*Smash! *
The top of the car was crushed. Botan knew that Hikaru was right behind him because he knew that he was being toyed with.
Botan turned around but instead of seeing Hikaru before him, he saw Hikaru in the air a few metres above him. Hikaru was still in the air as he jumped too high which was a rookie mistake as Hikaru wasn't accustomed to the full range of his body's capabilities. That's why he was gaining experience now.
Botan pounced at him with no hesitation.
As Hikaru was in the air, he couldn't evade as there was no platform for him to step on. No matter how fast one was, if they couldn't run, their speed was zero.
However, barely one-tenth of a second had passed when Hikaru found a solution thanks to his second tiny brain which allowed him to have two simultaneous thoughts (parallel processing). When he saw Botan spot him, he knew right away what his next move was.
A tentacle had already sprung out and grabbed a tree next to him. This tentacle was Juro's ability, the father of Hiromi's cannibalistic family. Juro's tentacles were much stronger because the tissue type was the same as Botan's transformation.
If he used his tentacles, he would not have flung himself out of the way fast enough. From now on, these tentacles were his default whip-type weaponry.
Botan flew into the air missing his target. Hikaru then spun himself around the tree and launched himself back at Botan. Hikaru then smashed into Botan's back with a flying kick causing him to accelerate further into the air while causing himself to slow down.
A whip wrapped around Botan's waist like a belt and pulled him back, this caused Hikaru to speed up towards him. When they were about to collide, Botan turned to face Hikaru only to be put on the defensive.
Fast punches happened in a blink of an eye like blows from a Gatling gun. Botan had put his arms up to guard himself but after lasting for a second, his arms were punched to the sides, leaving his front unprotected.
Hikaru jabbed lightning-fast punches on Botan's face and chest for a couple of seconds until he saw contractions in Botan's muscles hinting that he was going to make a move.
He then did a right hook on Botan's ribs feeling the crack as he did so which caused Botan to flip forward a bit. This prompted Hikaru to clasp his fists together over his head, which he then smashed onto the top of Botan's back. Botan sped downwards like a weighted ball.
The friction he had with the air made a whistling noise as he fell and crashed into the middle of the road.
Debris flew in all directions with some smashing through windows. One unlucky gentleman had a rock pierced his eye and replaced it in the eye socket. He didn't flinch at all.
The 80-year-old wife put her hands to her mouth and screamed in horror. The old man died instantly from merely sneaking a peek through the window blinds. Part of his brain had been turned to mush, he didn't know what had happened and was unaware of his imminent death.
As Botan stood up from his cement coffin shaped like him, he saw something from the corner of his eye approaching him too fast for him to dodge in his current condition. No. Even if he was at his top speed, he wouldn't be able to dodge it.
*Bam*
Hikaru stood in Botan's place with his fist stretched out in front of him while Botan smashed through the door of a house behind him. He continued flying across the living room, the kitchen and through the back wall of the house yet his body was still in the air. He smashed into two more houses like a cannonball before skidding to a stop on the road.
Hikaru appeared out of thin air to the eyes of the window peekers hiding in their houses but in actuality, he was just moving too swiftly for the eyes of regular people to follow. Hikaru looked down at Botan who was coughing.
"I want you to bring out those fists I saw," Hikaru demanded. He had seen Botan gigantified his fists in their duel before Daichi stopped their fight at the gym.
"..."
"You weren't this strong when I met you. Have you been hiding your true strength?"
"Isn't that what you did also?"
Hikaru was referring to when Botan purposely pulled back his punches at the Battle Royale. When Kazumi had acclimated to his speed, Botan tricked him when his fist sped up during a punch which Kazumi wasn't prepared to dodge.
Kazumi didn't do anything wrong; he made the right calculations with the wrong data.
"Maybe your real ability is to absorb and grow..."
Hikaru didn't say anything but smiled.
"Is that why you want to kill me, to take my powers-"
"!"
*Boom*
A giant fleshy red fist was punched down into the ground where Hikaru was standing. Since he didn't feel that anything was squashed under his fist, he knew Hikaru must have jumped away in time. His intuition was right as he looked up to Hikaru standing on the roof of a house that Botan had smashed into before.
"Did you think that I didn't notice that you were stalling for time?" Hikaru said indifferently.
Botan stood up holding his giant fists in front of him. A black shell was gradually forming on his fists. This black shell didn't appear last time he fought Botan.
'An improvement?'
Hikaru noticed that Botan was standing in a way that shifted his body mass back to keep the centre of mass around his pivot point. He was counteracting the weight in his fists. This meant that it must be very heavy.
His arms had grown bigger to swing it. Red throbbing flesh from his wrist to his shoulders and a bigger chest made his head look smaller.
After the fists were coated in black, Botan leaned slightly forward, indicating that the black shell was extremely dense.