[Author Note]
Disc: HrPrTeam
The Sakamoto Days anime is coming out soon!
__________
3rd P.O.V.
*CLANK*
Toji smirked as he clashed with Rion on his left with the split soul katana and her dagger while Toji held Sakamoto's fist with his right.
*BAM*
Nagumo arrived in the front to receive a hard kick to the stomach faster than he could react.
A small smile appeared on his face as he thought to himself. 'Sorry, black hair, but you'll have to catch up to them first.'
*WOOSH*
Toji pushed on his katana, sending Rion flying while also purposely dropping his katana.
She flew backward but rolled, slowing her momentum before she could slam into the wall.
*grab*
Toji immediately grabbed Sakamoto's arm with his free hand and threw a kick to his side.
*BAM*
Sakamoto's eyes widened as he barely managed to raise his left arm to defend. 'It's heavy!'
Like Rion, he went flying as well.
In the blink of an eye, all three young adults were dismissed, even after all of their training together.
While Toji could handle them fairly easily individually, he needed to exert a lot of his strength to deal with three stronger versions of the people he fought in the department store.
He also didn't use his inventory curse, limiting his current capabilities.
Nagumo stood up with narrowed eyes and spoke to Sakamoto on his left. "Buy me a little time."
He grabbed his stomach with his left hand and winced. 'Sakamoto's our best shot at doing damage to him. Ouch, that was a nasty hit. I'll have to use THAT thing then.'
Sakamoto shook his left arm and kept his neutral face. "Alright, I'm good. I'll buy you a couple of seconds."
Nagumo's eye twitched. 'Seconds?'
Rion was currently relative to Sakamoto in strength, but Toji and her have sparred and trained together.
Even if they are similar in strength, Sakamoto had something she didn't.
Unpredictability.
Assassins only need a single opening to end a fight.
That was true for someone even like Toji; however, they would need to bypass his defenses first.
Toji picked up his katana and tapped it on his shoulder. "That's all you guys got?"
*PHEW*
Sakamoto grabbed a couch next to him and threw it at Toji.
He glanced over at Rion and nodded.
Rion, after getting her bearings, vanished from her spot.
To anyone else, it would seem like she disappeared entirely. She had left Toji's sight, which meant only one thing.
Toji smirked. 'Smart, but not good enough.'
*RIPP*
He cut through the couch with ease.
However, after the couch was cut, Rion appeared, spinning and aiming her knife at Toji's neck.
Instead of being shocked that Rion appeared, Toji had a nonchalant smile.
Rion's eyes narrowed since his sword was already too far for him to bring it back to guard.
The knife made its way centimeters away from his neck.
*grab*
*drip*
*drip*
He used his left hand to grab the knife before it stabbed his neck, cutting his hand in the process.
...
Toji's smile widened. "It was such a good attempt, too."
...
Instead of swinging his katana, Toji dropped it and attempted to grab Rion's face to slam her against the ground.
Toji suddenly leaned back, ducking under a metal pipe swung at the back of his head, letting go of Rion's knife in the process.
However, his eyes widened as Rion instantly did a leg sweep.
Toji fell backward but used his left hand to catch himself, pushing up and landing on his feet.
He looked up to see a box cutter inches from his eye.
Toji used his right hand to push up Sakamoto's hand, cutting a few strands of hair instead of losing an eye.
Sakamoto narrowed his eyes as he was left vulnerable.
Toji whistled. "This is getting dangerous."
*BAM*
Sakamoto received a heavy punch to the stomach from below, spit flying out of his mouth.
*grab*
Toji grabbed his shirt and raised his fist. "Let's see how durable you've gotten."
Before he threw a fist, Toji's ear twitched.
*BANG*
A loud gunshot went off.
Toji turned to the side to avoid the high-powered sniper shot, throwing Sakamoto a few meters away.
*BOOM*
A single shot blew up a large portion of the gym wall.
Toji's eye twitched. 'A sniper did that? Jesus.'
*BAM*
Before Sakamoto could land, he received a punch to the face.
While he could usually dodge a bullet easily, he was preoccupied with two of the strongest assassins of the modern era.
That, and this sniper shot, was moving at around Mach 2.5.
The one who shot the sniper was none other than Nagumo.
He smirked. "Why bother getting my butt kicked when I could leave the close-quarters fighting to them? I call this thing the anti-bum since it's the only sniper that could hurt you."
While a .50 cal could pierce his skin, it would take more than 10 shots in the same spot to do meaningful damage, so Nagumo opted for something much more potent.
30mm cannon rounds.
They are usually not used in snipers, but this one was custom-made to penetrate even the strongest superhumans.
As a high-ranking Order member, he had access to weapons most wouldn't see in their lifetime.
It was at this moment that Toji's face turned serious. 'If I don't take this seriously, they might actually hurt me, bad.'
He could deal with Nagumo just fine, but if Sakamoto and Rion kept him from going for Nagumo, he would have to deal with projectiles that would hurt even someone as durable as him.
...
While Sakamoto received the punch, Rion experienced something strange. She analyzed Toji's body and pushed her gaze to the limit.
Suddenly, her pupils shrunk even further, and her eyes went from dark orange to bright yellow.
The three previous lines disappeared. In their place, a differently colored red line appeared.
She only had one thought in her mind. 'Kill.'
*WOOSH*
...
*stab*
...
A knife pierced Toji's back.
Toji's eyes widened to unimaginable heights as he didn't sense anything wrong until he was already stabbed.
Rion was just as shocked. 'It's just like that time my Path changed when I fought the superhuman freak, but this one was red. What the hell was that?'
Unbeknownst to her, she had done something no other Path user in the past had done.
Her eyes evolved.
Toji swung behind him, forcing Rion to let go of the knife and retreat.
*squelch*
He pulled the knife out of his back.
Toji's eyes narrowed even further. 'She bypassed my sixth sense. I've gotta figure out how she did that.'
Even though getting stabbed never felt nice, he inwardly smiled.
He near-instantly refocused on his current situation.
This fight made him realize one thing.
...
Together, they could probably take on the entire JAA.
...
Maybe not win, but they could give them a run for their money.
Fighting as a team made their strength exponentially increase.
His eyes narrowed. 'Enough playing around.'
*grab*
Rion appeared next to him but didn't have time to stab his stomach with a new dagger before he grabbed her throat.
*glurk*
She instantly dropped her knife and held onto Toji's arm.
*WOOSH*
Sakamoto attacked Toji from behind with a large piece of sharpened concrete made from the destroyed gym debris.
*crack*
*boom*
Toji punched through the concrete and landed a fist on his cheek, hitting him much harder than before.
Nagumo had a maniacal smile on his face. "You're wide open."
Toji sweatdropped and looked at Nagumo. 'Doncha think this has gone a little far?'
Even though they didn't talk out loud, they both understood each other.
Nagumo pulled the trigger. 'Not far enough!'
He could use Rion as a shield if he were an actual enemy, but he and Nagumo knew he wouldn't.
*BANG*
...
...
...
Time instantly froze for Toji.
He casually tossed Rion to the side; however, it seemed as if she was frozen in time. She stayed in place, seemingly floating.
Toji instantly jumped toward Nagumo, outpacing the shot traveling at Mach 2.5.
As he arrived in front of him, he shook Nagumo's head with both hands.
Nagumo had no idea...
...
He had already lost.
...
*BOOM*
Time seemed to resume as Nagumo's shot destroyed a different wall.
However, the man in question was lying on the ground, unconscious.
He and the two other young adults were all out of commission. Obviously, they weren't dead, but they couldn't continue.
They gave it everything they had, but it wasn't enough.
However, they did something only a few have done.
They forced Toji to go all out.
Toji rubbed the back of his head. "Although we should tone it down in future spars just a tad. That was practically a death match."
...
He huffed a laugh as he looked at his destroyed surroundings. "That wasn't bad, you punks."