The Omnipotent Super Chuunibyou - Chapter 24

“Ah!”

The girl’s shrill scream attracted a strange look from her friend.

“What’s wrong with you? You’re scaring me.”

“I’m scared…of thunder,” she replied timidly.

“Give me a break, it’s a perfectly clear day. There isn’t even a cloud in the sky.”

Her friend pointed at the sun and said huffily, “There’s no way.”

“Oh… I guess it was just my imagination, then.”

The girl turned her woeful gaze back toward the court.

“I’ll explain, then. That was ‘Thunderbolt,’ one of the Fū Rin Ka In Zan Rai (Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain, Shadow, and Lightning) moves. It allows me to appear anywhere on the court at lightning speed, and it makes the ball bounce straight up in the air. So it’s perfectly normal that you couldn’t hit it.” (Genichirō Sanada Technique from Prince of Tennis series)

Hasegawa Izumi looked at his stunned opponent, who wasn’t reacting at all, and thought briefly. He decided to explain the move anyway.

In his dreams, this kind of behavior was par for the course. Although he was revealing some of his capabilities, he was mostly expressing confidence in his abilities and tactics—that was the privilege of the strong!

His words left the spectators dizzy with confusion.

Who are you trying to fool?! This is reality, not an anime!

Aside from Takanashi Rikka, everyone else present concluded that he was just spouting nonsense, that he’d just given an impressive name to an incredible move.

You think calling it “Pinecone Bullet Lightning Whip” will change how everyone sees you?!

Yeah right!

The game resumed.

Kawamura Kentaro had already accepted defeat.

Winning was out of the question!

He couldn’t even handle a single one of his opponent’s random moves—how could he possibly win?

Even professional players would probably have a hard time understanding what he was doing, wouldn’t they?

The crowd was like the spectators at a circus, while the experts could see the true skill behind the performance.

Those watching from outside could probably tell that Kawamura Kentaro was at a disadvantage, but they couldn’t understand why.

As such, all he could think about was how to lose in a way that didn’t make him look too bad.

But when he considered the disparity between them, his spirits sank. All he could do was give his all to fend off defeat.

With each swing, Kawamura Kentaro lost any extraneous thoughts, focusing solely on the motion of his racket.

In that moment, he became utterly pure.

Hasegawa Izumi sensed something subtle about his opponent’s aura and praised him silently.

“Did he evolve under pressure?! Not bad!”

As expected of a captain of one of Shuchi’in’s teams, he wasn’t as mediocre as he had seemed earlier.

Unfortunately, Hasegawa Izumi had to be somewhere today, so he couldn’t push things too far.

This time, he returned his opponent’s serve with an unseen swing of his racket.

“Forty-love!”

Another swing. His movements were as gentle as a breeze, and he effortlessly sliced the ball, sending it over the net like a tiger climbing up a mountain to land in his opponent’s court.

“Hasegawa takes the set, two sets to love!”

Just like that, it was time for him to serve again.

He didn’t raise the stakes; he used the same twist serve. This time, Kawamura Kentaro managed to hit it back, but it wasn’t stable, and the ball flew high into the air.

Hasegawa Izumi leaped, soaring higher than before, and in the blazing sun, he was like a falling star.

“Crack!”

It was a powerful smash, like an inferno crashing down upon its target.

“Whoa…”

The wind tore at Kawamura Kentaro’s ears, and there was nothing he could do to react. The rebounded tennis ball struck the wire fence behind him.

“Wow, that was incredible!”

“Hasegawa, you’re amazing!”

“Hasegawa! Hasegawa! Hasegawa!”

Among the spectators, the girls’ eyes sparkled, and they cheered and screamed, drawn to that dazzling figure, momentarily oblivious of his trademark attributes.

“Swift as the wind.”

“silent as a forest.”

“Violent as fire.”

“That leaves…immovable as a mountain, right?!”

In the crowd, Eriri turned to look at the source of those words. The speaker was a beautiful girl with headphones on her shoulders, her face alight with excitement.

“What? He’s actually popular with girls?!” Eriri frowned, feeling a little sour.

This was truly an unexpected development.

In her experience, normal people were extremely averse to childhood friends.

Still, she wasn’t worried. These girls were only momentarily smitten by Izumi’s attractiveness. Once they got to know him, they’d back off on their own.

“Go, Izumi-chan!”

“Sage, keep racking up those victories!”

The two girls inside the net cheered along with the crowd.

“Wait…”

It was only now that Eriri noticed the strange girl with the blindfold next to Chika. Chika was just your typical annoying chara girl, but why was someone else acting so intimate with Izumi? What had happened while she wasn’t around him?!

The ongoing match soon caught her attention again.

“Hasegawa takes this round! 4-0!”

Before the match began, Kawamura Kentaro had been brimming with enthusiasm, eager to show off his superiority and humiliate his weaker opponent. He never expected that he would be the one humiliated instead.

Now, he felt like the match was pure torture.

“Hasegawa takes this round! 5-0!”

The referee mercilessly waved the flag in his hand, ending another round.

——————-

Bro, what the hell is this?

Just now, Hasegawa had used another one of his “moves,” as he called them, called “Saiki Kanpatsu no Kiwami (Pinnacle of Great Wisdom).” Supposedly, it was a three-ball move that guaranteed a point.

One ball would have been enough, so why did he need three?

I’m really gonna cry.

Then, he’d explained it was one of the three gates of the “Muga no Kyōchi (State of Self Actualization),” along with “Hyaku Ren Jitoku no Kiwami (Pinnacle of Hard Work),” which allowed him to double the power of his return, and “Teni Muhō no Kiwami (Pinnacle of Perfection),” the strongest move.

But, since Kawamura Kentaro wasn’t strong enough, Hasegawa hadn’t been able to use them.

If all this was true, then Kawamura should probably thank him for not going all out and killing him on the court.

—————-

“You’re far behind.”

Not far away, Hasegawa Izumi maintained his swinging pose, then hit the last ball, before turning to leave for the rest area, leaving behind only those words.

He didn’t even need to look to know the outcome of that last shot.

“Arigatō, Hasegawa-san.”

“Because of you, I’ve realized how vast this world is!”

As Kawamura Kentaro’s strength reached its limit, his vision began to blur, his eyelids twitching, until only that magnificent, distant figure remained, unattainable.

“Thud.”

He collapsed to the ground.

“Match point. Hasegawa takes the match with a score of six games to none!”

The referee’s announcement was almost robotic. The match had been so one-sided, with Kawamura unable to make any sort of comeback as Club President, that it was truly the darkest day in the history of the tennis club.

But then he realized just how incredible a tennis genius it must be who could defeat Kawamura so easily.

If he could get that person to join their club…

He chased after Hasegawa, extending a hand in invitation. “Hasegawa-san, you have the potential to represent all of East Asia in tennis! Please join our club! We’ll definitely turn you into a star!”

“Oh, thanks, but I’m not interested… Also, I’m in a hurry, so I won’t be able to chat much longer.”

Hasegawa Izumi brushed past him, expressionless, and tossed the tennis racket back to its owner.

Now that the match was over, his mind was filled with thoughts of discounted potato chips at the supermarket near his house.