As soon as he finished complaining to himself, he started moving toward me again. He constantly held his mouth slightly open, but no sound came out of it. Combined with a ringing in my ear, I feared that I'd lost my hearing from one of the hits, but a snap of my finger convinced me I hadn't. Quickly, he appeared in front of me again and threw a knee to my face.
How could he know where I was so accurately? How could he have side-stepped the metal box there so effortlessly? How could he have seen me earlier when I was coming from the darkness?
Only questions, but no answers...
Swallowing a little blood in my mouth, I said
"Y'know what, I'm getting tired of constantly being confused about my surroundings.
What? Why? How? When? Who?
I'm constantly asking these questions, but no one wants to answer me.
Many want to guard their knowledge for various reasons, so I'll do what I've always had to do when I want to learn about something.
I'll find out on my own...!!"
The young man seemed to be a bit surprised as he fixed his hair briefly, saying
"Admirable words. Most human pirates would be squealing in agony at this point. But don't forget your position, you will always be under us."
When he said that, I couldn't help but feel that there was either a misunderstanding afoot or that I was lacking critical information in the moment. But regardless, I once again approached the young man by running at him. Coming as close as I possibly could, I threw a left and a right punch. Both were promptly dodged with very precise margins, where I then cast a kick at his right leg.
*pan*
It landed but did very little damage to him. Although it seemed to have surprised the young man greatly as he used his hand to push me away and jumped back. He had a very careful style of fighting, all of his movements were very elegant and effortless, like he was trying to do the most amount of damage with the least amount of movement possible. But also like he was vehemently against being touched or reached in any way. The opposite of a street fighter, he carried the essence of a prideful noble in the way he wanted to fight.
As my kick had made an impact, I got an idea of what the secret of the cape-wearing young man could be.
He held a deeply disgruntled and unsatisfied expression on his face as he started approaching again. Even without seeing his eyes, anyone could tell that he felt insulted to have been kicked like he was.
Again, he appeared almost instantaneously in front of me, and threw a strong punch. This time, the punch seemed to have been charged with an extra kilogram of emotion as it flew in the air
*DAAAN*
The young man furrowed his eyebrows quickly
"Cold...?"
He'd sunk his hand into a metal box ahead of him.
Right before the young man had dashed and thrown a punch at me, I'd picked up a metal box from the ground and placed it ahead of me where my face should've been. After this, he quickly pulled his hand away again and stepped back. I smirked to myself as I was sure I'd confirmed it
- He must be using something like Echolocation. Something that animals like bats or dolphins make use of.
In other words, he's using sounds to make out where everything is around him.
He's sending out some high-pitched sound I can't hear that bounces when it meets an object and tells him how far away it is from him...! That would explain why he could see me in the dark earlier as well.
But, that means...!!"
Grabbing another box from the ground, I ran forward quickly and jumped in the air. Making use of the momentum with the boxes in my hand, I flipped once in the air as I leapt forward. Then, I used all of my possible strength to throw them at the ground with the highest speed possible.
Quickly, they crashed against the floor like meteorites.
*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH*
- It means that if I can make an extremely loud noise close to him, he won't be able to see anything at all! -
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, MY EARS....!!!!"
Desperately holding covering his ears, the young man tried to protect his hearing. Soon, he broke his own promise by opening his eyes little by little. In front of them was
A fist.
*Ban*
*tan*
*Ban*
*tan*
*BAN*
5 consecutive hits made sure that the young man fell to the floor dramatically, making a large sound as he collapsed onto his thick cape.
I collapsed onto my knees in exhaustion, but the feeling of Triumph came over me.
How long had it been since I'd felt this feeling?
I couldn't be sure, but it felt sweet.
It was impossible to stop myself from smiling as I looked at my bruised hand. If this is what it felt like, I felt like I'd be willing to break my hand 7 times in a row without any break. Maybe I really was destined to succeed away from Earth, maybe my place of belonging was in the vast unknowing space. Again, I couldn't be sure but this felt like a sign for myself.
But my sense of triumph was cut short as I heard steps again behind me.
A sense of dread filled me as I knew it'd be nigh impossible to fight someone as strong as this guy again. Was this my trial to become infinitely strong? If that was the case, then I had no choice but to fight countless enemies over and ov----
*Plink*
"I apologize that I had to leave you on the floor like that. Something really urgent came up and I figured you'd be safe----"
Managing to turn on the lights in the room somehow, Kah had walked toward the spot where they'd apparently dropped me off before attending to other issues.
Seeing my bruises, and a suited young man passed out cold on the floor made them freeze for a moment.
"Ah...."
...