Chapter 4: Aura Burst
To prevent the siblings from making a run for it, the Grisly Tooth Gang's grunts had been staking out the area for three days.
As evening fell, a comfortable breeze picked up.
The Grisly Tooth Gang's boss—Inoue Kan'ya—and the two Teiai Group debt collectors in black suits arrived at the Shiraki family's open lot as scheduled.
At that moment, Shiraki Kei was standing in the open lot, facing the heavily patched punching bag.
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The boss was about to raise his hand to call out, but Arisa suddenly walked out of the tin shed, cutting him off. "It's not time yet, is it? My brother is warming up. Please don't disturb him."
"What a pain."
The boss glanced at his watch. He didn't object, but he was clearly annoyed.
He paced back and forth on the grass, lit a cigarette, and muttered, "A brain-damaged cripple just needs to go and take his beating quietly. What's he putting on an act for..."
As he was muttering, the boss suddenly noticed that the two Teiai men in black were frozen in place, their expressions a mix of disbelief.
"Huh?"
He turned his head to look at Shiraki Kei, who was warming up.
...
He was still in that side-on stance: left arm raised to guard, right arm bent and high, center of gravity balanced between the ball of his front foot and the heel of his back.
It was "Ryu's" fighting stance, built for both offense and defense.
Advancing, he could jab with his lead hand and throw a heavy blow with his rear. Retreating, he could protect his chin and most of his body. In motion, he could shuffle forward and backward rapidly.
It had only been three short days, but Shiraki Kei had a solid foundation. Coupled with the ability to train against Ryu's phantom image at any moment, he had already mastered seventy or eighty percent of the stance.
"Hoo!"
After a deep breath, Shiraki Kei pulled back his left hand, threw an uppercut, and fluidly twisted his entire body into a right-legged middle kick, before finally snapping back to his original stance.
This was an ordinary combination, but the key was that Shiraki Kei's movements were extremely slow, yet without a single shred of deviation.
Every instant, he looked like a classical Greek statue, his body frozen in place. The muscle definition on his bare upper body was clearly visible; they could even see exactly which muscle was being engaged!
"Hsss! Hoo..."
With every breath he took, everything around him seemed to pulse in time with Shiraki Kei's concentration.
His gaze was fixed forward.
In a daze, the boss and the two men in black stared wide-eyed, getting the strange illusion that Shiraki Kei wasn't facing a punching bag, but some burly opponent!
"Here I go!"
Shiraki Kei shouted, his back foot slamming the ground. His front foot followed a beat later, pulling his whole body into a rotation as he slid forward with incredible speed.
Swoosh!
This footwork pushed his explosive power to the limit. It allowed him to close a short distance at high speed. It was originally developed to dodge Kure Fusu's "gunshot" and was later refined under the pressure of Ryu's straight punch, finally taking its initial form.
Its name was [Aura Burst]!
But just as the boss and the men in black were stunned by this, something bizarre happened—
BANG!
Something went flying backward—but it wasn't the punching bag. It was Shiraki Kei, who had just charged forward!
As if he'd been hit by something, Shiraki Kei rolled several times after landing, slamming hard into the fence before finally coming to a stop.
The punching bag, however, merely swayed slightly back and forth, not moving an inch from its spot.
"What the hell happened?!"
The boss and the men in black were dumbfounded. They couldn't understand what they had just seen.
A man was sent flying... by a punching bag!?
Not even a science fiction novel would dare use a line like that!
...
...
Shiraki Kei spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, executed a kip-up to get to his feet, and only then noticed the men who had been waiting for him.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. I'll go change."
He blew the remaining blood from his nose, wiped his face clean with a towel, and finally changed into a clean set of clothes, ready to go.
The boss and the men in black exchanged glances, completely bewildered by what they had just witnessed. But it was almost time, so all they could do was leave first and ask questions later.
After Shiraki Kei got in the car, his sister, Sakurai Arisa, tried to follow, but he stopped her.
"We had a deal."
Shiraki Kei gently ruffled Arisa's hair. "You can't come this time. Besides, it's just my comeback match. Nothing much to see, right?"
Arisa was extremely worried, but she nodded anyway.
Shiraki Kei breathed a sigh of relief.
He wasn't some old-fashioned prude. If tonight was a real "Kengan match," where the spectators were mostly corporate bigwigs or even politicians, he wouldn't mind letting Arisa come along. Her safety would be more or less guaranteed.
But tonight was an "underground match against a Kengan Fighter," and the yakuza were involved. The danger level was unknown.
"That's right! We're not responsible for babysitting!"
The boss, sitting in the passenger seat, sneered and signaled the man in black to drive.
...
...
On the road, the other man in black, sitting in the back with Shiraki Kei, found himself instinctively looking at Shiraki Kei's face.
He could clearly see faint bruises on it, the marks of having been beaten.
"Hey..."
The man in black asked, confused, "Don't tell me you... spent the last three days sparring with someone?"
Shiraki Kei thought for a moment and shook his head. "With a 'someone'... not really. I just did some simulation practice. It's similar to 'shadow boxing' in training."
The so-called "shadow boxing" involves training in front of a mirror, imagining an opponent, and performing various offensive, defensive, dodging, and counter-attacking movements.
The man in the back was a boxing fan and knew the term, which only made him more confused.
"Simulation practice? You can get yourself covered in bruises just from shadow boxing? You were even... bleeding just now? How is that possible?!"
"..."
Shiraki Kei thought again, then suddenly held out his empty palm, fingers spread.
"Right now, imagine I have half a sliced lemon in my hand. You can squeeze the juice from the fresh pulp, you can smell that lemon scent... and it's super... sour."
"And then—"
Shiraki Kei suddenly thrust his palm toward the man's mouth, smiling. "Have a lick!"
"Wha—"
The man in black didn't have time to react. He just followed the imaginary scenario and felt an intense sourness on his tongue. Even the two men in the front couldn't help but salivate.
Shiraki Kei then showed his empty palm.
"The human body is amazing. You just imagined a sour taste, and your mouth started watering."
"So, if you just take it one step further, imagining it even more vividly while shadow boxing, you can get a more 'real' feedback..."
The boss and the two men in black had never heard such a thing.
For the men in black, who were just following their boss's orders, they found Shiraki Kei's analogy interesting.
But for the boss, who already had a bad relationship with him, he felt a baseless panic, as if he was nothing in Shiraki Kei's eyes.
Isn't this guy supposed to be brain-damaged? Why is he chatting with the Teiai Group guys?
"Tch!"
The boss's brow furrowed, and he said viciously, "I don't care if it's lemons or pickled plums! Don't you dare try to pull any tricks in tonight's match!"
Hearing this, Shiraki Kei unexpectedly used the boss as a bad example, analyzing him for the two men in black: "See? When you're under a lot of stress, your mind gets darker, and you get angry more easily."
The two men in black, who often had to go chase down deadbeats, also felt their moods were often poor. They quickly asked for advice, "So, how do you fix it?"
"Work your muscles."
Shiraki Kei leaned back in his seat and laughed. "Exercise more. You'll feel happier."
The men in black both thought that made sense.
The veins on the boss's forehead bulged even more.
...
...
Back at the Shiraki family's dojo lot.
Shiraki Kei had been gone for over ten minutes. The sky was growing dark. Arisa was leaning against the wall, her legs fidgeting restlessly. She couldn't sit still.
She knew her brother was doing this for her safety, but she was just as worried about him.
"..."
As she was worrying, another car drove up from the opposite direction and stopped in front of her.
Arisa grew vigilant, preparing to run, but the back door suddenly opened. It was Karura, waving at her.
"Arisa, over here!" Karura said happily. "We came to pick you up!"
Arisa froze. "Pick me up... to go where?"
The driver's side window rolled down. Kure Fusu was at the wheel. She smiled and patted the car door. "To go watch your brother fight, of course!"