I leapt, pushing off yet another wall. The air whistled in my ears like a string stretched to its limit. The springs in my legs sang — thump-thump-thump — propelling me faster with every rebound.
He was down there, shouting, flailing his cannon-arms, trying to hit me with his shots. But compared to the speed of the Spring Hopper, he really looked like a snail. A huge, metallic, deadly… but still a snail.
"Ah, you FLY!" he bellowed, and in the next instant, BOOM! BOOM! The cannons tore through the hall like artillery.
Shards of stone flew in all directions. One passed so close I felt the heat from the friction.
"You can shoot… but hitting isn't really your strong suit!" I shouted from above, turning my arm into a spring.
I began compressing it.Harder.Much harder.Until the metal creaked.Until it reached its limit.
"READY!" I roared, and the world narrowed to a single point — his chest.
"Spring Fist!"
I crashed down like a cannonball. I hit him. The metal of his armor cracked outward, like it had been struck by a battering ram. I felt the vibration run through the spring — a sign that the hit had landed. A very good hit.
But the bastard… he was still standing.
And… smiling.
"Ha! So you're a jumper too?" he rumbled, swinging his cannon-hand downward, trying to swat me like a mosquito.
I pushed off his massive paw, soaring upward.
"With a body like that…" I thought, catching my breath. "…you're just a snail to me. Only loud. Very loud."
I flew back to the wall, rebounded, the springs already humming from the pace. I became faster than my own sight — only sounds remained:
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP
I flickered between the columns, like a reflection in a shattered mirror.
"I need more power…" I whispered to myself.
I could feel it coming — the moment when impulse, speed, and trajectory converge into one perfect strike. When you stop being human… and become a projectile.
I sped up. Rebound — faster. Rebound — walls blurred. Rebound — the floor cracked.
Now.
But at that moment, Vapol… vanished.
Not in the sense of disappearing — he sank into the floor, biting into it as if it were soft clay.
"What the…?"
And then a chilling wind hit my back.
I turned — and saw a massive maw jutting out of the snow beneath me.
He had used his technique —Yukigesho. Snow Concealment. Ambush.
"Got you!!!" he roared, leaping from the floor and trying to snap the jaws around me completely.
I barely had time to dart sideways, turning my legs into powerful springs and bouncing off with maximum force.
The air exploded around me with his crunch.
If I hadn't been pushing my limits, he would have swallowed me.
I slammed into another wall, but didn't stop — immediately rebounding again.
"VAPOL!!!" I roared, crashing down on him like a meteor. "Catch this!!!"
My fist shot forward.
The spring released with catapult force.
The air whistled.
The hall shook.
I was about to shatter his armor for good.