Chapter 52: Blow

———— Pure Avatar ————

“Koshi, I still can’t swallow this anger. That plan by Kiyoshi Shiratori was such an insult to me, I have to get my revenge!” Mizuno Kosuke growled through clenched teeth on a pedestrian street not far from Sakai No. 1 High School.

It had been an hour since he led a group to harass Wakaba.

After Wakaba left, he had originally gone to the athletic field to practice.

Yet after practicing for a while, he found himself completely out of the zone, so he took his friend Kosumi Yasuo and asked their teacher for an early dismissal.

As a gifted athlete, his request was naturally granted by the teacher.

Kosumi Yasuo patted him on the shoulder. “Mizuno, try to look at the bigger picture. You’re a baseball prodigy; just wait peacefully until graduation and you can go to university in the Central City. Why butt heads with a bankrupt nobody? It’s not worth it.”

“But that bastard insulted me like that… Do you know how everyone in school is looking at me now?” Mizuno Kosuke roared.

“All of that is just temporary, Mizuno. Your future is in the Central City, not here,” Kosumi Yasuo said, lowering his voice a fraction. “Besides, if you make a huge fuss and draw attention to that guy’s talent—”

Mizuno Kosuke’s pupils constricted. He lowered his gaze, staring at Kosumi Yasuo for a few seconds before pressing his lips together. “Kosumi, let me ask you objectively: how does that guy’s talent actually compare to mine?”

Kosumi Yasuo paused, thinking to himself: *You threw the first punch, only to get slapped across the face. You’ve already… lost completely.*

Yet he knew this wasn’t the answer his friend wanted to hear.

“Naturally, Mizuno, you’re stronger. That guy only won through a sneak attack,” he said with a smile.

“Right, that’s what I think too. If it weren’t for his sneak attack, I wouldn’t have lost to him at all,” Mizuno Kosuke clenched his teeth. “Still, I’m not satisfied… Don’t worry, Kosumi, I’ve figured it out. Sometimes avenging yourself doesn’t require you to dirty your own hands—”

“Yo, long time no see. What are you two babbling about?”

In the alley ahead, Wakaba walked over with her hands shoved into her trouser pockets, wearing a cocky expression.

“It’s you!” Seeing that the newcomer was none other than Wakaba, Mizuno Kosuke flash a look of vigilance. “What do you want?”

“What do I want—” Mimicking the demeanor of a movie bully, Wakaba spat onto the ground. “To teach you a lesson, obviously. What, did you really think you could mess with yours truly and get away with it?”

Naturally, she understood the mentality of these juvenile delinquents.

Unless you beat them into complete submission, they would inevitably seek revenge.

Therefore, she intended to brand their minds with an eternal nightmare, ensuring that the mere thought of her would evoke nothing but sheer terror.

“Heh~, Kosumi, you saw it too! This bastard came looking for trouble on his own!” Flexing his muscles, Mizuno Kosuke eagerly prepared to wash away his previous shame.

Noticing the impending danger, nearby pedestrians hurriedly gave them a wide berth.

“Over here.” Pointing toward an alley ahead, Wakaba took the lead and walked over.

Mizuno Kosuke followed closely behind.

Realizing he couldn’t stop his friend, Kosumi Yasuo let out a sigh, gritted his teeth, and trailed after them.

The alley was narrow—barely two meters wide—but deep.

An utility pole stood right in the middle, flanked by piles of black garbage bags and construction waste. Because of the summer heat, the garbage bags emitted a wave of rancid decomposition.

“Die!”

Before Wakaba could even turn around, Mizuno Kosuke tensed his entire body, snapped his right hand into a fist, and launched a punch straight at the back of her head.

Swish!

Just as his fist was about to connect, Wakaba’s head tilted smoothly to the left, dodging the blow by a hair’s breadth.

Mizuno Kosuke froze for a split second, a flash of ferocity crossing his eyes as he unleashed a flurry of punches, the sheer speed tearing through the air with a faint whistle.

Swish, swish, swish…!

Yet every single punch was effortlessly evaded by Wakaba, as though she had eyes on the back of her head.

Mizuno Kosuke transitioned from initial shock to sheer astonishment, and finally to numbness.

Suddenly, the moment his continuous, high-intensity strikes caused his movements to stutter for a fraction of a second—

Wakaba hopped forward slightly, stepping just outside the maximum reach of his punches. As she pivoted around, her right hand rose like a streak of black lightning and smashed violently across his face.

“I let you swing at me for so long, and you couldn’t even brush a single strand of my hair. And you… call yourself a genius?” Wakaba mocked, her face full of disdain.

“Ahhhhh—I’m going to beat you to death!” With a swollen, burning face and his head ringing, Mizuno Kosuke roared with fury upon hearing her words, launching another punch at her.

Just like before, no matter how much he accelerated his attacks, Wakaba always managed to dodge by a razor-thin margin—not a fraction more, not a fraction less.

Such agility and reflexes bordered on art!

Despair flooded Mizuno Kosuke’s heart.

As his vision blurred, it felt as though he were staring up at an impassable abyss. The physical distance was minuscule, yet no matter what he did, he could neither close the gap nor cross it.

What appeared to be a minor difference on the surface—

Was in reality the chasm between heaven and earth!

“Forget it. It seems trash like you only has this much to offer. How boring.”

With that, Wakaba raised her left leg, accelerating it into a pitch-black whip kick that slammed heavily into Mizuno Kosuke’s waist.

Thud!

The tremendous impact contorted his features. His mouth gaped open as if he were about to retch, and clutching his side, he dropped to his knees.

“See that? This is the gap between you and me. Even if you brought ten more people, I’d still thrash you just the same.” Deciding she had done enough to inflict a lasting psychological trauma, Wakaba shoved her hands back into her pockets and strolled out of the alley with a swagger.

As she passed by him, a venomous glint flickered in Mizuno Kosuke’s eyes. Snatch up a rusted iron pipe from the ground, he surged upward in a blind fury and swung it at Wakaba.

The pipe tore through the air with a piercing screech, moving as swiftly as a phantom.

Clack!

Just as the pipe was about to strike her, Wakaba accurately caught it with one hand from the side and gave a fierce yank. The pipe slipped right out of Mizuno Kosuke’s grip and into hers.

“This is how you use a weapon.” Wakaba countered with a backhanded swing.

“Ahhhhh—!” Palely terrified, Mizuno Kosuke threw his hands over his head and screamed.

Yet after a few seconds, the anticipated pain never arrived.

Opening his eyes, he saw the steel pipe frozen right at the tip of his nose—a mere two millimeters away.

Whiz!

Wakaba pulled the pipe back and lashed out again. Mizuno Kosuke squeezed his eyes shut once more, covering his head and wailing.

Still, no pain came. Opening his eyes, he found the pipe once more hovering two millimeters from his face.

Swish, swish, swish…!

Wakaba swung the pipe continuously, stopping every single stroke a mere two millimeters away from various parts of his head.

Whoosh, whoosh—!

His ears were filled with the shrieking of the pipe cleaving the air, his face buffeted by fierce gales of wind, his vision entirely consumed by afterimages of steel… yet not a single blow landed.

Paralyzed with terror, he dared not move. No words could capture the depth of his fear—and his utter despair.

Rustle!

Wakaba halted her movements and frowned, looking down at Mizuno Kosuke’s trousers, where a wet stain was dripping down his pant leg.

He had actually been scared to the point of pissing himself!

“Disgusting.” Disgusted, she tossed the pipe aside and turned to leave.

Though those dozens of strikes hadn’t touched him, she was confident they had completely shattered his psychological defenses.

From this day forward, the mere sight of her would evoke today, evoke this exact moment, and unleash an endless wellspring of terror!

This was far more efficient than simply sending him to the hospital.

And she had accomplished all of this without using a single shred of magical girl power—relying purely on the sensory enhancement granted by her fifth consciousness sublimation.

As she stepped out of the alley, Mizuno Kosuke’s lackey, Kosumi Yasuo, stood frozen by the corner with his jaw hanging wide open, staring at Wakaba as though looking at a monster.

*A, a dual prodigy… He’s actually a dual prodigy as both a pitcher and a hitter?! No, that’s no longer a prodigy—that’s a monster!* His mind reeled with shock, incapable of processing normal thought.

He had witnessed the entire spectacle from start to finish.

To put it bluntly, Wakaba’s terrifying talent existed in an entirely different dimension from ordinary genius.

Once Wakaba had walked out of sight, he belatedly rushed over to pull the limp and shivering Mizuno Kosuke up from the ground.

“Hey—Kosumi, tell me… Did Hada choose that bastard over me because he’s the true genius?” With his soul seemingly sucked dry, Mizuno Kosuke tilted his head toward Kosumi Yasuo.

“Mizuno, pull yourself together!” Kosumi Yasuo slammed both hands against Mizuno’s face. “You are undoubtedly a genius. You need to have confidence in yourself.”

Yet these words fell flat against Mizuno Kosuke’s hollow gaze.

Observing this, Kosumi Yasuo narrowed his eyes deeply. “A genius… is only a genius if people know about it. Shiratori Kiyoshi may be talented, but no one knows of it, so he will never be a genius.”

“A genius known to others… is a real genius… Yes, the one who is known is the genius, the one who is known is the genius…”

Mizuno Kosuke muttered the words repeatedly, a spark of light re-igniting in his eyes alongside a completely unhinged obsession.

Meanwhile.

After leaving the school, Wakaba transferred between subways and taxis before arriving at a park bench.

A completely unremarkable man sat upon the bench. His most defining facial feature was the utter lack of any defining features—the sort of passerby you would forget the moment you looked away.

Dressed in a standard shirt and casual slacks, the man had a black bag resting beside him.

Wakaba sat down next to him, picked up the bag, and began reviewing the documents inside.

This man was the trench-coat-wearing contact she had met previously.

His current appearance was merely a disguise, not his true face.

“Huh, why are there so many targets on today’s list?” Wakaba asked, scanning the paperwork in the bag.

“These targets are clustered together. Assassinating one would alert the others, so they’ve been bundled into a package. Oh, and they have firearms. Can you handle it?” As he asked the final question, he raised his gaze to look deeply into Wakaba’s eyes.

Leaning back against the bench, Wakaba tilted her head upward. “Naturally!”

“…”

Observing Wakaba’s attitude—which resembled that of an exemplary employee accepting praise—the man’s deep, probing gaze choked in his throat. He awkwardly retracted his look.

Wakaba picked up the bag and stood up, ready to depart.

At that moment, the man casually tossed out a question: “By the way, how did that engineering… ahem, that ultra-luxury Tier-3A firepower combat set you bought last time turn out?”