Mantis Shrimp's Calculation

Mantisian fights an uphill battle with the mantis suit alien, who praises him as a worthy foe letting him enjoy the suit's full range. A flashback shows Mantisian tucking Chiquitita into bed before leaving to join Momo and the others, then meeting the woman he works for, who frets over his mounting bruises; he reassures her that he will return to keep raising his son. Wanting to go home, Mantisian leaps into the river, which the alien reads as cowardice, but he counters that he will fight on his own terms and repay his debt to those who aided him.

The alien shifts the suit into water form, claiming he grows a hundred times stronger submerged, and indeed Mantisian is swamped and stabbed with a venom needle. Mantisian tells him his bulk makes him awkward to fight, yet up close he can finally land hits. As he transforms, he hurts the mantis shrimp alien and puts his strength at twenty-four times normal, with striking force multiplying tenfold beneath the surface, which brings his total to 240 times his usual power. The alien scoffs until Mantisian's Jet Punch shatters the suit, a hit he calls beautifully clean. He surfaces for air, reverts to his normal shape after his twenty-four-second limit, and purges the venom, explaining his fighter race is immune despite being branded weak. As he strolls away, the mantis suit alien bursts apart in the water.

The clash belongs to the Aira Shiratori, Jiji, and Mantisian versus Kur Advance Unit fight. The Mantis Exosuit Kur cuts Mantisian off and hurls him into a river. A memory reveals him at the farm vowing to the woman he works for that he will return to raise Chiquitita.

The enemy switches the exosuit to underwater mode and overpowers him. Mantisian then assumes his Strong Style Twenty-Four form, finishing the foe through far greater destructive output. He shrugs off the injected venom because his species' biology is rugged.

This twenty-page chapter came out on June 6, 2023, set in Volume 13 under the Space Globalists Arc and the Kintama Hunt Saga. The featured figures are Mantisian, the Mantis Exosuit Kur, Chiquitita, and the Dairy Farm Woman.