Volume Four, Chapter Four: The Boys’ Power Scaling
(Gege's POV)
Our senpais lead us to a large room that's sectioned off into two areas by a wall and a massive pane of glass. The other area seems to be a training room, so it's easy to see where things are going. Yonaguni turns to us and points at Naoya.
"Mop-Head, get in there.", he commands shortly.
"Why me?"
"Just do it, damn it."
Naoya bares his teeth at Yonaguni, but begrudgingly enters the training room nonetheless. His family are immediately inquisitive about Yonaguni's orders.
"Master, what's going on?"
"Yeah, what are you up to?"
Yonaguni replies to them without taking his eyes off of Naoya, who's stood idly with his arms folded.
"We're testing his strength and skill."
Suddenly a dummy with a scarecrow face springs to life and runs at Naoya, who honestly looks more confused than ready for combat. Which did not help him whatsoever.
"The hell?! Uff!"
Naoya gets socked in the face by the dummy and momentarily leaves the ground before landing face first. He got slumped. Daisuke and Yoko-san look on with disbelief.
"SIM MATCH OVER."
A voice rings out over the PA system, and the dummy stands up straight, rigid as a board.
"AHAHAHAHAHA!"
Yonaguni bursts in peals of laughter at Naoya's patheic display, who now recovered, sits on the floor in embarrasment.
"God, you're such a jerk, Yonaguni."
My sister spits venomous word at him, but he's still laughing.
"That was disappointing from Naoya-san.", Miyamura-senpai remarks. "He couldn't even take a punch."
"Is Blue too much?", Shirogane-senpai ponders.
"Blue?", Akai echoes.
Naoya re-joins us, looking displeased with himself.
"Don't worry about it, Naoya-nii."
"Yeah, you'll get better with time."
Yoko-san and Daisuke give some encouragement to their relative before Yonaguni continues.
"Alright, you're next, Tiny."
I'm guessing he means Akai, who smiles wryly as he enters the training room.
"Wow, Akai-san is the first person I've seen who's as tall as Ninomiya-senpai.", Haruhi marvels.
I'll be keeping a eye on that. For now, I'll just watch the fight. The dummy awakens and makes its move for Akai. It lands a clean blow on his face, but Akai shrugs it off and attempts to counter, but he's too slow as he just ends up swinging at air.
"Where'd it go?!"
"Woah, it vanished! It's using magic now, isn't it?"
"That seems unfair, honestly.."
Naoya, Haruhi and I are completely lost, but everyone else seems unimpressed. Renford-san graciously explains for us.
"No, it isn't magic. It just moved quickly."
"Good move on its part. If he landed that hit, Akai would have done some real damage.", Daisuke nods.
It moved quickly? What an under-statement. The thought of it alone makes me feel tired.
"Maybe Onii-chan should just give up, I hope he doesn't get hurt.", Akane-san says with concern.
The dummy reappears, this time landing a kick to the back of Akai, who staggers a bit, but is still unhurt. However, he looks like he's giving up as his hands go up in the air. Seeing this, Yonaguni groans audibly.
"Absolutely patheic; this is worse than Mop-Head's display. I at least got a laugh outta that. Shut it off and put me out of my misery, Kazuya."
Ninomiya-senpai nods slowly and presses one of the buttons on the control panel besides the window.
"SIM MATCH OVER."
Rigidity strikes the dummy once again as Akai re-joins us.
"Sorry for the poor performance..."
Akai, just like Naoya, seems slightly dismayed with himself.
"You gave it your best, Onii-chan. Don't be like Daisuke-nii and get too hard on yourself.", Akane-san says kindly.
"She's right. Leave it to the professional.", Daisuke agrees.
Renford-san and Yoko-san add some encouragement as well.
"You're quite resilient, Mr.Akai. It looked like that dummy was hitting a brick wall."
"That's right, you definitely did better than my brother."
"Alright, alright. Let's get on with it."
Yonaguni breaks up the bantering before I can get my say, leading Miyamura-senpai to interrogate Akai.
"You weren't doing that poorly, why did you give up?"
"I couldn't see it, Miyamura-senpai.", Akai smiles bitterly.
"I understand."
"You were definitely holding your own besides that.", Shirogane-senpai adds. "Good job, Akai-kun."
"Thank you, I appreciate it.", Akai bows.
"That's enough sympathy, damn it.", Yonaguni grumbles. "Get in there, Inko."
He's addressing Daisuke, who's currently looking about as if he's searching for someone. Yonaguni looks at him with confusion.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm trying to find Inko, but I don't see them around here."
"Just get in the fucking training room, jackass!", Yonaguni explodes. "And try not to embarrass yourself like those last two losers while you're at it!"
"Shall I sing and dance for you first, you insufferable pillock?"
Daisuke shoots off some snark like usual before sauntering into the training room. Haruhi and Akane-san giggle quietly at Yonaguni's indignation.
"Oi, Kazuya. Raise the strength to max lev-Ow!"
Yonaguni's command is cut short by Shirogane-senpai elbowing him the ribs.
"Stop being so childish, Nariki."
"Whatever. He's going to get his ass whipped, anyway.", he pouts.
"You're still being childish."
Miyamura-senpai smiles at his teammates' behaviour before turning his attention to Daisuke, who reaches into his duffel bag and pulls out his trusty weapon.
"A bokuto? Interesting. It's a western design, as well.", he observes.
"Hmph, doesn't make a lick of difference. He's not going to do shit.", Yonaguni spits.
Daisuke's harem is taking Yonaguni's barbs against him better than I thought they would. Although, they have given him a few dangerous looks. Renford-san's polite smile didn't falter even once, which is honestly more frightening than anything else. The dummy stirs to life again and charges at Daisuke. It does a roundhouse kick that Daisuke evades easily and then it goes for a punch that gets blocked. Daisuke swings his sword at the dummy and it just gets out of the way. Then-
"What's happening?"
I've completely lost track of their movements. They're too fast. Like, I can see them, I just can't see what they're doing.
"It's an even match.", Shirogane-senpai says, watching intently.
"And it looks like Daisuke-san has the upper hand.", Miyamura-senpai adds.
Daisuke and the dummy appear to clash attacks, and break free. But before doing so, Daisuke tags it on the shoulder. There it is.
"It's over.", Naoya says finally. "I couldn't see most of it, but seeing that means that Govvy just snapped our losing skid."
Yonaguni's crew look over at Naoya in puzzlement, but they didn't have to think too much about it for long. Daisuke raises his hand and-
"Paralyze."
This time, the dumy's rigidity has nothing to do with the match ending, at least not yet.
"You've got to be kidding.", Yonaguni says, dumbfounded.
Daisukes rushes at the dummy and delivers a crushing blow to it's shoulder.
"Boulder Splitter!"
With that, the dummy crumples into a heap.
"SIM MATCH OVER."
Heh, not a bad showing from our future Sqaud Leader.
"Tch."
And it seems that Yonaguni thinks so too. Gehaha.