Phantasm abruptly appeared out of the dust! Her beautiful blue hair fluttered in the wind!
“Howwwwwwwwwwww!?!? There’s no way you should be able to stand up after a hit like that!”
“Now it’s my turn...!” She whipped Résistance’s sword from the sheath at her belt! It was an absolutely massive blade at 1.2 meters in length, yet she wielded it with ease!!
“Take this!!” Phantasm darted forward, swinging the sword in a wide arc! Wataru, watch out!!
“Jmp!!!!!” He instantly leapt out of the way! Phantasm’s sword cut through the air with a whoooom! sound that chilled the very bones of all those who heard it! She swung her sword again, and then again, but each time, Wataru managed to just barely avoid the blade! His were the quick movements of a lithe, graceful predator!
“Hmph. You do nothing but jump left, jump right. To have made it this far, you must have already gathered the other five orbs, no? And yet, you seem to lack any sort of fighting ability whatsoever...”
Phantasm was clearly trying to provoke Wataru! And Wataru, being Wataru, took the bait! He was pissed off!
“The hell you say about me? I’m gonna—!!!!!!”
With a long, enraged shout, Wataru dashed right at his foe! He leapt into the air, whirled around, and kicked Phantasm right in the chest!
“Ngh!”
It was a kick far more powerful than the punch he had previously thrown, but it was a direct hit, right on her thick steel armor!!
That wasn’t the end of it, though!!
“...!?”
Shockingly! Phantasm grabbed hold of Wataru’s leg and threw him across the clearing!
“Hnnng!!”
“Grngh!”
Wataru somehow managed land on his feet! His face, however, showed how much of an effort he was making! He was drenched in sweat!
“The strength you wield... Résistance was never this strong before!”
Wataru would know this, of course! He’d fought her before—but never like this!
“Indeed, she was not... However, inside this body is not just her strength. The power of the orb is also mine to wield...”
“That makes sense......!!”
Wataru wiped the sweat from his brow and got back into his fighting pose! Phantasm and Wataru glared at each other most ferociously!!
“......!!”
They were five meters apart! Should either one of them jump forward and punch the other, they’d land the hit for sure! The fight was at a critical juncture!!
Aria was watching them from a little ways away! Even though Résistance was being possessed at the moment, it was still hard for her to see her two friends going at it like this!!
“......!”
Aria ground her teeth in nervousness and hugged the five orbs in her hands tight against her chest!
What do I do here... This bastard doesn’t just have Résistance’s strength, but the orb’s energy too! There’s no way I can beat her with a head-on attack.
While flexing every muscle in his body and glaring most intensely at his opponent, Wataru calmly assessed the situation! He tried thinking of the best way out of this quandary!
The biggest problem was Phantasm’s reach! Wataru was fighting barehanded, but his opponent had a 1.2-meter-long sword! There was no way around it—this was a most disadvantageous position to be in!
Right... Maybe I should use a Hot-Blooded Shinken Shirahadori and break that sword into pieces...!?
This “Hot-Blooded Shinken Shirahadori” was the technique Wataru had used when battling Résistance in their first encounter! It’s a most magnificent technique in which a barehanded fighter catches their opponent’s sword between their hands, then snaps the weapon in half! Amazing!
Go back and read Volume One if you want to know more!!
“What’s this, Human? Hesitating, are we? In that case... I’ll come for you!” Phantasm got low to the ground, held her blade up to one side, and ran right at Wataru! She flew towards Wataru at the speed of light! Without missing a beat, she brought the sword crashing down on Wataru!!
“Urghhhh!!!”
With his rapid reflexes, Wataru twisted away to avoid the slash!
I can’t take a blow like that! When I fought Résistance last time, I was able to stop her blade with my bare hands... But Phantasm is swinging that thing way faster than before!
Indeed she was! With the power of the orb, Résistance was stronger than ever! Not only that, the speed at which she attacked had accelerated to beyond what Wataru could handle!
“Wataru, please! Do your best!”
Aria cheered on Wataru as hard as she could from the tree she was hiding behind!
Dammit! This is not good! I’ll never be able to get close enough to attack her as long as she keeps whipping that sword around! I suppose I could always get up close and personal with her so I could punch her straight up, but she’d definitely land a blow on me, and I don’t have any armor...!
Wataru was light on his feet as he retreated away from Phantasm, trying to think his way out of the situation! It was when he reached the edge of the clearing that he was shocked by the simplicity of the solution available to him!!!!!
Hold on, there is something I can do! I can turn this whole thing around!!
“I’ve got it!!!!!” He yelled into the air, turned to face the fifteen-meter-tall tree next to him... and hugged it!
“......? Just what are you trying to—?”
Phantasm narrowed her eyes as she found this behavior most suspicious! It was then that Wataru—!!
“HAAAAH!!!!!”
With every muscle in Wataru’s body tensed up, he gritted his teeth together, summoned every last ounce of energy he had, and with that far-from-average strength he was so proud of, he ripped the tree right out of the ground!!!!!
“H-How!?”
Of course, even Phantasm was amazed at this feat!
“Freakin’ prepare yourself, Phantasm! I’m taking back Résistance’s body!!” Wataru lifted the tree he had just yanked out of the ground over his shoulder as he yelled at his opponent!!!
Phantasm’s sword had an attack range of 1.2 meters! But now Wataru, with his new weapon, had an attack range of a whopping fifteen meters!! The range hierarchy had been firmly established!
“Tch! You may have a large tree, but being the human bastard that you are, you cannot possibly use that as a weapon!” Phantasm was carefully staying just out of range of Wataru’s tree, still holding her sword ready to attack!
Of course, she was completely right—a normal person could not swing around a fifteen-meter-long tree through the air like a sword!!
—A normal person, that is!!!
Dear Readers, you already know! Our Wataru is not normal!!
As an elementary school student, he had forced his way into the Olympics (completely ignoring the age restrictions!) and had won the gold medals of every track and field event! As a result, he became the only Man in history to be completely banned from all future Olympic events at the young age of eleven years old!!
On top of that!!
For a tree like this, that was “merely” fifteen meters long, why, of course he could swing it about!!