It came as a bit of a surprise when Kasemchai deftly sidestepped the first ball like it was nothing; most students would try to block it, some would freeze up entirely, but it was only few who would handle it as gracefully as he had. Then again, hadn’t Ichiro approached him precisely because he looked strong? He couldn’t afford to be surprised when he turned out to be right.

From his form the Thai student seemed to be a martial artist of some kind, if it wasn’t obvious already, flowing smoothly from the sidestep into a roundhouse aimed at his inside leg. Ichiro’s IES traced the direction of the kick before it happened, calculating the arc of Kasemchai’s leg and showing the baseball player exactly where the kick was heading even if it was far too late for him to dodge it; although, strangely, Kasemchai was still too far away for his kick to reach.

But it hit him nonetheless.

As if the distance between them meant nothing, Ichiro felt something impact his thigh on his leading leg that hurt all the more for how unexpected it was; all of his weight was on that leg as he leaned forward into the swing and as the kick landed it was unfortunately unyielding, absorbing all of the force of the blow. Ichiro buckled with the pain, stumbling two steps to the side as he felt the strength go out of that limb, no longer able to support his full weight, before he caught himself.

During the stumble he swung his bat back the other direction, another red orb appearing in mid-air before being caught by the clumsy, one-handed swing and flying Kasemchai’s way. It wasn’t fast, but it didn’t need to be, and as awkward as the swing was it was still guided by a perfect understanding of angle and direction. The Chopper hit the ground in front of the transfer student and exploded immediately, the concussive wave it produced hopefully enough to push the martial artist back or even send him tumbling.

Once he had his legs back under him Ichiro would use the distraction, if there was one, to back even further away from Kasemchai, opening up the distance between them even more now that he knew his opponents range wasn’t limited to the length of his limbs.

[@HereComesTheSnow]