Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 1===

First thing in the morning and he was already getting beaten up.

“I see you can sense a grab coming with your instincts instead of your conscious mind. That’s good. Your reactions are a little too blatant, though.”

“Ugh…”

“God, how can I hit you ''this'' many times and still none of it seems to sink in?”

In their secret base located directly below the heliport where the tournament was being held, Letnahe (the overheated and frustrated young wife in glasses and workout gear) spoke to him, looking entirely composed.

She had already slammed Karuta to the hard ground and twisted his wrist to get him in an armlock. She had easily broken through his paper-thin barrier.

“I didn’t get much sleep,” said Sandbag Utagai Karuta like it was an excuse.

He had been woken that morning by a deafening boom and a violent tremor. They were sparring in the surprising blind spot located directly below the heliport, but the place was unrecognizable.

It looked like a solid waterfall made of steel and rebar.

The round, platelike heliport had collapsed and sent large pieces of rubble pouring down to this level. They had been lucky that it had poured past the ship’s railing and into the sea. Karuta was truly thankful none of the audience had been killed.

(How did someone do this to the tournament site?)

Letnahe glanced over at her smartwatch to check her heartrate while holding Karuta in her armlock.

“I heard it was over ''instantly''.”

“And that’s who I’ll be facing in the finals if the next match goes well.”

But there was no point in worrying about that right now. He had to focus on his semifinal this afternoon.

Fortunately, Second Grimnoah was a three hull ship with the school buildings split between the Sub Category and Main Category. One of the heliports had been destroyed, but the tournament could continue using the heliport above the other school building. The staff was working madly to get the seats and cameras set up there.

“Like I said, your movements are too blatant. Knowing how to respond to a grab is useful, but if you flinch at every single attack, a simple feint will be enough to take you out with ease.”

“You say that, but the only way to know if something is a real attack or a bluff is to think about it. If I do that, I’ll be slow to react and take a blow to the face.”

“And I’m saying that assumption is wasting your speed. Keep in mind that your body can’t move while you think and you will be hit by an attack while your body can’t move. Now, hurry back onto your feet. I’ll keep hitting you until your body learns how to move on reflex.”

Karuta was growing more and more impressed that he managed to defeat the Problem Solvers and the Threat. Did this just prove how much he had avoided fair battles and stuck to cheap shots?

Still, things were somewhat different from the first day.

It didn’t happen often.

But from time to time, like some kind of mistake, he actually managed to get an attack in on Letnahe. He was no longer losing every single time.

Except…

“There!!” shouted Karuta, but Letnahe’s low kick was a feint and she managed to grab his collar and lift him onto her back.

Then she made such a perfect shoulder throw it could have been used for a tutorial video, but Karuta intentionally shifted his center of gravity to the side. That sent a dull pain shooting through her fingers. He had twisted his collar, applying a twisting force to her fingers. Her smartwatch played an alert.

This was only practice, so he could not twist to the point of breaking her fingers.

And in exchange, he lost his balance and landed unnaturally on his shoulder instead of on his broad back. The impact was concentrated on that one point, sending pain through his bone.

Letnahe held her hand with the other one and grimaced, but she seemed more worried about him.

“Y-you’ll break a bone landing like that!”

“I know. But breaking my shoulder isn’t fatal.” He smiled. “I can regenerate any injury in only 30 seconds, so I need to take advantage of that. Of course, I can’t let my opponent know I need to protect the crystalized body part during the recovery period, but it means a lot that these near-suicidal attacks leave permanent damage on them but not on me.”

“…”

“Hm? Is something wrong, Letnahe-san?”

“No.”

She did not take his proffered hand and got up on her own. She was not looking him in the eye and seemed to be changing the subject when she spoke again.

“This is troubling, isn’t it? An accident outside the ring.”

“I heard ''their waiting room fell while the tiltrotor was carrying it to the ring.''” Karuta sighed. “Machibula Delphi. That accident won her the second round, so she obviously benefited the most. But it seems she has an alibi and everything.”

She used Greek astrology.

That was a popular enough form of the occult to have a section on the morning news, but it was unclear how exactly she converted that into something deadlier than guns or blades.

Letnahe wiped the sweat from her brow with a towel and sipped some sports drink through her bottle’s straw.

“Will you be okay? Isn’t she your next opponent?”

“I really doubt she would try to knock me out with an accident.”

Two unnatural accidents in a row would be a risky gamble.

Plus, all of the tournament contestants were fighting these deadly battles because they wanted official recognition that their power had defeated crystal magic. If he was taken out without stepping into the ring, she might not take home that trophy she wanted.

However…

“That doesn’t mean nothing will happen though, does it? She only has to trip you up enough that you can still fight but she gets an easy win.”

“True…”

But how exactly would she accomplish that?

To repeat, crystal magic gave him a regeneration power. That preset ability would heal any nonlethal injury in 30 seconds. So with him, she couldn’t injure him before the match to give her an advantage.

…''Am I being naïve?

Maybe he didn’t realize how far someone could go if they felt trapped. (However strong he really was,) Utagai Karuta was considered the world’s strongest and that title would place a lot of pressure on the challengers. If someone was willing to do anything to win, ''how far would they actually go''? Had he failed to consider that because he had started looking down on them all at some point?

That was a problem.

What had Karuta himself done to the Problem Solvers in a similar situation?

“Well, my match isn’t until the afternoon. The third round is the semifinals, so there are only two matches today. I still have time, so let’s take it slow and think this through, Letnahe-san.”

“That also gives her more opportunities to attack you before the match. It might be better if you could just get it over with this morning.”