Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 4===

Karuta’s arm had been taken off at the shoulder.

His barrier had shattered and his right arm had flown off somewhere with the modified military flashlight still in its grasp, so he had lost his dominant hand and his only weapon.

He had no chance of hitting the ground safely.

For one, his center of gravity was off center with one arm missing. His midair spinning was awkwardly out of balance in a way he couldn’t account for.

“Gah!?”

His back slammed into the mat and he had so much trouble breathing he forgot all about the pain in his shoulder.

But he could not afford to writhe on the ground.

Pendet Denpasar had yet to take a single step. The large headphones still covered her ears and her hands remained in her pockets. Yet she had managed to tear a limb from Karuta’s body.

Barong and Rangda.

He was already in range of those things that kicked at the floor with mop handle legs to form a closed circle around Pendet. Without spending the time to get up, Karuta rolled across the mat to get as far away as he could.

A sound like a shrill whistle pierced his eardrums. But by the time he heard that, the benevolent beast and wicked witch had already passed through. This was a destructive tornado. Pendet was the eye of the storm, so when she took a step forward, the pressure of death moved in to crush him.

(I had my dominant hand torn away and I lost my flashlight.)

“But that doesn’t mean I’m helpless,” he whispered from the mat.

His opponent was enclosed in her own world thanks to her headphones. That Balinese Hindu priestess danced to represent the eternal battle between good and evil which gave the world it’s structure, so she may not have even paid much attention to her opponent.

Still, Karuta crawled desperately along the floor and grabbed something with his left hand.

A new weapon had rolled to him when he most needed it.

He bragged his own severed and bent right arm and threw it with all his might.

The arm had begun rapidly crystallizing after it was severed and it was still holding the modified military flashlight that doubled as a blunt weapon.

That last-ditch attempt of course failed to reach Pendet Denpasar where she stood at the center of the world.

Before it could, something unseen chewed it up, tore it to pieces, and blew it away.

But that gave color to the dense tornado of death.

The four-legged benevolent beast had vanished into thin air, but it grew visible as whitish shards surrounded it like a bullet fired through a thick layer of water.

(Yikes, that’s close!? But now I can see it. I still have a chance if I know haw far away it is!!)

“Barong, Rangda.”

“!?”

A faint whisper left the blonde ringlet girl’s lips. To reiterate, the dancer in the headphones was not looking to the outside world. Her focus remained inwards while she gave herself over to the rhythm, but that may have helped inform her of even the slightest disturbance to that rhythm.

She pulled her hands from her baggy dance pants pockets.

An she loosely spread them.

“Fast Forward. Activate noise canceling.”

This time, he could see it.

They formed a circle with a diameter of about 10m, but this one was not arranged horizontally, like Saturn’s rings, in order to protect Pendet.

This was a vertical rotation.

He could just barely make it out thanks to the small fragments of the destroyed ring and smoke of the detonated ropes. Barong and Rangda spun like a giant tire or the rotating blades used to till the earth. And they destroyed the ring’s floor as they approached him! A passive defense had done so much damage, so how destructive would they be now that they were being used for an active offense!?

(But…)

If he ran in fear, he could survive for the moment.

But that alone was not a solution.

(If I can get past this, I don’t have to worry about the defensive circle. I can charge in at her and bring the fight to close quarters!!)

“Ohhhh!!!!!!”

He focused his senses on his broken right arm and charged forward with his center of gravity still off center. This was not something he could consciously avoid, so it actually helped that he failed to stay on a straight line and staggered awkwardly to the side. After ending up right next to the giant wheel spinning with a supersonic rotation speed, he felt his feet planted solidly on the floor again.

That was when the promised 30 seconds arrived. Small crystal shards burst from his brand new right arm.

He just barely managed to get past Barong and Rangda and made his attack on unguarded Pendet Denpasar. He heard the vertically-rotating storm tear through the detonating cord ropes and burst from the ring behind him, but he focused on moving right up to Pendet!!

“Pend-!!”

“Not good enough.”

His momentum was blocked by a scorching pain in his face. Both of his attack plans were shattered and he couldn’t move how he wanted. His fist found only empty air.

She was fast.

But the strike hadn’t had her weight behind it. She had only struck him in the nose to stop his momentum, but that had been enough to break through and shred his flimsy barrier.

(An open palm? No, did she scratch me with her nails!?)

That wouldn’t be lethal unless she had painted them with a powerful poison. But if she was only stopping him in place, her true attack was sure to come next.

He could not breathe a sigh of relief at only receiving a jab. Something more was coming.

He could not have lost his focus for more than half a second.

But by the time he got his arms up to defend himself, he found his feet lifting from the floor. An unthinkably heavy blow had smashed right through his defending arms and struck him in the nose. It felt like being hit by a hammer designed to demolish concrete walls.

This time, she had spun her body all the way around and placed all of her weight behind it.

“A kick!?”

With his feet lifted from the floor, he literally could not stand his ground. And after he collapsed backwards, her foot dropped down like a pile driver.

She stomped once, twice, thrice.

He just barely managed to roll out of the way, but…

“Okay.”

“!?”

When he saw her twirl, he assumed a major attack was coming, but then she stopped before completing a full circle. That meant this was not a roundhouse kick. Instead, she stopped with her back to him, leaped toward him, and spread her legs to drop her shapely butt on his face.

She performed a butt attack.

The name might sound comical, but it was one of the simplest killing moves that placed your entire weight on someone. It was simple enough for a kindergartner to perform it without practicing and it was powerful enough to crush someone’s skull if it hit.

Karuta was too busy rolling out of the way of the deadly attack to even think about moving at her and attempting a pin or a chokehold.

In fact…

(Oh, no. I can’t come up with two different plans right now. But if I let her guide me along ''this singular path''…!?)

A hammer flew toward him.

After landing on her butt with her legs spread, Pendet stuck her hands between her legs, pressed her palms against the floor, and then rotated the rest of her. She flipped herself upside down and swung her legs around in a tornado-like kick that resembled breakdancing. This time, she did not hit him through his defending arms. The low-to-the-ground kick slammed into his right side, launching him through the air.

Difficulty breathing was becoming the new normal for him.

After landing and rolling, he very nearly grabbed the detonating cord rope like he was grasping at straws.

He had arrived at the end of the ring.

He had no more room. He was being pushed into a corner.

“Agh, geh!?”

“Barong and Rangda are only my backup dancers.”

Pendet took a step toward him with her back straight. That alone seemed to solidify the air and shrink the world around Karuta.

He had made a mistake.

He had been focused on the wrong thing.

And the one who embodied the world was working to correct that mistake.

“The dance of the world is focused on me at the center. As long as the world exists, the priestess’s dance cannot be stopped. The Balinese Hindu dance swallows up both good and evil. Did you really think mere violence could stop this colossal vortex?”

“Sh!!”

He attacked while she was talking.

He scooped up some crystal shards from the ground and threw them at her face. While she moved her head aside to avoid that, he charged toward her again. He needed to escape this corner of the ring even if it meant forcing her out of his way.

There were parts of her she could not move out of the way just by moving her head.

For example, the gorgeous blonde ringlets that trailed behind her movements.

(Grab one of those and I can hold her in place. And then I can hit her!)

But even with her hair in his hand, she easily dropped her hips down to avoid his fist.

Her hair suddenly grew longer. Or so it seemed to Karuta.

(Ringlets? Damn, so that’s it. They can stretch out because they’re curled up like old-fashioned phone cords! I can’t restrain her just by grabbing the ends. In fact…)

“Thank you for falling for my ''bait''.”

Her knee jabbed into his gut, easily lifting his entire body weight from the floor.

He couldn’t breathe.

Before he could fall back down, she whirled around and slammed a full-power roundhouse kick into the exact same place.

That special move was like pressing the hammer against the head of the nail before swinging the hammer down at full force.

Karuta felt something like a soft bag of water bursting inside his gut.

“Gah, ah!?”

He rolled along the mat and tried to breathe the air caught in his throat, but a clump of red came out instead. Something had really had ruptured inside him.

(Can I last…30 seconds? And what just ruptured? That wasn’t fatal, was it!?)

His trembling fingers would not listen to his commands. He tried to grab onto the pole at the corner of the ring for support, but he collapsed back to the mat instead. He was supposed to win in an impressive way worthy of the world’s strongest title, but he had already failed at that. Not that the audience was going to complain when they were so entranced by the excitement in the ring.

Pendet Denpasar slowly approached him.

He had tried to rush at her to get away from the ropes, but he had only ended up back on the ground and even more cornered than before. He had nowhere left to run.