Noises.
There were a lot of noises. So noisy, Takumi couldn’t hear himself thinking.
“ —new Fighter, Kou—!!”
Did someone call his name? So much was going on in Takumi’s head, he couldn’t process a single thing entering his ears.
“—seasoned veteran—newbie crush—saki Zero—!!”
Takumi felt like he heard jeers coming from somewhere, but perhaps his brain played tricks on him.
Zero. Right, Kurosaki Zero, his opponent. For a moment, anger bubbled up in Takumi’s chest, immediately followed by fear, and then anxiety for what would happen.
It’s okay. Just stick to the plan, and it’ll be alright. Stick to the…
Takumi stopped in his tracks for a moment, unsure to continue walking ahead. The Omega Staff who was guiding him called out to him.
“Kou-senshu?”
“…yeah, I’m coming.”
With a change of heart, Takumi stepped forward.
The bright light coming from the lights above almost made him reflexively cover his eyes, but he only let himself wince a little, not showing any more weaknesses.
The arena was the entire empty warehouse. His opponent had already stood in front of him.
He was a man with a huge physique, but not in the meaning of muscular or tall, but huge as in having a round belly. His outfit was dominated by the color black, prominent with the black trench coat. His head was covered with a fedora hat, and there was a wooden katana that he propped on his shoulder.
With a beard on his double chin, he showed off a condescending smug.
“Hello, my prey. I am your Grim Reaper.”
Daniel Mitchell aka Kurosaki Zero greeted Takumi aka Kou.
♤♠♤♠♤
With the power of one of the Staff, the space inside the warehouse had become non-euclidean. Depending on which door you entered, you could enter the stage like Takumi and Daniel or you could enter the audience’s seats, despite the position between the two spaces basically overlapping. Saki, Jun, and Shizuka entered the ‘backstage’ space as per instruction.
“That’s Takumi. Does it start now?”
Pointed Jun, followed by a question. They were on the second floor of the backstage space, looking down on Takumi and Daniel who occupied the stage space.
“Not yet. It starts when the signal goes off.”
Saki answered him. Right then, she saw Takumi’s figure went hazy for a moment before solidifying again. Takumi must’ve placed a hologram of himself in his own position then stepped away.
“Since we have new faces in chat, Bobu will explain the rules, okay~?!” the speaker boomed, airing the stream of Bobu-chan the commentator Vtuber, “Repeat after me~! One, two, three! THERE’S NO RULES, YOU IDJIT!! The arena belongs to the Fighters for the next 30 minutes, there won’t be any interference until one of them gets teleported out! Crush the eyes, kick the groin, spill some blood, nothing is foul in Omega Battle!”
Hearing that, followed by the shrill laughter of the Vtuber, Jun gulped.
“I-it’ll be okay, right?”
“…let’s believe in Takumi-kun.”
Saki wanted to reassure Jun, but something in her heart told her that things wouldn’t go as smoothly.
♤♠♤♠♤
Bip. Bip. Bip. Peep.
The moment the signal went off, Daniel whipped his wooden katana diagonally down. The half-translucent slash flew at tremendous speed, ready to hit Takumi with the force of a minitruck.
Takumi stood resolute in his place, not showing any attempt to evade or guard against it.
And then—
vwoooooosh!
—the slash flew through Takumi, hitting the wall behind him. Takumi’s figure was scissored for a moment, but it soon reverted after a small distortion.
“Ooh! What just happened?! Just when I thought Kou was about to be sent flying, Zero’s yoruga-tensho passed through his body! Chat said it’s Intangibility, but too bad! Kou’s power is photokinesis! It has to be a hologram! Kou’s real body is hiding somewhere using invisibility!”
While she got the nature of his power wrong, Bobu the commentator easily revealed Takumi’s plan to the audience for better engagement.
However, Saki and Jun, who came up with the plan, seemed just as shocked.
“Why?! I thought Takumi was supposed to look defeated now?!”
“…”
Saki didn’t answer the question. She watched in silence as Daniel kept sending his attacks towards the hologram Takumi three more times.
“…are you done?” Hologram Takumi opened his mouth, giving the illusion that it was speaking. “Then it’s my turn.”
With a snap, hologram Takumi threw his right hand to the side. Immediately afterwards, four more figures of Takumi showed up on both sides with various postures.
“Clones, everyone! Not shadow clones, but light clones! The real Kou must be amongst one of them!”
Bobu once again guessed correctly. The smug grin disappeared from Daniel’s face.
Daniel once again swung his Ame-no-Masamune, hitting the first hologram Takumi in the middle, snuffing it out. At the same time, the other four Takumi made a run for Daniel.
“Can Zero guess which one is the real Kou?!”
Daniel sent a flying slash towards the one on his right. It snuffed, then reappeared almost immediately. Daniel tried the two on his left. They both snuffed, then reappeared as well.
“Tsk!”
Panicking that the holo-Takumis were getting closer, Daniel brought the wooden katana all the way to the back of his body, seemingly about to make a wide slash.
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So what if Takumi was invisible? If Daniel unleashed a big enough attack to engulf everything in front of him, Takumi would get hit anyway.
“Ooga-ten—”
“Too late!”
That was when the real Takumi undid his invisibility. He was running in the middle lane, ahead of his clones, and had come right in front of Daniel.
Daniel didn’t have any time to react before Takumi unleashed a punch to his face.
“A hit! That was a clean straight from Kou!”
Daniel staggered as he walked back to get away from Takumi. That punch came seemingly out of nowhere. When he saw Takumi closing in again, Daniel reflexively tried to defend his head, but the punch went for his abdomen this time.
“ghahak!”
Daniel held his stomach in pain, his knees buckled.
“Takumi-kun, don’t!”
Saki banged on the glass. Her words, of course, failed to reach Takumi.
“Zero, the newbie crusher, is down with just two punches! Battle has only just started, but will it end now?!”
As Takumi looked down on his opponent, groveling on the ground in pain, he was weighing his choices. He could easily end the battle now, coming out victorious, but was that the path he wanted to thread?
After a second of silence, Takumi turned around and walked away.
“Stand up. I don’t bully the weak.”
Spoke Takumi, his voice reached the body microphone that was planted in his clothes.
“OOOHHH!! What a cold line from Kou! You sure say big for a newbie, damn you!!”
Bobu hyped up the chat of her stream.
“Wh-what is Takumi doing?”
“…I don’t know. This isn’t part of the plan.”
Saki and Jun looked riddled by Takumi’s odd behavior.
Once Takumi walked half the length he ran before, he turned around and waited for Daniel to get back to his feet.
It took some time, but Daniel finally stood up. A glint of anger was seen in his eyes.
“Y-you did well evading my yoruga-tensho, but your luck ran out when you met me! My name is Kurosaki Zero, and I am your grim reaper!!” Exclaimed Daniel, thrusting his wooden katana towards Takumi. “You will taste my full power! HYAAAAAAAHH BAN—”
“—He said it!!!! He really said it!”
Bobu and her chat went crazy, though most of the chatters said a variation of “LOLOLOL,” “LMAO for real?” “copyright infringement going to get his ass before Kou did,” “this guy’s a joke.”
Daniel held the position for some time, screaming all the while. Bobu used the opportunity to respond to her chat.
“What, you’re asking what happens once he unleashes his Ban? Of course, you’d think he’d get a power-up and transform, right? After all, it’s B*nkai, you know, Ban*ai! Ufufufu, but the truth is, nothing! Nothing is going to happen other than Zero may or may not be getting more unhinged than before!”
Bobu put in some self-censor in her words to get in on the joke.
Takumi didn’t just wait in silence as Daniel “powered up,” he steadily created more and more hologram clones. The number of clones gradually filled up half of the warehouse.
Once Daniel was satisfied, he once again swung his wooden sword. Diagonally, then horizontally, then vertically, then whatever direction he felt like. It was less of a swinging and more of a flailing around with a sword in hand. However, the crescent-shaped flying slashes were nonetheless deadly, and they were produced endlessly in droves.
A single one of those attacks could easily shatter bones. No normal human could possibly survive facing an onslaught of flying slashes like those head on, save coming out uninjured.
In a matter of seconds, the countless hologram clones that Takumi created were mowed down easily. Even as they reappeared, the flying slashes came flying towards them even faster.
Eventually, every last Takumi in front of him was snuffed, save for one that was sent to the other end of the wall.
And yet, Daniel didn’t stop unleashing his barrage of slashes. With the ferocity of a cornered beast, Daniel kept on flailing his sword. The entire room shook wildly. Dust started to fall down from the ceilings. Even as Bobu tried to say something, her voice lost to the overwhelming audio violence that Daniel created.
Indeed, Kurosaki Zero had become much more unhinged.
The ‘berserk’ state lasted for a whole minute. To say that it was miraculous the building still stood would undermine the sheer tenacity of the Staff who kept the space intact.
At the end of it, Daniel came out huffing heavily. His arms were heavy and his vision hazy. However, seeing that Takumi was mangled in ways no human should, Daniel knew his victory was guaranteed.
—until the clone disappeared.
“Are you done?”
The cold voice came from behind him.
Before Daniel could turn around, Takumi kicked him on the knee, once again buckling him. His wooden katana left his hand.
Takumi grabbed Daniel by the collar of his trench coat. Genuine fear was in his eyes, but that didn’t stop Takumi from serving him a mouthful of punch with his right fist.
It could have been him, not his clone. It was the photokinesis user. It was Daniel’s many other victims. Daniel showed no mercy, so neither would Takumi. A punch, after a punch, after a punch, after a punch.
After the fifth punch, Takumi stopped his hand mid air, then lowered it. He let go of Daniel’s collar then walked towards his wooden katana to pick it up. Daniel tensed up, thinking that Takumi would use his prized Ame-no-Masamune to beat him up next. —And yet, Takumi threw the wooden sword at him instead, as if giving it back to him.
“Stand up. We’re not done yet.”
He commanded.
Daniel tried to grasp his wooden katana, failed, then tried again. He didn’t know why Takumi was doing this to him, but he knew what Takumi was doing—
“—Geez, Kou-kun, he’s doing a public humiliation.”
“Momo-chan!”
“Momo-senpai!”
Saki and Jun were so focused on the battle that they failed to notice that Momoka Momo had joined them.
“What do you mean by public humiliation, Momo-chan?”
“As the name says, he’s humiliating Zero in public. Zero’s followers think Zero is some kind of untouchable holy knight, a symbol of their righteousness. That’s why, if Kou-kun shows them how pathetic Zero actually is, they might get disillusioned and finally see him for who he actually is.”
“But then, why would Takumi keep giving him a chance to fight back? Wouldn’t it be faster if he just continued kicking him while he’s down?”
“Well, if Momo were to guess, it’s probably so that Zero can’t make an excuse afterwards. ‘He’s just lucky!’ ‘He was cheating!’ ‘I wasn’t given a chance to use my full power!’ Sore losers love to use excuses like that, after all. Kou-kun probably plans to keep providing Zero chances to attack him until Zero runs out of excuses.”
Momo looked down on Takumi in the arena. While he didn’t show any sign of physical exhaustion, Momo could tell signs of psychic fatigue easily.
This was Takumi’s third week ever since he started using psychic power and yet he was firing off complex holograms one after another. It was as if asking a baby who just learned how to walk, to run a marathon and win first place. He was already pushing himself to his limits.
“…there are of course better alternatives, but this is what Kou-kun decided. Let’s just hope he doesn’t regret giving Zero his sword back. A wounded beast is most ferocious, after all.”
♤♠♤♠♤
Those eyes, sickening.
Daniel knew humiliation. He was shoved, he was punched, he had an entire bucket of waste water dumped on his head. Why? Just because he liked Japanese cartoons?
Nobody could understand him. Not his family, not his mother, not those scums from his highschool. They were lucky Daniel hadn’t awakened his power back then, otherwise he would make their lives a living hell.
It was those eyes that he hated. Those judging eyes. They looked at him like he wasn’t a human being, like he belonged in the lower caste.
Those very same blue eyes.
“Don’t look at me…” Daniel whimpered, the grip in his wooden katana tightened. “Don’t look at me with those eyes!”
With a single motion, Daniel was back up to his feet. His movement looked a bit unnatural. After catching his breath, Daniel opened his mouth.
“You…what’s your name…”
“…Kou.”
Takumi answered Daniel’s question with his handle name. If he wanted, Daniel’s followers could dig up his personal information anytime they want, but right now they were on camera. This was entertainment.
“Koh…I will remember your name. Feel honored, Koh, you are the first to see my true power.”
Daniel once again thrusted the tip of his wooden sword towards Takumi. This time, he wasn’t screaming or making any flamboyant gesture, he simply aimed his sword towards Takumi.
Takumi created a holo-clone in his place and went invisible before he stepped away.
Looking at Daniel’s posture, Takumi guessed that it would probably be a thrusting version of his yoruga-tensho. If his slash was wide and hit like a truck, the thrust probably would be much smaller and faster, like a gun with infinite ammo.
Takumi’s prediction, however, missed the mark.
Slowly, the wooden katana grew. From Takumi’s perspective, it looked like the tip was getting closer and bigger— no, not just from his perspective, the katana indeed grew like a certain mythical staff wielded by the Monkey King.
However, it wasn’t completely opaque either. Takumi could see some translucent in the growing katana, and upon closer look, the real katana that Daniel was holding hadn’t changed a bit.
It’s just that a giant katana was growing outside the real katana.
“This is the end, Koh. Good bye.”
The moment the tip of the giant katana touched the wall behind Takumi, Daniel ferociously swung it to the right, snuffing a number of Takumi’s holo-clones.
Realization came a bit late as the giant katana was swung the other way, hitting Takumi squarely.
“GHAAAAAAAHHHH!!”
“I hit you, finally! I can feel it, I definitely hit you!!”
Takumi’s painful scream overlapped with Daniel’s joyful shout.