Fake Riko blurred toward him again before Riko even had time to breathe. Not sprinting. Not leaping. Just moving-as if the space between them didn't matter, as if distance was an irrelevant concept to something built from stolen code. The moment Riko braced himself, the creature was already close enough for its breathless, expressionless face to fill his vision.
This time, Riko struck first.
A straight punch, clean, focused, exactly like he'd schooled himself to do when he wasn't panicking. His fist cut through the warped air, aimed at the fake's jaw. For one hopeful second he thought the strike might land.
It didn't.
Fake Riko didn't early dodge, didn't anticipate as Kaze did, and didn't mirror the move like before. It dodged on what felt like the perfect possible frame, as if it calculated the absolute minimum amount of movement required. A tilt of the head-precise, efficient, almost surgical-was all it took.
Riko's punch swiped past air.
But fake Riko instantly parried.
Its own punch was the same technique, same angle, same force, same execution; yet there was a difference. The fake's version was honed, polished into something cleaner. It felt like Riko's move after being optimized by someone who spent years perfecting every flaw.
Riko raised his guard, but the imposter's punch sluiced past it like water through the fingers.
The hit bit into Riko's ribs, sending a shock of pain up his side. His vision blurred for half a second.
He stumbled backward.
Lying Riko didn't.
Instead, it watched him with a blank curiosity, its expression an empty reflection of Riko's own pain. Then it took another step forward, completely unphased, its body posture identical to Riko's-except perfect.
Riko tries once more.
A kick-fast, sharp, sweeping from the side.
Fake Riko responded with the same kick but much more precise. Its heel connected to Riko's shin in mid-air, negating the attack in an instant and sending him stumbling. Still reeling, before he could regain his balance, Fake Riko spun smoothly; its leg cut through the air like a blade.
Riko barely ducked.
The kick passed over his head, slicing the air with a hum that felt wrong, digital, too perfect.
Riko took a deep breath in. "Okay, okay-think. I can outsmart myself, right? I mean… right?!"
The creature didn't say anything.
It didn't have to.
Its silence alone was mocking enough.
Riko charged, mixing his attack in spasms that were as unexpected as they were untelegraphed: a jab feint, a low kick, a sudden elbow—moves he rarely mixed let alone timed together. Messy enough that he wasn't sure where it was going himself.
Only Fake Riko saw through it at once.
It brushed the elbow aside as if brushing at dust. When Riko tried the low kick, the fake lifted its leg high enough to avoid it—no higher than it had to be and no sooner than it had to be: perfect. When Riko threw the jab, the fake caught his wrist.
Not with violence.
With control,
Its grip tightened slightly. Not enough to break anything, but enough to tell Riko a horrifying truth:
It's the one thing that might break him any time it wants.
It just… didn't feel the need to yet.
Riko jerked back, ripping his hand free.
Fake Riko didn't give chase.
It simply shifted its weight into a stance Riko recognized—Riko's stance, when he'd been trying to imitate Kaze's form earlier. Except the creature did it better. Much better.
Riko's heart sank.
"What… are you?" he whispered.
Riko-chan tilted her head.
Not copying.
Just observing.
Learning.
Then it pounced on him once more.
Riko tried a desperate sidestep. Fake Riko mirrored it instantly, catching Riko's shoulder and hurling him across the floating platform. Riko rolled painfully, scraping across rough data tiles that flickered under his weight.
He pushed himself up quickly more out of survival than skill.
The place was already occupied by Riko the fake.
Not running.
Not leaping.
Already there.
"How—?!" Riko gasped.
Fake Riko actually imitated the gasp well-enough, expression and breath to her tone. But even more chillingly:
The fake's gasp of surprise sounded. cleaner.
More controlled.
As if it practiced even Riko's fear.
Riko was on the charge, would give the thing no space. He threw a wild inning-wide punch at its temple. Fake Riko parried with a raised forearm. Riko tried a follow-up uppercut—the fake slipped back with mathematical precision. Riko tried a knee—the fake rotated his hip, redirecting him off-balance.
For every move Riko tried, the fake used better.
Everything he did in attack, the imposter did better.
Riko gritted his teeth, feeling frustration boil over. "Stop copying me!"
Fake Riko copied the line back, perfectly: "Stop copying me!"
But there was one dissimilarity-the tone was smoother, an polished echo of some sort.
Riko backpedaled.
Pseudo Riko stepped forward.
He dodged to the left.
Mirrored right, Fake Riko cut him off even before he took the full step.
Riko attempted to hop backward for distance, only for Fake Riko to leap forward with the same trajectory but better form. Their shoulders collided mid-air, knocking Riko onto his back.
Riko in the fake body came down on all fours, landing on its feet.
Silent.
Emotionless
Efficient.
Riko rolled away, panting. "Fine! You wanna copy? Copy this!"
He picked up a chunk of fractured data tile and slung it.
An fake Riko threw one at the same moment.
The two tiles clashed in mid-air and exploded into a rain of pixel dust.
Riko froze.
That wasn't an imitation of his throw.
It predicted the angle and force and matched it at the exact microsecond needed to cancel it out.
"Okay, this is bad," Riko muttered.
And then the fake Riko echoed: "This is bad".
But its tone was lighter than Riko's—almost cheerful, which somehow made it worse.
Riko's pulse spiked. Panic clawed at his chest, but he suppressed it. He couldn't panic. He needed the unreadable, needed something unexpected-even to him.
So Riko did the dumbest thing he could think of.
He plunged forward with his eyes closed.
He zigzagged with no rhythm or thought, throwing random, unplanned strikes. Sloppy moves, wild swings, things that no trained fighter-or even untrained one-would logically do.
Meanwhile, the false Riko countered perfectly.
It moved with precisely the minimum response necessary each time, like it wasn't fighting Riko's techniques anymore; it was fighting Riko himself. Every wild swing Riko threw exposed more weaknesses the creature could exploit. Every stumble he made, the thing corrected in its own version.
Riko slipped on a loose data tile—
And Fake Riko utilized the exact slip to pivot into a perfect spinning kick, slapping into Riko's ribs.
The hit sent Riko flying, coughing violently as he sprawled onto the ground again. His vision doubled. Pain exploded through his torso.
He forced himself back up, shaking. "I… I beat—can't something that's literally me but—better.
Pseudo Riko repeated the line:
"I can't take on something that's literally me but better."
But in this, its voice sounded confident. Almost proud.
That wasn't Riko's voice.
It was the voice of a man that knew he was winning.
Riko wiped the sweat from his forehead. His heart hammered like it was about to explode. He tried to gather himself, tried to breathe, tried to think. But thinking didn't matter here. Strategy didn't matter. The creature was not only matching everything he did-
It was outperforming him in every step.
Riko plunged once more, a last try to see something—anything. Their fists met. This time, Riko felt no resistance. He felt domination. The counterfeit's punch swallowed his and overpowered it immediately. The shockwave sent Riko sliding backward on his heels, almost falling from the edge of the platform. His arm shook in pain. The fake Riko never budged. It merely lowered its arm, head tilting again, eyes scanning him like data points. Then the System Screen flickered violently in front of Riko's face, glitching with frantic static. Red warnings flashed in impossible symbols. And then the text sharpened into something clear. Something final. The System Screen says: "He is a better you"