The White Powder
"Quick on the uptake, huh? So that's why they sent you." He let out a hollow laugh. Then, after glancing me over, he stomped the ground. Dozens of wooden planks behind him rose into the air in response. When he thrust his hand toward me, they shot straight at me in a direct line, without spinning. For a moment I wondered if he was an ability user, but the flashy motion paired with such pathetic power only confirmed he wasn't. The way he'd scanned his surroundings hadn't been to find more planks—it had been to look for something else.
Whoosh—whoosh— I weaved through the barrage of planks, dodging left and right. My smaller frame made it easier to slip past without large movements. But that same small body also meant I couldn't generate enough momentum to escape every angle. One plank came at me from a blind spot I couldn't avoid.
Thwack— I barely managed to knock it aside with the plank in my hand, but the motion pulled my attention too far in that direction. Clang— By the time I noticed the metal bat swinging in from the opposite side, it was too late. If I'd spotted it sooner, I could've taken the plank and avoided the bat. Instead, with only a split second left, I threw my arm up and blocked it. The impact didn't feel like something an ability user had thrown. The weight was different from the planks the man had launched by stomping the ground—different in both speed and mass. It wasn't a matter of material or feints. The quality itself was simply not the same.
But more than that—
It hurts.
I'd known my senses were returning; I'd been repeating it to myself. If it had been anyone else who'd taken that bat, they would've tried to deflect it or twist away to lessen the damage. But I'd grown too used to simply blocking or taking hits. My body had changed, so I shouldn't have moved that way, yet decades of ingrained habit refused to disappear. The pain radiated all the way to my opposite ribs and hip. The injuries were gone, but the lingering pain left an unpleasant aftertaste.
"He took the hit! Charge!"
"Uwaaah!"
Any ability user who could control this many Scarecrows had to be fairly strong. Losing one plank to me was probably inevitable given how spread out his focus had to be. Six criminals rushed me at once. If he were powerful enough to handle six people simultaneously, he could've flipped a car to start with. So what was his goal?
I gripped the plank in both hands and swung it at the head of the first one to reach me. Crack—! Better to trigger my ability on purpose than risk getting knocked around the floor from a bad hit. Maybe it was the second impact, or maybe it was because my body had turned to wood, but the pain felt duller. When I touched the spot, my fingers came away damp. The ability had activated. Adrenaline would start flooding my system soon.
I dropped the plank. Someone charged from behind, swinging an iron pipe. I could hear them shouting, but the sound felt muffled, as if a wall stood between us. If they were going to yell, why come from behind? Clang— I spun and blocked the pipe with my arm. The same bone-rattling sensation as before. I'd blocked out of habit again, but the pain was noticeably less. Adrenaline was finally kicking in. I wouldn't feel anything more.
The height difference between us was obvious—about forty centimeters. Swinging down at someone shorter had thrown his posture off. His sleeves were rolled up unevenly, like someone who either wasn't used to fighting or was only pretending to be. I twisted my wrist, grabbed the pipe, and yanked. It was the same move I'd used before, but the pipe was too thick to grip fully with one hand. Still, I'd caught it. Using the pipe as leverage, I lifted one leg. Even with my current body's flexibility, a kick to the chin was impossible at this height difference. Aiming for the solar plexus or groin was pointless—they'd instinctively guard those spots after doing this so many times. I went for somewhere they wouldn't expect.
I extended my leg and hooked it behind his knee, right at the soft bend. Then I pulled hard while folding my own leg. The motion was cleaner than I had any right to expect from something I'd never practiced.
"...What the—?"
"Whoa, seriously."
But it wasn't enough. Thud— His fist slammed into my face. Then he stomped down on me while I was down. Even with the massive size difference, I'd hooked his knee after my muscles had grown from regeneration. The fact that his stance hadn't collapsed was suspicious. Had the ability user caught his knee or body with telekinesis? Crack—! Another kick came from a different angle. Someone else had stepped in while I was distracted. Thanks to that, something in my body felt like it had slipped out of place.
"Get out of the way! I'll finish him with this!" One of them approached swinging a wooden bat studded with nails. Planks or metal bats were one thing, but that was actually dangerous.
"Agh! Just a little more! Stomp harder!" He ground his foot down with a nasal, almost playful tone, clearly enjoying himself. These guys knew I had regeneration—they were hitting me like they did. I grabbed the ankle of the one stepping on me.
"What? Still got some fight left?"
Crack— I twisted it.
"Graaah!"
Still holding the broken ankle, I stood up. The man lost his balance and collapsed. So the one who ordered this hadn't told them that regeneration came with other changes too. I twisted the ankle once more before letting go. The sudden shift seemed to throw them off—they stopped charging and instead spread out to surround me warily. Mari ended up surrounded along with me.
Because my original body had so little muscle, the amount that grew during regeneration was extreme. Not that it was a bad thing. Thanks to it, I'd escaped before that nail-studded bat could connect. But changing this much also meant the time I'd have to spend in this body was getting longer. Since I couldn't avoid the situation, the reasons not to get hit had only increased.
After rolling across the ground, my hair had fallen into my eyes. If it were short, it wouldn't have been so annoying, but this unnecessarily long hair was nothing but a nuisance. Whether from blood on my hands or an injury, at some point I'd wiped my hair back with a bloodied palm. Swish— My palm and forehead felt strange. The texture wasn't quite right for blood. I kept watching the men who'd stopped advancing, then glanced at my palm. White powder. It had been hard to see mixed with the blood, but on the clean parts it was obvious. I shook my hand clean and wiped my forehead with the other, then covered my nose and mouth with my inner arm.
There were plenty of things it could be. But what mattered wasn't what it was. It was who had ordered it.
"That bastard figured it out! Just bury him already!"
The ones who hadn't been holding weapons pulled out sacks of white powder from somewhere, sliced them open with knives, and dumped them on the ground. The powder rose into the air as if alive, swirling around me. That explained why the planks and bats had felt so weak, why the men had been holding back instead of pressing the attack, and why I'd kept my footing when falling should've been inevitable. Only now did I realize what they'd actually been wary of wasn't me—it was the thin layer of white powder spread by the ability.
If I'd still been in my old body, this wouldn't have mattered. No drug or poison could outpace my regeneration. But now everything was different. My current height was a little over half what it used to be, yet my volume was several times greater and my weight more than triple. The rate of poisoning would be much faster. And while I knew I still had Regeneration, I didn't know if its performance was the same.
I snatched a plank from the ground and hurled it sideways. Several of the men turned to look. Like most ability users, telekinetics were heavily influenced by imagination. The more they could see the basis for that imagination, the easier it was to picture. So they'd naturally keep their eyes on both the powder and me—the thing they were trying to wrap it around. I quickly scanned the ones whose attention had shifted, confirming their positions while also observing the floating powder. The powder itself hadn't changed, and most of the men on the side where I'd thrown the plank were still looking at it. The ones on the opposite side from where the powder had been dumped wouldn't be watching me either, since the powder would block their view. There were no watchers left on the side where I'd thrown the plank, so that direction was also clear. They might've positioned people on both sides to eliminate blind spots, but that didn't explain why they'd dumped all the powder in one place or why it had clumped together when launched. The controller might've been inside a vehicle, but that would've made it hard to see through the surrounding people.
I sprinted toward the gap between the side where the powder had been dumped and the opposite side from where I'd thrown the plank.
"Someone stop that thing instead of the powder!"
At the shout, they began forming a barrier. It was crude, but thick enough that a person couldn't pass through. So that's where the controller is. I turned toward the direction where the barrier was forming.