Chapter Sixty-Five: Core Explosion!

“It’s begun! It’s happening again!” Compared to the first round, Chioka Katagiri, now dressed even more provocatively, pressed both hands on the commentary desk and nearly howled her excitement.
“Mirrored Hall’s signature all-out onslaught! A clash so raw and intense that it almost needs no commentary at all!
This is violence at its purest! Absolute violence!”
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Though it was merely the fists and feet of two humans colliding, the force and clamor made one feel as if they were at a massive construction site.
Because their fists—were as powerful as hydraulic presses!
With every exchange, turbulent air currents burst forth, scattering unpredictably.
By now, the arena behind them had been stripped of layer after layer of sand by the barrage of fists.
The ground beneath the sand had been laid bare in a spreading pattern!
And from beneath their feet, cracks radiated outwards like bolts of thunder!
“Hey, hey, hey! Is this for real?”
Ryo Himuro, his arm still in a cast, stared at the arena, absentmindedly smacking the head of Naoya Okubo beside him.
Yet Okubo, whose head bounced like a ball, didn’t seem bothered in the least.
He just turned, dazed, to ask Suezuki Kaneda next to him.
“Are those two actually… changing the landscape with their blows?”
“Yes, much as I hate to admit it.” Suezuki Kaneda sighed. “But these monsters—these guys are just unimaginably strong.”
In the arena, the young man reveled in the ecstasy that violence brought him.
Opposite him, the warrior’s face twisted in fury, baring his teeth, as if the boy’s attitude had enraged him, and so he hammered down with punch after punch.
“What astonishing power! What terrifying destruction!
Their offense and defense has altered the very environment of the arena!
They’ve literally carved out a patch of bare concrete with their fists!”
Chioka Katagiri’s sultry figure and fervent gestures drew the attention of Itsumi Hajime, known as “Drifting Cloud,” who abandoned watching the match to consider her with an appraising hand on his chin.
Beside him, Atsushi Sekibayashi, who had defeated the sumo wrestler Oniwayama in the first round, wore the same contemplative expression.
They both seemed to be savoring something as they gazed at the arena.
“Hajime, have you ever seen the warrior throw caution to the wind and just trade blows like this?”
“Huh?” Hajime, who had been drooling without realizing it, finally snapped out of his trance.
Under Sekibayashi’s scornful gaze, he slowly turned his head back toward the match.
“Hmm—he’s setting something up.”
Hajime stroked his uneven stubble, sounding utterly certain.

“Takashi Wakatsuki, as a ‘Gladiator’, is practically perfect.
He has solid fundamentals, a body like steel. He’s a model of stability—never stagnant, never reckless. There’s no way he’d lose his head and play the kid’s slugfest game!”
“Is that so? You see it that way too?” Sekibayashi’s eyes had never left the arena, and now a faintly interested smile appeared on his face.
“Then the only question is… when will the warrior land a decisive blow on that cocky brat?”
…
“Boom!”
Unlike the warrior, who fought with seamless karate offense and defense,
Mirrored Hall stuck to his “head-to-head” philosophy to the very end.
His muscular arms, charged with dragon’s blood and inner strength, intercepted every attack, and with no loss of momentum, hammered them right back at his opponent!
“Hey! Pure strength-wise, you don’t seem to measure up to Julius, old man!”
As the fight grew more frenzied, the boy’s tone became razor-sharp and taunting.
But Takashi Wakatsuki paid him no heed.
He clenched his teeth and threw his massive fists.
But this time, there was a subtle difference…
After another exchange of blows—
“Ssshh—”
A faint sound of foot scraping against the floor was heard.
Mirrored Hall’s eyes caught the shift—Wakatsuki’s movement pattern had changed.
A decidedly unusual change!
Amid the drifting dust after their clash, Mirrored Hall saw the warrior’s expression abruptly calm.
The rage that had twisted his face a moment ago vanished like ripples fading from water.
“That stance… is it a reverse punch?”
The boy’s pupils contracted.
In karate, when you punch forward with the same hand and foot, channeling your center of gravity into the blow, that’s called an ‘oi-zuki’ or lunge punch.
When you punch with the opposite hand and foot, powering it by pushing off your rear leg and twisting your waist, it’s a ‘gyaku-zuki’ or reverse punch.
Driving off the rear leg is the most common way of punching in karate.
With that explosive power from the hind leg, a skilled karateka is a cannon before the punch, and the punch itself is a cannonball!
But Wakatsuki’s punch was far beyond what any ordinary expert could unleash.

“Ha!”
For the first time since the match began, Takashi Wakatsuki exhaled with a kiai.
His shout was a surge of spirit; muscles fifty-two times denser than normal twisted into a single cord, compressed to the utmost.
At the peak of that compression, combined with a rear-leg thrust, the force burst out, transmitted through his fist!
Core Explosion!
A force of unprecedented impact!
The rear leg stamped a crater half a man deep into the concrete floor!
In the instant the punch flew forth, Mirrored Hall’s keen sight could see the shockwave rippling off the warrior’s fist!
There was no need for a collision to unleash a blast; the mere air current from the punch gouged new marks into the floor!
Crack—
At the moment of impact, the boy, still maintaining the balance of resistance, felt his right hand emit an ominous sound as it met Wakatsuki’s core explosion.
Then, the berserk punch smashed, undiminished, into his chest.
“Boom!”
In his shrinking pupils was reflected a fist that not even dragon blood and inner strength could fully shield him from.
For the first time in a day, the death match arena witnessed a scene straight out of a slapstick cartoon.
A burly human, one meter eighty-five and eighty-seven kilos, was sent flying like a ragdoll, feet leaving the ground as he was hurled dozens of meters!
His trajectory, trailing dust, ended as he crashed into the high concrete wall at the edge of the arena.
“Plap—”
But unlike Sumiya Masashi, the boy adjusted his posture midair.
He touched down lightly on the wall with both feet, dissipating the force with a small jump, setting off a burst of dust and leaving a spiderweb of cracks—then landed nimbly.
“A slight dislocation in my right wrist; that hit to the chest didn’t injure any organs, but the muscles are damaged.
…Impressive!”
Amidst the drifting dust, the boy assessed his injuries without a trace of dejection or anger at being caught off guard.
On the contrary, he seemed genuinely interested as he praised his opponent’s technique.
But in the next instant, the “Fierce Tiger,” his right fist raised high, tore through the smoke and was upon him!