As Yoichi struggled to get up, Takamori spent a few words on his behalf. "Carry out my orders without objecting, Nobunaga. If Yoichi had the power of his Oracle at his disposal, it would have been much harder for you to knock him out," he said, looking at his more experienced pupil with an angry expression.

"Let him use it then! He will use his power and I will fight with my bare hands. I will prove you wrong Sensei and..."

​​

"Hey! I'm still here, I don't know if you've noticed!" Yoichi interrupted, getting up from the ground in pain. "If Takamori-Sensei has decided that bare-hands combat is what he needs to find out my weaknesses, then we'll keep fighting," he grunted as if his word was worth more than Nobunaga's.

The corners of Takamori's mouth curved into a slight smile. In his eyes, Yoichi's courage and determination remained his greatest and most important virtues.

I'm sure Nobunaga's fighting style has its weaknesses, the young tamer reflected. He is more focused on attack than defense, but he has speed on his side. How do you hit an opponent who is so fast that he becomes almost invisible?

Meanwhile, Nobunaga seemed displeased with the bad impression he had just made with Takamori. Although the reason that bound him to the guild leader was unknown, it had to be something that dug deep into his past. With that scolding, he looked weak in front of Yoichi and Rinji, and that bothered him a lot.

"You'd rather be beaten until you can't get up again? Well then. The sooner we continue, the sooner I can get back to my stuff, little boy," Nobunaga exclaimed, calling Yoichi by that appellation even though he looked the younger of the two.

Think, Yoichi, think. What would Ryutaro do? How can I parry his blows if I don't even see them coming? Yoichi kept thinking to himself as he returned to his fighting stance.

Grains of sand were stuck between his fingers and the hairs on his arms. Even the stubble on his face had touched the ground, getting dirty.

Nobunaga bent down on his knees once more and, like a lightning bolt, he disappeared from his position, quickly traveling who knows where.

"He's gone again!" Yoichi boomed, leaping backward. With that sudden movement, the young warrior hoped to activate Nobunaga's instincts, which, a few minutes earlier, had hit him in mid-air.

Yoichi's prediction came true, but when the purple-haired warrior appeared, he was not in the position he had hoped for: in less than three seconds after his charge, Nobunaga had executed a perfect backflip, finding himself with his legs pointing upward over Yoichi's head.

Not knowing how to react to that disadvantageous position and having exhausted the energy of his backflip, Yoichi raised both arms upwards, ready to parry the blow.

Showing incredible reflexes and experience in combat, Nobunaga rotated into an upright position, placing one foot on the crossed arms of his opponent and using them to give himself a further push upwards.

Yoichi was thrown off balance and forced to open his arms to keep from falling back to the ground. When his hands sank under the weight of his body in the sand, Nobunaga was in a descending phase, ready to hit him with a kick that would knock him out for good.

For a brief moment, Yoichi's time perception seemed to slow down before his eyes: the bottom of his opponent's boot was getting closer and closer to his face, and having fallen to the ground an instant earlier, the young warrior realized he wouldn't have the time he needed to get up and dodge.

At the same time, Yoichi knew that by raising one arm and attempting to block his foot with his hand, the weight of Nobunaga's body would have sprained his wrist.

Under the unbelieving eyes of Takamori and Rinji, who had remained motionless to witness the scene, the warrior with long blond hair did something never seen before: he brought both hands close to his chest and rolled to the ground, positioning himself on his stomach.

A moment before Nobunaga's foot hit him, Yoichi put both hands on the ground and used his arms and knees to raise his back, as if he wanted to stand on all fours.

His opponent, stunned by that strange defensive maneuver, but eager to end the fight sinned in impulsiveness and let his foot impact Yoichi's spine.

"Uhmpf!" - through gritted teeth, Yoichi took the blow in the middle of his back, making sure that Nobunaga's heel hit exactly in the middle, at the point where the back muscles form a slight convexity.

When this happened, the enemy's foot was stuck for a few tenths of a second, the time it took Yoichi to implement his plan: taking one hand off the ground and rotating his back quickly, he took advantage of Nobunaga's free fall to unbalance him.

The purple-haired warrior was projected sideways and was forced to spread his arms for fear of ending up on his back on the ground. With his arms and legs open, he was now vulnerable to an unexpected counterattack.

Yoichi hadn't stopped believing for a moment, and as Nobunaga's body rotated sideways toward the ground, he rose to his feet and jumped toward him, throwing a direct punch.

Although he resisted the pain and attempted a crazy strategy to counterattack such a skilled opponent, the punch unleashed by Yoichi was very predictable and the former Rogue Sindacate warrior's speed prevailed once again.

Both of Nobunaga's hands wrapped around Yoichi's fist and used the handhold to brace his free-falling body. The purple-haired warrior dragged Yoichi towards himself and landed with his feet on the ground.

In a few seconds, the situation had turned several times: at first, Nobunaga had the advantage, then Yoichi had managed to unbalance him and, finally, he had lost his balance.

Unable to free himself from his grip, Yochi stumbled forward and his feet lost grip on the soft sand of the beach, waltzing toward his enemy.

Nobunaga took advantage of the momentum and twisted his torso, accompanying the movement with one leg and unleashing an incredible reverse roundhouse kick, aiming at the face of his inexperienced but worthy opponent.