Huh? No!
Just as the faint sensation of bandages brushing against the top of his left foot reached him, Hada Ichiba, who had leaped into the air and was about to kick Kotetsu away, stared at Kotetsu's back. His gaze had already fixed on Kotetsu's neck, and his heart suddenly skipped.
"Be... hind!"
At that moment, Kotetsu's unfamiliar voice suddenly rang out.
Crack!
Then, as if confirming the warning in Hada Ichiba's mind, a crisp crack of bone sounded. Kotetsu's cheek suddenly twisted ninety degrees, his entire right cheek instantly pressing against his right shoulder.
Swish!
In the instant his pant leg rubbed against the bandages, the kick launched from behind merely brushed past the bandages on Kotetsu's left cheek.
Tch! He was prepared, just as I thought! Hada Ichiba clicked his tongue at the sensation of his foot grazing the bandages.
But in that fleeting turn of thought, Hada Ichiba seemed to have anticipated this as well. The foot that had brushed past the bandages on Kotetsu's left cheek suddenly dropped, its kicking path twisting into a downward arc.
At the same time, he twisted his body. Using the downward momentum of his left foot, he suddenly lashed out with his previously curled right leg, the sole of his foot parallel to the ground as it shot toward Kotetsu's lower back.
In just an instant, Hada Ichiba twisted in midair, his right foot racing toward the bandages on Kotetsu's lower back like lightning.
Smack!
Yet in that very instant, a hand wrapped entirely in bandages suddenly snapped shut, tightly gripping Hada Ichiba's incoming foot.
Thud!
Then came the sound of his left hand striking his lower back.
Perhaps the force behind Hada Ichiba's kick had been greater than Kotetsu expected. Although Kotetsu had shifted his left hand back at