Chapter Ninety-Three: Sonic Fist

Kuroki Genzai was a man whose features radiated fierce, imposing authority.

His beard and hair merged into one, like black flames in full blaze.

His round, deep-set eyes were those of some great beast. Cold and unfathomable, they revealed nothing of his inner feelings. They stirred an instinctive chill, and an irrational fear of the unknown.

And when such a man, brimming with fighting spirit and murderous intent, took up his stance against you...

Even a fighter who was only a little weaker would likely feel his hands and feet go limp.

Just like Inaba Ryo, crouched like a frog atop the wall behind Kuroki at that very moment.

A coldness, as if he would be pierced clean through by a spear-hand in the next instant, reverberated in his chest.

Not only were his hands and feet trembling, even his specially trained long hair, trailing to the ground, quivered with the motion of his body!

And what of Hado Kagami, facing Kuroki Genzai?

He was smiling.

A powerful opponent.

But was this not the perfect chance to test that interesting idea of his?

"Swoosh-"

A spiral dune of fine sand suddenly rose beneath his feet.

The boy's figure vanished from Kuroki's field of view as though his leg had never been injured at all.

"Fox Shadow Style."

Kuroki had watched every match Kagami had fought, so he was not surprised that the boy had resorted to the style of an old acquaintance.

On the contrary, the instant the boy disappeared, Kuroki had already adjusted his stance in anticipation.

He settled into the distinctive neko-ashi-dachi of Okinawan karate.

The front foot touched the ground only with the toes, while the rear foot provided steady support.

It was a stance that allowed the direction of the front foot to be changed with great flexibility, enabling the body to shift and turn with ease in response to the situation.

"The so-called blind spot doesn't matter. If you want to land a strike, you have to close the distance. And once you do..."

His solid body remained motionless even as it adopted this agile posture, and Kuroki Genzai sharpened his senses to the utmost.

"You won't get to decide how you hit me!"

Hado Kagami appeared behind and slightly to the side of Kuroki.

His upright frame towered a full head above Kuroki's crouched stance.

And that raised arm, accompanied by a thunderous rush of air, was coming down from above, aiming to smash straight into his opponent's skull!

Kuroki's expression did not change. He merely flicked his gaze back and lifted his arm overhead with calm composure, preparing an upper-level rising block.

But just as the boy smiled and the descending arm drew ever closer to the arm Kuroki had raised to defend...

A shiver so cold it seemed to freeze the blood suddenly surged through Kuroki's heart.

"I... am afraid?"

He had devoted his life to the pursuit of the summit of martial arts, enduring countless years of hellish training.

He had traveled across the islands of Japan and even crossed the open sea to the Republic in search of the martial way.

He had brushed against death many times, yet never regretted it, never retreated...

And yet he was afraid?

The booming fist was still closing in.

And Kuroki Genzai was still examining the heart of his own quest.

"Wait... that fist is... booming?"

A flash of utter disbelief and shock suddenly crossed those beastlike, emotionless eyes.

Then, without the slightest hesitation, his powerful body sprang away like a wildcat, abandoning the spot.

Kuroki Genzai, in the midst of combat, had made the impossible mistake of lifting both feet off the ground and losing his footing.

Twisting his body in midair to face behind him, his eyes widened.

Before the boy's fist, the air was being compressed by its violent advance into rings of white ripples, each one densely packed.

A flapping corner of his martial arts uniform was drawn into the ripples, and in an instant it was torn into even finer threads!

"That is... a sonic barrier?!!!"

A burst loud enough to rupture human eardrums echoed through the arena.

With the amplification of the stage equipment, it drove everyone in the venue to cover their ears in pain.

Because Kuroki had evaded, Kagami's punch had not landed cleanly.

Instead, it stopped in midair.

Even though the fist was still nearly half a meter above the ground, the fierce shockwave of the air current still whipped up a storm of wind.

The arena floor, covered in fine sand, was forced by the shockwave into a smooth, bowl-shaped depression.

At the same time, the entire deathmatch arena fell silent.

"No... no way."

"Impossible. That's impossible!"

Among the wealthy and powerful spectators gathered from all over the world, such voices could be heard faintly.

Until today, in their eyes, the world had been built on money and power.

And in truth, it was.

Money could solve seventy percent of the world's problems, and when combined with power, that figure could soar to ninety-nine percent.

But today, after watching the boy who had thrown that punch slowly straighten up, they understood.

There was still room in this world for what was called personal force.

"Sonic... fist, perhaps?"

At that moment, even Wu Huili, a man of vast experience who boasted that his family's thousand years of martial arts heritage meant there was no technique the Wu clan could not handle, could only force out those few words.

And the Great Japan Bank president standing before him, Katahara Metsudo, had accidentally plucked out several strands of his long goatee.

"First Kana was eliminated with almost no damage at all by the other side, and now this has appeared... today is truly more thrilling than I ever imagined!"

...

On the arena floor, the boy slowly straightened.

"The idea and the calculations were correct enough, but using it is still too much to ask, I suppose?"

He scanned the waterfall of data streaming across his retina in less than half a second.

With a flat expression, Hado Kagami raised the right arm that had struck out the sonic fist.

The skin of the arm was bright red from the tremendous force, and the empty strike had even wrenched several joints completely out of place, leaving the limb as limp as a noodle.

If that blow had landed cleanly, the recoil might well have shattered the fist outright.

Even though he had simulated it thousands of times in the intelligence core within his mind, its practical use still required further exploration.

In the end, it was only a fledgling technique born of a moment's impulse.

By borrowing the joint-twisting mechanics of the Rakshasa Palm, he drove power from the ankles to the knees, the hips, and beyond...

all the way to the wrists, where the rotational force built through each layer of bone was finally expressed in the fist.

As for the muscles, which supplied the greater share of the power, he used the strongest striking technique developed by Wakatsuki Takeshi: Exploding Core.

He gathered the entire musculature into one taut bundle like a rubber band, then detonated it in an instant.

Only by combining muscular force with skeletal force could one reach the realm of...

Sonic speed.

The immense heat generated by the body's violent exertion was absorbed and transformed by psychic power.

Charged with spiritual energy, the dragon-blood inner force flowed through the meridians somewhat slowly, but with unshakable steadiness.

Crack. Crack.

Without the slightest unnecessary motion, the joints that had been thrown loose by the speed were reconnected automatically under the dragon-blood inner force, as though they had acquired a will of their own.

"Don't worry, old man." The boy flexed the hand that had just regained its mobility, smiling toward Kuroki in the distance. "At least in this match, I doubt I can use this arm a second time."