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Yuichi had been afraid Nergal might run away. But perhaps he’d been overconfident, or he’d underestimated Yuichi, because he hadn’t even tried to move. Even when he was standing right in front of him, Nergal had just stood where he was, smiling.
Yuichi had decided, then, to just hit him... and the hit had landed like it was nothing.
Martial arts were full of moves that could be used for a swift first strike. Faster, stronger, more precise... every martial art prioritized the need to get in the first hit.
Yuichi had chosen the fastest attack he knew, a strike from the Tongbeiquan style. Using his arm like a whip, he had snapped his wrist and struck the opponent with the back of the hand.
Nergal hadn’t reacted; he’d just stood there and taken it.
All he’d had to do was touch him, and that was all the strike had done. Normally, it would have been the beginning of a series of strikes, but Yuichi had stopped it with one. Assuming Nergal kept his promise, that was all he needed.
“I touched you, so I win, right?” he asked the god, who seemed to be staring into space, uncertain of what had just happened.
Of course, if he revoked his promise, then that was that; he’d have to fight. But at this range, Yuichi had a feeling he could win.
“Uh?” Nergal didn’t seem to understand what had just happened.
“Ah! He’s trying to play dumb! I bet he made that promise because he underestimated you, and now he’s realizing he can’t back out!” Mutsuko cried.
Nergal wiped his nose, then looked at the blood on his hand. He seemed dumbfounded.
“I won, right? You won’t interfere with Takeuchi again, and we get to go free, right?” Yuichi said.
“Oh, man! Don’t tell me!” Mutsuko broke in. “You don’t think the great, awesome deity, this god who boasted about making all of humanity extinct, is gonna back out of a promise, do you? That’s so funny, I almost want to hear you say it! Go on, try to unring the bell! Be all like ‘Oh, did we have an agreement? I dunno what you’re talking about!’”
“Hey, Sis... please don’t taunt him... you might make it harder for him to back off...”
“Huh?! Come on, you don’t really think he’ll just do it, do you? It was just lip service! This Mr. Big Boss Man who was all ‘I know everything, I’m behind it all, I’m the mastermind’ would never just let us go, right?!”
“What did I just say?!” Yuichi yelled.
“You win. I’ll keep my promise,” Nergal said at last, strangling out the words. Perhaps he was seething with anger deep down, but if so, he hid it well.
“You said you would stay away from Takeuchi,” Yuichi reminded him. “That you would let us leave this place safely. You agree to all of that?”
“Yes, I agree to it. A god cannot break a promise, after all.” Nergal seemed to have recovered his calm, as there was no frustration in his words at all. “But could you indulge my curiosity? I pride myself on being able to see and dodge attacks that come at me even at the speed of sound. How, then, did you do it? What exactly did you do to me?!” He was clearly trying to act calm, but his incredulity was filtering out into his words.
“It was Tongbeiquan, but I probably could have hit you with anything,” said Yuichi. “Attacks are all about timing. I’ve fought my share of superhuman monsters, and it’s led me to realize one thing... no matter what the monster, they’re no different from humans. That goes for you, too.”
“Me? Human?” Nergal looked openly surprised; he’d apparently never expected to be referred to that way.
“How to put it... You don’t exceed the realm of what humans can imagine, I guess,” said Yuichi. “You have human thought processes and human reactions. That’s why martial arts logic works on you. You have the same blind spots in perception that humans do. Does that make sense?”
In other words, speed didn’t really matter. It was all about timing.
People thought of consciousness as a continuous thing, but it wasn’t, really. It wasn’t analog, but digital, full of gaps — blank spots in a person’s attention, instants when they weren’t aware of anything.
He only had to sense that timing and strike. Then, if he moved in that split-second, it would seem like he’d disappeared.
It was easy to say, but less easy to accomplish. Most people couldn’t identify the blind spots in a person’s consciousness.
There were techniques in classic martial arts, however, that made it possible, and Yuichi had used an extension of “listening energy” for this purpose.
“Okay! Which way did you come in? If you want to get us out safely, you should tell us the way out!” Mutsuko declared.
Nergal still seemed a bit dumbstruck by Yuichi’s explanation, but he did as he was asked and told them how to get back to the surface. It was through the entrance opposite the one they had come in from.
“Okay, let’s go home, then!” Mutsuko declared.
“Sounds good to me, but I sorta forgot what we were out here to accomplish in the first place...” Yuichi said.
They’d come out into town to find the great evil presence; they had run into it right away, and then the resonance had started; the hero Yurika had appeared and told them about the danger Natsuki was in; a tengu had appeared; Yurika had run off; a priest had arrived and beat the tengu; Yuichi had beat the priest; then Yuri had turned into a cat and helped them to trace Natsuki’s scent.
“So our objectives were finding the ‘great evil’ and Takeuchi,” Yuichi summarized. “I guess we managed to do that.”
They had pretty much ignored the war, but it still felt, to him, like they had done enough for one day.
Yuichi cast a glance at Mutsuko. Natsuki seemed to have recovered her presence of mind enough to stand on her own two feet now, so Yuichi approached the fallen woman instead. She was still alive, but one arm was broken, as were her ribs. It didn’t look good.
Yuichi pulled the woman onto his back. He wasn’t sure how trustworthy the evil god was, but all he could do, for now, was believe that he would keep his promise and stay away from her, and them.
Nergal remained right where he was.
Yuichi headed for the exit, and Mutsuko and Natsuki followed. Yuri was at his feet, in cat form.