Journey to Planar World

Chapter 468: Sahara Loses?

Even though Shushu had looked dominant in the early exchanges, Naoki, Tenka, and Yachiho watching from the sideline showed no signs of concern whatsoever.

They knew perfectly well that in a fight between members of the Anti-Demon Corps, declaring a winner based on the first few exchanges was always far too early.

"..."

After taking the hard throw that had kicked up a cloud of dust, Sahara didn't allow herself to stay down. With a speed that ordinary eyes would have struggled to follow, she rose and launched a devastating counter.

She drove into Shushu's guard, rotating her body with fluid ease, and drove her elbow with full force directly into her opponent's chest.

*BAM!*

"OW!!" Shushu cried out in pain, the blow rattling through her entire body.

Before Shushu could recover her position or even draw a breath, Sahara had already slipped around behind her with the quickness of a shadow. With a grappling technique that was precise and technically flawless, she looped her arms around Shushu's waist, locking her into a hold so tight that movement became nearly impossible.

Shushu struggled with everything she had, but Sahara's speed and explosive power had already gotten ahead of her. Sahara arched her body backward with extraordinary flexibility, lifting Shushu clean off the ground and driving her down in a brutal German Suplex.

*BAM!*

Dust billowed up thickly as Shushu hit the ground for the second time in quick succession.

"I'm not done yet..." Shushu muttered, pushing herself up with ragged breathing. Her face showed a will that hadn't gone out, even as every inch of her body had begun to feel heavy and bruised.

On the other side, Sahara simply sat down on the ground, her face flushed, her energy apparently evaporating all at once.

"Aaah, I'm tired!" she complained in a tone that was distinctly whiny and completely at odds with the ferocious assault she had just delivered. She waved a hand dismissively in the air, as though surrendering to her own sleepiness. "That's enough of that! I'm just going to use my Peach Fruit Blessing."

"Hah?"

Shushu stared at her with an expression caught between disbelief and irritation.

"We barely got started... I was just warming up..." She let out a long breath, but a second later the corner of her mouth pulled into a wide, challenging grin. "Fine then, I'll use mine too!"

"..."

The atmosphere inside Club Ginna shifted immediately. The air grew heavier and more charged as both of them began drawing on the core power of their respective Blessings.

"Paradigm Shift!"

Shushu activated her Peach Fruit Blessing, which allowed her to manipulate the size of her body at will.

Almost simultaneously, Sahara got to her feet and the change in her was immediate and complete. The drowsy, half-lidded look she always wore sharpened into focus, her eyes radiating an energy that was overflowing and unmistakably dangerous. She raised her hand and held three fingers out toward Shushu with total confidence.

"«Crazy Sheep»!"

"Three minutes!"

Sahara now stood tiny beneath the shadow of Shushu's enormous form, looking up with wide, sparkling eyes. Rather than alarmed, she looked like a child who had just witnessed the most spectacular circus act imaginable.

"WOAH! THAT IS SO COOL!!"

Shushu, however, had no intention of giving her time to stay amazed. With her massive frame, she swung a colossal fist down toward Sahara standing directly below her. The sheer pressure of the swing sent wind howling outward.

"Hey, stop gawking! Take this!!"

Watching the enormous attack come crashing down, Sahara didn't show a flicker of fear. She drew a slow breath and settled into her stance as a golden aura began to envelop her, blazing with an intensity that recalled a Super Saiyan's transformation.

*WHOOSH!*

Just as Shushu's massive fist was almost at the ground, Sahara shot forward. The movement wasn't simply fast anymore. It was a burst of power that made no sense for a body her size. She threaded nimbly through the gaps between Shushu's giant fingers, turning the exchange into something resembling a lethal game of paper-scissors-rock.

"Paper beats rock!!"

Sahara called out cheerfully as she found an open gap in Shushu's defenses. With a single powerful vertical leap, she closed the distance and drove into the area near her opponent's chest.

*BAM!*

With «Crazy Sheep» dialed to a three-minute duration, each of Sahara's strikes carried destructive force many times beyond what any normal person could produce. She hammered consecutive blows into Shushu at high speed.

The impact was so overwhelming that even Shushu at her colossal size was sent staggering backward, her footsteps creating small tremors across the Club Ginna arena floor.

On the sideline, Unit Seven's members watched in stunned silence. None of them had expected the girl who looked the laziest in all of Unit Six to be hiding that kind of power.

Naoki, meanwhile, understood exactly how «Crazy Sheep» worked.

Sahara's Peach Fruit Blessing was unique and came with serious risk. The shorter the duration a user set, the greater the physical output they received. But the cost was severe: once the time ran out, «Crazy Sheep» couldn't be used again for a full three minutes, making the user a very easy target for any opponent who could survive that window.

"Looks like I'm going to win~" Sahara said lightly, bouncing on her feet with easy agility. Her movements seemed to mock gravity itself, flaunting her advantage in the opening minutes of her active duration.

"..."

Shushu, still working hard to keep her enormous body balanced after the rapid-fire barrage, let out a frustrated grunt.

"You went second... that's cheating...!"

"YAAAAY! YAAAAY! COME ON SAHARA, BEAT HER!!" Yachiho's shrieking cheers from the sideline added heat to the atmosphere. She was shaking the pom-poms Naoki had given her with an enthusiasm that was completely at odds with the lifeless state she had been in moments ago.

Tenka, watching carefully, glanced at Naoki. "One minute is definitely powerful, but it becomes risky if the opponent has a way to outlast the duration. But Naoki-kun is different. Even when your «Crazy Sheep» runs out, you don't become defenseless, because you can simply switch to another Blessing."

Naoki gave a mild shrug and a faint smile, acknowledging the advantage «Pandemonium» gave him over the natural limits Sahara faced.

Back in the center of the fight...

Shushu in her giant form was growing visibly angrier. Every heavy step she took sent a tremor rumbling across the Club Ginna arena floor.

"Watch yourself, little one!!"

She lifted one enormous foot and tried to crush Sahara beneath her heel in a single devastating stomp.

But Sahara moved with an agility that was simply not something a normal person could produce. She leapt backward with an unhurried ease, letting the attack crash into nothing but empty ground, which cracked under the force of it.

"Your size is impressive, but you're easy to avoid!"

As she moved, Sahara picked up a large chunk of broken stone as though it weighed no more than a piece of paper. With the explosive force still surging through her from «Crazy Sheep», she hurled it at bullet speed.

"Wouldn't it be easier to move if you were a little smaller?"

*BAM!*

The rock connected squarely with Shushu's arm, drawing a sharp cry from her. She grimaced, clutching the point of impact.

Shushu was beginning to understand that while her enormous size gave her tremendous destructive power, it was also making her an easy mark for Sahara's speed while she was performing at her peak.

"Knowing when to pull back and when to push forward matters, doesn't it?"

Rather than irritating her, Sahara's words seemed to do something different to Shushu. She drew a slow, deliberate breath. The look in her eyes changed, the frantic anger fading and being replaced by something blazing and focused.

"Smaller is better?" Shushu grinned, showing her teeth. "But holding back is boring!"

The aura around her detonated. Her energy surged to a level that sent all the dust around them flying outward in every direction.

"Paradigm Shift! Maximum Limit!"

In an instant, Shushu expanded to twenty meters. Beside that shadow, Sahara looked like a grain of dust.

"Going all out with Big Bang and Smash is always how I have the most fun!"

But rather than following up with a punch to close the attack, Shushu let her enormous body tip forward, losing its balance deliberately. Without any warning, she let the entire weight of her dozens-of-tons body fall forward.

Sahara registered what was happening immediately. Her expression showed a shock that was completely genuine, her eyes going wide, entirely unprepared for the sudden "attack" of a living mass that enormous bearing down on her.

*CRASH!*

Sahara threw both arms out in front of her, trying to brace against Shushu's enormous chest and stop it from flattening her outright. The ground beneath her feet cracked from the force of supporting a weight that immense, while she strained with everything she had to stay standing under the crushing press of Shushu's giant form.

"When I'm this big, there's no room left to dodge, is there?"

While Sahara was still desperately bracing against that enormous weight, Shushu moved faster. Still pressing down from above, she reached out her free hand and seized Sahara's small body in her grip.

"SMASH!!!"

Rather than a punch, Shushu simply threw her, driving Sahara downward with devastating force into the ground. A thunderous crash rang out as the earth shattered and splintered on impact.

Sahara ended up flat on her back in the center of a cratered ring of broken ground, completely unable to move, thrown down by a giant hand immediately after she had tried to hold back the weight of that enormous chest.

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