"Hey."
A familiar voice sounded beside his ear, a little low, a little deep.
"If you're still alive, say something."
Hajime Kashimo's eyes snapped open.
The same dark-purple sky greeted him. Rubble dug painfully into his back, and a dull ache came from where Black Flash had struck him, clear and real.
He wasn't dead?
He instinctively raised a hand to feel his chest.
His clothes were torn, his skin swollen and painful to the touch.
But few of his bones had broken, and his internal organs weren't damaged badly enough to kill him.
That wasn't right.
He had felt the force of that punch perfectly clearly.
It had definitely been powerful enough to kill him. How could he have suffered so little damage?
Could it be...
His mind raced. Then he jolted and abruptly sat up.
The movement was too sudden and pulled at his injuries, making him hiss in pain.
He looked up straight into a face very close to his.
Qingxiao was crouched beside him. Seeing him awake, he shifted half a step back.
His face showed little expression, but there was a hint of relief in his eyes, buried deep, something he refused to say aloud.
"Awake?"
Hajime Kashimo stared at him for a long while, then looked down at his own chest. When he looked up again, his eyes were full of disbelief.
"You... held back on that last punch?"
It wasn't a question, but a statement.
In a collision at that speed, at the very instant Black Flash had already triggered, he had still forcibly pulled back most of the cursed energy he had already released.
That kind of control was something Kashimo had never even heard of, let alone seen.
Qingxiao neither denied nor confirmed it. He simply stood and brushed the dust