The exploding baseball had achieved its purpose and bought Ichiro enough time to recover and retreat, giving his opponent something to think about as well as pushing them back. Now when Kasemchai approached him it was slowly and with his guard up, advancing inch by inch with careful footwork and a steady stance. It gave Ichiro a moment to breath, a moment to think, a moment to figure out what it was that had just hit him. At least until the first jab came.

As soon as the Thai student began to move his arm forward Ichiro slid his left hand down the length of his bat and held it in front of him, putting up a barrier between him and the attack just in the nick of time as something slammed into it. [color=6ecff6][i]Range means nothing to this guy.[/i][/color]

A second jab slipped past the bat and clipped the side of his head and he moved his shield to compensate. Peering past his weapon he watched his opponent’s arm with each jab, anticipating where the blow would land and moving his bat into its path by miniscule amounts and moving his head to avoid what he couldn’t block, but even with his IES it was hard to read the path of an attack that came so quickly and which was coming straight towards him. Slowly Ichiro began to adjust and gain a feel for his opponent’s rhythm and movements, but as soon as he began to block or dodge more jabs than he took Kasemchai switched tactics and began to aim his jabs at the body instead; Ichiro moved the bat down to block those as well but it was a wider area to protect, not as mobile, and the damage slowly built up.

The whole time he was under this assault he was backing up, one and a half or two steps for every one of the transfer student, and eventually the blows stopped coming entirely even though Kasemchai still threw punches his way. [color=6ecff6][i]There it is.[/i][/color]

His opponent’s range wasn’t infinite. It had a limit and he was now beyond it. He stopped retreating and waited until he felt the blows come again, never stopping in his attempts to block them even when he was apparently beyond their range, finding the edge of the effect. He stepped back and the attacks stopped again. He stood still and they started again when the Thai student stepped forward. Defining the range and narrowing it down. With this new knowledge he backed away by two steps and stood just beyond his opponent’s range, feigning blocks with his bat to blows that wouldn’t reach him, and waited for the right moment.

When Ichiro was ready he jumped back and put himself comfortably out of Kasemchai’s range before once again falling comfortably into his batting stance. He took a moment to aim his shot and swung, his leg protesting profusely; he couldn’t put nearly as much force into the swing as before but he’d already known that and accounted for it. This attack wouldn’t need his full power behind it to be effective.

A red orb appeared in time to be caught by the bat mid-swing with a crack and a second crack followed it so closely it would be difficult for anyone not listening for it to discern them as two separate sounds at all. The Switch-Hitter suddenly accelerated directly towards Kasemchai, doubling in speed a mere fraction of a second after the initial impact to create the illusion that Ichiro had somehow struck the ball with more force than before even with his injured leg.

[@HereComesTheSnow]