled note was clutched in one of the deceased's hands, its message clear: 'Should have listened to the deal.' The lead detective, a man with a hawkish nose and eyes that missed little, held it up to the light.

"Must have been quite the deal, maybe this is what happened when it fell through," he speculated.

"Perhaps," Osamu agreed noncommittally, his mind already leaping ahead, the idea of a third party of Mach users wasn't seeming so crazy now, though this could have also been the work of the Japanese government.

When the site was finally cleared and the flicker of red and blue lights subsided, Osamu retreated to the solitude of his car. His fingers danced across the keys of his phone, punching in a secure code.

"Patrick Ward," he said, the line crackling alive. "We've got a situation here."

"Osamu?" came the reply, tinged with the weary edge of midnight hours. "What's happened?"

"An attack on Yakuza territory," Osamu reported, his gaze fixed on the foreboding silhouette of the ruined complex. "It's a possible Japanese Mach attack."

"So they're targeting the Yakuza now?" Patrick ventured.

"Possibly." Osamu's reply was sharp, a knife slicing through possibility. "Seems they were trying to make some sort of deal."

"I don't like the sound of that, we don't need Yakuza in Mach suits," Patrick said, clearly concerned by the notion.

"I couldn't agree more sir," Osamu confirmed, his voice low, as he pressed his thumb to his steering wheel to start it. "I'll figure out exactly who is behind this, and what kind of deal they are trying to make."

"Don't let us down," Patrick instructed. "Stay sharp. We can't afford any more setbacks."

"Understood." Osamu ended the call, knowing he had given Patrick just enough to keep his trust.

His mind churned with theories, as the car began to hover and pull away from the curb. If this was the Japanese government, it could have been a failed attempt to find another Mach pilot. On the other hand, if there was a group of Mach users they were unaware of then all bets were off and they would have no way of knowing what their goal was here.

He watched the buildings pass him by, as the car drove itself back to his apartment, he needed to write it all down while it was still fresh in his mind.

---

Back in the woods, Hiro's senses slowly returned to him; the smell of burning metal, the gravel digging into his palms as he pushed himself up, and Yutaka's silhouette blurring into view. The world was still spinning but he felt his strength was coming back to him.

"Yutaka?" Hiro's voice was hoarse, as tried to focus on the man approaching him.

"Easy, Hiro," Yutaka said, steadying him with a firm grip. His dark eyes were pools of concern as he pulled Hiro into an embrace. Up close Hiro could see the blood stains on his shirt as he accepted the hug.

The shack cracked and screamed, as it finally gave way and collapsed in on itself. Charred debris scattered across the ground, as a wave of dust settled at their feet.

"Did you...?" Hiro began, but the question died on his lips. He remembered the heavy feeling of the poison and Masato standing over him as he struggled to stay awake.

"Save you?" Yutaka pulled away as he finished Hiro's question. "I'm afraid I was knocked out long before you were. I don't know how we made it out of there alive but we are lucky we did."

"Masato..." Hiro's thoughts tangled with possibility. "He should have won, we should be dead,"

"There is no point trying to make sense of this." Yutaka nodded towards a darkened patch of earth. "We need to get out of here before someone else stumbles on all of this."

"You're right, I just wish I knew what happened here," Hiro lamented, Yutaka guiding him back to the car—which despite all odds remained entirely untouched by the battle.

As they slid into the seats, the engine hummed to life, and Yutaka typed in their destination. The car navigated through the debris-strewn paths, letting them know they would arrive within a few hours.

"Could it have been Nori?" Hiro asked, his gaze fixed on the receding ruins in the rearview mirror.

"Maybe," Yutaka said. "Let's just get to Toyone, we can talk more about it there. We'll be safe there at the Hiroshinka Preparatory Academy."

"That sounds expensive," Hiro said absent-mindedly watching the forest pass them by.

"Don't worry about the money. What's important is the security it provides." Yutaka glanced at him. "It's a fortress in its own right and home to students from around the world, the rich and the famous attend it. Causing an incident there would be like declaring war on the world."

"So we are using them as insurance," Hiro mulled over the word. It didn't sit right with him to use people that way. "What if they don't care about the collateral"

"Hiro, they won't know you are there." Yutaka's voice softened. "We're going to change our identities. Hide in plain sight. They won't even think to be looking for us at a place like this."

"Are you sure," Hiro asked, leaning back against the seat. He didn't want any more innocent people getting caught up in this. He just wanted to keep everyone as safe as possible.

"I promise you Hiro that nothing bad can happen to you or anyone else while you are behind those school walls," Yutaka assured him gently. "You can trust me on this."

"I trust you," Hiro said, but he still couldn't shake the uneasy feeling building in his gut.

"Good," Yutaka said, as the car sped through a quiet town. "I'm going to need you to do everything I ask while we are there, one slip in your cover could mean the end."

"Got it..." Hiro let the thought linger, knowing even though they would be safe at the academy, that safety would only last so long. For now, though, he could convince himself he was a normal kid again. In fact, it was all he wanted to do.

"Let's hope this school has a decent cafeteria," Hiro joked weakly, trying to lighten his own mood.

"They have their own Michelin-star restaurant on campus," Yutaka replied, a small smile playing on his lips. "So I think the food will be just fine."

"A Michelin-star meal every day," Hiro muttered, a genuine smile tugging at his lips. "Now that's something worth fighting for."