Chapter 62: A Trump Card Is Meant to Be Played!
Wielding two spears, Kazuma tried to keep Souji in check, but Souji grabbed the spears and snapped them.
Kazuma, whose weapons were suddenly destroyed, showed no particular surprise. With calm, composed movements, he threw the broken spear shafts at Souji. In response, Souji used the snapped spear shafts to skillfully bat away the incoming spears and, as if returning the favor, threw them back.
Kazuma skillfully caught the two flying spears, but as if aiming for that very moment, Souji lunged forward.
He leaped towards Kazuma and unleashed a dropkick. As the dropkick closed in, Kazuma, just an instant before impact, leaned his upper body back and elegantly dodged it.
Twisting his body, Kazuma swung a spear down at Souji, but it was caught and incinerated. Letting go of the burning spear, Kazuma leaped backward and, as he did, pulled shuriken from his breast pocket and threw them at Souji.
Souji thrust his hand forward and stopped the shuriken. To be precise, Souji used Telekinesis to halt the shuriken perfectly in mid-air.
“Telekinesis, flames… one more left, huh?”
“To think you’d figure them out so quickly.”
In this short exchange, Kazuma had managed to identify two of the Gifts Souji was Copying. Telekinesis and flames. Both were troublesome Gifts, but not unbeatable.
“Hmph!”
Exhaling sharply, Kazuma kicked off the ground. Like a beast, he lunged low into Souji’s guard. Souji activated his Telekinesis against the terrifyingly fast Kazuma, but Kazuma changed direction at an unbelievable speed and evaded the Telekinesis.
“What?!”
Flustered, Souji revealed a slight opening. Kazuma instantly closed in on Souji, who had made a fatal mistake, and drew the sword at his hip. He cut Souji down with an iaijutsu strike.
“Ngh…”
But there was no impact. Kazuma sensed his iaijutsu strike had cut through empty air and turned towards the presence he felt behind him.
“Th-That was close…”
“Teleportation, or perhaps Teleportation?”
“Maybe it was invisibility?”
“Impossible. If that were the case, you would have been finished by my previous strike.”
“Guh… By the way, Kazuma. Hasn’t your way of speaking changed?”
“It tends to happen when I fight.”
“Haha, seriously? I thought you were just getting into character, but you’re the type who changes completely when they grab the steering wheel, huh?”
“You’d best stop your idle chatter.”
“Nuo?!”
Kazuma threw kunai at the bantering Souji without holding back. Souji somehow managed to dodge the suddenly flying kunai by leaning back, but Kazuma didn’t miss the opening as Souji lost his balance.
A glittering silver flash assaulted Souji. Just when it seemed to be over, Souji vanished once more.
“Short-range Teleportation, Teleportation… either way, it’s troublesome.”
Souji reappeared at a distance from Kazuma. Perhaps due to significant mental fatigue, Souji was out of breath.
“Hah… hah… Seriously? I knew you were strong, but I never imagined this strong.”
“Offer your neck, and I’ll make it easy for you.”
“Don’t say such scary things. Besides, I’m not going down that easily!”
“Then try to defeat me with the desperation of a dying man.”
“That’s—”
Souji was about to say, “I know that without you telling me,” but Kazuma’s figure vanished.
Kazuma pushed his Powered Suit to its limits, circling behind Souji with a speed too fast for the eye to follow.
This is the end, Kazuma thought as he unleashed an iaijutsu strike. It seemed the match was decided, but at the last moment, Souji exhibited a wild intuition and managed to dodge the strike.
“Ngh…”
“Th-That was close!!! I totally thought I was dead just now!”
“Not a coincidence, I see… Heh, heh… How far will he grow if trained?”
Although it was intuition, Kazuma was slightly surprised his attack had been dodged, yet his face twisted into a pleased expression. Kazuma was becoming excited, imagining just how strong that diamond in the rough would become if polished.
However, this was the middle of the Academy Battle Tournament. It wasn’t the place to train Souji. Kazuma mentally switched gears, telling himself he needed to exercise restraint, and turned his gaze to Souji.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you being rather kind, not attacking?”
“Just thinking a little…”
“Hmph. Thinking during a battle? You seem to have plenty of leeway.”
“I do.”
It was true. Souji was fighting well, but that was only from Souji’s perspective. To Kazuma, it was like a child playing around. Not even a worthy opponent. However, Gifts like Teleportation and Telekinesis were undeniably troublesome. All Kazuma could use was pure hand-to-hand combat. If Souji created distance, it became quite difficult. His thrown weapons like shuriken and kunai were useless, and his Transposition Gift was also unusable as there was nothing to Transpose. Frankly, Souji was a difficult opponent to deal with.
Nevertheless, as long as he got close, he wouldn’t lose. He just needed to land a god-speed strike before Souji could escape with Teleportation. Once he understood that, it was simple. Kazuma lowered his stance and placed his hand on his sword.
“Here he comes…!”
Just as Souji, sensing the change in atmosphere, steeled himself and took a stance, an unexpected guest arrived.
“Be blown away!”
Appearing between the two was Yayoi Tennouji from the Second Esper Academy. Her Gift was wind. Said to be the strongest among students with nature-type Gifts, her wind was intense.
She sent Kazuma and Souji flying with a gust of wind, knocking them off the skyscraper’s rooftop. Falling from a building of this height, even the strongest wouldn’t escape unscathed.
“Fufufu! It’s not just the two of you, you know? It’s a problem if you forget we’re here too. Well, I doubt you can hear me anymore, though.”
“It is when people are convinced of their victory that they are most careless.”
“Hahe?”
Souji was completely blown away and fell from the building, but Kazuma had used his equipped Grappling Hook to catch the edge of the rooftop, merely pretending to have fallen. Then, he just waited for her to let her guard down. Sure enough, just as Yayoi was laughing, convinced she had defeated the two who had been fiercely battling on the rooftop, she was struck down by Kazuma.
“Well, it’s no use saying this to a student, though.”
It was an anticlimactic exit. Yayoi couldn’t defeat Souji, her fated rival, nor Kazuma, who had suddenly appeared and surpassed even the strongest. And so, she fell.
“Now then, if he were to die from something like this, he wouldn’t have been my opponent from the start.”
Kazuma, arms crossed and tapping his arm with his fingers, gazed down at the base of the building where Souji had fallen. He couldn’t see Souji’s figure. He had probably escaped the predicament with Teleportation. In the first place, if Yayoi had defeated him, his name would have appeared in the sky. The fact that it hadn’t meant just that.
“Hmph… I’ll go down—”
Just as he turned on his heel and was about to head for the rooftop entrance, the building tilted. Kazuma momentarily lost his balance, but it was nothing serious.
“Hahaha! So he destroyed the building’s support pillars? Using the terrain, not bad!”
Kazuma let out an amused laugh at the tilting building and thought to head down towards the lower floors where Souji likely was. However, using the stairs would mean getting caught in the collapsing building. In that case, there was only one way. Kazuma leaped from the rooftop. The spectators were speechless at Kazuma’s action, who wore no parachute or anything of the sort. What on earth was he thinking?
Of course, he wasn’t just some suicidal maniac. Kazuma was simply using his Grappling Hook to rapidly descend the building.
“Aah, I knew you’d do something like that!!!”
Souji, who was on a floor with a clear view, launched a mass of flames at the falling Kazuma. He had thought that no matter how strong Kazuma was, he wouldn’t be able to dodge while immobile in mid-air, but Kazuma was an existence beyond common sense.
Against the flames bursting through the window, Kazuma rotated his sword at high speed, creating a vacuum that extinguished the fire. Souji understood the theory, but he couldn’t help but be shaken, never imagining someone could perform such a feat.
“Wh-?!”
“Hah!”
Souji, finding Kazuma had entered his range before he knew it, cried out in surprise. Kazuma swung his sword without any mercy, attempting to cut Souji down, but as expected, it wasn’t so simple.
Souji dodged Kazuma’s slash with Teleportation, escaping disaster by a hair’s breadth. Confirming he was safe by the skin of his teeth, Souji let out a deep breath.
“Just what kind of monster are you… seriously.”
“If it weren’t for your Teleportation, this match would have been over long ago… Still, perhaps it’s my fault for neglecting to gather information.”
He blamed his own negligence. If he had gathered information properly, the match would have ended quickly, Kazuma lamented. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true. Even if Kazuma had gathered information, Souji could change the Gifts he Copied right before the Academy Battle Tournament. In other words, even if Kazuma had seriously tried to gather all available information, he wouldn’t have been able to guess which Gifts Souji was Copying.
“Now then, I’d like to say let’s start over, but…”
“Hahahaha. My bad. I’ve destroyed all the support pillars. This place is going to collapse.”
“Figured as much.”
“Let me tell you, I’m not letting you escape. I’ll get out at the last second, but you’re staying here until the very end.”
Souji spread his arms, using his Telekinesis to block the stairs and seal the windows with rubble, preventing any escape.
“Kukuku. As I said before, that’s a fighting style that makes good use of the terrain. It seems your title of the strongest student isn’t just for show.”
“Thanks, I guess. Man, this is awkward~. Knowing the usual you just makes this more confusing.”
“What’s the matter? You’ll get used to it soon enough.”
A fearless smile on his face, Kazuma vanished, leaving an afterimage. Souji, feeling a shiver of danger down his spine, turned around to find Kazuma there, sword at the ready.
Souji dodged with Teleportation. Kazuma, having only managed to cut a few strands of hair, clicked his tongue at his own immaturity.
“Tch…”
“Just how strong are you…? If I remember correctly, the Support Course’s Powered Suits have a limit of five times amplification, right? There’s no way that’s just five times…”
“Depending on one’s own effort, limits can be surpassed indefinitely.”
“Even so, there’s got to be a limit to that!”
Kazuma threw his sword at Souji, who was gritting his back teeth. Souji caught it with Telekinesis and, as if returning the favor, sent the sword flying back at Kazuma with his own Telekinesis.
As the sword flew towards him, Kazuma deftly twisted his body and performed the divine feat of sheathing it in the scabbard on his back.
“Wha-!?”
“No time to be surprised.”
“Kuh!!!”
Kazuma, his hand on the katana at his waist, closed in to within striking distance. Souji hurriedly retreated with Teleportation, escaping Kazuma’s attack range, but he couldn’t get away so easily.
With an extraordinary counter, Kazuma leaped in the direction Souji had appeared, instantly closing the distance and drawing his katana.
“Uooh!?”
“Mu… As expected, my aim was too obvious, huh?”
He had aimed for the neck, but Souji had anticipated it and dodged at the last possible moment. A tiny sliver of skin on his neck was cut, but it wasn’t a fatal wound.
Just then, with a loud rumble, rubble came crashing down, and the building tilted further. It wouldn’t last much longer. At this rate, they would both be buried alive.
Souji let out a deep sigh as small fragments rained down from the ceiling. If possible, he’d wanted to handle this with his own strength, but he hadn’t imagined Kazuma would be this strong. It was incredibly frustrating, but Souji decided to play his final trump card.
“Honestly, I wanted to keep this hidden forever… but against you, I can’t hold back anymore.”
“Hoh. Even after I’ve shown such a difference in our abilities, I never thought you were holding back.”
“No, sorry, that’s a lie. I was serious, super serious. But this isn’t really my power, it’s more like relying on someone else.”
It seemed he was hesitant to use it, but from Kazuma’s perspective, it was intriguing. What on earth was he hiding? Kazuma asked excitedly.
“That piques my interest. By all means, I’d like to see it.”
“Yeah, I’m about to show you. My Copy Gift isn’t just three anymore, it’s become four. And the one I copied then is this: Starry Sky Memory!”
Starry Sky Memory. A unique Gift, and only one user had ever been confirmed in the past or present: Issei Kisaragi, who had once been a hot topic as a promising new student at the First Esper Academy. His Gift was extremely unique, allowing him to summon great figures from the past.
He could only summon one person for now, but it was a Gift with immense potential, possibly allowing him to summon an army-scale force once he grew stronger.
“Come forth! The Gravity user who once crushed countless Ibinom in Japan! Juzo Hakari!”
The one Souji summoned was Juzo Hakari, a hero who had been active about seventy years ago and defeated numerous Ibinom. He was a Gravity user, a man who had crushed many Ibinom to death.
Light flooded Kazuma’s vision. Summoned from Starry Sky Memory was the hero of old, Juzo Hakari. That very hero now stood before Kazuma.
“My lord. Is that the one I am to strike down?”
Those summoned by Starry Sky Memory read the summoner’s memories, gaining knowledge. At the same time, they recognize the summoner as the master they are to serve.
“Yeah, that’s right. Sorry, but fight alongside me!”
“Understood! This Juzo shall fight with you, my lord!”
The sudden two-on-one fight sent the audience into an uproar. The hero, Juzo Hakari, and the strongest student of the modern era, Souji, standing shoulder to shoulder. That fact alone was astonishing, and now they were going to fight together. The venue was enveloped in excitement, knowing such a sight was rarely seen.
Meanwhile, Kazuma was thrilled to see a hero he had only ever encountered in documents and videos appear before his very eyes. He had never dreamed of facing a person called a hero in this world. It wasn’t that he particularly wished to fight one, but he couldn’t pass up this opportunity, and power surged through Kazuma’s entire body.