Deathstroke moved.
That was all Hikaru registered before Robin's voice cut through the air—"SCATTER!"—and the world exploded into motion.
The sword swept through the space where Cyborg's head had been a heartbeat earlier, missing by inches as the mechanized Titan threw himself backward. Robin fired an explosive disc that Deathstroke batted aside mid-swing, the projectile detonating harmlessly against the wall.
"Titans, GO!" Robin shouted.
Donna charged first, her sword meeting Deathstroke's blade with a metallic clang that reverberated through the damaged common room. She drove forward with Amazonian strength, each strike powerful enough to shatter concrete, but Deathstroke deflected every blow with minimal movement—economical, precise, reading her attacks before she made them.
Starfire unleashed a barrage of starbolts from above. Deathstroke twisted, somehow predicting their trajectory, and used Donna as a shield. The Amazonian dove aside as green energy scorched the floor where she'd stood.
"He's analyzing our patterns!" Robin called out, already moving. "Don't let him get a read on—"
Deathstroke's boot caught him in the chest mid-sentence, sending him crashing through the remains of the couch.
Kid Flash blurred into action, circling at super-speed to create a vortex of disorienting motion. For three seconds, it worked. Then Deathstroke's hand shot out at the exact moment Wally passed, clothesline catching the speedster and slamming him into the ground hard enough to crack the tile.
"Jesus," Hikaru breathed.
He'd fought plenty of villains since coming to this world. He'd tangled with Jinx twice now, battled Overload, and Plasmus, he'd taken down countless criminals. But this—this was different.
Deathstroke moved like violence made art.
Beast Boy shifted into a gorilla and charged. Hikaru sent a barrage of light beams to cover him. Deathstroke dodged each beam with minimal movements, before he sidestepped him, driving his elbow into the base of Gar's skull with surgical precision. The green gorilla dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Cyborg's sonic cannon charged with a high-pitched whine. "Get clear!"
The blast caught Deathstroke center mass, driving him back three steps. Just three. He straightened, armor smoking but intact, and pulled a pistol from his belt in one fluid motion.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Cyborg's cannon sparked, electronics frying from perfectly placed shots. Vic swore, switching to hand-to-hand, but Deathstroke was already inside his guard, exploiting every weakness in the half-mechanical body with brutal efficiency.
Raven's dark energy wrapped around Deathstroke's limbs. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
For a moment, the assassin stilled, caught in her telekinetic grip. Then something shifted—a calculation behind that masked eye—and he twisted against the hold in a way that should've been impossible, breaking free through pure technique.
"His combat computer's predicting our moves," Robin gasped, pulling himself upright. Blood trickled from his split lip. "He's too experienced—adjusting faster than we can adapt."
Hikaru's wings flared. He'd been analyzing too, watching how Deathstroke moved, how he prioritized targets, exploited openings. The assassin fought with the cold certainty of someone who'd killed hundreds—maybe thousands—and survived every encounter.
But he hasn't fought someone who can move at lightspeed.
"Cover me," Hikaru said, and transformed.
The world shifted into electromagnetic spectra as his body converted to pure photons. In this form, thought and movement were nearly instantaneous. He crossed the distance to Deathstroke in a fraction of a second and reformed, light sword materializing mid-swing.
Deathstroke blocked.
Somehow, impossibly, the man had predicted his approach and positioned his blade to intercept. The volatile promethium edge met Hikaru's hard-light construct with a shower of sparks.
"Fast," Deathstroke observed, his voice calm, clinical. "But predictable."
He reversed his grip and drove the pommel into Hikaru's solar plexus before he could phase. Though he hardly felt the blow.
"New strategy!" Robin's voice cut through the chaos. "Pattern Delta-Seven! NOW!"
The Titans moved as one.
Raven created a portal beneath Deathstroke's feet. He dropped through and emerged above the room—directly into Starfire's double-fisted strike. The blow would've pulverized concrete, but Deathstroke rolled with the impact, using the momentum to throw a smoke pellet that filled the air with thick gray clouds.
Donna burst through the smoke, sword leading. Metal rang against metal. Kid Flash flanked from the left. Cyborg's damaged cannon managed one more shot from the right. Beast Boy—recovered and furious—attacked as a tiger from behind. While Hikaru reemerged from his light form from above.
Five different directions. Five simultaneous attacks.
Deathstroke somehow parried them all.
His sword deflected Donna's strike into Kid Flash's path, forcing the speedster to abort. His free hand caught Beast Boy by the scruff and used the tiger's momentum to slam him into Cyborg. A backward kick caught Donna in the knee—not hard enough to break it, but precisely placed to hyperextend the joint and drop her. His sword met Hikaru's light blade with a sharp crack.
They clashed—once, twice—then Deathstroke angled his volatile promethium edge and drove through the construct. The light sword shattered into cascading particles.
Before Hikaru could react, the pommel caught him in the sternum, sending him stumbling back.
"Unbelievable," Hikaru muttered, pulling himself up. His ribs ached where he'd been hit.
He phased back into light form, circling wide to flank. When he reformed, two swords materialized in his hands this time. He'd watched enough—Deathstroke compensated for single-blade attacks too easily.
The dual strike came fast, angled to force a defensive response. Deathstroke's blade caught the first sword, twisted, and carved through the construct. Light particles scattered as the weapon shattered.
Hikaru didn't pause. The second blade swept low while he formed a third in his now-empty hand, pressing the attack with fluid motions his father had drilled into him. High, low, diagonal—
Deathstroke's sword moved like liquid mercury, flowing through guards and parries with inhuman precision. The second light blade broke against that edge. Then the third.
Each time, Hikaru reformed new weapons mid-strike, refusing to give ground. Light swords appeared and shattered in rapid succession—four, five, six—as he pushed his constructs harder, made them denser, poured more energy into the manifestations.
Deathstroke's blade carved through them like they were smoke.
"Persistent," Deathstroke noted, his tone almost approving.
The seventh sword lasted three seconds before shattering. Hikaru formed an eighth, desperation bleeding into his movements. He needed something that could stand against that blade, something that wouldn't just—
The eighth sword broke.
Deathstroke blade was now upon him too close to dodge to fast to even think. Hikaru's hand was still extended, light particles dissipating around his fingers, when something shifted inside his chest. A different kind of energy, hotter than photons, older than starlight.
Fire exploded from his palm.
Not the clean destructive heat of a concentrated beam—actual flames, golden-red and writhing, erupting outward in a massive burst that filled the space between them. The fire roared like a living thing, hungry and bright, forcing Deathstroke to abort his counter-strike and leap backward.
Hikaru stared at his hand, where flames still licked across his fingers without burning him.
What the—