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"Winner Tokyo! 1-minute break starts now. 3rd participant from Kyoto, be ready!"
Once the announcement was made, Geto gave a relieved sigh and placed Kuroko on the ground and summoned back all his cursed spirits. He was already quite tired and beaten up from his two fights, and those were the weaker opponents. He knew well who would be his next opponent, and he was in no way thinking that he could win in his current battered-up situation.
"Sup."
Hearing the voice, Geto looked up only to spot Naoya approaching.
"Don't worry, just here to pick Tetsuya. Yuki-senpai will be coming in a moment. Good fight earlier. Reacting to Tetsuya after all that was impressive. Well, best of luck," said Naoya and placed Kuroko on Senzu's back and walked away while healing Kuroko.
On his way back, he met Yuki, who was now going to join the fight.
"Go easy on the guy. He is already quite injured," said Naoya.
"Don't worry. I will end it in an instant. I don't have the patience to wait too much for my rematch against Gojo," said Yuki.
"Best of luck with that. Knowing Satoru, he would have found a countermeasure to deal with you by now," said Naoya and walked out of the barrier.
Yuki wanted to ask Naoya what he meant by that and give him a piece of her mind, but the barrier closed once Naoya exited, leaving Yuki a bit sour.
With a grumpy look, she walked upto the centre of the battlefield and saw the beaten-up Geto sitting on the ground.
"Damn, you looked too roughed up. Want to surrender?" asked Yuki.
"Don't worry about me, senpai. I can still fight," replied Geto, and stood up with a bit of struggle.
Yuki just shrugged her shoulders, not willing to argue more. If the boy wanted to get a beating, then who was she to stop him from that.
"START!!!"
Before Geto could even bring out his cursed spirits, Yuki had already kicked a balled up Garuda at him, sending him crashing straight into the edge of the barrier, knocking the air out of him and making the boy fall unconscious.
Geto was too injured to react to the attack and was thus taken out in an instant.
Yuki held back a lot by not actually making Garuda any heavier than it already was and just used her technique on herself to make her kick carry a bit more oomph.
"Winner Kyoto! 1-minute break starts now. 3rd participant from Tokyo, be ready!"
The announcement came, and Yuki summoned back Garuda.
On the other side, Gojo dragged Geto to Shoko for her to heal the kid.
Mei Mei looked at the barrier and raised her hands.
"I surrender," announced Mei Mei.
The control room heard Mei Mei's response and just shrugged. They were not going to blame the girl for being self-aware.
"3rd participant from Tokyo surrenders. Winner Kyoto. 4th participant from Tokyo, be ready!"
Hearing the announcement, Yuki smirked. She got the chance for her rematch quite soon.
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Satoru looked at the battered Geto and then towards Shoko.
"Looks after him. I have a debt to settle and a friend to defeat," said Satoru and stretched his body.
"Best of luck, Satoru," said Shoko
"Don't get beaten up like yesterday, Gojo," said Mei Mei.
"Huh? I did not get beaten up. At best, it was just a draw! I will show you who is the better Special Grade amongst us," replied Satoru and walked inside the barrier and ran straight to the centre of the field.
Yuki was already getting restless, thinking of the fight and seeing Gojo finally arrive, she barely held herself back from attacking.
Satoru stood with his usual calm expression and with a smug smile.
"Ready to lose Senpai? I will be going all out from the start today," said Satoru.
"You sure? Last I remember, you broke your arm quite badly? Is it fine now?" asked Yuki with a smirk.
"Huh, you mean that 'scratch'. Meh, Naoya fixed me up in a second. For that, I will make sure to take you down soon and go on to fight him," replied Satoru with a smirk.
"Naoya, huh. He told me that by now you might have found a countermeasure against me," said Yuki.
"As expected of him. He knows me very well. Well, then let's not waste any more time," said Satoru with a smile.
"Start!"
The announcement came, and Yuki immediately sprang into action, jumped up on Satoru along with Garuda.
Satoru, though, didn't stand back this time. He activated his technique immediately and appeared above Yuki and Garuda.
Yuki looked up and was about to grab Garuda and use it as a launch pad to dodge any incoming attack.
Gojo, however, simply smiled at them.
Immediately, Yuki and Garuda felt themselves get pushed down by something.
"What's up, senpai? Feeling heavy?" asked Satoru and continued to crush Yuki with space.
He used infinity to expand the space between himself and the two. The space was itself acting like a solid wall.
"You can become heavier, but don't necessarily become massive. Your density is increasing, but your tensile strength is just what it was," said Satoru, and he got a bit closer to Yuki to crush her even more.
"The question now is, how long can you survive the space pressure?" asked Satoru with a smirk.
Yuki glared at Satoru and used [Star Rage] on herself.
Immediately, she started to sink into the ground.
"Hmm? Using your technique? Too bad I already calculated that. It is just like you said earlier. You only add virtual mass to yourself. You don't necessarily get heavier. You will remain in place," replied Satoru, and tried to crush her even more.
Yuki's face scrunched up in pain, though she continued to glare and use her technique.
"Haha. Still struggling? Just give up now, will you?"
Satoru's six eyes were locked in on Yuki and Garuda, and he kept on checking if the two of them were upto something, but from what he could sense, she was just using her technique on herself, which was not going to change the outcome at all.
Yuki was now bleeding from the pressure on her, though despite all that, she kept increasing her mass.
Right now, she was limit testing and trying to see if she could overwhelm the infinity's effect.
'I am reaching danger levels....' thought Yuki. She was about to increase her mass to a level that it won't just be 'virtual' and decided to stop.
She stopped using her technique and closed her eyes.
Seeing her like that, Satoru eased up, crushing her.
"You surrender?"
Yuki gritted her teeth but soon sighed and gave a nod.
"Yay~ Victory for the better cheater!!!!" declared Satoru and lifted the space wall from her.
Freed from the pressure, Yuki started using RCT to heal herself.
"Winner Tokyo! 1-minute break starts now. 4th participant from Kyoto, be ready!"
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Yuki came back to her team with a dampened mood.
None of them said anything to her. They didn't know what to say to her. They knew how much of a sore loser she was.
"Senpai," called Naoya.
Yuki looked up at him.
"Losing sucks, right?" asked Naoya.
Utahime looked at him with shock. Was the boy trying to antagonise Yuki, who was down from her loss?
"...It sucks. It sucks a lot!" replied Yuki.
"Then what would you do now? Mope around, or focus on what to do to punch the smug face of Satoru. You won't just take this loss as is, right?" asked Naoya.
"..."
Yuki blinked in confusion. Why was she feeling down? If she could not punch the guy in the face now, she would just need to find a way to do so. Not to mention she did hold herself back from destroying the boy (and the world along with him). She could totally find a way to bypass that space stopper.
"You are damn right! I will find a way to punch that smug brat! Just you wait!" declared Yuki confidently.
Naoya smirked, gave a firm pat on her shoulder and walked through the barrier. It was finally time to whoop the son's ass.
"Good luck, Zenin. Make sure to win," said Utahime.
"Go! Defeat him this time and avenge me! I will do that the next time!" cheered Yuki.
Naoya just gave a nod and entered the battlefield.
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"Yo! Naoya! It's finally time for our legendary duel!!!!" declared Satoru.
"It really is. You sure that you won't cry after your loss?" asked Naoya.
"Haah! Me lose?! It is you who will be losing today! In fact, just to show how confident I am in my win, like always, I will give you the first move," declared Satoru and gestured for Naoya to come to him.
Naoya shrugged and accepted the deal. He had a theory to test anyway.
Both of them gave a nod.
"Start!"
The announcement came, and Naoya took a stance.
Satoru immediately activated his infinity make Naoya's actions pointless.
"Try your worst!! Not like you will even be able to tou-" taunted Satoru.
*SLAP*
In an instant, Naoya stood near Satoru, and his slap clearly landed on Satoru, sending him flying.
His sunglasses flew off his face and landed in Naoya's hand, and he placed them on himself.
"How's this, Satoru? Do these glasses look good on me?" asked Naoya without any care.
Satoru, on the other hand, was not able to register what just happened. He placed his own hand on the cheek that was slapped to confirm he was not daydreaming.
"Agh!" It stung.
'What happened just now?' thought Satoru with seriousness. All his playfulness disappeared in an instant.
"Did you byspass my [Infinity] just now?" asked Satoru seriously.
Naoya looked at him with confusion.
"Huh? Did you have that active? I wasn't stopped. Are you sure you activated it, or are you just messing with me?" asked Naoya.
'...Did I mess up?' thought Satoru. Naoya genuinely looked confused.
"Let's try again. Activate your [infinity]," said Naoya.
Satoru nodded and activated his technique once again, and gave Naoya the go signal.
Naoya nodded.
*SLAP*
Once again, Naoya appeared near Satoru in an instant and landed a clean slap on his face.
"There! It happened again!" complained Satoru and landed cleanly while holding his cheek. The slaps genuinely hurt a lot.
"That's weird. If you are activating that technique and you are still getting hit, doesn't that mean....I have found a way to hit you now?" asked Naoya with a smirk.
Satoru blinked in shock, and soon his hand rose, and he pointed his finger at Naoya.
"You....You were bluffing?" asked Satoru.
"Not bluffing. Just testing a theory....and it looks like-" replied Naoya and vanished from his spot.
"-it's working quite well," finished Naoya, appearing directly behind Satoru and trapping him in a frame.
With his projection sorcery active, Naoya ran around to gain a bit of momentum and struck the frozen Satoru with all the force he gained.
*CRACK*
The frame shattered, and Satoru came crashing out of it, already looking quite injured from the attack.
"You okay, son?" asked Naoya as he saw Satoru skidding through the ground only to stop quite far away from him.
"What is this? How are you touching me?!" demanded Satoru.
"Heh, just because you don't want to doesn't mean I will not stop touching you. I did work hard to master a technique to touch you," replied Naoya with a smirk.
"Tell me!"
"Why should I?"
"Just because! Aren't we brothers from different mothers?" asked Satoru.
"Hmm....well, good enough reason. You did tell me how your technique works, and I was able to decode it because of that. Come here, I will whisper it to you so that others don't hear me," said Naoya and gestured for Gojo to come closer.
Without any hesitation, Satoru approached Naoya to hear the secret.
The audience looked at the two special grades with annoyance. They too wanted in on the secret.
"It's the CTR of my technique. My [Projection Sorcery] works by breaking my movements into frames. The CTR breaks the concept of frames altogether. It drops all the frames in between except for the start and end frames. It's basically a Frame Drop. [CTR: Frame Drop]," explained Naoya, successfully showing his hand and completing the binding vow.
"Huh? How does dropping frames bypass my [Infinity]?"
"Think of it like this. I start the motion, but I don't actually pass through the space. Infinity doesn't slow me down since I did not actually move through the space. Finally, I appear where I need to and end my motion by striking you. It's like a lag in a video. Goku starts charging Kamehameha, the video lags, it resumes later, and we see Kamehameha already destorying the enemy. The whole charging and banter is not seen by us, but it happend and we directly see the end result," explained Naoya.
Satoru blinked and started processing the information.
"...Wait...aren't you simply tricking reality at this point?" asked Satoru.
Now Naoya started thinking.
"...It seems I am."
"How's that fair!"
"I don't want to talk about fairness from Mr. No touch me."
"You still found a way to touch me. What is with you and your techniques, always finding a way to counter mine!"
"I am a firm believer in the 'If it can hit Satoru, then it can hit almost anything' mentality."
"Change that mentality! I want my cheat to work!"
"Heh. The game's getting patched."
"This patch itself is a bug!"
The two continued to whisper and argue against each other, totally forgetting that they were in the middle of a battle.
The audience looked at the two with irritation. The two were not fighting and were not letting them in on the secret. How was that fair at all to them?
"Both participants you two, are in the middle of a fight!" came an announcement.
Naoya and Satoru looked at the sky, hearing the announcement, but promptly ignored the higher-ups. They were in the middle of a heated discussion.