Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious

Chapter 148: Chapter 13

The fluorescent lights in the upper hallway of Saint Shinomiya flickered as Seijirou, Suzune, Shou, and Sakai moved in a tight formation, their footsteps a rapid percussion against the linoleum.

The air here was different—colder, sharper, and vibrating with a frequency that set Seijirou’s teeth on edge, making him feel like all their moves are being observed by the enemy.

“Attack incoming,” Haruka’s voice cut through the phone, sounding like a digital goddess of war. “Trajectory: 180 degrees. High-velocity spirit signature. Everyone jump to the side. Once cleared, leave the corridor to Shou.”

Without a second of hesitation, the group moved.

Seijirou and Suzune vaulted toward the left wall, while Sakai and Shou dove right.

Then, a millisecond later, a streak of blinding white light, jagged as a lightning bolt, tore through the space they had just occupied.

It moved at a great speed that the sheer friction of it was literally scorching the air into ozone.

“What the —!?” Sakai’s eyes widened seeing that as he followed the light with his gaze.

The light didn’t dissipate, it spiraled and condensed at the far end of the hall, manifesting into a lean, athletic young man.

He stood with a restless, vibrating energy, white light dancing across his skin like static electricity.

Shou immediately recognised the man, “….Namashita Miyato. So it’s you, as expected.”

He stood up, dusting off his black leather jacket. His usually lazy, half-lidded eyes were fixed on the newcomer with a depth of focus that made Sakai take a step back.

“Go on, boss,” Shou said, his voice a low, dangerous rasp. “He’s mine. I think I have a score to settle with him.”

Seijirou glanced at Shou, seeing the ghosts of a former life flickering in his eyes, and gave a sharp nod.

“Don’t take too long, Shou. The party’s just getting started.”

With that, Seijirou, Suzune, and Sakai vanished around the corner.

“Shou?” Miyato gaze turned towards Shou, looking confused for a moment, before his widened a second later as a slow, malicious grin spread across his face, one that didn’t match his “model athlete” reputation.

“Nakamura… Shou,” Miyato laughed, the sound sharp and grating. “I thought the rumors were just that, rumors. But who would’ve thought that the ’Gilded Prodigy’ of the track, the man who was supposed to be the nation’s hope, has actually degenerated into a gutter-crawling thug. Look at you. You look like a discarded cigarette butt.”

Shou remained silent.

In his mind, the hallway of Saint Shinomiya began to blur into the red clay of a stadium track as he thought of the past.

He remembered the snap of his tendon, the sound like a dry branch breaking, and the way the world had turned away from him in a single afternoon.

At that time, when the world in his mind shattered, it was this guy who became his replacement, the one whom his former coach dedicated into training after knowing he can no longer run as he used to.

“Why are you here, Nakamura?” Miyato asked, taking a leisurely step forward. “Revenge? Is that what this is? The washed-up genius returns to beat down the one who surpassed him? How cliché. You couldn’t handle the fall, so you decided to drag everyone else into the mud with you.”

Miyato stopped inches from Shou, their heights nearly identical, their breaths mingling in the tense air. “Or maybe… is this about your ex? Did you find out? Even before she dumped you, even while you were crying over your ’career-ending’ injury, she was coming to my room. There is something truly exhilarating about enjoying the girl of a ’genius’ while he’s at his lowest. She said I was… better. In every way.”

Shou’s expression didn’t change, he didn’t roar with rage, he didn’t even flinch. He simply stared into Miyato’s eyes with a void-like emptiness that made the blonde athlete’s skin crawl.

“Is that all?” Shou asked softly.

Annoyed by the lack of a reaction, Miyato’s face contorted. “Tsk, you bastard!”

Without another word, he launched a lightning-fast lead-leg roundhouse kick aimed at Shou’s temple.

But Shou didn’t duck, he took a step back and mirrored the movement, his own shin meeting Miyato’s in mid-air with a bone-jarring crack.

They both recoiled, sliding back several meters to gain distance.

“I see,” Miyato sneered, settling into a wide, bouncing stance, his movements were fluid, completely focused on the sport’s signature high-speed, flicking kicks.

He narrowed his eyes as he observed Shou’s stance, and snorted in disdain. “You’re still using that archaic ITF style. Hand techniques? Linear strikes? It’s a relic, just like your knees. WTF is the most superior martial arts there is, and I’ll show you how terrifying it is.”

Without wasting another word, Miyato exploded into motion.

He launched a double roundhouse kick, his feet moving so fast they appeared to strike simultaneously from two different angles.

Shou reacted instantly, his body dropping and rising to generate massive power in a small radius as he blocked the first kick with a cross-arm guard and parried the second with a downward palm strike, the impact sending sparks of white light flying.

“Too slow!” Miyato shouted as he used the momentum of the parry to spin into a 360-degree Back-Hook Kick.

Shou ducked, the wind of the kick ruffling his hair, but he countered with a sharp, vertical punch aimed at Miyato’s hip, but the athlete was already gone, launching himself backwards to avoid the strike.

The two stared at each other for a moment.

Then, a beat later, they rushed towards each other, their kicks clashing once again, but they didn’t stop there.

Like a pair of beasts, they traded punches and kicks back to back, turning the hallway into a corridor of violence.

Miyato was an aerial acrobat, his kicks raining down from impossible angles, using the walls to bounce and accelerate.

As a practitioner of WTF Taekwondo, he was the “modern” master—faster, flashier, and relentless.

Shou, however, was like “wall.”

As a practitioner of the traditional ITF Taekwondo, he stayed center-stage, his hands moving in tight, defensive circles.

Every time Miyato’s foot connected with Shou’s guard, it was like a hammer hitting an anvil.

He was waiting, analyzing, searching for the moment when Miyato revealed a flaw in his stance so he can attack.

“What’s wrong, Nakamura?!” Miyato taunted, his white spirit energy flaring as he prepared a massive, spiraling jump-kick. “Is your leg starting to ache? Can you feel the strength leaving your body, just as you did when you were injured?!”

Shou ignored his taunts as he took a deep breath, and observed.

Just then, Shou saw it immediately—the narrow angle of Miyato’s stance, his weight drifting too far forward, and his hips committed to speed but not recovery.

It was a flaw born from sport optimization, perfect for scoring, poor for surviving a counter.

And ITF training had taught Shou to hunt those moments and exploit them.

He stepped in as Miyato kicked, cutting the line instead of retreating.

Miyato’s eyes widened as Shou sent a hard side kick that jammed his base, followed by a snapping punch to the ribs, then another to the jaw.

There was no pause.

Shou chained technique into technique—low kick, backfist, turning kick—each strike forcing Miyato further off balance.

His WTF defense held for seconds at best, his guards were raised, his elbows tucked, but the pressure never stopped.

Miyato could only block and absorb, retreating under the storm as his stance collapsed into survival posture.

Then, with a final attack, Shou delivered a spinning kick, aimed at Miyato’s temple, sending him flying to the side.

Shou stood still, taking a deep breath as he stared at Miyato.

Meanwhile, Miyato stared at the ceiling, the whole world seems to be spinning in his eyes.

At that moment, he thought of the past.

Although he succeeded in taking the place of the fallen genius, Shou, he was, after all, just a replacement.

Whenever he achieved something, whenever he did something impressive, everyone else would simply smile and congratulate him, before turning around to sigh in regret and say;

“Nakamura Shou can do it better.”

No matter what he does, it seems like he can never escape the shadow of that genius.

He hated it.

He hated it.

He hated him!

With a roar filled with hatred, the hallway of transformed into a corridor shivering silver light as Miyato stood up, spirit energy flaring out of his body.

Just then, a wolf with its body coated in lightning appeared behind him and howled, its static discharge charring the wall and causing the light fixtures to explode in a rain of glass.

Then, Miyato’s body transformed. Lightning coated his body, and a wolf ear and tails made of lightning appeared on his body.

“This is the apex of speed! My Karyoku! The manifestation of the Raiju, the legendary beast that heralds the storm!” Miyato roared, his voice crackling with the resonance of a lightning strike. “You’re a relic of the past, Nakamura! Watch me leave you in the dust of history!”

Shou stared at him, he didn’t shout nor boast, he simply let out a long, weary breath that seemed to pull the ambient light toward him.

Just then, the phantom of a figure of bronze and divine fire whose very presence demanded the world obey the laws of the hoplite, materialized behind him.

A bluish-silver aura, cool and dense like liquid mercury, coated Shou’s body.

His Karyoku has fully materialized.

Although nothing seems to have changed, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

His Karyoku is the manifestation of the legend of the fastest hero of Greece, Achilles.

This bluish silver aura basically grants him invincibility, invulnerable to all attacks, but this Karyoku would lose its effect when his heel is attacked or injured.

But that weakness was covered by the fact that this Karyoku grants him extreme speed as well. Not to mention at the cost of his physical and mental strength, he can perform a nigh-instantaneous movement, allowing him to appear anywhere within his line of sight at a speed of light.

Of course, even if he is at his peak physical condition, he can probably only use that technique once or twice.

“Hmph! A fancy light show won’t save you!” Miyato spat.

Then, with a flash of lightning, he vanished.

Miyato became a literal bolt of lightning, zigzagging off the walls at a speed that would have turned a normal human’s internal organs to jelly.

He then appeared behind Shou, his leg encased in a high-voltage casing of Raiju’s wrath, and delivered a Back Kick that held enough power to level a residential home.

BOOM.

The impact was thunderous, causing a shockwave that blew out the hallway’s doors for twenty meters in both directions.

But as the smoke cleared, Miyato’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror.

Shou hadn’t moved, he hadn’t even braced himself, his black jacket was scorched, but the silver aura hadn’t even flickered.

He stood there, his back to Miyato, looking as bored as a man waiting for a bus.

“Is that it?” Shou asked, his voice still as lazy and monotone as it always has.

“Impossible!” Miyato screamed.

With a roar, he unleashed a frantic, desperate barrage and moved like a blur of yellow lightning, striking Shou’s neck, his ribs, his spine, and his skull.

Each strike was a masterpiece of Taekwondo, delivered with the speed of a thunderbolt.

Shou ignored them all.

He walked forward, his footsteps heavy and deliberate as the lightning splashed harmlessly against his silver skin like water against a cliffside.

He is, at this moment, the invulnerable hero of Troy, a man who had waded through rivers of blood without a scratch.

Every kick Miyato landed felt like hitting a mountain of solid diamond.

“Why… why won’t you fall?!” Miyato’s voice broke into a panicked shriek.

He lunged for a final, desperate strike, aiming his heel at Shou’s temple.

In that instant, Shou’s gaze sharpened as he moved with extreme speed as if he was phasing through reality.

To Miyato, it looked as if Shou had simply glitched out of existence.

There was no transition, nor a blur.

In just one moment Shou was a meter away; the next, he was standing inside Miyato’s guard, his fist already buried deep into the athlete’s stomach.

The bluish-silver light flared with a blinding brilliance as the Instantaneous Leap of Achilles was executed.

CRA-ACK.

The lightning armor of the Raiju shattered like cheap glass as Miyato’s eyes rolled back, the divine strength of the Greek hero bypassed his spirit energy and impacted his core.

The speed-demon was launched backward, his body skipping off the floor like a stone across a lake before slamming into the reinforced steel doors at the end of the hall, leaving a massive indentation.

Miyato slumped to the floor, the lightning ears and tail dissolving into pathetic wisps of gray smoke.

He coughed, blood staining his white tracksuit, his “genius” pride broken alongside his ribs.

Shou stood in the center of the hall, the bluish-silver aura slowly receding.

His breathing was heavy, and a sharp, stinging pain radiated from his right heel as he leaned against the wall, his face pale from the mental and physical drain of the light-speed movement.

“…I really shouldn’t have used that movement,” Shou muttered, looking at the unconscious athlete. “…well, it doesn’t matter. I’d just sleep like a log after all this.”