Yujiro stretched the joints in his neck, letting out a series of loud, sharp cracks.
"Little girl, is this the extent of your ability?"
Chisato, who had leapt backward to maintain her distance, showed no signs of panic. As she had stated before, if she intended to leave, Yujiro would be unable to stop her, even if she herself couldn't manage to wound the man. Facing an opponent with skin this thick and muscles of steel, she prepared to make her escape.
She threw a flashbang. Instantly, a blinding light illuminated the entire area of the building, searing Yujiro's vision. However, as the strongest creature on earth, the intense light only managed to obstruct his sight for a few brief seconds.
It didn't take long for Yujiro to recover his vision. Seeing that Chisato had already sprinted several hundred meters away, he immediately gave chase. However, Shino, positioned in the distance, provided cover fire with her sniper rifle, hindering Yujiro's pursuit.
"Tch." Yujiro snorted. "Another meddling rat."
He immediately cast a sharp gaze toward a building nearly 1,300 meters away. That was the position from which Shino had taken her shot.
Terrified, Shino immediately ducked down, her face filled with disbelief. "No way, right? The distance is over 1,000 meters, but that guy can see me from this far away?"
Shino still found it hard to believe. She peeked slightly from the corner of the building and saw Yujiro running toward her position. Without a second thought, she immediately turned to flee.
As the strongest creature on earth, Yujiro's sprinting speed could reach 10 seconds per 100 meters. This meant that if he pursued Shino's position, he would only need a little over a minute to arrive.
Ryunosuke raised his Barrett, aiming at Yujiro from a distance.
Instinctively, Yujiro sensed the danger. He immediately hoisted a sedan parked at the roadside with his bare hands and hurled it into the air.
The trajectory of the throw precisely intercepted the alloy armor-piercing round fired by Ryunosuke. The bullet, capable of piercing through a tank, slammed into the car and triggered a massive explosion. This was clearly no coincidence; Yujiro had perceived the bullet's path and used the car as a barrier.
Facing a weapon of that caliber, even Yujiro lacked the confidence to simply dodge it. After all, the bullet traveled at a velocity of 853 meters per second, nearly 2.5 times the speed of sound.
Yujiro was now in a dilemma. On one side was Chisato preparing to escape, on another was Shino with her sniper rifle, and on yet another was the Barrett shooter. He was truly conflicted as to which one he should hunt down.
Chisato looked back toward Yujiro while pulling down her eyelid, sticking out her tongue, and flashing her middle finger.
The veins on Yujiro's forehead bulged; he decided to hunt down that insolent girl first!
Chisato had done it on purpose; she wanted to buy time for Ryunosuke and Shino to make their escape. After all, she had her own ways of getting away, whereas those two might not.
Ryunosuke and Shino reunited. Seeing Chisato being relentlessly pursued by Yujiro from a distance, they assumed she wouldn't be able to escape and immediately provided supporting fire simultaneously.
The result was that Yujiro turned back toward Ryunosuke and Shino instead. Given the two different types of bullets, Yujiro concluded there were two people there, whereas there had only been one at the previous position. Naturally, he knew which side was more worthy of pursuit.
Running away, Chisato thought to herself anxiously, "I told the two of you to run!"
Chisato turned back around, chasing Yujiro from behind and unleashing a volley of shots.
Losing his patience, Yujiro reached into his pocket and pulled out several coins. As if possessed by the power of Misaka Mikoto, he flicked the coins with his thumb, parrying Chisato's bullets in mid-air.
"Whoa, you're kidding, right? Is this guy really human?" Chisato was stunned, but she had no time for long thoughts and immediately moved forward to block him.
Ryunosuke and Shino provided assistance from afar once again. Yujiro was becoming fed up; he began leaping here and there to disrupt the aim of the two people in the distance, occasionally flicking coins to clash with Chisato's bullets.
A delicate balance formed between the two sides; neither could take down the other. Without firearms, Ryunosuke's side would have surely suffered a crushing defeat. Regardless of how great one's martial arts prowess is, everyone still fears bullets. Even the strongest creature dared not take a direct hit from a Barrett bullet, so he remained constantly on guard against being shot.
Yujiro swung a fist toward Chisato, but she nimbly leapt to avoid it. Her observation nerves were extraordinary; through the micro-movements of the joints and the focus of her opponent's gaze, she could predict where the next attack would land. That was her secret to dodging bullets; it was all done by predicting the opponent's movements.
That was why she had said that even if she couldn't win, her opponent wouldn't be able to do anything to her because they couldn't catch her. Chisato continued to dodge because her pistol was out of ammunition. Up until this second, she had insisted on using rubber bullets because she had no desire to kill.
In truth, she had no intention of killing Yujiro at all; she simply wanted to show Ryunosuke the difference in their strength so the man wouldn't keep making crazy plans like this. While dodging, Chisato said in a joking tone:
"Paman, how about we just stop? The bullets I fired were all rubber; surely you've noticed that by now, right?"
But Yujiro refused to stop; instead, he seemed incredibly fired up.
"Your observation nerves, Little Girl, are the best among any opponent I have ever faced."
"And now you want to leave?!"
"It's too late!"
"A woman I have chosen is not someone I will let go of so easily."
"If I were to have offspring with you, that offspring would surely be quite extraordinary, wouldn't it?!"
Exactly as expected, Yujiro's old habit was resurfacing. Every time he met an exceptional woman, he wanted to produce offspring with her so that his children could hold him up as an icon and try to surpass him as a form of training. Because he had been undefeated for too long and felt lonely, he wanted to create an opponent capable of facing him.
Chisato's unusual sensory talent and the agility of her movements had captured Yujiro's interest. If they had a child, those incredible genes would surely be inherited.
Chisato: "Ew, you're so disgusting, Paman. I don't want to."
However, Yujiro still couldn't catch her, which made him increasingly frustrated. Finally, he chose to give up chasing Chisato and shifted his target back to the two people who had been shooting at him—Ryunosuke and Shino.
Shino herself had fled long ago after firing her last shot, so only Ryunosuke had been staying there. But Ryunosuke was too focused on his aim to notice. Even Chisato had quietly slipped away.
Only after Ryunosuke saw through his 8x scope that Yujiro was charging toward him did he hurriedly wave his hand to warn his partner, who turned out to have already vanished to parts unknown.
"Let's get out of here fast! Shino... eh? Where did she go?"
The person was gone; even her shadow had disappeared.
"Damn it! Why did you run away without taking me with you?!"