Yuichi ducked, dodging the bolt of light in front of him and the strike at his back simultaneously. He then crouched down and took a step, grabbed Ryoma’s right arm, and used a zhen jiao while at the same time thrusting his left elbow into his back. If Mutsuko were watching, she would have gleefully explained it as a combination of liu zhou tou and laohu dou mao from Bajiquan.
Yuichi’s elbow struck Ryoma’s solar plexus in a counter. It was the kind of strike that would kill an ordinary human, but Yuichi knew Ryoma was far from ordinary.
He squeezed the other man’s left arm with his right hand, and then thrust the left arm he’d used in the elbow strike under his crotch. At the same time, he dropped his hips even lower and extended his left leg between Ryoma’s legs. From that position, he bore the man on his shoulders and tossed him.
Crushing Ryoma’s balls with his left hand, he drove the man’s head into the floor. Then for extra insurance, he kicked him in the head with a low snap kick. Ryoma was sent flying.
Tipping over cafe tables, he only stopped when he hit the wall. The aura around his body extinguished.
“Sakaki... I’m a serial killer, and that gave even me pause,” Natsuki criticized. “Did you really have to go that far?”
“You said people can’t just go around talking about killing people, but I’m pretty sure you were seriously trying to kill him there...” Yurika added.
“He’s not dead. I held back,” Yuichi said with the air of an excuse.
“How strange,” Natsuki said. “Does ‘holding back’ have a different meaning from the one I’m familiar with?”
“My initial elbow strike didn’t have a lot of penetration,” Yuichi said. “I think that aura thing had some sort of property that absorbs attacks, so I figured this wouldn’t be enough to kill him.”
Of course Yuichi wouldn’t go this far against a normal opponent. He’d only done it after determining that it would take a considerably powerful attack to get real results.
Yuichi approached Ryoma, who was slumped against the wall.
He was alive. But his face was pale, his breathing was quick, and his heart rate seemed to be up.
“Is he in shock?” Natsuki asked. “He might die if we just leave him there. Not that I would mind.”
“That’s when it’s handy to know a super doctor!” Yuichi said.
He was referring to Kazuya Noro, Aiko’s father. Apparently, he was known as a super doctor, so as long as Ryoma wasn’t dead, he could probably save him.
“That’s... strange,” Ryoma murmured. “It wasn’t supposed to go that way... you were supposed to die as part of a demonstration of the power I awakened as a result of the death of someone close to me. I’m the protagonist... how could this happen?”
Saying that much must have been considerably painful for Ryoma, and Yuichi couldn’t understand why he’d bothered. He really must have found it all utterly inconceivable.
“Whoever said a protagonist can’t lose?” Yuichi snapped. “There are plenty of bad-end stories out there.”
Yuichi wasn’t sure whether Ryoma had accepted that explanation or not, but either way, the man fell unconscious directly afterwards.
Yuichi looked over at Ende, who was sitting in a seat some distance away. He thought she would be frustrated, but she seemed as fascinated by the proceedings as ever. She even applauded Yuichi.
“Wow, I guess a protagonist won’t work either. I had a feeling that might be the case, of course... but overturning something like that really took a lot of power.”
“Can I be done with the war now?” Yuichi asked. “You’re satisfied, right? I can just walk away?”
“Hmm, if that’s what you want, I don’t mind...”
It was a line pregnant with meaning. Still, Ende didn’t seem like she was going to try anything else right now, so Yuichi decided to focus on the aftermath.
With Ryoma having been soundly beaten, the Divine Vessel had been ejected from his body. Yuichi looked down at the ground and saw an eye-sized glass ball had fallen next to him.
He was about to reach for the Evil God’s eye when, suddenly, it was snatched away.
He turned to see a small machine with four propellers — a drone — flying quickly off with the eye.
“Huh?” Yuichi watched the drone go.
It was heading for the broken window, where he saw two people standing on the window frame.
“What are you doing here, Sis?” he asked.
Mutsuko Sakaki stood there boldly, arms crossed.
Yuichi felt relieved.
It was easy to guess what she was doing here. She had a tendency to show up at the strangest times, and he assumed she was probably just swiping the item out from under his nose for some stupid reason, like that she’d thought it sounded like fun.
Any reservations he might have were overshadowed by his relief at seeing his missing sister again.
Perhaps that was why it took him a little time to realize what was off about the situation.
He hadn’t noticed the boy standing next to her at first, but as the drone approached him, it extended its manipulators and handed him the eye.
Yuichi was dumbstruck.
“What’s going on here?” he burst out.
The person standing next to Mutsuko was Hiromichi Rokuhara, the boy who had stolen Soul Reader from him.