Razor's face had gone tight.
He had already revised Ronin upward. The throw still exceeded the new number. The original plan had been simple: put three beasts in the outer court, close the ring, pass until a gap appeared. Number 3 could not eat this serve alone.
Two options left. Take it himself and turn defense into offense, or fuse and lose another body. Fusion would bleed him for the rest of the set. He stepped in.
Ronin was a real problem. Three throws had been enough to settle that.
"My ball."
Razor's aura came up all the way. Shu packed onto the dodgeball in a thick shell. He stepped, hips first, and the arm followed.
The speed matched the clone's best throw. The ball was in a clone's face before anyone else on the line finished reading it.
The Sharingan saw the whole path. Seeing it and getting out of the way were different jobs. The thing was too fast.
The clone stacked both hands the way Razor had, trying to catch.
Contact lasted a fraction of a second. The clone blew into white smoke.
The ball kept going. A larger hand closed on it and held.
Ronin.
That throw had been over what a clone could survive. Razor had wanted the first real slap on the table.
Ronin flicked the ball up, used the hang time to finish seals, and caught it again. Chakra poured in. The leather did not split. A ring of spinning blades locked around it instead, held in shape by Enhancement.
Modified Rasengan. Rasenshuriken riding a dodgeball.
He threw the instant the shape set.
He wanted the choice. Razor takes it on the body, or a beast dies as cover. The moment anyone caught it, the shuriken would dump. He had throttled the yield. From the first two probes he already knew it was enough to erase a numbered beast on contact.
The ball would burst. Under the rules the point would not count. Razor could rebuild. Serve would still belong to Ronin. Keep throwing this and Razor either stepped in every time or watched his line get ground down. Taking the serve meant stopping the shuriken and keeping the leather intact in the same motion.
Number 3 took it in the chest and came apart. The ball left the impact and shredded in the air.
The referee's whistle was helpless. The ball had been whole until contact. No one to blame. New ball. Ronin to serve.
Razor's brow drew down. He had the scheme in one look.
Open. Ugly. It forced an answer.
Number 3 rebuilt on the court. Razor sent it in anyway, knowing the result. Same explosion. Same burst ball.
He did not rebuild 3 a second time. He walked forward himself.
Ronin saw the method on the way in. A Nen blast wrapped the incoming ball and the shuriken together. The link to Ronin cut. The technique went dead in the shell.
Razor turned and threw at Ronin's body.
A clone stepped into it.
The copy burst. The ball punched out of the wrapping and popped with a wet little sound.
Whistle. Serve to Razor.
From the sideline it was noise and craters. Both lines were burning pieces at a speed that did not look like a game. The ball traveled like a missile.
Serve came back to Ronin. Sweat at his hairline. The look in his eyes had settled.
Razor was heavier than the estimate.
Rasenshuriken was a hole card. It was not a winning card.
Razor still had 2 behind Ronin's line and 6 and 7 standing close enough to fuse on command. Those two could probably eat a shuriken. Three clones left on Ronin's side. None of them would survive a throw long enough to reach the outer court.
New tool, then.
He left the Mangekyō alone. A breath in. A clone took the ball and stood in front of him.
Aura packed into the fist and compressed.
The target was Razor.
The Hatsu was Jajanken.
It was not a complicated technique. A man who could throw a Super Destruction Punch did not need a lecture to charge a punch. What he lacked was Gon's particular kind of resolve. Equal aura, Gon's version would hit harder. Ronin was not working with equal aura. The difference in volume turned the same motion into something else.
Razor felt it.
"Hey. Hey. Stop. I forfeit."
The words were flat. This was a match. He did not intend to leave it on a stretcher. Full defense would still put him outside the line, and the size of Ronin's aura said this was not a one-and-done tank.
Ronin was already past the point where stopping was free.
The fist went out.
Sorry, Razor.