Chapter 36

They had changed their perception of Tina Sprout. The temperature of the air in the gymnasium dropped, and it was filled with intent to kill. Rentaro crouched and took on the Tendo Martial Arts Indestructible Stance. It was one focused on defense, allowing the user to shift quickly to evade or counter. Rentaro continued looking forward as he spoke to Tina next to him. “Tina, let me tell you now—those guys won’t be beaten easily. I’ve never fought against them before, but if we let our guard down, we’ll probably be beaten in a second.” “I know. I will take the Initiator. Big Brother, please take the Promoter.” Feeling goose bumps, Rentaro got close to Tina, and they beckoned together, provoking the Katagiri siblings. Tina’s and Yuzuki’s eyes blazed bright red at the same time as they released their power. “Let’s dance, boy!” At Tamaki’s words, the siblings charged them side by side. It was a straightforward attack without any underhandedness to reflect the character of the siblings—or so Rentaro thought. Suddenly, Yuzuki jumped on Tamaki’s shoulder and leapt upward, flying high over Rentaro and Tina. Her trail sparkled with light. What was that? Rentaro had no time to resolve the question in his mind as Yuzuki landed on the ground at his back. Realizing they were surrounded, Rentaro narrowed his eyes. “Tina!” “Okay!” said Tina. In the midst of the confusion, Rentaro and Tina quickly stood back to back. Yuzuki and Tamaki kept a fixed distance away as they started circling Rentaro and Tina. It was as if they were two sharks, tenaciously circling their prey, instilling fear as they waited to sink their jaws into them. Rentaro and Tina also changed positions as they matched the slow movements of the Katagiri siblings. Through their shirts, he could feel the heat of Tina’s body and the damp sweat on her back in response to the slowly mounting pressure. They would certainly be at a disadvantage in a long fight. An impromptu pair would start to unravel the minute they started feeling nervous. In order to pick a fight with the brother, Rentaro dove forward and shortened the distance between them in an instant. It was a test: Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 8— “Come on!” Tamaki swung an arm that was about as big as Rentaro’s thigh and Rentaro matched his movement. “Homura Ka—!” “Ahhh!” The meeting of Rentaro’s and Tamaki’s fists sent shock waves across the entire gym. The heavy blow sent numbing tingles up Rentaro’s artificial arm, and he shut one eye without thinking. In Tamaki’s style of killing, he definitely did not have the skillful technique Rentaro had. However, the difference in their physique and muscle strength was enough to be a deciding factor in their fight. In addition, the attack power of the knuckledusters hanging from Tamaki’s fists was undervalued. However, at this point, Rentaro was still misreading the threat of the Promoter named Tamaki Katagiri. Rentaro then noticed Tamaki’s knuckledusters and guiderail—or something that looked like the grooved chain of a bike—moving. Wait, were those even knuckledusters? Seeing the compact power unit on the back of his hand, Rentaro got chills down his spine. I see, that’s a— Tamaki grinned, and Rentaro hurriedly tried to pull his fist back, but it was too late. With a sudden explosive sound, the chain that looked like a knuckleduster started to rotate, and when their fists met, it shaved off part of Rentaro’s fist. “Arghhh!” Rentaro’s brain registered the seething pain, and he stumbled forward. Looking at his right fist, he saw that the artificial skin had been completely shaved off, and the Super-Varanium inside was peeking through. Since he hadn’t cut his pain nerves before the fight, a wave of injury so intense left his mind feeling spent. If he had used his real left fist, his hand would have been a terrible sight. Rentaro lifted his face and gritted his teeth as he looked at Tamaki. What Tamaki had on his hand was a grinder, a rotating file. No, there was a more precise name for it as a weapon—“A Varanium chain saw, huh…?” “That’s right! Took you long enough to notice, boyo.” Both of Tamaki’s fists buzzed like a nest of angry bees. “But you were hiding the hardware inside you from me, too. Now we’re even.” Rentaro quietly hid his exposed Super-Varanium fist from the eyes of the spectators. Tamaki’s fist could be swung in defense in addition to the obvious offensive attack. Even so, if Rentaro did not attack, the situation would just get worse. What should I do? What should I do? “All right, I’m coming!!” Tamaki shouted. With a terrible, rotating buzzing sound, the two fists rushed at him. Rentaro stepped backward and escaped three punches by a hair, only to have Tamaki’s combat boots fly upward, kicking at him with the heel. As Rentaro blinked, he saw that there were chains wrapped closely in the pattern of Tamaki’s boots, and Rentaro felt chills again. Jeez, you’ve gotta be kidding me— Rentaro cut off the pain sensors at the same time the chain on the bottom of Tamaki’s boots started making a violent sound. He immediately threw up his artificial right arm and left leg in defense. A second later, his artificial skin and his uniform were completely shaved off, and the sound of Varanium on Varanium rang metallically through the whole gymnasium. Rentaro had been thrown back, but for some reason, he did not fall to the ground. Instead, he was suddenly caught by something soft and flexible behind his back. It felt like a boxing glove. He was shocked when he looked behind him. Wrapped around his back were sparkling threads of light. It was spider silk. In the back of his mind, an image of Yuzuki flying over him earlier with a thin trail of light behind her overlapped with what he saw. She probably had the ability to create a territory by putting up invisible strings in the spaces where she walked. Earlier, when they surrounded and encircled Rentaro and Tina, she had already completed her preparations. At that, another suspicion raised its head: Why wasn’t Tamaki accidentally caught by the invisible threads? As he thought this, the existence of Tamaki’s amber sunglasses suddenly passed through the back of his mind. Perhaps there was some sort of special treatment applied to them—a treatment that would allow him to see the invisible threads… Rentaro finally understood the way these siblings fought. As his sister created a territory to drive the prey into, Tamaki used his chain saw with its immense attack power to violently fell their opponents. It was a bad joke that a pair using such an elaborate strategy had not gotten any further than IP Rank 1,850. At that moment, a dark shadow crossed Rentaro’s body. It was Tamaki, swinging his fists with that horrifyingly metallic sound. Rentaro twisted his body desperately, but that made the threads around him stretch more, and the more he panicked, the worse his situation became. He used all the tension in his body in one instant to crouch and evaded Tamaki’s fist in the nick of time. A veering whir passed by his ear, and he shivered like a block of ice had been slipped down his back. Lifting his leg reflexively, he stopped the fist that came at him with the sole of his right shoe. The chain saw buzzed and sparked as it played the rubber, but Rentaro bore it, gritting his teeth. Tamaki, certain that he would win, stepped back for a moment, twisted his body around and added a circular motion as he lifted his leg to plow a kick into Rentaro. Along the way, the chain started rotating with a roar. This was bad. “Die, ya bastardddd!” Rentaro fired the cartridge in his leg. Bam! From his right leg, the cartridge shot out with the sound and force of an explosion. With the tremendous kickback, he was able to tear through the threads and ducked under Tamaki’s kick; he braked with his left and darted directly behind Tamaki. “Wha…?!” Tamaki exclaimed. Rentaro wasted no time in hitting his calves with a hard blow. Tamaki couldn’t bear it and let out a groan as he fell to his knees. Rentaro looked at him contemptuously and raised his right leg high, then held it for a moment directly above his head. Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 4— “Inzen Jokahanameishi!” Rentaro’s heel fell with the speed of a guillotine and hit the back of Tamaki’s head. There was a roar, and his face sank into the floor of the gym. Feeling victorious, Rentaro exhaled, then calmed his breathing and his heart. The spectators were speechless. Rentaro came out of his stance, scratched the back of his head, and looked down at Tamaki. Did I kill him? he wondered. Well, Tamaki was trying to kill me. He exhaled through his nose. Tamaki had yelled, “Die, ya bastardddd!” at the end, while obviously coming at Rentaro with the intent to kill, so it was legitimate self-defense, and there was a crowd to witness it. Just as Rentaro thought he saw Tamaki’s body twitch, Tamaki put both hands on the ground to push his face off the floor and drew near Rentaro with an expression of rage. “Bastard! You were seriously trying to kill me with that last hit, weren’t you? If it hadn’t been me, I woulda died, ya know!” “What, you’re alive?” drawled Rentaro. “Is that bad?” Even as he cracked jokes, Rentaro was astonished at Tamaki’s combat abilities. He couldn’t believe he was forced to use his cartridge in public. Tamaki Katagiri—putting his low speech and strange actions aside, Rentaro definitely wanted him in his adjuvant. “Hey, kid, the girls’ fight looks like it’ll be settled soon, too.” Following Tamaki’s gaze, he saw that Tina and Yuzuki’s match was also reaching its climax. Using the high-speed maneuvers characteristic of Initiators, Yuzuki tried to dazzle Tina as she flew, freely turning as she pleased. In contrast, Tina took the stance of an ancient martial arts master and closed her eyes, not moving a muscle. Not paying any attention to Yuzuki’s feints, Tina precisely dodged only the real attacks that occasionally came. Rentaro soon noticed the trick of how Tina evaded the attacks. Shenfield, which was spinning as it traced an equilateral triangle above her head, was busily responding to Yuzuki’s high-speed maneuvers with its camera eye. Even with Yuzuki’s speed, three Shenfields locked onto her at the same time made it impossible for her to lose them. Meanwhile, Tina could read Yuzuki’s location coordinates that Shenfield was sending to her wirelessly, and so dodge her attacks with the least amount of movement necessary. With that, it was like she had eyes in all directions. No wonder she was able to defeat the Initiator with specialized leg strength, Enju Aihara. It could be said that the godlike Initiator formerly ranked 98th was living up to her reputation. “Huh, the fight’s over,” announced Tamaki, grinning mischievously with his arms crossed as he stood next to Rentaro. “Tina’s going to win, right?” Rentaro huffed. “Idiot. Look at this.” Rentaro let out a cry as he looked at the amber world through the cracked sunglasses Tamaki handed him. A vast number of threads were hung throughout the girls’ battlefield. Tina had been forced so far into the middle of the spider web that she barely had room to move. Yuzuki had not been flying around randomly. Every time she kicked the ground or jumped about on the wall, she was expanding her territory, definitely chasing Tina into a corner. This was bad. Yuzuki seemed to think the time was ripe and made an enormous leap into the air, sticking to the ceiling of the gymnasium that was probably twenty meters high. A spiderweb immediately formed at her feet, and, hanging upside down, she looked down at Tina and yelled, “Hey, you! You’ve realized what my ability is by now, right? Surrender. You have no chance of winning. Because if you just move your neck a little, you’ll be caught in my net.” Looking at Tina holding her stance soundlessly with her eyes closed, Yuzuki revealed her annoyance for the first time. “I see… Then don’t blame me if you get hurt.” Yuzuki’s voice turned cold, and she bent her knees, storing up as much spring as she could. She was filled with a thirst for blood. Yuzuki kicked off the ceiling with an explosive sound that made the building tremble. A cannon fast–drop attack using the physical strength of an Initiator with the addition of the acceleration of gravity was heading straight for Tina. Instantly, Tina opened a piercing eye and waved the black glove on her right hand. She stuck her left forefinger and middle finger into the metal rings on the glove on her right hand and pulled hard, and threads of some kind came out. Piano strings? Rentaro wondered. Tina used her teeth and fingers to form something like a cat’s cradle with the piano strings that had been stored in her glove and met Yuzuki’s attack. Yuzuki and Tina clashed, and the floor exploded. The spectators screamed as the ground shook with a tremor so severe it made even standing dangerous. Rentaro immediately covered his face, but pieces of the floor and shock waves hit his body, making him gasp for breath. After the intense ringing in his ears stopped, he opened his eyes a little and saw a thick cloud of dust swirling around. Where was Tina? Where was Yuzuki? Rentaro wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and held his breath as he watched the center of the explosion attentively. Finally, the dust settled, and the two girls were revealed. Rentaro was left spellbound by the sight that was before him. Tina was on the bottom, and her neck was held down by Yuzuki’s hand, ready to strike. If Yuzuki pushed just a little more, she could probably break Tina’s neck. However, the outcome of the match was determined by the almost cruel difference in their abilities. Layers of piano strings were wrapped around that hand of Yuzuki’s that pinned down Tina; she couldn’t move even a single finger. In addition, the piano strings were wrapped around both her arms and legs, and even her neck, until she was caught in her own threads and hung like a marionette. It was hard to describe the strange sight of a girl who had the Spider Factor inside her caught in a web of string. Tina had fixed the positions of the beginning and end of the string with her left hand and her teeth, and if she pulled the string with her teeth, then Yuzuki’s head would likely fall off in a second. Yuzuki was frozen like a statue with both eyes open wide. No, she was not even allowed to close her eyes. Just a few millimeters in front of her eyeballs were Tina’s fingers. Tina made a “scissors” shape with her freed right hand and placed them right at Yuzuki’s two eyeballs. Of course, if Tina pushed even a little with her fingers, there was no reason for Yuzuki’s eyeballs to remain unharmed. Not just Rentaro, but Tamaki and all the other spectators were spellbound. No one had considered that Tina would be able to win from behind, so their brains couldn’t process what had happened from the time the ground exploded to when the match was decided. Only Shenfield spun with joy at its master’s victory, and eventually retreated under the hem of Tina’s dress. Tina slowly removed her fingers from in front of Yuzuki’s eyes and released the strings. After watching them writhe on the ground like the cord of a vacuum cleaner as they rewound themselves, Tina finally stood up, removed the glove, and returned it to her pocket. While considering this show of force, Rentaro thought back on the many techniques Tina Sprout had shown him. The piano strings in her glove were definitely a weapon used for assassinations. He had seen it in an old film before: The target enters a bathroom stall, and the assassin drops the string from the stall next to it, wraps it around the target’s throat, and strangles the target using the basics of a shoulder throw. It was a cruel technique, but it was still more elegant than poking out someone’s eyeballs.