He's closing in on him with ease!
Wait! Has he already lost consciousness?
Oh! He flicked him!
This is the best I can do.
The shock from falling 30 meters...
It's just like when I fell out of the jungle gym as a child.
Or when I fell off the swing.
Like when I got hammered in the solar plexus by a powerful kick.
Trouble breathing at its worst.
My internal organs are in total chaos from the impact of the fall!
My diaphragm has risen as far as it can, crushing my lungs,
completely preventing me from supplying myself with fresh oxygen!
Oh! It's salty... Blood?
The smell of iron... Blood?
I'm spitting up blood! Organ damage!
I wanna collapse!
I wanna lay on the ground!
I wanna get on my knees!
It's like both my knees are supporting an enormous stone.
I wanna just let it crush me!
No matter how tough Baki is,
falling from that height...
It's far beyond what a human can endure.
There's no way he's unhurt.
I'm surprised he can even stand.
But the wild man saw through him.
The irreplaceable playmate that was here before him,
may appear at first glance to be fine,
but that was camouflage.
The truth was, he had suffered tremendous damage.
Though the man standing there appeared ready to fight, inside,
this is what he truly wanted to do.
Pickle, what're you waiting for?
Strike me down! I'm incapacitated!
The primitive man felt regret.
Don't just stand there.
Punch me. Kick me!
I have...
It's the perfect chance!
...gone too far.
I treated this fragile toy too roughly.
Please, return him to normal.
The humiliation of having your opponent pray for you...
When he saw that,
the young man's pride somehow managed to...
Don't you fuckin' pray for me!
...overcome the unparalleled physical pain.
With his lungs completely crushed, no matter how much he tried,
he couldn't talk.
Don't you fuckin' pray!
Come at me!
You goddamn son of a bitch.
Here it comes!
What... what on earth is Pickle doing?
Tokugawa didn't realize it, but the three still active fighters did.
Unbelievable...
I can't bear to watch.
Hey...
It's all right.
These are quite safe.
For some reason, everyone fears them,
but they're not the least bit dangerous.
You bastard...
All right?
So, play with me.
He was going so easy on him
that he pretended his weapons were harmless.
In the past,
the young man's Brain Drug was only ever triggered by physical damage.
His brain reacted without being triggered by physical damage.
The safe punches that Pickle threw that wouldn't harm a fly,
they struck the man's weakest point.
What?
It struck him deep in the sensitive spot known as "pride."
This isn't anyone's fault.
Don't.
You can't be serious!
It's because... I am weak.
Fool!
I'm sorry, Pickle.
What?
Suicide?!
I made you worry about me.
I was the one who instigated it.
I was the one who invited you,
but I made you worry about me.
I don't know how many hundreds of millions of years old you are,
and I don't care if you are older than me...
don't you dare worry for my sake.
What the heck?!
So damn reckless.
Unbelievable...
It's camouflage. It's clearly camouflage.
Pickle was confused.
Camouflage is used to pretend death,
to feign weakness,
to deceive,
to trick, in order to escape.
Yes, it's used in order to survive.
Yet unbelievably, this male
repeated the action that caused him damage,
adding damage to his own already gravely-hurt body.
Does this kind of camouflage exist?
Camouflage that brings death closer?
Is there such a being as this?
The weak eats the mighty!
Did Baki miss?
There's no way he's recovered.
Wait...
He's been knocked down!
Whoa! You mean that worked on him?!
Retsu...
what's happening here?
I can't be absolutely certain.
However, most likely...
blows from ancient times and blows from modern times,
none of them ever once overpowered the incredible body
and toughness of Pickle.
But Baki must have realized
that even a direct blow won't shake his brain.
So he tried something.
He punched with a single layer of skin.
Skin?
Rather than making a direct hit,
it barely grazes the jaw.
This technique is observed in boxing, albeit extremely rarely.
A momentary flash mistaken for a miss.
But then they fall forward and never get up again.
Right, that does happen.
It's rare, but it happens.
It's effective. Unexpectedly effective.
Someone that can withstand a punch through a cushion
will black out when only the cushion is struck.
A thin layer of skin on the unguarded jaw is grazed.
This quick blow is so fast that it shakes the jaw
and, imperceptibly, the brain,
at a super-high speed that's invisible to the eye.
You mean, that punch...
I believe Baki pulled it off,
with a single layer of skin.
One with his right fist,
one with his left fist, and one with the outer right foot.
The speed of this unforeseen shaking of Pickle's brain
was most likely accelerated by each blow,
from the first to the second, and then the third.
The loss of normal function of his brain
must have presented a frightening sight to Pickle.
He was standing firmly upright.
Most certainly upright,
but the ground rose up.
Pickle, having experienced this unprecedented move, is now...
in a state of utter confusion.
Exactly as the great fighter Sea King Retsu surmised,
in Pickle's eyes, after experiencing this mystifying punch,
Baki, on the verge of death, who had not yet even recovered from the fall
had transformed into an invincible sorcerer
who could control the ground.
Pickle was shuddering.
But he still hadn't run away.
He had withstood blows.
He had withstood weight.
He had withstood strength.
He had withstood peril.
He had even withstood that.
His invincibility was engraved into him.
The fact he never gave up gave him confidence.
He came here, and was challenged
by small yet giant men.
Pain. He had withstood that too.
However,
this was a new experience.
An experience beyond imagination.
The unexpected incident of being slammed into the ground.
Twice even.
Even Pickle couldn't move it, had never moved it,
never even wanted to try moving it.
Even that thing couldn't do it.
But he did.
The primitive man was barely standing his ground
in front of this little giant who could move the ground.
Not yet.
My faculties still haven't recovered from the shock of falling twice.
I can’t attack head-on yet.
Pickle, I'm sorry.
I get it. There's that!
I'm reluctant, but I'm gonna do something slightly indecent.
I can't believe I'm only realizing this now.
Why didn't I think of this before?
You truly are a genius!
Pickle, this is hell.
He's in pain, even though he's so tough.
Whoa!
There's a mark from his shoulder to his back!
I'm sorry to bother you again, Retsu.
The killer blow, the Whip Strike.
It's a blow that affects all humanity, from infants to Yujiro Hanma, the same.
This move is taught in the old-style Japanese martial art of Kudo,
and is lauded as an Egg of Columbus in kung fu.
The muscles are relaxed until they're completely limp,
and every inch of the body is made utterly flaccid.
Mysteriously, by making the body completely flaccid,
the hands and feet increase in weight.
Ultimately, the fierceness in the face disappears,
and the body is transformed into a whip.
Once this state is achieved,
the notion of sensitive or weak points vanishes.
This is because the target of the attack is the human body's largest organ,
the skin.
Whether the skin of those with toughened, well-honed bodies
or the soft skin of women,
the pain inflicted by the palm when completely flaccid
is equally painful.
When struck hard, Hanayama...
Isn't the pain for a baby completely different than it is for you?
However, when slapped,
the pain felt by a baby and the invulnerable Kaoru Hanayama
is exactly the same.
- I... - See...
And most likely,
in the entire history of life on Earth from two billion years ago,
when proteins began the mutations that would result in humans...
All life on Earth?
Of the millions of creatures that developed in that time...
Millions of creatures? What are you...
There was never a creature
that used a whip-like weapon that targeted all our skin!
That... that's for sure.
That's a reasonable deduction.
But if I had to name one creature that has,
then there's only human females, that is, women.
Oh... I get it. You mean a slap, right?
Whoa! Look at that!
That tough man is clearly in a defensive pose.
Even that Pickle is defending himself.
This is most likely another "first" in his life.
You've done it, Baki!
You've got that beast on the ropes!
No, he hasn't.
The intense pain Baki inflicted
has stung Pickle's pride.
Whoa! Retsu, look at that!
That's right.
That's the move he used to end the match against me instantly.
It was that tackle from before.
I guess he can't use the Whip Strike again.
I'm sure Baki is fully aware of that too.
Another... Whip Strike?
Does he intend to use it again?
Will that whip even be effective against that cannon-ball tackle?
No. That's not a Whip Strike.
It's Kokeiken!
Kokeiken?
It is one form of Chinese martial arts.
It's kung fu that integrates the form and strength of the tiger.
But this is inexplicable.
Why use kung fu at this point?
Yosoken Eagle Fist!
Toroken Mantis Fist!
Saruken Monkey Fist!
Yushoken Bear Fist!
What the heck?
Does Baki plan to fight using kung fu?
The Shokeiken Fists integrate the forms of animals.
His genius at being able to perfectly master them all
can only be described as phenomenal.
I hope you haven't forgotten.
All the animals you just emulated,
they're all clearly prey for Pickle.
Even if you didn't just emulate them
and you actually transformed into those animals,
they could never win against Pickle.
What...
what will you emulate now?
This is an animal as well.
What's more, it's powerful.
Incredibly
enormous.
Incredibly large.
Ah! This shape!
Is it an elephant? A rhino?
No way!
Triceratops Fist!
He was utterly confused.
From this tiny male not even half my size...
From this supposedly helpless male, for some reason...
I sense the most powerful rival I know.
That enormous boulder-like weight.
That power, like a colossal moving tree.
And naturally, that steely determination bent on destroying you.
Those things, all those things
could...
could be clearly sensed from this small body.
How?
How is that even possible?
How can a small man, not even 170 cm tall, do this?
At 170 cm, or 180 cm,
or even at two meters tall, that's not a feat that can be achieved.
Something's about to begin.
Baki's focus is aiming upwards.
Whoa! Isn't that that bird one?
Whoa! It's T-Rex, maybe.
The sorcerer who uses tricks to control the ground
is undergoing quick transformations.
When he returned to his previous stance, it was too late.
In Pickle's eyes,
he'd completely transformed
into the strongest beasts that roamed the Earth.
It's so amazing...
it's like magic.