Working up as much bravado as he had available on hand, Seiji straightened himself out to appear like none of it harmed him. “Good, I had no plans on joining your army anyway. So come over here and try!”

She laughed a bit more, clearly amused by Seiji’s façade. “I’ll oblige you.” Swinging the board around a little, she launched it at Seiji with some added force from her punch.

The scars along his right arm lit momentarily as he threw himself into his punch to meet the attack. The wood board rammed into Seiji’s hand coming to a sudden halt that sent cracks through the wood. A flash of light jumped through the wood before it exploded in splinters. ‘…damn…’ Seiji wound back a little from the recoil. ‘It’s just wood, but it hurts like hell! What the hell is she doing? This is all part of this girl’s strange power isn’t it?’

Shaking his hand a little, he worked off the pain that threatened to numb his hand. ‘For looking so frail, she hits like a truck! Damn, I can’t believe I’m actually missing the Atlanteans. They were at least more straightforward with their powers. I knew what I was dealing with. Whatever her power is, it’s not flashy like others.’ He clenched his hand up and knocked himself in the cheek. ‘What the hell’s wrong with me? I just have to fight like I always do. No thinking. It’s my way! She’s strong, so I can put my full power in this and not worry!’

Chapter 330 – Back-to-back Punch Out

Seiji charged in after Takako, already in motion as well. She had only waited long enough to see how things played out. Like he already noted, she was bad at fighting. The smarter fighter would have gone immediately after him while he was countering the first attack. She had moments of awareness, but she was extremely inexperienced. It was his only advantage against her.

With his head in the fight more than it had been before, he could see her movements a lot easier. He evaded or deflected her punches with ease. Shockwaves ripped through the grounds from the clashes when he met her punch to punch.

He slid around to her side the moment he had her off balance. Takako only managed to get her arms up to take the blow before it ripped her off her feet and threw her across the grounds. The body of Katsumi crashed into an earthen mound created during Takako’s take over. A tall cloud of dirt shot into the air from her impact.

‘That connected, but it still didn’t look like it did much of anything to her…’ The sting still rang through his fingers. He hadn’t really run across anyone with such a resilient body. So the whole experience was new for him. It wasn’t going to stop him though. Takako had to be stopped.

“Owies,” Takako spoke with a fake playful tone. “That really hurt.”

“Stop lying. I know well enough that did nothing to you.”

A sigh escaped from the smoke. “You’re not much fun.” Takako walked out of the cloud with only dirt ground into some of her uniform. She readjusted her full-length gloves after Seiji’s punch knocked it loose. “You’re such a boring man.”

He had said that it did nothing, but he still hoped for something. She didn’t even look any more fatigued by their fight. ‘…still nothing… How hard do I have to hit to actually do something?’

“It seems that you’re actually taking this seriously now. I’ll have to step things up then.”

“Bring it!” Seiji threw up his fist doing his best to look like a fighting stance for having one disabled limb.

“Aren’t you an eager one to face your death.”

“It’s all talk until you actually succeed. I’m still standing.”

Takako began to dig around in the pockets of her skirt, where she seemed to be dragging everything from. New metal parts were retrieved. She locked them into place on the leather glove. Tapping a switch on the plating she just added. Expanding and locked into place, nearly all of the leather base disappeared as the metal grew out. “I managed to find someone in the city with quite the scientific mind. Seems that Yuki’s gift to them was greater engineering skills and knowledge. They’ve come quite handy for the little toys I have them make for me.”

Completed, her glove looked more like a gauntlet now rather than something that seemed more like a punk accessory. Each metal plate locked and interconnected with another. They wrapped fully around her forearm. Even her fingers had well crafted plating that gave maximum flexibility while still maintaining defense.

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Showing off the change to Seiji, she grinned with delight. Murderous disjointed expressions came from her as she controlled Katsumi’s body. “I’ll let you in on one little thing about this. The metal I added was made from a different material than what was being used. It’s a new alloy that hasn’t existed in our world before created by that special someone.”

The look he got from the improvements didn’t give him a positive feeling. ‘Damn, I already was having trouble doing anything to her with that defense and it looks even more solid than before. How the hell am I going to break through?’ It appeared that she had called his bluff. Seiji started to have some unease about his situation.

Unease or not, nothing changed what he had to deal with now. He hardly even had the time to complain before Takako was back on the attack. The new changes to her gear didn’t change her speed or reaction time, which meant he could still dodge her with ease. He didn’t really want to meet her head-on any longer. It hurt before and he got the feeling it was going to be several times worse.

It didn’t take long for him to get an example of the change. Early in his dodging around the grounds, an earth mound that was part of the school’s perimeter wall was at his back. He had to get out of the way due to the poor position it put him in, anything like that at his back was a bad idea. Though it seemed to stop being a point of concern after Takako was finished.

When she missed Seiji with her fist, it buried itself into the earth. For the moment, it seemed nothing really was going to become of it. Earth went up to her elbow from the penetrating force. However, a moment after all of the earth surrounding her exploded outward, nearly appearing to have vaporized, though it had merely scattered into powder. The wall buried deep under the dirt became exposed and twisted from the force.

A bit of sweat dripped down Seiji’s face realizing that could have been him had he not moved. He didn’t like the looks of the strength that she seemed to be displaying now. ‘Hell! How much would that have hurt?’

He kept up his dodging of her attacks. It was about all he could manage anymore against her. None of his own punches actually did anything to her. Anytime he hit her it was as though he was hitting a steel wall. Nothing budged and the only thing that hurt was himself. His fist was bloodier than ever before. The skin on his knuckles had been completely torn from all of the clashing.

Seiji danced around the school grounds looking for any chance of an opening. He couldn’t get a single blow past her defense. ‘For being so weak at fighting, she’s got an annoying as hell defense! No matter what she does, she always makes sure to have those weird glove things up to protect her. I can’t get around them!’

Breaking down her defense was his only chance. That much he knew. ‘Someone that caught up on defense is afraid. If I get past it, I can end this fight!’ However, he didn’t know how to do that. He only had one arm working for him and he could not really meet her blow for blow any longer.

Thoughts on strategy tried to move around his head, but none of them met together. He couldn’t think out his problem. Besides the fact that it didn’t really work for him, it stalled all of his actions. Takako didn’t give him time to pause. She kept putting two-meter size craters all over the place in trying to take him down. So thinking was out of the question.

“Dammitall to hell! I’ll just do what I do best!” Which when one considers the things that Seiji would do, that was already a bad idea. Fortunately, it wasn’t the worst outcome for him. A stupid idea was still a stupid idea though.

He caught her fist coming in at him. Not a bad idea, a painful one, but not a bad one. His muscles and bones complained about how terrible the plan was. But he still went with it. It was only one hand he had stopped, but it was enough. He pulled at her to throw her off balance as he came swinging in with the only other thing that he could think of on him, sadly it wasn’t his feet. That would have probably been smart, but Seiji in reality was never really one to fight with his feet. A man’s fight should be done with the fists, of course. And when you run out of your fists, there was only one thing left to use.

His head.

It was definitely the most earth-shaking head butt the world had known up to that point (because naturally the power progression of this story is going to render that entire statement meaningless in the future if worded any other way). Terrible shockwaves from the ear-splitting clash rang through the entire school grounds. The earth ripped up in front of them and shot outward like bullets leaving holes in anything that dared to stand before it.

The move did manage to stun Takako and throw her back. However, Seiji took just as much of a hit from it. Blood poured down his forehead from the nasty wound he created, one that Katsumi’s body shared.

Takako dragged herself back up with the help of part of the exposed wall. With a much worse looking image than Seiji, blood covered up much of her face, she still looked just as hungry. “I’m still here. Did you think that smashing your head into mine would eject me from Katsumi’s body?”

“No, I wasn’t thinking!”

“You did a little, didn't you?”

“Just a bit. Seemed like something worth trying.”

“You really are an idiot. That’s not how this works!” Seiji was an idiot. And he was about to deal with it. Takako suddenly looked a little confused at Seiji. “You trying something new?”

“Huh?”

“Your hair, it’s got electricity sparking.”

“It does?” He ran his hand through his hair only to remember what it was he did. Up until that moment, he had forgotten about it. And then he realized his mistake.

Yuki’s voice came to him, reminding him of something important. ‘It’ll be fine as long as you don’t go head butting someone.’

“Crap…” The electricity came to a stop as though it all would just calm down. But that wasn’t the case. A few seconds later, it started back up and heated up. Smoke started to appear from his head until it all finally exploded in his face. The blast was more startling than anything.

Seiji coughed a little from the smoke, but it only looked and sounded worse than it actually was. He waved off the cloud to get back into the fight. “So you do bleed,” he commented, finally back to being serious. The sight of the blood covering Katsumi’s face made it clear to him that he could do something in the fight. ‘I just need to get past her defense and I can do this.’

“Don’t make it sound like you’re making a comeback. You’re on your last leg and since this isn’t my body I can keep using it long past the point of fatigue or pain has already crippled it.”

“Bastard! People aren’t puppets for you to use!”

“They are with my power!”

“Damn you!” Seiji charged in after Katsumi. “I’m going to put an end to this right now!”