The boy wasn't holding anything back at this point. He wasn't even thinking. Biting, clawing, scratching, using everything from fists to elbows, to knees, to feet in an impressive effort to get me to do something other than simply block with a single finger. Slowly, his technique had devolved, but the fact that he hadn't completely forgotten all traces of technique with how fast he was going was a pretty impressive achievement in my book.
So far, the closest he'd gotten to his goal of getting me to take him more seriously was when I'd been forced to use two fingers to keep his jaw from snapping shut around my original finger.
Then, Kakarot snapped his tail at me.
"Nope." Immediately, I caught the tail in my hand and pulled, hefting the boy into the air by the butt and holding him there. "Always be extremely careful with your tail during a fight. Especially against a stronger opponent. Even if you've trained the physical weakness out of it, the tail will always be your biggest weakness, Kakarot. Try wrapping it around your waist." I advised, tossing the boy forward.
Landing with a forward somersault, Kakarot immediately wrapped his tail around his waist and sprung at me again.
At least he was persistent.
And creative. During his next barrage of attacks, he actually managed to get me to do something other than block with my finger.
By farting in my face, he made me reflexively send him flying with a weak ki shockwave from my mouth.
Alright. Too much close-ranged battle. He was getting too comfortable with me being passive.
I supposed it was time to get a little… less passive.
'Catching Lynn's eye in the audience, I raised my finger toward Kakarot.
And let my energy fly.
Lasers, clouds, blasts, and discs, they all appeared out of the palm of my hand. None of them contained almost any of my energy, compared to what I could unleash, but what I didn't use in raw power, I made up for with creativity, my speed enough that the average person in the late thousands range would struggle to keep up.
Lynn, catching each and every shot before it hit anyone in the crowd, had no problems keeping up. Pepper, behind her, didn't need to move a muscle.
Kakarot, on the other hand, took dozens of hits as he hyperfocused on weaving through the barrage while taking as little damage as possible.
Surprisingly, though, he seemed to at least be able to follow the barrage with his senses, but the boy simply didn't quite have the necessary raw power to physically keep up.
All he seemed to be able to do was limit the damage to non-vital regions. Poor kid just wasn't fast enough.
But, yet again, he wasn't backing down. His aura was raging wildly, gathering around him, boosting his strength, speed, and overall power beyond his limits as the idea of preserving stamina very clearly disappearing right out the window.
I knew what that felt like. Tapping into new reserves of strength as you fought with everything you had, no holding back. Just like my battle with Tater.
Tater had managed to evolve his Ikari mode into SSJP due to that feeling.
I grinned, as I watched the young Kakarot push past his limits for the third time since this tournament began.
I was excited to see just what heights the true protagonist of this universe could push himself to at the end of the day.
The barrage of energy attacks sped up, with Lynn as my backstop, I could push Kakarot without a single worry in my mind.
…
Meanwhile, Kakarot's mind didn't have worries in it either.
Or anything else. His body was moving too fast for thought to catch up. Dodging movements drilled into him hundreds, thousands of times over his childhood, dodging wasps, bees, rocks, even flying sharks on one, very strange day, were now flowing from him mechanically, as his brain struggled to command his body to move in time to dodge the projectiles flying at him.
Each projectile only carried enough power to sting, but with how many there were, Kakarot could feel himself being driven further and further, closer and closer to the edge of the arena, where the girl was casually catching each and every blast that missed him, before they hit anyone in the audience.
Kakarot didn't want to lose. Not without at least making the boy move. Just once. He wanted to prove that, one day, he could grow to the heights that the person in front of him was at, too.
…
My lips curved into a smile when I saw it.
A flash of red. An explosion of muscle and chi, as the young Saiyan suddenly managed to tap into his Ikari.
With ten times the power that he had before, Kakarot's skin suddenly became impervious to the little bee sting-level energy projectiles I'd been launching at him. The difference shocked me, causing me to reflexively take a step back as his body exploded forward with speed completely different from anything that he'd been able to utilize before.
"Dammit." I muttered to myself. Even if it was just a reflex, the kid had forced me to move.
That was the most that he was going to get out of me. He wasn't going to win this fight.
As soon as I moved, I decided to end the fight.
Instantly charging a powerful energy blast, incomparable to my other ones, I slammed it into Kakarot's chest and let it explode.
The boy flew through the air, landing right between the edge of the arena and the crowd beyond.