Chapter 54 - Pow!

Kairos blinked a few times. In all honesty, he knew that logically it wouldn't be too bad to team up with some others that had some sort of skill. However, he just didn't like the personalities of those three.

He couldn't exactly put his finger on it, but he just didn't like them very much.

Since it would be too much of a hassle to explain, Kairos didn't bother to.

"So what exactly are you proposing?"

The guy with white hair jumped off the building. He then landed with a soft tap, bending his knees ever so slightly.

"We can just have a friendly fight. If you get hit twice, you sit out. How about that?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders.

"That sounds pretty reasonable."

Both the girl with blue hair and the guy with green hair jumped off too, landing behind him.

Kairos blinked a few times.

"All of us against you? If a person is out after getting hit two times, that wouldn't be the fairest, would it?"

The guy with white hair smirked.

"Hah. How about we try it and see how unfair this is exactly?"

Chase smirked.

"Honestly, I think I have the disadvantage here, I usually kill on the first hit."

The guy with green hair shrugged his shoulders.

"If you can kill on the first hit, then just do it."

Chase sighed.

"Well, if it's just a friendly match, then there is no need to use my weapon. I'll just go barehanded."

The girl with blue hair giggled.

"So it's more or less fair then. It seems nobody has any issues?"

A second of silence passed, seemingly showing everyone's agreement.

The girl smiled and began hitting her paddleball back and forth.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

The guy with green hair held onto his microphone stand close to himself, and kept the microphone close to his mouth, almost like he was getting prepared to sing.

As for the guy with white hair, he began twirling the red ball attached to a string once more and walked forth.

They were in no rush, and neither was Kairos. He thought about taking off his glasses, but figured there was no reason to take this too seriously.

However, his eyebrow couldn't help but twitch the next moment.

The guy with green hair yelled into the microphone, which was amplified by the device.

"Let's rock!"

Everyone on their side couldn't help but feel a little dizzy from the excessive volume. And it was that moment that was taken advantage of.

The girl with blue hair hit the spiked ball with her paddle hard and the string that attached the ball to the paddle ended up extending far beyond its original length. It snaked right towards Chase's forehead.

It almost hit him, but at the very last moment, his head snapped to the side, letting it pass by him.

The ball almost immediately retracted, going back towards Chase. Despite not seeing it, he seemed to have somehow predicted it and ducked down, avoiding it once more.

On the other hand, the guy with white hair whipped with his arm, letting the red ball attached to the string fly out towards Sydney. She averted her head before it came, but the red ball didn't seem to follow normal physics, suddenly shifting its direction while in mid-air.

The ball tapped Sydney on the forehead as she didn't expect this.

"Ah!"

The guy with white hair smirked.

"One!"

Sydney's eyes flew open wide as she snapped to attention, trying to get away from the red ball. Though it only hit her a while ago, it already began shooting back towards her the next second.

Sydney was able to duck in time this time, but that ball was relentless, chasing after her like it was alive. She widened her eyes to their limits just to follow it.

Though that didn't mean the others were standing still.

The people that weren't being attacked were rushing forth. Kairos was the first one to sprint forth, without even taking any precautionary measures to dodge.

Upon reaching the guy at the front, he swung his sharpened bone, aiming for his abdomen. Though he didn't put much strength into it as the guy dashed backwards as though he was on rollerskates.

Kairos diverted the trajectory of his attack, swinging it towards the string, but when it got close, the string shot back, almost like it was a magnet being repelled away.

While that was happening, Sam followed up, chasing after the guy with white hair that was fleeing. He was noticeably faster than Kairos, and thus was able to catch up to him relatively easily.

Once in range, Sam swung with the sharpened bone at the guy's chest.

But the guy suddenly threw his head back, and once he did, the base of the microphone stand flew over.

A deep boom resounded.

Both the sharpened bone and base of the microphone stand collided with each other before freezing in place. From how loud the sound was, it wasn't too hard to tell that both sides had high strength values.

The guy with green hair smirked as the microphone stand trembled in his hand.

"You're pretty strong, aren't you?"

Sam laughed.

"You're not so bad yourself."

Just a few seconds later, the microphone stand was retracted smoothly. It seemed like he didn't care too much about winning the confrontation. As for the guy with white hair, he had already scurried off.

During this time, the red ball that was trying to hit Sydney, which she dodged by ducking under it. But then, it abruptly expanded. While it was originally at the size of a ping pong ball, it had become larger than Sydney herself. On top of that, a jaw formed on the red ball, with clear prominent teeth. The teeth parted ever so slightly, but closed right after, as though it was controlling itself.

Sydney ended up getting hit on the back of the head. She blinked a few times, as though unable to believe she had gotten out this quick.

The guy with white hair chuckled while at the very back.

"Two!"

The red ball immediately shrunk back down to its original size and whipped back.

On the other side of this battle, the girl with blue hair was actually fending off Tori, Chase, and even Nicole all on her own. After Chase dodged the ball that had rebounded, both Tori and Nicole tried to close in on the girl.

But that was when the ball pulsated strangely.

And spikes abruptly shot out from all ends. The overall thing had expanded into a spiky sphere with a radius of about five meters. The spikes pierced into the pavement below, sending cracks throughout.

Tori noticed something was off the moment it pulsated, thus backed off early, while Nicole had the red watch on and was thus also able to react in time.

The girl with blue hair pouted when she saw this.

"Aw... I thought I could get a two for one deal!"

She smiled soon after.

"Guess I just have to do it the traditional way."

The spiked ball suddenly retracted, ripping through the street as it shrunk. By the time the ball had come back, it had shrunk back into its tiny size once more.

She pulled the paddle back all the way and swung with all her might, throwing her shoulder into it and nearly tripping over her own foot.

A clear thwack rang out as the ball shot forth once more.

But this time, it expanded into a spiked ball straight away. The pretense was shed.

Both Nicole and Tori stepped back once more, splitting off to separate sides to dodge it. As for Chase, he didn't bother trying to step up and backed off.

He raised an eyebrow.

"That is quite a unique attack."

Tori and Nicole both dashed towards the girl, but on opposite ends.

Seeing this, the girl with blue hair just smiled without the slightest concern. She pulled the paddle back and over to the side. The spiked ball rebounded backwards, ripping across the pavement, and went straight towards Tori.

Despite seeing the giant ball of death coming for her, her expression remained neutral. The rumbling sound continued to get closer, and when it was less than a meter away from her she leaped upwards.

Tori threw herself back and did a backflip. Right when she was at the peak and sticking her stomach up into the air, the spiked ball rushed right past her. Then, she landed on the road.

The girl with blue hair narrowed her eyes at this display. She quickly came to the conclusion that this wouldn't be an easy person to deal with, thus she shifted her attention to Nicole.

While running backwards, she pulled her paddle back. The ball had shrunk once again once it got closer to her. A strange glint flashed by her eyes as the paddle in her hand whipped forth, thwacking against the ball and grabbing onto the string with her fingers.

The spiked ball expanded once more, rushing towards Nicole like a truck.

She had little confidence in replicating what Tori had done, thus she threw her body to the side, attempting to dodge. Yet, the very moment her eyes turned to the side, the girl with blue hair tugged onto the string.

The spiked ball kept its forward momentum but was now also sliding to the side, right towards Nicole. Seeing this, Nicole wanted to try and backtrack, giving up on running forth. However, she was simply too slow.

In the end, she could only watch as the spiked ball mercilessly rushed towards and tore through the ground.

Right as the adrenaline peaked, the tips of the spikes suddenly became pads, smacking against Nicole softly. It was not lethal. Though that didn't change the fact that Nicole was thrown to the side with the air knocked out of her lungs. Before she could recover from her daze or even stop flying through the air, the ball rebounded back and slammed into her once more.

Nicole spat out some saliva as her eyes widened all the way.

She rolled across the ground a little while her head began to spin.

Now, she was out as well.

Tori was running towards the girl with blue hair the entire time, but despite the fact that the girl was running backwards, Tori was having great difficulty catching up.

Once she did close the distance by two meters, the girl with blue hair blew her a kiss.

"Seeya!"

The girl leaped upwards, clinging onto the side of a building before scaling up with more proficiency than a monkey.

Tori tilted her head to the side, letting the shrunken spiky ball pass by her head and go back to the paddle. Then, she leaped up and climbed after the runner.

The girl giggled mischievously as she ran across the roof, and by the time she got to the end, she turned around and winked, before letting her body fall off the side.

Tori was originally a few meters away, but since her target spent some time taunting, she was able to close that gap to less than a meter. Tori pulled back her katana while the girl was falling and grabbed onto the ledge with her free hand.

Then, she brought herself over the ledge.

As for the girl with blue hair, she had one eye closed while her free hand was pointing a finger gun towards Tori.

"Pow!"

She swung the paddle, sending the spiked ball forth.

However, Tori was prepared for this. She swung her katana, smashing it against the spiky ball as it was expanding, throwing it away.

Yet, right when she did that, the corner of the girl's lip turned up. She lowered the thumb of her finger gun.

A bang resounded.

Tori found the clothes at the top of her shoulder ripped open along with some of the skin. She quickly realized that this was her first hit.

Meaning the next one would get her out.