Chapter 23

The fight starts. Hibiki smiles a bit and just stands there, hands in her pockets and all. Iwata doesn’t react to this and slowly closes the distance between the two of them. The two of them are seemingly completely relaxed and it does not feel as though the fight has actually started. Then, way faster than I could ever react, the atmosphere changes. Iwata’s previously relaxed face tenses up and gets deadserious. He grabs at the air in front of him, however Hibiki seems to instantly react to this. She jumps a bit into the air and tries to kick at the hand Iwata has just extended. Iwata instantly pulls back that same hand and grabs the air with his other hand. And in this split second Hibiki seems to stagger. Iwata seems to rapidly move his hand downwards and Hibiki is thrown towards the ground.

She does not get hurt though. Instead of crashing down she makes a small roll and gets up again. She grins at Iwata. This little grin is the most emotional I have seen from her in all the time I have seen her… Which is not a lot to be fair, but still.

Iwata now directly runs at her - “KILL THE BITCH, LORD IWATA!” Thanks for the comment, Okubo - and jumps into the air before reaching her. Thus, he uses his momentum from running and the momentum which will shortly come since he must crash down into the ground. He punches directly. He was quite a bit distanced from Hibiki and would most certainly not hit her that easily, as his arms are simply not 2 meters long. Hibiki dodges to the left anyway.

“Ah, you don’t know it… but Iwata’s bless-” Before Aki can explain Iwata’s blessing to me, the Iwata expert begins talking:

“Lord Iwata is Blessed by none other than Sir Fate. Those blessed by Fate are most certainly the mightiest of all Blessed. The attacks from him traverse all distance and hit even those who are too far away. That is the unbeatable power that was granted to him.”

Aki nods. “Yeah, basically. He can punch farther than it seems. I guess it’s some sort of shockwave or something. He never really explained it to anyone but this Iwata Fanatic here did a pretty good job at finding out just from observing.”

“Hah! Well, of course I did! No one else but I could do it! No one knows Lord Iwata as much as I do!”

I don’t doubt that statement in the slightest.

With this information it also makes sense why Hibiki is constantly avoiding despite being far out of reach: She knows of Iwata’s blessing and easily counters since she knows of it.

Her being thrown towards the ground by nothing but thin air also makes sense now.

Anyway: Hibiki seems to change her tactic. Iwata’s punch - being powered up by the jump and his short sprint - ends up missing. Iwata’s jump stops and he comes down to the ground yet again. However, in that time Hibiki has made her move. She has easily foreseen the exact position Iwata will come down on and now stands in front of him. She punches forward with her left arm first. Before it can hit anything though, Iwata easily swings his right leg up from the ground and pushes the incoming punch to the side. What he does not know though is that all of this is still part of Hibiki’s plan. She now punches with her right arm, just a second after. Her right arm is pushed to the side as well though as Iwata throws a punch with his right arm which - due to his blessing - pushes this hit to the side yet again. However, at this very moment… Hibiki strikes.

Without hesitating for a single second she attacks. She attacks with her leg. She kicks. She kicks directly into the weakest part a man has. With not a single thought or even a consideration of what her actions consequences are, she kicks directly into the weakest spot the male body has.

Iwata has no counter to this. He drops down to the ground and gasps shortly. Just a few moments later he gasps yet again and his body twitches again. And yet another moment later, he twitches yet again.

“YOU WITCH! HOW COULD YOU?!” Okubo abruptly stands up and runs over to Iwata.

“Damn… That hurts.” Aki scratches her head and watches. “You know, Hibiki is blessed by Time… and she is pretty ruthless with it.”

“Yeah, she kicked him right in the balls.”

“That’s not even the worst part… Each and every attack Hibiki lands on her enemies echoes.”

“Echoes?”

“Yeah, it… Uh… Hits again. Twice. So she did not just kick him in his balls, she kicked him into his balls thrice.”

Brutal.

As Okubo kneels down next to Iwata he angrily yells at her.

“FUCK OFF! THIS FIGHT IS NOT OVER YET!”

Okubo blushes after being screamed at and backs off. Iwata clenches his fist and slowly stands up. He now rushes at Hibiki yet again and throws his punch… Hibiki dodges again, but at this very moment something unexpected happens. Iwata opens his hand and reveals a bunch of sand he has picked up from the ground just a moment ago. He instantly throws it to the left. Normally, no one is there… However, due to his blessing, the sands properties and effects are flying directly at Hibiki. The sand directly meets her eyes and her vision is blocked. Iwata grins and throws another punch.

Just for Hibiki to dodge this again. Hibiki’s eyes are closed: He indeed did blind her with the sand. Despite that Hibiki dodges, steps closer to the flabbergasted Iwata, dodges yet another punch and then delivers yet another kick at the very same spot she hit previously.