Chapter 25: My Caltrops~
As Bendot had sworn from the beginning, this was going to be a fight to the death — and a fight to the death didn't leave room for cowards. Stopping in place and waiting out the danger was not an available option. Cowards died too.
Did Ross want Bendot dead?
Yes. Completely.
The moment this man had used whatever thin slice of authority he had to remove the finish line, he had turned the match into a one-survivor situation. There was no other exit.
Ross could have done it cleanly — stayed ahead on Sonic speed alone and let Rule 4 chip Bendot down by five percent a pull, nothing more. But that wasn't what he wanted. Which was exactly why he had spent the extra five silver medals on the second item.
Bendot had been yanked forward to Ross's position and was still staggering, running on physical instinct alone, his head nowhere near clear.
Ross, who had already started slowing down before the yank completed, raised his right hand. He was holding a hurdle board he had knocked loose a moment earlier. He swung it backward one-handed, like a man checking his swing before stepping into a pitch — and Bendot, still moving forward and in no condition to dodge, walked directly into it.
The white board cracked flat across Bendot's nose. The board came apart in pieces. Mixed in with the white fragments were two other colors.
Red was blood. White was teeth.
When it came to basic Nen fundamentals, Bendot was actually further behind than Ross — he couldn't activate Nen to protect himself at the moment a hit landed, which meant that the parts of him that were naturally vulnerable got hit full.
The impact to his face sent his hands up instinctively to cover it, which shifted his already unstable center of mass, and his body pitched forward and down.
At that moment, the spectators in the observation seats noticed something. Track two — Bendot's track — looked different from track one. Specifically: the section of ground directly ahead of where Bendot was falling had a layer of something black and irregular across it.
When Yusuke and the others zoomed in to get a clear look at what that layer actually was, their faces went a shade of grey that needed no explanation.
That wasn't debris. That was an extremely dense field of cross-shaped spikes, packed tight enough to put holes through someone's hands and feet and turn them into a human sprinkler.
Caltrops — Limited item, active only in the 400-Meter Combat Hurdles event. Price: 5 Silver Medals. Lays caltrops at regular intervals across the opponent's track. Each impact causes minor damage and forcibly launches the opponent into the air.
Caltrops — also known as makibishi or cross-nails — were historically a ninja withdrawal tool, scattered on the ground to impede anyone chasing them. They could punch through the soles of people and animals alike, and wreck a wheel given the right angle. Drop them into the Pokémon world and they'd be a Ground-type entry hazard, dealing a set amount of HP to any Pokémon swapped in from the opposing side.
In Nekketsu New Record, five silver medals bought a full load of them, laid out at intervals in stretches of roughly three meters along the opponent's track.
Between the rules against retreating, the inability to leave your assigned lane, and Rule 4 forcing you back into engagement range the moment you fell too far behind, a caltrop field in your path was not something you could avoid. It was just something that happened to you.
The Tōdō Zaibatsu prided itself on complete fairness — technically, Bendot could have bought caltrops for Ross's track. In a player-versus-player competition, both sides had access to identical items.
He just couldn't read the description text, and he had nothing to pay with.
Bendot's mass came down into the field. The cross-nails drove into his skin and pushed toward the muscle beneath. His body responded the way a Nen-awakened body responds to sudden sharp stimulus — muscles locking down hard, clamping against the intrusion, keeping the tips from going deeper. That part held.
What didn't hold was what came next: the item's mandatory launch effect activated and blasted him off the ground.
He was briefly airborne.
Ross had been running the parallel track next to the caltrop zone, keeping pace, waiting for exactly this. The moment Bendot's feet left the ground, Ross mashed the B button.
Auto Whirlwind Kick.
Bendot took his second Whirlwind Kick of the match in midair. His body crashed sideways into the invisible barrier wall and bounced back — which had one specific consequence that mattered: the second hit reset his damage state entirely.
A reset damage state meant the caltrops below him counted as a fresh contact.
He fell back into them. The caltrops registered again.
What followed was the product of that loop playing out over three meters.
Ross, running at the minimum speed needed to keep the chain going, jumped every time Bendot was airborne. Bendot, hit back down each time, reset, contacted the caltrops, launched back up. In that three-meter stretch, Bendot absorbed four Whirlwind Kicks and five caltrop hits. His body was covered in puncture wounds leaking steadily enough to change the color of the rubber track beneath him. The blood loss had his legs shaking, and then he wasn't standing at all — he was on his knees, and staying there.
If he had been a proper Nen user, this level of injury was severe but survivable — stop the bleeding, enter Zetsu, and the odds were reasonable. But he wasn't. He was a beginner who had been force-awakened by serving as a living battery for a parasitic ability and had concluded this made him extraordinary.
In the stands, the NPC crowd was as loud as ever. The real people watching had gone completely quiet. Their eyes on the track said different things, but nobody was talking.
"Warden."
Ross spoke.
"Yes?" Lippo responded before he'd fully processed that he was being addressed.
"Can you tell me his charges?"
"...Bendot. Armed robbery and murder. Serious offender. Sentence: one hundred and ninety-nine years."
Lippo had understood what Ross was asking almost before the question finished, and he answered immediately.
He was right. Yusuke and Kuwabara, who had both been visibly coiled since Bendot hit the caltrops, physically relaxed.
Ross turned toward the observation seats, gave a clear thumbs-up, and walked forward without looking back.
When the straight-line distance between him and Bendot exceeded eight and a half meters again, Bendot convulsed once.
Then he stopped moving entirely.
Winner: Ross!