Yamikaji spat out blood due to the crushing punches he had received from Takeshi. The adrenaline was wearing off, increasing his pain and sense of dizziness, yet he remained standing, watching Takeshi as he received weak sparks in a sensitive spot.
When Takeshi placed his hand on the wound in his abdomen, which had completely burned, Fard glanced at Takeshi's face and transferred Joso's attack to his left eye.
Takeshi felt his eye burning. He quickly covered it, lowering his head in pain. He realized that Fard and Joso were responsible for this attack. As soon as he raised his eyes to rush toward them, he caught a glimpse of a wooden hand coming his way.
He barely managed to block the attack with his wrist, but he was pushed forcefully toward the wall and crashed into it, causing it to shatter even further.
Joso pointed his hand at Takeshi, saying:
"We will never let you steal our master's prize!"
Takeshi stood up, staring at Yamikaji, and said in a faint voice:
"I will cut off your other arm—"
Due to the strike and the poison, Takeshi's vision blurred, and he could barely stand on his feet. He began to see Yamikaji before him sinking into strange ripples beneath a transparent coating.
He tried to wipe his eyes in those few seconds, but nothing changed. This forced him to close them to avoid Fard and Joso's attacks, thinking to himself:
'I won't let the same thing happen again. Damn it, his poison is spreading more through my body. There is only one way to fight them in this situation, but it's risky…'
Takeshi ignored the pain surrounding him and the distorted sounds leaking into his ears. He took a shallow breath, as much as he could draw in, entering a state of incredible focus.
He sank into a pitch-black void where yellow—rather, golden—dots glowed with varying intensity inside the hall. He also sensed other faint dots outside the hall, except for one point that glowed intensely in the middle of that darkness.
Suddenly, one of the nearby dots lunged toward him at a frantic speed. This made Takeshi move to evade it, just as he heard the sound of something solid hitting the wall. That dot was centered in Yamikaji's wooden hand; in fact, every root he created had a dot centered in it. This gave Takeshi the ability to evade Yamikaji's specific attacks.
As for Fard and Joso's attacks, they targeted random points on Takeshi's body, especially after he closed his eyes and covered his abdominal wound. Those attacks hit some of his other wounds randomly, making movement difficult. Takeshi gathered the last of his strength and thoughts to launch a final attack.
'Sorry, Loren. I made a promise to you long ago that I wouldn't use this style again. I almost used it once in the forest against the Revarge beasts, and now I will use it…'
He exhaled, focusing his energy in his limbs, saying in a faint, inaudible voice:
"The Savage Style!"
The ground shook beneath Takeshi, who stepped on his right foot, avoiding the black roots that appeared after the tremor, saying in a low voice:
"They are black roots that you cannot control well… I have already memorized who those dots belong to…"
As soon as he finished his words, which no one heard, he dashed toward Yamikaji, ignoring Fard and Joso's attacks and the resulting pain. Before reaching his target, brown roots lunged at him again. He managed to evade some, but they managed to scratch and wound him, as all he could see was a small dot in the pitch darkness.
He stepped beside Yamikaji, raising his fist high, but Yamikaji managed to raise his black wooden hand to block Takeshi's punch. However, Takeshi arched his back and delivered a swift kick to Yamikaji's knee, causing it to break and sending Yamikaji to the ground.
"Master!"
Fard shouted loudly. Before Yamikaji could process the pain from that crushing blow, Takeshi delivered another punch to his face.
'The Savage Style is a random style that relies on brutality and the merging of combat techniques…'
Takeshi's strikes were not accurate due to his lack of vision, but he did not stop there. Instead, he grabbed Yamikaji's head and slammed it into the floor, causing a large crack in the ground.
"Damn it, this hurts!"
Takeshi quickly adjusted his stance, raising his foot to crush Yamikaji's head with a final kick.
'But in my current state, the brutality won't be at its maximum level...'
Takeshi's strength failed him, and all those prominent dots vanished into the total darkness of his vision. He pushed his foot with the last of his energy, but suddenly, a red wooden root caught Takeshi's foot. The ground shook more and more as red roots pierced through, seizing Takeshi, who had reached his limit and became unable to move.
Yamikaji leaned on his trembling hand to stand up, clutching his blood-stained head after brown roots surrounded his shattered knee, saying:
"Curse you…"
He raised his eyes toward Takeshi, saying in a loud voice full of rage:
"Don't you know that you were given many chances, you fool! You could have stayed in that damned forest or even accepted the Leader's request. Yet, you are clinging to your foolish goal to recover that piece of tin!"
He retreated several steps as blood splattered from his face, saying:
"This is our nature, after all. Clinging to a ridiculous goal in exchange for sacrificing great opportunities for the sake of dignity…"
The red roots extended along the length of the hall, reaching Fard and Joso. Yamikaji said in a desperate voice:
"Unlike you, I will achieve one of my goals now, which is to eliminate the Calamity of the world who entered our hall without permission. And what about you, you fool!"
Takeshi could barely hear Yamikaji's words, his dry lips moving as he said:
"I have—no problem—dying for the sake of achieving my goals…"
Yamikaji turned, saying:
"Do it, Joso."
Joso extended his hand toward those red roots and snapped his finger in front of them. A faint spark formed and spread along the red root, turning into a scorching fire. It raced toward Takeshi, who felt a prick in his neck.
'What is this?'
The flames reached him and consumed him within, creating a wall of fire between him and everyone in the hall. On the other side, Garmond focused intently on that pile of fire. He adjusted his sitting position, thinking to himself:
'Is this a miracle or what?'
Yamikaji glanced at the flying flames, saying:
"Then burn for your goal—"
He turned his entire body toward the fire, staring at it with widened eyes, saying:
"Where did he disappear?"
As soon as he said this, his red roots dissipated, turning into black ash due to that blazing fire, which vanished immediately. Joso extended his hand, pointing forward toward the shattered gate, saying in a trembling voice:
"Master—"
Yamikaji moved his head involuntarily toward the place Joso pointed, slowly, only to see Takeshi standing tall despite the poison. His eyes were open, his left eye filled with blood, and on his neck was a needle with a green serum leaking into Takeshi's body until it was empty.
Takeshi clenched his hands and took a step forward, saying:
"You arrived just in time, Loren. Thank you."
Behind him, at the shattered gate, Loren stood with signs of exhaustion and sweat on her face. She said:
"Throwing the temporary paralysis cure needle from here was a gamble—in fact, coming here was a gamble in itself... Win, Takeshi, so that I win the bet!"