During the few seconds after Avery assured Centshuu that he had his back in the fight he was about to start, his mind returned to pondering the truth of the decision made between Centshuu and Ripply and why it was so important that Centshuu felt it necessary to bring it up.
For a moment, Avery took his eyes away from his recent adversaries and lowered his head to contemplate the topic.
In those fleeting seconds of looking at the floor, Vox turned around, pretending to heed Ripply's warning, and acted like he was about to walk away.
'If I become a part of the squad like Centshuu eluded to, would I be able to get answers to the decision Ripply made between both of—'
Avery noticed something through his peripheral vision.
He saw Vox discreetly reach into his pocket while turning and with his head still lowered, he noticed Vox's right foot—his leading foot at that moment—change direction.
It went from pointing at the exit— the direction his entire body was facing— to ninety degrees West.
Since he had turned to face the exit in a clockwise manner, it meant that he wanted to return to the original position he started from.
Avery furrowed his eyebrows, recalling the boxing pose he had assumed minutes ago.
'Why is his leading foot pointing to the West? I don't know why but it makes me remember the pose I had taken up during that fight. If I remember correctly, my leading foot pointed at my target, so since his isn't pointing at the exit anymore, doesn't that mean that his target has—'
Avery's eyes caught something just as peculiar and he took his attention to Vox's left leg which at that time was pointing North-West.
He saw the heel rise from the floor until only the ball of the foot was left making contact with the floor then the same thing happened with the right foot. Both feet began to pivot and turn towards the south which was where they stood.
Once the left foot had turned enough to point at them, the heel returned to the floor whereas the right foot left the floor completely and went a few centimeters to the right before also landing, giving Vox a sturdy base.
Then came Vox's yelling voice.
Avery looked higher and saw Vox's right hand and the bone knife descending toward Centshuu's neck and his heart started beating violently while everyone else standing next to him hadn't even reacted to what Vox was doing yet.
Everything, since he noticed Vox's leading foot change direction to then, had happened within the span of a second, and in an even shorter period of observing everyone's response or lack there off, Avery realized that everyone was already too late to do anything to stop Vox from achieving his goal.
They wouldn't be able to protect Centshuu from what was about to happen. The thought he had when he eventually started to react.
'We were stupid to get this close to these guys. I can't believe we forgot that he had something in his pocket all this—'
Something strange happened.
For a fraction of a fraction of a second, everyone and everything around him disappeared.
The only thing he saw where Vox stood was a figure of unknown identity, face concealed by a black hood and a girl in white, suspended in the air, being strangled by only one of this unknown figure's hands.
'Huh?' Avery thought after the strange visual vanished and everything went back to normal.
He saw that Vox had made progress toward stabbing Centshuu, while next to him everyone continued to panic.
'What the hell was that just now? What did I just see—?' Avery thought but swallowed his words when the same thing happened again.
Everyone and everything around him vanished and all he saw was the same hooded figure, strangling the panicking young girl who tried to get free from the hold she was in.
Just like the first time he saw the strange visual, Avery was still confused. However, this time around, and for an unknown reason, the visual made him angrier than he'd ever remembered feeling before.
Immediately, a singular thought took over his mind—stop what was taking place at all costs.
Like before, the strange visual that only he could see vanished. Everything went back to how it was, with Vox having made even more progress toward Centshuu's neck with the tip of the bone dagger.
The tip of the blade was less than a foot away from finally breaking through Centshuu's flesh and Avery, directed by the blazing rage that burned deep within his core— the result of the unexplainable visual he had seen twice— acted.
He didn't know how he was able to process everything so quickly and clearly that it made everything happening around him feel like it was moving very slowly.
Just then, a fragmented memory popped into his head.
It was the memory of an elderly man with scars on parts of his face, squatting in front of him and wrapping his(Avery's) hands with a long strip of cloth.
'Flow state is a moment where your mind drifts between unconsciousness and focus and your body goes into an automated state. In a flow state, it feels like time is moving slower for you than it is for everyone else, so if you can go into that state, you can make even a hopeless situation hopeful again'
With incredible speed and reflexes, Avery, who was at the extreme left end of the lineup, dashed toward Centshuu and Vox.
Once close enough to see the premature smirk of victory on Vox's face, up close and personal, Avery, whose right fist was half clenched with the proximal interphalangeal joints shooting out like blades, struck Vox's wrist.
The pain caused by the speed, precision, and power of Avery's attack forced Vox's hand to let go of the bone dagger and it dropped, barely missing Centshuu's neck but ripping his shirt and slightly slicing into his chest on its way down.
Vox retracted his hand and stepped back, grimacing and holding his wrist that felt like it almost shattered from whatever hit it.
/"What the hell was that?"\
Avery was so fast that Vox and everyone else barely saw what happened. They were all too busy reacting to Vox's attack that Avery became a blurred silhouette in their eyes as he went from one side to the other.
However, their tunnel vision quickly disappeared, and noticing something between their parallel line up, they all looked at it and saw Avery, who was crouched in a completely different spot from what they remembered and turning.
Everyone's eyes widened.
Putting two and two together because he was the only one who felt the consequence of Avery changing positions, Vox frowned.
/"It's you again! Why did it have to be you again—?!"\ Vox yelled but was cut off.
Being fifty percent into his right spin to face Vox while inhaling a lung full of high-quality oxygen, Avery felt a surge of energy through his entire body, like a sugar rush.
Every muscle fiber he had felt like it was being strengthened and once he completed his turn and faced Vox, he sprung up like like an excessively pressed spring.
His left fist fully clenched, he delivered an uppercut on Vox's jaw so powerful that it sent the man flying off the ground and landing a couple of feet away from everyone.